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Special op-ed news articles bringing you the information the left doesn't want you to know. The Conservative Activist is a community of Constitutional Conservatives who are pro-active in bringing conservatism back to the American people and the Republican Party. We are pro-active is saving our country from the slippery slope of socialism that is the agenda of the Obama administration. We provide you with the news you won't find in the mainstrean media. We also have the information you need to get active in keeping our elected officials in check. |
AUTHORS Gene Long TerryCSA Steph E.A.Timm John Adams OTHERS: Sarah Palin Constitution Society USJF |
************* Patent Reform Is A Patent Giveaway Since we've outsourced millions of well-paying American jobs overseas, the one asset we have to maintain our American standard of living is innovation superiority. The United States is the world's leader in technology innovation, which is due to our private enterprise economic system, our constitutional protections of private property, and most especially our unique system of granting patents to inventors. Other countries can produce things we invent more cheaply because of the pitiful wages they pay, but they have a dismal record of inventing anything. Lacking expertise in innovation, some foreign countries concentrate on stealing ours. Communist China is the world's top producer of illegal copies of music, movies, software, designer apparel, medicines, and other U.S. products. Chinese agents stole or illegally purchased high-tech machines and systems, restricted electronic components, embargoed components for military weapons, and communications systems, in order to copy them. Now that Communist China has become America's banker, China is flexing its muscles in a new way that threatens our economy and our jobs. The buzzword is "indigenous innovation." China has promulgated new anti-American trade rules that prohibit imports of our products unless they are based on intellectual property that is developed and/or owned in China, and associated trademarks are originally registered in China. These rules mean that U.S. products cannot be sold in China unless the U.S. companies give China their current patents plus their research and development of new products. This targets our most innovative manufacturing and service industries, including computers, software, and telecommunications. The Chinese government has issued a catalog of products that are subject to this obnoxious rule, and the list is expected to be expanded soon to other industries. China's "indigenous innovation" rule will exclude many major U.S. firms from the Chinese market or require them to give China their patents and advanced technology. Yongshun Cheng, former senior judge and deputy director of the Intellectual Property Division of Beijing High People's Court, stated bluntly that the proposed U.S. patent bill is bad news for American innovation and good news for foreign infringers. He pointed out that the bill "is friendlier to the infringers than to the patentees in general as it will make the patent less reliable, easier to be challenged, and cheaper to be infringed." President Obama has promised that exports are the key to our recovery from the current recession. But China's "China First" policy drives a dagger into our hope for more exports. Free trade now means free to China. Nineteen U.S. trade associations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Business Roundtable, signed a joint letter to six Obama Administration agencies calling China's behavior "alarming." The letter warns that this rule poses "an immediate danger to U.S. companies" and to their "ability to create jobs here at home." The longtime consensus among government and business elites has been that as China became richer, its interests would become more like ours. It didn't work out that way because China is a Communist totalitarian country striving for military and economic superiority. Our American patent system is a precious American property right which the Founding Fathers put into the U.S. Constitution even before they added freedom of religion and speech. The inventor's exclusive right to his discovery for limited times was unique in 1787; it still is unique, and 220 years of experience have proved it is the world's best system because the overwhelming majority of great inventions are American. Our successful system is under attack not only by the foreigners who want to steal our innovations, but also by some big corporations. Most of our breakthrough inventions have come, not from big corporations, but from independent inventors and small companies. The big corporations, however, have the lobbyists and the lawyers, and they are breathing hard on Congress to change our patent law to make it easier to challenge the patents granted to small inventors. The big corporations want to challenge a patent after it is issued (known as post-grant review), thereby delaying for many years the inventor's ability to use his own invention and forcing him to spend a fortune on litigation. Congress should hold a new hearing to listen to the views of real inventors. We also want to hear what the Obama Administration and Congress will do to protect U.S. innovation, inventors and small businesses from Chinese theft and arrogant attempts to force us to give away all our patents. Further reading: Patent Rights *************
How Long Before You Wake Up, Politicos? First, some background. If you believe that we have "escaped" from the mess that gripped this nation in 2008 and 2009, or that said mess "suddenly appeared" and "nobody saw it coming", stop reading now and have your Thorazine dosage checked. It's way off. Assuming you accept the truth - that this mess was 20 year or more in the making, that it involved creating credit (that is, debt) which the debtor could never pay, and that it still exists because our government policy has been to extend, pretend and allow lies that should be considered accounting fraud and result in prison sentences, then you're on the right page to understand the rest of this missive. Again, if not, go check your Thorazine dosage. Yes, I know all about the stock market rally from last March. I know all about the claimed GDP "improvement." But I also know that we got both by adding more than $2 trillion in debt to the United States - or roughly 14% of GDP - over the space of the last 18 months. That's about 10% of GDP annualized, and incidentally, a 10% GDP contraction is the common economist's definition of an Economic Depression. So let's cut the crap - we are in a Depression right now. We are pretending we are not, just like you can pretend you didn't really lose your job so long as your credit card does not reach its limit. We have been in that depression for about 18 months and there is no evidence that we will exit it, as we have yet to find a way to pull back the deficit spending without an instantaneous collapse in the economy. Yet at some point we must and will stop. We will either do so of our own volition, or we will do so when the cost of borrowing skyrockets, as others get tired of funding our profligacy. If we attempt to "print" our way out of it the cost of petroleum products will shoot the moon and destroy our economy anyway. You haven't seen the half of what happened though - not yet. It appears that AIG - the company we have bailed out (thus far) to the tune of some $100 billion plus, in fact isn't done. It appears they may have written credit protection on Greece. If this allegation by the German equivalent to The New York Times is true Americans are going to be asked to pay billions of dollars - or more likely, hundreds of billions (since Greece is almost certainly not the only place - try Spain, Portugal, Ireland, etc) to bail out a bunch of FOREIGN NATIONS. Do you both think Americans can and will pay that bill? A bill that has been forced on us, and yet benefits not The United States economy, but foreigners? Wars - big wars - start over much less, my friends. Oh, and let's not forget - some 30% of Greece's workers went out on strike to protest their "austerity measures." That's right - one in three. The Fed and our fabulous Treasury Secretary already gave tens of billions of our hard-earned money to foreign banks to prop them up via AIG. That was just a down payment; now we all get to - quite literally - buy all their houses over in Europe. They get to keep living in them. If you do not believe it is going to get much worse than it is now, economically and otherwise, you once again need to go have that Thorazine dosage adjusted. A recent Rasmussen poll disclosed that only 21% of the voters in this country believe that the government enjoys the consent of the governed. Put another way, only 21% of the voters in this nation consent to what Washington is doing. More ominously, 61% say the government does NOT have consent. The remainder (18%) are not sure. May I remind you that in 1776 less than that 21% of the population (19%, actually) were loyal to Britain? If you do not believe this nation is wound tighter than a clock spring, you need to have that Thorazine dosage checked again. You are in denial. After denial comes anger, then bargaining, and finally acceptance. Let's not do anger on a mass scale in this country, ok? Neither I or my daughter will appreciate it if it happens; shall we skip that and go right to "acceptance"? Let's assume your answer is "yes." Now let's talk numbers. There are approximately 150,000 federally-attached law enforcement personnel. Another 750,000, roughly, state and local cops are employed by our various government arms. Of those various officers well more than half sit behind a desk and haven't left one gram of shoe leather on a street or in a cruiser in the last year. The majority of you fire your weapons for periodic qualification and they have never been warm or dirty besides. You've never faced death, you've never had a weapon pointed at you in anger, and you've never drawn your service weapon in the line of duty. Those are facts. Now consider the "bad side" of America. The Justice Department estimates there are at least one million gang members - active gang members - in America. These people, mostly young males, have nearly all drawn or fired weapons in anger. They are responsible for more than three quarters of all crime in this country, and some eight out of ten violent crimes. Those gang members have families - younger males who are "coming up", "friends" (if you can call a murderous thug a friend) and others. Between all of those "loosely attached" folks and the hard-core inner circle itself we probably have somewhere between 5 and 10 million people in this nation who, given the wrong sort of provocation, might decide that "Zombieland" wasn't just a movie. Our politicians created most of these monsters so the "finest" would have something to do. A nearly-100-year obsession with what consenting adults put in their bodies is largely responsible for this, and an intentional policy of allowing an effective invasion of illegal aliens over our southern border provides some the most-violent core of this group. The illegal drug trade has fueled international wars, international gangs, and virtually all of the organized violent crime in this nation going back to Prohibition. Essentially every automatic weapon in the hands of criminals (and there are plenty of them) comes into the US through this same intentionally-left-open border as do the gangbangers, lies of this (and previous) administrations notwithstanding. Those of you in the Law Enforcement business may not want to accept these facts, but if you reflect on it you cannot escape reality: weapons, ammunition and other means of street thuggery all cost money, and without these drugs being illegal there would be no profit in it, and thus a huge part of the criminal gangland element would not exist. You've cheered on the War on Drugs as it has meant more cops being hired and more, better, fancier toys for you to play with, along with $200,000+ pensions (in some areas.) You've been fools and even self-destructive assholes for having done so. But that, today, is water over the dam - the bad guys are here, they're not leaving, and there's no evidence that the political class is going to suddenly legalize these substances tomorrow, cutting the source of funds for the thugs off at the knees - after all, you won't rise up and demand it happen. So we must deal with reality on the ground as it is (and as you have cheered on the creation of), whether we like it or not. As I'm sure you're aware all of America sees some of our "finest", not to mention our politicians, in various forms of misbehavior virtually on a daily basis. A girl beaten on a train platform while uniformed rail security stands and watches. A young man who appears to have been executed by a different rail security officer, even after he was subdued, face-down, without a weapon and easily able to be cuffed. The infamous Rodney King incident. The false accusations against the Duke Lacrosse team that threatened young men with many years behind bars for something that never happened. Our current Treasury Secretary who cheated on his taxes, not to mention the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee who did as well (that's the committee that writes tax law, if you're not up on your American Government.) And now, in the latest bit of ignobility we're expected to swallow, we have accusations that a school district has been taking pictures of kids in their bedrooms using state-issued laptops that said kids were required to accept in order to pass their high school classes. Here's the problem: We the people increasingly don't trust you, the law enforcement community, and we definitely don't trust Washington. It's not just beating a black man within an inch of his life, or shooting a prone, subdued suspect in the back. Oh that's bad enough, don't get me wrong, but it gets worse. Much worse. See, our economy wasn't ruined by accident. These crimes of economic activity were every bit as destructive, if not more so, than the bank robber, rapist or even murderer is. These economic offenses have literally dispossessed millions of Americans of everything they once owned. They have destroyed the hopes, dreams, and lifestyles of entire cities, sent tens of millions of jobs overseas into slave labor camps and stripped off the wealth of our nation through the issuance of securities that were worth nothing, just to add insult (and yet more profit for these banksters) to injury. Take a drive through Detroit if you doubt me, if you dare, and are appropriately armed to defend yourself (you'll need the latter, especially if you're white.) As I noted above the bad news is nowhere near being over. We're denying as a nation, as corporations, as politicians and as people. You've drank your coffee and eaten your donuts, but what you haven't done is taken the initiative and marched down onto Wall Street and K Street (in DC), along with the myriad bankers, mortgage brokers and yes, even borrowers who were lying and cheating at the same time. You should have broke out the handcuffs by the crate-load and frog-marched these people into the dock en-masse over the last two decades, but you didn't. You should do it today, but you won't. I know, you don't make the laws and you just follow orders from above. But you're who we see. You're "The Badge" or "The Squad." And what we, the people don't see is perp walks of those people who richly deserve it - who have in fact broken the law and destroyed our nation's economic vitality for their own personal profit. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, no matter what branch of law enforcement you hail from, your primary oath was not to a person. It is not to your commander, your captain or your squad. Your oath is to The Constitution. You swore to defend that Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. You swore to God and countryman alike, and your oath does not have a "use by" date at which point it expires. Now consider this: the unspoken "social contract" says that the good guys go about their business without harming other people, and the occasional miscreant commits some offense, gets arrested and put in the dock by you. There they face their twelve, and in many cases subsequently do their time. But what really inhibits the miscreant from his deed? Is it that you will show up and take a report after the stereo is stolen, the car burgled or the bank robbed, and attempt post-hoc to have them face the music? No. It is the possibility that he will break into or attempt to rob a home or business that has an armed citizen in it who is prepared and willing to defend him or herself. Armed not only with the ability to fight back but the weapon of familiarity of surrounding, said homeowner or shopkeeper might well splatter the brain of said felonious thug all over the far wall - in righteous and perfectly-legal defense of one's person (except in places like Chicago, of course.) The truth of this is clear on its face - those places where citizens are "restricted" (illegally, I might add, under the clear language of our Constitution) from mounting their own defense to rape, robbery or murder the bad guys pretty much take turns "at will", as opposed to places like Kennesaw Georgia which mandate instead that every homeowner have a firearm and ammunition. One last thing to consider, and I will leave you be, as I have others to address this fine day. If it gets bad, and I believe both history and the math says it will, who's going to help you? Do you really think the entirety of the 150,000 Federal Officers will come to your aid? Or will they sit in Washington DC and in their big black Suburbans (armored, of course) issuing orders for you to go into the streets in your (unarmored) Crown Vics and die in their place? Remember that the "bad guys" in such a circumstance outnumber you 10 or even 20:1 and not only are they probably armed as well as you are, they've actually shot - offensively - at other human beings. Unless you're one of the "bad cops" you've never done that, and few of you have had to fire in self-defense. Your only realistic advantage in such a situation is that most of the gangbangers are pretty poor marksman. What's the outcome of such an event likely to be? Remember, we may distrust you, but the bad guys hate you to the core and would BBQ and eat you for dinner if they thought they could get away with it. If things get bad they might deduce - en-masse - that they can get away with it. Let's face facts: while today we all count on being able to pick up the phone and call "911" if we need an officer to take a report on our stolen stereo, if the bad times come you will need us, not the other way around. We the people will, under such a circumstance, have the luxury of determining whether your oath of office has been faithfully discharged, or whether the only difference at that instant between you and the gangbanger is that you've got a fancy hat and a nicer car. Most of us, should we determine that you're just the thug with the fancy hat will hide under the desk. We won't shoot at you - that's not our way. We're law-abiding citizens, for the most part, and while we will shoot back, we won't shoot first. But what we won't do is help you, because your time - your opportunity to help us prevent this catastrophe - will have expired. We will protect our neighbors, our friends, our fellow citizens. But that's all. You will get to deal with Zombieland, and in the back of your mind as you're literally consumed will ring that old saw you laid on us for the last two decades: "I just follow orders; I don't make the rules." Be honest with yourselves: Is this where you want to be, or would changing things now be worthwhile? Would regaining the trust of the people be a good thing? Would replacing the large percentage of law-abiding citizens who now would spit on your shoes with those who will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you, weapons facing the oncoming zombie hoard, be a good thing? If so you have some work to do and there's still time left to accomplish it. To the politicians who are reading this, your Thorazine dosage needs adjustment as well. The math is irrefutable. If, in point of fact, AIG has entangled itself with the European Continent there is no escape from what is to come. There is only destruction, and our only two choices are to cause as much of it as we can to occur there, by pulling the plug on these clowns now, or risk a literal World War. We may get one anyway, but if we bring the bulk of the damage here we'll be dealing with a civil collapse at the same time, and have no chance of being able to deal with the geopolitical implications. We must not allow that to happen. You must not allow that to happen. We understand you give the orders to the people I've been talking to (mostly) up above. But you have less excuse than they, when it comes to oaths. You all took an oath to uphold The Constitution as well. You've used it as toilet paper, and that's on a good day. The rest of the time we see you gleefully burning it in the Wells of the House and Senate, dancing around the smoke and fire like some odd pagan ritual. It's time to stop. Not because you want to, not because you fear us (even though you should - after all, we're your employers and can fire you) but because if you don't there won't be a nation worth governing left. You know who the crooks are - including those among you. Let's talk taking this nation back. It starts with declaring all CDS written against sovereign debt, directly or indirectly, void as contrary to public policy. Yes, that cuts Europe off from any prospect of a US bailout. So be it. Next, all the banksters who were involved in these bogus securitizations need to be hauled into the dock. Now. William Black and his merry men sent over 1,000 people to the slammer in the S&L crisis. There are ten times that many who need to go this time. Third, force all credit-default swaps onto a public exchange with published bids, offers, last trades, open interest and nightly margining. In public, where we all can see it. Either that or ban these obscenities outright. Choose one, and only one of those two options, and do it now. Yes, I know the banksters will howl. Too damn bad, and while you're at it, make it unlawful for any institution that does business in this country to transact in any way in any instrument that does not comply with that rule. This monster, as I've been writing about for almost three years now, must be caged. Fourth, reinstate Glass-Steagall. Yeah, I know, the Senate doesn't want to do it. The Senate wants a nation that's worth governing though, right? We won't have one if this crap isn't stopped. Mssrs. Glass and Steagall had it right in the 1930s. Put it back. Fifth, stop lying to the people - and this includes lies told through deficit spending. We don't have the money and can't keep borrowing it. If you don't stop we will find the "knee point" the hard way, at which point once again, you won't have a nation worth governing. Remember the four steps above - neither I or my daughter, nor most of the 330 million Americans in this country, want to see the "anger" phase. Our country is like a powder keg and every time you lie you're playing with matches in the room. Stop it before you blow us all up. Sixth, we're in a Depression, like it or not, and we're not going to get out of it until the bad debt is defaulted and cleared from the system. Your job is to make that happen and get it over with. That's deflationary. Sorry; this is math, not politics. The housing bubble was a hyperinflationary event - one hidden from the people by bogus government statistics and outright lies. Deflation always follows hyperinflationary credit booms - it's either that, or the destruction of the government, political system and currency. You choose, but if you do not decide, destruction it will be. Seventh, close the damn border and declare all the illegal immigrants as what they are - invaders. Tell them to either leave or will expel them - and mean it. Declare "LaRaza" a terrorist organization and lock 'em all up. Americans need the jobs and we cannot afford to have five or ten million thugs just waiting for opportunity in the smallest loss of civil order to swoop in and take advantage of us all. At the same time, drop your insane "War on Drugs" and replace it with a taxation, regulation and legalization structure. Yes, I said legalize - federally. While we still have time we must cut off the chief funding source for the murderous thugs who otherwise, given the opportunity, will feast on you after they BBQ the local and state law enforcement crowd in our major cities. Don't BS me or anyone else with your claims that such isn't a real risk - I don't see you strolling around in your fancy suits through the bad parts of Washington DC sans security details. Gee, I wonder why not...... Finally, to President Obama. You can't serve both the banksters and The American People. You took the oath of office too. Now you have to choose. Not only will you lose in 2012 (badly) if you don't start locking up the jackasses that got us into this mess but if you don't ram the above seven points down the throats of these banksters and others in the next couple of months your party will be decimated in the November elections. Some of your oldest allies in the Democratic Party are resigning; Senator Bayh, for example. Illinois' State financial health is akin to someone with terminal pancreatic cancer, and that's where you're going home to in 2012 if you don't quit being nice-nice with people who have played rape-rape to the American people and economy for the last two decades. You didn't make the mess (you weren't around long enough to do it) but you had damn well better clean it up, or what will be left of this nation is unlikely to be worth governing by the time your term expires. Health care may be important but not until the above is taken care of. Fixing the financial system is the issue you must confront and fix in its entirety. Not half-way, not by compromise - you simply must fix it. The seven points above are not options, they're not discussion points - they're mandatory. All of them. Don't believe me if you don't want to - believe Charlie Munger, one of the wisest investment professionals ever to live, and, in my opinion, the smarter half of Berkshire Hathaway (with no disrespect intended to Warren.) The choice is yours Mr. President, but the consequences will belong to all of us. Choose wisely. *************
“Global Warming” More Like a Snow Job One thing after another keeps popping up to further discredit the theory of man-made global warming. The IPCC’s supposedly definitive report proving the theory is riddled with serious errors. The organization has been publicly chastised by everyone from its former chair to the heads of the UK’s biggest funder of climate research and Greenpeace UK. One of the world’s top climate change scientists, Prof. Phil Jones, has conceded that there’s been no significant warming since 1995; that the medieval period may have been warmer than today; and that he’s had trouble even keeping track of raw data crucial to the global warming theory. Yet President Obama still seeks to create a federal office for global warming, and they’re still talking about mandating their cap-and-tax plan that's based on discredited data. The Obama administration’s environmental extremism also shows up in its aversion to oil and gas development. A true all-of-the-above approach to energy would mean allowing oil and gas explorers to drill here and drill now because America has the proven reserves needed to meet our energy challenges. A new industry study reveals that the federal government's current restrictions on oil and gas drilling in Alaska and off the U.S. coastline will cost us $2.36 trillion through 2029. Think of the millions of U.S. jobs we could create, and how much more secure America would be, if we had a true free market approach to energy independence that allowed us to finally drill! And though I applaud the President’s newly declared interest in nuclear power, it should be noted that he’s merely following through on loan guarantees authorized during the prior administration. What’s more, while the White House now touts the building of new nuclear power plants, its budget inexplicably calls for cutting funding to the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. A real nuclear energy plan requires a strategy for dealing with nuclear waste storage and recycling. The man-made global warming hysteria isn’t based on sound science, and the Obama administration’s energy policy isn’t based on sound economics. If the climategate revelations teach us anything, it’s that we need to cool down the rhetoric and fire up our common sense. ************* The Ghosts of San Filipe Courts The San Filipe courts were a notorious public housing project that was built in 1942 by the Federal government to provide housing for the poor. As with much of what’s done to aid the needy, the results did not live up to the expectations. The place had a reputation of being a miserable squalid blight on the city. No one wanted to admit that they lived there. It was a place that rookie cops were told to avoid while it provided steady work for the city’s homicide detectives. It was pretty much considered by the local population to be one step up from Huntsville Prison, but with less oversight. The misery of those who were trapped in the courts might have gone on to this day but for a change in policy. In the 1990’s the federal government decided that the monstrosities they had built in the 40’s and 50’s were just too much of an embarrassment and switched its efforts on behalf of the urban poor to the creation of the Section Eight housing program. The results are more or less the same just spread out over a larger area. There is much to be learned from the failure of government housing. First, good intentions are not a replacement for sound judgment. Secondly if the tragic results that these government ghettos produced could go on for decades without remedy its fair to say that that they were more testaments to the ego of the builders than help for the needy. Unfortunately the lessons were never learned by the invincibly ignorant in Washington D.C. In that same spirit there is now a movement, under the banner of “sustainable development” to establish a means for government control over land use in the United States so encompassing that it will determine where we live, where we will be allowed to work, and where we can travel. The problem with so-called sustainable development is the same one that doomed the residents of the old housing projects, central planning motivated by the idea that there are some people who know better how the live the lives of others. The latest round in the battle to scientifically husband the population of this country is a bill in the Senate sponsored by Connecticut ’s liberal Democratic senator Chris Dodd. S 1619 or the “Livable communities Act” would set in place the groundwork for a government stranglehold over land and water use that would be controlled by the federal government who in turn would give an account for its stewardship to the United Nations under an agreement called Agenda 21. The agenda essentially herds the population of the United States into planned urban areas while denying human entry into huge expanses of the country. There would be places between humanity and the sacred wilderness where some human activity would be grudgingly allowed. It should be said that no comfort can be taken from the departure of Senator Dodd. Those who are behind this power grab will find another cheap politician to front for them. No president since Ronald Reagan has stood against this unconstitutional and unnatural power grab, and precious few in the Washington establishment understand its perils and are willing to stand against it. If there is any hope to put an end to this monumental power grab it lies with an informed public who will demand that this affront to the constitution and the natural rights of a free people be stopped cold in its tracks. Maybe it would also be a good idea to remove anyone promoting this madness from government employment just as a precaution against future bad decisions. I do not believe in ghosts in the sense of lost human souls trapped between this world and the next, but I believe I can hear the ghosts of the San Filipe courts. They are whispering, “Don’t do to your country what you did to us” *************
The Causes of Unemployment Since 2000, the U.S. has lost millions of jobs due to outsourcing and insourcing. Those are euphemisms for exporting high-paying jobs to low-wage foreign countries, while importing an uneducated underclass willing to work for lower-than-U.S. wages without benefits. The winners in this game include the corporate executives and stockholders who benefited by cheap labor, but the losers are the U.S. middle class. In addition to unemployment for those whose jobs were eliminated, the real wages (adjusted for inflation) for the jobs remaining have steadily declined. Since 2000, the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost nearly 25 percent of our total manufacturing workforce. Many of those jobs have gone to Communist China, where toys for the U.S. market are made in sweatshops by workers paid as little as 36 cents per hour, and many white-collar jobs have gone to India where telephone operators can be hired for $1 an hour. Leading economists are becoming willing to admit that their devotion to free trade was misplaced. Paul Samuelson, Nobel prize-winning economist and a dominating figure in U.S. economics for decades, faced reality before he died and admitted, "There is nothing in the theory that says trade is always a win-win for every group." Dr. Jerome Corsi's latest book, America for Sale, is a superb explanation to help the public understand our current economic woes. He shows that free trade is turning America into a two-tiered country like many foreign countries, with few of the very rich and a lot of the very poor, while the middle class loses big-time. The Sacramento Bee published an article admitting that California is already "a two-tier economy with Asians and non-Hispanic whites competing for high-status positions while Hispanics and blacks struggle to get the low-paying service jobs." Dr. Corsi relates how the United States welcomed China into the World Trade Organization in 2001 knowing that free-trade agreements with China would be unfair to America, and that even the expression "free trade," as applied to China, is a fraud. China uses near-slave workers paid less than a dollar an hour with no benefits, sends us lead-encrusted toys and poisonous foods and medicines, and keeps its currency artificially cheap to unfairly advantage its exports. The deceit in the free-trade slogan is epitomized by the way China and other nations blatantly discriminate against the United States by using a Value Added Tax (VAT) both to subsidize their exports and to penalize their imports. The way this racket works is that China reimburses taxes paid in China by manufacturer-exporters, but imposes border taxes against American companies trying to sell their products in China. It's not just coincidence that the tax barriers foreign countries impose on U.S. goods amounts to about as much as the tariff that was supposedly abolished or reduced under the phony name of free trade. Dr. Corsi explains that the globalists know that free trade necessitates regional and ultimately global governance, and that economic integration inherently begets political integration. Ultimately, free trade is an assault on American sovereignty and independence. Corsi entitled his book America for Sale because a bankrupt business is essentially a business for sale, and the Obama Administration is spending our country into bankruptcy. The foreigners who hold so much American cash are ready to switch to a new global currency and use their dollars (before they lose all their value) to buy U.S. tangible assets. The result will be that foreign interests will end up owning important segments of U.S. private corporations and public infrastructure. Corsi asks some troublesome questions, such as how will we protect ourselves against technological espionage if foreign nations are permitted to own controlling positions in important U.S. technological firms? In Corsi's book, you will "meet the globalists" who are behind the plans to control our economy, destroy our dollar, replace it with a new global currency, and model our future on the European Union. When President Obama traveled to the G20 meeting on April 2, 2009, he proclaimed a "declaration of interdependence" and insisted that global solutions are required to bring us out of the recession. Corsi reminds us that Obama's bailouts are not just a way for private companies such as General Motors to survive, but a way for government to take over management of our private economy. We know the word for that: it's socialism. *************
Michael Steele Must Go The GOP has always been right on the issues. We cut taxes on all income levels, have saved millions of jobs, sounded the alarm on the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortgage crisis that Democrats chose to ignore and, most of all, offered solutions on issues of national security as Democrats sat and twiddled their thumbs. The problem was that none of this was being shown on TV. Media bias was largely to blame, but in equal proportion, so were the lackadaisical responses coming from our side. With that in mind, I had high hopes for Chairman Michael Steele when he was first elected. Watching the debate between the candidates for party chairman, Steele seemed alive, energetic and vivacious. In the proceeding months, it was clear that we had a problem on our hands. The Chairman of our party should not be someone who agrees with the radical leftist agenda of Barack Obama almost one third of the time. The public face of our party should not be someone who lacks the wherewithal to identify, and then to staunchly denounce, the policies and agenda items that have increasingly become the hallmark of the radical left. As time went on, Michael Steele increasing showed himself to be clueless on policy, devoid of ideas and bereft of a competitive political philosophy - this at a time when Americans are clamoring for one. Most of all, his organizational skills, of primary importance to the position which the party chairman is elected to fill, were shown to be all but nonexistent. As I watched on with dismay, I hoped against hope that Steele would grow into the job. Regrettably, this was not to be the case. None of the above listed faults can come close to his latest misstep, that of downplaying our party’s standing and of deflating our morale with his outrageous prognostications on the 2010 race. That his comments were made in the very same week that the distressingly liberal Los Angeles Times admitted that the GOP is poised to regain control of the US House, and possibly the Senate, is troubling beyond words. In the same interview, Chairman Steele also went to great lengths to attack every Republican within a 500 mile radius of Washington, DC. These amateurish tactics would be sad and counterproductive if they were the statements of a 20 year old political activist. When the chairman of a party makes them, they’re shameful beyond words. Chairman Steele, we have Democrats who are perfectly capable of attacking every single Republican while giving all but a free pass to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. They don’t need your help. We are the Party of Everyday Americans, not of sophomoric political hacks. If Michael Steele is auditioning for a column of his own at the New York Times or for a position on some obscenely comical think tank, then he should not be using party resources or a position within our party to achieve those ignoble goals. Chairman Steele’s attack on our party’s morale is an affront to the American people - those who seek a clear and viable alternative to the insanity that is the hallmark of this administration, an administration that Steele has coddled when his job was to oppose it. For this reason above all else, I call upon Chairman Steele to end his hapless and lackluster reign at the helm of the Republican Party. I also call upon all Republican candidates to demand his resignation with equal resolve and certitude. I don’t make this call lightly. Upon Michael Steele’s election as party chairman, I wrote a column praising his leadership style. As a columnist, I owe it to readers to clear that up. As a candidate, I stand to be affected by what passes for leadership under this chairman. Most importantly, as an American, I cannot stomach the ineptitude of a chairman whose words can aversely affect the fundraising efforts of the only party that stands in the way of radical socialism. The Republican Party is the party of Ronald Reagan and of so many others who seek to preserve the American Way and the moral values upon which our great nation was founded and upon which its future success relies. The farce that has passed for leadership under this chairman must come to an end for our party to regain its standing as the true and rightful voice of the American people. ************* It’s War, not a Crime Spree It simply makes no sense to treat an al Qaeda-trained operative willing to die in the course of massacring hundreds of people as a common criminal. Reports indicate that Abdulmutallab stated there were many more like him in Yemen but that he stopped talking once he was read his Miranda rights. President Obama’s advisers lamely claim Abdulmutallab might be willing to agree to a plea bargain – pretty doubtful you can cut a deal with a suicide bomber. John Brennan, the President’s top counterterrorism adviser, bizarrely claimed “there are no downsides or upsides” to treating terrorists as enemy combatants. That is absurd. There is a very serious downside to treating them as criminals: terrorists invoke their “right” to remain silent and stop talking. Terrorists don’t tell us where they were trained, what they were trained in, who they were trained by, and who they were trained with. Giving foreign-born, foreign-trained terrorists the right to remain silent does nothing to keep Americans safe from terrorist threats. It only gives our enemies access to courtrooms where they can publicly grandstand, and to defense attorneys who can manipulate the legal process to gain access to classified information. President Obama was right to change his policy and decide to send no more detainees to Yemen where they can be free to rejoin their war on America. Now he must back off his reckless plan to close Guantanamo, begin treating terrorists as wartime enemies not suspects alleged to have committed crimes, and recognize that the real nature of the terrorist threat requires a commander-in-chief, not a constitutional law professor. *************
The Year in Review While your sitting in your ivory towers and fleecing Americans of our wealth, traditional values and integrity, people all across this nation are waking up to the daily assaults perpetrated against us. Normally at this time of night I’m in bed sleeping, but lately I find it difficult to even sleep knowing that our country is being destroyed from within. Even Al-Quada could not inflict as much damage as Washington currently is upon America. AlQuada was not elected to decide abortion was the acceptable method to treat innocent children! They were not elected to bankrupt America with the most unbelievable pork spending budgets. They were not put in power to destroy the traditional form of marriage between a man and a woman. They weren’t even selected to endorse radical groups such as acorn, though I feel you have their approval. Terrorist’s were not empowered to sign the Copenhagen treaty which would destroy jobs and add to our burdening household expenses. They have not been sent to Washington to cripple medicare and to inflict harm upon our seniors denying them of life saving treatments. AlQuada has not fought against the effort to guard our borders, though I am certain they appreciate your efforts to keep them open. Not to long ago terrorist’s that were caught on the battlefield and were treated as the murderer’s America recognized as no less then cold blooded killers. But now you’ve made every effort to free them and to bring them to our shores. But even so, at least they will be tried, which is more then I can say for corrupt members of congress!! How many czars must we suffer in this country? How many more radical associations with the White House are you in Washington willing to defend? Elected offices in Washington were once held by men of honor and integrity, but that was many decades ago when they were looked up to as leaders. You have put our country on high alert with your agenda. We have entered into a cold blue state of attack with your partisan ways. I thought at one time elected officials were sent to Washington to serve the people? What happened? We’re we asleep at the switch while this country suffered rape and abuse? I haven’t even mentioned this healthcare scam yet, I even find myself wondering if it’s a waste of time to write about my differences? You no longer answer the phones, return calls, read the faxes, the emails, you don’t even accept petitions any longer. On April 15’th you failed to even look out your windows and acknowledge 1 ½ million people at your door. Is it any wonder that Americans rank elected leaders at the bottom, along with the main stream media? At least the media is on the endangered list! No longer do Americans look upon our elected leaders with respect and valor. It’s obvious you don’t deserve it! You campaign on principles and promises, but after the elections are completed and the chad's are counted, you begin to turn against the American people! I ask, should our children be taught to have respect for people like you? God forbid, as it counters everything America was once taught to believe in. At least before you seen fit to destroy values through the aclu! Your only accomplishment since last Fall has been to awaken a sleeping giant, and come next Fall you will truly understand who we are and what we stand for. Washington, you’ve been warned, we’re taking America back and in the name of our founding fathers we will be returning her to her rightful owners, WE THE PEOPLE! See you at the polls, Sincerely, Your paymaster, Dennis Dupuis *************
The many things I'm thankful for this year Whether it be on the front lines serving in the greatest Military on God's green Earth, or those that have worked so diligently to preserve and defend our Constitution and our way of life, I pray God's greatest blessings upon each of you! We have remained steadfast, determined and dedicated to our concerns in regards to upholding our traditions and values which built this great country. We have united a force far greater then the political causes which we set forth to overcome. We have formed a consensus throughout this great land in an effort to preserve freedom and liberty for the next generation. We have won some battles and we have also lost some, but the fight continues. However, in every cause I have been blessed to partake in, I have met some of America's finest. For that purpose, I am forever indebted to each and every one of you. May God strengthen each one of you in the efforts which lay before us in the near future. May we continue to seek God's intervention and guidance as we travel this journey for America's redemption. May each find comfort in divine knowledge and understanding of God's purpose which He has in store for us and may our efforts find victory in the days ahead. Again, I am grateful for having met each and every one of you and having developed the friendships I cherish. May God bless each and every one of you in the coming year and may our victory's be plenty in the war to reclaim America. To those I have known for years, I thank you for your stand! Merry CHRISTmas, Denny *************
Midnight Votes, Backroom Deals, and a Death Panel “This is a rule change. It’s a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law. I’m not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates. I mean, we want to bind future congresses. This goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future congresses.” In other words, Democrats are protecting this rationing “death panel” from future change with a procedural hurdle. You have to ask why they’re so concerned about protecting this particular provision. Could it be because bureaucratic rationing is one important way Democrats want to “bend the cost curve” and keep health care spending down? The Congressional Budget Office seems to think that such rationing has something to do with cost. In a letter to Harry Reid last week, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf noted (with a number of caveats) that the bill’s calculations call for a reduction in Medicare’s spending rate by about 2 percent in the next two decades, but then he writes the kicker: “It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.” Though Nancy Pelosi and friends have tried to call “death panels” the “lie of the year,” this type of rationing – what the CBO calls “reduc[ed] access to care” and “diminish[ed] quality of care” – is precisely what I meant when I used that metaphor. This health care bill is one of the most far-reaching and expensive expansions of the role of government into our lives. We’re talking about putting one-seventh of our economy under the government’s thumb. We’re also talking about something as intimate to our personal well-being as medical care. This bill is so unpopular that people on the right and the left hate it. So why go through with it? The Senate is planning to vote on this on Christmas Eve. Why the rush? Though we will begin paying for this bill immediately, we will see no benefits for years. (That’s the trick that allowed the CBO to state that the bill won’t grow the deficit for the next ten years.) The administration’s promises of transparency and bipartisanship have been broken one by one. This entire process has been defined by midnight votes on weekends, closed-door meetings with industry lobbyists, and payoffs to politicians willing to sell their principles for sweetheart deals. Is it any wonder that Americans are so disillusioned with their leaders in Washington? This is about politics, not health care. Americans don’t want this bill. Americans don’t like this bill. Washington has stopped listening to us. But we’re paying attention, and 2010 is coming. *************
Don't Cry For Me, America It was blessed with abundant agriculture, vast swaths of rich farmland laced with navigable rivers and an accessible port system. Its level of industrialization was higher than many European countries: railroads, automobiles and telephones were commonplace. In 1916, a new president was elected. Hipólito Irigoyen had formed a party called The Radicals under the banner of "fundamental change" with an appeal to the middle class. Among Irigoyen's changes: mandatory pension insurance, mandatory health insurance, and support for low-income housing construction to stimulate the economy. Put simply, the state assumed economic control of a vast swath of the country's operations and began assessing new payroll taxes to fund its efforts. With an increasing flow of funds into these entitlement programs, the government's payouts soon became overly generous. Before long its outlays surpassed the value of the taxpayers' contributions. Put simply, it quickly became under-funded, much like the United States' Social Security and Medicare programs. The death knell for the Argentine economy, however, came with the election of Juan Perón. Perón had a fascist and corporatist upbringing; he and his charismatic wife aimed their populist rhetoric at the nation's rich. This targeted group "swiftly expanded to cover most of the propertied middle classes, who became an enemy to be defeated and humiliated." Under Perón, the size of government bureaucracies exploded through massive programs of social spending and by encouraging the growth of labor unions. High taxes and economic mismanagement took their inevitable toll even after Perón had been driven from office. But his populist rhetoric and "contempt for economic realities" lived on. Argentina's federal government continued to spend far beyond its means. Hyperinflation exploded in 1989, the final stage of a process characterized by "industrial protectionism, redistribution of income based on increased wages, and growing state intervention in the economy…" The Argentinian government's practice of printing money to pay off its public debts had crushed the economy. Inflation hit 3000%, reminiscent of the Weimar Republic. Food riots were rampant; stores were looted; the country descended into chaos. And by 1994, Argentina's public pensions - the equivalent of Social Security - had imploded. The payroll tax had increased from 5% to 26%, but it wasn't enough. In addition, Argentina had implemented a value-added tax (VAT), new income taxes, a personal tax on wealth, and additional revenues based upon the sale of public enterprises. These crushed the private sector, further damaging the economy. A government-controlled "privatization" effort to rescue seniors' pensions was attempted. But, by 2001, those funds had also been raided by the government, the monies replaced by Argentina's defaulted government bonds. By 2002, "…government fiscal irresponsibility… induced a national economic crisis as severe as America's Great Depression." In 1902 Argentina was one of the world's richest countries. Little more than a hundred years later, it is poverty-stricken, struggling to meet its debt obligations amidst a drought. We've seen this movie before. The Democrats' populist plans can't possibly work, because government bankrupts everything it touches. History teaches us that ObamaCare and unfunded entitlement programs will be utter, complete disasters. Today's Democrats are guilty of more than stupidity; they are enslaving future generations to poverty and misery. And they will be long gone when it all implodes. They will be as cold and dead as Juan Perón when the piper must ultimately be paid. *************
The Big Die Off Or so said the message on my Dell laptop this morning. Coming on the heels of the death of my Gateway PC, this event is temporarily maddening but instructive in the larger sense. Systems fail. They grow old. They wear out through use, abuse or inattention to maintenance. Systems die. This is true for computers, for people, for countries and for civilizations. Only God and man's folly are eternal. Plato said, "Only the dead have seen the end of war." And war, the ultimate "fatal error" of one side or the other, is the natural result of cumulative individual failures -- political, moral and physical. It is easy, but tedious, to catalogue the failures of our political, social and economic systems today. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear can craft his or her own list so I shall not waste time doing so here. But know this: Our system has experienced one or more fatal errors and must shut down at this time. We have been blessed to have grown up in a time of unprecedented plenty and freedom without -- most of us -- ever having to "endure the fatigues of supporting it." That time is now past. For whatever we intend to preserve of that failed system for our children, our posterity, we must now be prepared to fight. If you are not making those preparations now, you will likely be consumed -- with all that you hold dear -- in the coming system crash. When a computer crashes, you simply discard it and obtain another. When political systems, nations or civilizations fail, they collapse in a welter of blood and carnage, usually ending in mountains of bodies, slavery and a long dark night of tyranny. This is referred to by people today who recognize the existential danger by the short-hand acronym of "TBDO" -- "The Big Die Off." This is not a video game. There are no do-overs. This is as real as it gets. Your system has experienced one or more fatal errors and must shut down at this time. Whether you survive The Big Die Off with anything left that is worth preserving is up to you. ************* MOVING TO MEXICO I'm planning to move my family and extended family into Mexico for my health, and I would like to ask you to assist me. We're planning to simply walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico , and we'll need your help to make a few arrangements. We plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws. I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here. So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Calderon, that I'm on my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting the following: 1. Free medical care for my entire family. 2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not. 3. Please print all Mexican government forms in English. 4. I want my grandkids to be taught Spanish by English-speaking (bi-lingual) teachers. 5. Tell their schools they need to include classes on American culture and history. 6. I want my grandkids to see the American flag on one of the flag poles at their school. 7. Please plan to feed my grandkids at school for both breakfast and lunch. 8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services. 9. I do plan to get a car and drive in Mexico , but, I don't plan to purchase car insurance, and I probably won't make any special effort to learn local traffic laws.. 10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from their president to leave me alone, please be sure that every patrol car has at least one English-speaking officer. 11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put U S. flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals. 12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, or have any labor or tax laws enforced on any business I may start. 13. Please have the president tell all the Mexican people to be extremely nice and never say critical things about me or my family, or about the strain we might place on their economy.. 14. I want to receive free food stamps. 15. Naturally, I'll expect free rent subsidies. 16. I'll need Income tax credits so although I don't pay Mexican Taxes, I'll receive money from the government. 17. Please arrange it so that the Mexican Gov't pays $4,500 to help me buy a new car. 18. Oh yes, I almost forgot, please enroll me free into the Mexican Social Security program so that I'll get a monthly income in retirement. I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all his people who walk over to the U.S. from Mexico . I am sure that President Calderon won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely. Thank you so much for your kind help. You Da man!!! ************* Are we fighting a war on terror? Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan , across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania ? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they? And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was 'desecrated' when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet?...Well, I don't. I don't care at all. I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11. I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about theHoly Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia. I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for chopping off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat. I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents' in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques. I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide. I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution'sBill of Rights. In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care. When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college-hazing incident, rest assured: I don't care. When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank: I don't care. When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed 'special' food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts: I don't care. And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled 'Koran' and other times 'Quran.' Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and-you guessed it- I don't care!! If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to all your E-mail friends. Sooner or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous behavior! If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should you choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great Country! And may I add: "Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem" - Ronald Reagan. "If we ever forget that we're One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under". Also by Ronald Reagan One last thought for the day: In case we find ourselves starting to believe all the Anti-American sentiment and negativity, we should remember England 's Prime Minister Tony Blair's words during a recent interview. When asked by one of his Parliament members why he believes so much in America , he said: "A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in.. And how many want out." Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you: 1. Jesus Christ. 2. The American G. I. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom. *************
The Debt Spiral In November the United States reached an historic milestone. The national debt hit $12 trillion for the first time ever. This was made more shocking by the fact that this milestone came so quickly on the heels of the last. It was, after all, just eight months ago that we saw the debt top $11 trillion. Much of this debt is the result of spending policies that I strongly and consistently opposed from their inception. It started last year with the Bush administration’s misguided $700 billion bailout plan and continued this year with the Obama administration’s failed $800 billion stimulus package. Add to these fiscal mistakes a catch-all spending bill that increased non-defense spending by ten percent this year and you have a recipe for a debt disaster. The bailouts, the stimulus, the out-of-touch increases in government spending are all squandering money we don’t have, much of it borrowed from foreign lenders like the Chinese government. In fact, this year we racked up debt three times faster than ever before. Next year taxpayers will shell out approximately $394 billion just to pay the interest on this debt—that’s more than $1 billion a day. By way of comparison, the IRS collects about $900 billion in personal income taxes in a year. This means that close to half of federal income taxes simply disappear into thin air to help maintain Uncle Sam’s credit rating—and it is going to get worse. The Obama administration estimates that the national debt will balloon another $4 trillion over the next five years. It’s easy to become numb to these astronomical figures. Who has ever seen a trillion dollars, after all? But there is a stark reality to Washington’s overspending. Some day the bill is coming due. Maybe today’s taxpayers will dodge the debt repayment bullet—although that’s doubtful. Eventually, though, we will have to face our debt problems head-on. You could think of our national debt like one of those notorious adjustable rate mortgages we’ve heard so much about during the mortgage meltdown. Much of the national debt is financed with short term borrowing: sometimes a month, a year or a decade. Today, thanks to super low interest rates, the government’s borrowing enjoys rates that average about one percent. Of course there’s a catch. While it may cost one percent on average to service the national debt this year, the only thing standing between that one percent and interest rates many times higher is a full recovery of the credit markets or the economy. Once interest rates return to their historic averages taxpayers will be faced with crushing interest payments. Any new debt (of which there is projected to be plenty) and all short-term debt coming due will be paying a much higher interest rate. This reality is years, not decades, away. Once interest rates start ticking higher we’ll have a debt time bomb on our hands. Suddenly the $394 billion in interest will look like a “good deal”. And this time around there won’t be any subprime lenders or Wall Street bankers to point fingers at either. The blame for the runaway debt and the coming tidal wave of interest payments will be laid squarely at Washington’s profligate feet. What about Joe taxpayer? It turns out that today’s accumulation of debt is tomorrow’s tax increase. Few people talk about it, but more debt and higher interest rates—which are both inevitable—invariably lead to higher taxes. So the huge deficits we are expected to see for the indefinite future represent future tax increases. That’s why I believe that as 2009 comes to a close the best present Washington can give to America is to pledge to stop the reckless and unprecedented spending that has characterized the last year or so. The pork-barrel stimulus, outrageous bailouts and unfathomable budget increases all represent new debt and future tax increases. We’ve got to kick the habit of deficit spending. If not, our prosperity will be crippled by a wave of debt payments that weighs on paychecks and pocketbooks, while smothering opportunity for the next generation of workers and taxpayers. *************
The "Moderate" MYTH The single thing that probably instigated this pondering session is the recent debacle in the special election for the the New York 23 district seat for US House of Representatives. Between the two major Party candidates in the race we had a liberal Republican (Scozzafava) set against a liberal Democrat. To the media this amounted to a race between a 'moderate' Republican and a Democrat. When the fervor over the "Republican" candidate's complete lack of conservative credentials ultimately forced her out of the race she endorsed her Democrat opponent over the third party conservative candidate. Did anyone notice that the moderate Republican was closer to a liberal than they were to a conservative? (insert cricket sounds here) Arlen Specter, the liberal former-Republican senator from Pennsylvania was described as a moderate Republican by the media for years. When Specter announced his defection from the Republican Party to run in the future as a Democrat, it was treated as the most natural 'progression' by the media. Apparently, to the media, a fully evolved Republican is just a Democrat; they start as a tad-pole in the paleocon pool and ultimately achieve 'Obama'. It isn't difficult to understand why the media likes this idea of calling the liberal fifth column in the Republican Party "moderates", but what is the deal with Michael Steele and the RNC? The conservative message of the Republican Party has been marginalized by infiltrators and the Party leadership keeps talking about big tents. Why does the GOP tent have to be large enough to hold all of the the ideological opponents of conservatism while the flaps are simultaneously held tightly closed against the admittance of a single one of the founding fathers of our great nation? There are many that look back to the founding fathers and the founding principles of the United States and hold both in great esteem. How is it that we, as a society, can look back and revere a group of men that could never be described as moderates and still buy the lie that the moderate path is the path of reason? The men that founded our nation would find themselves on the fringe of our national political landscape today. It is hard to imagine that they would be able to recognize the nation they left us. How is it that a very large number of modern Americans swell with the pride of patriotism when confronted with the example of our founding heroes and yet strive constantly against those foundational ideals in the voting booth? We are at a unique point in our history as Americans; a point at which we will decide who we are as a people. Will we embrace the foundational principles of the founding fathers, or will we betray those ideals? I honestly don't know when the last time would have been that deep introspection into our national psyche would have revealed that we were the nation envisioned at the founding; perhaps only in that instant after the founding itself as events were set adrift on the currents of time. Even so, most of us recognize that the seed of something amazing was planted in the foundational soils of America. The fruit of that seed is now ripe and this is the generation that will decide to harvest the potential of that fruit or turn away and let it rot on the vine. The founding fathers warned us repeatedly not to allow the federal government too free a reign over our lives. George Washington said it very well when he said; “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” It may seem a harsh sentiment, but moderates in America today stand directly opposed to the foundational principles that were promoted by George Washington. Even though they may claim an affection for the founders, moderates have arrayed themselves against Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and the others. Moderates have rejected the foundational principles of America for a repackaged progressivism in the name of reasonableness. We have lived with the term for so long that we have grown immune to the fact that 'moderate' is just an Orwellian term for the harbingers of the tyranny that the founders warned us about. *************
America On A Path To Be An "Unrecognizable" Country The same government leaders that got us into the mortgage business and the car business are now getting us into the health care business. Despite Americans’ decisive message last Tuesday that they reject the troubling path this country has been taking, Speaker Pelosi has broken her own promises of transparency to ram a health "care" bill through the House of Representatives just before midnight. Why did she push the 2,000 page bill this weekend? Was she perhaps afraid to give her peers and the constituents for whom she works the chance to actually read this monstrous bill carefully, if at all? Was she concerned that Americans might really digest the details of a bill that the Wall Street Journal has called "the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced"? This out-of-control bureaucratic mess will be disastrous for our economy, our small businesses, and our personal liberty. It will slam businesses at a time when we are at double-digit unemployment rates - the highest we’ve seen in a quarter of a century. This massive new bureaucracy will cost us and our children money we don’t have. It will rob Americans of more of our freedom and further hamper the free market. Make no mistake: we’re on course to have government commandeer one-sixth of our economy. The people who gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now want to run our health care. Think about that. All of us who value the sanctity of life are grateful for the success of the pro-life majority in the House this evening in its battle against federal funding of abortion in this bill, but it’s ironic because we were promised that abortion wasn’t covered in the bill to begin with. Our healthy distrust of these government leaders made us look deeper into the bill because unfortunately we knew better than to trust what they were saying. The victory tonight to amend the bill and eliminate that federal funding for abortion was great - because abortion is not health care. Now we can only hope that Rep. Stupak’s amendment will hold in the final bill, though the Democratic leadership has already refused to promise that it won’t be scrapped later. We had been told there were no "death panels" in the bill either. But look closely at the provision mandating bureaucratic panels that will be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care. Look closely at provisions addressing illegal aliens’ health care coverage too. Those of us who love freedom and believe in open and transparent government can only be dismayed by midnight action on a Saturday. Speaker Pelosi’s promise that Americans would have 72 hours to read the final bill before the vote was just another one of the D.C. establishment’s too-common political ploys. It’s broken promises like this that turn people off to politics and leave them disillusioned about the future of their country. But despite this late-night maneuvering, many of us were paying close attention tonight. We’ll keep paying close attention. We need to let our legislators in Washington know that they still represent us, and that the majority of Americans are not in favor of the "reform" they are pushing. After all, this is still a country "of the people, by the people, and for the people." We will make our voices heard. It’s on to the Senate now. Our legislators can listen now, or they can hear us in 2010. It’s their choice. *************
“The greatest source of our security”
But this idea that our country is a nation of laws, to be followed by everyone and impartially enforced, was not a trifling thought to the Founders. In 1794, Founding Father Alexander Hamilton said that “If it be asked, ‘What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic?’ The answer would be, ‘An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws - the first growing out of the last’”. In other words, without a strong tradition of respect for the laws of the land, the security of our nation and the liberty we cherish becomes severely compromised. What does this mean for the people of the United States today? One issue that touches on our tradition of the rule of law is illegal immigration. The topic of illegal immigration recently surfaced during congressional committee debate over health care reform. At issue was whether the law would prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining taxpayer-funded benefits. The bills' authors said it would not. But Republicans on the committees raised concerns that illegal immigrants would be able to easily evade the bills' restrictions. They offered amendments to rigorously enforce restrictions on illegal immigrants receiving taxpayer-funded benefits. It seemed like common sense that a law banning benefits from flowing to illegal immigrants was only as good as the steps the law took to verify the identity of those receiving benefits. Unlike much of the bill, the amendment was simple and easy to understand. It required people to verify their legal status with their name, Social Security Number, and date of birth. By requiring benefit recipients to show a government issued photo ID, the amendment ensured that everyone who receives benefits is in fact a citizen. Unfortunately, the amendment was rejected on party line vote in the committee. Many stores require shoppers using a credit card or writing a check to show ID. You can’t get on a plane without going through checkpoints and ID checks. But apparently verifying someone’s identity is too much to ask of government-run health care with a $1 trillion price tag. And the impact of illegal immigration on healthcare reform is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s also the decennial census count. If nothing changes, next year the Census Bureau will count every illegal immigrant in America and this data will be used to distribute House seats between the states. The result is that some states will lose seats to a small group of states with huge populations of illegal immigrants. For example, California, with a population of illegal immigrants that is estimated to be in the millions, tops the charts. This is fundamentally unfair to the vast majority of law-abiding citizens and legal immigrants living in America. So I’ve introduced a bill called the Fairness in Representation Act (H.R. 3797) that directs the Census Bureau to identify the number of illegal immigrants in each state. By numbering the illegal immigrants in each state we will have the information necessary to distribute House seats in the fairest manner. Currently, the distribution of House seats among the states does not distinguish between legal residents and illegal immigrants. As a result some districts with high illegal immigrant populations have half the number of registered voters that a typical district has. After all, illegal immigrants can’t vote, but they are counted for purposes of distributing and drawing districts. Thus, the votes of the citizens of those districts effectively count for twice as much as the votes of citizens in average-size districts. But under my bill the Census is instructed to gather data on illegal immigrant populations so that we can fix this representational problem. These examples from the healthcare debate and the upcoming Census are two simple ways that we can work to preserve the tradition of the rule of law in America. Even though the widespread practice of illegal immigration poses a threat to this tradition and to our national security, it is not a lost battle. Common sense steps just like these illustrate that we can reign in the flouting of our immigration laws. U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx represents the Fifth Congressional District of North Carolina. She currently serves on the House Rules Committee. You may contact her office toll free at 1-866-677-8968 or e-mail her from her website, www.foxx.house.gov. *************
YOU MIGHT BE A CONSTITUTIONALIST IF...
I originally published this column back in January of 2005. Since then (and especially lately), many people have called and written with requests to republish it. So, with a few minor revisions, here it is.
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Drill Given that we’re spending billions of stimulus dollars to rebuild our highways, it makes sense to think about what we’ll be driving on them. For years to come, most of what we drive will be powered, at least in part, by diesel fuel or gasoline. To fuel that driving, we need access to oil. The less use we make of our own reserves, the more we will have to import, which leads to a number of harmful consequences. That means we need to drill here and drill now. We rely on petroleum for much more than just powering our vehicles: It is essential in everything from jet fuel to petrochemicals, plastics to fertilizers, pesticides to pharmaceuticals. According to the Energy Information Administration, our total domestic petroleum consumption last year was 19.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Motor gasoline and diesel fuel accounted for less than 13 million bpd of that. Meanwhile, we produced only 4.95 million bpd of domestic crude. In other words, even if we ran all our vehicles on something else (which won’t happen anytime soon), we would still have to depend on imported oil. And we’ll continue that dependence until we develop our own oil resources to their fullest extent. Those who oppose domestic drilling are motivated primarily by environmental considerations, but many of the countries we’re forced to import from have few if any environmental-protection laws, and those that do exist often go unenforced. In effect, American environmentalists are preventing responsible development here at home while supporting irresponsible development overseas. My home state of Alaska shows how it’s possible to be both pro-environment and pro-resource-development. Alaskans would never support anything that endangered our pristine air, clean water, and abundant wildlife (which, among other things, provides many of us with our livelihood). The state’s government has made safeguarding resources a priority; when I was governor, for instance, we created a petroleum-systems-integrity office to monitor our oil and gas infrastructure for any potential environmental risks. Alaska also shows how oil drilling is thoroughly compatible with energy conservation and renewable-energy development. Over 20 percent of Alaska’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources, and as governor I put forward a long-term plan to increase that figure to 50 percent by 2025. Alaska’s comprehensive plan identifies renewable options across the state that can help rural villages transition away from expensive diesel-generated electricity — allowing each community to choose the solution that best fits its needs. That’s important in any energy plan: Tempting as they may be to central planners, top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions are recipes for failure. For the same reason, the federal government shouldn’t push a single, universal approach to alternative-powered vehicles. Electric cars might work in Los Angeles, but they don’t work in Alaska, where you can drive hundreds of miles without seeing many people, let alone many electrical sockets. And while electric and hybrid cars have their advantages, producing the electricity to power them still requires an energy source. For the sake of the environment, that energy should be generated from the cleanest source available. Natural gas is one promising clean alternative. It contains fewer pollutants than other fossil fuels, it’s easier to collect and process, and it is found throughout our country. In Alaska, we’re developing the largest private-sector energy project in history — a 3,000-mile, $40 billion pipeline to transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to markets across the United States. Onshore and offshore natural gas from Alaska and the Lower 48 can satisfy a large part of our energy needs for decades, bringing us closer to energy independence. Whether we use it to power natural-gas cars or to run natural-gas power plants that charge electric cars — or ideally for both — natural gas can act as a clean “bridge fuel” to a future when more renewable sources are available. In addition to drilling, we need to build new refineries. America currently has roughly 150 refineries, down from over 300 in the 1970s. Due mainly to environmental regulations, we haven’t built a major new refinery since 1976, though our oil consumption has increased significantly since then. That’s no way to secure our energy supply. The post-Katrina jump in gas prices proved that we can’t leave ourselves at the mercy of a hurricane that knocks a few refineries out of commission. Building an energy-independent America will mean a real economic stimulus. It will mean American jobs that can never be shipped overseas. Think about how much of our trade deficit is fueled by the oil we import — sometimes as much as half of the total. Through this massive transfer of wealth, we lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year that could be invested in our economy. Instead it goes to foreign countries, including some repressive regimes that use it to fund activities that threaten our security. Reliance on foreign sources of energy weakens America. When a riot breaks out in an OPEC nation, or a developing country talks about nationalizing its oil industry, or a petro-dictator threatens to cut off exports, the probability is great that the price of oil will shoot up. Even in friendly nations, business and financial decisions made for local reasons can destabilize America’s energy market, since the price we pay for foreign oil is subject to rising and falling exchange rates. Decreasing our dependence on foreign sources of energy will reduce the impact of world events on our economy. In the end, energy independence is not just about the environment or the economy. It’s about freedom and confidence. It’s about building a more secure and peaceful America, an America in which our energy needs will not be subject to the whims of nature, currency speculators, or madmen in possession of vast oil reserves. Alternative sources of energy are part of the answer, but only part. There’s no getting around the fact that we still need to "drill, baby, drill!" And if those in D.C. say otherwise, we need to tell them: "Yes, we can!" *************
ACORN Shuts Its Doors The sleeping giant has been awakened, and the once silent majority of Americans who are largely conservative, do not take kindly to the leftist attempt to hijack our nation, and turn it into something it was never intended to be. Liberty is fighting back, and the rise of tyranny is being beat down by a bunch of grass roots, tea party-goin’, Town Hall-shaking Americans. You, the American People, have spoken, and the truth is scaring the hell out of the Left. Obama has preached from day one how he is a community organizer. Saul Alinsky was a community organizer, too. Obama, it seems, was a student of Alinsky’s. Barry’s playbook looks like an adaption of "Rules For Radicals," Alinsky’s Marxist Manual on how to take over America. Saul Alinsky fittingly hailed out of Chicago, and has been called by Arianna Huffington the "great community organizer." As a community organizer, the organization Obama felt his closest ties to, practically proclaiming an allegiance to, was highly involved in the election of Obama (mostly through fraudulent means), and has received millions in federal money (a.k.a. YOUR money, fellow taxpayer), is an organization called the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), fittingly headquartered in New Orleans. And now, as the truth about ACORN is exposed to the point that even the leftist media has to take notice, ACORN has ceased its operations. Amidst ACORN’s attempts at providing legal counsel to a "prostitution ring," ACORN has decided to suspend its operations due to "indefensible" behavior by employees at chapters around the United States. The indefensible behavior of voter fraud wasn’t enough, but when Pimps and Hoes start making their rounds, that was enough to shut them down. Under investigation in many states, ACORN sees this as a temporary setback. They are performing their own in-house investigations as well (led by Obama lacky Podesta), claiming that the illegal activity is only the result of the actions of a "handful of employees." Inappropriate behavior couldn’t possibly be the order of the day for ACORN - as long as they can’t see the forest through the trees. ACORN began receiving millions of dollars, granted by the U.S. Senate, in 1989. Recently, those funds have been cut off. The U.S. Census Bureau, now totally under White House control, also severed its ties with ACORN. Hmmm, now that the White House has lost all of those bodies to do the job of taking the census, and asking more questions than constitutionally allowed, maybe Obama will have to finish compiling his National Civilian Army to do the task. You know, that grouping of young people encouraged to voluntarily serve a mandatory sentence of servitude to Obama (and his leftist gang of idiots) through national service? Also, like most of Obama’s supporting cast, ACORN was also having problems with paying back taxes. Imagine that. Remember, the Democrats demand that the wealthy pay more taxes, even though they aren’t willing to pay taxes themselves. Just because ACORN has suspended activities, it doesn’t mean they are dead yet. The liberal allies from special interests deeply invested in the Democratic Party that are currently conducting an investigation (Podesta, SEIU, etc.) will surely clear ACORN of their criminal activities, and get them on their feet again to serve Obama in no time - Unless we stay vigilant, and continue to expose these lying crooks for what they really are... and why stop with ACORN? The SEIU should be in our cross-hairs too, and eventually, the Democratic Party itself. The party of the wayward donkey is full of corruption, and things are beginning to unravel for the Democrats. As they get nervous, they are beginning to show their hand of jokers. It is simply up to us to reveal the sickening truth about what kind of massive corruption the Left is really all about. United We Stand, Combined We Kick Butt! ************* Further Proof of the Need for Energy Independence All of this is a result of our out-of-control debt. This is why we need to rein in spending, and this is also why we need energy independence. A weakened dollar means higher commodity prices. This will make it more difficult to pay our bills – including the bill to import oil. In his book Architects of Ruin, Peter Schweizer points out that the Obama administration is focusing primarily on "green energy", while ignoring our need to develop our domestic conventional energy resources.[5] We’re ignoring the looming crisis caused by our dependence on foreign oil. Because we’re dependent on foreign nations for our oil, we’re also at their mercy if they decide to dump the dollar as their trade currency. We can’t allow ourselves to be so vulnerable to the whims of foreign nations. That’s why we must develop our own domestic supplies of oil and gas. Though the chant of “Drill, baby, drill” was much derided, it expressed the need to confront this issue head-on before it reaches a crisis point. Bottom line: let’s stop digging ourselves into debt and start drilling for energy independence. - Sarah Palin [1] See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html [2] See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125484066563367821.html [3]Seehttp://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.e272eaa74dccc30f21c6ff7638b0f37b.461&show_article=1 [4] See http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091006/ts_afp/commoditiesgoldmetalsprice_20091006144514 [5] See http://www.peterschweizer.com/ ************* Response to the President's Health Care Speech Many Americans fundamentally disagree with this idea. We know from long experience that the creation of a massive new bureaucracy will not provide us with “more stability and security,” but just the opposite. It's hard to believe the President when he says that this time he and his team of bureaucrats have finally figured out how to do things right if only we’ll take them at their word. Our objections to the Democrats’ health care proposals are not mere “bickering” or “games.” They are not an attempt to “score short term political points.” And it’s hard to listen to the President lecture us not to use “scare tactics” when in the next breath he says that “more will die” if his proposals do not pass. In his speech the President directly responded to concerns I’ve raised about unelected bureaucrats being given power to make decisions affecting life or death health care matters. He called these concerns “bogus,” “irresponsible,” and “a lie” -- so much for civility. After all the name-calling, though, what he did not do is respond to the arguments we’ve made, arguments even some of his own supporters have agreed have merit. In fact, after promising to “make sure that no government bureaucrat .... gets between you and the health care you need,” the President repeated his call for an Independent Medicare Advisory Council -- an unelected, largely unaccountable group of bureaucrats charged with containing Medicare costs. He did not disavow his own statement that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost ... the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives....” He did not disavow the statements of his health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, and continuing to pay his salary with taxpayer dollars proves a commitment to his beliefs. The President can keep making unsupported assertions, but until he directly responds to the arguments I’ve made, I’m going to call him out too. It was heartening to hear the President finally recognize that tort reform is an important part of any solution. But this concession shouldn’t lead us to take our eye off the ball: the Democrats’ proposals will not reduce costs, and they will not deliver better health care. It’s this kind of “healthy skepticism of government” that truly reflects a “concern and regard for the plight of others.” We can’t wait to hear the details on that; we look forward to working with you on tort reform. Finally, President Obama delivered an offhand applause line tonight about the cost of the War on Terror. As we approach the anniversary of the September 11th attacks and honor those who died that day and those who have died since in the War on Terror, in order to secure our freedoms, we need to remember their sacrifices and not demonize them as having had too high a price tag. Remember, Mr. President, elected officials work for the people. Forcing a conclusion in order to claim a “victory” is not healthy for our country. We hear you say government isn’t always the answer; now hear us -- that’s what we’ve been saying all along. ************* BARACK OBAMA AND HIS ALLIES
ARE TRYING TO CHANGE THE U.S. CONSTITUTION:
What would you think if an amendment to the U.S. Constitution was introduced by liberal Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, which repealed the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights -- taking away our right to Free Speech? What would you think if an amendment to the U.S. Constitution was introduced by liberal Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, which repealed the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights -- taking away our right to Keep and Bear Arms? (A right that the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld!) "That could never happen," you say. "No one would allow it!" Right? Well... Did you know that there are TWO ways that our Constitution can be changed? And did you know that Pelosi, Reid and Barack Obama are using the less well-known way, without having to actually introduce amendments? IT'S TRUE -- and WE have to stop it NOW! One way to change the Constitution is to go through the amendment process -- a long and tedious process requiring two-thirds of both houses of Congress to pass an amendment, and then three-fourths of the states to ratify it. That means a "super-majority" of our representatives at the National and State levels would have to be in favor of the amendment -- which safeguards us from the possibility of really "bad" amendments. BUT... there is one other way that our Constitution can be changed... and it DOES NOT require all of those elected representatives to be in favor of it. It's called a Constitutional Convention, and all that it requires is 34 states to ask Congress to call one. In fact, right now, all that is needed is for two more states to ask for a Constitutional Convention... and the basic law of the land could be changed forever by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid! Most people don't realize that Article V of the Constitution requires Congress to call a new Constitutional Convention (a "Con Con") if two-thirds (or 34) of the states request it. We've only had one other "Con Con" in our history: the one where the original Constitution was written in 1787! The language of Article V is mandatory: it says that Congress "shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments" whenever requests are received from two-thirds of the states. Note that the word "amendments" is used in the plural. These are the only instructions we have about a Constitutional Convention. There are no other rules or guidelines. We don't know how a Constitutional Convention would be apportioned, or how the delegates would be elected. We don't know what rules the Convention would operate under. We don't know whether changes to the Constitution could be proposed by a simple majority, or would require a super majority, of those attending. We don't know if the agenda could be limited or would be wide open to any proposal. We don't know ANYTHING about how a Con Con would work -- which means that it will come down to Congress setting the rules! And Congress is controlled by the most radically liberal Democrats in American history! Is that who we want to be in charge of a new Constitutional Convention? Do we want BARACK OBAMA, NANCY PELOSI, and HARRY REID to completely rewrite our most basic document of law? The fact is, under the vague language of Article V, a Constitutional Convention cannot be limited. It would be wide open, and able to consider ANY change in the Constitution that was proposed! Former U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger once said, "There is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda." The Stanford Law School Professor whose case-book is used in the majority of U.S. law schools, Gerald Gunther, said that, even if Congress tried to limit the Convention to one subject, the delegates could decide for themselves that the Convention "is entitled to set its own agenda." This means that, even if supporters of a "Con Con" claim that the convention would only cover one issue -- whether it's a balanced budget amendment or removing the requirement that to be eligible to serve as President, one must be a "natural born citizen," or anything else -- there is NO WAY to stop the Convention from changing EVERYTHING that we hold dear in America! Barack Obama and his far-left supporters would be able to get THEIR people appointed as delegates to the Convention, so that THEIR agendas would be the Convention's agenda, and THEIR plans for socialism in America would come to pass. Say BYE-BYE to the First Amendment's freedom of speech -- Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity could be taken off the air. Say BYE-BYE to the Second Amendment's right to bear arms -- a total gun ban could be the law of the land! Say BYE-BYE to the Constitution's requirement that to serve as President a man or a woman must be a "natural born citizen"! You KNOW that's what they'll do if given the chance -- and we're only TWO STATES AWAY from seeing a Constitutional Convention convened! You see, Article V says that it takes a request from two-thirds of the states to force a "Con Con" -- but it doesn't say there's any time limit on getting to that total! Thirty-two states have already issued a call for a "Con Con" over the last few decades, including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming. It only takes 34 states to REQUIRE a Constitutional Convention be convened! Some states, like Georgia, Virginia, and others, have since voted to "rescind" their call for a "Con Con" -- BUT no one is sure whether those "rescission" votes are actually Constitutional...so the danger is REAL! The United States Justice Foundation is launching a major campaign to STOP a "Con Con" from taking place -- WE MUST CREATE a tremendous outpouring of publicity and public scrutiny to be given to this danger, so that Barack Obama and his radical liberal allies can't "sneak this past us" without anyone noticing, until it's too late. Right now, our staff is conducting legal and historical research, and preparing legal opinions, to submit to every state legislature, if necessary, and we'll be offering to represent any state, or state legislator, in fighting the Con-Con based on those documents. We're also going to be leading a grassroots effort to attack this issue at both the state and federal levels: At the state level, leading the charge in every state to either NOT VOTE for a "Con Con" (if they haven't voted yet) or to RESCIND their past vote in favor (if they have). And, at the federal level, we'll be mobilizing citizens across the country to contact their Representatives and Senators to DEMAND that they come out, NOW, and announce their support for a state's right to rescind, and that they won't support a call for a "Con-Con." In addition, we'll be calling on the Attorney General of the United States, and the Attorney General of each and every State that has passed a "Con-Con" resolution, to issue an official Opinion on the legality of rescission. THIS DANGER IS REAL. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was called for the exclusive purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation. Once the Founding Fathers assembled in Philadelphia, however, they threw out the Articles of Confederation and wrote an entirely new Constitution, and even changed the ratification procedure so they could get it adopted more easily. The 1787 Convention is the only precedent we have for a national Constitutional Convention. There's no guarantee that all of the changes to our Constitution passed at a Constitutional Convention would need to be ratified by 34 states this time -- if a "Con Con" can change our structure of government as defined in Articles I, II, and III, of the Constitution, then it can also change the Article V requirement that three-fourths of the states are needed to ratify any changes. The Convention of 1787 reduced the number of states required to ratify a change from 100% of the states to 75%, and a Convention today could "follow their example" and reduce it further, to 66%, or 60%, or even 51%! WE MUST NOT LET THIS HAPPEN! P.S. President Barack Obama has already expressed his belief that the U.S. Constitution needs to be interpreted in the context of current affairs and events. Can you imagine what he and his supporters would DO to that document if given the chance to re-write it completely? Our Bill of Rights could disappear overnight! In fact, all the way back in 2006, Obama already had his lawyers researching how someone could get around the eligibility requirements to serve as U.S. President -- these people simply don't CARE about whether we preserve the supreme law of the land! Remember -- when the last Constitutional Convention met in 1787, the original goal was to amend the Articles of Confederation. Instead, delegates simply threw them out and wrote a whole new Constitution. That's EXACTLY what Obama, Pelosi and Reid would do this time -- but this time, the result would destroy our freedoms Fire up the emails, phone lines, and faxes. Contact your congress critter. STOP THE MADNESS! ************* Constitution in Peril So who are the enemies that now threaten what we have so long defended? Drug lords? Terrorists? Hungry hordes of foreigners? Economic or ecological collapse? Nuclear proliferation? Space aliens? No, some of these things may pose serious challenges, but none of them are as deadly as a cancer of fascism that is grasping for power within the very institutions that we founded to keep us free. We fought World War II against countries that had allowed themselves to be taken over by fascism, and we thought that we had defeated fascism when we won that war. But we didn't. We have comforted ourselves with the delusion that our democratic traditions are too strong to allow such a thing to happen here, that even in the deepest economic crisis we would remain true to the principles on which this country was founded. Could the government of the United States be overthrown by a coup? Nonsense, most people would say. There is no one in sight who might try such a thing, nor any reason why anyone would want to. If they tried, they would fail. No one would follow them. The military, the people, would never stand for it. Maybe. But suppose that almost no one knew it was happening, or recognized it for what it was? Could the Constitution be overthrown a little at a time, over a period of decades, or overthrown in secret, allowing the external trappings of constitutional governance to continue while the real power was exercised behind the scenes by persons no longer accountable to the people? Skeptics will laugh and say that Americans have long entertained themselves with fantastic conspiracy theories, and that when they find evidence that such conspiracies might actually be taking place, they are only reading their vivid imaginings into ordinary events. Maybe not. We have the evidence that for more than 60 years much of the legislation that has been passed, and much of what officials have done, is in substantial violation of the Constitution. Federal and State governments, especially the Federal, have assumed powers that have no foundation whatsoever in any of the provisions of the Constitution. These powers are justified as needed to deal with various kinds of "bad guys", whatever is the flavor of the month, but they are increasingly being used to deprive good guys of their rights. We see even the most beneficial of programs being turned into avenues of corruption and abuse. Officials continually test the tolerance of the public, trying to see how much they can get away with. It is not just a few rogue governmental of corporate officials, overcome by greed or zeal, who pose an occasional threat. The culture of entire institutions is becoming criminal in both execution and intent. Is this a conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution, or mere "emergent behavior" that, while it may pose a threat, is not conscious or deliberate? Emergent though it may be, it can no longer be said to be unconscious of its true role, and it is too tightly coordinated not to bear the name of Conspiracy. A few decades ago, if you asked many of those involved about compliance with the Constitution, most would make excuses, saying that it was only bending the Constitution a little, and that the needs of the moment justified a little flexibility until the crisis was over. But no one would openly say that the Constitution was not the sacred ground on which our system of law and justice was founded. Now you can hear, more and more, an attitude of contempt toward the Constitution by those sworn to defend it. We have more and more reports of officials saying, "F___ the Constitution!", and getting away with it. And we, the people, do let them get away with it. Asked why he didn't argue against a piece of proposed legislation that it would be a violation of the Constitution, a member of Congress once said, "If I insisted on complying with the Constitution, I wouldn't stay in Congress very long." So the provisions of the Constitution become just so many special-interest pleadings, to be ignored or discarded if no pressure is brought to bear to sustain them, to be compromised with the winds of politics change. Thomas Jefferson once suggested that we ought to have a revolution every 20 years, and that the Tree of Liberty needed to be occasionally watered with the blood of patriots. One has to wonder whether the blood of patriots will again have to be shed to get people to take the Constitution seriously again. Constitution Society, 6900 San Pedro #147-230, San Antonio, TX 78216, 210/224-2868 *************
Many states, including my own state of Alaska, have enacted caps on lawsuit awards against health care providers. Texas enacted caps and found that one county’s medical malpractice claims dropped 41 percent, and another study found a 55 percent decline after reform measures were passed. [4] That’s one step in health care reform. Limiting lawyer contingency fees, as is done under the Federal Tort Claims Act, is another step. The State of Alaska pioneered the loser pays rule in the United States, which deters frivolous civil law suits by making the loser partially pay the winner’s legal bills. Preventing quack doctors from giving expert testimony in court against real doctors is another reform. Texas Gov. Rick Perry noted that, after his state enacted tort reform measures, the number of doctors applying to practice medicine in Texas skyrocketed by 57 percent and that the tort reforms brought critical specialties to underserved areas. These are real reforms that actually improve access to health care. [5] Dr. Weinstein’s research shows that around $200 billion per year could be saved with legal reform. That’s real savings. That’s money that could be used to build roads, schools, or hospitals. If you want to save health care, let’s listen to our doctors. There should be no health care reform without legal reform. There can be no true health care reform without legal reform. ************* |
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