“The several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government.”
–Thomas Jefferson
For the past few days, I’ve received loads of emails urging me to get active regarding the healthcare vote – most of which had a subject line similar to: “Last Chance to Stop National Healthcare!”
Well, if you believe the only way to protect your rights is by begging federal politicians to do what you want, then these emails are certainly right. The vote went as expected, and so will the next
On October 15th, local ACORN spokesman David Lagstein was the special guest of the East County Democrat Club in El Cajon, CA. Lagstein is ACORN’s chief organizer in the San Diego area. The meeting was held at Coco’s Restaurant, a very public venue. Because of ACORN’s close ties to the Democrat party, Mr. Lagstein clearly felt he was among friends. These two clips suggest the investigation of ACORN announced by California Attorney General Jerry Brown already has a pre-determined outcome.
A new citizen action group is committed to exposing the danger that ACORN and the Working Family Party poses to our democracy based on their record of subverting elections through voter fraud, falsifying petitions and engaging in absentee ballot fraud for favored candidacies, looting government housing programs, blackmailing corporations and cheating the public campaign finance system.
Nutbusterz will serve serve as a clearinghouse for media coverage of the illegal activities of ACORN. Media reports on ACORN and the New York Working Families Party (WFP) will be updated daily. Candidates and causes that ally themselves with ACORN will be exposed and held to account.
It's a new school year, but an old fight is brewing in American classrooms. Teachers and administrators around the country are scratching their heads once again over the Pledge of Allegiance.
The courts have consistently ruled that students have the right not to recite the pledge in public schools. But now some First Amendment advocates are taking it one step further, arguing that the law compels educators to inform kids at the beginning of school that the decision is entirely up to them.
They're advocating a "Miranda warning" for the Pledge -- an administrative notice to students that they have the right to remain silent.
McCain should realize there is no upside to standing up for Obama. In fact, this was a huge strategic mistake during the 2008 election. During the early stages of his presidential campaign, McCain was reluctant to call out Obama for what he was: a Marxist. When he finally started doing this as the election was drawing to a close, it was too little, too late.
It's no secret that Obama is waging a war against the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. Why then does McCain feel compelled to stand up for Obama?
A Republican senator is calling for the White House to suspend a new project that asks members of the public to flag “fishy” claims about President Obama’s health care plans, arguing that it raises privacy concerns and will serve to chill free speech.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is sending a letter to the White House today asking the president to “cease this program immediately” -- or to explain how Americans’ privacy will be protected if e-mails are forwarded to the White House as requested.
“I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ‘fishy’ or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests,” Cornyn writes
Are you one of the tens of thousands of people who don't want government-run health care and showed up at a town hall or a rally to let it be known?...then you are part of the right-wing, extremist, angry mob and your anger is fake. It's not organic. It's not grassroots...
(Indeed, Pelosi calls the protesters' movement "astro turf", a play on the term 'grass roots'. The Obama administration is calling on Americans to rat out their neighbors for dissenting political speech. When did we wake up in communist China? Why was dissent deemed "patriotic" by the left during the Bush years, but extreme and dangerous now? Legitimate question, fellow citizen, and something we need to seriously consider, regardless of political idealogy. - Roland)
*RELATED*: White House Brushes Off Health Care Protests
Following reports that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been orchestrating an effort to intimidate members of Congress and Governors who raise legitimate concerns regarding the effectiveness of the stimulus, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) sent a letter to Emanuel saying “While this type of scare tactic may work In Chicago, it will not work to intimidate me or other Members of the United States Congress.”
“I and others have dared to bring these facts to the attention of President Obama, the Congress and the American people,” Issa wrote. “You’ve unfortunately reacted by once again resorting to the playbook of the Chicago political machine.”
(We need to be calling and supporting people like Issa for not allowing the White House attack machine to steamroll their political opponents, particularly those in Congress. Congratulations, Mr. Issa! Good on ya! - Roland)
The targets in most cases are House Democrats, who over the past few months have tackled controversial legislation including a $787 billion economic stimulus package, a landmark energy proposal and an overhaul of the nation’s health care system.
Democrats, acknowledging the increasing unruliness of the town-hall-style events, say the hot-button issues they are taking on have a lot to do with it.
“I think it’s just the fact that we are dealing with some of the most important public policy issues in a generation,” said Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), who was confronted by a protester angry about his position on health care reform at a town hall event several weeks ago
(Dealing with these issues is the problem? No, sir, that's not the problem and you know it. American's are finally waking up to the big, steaming and stinking pile of socialism that the Democrats' health care bill represents and they're speaking out against it. Ignore them at your own political peril. - Roland)
"The Negro cannot win if he chooses to sacrifice the future of his children for immediate comfort and safety." That quote from Martin Luther King epitomizes the state of black America and the perpetuation of its demise by the Obama administration.
Ironically, and tragically, much of the decimation of the black community, by means of betrayal and deceit, is self-imposed. This deliberate and systematic discrimination would not flourish if it were not for willing pawns, duplicitous individuals more concerned about personal political gain than the future of the lives they serve.
Their culpability is disgraceful and deplorable. Their greed for gain works to sustain the status quo of destruction; works to "sacrifice the future of (our) children for immediate comfort and safety."
The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured, appeared on a video posted Saturday to a Web site by the Taliban.
Two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the video is the captured soldier. The video provides the first glimpse the public has had of the missing soldier.
(Please keep this young man in your thoughts and prayers - Roland)
Mitch McConnell appears to be taking Jennifer Rubin's adage to heart as his office announced that the Republican leader will oppose the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court: McConnell gives his reasons in a press release...one thing Americans will never tolerate in a nominee is a belief that some groups are more deserving of a fair shake than others.
A U.S. Army Reserve major from Florida scheduled to report for deployment
to Afghanistan within days has had his military orders revoked after arguing he should not be required to serve under a president who has not proven his eligibility for office.
His attorney, Orly Taitz, confirmed to WND the military has rescinded his impending deployment orders.
"We won! We won before we even arrived," she said with excitement. "It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate – and they cannot fight it. Therefore, they are revoking the order!"
She continued, "They just said, 'Order revoked.' No explanation. No reasons – just revoked."
A hearing on the questions raised by Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, an engineer who told WND he wants to serve his country in Afghanistan, was scheduled for July 16 at 9:30 a.m.
"As an officer in the armed forces of the United States, it is [my] duty to gain clarification on any order we may believe illegal. With that said, if President Obama is found not to be a 'natural-born citizen,' he is not eligible to be commander-in-chief," he told WND only hours after the case was filed.
"[Then] any order coming out of the presidency or his chain of command is illegal. Should I deploy, I would essentially be following an illegal [order]. If I happened to be captured by the enemy in a foreign land, I would not be privy to the Geneva Convention protections," he said.
(Another big ol' hat tip to our eagle-eyed pal Semra for catching this one!)
After two days of hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, it appears that her strategy for confirmation is to contradict herself at every turn. She spent much of yesterday claiming not to have meant the things she actually said or not to have ruled the way she actually ruled. For the first time, therefore, it is not just her judgment but also her integrity that is in question.
Last year at the annual 27 July celebrations of Naval Fleet Day, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, boasted that the Russian Navy would add six aircraft carrier battle groups to its complement of warships. Construction of these ships, he said, would begin in 2012 with three of the carriers to be assigned to the Northern Fleet and the other three to the Pacific Fleet.
Honesty: Lawmakers voted on the stimulus and global warming bills without having read either. Eventually they'll vote on health care legislation that could fund unrelated items. Time to end this systemic fraud.
After being briefed today on President Obama’s firing last week of Gerald Walpin, Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the president did not abide by the same law that he co-sponsored – and she wrote – about firing Inspectors General.
“The White House has failed to follow the proper procedure in notifying Congress as to the removal of the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service,” McCaskill said. “The legislation which was passed last year requires that the president give a reason for the removal.”
McCaskill, a key Obama ally, said that the president’s stated reason for the termination, “Loss of confidence’ is not a sufficient reason
Thomas Sowell: As the mainstream media circles the wagons around Judge Sonia Sotomayor, to protect her from the consequences of her own words and deeds, its main arguments are distractions from the issue at hand. A CNN reporter, for example, got all worked up because Rush Limbaugh had used the word "racist" to describe the judge's words.
Since it has been repeated like a mantra that Judge Sotomayor's words have been "taken out of context," let us look at Rush Limbaugh in context. The cold fact is that Rush Limbaugh has not been nominated to sit on the highest court in the land, with a lifetime appointment, to have the lives and liberties of 300 million Americans in his hands.
Whatever you may think about his choice of words, those words and the ideas behind them do not change the law of the land. The words and actions of Supreme Court justices do. Anyone who doesn't like what Rush Limbaugh says can simply turn off the radio or change the station. But you cannot escape the consequences of Supreme Court decisions. Nor will your children or grandchildren.
In Washington, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a ''clarification'' when people realize what was said. The clearly racist comments made by Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the Berkeley campus in 2001 have forced the spinmasters to resort to their last-ditch excuse, that it was ''taken out of context."...someone should ask her to explain just what those words mean when taken in context
More>>> Howard Dean Says Sotomayor's Race Comment Taken Out of Context -- Then Admits He Doesn't Know the Context
It’s a lovely thing when the conventional wisdom proves to be so spectacularly wrong. The entire Democratic party, not to mention the media establishment, simply took as a given that suave, charming, effulgent, numinous president Barack Obama would mop the floor with grumpy, truculent, sardonic former vice-president Dick Cheney. And yet, on almost every issue he has championed since he left office, Cheney has won the debate or at least put the White House on the defensive. From the closing of Gitmo and the placement of terrorists in domestic prisons, to the release of the torture memos and the aborted release of prisoner-abuse photos, Cheney holds the higher ground politically, or in the polls, or both.
Memorial Day 2009, however, marks the first of what may be 25 Memorial Days that Army Ranger 1st Lieutenant Michael Behenna will spend behind bars in Ft. Leavenworth. In March of this year, Behenna was sentenced to 25 years for killing known Al Qaeda operative Ali Mansur. Behenna has maintained, and forensic evidence supports, that the killing occurred in self-defense.
One of the many great organizations that have been established to assist veterans and their families is the Wounded Warrior Project.
Among many other things, the Wounded Warrior Project's Policy program creates and pursues legislative and policy changes that will benefit severely wounded service members and disabled veterans of the current military conflicts. With advice and input from the wounded service members and families they serve, they develop policy and legislative proposals covering the range of problems these veterans face.
House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) lied to Lou Dobbs on national television the other night but no one seems to have noticed. On the May 18 edition on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) said she was worried about the fact that ACORN and other organizations would "have access potentially to $8.5 billion" in federal funds.
President Obama on Thursday defended his counterterrorism policies from critics on the right by appealing to the nation's founding values in a speech delivered in front of the Constitution that was by turns fiery, analytical and sober, and also defended his left flank by arguing he is not continuing President Bush's policies as much as untangling a "mess" he inherited.
Acknowledging what the blogosphere has known for weeks, the New York Times finally went on record to admit that just before last Election Day it killed a politically sensitive news story involving corruption allegations that might have made the Obama campaign look bad.
But the admission on Sunday, which came seven months after NYT staff reporter Stephanie Strom's reporting about possibly illegal coordination between the Obama campaign and ACORN last year, took the form of a snarky column from Clark Hoyt, the Old Gray Lady's "public editor." Hoyt used the word "nonsense" to describe the allegations of impropriety leveled against ACORN and the Obama campaign.
Embattled Sen. Christopher Dodd is getting a Democratic challenger. Connecticut businessman and former Air Force officer Merrick Alpert plans to launch a 2010 primary campaign against Dodd, who faces his toughest re-election in five terms. The official announcement is expected Tuesday. Alpert said in a video on his Web site that many Democrats have lost faith with Dodd for becoming a career politician who is part of the ''culture of corruption'' in Washington.
Reuters News says the Bibles were confiscated and destroyed after Qatar-based Al Jazeer television showed soldiers at a Bible class on a base with a stack of Bibles translated into the local Pashto and Dari languages. The U.S. military forbids its members on active duty -- including those based in places like Afghanistan -- from trying to convert people to another religion.
Reuters quotes Maj. Jennifer Willis at the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, who said "I can now confirm that the Bibles shown on Al Jazeera's clip were, in fact, collected by the chaplains and later destroyed. They were never distributed."
The video proves the chaplain properly explained U.S. Central Command's General Order Number One, which prohibits "proselytizing" (forcing religious conversions using military weapons) but fully permits soldiers of any religion to engage in non-threatening "evangelism" (voluntary conversations about their faith) and legally allows giving private gifts, including books, to Afghani citizens during off-duty hours in their unofficial capacity. The Al Jazeera film-maker Brian Hughes also admitted the Bibles could have been useful in helping soldiers learn the Pashto and Dari languages of the Afghan people.
Instead, the privately owned Bibles were confiscated and destroyed. Caving in to pressure from the Muslims and Atheist groups, the U.S. military spokesman Maj. Jennifer Willis told Reuters reporters, "I can now confirm that the Bibles shown on Al Jazeera's clip were, in fact, collected by the chaplains and later destroyed. They were never distributed." When questioned about the authenticity of the Al Jazeera video, U.S. Army Colonel Greg Julian admitted the Al Jazeera reporting was biased against the American Christians: "Most of this is taken out of context ... this is irresponsible and inappropriate journalism."
If the modern conservative movement has a patron saint, it’s Oscar Mayer.
I recently attended a conference to address media bias. Present were representatives of several DC-based conservative groups.
Some were hesitant about a counterattack on the mainstream media. Why bite the hand that bashes you?
How can we expect them to work with us, if we begin by assailing them, they plaintively inquired? For a minute, I thought I’d wandered into the recovery room for male pups who’ve been clear-cut.
Conservatives working with the liberal media? Swell idea! It would be like the Chief Rabbi of Berlin working with Goebbels back in the day.
(Bravo, Mr. Feder. Thank you for telling it like it is. - Roland)
One out of every four ballots requested by military personnel and other Americans living overseas for the 2008 election may have gone uncounted, according to findings being released at a Senate hearing Wednesday...The committee, working with the Congressional Research Service, surveyed election offices in seven states with high numbers of military personnel: California, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.
It said that of 441,000 absentee ballots requested by eligible voters living abroad - mainly active-duty and reserve troops - more than 98,000 were "lost" ballots that were mailed out but never received by election officials. Taking into account 13,500 ballots that were rejected for such reasons as a missing signature or failure to notarize, one-quarter of those requesting a ballot were disenfranchised.
Democratic leaders spoke to some of their newer members privately last month, to stop them from voting for the Republican initiative. Tuesday's vote showed they made little headway.
Twenty-nine Democrats voted with the Republicans on Tuesday in an unsuccessful effort to keep the GOP initiative alive and allow the investigation to begin. The first time the resolution was considered, in late February, 17 Democrats supported it.
The White House on Monday pushed up its forecast for the U.S. budget deficit for this year by $89 billion, reflecting the recession, a raft of new unemployment claims and corporate bailouts.
A fresh estimate of the deficit showed it coming in at $1.84 trillion -- representing a massive 12.9 percent of gross domestic product -- in the current 2009 fiscal year that ends on September 30. A prior White House forecast released in February projected a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.3 percent of GDP.
(A hundred billion here, a hundred billion there...pretty soon you're talking about real money. Funny, I can't get away with not having my checkbook balanced to the penny with my bank. How does the government get away with not knowing precisely how much we are in the hole? - Roland)
State Sen. Kevin Parker was arrested in Brooklyn Friday night after a New York Post photographer told cops the hotheaded lawmaker attacked him for taking his picture.
Post photographer William Lopez staked out Parker Friday for a story about how he was in danger of losing his house to foreclosure. The photographer may have also been covering a story that Parker allegedly got into it with a Capitol parking lot attendant, senate sources told the New York Daily News, but a state police spokesman could not confirm any record of a tussle.
Lopez says that when the flash went off, Parker became enraged and began chasing him. "I turned around and ran and he was actually catching up to me,'' Lopez told the Post. "I turned a corner and ran half a block and he's chasing me the entire way.''
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