Thursday, April 15, 2010
Tea Partiers unveil results of Contract From America survey
Subject: txt 1st 2010 lbrty
Tea Party Patriots, one of the major groups within the greater Tea Party movement, has posted the results of its Wikipolitics-like effort to give voice to the growing national citizens protest in the form of a Contract From America.
During the past several months, hundreds of thousands of Americans have debated thousands of ideas to solve our nation’s most pressing problems. 454,331 votes were cast. It has been an open process and has provided a genuine opportunity to give voice to a broad cross section of concerned Americans.The most popular provision of the Contract From America is a requirement that every piece of legislation approved by Congress must include a specific provision of the Constitution that authorizes the bill. This provision was supported by 82 percent of the respondents.
The next most popular provision was rejection of the proposed Cap and Trade anti-global warming bill that would put the federal government in charge of regulating all activities using carbon-based fossil fuels. This provision was supported by 72 percent of the respondents.
The third most popular provision would establish a movement for a balanced budget amendment and a requirement that tax hikes be approved by two-thirds majorities in Congress. This provision drew the support of 69 percent of the respondents.
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The Revolt of the States
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A major battle is looming over the Tenth Amendment which declares that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Almost everywhere one looks today, the States are in rebellion to the overreaching of the federal government. The process involved is called nullification, a legal theory that a U.S. State has the right to nullify, i.e., invalidate, any federal law deemed unconstitutional. Since the Supreme Court moves at a glacial pace, the States through their legislatures have taken the lead in many cases.
Nullification is not secession as in the case of the Civil War, but there is a history of nullification that includes the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions against the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both argued that the States are the ultimate interpreters of the Constitution, arguing that the States could “interpose” themselves to protect their citizens from unconstitutional national laws...
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Senators Vote to Set Aside An Amendment to Ban Earmarks
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On March 16, the U.S. Senate voted to table, or set aside, a vote for a ban on earmarks. By a vote of 68-29, lawmakers voted against considering the proposal by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. On March 16, the U.S. Senate voted to table, or set aside, a vote for a ban on earmarks.
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Dems Too Scared to Pass a Budget During Election Year
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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters today that Democrats may not 'be able' to pass an actual budget resolution this year because too many members will be skittish about voting for a budget with such a gaping deficit during election season, the Hill reports.
Theoretically speaking, [?!?] Congress is supposed to pass a budget resolution each year...
[Theoretically?]
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Canceled: Hearing That Would Have Grilled CEOs on Health Care
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Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has cancelled a hearing intended to grill CEOs who took a charge against profits because of the health care reform bill. Waxman and others had reacted with outrage and accused the companies of doing it - in essence, to make health care reform look bad.
The cancellation came after they realized what everyone already knew - that the companies were required to do what they did because of accounting rules.
AT&T took a $1 billion charge and other companies including Caterpillar, John Deere, and Valero Energy, and 3M took hundreds of millions in anticipation of the health care bill's financial impact to the companies...
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Hedge fund managers invest on Hill
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John Paulson, one of the world’s richest hedge fund managers, has not been shy about spreading his wealth to Senate campaign coffers — or to the chairman of the committee that could directly affect his bottom line. Paulson held a ritzy $1,000-per-head fundraiser for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd last year — and then maxed out his donation with $4,800 more for the Connecticut Democrat’s now-aborted reelection run.
Paulson is hardly alone. According to a review of Federal Election Commission records, the nation’s 10 richest hedge fund managers have dumped nearly $1 million into campaign accounts of senators who’ve given them a friendly reception on Capitol Hill...
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Lift the Fed's veil of secrecy on who got how much bailout money and why
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Washington’s massive and unprecedented $3 trillion taxpayer-funded bailout of failed institutions has given rise to legitimate bipartisan concerns about the nature of the Federal Reserve Bank’s activity, especially given the impenetrable veil of secrecy under which the Fed operates.
The once clear line in America that separates the private sector from the public sector is quickly disappearing, and Washington D.C. is emerging as the financial [?!?], as well as political capital of the country.
In such a troubling climate, the need for government accountability and transparency has never been greater than it is today...
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Obama's Secret Power Grabs
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President Obama seems to believe that most of his sweeping agenda to transform the country can be accomplished without even a vote of Congress.
Obama has a pattern of sidestepping Congress that will only get worse in the aftermath of the health care fight and the pending financial “reform” legislation.
For a full explanation of all of these threats as well as action items on how to stop them, please check out the interactive version of the chart on www.ObamaChart.com.
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Higher minimum wage, lower earnings
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"In 2007, the United States enacted legislation that incrementally applies the US minimum wage to American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)... American Samoa's private sector economy is largely based on the tuna canning industry, and the closure of one of its two tuna canneries in September 2009 significantly affects the labor market and economy...
Until recently, the garment industry was central to the CNMI economy and employed close to a third of all workers; however, by early 2009, the last garment factory had closed."
Source: The Government Accountability Office.
Change in median annual inflation-adjusted earnings in American Samoa from 2006 to 2008: -6%
Percentage of American Samoa tuna canneries that have closed since minimum wage increase: 50%
Percentage of CNMI garment factories that have closed since then: 100%
Fraction of private sector employees who work for employers who plan to close or relocate by the end of 2010: 84%
Source: The Government Accountability Office.
[Again and again: for every 10% increase in an arbitrary minimum wage there's a 2% reduction in employment levels. When you consider the devastating effect an unemployed person has on an economy, such policies are lunacy - yet year after year...]
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Construction Groups Decry Obama's New Union Friendly Policy for Federal Projects
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Advocates for the recession-battered construction industry are lining up to challenge President Obama's new policy backing the use of union labor for large-scale federal construction projects. The policy, which went into effect Tuesday, 'encourages' federal agencies to have construction contractors and subcontractors enter project labor agreements (PLAs) for all construction projects.
Those agreements require contractors to 'negotiate' with union officials, recognize union wages and benefits and abide by collective-bargaining agreements.
Opponents of the policy are calling it a payoff to unions. They say it will unfairly steer federal construction contracts away from non-union shops...
[Exactly. Those not practicing the proper socialist behavior will be punished.]
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California At The Breaking Point
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A new Stanford study says California's public-employee retirement funds are $500 billion in the hole.
It's news that unions and their candidate, Jerry Brown, don't want to hear.
The government union money machine has had a good [for them] run. But increasingly there are signs that it is heading for a crackup with the taxpaying public.
Such an event may occur as early as this November in California, where the machine has had probably its greatest 'success' at the cost of the most fiscal damage...
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California Dems Won't Honor Boy Scouts
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Thousands of Boy Scouts across California will be gathering this weekend to celebrate the 100th anniversary of scouting in the Golden State – but they won’t have the blessing of Democrats in the California Legislature.
Assembly Democrats killed a proposed resolution honoring the Boy Scouts of America. The measure died in the Assembly Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote. Three Republican voted to support the Boy Scouts — seven Democrats voted against the measure.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Committee chairman Mike Feuer led the opposition – “citing the Scouts’ history of not allowing gays to serve in their leadership.”
Republican Assemblyman Curt Hagman is a former Eagle Scout. He called the Democrats’ action “kind of crazy.”
[More liberal 'tolerance' for ideas not identical to their own.]“With all the resolutions we do here, they’re not all perfect,” Hagman told the Times. “If you don’t support it, just [don’t vote for] it, but to oppose the Boy Scouts on their birthday seems silly.”
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The Naked Left
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The establishment media, which has been obviously tilted to the left for fifty years, petulantly denies any leftist bias. This utter denial continues more than forty years after Agnew's speech against the television elites in 1969 and in spite of polling data, such as a Gallup poll which shows a huge plurality considering the media more liberal than conservative and a Zogby Poll which shows 64% of Americans seeing a liberal bias in the media.
Why do these elites lie about what they believe? Newspapers used to proudly proclaim their advocacy of partisan positions. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking an editorial stand. The problems of the establishment left media are these:
(1) They do not compete against each other by exposing the stories which are being ignored or tilted, so these clusters of corporations act like constituent parts of a monopoly or a trust, and
(2) they lie about their biases, perversely pretending to be the noble, neutral mediators of public discourse... [snip]
Ordinary people grasp the awfulness of vast legislation pushed through Congress without a single Republican vote and before members of Congress could feel the full dragon's breath of constituent fury.
The left was never more naked than in the crass spectacle last month...
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GOP Reps Offer Bill to Ban Interior Dept. From Hindering Border Agents
The unknown gunman who murdered an Arizona rancher three weeks ago entered and exited the U.S. illegally in an area where border agents are widely prohibited from using motorized vehicles, constructing roads and installing surveillance structures, federal agents have confirmed. 
The development prompted four Republican congressmen to introduce legislation on Wednesday that will ban the Interior Department from using environmental regulations to hinder agents along the border, including at the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, a 2,300-acre parcel near where rancher Robert Krentz was killed on March 27 [pictured right] ...
Democrats are expected to block it from a floor vote...
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CNN to Advertisers: We're the Only 'Non-Partisan' Cable Network
CNN, a network known for its consistent liberal bias, is now incredibly touting itself as "the only credible, nonpartisan voice left" on cable television. Elliott noted that this spin was being pitched by the network at a Tuesday morning event for advertisers at the Time Warner Center in New York City. The New York Times writer highlighted the meeting hosted by CNN executives, and their overall strategy...
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