Sunday, August 22, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
How many socialists sit in Congress today?
WASHINGTON – The Democratic Socialists of America boasted in a newsletter to insiders 70 of its members currently serve in Congress, but an independent survey by WND suggests the number of actual avowed or semi-secret socialists in the House and Senate is considerably higher – at least 82.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Video: The Tea Party vs. The Anti-War Movement Read more: http://newsbusters.org/#ixzz0vV3O9s4y
Now that both liberals and conservatives have coordinated protest movements it is fair to compare the two. Luckily sECULAR sTUPIDEST has put together a great video which shows the March 20th, 2010 Anti-War protest in D.C. and the March 20th, 2010 Tea Party in D.C. (Language Warning)
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Morning Bell: Reclaiming Our Founding Principles
Posted July 5th, 2010 at 8:45am in First Principles
Happy Birthday America! America is 234 years old. She was born on July 4, 1776, with the passage of the Declaration of Independence. Since then, America has grown from thirteen colonies on the east coast to fill a vast continent. Her economic and military power is envied around the world. And the American people are hardworking, churchgoing, affluent, and generous.
Independence Day is an opportunity each year to remember the root of our success—our founding principles as set forth in the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence serves as a philosophical statement of America’s first principles. As Matthew Spalding describes, the Declaration affirms that all men are created equal. By nature, men have a right to liberty that is inalienable, meaning it cannot be given up or taken away. And because individuals equally possess such inalienable rights, governments derive their just powers from the consent of those governed. The purpose of government is to secure these fundamental rights, and the people retain the right to alter or abolish a government that fails to do so. Continue reading...
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
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.”
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