BCRW News, Etc.

SOTU: Obama's January Surprise

2012-01-29T21:34:00.000-08:00

AEI/THE ENTERPRISE BLOG, 1/25/2012 by James Pethokoukis - Obama pulls trigger on January Surprise: a mass refinancing plan for U.S. mortgages. Read more at The Enterprise Blog...

Scottish map-maker admits Greenland error

2012-01-29T17:48:00.000-08:00

Steve Milloy: There was considerable alarm when the word’s “most authoritative atlas” printed a map which wrongly showed that Greenland was rapidly turning green.

F.A. Hayek On "The Great Utopia"

2012-01-29T17:46:00.001-08:00

Hayek: There can be no doubt that most of those in the democracies who demand a central direction of all economic activity still believe that socialism and individual freedom can be combined. Yet socialism was early recognized by many thinkers as the gravest threat to freedom.

ZERO HEDGE, 1/28/2012 by Tyler Durden (Germany) - Durden offers the text of F. A. Hayek's chapter, "The Great Utopia," from Hayek's renowned book, The Road to Surfdom. This chapter is definitely worth reading, or rereading, as the case may be.

WSJ: The New American Divide

2012-01-28T02:37:00.000-08:00

WALL STREET JOURNAL, 1/21/2012 - The ideal of an 'American way of life' is fading as the working class falls further away from institutions like marriage and religion and the upper class becomes more isolated. Charles Murray on what's cleaving America, and why.

CHARLES MURRAY:

Americans love to see themselves this way. But there's a problem: It's not true anymore, and it has been progressively less true since the 1960s.

People are starting to notice the great divide. The tea party sees the aloofness in a political elite that thinks it knows best and orders the rest of America to fall in line. The Occupy movement sees it in an economic elite that lives in mansions and flies on private jets. Each is right about an aspect of the problem, but that problem is more pervasive than either political or economic inequality. What we now face is a problem of cultural inequality. Read more at WSJ...

—Mr. Murray is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His new book, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010" (Crown Forum) will be published on Jan. 31.

RELATED:
Bradley Lecture by Charles Murray, February 6: Alternative Futures for a Fractured American Culture
AEI: Society and Culture - About the book | Murray on "Coming Apart" | How thick is your bubble? (20 question quiz) | What They're Saying About "Coming Apart"

Beck: And the scariest Obama line of the night is...

2012-01-26T17:13:00.000-08:00

GLENN BECK, 1/25/2012 - SOTU: Obama wants government power consolidated under Executive Branch - Last night [Tuesday], Obama said, “The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it’s inefficient, outdated and remote. That’s why I’ve asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.” He sounded like someone trying to destroy the Constitution than someone who swore to uphold it. Read more at glennbeck.com...

More Executive Power? Imparitive... contact your Congressman and Senators to prevent them from neutering themselves (and us)! --bc

VC: The Moral Hazard Effects of Current Economic Policy

2012-01-26T03:25:00.000-08:00

Cassandra at VILLAINOUS COMPANY, 1/23/2012 - Robert Samuelson [Why the Fed Slept] explains how economic policies aimed at smoothing out the business cycle make the economy less stable in the long run:

There's a paradox to economic policy. The more it succeeds at prolonging short-term prosperity, the more it inspires long-run destabilizing behavior by businesses, banks, consumers, investors and government. If they think basic stability is assured, they will assume greater risks -- loosen credit standards, borrow more, engage in more speculation, relax wage and price behavior -- that ultimately make the economy less stable. Read more at Villanous Company...

RNC Adopts Resolution Exposing Agenda 21

2012-01-24T18:05:00.000-08:00

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) calls upon the Republican National Committee (RNC) to release to the public it recently passed resolution regarding Agenda 21.

It has been reported that the Republican National Committee passed a resolution exposing Agenda 21 for what it is: a disregard for American freedom, private property rights, and a key player in the Leftist move toward a one world government. Agenda 21 (ICLEI) assaults the very foundation of America. The RNC has not yet made an official statement or released the resolution. We call on the RNC to release this immediately, and we salute the individuals who signed this document.

Text of the RNC Resolution:

RNC Resolution Exposing United Nations Agenda 21

WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering, and global political control that was initiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992; and,

WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is being covertly pushed into local communities throughout the United States of America through the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) through local “sustainable development” policies such as Smart Growth, Wildlands Project, Resilient Cities, Regional Visioning Projects, and other “Green” or “Alternative” projects; and

WHEREAS, this United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called “sustainable development” views the American way of life of private property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms; all as destructive to the environment; and,

WHEREAS, according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment which would be accomplished by socialist/communist redistribution of wealth; and,

WHEREAS, according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy National sovereignty is deemed a social injustice; now therefore be

RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee recognizes the destructive and insidious nature of United Nations Agenda 21 and hereby exposes to the public and public policy makers the dangerous intent of the plan; and therefore be it further

RESOLVED, that the U.S. government and no state or local government is legally bound by the United Nations Agenda 21 treaty in that it has never been endorsed by the (U.S.) Senate, and therefore be it further

RESOLVED, that the federal and state and local governments across the country be well informed of the underlying harmful implications of implementation of United Nations Agenda 21 destructive strategies for “sustainable development” and we hereby endorse rejection of its radical policies and rejection of any grant monies attached to it, and therefore be it further

RESOLVED, that upon the approval of this resolution the Republican National Committee shall deliver a copy of this resolution to each of the Republican members of Congress, all Republican candidates for Congress, all Republican candidates for President who qualify for RNC sanctioned debates, and to each Republican state and territorial party office.

Chief Sponsor:
Helen Van Etten
Republican National Committeewoman for Kansas
Co-Sponsors:Carolyn McLarty
Republican National Committeewoman for Oklahoma
Kim Lehman
Republican National Committeewoman for Iowa
Paul Reynolds
Republican National Committeeman for Alabama
Demetra DeMonte
Republican national Committeewoman for Illinois
Solomon Yue
Republican National Committeewoman[sic] for Oregon
Donna Cain
Republican National Committeewoman for Oregon
Cindy Costa
Republican National Committeewoman for South Carolina
John Sigler
Republican State Chairman for Delaware
Steve Scheffler
Republican National Committeeman for Iowa
Peggy Lambert
Republican National Committeewoman for Tennessee
Jim Bopp
Republican National Committeeman for Indiana
Bruce Ash
Republican National Committeeman for Arizona
DeMarus Carlson
Republican National Committeewoman for Nebraska

House Republicans Announce 2012 Agenda: 50,000 Jobs in Five Years

2012-01-24T13:13:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 18, 2012
[OREGON] HOUSE REPUBLICANS ANNOUNCE 2012 AGENDA: 50,000 JOBS IN FIVE YEARS - Two-Part Agenda Includes Reforms to Reduce Red Tape, Bureaucracy Read press release...

IMPRIMIS: Do We Need the Department of Education?

2012-01-21T02:54:00.001-08:00

IMPRIMIS a publication of Hillsdale College
January 2012
Adapted from a speech by Charles Murray, American Enterprise Institute

THE CASE FOR the Department of Education could rest on one or more of three legs: its constitutional appropriateness, the existence of serious problems in education that could be solved only at the federal level, and/or its track record since it came into being. Let us consider these in order.

(1) Is the Department of Education constitutional?

At the time the Constitution was written, education was not even considered a function of local government, let alone the federal government. But the shakiness of the Department of Education’s constitutionality goes beyond that. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates the things over which Congress has the power to legislate. Not only does the list not include education, there is no plausible rationale for squeezing education in under the commerce clause. I’m sure the Supreme Court found a rationale, but it cannot have been plausible.

On a more philosophical level, the framers of America’s limited government had a broad allegiance to what Catholics call the principle of subsidiarity. In the secular world, the principle of subsidiarity means that local government should do only those things that individuals cannot do for themselves, state government should do only those things that local governments cannot do, and the federal government should do only those things that the individual states cannot do. Education is something that individuals acting alone and cooperatively can do, let alone something local or state governments can do.

I should be explicit about my own animus in this regard. I don’t think the Department of Education is constitutionally legitimate, let alone appropriate. I would favor abolishing it even if, on a pragmatic level, it had improved American education. But I am in a small minority on that point, so let’s move on to the pragmatic questions.

(2) Are there serious problems in education that can be solved only at the federal level?

The first major federal spending on education was triggered by the launch of the first space satellite, Sputnik, in the fall of 1957, which created a perception that the United States had fallen behind the Soviet Union in science and technology. The legislation was specifically designed to encourage more students to go into math and science, and its motivation is indicated by its title: The National Defense Education Act of 1958. But what really ensnared the federal government in education in the 1960s had its origins elsewhere—in civil rights. The Supreme Court declared segregation of the schools unconstitutional in 1954, but—notwithstanding a few highly publicized episodes such as the integration of Central High School in Little Rock and James Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi—the pace of change in the next decade was glacial.

Was it necessary for the federal government to act? There is a strong argument for “yes,” especially in the case of K-12 education. Southern resistance to desegregation proved to be both stubborn and effective in the years following Brown v. Board of Education. Segregation of the schools had been declared unconstitutional, and constitutional rights were being violated on a massive scale. But the question at hand is whether we need a Department of Education now, and we have seen a typical evolution of policy. What could have been justified as a one-time, forceful effort to end violations of constitutional rights, lasting until the constitutional wrongs had been righted, was transmuted into a permanent government establishment. Subsequently, this establishment became more and more deeply involved in American education for purposes that have nothing to do with constitutional rights, but instead with a broader goal of improving education.

The reason this came about is also intimately related to the civil rights movement. Over the same years that school segregation became a national issue, the disparities between black and white educational attainment and test scores came to public attention. When the push for President Johnson’s Great Society programs began in the mid-1960s, it was inevitable that the federal government would attempt to reduce black-white disparities, and it did so in 1965 with the passage of two landmark bills—the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act. The Department of Education didn’t come into being until 1980, but large-scale involvement of the federal government in education dates from 1965.

(3) So what is the federal government’s track record in education?

The most obvious way to look at the track record is the long-term trend data of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Consider, for instance, the results for the math test for students in fourth, eighth and twelfth grades from 1978 through 2004. The good news is that the scores for fourth graders showed significant improvement in both reading and math—although those gains diminished slightly as the children got older. The bad news is that the baseline year of 1978 represents the nadir of the test score decline from the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Probably we are today about where we were in math achievement in the 1960s. For reading, the story is even bleaker. The small gains among fourth graders diminish by eighth grade and vanish by the twelfth grade. And once again, the baseline tests in the 1970s represent a nadir.

From 1942 through the 1990s, the state of Iowa administered a consistent and comprehensive test to all of its public school students in grade school, middle school, and high school—making it, to my knowledge, the only state in the union to have good longitudinal data that go back that far. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills offers not a sample, but an entire state population of students. What can we learn from a single state? Not much, if we are mainly interested in the education of minorities—Iowa from 1942 through 1970 was 97 percent white, and even in the 2010 census was 91 percent white. But, paradoxically, that racial homogeneity is also an advantage, because it sidesteps all the complications associated with changing ethnic populations.

Since retention through high school has changed greatly over the last 70 years, I will consider here only the data for ninth graders. What the data show is that when the federal government decided to get involved on a large scale in K-12 education in 1965, Iowa’s education had been improving substantially since the first test was administered in 1942. There is reason to think that the same thing had been happening throughout the country. As I documented in my book, Real Education, collateral data from other sources are not as detailed, nor do they go back to the 1940s, but they tell a consistent story. American education had been improving since World War II. Then, when the federal government began to get involved, it got worse.

I will not try to make the case that federal involvement caused the downturn. The effort that went into programs associated with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 in the early years was not enough to have changed American education, and the more likely causes for the downturn are the spirit of the 1960s—do your own thing—and the rise of progressive education to dominance over American public education. But this much can certainly be said: The overall data on the performance of American K-12 students give no reason to think that federal involvement, which took the form of the Department of Education after 1979, has been an engine of improvement.

What about the education of the disadvantaged, especially minorities? After all, this was arguably the main reason that the federal government began to get involved in education—to reduce the achievement gap separating poor children and rich children, and especially the gap separating poor black children and the rest of the country.

The most famous part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was Title I, initially authorizing more than a billion dollars annually (equivalent to more than $7 billion today) to upgrade the schools attended by children from low-income families. The program has continued to grow ever since, disposing of about $19 billion in 2010 (No Child Left Behind has also been part of Title I).

Supporters of Title I confidently expected to see progress, and so formal evaluation of Title I was built into the legislation from the beginning. Over the years, the evaluations became progressively more ambitious and more methodologically sophisticated. But while the evaluations have improved, the story they tell has not changed. Despite being conducted by people who wished the program well, no evaluation of Title I from the 1970s onward has found credible evidence of a significant positive impact on student achievement. If one steps back from the formal evaluations and looks at the NAEP test score gap between high-poverty schools (the ones that qualify for Title I support) and low-poverty schools, the implications are worse. A study by the Department of Education published in 2001 revealed that the gap grew rather than diminished from 1986—the earliest year such comparisons have been made—through 1999.

That brings us to No Child Left Behind. Have you noticed that no one talks about No Child Left Behind any more? The explanation is that its one-time advocates are no longer willing to defend it. The nearly-flat NAEP trendlines since 2002 make that much-ballyhooed legislative mandate—a mandate to bring all children to proficiency in math and reading by 2014—too embarrassing to mention.

In summary: the long, intrusive, expensive role of the federal government in K-12 education does not have any credible evidence for a positive effect on American education.

* * *

I have chosen to focus on K-12 because everyone agrees that K-12 education leaves much to be desired in this country and that it is reasonable to hold the government’s feet to the fire when there is no evidence that K-12 education has improved. When we turn to post-secondary education, there is much less agreement on first principles.

The bachelor of arts degree as it has evolved over the last half-century has become the work of the devil. It is now a substantively meaningless piece of paper—genuinely meaningless, if you don’t know where the degree was obtained and what courses were taken. It is expensive, too, as documented by the College Board: Public four-year colleges average about $7,000 per year in tuition, not including transportation, housing, and food. Tuition at the average private four-year college is more than $27,000 per year. And yet the B.A. has become the minimum requirement for getting a job interview for millions of jobs, a cost-free way for employers to screen for a certain amount of IQ and perseverance. Employers seldom even bother to check grades or courses, being able to tell enough about a graduate just by knowing the institution that he or she got into as an 18-year-old.

So what happens when a paper credential is essential for securing a job interview, but that credential can be obtained by taking the easiest courses and doing the minimum amount of work? The result is hundreds of thousands of college students who go to college not to get an education, but to get a piece of paper. When the dean of one East Coast college is asked how many students are in his institution, he likes to answer, “Oh, maybe six or seven.” The situation at his college is not unusual. The degradation of American college education is not a matter of a few parents horrified at stories of silly courses, trivial study requirements, and campus binge drinking. It has been documented in detail, affects a large proportion of the students in colleges, and is a disgrace.

The Department of Education, with decades of student loans and scholarships for university education, has not just been complicit in this evolution of the B.A. It has been its enabler. The size of these programs is immense. In 2010, the federal government issued new loans totaling $125 billion. It handed out more than eight million Pell Grants totaling more than $32 billion dollars. Absent this level of intervention, the last three decades would have seen a much healthier evolution of post-secondary education that focused on concrete job credentials and courses of studies not constricted by the traditional model of the four-year residential college. The absence of this artificial subsidy would also have let market forces hold down costs. Defenders of the Department of Education can unquestionably make the case that its policies have increased the number of people going to four-year residential colleges. But I view that as part of the Department of Education’s indictment, not its defense.

* * *

What other case might be made for federal involvement in education? Its contributions to good educational practice? Think of the good things that have happened to education in the last 30 years—the growth of homeschooling and the invention and spread of charter schools. The Department of Education had nothing to do with either development. Both happened because of the initiatives taken by parents who were disgusted with standard public education and took matters into their own hands. To watch the process by which charter schools are created, against the resistance of school boards and administrators, is to watch the best of American traditions in operation. Government has had nothing to do with it, except as a drag on what citizens are trying to do for their children.

Think of the best books on educational practice, such as Howard Gardner’s many innovative writings and E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Curriculum, developed after his landmark book, Cultural Literacy, was published in 1987. None of this came out of the Department of Education. The Department of Education spends about $200 million a year on research intended to improve educational practice. No evidence exists that these expenditures have done any significant good.

As far as I can determine, the Department of Education has no track record of positive accomplishment—nothing in the national numbers on educational achievement, nothing in the improvement of educational outcomes for the disadvantaged, nothing in the advancement of educational practice. It just spends a lot of money. This brings us to the practical question: If the Department of Education disappeared from next year’s budget, would anyone notice? The only reason that anyone would notice is the money. The nation’s public schools have developed a dependence on the federal infusion of funds. As a practical matter, actually doing away with the Department of Education would involve creating block grants so that school district budgets throughout the nation wouldn’t crater.

Sadly, even that isn’t practical. The education lobby will prevent any serious inroads on the Department of Education for the foreseeable future. But the answer to the question posed in the title of this talk—“Do we need the Department of Education?”—is to me unambiguous: No.

END

Charles Murray is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He received his B.A. in history at Harvard University and his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has written for numerous newspapers and journals, including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, and National Review. His books include Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980, What It Means to Be a Libertarian, and Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality. His new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, will be published at the end of January.

Copyright © 2011 Hillsdale College. Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.

Samuelson: Rejecting the Keystone pipeline is an act of insanity

2012-01-21T02:08:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON POST, 1/19/2012 by Robert J. Samuelson (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico is an act of national insanity. It isn’t often that a president makes a decision that has no redeeming virtues and — beyond the symbolism — won’t even advance the goals of the groups that demanded it. All it tells us is that Obama is so obsessed with his reelection that, through some sort of political calculus, he believes that placating his environmental supporters will improve his chances.

Aside from the political and public relations victory, environmentalists won’t get much. Stopping the pipeline won’t halt the development of tar sands, to which the Canadian government is committed; therefore, there will be little effect on global-warming emissions. Indeed, Obama’s decision might add to them. If Canada builds a pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific for export to Asia, moving all that oil across the ocean by tanker will create extra emissions. There will also be the risk of added spills.

Now consider how Obama’s decision hurts the United States. For starters... Read more at the Washington Post...

Contentions: Senate Republicans Turn Against SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-19T03:22:00.000-08:00

Commentary Magazine/Contentions, 1/18/2012 by Alana Goodman - Today’s [Wednesday's] Internet blackout protesting the SOPA/PIPA bills – which would allow the federal government to shut down accused copyright violators online without due process – is already making an impact. Legislators who support the bills are being barraged with angry phone calls, and this morning Sen. Marco Rubio withdrew his co-sponsorship of the PIPA legislation...
[...]
This comes after six Republican senators sent a letter to Sen. Harry Reid distancing themselves from the bill and asking him to postpone the vote:

“We have increasingly heard from a large number of constituents and other stakeholders with vocal concerns about possible unintended consequences of the proposed legislation, including breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity of the Internet, costly and burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights,” said Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in the letter.Sens. Cornyn, Sessions and Coburn previously backed the bill, and Sens. Grassley and Hatch are co-sponsors. Read more at Commentary... (may require a subscription)

GOP Rejects Obama Debt Hike, but ...

2012-01-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to reject a request by President Obama to raise the debt ceiling -- a largely symbolic vote, since the Senate is expected to allow the debt ceiling hike. ✧ The House voted, 239-176, in support of a measure that voices opposition to the increase. Six Democrats voted along with Republicans to oppose the debt ceiling increase. House Republicans had only one defection -- California Rep. David Dreier. Read more at Fox News...

White House Rejects Keystone Pipeline Project

2012-01-18T15:04:00.001-08:00

President Obama announced Wednesday that he will deny a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, blaming Republicans for imposing a "rushed and arbitrary deadline" which he said did not give officials enough time. ✧ GOP lawmakers immediately excoriated the president for the decision. House Speaker John Boehner said Obama is "selling out American jobs for politics," and said Republicans in Congress would continue to push for the pipeline. Read more at Fox News...

Congress Must Fight Back Against Obama’s Unconstitutional Recess Appointments

2012-01-08T02:48:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON POST, 1/5/2012 by Edwin Meese III and Todd Gaziano, Obama’s recess appointments are unconstitutional

Economist Walter E. Williams loves greed

2012-01-04T04:06:00.000-08:00

What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It's really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it's human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I'm talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves. Let's look at it. Read more at Townhall.com...

Obama's Economic Record Chart

2011-12-28T04:06:00.001-08:00

The following FYI chart from FireGate Ministries is useful in assessing President Obama's performance as the end of his 3rd year in office approaches. (Hat tip: Stella Guenther)

Johnson: Koch Bros control Congress, push Keystone

2011-12-21T02:07:00.000-08:00

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., protested today on the House floor that the libertarian Koch brothers "control Congress," arguing that the Republican push for President Obama to approve the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas is motivated by a desire to reward the Koch brothers for financing the Tea Party during the 2010 election. Read more at The Examiner...

Rep. Johnson once worried that Guam might 'tip over' if more U.S. Troops and their families were stationed there. --bc

D. Limbaugh: About Those Self-Evident Truths

2011-12-17T01:55:00.000-08:00

TOWNHALL.COM, 12/16/2011 by David Limbaugh - "We hold these Truths to be self-evident..." What truths? What has happened to our passion for liberty? I am concerned that we conservatives, instead of making our case as fearless champions of liberty, are too often on the defensive, preoccupied with trying to prove we aren't the demons the left says we are. Read more at Townhall...

Samuelson: Europe’s economic purgatory

2011-12-16T19:47:00.001-08:00

WASHINGTON POST, 12/14/2011 by Robert J. Samuelson (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler)

Oregon Dept. of Fish & Wildlife: Positions open for experienced hunters or wildlife conservationists

2011-12-16T01:29:00.000-08:00

Hunter position open on advisory council (Democrat Herald Online) - CORVALLIS — ODFW is looking for someone with experience in hunting and/or wildlife conservation to serve as a hunter representative on the Access and Habitat Program’s South Willamette Advisory Council. ✧ Individuals living in Linn, Benton, Lincoln, Lane, Polk and southern Marion counties with an interest and experience in hunting and/or wildlife conservation are encouraged to apply. ✧ Applications are available online and due at the Corvallis ODFW office by Feb. 17, 2012. For more information or for application materials by mail, contact David Stroppel at 541-757-5237.

CFP: Proof of U.S. citizenship is not required to vote in US Elections

2011-12-08T04:18:00.001-08:00

Jim Campbell - Incredulously, though it’s a felony to vote if the voter is not a United States Citizen, all one needs is a face to vote in our elections. It goes without saying; the Democratic Party wants it that way. Read more at Canada Free Press...

Obama Blasts Free Markets

2011-12-08T03:48:00.000-08:00

(CNSNews.com) - In a speech delivered at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kansas, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama argued that while a limited government that preserves free markets "speaks to our rugged individualism" as Americans, such a system "doesn't work" and "has never worked" and that Americans must look to a more activist government that taxes more, spends more and regulates more if they want to preserve the middle class. Read more at CNSNews...

Government didn't build the middle class. Freedom from an overbearing government allowed for the emergence of a healthy middle class. --bc

Subject: Fwd: Concealed Carry

2011-12-07T15:52:00.000-08:00

From a Vietnam Vet and retired Police Officer:

Did I feel stressed?
Did I feel threatened?
Did I feel like doing harm to someone?

The author is unknown so we cannot verify this email account. --bc

The Problem With The Occupy Wall Street Generation

2011-12-06T02:44:00.000-08:00

TOWNHALL.COM by John Hawkins

Does Benton County need a Chief Operating Officer?

2011-12-03T17:48:00.000-08:00

Corvallis Gazette-Times: County nears end of COO search

Should Republicans comment on this article and attend the interviews (if possible) and meet the candidates?

What: Public reception for the four finalists
When: 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6th
Where: Main meeting room, Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, 645 N.W. Monroe Ave.

TWS: The President And The Generals

2011-12-03T14:31:00.000-08:00

THE WEEKLY STANDARD, 12/3/2011 (12/12/2011 Vol. 17 No. 13), (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - The New York Times reported last week that President Obama decided not to apologize to Pakistan about the U.S. airstrikes that killed Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border in part because he did not want to be seen to be overruling his military commanders yet again. How ironic that the president should feel the need to accept the advice of his military leaders on diplomatic matters while regularly disregarding their opinions on military matters. This most recent incident illuminates the ongoing confusion in the White House and among the American political elite generally about how the president should take advice from his senior military commanders. The situation has become very dangerous for an administration that has overruled its commanders dramatically and frequently and is reportedly considering doing so again by announcing accelerations of the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan beyond what military commanders have recommended. Read more at The Weekly Standard...

Turn Oregon Red?

2011-12-01T23:58:00.000-08:00

On November 7th, MSNBC noted that Oregon "Leans Dem" as opposed to "Likely Dem (which takes a landslide to flip)." In other words, Oregon is flippable! Read First Thoughts: One year out...

OPB: OSU Study Casts Doubt On 'Worst Case' Climate Change

2011-11-28T22:20:00.000-08:00

A new study led by Oregon State University scientists casts doubt on a climate change worst-case scenario. The new study helps narrow down what the greenhouse effect might mean for the earth’s climate. Read more at OPB...

Audit of the Federal Reserve Reveals $16 Trillion in Secret Bailouts

2011-11-27T22:42:00.000-08:00

This summer, I heard a brief newscast teaser stating that $16 Trillion was 'missing' with a reference to the Federal Reserve. I thought details would follow and expected a huge backlash but never heard more until Jean Nelson sent a link to the following article this evening. Jean wrote, "Ron Paul’s persistence has resulted in a tremendous expose of the Federal Reserve Bank." --bc

SILVER BEAR CAFE (via unelected.org), July 21, 2011 - The first ever GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill (HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve’s nearly 100 year history were posted on Senator Sander’s webpage earlier this morning [July 21, 2011].

What was revealed in the audit was startling:

$16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious - the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.

To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is "only" $14.5 trillion. The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is "only" $3.5 trillion. Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this Red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world.

In late 2008, the TARP Bailout bill was passed and loans of $800 billion were given to failing banks and companies. That was a blatant lie considering the fact that Goldman Sachs alone received 814 billion dollars. As is turns out, the Federal Reserve donated $2.5 trillion to Citigroup, while Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, a German bank, split about a trillion and numerous other banks received hefty chunks of the $16 trillion.

"This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else." - Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

When you have conservative Republican stalwarts like Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Ron Paul (R-TX) as well as self identified Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders all fighting against the Federal Reserve, you know that it is no longer an issue of Right versus Left. When you have every single member of the Republican Party in Congress and progressive Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich sponsoring a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, you realize that the Federal Reserve is an entity onto itself, which has no oversight and no accountability.

Americans should be swelled with anger and outrage at the abysmal state of affairs when an unelected group of bankers can create money out of thin air and give it out to megabanks and supercorporations like Halloween candy. If the Federal Reserve and the bankers who control it believe that they can continue to devalue the savings of Americans and continue to destroy the US economy, they will have to face the realization that their trillion dollar printing presses will eventually plunder the world economy.

The list of institutions that received the most money from the Federal Reserve can be found on page 131 of the GAO Audit and are as follows...

Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
and many many more including banks in Belgium of all places

View the 266-page GAO audit of the Federal Reserve (July 21st, 2011): GAO-Fed-Investigation (on scribd.com)
Source: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-696
FULL PDF on GAO server: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11696.pdf
Senator Sander’s Article: http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3
Hat tip: SILVER BEAR CAFE (via www.unelected.org)

White House Christmas tree selected

2011-11-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

The 2-year old Obama/anti-Christmas/Holiday Tree email is circulating again.

The official White House Christmas tree has been selected and it's coming from Northeast Wisconsin. White House staff visited a tree farm owned by Tom and Sue Schroeder in Neshkoro Monday morning. The couple owns Schroeder's Forevergreens. ✧ White House Grounds Superintendent Dale Haney, responsible for selecting the Christmas tree(s) for the White House, referred to the tree as, "...the focal point for Christmas for the White House." Read more at Urban Legends/KXAN.com...

And, after public outcry, the good news is that the Obama Administration decided to delay its Christmas tree tax while the Department of Agriculture reconsiders its order. But what's troubling is that, had this story not come to light, and had Americans not spoken out, yet another tax -- another mandate from the federal government -- would have been imposed on industry and the American people without their knowledge.

Wisconsin schools buck union to cut health costs

2011-11-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

7/7/2011 - The Hartland-Lakeside School District, about 30 miles west of Milwaukee in tiny Hartland, Wis., had a problem in its collective bargaining contract with the local teachers union. ✧ The contract required the school district to purchase health insurance from a company called WEA Trust. The creation of Wisconsin's largest teachers union -- "WEA" stands for Wisconsin Education Association -- WEA Trust made money when union officials used collective bargaining agreements to steer profitable business its way. ✧ Read more at the Washington Examiner...

(Hat tip: Kim)

Oregon's Revenue Forecast Drops...Again

2011-11-17T13:19:00.001-08:00

REP. DENNIS RICHARDSON/NEWSLETTER, 11/17/2011 - Oregon’s latest revenue forecast was just released and the news is not good. ✧ The anticipated state revenue from the General and Lottery Funds has been readjusted downward by another $107 million. This $107 million reduction, follows the $198 million revenue decrease discussed in the August Forecast newsletter. ✧ In short, $305 million of expected revenue for the 2011-13 State Budget has evaporated since the 2011 legislative session adjourned on June 30th, and no meaningful economic recovery is in sight. Read more at Newsletters from Representative Dennis Richardson...

Episode Two: Economic Freedom in America Today

2011-11-17T00:40:00.000-08:00

(Hat tip: Stella Guenther)

Jaffe: Troops feel more pity than respect

2011-11-16T04:21:00.001-08:00

The event was a Wall Street gala that raised millions of dollars for homeless veterans in New York City. ✧ Kid Rock sang a ballad about helplessness, frustration and loss. On cue, several hundred soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines strode into position around him. The black-tie crowd rose to its feet and cheered. ✧ “The servicemen and women were regarded as heroes,” said David Saltzman, who organized the spring fundraiser. ✧ A senior military officer at the gala, also attended by the Joint Chiefs then-chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, saw the troops’ role differently. ✧ “They were rolled out like some sort of orphan kid,” the officer wrote in an e-mail. “I’m sure the organizers meant well. I know they did. But it wasn’t respect, really. It was pity.” Read more at the Washington Post...

(Hat tip: John H. Detweiler)

BBC: Oregon voters await iPad election

2011-11-11T00:28:00.000-08:00

Residents in parts of the US state of Oregon are to cast their votes by iPad during a special election on Tuesday. ✧ The program, designed to make voting easier for disabled residents, is part of a five-county pilot in the north-western state. ✧ The counties are voting to nominate candidates to replace David Wu, who resigned from the US House of Representatives amid a sex scandal. Read more at BBC News (US & Canada)...

Was this a bipartisan decision? --bc

Ride with us on the Republican float in the Veterans Day Parade!

2011-11-10T19:37:00.000-08:00

Benton County Republicans will sponsor a float in the Albany Veterans Day Parade on Friday, November 11! This parade is the largest Veterans Day Parade west of the Mississippi!

You’re invited to help us get the float ready for judging (be at the float at 8:00 a.m. to prepare for judging at 9:00 a.m.) To ride on the float, be there at 10:30 a.m. We will be float # 173. To find us, go to the information booth in front of the Law Enforcement Building on Jackson Street in Albany. They can tell you exactly where to find us.

Veterans, you are encouraged to wear something that identifies you as a veteran. Patriots of all ages are welcome to ride on the float. Oregon’s candidate for Miss USA will be on the Benton County Republican float. Come ride with us and meet her! Benton County Republican Women have made over 1,000 military tribute buttons to pass out during the parade. Walk with us and delight parade goers with a button!

Parade Route: The parade starts at the overpass on Pacific Highway, then right on Lyons, left on 2nd to Ferry St., left to 4th, ending at the Linn County courthouse at 300 3rd Ave. SW. For more information see City of Albany - Veterans Day Parade

ACORN Tied to Occupy Wall Street Protests

2011-11-07T01:10:00.001-08:00

ACORN Officials Scramble, Firing Workers and Shredding Documents, After Exposed as Players Behind Occupy Wall Street Protests (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler)

Samuelson: The world economy is adrift

2011-11-06T18:46:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON POST, 11/3/2011 by Robert J. Samuelson (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler)

Time was when the United States automatically assumed the leadership role. Beginning in 1948, the Marshall Plan provided Europe with the equivalent of $850 billion — needed desperately to buy food, raw materials and machinery — to recover from World War II. In the 1980s, the United States took the lead in defusing the Latin American debt crisis; in the late 1990s, it did the same with the Asian financial crisis. The architecture of the postwar global economy was largely a product of U.S. leadership.

But under President Obama — possibly no one else could have done differently — America’s capacity and desire to lead have flagged. Read more at the Washington Post...

White House REJECTS Solyndra Subpoena

2011-11-06T01:02:00.000-07:00

PATRIOT UPDATE, 11/4/2011 - President Obama’s attorney sent a letter to Congressional investigators on Friday, saying the White House would not cooperate with a subpoena requesting documents related to its doling out a $535 million loan guarantee to now bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. ✧ “I can only conclude that your decision to issue a subpoena, authorized by a party-line vote, was driven more by partisan politics than a legitimate effort to conduct a responsible investigation,” Obama’s counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, wrote in a letter to the top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce committee. (Read Ruemmler’s full letter here). ✧ Committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich, blasted the White House response:

“We have been reasonable every step of the way in this investigation, and it is a shame that the Obama Administration and House Democrats continue to put up partisan roadblocks to hide the truth from taxpayers.

Local author releases new book: "No Lilies or Violets"

2011-11-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

Johathan Hayes' book, No Lilies or Violets, Reminiscences of a Fighter Pilot, is about to be released, just in time for Veterans Day! Hayes is active in local Republican politics and conservative causes.

Title: No Lilies or Violets, Reminiscences of a Fighter Pilot
Publication Date: November 4, 2011

Book Description (Amazon.com): No Lilies or Violets, Reminiscences of a Fighter Pilot, the first book written by author Jonathan A. Hayes, is a fast-paced, in-your-face trip into the world of an F-4 Phantom II fighter pilot and his exploits during eleven years and three tours into the tumultuous Vietnam war. Hayes recounts his reminiscences forty years after the experiences, lending a mature insight into the raucous adventures of a man and his machine. Visceral recollections are dished to the reader in a shotgun of images. This is a man putting his life on the line numerous times a week, having to react at lightning speed in concert with pilots around him as they pursue the ever-moving enemy in hostile and explosive environment. One of the weird things about aerial combat is how quiet it is. The air around you will be filled with explosions from anti-aircraft shells and missiles and the only thing you will hear is your backseater's quiet breathing and the occasional radio transmission. You are totally cut off from the sonic part of your surroundings. They lived hard and played hard in an effort to maintain their sanity and balance so that could go out there and do it again the next day. No Lilies or Violets puts the reader in the mind of a fighter pilot. Daily on-the-ground routines are predictable, but the mind and body are always braced and torqued for the next bombing run. Join Hayes for a journey into war.

Note from the author: Buy a copy for yourself, one for each member of your family and for all your friends, coworkers, people you ride the bus with. It's a great book (says he, modestly) and you'll love it!

Check six,
Jonathan Hayes
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Amethyst Moon Publishing, Tucson, AZ
ISBN: 978-1-935354-67-67-3 (13 digit)

County in Washington Ditches Sustainable Development

2011-10-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

THE NEW AMERICAN - Activists in Clallam County, Washington are celebrating their government's decision to pull the plug on membership in the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), a worldwide association of more than 1,200 local governments dedicated to promoting the United Nations' sovereignty-eroding sustainable development program known as Agenda 21. The county will save $1,200 in annual membership dues, but ICLEI critics say they've salvaged much more than that. Read more at The New American...

Our Audience

2011-10-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

Interesting fact: The traffic on the BCRW News, Etc. page for the month breaks down as follows:

US 70%, Russia 9%, Netherlands 7%, Latvia 3%, Canada 2¼%, Germany 2¼%, France 2%, Malaysia 2%, India 1%, China less than 1%, and all others less than 1%.Hello! A hearty welcome to all!

ABC: Obama: If We Lose in 2012, Government Will Tell People ‘You’re on Your Own’

2011-10-26T04:46:00.000-07:00

At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America. ✧ “The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don’t work even harder than we did in 2008, then we’re going to have a government that tells the American people, ‘you are on your own,’” Obama told a crowd of 200 donors over lunch at the W Hotel. Read more at ABC News...

Via email (Hat tip: Stella/Juanita)
Subject: Isn't this what we want?

Obama Science Czar Led UN Effort to Hide Proceedings, Subvert FOIA, Records Indicate

2011-10-21T03:02:00.001-07:00

10/17/2011 - CEI Files FOIA Request Seeking Public Records on Climate Change Policies

White House Refuses to Turn Over Internal Solyndra Documents

2011-10-20T14:57:00.000-07:00

10/17/2011 - As investigation reveals those closest to President Obama were warned about the Solyndra loan, White House violates own transparency pledge

Taxes: Republicans Unveil Their own ‘Buffett Rule’

2011-10-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

Republican lawmakers have introduced their own “Buffett Rule” that would allow billionaire investors like Warren Buffett who say they’re not paying enough taxes to voluntarily give more money to the federal government. ✧ Under the legislation, authored by Sen. John Thune of South Dakota and Rep. John Scalise of Louisiana, taxpayers can donate at least a $1 to the Treasury fund for deficit reduction when they file their federal income tax returns starting next year. Read more at Fox News...

Glenn Beck's 'Liberty Treehouse' for Children

2011-10-05T03:07:00.000-07:00

Liberty Treehouse Drive-Thru History: Monday marked the first episode of Liberty Treehouse, the GBTV Plus program designed specifically for kids. Check out this free segment from the first episode [shown below]. The new program airs weekdays from 4-5pm ET and is also available on demand only on GBTV.

Lane County accepts planning agreement

2011-10-02T04:37:00.000-07:00

Portland Conservative Examiner, 9/30/2011 by David Mcnabb - Lane County Commissioners voted 3-2 to enter an agreement between Lane County, Eugene, Springfield, and the Lane Council of Governments to accept $1.45M in grant funding for the proposed Lane Livability Consortium. According to a staff report sent to the commissioners, the agreement establishes management authority to the general purpose governments, creates an accountability framework, and improves the budgetary and work product outcomes for Lane County. In English, it is an agreement to ensure more bureaucratic red tape at every level of the lives of local residents and businesses. It may not contain any new regulations as is, but it is a framework for future regulatory capacity. Reading through the agreement was similar to reading the email from the guy in Nigeria who has your inheritance, all he needs is your bank account number. Continue reading at Examiner.com

David Mcnabb is a conservative/libertarian activist. He has worked with grassroots organizations who share his goal of combating the progressive stronghold in local and national political institutions.

The Left Right Paradigm is Over: Its You vs. Corporations

2011-10-02T04:17:00.000-07:00

Interesting...
THE BIG PICTURE, 9/27/2010 (a year ago) by Barry Ritholtz - Every generation or so, a major secular shift takes place that shakes up the existing paradigm. It happens in industry, finance, literature, sports, manufacturing, technology, entertainment, travel, communication, etc. ✧ I would like to discuss the paradigm shift that is occurring in politics.

The new dynamic... Read more at The Big Picture.

Word from Rev. Perryman - feel free to share

2011-10-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

(Via email/hat tip: Deborah)
Dear Friends-- My interview and debate on the issue of Race - today on Sean Hannity's radio show. It will air today [9/30/3011] at 5:00 PM Eastern time. The black professor who debated with me agreed that the Democrats owe blacks an apology. It got pretty heated when I defended the Tea Party. --Rev. Wayne Perryman, Seattle, WA

Rev. Perryman's most recent book: Blacks, Whites & Racist Democrats: The Untold History of Race and Politics within the Democratic Party from 1792-2009

Fox: U.S.-Born Terror Boss Anwar al-Awlaki Killed in Yemen

2011-09-30T05:11:00.000-07:00

SANAA, Yemen – Terror mastermind and senior Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki is dead, senior U.S. officials confirmed to Fox News. ✧ Al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Islamic militant cleric who became a prominent figure in Al Qaeda's most active branch, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits to carry out attacks in the United States, was killed Friday in the mountains of Yemen, American and Yemeni officials said. Read more at Fox News...

Sheriff Paul Babeu weighs in on 'Fast and Furious'

2011-09-29T21:51:00.000-07:00

9/27/2011 - Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu implicated the ATF, Eric Holder and the Obama Justice Department as 'accomplices' to murder involving weapons used in Operation Fast and Furious.

Obama's Denver 'jobs speech' panned

2011-09-27T23:34:00.000-07:00

Following President Obama's 'Jobs' speech in Denver today, Wayne Laugesen, editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette, wrote, "Obama’s presidency has done more to boost free-market advocacy than all conservative proselytizing combined. Americans understand more than ever that government cannot produce wealth, create jobs or make life free. Obama can’t put fuel in our cars or pay our mortgages. Americans understand that Obamacare and other onerous mandates on business have killed economic growth. They understand that our country is mired in debt and cannot simply write more IOUs in order to build things." Read more at CS Gazette...

NC Governor Proposes Ignoring Constitution and Suspending Congressional Elections for 2 Years

2011-09-27T21:48:00.001-07:00

THINK PROGRESS/JUSTICE, 9/27/2011 - Article I Section II of the United States Constitution specifically states, “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.” But North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue (D) would rather we just skip over that section and suspend congressional elections for two years. Speaking at a Rotary Club event today, Perdue proposed holding off on elections for a while so lawmakers can focus on the economy — a suggestion that’s breathtaking just by virtue of how blatantly unconstitutional it is: Read more at Think Progress...

Gov. Perdue’s office responded to the 'hubbub' over her remarks on her Facebook page. Press Secretary Chris Mackey said, “Come on… Gov. Perdue was obviously using hyperbole to highlight what we can all agree is a serious problem: Washington politicians who focus on their own election instead of what’s best for the people they serve.”

World Control - Communist Style

2011-09-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

The Benton County Republican Women are pleased to announce that Manuel "Manny" J. Martinez will be their guest speaker on Monday, October 24, 2011, 11:30 a.m. at King Tin Restaurant, 1857 NW 9th Street in Corvallis. Mr. Martinez will speak on the changes he sees taking place in the United States in relation to what he lived through as a young man in his native Cuba during the Cuban Revolution and ultimately under the Communist regime of Fidel Castro. With his biography, Mr. Martinez, an American Citizen since the 1970's, has provided the following information that he feels is important for all Americans to be aware of and to take action to prevent a "totatalitarian" America.

World Control - Communist Style:

The road to World Control and the ending results, just a few proven reminders:

Abolition of private property.
Progressive Taxation.
Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
Confiscation of all properties of rebels and opponents.
Establishment of a "New Class" or "Elite, which rules government, aka "The Party".
Establishment of a police state, with unlimited power.
Central government banking and control of all financial institutions.
Central government control of ALL means of communications and transportation.
Central government control of ALL industrial production and agriculture.
Central government control of the labor force.
Central government control of ALL regional planning.
Central government control of ALL levels of education. The indoctrination of children is mandatory.
Abolition of individual rights in favor of a "common cause. Anyone against this is considered an "enemy of
the people".
Elimination of religion, family values or anything in conflict with the "new dogma", as defined by "the Party".
Absolute control of the judiciary system by the "The Party". Trials, "Roman Circus" style, are favored.
Abolition and confiscation of ALL firearms. The population MUST be disarmed.

(NOTE: Any disobedience or disagreement with "The Party" carries severe punishment including the death penalty. The Party must not be challenge or questioned. It is the absolute power.)

International movements such as socialism, liberalism or any other similar style organizations are the spearheads of world domination. Those are the ante-chambers of "communism" and are used to infiltrate democracy to destroy freedom and countries' solid foundation. In America these are the Constitution, traditions, and family values. For this initial process it is necessary for them to recruit individuals, called "fellow travelers" and supporters or "militants".

The main purpose of the "fellow travelers" is to help implement the initial mechanism of the new philosophical dogma while destroying the existent foundation… They also are used as scapegoats if failure occurs during the process. A main source of fellow travelers is the unscrupulous and power hunger politicians, within the country targeted. However, they rarely advance in the communist organization, receiving similar treatment as the ones in the ancient Roman Empire when "Caesar" said: "Rome pays the traitors, but despises them".

The "militants" are the peons. Hard working communist militants climb the ladder of communism only if they strictly maintain unquestionable obedience to the "Party". Otherwise they succumbed from their ranks and sacrificed in a blink of the eyes.

Communism uses appealing programs such as healthcare and others, solely for promotional purposes. The only reason for these fallacies is to achieve "people control" and assure "totalitarianism. Research other socialist countries where similar programs were implemented and you will find their end results. The main goal for communism/socialism is world control. Here in America, they seek domination by purposely driving us to bankruptcy by implementation of heavy taxation, unrealistic irresponsible budgets, wasting tax dollars in fallacies and funding a monstrosity bureaucracy.

For communism, indoctrination is extremely important specifically in children. In communism, children belong to the State; they are not educated, but instructed. A similar approach is applied to young adults in more advance levels of education. Those showing potential to be obedient and vociferous for communism are rewarded, and trained for more elevated tasks. Others without the necessary qualifications are instructed to follow the fate of the regular population, which are undisputed obedient subordinate accepting the yoke of the "new dogma".

We must prevent the final surrender of America. It is the responsibility of all American citizens and the honest politicians to watch closely and refuse to participate in the collapse of our country and denounce it. We are in direct course toward "totalitarianism"; the burial of the American dream never has been so near.

In the mastering of God, we trust. "ACTA NON VERBAE"

Riparian Issue: Albany poised to act on controversial Goal 5 rules

2011-09-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

9/25/2011 - The Albany City Council is poised to act on new land use regulations potentially affecting an estimated 1,000 property owners, but how much depends on the individual case. ✧ The city staff says the changes are intended to protect natural resources such as fish-bearing streams and streamside habitat, along with significant wetlands. Read more at the Democrat Herald...

Western Republican Leadership Conference, October 18-21

2011-09-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

When: Oct 18 – 21, 2011
Where: The Venetian/The Palazzo Resort, 3355 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV 89109 (map)
Description: A Welcome Message from WRLC Chairman, Jon Porter
Friends,
This year, Westerners will have an exciting opportunity to host the first Republican Presidential debate in the Western United States, providing us with a distinct and active voice in our 2012 Presidential Election. The Western Republican Leadership Conference, a four-day event immediately following the October 18th debate, is designed to educate, mobilize, and empower Republicans from our region. Additionally, the WRLC will serve to spotlight the specific issues facing the west and underscore the importance of our Nevada caucus in determining our next Republican Presidential nominee. On behalf of the WRLC, I am both pleased and proud to announce CNN as official debate host and Las Vegas’ Venetian Resort Hotel as our event host. I look forward to the success of this event and the support of your attendance.
With Kind Regards,
Jon Porter, WRLC Chairman

Free or Equal - A personal view by Johan Norberg

2011-09-25T02:08:00.001-07:00

Program Summary: "In 1980 economist and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman inspired market reform in the West and revolutions in the East with his celebrated television series “Free To Choose.” ✧ Thirty years later, in this one-hour documentary, the young Swedish writer, analyst and Cato Foundation Fellow Johan Norberg travels in Friedman’s footsteps to see what has actually happened in the places Friedman’s ideas helped transform. In location after location Norberg examines the contemporary relevance or Friedman’s ideas in the 2011 world of globalization and financial crisis. Central to his examination are the perennial questions concerning power and prosperity, and the trade-offs between individual liberty and income equality." ✧ Watch the 17-minute video preview at Free to Choose Media.

Visit the Benton GOP Food Booth at Corvallis Fall Festival

2011-09-23T19:50:00.000-07:00

It's Corvallis Fall Festival weekend, September 24th & 25th, and we hope you'll visit the Benton County Republicans' Pasta and Meatballs booth (#18) at Central Park near the main stage on Monroe (across from the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library). The food booth is a fundraiser to help the Benton GOP prepare for the 2012 election. On the menu is Spaghetti with or without Meatballs, Meatball Subs, Meatballs-on-a-Stick (with your choice of marinara sauce or Swedish style white sauce), Strawberry and Chocolate Sundaes and assorted beverages. We'd like to thank the many Benton GOP and Benton County Republican Women who have have prepared for this event and those who have volunteered to man the booth. Can we count on you as a patron this weekend?

Don't want to fight the traffic and parking? There is FREE PARKING and SHUTTLE BUS SERVICE every 10-15 minutes from the Avery Square Parking Lot on 9th Street, Saturday 10am-10pm and Sunday 10am-7pm. Getting there can't get any easier than that!

8 Simple Rules Liberals Use for Arguments

2011-09-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

From Virginia Right:
Liberals all use the same rules to try to “win” an argument when they know the truth and facts don’t support their beliefs. Most of their arguments are emotional, or “EMO” and break down under the light of truth. Watch for these tactics they will always use when they know they have lost a debate:

Blame Bush, Limbaugh, Palin etc.
Change the subject.
Attack the poster.
Call the other person names.
Log on using different names and have a bunch of fake people say you are right.
Find something personal about the poster to claim he has no credibility (but ignore the point).
Claim the source of the data is unreliable (again, ignore the point).
Send you a personal email to try to intimidate you.

Now you know what to expect. Go forth and stop them!

FOX: Lawmakers Claim Justice Inspector Obstructed Probe Into ‘Fast and Furious’

2011-09-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

The two lawmakers leading the probe into the Obama administration scandal claim Justice Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar compromised their investigators' ability to get to the truth and potentially prosecute those responsible for selling thousands of weapons to the Mexican drug cartels. Read more at Fox News...

WSJ: EPA Again Delays Greenhouse-Gas Rule

2011-09-18T17:22:00.001-07:00

9/15/2011 - WASHINGTON—The Environmental Protection Agency is again delaying a plan to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, saying it needs more time to propose the rule. ✧ The move comes amid intense pushback from business groups and Republican lawmakers who complain a recent slate of EPA proposals are chilling business investment and hindering the economic recovery. Late last month, the White House forced the EPA to abandon an air-pollution rule that business groups said would kill millions of jobs. ✧ An EPA official said the agency is committed to the rule, which it is legally required to propose. "We are working on a schedule and will release it as soon as possible," the official said. "This is EPA's decision. It's a complex rule. We just needed more time." Read more at the Wall Street Journal...

Zak: It was Harry Reid who Proposed the Committee of Twelve

2011-09-18T16:25:00.001-07:00

Michael Zak - [Excerpt]: The Democrats have thought several steps ahead of the Republicans with their Committee of Twelve. They'll use this Super Committee to create a huge crisis -- for President Obama to resolve. They hope to blame the GOP for an impasse of their own making. Read the full article at Grand Old Partisan...

IBD: No Place for Gov't

2011-09-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

IBD EDITORIAL, 9/14/2011 - Health Care: Another federal judge has ruled that ObamaCare's individual mandate is unconstitutional. It's hard to see how a court could possibly decide any other way. ✧ Presiding in Harrisburg, Pa., district court Judge Christopher Conner ruled Tuesday that the law's individual mandate that requires those who don't have health care insurance to buy it "cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny." Read more at Investors Business Daily...

Perryman: Obama's References to His Party's Racist Past

2011-09-14T15:51:00.000-07:00

#3
President Barack Obama is one of the only black elected officials and one of the only black leaders in modern-day history - who has openly discussed how badly Democrats have treated black voters and he does so in his book: Dreams From My Father. The book highlights a conversation where black Democrats referred to their relationship with the Democratic Party as “Plantation Politics.” (p. 147). Obama reports that during this conversation blacks in the barber shop asked themselves, why do they keep voting Democrat when blacks have “the worst jobs, the worst housing, Police brutality rampant, … and we all line up and vote the straight Democratic ticket. Sell our soul for a Christmas Turkey. White folks spitting in our faces and we'd reward them with the vote.”

Obama also states in his book that some white Democrats said they would “vote Republican before voting for a black [Democrat] to be mayor” of Chicago. (p. 148)

During Obama's Victory Speech on November 5, 2008 he talked about Ann Nixon Cooper, a black woman who could not vote because of his party's voting policies in the South and during that same speech he referred to “the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, the bridge in Selma and the preacher from Atlanta,” - all racist situations that occurred in areas where Democrat elected officials were in control.

He also talked about his party's racist past during his March 18, 2008 speech regarding Rev. Wright. The then Senator Obama said, “…so many of the disparities that exist in the African American community today can be traced directly to the inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the [Democrat's] brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.”

Obama, a student of history knew that his party made the following statements in several of their national platforms:

DEMOCRATS' 1844 PLATFORM for SLAVERY

“All efforts by the abolitionist and others made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery... are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences....”

DEMOCRATS' 1852 PLATFORM for SLAVERY

“The Democratic Party standing on this national platform will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts [meaning Fugitive Slave Laws]... for reclaiming fugitives.... The Democratic Party will resist all attempts at renewing in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt is made.”

Not one Democrat voted for the 13th Amendment to end slavery and as a party, Democrats did not vote to pass the 14th Amendment to make blacks citizens nor did they support the 15th Amendment to give blacks the right to vote.

Obama is one of the only black leaders who have acknowledge these wrongs by his party. so with this lawsuit we are simply asking: based on what he knows about his party's racist past and how they have treated black folks, why is he and the leaders of his party reluctant to issue a public apology?

Rev. Wayne Perryman
www.wayneperryman.com

Received via email, September 13, 2011 as a PDF attachment (HT: Stella Guenther).

Rev. Perryman's most recent book is Whites, Blacks & Racist Democrats: The Untold History of Race & Politics within the Democratic Party From 1792-2009.

Perryman: Obama's References to His Party's Racist Past

2011-09-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

#2
President Barack Obama is one of the only black elected officials and one of the only black leaders in modern-day history - who has openly discussed how badly Democrats have treated black voters and he does so in his book: Dreams From My Father. The book highlights a conversation where black Democrats referred to their relationship with the Democratic Party as “Plantation Politics.” (p. 147). Obama reports that during this conversation blacks in the barber shop asked themselves, why do they keep voting Democrat when blacks have “the worst jobs, the worst housing, Police brutality rampant, … and we all line up and vote the straight Democratic ticket. Sell our soul for a Christmas Turkey. White folks spitting in our faces and we'd reward them with the vote.”

Obama also states in his book that some white Democrats said they would “vote Republican before voting for a black [Democrat] to be mayor” of Chicago. (p. 148)

During Obama's Victory Speech on November 5, 2008 he talked about Ann Nixon Cooper, a black woman who could not vote because of his party's voting policies in the South and during that same speech he referred to “the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, the bridge in Selma and the preacher from Atlanta,” - all racist situations that occurred in areas where Democrat elected officials were in control.

He also talked about his party's racist past during his March 18, 2008 speech regarding Rev. Wright. The then Senator Obama said, “…so many of the disparities that exist in the African American community today can be traced directly to the inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the [Democrat's] brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.”

Obama, a student of history knew that his party made the following statements in several of their national platforms:

Interview: Rev Wayne Perryman Sued the Democratic Party for History of Racism

2011-09-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

#1
Breitbart.tv Editor-in-Chief Larry O'Connor and host of The Stage Right Show, interviewed Rev. Wayne Perryman about his new book Whites, Blacks and Racist Democrats (released Oct 2010). In the October 11, 2010 interview, Perryman spoke about his previous suit asking for a public apology from the Democratic Party for its racist history. He lost that suit on the grounds that he was from Seattle, and therefore, did not have 'standing.' Listen to the fascinating interview at Breitbart.tv. You will be very proud to be a Republican. The GOP's honorable history on the advancement of civil rights is being buried. Perryman is determined to not let that happen.

IMPRIMIS: The Constitution and Limited Government

2011-09-13T01:01:00.000-07:00

By Edward J. Erler, Professor of Political Science
California State University, San Bernardino
Published September 2011 by Imprimis

Two cases that are currently making their way to the Supreme Court may well in the short term decide the constitutional issue of the reach and extent of the federal government. At stake, in other words, is the future of limited government. And together, these two cases present an exceedingly odd situation. In the case of the Arizona illegal alien law, the federal government is suing a state for constitutional violations; and in the case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—that is, Obamacare—more than half the states are suing the federal government, contesting the Act’s constitutionality. It is indeed a litigious season.

But the Supreme Court’s decisions in these two cases may not be the last word, because both of them present eminently political issues that will have to be decided ultimately by the American people.

The administrative state, of course, always seeks to extend its reach and magnify its power. This is an intrinsic feature of a system where administration and regulation replace politics as the ordinary means of making policy. If there are to be limits to the reach of the burgeoning administrative state, they will be political limits imposed by the people in the ordinary course of partisan politics. The advent of the administrative state poses the greatest challenge to limited government, because it elevates the welfare of the community—whether real or imagined—over the rights and liberties of individuals. The task today is to confine the federal government to its delegated powers. The minions of the administrative state seek to destroy constitutional boundaries in their desire to replace politics with administration. This is tantamount to denying that legitimate government derives from the consent of the governed, or that limited government rests on the sovereignty of the people.

One of the proofs offered in the Declaration of Independence that King George was attempting to establish an “absolute Tyranny” over the American colonies was the fact that “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” Obamacare certainly fits the description of the activities denounced in the Declaration. The number of regulations and the horde of administrators necessary to execute the scheme are staggering. We have only to think here of the Independent Payment Advisory Board. It is a commission of 15 members appointed by the President, charged with the task of reducing Medicare spending. This commission has rule-making power which carries the force of law. The Senate, it is true, will have the power to override its decisions—but only with a three-fifths majority. There are no procedures that allow citizens or doctors to appeal the Board’s decisions. The administrative state—here in the guise of providing health care for all—will surely reduce the people under a kind of tyranny that will insinuate itself into all aspects of American life, destroying liberty by stages until liberty itself becomes only a distant memory.

The advent and extraordinary success of the Tea Party movement, with its emphasis on restoring limited government, has made this a propitious time to rethink what the Framers meant by limited government and how they understood the relationship between limited government and the protection of rights and liberties. It is rare to see a people acting spontaneously in a political cause. The Tea Party movement must be regarded as a testament to the independent spirit—the freedom-loving spirit—of the American people.

How did the Framers understand limited government? In the first place, limited government was not for the Framers identical with small government, as the Tea Party sometimes tends to believe. The identification of limited government with small government was the position of the Anti-Federalists who opposed the ratification of the Constitution. Limited government, for the Anti-Federalists, meant government that was too weak to threaten the rights and liberties of the people. Small government was, therefore, both the necessary and sufficient condition of political freedom. Consequently, the Anti-Federalists preferred a purely confederal form of government in which the states assumed priority.

The Federalists, on the other hand, regarded confederal government as an attempt to do the impossible: to create a sovereignty within a sovereignty. Conflicting claims to sovereignty would be debilitating and would render the government of the whole ineffective—as was surely the case under our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation.

The Framers of the Constitution settled upon a novel design for government, one that Madison said was “partly national, partly federal.” For some purposes, Madison explained, we will be one people; for others, we will be multiple peoples. With respect to the national features—those things that concern the nation as a whole—the federal government will have sovereignty—complete and plenary power to accomplish the objects entrusted to its care in the Constitution. Those objects are principally found in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. National defense, for example, is exclusively delegated to the federal government. And since the exigencies that face nations in foreign affairs are unpredictable and innumerable, the federal government must have sovereignty to fulfill this delegated trust. And if that trust is to be fulfilled, the federal government must also be accorded the necessary means to achieve that end. If this entails large government—and today it surely does—then large government must be compatible with limited government. Similar reasoning applies to all the objects delegated to the care of the federal government.

The Declaration of Independence provided the authoritative statement of America’s political principles. For the first time, government was said to derive its legitimacy—its just powers—from “the consent of the governed.” This was a turning point in world-historical consciousness: no longer would it be possible to argue that sovereignty belonged to governments or kings—even if kings claimed appointment by divine right.

In order to form just government, the people delegate a portion of their sovereignty to government to be exercised for their benefit. The fact that only a portion of sovereignty is ceded by the people is the origin of the idea of limited government. The people delegate only some of their sovereignty to government, and what is not granted is retained by the people—the people, for example, always reserve (and can never cede) the ultimate expression of sovereignty, the right of revolution. The Declaration describes this right as “the Right of the People to alter or to abolish” government when it becomes destructive of its proper ends—namely, the protection of the safety and happiness of the people. This right of revolution, as understood by the Founders, was the right that secures every other right, because it serves as a constant reminder of the sovereignty of the people.

The Anti-Federalists never understood these revolutionary implications; they seemed to believe still that governments, not the people, were the ultimate repositories of sovereignty, and that the only way to secure the rights and liberties of the people was to weaken the power of government—as if freedom existed only in the exceptions to government power. But as Madison wrote, “Energy in government is essential to that security against external and internal danger and to that prompt and salutary execution of the laws which enter into the very definition of good government.”

What limits the federal government is not a limit on its power to act, but the limited range of objects entrusted to its care—the enumerated powers of government. The powers not delegated to the federal government nor forbidden to the states in the Constitution (e.g., ex post facto laws, bills of attainder, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts) are reserved to the states. These are the police powers, which are generally described as the power to regulate the health, safety, welfare and morals of the citizens of the states.

In cases of conflict, the supremacy clause of the Constitution gives preference to the federal Constitution and laws made in pursuance of the Constitution. The supremacy clause was described by Madison as an essential improvement over the Articles of Confederation. Where there is no final authority to arbitrate disputes between the federal government and the states in this “compound Republic,” government will be paralyzed. Madison confessed, however, that the exact boundary between the powers of the federal government and the state governments will be impossible to determine in advance. The precise lines of demarcation will have to be worked out in practice. The Supreme Court—and through the supremacy clause, the state courts—will have to determine conflicts on a case by case basis.

An illustration of the difficulties of drawing clear lines between federal and state authority in our “compound Republic” is the Arizona illegal immigration bill, passed in April 2010. The law allowed police officers to verify the immigration status of any person after a valid stop or arrest if there “is a reasonable suspicion that the person is unlawfully present in the United States.” Everyone remembers the hysteria that was unleashed when the bill passed. The President called the law irresponsible, saying that it threatened “basic notions of fairness.” Others said the provision of the bill relying on “reasonable suspicion” would mandate racial profiling; and some of the more hysterical commentators even insisted that the law was tantamount to genocide. The Assistant Secretary of State felt compelled to apologize to members of a Chinese delegation visiting the United States for this egregious assault upon human rights. One can only imagine the bemused looks on the faces of the Chinese delegation.

The President ordered the Justice Department to intervene. And to the surprise of many, the Justice Department’s lawsuit did not seek to enjoin the law based on racial profiling or equal protection or due process, arguing instead that the law conflicted with the federal government’s exclusive power to regulate immigration. Perhaps someone had explained to the Attorney General that “reasonable suspicion” has been a part of our due process jurisprudence for many years. It means that a police officer can question on suspicion that is less than probable cause; reasonable suspicion, of course, must be something more than a hunch or a guess or an intuition—it must be based on articulable facts. In addition, the Supreme Court in 1975 ruled that ethnicity could be one of the factors determining reasonable suspicion. The Arizona law, in contrast, disallowed any use of ethnicity in determining whether a person could be asked about his immigration status.

In United States v. Arizona, the Federal District Court judge enjoined the operation of the law because it intruded upon the federal government’s exclusive power to regulate immigration and control foreign policy. On appeal from the District Court, one piece of evidence adduced by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the Arizona law was an unconstitutional impingement upon the federal government’s exclusive power to conduct foreign policy was the fact that the President of Mexico and the heads of several other Latin American countries had expressed severe criticisms of the bill both in the press and in amici briefs! Rarely do we encounter such humor in court opinions, however unintended the humor might be.

The Constitution, of course, does not specifically grant control over immigration to the federal government. Instead Congress has power to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Control over naturalization, however, seems to imply control over immigration—so uniform rules governing immigration would seem, by necessary implication, to fall within the scope of federal power. The real question here—although it was not addressed by the District Court or the Court of Appeals—was what power, if any, devolves upon state governments when the federal government fails to carry out its obligations. The District Court had candidly noted that the Arizona law was passed “against a backdrop of rampant illegal immigration, escalating drug and human trafficking crimes, and serious public safety concerns.” In the face of federal inaction or manifest indifference, does Arizona have the reserved power—indeed the obligation—to secure the safety of its citizens? The President’s recent remarks that the border has been secured and that it is now time to think of providing a path to citizenship for illegal aliens is, in reality, a statement of declared indifference to the people of the State of Arizona and to all the border states similarly situated. Surely those states have the constitutional right, sustained by their police powers, to protect themselves through laws that are as unobtrusive as the Arizona law. But in the District Court’s judgment, the Arizona law invoked “an inference of preemption” because it placed an “impermissible burden” on federal “resources and priorities” and inevitably “will result in the harassment of aliens.” The burden on federal resources stems from the fact that there will be an increased number of requests to verify immigration status. This increased burden will in turn force the immigration services to reallocate resources away from other priorities. Such is the logic of the District Court.

These reasons seem trivial when compared to the real and pressing dangers that Arizona faces as a result of federal inaction and indifference. Surely this is not what the Framers had in mind when they crafted the supremacy clause, while at the same time reserving to the states the essential responsibility of protecting the safety and welfare of their citizens. Madison wrote in The Federalist that “the powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.” This extensive power reserved to the states should weigh heavily on preemption decisions. In this light, the Arizona law seems to have been a clear exercise of the state’s police powers, and any burden imposed on the federal government to have been incidental and insignificant.

Obamacare is another issue that tests our understanding of the Constitution and the role of limited government. In federal courts, the Obama administration has defended the bill as a legitimate exercise of Congress’ power to regulate commerce. At issue here is the individual mandate that forces individuals to purchase health care insurance and carries a penalty for failure to do so. Congress has the power to regulate commerce; but does it, as here, have the power to create commerce—i.e., to force individuals to engage in interstate commerce by purchasing health care insurance from private providers? Another way to look at the issue would be to ask whether, under the commerce clause, Congress has the power to regulate inactivity, i.e., the refusal to buy insurance. This would indeed be a novel extension of commerce clause jurisprudence and utterly impossible to square with any notion of commerce that was held by the framers of the Constitution.

In addition to the commerce clause argument, the Obama administration maintains that the individual mandate is authorized by Congress’ power to tax and spend for the general welfare. Congress’ power here is extensive. Over the years, the Court has generally deferred to Congress in determining what constitutes the general welfare. This is proper, since Congress represents the nation and what promotes the general welfare is essentially a political question. If Congress determines that a universal health care system serves the general welfare, then the courts will not interfere. The power to “lay and collect Taxes,” however, has been subject to judicial scrutiny. While Congress may tax for the purpose of raising revenue, it may not use the power of taxation for the express purpose of regulation. A tax that is merely a subterfuge for regulating activities will not be allowed, although a tax that only incidentally regulates behavior will pass constitutional muster as long as the principal purpose is raising revenues.

Madison argued that the general welfare clause was actually a limitation on the federal government. Taxes could be imposed and money spent only for the general welfare—meaning the welfare of the whole of the American people. It is true that Alexander Hamilton had a more extensive view of the general welfare clause, but throughout much of our history Madison’s view prevailed. Today, however, the idea that the general welfare clause was ever intended as a limit on the reach of government has been destroyed by the progressive architects of the welfare state.

In any case, if the individual mandate is to be defended under the general welfare clause, what the plain language of the bill calls a penalty must be regarded as a tax for the express purpose of raising revenue. If the penalty can be sold as a tax, the Obama administration argues, then Obamacare is authorized by the general welfare clause. In the Florida District Court case, the Justice Department made the wholly tendentious—not to say absurd—argument that since the IRS was charged with administering the individual mandate and collecting the penalties, this was sufficient to convert a penalty into a tax. But as Florida District Court Judge Roger Vinson remarked: “Besides the fact that President Obama confidently assured the American people that there would be no new taxes to support the medical insurance scheme, no amount of administrative indirection should be allowed to convert a penalty into a tax for raising revenue. This is not a revenue raising measure and therefore cannot be justified under the general welfare clause.”

But here is a somber thought: If, instead of using the individual mandate, Congress had relied on its general revenue-raising powers, under current Supreme Court doctrine, it is almost certain that Obamacare would be constitutional. It would be an example of Congress spending money for the general welfare.

In conclusion, the only certain method of defeating universal health care and other cases of federal overreach—as it appears that the American public desires to do—is political opposition. A political party dedicated to genuinely limited government—not small government—is an urgent political task. Whether the Tea Party is up to this task remains to be seen—but it is probably our best hope. The Tea Party will have to learn, however, that the task today is not to weaken the power of government—it is to confine the government to the exercise of its delegated powers and to restore to its full vigor the partly national, partly federal form of government that was the legacy of the Founders.

The above is adapted from a speech delivered at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar on May 24, 2011, in Dallas, Texas.

Copyright © 2011 Hillsdale College. The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. “Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.”

Longshoremen storm Wash. state port, damage RR

2011-09-09T21:24:00.001-07:00

LONGVIEW, Wash. (AP) — Hundreds of Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha. ✧ Six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said. Read more at Yahoo News...

Obama refused EPA's plan to strengthen ozone regulations - Gore upset

2011-09-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

Former Vice President Al Gore is blasting President Obama for his refusal to strengthen environmental regulations governing ground-level ozone. ✧ In a short, 179-word blog post Wednesday, the renowned climate activist joined a chorus of other environmentalists who have expressed bitter opposition to Obama's action last week. Read more at the National Journal...

WSJ: Why the Stimulus Failed

2011-09-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

New research on what actually happened to a trillion dollars - For readers who want to know, an important account is offered in a pair of new Mercatus Center working papers by the George Mason economists Garett Jones and Daniel Rothschild, who did field research on what they call the supply side of the stimulus.

The Keynesian theory was that a burst of new government spending would take up some of the slack in aggregate consumer demand. This was justified in 2008, again in 2009, and is still defended now based not on real-world observation but on abstract macroeconomic models that depend on the assumptions of the authors. The Congressional Budget Office's quarterly studies—often cited to claim the stimulus created tens of thousands of new jobs—are based on such a model. By informative contrast, Messrs. Jones and Rothschild interviewed actual people who received stimulus dollars and asked how they spent the money.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal...

EPA Declares Hay a Pollutant

2011-09-09T15:56:00.000-07:00

(NaturalNews) The assault against American industry and individual livelihood continues -- and no, it is not coming from Al-Qaeda or other foreign terrorists. A recent report from R-CALF USA, an advocacy group for American cattle producers, says the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declared harmless cattle hay a "pollutant," which is part of the agency's agenda to squelch family-scale cattle ranches in favor of corporately-owned, mega-sized feedlot operations. Read more at Natural News...

FNC: Obama Urges Congress to Pass $450B Jobs Plan 'Right Away'

2011-09-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

President Obama used prime-time address to lay out $450 billion jobs plan that would provide tax relief for workers and small businesses, saying Congress should pass it right away as it's 'nothing controversial.' Read more at Fox News...

Message to Congress: Read the bill!

WND: Obama slips DREAM Act amnesty past Congress

2011-09-08T03:23:00.000-07:00

A new enforcement memo handed down by the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week has some accusing the White House of running around Congress to implement the DREAM Act – and consequent amnesty for some illegal immigrants – by executive fiat. Read more at World Net Daily...

Sowell: Two Different Worlds

2011-09-06T02:15:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from Thomas Sowell's article, Two Different Worlds: Wealth is ultimately the only thing that can reduce poverty. The most dramatic reductions in poverty, in countries around the world, have come from increasing the amount of wealth, rather than from a redistribution of existing wealth. Read the full article at Townhall.com...

Is registering the poor to vote un-American?

2011-09-06T01:58:00.000-07:00

By Matthew Vadum (Hat tip: JHD)- Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote? ✧ Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Read more at American Thinker...

Note the difference between what Cloward & Piven want(ed) to achieve and what Thomas Sowell knows will lift the poor out of poverty in his recent article, "Two Different Worlds." --bc

Post & Email: Will Obama Be Vetted for Eligibility in 2012?

2011-09-04T11:23:00.000-07:00

On September 2nd, The Post & Email published a letter by Jim Black to Roseanne Catalano, Director of the Division of Elections in Tallahassee, Florida citing case law and eight points of evidence (A-H) for the state to consider before issuing eligibility for Barack Obama's name to be placed on the 2012 Florida ballot for the office of president. The letter is interesting in that it serves as a collection of data on heretofore stand alone challenges and evidence formerly presented regarding Obama's "natural born" status as required by the U.S. Constitution. So far, the courts have ruled against petitioners on the basis of 'standing.' Would a state have standing? Read the letter at Post and Email...

The Hill: GOP poll shows tie in race to replace Weiner

2011-09-04T03:48:00.000-07:00

By Cameron Joseph - A GOP poll commissioned for Republican businessman Bob Turner has him tied with New York state Assemblyman David Weprin (D) at 42 percent each with 12 days until the special election to replace former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). Read more at The Hill...

Registration in Weiner's [former] district is 3:1 Dems!

UPDATE: Republican Bob Turner won! He will be the first Republican to represent this district since 1923. --bc

Kincaid: Post Columnist Says King Monument is Stalin-like

2011-09-03T23:21:00.001-07:00

By Cliff Kincaid - A Washington Post columnist has criticized the new Martin Luther King, Jr. monument, while his paper is publishing a 24-page special supplement hailing the unveiling of the “Stone of Hope” in the memorial that includes the 30-foot tall statue of the civil rights leader. ✧ Black columnist Courtland Milloy writes, "Let’s face it: There really is something peculiar about having an artist from communist China sculpt the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial statue. And, yes, it would have been fantastic had an African American sculptor been chosen instead." ✧ He adds, "The sculpture is based on a 1966 photograph of King taken in his office in Atlanta, standing at his desk, with a picture of Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi on a wall in the background. In it, King has soft eyes and an open face that conveys the blessed assurance of a man who walks by faith. Lei Yixin has turned those eyes into something of a steely squint. The result is a stern colossus, dressed no less in a style of suit similar to ones found on many statues of Stalin." Read more at Liberty Extra!

Zero jobs created last month

2011-09-03T02:43:00.000-07:00

According to Wealth Daily, "A net zero jobs were created last month. The final tally failed to meet already low expectations of 60,000 net new jobs. Stocks nosedived [Dow ended -253.31]. And it was the clearest indicator yet that the double-dip recession is already here." Other economists and forecasters haven't gone as far as to say we are back in recession but they see these job numbers as an uncomfortable indicator.

Radio host David Webb reacts to attack by Rep. Carson on Tea Party

2011-09-03T02:41:00.000-07:00

On August 31st, David Webb, black talk show host and a founder of Tea Party 365 appeared on Megyn Kelly’s America Live on FNC in reaction to Andre Carson’s comment that the tea party wants blacks 'hanging on a tree.' SEE VIDEO. Webb points out that most blacks are Democrats; blacks make up 12% of the population, therefore, black conservatives make up a very small percentage of Americans. So it is not surprising to find few blacks involved in the tea party. He maintains that it’s not a matter of color, it’s a matter of principle. He advocates for limited government and sound fiscal policy. ✧ According to a 2010 article on Webb’s website, if you are black and you’re not a Democrat and especially if you are a tea partier, you’re an Oreo, a traitor, a ‘spook at the door’, or an Uncle Tom. If this isn't a form of racism, it is intimidation and it's coming from black leadership as heard recently from members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Boehner Urges Obama to Reschedule Jobs Speech

2011-08-31T14:34:00.000-07:00

Boehner asks Obama to move date of speech to Congress after Republicans accuse president of 'political ploy' in picking same night as GOP presidential debate [Sept.. 7] — White House calls it a coincidence. Read more at Fox News...

UPDATE: Obama Agrees to Delay Jobs Speech

NLRB tells a church school it's not religious enough

2011-08-31T03:51:00.000-07:00

It's not enough for President Obama's National Labor Relations Board to target the Boeing plant in South Carolina. Now the NLRB thinks it can tell a church school when it's not religious enough. ✧ Most people have heard by now of NLRB's unprecedented decree that Boeing Co. cannot build a new airline production facility in South Carolina. ✧ But Obama's NLRB is also claiming the authority to dictate labor policies and order union elections at Catholic universities if they are not religious enough. Read more at The Washington Examiner...

How Three Texas Counties Created Personal Social Security Accounts and Prospered

2011-08-28T23:34:00.000-07:00

FORBES, 5/12/2011 by Merrill Matthews, Contributor (h/t: Benton County Americans for Prosperity/Facebook) - Across the country, state and local governments are facing huge unfunded liabilities for their employee pension plans. And then there’s Social Security. ✧ But three neighboring Texas counties, which opted out of Social Security 30 years ago by creating personal retirement accounts, have avoided a fiscal train wreck while providing retirees with even more retirement income. ✧ Galveston, Matagorda and Brazoria County employees, many of them union members, have seen their retirement savings grow every year, even during the Great Recession. If state and local governments—and Congress—are really looking for a path to long-term sustainable entitlement reform, they might start with what is referred to as the “Alternate Plan.” Read more at Forbes...

Al Gore Compares Climate Change to Civil Rights Fight

2011-08-28T18:12:00.001-07:00

Former Vice President Al Gore is comparing the struggle to win over climate change skeptics to the fight against racism. ✧ When racist comments would come up in the course of conversations, “There came a time when people said, 'Hey man, why do you talk that way? That's wrong, I don't go for that, so don't talk that way around me. I just don't believe that,'” Gore said in an interview Friday with FearLess Revolution founder Alex Bogusky. ✧ "That happened in millions of conversations, and slowly the conversation was won,” Gore said. “And we still have racism, God knows, but it's so different now and so much better. And we have to win the conversation on climate.” Read more at Fox News...

About Tax Cuts and Two Distinctly Different Philosophies

2011-08-27T19:31:00.000-07:00

HUB PAGES - Both Parties Have Enacted Tax Cuts in Last Half Century: Here are links to two older articles dealing with two economic philosophies that help sort out How Tax Cuts Work and Democrat vs. Republican Tax Cuts.

Interesting!

Glenn takes movement of human responsibility global

2011-08-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

Glenn Beck, 8/24/2011 - On August 24th, 2011 Glenn welcomed a sold out crowd to the Old City of Jerusalem for the finale of the Restoring Courage event and made a major announcement regarding his future and a plan to take his message of love, faith, and personal responsibility to the world. Read more at GlennBeck.com...

The Bad Luck President

2011-08-26T06:24:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Milton R. Wolf at The Washington Times - America’s misfortune is nothing if not Obamanomics: [Excerpt] “Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded - here and there, now and then - are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as ‘bad luck.’“ ✧ Mr. President, you didn’t run into bad luck. You created it. ✧ America is indeed blessed, but it’s not by some accident that previous generations were able to create the most prosperous nation in the history of humankind. Our founding principles of constitutionally limited government, individual liberty and free-market capitalism have unleashed the powerful American engine of prosperity. This engine is fueled by individual players’ investments of labor and capital, and both are supplied directly in proportion to their confidence of realizing reward. Read more at the Washington Times...

The Hill: GOP lawmakers warn Bernanke against QE 3

2011-08-26T06:01:00.000-07:00

08/26/11 by Alexander Bolton - House Republican lawmakers are warning Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to refrain from another round of quantitative easing, which they say could accelerate inflation. ✧ Bernanke is scheduled to speak at a Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., today, Friday morning at 10 a.m. ✧ At the same conference last year, Bernanke launched the second round of the Fed’s treasury purchasing program, which became known as QE2. Read more at The Hill...

Opposition to a third round of quantitative easing has spread beyond the Tea Party to establishment Republicans and even some Democrats.

Oregon not a lock for Obama this time around

2011-08-25T01:40:00.001-07:00

OneNewsNow, 8/23/2011 by Russ Jones - A liberal lawmaker from Oregon is speaking out against President Barack Obama and saying he may lose his 2012 re-election bid. ✧ During a break between town hall meetings in Eugene, Oregon, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) recently told KGW-TV that President Obama is "not [doing] so good." ✧ "I think it started really with his stimulus package, which I voted against," DeFazio speculates. "And I remember the original stimulus that came out of the House would've built a lot more stuff, would've put a lot more people to work." ✧ He points out that the GOP nomination could make or break Obama's bid for a second term.

Barack Obama big"At this point, it pretty much depends upon how far out there the Republican nominee is," the Oregon representative notes. "With a respectable sort of someone who would tend a little more toward the middle of the road ... he's gonna have a very tough time getting re-elected."

And in The Beaver State, where KGW reports that Obama won by some 600,000 votes in 2008, no such landslide is guaranteed next year.

"I believe Oregon is very much in play. I mean, we are one of the harder-hit states in the union, particularly my part of the state," the Democratic lawmaker explains. "I've just done six town hall meetings, got seven to go, and people are shaking their heads and saying, 'I don't know if I can vote for him again.'"

And ultimately, he concludes that Obama has not fought to make good on his promises.

"Fight? I don't think it's a word in his vocabulary," DeFazio suggests. "He concedes everything to the Republicans, so he doesn't seem to have an ounce of fight in him."

Obama’s efforts to woo independents derailed by debt-ceiling agreement

2011-08-24T19:09:00.000-07:00

THE HILL, 8/24/2011 by Ian Swanson - The unpopular debt-ceiling deal has significantly hampered President Obama’s effort to win over independent voters. ✧ Since Democrats were thumped in the 2010 midterm elections, Obama repeatedly has sought to burnish his reputation with independents, often at the sake of his Democratic base. ✧ Yet a Gallup poll this week found Obama trailing not only the two leading GOP candidates — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry — among independent voters, but long-shot candidate Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) as well. The poll found that Obama leads Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), but only by a 6-point margin, 48 percent to 42 percent. Read more at The Hill...

Raise My Taxes? Not So Fast, Retired CEO Tells Warren Buffett & Obama

2011-08-22T15:42:00.000-07:00

Harvey Golub, former CEO of American Express, disagrees with Warren Buffett's premise that the rich should pay more. Before the government "asks" for more from the rich, it should tax everyone more fairly and then spend that money more wisely, he says. "Then you'll need less of my money." Golub makes his case on the opinion pages of today's Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Golub currently serves on the executive committee of the American Enterprise Institute.

The Spending Threat to Our National Defense

2011-08-17T21:10:00.001-07:00

Consider it a warning from the highest levels of the U.S. government. Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta held a joint press event in Washington in which they cautioned that U.S. debt is jeopardizing America’s ability to ensure national security and preserve its interests abroad. Read more at the Heritage Foundation's Morning Bell ...

CB: ATF Promotes 3 Managers Who Oversaw ‘Operation Fast and Furious’

2011-08-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

CONSERVATIVE BYTE - Three ATF officials who held direct supervisory roles involved in the controversial “Operation Fast and Furious” gun trafficking program have been promoted and moved to ATF headquarters in Washington DC, according to the LA Times. ✧ Two of the three ATF agents in question have admitted to mistakes they made in their managerial roles in the botched border gun trafficking operation that let approximately 2,000 weapons be sold to straw buyers. Those weapons were then allegedly allowed to cross the border despite initial law enforcement surveillance, and many of them ended up in the hands of ultra-violent Mexican drug cartels.

Read more at The Blaze.

WSJ: Moody’s Lowers Economic Growth Outlook

2011-08-16T04:08:00.001-07:00

By Tess Stynes
Moody’s Analytics said its near-term outlook for the U.S. economy has fallen significantly in the past month [in the] wake of the debate over the U.S. debt ceiling and the downgrade of the nation’s credit ratings by Standard & Poor’s. Read more at the Wall Street Journal...

A Devastating Blow to Obamacare

2011-08-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

MORNING BELL: Obamacare has suffered a devastating blow. On Friday, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the individual mandate in President Barack Obama's signature health care legislation is unconstitutional. With its ruling, the court affirmed the principle that the Constitution means what it says—Congress does not have unfettered power to force the American people to comply with any and all dictates it creates. Read more at The Foundry [Heritage Foundation]...

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Federal judge throws out Obama drilling rules

2011-08-15T12:04:00.001-07:00

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A judge on Friday threw out Obama administration rules that sought to slow down expedited environmental review of oil and gas drilling on federal land. ✧ U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal ruled in favor of a petroleum industry group, the Western Energy Alliance, in its lawsuit against the federal government, including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. ✧ The ruling reinstates Bush-era expedited oil and gas drilling under provisions called categorical exclusions on federal lands nationwide, Freudenthal said. Read more: Seattle PI

Note: Judge Freudenthal was appointed by President Obama.

CFIF: Liberals Can’t Tell the Truth About Social Security Funding

2011-08-14T14:19:00.000-07:00

By Ashton Ellis - EXCERPT: "When [Sen. Bernie] Sanders [I-VT] says that 'Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus today,' what he really means is that the Trust Fund has $2.6 trillion in Treasury IOUs. The money is gone because it’s already been spent, by the government, on other government programs." Read more at the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF)...

Bachmann Wins Iowa Straw Poll

2011-08-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

Rep. Michele Bachmann wins the 2011 Iowa Straw Poll with 28.55 percent of the vote, with Rep. Ron Paul following in second place with 27.65 percent and former Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty finishing third with 13.57 percent. Read more at Fox News...

UPDATE: Gov. Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the race after distant 3rd place showing in the straw poll.

Click the 'read more' to see the 10 finishers in Iowa's straw poll:

1. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (4823, 28.55%)

2. Congressman Ron Paul (4671, 27.65%)

3. Governor Tim Pawlenty (2293, 13.57%)

4. Senator Rick Santorum (1657, 9.81%)

5. Herman Cain (1456, 8.62%)

6. Governor Rick Perry (718, 3.62%) write-in

7. Governor Mitt Romney (567, 3.36%)

8. Speaker Newt Gingrich (385, 2.28%)

9. Governor Jon Huntsman (69, 0.41%)

10. Congressman Thad McCotter (35, 0.21%)

Texas Governor Perry Makes It Official: He's Running for President

2011-08-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

Gov. Rick Perry tossed his cowboy hat into the ring Saturday, shaking up the GOP race as he puts his undefeated political record on the line in his first presidential rodeo. ✧ "It is time to get America working again and that's why with the support of my family and unwavering belief in the goodness of America, I declare to you today as a candidate for the president of the United States," he said in a speech at a RedState Gathering of conservative activists in Charleston, South Carolina. Read more at Fox News...