Monday, June 14, 2010

SWEET TEA

Today, I am still energized from my first "real" Tea Party meeting. For quite a few months I have written about the Tea Party Movement and have encouraged others to get involved. To the right of my blog is a link that is supposed to connect you with a group in your area. Until recently, I have not been able to find an active group but this week my luck changed. I found a new list and registered as a new member with two groups, one in Mexico, Mo. and the other in Columbia, MO.


The meeting last night was so much more than I had hoped for. Everyone seemed to be keenly aware and deeply concerned about the disastrous state of affairs in our government. It was exciting to be in a room full of intelligent people of all ages who are committed to take back our country.

It was a two hour meeting and I was disappointed when it was over. So many informative topics were covered and discussed by knowledgeable and well informed patriots. I knew I was in the company of real Americans who truly love our Constitution with an almost evangelical reverence. It made me feel proud to be in their company.

If you are concerned about our loss of liberty and the socialist takeover of our country, I urge you to join with the growing ranks of common sense Americans and get with a grass roots group.

If you would like more information about what the Tea Party Movement is all about, give me a shout and I will be glad to hear from you.

http://teapartypatriots.org/Default.aspx

I am on fire. I am getting real busy meeting with people and helping to start a group in Fulton. It is amazing how many people are looking for direction, information and something that offers some ray of hope. It is becoming increasingly clear that we have only a few months until the LAST election, our final chance to derail the run-away train.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe there is a political solution to the situation. I still know that we are entering the beginning of the final battle and I still remember how the movie ends but, Damn, it feels good to think that we can draw some serious political blood from the evil rat bastards.

Check out this guy, he is a new breed of political cat. Looks like a new crop of leaders are springing up all over the country. Makes the Tea Party smile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iQ7ZDUutU4&feature=player_embedded

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Jim DeMint: Moving the Republican Brand to the Right

By Jay Newton-Small

U.S. Senator Jim DeMint

Senator Jim DeMint knows when a brand's gone bad and what to do to fix it. The South Carolina Republican spent more than 25 years in advertising before going into politics, and his demeanor - from the pin stripe suit to his salesman pitch delivered with a smile - has a Mad Men quality to it, almost as if Don Draper had been thrown forward 50 years and his only client was the Tea Party movement.

The Grand Ole Party's brand has been failing for some time, DeMint says in an interview at the Capitol Hill Club - an exclusive Washington institution for Republican members and Senators. "The angst was growing during the Clinton years, during the Bush years. And then the bailout was the wake up call," DeMint says. "The Tea Parties, they're just saying: 'Enough is enough.' The question is are Republicans going to open their arms and say, 'We're sorry we made a mistake, trust us again.' Or are they going to keep spit-balling them?"

For years, DeMint has been the Cassandra of the fiscal right, warning that his colleagues were ignoring their base on everything from No Child Left Behind and the Medicare Prescription Drug Program to the Bridge to Nowhere. Such gloom and doom - not to mention to DeMint's amazing capacity to single-handedly gum up the Senate when he objects to a spending bill - would in years past have earned him the chairmanship of the Subcommittee for Underwater Basket Weaving.

But this cycle, Jim DeMint is a prophet. "I think for most Republicans in the Senate the Tea Party is viewed as a threat; to me it's the cavalry I've been waiting for," DeMint says with a laugh.
And so, with his army at his back - an army that has given him more than $1 million to recruit potential lieutenants - DeMint set off to remake the Republican Party's brand. He had his political action committee rate all of his colleagues on their ideological purity; only one person scored 100, DeMint. His first target was one of the lowest scorers, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. Disgusted with Specter's betrayal on the stimulus bill and weary of fighting the ardent appropriator's earmarks, DeMint endorsed Specter's primary opponent, former Pennsylvania Rep. Pat Toomey. Five days later Specter left the Republican party, a victory in DeMint's book.

Next DeMint bucked the party establishment, which had lined up behind Florida Governor Charlie Crist to fill retiring Senator Mel Martinez's seat. DeMint endorsed little-known Marco Rubio, a former Florida Speaker of the House, and helped him raise more than $300,000. "Jim DeMint believed in me when the only people who believed in me lived in my house," Rubio told the annual Conservative Political Action Conference to a standing ovation and shouts of "DeMint for President!" Crist last month left the Republican Party to run as an Independent after polls showed Rubio beating him by more than 20 points in the GOP primary.

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Since then, DeMint has endorsed what he calls "rock-solid Republicans" in Senate GOP primaries in California, Texas, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky and Utah. None are the candidates his party leaders would prefer. "When the grassroots gravitate towards a candidate and that candidate is not supported by the leadership here, I do everything I can to get those candidates a voice and a platform so at least Republicans know that they have an alternative," DeMint says. Sometimes his efforts are successful, as with Rand Paul, who on Tuesday beat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's protégé, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, to become the Republican nominee for the Senate in the Bluegrass State. Other times, he's not: his pick for the open Indiana Senate seat, Marlin Stutzman, lost to former Senator Dan Coats even after DeMint raised $200,000 for him.
For some Republicans, DeMint is fighting an ideological war at the expense of practical politics. He and his candidates are drawing millions away from the party, its committees and their candidates. DeMint's snowballing effort has frustrated Senator John Cornyn, charged with electing Republicans to the Senate. DeMint's goal "is to try and move the Republican conference in a more conservative direction," Cornyn told McClatchy Papers last week. "But I think as a pragmatic matter, we've got to nominate Republicans who can get elected in their states."

Is the former ad man starting a revolution? No, but he'll settle for five more Republicans like him in the Senate come November, a prospect that scares Democrats and worries some Republicans who see DeMint as an obstructionist. "Jim is trying to express the frustration that a lot of people feel and I think that's a healthy thing as long as we can come together after the primary," says the senior senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, also a Republican. "But somebody's got to fix immigration, somebody's got to fix Social Security. Somebody's got to do something about out long-term debt and that's going to require bipartisanship."

But, to DeMint, bipartisanship is not a slogan that's going to work for Republicans - or Democrats - in 2010.

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Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The EPA can go to Hell, and I will go to Texas

29. May, 2010 Written by: Brian Roberts


Last week, the feds sent the Environmental Protection Agency out to harass the sovereign state of Texas. Texas needs to reclaim the spirit of Davy Crockett, when he famously proclaimed “you may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas”; and send the federal agency packing. Here’s why and how.

EPA’s Goal is Centralization of Power

By sending the EPA to Texas, the federal government’s goal is not environmental improvements. The goal is centralization of power. The tactic is to use the unelected bureaucrats of the EPA to increase Texas dependence on the federal government through arbitrary and economically crippling regulation.

Refinery permits are just tools that the EPA intends to use to control the Texas oil and gas industry. EPA control can force Texas into dependence in at least two ways. First, though excessive regulation of a major industry, economic growth will be stifled. This will create more state dependence on federal funds. Second, unnecessary EPA regulations will cost Texans jobs. This is will create individual dependence on welfare programs and since these programs include state mandated funding, Texas will be hit with additional liabilities.

The political problem for the EPA is that Texas’ common sense policies have resulted in cleaner air while maintaining one of the healthiest economies in our nation during the current recession. This Texas independence and success is why the feds will continue to financially attack Texas. A self-sustaining state is very problematic for a federal government that is trying to centralize all the power in Washington. So expect the relationship between the Texas state government and the U.S. government to increasingly deteriorate. Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, had this to say about the political dilemma facing the EPA:

“Evidently, Texas’ success in improving both our environment and our economy, while Washington still argues about how to accomplish either, is something that EPA and the administration finds troubling.”

Proponents of centralized government will attempt to argue that Texas’ policies are causing the streets of New Orleans to smell like the morning after a frat party, or that pollution from Texas is causing smog in LA and NYC, or that the earth will be destroyed by the Texas carbon footprint. All of these arguments are ridiculous excuses designed to provide cover for a federal power grab. These straw man arguments do not in any way reflect reality.

Proponents of centralized government will argue that Texas should just roll over and take it because, they falsely proclaim: Texas needs federal subsidies. When in fact, Texas has been a donor state for decades and currently only gets back 94 cents for every dollar that is sent to Washington. Historical data shows that every year since 1981, Texas citizens have donated more to the federal government than what was received. The truth is that if Texas continues to roll over and take it, then at some point in the near future Texas will become dependent on federal money and require more back than what was put in, and that is certainly one of the goals of centralization.

The real battle, often hidden behind the propaganda, is between sovereign states seeking a level of independence guaranteed by the Constitution and a federal government that seeks to undermine the American system of federalism itself. Texas success is a powerful example that local, more decentralized government works best and for centralizers, that kind of example must be destroyed.

Texas’ Duty is Decentralization of Power

Texas should invoke the 10th and legally send the EPA back Washington D.C. where they can look for a lesser target to plunder. The tenth amendment guarantees a limited federal government and grants governing authority to states and to the people. Leaders in the Texas legislature and Governor Perry have responded with strong words against the EPA’s intrusion.

Governor Perry said this about the EPA’s actions:

“The Obama administration has taken yet another step in its campaign to harm our economy and impose federal control over Texas. On behalf of those Texans whose jobs are threatened by this latest overreach, and in defense of, not only our clean air program, but also our rights under the 10th Amendment, I am calling upon President Obama to rein in the EPA and instruct them to study our successful approach for recommended use elsewhere.”

Texas State Representative Wayne Christian had this to say:

“The EPA’s unilateral and unwarranted takeover of air quality permits in Texas further proves that the federal government has a clear disregard for the authority of the Texas Legislature and for the principle of federalism. Washington is seeking to command and control all sectors of economic activity. This action must not stand.”

It is apparent that Texas politicians and leaders understand that this is a federal power grab that should not be allowed to proceed. However, in recent times, leadership in Texas has been more about talking the talk and less about walking the walk. A recent example, still fresh on the minds of many Texans, is the hesitancy of the Governor to call a special session so that Texas might pass nullification legislation to protect its citizens from the unconstitutional mandates of Obamacare.

While this delay in legislation concerning health care may prove to be the proper course strategically, this may not be the case in the battle against the EPA’s permit consolidation. EPA’s regional administrator has indicated that Texas has “weeks, not years” before the EPA begins taking over the entire air-pollution permitting program. The time to act has arrived.

Texas leadership would do well to find inspiration in another Davy Crockett quote:

“I would rather be beaten and be a man than to be elected and be a little puppy dog. I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearlessly and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized.”

The solution is straight forward: the state government of Texas should tell the EPA to go to hell. In practical terms this means that nullification legislation should be passed by the Texas legislature and signed by the Governor. This legislation, based on the tenth amendment, should declare federal mandates with regards to the Clean Air Act null and void in the state of Texas and should include penalties for federal agents or local law enforcement agents that attempt to enforce this federal law in the state of Texas.

In an age of rapid centralization of power in Washington DC, nullification legislation denying federal authority is becoming common. Various states have defied federal laws by passing legislation designed to nullify: federal healthcare laws, federal firearm laws, federal marijuana laws, federal identification laws, among others.

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"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."