“The individual-responsibility provision was originally a Republican idea,” said White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest duringthe Daily Press Briefing yesterday.

By saying so, the White House public strategy team clearly seeks to alter the common terminology of “individual mandate” to a politically  more palatable “individual responsibility.”

The Obama White House, beset by a barrage of liberal criticism over a widely-acclaimed inept defense of its signature domestic policy achievement Wednesday, defended the health care law’s constitutionality not on legal grounds, but on purely partisan ones.

Earnest called Obama’s national health care law a “bipartisan idea” designed to confront “difficult health care challenges.”

White House deputy press secretary Earnest even now claimed President Obama’s Affordable Care Act drew its policy inspiration from GOP front-runner Mitt Romney’s health care law in Massachusetts.

That’s a purely political argument to a Constitutional question.

Earnest offered no defense along the lines of the precedential history of Congress and the Commerce Clause. It is the reach and scope of commerce-clause authority that is at the heart of the Supreme Court’s scrutiny of the Obama-initiated health care law.

The White House has seen this movie before: a press corps in a lather about what may happen to knock the administration off its preferred course of action.

Three days of high-court drama did, however, has clearly put President Obama and his presidency in a spot no president wants to be – under siege as the underlying constitutional justification of his health care reform law, long questioned in polling data, is now under intense, nationwide scrutiny.

Whether it intended to or not, the White House gave voice to critics who contend the law is rooted in outcomes – expanded access to insurance coverage and a variety of health care benefits – rather than adhering to traditional definitions of federal power and the Commerce Clause.

That scrutiny may lead to the law’s undoing, and at its first opportunity to justify the law  this week, the White House chose partisan & political arguments in response to the constitutional inquiry.

The Intel Hub reports:

In the last few weeks the fact that the Department of Homeland Security recently ordered 450 million rounds of hollow point ammunition (which was on top of the 2 million ordered in 2009) has been heavily discussed by numerous alternative media outlets.

For their part, the corporate controlled media and the DHS itself have chosen to stay quiet, refusing to answer inquiries as to why they need millions of hollow point bullets at a time when they are largely focusing on domestic operations.

A recent report by RT highlighted this fact:

The DHS has signed off on an “indefinite delivery” from defense contractors ATK that will include, for some reason, nearly 500 million high-power ammunition for .40 caliber firearms.

The department has yet to discuss why they are ordering such a massive bevy of bullets for an agency that has limited need domestically for doing harm, but they say they expect to continue receiving shipments from the manufacturer for the next five years, during which they plan to blow through enough ammunition to execute more people than there are in the entire United States.

“We are proud to extend our track record as the prime supplier of .40 caliber duty ammunition for DHS,” reads an official statement from Ron Johnson, ATK’s president of Security and Sporting, who adds that his group will also be giving up weaponry to the DHS subdivision of ICE, or Immigrations and Custom Enforcement.

While ammunition itself seems not too unreasonable of a request by a major federal entity that emphasizes domestic durability and safeguarding the country from coast to coast, the choice — and quantity — of its hollow point order raises a lot of questions about future plans for the DHS.

ATK says they won their contract with the US government by being able to provide them with 450 million HST bullets, which it describes as “the next generation in high performance duty ammunition.”

Apparently Homeland Security is not the only domestic government agency that has bought a large amount of ammunition in the last 7 months.

In a post published on the now infamous Fbo.gov website, the US Forest Service (USDA) solicited and secured a bid for over 300,000 rounds of ammunition (scary raw milk farmers beware) including:

Added: Sep 28, 2011 5:15 pm

(1) 40 caliber, 180 grain, 120,000 rounds or equivalent,
(2) 9 mm, 124 grain, 50,000 rounds or equivalent,
(3) .38 caliber, 135 grain, 10,000 rounds or equivalent,
(4) .380 caliber, 90 grain, 6,000 rounds or equivalent,
(5) .223 caliber, 64 grain, 87,500 rounds or equivalent,
(6) 12 gauge 00 buck, 15,000 rounds or equivalent,
(7) 40 caliber frangible, 10,000 rounds or equivalent,
(8) 9 caliber frangible, 10,000 rounds or equivalent,
(9) .223 caliber frangible, 10,000 rounds or equivalent,
(10) 12 gauge 1 oz slug, 7,500 rounds or equivalent

The cartridges shall be delivered to Albuquerque, NM.

An article from the Prepper Podcast Radio Network also cited a bid from the US Fish and Wildlife services and a solicitation from the FBI.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services require the following items, Exact Match Only, to the following:

1. Remington Frangible .40 Caliber Pistol Ammunition – 2,500 rounds

2. Remington .40 Caliber Pistol Ammunition (180 grain) Full Metal Jacket – 6,000 rounds

3. Remington .223 Caliber Rifle Ammunition (62 grain) Full Metal Jacket – 3,000 rounds

4. Remington FX Marking Cartridges (9 mm) – 2,000 rounds

These requirements seem normal considering the possibility of running into grizzly bears and wolverines. These, to me, are acceptable quantities to order. 

And of course the FBI needs about 100,000,000 rounds of .40 caliber ammunition for law enforcement needs. It posted the request November 15, 2011 and the order will be awarded this week.  Oddly, it states a fixed price indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity type contract; however the pricing requirements go up to 100,000,000 rounds.

That’s right, the US government apparently needs over 750 million extra .40 caliber rounds for use in what can only be assumed to be future “domestic operations.”

The war between the Republican elite (those that run the party) and the Republican base continues at a massive destructive pace.

As has been the case in so many past elections (Gerald Ford, 1976; Bob Dole, 1996; John McCain, 2008), the GOP elite forces its ‘chosen’ Presidential candidate in a manner befitting a King.  Neither Ford, Dole or McCain had a prayer of winning those elections and almost everyone knew it – long before the Republican nominating convention.  But the GOP, in its role of holding onto ‘Party Leadership Power’, insanely continues its practice of ‘Coronation’ for the next person in line – winning or losing of the general election is not what is most important.

“But they nominated Reagan!”  No; THEY did not.  Beginning with the now famous speech by then Gov. Ronald Reagan, immediately after the elites nominated Ford in ‘76 – the people of America AND the rank and file delegates to the ’76 convention knew who their nominee would be in 1980.  The GOP ran George Bush against Reagan to hopefully accomplish their ever pressing agenda of keeping a conservative out of the Presidential position; but the PEOPLE virtually over-ran the elites – something they had never happen before – and something they have never forgotten!

The nomination process of 2012, sadly, continues in the old tradition of GOP Coronations.  The elites have picked their coronation King in the form of one Mitt Romney.  Mr. Romney – and Mr. Romney alone, meets their 4-point test with flying colors:

1.  His credentials are anything but conservative;

2.  He is ‘in line’ for the coronation;

3.  He is one of the ‘them’; and

4. He will not threaten their party leadership positions.

Their view? If he wins, great; if not, so be it.  Win or lose, the elites will maintain their position, power and control over a conservative base that has long since decided that ONLY the Democrats are the problem – certainly not OUR leaders.

Georgette Mosbacher, “Queen Bee” of the liberal republican elites, brazenly and proudly announced back in early October:

“We do not consider Perry a factor… We know who will be our nominee.”
She was of course talking about Mitt “Romneycare” Romney.

Mosbacher and her associates were instrumental in having the Virginia election laws changed recently so as to be sure there were only two GOP candidates on the upcoming primary ballot, effectively eliminating everyone else.  But then, the ‘dirty tricks’ that the  GOP elite have pulled on their own Republican base, could fill volumes.

2012 is, without question, the most important election of our time.  Our country has been taken over by a group whose sole intention is to eliminate the Constitution of the United States and by so doing will force upon its citizenry a government so tyrannical, we will not recognize our own country.  If Obama is successful in 2012, and there is growing evidence that he very well may be -  the last four years will look like an elementary school picnic compared to what will come.  If this scenario becomes fact instead of the dreaded possibility, you and I will see the departure of the last ‘free’ nation on this planet.  But never fear, the Republican elites will certainly find a way to maintain THEIR position – no matter who wins in November.

The Trib reports:

WASHINGTON — Texas multimillionaire Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, recently topped a list of Congress’s wealthiest members, and five other Texans joined him in the top 50.

But less well known are the Texas members on the other end of Congress’s net-worth spectrum, including Reps. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Edinburg; Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler; andSilvestre Reyes, D-El Paso.

A low net worth can pose a challenge to lawmakers trying to maintain one home in their district and another in Washington, current and former members say. But it also proves that you do not have to be a millionaire to serve in the people’s house — and that, some say, is an important point to make.

A diverse Congress “on all levels” makes for better legislation and more tuned-in lawmakers, Hinojosa said through a spokesman. Hinojosa, a former president of a food-processing company, is the least-wealthy Texas member — and is in Congress’s bottom 10, according to Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, which estimated his net worth at negative $881,000.

His annual federal financial disclosure, which establishes a range of values for many of the members’ personal assets and liabilities, puts his average net worth at about negative $2.67 million. He declared personal bankruptcy last year, attributing it to his liability for a bank loan to the troubled food-processing company.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says President Obama’s continued use of the executive order “brings the modern presidency dangerously close to an elective dictatorship.”

“That is arrogant,” Paul said of Obama frequently using the executive order function as of late. “It is flaunting the Constitution and the whole principle of how we’re supposed to operate. The idea they can just do this and take over the legislative function and brag about it — and Congress does nothing and the courts do nothing about it, it’s very, very bad.”

“He’s dictatorial, is what he is,” Rep. Paul said before the end of the interview.

Agora Financial has put together a great writeup on just what the costs of this war have come to.

NaturalNews reports:

As fires raged across central Texas for the past three days, local citizens sprang into action to protect their lives and property. Local churches opened their doors and began hosting refugees left homeless by the fires which have now destroyed more than 1,000 homes and 100,000 acres across the state in just the past week. Several branches of the YMCA also began hosting families with children, and a public school in Bastrop County opened its doors to serve as an emergency relief center.

See a YouTube video of a citizen’s narrow escape around Highway 21 near Bastrop, Texas:

Federal agencies seize control on Tuesday

Hundreds of firefighters from all the surrounding counties worked two days and nights in a heroic effort to contain the fires, but high winds Sunday night and all day Monday thwarted their efforts. So the call went out for more volunteer firefighters to join the effort from across the state.

Before they arrived, however, the federal government showed up and claimed it was in charge of the situation. “Agents with the federal National Interagency Fire Center, a coalition of federal agencies including the U.S. Forest Service, assumed command of firefighting efforts Tuesday afternoon,” reports The Gonzales Cannon (http://www.gonzalescannon.com/node/6411).

RealNewsReporter.com is now reporting that volunteer firefighters who had in some cases driven all night to reach Bastrop county were turned away by the feds, who claimed that since local officials never made a “formal request” for volunteers, the volunteers could not be “activated.”

So while Bastrop County burns from 40+ fires that are still raging, the federal government is actuallytelling volunteer firefighters to go home.

“We were at the station getting set up into strike teams, and this guy came up and said that the U.S. Forest Service had ‘assumed control of the situation, and that If you don’t have a vehicle that squirts water, go home,’ said Gordon Greer of Kirbyville, in a RealNewsReporter article (http://www.realnewsreporter.com/?p=7889). Gordon reportedly drove all night Monday to arrive in Bastrop and take part in the firefighting effort. “You’ve got guys who had driven all night long from Corpus Christi and Brownsville on their own dime, and they turned them away,” he said.

That same story reports that Jennifer Jones of theU.S. National Interagency Incident Centerconfirmed multiple federal agencies would be taking over the scene. Tuesday afternoon, the Bastrop County Office of Emergency Management stated on its Facebook page that volunteer firefighters would have to be “activated by the National Forestry Service first.”

In other words, if you’re a local Texan and you want to help other Texans save their ranches, or their homes, or their businesses,you need permission from the federal bureaucracy first!

But some Texans aren’t allowing their efforts to be thwarted. As Real News Reporter says in its story, a group ofTexas Nationalist Movement memberswho are also certified firefighters are in the Bastrop area and aiding civilian relief efforts, with or without permission from Washington D.C.
…

Texas volunteer firefighters buy their own gear!

Many of the volunteers currently fighting the wildfires in Texas buy their own gear! Please consider supporting them through theTexas Wildfire Relief Fund:

http://txwildfirerelief.org/

“Over 77 percent of fire departments in Texas are volunteer departments who struggle daily on getting the equipment they need to respond to emergencies across the state,” said Chief Chris Barron, Director of the State Firemen’s and Fire Marshals’ Association of Texas (SFFMA). “Eighty-six percent of the state’s volunteer firefighters use personal funds for their departments’ safety equipment and supply needs.” (http://www.globenewswire.com/newsro…)