by on JUNE 7, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
The Contract from America
The Contract from America
We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.
Individual Liberty
Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.
Limited Government
The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.
Economic Freedom
The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.
1. Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)
2. Reject Cap & Trade
Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures. (72.20%)
3. Demand a Balanced Budget
Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. (69.69%)
4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution. (64.90%)
5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington
Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning. (63.37%)
6. End Runaway Government Spending
Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%)
7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries. (56.39%)
8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs. (55.51%)
9. Stop the Pork
Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%)
10. Stop the Tax Hikes
Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011. (53.38%)
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Get involved. Sign the Contract. Join the movement. Make sure your voice and your priorities are heard. Together, we can and will make a difference.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
American Thinker: The Lawyers' Party
By Bruce Walker
The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer and so is his wife Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate.) Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office thirty-one years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democratic Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so we have seen the procession of official enemies in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all consuming. Some Americans become "adverse parties" of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class action suit. We are citizens of a republic which promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws, we are contorted by judicial decisions, we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to use, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform or real hope in America. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
Illinois parolees disappear after being released early - Springfield, IL - The State Journal-Register
Dozens of parolees, including one imprisoned for his part in a 2008 murder, have disappeared after they were set free as part of a secret early release program, according to documents acquired by The Associated Press.
The parolees were let go as part of the “MGT Push” plan that Gov. Pat Quinn shut down in December after The Associated Press revealed it.
The Illinois Department of Corrections’ practice has been not to tell the public when the convicts take off, but the agency said Wednesday it would change that.
MGT Push has embarrassed Quinn as he runs for re-election, although the Democratic governor has said he didn’t know that Corrections Director Michael Randle was going to release violent offenders. The administration ordered parole agents in January to begin “intensive compliance” checks on the released prisoners.
More than 50 MGT Push parolees are currently on the lam, according to documents from Corrections obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act and analyzed by The Associated Press.
Some gone for months
While many who go astray are picked up within days, some absconders have been gone for months. Those currently on the list have been missing an average of 136 days, or 4.5 months, according to the AP analysis.
“Our teams are working full-time to apprehend these offenders,” Corrections Department spokeswoman Sharyn Elman said.
Corrections seeks help from local and federal police in tracking down the convicts, although most are found by parole agents. The public has not been told they are missing, and the agency’s website lists their status as “parole” — the same as for the thousands of parolees whose location is known.
“It’s dangerous. People could be hurt,” said Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins, a crime victims’ advocate with IllinoisVictims.org.
Elman initially said the list changes too rapidly for the agency to be able to accurately report parolees who are on the run. OnWednesday, however, she said the agency was developing a way to update parolees’ status.
Quinn’s office would not comment.
Hundreds released early
The MGT Push plan was meant to reduce the prison population by giving discretionary good-conduct credit — known as “meritorious good time” — to offenders as soon as they arrived at prison. They were rewarded for good conduct even before they had a chance to show they could follow the rules.
Hundreds of violent criminals were among 1,745 who were released weeks early. Some had spent as little as seven days in prison.
When the “intensive compliance checks” started, many of the people released under MGT Push were sent back behind bars for minor rule-breaking: Failing to make a daily telephone check-in, having beer in the house, not being home twice on the same day when agents came knocking, documents show.
But dozens are missing.
They include Curtis Nelson, 21, who was released three months early on a three-year sentence for mob action. Unarmed, he accompanied two armed men during a June 2008 shootout in Sauk Village that killed a 20-year-old man, according to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office.
Nelson has been missing since April 24, when he bolted a community treatment center where he’d been enrolled because of his continued drug use.
Among a dozen other missing parolees with violent histories is Michael Watkins, 53, absent since Feb. 5. Watkins was set free six months early on an 18-month stint for aggravated drunk driving. In the mid-1980s, he was sentenced to nine years for attempted murder, home invasion and burglary.
Data could be incomplete
The number of absconders is probably greater than 50 because the AP data is two weeks old, and Corrections doesn’t automatically report when an inmate goes missing.
Also, it doesn’t include parolees who have been deported or turned over to immigration authorities because they are suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could deport or release them, the agency doesn’t automatically notify Corrections, so prison officials consider them missing unless they get calls from the parolees.
Some on the list may have been apprehended but are being held in county jails; the agency doesn’t report them as in custody until they’re in state prison.
Lawmakers sent legislation to Quinn last month that would require information on parolees to be posted on the Internet within three days of their early release.
It should have included a requirement that missing parolees be labeled, said Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R-Elmhurst, minority leader of the House Judiciary Committee for criminal law.
“Victims have a right to know where these people are, and the public isn’t being made aware of that,” Reboletti said. “The governor doesn’t want the embarrassment of the public finding out that the people he released early and put on parole are missing.”
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Is insurance industry next takeover target?
Proposal in Congress puts feds in middle of catastrophe claims
Posted: June 12, 2010
9:10 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
 Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina |
The federal government, in its efforts to take over health care, auto companies, Wall Street interests, student loans and talk about plans for imposing new mandates on talk radio, the Internet and oil companies, isn't ignoring the insurance industry.
There's now an advancing new plan to put more taxpayer dollars into claims coming out of catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina. And a wide-ranging coalition of interest groups from the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies to the Reinsurance Association of America are in league with the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club to oppose it.
The plan, H.R. 2555 by Rep. Ron Klein, D-Fla., has been reported out of the House Committee on Financial Services. It is expected to be up for its next vote soon.
Continued at Is insurance industry next takeover target?
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Chicago Alderman Solis Calls Americans ‘Nazis’
June 11, 2010 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Arizona, Chicago,Constitution, Cook County, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances,Government, Government, Corruption, Illinois, Illinois State Government,Warner Todd Huston |
-By Warner Todd Huston
If you are interested in the rule of law, if you are someone who upholds the Constitution, or someone that believes in the sovereignty of America’s borders, Chicago Alderman Danny Solis wants you to know that you are a Nazi. That’s right Moreno thinks you are “wrong,” and you are “evil” if you want to uphold federal laws.
Naturally, Alderman Solis is a pandering, uninformed, loudmouth trying to make points with other people that hate America just like he does.
On June 9, the Chicago City Council voted to boycott companies from Arizona because of that state’s decision to institute its “tough new immigration law,” as the Sun-Times puts it.
Solis ignorantly railed against Arizona in the meeting. “This law is wrong. It’s evil. It [harkens] back to, what I consider to be one of the worst episodes of this world when Nazi Germany was able to identify a particular group of people by [passing] laws that were only the beginning of something that was monstrous,” he blurted out.
Solis, like all that stand against the Arizona decision, are one of two things. They are either liars, or wholly uninformed. But whether they are knowingly lying about the Arizona law and what it means or not people that oppose it are promulgating lies.
Worse, they are attempting to coddle criminals at the expense of the rule of law. Not to mention using inflammatory language against fellow citizens in order to aid foreigners. On top of all that, denigrators of the Arizona law are also undermining the United States of America at every level from historical, to economic, to cultural.
Of course, the main thing that is going on with panderers like Ald. Solis is that they are… well, pandering. Danny Solis is one of the worst examples of a politician with no principles. He doesn’t care if the U.S. is economically damaged by an invasion of criminal illegals. He doesn’t care if American culture is damaged by millions of immigrants that have no interest in becoming part of the U.S. He couldn’t care less if U.S. laws whether federal or local are broken. All he cares about is getting votes and in stuffing his own pockets with political contributions.
Danny Solis is a man without character, without loyalty to the very country that has made him rich, and wholly without any principles at all. But he is not alone. Every person attacking the Arizona bill is standing right beside him as anti-American compadres.
So, good job, Chicago. You’ve once again proven that no good can come from “The Chicago Way.” Sadly, corrupt politicians like Solis seem to be the norm in the Windy City.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 200 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’sBigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, andBigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com,CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com,AmericanDailyReview.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
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