A Republic, If You Can Keep It

-By Frank Salvato

When Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall in Philadelphia at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he was approached by a Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia. It was then and there that she asked the now famous question, “Well, Doctor, what have we, a republic or a monarchy?” It is said that Dr. Franklin, without hesitation, said, “A Republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.”

By definition, courtesy of Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law, a Republic is “a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.” In other words, and to paraphrase without deviating from the definition’s intent, a Republic is a system of government where the ultimate power lies with the people; that power executed by way of elected representatives who are responsible to those who elected them and according to the rule of law.

The United States of America is a Republic, a Constitutional Republic. By this it is meant that we elect representatives who execute government per the rule of constitutional law, the United States Constitution being the ultimate and exclusive basis for that law.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It”


Woe Is Me!

-By Nancy Morgan

In today’s America, feelings have replaced facts as our governing policy. Shame has been relegated to the back of the bus and squeaky wheels have been given the place of honor.

Merit has been replaced by grievance mongers. Accomplishment and material success are vilified as having been attained on the backs of the have-nots. And that’s not fair!

In a rush to attain unearned moral virtue, millions of Americans have bowed to the PC police and advocated issues about which they know nothing in a desperate attempt to appear relevant, compassionate and non-judgmental. Useful idiots reign supreme.

We now see our elected officials on the floor of Congress debating who has come from the most humble background, as they wage a war on those greedy rich people in an effort to show how compassionate they are.
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Woe Is Me!”


Abolish the Transportation Security Administration

-By Chris Slavens

Democrats’ favorite strategy is to blame George W. Bush for everything from high unemployment to Hurricane Katrina, so it should come as no surprise that some on the left are attempting to pin the abuses of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on the former president, despite the fact that the Obama administration—with the exception of Hillary Clinton, who has political reasons to distance herself from her boss—is fully supportive of pat-down procedures that would, as one protesting passenger correctly noted, constitute sexual assault if performed by anyone other than government employees.

Strangely, however, a majority of liberals (at least those in the media) have chosen not to assign blame at all, and are instead diligently pretending that groping innocent citizens is the niftiest thing since solar panels, patiently reminding the unwashed masses that it’s perfectly acceptable to trade liberty for security.

The TSA was created during Bush’s presidency, two months after the tragic 9/11 attacks, but it was Democrats who insisted that airport security be handled by federal employees, rather than private firms. And, of course, the screening procedures in question were implemented a few weeks ago with the approval of a federal government controlled entirely by Democrats.
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Abolish the Transportation Security Administration”


Stop Obsessing About Japan And Deflation

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke apparently is misled by fictionalized versions of two economic models: Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal Keynesianism and Japan’s deflation and economic stagnation.

Mr. Bernanke reads New Deal economic history with blinders firmly affixed to narrow the breadth of his vision. In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he holds to his philosophically materialistic, Keynesian economics faith that manipulation of monetary quantity alone is a mathematically certain, unfailing cure for any economic downturn or increase in unemployment.

Keynesian macroeconomics depends upon a simplistic faith that mathematical inerrancy can be applied to human conduct, that the behavior of hundreds of millions of people can be conformed to an academic spreadsheet model of an economy. Keynesian logic says that, if A = B, then reversing the equation, starting with B, will produce A. Implicitly for Keynesians, if A (expanding business activity) equals (produces) more bank credit and more money in circulation, then flipping the equation and starting with B (increasing the money supply) will create more bank lending and increase business activity.
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Stop Obsessing About Japan And Deflation”


The Federal Reserve’s Magic Money

-By Alan Caruba

Historically, the Federal Reserve has had a poor record when it comes to correcting an economic slide into Depression.

In his book, “New Deal or Raw Deal?” historian Burton Folsom, Jr, asked and answered the question “What caused the Great Depression?” Among the factors he cited was the huge debt left over from World War One. In the United States, the national debt had ballooned from $1.3 billion to $24 billion in three short years, half of which consisted of loans made to the allies.

Today the U.S. is feeling the impact of the aftermath of 9/11 when military action was taken first in 2001 and then in 2003. We are still in Afghanistan and Iraq without much to show for it. As opposed to short, preemptive, lightning strikes, we have become involved in “nation building.” Forgotten is the fact that it was the Russian intervention in Afghanistan that ultimately brought down the former Soviet Union.

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The Federal Reserve’s Magic Money”


K. Carl Smith, the Conservative Messenger

-By Warner Todd Huston

With phrases like, “reigniting American’s passion for liberty,” and “saving our party will save our country,” what’s not to like?

K Carl Smith, The Conservative Messenger from Wetumpka Tea Party on Vimeo.

You can see Mr. Smith’s website at: http://www.conservativemessenger.org/.

One of his interesting contentions is that the federal government is the modern day slave master. He also contends that Frederick Douglas is the father of the Republican Party.
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K. Carl Smith, the Conservative Messenger”


Libertarianism’s Folly: When the ‘Live and Let Live’ Mentality Becomes Vice

-By Selwyn Duke

While there was a time when I might have described myself as a libertarian, those days are long gone. In fact, I don’t even call myself a conservative anymore. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I agree with libertarians on many issues, and their governmental model is vastly preferable to what liberals have visited upon us. Yet there is a problem: However valid their vision of government may be, their vision of society renders it unattainable.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Now, I certainly agree with the first sentence, as it’s merely a statement of the obvious. But then we have to ask, what constitutes “injurious”? And, when determining this, do we completely ignore indirect injury? Then, if we do consider the latter, to what extent should it be the domain of government? (When pondering these matters, note that the Founding Fathers didn’t reside on the modern libertarian page. They certainly would have, for instance, supported the idea of state and local governments outlawing pornography and would be appalled at what is now justified under the First Amendment.)
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Libertarianism’s Folly: When the ‘Live and Let Live’ Mentality Becomes Vice”


BREAKING: Democrat Introduces Legislation to End Right-to-Work States

From LaborUnionReport.com

[ed: yet another example of the extreme left in America trying to use the federal government to destroy local control and state’s rights.]

Back in June, we reported that California Congressman Brad Sherman (D) was circulating a letter to his fellow Democrats to introduce legislation to repeal “Right-to-Work” laws in 22 states. Now, with less than a month before the mid-term elections and five weeks before a lame-duck session in Congress, Sherman has introduced legislation to eliminate state Right to Work laws all across America.

Currently, there are 22 states in the U.S. that have laws where workers who are employed at companies that are unionized have a choice whether or not to join or pay the union. These states are known as Right-to-Work states.
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BREAKING: Democrat Introduces Legislation to End Right-to-Work States”


The United States, 2010: A Rogue Government

-By Frank Salvato

With the recent ruling by US District Judge Susan Bolton, a Clinton appointee, blocking the most contentious parts of Arizona law SB1070, we learn two things: One, that the federal government cannot be forced to enforce federal law, regardless of the fact that the law has been brought to legislation by the constitutional process, and two, that today, opportunistic political ideologues who have schemed their ways to power have all but extinguished good government in the United States of America; government that should be exclusively engaged in serving the best interests of the American people.

To be fair, Judge Bolton’s ruling does not end the issue, not by a long shot. In fact, there is a very good chance that the case surrounding Arizona law SB1070 will make it – and in an expedited manner – to the US Supreme Court. This actually bodes well for the American citizen primarily because today the US Supreme Court has a balance that actually gives an edge – even if ever so slightly – to the US Constitution and, thus, the American people. Judge Bolton’s ruling simply put those sections blocked – or deemed unlikely to withstand a challenge in the judicial system, be it from the ACLU, La Raza or the Holder/Obama Justice Department (which is tantamount to the ACLU and La Raza) – on hold until the courts resolve the issues.
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The United States, 2010: A Rogue Government”


Am I an Extremist?

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

According to the moguls of the media (the News Twisters), I would appear to be an extremist although I always thought I was mainline. (As mainline as an active Christian can be.) After reading the musings from the various politicians, I may be one of those dreaded extremists.

I believe strongly (all extremists believe strongly in their positions) that government, out of control, is a wild beast. Does that make me dangerous? Didn’t all our founding fathers believe government can be a wild beast? Did they not insist on the Bill of Rights because they knew that government (made up of depraved creatures) could not be trusted? Is it unreasonable to believe that all politicians and bureaucrats should be bound by the chains of the Constitution?

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Am I an Extremist?”


Obama’s FDR-Like Bait and Switch

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember when Barack Hussein Obama first became president and the left-wing Old Media universally indulged the claim that he was “just like FDR“? Of late the Old Media has backed off that hyperbolic statement, but at least in a single incident, Obama has proven indeed to be just like FDR. The similarity entails laws about which the two presidents lied to the public in order to sell them. And in both instances, the truth only came out in court.

For FDR it was Social Security. The Roosevelt Administration sold Social Security as an “insurance” program when it began to push for the policy. The truth is, of course, that Social security and its unemployment plan adjunct is in no way an insurance program. It is welfare pure and simple.

But FDR sold it as “insurance” anyway. In 1936, for instance, FDR sternly told an audience in Pennsylvania that it was an insurance program.
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Obama’s FDR-Like Bait and Switch”


Dear, Former Victims of Socialism/Communism, America Needs OUR Help!

(ED’s Note: Friend to the blog, Leon Weinstein who is a US citizen that emigrated from the USSR in 1974, wrote this because he is alarmed that the U.S. is headed to the hell he ran from so long ago. This is important stuff, folks. Leon KNOWS what he’s talking about as he lived through Russian Communism. We need to seriously think about his warnings…)

-By Leon Weinstein

Dear ex-compatriots who once lived under the socialist regimes of the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Cuba, China, Albania, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Venezuela of Chavez, the Argentina of Peron, and others of similar life experience!

I was born in the Soviet Union and was lucky to part with socialism and lucky & privileged to become the US citizen. However during last year and a half I am becoming increasingly concerned about the direction American leaders are steering our country to. More and more the US resembles the world you & I were fortunate to leave behind. More and more it now resembles the path Russia took a century ago – and we all know the devastating results this “experiment” caused. This is the very same path Greece recently chosen in trying to achieve another “just society.”

For years the United States was the island of sanity in the ocean of pain, suffering and injustice in which most of the world was drowning. The countries that were able to stand against tyrannies and make life bearable for their citizens did so in large part because the US was backing them with its might. If America falls, world as we know it will end. Without a strong America we will soon see China establishing its hegemony over Asia; Russia will strengthen its muscles and take back Eastern Europe; Hugo Chavez and brothers Castro will run Latin America; and a wide swath of the globe stretching from North Africa through the Middle East to Indonesia and perhaps the Philippines will become radically Muslim – fanatically massacring “infidels.”

Please read Letter to America below and (if you agree with the content) sign it, and forward it to all your friends, relatives, co-workers and pen pals. Ask your spouse and kids over age eighteen to sign it as well. Even if you never lived in a socialist country but share our concerns, we are asking you to stand with us. When signing Letter to America please choose the field “I didn’t experience socialism firsthand but I agree with you.”

Thank you all for your willingness to raise your voice and defend freedom! You & I now have an opportunity and obligation to help America, to do something for all the good we so generously received from this wonderful country.

Our voices will make a difference!

Letter to America
Written by people who came from where Obama is taking America to

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism,’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened… I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.” — Norman Mattoon Thomas, Six times Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
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Dear, Former Victims of Socialism/Communism, America Needs OUR Help!”


A New Declaration of Independence for a New Revolution

-By Warner Todd Huston

America is fast coming to a crossroads from which there will be no return if we take the wrong path. Do we take the road that leads away from America and toward a Euro-esque way of governing? Do we cast aside our American character and bury our great nation in a grave of socialist-styled authority? Do we damn our progeny to a failed superstate that violate every tenet of our original ideals?

I say we do not. I say we reject the democrat’s Euro-esque ideas and refocus ourselves on American exceptionalism. Our federal system has strayed far from our founding ideals and we may soon find that its time for a new Declaration of Independence from a tyrannical government that has usurped power from proper authority.

Since it is Independence Day this weekend, I offer this new Declaration as a rallying cry to all those willing to return to our true American character…
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A New Declaration of Independence for a New Revolution”


Despite Misconception, We Conservatives DO Want Some Government

-By Warner Todd Huston

Leftists love to purposefully misconstrue what sort of government conservatives want. Certainly whenever some new big government boondoggle erupts in the typical corruption and waste that is government, conservatives rail against the misappropriation of powers that such boondoggles invariably mean. But when government isn’t doing something they want it to do and conservatives kvetch with equal vitriol, the first attack left-wingers charge them with is hypocrisy. The left’s taunt, however, is a willful misread of what it is that conservatives are saying in their critique of government.

Unfortunately, many conservatives make this taunt all the easier to level because it seems that they are a bit hazy themselves on just what they should think about the role of government.

Conservatives come by this problem honestly, though. What conservative worth his salt is unaware of Ronald Reagan’s famous small government quote: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” (Reagan’s first inaugural address)
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Despite Misconception, We Conservatives DO Want Some Government”


Publisher’s Warning Label: That Constitution and Declaration is No Longer Valid Thinking

-By Warner Todd Huston

A Virginia-based publisher has decided that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and other founding books are likely offensive and they want their readers to understand that these old documents are no longer valid ways of thinking. And so the publisher, Wilder Publications, has put a warning label on its reprints of America’s founding documents and books to shield American’s delicate sensibilities.

The warning label reads, “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.”

The warning labels appear on copies of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federalist Papers, as well as other founding books and documents the company reprints.
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Publisher’s Warning Label: That Constitution and Declaration is No Longer Valid Thinking”


Freedom Action Conference – August 12-14, Valley Forge, PA

-By Alan Caruba

I don’t usually promote specific events, but the Freedom Action Conference that will convene at Valley Forge, PA, August 12-14, at the Dolce Hotel, is one you should consider attending if, like Howard Beale in the movie, “Network”, you’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore.

It will feature three days of speakers who will train attendees and provide hands-on knowledge about how to end federal and UN attacks on individual freedoms, states rights, local loss of control, Second Amendment rights, and other issues that affect you and everyone else right where you live.

In 1777, George Washington’s tired and starving troops, having experienced initial defeat at the hands of the most powerful army of its times, retreated to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to regroup, to train, and to take up the struggle to establish independence. By 1781, they were victorious at Yorktown, Virginia.

Today, Americans are under siege again, but this time from a federal government seeking to overturn the protections of the Constitution and to establish control over every aspect of our lives via legislation that affects our health, our property, our access to energy, and via international treaties that over-ride the Constitution.
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Freedom Action Conference – August 12-14, Valley Forge, PA”


Tea Party Express Hits Rockford, Illinois

-By Warner Todd Huston

No posts have emerged from me today because I was away for most of the day witnessing the Tea Party Express as it rolled into rolled into Rockford, Illinois.

Rockford is situated about 90 miles west (and a bit north) of Chicago in Northern Illinois. It’s a region that has been hit particularly hard by this recession and has the highest unemployment rate in a state that has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

The Tea Party Express is ranging across the country in an effort to keep the Tea Party spirit alive. If you want to find out if the Tea Party Express is coming to a town near you, check out the itinerary at www.teapartyexpress.org.

The Rockford Tea Party folks had hoped to get 1,000 Illinoisans to attend their rally, but there was at least 2,000 that actually came (some say 3,000) so they most certainly met their goals. These were some great Constitution-loving Americans that were very concerned about the downward direction that their country is taking. These people were worried, of course, but all seemed buoyed by their shared fellowship in patriotism. These are all great Americans. With citizens like this, we may yet bring our nation back from the brink of the leftism that is destroying Europe… unless Obama, his regime and their co-conspirators can help it.

The pre-event was held by the Rockford Tea Party folks (www.rockfordteaparty.org). And they had a nice line-up of local Illinois pols and political folks.
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Tea Party Express Hits Rockford, Illinois”


The Constitutional Crisis Started Long Ago

-By Frank Salvato

The cry that our country is in the midst of a “constitutional crisis” is heard frequently in our society but those who are making the claim at this particular point in time are correct. The United States Constitution and the entirety of the Charters of Freedom are under attack and the well-being of our country, nay, its very existence as the Framers intended, hangs in the balance.

Many are decrying the Progressive’s passage of healthcare legislation as a perfect example of the crisis facing our country. They are citing Congress’s bastardization of the Commerce Clause to mandate the purchase of health insurance by every US citizen, along with the legislation’s usurpation of the 10th Amendment. In both cases they would be correct, if an accurate and honest interpretation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is employed.

Anyone who has digested the Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist Papers understands that the Framers intended for the US Constitution to set forth a limitation of powers for the federal government. In doing so the Framers meant to protect the rights of not only the States, but of the minority and the individual. The federal government’s actions today have shattered those protections and take aim at the Constitution itself, challenging its charter as the “Law of the Land.”
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The Constitutional Crisis Started Long Ago”


Government Is Not Our Friend

-By Warner Todd Huston

Small-government conservatives have always been suspicious of government. Whether city, county, state or federal all government is looked on as a troublesome but necessary evil that must be tightly controlled and oft times opposed. This anti-government attitude, of course, is a complete mystery to socialist Democrats. They just don’t understand why conservatives mistrust government and why they eye it suspiciously. So, looking for a way to explain in real terms why conservatives loathe government is sometimes not an easy task as the ideas are often very esoteric. Thank God the corrupt governments in Barack Obama’s Illinois are always there to supply a ready example of why government is often the enemy of a free people.

In that mien, here is another perfect example of how government often does not serve the voters, how it does what ever it wants to do despite the voters, and how government often thinks it knows better than the very voters that it is supposed to serve.

In 2009 the Illinois State legislature in its Springfield-based capitol passed a video gambling law that for the first time legalized video poker machines across the state. The progress of this law was very contentious with most Republicans and some Democrats standing in opposition to this immoral legislation and a sop to the opposers was put in the bill as sweetener to assure passage. An “opt out” clause was put in the bill so that those conservative districts that were so opposed to video gambling could exclude themselves from allowing the immoral act of video gambling in their jurisdiction.
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Government Is Not Our Friend”


When Congress Cheats on Its Rules

-By John Armor

We are apparently at crunch point on the efforts of President Obama, Speaker Pelosi in the House, and Majority Leader Reid in the Senate to pass by whatever means necessary the “health reform” bill. In the national debate, however, no one has asked whether the Supreme Court has any role in this matter. It does, and it may be definitive.

There is a question of what the bill is, since there are many versions, and several are under wraps. The opponents of the bill, whatever it is, includes Democrats and Republicans who believe that the bill is ill-thought takeover of one sixth of the national economy that will increase the cost of medical care, decrease its quality, and severely damage the national economy.

But this column is not about the merits or demerits of whatever is in the bill. It is about the methods being used to push it through Congress and the consequences of ways of getting around normal, legislative passage (Article I, Section 7, US Constitution).

At this point, it looks like the House will use the Slaughter Rule to “pass” it through the House without ever having a vote on it. The about-to-be-invented Rule is named for the Congresswomen who is the Chair of the Rules Committee and came up with this idea.
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When Congress Cheats on Its Rules”


We Simply Can’t Afford Another Entitlement Program

-By Frank Salvato

Congressional Progressives are arm-twisting, threatening, promising and cajoling each and every member of the Legislative Branch in an effort to advance proposed healthcare insurance reform legislation. They are setting the stage to use the reconciliation process to advance the legislation in the Senate, even though the process was created to address budgetary financial issues, exclusively. And one House member, Louise Slaughter (P-NY), is even concocting procedure that would literally bypass any need for the House to vote on the Senate proposal. The effort that is going into circumventing the will of the American people is wickedly stunning.

But in the end, there is only one question that lawmakers of every political persuasion must ask themselves when it comes time to cast their votes: can we, as a nation, really afford to add another behemoth entitlement program onto the backs of the American taxpayers?

We have heard all of the arguments about how it will and won’t affect healthcare insurance premiums. Ironically, even the Senate Majority Whip, Dick Durbin (D-IL), has come to admit that the Progressive’s healthcare insurance reform legislation will not lower the cost of healthcare insurance premiums and said as much on the floor of the Senate:
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We Simply Can’t Afford Another Entitlement Program”


Congress? Who Needs ‘Em? Let Obama Pack the Supreme Court

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a reader feedback opinion editorial from reader Stan Isaacs that is as outlandish as it is indicative of the disregard for the American process that liberals all too often exhibit. It is proof once again that tradition, law, and any effort at legitimacy is wholly outside a liberal’s field of interest. Winning is all they care about, voters opinions and the rule of law be damned.

What sparked Mr. Isaacs’ interest is when he somehow stumbled upon the fact that the number of U.S. Supreme Court Justices is not set in stone in the Constitution. We now have nine justices but in the past have had fewer. What intrigued him is that the number of justices fluctuated because of politics. “Political issues accounted for the changes,” Isaacs gleefully reported.

In keeping with these “political issues,” Mr. Isaacs lit upon the ideal way to help Obama finally push his left-wing agenda. He advised President Obama to add three new justices to the SCOTUS, justices that will mindlessly adhere to the grand vision of the age of Obama and will rule accordingly. This is necessary, Isaacs thinks, because the court has proven an impediment to Obama’s grand socialist design. Worse, Congress has balked at Obama’s wholesale destruction of America and has resisted his attempts to turn America into a weaker, less free version of Europe. Issacs, you see, demands a recount.

Sadly, Isaacs doesn’t seem to have the first clue why Obama’s re-design of the United States hasn’t already barreled ahead unhindered. Worse, he doesn’t seem to care.
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Congress? Who Needs ‘Em? Let Obama Pack the Supreme Court”


Using the System FOR Us: The Freedom Force Strategy

The National Precinct Alliance is an effort to give tea party folks the guidance to make a difference at home, within their own local political system. This is the only way that we conservatives can influence what is happening in our state government and what is happening in Washington. All our tea party protests are great, but if they aren’t followed up with real political activism — as opposed to mere bombast and carping — we will find that politics will move on without incorporating our ideas, we will stay marginal in the actual power plays in our governments.

So, with that said, here is some info from the National Precinct Alliance:

The Freedom Force Strategy

The American people find themselves in the very difficult position of having to reform their government from the bottom up, after decades of public neglect which allowed politicians from both political parties to behave as though the U.S. Constitution doesn’t exist any longer.

State legislatures have been forced by over-reaching federal policies, to restate, reclaim and reassert Tenth Amendment rights just to defend the citizens of their states from oppressive policies coming out of Washington DC.
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Using the System FOR Us: The Freedom Force Strategy”


Congressman Peter Roskam: Obama’s Bipartisan Past

-By Congressman Peter Roskam (R, Illinois)

Mr. President: Business in Washington doesn’t have to be this way. You need not be pushed to the left and you can work across the aisle like you have in the past.

That is what I told President Obama a few weeks ago at the GOP caucus. He really does have an ability to work in a bipartisan manner. I know because we worked together for years to solve problems in the Illinois Senate.

Today’s health care summit doesn’t have to be a regurgitation of an unpopular health care bill. Nor does the President have to embrace Congressional Democratic leadership, which has systematically stiff-armed Republicans out of any conversation about solutions. Sure, health care is a contentious issue, but President Obama has successfully worked with Republicans under similar parameters.
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Congressman Peter Roskam: Obama’s Bipartisan Past”


The Mount Vernon Statement, A Poor Man’s Manifesto… VERY Poor

-By Warner Todd Huston

A group made up of some of the biggest names in contemporary conservatism got together a few days ago and crafted what they are calling the “Mount Vernon Statement,” a manifesto of sorts meant to give direction to today’s conservative movement. Put succinctly, it fails to fill the bill.

Taken as a whole this statement is fine as a short history lesson. It explains pretty clearly what the founders had wrought when their basic work was done with the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. But as a statement of principles that might guide today’s discussion I do not think the letter works.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that this effort is harmful. In fact, I think every young person should read it for its explication of our historically conservative American principles. The problem is that this thing doesn’t seem to speak directly to what we are facing today like a statement that perhaps aims to become boilerplate should.
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The Mount Vernon Statement, A Poor Man’s Manifesto… VERY Poor”


Our Federal Government’s Basic Purpose

-By Frank Salvato

In February of 2009, legislation was introduced in the 111th Congress that would protect the First Amendment rights of United States citizens when faced with malicious lawsuits, brought against them in foreign courts, claiming defamation. The Free Speech Protection Act of 2009 is meant not only to secure and assure a US citizen’s First Amendment right to free speech in the aforementioned circumstance, but to serve as a tool in guaranteeing our nation’s sovereignty under constitutional law. As of this writing, Senate Bill 449, officially titled as introduced as “A Bill to Protect Free Speech,” languishes in the Senate Judiciary Committee. We all must ask why.

The Free Speech Protection Act of 2009 (the short title for S449) is meant to protect writers, authors, lecturers and any other US citizen against “libel tourism,” a phrase emanating from a lawsuit over the book Funding Evil, by Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, explained in a short film titled The Libel Tourist and in an article titled, A Federal Law is Needed to Deter Libel Tourism, by Daniel J. Kornstein. Mr. Kornstein refers to libel tourism as:
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Our Federal Government’s Basic Purpose”


What James Madison said about Hope and Change

-By Dan Scott

What would the Founding Fathers say about our handling of the country if they were able to comment on the current state of affairs? It is easy to put words in their mouths but fortunately, we have for posterity recorded their words and intents to refer to for clarity in times of need. Some may say that this is a new day and age, therefore what the Founding Fathers had to say is simply not relevant to our current circumstances. Those who say this do so in ignorance of human nature and for self-serving reasons. Humans over the past 5000 years of recorded history may have advanced in terms of knowledge; however, their motivations and emotions are still no different now then they were in the past. It is motivation and emotion that govern human character, not knowledge and the Founding Fathers knew well the passions that influence those in power.

We were warned 200+ years ago against fickle governments. In fact, we were warned that the point of fickleness in government was for the few to gain an advantage at the expense of the many. Here is what James Madison had to say about Hope and Change as espoused by Barack Obama when he said he wanted to remake our society:
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What James Madison said about Hope and Change”


Where Have you Gone George Washington?

-By Warner Todd Huston

I don’t celebrate “President’s Day.” I celebrate the presidents individually, not the whole gaggle of them at once. But I most certainly don’t celebrate George Washington, the father of our country, as just another president. These days, George Washington has been relegated to that “truth telling guy” to be seen on the one dollar bill and on TV commercials at the end of February or that guy lumped in with Lincoln on “President’s Day.” And that is a shame, indeed, for, without George Washington, our presidency and nation might have had a far different attitude.

But, what made Washington such a giant for our times as well as his? For one thing, he knew how to act in public.

Back in the 1700’s

In the year 1759 a man named William Robertson wrote a book called The History of Emperor Charles V, a book some claim was the standard after which modern historical study and writing has come to be patterned. Mr. Robertson, who became Principle of the University of Edinburgh in later years, introduced a salient point into the era of the Scottish Enlightenment. That idea was that “Politeness” in society would result in becoming a civilized nation. And it was a politeness perpetuated and spread through capitalism that was the best avenue to achieving that civilized level.

He wrote “In proportion as commerce made its way into the different countries of Europe they successively … adopted those manners, which occupy and distinguish polished nations.” So, as the theory goes, man by his very nature craves material possession and property. To get that property he must work for it with his best skills. To make use of these skills he must rely on neighbors to get supplies to employ such skills as well as to become customers for his skills. This leads man to act in a solicitous manner of his neighbors so that they will be disposed to employ him and his abilities. This “politeness” employed by the individual inculcates the action in society at large which, in turn, enlarges that field of involved persons to counties and then the country in general, neighboring countries and, ultimately, the world and the governments they create.
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