More significantly, the Texas legislature wants Medicaid funds in a block grant so that they can spend it where they think it’s needed rather than Washington telling them.
Politico:
The Texas Legislature approved a bill Monday that would both compel the state to push the Obama administration to convert Texas’s Medicaid program into a block grant and defund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.
The omnibus health bill also includes a number of other controversial provisions, including plans to save $400 million over the next year by increasing the use of Medicaid managed care.The legislation now goes to the desk of Gov. Rick Perry, who has been generally supportive of both the Medicaid reforms, as well as anti-abortion language.
When previously asked about Senate Bill 7, Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed would not speak specifically to pending legislation, but did comment on the governor’s broad support for block grants.
“[Gov. Perry] would prefer local or state solutions to Texas’ health care challenges rather than one-size-fits-all bureaucracy from the federal government, and block grants are one of the options Texas has considered,” she previously told POLITICO.
Nothing new about block grants. Cities especially have benefited from them. But I don’t believe anything as large as Medicaid block grant has ever been attempted. It sets up an interesting clash between congress and the states if this idea catches on.
New Jersey’s state Supreme Court entered a standoff Friday after Associate Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto announced he would refuse to take part in any decisions for the foreseeable future, pitting him against the state’s Senate and the rest of the court. The move was prompted by his belief that the current makeup of the court, which includes a temporary interim judge appointed by the Chief Justice, is unconstitutional.
The standoff is the latest in Governor Chris Christie’s efforts to reform the Supreme Court, which he has characterized as being too imbalanced and activist.
Last May, after holding office for just four months, Christie – a conservative stalwart – effectively “took on” the state’s Supreme Court by becoming the first governor in 63 years to refuse to renominate a sitting justice. The move angered New Jersey’s Democratic establishment and in response, the Senate blocked the governor’s more conservative nominee by refusing to hold a hearing on the nomination.
That, in turn, led Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner to appoint Appellate Judge Edwin Stern as an interim replacement to fill the seat vacated by the outgoing justice. But according to Rivera-Soto, the Chief Justice’s move is unconstitutional because the only lawful reason for a temporary replacement is if it is “necessary.”
On Friday, Rivera-Soto released a statement arguing Stern’s appointment is not necessary because the court still has enough judges to fulfill its duties without him. The appointment, said Rivera-Soto, “thrusts the judiciary into the political thicket, all the while improperly advancing one side’s views in preference over the other’s.”
After suffering a major legal setback in the summer, Arizona regained its footing in court Friday when a federal judge dismissed parts of the U.S. Justice Department’s challenge to the state’s new immigration law and rejected several claims made by Hispanic activists and Phoenix police officers.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton’s ruling on Friday struck down the federal government’s challenge to the portion of the law that prohibits the transport of illegal immigrants.
It also rejected a challenge from Phoenix police officers and an advocacy group called Chicanos Por La Causa who argued that the cops could be sued for racial profiling if they enforced the law or lose their jobs if they didn’t.
Bolton agreed with Arizona that they had no valid claim of immediate harm.
Bolton also dismissed a lawsuit from the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders who were seeking an injunction preventing authorities from enforcing the law because the group argued federal law pre-empts state regulation of national borders.
“I am pleased with today’s decision,” Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said in a statement Friday. “I strongly believe that the citizens of Arizona will ultimately prevail in all of these legal challenges. My defense of the rule of law will continue as vigorously as ever.”
Arizona’s law has been at the center of an impassioned national debate on illegal immigration ever since it was passed in April. The federal government filed a lawsuit soon after to block the measure — a battle that is ongoing and is likely to wind up in the Supreme Court.
Many conservative groups have sprouted up over the past year. The Tea Party Patriots, the whole Tea Party movement, the 9-12 project and Americans For Prosperity are just a few. These groups have great heart and a good purpose. In all honesty, these groups have become an easy target for those against freedom to label certain groups and ideas. They, in and among themselves, have been a way for our enemies to destroy us. However, many are also becoming splintered because of certain ideas and groups within the larger movement. Some individuals in these groups are promoting single issues before what is most important. In all truth, there are two things most important that we, as Americans, must stand behind and fight for, as one group, one citizenry and one people. Those two things are simply, the Constitution of the United States of America and Freedom!
If we do not stand for these two ideas and the way of life they represent, what else actually matters? Without Freedom, we lose who we are as individuals, we lose our souls. Right now, we can see ourselves losing more and more Freedom each and every day. Our government says we need more security, more legislation, more rules, that all risks must be taken away. They seem to be trying to create sameness, misery if you will. Please, do not underestimate this regime. They know exactly what they are doing, and many of Americans continue to let them move us into a totalitarian country.
There is a great line from Mel Gibson in “Braveheart” where he says, on the battlefield, “They may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!” What will our lives to be without Freedom? What will our lives be worth, especially considering that a government official will be making healthcare decisions for us where all individualism loses worth and governmental money prevails?
Americans throughout the past have always done what is right. We have stood for individualism, Freedom and the rights given to man by our creator. However, most of the world has fought against these things, starting many years before this great country was born. Those who have fought against these ideas have always failed. Unfortunately, totalitarian regimes have always lost, only because of violent uprisings from the people. This is where the people of America have a great opportunity before us. We can halt this attempt to socialize America through non-violence-only because of the people, only because of each and every one of you.
The ideals and beliefs of the people of this country is what has made America what is has always been, the shining city on the hill. Once again we find ourselves at a crossroad, although, maybe one of much more importance than ever before. We have the people, the ideas, the heart to do what is necessary to return this country back to the people. I ask this though: do the people of this country have the will to put government back into their place? As a necessary evil only and not a regime that tries to control the decisions and lives of the people it is supposed to protect.
Freedom and individuality along with personal responsibility has for too long, been eroded away and put into hindsight. Now we must put them into the forefront as we march behind them down the road of revitalizing America. Do we need a revolution, or just a revitalization? We have everything we need to bring this country back to prosperity. Those things are in our Constitution and in our hearts and minds. Now is the time for people to get motivated; not under many ideas, but just one. That one idea is Freedom. With it, we can do wonders and live extraordinary lives; without it, everything is futile.
We have a long road ahead of us in this country. The choice is ours, the time is now.
We do, in fact, live in a strange time here in America. We know man can be inherently evil, however, our politicians are even more so. Our own government calls the ones defending and staning for the Constitution of the United States extremists, while allowing Islam to march all over our free speech and threaten American citizens with death. If we are the extremists, what are those who are in the process of destroying our Constitution, our freedom, and our way of life?
I have many more questions than answers at this point. I do, however, understand these evil men who lead our government must be stopped before they bring death and destruction to the United States just as Socialism has done throughout the history of the world.
As the granddaddy of political demagoguery, President Obama might have outdone himself with his recent admonition to political opponents not to “demagogue” the immigration issue.
A “demagogue” is “a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument.” “Ah,” you say, “Obama is onto something here. Those who oppose his open-border policy are appealing to prejudice against immigrants instead of to rational argument.” Wrong.
Rather, those who support defending our borders believe in the rule of law and in law enforcement. The people of the United States — and Arizona in particular — have a rational interest in protecting their borders and in wanting to prevent illegal immigration. Though we’ve had immigration laws on the books for years, are Obama’s Democrats saying they are irrationally based — that anyone who wants to enforce these laws is prejudiced? That anyone throughout our history who favored controlling immigration was harboring racial prejudice?
It is Obama and many of his supporters who fall into the demagogue category by appealing to prejudices and fears in lieu of rational argument. Even in his invocation of the term “demagogue” to describe this issue, Obama himself is demagoguing. He must, because he has no reasonable arguments to justify his lawless policy.
Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu, whose deputies patrol a county along the U.S.-Mexico border, is hopping mad at the federal government.
Babeu told CNSNews.com that rather than help law enforcement in Arizona stop the hundreds of thousands of people who come into the United States illegally, the federal government is targeting the state and its law enforcement personnel.
“What’s very troubling is the fact that at a time when we in law enforcement and our state need help from the federal government, instead of sending help they put up billboard-size signs warning our citizens to stay out of the desert in my county because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits and all these other things and then, behind that, they drag us into court with the ACLU,” Babeu said.
The sheriff was referring to the law suits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Department of Justice challenging the state’s new immigration law.
“So who has partnered with the ACLU?” Babeu said in a telephone interview with CNSNews.com. “It’s the president and (Attorney General) Eric Holder himself. And that’s simply outrageous.”
Welcome back to the Wild West America! “Federal Judge Bolton” blocked Arizona’s claim to enforce laws today, whether federal, state, or local.
If this decree is allowed to stand, then I demand that Florida become a “sanctuary state” in regards to drilling for oil. Why not? We could be richer than Kuwait in a matter of months! Scofflaws are to be held in a higher esteem by judges than those who would dare to enforce the laws.
We have just witnessed dyslexic liberal logic at its finest folks. Judge Bolton has decided that actual enforcement of federal laws somehow interferes with the federal government’s prerogative to ignore federal law.
Bolton has pulled yet another thread from the fabric that holds our society and ordered liberty together; The United States was grounded on being a nation of laws and not of men and their current fashions. When illegal becomes fashionable are we to ignore unfashionable laws already on the books? If the AZ law is so outside the bounds then where is the clamor to repeal the federal laws that it simply mirrors?
If this ruling stands, then all bets are off in regards to the rule of law. Far away men in black robes shall decide our fate, safety, and lives from the comfort of their benches. The ACLU runs our legal system along with our wars. Do we have to ask the ACLU permission to go to the bathroom? Apparently, we better check with our guardians of civil rights.
Federal laws against marijuana are flouted in California yet that never seems to collide with State Vs Feds authority of enforcement. Do federal kidnapping laws trump enforcement of state and local law enforcement of kidnapping? If the feds will not enforce kidnapping laws or bank robbery are we all just to throw up our hands and give up and give in to crime? Ignorance of the law or ignoring the law does not make something legal.
Decriminalization of law is practiced everyday by liberal judges. They smite mandatory minimum sentencing laws, reduce sentences for the alleged problem of “overcrowding” in prisons, and generally turn out menaces to society on a daily basis. (Hello Lindsey Lohan!)
It was once said that God created all men and Sam Colt made them equal. But don’t worry; the feds are wasting no time in decriminalizing illegality and criminalizing the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. No wonder ammo & gun sales are up in the downer Obama economy. “Does hope & change” really mean the return to the Wild West where the rule of law came at the point of a gun?
Judge Bolton’s decree invites Arizonans to ignore her very own decree in the instant case. Why not? It’s all the rage, it is very fashionable, and everyone else is doing it.
U.S. Constitutional Free Press 