September 18, 2010
The Krauthammer-Rove Axis of Disdain, By Lee Cary
Washington Post columnist and FOX News contributor Charles Krauthammer has joined Karl Rove, the consigliere of Establishment Republicans, in a continuing attack on GOP Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell. Some longtime fans of Krauthammer are surely startled and saddened by his sustained assault on O'Donnell since she won the primary race against Mike Castle.
As has Rove, Krauthammer is invoking the "Buckley Rule." It was born in 1967, when William F. Buckley was asked whom he would support, Barry Goldwater or Richard Nixon, in the GOP primary for the 1968 Presidential election. Buckley said he'd vote for the most conservative candidate who was electable. That was Nixon.
In his September 17, 2010 column, Krauthammer essentially declared O'Donnell unelectable -- he said she has a one-in-ten chance to be elected -- and accused Sen. Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin of being "reckless and irresponsible" by endorsing her. Krauthammer also criticized Sharron Angle, running against Harry Reid in Nevada, as a weak candidate, although he has not yet declared her defeated before the votes are counted.
Meanwhile, Washington Post staff writer Amy Gardner titled her article posted after the O'Donnell victory "O'Donnell's victory in Del. highlights tension in tea party groups." She may wish that's the most significant "tension" at play here, but it's not.
The fulcrum of the GOP internal debate is obviously between establishment Republicans and the conservative upstarts -- upstarts in the eyes of the GOP's establishment. And what's at issue is ideological control of the party. The establishment heralds victory as the overriding prize that trumps ideology and principle. It's what all establishments do. It's in their DNA. It's about self-preservation. They can't help it.
The Bush 42 campaign used the term "compassionate conservative" to counter the Democrat-designed image aimed to paint Republicans as insensitive and uncaring toward all but the rich. It helped get Bush elected, but what it meant was never clear. In retrospect, it's now obvious that it was never about ideology; it was all about marketing. No surprise there. It's the nature of campaigns, or at least it was until the hardcore ideologues of the Left took over Congress and the White House. In opposition to the Leftists, conservative principles are not an expendable option. Political expediency works only in battles with other expedient mentalities. Hardcore socialists eat relativist politicians for lunch, as they did in 1933 Germany.
When President George W. Bush said, during the advent of TARP, that, "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system," conservative Republicans all across the country looked at each other and said, "What did he just say?" It was a Gestalt moment for some. "Where did his principles go?" we asked. Then some wondered, "Were they ever there in the first place?"
The recent and ongoing rant of Rove against O'Donnell provides context to understand "compassionate conservative" and Bush's "free market principles" statement. In retrospect, it also frames the domestic political failures of the Bush presidency. According to "Bush's brain," expediency trumps ideology. It's all about winning power.
Now, sadly, Charles Krauthammer has joined Rove in essentially calling the Republican voters of Delaware stupid. The only possible upside of all this is that the comments of both men may throw gasoline on the enthusiasm of O'Donnell supporters and win new ones for her.
We've yet to see how well Mike Castles loses. Several recent GOP establishment losers in primary races have not been good losers. Senator Lisa Murkowski last night announced a write-in effort in Alaska after losing the GOP primary to newcomer Joe Miller. Florida Governor Charlie Crist is running as a third-party candidate after losing the primary to Marco Rubio. Will Mike Castle endorse Christine O'Donnell or support the man that Harry Reid called his "pet" Democrat candidate, Chris Coons? Will Castle "pull a Murkowski" and run as a write-in?
Politicians, columnists, and consultants most closely associated with the GOP establishment are feeling disoriented these days as the levers of control over their party move out of their reach and, more and more, into the hands of rank amateurs, or those they perceive to be amateurs. The old guard is feeling...threatened.
In making his case for the Buckley Rule, Krauthammer said this during the "FOX News All Stars" discussion on September 15:
I think Senator DeMint is wrong when he says "I'd rather have a party that believes in something and not a party that doesn't." Well, the party he is in in the Senate right now -- the forty Senators believe in something, and it's stopping the Obama agenda.
Ironically, the day after Krauthammer spoke, the Senate passed the $30-billion Small Business Jobs Act supported by President Barack Obama by a vote of 61-38. Republican Senators George Voinovich of Ohio and George LeMieux of Florida broke the Republican filibuster and voted for the bill. Up went the deficit. So much for united Republican senators "stopping the Obama agenda."
There's an historical precedent for what's happening. Although some dispute it, tradition says that on October 19, 1781, as eight thousand men under the command of British General Cornwallis at Yorktown marched out to surrender to the Continental Army, the British band played a tune appropriate for the unexpected turn in events that brought defeat to the world's strongest army. The song was entitled "The World Turned Upside Down."
What is more widely accepted about that day is that the British soldiers surrendered with composure and dignity. And the Colonists accepted their surrender in the same style. According to an eyewitness account, among the victors, "You could not have heard a whisper or seen the least motion throughout our whole line, but every countenance was erect, and expressed a serene cheerfulness."
In this battle within the GOP ranks, let's hope that that general demeanor eventually reigns on both sides. So far, though, we're not there yet.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/the_krauthammerrove_axis_of_di.html at September 18, 2010 - 08:29:27 AM CDT
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Showing posts with label Articles Cited. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Articles Cited. Show all posts
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
2011: Major tax shocks coming, by Richard Moore of Lakeland Times
2011: Major tax shocks comingMajor increases will hit most Americans next year
Richard Moore, Investigative Reporter
Friday, September 03, 2010
Guess what could be coming to a paycheck near you?
Some of the largest tax increases in American history, by almost all objective analyses, unless Congress acts.
Federal tax hikes set to take effect in 2011 would hit virtually every working American, regardless of the level of household income.
Because of the protracted health care debate this past year, many citizens missed the words and actions - in some cases, inactions - of the Obama administration and Congress on taxes, so here's a summary of the changes scheduled to take place next year.
That's when most of the so-called Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 are set to expire, and neither the Obama administration nor Democratic congressional leaders have appeared eager to extend them, especially for higher income citizens.
If Congress does nothing, personal income tax rates are going to climb for everyone who pays taxes. The top income rate would increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent (those making more than $379,650), but the percentage jump is even larger for the lowest tax bracket.
The 10-percent tax bracket, for instance, would vanish and those people would move into the 15-percent bracket, a 50-percent jump. That bracket would apply to everyone with incomes below $34,550.
Others bracket moves are more moderate: the 25-percent bracket rises to 28 percent; the 28-percent bracket, to 31; the 33-percent bracket, to 36.
The phase-out of many itemized deductions and of the personal exemption would resume as well, helping to further boost taxes.
And that's not all.
The child tax credit would be reduced from $1,000 per child to $500 per child, while the so-called "marriage penalty" - the difference between what you pay in taxes as a married couple and what you would pay as two single persons making about the same amount - will make a comeback.
The standard deduction would no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The standard deduction for couples would now stand at 167 percent of the standard deduction for singles, rather than at 200 percent.
The dependent care and adoption tax credits would be cut, too - dependent care from $3,000 to $2,400 - while credits to purchase energy-efficient home appliances would end, along with tax credits to hire unemployed veterans and young people.
It doesn't stop there, and don't think death is a sure fire way to escape the tax man, either. Right now, there is no death tax, but next year that grim reaper would return with a 55-percent rate on estates exceeding $1 million in value.
Opponents of the death tax say it would fall especially hard on those who inherit small businesses, because often they have to sell the business to pay the tax.
The end of the Bush tax cuts also means higher tax rates on savings and investments. For example, the capital gains tax would rise from a maximum of 15 percent this year to a maximum of 20 percent. In addition, qualified dividends would journey from a 15-percent rate to the taxpayer's regular bracket rate, or, for many, an increase of 167 percent.
Then, too, the ability of small businesses to expense certain purchases up to $250,000 would be rolled back to purchases not exceeding $25,000. Larger businesses, who are now able to expense half of their purchases of equipment, could no longer do so but would have to depreciate such purchases.
Education? Reading, writing and arithmetic will all add up to higher taxes when you read the fine print and write your check. For instance, the deduction for tuition and fees will be gone, and education tax credits limited. Teachers will be unable to deduct classroom expenses, and hundreds of thousands of households will forego eligibility for the student loan interest deduction.
Charitable contributions from IRAs would no longer be permitted. Right now, a retiree with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 a year to a charity from an IRA.
Not set in stone
None of this is a done deal.
The truth is, there are few people in the dominant Democratic Party who want to see all the tax cuts go away, despite Internet hyperbole to the contrary.
While many Republicans want to extend all the cuts, President Barack Obama has urged lawmakers to keep the tax cuts for lower brackets - keeping the 10, 15 and 25 percent brackets - and to reconfigure the 28-percent bracket to comprise married couples with household incomes of less than $250,000 and single taxpayers with incomes of less than $200,000.
Rates on income higher than that would rise to 36 percent and 39.6 percent from their levels of 33 percent and 35 percent.
There is no predicting whether Congress will side with the president or chart a compromise course, but talk of compromise is getting louder as mid-term elections approach.
Supporters of the tax cuts also got an unexpected boost two weeks ago from the Congressional Budget Office, which issued a report saying extending the cuts would boost the gross domestic product and reduce unemployment.
"In addition, under current law, both the waning of fiscal stimulus and the scheduled increases in taxes will temporarily subtract from growth, especially in 2011," the CBO report stated. " . . . .If, for example, (the tax reductions enacted earlier in the decade were continued, the alternative minimum tax was indexed for inflation, and future annual appropriations remained the share of GDP that they are this year), growth of real GDP in 2011 would be 0.6 to 1.7 percentage points higher than it is in the baseline forecast, and the unemployment rate at the end of 2011 would be 0.3 to 0.8 percentage points lower."
Stay tuned. The stage is set for a September Senate debate over the expiration of the tax cuts.
Other taxes
No matter the outcome on the Bush tax cuts, as the CBO report observed, the Obama administration and Congress must also decide whether to pass legislation to index the aforementioned alternative minimum tax for inflation, which legislators regularly do.
If they do not, millions more are going to be paying the tax, which was enacted in 1969. The levy was intended to give taxable income a broader range with fewer allowable deductions and was meant to affect only higher income taxpayers.
Under the system, taxpayers must figure their taxes the normal way as well as by using the AMT formula and then pay the higher tax. By not indexing the tax to inflation, however, it has caught up to many more Americans as incomes have risen through the years.
In 1970, 155 Americans paid the AMT, Fox News has reported, while CBO numbers indicate it hit 4.5 million citizens in 2009.
For that year Congress excluded most couples earning a combined $70,950 and less and individuals making $46,700 or less from the AMT.
Without a change in the law, it's going to be a lot more, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said on the CBO website.
"About 4.5 million taxpayers were affected by the AMT in 2009," Elmendorf wrote. "That number has been kept relatively small by annual modifications to the AMT rules, but the most recent modifications expired at the end of calendar year 2009. Consequently, about 27 million taxpayers - one out of every six taxpayers - will be affected by the AMT in 2010, paying on average an additional $3,900 in tax."
Nearly every married taxpayer with income between $100,000 and $500,000 will owe some alternative tax, he stated, and the total cost will come to $102.2 billion from those 27 million taxpayers.
"Of those taxpayers, nearly two thirds will make between $50,000 and $100,000 this year," Elmendorf wrote.
Health care.
The Obama administration and Congress injected the new health care law with a syringe full of taxes, too - more than 20 in fact.
There is a tanning tax, already in effect, subject to a 10-percent excise tax when tanning at a salon.
In addition, citizens will no longer be able to use a health savings account, a flexible spending account, or health reimbursement pre-tax dollars to purchase nonprescription, over-the-counter medicines.
And if you take money out of a health savings account early for a nonmedical reason, the additional tax is slated to rise from 10 percent to 20 percent.
Add to that a multi-billion dollar tax on name-brand drugs and many taxpayers might likely soon feel the pain of the new health care law.
Also built into the health care law was a 3.8 percent tax, starting in 2013, on the unearned income of individuals who earn more than $200,000 - for married couples filing jointly, $250,000 - including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents.
The tax will be allocated to the Medicare Trust Fund.
All totaled, according to the CBO, reviewing all of the provisions related to health care and revenues, the legislation is estimated to increase mandatory outlays by $401 billion and raise revenues by $525 billion.
Richard Moore can be reached at rmmoore1@verizon.net.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Content © 2010
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Richard Moore, Investigative Reporter
Friday, September 03, 2010
Guess what could be coming to a paycheck near you?
Some of the largest tax increases in American history, by almost all objective analyses, unless Congress acts.
Federal tax hikes set to take effect in 2011 would hit virtually every working American, regardless of the level of household income.
Because of the protracted health care debate this past year, many citizens missed the words and actions - in some cases, inactions - of the Obama administration and Congress on taxes, so here's a summary of the changes scheduled to take place next year.
That's when most of the so-called Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 are set to expire, and neither the Obama administration nor Democratic congressional leaders have appeared eager to extend them, especially for higher income citizens.
If Congress does nothing, personal income tax rates are going to climb for everyone who pays taxes. The top income rate would increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent (those making more than $379,650), but the percentage jump is even larger for the lowest tax bracket.
The 10-percent tax bracket, for instance, would vanish and those people would move into the 15-percent bracket, a 50-percent jump. That bracket would apply to everyone with incomes below $34,550.
Others bracket moves are more moderate: the 25-percent bracket rises to 28 percent; the 28-percent bracket, to 31; the 33-percent bracket, to 36.
The phase-out of many itemized deductions and of the personal exemption would resume as well, helping to further boost taxes.
And that's not all.
The child tax credit would be reduced from $1,000 per child to $500 per child, while the so-called "marriage penalty" - the difference between what you pay in taxes as a married couple and what you would pay as two single persons making about the same amount - will make a comeback.
The standard deduction would no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The standard deduction for couples would now stand at 167 percent of the standard deduction for singles, rather than at 200 percent.
The dependent care and adoption tax credits would be cut, too - dependent care from $3,000 to $2,400 - while credits to purchase energy-efficient home appliances would end, along with tax credits to hire unemployed veterans and young people.
It doesn't stop there, and don't think death is a sure fire way to escape the tax man, either. Right now, there is no death tax, but next year that grim reaper would return with a 55-percent rate on estates exceeding $1 million in value.
Opponents of the death tax say it would fall especially hard on those who inherit small businesses, because often they have to sell the business to pay the tax.
The end of the Bush tax cuts also means higher tax rates on savings and investments. For example, the capital gains tax would rise from a maximum of 15 percent this year to a maximum of 20 percent. In addition, qualified dividends would journey from a 15-percent rate to the taxpayer's regular bracket rate, or, for many, an increase of 167 percent.
Then, too, the ability of small businesses to expense certain purchases up to $250,000 would be rolled back to purchases not exceeding $25,000. Larger businesses, who are now able to expense half of their purchases of equipment, could no longer do so but would have to depreciate such purchases.
Education? Reading, writing and arithmetic will all add up to higher taxes when you read the fine print and write your check. For instance, the deduction for tuition and fees will be gone, and education tax credits limited. Teachers will be unable to deduct classroom expenses, and hundreds of thousands of households will forego eligibility for the student loan interest deduction.
Charitable contributions from IRAs would no longer be permitted. Right now, a retiree with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 a year to a charity from an IRA.
Not set in stone
None of this is a done deal.
The truth is, there are few people in the dominant Democratic Party who want to see all the tax cuts go away, despite Internet hyperbole to the contrary.
While many Republicans want to extend all the cuts, President Barack Obama has urged lawmakers to keep the tax cuts for lower brackets - keeping the 10, 15 and 25 percent brackets - and to reconfigure the 28-percent bracket to comprise married couples with household incomes of less than $250,000 and single taxpayers with incomes of less than $200,000.
Rates on income higher than that would rise to 36 percent and 39.6 percent from their levels of 33 percent and 35 percent.
There is no predicting whether Congress will side with the president or chart a compromise course, but talk of compromise is getting louder as mid-term elections approach.
Supporters of the tax cuts also got an unexpected boost two weeks ago from the Congressional Budget Office, which issued a report saying extending the cuts would boost the gross domestic product and reduce unemployment.
"In addition, under current law, both the waning of fiscal stimulus and the scheduled increases in taxes will temporarily subtract from growth, especially in 2011," the CBO report stated. " . . . .If, for example, (the tax reductions enacted earlier in the decade were continued, the alternative minimum tax was indexed for inflation, and future annual appropriations remained the share of GDP that they are this year), growth of real GDP in 2011 would be 0.6 to 1.7 percentage points higher than it is in the baseline forecast, and the unemployment rate at the end of 2011 would be 0.3 to 0.8 percentage points lower."
Stay tuned. The stage is set for a September Senate debate over the expiration of the tax cuts.
Other taxes
No matter the outcome on the Bush tax cuts, as the CBO report observed, the Obama administration and Congress must also decide whether to pass legislation to index the aforementioned alternative minimum tax for inflation, which legislators regularly do.
If they do not, millions more are going to be paying the tax, which was enacted in 1969. The levy was intended to give taxable income a broader range with fewer allowable deductions and was meant to affect only higher income taxpayers.
Under the system, taxpayers must figure their taxes the normal way as well as by using the AMT formula and then pay the higher tax. By not indexing the tax to inflation, however, it has caught up to many more Americans as incomes have risen through the years.
In 1970, 155 Americans paid the AMT, Fox News has reported, while CBO numbers indicate it hit 4.5 million citizens in 2009.
For that year Congress excluded most couples earning a combined $70,950 and less and individuals making $46,700 or less from the AMT.
Without a change in the law, it's going to be a lot more, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said on the CBO website.
"About 4.5 million taxpayers were affected by the AMT in 2009," Elmendorf wrote. "That number has been kept relatively small by annual modifications to the AMT rules, but the most recent modifications expired at the end of calendar year 2009. Consequently, about 27 million taxpayers - one out of every six taxpayers - will be affected by the AMT in 2010, paying on average an additional $3,900 in tax."
Nearly every married taxpayer with income between $100,000 and $500,000 will owe some alternative tax, he stated, and the total cost will come to $102.2 billion from those 27 million taxpayers.
"Of those taxpayers, nearly two thirds will make between $50,000 and $100,000 this year," Elmendorf wrote.
Health care.
The Obama administration and Congress injected the new health care law with a syringe full of taxes, too - more than 20 in fact.
There is a tanning tax, already in effect, subject to a 10-percent excise tax when tanning at a salon.
In addition, citizens will no longer be able to use a health savings account, a flexible spending account, or health reimbursement pre-tax dollars to purchase nonprescription, over-the-counter medicines.
And if you take money out of a health savings account early for a nonmedical reason, the additional tax is slated to rise from 10 percent to 20 percent.
Add to that a multi-billion dollar tax on name-brand drugs and many taxpayers might likely soon feel the pain of the new health care law.
Also built into the health care law was a 3.8 percent tax, starting in 2013, on the unearned income of individuals who earn more than $200,000 - for married couples filing jointly, $250,000 - including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents.
The tax will be allocated to the Medicare Trust Fund.
All totaled, according to the CBO, reviewing all of the provisions related to health care and revenues, the legislation is estimated to increase mandatory outlays by $401 billion and raise revenues by $525 billion.
Richard Moore can be reached at rmmoore1@verizon.net.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Content © 2010
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Obamacare Is Here to Stay, by Chris Rowan
Mark Levin says "This is the problem with non-conservative Republicans." We agree! PLEASE take time now before our Wisconsin Primary Election September 14 to be sure we send the BEST Republicans forward to the General Election in November.
Obamacare Is Here to Stay
Posted By Chris Rowan On September 4, 2010 @ 6:00 pm In Big Government,Democratic Party / Democrats,Email,Feature,Health Care and Socialized Medicine,Politics 7 Comments
Hugh Hewitt interviewed House minority leader John Boehner a few days ago, and could not get Boehner to commit to a rapid legislative agenda to repeal and reverse the Democrat’s leftist legislative cramdown after the midterms in November. Boehner hemmed and hawed, sounding every bit like the establishment inside-the-beltway career politicians that got us into the dire economic mess that we’re in now.
To make matters worse, Bill Kristol related to Hewitt on yesterday’s podcast that he asked a “high-ranking GOP leader” what their plans were, what they intended to do should the GOP take control of one or both Houses of Congress, and this unnamed source said that they were trying to get members to sign off on a “No Earmarks” pledge, but said it was very tough going. Kristol was incredulous.
In this election year, with this blatantly obvious tidal wave of resentment and outright anger rushing toward establishment politicians (and quasi-socialist redistributionist Democrats), there are not enough Republican lawmakers with the backbone and moral courage to sign a pledge banning pork barrel spending?
The Beltway elite professional political class is neither Democrat nor Republican. They are, as coined by Mark Levin, STATISTS first and foremost. What’s good for the state is ultimately good for them, the elite professional political ruling class.
Watch for it. Obamacare should be repealed, completely, every single provision, rule, and regulation GONE, stricken from the public record and expunged from public consciousness.
But it won’t happen. Why? Because state control of health care is the ultimate power grab. Boehner and those who comprise the ruling class elite realize that as long as Obamacare exists, they will have a windmill to tilt against, a cause to rally the troops around, an issue to rail against.
Think about it. Imagine the seductive appeal of that kind of power over the lives of others.
Think your congressman can resist the urge to use his new authority as one of 435 quasi-health care administrators to ensure his re-election? Doubtful, right?
Stealth statist Republicans will nip at the edges of Obamacare, but will never repeal it because they have as much to lose (and, ironically, as much to gain) as the radical leftist Democrats who crammed it down our throats.
Obamacare is here to stay.
Article printed from NewsReal Blog: http://www.newsrealblog.com/
URL to article: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/09/04/obamacare-is-here-to-stay/
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Obamacare Is Here to Stay
Posted By Chris Rowan On September 4, 2010 @ 6:00 pm In Big Government,Democratic Party / Democrats,Email,Feature,Health Care and Socialized Medicine,Politics 7 Comments
Hugh Hewitt interviewed House minority leader John Boehner a few days ago, and could not get Boehner to commit to a rapid legislative agenda to repeal and reverse the Democrat’s leftist legislative cramdown after the midterms in November. Boehner hemmed and hawed, sounding every bit like the establishment inside-the-beltway career politicians that got us into the dire economic mess that we’re in now.
To make matters worse, Bill Kristol related to Hewitt on yesterday’s podcast that he asked a “high-ranking GOP leader” what their plans were, what they intended to do should the GOP take control of one or both Houses of Congress, and this unnamed source said that they were trying to get members to sign off on a “No Earmarks” pledge, but said it was very tough going. Kristol was incredulous.
In this election year, with this blatantly obvious tidal wave of resentment and outright anger rushing toward establishment politicians (and quasi-socialist redistributionist Democrats), there are not enough Republican lawmakers with the backbone and moral courage to sign a pledge banning pork barrel spending?
The Beltway elite professional political class is neither Democrat nor Republican. They are, as coined by Mark Levin, STATISTS first and foremost. What’s good for the state is ultimately good for them, the elite professional political ruling class.
Watch for it. Obamacare should be repealed, completely, every single provision, rule, and regulation GONE, stricken from the public record and expunged from public consciousness.
But it won’t happen. Why? Because state control of health care is the ultimate power grab. Boehner and those who comprise the ruling class elite realize that as long as Obamacare exists, they will have a windmill to tilt against, a cause to rally the troops around, an issue to rail against.
Think about it. Imagine the seductive appeal of that kind of power over the lives of others.
Think your congressman can resist the urge to use his new authority as one of 435 quasi-health care administrators to ensure his re-election? Doubtful, right?
Stealth statist Republicans will nip at the edges of Obamacare, but will never repeal it because they have as much to lose (and, ironically, as much to gain) as the radical leftist Democrats who crammed it down our throats.
Obamacare is here to stay.
Article printed from NewsReal Blog: http://www.newsrealblog.com/
URL to article: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/09/04/obamacare-is-here-to-stay/
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Friday, August 20, 2010
Long live the Constitutionalist Sheriff!
One of the tragedies of the current misled, uninformed, and otherwise preoccupied American citizenry is the seeming apathy regarding the importance and necessity of electing constitutionalist sheriffs. In many ways, State governors and county sheriffs just might be the most important elected offices in America. It is no hyperbole to say that State governors and county sheriffs form the last line of defense against tyranny and oppression. If our governors and sheriffs do not understand the principles of freedom and federalism, there is virtually zero protection against the abuses of liberty--save the right of the people to personally and individually defend liberty via the principles of God-given Natural Law.
Hence, a freedom-minded sheriff is invaluable to liberty's defense. And perhaps at no time in America's history has it been more necessary that we elect freedom-loving sheriffs than it is today, what with the ever-growing propensity of the federal government to trample and usurp State and constitutional protections of freedom.
For example, in an almost totally non-reported incident, an armed conflict between federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agents and a Nevada Sheriff's SWAT team was averted only by virtue of the fact that, at the last minute, BLM backed down from the impending confrontation.
For the record: federal police agencies have a long history of committing illegal searches and seizures (even assault and murder--can anyone say, "Ruby Ridge" or "Waco"?) against the US citizenry. But BLM might be the most notorious federal police agency of all. The tactics BLM employs against western landowners sometimes border on Nazi-like. When the late, great Helen Chenoweth was an Idaho congresswoman, she tried to raise awareness of (and opposition to) this out-of-control federal agency. I urge readers to read Rep. Chenoweth's interview with Michael Reagan about this subject. See it at: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/blm.html
According to Rep. Chenoweth, "BLM is taking onto themselves law enforcement that is normally saved for the State, law enforcement over motor vehicles.
They've written into the regulation without authority from Congress, the ability to stop vehicles or to search people, to search a place or a vehicle without warrant or process; to be able to seize without warrant or process any piece of evidence and to test people for potential DUI (driving under the influence)."
Chenoweth continued: "Our founders, when establishing our system of government wanted to make sure that law enforcement was closest to the people. You and I have talked before about how important it is to make sure that you elect the very best local county sheriff because he should be regarded as the highest law enforcement officer in the area because he is accountable to the voters. They really worried about a national, a federal, law enforcement. To federalize our law enforcement is to create a situation that the pilgrims were trying to escape.
"We are moving quickly to that. The Bureau of Land Management is taking onto themselves law enforcement authority that Congress never gave them. In the Federal Land Policy and Management Act that was passed in the early 1970s it made it clear that Congress said that, first, you must go to your local county sheriff for law enforcement activities."
Chenoweth added, "In the BLM proposed rules and regulations, you can't remove any plants or soil or pick up any rocks or minerals. You can't drive on any vegetation or soil. You can't disturb soil at all. Now you can't set a foot on soil without disturbing it. You can't set a foot on a ground plant without disturbing it."
For the sheriff in Nye County, Nevada, BLM abridgments of liberty had gone too far. When BLM threatened to arrest the sheriff if he refused to go along with BLM's illegal searches and seizures against Nye County citizens, Sheriff Tony DeMeo countered by telling BLM in no uncertain terms that should any agent attempt to enforce BLM's unconstitutional policies, he would have his deputies arrest them. DeMeo even had his SWAT teams standing by to enforce the law AGAINST THE OUT-OF-CONTROL FEDERAL AGENCY. To put it in Sheriff DeMeo's words, "We'd be standing between them [BLM] and my constituents [county residents]." At the last minute, BLM backed off and the confrontation between the Nye County sheriff's office and the federal agency was averted.
See Sheriff DeMeo's testimony on the incident:
Now, Sheriff Tony DeMeo is exactly the kind of sheriff the Constitution requires! Unfortunately, it seems that the vast majority of sheriffs across the country have no idea as to what their constitutional authority entails, and seem to have no discernment and understanding of just what the federal government is doing to usurp State and local jurisdiction. Or if they do, they seem to lack the courage to act upon their power and authority. Or maybe they simply lust after federal monies (better known as bribes).
Of course, there are a few sheriffs across America who seem to be aware of what's going on and have the guts to do something about it. A precious few.
Along with Sheriff Tony DeMeo, there is Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Shane Harrington of Wibaux County, Montana, Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona, and, of course, there are former Sheriffs Ray Nash of Dorchester County, South Carolina, Richard Mack of Graham County, Arizona, and Jay Printz of Ravalli County, Montana. Plus, if the good people of Larimer County, Colorado, will elect Carl Bruning as their sheriff, there will be another principled constitutionalist sheriff to add to the list of patriot sheriffs. To visit Carl's campaign web site, go here: http://carlbruning.com/
Readers should know, too, that Sheriff Mack has a plethora of outstanding books and videos relating to the role and duty of a constitutional sheriff on his web site. I highly recommend that you avail yourself to as much of Mack's materials as you can. Here is his web site:
http://sheriffmack.com/
If liberty has any chance of surviving in the United States, it will be because the American people wake up to the importance and necessity of electing constitutionalist governors and sheriffs. Sheriffs, especially, are critical to the maintenance of liberty. It is a truism that, next to the people themselves, the sheriff's office helps form the last line of defense against federal abuse of power. Long live the constitutionalist Sheriff!
P.S. We are trying to keep up with those requesting to be added to our new PATRIOT BUSINESSES web page, but are having a hard time keeping up with requests. Please be patient. We are adding them as fast as we can. My small staff is quite overloaded, but hopes to be caught up by the end of the week.
To see the new PATRIOT BUSINESSES web page, go to: http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?page_id=1921
(c) Chuck Baldwin
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2010081111319/us/homeland-security/long-live-the-constitutionalist-sheriff.html
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Hence, a freedom-minded sheriff is invaluable to liberty's defense. And perhaps at no time in America's history has it been more necessary that we elect freedom-loving sheriffs than it is today, what with the ever-growing propensity of the federal government to trample and usurp State and constitutional protections of freedom.
For example, in an almost totally non-reported incident, an armed conflict between federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agents and a Nevada Sheriff's SWAT team was averted only by virtue of the fact that, at the last minute, BLM backed down from the impending confrontation.
For the record: federal police agencies have a long history of committing illegal searches and seizures (even assault and murder--can anyone say, "Ruby Ridge" or "Waco"?) against the US citizenry. But BLM might be the most notorious federal police agency of all. The tactics BLM employs against western landowners sometimes border on Nazi-like. When the late, great Helen Chenoweth was an Idaho congresswoman, she tried to raise awareness of (and opposition to) this out-of-control federal agency. I urge readers to read Rep. Chenoweth's interview with Michael Reagan about this subject. See it at: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/blm.html
According to Rep. Chenoweth, "BLM is taking onto themselves law enforcement that is normally saved for the State, law enforcement over motor vehicles.
They've written into the regulation without authority from Congress, the ability to stop vehicles or to search people, to search a place or a vehicle without warrant or process; to be able to seize without warrant or process any piece of evidence and to test people for potential DUI (driving under the influence)."
Chenoweth continued: "Our founders, when establishing our system of government wanted to make sure that law enforcement was closest to the people. You and I have talked before about how important it is to make sure that you elect the very best local county sheriff because he should be regarded as the highest law enforcement officer in the area because he is accountable to the voters. They really worried about a national, a federal, law enforcement. To federalize our law enforcement is to create a situation that the pilgrims were trying to escape.
"We are moving quickly to that. The Bureau of Land Management is taking onto themselves law enforcement authority that Congress never gave them. In the Federal Land Policy and Management Act that was passed in the early 1970s it made it clear that Congress said that, first, you must go to your local county sheriff for law enforcement activities."
Chenoweth added, "In the BLM proposed rules and regulations, you can't remove any plants or soil or pick up any rocks or minerals. You can't drive on any vegetation or soil. You can't disturb soil at all. Now you can't set a foot on soil without disturbing it. You can't set a foot on a ground plant without disturbing it."
For the sheriff in Nye County, Nevada, BLM abridgments of liberty had gone too far. When BLM threatened to arrest the sheriff if he refused to go along with BLM's illegal searches and seizures against Nye County citizens, Sheriff Tony DeMeo countered by telling BLM in no uncertain terms that should any agent attempt to enforce BLM's unconstitutional policies, he would have his deputies arrest them. DeMeo even had his SWAT teams standing by to enforce the law AGAINST THE OUT-OF-CONTROL FEDERAL AGENCY. To put it in Sheriff DeMeo's words, "We'd be standing between them [BLM] and my constituents [county residents]." At the last minute, BLM backed off and the confrontation between the Nye County sheriff's office and the federal agency was averted.
See Sheriff DeMeo's testimony on the incident:
Now, Sheriff Tony DeMeo is exactly the kind of sheriff the Constitution requires! Unfortunately, it seems that the vast majority of sheriffs across the country have no idea as to what their constitutional authority entails, and seem to have no discernment and understanding of just what the federal government is doing to usurp State and local jurisdiction. Or if they do, they seem to lack the courage to act upon their power and authority. Or maybe they simply lust after federal monies (better known as bribes).
Of course, there are a few sheriffs across America who seem to be aware of what's going on and have the guts to do something about it. A precious few.
Along with Sheriff Tony DeMeo, there is Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Shane Harrington of Wibaux County, Montana, Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona, and, of course, there are former Sheriffs Ray Nash of Dorchester County, South Carolina, Richard Mack of Graham County, Arizona, and Jay Printz of Ravalli County, Montana. Plus, if the good people of Larimer County, Colorado, will elect Carl Bruning as their sheriff, there will be another principled constitutionalist sheriff to add to the list of patriot sheriffs. To visit Carl's campaign web site, go here: http://carlbruning.com/
Readers should know, too, that Sheriff Mack has a plethora of outstanding books and videos relating to the role and duty of a constitutional sheriff on his web site. I highly recommend that you avail yourself to as much of Mack's materials as you can. Here is his web site:
http://sheriffmack.com/
If liberty has any chance of surviving in the United States, it will be because the American people wake up to the importance and necessity of electing constitutionalist governors and sheriffs. Sheriffs, especially, are critical to the maintenance of liberty. It is a truism that, next to the people themselves, the sheriff's office helps form the last line of defense against federal abuse of power. Long live the constitutionalist Sheriff!
P.S. We are trying to keep up with those requesting to be added to our new PATRIOT BUSINESSES web page, but are having a hard time keeping up with requests. Please be patient. We are adding them as fast as we can. My small staff is quite overloaded, but hopes to be caught up by the end of the week.
To see the new PATRIOT BUSINESSES web page, go to: http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?page_id=1921
(c) Chuck Baldwin
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2010081111319/us/homeland-security/long-live-the-constitutionalist-sheriff.html
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Senator Feingold visits St. Germain for Listening Session March 20
See thorough article at News of the North.net about Senator Feingold's Listening Session in St. Germain, WI, including more photos and videos. Editor Joe Constanza published the following at News of the North:
ST. GERMAIN – Sen. Russ Feingold came to St. Germain on Saturday, March 20, for his 32nd “listening session” of 2010 and 1,256th since 1993 and heard a lot of anger from a sometimes raucous and hostile crowd.
About 100 people showed up at the Community Center at noon for the one-hour meeting and, as expected, health care was the big topic.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Mike Ritchie, School Board Administrator to be at Eagle River Roasters March 17
This is our community's chance to discuss education with our NPSD Administrator, Mike Ritchie. In light of current events including Doyle's Sex Ed Bill that now requires specific inclusions for all Wisconsin public schools that choose to teach a health education courses:
Here's an opportunity to discuss local issues that can affect the future of our county. Let's see how the Northland Pines School District is handling these situations at the local level. What will your sons, daughters and grandchildren be learning in their Heath Ed and Social Studies/ History Courses now and in the years to come?
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Quoted from the Journal/Sentinel Online:Also on the forefront is the Textbook debate in Texas, where the Texas State Board of Education is debating a 10-year curriculum plan that will dictate the format of new social studies textbooks, which could potentially eliminate the mention of certain segments of American History!
Madison — Sex education classes in Wisconsin public schools will have to teach students about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases under a bill Gov. Jim Doyle signed Wednesday. http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/85213817.html
Texas Textbook Debate: http://vilas.wisgop.info/2010/03/10/tx-textbook-battle/
The Dallas Morning News: Texas standards often wind up in thousands of schools in other states as textbook publishers tailor their books to those standards, then market those learning materials across the nation. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/DN-sboe_11tex.ART0.State.Edition1.4bf3039.html
Here's an opportunity to discuss local issues that can affect the future of our county. Let's see how the Northland Pines School District is handling these situations at the local level. What will your sons, daughters and grandchildren be learning in their Heath Ed and Social Studies/ History Courses now and in the years to come?
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Stop WI's Global Warming Legislation
Save jobs and stop Wisconsin's Global Warming legislation from moving forward!
Subject: * IMPORTANT * - Monday - Public Hearing on Doyle's Global Warming Bill (AB 649/SB 450) - 10 a.m. - State Capitol - Room 412 East
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:24:52 -0600
From: Jolene.Churchill@legis.wisconsin.gov
Dear Friends,
On Monday, February 15, the Assembly Special Committee on Clean Energy Jobs will be holding a Public Hearing on Governor Doyle's Global Warming bill (Assembly Bill 649/Senate Bill 450).
Wisconsinites are welcome to testify or register on these bills that will have a major impact on our state’s economy.
Monday, February 15
10AM
State Capitol – Room 412 East
Hearing Notice: http://committeeschedule.legis.wisconsin.gov/files/HearingNotices/10-02-15-1000-2009ACEJ-13062.html
Click Here to View the Bills:
Assembly Bill 649 - http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2009/data/AB649hst.html
Senate Bill 450 - http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2009/data/SB450hst.html
Some “Highlights” of the Global Warming Bills Include:
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:24:52 -0600
From: Jolene.Churchill@legis.wisconsin.gov
Dear Friends,
On Monday, February 15, the Assembly Special Committee on Clean Energy Jobs will be holding a Public Hearing on Governor Doyle's Global Warming bill (Assembly Bill 649/Senate Bill 450).
Wisconsinites are welcome to testify or register on these bills that will have a major impact on our state’s economy.
Monday, February 15
10AM
State Capitol – Room 412 East
Hearing Notice: http://committeeschedule.legis.wisconsin.gov/files/HearingNotices/10-02-15-1000-2009ACEJ-13062.html
Click Here to View the Bills:
Assembly Bill 649 - http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2009/data/AB649hst.html
Senate Bill 450 - http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2009/data/SB450hst.html
Some “Highlights” of the Global Warming Bills Include:
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
New regulations stiffling job creation
New regulations stifling job creation
To the Editor:
With private construction spending down, policymakers are hopeful that government spending on public projects will spur economic growth. But new regulations accompanying the spending are counterproductive.
Builders who regularly work on public works projects know to expect a certain level of inefficient government regulations. Newcomers, attracted by the increased spending, will be stunned by the red tape.
In either case, the new payroll reporting requirements effective this year will befuddle experienced public works contractors and newcomers alike.
The provision, adopted last May as part of the budget bill, requires non-union contractors working on government jobs to provide payroll data to the state while largely exempting union contractors from complying with the same requirement. The payroll data will then be posted on a state website.
To the Editor:
With private construction spending down, policymakers are hopeful that government spending on public projects will spur economic growth. But new regulations accompanying the spending are counterproductive.
Builders who regularly work on public works projects know to expect a certain level of inefficient government regulations. Newcomers, attracted by the increased spending, will be stunned by the red tape.
In either case, the new payroll reporting requirements effective this year will befuddle experienced public works contractors and newcomers alike.
The provision, adopted last May as part of the budget bill, requires non-union contractors working on government jobs to provide payroll data to the state while largely exempting union contractors from complying with the same requirement. The payroll data will then be posted on a state website.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Harry Reid should heed the words of Martin Luther King
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
While campaigning for re-election in 1956, Vice President Richard Nixon (R-CA) declared:
"Most of us will live to see the day when American boys and girls will sit, side by side, at any school - public or private - with no respect paid to the color of skin. Segregation, discrimination and prejudice have no place in America."
Martin Luther King voted for the Republican presidential ticket, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. King announced his vote during a public meeting in Ghana, where they were attending a presidential inauguration. [pictured: Coretta Scott King, Richard Nixon, Patricia Nixon and Martin Luther King, 1957]
Vice President Nixon helped defeat the Democrat filibuster against the GOP's 1957 Civil Rights Act.
Here is a link to the Republican Heroes section on Grand Old Partisan.
Here is a link to the Republican Heroics section on Grand Old Partisan.
Here is a link to the On This Day In Republican History section on Grand Old Partisan.
Here is a link to the blog section on Grand Old Partisan.
Mr. Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the nation, showing office- holders and candidates and activists how they would benefit tremendously from appreciating the heritage of our Grand Old Party. Back to Basics for the Republican Party is his acclaimed history of the GOP, cited by Clarence Thomas in a Supreme Court decision. His Grand Old Partisan blog celebrates more than fifteen decades of Republican heroes and heroics.
My new website is Grand Old Partisan, celebrating more than fifteen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Zak's newly redesigned web site is full of Republican history, outlining how Republicans championed civil rights since the earliest days fighting against slavery and through various civil rights acts to ensure equality for all our citizens.
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Oneida and Vilas plan slow process for meeting NR 115 changes
Counties plan slow process for meeting NR 115 changes
By Kurt Krueger
News-Review Editor
Zoning officials in Vilas and Oneida counties aren’t rushing to put stricter shoreland zoning regulations in place, especially after legislators stripped flexibility from the revised NR 115 code.
Dawn Schmidt, zoning administrator in Vilas, said a late compromise forced by a legislative review committee suddenly prohibits sideways expansion of any structure located between 35 and 75 feet from the water — including thousands of houses that were legally placed under averaging.
“That last-minute ‘whammy’ means Vilas will be waiting the full two years to make its ordinance changes,” said Schmidt. “We want property owners to have all the opportunity possible to take advantage of the flexibility our ordinance currently offers, which includes sideways expansion up to 50% of the footprint.”
Though official publication of the revised NR 115 rules is expected around Feb. 1, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is giving counties two years to adjust their shoreland codes — a two-year window for replacement and expansion projects under existing rules.
Link to Vilas County News Review
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
By Kurt Krueger
News-Review Editor
Zoning officials in Vilas and Oneida counties aren’t rushing to put stricter shoreland zoning regulations in place, especially after legislators stripped flexibility from the revised NR 115 code.
Dawn Schmidt, zoning administrator in Vilas, said a late compromise forced by a legislative review committee suddenly prohibits sideways expansion of any structure located between 35 and 75 feet from the water — including thousands of houses that were legally placed under averaging.
“That last-minute ‘whammy’ means Vilas will be waiting the full two years to make its ordinance changes,” said Schmidt. “We want property owners to have all the opportunity possible to take advantage of the flexibility our ordinance currently offers, which includes sideways expansion up to 50% of the footprint.”
Though official publication of the revised NR 115 rules is expected around Feb. 1, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is giving counties two years to adjust their shoreland codes — a two-year window for replacement and expansion projects under existing rules.
Link to Vilas County News Review
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Sarah Palin: Redefining Feminism, by Rachel Campos-Duffy
Sarah Palin: Redefining Feminism
If the current pace continues, Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue is on track to become perhaps the best-selling nonfiction book ever. The extraordinary, record-breaking rollout and the throngs of fans who await Sarah at every stop of her nationwide bus tour is rivaled only by the endless succession of liberal talking heads who are willing to put aside years of carefully cultivated gender sensitivity in an attempt to finish off a job they had hoped they had taken care of last year – or at least in the last two months of granting Levi Johnston full access to the most coveted media outlets.
When Tina Brown laughs and defends Newsweek’s indefensible cover photo of the former governor in running shorts to Matt Lauer on The Today Show, and Naomi Wolfe on Larry King calls Palin “Evita” and a “Geisha” and accuses the fiercely independent Alaskan Governor of being the “muse” and “telegenic figurehead” of a Cheney/Rove/Haliburton cabal, you know there’s more fear than loathing in the liberal and feminist ranks.
So what exactly is the liberal feminist establishment afraid of? Back in the fall of 2008, many conservatives theorized that it all came down to abortion. That a baby-wielding, pro-life VP candidate would re-ignite a debate feminists prefer to believe is settled and that the very sight of baby Trig on the hip of the beautiful and confident Sarah Palin on the night of her pitch-perfect speech at the Republican National Convention caused an unsettling degree of national guilt and unwanted introspection for a society that aborts close to 90% of all babies diagnosed with Downs Syndrome. But I believe that the seething and obsession with all things Palin is bigger and deeper than even abortion.
What is really at the heart of the unrelenting vitriol and paranoia came to light rather innocuously in the celebrity style, soft-focus Oprah interview. In fact, the offending comment was so casually and organically delivered, that as far as I can tell, the chattering class, normally so quick to pounce on the slightest hint of mommy-war fodder, especially from someone as reviled by the left as Sarah Palin, did not picked up on the comment. Near the end of the interview, in a gracious moment of praise and admiration for her host, Sarah recalled the days when she watched the Oprah Show more regularly, “back when I was a stay-at-home mom in the 90s”. That’s right, back when I was a stay-at-home-mom. When have we ever heard those words come out of the mouth of a female politician, much less one who is a possible contender for the highest office in the land?
If the current pace continues, Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue is on track to become perhaps the best-selling nonfiction book ever. The extraordinary, record-breaking rollout and the throngs of fans who await Sarah at every stop of her nationwide bus tour is rivaled only by the endless succession of liberal talking heads who are willing to put aside years of carefully cultivated gender sensitivity in an attempt to finish off a job they had hoped they had taken care of last year – or at least in the last two months of granting Levi Johnston full access to the most coveted media outlets.
When Tina Brown laughs and defends Newsweek’s indefensible cover photo of the former governor in running shorts to Matt Lauer on The Today Show, and Naomi Wolfe on Larry King calls Palin “Evita” and a “Geisha” and accuses the fiercely independent Alaskan Governor of being the “muse” and “telegenic figurehead” of a Cheney/Rove/Haliburton cabal, you know there’s more fear than loathing in the liberal and feminist ranks.
So what exactly is the liberal feminist establishment afraid of? Back in the fall of 2008, many conservatives theorized that it all came down to abortion. That a baby-wielding, pro-life VP candidate would re-ignite a debate feminists prefer to believe is settled and that the very sight of baby Trig on the hip of the beautiful and confident Sarah Palin on the night of her pitch-perfect speech at the Republican National Convention caused an unsettling degree of national guilt and unwanted introspection for a society that aborts close to 90% of all babies diagnosed with Downs Syndrome. But I believe that the seething and obsession with all things Palin is bigger and deeper than even abortion.
What is really at the heart of the unrelenting vitriol and paranoia came to light rather innocuously in the celebrity style, soft-focus Oprah interview. In fact, the offending comment was so casually and organically delivered, that as far as I can tell, the chattering class, normally so quick to pounce on the slightest hint of mommy-war fodder, especially from someone as reviled by the left as Sarah Palin, did not picked up on the comment. Near the end of the interview, in a gracious moment of praise and admiration for her host, Sarah recalled the days when she watched the Oprah Show more regularly, “back when I was a stay-at-home mom in the 90s”. That’s right, back when I was a stay-at-home-mom. When have we ever heard those words come out of the mouth of a female politician, much less one who is a possible contender for the highest office in the land?
Friday, November 13, 2009
Judge David Hamilton - Urge Senate to Fillibuster - VOTE is 11/16/09
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said in a floor statement Monday that he will likely file a procedural motion to clear the nomination of David Hamilton, an Indiana native nominated to serve on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Hamilton is the Judge who ruled it's illegal to pray "in Jesus name" but totally legal to pray to Allah on the floor of the Indiana Legislature. His foolish ruling in Hinrichs v. Bosma was overturned (thanks in part to our legal aid to the Indiana Attorney General). He also ruled to hasten the abortion of unborn children, but that bad ruling was also overturned. Now Obama wants to reward Hamilton's anti-life anti-Jesus prejudice with promotion to the same appeals court that overruled him.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=34337&keywords=david+hamilton
Make the 17 phone calls listed on Northwoods Patriots site (click here for full story and list of Senators to contact), today, to these key "undecided" Senators.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Wisconsin Ponders Replacing Abstinence-Only Program with Contraceptive Sex Ed
From a WI-Glenn Beck Meetup: "Wisconsin is making national news in a major pro-life publication, we may soon make national news in many other outlets if this bill is implemented. The Bishop Conference of Wisconsin representing all five dioceses of the state of Wisconsin has taken a stand against this legislation. Question is, will enough people call and email their legislators to stop this evil act?? Question: will legislator seek justice for all or impose a dictatorship and indoctrination on all citizens and communities in the state of Wisconsin in this area??
Time is short they vote Tues Nov 3 in the assembly. Will all of our youth k-12 be gradually indoctrinated with increased intensity at each upper grade level in casual sex, how to obtain and use reproductive services and devices, the gay agenda, and in state confidentiality laws understanding the parents are taken out of the equation? Garbage in the brain Garbage out. The destruction of the Judeo Christian ethic/family........"
Wisconsin Ponders Replacing Abstinence-Only Program with Contraceptive Sex Ed
By Kathleen Gilbert
MADISON, Wisconsin
October 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com)
- A law set for consideration in the Wisconsin state legislature aims to replace the abstinence-only curriculum used in the state's public schools with one that educates students on the use of condoms and contraceptives.
The Healthy Youth Act (AB-458 and SB-324), introduced by Democrat state Rep. Tamara Grigsby and Sen. Lena Taylor last month, aims to establish a contraceptive-promoting state curriculum for all schools that have a Human Growth and Development Program. The curriculum is billed as giving "age-appropriate, medically accurate information" on how to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.
Under current Wisconsin law, public school sex ed classes are abstinence-based. The new law would most immediately affect the approximately six in ten public schools currently using a sex education program, according to the Pierce County Herald.
The Assembly Education Committee on Tuesday voted to recommend the Healthy Youth Act on an 8-5 party-line vote, and is now set to be scheduled for debate on the Assembly floor. The Senate Education Committee held a hearing on the bill on Thursday. Both chambers are controlled by Democrats.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin lauded the bill.
"Abstinence just does not work to change teen behavior. Studies have concluded that," said Chris Taylor, public policy director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
But local pro-life groups, including Pro-life Wisconsin, Wisconsin Family Action, and Wisconsin Right to Life, argue that the legislation would not stem the state's rising pregnancy and STD rates, but only increase the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
Wisconsin Right to Life legislative director Susan Armacost told legislators in a memo that the bill "would require that students be taught about a number of activities that could endanger their health and could result in a growing number of teen sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancies and abortions."
"It's going to be an uphill battle," Matt Sande, the legislative director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN). "We're hopeful that some of the more moderate Senate Democrats will see that this is overkill, it's a one-size-fits-all mandate that violates the principle of local control."
Said Sande: "It's not just talking about [contraception], it's actually very precise instruction on how to use it. Make no mistake, there are going to be nurses up there demonstrating how to use this contraception. It'll be graphic."
The Assembly bill also stresses that the program must not "promote bias against pupils of any race, gender, sexual orientation ... or against sexually active pupils."
In testimony against the Senate bill at a public hearing Thursday, Sande pointed out that the measure would allow physicians and nurses visiting schools under the Volunteer Health Provider Program to discuss reproductive health - a topic that was previously disallowed. This, he said, would leave children vulnerable to Planned Parenthood employees advocating contraception and abortion in schools.
URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09103017.html
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/printerfriendly.html?articleid=09103017
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09103017.html
Message to Republican Women from Kim:
All are encouraged to act on this -- please call and e-mail your legislators now. Tell them to vote against such obscene legislation and also tell them that they are definitely replaceable next election cycle.
Time is short they vote Tues Nov 3 in the assembly. Will all of our youth k-12 be gradually indoctrinated with increased intensity at each upper grade level in casual sex, how to obtain and use reproductive services and devices, the gay agenda, and in state confidentiality laws understanding the parents are taken out of the equation? Garbage in the brain Garbage out. The destruction of the Judeo Christian ethic/family........"
Wisconsin Ponders Replacing Abstinence-Only Program with Contraceptive Sex Ed
By Kathleen Gilbert
MADISON, Wisconsin
October 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com)
- A law set for consideration in the Wisconsin state legislature aims to replace the abstinence-only curriculum used in the state's public schools with one that educates students on the use of condoms and contraceptives.
The Healthy Youth Act (AB-458 and SB-324), introduced by Democrat state Rep. Tamara Grigsby and Sen. Lena Taylor last month, aims to establish a contraceptive-promoting state curriculum for all schools that have a Human Growth and Development Program. The curriculum is billed as giving "age-appropriate, medically accurate information" on how to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.
Under current Wisconsin law, public school sex ed classes are abstinence-based. The new law would most immediately affect the approximately six in ten public schools currently using a sex education program, according to the Pierce County Herald.
The Assembly Education Committee on Tuesday voted to recommend the Healthy Youth Act on an 8-5 party-line vote, and is now set to be scheduled for debate on the Assembly floor. The Senate Education Committee held a hearing on the bill on Thursday. Both chambers are controlled by Democrats.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin lauded the bill.
"Abstinence just does not work to change teen behavior. Studies have concluded that," said Chris Taylor, public policy director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
But local pro-life groups, including Pro-life Wisconsin, Wisconsin Family Action, and Wisconsin Right to Life, argue that the legislation would not stem the state's rising pregnancy and STD rates, but only increase the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
Wisconsin Right to Life legislative director Susan Armacost told legislators in a memo that the bill "would require that students be taught about a number of activities that could endanger their health and could result in a growing number of teen sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancies and abortions."
"It's going to be an uphill battle," Matt Sande, the legislative director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN). "We're hopeful that some of the more moderate Senate Democrats will see that this is overkill, it's a one-size-fits-all mandate that violates the principle of local control."
Said Sande: "It's not just talking about [contraception], it's actually very precise instruction on how to use it. Make no mistake, there are going to be nurses up there demonstrating how to use this contraception. It'll be graphic."
The Assembly bill also stresses that the program must not "promote bias against pupils of any race, gender, sexual orientation ... or against sexually active pupils."
In testimony against the Senate bill at a public hearing Thursday, Sande pointed out that the measure would allow physicians and nurses visiting schools under the Volunteer Health Provider Program to discuss reproductive health - a topic that was previously disallowed. This, he said, would leave children vulnerable to Planned Parenthood employees advocating contraception and abortion in schools.
URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09103017.html
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/printerfriendly.html?articleid=09103017
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09103017.html
Message to Republican Women from Kim:
All are encouraged to act on this -- please call and e-mail your legislators now. Tell them to vote against such obscene legislation and also tell them that they are definitely replaceable next election cycle.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The Obama presidency: Where liberalism meets totalitarianism, By Richard Moore
Friday, October 23, 2009
The Obama presidency: Where liberalism meets totalitarianism
Richard Moore
Investigative Reporter
Friday, October 23, 2009
This past week showed us why modern liberalism poses such a grave threat to the United States of America as we know it.
It's not because liberals want a strong, secure social safety net for the poorer among us. The truth is, we should have a strong, secure social safety net for the poor, and we should end corporate welfare to help pay for it.
No, it's not that.
It's not because they want peace and love. Don't we all? So hail to Peter, Paul and Mary, I swear it's not too late.
No, it's not that.
It's not because they want to tax-and-spend us to death. They do, but the conservatives, at least those of the George W. Bush ilk, want to borrow-and-spend us to death, so we're screwed coming and going on that count.
It's not even because they like to eat lentils and tofu (which has been linked by Oxford University researchers to increased memory loss and Alzheimer's, by the way) in restaurants with hippie names like Beans & Barley and shop in grocery stores called Whole Foods.
No, it's not any of that.
Rather, liberals pose such a grave threat because not only do they want to live in their peculiar little sandal-laden worlds, they want the rest of us to live there, too.
It's not enough that they want to use politically correct language; we have to speak that way, too. It's not enough that they want to pervert their immune systems by over-vaccinating; they want us to shoot up, too. It's not enough that they quit smoking (or never started); they want to force us to quit, too, and they have pretty much succeeded.
For all the good things liberals have done - let's be honest now, in the old days, they did make solid contributions to this nation, including the building of a manufacturing-based middle class - their big character flaw, their hamartia, if you will, is the totalitarian tendencies that always seem to stew right beneath the surface of their thinking.
It might seem incongruous to utter 'liberal' and 'totalitarian' in the same sentence, but the terms are philosophically compatible only because modern liberals are, well, no longer liberals.
Classical liberalism was, of course, a product of the Age of Enlightenment and was associated with individual liberty. Those liberals, the real liberals, believed individual rights predated the state and government existed only as a mechanism to protect those rights, which included private property and individual autonomy.
Thomas Jefferson was a liberal. He challenged the proclaimed rights of royalty and the powerful chieftains of the established religions of his day. In foreign policy, he believed in noninterventionism. He believed all rights were inherent in the people.
But President Jefferson would not be called a liberal today. He believed strongly in the right of the people to bear arms ("Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks"). He disliked big government ("Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread").
Today, Thomas Jefferson would be called a conservative, or, more likely, a libertarian. He wouldn't have much in common with President Barack Obama.
So where did today's modern liberals come from?
I have been told they were deposited in pods in Area 51 by aliens from a different galaxy, and now reproduce spontaneously. That seems to make sense, because when you meet them they do not seem to be from this planet and the species never seems to go away, no matter how unpopular they are.
But, no, upon further research, I believe the term truly began to morph in meaning during the early part of this century, accelerated in the 1930s, and became complete with the rise of the more affluent wine-and-cheese New Left crowd in the 1960s.
Liberals came to be identified with social welfare policies, the redistribution of wealth, and government regulation. In truth, the New Left liberals were more socialist in their thinking than previous generations.
That is to say, their philosophical underpinnings sprang more from the camp of social democracy than from classical liberalism - individuals don't uplift individuals, the entire collective of people, their will expressed through their government, uplifts individuals.
To modern liberals, then, individuals thrive not in a free marketplace of ideas, goods, and services but in a world where a collective enterprise takes care of them.
This requires sacrifices, of course, and so the totalitarian impulse emerges. To protect individuals, the government might have to take away individual rights. To make you safe, they might have to take away your guns. To protect 'tolerance,' the government might not tolerate some forms of speech.
And that's exactly where we are. This past week, President Obama's administration declared that we, as a nation, simply can no longer tolerate a certain form of speech: Fox News.
By now everyone must be aware of the administration's efforts to effectively shut down the opposition press. Mr. Obama is not only boycotting the network; his administration has not only launched a public relations propaganda campaign against it; but it has effectively tried to get the other major networks to boot Fox from the White House press pool.
In a truly free society, in a truly liberal society, this cannot and must not stand.
The administration is being hypocritical, of course. It proclaims Fox to be opinion journalism, but so what? What is wrong with healthy debate? Fox no more engages in opinion journalism than MSNBC, with Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, and yet we hear not a peep of criticism of them from the Obama team.
For all of this, Mr. Obama has been compared to Richard Nixon and his famous Enemies List, which included not only individual journalists like Mary McGrory and Daniel Schorr, but the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Sound familiar? America, meet your president, the new Richard Nixon. He's come back from the dead.
That's unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg. I think veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas said it best when she said the behavior of this administration was actually worse than that of Nixon's.
She's right and not only because of the surface issue. Fox News will survive, thank you, and thrive to boot. Its ratings have already shot up about 20 percent since Mr. Obama was inaugurated, and now, thanks to the president, they are bound to soar.
The problem isn't so much this particular turf war as what the battle is reflective of - a deep disliking inside the White House of democratic principles and of a free press. The fight with Fox is nothing less than a symbolic declaration of war against the entire notion of free speech.
The administration has already launched a significant offensive against free speech. Among other things, Mr. Obama has backed away from supporting a federal shield law for reporters.
Worse still, he has installed in the White House a true opponent of free speech, Cass R. Sunstein, who has called for "reformulating" the First Amendment.
In an article, The Future of Free Speech, Mr. Sunstein made it clear he didn't like the idea of "individual" free speech very much and proposed a number of ways the government might regulate speech to make it "more deliberative."
Some positions, such as an Internet Fairness Doctrine, he has since reconsidered, but he has also proposed government subsidies for news, as dangerous an idea to a free, untethered press as you can get.
Most dangerously, and most pertinent to this discussion, Mr. Sunstein has openly questioned whether libel laws are tough enough, and he has advocated for a system that would make it easier for politicians to take commentators to court over "false rumors." His ideas would allow politicians to tie down journalists for months in court, effectively tying their hands.
It's a modern-day liberal's idea of free speech, and here's how Mr. Sunstein puts it in the aforementioned article:
"One question, which I mean to answer in the affirmative, is whether individual choices, perfectly reasonable in themselves, might produce a large set of social difficulties. ... I also mean to defend a conception of freedom, associated with the deliberative conception of democracy, and oppose it to a conception that sees consumption choices by individuals as the very embodiment of freedom."
Translated, that means Government-approved "deliberative" speech rather than individual speech.
Make no mistake about, President Obama is Mr. Sunstein's ally in this philosophy, and the behavior of this administration and his supporters in the presidential campaign was textbook Sunstein.
In September, 2008, for example, two Obama supporters - St. Louis County attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City attorney Jennifer Joyce - went on the air to intimidate opposing campaigns by warning them, "we're here to respond to any character attacks, to set the record straight."
The implication was, they might might file ethics charges against anyone they decided was making false statements about Mr. Obama. The Obama campaign itself called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Obama's ties to the 1960s radical William Ayers.
What's more, the Obama Administration has co-sponsored with Egypt an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations, which urges nations to take action against "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" or "negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups."
But taking action against so-called hate speech in this country would require amending - reformulating, to use Mr. Sunstein's words - the constitution. Today, in this country, it is not against the law to negatively stereotype religions and racial groups, and it shouldn't be, for who is going to decide what speech is really hate speech deserving prosecution?
Today the enemy is Fox News. Who knows who it might be tomorrow. There is no longer any doubt: Barack Obama is a dangerous threat to free speech and thus to the constitutional underpinnings of the nation.
The ultimate problem with modern liberalism is that, in the end, there's nothing left of its original character. The totalitarian predisposition has become the disposition. Government no longer uplifts individuals; government is the individual, and wields its power for its own sake.
In a strange way, modern liberalism is even worse than European social democracy, for the latter is at least firmly grounded in democratic principle while the former is not. Modern liberalism is nothing less than a mutant gene of the democratic ideal.
With the advent of Barack Obama, the mutation is complete, and the message is clear: Put on your sandals, eat your tofu, take your vaccinations, don't talk hate about religions and races, and otherwise shut up, or we'll put you in jail.
----------------------------------------------
Content © 2009
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
The Obama presidency: Where liberalism meets totalitarianism
Richard Moore
Investigative Reporter
Friday, October 23, 2009
This past week showed us why modern liberalism poses such a grave threat to the United States of America as we know it.
It's not because liberals want a strong, secure social safety net for the poorer among us. The truth is, we should have a strong, secure social safety net for the poor, and we should end corporate welfare to help pay for it.
No, it's not that.
It's not because they want peace and love. Don't we all? So hail to Peter, Paul and Mary, I swear it's not too late.
No, it's not that.
It's not because they want to tax-and-spend us to death. They do, but the conservatives, at least those of the George W. Bush ilk, want to borrow-and-spend us to death, so we're screwed coming and going on that count.
It's not even because they like to eat lentils and tofu (which has been linked by Oxford University researchers to increased memory loss and Alzheimer's, by the way) in restaurants with hippie names like Beans & Barley and shop in grocery stores called Whole Foods.
No, it's not any of that.
Rather, liberals pose such a grave threat because not only do they want to live in their peculiar little sandal-laden worlds, they want the rest of us to live there, too.
It's not enough that they want to use politically correct language; we have to speak that way, too. It's not enough that they want to pervert their immune systems by over-vaccinating; they want us to shoot up, too. It's not enough that they quit smoking (or never started); they want to force us to quit, too, and they have pretty much succeeded.
For all the good things liberals have done - let's be honest now, in the old days, they did make solid contributions to this nation, including the building of a manufacturing-based middle class - their big character flaw, their hamartia, if you will, is the totalitarian tendencies that always seem to stew right beneath the surface of their thinking.
It might seem incongruous to utter 'liberal' and 'totalitarian' in the same sentence, but the terms are philosophically compatible only because modern liberals are, well, no longer liberals.
Classical liberalism was, of course, a product of the Age of Enlightenment and was associated with individual liberty. Those liberals, the real liberals, believed individual rights predated the state and government existed only as a mechanism to protect those rights, which included private property and individual autonomy.
Thomas Jefferson was a liberal. He challenged the proclaimed rights of royalty and the powerful chieftains of the established religions of his day. In foreign policy, he believed in noninterventionism. He believed all rights were inherent in the people.
But President Jefferson would not be called a liberal today. He believed strongly in the right of the people to bear arms ("Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks"). He disliked big government ("Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread").
Today, Thomas Jefferson would be called a conservative, or, more likely, a libertarian. He wouldn't have much in common with President Barack Obama.
So where did today's modern liberals come from?
I have been told they were deposited in pods in Area 51 by aliens from a different galaxy, and now reproduce spontaneously. That seems to make sense, because when you meet them they do not seem to be from this planet and the species never seems to go away, no matter how unpopular they are.
But, no, upon further research, I believe the term truly began to morph in meaning during the early part of this century, accelerated in the 1930s, and became complete with the rise of the more affluent wine-and-cheese New Left crowd in the 1960s.
Liberals came to be identified with social welfare policies, the redistribution of wealth, and government regulation. In truth, the New Left liberals were more socialist in their thinking than previous generations.
That is to say, their philosophical underpinnings sprang more from the camp of social democracy than from classical liberalism - individuals don't uplift individuals, the entire collective of people, their will expressed through their government, uplifts individuals.
To modern liberals, then, individuals thrive not in a free marketplace of ideas, goods, and services but in a world where a collective enterprise takes care of them.
This requires sacrifices, of course, and so the totalitarian impulse emerges. To protect individuals, the government might have to take away individual rights. To make you safe, they might have to take away your guns. To protect 'tolerance,' the government might not tolerate some forms of speech.
And that's exactly where we are. This past week, President Obama's administration declared that we, as a nation, simply can no longer tolerate a certain form of speech: Fox News.
By now everyone must be aware of the administration's efforts to effectively shut down the opposition press. Mr. Obama is not only boycotting the network; his administration has not only launched a public relations propaganda campaign against it; but it has effectively tried to get the other major networks to boot Fox from the White House press pool.
In a truly free society, in a truly liberal society, this cannot and must not stand.
The administration is being hypocritical, of course. It proclaims Fox to be opinion journalism, but so what? What is wrong with healthy debate? Fox no more engages in opinion journalism than MSNBC, with Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, and yet we hear not a peep of criticism of them from the Obama team.
For all of this, Mr. Obama has been compared to Richard Nixon and his famous Enemies List, which included not only individual journalists like Mary McGrory and Daniel Schorr, but the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Sound familiar? America, meet your president, the new Richard Nixon. He's come back from the dead.
That's unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg. I think veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas said it best when she said the behavior of this administration was actually worse than that of Nixon's.
She's right and not only because of the surface issue. Fox News will survive, thank you, and thrive to boot. Its ratings have already shot up about 20 percent since Mr. Obama was inaugurated, and now, thanks to the president, they are bound to soar.
The problem isn't so much this particular turf war as what the battle is reflective of - a deep disliking inside the White House of democratic principles and of a free press. The fight with Fox is nothing less than a symbolic declaration of war against the entire notion of free speech.
The administration has already launched a significant offensive against free speech. Among other things, Mr. Obama has backed away from supporting a federal shield law for reporters.
Worse still, he has installed in the White House a true opponent of free speech, Cass R. Sunstein, who has called for "reformulating" the First Amendment.
In an article, The Future of Free Speech, Mr. Sunstein made it clear he didn't like the idea of "individual" free speech very much and proposed a number of ways the government might regulate speech to make it "more deliberative."
Some positions, such as an Internet Fairness Doctrine, he has since reconsidered, but he has also proposed government subsidies for news, as dangerous an idea to a free, untethered press as you can get.
Most dangerously, and most pertinent to this discussion, Mr. Sunstein has openly questioned whether libel laws are tough enough, and he has advocated for a system that would make it easier for politicians to take commentators to court over "false rumors." His ideas would allow politicians to tie down journalists for months in court, effectively tying their hands.
It's a modern-day liberal's idea of free speech, and here's how Mr. Sunstein puts it in the aforementioned article:
"One question, which I mean to answer in the affirmative, is whether individual choices, perfectly reasonable in themselves, might produce a large set of social difficulties. ... I also mean to defend a conception of freedom, associated with the deliberative conception of democracy, and oppose it to a conception that sees consumption choices by individuals as the very embodiment of freedom."
Translated, that means Government-approved "deliberative" speech rather than individual speech.
Make no mistake about, President Obama is Mr. Sunstein's ally in this philosophy, and the behavior of this administration and his supporters in the presidential campaign was textbook Sunstein.
In September, 2008, for example, two Obama supporters - St. Louis County attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City attorney Jennifer Joyce - went on the air to intimidate opposing campaigns by warning them, "we're here to respond to any character attacks, to set the record straight."
The implication was, they might might file ethics charges against anyone they decided was making false statements about Mr. Obama. The Obama campaign itself called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Obama's ties to the 1960s radical William Ayers.
What's more, the Obama Administration has co-sponsored with Egypt an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations, which urges nations to take action against "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" or "negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups."
But taking action against so-called hate speech in this country would require amending - reformulating, to use Mr. Sunstein's words - the constitution. Today, in this country, it is not against the law to negatively stereotype religions and racial groups, and it shouldn't be, for who is going to decide what speech is really hate speech deserving prosecution?
Today the enemy is Fox News. Who knows who it might be tomorrow. There is no longer any doubt: Barack Obama is a dangerous threat to free speech and thus to the constitutional underpinnings of the nation.
The ultimate problem with modern liberalism is that, in the end, there's nothing left of its original character. The totalitarian predisposition has become the disposition. Government no longer uplifts individuals; government is the individual, and wields its power for its own sake.
In a strange way, modern liberalism is even worse than European social democracy, for the latter is at least firmly grounded in democratic principle while the former is not. Modern liberalism is nothing less than a mutant gene of the democratic ideal.
With the advent of Barack Obama, the mutation is complete, and the message is clear: Put on your sandals, eat your tofu, take your vaccinations, don't talk hate about religions and races, and otherwise shut up, or we'll put you in jail.
----------------------------------------------
Content © 2009
Republican Women of the North, Northern WI, rwotnorth@gmail.com
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
60 Years After WWII
Irena Sendler
There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive' .... She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German.) Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids....) She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises... During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.
Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize ...She was not selected. Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.
In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Islam on Capital Hill - Follow Up
Islam on Capitol Hill 2009 - Islam stayed home
September 26, 1:16 AM
Political Buzz Examiner
Vincent Bordini
I wrote Islam takes the D.C. Mall on 9/9/2009. I linked Islam on Capitol Hill's website, which claimed 50,000 Muslims would descend on the mall and in ominous text at the bottom read "OUR TIME HAS COME."
Well their time came and went for this round. There were about 5,000 Muslims on the Mall, praying at the Capitol building and whatnot, so the organizers only missed by 90% or so. I previously wrote this "is going to go over like a lead balloon. It did, just not in the fashion I assumed it would. The event was so underwhelming, that the news barely covered it. Compared to the grand displays Muslims overseas held in front of Christian Holy sites all over Europe last year, this was like Harold & Kumar's birthday party.
The imagery of Islam on Capitol Hill was inspired by President Obama's campaign posters, which were inspired by old school agitprop.
Perhaps the next time the activist elements won't be so bold as to declare "OUR TIME HAS COME." Perhaps next time the slogan will be "Why can't we be friends?" or "Please show up in D.C. this time!"
Perhaps next time, they might want to choose some spokesmen who are a little more cuddly. Hearing Dr. Ahmad Dwidar, Imam of the Islamic Center in New York, say “We are going to the White House, so that Islam will be victorious, Allah willing, and the White House will turn into the Muslim house” is not very all-American, unifying or comforting. It's good thing for him the news was not interested, or this event could have become a circus for Islam on Capitol Hill.
Lucky for them our journalists, who should be asking questions, stay home as well.
http://www.examiner.com/x-14881-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2009m9d26-Islam-on-Capitol-Hill-2009--Islam-stayed-home
September 26, 1:16 AM
Political Buzz Examiner
Vincent Bordini
I wrote Islam takes the D.C. Mall on 9/9/2009. I linked Islam on Capitol Hill's website, which claimed 50,000 Muslims would descend on the mall and in ominous text at the bottom read "OUR TIME HAS COME."
Well their time came and went for this round. There were about 5,000 Muslims on the Mall, praying at the Capitol building and whatnot, so the organizers only missed by 90% or so. I previously wrote this "is going to go over like a lead balloon. It did, just not in the fashion I assumed it would. The event was so underwhelming, that the news barely covered it. Compared to the grand displays Muslims overseas held in front of Christian Holy sites all over Europe last year, this was like Harold & Kumar's birthday party.
The imagery of Islam on Capitol Hill was inspired by President Obama's campaign posters, which were inspired by old school agitprop.
Perhaps the next time the activist elements won't be so bold as to declare "OUR TIME HAS COME." Perhaps next time the slogan will be "Why can't we be friends?" or "Please show up in D.C. this time!"
Perhaps next time, they might want to choose some spokesmen who are a little more cuddly. Hearing Dr. Ahmad Dwidar, Imam of the Islamic Center in New York, say “We are going to the White House, so that Islam will be victorious, Allah willing, and the White House will turn into the Muslim house” is not very all-American, unifying or comforting. It's good thing for him the news was not interested, or this event could have become a circus for Islam on Capitol Hill.
Lucky for them our journalists, who should be asking questions, stay home as well.
http://www.examiner.com/x-14881-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2009m9d26-Islam-on-Capitol-Hill-2009--Islam-stayed-home
Sunday, September 20, 2009
'Values Voters' Point To Revival In 2010
Kim Simac, our Club President, is quoted again here - this time by NPR!
'Values Voters' Point To Revival In 2010
Fri, Sep 18 2009, 4:00 PM EDT from
NPR on Bester News Go to the Front Page
By Scott Horsley
Nearly 2,000 social and political conservatives have assembled in Washington this weekend for the "Values Voter Summit." It's an annual event, organized by groups like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.
This year, many of the participants are feeling under siege, with Democrats in control of both Congress and the White House. But they're promising a religious and political revival in 2010.
Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican from Indiana, was one of the first speakers at the summit, which runs through Sunday, offering such workshops as "Global Warming Hysteria" and "Countering the Homosexual Agenda in Public Schools."
The participants' own agendas vary, but they're united in their suspicion of just about everything that's happening in Washington, from propping up the auto industry to remaking health care.
"The American people will not stand for government-run insurance that uses taxpayer money to fund abortions in this country," Pence told the crowd.
Self-described "values voters" are a key constituency for any aspiring Republican politician. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty are speaking this weekend. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was invited but didn't show.
Arkansas governor turned TV host Mike Huckabee was on hand Friday. He was the darling of religious conservatives in last year's GOP primaries. Even though they were outmaneuvered then, he told the crowd, there's no reason to give up.
"I think sometimes we may look around and think those of us who are conservative and particularly who are believers, may feel outnumbered, outgunned, outfinanced," Huckabee said. "But I think we need to remember that our power has never been in our pocketbooks but in our Creator."
More than one speaker today mentioned the Biblical story of David and Goliath as a way of inspiring this audience not to feel powerless in the face of what they see as big, Godless government. The message worked for Renee Parker, an architect from nearby Virginia.
"Actually, I feel like Goliath. Because I think there is a Goliath out there in independent conservatives. And I think they've awakened the sleeping Goliath."
This is Parker's first time at a Values Voter Summit. She said she came because she feels frightened by what she sees as a slide to the left since President Obama took office. Like nearly everyone in the audience, Parker is white. But she bristles at former President Jimmy Carter's suggestion that such criticism is racially motivated.
"I didn't support Obama because I didn't think he had the experience," Parker said. "But I was very happy that a man of color was elected. So I was willing to give him a chance. But I don't like what I'm seeing. It's scary to me. I have three children. I want to give them the same country that my parents gave to me."
Kim Simac stands nearby, wearing a shirt emblazoned with a quote from Ronald Reagan: "If we ever forget we're One Nation Under God," it says, "we'll be One Nation Gone Under." Simac and a group of like-minded voters from northern Wisconsin had the shirts made for their trip here.
"We started a group called Northwoods Patriots," Simac said. "And our slogan is standing up for faith, family, and country."
Simac trains horses for a living and writes patriotic children's books — some of which are on display here. Like many of those at the summit, she's enjoying the company.
"I just feel you gain a lot of strength knowing there are this many people out there networking, trying to combat what's happening to our country right now," she said.
Simac says she represents what she calls the "moral majority" of average Americans, a majority she says is about to wake up and start swinging again.
When they do, she says, everybody had better watch out.
'Values Voters' Point To Revival In 2010
Fri, Sep 18 2009, 4:00 PM EDT from
NPR on Bester News Go to the Front Page
By Scott Horsley
Nearly 2,000 social and political conservatives have assembled in Washington this weekend for the "Values Voter Summit." It's an annual event, organized by groups like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.
This year, many of the participants are feeling under siege, with Democrats in control of both Congress and the White House. But they're promising a religious and political revival in 2010.
Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican from Indiana, was one of the first speakers at the summit, which runs through Sunday, offering such workshops as "Global Warming Hysteria" and "Countering the Homosexual Agenda in Public Schools."
The participants' own agendas vary, but they're united in their suspicion of just about everything that's happening in Washington, from propping up the auto industry to remaking health care.
"The American people will not stand for government-run insurance that uses taxpayer money to fund abortions in this country," Pence told the crowd.
Self-described "values voters" are a key constituency for any aspiring Republican politician. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty are speaking this weekend. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was invited but didn't show.
Arkansas governor turned TV host Mike Huckabee was on hand Friday. He was the darling of religious conservatives in last year's GOP primaries. Even though they were outmaneuvered then, he told the crowd, there's no reason to give up.
"I think sometimes we may look around and think those of us who are conservative and particularly who are believers, may feel outnumbered, outgunned, outfinanced," Huckabee said. "But I think we need to remember that our power has never been in our pocketbooks but in our Creator."
More than one speaker today mentioned the Biblical story of David and Goliath as a way of inspiring this audience not to feel powerless in the face of what they see as big, Godless government. The message worked for Renee Parker, an architect from nearby Virginia.
"Actually, I feel like Goliath. Because I think there is a Goliath out there in independent conservatives. And I think they've awakened the sleeping Goliath."
This is Parker's first time at a Values Voter Summit. She said she came because she feels frightened by what she sees as a slide to the left since President Obama took office. Like nearly everyone in the audience, Parker is white. But she bristles at former President Jimmy Carter's suggestion that such criticism is racially motivated.
"I didn't support Obama because I didn't think he had the experience," Parker said. "But I was very happy that a man of color was elected. So I was willing to give him a chance. But I don't like what I'm seeing. It's scary to me. I have three children. I want to give them the same country that my parents gave to me."
Kim Simac stands nearby, wearing a shirt emblazoned with a quote from Ronald Reagan: "If we ever forget we're One Nation Under God," it says, "we'll be One Nation Gone Under." Simac and a group of like-minded voters from northern Wisconsin had the shirts made for their trip here.
"We started a group called Northwoods Patriots," Simac said. "And our slogan is standing up for faith, family, and country."
Simac trains horses for a living and writes patriotic children's books — some of which are on display here. Like many of those at the summit, she's enjoying the company.
"I just feel you gain a lot of strength knowing there are this many people out there networking, trying to combat what's happening to our country right now," she said.
Simac says she represents what she calls the "moral majority" of average Americans, a majority she says is about to wake up and start swinging again.
When they do, she says, everybody had better watch out.
Milwaukee Tea Party / Constitution Day Celebration - Sept 19
Thousands participated in the Milwaukee Tea Party / Constitution Day Celebration Saturday!
New York Times best-selling author, Michelle Malkin, was a featured speaker at the event. Click here for her terrific speech: Part I * Part II
http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-090919-tea-party,0,3823814.story
Photo Slideshow from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Click Here
www.fightbackwisconsin.com for event promotion and details
New York Times best-selling author, Michelle Malkin, was a featured speaker at the event. Click here for her terrific speech: Part I * Part II
http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-090919-tea-party,0,3823814.story
Photo Slideshow from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Click Here
www.fightbackwisconsin.com for event promotion and details
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Simac at Values Voter Summit in Washington DC
Sept 18-20, 2009 - Values Voter Summit
Web Site with Webcasts - Live and Recorded Speeches Offered On Site
Kim & Butch Simac are in Washington DC this weekend for the Values Voter Summit! All speeches are very powerful and they are all there to hear and see according to Kim. Pleae take time to read, listen and to contact our legislators!
This is such an important time in our history -- now is the time to 'question with boldness' (as Glenn Beck says) and stand up for our republic!
Kim Simac was quoted by a Reuters national news reporter - Message today from Kim reads: I was interviewed today by a reporter from Reuters -- here's the LINK to that interview. If you would like to watch a webcast of today's summit you can go to http://www.valuesvotersummit.org/. Lots to report, but the news of the administration's decision to just pull out on our Polish and Czech allies is just another step in the demise of the American stature world wide. Weakness never stood up to evil and the world's dwindling positive view of America is dissolving everyday. While we waste our time arguing with a government about social programs that they really have no business even being involved in, they drop the ball on what is truly their role, and that is to protect their citizens from the dangers of aggressive nations. What is happening in Iran, North Korea and Russia is no coincidence. Do you know that we have only spent 100 Billion dollars on missile defense since 1982. That is nothing. We can spend money on junk cars and we can spend money on just about every other ridiculous cause, but we Penney Pinch our security.
It is time to contact all our elected officials and let them know that we want money spent of missile defense and we want it done now. We were told to not e-mail, but instead to call or fax because it draws more attention than the e-mails. We cannot afford to loose anymore time.
God Bless, Kim and Butch
Web Site with Webcasts - Live and Recorded Speeches Offered On Site
Kim & Butch Simac are in Washington DC this weekend for the Values Voter Summit! All speeches are very powerful and they are all there to hear and see according to Kim. Pleae take time to read, listen and to contact our legislators!
This is such an important time in our history -- now is the time to 'question with boldness' (as Glenn Beck says) and stand up for our republic!
Kim Simac was quoted by a Reuters national news reporter - Message today from Kim reads: I was interviewed today by a reporter from Reuters -- here's the LINK to that interview. If you would like to watch a webcast of today's summit you can go to http://www.valuesvotersummit.org/. Lots to report, but the news of the administration's decision to just pull out on our Polish and Czech allies is just another step in the demise of the American stature world wide. Weakness never stood up to evil and the world's dwindling positive view of America is dissolving everyday. While we waste our time arguing with a government about social programs that they really have no business even being involved in, they drop the ball on what is truly their role, and that is to protect their citizens from the dangers of aggressive nations. What is happening in Iran, North Korea and Russia is no coincidence. Do you know that we have only spent 100 Billion dollars on missile defense since 1982. That is nothing. We can spend money on junk cars and we can spend money on just about every other ridiculous cause, but we Penney Pinch our security.
It is time to contact all our elected officials and let them know that we want money spent of missile defense and we want it done now. We were told to not e-mail, but instead to call or fax because it draws more attention than the e-mails. We cannot afford to loose anymore time.
God Bless, Kim and Butch
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Communist Van Jones Resigned -- Here's What's Next
Phil Kerpen
- FOXNews.com
- September 06, 2009
How Van Jones Happened and What We Need to Do Next
Now that Jones has resigned, we need to follow through with two critical policy victories. First, stop cap-and-trade, which could send these groups trillions, and second repeal the unspent portion of the stimulus bill, which stands to give them billions.
The Van Jones affair could be an important turning point in the Obama administration if we use it as a window to understand the structure of the left and to stop the huge power-grab now taking place in the name of green jobs. It's also one of the most significant things I've ever had the honor of being involved in. Here's how, from my perspective, it happened and what it means.
I was an unlikely Van Jones expert. It started July 9, when "FOX & Friends" asked me if I'd come on the show the morning of July 10 to explain what "green jobs" are. It meant an early morning the next day, but I was glad to do it, because exposing the green jobs scam is critical to fight cap-and-trade, my top legislative priority for the year. The producer asked me if I knew anything about green jobs "czar" Van Jones. I didn't but said I would find out.
I e-mailed a friend who follows the green groups and he said he thought Jones was socialist. -- I doubt he had any idea how deep it went. A couple Web searches later, I couldn't believe what I found in an article from the alternative San Francisco newspaper the East Bay Express. The man was a self-professed communist, with ties to ACORN and a radical Maoist group called STORM. His real name was Anthony, with "Van" made up in college because he thought everyone cool has a one-syllable name.
There was so much material there, but what really stood out is what I used the next day on F&F: the "green jobs" concept was merely a new face on the old ideology of central economic planning and control, an alternative and a threat to free market capitalism.
As soon as I got back to the office, I e-mailed the East Bay Express article to one of Glenn Beck's producer, saying: "Please share with Glenn this article about green jobs czar Van Jones, a self-described communist who was radicalized in jail. Confirms "watermelon" hypothesis." (I was referring to an explanation we had offered on his show of the cap-and-trade bill as a "watermelon," green on the outside but Communist red to the core.)
The rest is history. I spent the next two weeks researching everything I could find about Jones and the Apollo Alliance (much of which is still to be published, including a forthcoming paper from the Capital Research Center next month), the national umbrella organization for coordinating between the environmentalists, the labor unions, and the social justice street organizers that Jones has served as a board member and a primary national spokesman for. Beck had me on his show to explain Apollo on July 28, and several more times thereafter, while he began pounding away.
Two days later, the stakes got higher when another Jones-founded organization, Color of Change, called for a boycott of the Beck show. Amazingly, many in the mainstream media would report the fiction that Beck's coverage of Jones was retaliation for the boycott, even though coverage of Jones started first. Given the chronology, if there is any connection we should consider whether the boycott was retaliation for the coverage.
The mainstream media completely ignored the controversy, but the Internet kicked into high gear, with so many people doing great work that it was hard to keep track of. This week, when Gateway Pundit the broke story that Van Jones actually blamed George Bush for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some of the mainstream media (but only some) finally began paying attention. Rep. Mike Pence stepped up and called for his resignation. And early today Jones made his exit.
Now Van Jones has left the administration, but we can't afford to stop thinking about him and what he represents. Clearly, he was far less cautious than many of the left-wing radical currently influencing the direction of policy in this country. Less cautious but not ideologically distinct.
The agenda laid out in Van Jones's book, "The Green Collar Economy," which we now know is an attempt to achieve radical ends, is squarely within the mainstream of the political left and the Democratic Party. He urged adoption of a carbon cap-and-trade program, renewable electricity mandates�including Al Gore's outlandish and impossible goal of eliminating fossil fuel use by 2018, large taxpayer-funded green jobs programs, a so-called smart grid for electricity, more mass-transit subsidies, higher fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, federal funding for organic farms, a ban on new coal plants, expanded ethanol mandates, and even a spirited, multiple page pitch for a cash-for-clunkers program�he called it "Hoopties for Hybrids."
Even if Apollo is properly tainted by the Van Jones scandal, it's only the tip of the iceberg, as this chart shows. In fact most of the action has already moved to the Center for American Progress, the hyper-politicized think tank that's advancing most of the left's agenda, especially the push for green jobs and all of the policies from Van Jones's book.
As I explained previously on the FOX Forum, the push for "green jobs" has everything to do with funding the far-left political activities that Van Jones so adamantly believed in. Green jobs are not economic jobs but political jobs, designed to funnel vast sums of taxpayer money to left-wing labor unions, environmental groups, and social justice community organizers.
Now that Jones has resigned, we need to follow through with two critical policy victories. First, stop cap-and-trade, which could send these Green groups trillions, and second repeal the unspent portion of the stimulus bill, which stands to give them billions. The Van Jones affair is, as President Obama likes to say, a "teachable moment," and we need to put not just him but the whole corrupt "green jobs" concept outside the bounds of the political mainstream.
Mr. Kerpen is director of policy for Americans for Prosperity. He can be contacted through Phil Kerpen.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. His free two-minute Podcast is available daily.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/06/phil-kerpen-van-jones-resign/
- FOXNews.com
- September 06, 2009
How Van Jones Happened and What We Need to Do Next
Now that Jones has resigned, we need to follow through with two critical policy victories. First, stop cap-and-trade, which could send these groups trillions, and second repeal the unspent portion of the stimulus bill, which stands to give them billions.
The Van Jones affair could be an important turning point in the Obama administration if we use it as a window to understand the structure of the left and to stop the huge power-grab now taking place in the name of green jobs. It's also one of the most significant things I've ever had the honor of being involved in. Here's how, from my perspective, it happened and what it means.
I was an unlikely Van Jones expert. It started July 9, when "FOX & Friends" asked me if I'd come on the show the morning of July 10 to explain what "green jobs" are. It meant an early morning the next day, but I was glad to do it, because exposing the green jobs scam is critical to fight cap-and-trade, my top legislative priority for the year. The producer asked me if I knew anything about green jobs "czar" Van Jones. I didn't but said I would find out.
I e-mailed a friend who follows the green groups and he said he thought Jones was socialist. -- I doubt he had any idea how deep it went. A couple Web searches later, I couldn't believe what I found in an article from the alternative San Francisco newspaper the East Bay Express. The man was a self-professed communist, with ties to ACORN and a radical Maoist group called STORM. His real name was Anthony, with "Van" made up in college because he thought everyone cool has a one-syllable name.
There was so much material there, but what really stood out is what I used the next day on F&F: the "green jobs" concept was merely a new face on the old ideology of central economic planning and control, an alternative and a threat to free market capitalism.
As soon as I got back to the office, I e-mailed the East Bay Express article to one of Glenn Beck's producer, saying: "Please share with Glenn this article about green jobs czar Van Jones, a self-described communist who was radicalized in jail. Confirms "watermelon" hypothesis." (I was referring to an explanation we had offered on his show of the cap-and-trade bill as a "watermelon," green on the outside but Communist red to the core.)
The rest is history. I spent the next two weeks researching everything I could find about Jones and the Apollo Alliance (much of which is still to be published, including a forthcoming paper from the Capital Research Center next month), the national umbrella organization for coordinating between the environmentalists, the labor unions, and the social justice street organizers that Jones has served as a board member and a primary national spokesman for. Beck had me on his show to explain Apollo on July 28, and several more times thereafter, while he began pounding away.
Two days later, the stakes got higher when another Jones-founded organization, Color of Change, called for a boycott of the Beck show. Amazingly, many in the mainstream media would report the fiction that Beck's coverage of Jones was retaliation for the boycott, even though coverage of Jones started first. Given the chronology, if there is any connection we should consider whether the boycott was retaliation for the coverage.
The mainstream media completely ignored the controversy, but the Internet kicked into high gear, with so many people doing great work that it was hard to keep track of. This week, when Gateway Pundit the broke story that Van Jones actually blamed George Bush for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some of the mainstream media (but only some) finally began paying attention. Rep. Mike Pence stepped up and called for his resignation. And early today Jones made his exit.
Now Van Jones has left the administration, but we can't afford to stop thinking about him and what he represents. Clearly, he was far less cautious than many of the left-wing radical currently influencing the direction of policy in this country. Less cautious but not ideologically distinct.
The agenda laid out in Van Jones's book, "The Green Collar Economy," which we now know is an attempt to achieve radical ends, is squarely within the mainstream of the political left and the Democratic Party. He urged adoption of a carbon cap-and-trade program, renewable electricity mandates�including Al Gore's outlandish and impossible goal of eliminating fossil fuel use by 2018, large taxpayer-funded green jobs programs, a so-called smart grid for electricity, more mass-transit subsidies, higher fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, federal funding for organic farms, a ban on new coal plants, expanded ethanol mandates, and even a spirited, multiple page pitch for a cash-for-clunkers program�he called it "Hoopties for Hybrids."
Even if Apollo is properly tainted by the Van Jones scandal, it's only the tip of the iceberg, as this chart shows. In fact most of the action has already moved to the Center for American Progress, the hyper-politicized think tank that's advancing most of the left's agenda, especially the push for green jobs and all of the policies from Van Jones's book.
As I explained previously on the FOX Forum, the push for "green jobs" has everything to do with funding the far-left political activities that Van Jones so adamantly believed in. Green jobs are not economic jobs but political jobs, designed to funnel vast sums of taxpayer money to left-wing labor unions, environmental groups, and social justice community organizers.
Now that Jones has resigned, we need to follow through with two critical policy victories. First, stop cap-and-trade, which could send these Green groups trillions, and second repeal the unspent portion of the stimulus bill, which stands to give them billions. The Van Jones affair is, as President Obama likes to say, a "teachable moment," and we need to put not just him but the whole corrupt "green jobs" concept outside the bounds of the political mainstream.
Mr. Kerpen is director of policy for Americans for Prosperity. He can be contacted through Phil Kerpen.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. His free two-minute Podcast is available daily.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/06/phil-kerpen-van-jones-resign/
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