The War Next Door

By: Newt Gingrich

Sarkozy, Obama, Romney, Ron Paul and the Recent European Elections

 Human Events
May 9, 2012
Newt Gingrich

 In the past few weeks, a number of elections in Europe have offered telling signs for American politics about the effect of the current pain on voters.

Two consistent patterns are emerging in virtually every European country where citizens have the opportunity to make their voices heard.

First, incumbent parties are being punished without regard to ideology. Whichever side is in power, the right or the left, it is being punished for failure.

Second, centrist parties everywhere are losing ground to anti-establishment parties.

These patterns are holding firm in France, Britain (local elections), Germany (one major local election), Greece, Spain and Italy.

Again and again voters are protesting bad economies with their votes. And they are increasingly rejecting policies of austerity and pain.

In significant numbers, they are also repudiating the establishment parties and moving to both right and left wing protest parties.

These rising protest parties indicate that more and more European voters are rejecting the performance, the ideas and the authority of the traditional establishment parties.

The results in France in particular offer some interesting suggestions for American politics--and it isn't good news for President Obama.

First, the defeat of French President Nicolas Sarkozy very much follows the pattern of the 2006 and 2010 American elections. In both cases the opposition party (Democrats in 2006 and Republicans in 2010) were able to ride a wave repudiating the failed reform efforts of the incumbent party.

Sarkozy ran as a reformer in 2007. In fact, his book "Testimony: France in the 21st Century" was the best conservative statement in the last decade of the need for fundamental reform. His defense of the work ethic as essential to French prosperity was a clearer case than any American has offered since Ronald Reagan.

Unfortunately, Sarkozy was unable to deliver on his reforms. His personality overwhelmed his policies. The French economy's failure overwhelmed his personality.

The French Socialist Hollande won in part by deemphasizing his personality and focusing on his desire to serve France rather than dominate it.

President Obama has every reason to be worried by European results. They offer solid proof that high unemployment, high gasoline prices, weak growth and big deficits can overwhelm his billion dollar campaign.

They also suggest that picking his NCAA bracket and flying off to Afghanistan may not count for much when voters look at their own pocketbooks.

For Gov. Mitt Romney, there is solid evidence in these results that his "it's-the economy-and-we're-not-stupid" message is the right focus for his campaign.

His recent call for the goal of 4 percent unemployment--a full employment economy--is exactly the right one.

The voters want a balanced budget through growth and opportunity and will reject austerity and pain. The governor and his team are working to build this positive contrast based on policy, not personality--much as Hollande did in France, though his politics could not be more different from Romney's.

The European results also put the popularity of Ron Paul in a wider context. The support for his ideas and his anti-establishment campaign is not a uniquely American phenomenon. He is, in fact, challenging the establishment in exactly the same manner as the various protest parties of the right and left in Europe.

These election results suggest the tea party movement and the support focused on Ron Paul is not a small development. It betrays historic discontent, and I doubt we have seen the last of it.

If Gov. Romney succeeds in giving voice to that discontent in a serious discussion with the American people, he has a strong chance in the fall. Indeed, the European elections suggest President Obama faces a much steeper mountain to climb as the choice clarifies over the next few months.

Your Friend,

Newt

Patriot Call to Action

 I am asking that this letter be circulated among your friends, families, and communities, and forwarded to our government. Or once you have acquired the signatures, you can send them to me at:

Craig Bowden
2888 N 400 E
North Ogden, UT 84414

I also recommend emailing this to news organizations and newspapers. As many avenues at your disposals.

You can hear the letter read by me, and send to friends at:
http://youtu.be/JWb90l3AG4I

You can also sign that you have read this letter and support it at:
http://www.petition2congress.com/6514/we...

Thanks, and God Bless
Craig Bowden  Read the Letter

Some Get Rich Off Taxpayers in Obama's Greenback Energy Program

 By: Newt Gingrich

Dear Fellow Conservative,

Under the Obama Energy Department, a lot of people are winning big by losing the taxpayers' money. In the government-sponsored green energy industry, working Americans have effectively handed millions in salaries and bonuses to executives of companies on the road to bankruptcy.

At the most famous failed solar company, Solyndra--to which the Obama administration gave a $530 million loan guarantee--several executives were making nearly half a million dollars a year, including large bonuses taken in the months before the company filed for bankruptcy. For them, the failed endeavor was extremely lucrative.

Solyndra was hardly the only taxpayer-backed firm that paid big bonuses while stumbling to bankruptcy, however. As ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity recently uncovered in a report, Beacon Power, which received a $43 million loan guarantee, paid bonuses of about $260,000 to three individuals before going bankrupt last year. Another company, Ener1, the recipient of a grant worth $118 million, paid its CEO a $450,000 bonus. In January, it, too, filed for bankruptcy.

Supposedly, the Department of Energy approved these loans to foster an industry which the market didn't come close to supporting. Certainly most Americans, if they knew about the program at all, did not imagine leaders at these startups paying themselves millions in taxpayer dollars.

In 2009, after bailing out many of the country's financial institutions, President Obama made executive compensation a major political issue, proposing rules to limit it for firms that had received the taxpayer money. He observed that "what gets people upset -- and rightfully so -- are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers." He said these words just weeks before his administration made its half-billion dollar commitment to Solyndra.

Later that same year, President Obama demanded executives at AIG return their bonuses, asking "How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?"

I have a couple questions of my own.

Why isn't the President just as concerned about the looting of failed energy startups at taxpayer expense?

Why isn't he demanding that executives at Solyndra and the other bankrupt green energy firms return their bonuses, since we were keeping those firms afloat with gigantic and unjustified loans?

In truth, the real scandal goes far beyond bonuses and salaries. Many of these companies were dependent on an enormous amount of government support all along--far more than just a little boost to get them going.

Two numbers give you a sense of the scale of the bad energy bets the Obama administration is making. Several weeks ago, in my newsletter on the transition to liquefied natural gas as a less expensive source of fuel, I reported that Chesapeake Energy had invested more than $150 million to build a national network of LNG truck stops--an investment by a private company to be supported by genuine demand.

President Obama, on the other hand, is putting taxpayer money into dozens of risky ventures. Last week yet another green energy firm, Solar Trust of America, declared bankruptcy after having received a $2.1 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

That loan guarantee is more than the value of Regal Entertainment, the nation's largest chain of movie theaters, and about the value of HSN, the Home Shopping Network. It's one heck of a loan for a startup. And it put taxpayers on the hook for 14 times the amount Chesapeake invested in its far more viable project to build a nationwide natural gas highway.

Of course, there could be a lot more where all this came from. The Energy Department's current loan program has approved nearly $35 billion in total--more than $110 from every American citizen. Feel like you're getting your money's worth?

Your friend,

Newt

Why Obama is Absurd to Suggest Algae

By: Newt Gingrich

Dear Fellow Conservative,

We knew the people writing President Obama's energy speeches didn't know very much about American oil and gas potential when he started telling us that some of the largest untapped oil reserves in the world couldn't do anything to affect fuel prices. But we didn't know they were quite this hopeless. When the President told them he wanted to focus on "green" energy sources in his speech, I don't think he meant it literally.

That's one of the most rational explanations I can think of for how President Obama ended up giving a speech in which he told Americans that the solution to the rising cost of gasoline could be algae. After all, he reasoned, "You've got a bunch of algae out here, right? If we can figure out how to make energy out of that, we'll be doing all right."

This is a classic move of the Left: observe a real world problem (high gasoline prices) and propose a solution that is totally disconnected from the practical realities of the world and has little chance of success (algae).

It's true that research labs are experimenting with algae-based biofuels, and we wish them well. If someday in the future, we're all driving cars based on inexpensive fuel from algae, it's possible that would be a positive development. But there's a big difference between that and offering algae today as an answer to high gas prices, or using taxpayer money to subsidize this particular technology -- such as the $14 million grant the administration gave an algae experimenter, or the tens of millions of dollars in loan guarantees the Department of Agriculture has handed out.

In theory, algae fuels would work by growing a strain of algae that produces some amount of oil in water and sunlight. Spreading this production over many acres, it's possible to produce a large amount of algae. The algae must then be separated out -- which today is done using centrifuges -- leaving behind an oil product.

Unfortunately, there's an overwhelming probability that these will turn out to be very bad investments for the taxpayers. Even the Algal Biomass Organization (the people charged with advocating the technology) don't believe algae could be a competitive source of fuel until at least 2020.

In fact, fuel from algae costs anywhere between $140 and $900 a barrel to produce today. As most Americans probably understood intuitively when they heard the President's speech, there's not much indication algae can ever overcome its fundamental problems to be competitive with oil and natural gas, of which the world also has plentiful supplies.

There are a few simple reasons algae is not likely to succeed in the real world, even a decade from now as its proponents predict:

1. Even compared to other biofuels, it is extremely expensive to produce. For fuels such as ethanol (which is widely used even today), the cost of growing the crop is essentially the cost of the agricultural land. In many parts of the country that means a few thousand dollars per acre. With algae, however, a large amount of equipment is involved, including machinery to mix the water constantly, equipment to separate the algae from the water, and an impermeable liner so water doesn't leach into the ground. Even if we assumed all this cost $1 per square foot -- less than cheap linoleum flooring -- that would be nearly $44,000 per acre. That is much more expensive than the cost for alternative crops.
2. To achieve high yields of algae, growers have to enrich the water with large amounts of carbon dioxide (which algae consumes). This means the CO2 would likely need to be captured and transported from fossil fuel plants, most of which are not located anywhere near the best locations for algae farming -- the desert. The capture of CO2 and the pipeline to transport this CO2 add significant cost (which, again, even other biofuels do not entail).
3. The process requires large volumes of water, but if algae production takes place in the desert, large volumes of water are also hard to come by.
4. As President Obama points out, there's "a bunch of algae out there." But producers of algae fuel use special strains in order to produce oil. In order to preserve their strains, they would somehow have to protect thousands of acres from contamination.
5. Producers of algae have to somehow dispose of the actual algae once they have separated it from the oil. The mass of this algae would add up very quickly, and producers can only sell so much of the "algae bodies" as animal feed.

All of these things suggest that algae fuel is not likely to be competitive with other forms of fuel anytime in the foreseeable future. And more importantly, it is definitely not a solution to Americans' urgent energy crisis brought on by unnecessarily high gasoline prices.

President Obama recently compared those who doubted his green energy fantasies to the "Flat Earth Society" and claimed that his side of the debate represented "the Wright Brothers, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs."

I don't recall any of those people receiving $50 million loan guarantees from Teddy Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan -- and their technologies worked.  

American Guns and Mexican Violence

 By Sen. John Cornyn

The debate over U.S. gun laws and Mexican drug violence brings to mind Mark Twain’s famous quip about lies, damned lies, and statistics. In a recent editorial, the Washington Post blamed American policies for exacerbating the bloodshed, pointing out that “70 to 80 percent of the traceable guns seized in Mexico can be tracked to the United States.” The key word there is “traceable.” While it’s true that most of the traceable guns originated north of the border, those weapons represent a very small portion of total Mexican gun seizures.

According to a Government Accountability Office study based on data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), only 7,200 of the roughly 30,000 guns seized by Mexican authorities in 2008 were sent to ATF for a tracing analysis. Scott Stewart of STRATFOR has noted that just 4,000 of them were found to be traceable. Of the traceable guns, 3,480 were linked back to the United States. In other words, only 12 percent of the guns confiscated in 2008 were positively traced to the United States. In May 2009, the Associated Press reported that the Mexican military had “305,424 confiscated weapons locked in vaults.” Because those weapons were not submitted to ATF, their origin is unclear.

We should obviously take reasonable steps to block cartel members and their associates from buying guns in America, while also upholding Second Amendment rights for law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s bewildering strategy was to let more than 2,000 weapons “walk” across the border into Mexico as part of “Operation Fast and Furious.” The Post editorial characterized this program as a “well-intentioned, misguided response to—and not the cause of—the proliferation of illegal guns in Mexico.” That is a rather generous description. The program was disastrously conceived and disastrously executed. Fast and Furious weaponry has been used to commit scores and scores of killings. In December 2010, it was used to murder a brave U.S. Border Patrol agent named Brian Terry.

What about the U.S. assault-weapons ban (AWB), which expired in 2004? Citing estimates from a senior Mexican official, the Post said that the portion of seized guns classified as “assault weapons” has grown from about one-third in 2005 to 60–65 percent today. Yet Mexican drug violence was accelerating before the AWB lapsed -- in 2001, then-President Vicente Fox called for “a war without mercy” against the cartels -- and President Felipe Calderón’s courageous post-2006 crackdown on organized crime has prompted the gangs (1) to fight back against the government and (2) to fight a lot more with each other.

In his 2011 STRATFOR report, Stewart made an important observation about trends in Mexico drug violence: “In recent years the cartels (especially their enforcer groups such as Los Zetas, Gente Nueva and La Linea) have been increasingly using military weaponry instead of sporting arms. A close examination of the arms seized from the enforcer groups and their training camps clearly demonstrates this trend toward military ordnance, including many weapons not readily available in the United States” (emphasis added). “Some of these seizures have included M60 machine guns and hundreds of 40 mm grenades obtained from the military arsenals of countries like Guatemala.”

Indeed, wrote Stewart, “Latin America is awash in weapons that were shipped there over the past several decades to supply the various insurgencies and counterinsurgencies in the region. When these military-grade weapons are combined with the rampant corruption in the region, they quickly find their way into the black arms market. The Mexican cartels have supply-chain contacts that help move narcotics to Mexico from South America and they are able to use this same network to obtain guns from the black market in South and Central America and then smuggle them into Mexico.”

As Stewart concluded: “Even if it were somehow possible to hermetically seal the U.S.-Mexico border and shut off all the guns coming from the United States, the cartels would still be able to obtain weapons elsewhere -- just as narcotics would continue to flow into the United States from other places.”

No question, the United States should be doing more to help Mexico stem the rising tide of drug-related violence. But we should also be skeptical of claims that American gun laws are at the root of the problem.

President Obama’s Incredible Shrinking Labor Force
by Newt Gingrich

Dear Fellow Conservative,

President Obama last week brandished new jobs numbers as proof that his policies were having an effect on the unemployment rate, which the report said declined to 8.3 percent in January.

The president is right about one thing: his big government agenda and class warfare tactics are having an effect -- but it's not the one he claims. In truth, last month's drop in the unemployment statistic was due largely to the evaporation of 1.2 million people from the labor force number. When people become so discouraged they stop actively looking for work, they are no longer counted as unemployed and the rate goes down even though Americans are hardly better off than they were before.

The rate went down in January because (apparently) 1.2 million people decided in a single month not to pursue work. This is the number, in effect, that President Obama is touting.

The January report caps an extraordinary decline in the participation rate that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has been reporting under the Obama administration. Since January 2009, the BLS said more than five million people have dropped out of the labor force -- the greatest decline in American history and the lowest participation rate in more than three decades. Only about six in 10 adult American civilians are counted as part of the labor force. 

A few more good jobs reports like this and we'll have a three percent unemployment rate with nobody working.

The president assures us, however, the lower unemployment rate is actually evidence that his policies are successful. Asked on Monday about the fact that unemployment had dropped in part because so many Americans left the labor force, unable to find jobs, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the decline in the participation rate could be an "economic positive" because some of it is "due to younger people getting more education." Carney also tried to blame the massive exodus on Americans getting older—which they must have done at record levels in January to account for 1.2 million people retiring at once.

Those are pretty glib and grasping explanations for the single largest exit from the labor force on record—especially since it's more than four times the number who left the previous month.

In reality, almost half a million fewer Americans are employed today than when President Obama took office. The real unemployment rate, counting those who are unemployed, underemployed, or have looked for work in the past 12 months but since given up, is closer to 15 percent. More Americans are relying on food stamps than ever before. Teenage unemployment during the Obama administration is the highest since records began in 1948, with almost one in four teenagers who wants to work today unable to find a job. 8.2 million Americans have only part-time employment either because they can't find full-time work or because their hours have been cut back.

The president's unrelenting assault on job creators has made a bad economy much worse. In the middle of the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, he rammed through Obamacare, spent almost a trillion dollars of "stimulus" indiscriminately, virtually took over the American auto industry, attempted to raise taxes on producers with carbon trading legislation, banned development of offshore oil and gas resources, passed the Dodd-Frank Act which crippled community banks, juiced up the regulatory powers of the EPA, FDA and other bureaucracies—and lately, has taken to demonizing job creators with class warfare rhetoric while offering policy platitudes that do nothing to solve our problems.

These are the things the president is trying to tell us are responsible for last month's drop in the unemployment rate? Having driven five million people out of the labor force, maybe on second thought he's right.

Your Friend,

Newt

The mission should determine the budget

By: Sen. John Cornyn

The idea that America’s military should bear the brunt of federal budget cuts is both dangerous and illogical. Defense spending didn’t cause our looming fiscal crisis, so cutting it to the bone wouldn’t solve that crisis. As the House Armed Services Committee chairman recently pointed out, defense spending represents “less than 20 percent of the federal budget,” yet it accounts for “more than 50 percent of our deficit-reduction efforts.” The Pentagon budget is already scheduled to decline substantially over the next decade. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that slashing an extra $600 billion dollars through sequestration would “hollow out” the military and ultimately prove “catastrophic” for American national security.

And yet there are still folks in Congress who refuse to support entitlement reforms but insist on gutting our defense budget. From a fiscal perspective, that makes no sense. From a national-security perspective, it is deeply alarming. We should obviously be working to eliminate wasteful defense spending, and we should obviously be pushing the Pentagon to improve its financial-management practices so that it can become “audit ready” as soon as possible. Those are no-brainers. At the same time, we also have a strategic obligation to prepare for threats both known and unknown. As former Defense Secretary Robert Gates famously quipped, “Our record of predicting where we will use military force since Vietnam is perfect -- we have never once gotten it right.”

In early 2001, nobody in Washington thought that American troops would spend the next decade waging counterinsurgency warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the years ahead, we will undoubtedly face serious national-security challenges from terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda, rogue states such as North Korea and Iran, and rising powers such as Communist China. We will also face challenges that nobody was expecting. With these threats in mind, our two top Army officials, Secretary John McHugh and his chief of staff, General Ray Odierno, have strongly opposed drastic cuts to U.S. ground forces.

Bottom line: The world is becoming a more dangerous place, and future defense expenditures should be determined by U.S. national-security interests, not by political needs on Capitol Hill. Or, as one analyst recently put it, “The mission should determine the budget; the budget should not determine the mission.” If we want this century to be another “American century,” we will have to maintain our commitment to a robust U.S. military that is capable of handling current and future global challenges.

A Better Way to Fight the Online Theft of American Ideas and Jobs

By Senator Marco Rubio

In recent weeks, we’ve heard from many Floridians about the anti-Internet piracy bills making their way through Congress. On the Senate side, I have been a co-sponsor of the PROTECT IP Act because I believe it’s important to protect American ingenuity, ideas and jobs from being stolen through Internet piracy, much of it occurring overseas through rogue websites in China. As a senator from Florida, a state with a large presence of artists, creators and businesses connected to the creation of intellectual property, I have a strong interest in stopping online piracy that costs Florida jobs.

However, we must do this while simultaneously promoting an open, dynamic Internet environment that is ripe for innovation and promotes new technologies.

Earlier this year, this bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously and without controversy. Since then, we've heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government's power to impact the Internet. Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences.

Therefore, I have decided to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act. Furthermore, I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor. Instead, we should take more time to address the concerns raised by all sides, and come up with new legislation that addresses Internet piracy while protecting free and open access to the Internet.

Photo ID Provisions Important to Securing Elections

By Newt Gingrich

Millions of Americans board planes every month. On each occasion, they are asked to present a photo ID to gain entry into the gate. It’s a procedure we’ve come to accept for a little peace of mind so that air travel can be more secure.

To enter many office buildings, to cash a check or to even undergo a medical procedure, photo identification is also required. Having photo identification is an essential part of engaging in commerce in the 21st century.

Yet the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder see no reason to require a photo ID for Americans to carry out one of our most important civic duties: voting.

The Obama Justice Department has blocked a new South Carolina law that would compel residents to present a photo ID to cast a ballot. Seven other states also have adopted strict photo ID laws in an effort to prevent election fraud.

Any day now, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson will file suit against the Justice Department, asking the federal courts to overturn the Justice Department. South Carolina took the correct step to secure its own elections, particularly after a mayor in one of its cities was convicted in an election fraud scheme.

Instead of standing in the way of good government, the Obama administration should applaud efforts to bring integrity to South Carolina elections and elections in all states, especially as we enter 2012 and what will perhaps be a contentious election year.

South Carolina is among several states that have enacted voter ID laws in 2011. Mississippi voters just approved a voter ID requirement in November and are also awaiting Justice Department approval. Texas has also approved a voter ID law and is deciding whether to seek preclearance or sue the Justice Department to get the necessary approval.

Most Southern states are still governed by the 1960s-era Voting Rights Act when it comes to election laws. They must gain federal approval before enacting any changes to their election laws so as to ensure they are not discriminating against minorities.

But requiring a photo ID to vote is a common-sense security measure that helps ensure those without legal citizenship don’t vote, those with multiple homes or properties only vote once and that no one votes in place of another. Voters are harmed when illegal or fraudulent votes are cast, as they dilute or discount legitimate votes cast by honest Americans.

The arguments made by Holder are retreads of arguments which have already lost in court when the ACLU and others have sought to stop voter ID statutes in states such as Indiana and Georgia. There has not been a shred of evidence found that requiring photo identification disenfranchises minorities, as a photo ID is universally used by all Americans of all backgrounds in many other aspects of our lives.

Since photo ID passed into law in Georgia in 2005, for example, minority participation in elections has actually increased. African-American turnout at the midterm elections rose 44.2 percent between 2006 and 2010. Voter participation in the midterm elections among Hispanics rose 66.5 percent during that same period.

What voter ID will do is help prevent fraud, especially as we go forward into a highly visible election season. In the past five years alone, there have been instances of election fraud in several states, including New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and South Carolina, where the mayor of Eastover was convicted of election fraud in 2008. It is not unheard of for dead citizens to cast ballots in a nation that is supposed to have elections with far more integrity than the rest of the world.

A new Rasmussen poll released in December shows that 70 percent of likely voters believe Americans should have to show a photo ID such as a driver’s license before voting. Our neighbors in Mexico show a photo ID when they vote. And in emerging democracies in the Middle East such as Iraq, citizens dip their fingers in ink to show they have voted.

In the 21st century in the United States, there should not be any question whether someone could vote without proving who they are. If America is the world’s most exceptional nation, then we need to run the globe’s most exceptional and secure elections.

Requiring photo ID is a step toward getting us there.

DOJ Must Account for Recent Appointments

By U.S. Sen. John Cornyn

When President Obama appointed Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) last week, he broke with 90 years of tradition and Constitutional interpretation.  The Constitution clearly states that neither the House nor the Senate can adjourn for more than three days without the other chamber's approval.  Because that agreement was not reached, both the House and the Senate hold regular, "pro forma" sessions to maintain compliance with the Constitution.  President Obama has chosen to ignore this long-held interpretation of the Constitution by invoking the presidential power of making recess appointments - even though Congress is not formally adjourned.  

I joined my Republican colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee in sending a letter to Attorney General Holder demanding a full accounting of what role the Department of Justice played in advising the President in this regard.  As the Obama Administration continues to reinterpret the Constitution, the American people are owed, at a bare minimum, an explanation.  To read the letter, click here.

In addition to my questions over the constitutionality of the President's actions, I have serious concerns about the CFPB, which was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.  The bureau is yet another expansion of an already bloated government.  It lacks transparency and is not subject to fiscal oversight by Congress - essentially giving unaccountable bureaucrats the power of the purse.

NEUGEBAUER STATEMENT ON BIPARTISAN LETTER TO REGULATORS

"Expressing Concerns with the Proposed "Volcker Rule"

 December 22, 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Representative Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) released a bipartisan letter (attached) signed by 121 members of the House of Representatives to regulators expressing deep concerns with the proposed “Volcker Rule.” Named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the rule intends to ban proprietary trading by banks, but instead goes considerably beyond Congressional intent. As just one of the hundreds of rulemakings required by the 900 page Dodd-Frank Act, the rule instead threatens to throw a blanket over U.S. Capital markets, and the ability of American companies to access funding to help create jobs. Additionally, no other country has adopted similar rules, placing U.S. companies at a notable competitive disadvantage. The letter asks for regulators to (1) extend the comment period and implementation deadline, and (2) re-propose an "interim proposed rule" once all initial comments have been received and digested by the joint regulators, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which is expected to issue their own proposal.

“The Volcker Rule began as a simple three-page proposal intended to limit the risk of taxpayer dollars to excessive risk taking by financial institutions. But instead we got a 300 page document that asks for comment on over 1,300 questions that affects every corner of our economy and leaves the taxpayer worse off than before the rule.

“The current proposal twists a simple concept into an overly complex and burdensome regulation. Going significantly beyond Congressional intent, this proposal will make it difficult for banking entities to manage risk prudently, increases systemic risk, and hinders the ability of companies – particularly small- and medium-sized businesses – to raise capital and create jobs. And because no other country has followed suit with similar regulations, American businesses will be put at a significant competitive disadvantage with international competitors.

“The letter has one straight forward message: it is more important to get this rule right than to just get it done quickly. In fact, the current proposal looks more like a ‘concept piece’ than a proposed rule, which is why in addition to asking regulators to extend the comment and compliance period of the rule, the letter also asks them to consider re-proposing the rule after carefully studying the comment letters on the current proposal. Given the stakes, it is important that regulators digest initial comments, and propose a more definitive and streamlined ‘interim proposed rule’ for comment.”

(Of the 121 members of the House of Representatives signing on to the letter, 25 are members of the House Financial Services Committee. Nineteen are members of the Ways & Means Committee and also includes the Chairmen of the following committees: Agriculture, Homeland Security, Judiciary, Small Business, Science & Technology, Veterans Affairs, and Ways & Means.)

McKeon Statement on the End of American Military Presence in Iraq

Washington DC – House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon made the following statement today regarding the end of U.S. military presence in Iraq: 

“Today we transition to a new phase in the relationship with our ally, Iraq.  Their journey to independence and freedom has not been an easy one, and it has come at a very high price.  I hope, though, that the price paid for freedom, by Americans and Iraqis alike, will make their liberty all the more dear.  

“I would not have conducted our withdrawal in this manner.  I believe it is too precipitous, and calculated on a political and not a strategic timeline.  I believe that President Obama should have engaged President Maliki earlier and been willing to heed our commanders’ recommendations concerning the size and need for a credible U.S. force.  I believe this could have been accomplished.

To all the men and women of the military who have sacrificed so much to create a functioning democracy where there was once oppression, brutality, and safety for those who would do us harm, I thank you.  You should be proud of your service to freedom.”

Issa Investigates What White House Knows about 'Occupy DC'

 A key Republican lawmaker wants the Obama administration to explain its role in allowing "Occupy Wall Street" protestors to illegally camp in a Washington D.C. park that was recently beautified with nearly half a million dollars in stimulus funds.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R.–Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked the Interior Department this week to explain why protestors have been allowed to camp in McPherson Square illegally and destroy the public property.

Issa, who has led investigations into White House connections to the Energy Department's failed Solyndra loan and the Justice Department's fatal Fast and Furious Operation, wants to know who in the Obama administration is responsible for the illegal camp and disruptive protests.

"This situation raises questions about why those decisions were made, who participated in making them, and whether political judgments played a role in not enforcing the law," Issa said in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Issa is demanding all communications between the National Park Service (NPS), Interior Department and the White House involving the Occupy DC protests be delivered to his committee by early January.

"While the merits of this stimulus funding are debatable, we can all agree that once the federal government had invested the funds no government agency should have allowed it to be damaged or destroyed when it legally could have been prevented," Issa said.

"The NPS has an obligation to the American people to explain the decisions that were made regarding the Occupy DC protesters in McPherson Square. The NPS allowed the protesters to camp in McPherson Square and kill newly planted grass that had been funded by the stimulus," Issa said.

According to the Park Service, the $400,000 in stimulus money was used for new grass, concrete curbs, refurbished benches, new light poles, paint, fencing, trashcans, light meters and water fountains.

Camping is not allowed in the park, but tents have littered the landscape since October and officials were recently forced to tear down a wooden barn-like structure built by the occupiers. Nearly 100 arrests have been made.

Federal officials have circulated flyers to inform protestors that camping is prohibited. However, the park service says the protest is more like a 24-hour vigil than a camp.

Police are starting to crack down on occupy protestors around the country clashing with the crowds in New York and California, and shut down a camp this week in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

—Audrey Hudson

Department of Labor New Proposed Child Labor Rule Would Affect Family Farms

By: Randy Neugebauer

The U.S. Department of Labor has proposed a new child labor rule that would affect family farms in rural America. The proposed rule would make it illegal for workers under 16 to operate power equipment, work with livestock, or perform other chores that the government deems too dangerous on farms not owned or operated by the workers’ parents.

Children have been helping their parents on the farm since the founding of our country. The safety of each child is of utmost importance on a farm or ranch, but I believe each family has the ability, the responsibility and the right to determine what his or her child can and cannot do. The government should not be involved in every decision made by families on farms and ranches across the country. This administration is trying to create a bigger, more powerful government that permeates every aspect of the American way of life. I will continue to monitor this new proposed rule from the Labor Department as it goes through the rule-making process.

House Committees to Review MF Global Bankruptcy

Since November, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on the House Financial Services Committee, of which I am Chairman, has been investigating the collapse of MF Global, a New York-based brokerage firm, and missing customer funds of as much as $1.2 billion. Futures contracts are a responsible way for businesses and farmers to hedge their risk. This bankruptcy has shaken markets and further eroded the trust that people and small businesses have in markets.

On December 15th, my subcommittee will hold a comprehensive hearing on the decisions and events leading to the bankruptcy of MF Global. This bankruptcy has caused several thousand account holders to have their accounts and money frozen. We must delve into every aspect of MF Global’s collapse in a complete and thorough way. The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee will look into the regulatory and corporate behavior that led to the mishandling of customers’ money.

Many farmers and ranchers lost accounts because of MF Global’s collapse. Therefore, the House Agriculture Committee, of which I am a member, will also be reviewing the MF Global Bankruptcy with a hearing on December 8th.

Fire Eric Holder

By Sarah Palin

It’s tempting to get distracted with the horse race aspect of electoral politics during a primary season. But as pundits talk about “who’s up and who’s down” in the 24 hour news cycle, we must keep our eye on the ball with the Obama administration. They rely on distraction to skirt responsibility, but we’re going to hold them accountable for their corruption and incompetence.

 When the stories about Operation Fast and Furious first broke, it sounded too crazy even for this administration.

 Why would any government official with an ounce of common sense think it’s a good idea to facilitate the smuggling of thousands of guns into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels? That’s what Operation Fast and Furious did…Read More

The Presidents China Recipe: All Icing, No Cake

By: Newt Gingrich

Washington Needs a Balanced Budget Amendment
By U.S. Sen. John Cornyn

 We are all familiar with the American dream. Individuals work hard to establish themselves and secure a better quality of life for their families. Their children, in turn, lay the groundwork for a better quality of life for their children. And on it goes down the generations, with each being elevated by the last. This is what makes America unique from the rest of the world.

Super Committee Disaster and Three Alternatives for America
by Newt Gingrich

As the deadline for the so-called "Super Committee" to put forward a deficit reduction plan approaches, officials in Washington are arguing over whether the government or the American people will have to bear the pain.

What they do not realize is that the United States is actually caught between three possible futures:

1. Fantasy and collapse (the Greek model)
2. Pain and Austerity (the Washington establishment model)
3. Innovation and Growth (the Hamilton-Lincoln-Reagan-Thatcher-Gingrich model).

Federal Workers to Cut Back On “Swag" 

President Barack Obama is ordering federal workers to cut back on "swag" in an effort to save taxpayer dollars and roll back the government's trillion-dollar debt.

That's right, swag.

In Hollywood, swag means silk scarves, designer shoes, exotic vacations, jewelry from Tiffany's and other bling given away at Academy Awards parties and other swanky affairs.

In Washington, swag means t-shirts, coffee mugs, water bottles and ink pens from Office Depot featuring the agency's name or emblem in drab colors and offered as parting gifts from bureaucratic conferences and summits.

The effort is part of Obama's "we can't wait for Congress to act" campaign to highlight what he calls obstructionist Republicans on Capitol Hill who won't enact his jobs bill and other agendas.

Instead, the president is taking measures into his own hands by signing a series of executive orders to cut waste and promote more efficient spending across the federal government-sphere.

"From the day I took office, I've said we're going to comb the federal budget, line by line, to eliminate as much wasteful spending as possible," Obama said.

"That's what the 'Campaign to Cut Waste' is all about. We can't wait for Congress to act—we can't wait for them to get our fiscal house in order and make the investments necessary to keep America great. That's why today, I'm signing an executive order that will build on our efforts to cut waste and promote more efficient spending across the government—we're cutting what we don't need so that we can invest in what we do need," Obama said.

The executive order directs hundreds of thousands of government workers to stop wasting taxpayer money on non-essential items used for promotional purposes, such as clothing, mugs and non-work related gadgets.

Agencies are also being told to cut back on travel and instead conduct government business through teleconferences and videoconferences, reduce the $9 million budget for cars in Washington, D.C., publish more documents electronically to save on printing costs, and purchase fewer technological gadgets like smartphones and tablets.

To read more about Obama's executive order, check it out here.
—Audrey Hudson

Small Steps Toward Liberty

 FreedomFighter says:

November 3, 2011 at 4:31 am

Obituary — Very Interesting In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
The Obituary follows:

Born 1776, Died 2008
It won't hurt to read this several times.

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29
Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2 McCain: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's — and they vote — then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.

If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

This is truly scary! Of course we are not a democracy, we are a Constitutional Republic . Someone should point this out to Obama. Of course we know he and too many others pay little attention to The Constitution. There couldn't be more at stake than on Nov 2012. If you as concerned as I am please pass this along.

Laus Deo
Semper Fi

LD-18 Recall Election – Senator Pearce Recall Election – Arizona

By Linda Turley-Hansen, Arizona

Okay, I don’t live in Arizona’s Legislative District 18, but that doesn’t mean I’m not deeply affected by the possible recall of our Senate President and the contemptible, outsider intrusion into our state.  Don’t kid yourself District 18 voters; there are those who want to force a major shift in Arizona’s political base and away from policies of citizen protection.  And, they are using you.

I implore you to reconsider.

Clearly, the Democrat party wants to see Sen. Russell Pearce defeated.  I can understand that.  But those of his own party, who have been sucked into the game of an expensive recall, one short year away from a fully funded General Election is staggeringly ignorant.

This recall is a game of dangerous proportions, one that multiple Republicans, many respected in District 18, have been scammed by.

It’s one thing that a possible million dollars have been spent in this recall, (told to Pearce by AZ Congressman Trent Franks), much of it said to be from outside of Arizona, it’s another when our own citizens are blinded to hype and political carping.

I have a few questions for those, in Arizona, who have contributed to the recall effort:   Really?  You are unhappy with a strong, legislative leader who took Arizona out of the red and into the black in a time the nation is floundering economically; a leader whose state is currently number two in job growth, from number 49 in the nation when the recession began? (Bureau of Labor of Statistics, 9.16.11)

Let’s go back to the primary issue:  SB1070, which mandates aliens carry required documents.  Through Pearce’s leadership, Arizona has led the nation in finally claiming State’s Rights and taking the steps to protect its own citizens.   Following Arizona’s example, some 30 other states are creating similar legislation.  Our governor tells of standing ovations as she travels this nation.  American citizens clearly respect Arizona’s courage.

Did you know that crime in Phoenix has dropped to a 30 year low as per PLEA, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association?  And, with a reported 100,000 illegals having moved out of Arizona, the estimated drop in K-12 education costs have been substantial. (U.S. Department of Education places Arizona cost at $7,610 per pupil.)

Are you aware, rather than solve border problems, the Feds have simply erected signs south of Phoenix alerting people of the border dangers?  That five years before Rob Krentz was murdered on his own border ranch that he begged for help for himself and other ranchers?

We whine about our circumstances; about the Feds remaining unresponsive, yet when one single, strong man steps to the front and displays courage, we watch or participate in his humiliation and possibly his political martyrdom because he’s imperfect.  Really?

Pearce acknowledges he’s made mistakes.  And, absolutely, I disagree with some ways he’s tried to solve a few of our problems, but in our current, political crisis, we’re in need of courageous leaders.   As long as Pearce is in office, I will work to support him and encourage him to create humane, yet sensible policy.

As for outsiders who are intent on managing the politics of a strong Western State, where boldness comes from the genes of the courageous first settlers, I am aghast that even one District 18 citizen could be influenced in this costly sham.

To create jobs abolish the death tax now
by Newt Gingrich

There is now less than a month remaining until the so-called “Super Committee” must reveal its plan to eliminate $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit over the next 10 years.

If it fails to produce such a plan, or if Congress or President Barack Obama rejects it, it will lead to a budgetary and national security disaster.  Under this incredibly risky scheme, more than a trillion dollars will be cut from defense and domestic spending budgets automatically if the closed-door “Super Committee” cannot agree on a deficit reduction package.  If Congress fails to pass whatever proposal these 12 select members of Congress come up with—no matter how bad it is—the same automatic cuts go into effect.

They better have a good plan.

There are alternatives, some of them painless, if the members of the committee can get beyond partisanship. According to a study released last week by the American Family Business Foundation, almost a third of the needed savings could be achieved merely by repealing the death tax, something that is both ineffective and immoral.

The federal government would take in about $362 billion more than currently projected over the next 10 years if the death tax was eliminated entirely, allowing people to pass the fruits of a lifetime of labor on to their families as they chose. There would be a direct revenue loss but, as the report estimates, U.S. Gross Domestic Product would increase 2.26 percent in a decade just by eliminating the tax. New revenues generated by the economic activity that would result from the elimination of the death tax would be almost twice as much as the revenue derived from it.

This growth would create thousands of new jobs as families kept more small businesses running through multiple generations and shifted their efforts from avoiding estate taxes to investing in America.

As economist Art Laffer described the evidence, “Study after study finds that the estate tax significantly reduces the size of estates and, as an added consequence, reduces the nation's capital stock and income.”

Many small business owners have an incentive to spend their resources wastefully looking for ways to avoid the tax.  Many families are forced to close or sell the family business or the family farm in order to raise the funds needed to pay the federal government.

Hundreds of prominent economists recently added their names to a letter written a decade ago by Nobel-laureate Milton Friedman calling for the repeal of the death tax. They object that it is ineffective—as I have said, the government would be better off eliminating it—but more importantly that it is immoral.

As Friedman wrote on behalf of the original 276 signatories:

“Spend your money on riotous living - no tax; leave your money to your children - the tax collector gets paid first. That is the message sent by the estate tax. It is a bad message and the estate tax is a bad tax. The basic argument against the estate tax is moral. It taxes virtue - living frugally and accumulating wealth.”

An additional 259 economists signed the letter this year, including another Nobel-laureate, advisors to several presidents, and former Federal Reserve Bank presidents.

The American people overwhelmingly agree with Friedman and these economists that “death should not be a taxable event.” Even though relatively few Americans will ever pay the death tax, substantial majorities oppose raising it and support its permanent repeal.

They understand it is a question fundamentally about the right to pursue happiness: if you work hard, if you invest wisely, if you save your money, it is wrong for people who did not spend their lifetimes doing that to take it away.

 “The death tax taxes yet again a lifetime of savings and investment that has already been taxed multiple times,” Peter Ferrara wrote recently. “It is double taxation on top of double taxation, which often forces loved ones left behind to sell the family farm, ranch or business to pay the taxes just when they are suffering from their loss the most.”

Eliminating the death tax will create more jobs and more revenue for the federal government. That combination should be an obvious choice for the deficit reduction committee. Repealing it is a painless part of the solution. It’s also the right thing to do.

Death by Bureaucracy

By: Newt Gingrich 

Earlier this month, a panel appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services made a recommendation so detached from the good of individual patients it could only have come from government bureaucrats. They recommended eliminating screening for the most common cancer among males nationwide.

The United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) is composed of 16 government-selected experts whose recommendations often influence the reimbursement policies of Medicare and private insurers. The range of members’ backgrounds is narrow considering the group is charged with advising the federal government and other healthcare providers on specific medical procedures: almost all are academics or administrators rather than practicing physicians. The panel includes experts in pediatrics and newborn care, in mental health and geriatrics, but not a single urologist who actually takes care of prostate cancer patients.

Despite lacking any specialist who deals with the issue, the panel issued a recommendation this month to stop using the only available test to screen for prostate cancer. PSA tests, which measure levels in the blood of a marker known to be elevated in men with prostate cancer, are the sole method of screening other than digital examination by a doctor, which cannot detect the most common form and usually identifies those cancers it can much later, when they are less curable.

Without the PSA testing, many men will have no way to know they have the disease until it has developed into much more dangerous problem. In some cases, it will be a too late by the time they discover it.

What is the basis for the panel’s recommendation to discontinue screening that can save lives?

It has nothing to do with the merits of the test. Instead, these government-appointed experts advised against screening because they disagree with what some doctors and patients choose to do with the information once they have it.

Prostate cancer is a complicated issue, and elevated PSA is not always a sign that a man should enter treatment. In some cases, men can live with benevolent cancers and remain healthy for years. In many other cases, it is simply unclear even from biopsies whether the cancers are benevolent or lethal, as both kinds register on test results.

Understandably, many men faced with this information want to do everything possible to make sure they do not have a lethal cancer, and many doctors, as well, recommend curative therapy even when they are not certain the cancer is lethal. There are definitely patients, especially older men, who undergo treatment for prostate cancer they could have lived with if it had gone undetected.

If prostate cancer is over-treated, the sensible response for the USPSTF would have been to call on the National Institute of Health and the National Cancer Institute to help develop a better and more accurate test, and to advise doctors and patients to consider more conservative approaches when the test suggests the presence of prostate cancer.

Instead, the task force’s answer is simply to deny doctors and patients the chance to consider early treatment by recommending they not screen for prostate cancer in the first place.

That is not a reasoned response to the problem. It is a bureaucratic response to the problem. And people will almost certainly die because of it.

This points to the difference between the bureaucratic approach to healthcare, which leads to rationing, and an approach to empower individuals and their doctors to make the best decisions for them.

Bureaucrats cannot comprehend the complicated details of all the individuals for whom they try to make decisions and so they issue one-size-fits-all pronouncements for large classes of people. In this case, when the bureaucratic approach identifies a class that is being over-treated, it calls for the elimination of screening to warn of the disease. That way fewer people will have the information they need in order to be faced with choices involving some options the bureaucrats consider undesirable. Physicians can’t over-treat a prostate cancer they have not detected.

Of course, it is ridiculous to have a handful of government bureaucrats with no expertise in the matter issuing recommendations that influence federal, state, and private health systems in crafting policies. Doctors and patients are in the best position to determine whether individuals should be screened for prostate cancer and to judge the best course of action afterward.

No one should want the government interfering in these very personal medical decisions. Lethal bureaucracy is a disease we can’t afford—and one that is entirely preventable with the right policies.

Promoting Conservative Values

Congressman Randy Neugebauer

As you know, I am a passionate advocate of conservative values and causes. To this end, I want to keep you informed of some legislation I supported on the House Floor this past week.

The Protect Life Act of 2011 – Last Thursday, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act, by a vote of 251-172. This bill, introduced by Representative Joseph Pitts (R-PA), amends President Obama’s health care law to restrict taxpayer funding of elective abortions and ensures that conscience rights for health care providers are protected. While I support full repeal of Obamacare, this is a crucial step that must be taken immediately to protect the unborn.

The sanctity of life should be promoted by the federal government, and I do not believe we should be using hard-earned taxpayer money for abortions. I am honored to cosponsor and vote for this bill, which continues the fight for the unborn and gives further voice to those who cannot yet speak for themselves.

EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011 – On Thursday, the House also passed H.R. 2250, the EPA Regulatory Relief Act. In June 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed regulations on cement plants and industrial boilers through Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) to reduce mercury emissions and other pollutants. These rules will force cement plants and businesses with industrial boilers to comply with burdensome regulations, and projected compliance costs are over $14 billion with over 230,000 jobs at risk.

The EPA Regulatory Relief Act provides job creators with relief from EPA’s Boiler MACT rules. This step toward reversing unnecessary government regulations will bring more certainty to the economy and allow small business owners to invest in and expand their companies.

Lewis K. Uhler president of the National Tax Limitation Committee speaks out

There is a problem brewing in the House of Representatives of which most conservatives in and outside Congress are largely unaware. It has to do with H.J. Res. 1 - the balanced budget amendment - soon to be voted on per the debt-ceiling "deal" struck by Congress and the president. While H.J. Res. 1 is a solid first effort - and we have urged support for it as a symbolic vote - it is possibly fatally flawed and should be revised.
 

After years of indifference to constitutional fiscal discipline, Congress is once again stirring. In 1982, then-President Ronald Reagan, convened a federal amendment drafting committee led by Milton Friedman, Jim Buchanan, Bill Niskanen, Walter Williams and many others, and fashioned Senate Joint Resolution 58, a tax limitation-balanced budget amendment, which garnered 67 votes in the Senate under the able leadership of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican. After a successful discharge petition forced a House vote, the amendment failed to achieve the two-thirds vote necessary in a Tip O'Neill-Jim Wright-controlled House. In 1996, Newt Gingrich and company came within one vote of passing a fiscal amendment in the House.
 

Currently, H.J. Res. 1 is designed as a classic balanced budget amendment in which outlays can be as great as, but no more than, receipts for that year. However, it requires an estimate of receipts, which is notoriously faulty, and it does not necessarily produce surpluses with which to pay down our massive debt. Furthermore, it contains a second limit on outlays - "not more than 18 percent of the economic output of the United States" - without defining such output or resolving the inevitable conflict between the outlay calculations in the two provisions.
 

This could be fixed by restructuring the amendment as a spending or outlay limit based on prior year receipts or outlays (known numbers), adjusted only for inflation and population changes. This will produce surpluses in most years with which to pay down debts and will reduce government spending as a share of gross domestic product over time, right-sizing government and increasing the rate of economic growth for the benefit of all citizens, especially those least able to compete.
 

Section 4 of H.J. Res. 1 might best be described as a supreme example of the law of unintended consequences. This section imposes on the president a constitutional responsibility to present a balanced budget. Surely, the drafters were saying to themselves "We'll fix that guy in theWhite House. Now he will have to fess up and either propose specific tax increases or specific spending cuts. He won't be able to duck reality any longer." The only problem is that this section is at odds with our Constitution in that it gives the president a constitutional power over fiscal matters never intended by the Founders.
 

For much of our history, the president did not propose a budget. In the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, which established the Bureau of the Budget, now the Office of Management and Budget and the General Accounting Office, the president was statutorily authorized to propose a budget. Presidents have always shaped the budget and spending using their negotiating opportunities and veto pen. Wearing their chief administrator hat, earlier presidents sought to save money from the amounts appropriated by Congress, getting things done for less, impounding funds they did not think essential to spend. Congress' ceiling on an appropriation was not also the spending floor for the president, as it is now.
 

Section 4 appears to give the president co-equal power with Congress not only to present a budget but to shape it, in conflict with congressional budget authority. At a minimum, it is likely to create a conflict over the amount of allowed annual spending. The president surely will be guided by his own Office of Management and Budget, whose budget and receipts calculations will undoubtedly differ from the Congressional Budget Office's numbers that will direct Congress. We should not start the budget process each year with this kind of conflict.
 

It would be better to restore the historic role of the president to impound and otherwise reduce expenditures by repealing and revising appropriate portions of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 so a fiscally conservative president is a revitalized partner in cutting the size of government.
 

Section 5 requires a supermajority vote for "a bill to increase revenues." Whether one agrees or disagrees with making tax increases more difficult, this language is troublesome because it requires some government bureaucrat or bureaucracy to make a calculation or estimate of the effect of tax law changes on revenues. Proponents of a bill to increase cash flow to the government will argue that their tax law changes are "revenue neutral" and will likely persuade the Joint Committee on Taxation or Congressional Budget Office to back them up. Once again, estimators would be in control.
 

If we ever expect to convert our income-based tax system to a consumption tax, better not to require a two-thirds vote as liberals will use such a supermajority voting rule to stymie tax system reform.
There are other issues, as well, with debt limit and national emergency supermajority votes and definitions. While this balanced budget amendment - H.J. Res. 1 - has deserved a "yes" vote as a demonstration of commitment to constitutional fiscal discipline, it can and must be revised before the showdown vote in the House this fall.

John Hayward on People Speaks Out

 On September 28, 2011, the National Federation of Independent Business petitioned the Supreme Court to review a decision from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals regarding ObamaCare.  The Obama Justice Department feels good about its general track record defending the law in appeals courts, and has also filed a petition with the Supremes.  

The Administration could have kept things bottled up in the 11th Circuit for a while, but most observers agree it would go all the way to the highest court sooner or later... and if "later" meant after the 2012 elections, there might have been a very different Justice Department arguing the government's case, with decidedly less enthusiasm.  

From a legal standpoint, this is the main event: The heavyweight title fight between Obama’s health care scheme and the nation that never wanted it.  If the Supreme Court upholds the 11th Circuit’s decision on the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate, but rejects the notion of severing it from the rest of the bill, ObamaCare is dead at last. If the mandate remains severed, ObamaCare lurches forward without its heart, with the remains of its basic logic and funding mechanism surgically removed while our national debt blasts into orbit.

And if the individual mandate is held to be constitutional, the relationship between American citizens and their government changes forever.  It won’t take long for the all-powerful State to think of other formerly voluntary transactions it can make compulsory, for our own good. — John Hayward

scandal surrounding Solyndra

 A report at the Atlantic Wire on the growing scandal surrounding Solyndra begins, “On Wednesday, the bankruptcy of a solar power company in California with political ties to the Obama administration appeared to be a story about the difficulties of nurturing green businesses in a cutthroat economy.”

Can someone show me where the Constitution authorizes the federal government to “nurture green businesses in a cutthroat economy?” 

When is the free market not cut-throat?  That’s a feature, not a bug.  One of its advantages is that stupid business plans get their throats cut, and die.  By contrast, there seems to be no way to stop President Obama from throwing billions of taxpayer dollars into “green energy” rat holes. 

Of course, the point of all this is to use compulsive force to make American taxpayers “invest” in politically favored projects, which by definition can’t succeed in that “cutthroat” free market, because nobody wants their products enough to buy them at a profit.  If “green energy” was a winner, it wouldn’t have to ride on Uncle Sam’s shoulders.

The free market can be rough on losers, but at least they have a fighting chance… and after things fall apart, money and manpower are repurposed to other ventures.  Command economies just keep plugging blindly away at failure for years at a stretch, while everyone suffers.  Boardrooms are far better environments for dealing with busted business plans than congressional subcommittees. —

John Hayward

The Emerging Crises in the Middle East

by Newt Gingrich

While Americans have been focused on the economy and domestic politics, the Middle East has been deteriorating in very threatening ways.

In the last few months, events have begun to turn against the United States, Israel, and freedom in the Middle East. If you want to share this big-picture overview of threats in the region with your friends, there are buttons at the top of this message.

Consider the following developments:

1. The Iranians are on offense in Iraq and the United States is losing ground. The radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has called for his followers to stop killing Americans on the grounds that it could delay our departure, but warned that if our troops do not leave by the end of the year, his attacks will resume. American military leaders have publicly testified that Iranians are providing equipment, training, and intelligence to help kill Americans. Yet nothing is being done to stop Iran.
2. The Obama Administration’s decision to reduce the American military presence in Iraq to 3,000 creates the potential for a catastrophic disaster. Since the Army deploys in brigades of 5,000, splitting up a brigade can only signify a political calculation. Yet, a small American military force will not be able to defend itself. The Obama Administration is creating a tempting target for the Iranian radicals to see if they can humiliate us. It would be much safer to pull all the troops out than to leave so few that they are in peril.

3. The American Embassy in Baghdad is an absurdity. It was designed when we were on the way to being the dominant power in Iraq. It covers too much space, has too much staff, and requires 3,650 people to defend it on a billion dollar contract, while thousands more work inside. Sustaining something on this scale is going to be very expensive and yield no results of comparable value. This embassy should be closed and a very modest and defensible building should replace it.
4. The Turkish government has become increasingly Islamist in its language and policies and is rapidly reversing the 90-year legacy of Ataturk's efforts to create a modern, open Turkey. The Turkish flotilla to Gaza last year was so clearly in violation of international law that even the United Nations has said Israel was right and Turkey was wrong.

This enraged the Turkish government, and it is threatening to send a new flotilla to Gaza defended by Turkish warships. This could lead to a Turkish-Israeli confrontation that could be very dangerous.

5. The Iranians announced Monday that their first nuclear reactor was going on line in a public demonstration of their determination to become a nuclear power.
6. Bashar al-Assad, the dictator of Syria and ally of Iran, continues to kill his own people with Iranian help. While some pro-American governments have fallen, pro-Iranian dictators are being sustained.
7. Egyptian radicals are building pressure for a diplomatic break with Israel, ending the 33-year peace process, which has made the region more stable and less dangerous. Mob attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo are an indicator of the potential hostility which could explode and reshape the region.
8. As I wrote over a month ago, the United Nations General Assembly is on the verge of recognizing a Palestinian state in a unilateral step which will embolden the radicals and put Israel in greater danger. Meanwhile, even the "moderate" Palestinians indicate this is not a step toward peace but merely an interim step in Palestinian statehood forced on Israel.

Chuck DeVore, who served as a Reagan appointee in the Pentagon and is an expert on foreign affairs, has written a special report on the situation in the Middle East and threats to Israel’s survival. You can read it here.

Despite all of these events, there is no evidence the Obama Administration has any idea how dangerous the world is becoming, or that it has a plan to deal with them.

Your Friend,

Newt

Statement by Gov Rick Perry on Announced Job Losses Due to EPA Rule

"The Obama Administration continues to put up road blocks for our nation's job creators by imposing burdensome regulations based on assumptions, not facts, that will result in job losses and increased energy costs with no definite environmental benefit. Yet again, this administration is ignoring Texas' proven track record of cleaning our air while creating jobs, opting instead for more stifling red tape. As expected, the only results of this rule will be putting Texans out of work and creating hardships for them and their families, while putting the reliability of Texas' grid in jeopardy."

H. R. 2497-"HALT  ACT"

Randy Neugebauer has stepped up and endorsed Lamar Smith to support H.R. 2497 THE “HALT ACT.” This is what he said:

I wanted to share with you my endorsement of the “HALT Act”, H.R. 2497.   As you may know, the Obama Administration wants to grant “backdoor amnesty” to illegal immigrants.   The American people have called upon Congress to defeat several amnesty bills in recent years and this legislation would once again reject the policy of amnesty.

The “rumors” of backdoor amnesty that had once been fueled by leaked administration memos have now become official Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy as of last month.  The Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued two directives on the scope of DHS officers’ prosecutorial discretion that could allow millions of illegal and criminal immigrants to avoid our immigration laws.  The memos tell agency officials when to exercise “prosecutorial discretion,” such as when to defer the removal of immigrants, when not to stop, question, arrest or detain an immigrant, and when to dismiss a removal proceeding.  Unfortunately, the ICE memos make clear that DHS plans not to use but to abuse these powers.  If the Obama administration has its way, millions of illegal immigrants will be able to live and work legally in the United States.  This unilateral decision will saddle American communities with the costs of providing education and medical care to illegal immigrants.  It will also place our communities at risk by not deporting criminal immigrants. 

I have joined 32 of my colleagues, including House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) in support of this legislation and will continue to oppose Obama Administration efforts to weaken our immigration laws.

Randy Neugebauer

A Price for Raising the Debt Ceiling

Republicans should attach provisions repealing the worst aspects of ObamaCare and financial reform to spending that the president absolutely needs.

By ARTHUR B. LAFFER

Addressing the possibility of the GOP-led Congress not voting to raise the debt ceiling, Austan Goolsbee, President Obama's top economic adviser, histrionically asserted this month: "This is not a game. The debt ceiling is not something to toy with. If we hit the debt ceiling, that's . . . essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history. The impact on the economy would be catastrophic."

In context, his comments are more than a bit hypocritical. Over the past four years-including the last two years of the Bush presidency-he and his boss supported every big, misguided spending program they could find, regardless of how much the electorate protested. There wasn't a dollar that didn't burn a hole in their pocket.

They supported add-ons to the housing and farm bills in 2007 to stimulate the economy; Larry Summers's $600 per-capita stimulus checks of 2008; the bailout of AIG, the Fed's asset swaps with Bear Stearns; the $700 billion Toxic Asset Relief Program; Mr. Obama's nearly $900 billion stimulus package; the total government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; the temporary cash-for-clunkers program; the $8,000 temporary home-buyers' tax credit; the extension of unemployment benefits to 99 weeks; the Dodd-Frank financial reforms; and of course the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare).

Not only did Mr. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid support all of the above government spending, they also voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2006 when George W. Bush was president and the Republicans controlled the House and Senate.

Here's what Mr. Obama said on the Senate floor then: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit."

Mr. Reid gave a similar speech: "If my Republican friends believe that increasing our debt by almost $800 billion today and more than $3 trillion over the last five years is the right thing to do, they should be upfront about it. They should explain why they think more debt is good for the economy. . . . Democrats won't be making arguments to support this legislation, which will weaken our country."

Now the roles are reversed. In March, the debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion is going to be hit. Today's debt number is about $13.9 trillion and rising faster than a jack rabbit. Mr. Goolsbee is correct that it would be a mistake to use the debt ceiling as the means to control Mr. Obama's spendthrift ways. But there is no reason why House Republicans shouldn't seek and get major concessions from the Democrats in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

There are, for example, many truly bad provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law and the president's health-care legislation that should and could be repealed. The Republicans should target these provisions for repeal and attach them to the bill to raise the debt ceiling. Once the bill containing items to be repealed passes the House, it would likely also pass the Senate. Who among the 21 Democrats and two independents whose terms are up in 2012 would vote against raising the debt ceiling, especially if the legislation also removed the least-popular features of other bills? Once passed by the full Congress, it's even less likely that Mr. Obama would veto it.

But just because the debt ceiling should be raised on this occasion does not mean that the logic behind Mr. Goolsbee's argument-that not doing so would be "catastrophic" for the economy-is accurate. On the contrary, cutting spending and cutting it drastically would not hurt the economy. It would, in fact, help the economy, even if done now.

Imagine there are only two farmers who make up the whole economy-Farmer Jones and Farmer Smith. If Farmer Smith receives unemployment benefits, who do you think pays for those unemployment benefits? Farmer Jones is the correct answer.

Government spending is taxation, pure and simple. That taxation reduces output, employment and production. It's basic Econ 101. If, instead of using government spending for productive purposes, Congress uses it on bailouts for failing banks and unprofitable businesses, cash for clunkers, housing subsidies and unemployment, it's a double-whammy for the economy. You can't raise taxes on people who work, increase what you pay people not to work, and then expect more people to work.

The mistake Mr. Goolsbee makes when he says that a massive reduction in government spending will reduce output is to confuse accounting with economics. In the simplest accounting terms, GDP is equal to consumption plus investment plus government spending-that's true. But reducing government spending doesn't reduce GDP dollar-for-dollar, as this accounting equation would seem to be saying.

Reducing government spending is not only a reduction in one of the components of GDP, but it is also a reduction in effective taxation and a reduction in payments for non-work and less output. In due course, cutting government spending will increase private output (in this case consumption plus investment) by more than the reduction in government spending.

After World War II, the U.S. cut federal government spending dramatically. In 1945, federal government spending as a share of GDP peaked at 31.6%, and by 1948 it was down to 14.4%. Private real GDP (e.g., GDP less government purchases) for the three years 1946, 1947 and 1948 grew at a 7.5% annual rate. So much for the idea that cutting government spending hurts the economy.

President Clinton also cut federal government spending as a share of GDP by over four percentage points, to 18.8% in 2000 from 22.9% in 1992-more than the next four best presidents combined. We all remember the prosperity of Mr. Clinton's eight years in office. I could go on and on, but the simple fact is that cutting government spending stimulates the economy. My fervent wish would be to have Mr. Obama be more like Mr. Clinton. As it stands now, they couldn't be more diametrically opposed.

E-mail from Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Date:  Wednesday, January 12, 2011 12:39 PM

From:  Congressman Randy Neugebauer <tx19ima.pub@mail.house.gov>

To:  kencook01@windstream.net

Subject:  Responding to your message

Size:  179 KB

Attachments:  Presidential travel.pdf (164.3 KB)

 Dear Mr. Cook:

 Thank you for contacting me regarding President Obama's official trips.  I appreciate knowing your views.

 As you know, the President of the United States takes many official trips throughout the year, many of them overseas.  As the attached report prepared by the Congressional Research Service details, airfare and related travel expenses for the President, Vice President, and First Lady are only a fraction of the total cost for an official trip.  Other costs include operating the aircraft (including fuel, maintenance, engineering support, and the crew) and designated "official travelers" such as Secret Service agents, communications personnel, and other officials.  Please review the attachment containing more details regarding Presidential travel.

 Please be assured I will continue to monitor use of your tax dollars to maintain the highest integrity of every dollar spent by the government. As the incoming chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on the House Financial Services Committee, I am committed to identifying and eliminating waste, fraud and abuse throughout the federal government. 

 Again, thank you for contacting me.  Please do not hesitate to contact me if I may be of service to you in the future.  If you would like to receive updates of my actions in Congress, I send a weekly e-newsletter called "Randy's Roundup" to keep people up-to-date on the big issues facing Washington and West Texas.  Many people have told me they enjoy learning what activities I have been up to on behalf of West Texans.  Please visit the 19^th District's website at www.randy.house.gov to sign up for the Roundup.

 Sincerely,

Randy Neugebauer
Member of Congress 

Open Attachment Presidential travel.pdf

Not a single Piece of Truth

By: Jason Mattera

OK, here’s the deal: There is as much evidence that MSNBC's resident slob Chris Matthews likes to molest farm animals each night before he goes on the air as there is that Sarah Palin had something, anything, to do with the shooting in Tucson, Ariz.

And yet Matthews and his cohorts in the old media continue to advance the libelous narrative that Palin and the conservative commentariat ignited the Tucson tragedy — even though there is not yet a single piece of proof that the shooter ever mentioned talk radio, Fox News, the Tea Party, or Palin.

Not. A. Single. Piece. Of. Proof!

Still, Chris Matthews and his fellow media tool bags are on an all-out smear campaign to link the Tucson tragedy to conservatives. On last night’s “Hardball,” Matthews said this of Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and gun ownership: “Sarah Palin using gun play language. What is she talking about crosshairs and reloading . . . and Bachmann out there with her kind of talk. I mean it seems like the way people talk now has, has gotten more ballistic. . . Why are guns talked about so much, especially on the Right? Why?”

Leftists like Matthews know that conservatives have nothing to do with the killing spree that left six slain and 14 wounded. Their goal is to intimidate you into silence. They don’t want you ripping on ObamaCare, cap and trade, amnesty for illegal aliens, intrusive government, or any of Obama’s disastrous policies.

They want to put you on mute. Don’t let them.

This is not a time for us to dial down our opposition; it’s time to dial it up.

Our liberties depend on it. We won’t be silenced by smears.

Let us not forget that while the media collectively pat themselves on the back over a need to stop the “climate of violence” allegedly coming from conservatives, the real merchants of hate reside on the Left.

It is they who tastelessly sought to politicize this past weekend’s events; it is they who fantasized about George W. Bush assassinated, Palin raped, Republicans exterminated, and Tea Party members beat to a pulp.

For your easy reference guide, see the “Top 10 Examples of Liberal Hate” the old media do not want you to know about.

A Sad Weekend for America: Tragedy in Tucson

By: Congressman Neugebauer

Saturday’s tragic events in Tucson involving Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, her staff and several of her constituents delivered a hard blow to all Americans. Just last week, I had spoken with Gabby and her husband Mark, a NASA astronaut, on our way to the swearing in of the 112th Congress. I have gotten to know Gabby through our work together on the Science and Technology Committee and her cheerful mood is always refreshing to experience.

I am heartsick about her suffering, and of course Dana and I are praying for her complete recovery and return to Congress. Our hearts also go out to the other victims and their families. In these instances, faith in God and His guidance will help all of us to cope with a heinous act committed by an obviously troubled individual.

Constituent outreach in Texas-19 is a large part of my job as a Congressman, and I will continue to welcome future opportunities to meet my constituents and to listen to their concerns. This despicable event will not deter me from carrying on with the people’s business. During the weeks and months ahead, please continue to keep Representative Giffords, her family, and the families of the other victims in your prayers.

How Do We Know That ObamaCare Is On The Ropes?

     A story published in the liberal New York Times on January 2, 2011 says it all: "The Obama administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new health care law, administration officials said Tuesday."

     You remember what happened. Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh summed it up as follows: "The White House apparently has flip-flopped again. Last week they were caught trying to sneak in the death panels, essentially. A federal rule that Medicaid doctors, in order get paid by Medicaid, Medicare, had to have end-of-life discussions with their seasoned citizen patients once a year."

     Make no mistake, the Obama Administration did not reverse this "death panel" policy out of moral outrage and, if ObamaCare is not repealed, it won't be the last time that the Obama Administration tries to SNEAK "death panel" policies past the American people.

     Oh yes... they tried to sneak this "end-of-life" policy past you. A similar policy was initially included in ObamaCare (before Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Harry Reid rammed it down our throats) but was removed when former-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin used the term "death panels" to describe the policy and then-House Minority Leader John Boehner said the policy would "start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.”

     The policy was apparently scuttled from the final version of ObamaCare that passed Congress but it miraculously reappeared... and yes, we do mean miraculously... and when it reappeared, it reappeared in SECRET. The New York Times reported: "The proposed rule, published for public comment in July, did not include advance care planning." In other words, the "end-of-life" policy did NOT appear in the proposed ruling that was made available to the public... it was inserted AFTER THE FACT... IN SECRET.

     And attempts were made to keep the policy under wraps. According to multiple news reports, Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon wrote the following in an email to supporters of the "end-of- life" ruling: “While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops.... We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists, even if they are ‘supporters’ — e-mails can too easily be forwarded.... Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it, but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”

     Why the secrecy? And why the sudden reversal? The answer is simple. In spite of what the liberal media is telling you, the Obama Administration knows ObamaCare is on the ropes... any rocking of the boat could send it down in flames. That's why egregious rulings are being made behind closed-doors and why those ruling are being pulled when they come to light.

     And that's why the liberal elites in Washington and in the media are trying to solicit your silence. Yes, ObamaCare is on the ropes and now is the time for the American people to administer a flurry of punches and go for the knock-out.

Political end runs

By: Thomas Sowell

 The Constitution of the United States begins with the words "We the people." But neither the Constitution nor "we the people" will mean anything if politicians and judges can continue to do end runs around both.

THE DREAM ACT WAS AN AWFUL BILL

On December 8th, 2010, the House of Representatives forced a slightly-modified version of the DREAM Act amnesty through its chamber.  These modifications included lowering the age-limit to 30 from 35 and defining what "good moral character" meant.  These changes were an attempt to give the DREAM Act a façade of respectability and good governance, an attempt which failed.  However, due to the House's passage of the DREAM Act, the Senate decided it was time for them to take up the bill (something Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was planning to do regardless of the outcome of the House vote).  Because anti-amnesty, pro-American worker Senators filibustered the bill, Sen. Harry Reid filed cloture (the step necessary to force a vote on a filibustered bill) on the night of December 16, setting up a vote on the morning of Saturday, December 18th.

The Senate duly held their vote on the DREAM Act amnesty on Saturday morning.  Because this was a vote to invoke cloture (thereby cutting off the filibuster), the pro-amnesty forces needed 60 votes.  Fortunately for all Americans and legal immigrants, the pro-DREAM Act Senators were only able to muster 55 votes, with the final tally being 55-41 (with 4 anti-amnesty Senators not voting).

The DREAM Act amnesty bill was an awful bill that would have made the plight of unemployed and underemployed Americans even worse. Needless to say, I am glad it died in Congress.

For the record, I do not celebrate the dashed hopes of the thousands of illegal-alien students who worked so hard to pass the DREAM Act amnesty that would have given them work permits and legal residency.

Unfortunately, those compelling students hitched their wagons to cynical politicians who sought to use their "compellingness" to first pass a massive blanket amnesty (CIR) and then this loophole-filled, fraud-prone DREAM Act amnesty that showed zero concern for the compelling stories of 22 million unemployed Americans and their kids. A national community has an ethical and constitutional obligation to put those compelling stories of its own fellow citizens at the front of the line for any redress.

While I am sorry that those worthy of a shot at the American Dream were led on (and let down) by deceitful and callous politicians, I am not sorry that the DREAM Act failed. As I have said before, "If these illegal immigrants want to become Americans, then I say come through the front door not the back. Get you a sponsor, get a work visa (Green Card), pay your taxes then take your citizenship test. When this is done we will welcome you with open arms. Until then you are not welcomed."

Patriot Ken

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

When the 112th Congress convenes next year, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Tea Pary Caucus will get a crash course on the constitutional separation of powers by Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, CNN reports. Justice Scalia will lead the first of the constitutional seminars for members of Congress in late January.

why do you agree or disagree that a constitutional class be held once a week to help understand what is being debated and voting on?  

Made in the USA and PROUD OF IT

 I Am the Democratic, Republican Liberal-Progressive's Worst Nightmare. I am a White, Conservative, Tax-Paying, Gun-Owning West Texan. I do building maintenance. I work hard and long hours with my hands to earn a living. ......I believe in God and the freedom of religion, but I don't push it on others. I drive a Ford Pick-up Truck, and drive American-made cars, and I believe in American products and buy them whenever I can.

I believe the money I make belongs to me and not some liberal governmental functionary, Democratic or Republican, that wants to share it with others who don't work! I'm in touch with my feelings and I like it that way! I think owning a gun doesn't make you a killer; it makes you a smart American. I think being a minority does not make you noble or victimized and does not entitle you to anything. Get over it!

I believe that if you are selling me a Big Mac or any other item, you should do it in English. I believe there should be no other language option. I believe everyone has a right to pray to his or her God when and where they want to. I believe if you don't like the way things are here, go back to where you came from and change your own country!

My heroes are Malcolm Forbes, Bill Gates, John Wayne, Babe Ruth, Roy Rogers, and Willie G. Davidson, who makes the awesome Harley Davidson Motorcycles.

I don't hate the rich. I don't pity the poor. I know wrestling is fake and I don't waste my time watching or arguing about it. I've never owned a slave, nor was I a slave. I haven't burned any witches or been persecuted by the Turks, and neither have you!

This is AMERICA ...We like it the way it is and more so the way it was ...so stop trying to change it to look like Russia or China, or some other socialist country! If you were born here and don't like it... You are free to move to any Socialist country that will have you. I believe it is time to really clean house, starting with the White House, the seat of our biggest problems.

I want to know which church is it, exactly, where the Reverend Jesse Jackson preaches, where he gets his money, and why he is always part of the problem and not the solution. Can I get an AMEN on that one?

I also think the cops have the right to pull you over if you're breaking the law, regardless of what color you are, but not just because you happen to ride a bike. And, no, I don't mind having my face shown on my driver's license. I think it's good.... And I'm proud that 'God' is written on my money... I think if you are too stupid to know how a ballot works, I don't want you deciding who should be running the most powerful nation in the world for the next four years.

I dislike those people standing in the intersections trying to sell me stuff or trying to guilt me into making 'donations' to their cause.... Get a job and do your part to support yourself and your family! I believe that it doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes two parents....

I believe 'illegal' is illegal no matter what the lawyers think! I believe the American flag should be the only one allowed in AMERICA !

If this makes me a BAD American, then yes, I'm a BAD American. We want our country back! My Country.....I hope this offends all illegal aliens.

My great, great, great, great grandfather watched and bled as his friends died in the Revolution and the War of 1812. My great, great, great grandfather watched as his friends died in the Mexican American War. My great, great grandfather watched as his friends and brothers died in the Civil War. My great grandfather watched as his friends died in the Spanish-American War. My grandfather watched as his friends died in WWI. My father watched as his friends died in WW II. I watched as my friends died in Vietnam, Panama, and Desert Storm. My son watched and bled as his friends died in Afghanistan and Iraq. None of them died for the Mexican Flag. Everyone died for the American flag.

Texas high school students raised a Mexican flag on a school flag pole; other students took it down. Guess who was expelled...the students who took it down. California high school students were sent home on Cinco de Mayo because they wore T-shirts with the American flag printed on them. A young student rode his bike wit an American flag waving on the back of it, he got expelled. These young people that got expelled are what America needs more of; people who will stand for and want to be an AMERICAN.

Enough is enough. Every American needs to stand up for America. We've bent over to appease the America-haters long enough. I'm taking a stand. I'm standing up because of the hundreds of thousands who died fighting in wars for this country, and for the American flag.

If you agree, stand up with me. If you disagree, please let me know. And shame on anyone who tries to make this a racist message.

AMERICANS, stop giving away Your RIGHTS! Let me make this clear! THIS IS MY COUNTRY! This statement DOES NOT mean I'm against immigration! YOU ARE WELCOME HERE, IN MY COUNTRY, welcome to come legally:

1. Get a sponsor!

2. Learn the LANGUAGE, as immigrants have in the past!

3. Live by OUR rules!

4. Get a job!

5. Pay YOUR Taxes!

6. No Social Security until you have earned it and paid for it!

7. NOW find a place to lay your head!

If you think that this is going to offend someone, then YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM! We've gone so far the other way . . . bent over backwards not to offend anyone. Only AMERICANS seems to care when American citizens are being offended! WAKE UP America!!!

 Made in the USA and PROUD OF IT!!!!!

Newly Elected Women Who Will Make History

by Newt and Callista Gingrich

Described as "The Year of the Republican Woman," 2010 and the historic November elections were marked by the emergence of many bold, conservative women who led the national debate and were at the forefront of the movement to reclaim government for the American people.

This week, we highlight five of the newly-elected women of 2010, including Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez, Kelly Ayotte, Nan Hayworth, and Linda Upmeyer.

Nine new Republican women won seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. According to the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), this surpasses the previous high mark of seven newly-elected Republican women in a single election.

I have watched the progression of the New START nuclear missile treaty with great interest, assuming that it would get a full and open hearing in the next session of Congress.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration is now trying to rush through, during the present lame duck session of Congress, what we consider a seriously flawed treaty that will endanger our national security.

The proposed New START will limit our future ability and right to build missile defense systems. This goes beyond any concerns regarding Russia.

We MUST continue to build a robust missile defense system to protect ourselves from countries like Iran and terrorist organizations that are working to acquire the technology to launch missiles with nuclear weapons from cargo ships. To allow a treaty with Russia to limit this right of self-defense is unacceptable.

A treaty like this has NEVER been rushed through a lame duck Congress—and for good reason. Something this important to national security should not be rushed through or crammed down the throats of the American people.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has stated that limitations on missile defense are “clearly spelled out in the treaty” and “legally binding.” Here’s why:

• The preamble of the treaty gives the Russians a basis to claim a de facto veto of our missile defense options
• There are explicit limits for using land- and sea-based offensive missile tubes for defensive missiles.

 It is especially important that the following Senators hear from their constituents:

John McCain (R – AZ)

Bob Corker (R – TN)

Jim Webb (D – VA)

Olympia Snowe (R- ME)

Susan Collins (R – ME) 

Lindsay Graham (R – SC)

Ben Nelson (D – NE)

 George Voinovich (R – OH)

 Scott Brown (R – MA)

Birthright citizenship is a powerful anchor for keeping illegal workers in a country -- and for keeping the jobs they fill out of reach of unemployed legal residents. It is incompatible with a modern age of easy transportation and organized people smuggling. Every developed nation in the world, -- except the USA and Canada, -- has rejected citizenship for births to tourists and unlawful foreign residents.

An estimated 4 million current U.S. residents have received this type of citizenship. Who's hurt by this? Millions of poor American children live in families suffering from unemployment or depressed wages because an estimated 7 million illegal foreign workers are holding construction, manufacturing, service and transportation jobs.

 Anything that slows the decision of illegal workers to go back home prolongs the disadvantaging of the 30 million less-educated Americans and legal immigrants who don't have a job and who generally seek work in the same non-agricultural industries where most illegal workers are found.

 Birthright citizenship is a major anchor for illegal workers already here who are led to feel that their birthright citizen children may give them a claim to remain. Note that one of the loudest arguments for giving illegal workers permanent work permits is that it would be wrong to make them go back home if they have U.S. citizen children.

 Of course, ending birthright citizenship is not enough. Congress should pass the SAVE Act to impede outlaw businesses from hiring illegal workers, and take other actions to protect legal U.S. workers from an immigration system that is importing hundreds of thousands of working-age immigrants annually during a jobs depression. With unemployment high and wages stagnant in most occupations, we don't have labor shortages and don't need additional foreign labor (or the illegal labor already here).

 Scholars make strong arguments on both sides of what the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship provision means. Only the Supreme Court can say, and it has never ruled about tourists and illegal residents. For now, Congress should leave the Constitution alone and pass legislation (H.R. 1868) that simply clarifies the birthright provision in current immigration law -- and then see how the Court rules. 

Subject:  RE: Kid Told to Remove Flag from Bike

From:  "Changnon, Tom" <tchangnon@stancoe.org>

Date:  Thu, Dec 02, 2010 10:43 am

To:  "'ken@fightingpatriot.com'" <ken@fightingpatriot.com>

 As Stanislaus County Superintendent of Schools, I received many e-mails regarding the "American Flag Issue" at Denair Middle School in the Denair Unified School District.

 For those who are unfamiliar with the public school system in California, I need to share that County Superintendents in California oversee support systems for the schools.  We do not have authority over the day to day operation of the schools.  Each of the 26 schools districts in Stanislaus County is governed by their own elected Board of Education.

 Regarding the student at Denair Middle School and his rights, I understand that the immediate issue has been resolved by the School District and the young boy is again proudly displaying the American Flag.  I have printed below the message that the district posted on its website which gives more detail regarding this incident.

 As a citizen and educator I couldn't be more proud to live in America.  My father is a veteran of WWII and flew B-29 's during the war.  I attended his squadron reunions with him until the end of his life, and then went on my own until they no longer held them.  I truly understand the sacrifices that have made this country great and respect the flag that represents our country and the freedoms we enjoy.  I also respect your right to express your opinions...I hope this email and the information below provides an adequate response to your concerns.

 Sincerely,

 Tom Changnon

Stanislaus County Superintendent of Schools

LETTER TO DENAIR COMMUNITY

 November 12, 2010

 Dear DUSD Community,

 As most of you are aware, we’ve had a school issue that has risen to the level of national news coverage. This incident occurred on Monday, November 8th when a campus supervisor asked one of our middle school students to remove an American flag from his bicycle while he was on school grounds.

 This request was based on concerns for the student’s immediate safety, and to give school staff time to investigate a potentially dangerous situation, involving threats to this student.  While it is our responsibility to ensure that all students are safe at school, we also support every students’ First Amendment rights. We are dealing with the students who threatened to disrupt the school environment. And, the student involved in this incident is now again proudly displaying his flag.

 We recognize that we live in the greatest country in the world and that we should all be proud to display the American flag. It’s unfortunate that the entire story of this issue has not been fully portrayed in the media. Denair is a wonderful community, filled with hard working committed citizens who support our schools and our democracy.

 I’m proud to lead the schools in this community and sincerely hope we can return the focus to our children and their education. We will be addressing the issue with our Board at our regular meeting Thursday, November 18 in the District Leadership room located at 3460 Lester Road, Denair.

 Sincere Regards,

Ed Parraz

Superintendent

Denair Unified School District

From: ken@fightingpatriot.com [mailto:ken@fightingpatriot.com]
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2010 9:36 AM
To: Changnon, Tom
Subject: Kid Told to Remove Flag from Bike

To Whom it may concern,

 We The People are tired of all this Political Correctness and think that the school should give Cody a public apology. This is the United States of America not a Police State. The flag is a Representative Of this Great Nation of ours and should be waved with pride and honor.

God Bless America

Patriot Ken

My CITIZEN MANDATE on government run healthcare:

I am calling for ObamaCare to be REPEALED and REPLACED with market friendly reforms that do not add any unconstitutional mandates or burdens on the American people or business.

My CITIZEN MANDATE on illegal immigration:

Border security must be increased and those in our country illegally should be punished to the full extent of the law and deported.

My CITIZEN MANDATE on the federal debt: The federal debt is a serious problem but the answer is not higher taxes. Instead, we must cap spending and grow the economy.

My CITIZEN MANDATE on government spending: Government spending is out of control and the federal government should be required to reduce its annual budget every year until the budget is balanced.

My CITIZEN MANDATE on TARP and other government bailouts: Federal bailouts of the private sector such as the TARP program must be stopped immediately and any unspent funds returned to the taxpayers.

My CITIZEN MANDATE on taxes: I oppose any and all new taxes and want the Bush Tax Cuts made permanent

My CITIZEN MANDATE on government takeover of industry: The federal government should cease and desist its socialistic takeover of industry and return companies like General Motors, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac to the private sector.

My CITIZEN MANDATE on welfare and entitlement programs: Social welfare and entitlement programs are undermining the long term solvency of our nation and must first be capped and then reduced.

The issues I believe are important for the new Congress to address: No taxpayer-funded abortions in any federal legislation or programs, Embrace free-market solutions over Government involvement, Safeguarding individual liberties of citizens, Stopping the Socialist push to remake our nation, Strengthening our defense against radical Islam's war against the West, Securing our borders and stopping illegal immigration, Restoring limited government under the Constitution, Stopping the war on small business, Repealing ObamaCare, Maintaining the tax cuts for all Americans, Reducing the deficit and government spending.

The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE:  I believe the new Congress should address: Maintaining the tax cuts for all Americans