Commonwealth of Virginia
Office of the Attorney General

For media inquiries only, contact: Brian J. Gottstein
Email: bgottstein@oag.state.va.us (best contact method)
Phone: 804-786-5874

Statement from Attorney General Cuccinelli on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on the federal health care law


RICHMOND (August 12, 2011) – Statement of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli:
“I am pleased that the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals found the individual insurance mandate and penalty unconstitutional. The court determined that the power to force one citizen to purchase a good or service from another is outside the established outer limits of both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. The court also ruled that although the president and Congress want to now call the penalty a tax to make it pass constitutional muster, the penalty cannot be sustained under the federal government’s taxing authority because the penalty is clearly not a tax.

“I congratulate our fellow attorneys general in this major victory, and although this court is not in our circuit, I am pleased that the judges ruled in favor of the two key arguments that are present in our Virginia suit.”

Virginia’s case was heard May 10 in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A ruling has not yet been issued.

A copy of this news release may be found on the website of the Attorney General of Virginia at http://www.vaag.com/Media%20and%20News%20Releases/News_Releases/index.html.

Paying off debt is part of my long-term strategy to achieve financial freedom. After that last payment, I will be more financially free, free to give more, save more, invest, and accelerate my mortgage payoff.
Getting debt free living on cash hasn’t been fun. I haven’t had a vacation, beyond a weekend every now and then, in twenty years. I’ve put off buying glasses and repairing air conditioning in cars. I don’t own a high def television or a suit. I wear my work clothes until they get frayed, and then they turn into yard clothes, after which they are used to stake tomatoes. I wear shoes until they fall apart. My wife and I came up with a list of 50 or so major purchases we’d like to make, mostly significant home improvements, all of which will have to wait until we can pay cash for them. It’s all part of the price of financial freedom.

My hatred of debt and my willingness to work hard and sacrifice to pay it off makes it hard for me to understand Washington’s que sera sera attitude towards passing tens of trillions of dollars in debt to our children and grandchildren and their children and their children, …etc. The debt ceiling and spending “cut” debate is surreal everywhere but inside the Beltway.

For one thing, the language is different. When most of us hear the phrase “spending cut,” we think it means spending less than we spent before. Therefore, when I heard conservative Tea Party congressmen talking about spending cuts in the trillions, I thought that we would be spending somewhat less this year than we did last year.

But no. In Washington, a spending cut means a cut in a planned spending increase. Imagine that Congress plans to spend an additional 50 billion dollars on, say, student loans and grants. During a fierce budget debate, one side agrees to sacrifice half of that spending increase. It is then declared that Congress has cut 25 billion from student loans and grants when they’ve actually increased it by 25 billion. I’m only an English teacher, and maybe a doe-eyed idealist, but that doesn’t sound like a spending cut to me.

“Getting control of debt” also has different meanings in our parallel universes. For most of us, getting control of debt includes some plan for paying off our debts. In Washington, controlling debt means slowing the growth rate of debt. If Congress were to decide to implement Paul Ryan’s plan to control federal spending (which drastically cuts Medicare so that we deny Granny health care, throw her in the gutter and stomp on her head), spending would actually increase about three percent a year. The debt would increase from about 14.3 trillion dollars today to about 21 trillion dollars in 2021. I need somebody to explain to me how increasing our debt by nearly 50 percent is controlling it.

When we decide to have a real debate about the federal budget and debt, as opposed to the Kabuki theater we’ve had this summer, we need to use language that reflects reality and develop a plan that controls government spending in reality. For example, reality is we are not going to cut federal spending unless we reform Social Security and Medicare. To buy some time, we can immediately establish means testing; millionaires are not waiting by the mailbox for their Social Security checks. We can also raise the age the people begin receiving benefits.

In the long run, we have to make some tough choices. Citizens are increasingly living into their 80s and 90s, collecting Social Security for 20 plus years. We can’t afford that. As opposed to executing our senior citizens or taxing future generations into poverty, we need to decide when and how to sunset these programs and put the freedom and responsibility to provide for our later years into our own capable hands.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 17% of Likely U.S. Voters think the federal government today has the consent of the governed. Sixty-nine percent (69%) believe the government does not have that consent. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided.

According to the report, this is the lowest level ever measured. But wait, there’s more!

Fifty-five percent (55%) of the Political Class, on the other hand, feel the government does have the consent of the governed. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Mainstream voters disagree.

Just wait until the checks stop going out, or, which is more likely, that they just stop being worth anything.

Town Hall magazine was nice enough to compile a list of the Top 5 things you are wrecking. From the article:

1) The Tea Partiers Lost America’s AAA Credit Rating. Sure, the Tea Partiers may have supported the Ryan Plan and Cut, Cap, and Balance, both of which would have preserved America’s AAA credit rating, but what we’ve just experienced is a “Tea Party downgrade.” How does that work? Well, just as Paul Revere caused the British to attack America and Mothers Against Drunk Driving causes people to drive drunk, the Tea Partiers caused America’s credit downgrade with their incessant demands that we cut spending to avert a credit downgrade…or something. It’s a little foggy.

2) The Tea Partiers Are Extremely Radical. Have you heard these radical yahoos going on about what they want to do? They actually want to stick to the Constitution and balance the budget! What kind of crazy talk is that? Need I remind you that the last time we had people talking like that in this country, they clung to their guns and religion, too. Next thing you know, they actually overthrew the government over taxes. Are those really the type of people we want to emulate in this country?

3) The Tea Partiers’ Patriotism Is Appalling. How do people keep from retching when they hear these speakers talking about the Founding Fathers and encouraging crowds of American flag-waving Tea Partiers to keep the American Dream alive? Don’t they know that sophisticated Americans recognize that America is the root of all evil in the world? Haven’t these people read Noam Chomsky? Haven’t they noticed our President bowing to other world leaders because he’s so embarrassed to be leading a country like America?

4) The Tea Partiers Use Violent Rhetoric. Have you ever listened to these Tea Partiers talk? It’s “cut” this, “target” that, “job killing,” “liberty or death,” “Don’t Tread of me!” Obviously, when we’re dealing with hostage-taking, fascistic terrorists who want to dynamite the American political system and force us all to eat “Satan sandwiches,” then we’ve got to stop their violent rhetoric by any means necessary while showing the sort of civility that these Tea Baggers have such disdain for. Granted, our manners and civilized behavior put us at a disadvantage when fighting against these filthy hobbits, but never fear, we’ll still take the high road and win!

5) The Tea Partiers Are Diehard Racists! Obviously, Tea Partiers are hardcore racists — like members of the KKK – well, other than Robert Byrd, bless his soul. Have you heard some of the things these people have said? How about the Tea Partier who described Obama as “a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.’” Ooops, that was Harry Reid! Well, what about the Tea Partier who said, “A few years ago, (Obama) would have been getting us coffee.” Ah…actually, that was Bill Clinton. All right, here’s one: How about this Tea Partier quote, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” So, that was Joe Biden? Well, Barack Obama is a prominent black American who says those people are all right — so that proves they’re not racists! Can anyone name one prominent black American who says the same thing about the Tea Partiers? Allen West, well, he is one — but, can you name another? Herman Cain? Tim Scott? Larry Elder? What about the black Tea Partiers who protested the NAACP, you ask? Well, well….the Tea Partiers are racist…BECAUSE!

Have you had enough of the lies and false characterizations? Are you ready to Stand Up and Step Up to make a difference in the upcoming VA state elections? John Pride from the elections committee would love to help you direct your disgust into something more productive…email him at johnp@RichmondTeaParty.com.

See the full article HERE.

Berkowitz discussed how the Democrats led by Obama “badly overreached” and the opposition “effectively pushed back.” Progressives, their tone “dictated from the top,” reacted irrationally by claiming the conservative opposition “[was] blowing up our government,” “waged jihad on the American people,” “[acted] like a maniacal gang with knives held high,” and—in a claim taken up by Vice President Joe Biden—“have acted like terrorists.” (Too late to be included in the op-ed was Sen. John Kerry’s authoritarian plea to the media not to give equal time to the Tea Party because its notions are “absolutely absurd…not factual.”)

Berkowitz noted that “progressive legal scholars concocted a wild theory to justify an executive power grab by means of which President Obama would unilaterally raise the debt ceiling to avoid having to hammer out a deal with congress.” He further pointed out that “Progressive partisans also displayed economic illiteracy, refusing to recognize the respectability or even the existence of alternative economic views.”

Citing the frequent lectures from progressives on civility, restraint of executive power, and the need to weigh competing public policy options, Berkowitz said their “hypocrisy…reached truly breathtaking proportions” during the debt-limit crisis.

He concluded:

Progressives see themselves as the only legitimate representatives of ordinary people. Yet their vision of what democracy requires frequently conflicts with what majorities believe and how they choose to live. Add to this the progressive belief that human beings can be perfected through the rule of experts, and you have a recipe—when the people make choices contrary to progressive dictates—for generating contempt among the experts for the people whose interests they claim to alone represent. And not just contempt, but even disgust at diversity of opinion, which from the progressive’s perspective distracts the people from the policies demanded by impartial reason….The clash between [the progressive mind’s] democratic pretensions and its authoritarian predilections has generated within its ranks seething resentment for, and rage at, conservatives.

The U.S. had its AAA credit rating downgraded for the first time by Standard & Poor’s, which slammed the nation’s political process and said lawmakers failed to cut spending enough to reduce record deficits.

“The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics,” S&P said in a statement today.

Washington ignored our pleas and our warnings. Anyone with 2 neurons firing could see this coming.

Eric Cantor: YOU ARE A FAILURE. You have failed as a representative; you have failed as a leader; you have failed the nation; you are an embarrassment to Virginia. If you have any honor left, you will resign immediately, apologize to the citizens of Virginia and the seventh Congressional district, and then fade away. Maybe you can get a job making french fries someplace where you can’t hurt anything important. Mark Warner, Jim Webb, and the rest of you who voted for this disaster: ditto. You have personally brought the coming economic calamity down onto the heads of Virginians, in spite of our demanding you act responsibly and balance the budget.

Instead of balancing the budget as the Tea Parties demanded, the establishment republicans handed Obama $2.1 Trillion taxpayer dollars to spend between now and November 2012 on his reelection campaign. You can count on his spending it. All of it. You can bet the farm that they’ll be back for another few $Trillion right after the election.

Why did the republicans do this? Was it stupidity, cowardice, or malfeasance in office? How do we get rid of the republican “leadership” that bought into this farcical debt deal?

Please share this with your friends…get the word out.

We wish Susan luck as she moves on to the general election for Goochland Board of Supervisors, and we know that she would be a strong voice for conservative principles on the Board.

If you’d like to learn more about Susan, or to volunteer for her campaign, please visit her campaign website at http://susan4district1.netboots.net/.

Morning Joe

Senator Coburn was on Morning Joe this morning and spoke more truth. I went looking for it and found this oldie. I’ll get today’s interview up when it’s available. Great stuff!