Time is running out.
The battle in Congress over forced unionism and the so-called "Card Check" scheme is heating up dramatically, and it's vital I have your help today.
As I write you today, right now, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis are meeting behind closed doors with ALL of America's top AFL-CIO union brass at their "Executive Council" meeting in Miami, Florida.
My sources tell me at the top of the agenda is how to ram the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill through Congress as soon as possible.
As you know, this disastrous compulsory unionism power grab would eliminate the secret ballot in workplace unionization drives and would subject millions of American workers to union intimidation and demands to pay union dues or be fired from their jobs.
Make no mistake -- giving union bosses even more compulsory unionism power in the middle of an economic crisis is a prescription for disaster. And giving union bosses hundreds of millions of dollars in additional compulsory union dues will enable them to gain a hammerlock on Congress for years to come.
You can bet the Pelosi-Reid Congress won't give us advanced notice of their strategy.
The intelligence I'm picking up from union websites suggest that Congressman George Miller (D-CA) intends to introduce Card Check Forced Unionism next week and put it on a fast track.
Once the bill is introduced, it could come to a floor vote at any time. That's why it's EXTREMELY IMPORTANT we have your support NOW!
The 2.2 million member National Right to Work Committee may not have much time left to galvanize the American public against this forced unionism power grab. We are already ramping up our targeted mail, email, and phone mobilization to bring grassroots pressure to bear against the critical swing votes in the U.S. Senate.
Frankly, I believe we CAN ultimately stop this bill in the Senate and strike a major blow against Big Labor's overreach. But it won't be easy.
There's no time to lose.
CALL or WRITE your US Senators and Reps (emails seem to get "lost") - TODAY about your objection to this additional mess they're pushing us into.
Saturday 7 March 2009
Thursday 5 March 2009
It's the Foundation, Stupid!
(from America’s Foundation)
One of the best remembered phrases to come out of the Clinton administration - perhaps even a defining theme for our nation today - is something that was used as a focus statement for the president's platform: You remember, in 1992, when President Clinton was being pinned to the wall by his conservative opponent over all the topics that arise during a political campaign. Clinton's campaign manager, James Carvel, kept Clinton's message clear with the mantra, it's the ECONOMY, stupid!
That well-timed, catchy, fiery phrase carried the day, because that's what the American people wanted to hear–that this candidate was going to focus on their most important priority.
I'm sorry to have to disillusion you today, but Carvel was wrong. And the voters who rallied around that cry were wrong.
It's NOT the economy, stupid; it's not the economy we need to, as a united body, focus on. It's the FOUNDATION.
If a house is losing its foundation - if the cement and stone base upon which —it is set is crumbling and eroding - you don't throw money at new paint to make it look better to investors. You don't install an ultra-modern security system to protect from thieves. You don't install a state-of-the-art kitchen to feed everyone in the house. If the foundation is crumbling, what do you focus on repairing? THE FOUNDATION!
And what is our foundation? You have the answer with you. Take out a dollar bill. Now flip it over. There's a phrase on all our money that we mint that sets the defining tone for our nation. See it there – "in God we trust."
"In God we trust" was a term that was popular with our Founding Fathers when this nation was in early development. It is still popular today. It must be–everyone carries it around with them and guards it carefully.
But today, when we say, "In God we trust," our definition of that term has changed. Today, when we say "In God we trust," we're talking about the money on which the phrase is printed more than the phrase itself.
This has become our new foundation. It's the economy, stupid. This is the god in which we trust.
Our foundation is made of unsecured, over-inflated paper. This is our foundation–and this is our god. And it's false and hollow and dangerous!
It's NOT the economy–that's stupid!
We still speak with honor of our Founding Fathers, as we should. But what do we mean by that term? What did these great men Found? What was the Foundation they laid for us, their inheritors? To best answer that, we need to understand the men.
I)
When we first started this business of being a nation, over 225 years ago, we had some very different ideas about what constituted freedom and basic human rights.
The equal rights that we battle over today would, in many cases, have seemed like perversions to the men and women who gave their lives to begin the America we live in.
When we speak of, say, freedom of religion and separation of church and state, we aren't even speaking the same language as the Founders of America.
But to understand what they had in mind for this nation and the people who would be born here, we need to have a little understanding of who these men were and what they stood for – to the death.
Of the men who made up the First Continental Congress in 1776, many were pastors of local churches; most were practicing Christians; and all of them acknowledged a Supreme Creator.
They unanimously voted for the First Amendment, which states,
Noah Webster, representing at different times Connecticut and Massachusetts, wrote in a textbook for public school students,
In his farewell address, Washington told what he felt America's and his strength was built upon.
II)
In 1947, 166 years after Thomas Jefferson made that statement, the United States Supreme Court made a revolutionary decision. In the case, Everson v. the Board of Education, they used a phrase which Jefferson himself made, but they used it in a way he never intended. In that decision, judging that a simple prayer could not be made in school, the Court cited the phrase "a wall of separation between Church and State" to mean that religion and the American public policy must be kept apart and that religion should not be taught in American classrooms.
The origin of that phrase was a letter President Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut. The Association had written to the President out of fear that the newly formed government would attempt to install a state-sanctioned religion, and prevent citizens from practicing religion freely where ever they wished. Jefferson was replying that the Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion to every citizen, and that the Constitution stood as a wall protecting the people's right to always practice religion without government orders.
Jefferson never intended that citizens be protected FROM religion, but that they be guaranteed the protection of a Godly government to practice religion anywhere and everywhere they desired. In government, in classrooms, in their homes, and in public.
When the United States Supreme Court established this legal precedent in 1947 (which 97% of the citizens at that time disagreed with), they began the process of tearing away the Foundation so carefully laid by the men who began this nation.
What has been the result of this undermining of our national Foundation?
In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that - under the redefined phrase, separation of church and state - it was unconstitutional for a student to even SEE a copy of the Ten Commandments in school. (Remember that Fisher Ames, who wrote the First Amendment they refer to, encouraged that the Bible be kept as the primary text book in public classrooms!) Such ideals as "do not kill" or "do not steal" were now considered by the government to be subversive doctrine, and not to be promoted to impressionable children.
Well, the children were impressed, alright!
Since that landmark decision:
• There has been a 500% increase in teen pregnancies - it's called a national crisis; but teaching abstinence and morals is considered subversive religious indoctrination.
• Violent crime has risen 794% faster than the population growth - I don't even have to remind you of Jonesboro, AR and Littleton, CO.
• Sexually transmitted diseases are rampant.
• Divorce and the death of family is now prevalent.
• We house in prison over 2 million of our youth who were raised under the new doctrine.
• 50% of today's youth smoke. And study after study shows that many of those go on to illegal drugs.
Our current government has succeeded in separating Church (or religion) from State (or the nation). And we are paying the price.
From the cradle to the rest home, our government is seeking (and finding!) ways to weed out citizens. Anyone that a humanistic, evolution-believing minority feels is in the way, is eliminated. Abortion, euthanasia, and selective medical care provisions are the tools used to remove anyone who stands in the way of a perfect society.
III)
That's where we are. And it's not a pretty picture.
It's the economy, stupid! … is stupid! It's not the economy, it's the Foundation we need to work on.
Fortunately, many of our citizens and their representatives in government are beginning to see the light. They are beginning to realize that, just like literacy and SAT scores, our country's quality of life has plummeted since our focus moved from our Foundation to our pocketbook. They are beginning to realize that maybe the men who originally plotted out this nation actually knew what they were doing.
As God-created individuals, every person has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I didn't say that; the men who dreamed and worked and prayed this nation into existence said it.
The reason that America is the land that so many are willing to risk their lives to come to is that we were founded on freedoms. So many areas of the world restrict religious freedom - America included, now. But originally, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence guaranteed to every American citizen the right to worship God wherever and whenever they desired.
We can all contribute to this counter-revolution. Every voting citizen can let elected representatives know that they are through with a flawed perversion of our system as it was originally intended.
You can write letters, send e-mails, support platforms, and vote encouragement to men and women who will stand for bringing the focus back where it belongs. And you can pray for your leaders who believe, as most Americans do, that We The People still deserve the America we were promised.
One of the best remembered phrases to come out of the Clinton administration - perhaps even a defining theme for our nation today - is something that was used as a focus statement for the president's platform: You remember, in 1992, when President Clinton was being pinned to the wall by his conservative opponent over all the topics that arise during a political campaign. Clinton's campaign manager, James Carvel, kept Clinton's message clear with the mantra, it's the ECONOMY, stupid!
That well-timed, catchy, fiery phrase carried the day, because that's what the American people wanted to hear–that this candidate was going to focus on their most important priority.
I'm sorry to have to disillusion you today, but Carvel was wrong. And the voters who rallied around that cry were wrong.
It's NOT the economy, stupid; it's not the economy we need to, as a united body, focus on. It's the FOUNDATION.
If a house is losing its foundation - if the cement and stone base upon which —it is set is crumbling and eroding - you don't throw money at new paint to make it look better to investors. You don't install an ultra-modern security system to protect from thieves. You don't install a state-of-the-art kitchen to feed everyone in the house. If the foundation is crumbling, what do you focus on repairing? THE FOUNDATION!
And what is our foundation? You have the answer with you. Take out a dollar bill. Now flip it over. There's a phrase on all our money that we mint that sets the defining tone for our nation. See it there – "in God we trust."
"In God we trust" was a term that was popular with our Founding Fathers when this nation was in early development. It is still popular today. It must be–everyone carries it around with them and guards it carefully.
But today, when we say, "In God we trust," our definition of that term has changed. Today, when we say "In God we trust," we're talking about the money on which the phrase is printed more than the phrase itself.
This has become our new foundation. It's the economy, stupid. This is the god in which we trust.
Our foundation is made of unsecured, over-inflated paper. This is our foundation–and this is our god. And it's false and hollow and dangerous!
It's NOT the economy–that's stupid!
We still speak with honor of our Founding Fathers, as we should. But what do we mean by that term? What did these great men Found? What was the Foundation they laid for us, their inheritors? To best answer that, we need to understand the men.
I)
When we first started this business of being a nation, over 225 years ago, we had some very different ideas about what constituted freedom and basic human rights.
The equal rights that we battle over today would, in many cases, have seemed like perversions to the men and women who gave their lives to begin the America we live in.
When we speak of, say, freedom of religion and separation of church and state, we aren't even speaking the same language as the Founders of America.
But to understand what they had in mind for this nation and the people who would be born here, we need to have a little understanding of who these men were and what they stood for – to the death.
Of the men who made up the First Continental Congress in 1776, many were pastors of local churches; most were practicing Christians; and all of them acknowledged a Supreme Creator.
They unanimously voted for the First Amendment, which states,
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.Fisher Ames was the Congressman who wrote those words of the first Amendment. He warned in an article written in 1801 that the Bible must be kept in the forefront of the public school classroom–an idea which has been banished today. Discussing the acceptance of new text books for the school children of his day, Ames wrote:
Why then, if these new books for children must be retained, as they will be, should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book?These men firmly believed in the necessity of Biblical morality in PUBLIC and private lives in order for the nation they were laying out to survive and prosper.
Noah Webster, representing at different times Connecticut and Massachusetts, wrote in a textbook for public school students,
All the miseries and evils which men suffer from - vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war - proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.President John Adams - a signer of the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment - said, in 1798, in an address to the United States Army:
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.George Washington was known to be a strong-willed man who would withstand all manner of hardships for the cause of America's independence. But where did Washington find that strength of will?
In his farewell address, Washington told what he felt America's and his strength was built upon.
Of all the habits and dispositions which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars.And Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, which defined how our nation should proceed, said in 1781,
God, who gave us life, gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis (or foundation), a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated BUT with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.Our country, then, was shaped by a unified body of men who believed, as a group, that without God as its foundation, we couldn't build a nation.
II)
In 1947, 166 years after Thomas Jefferson made that statement, the United States Supreme Court made a revolutionary decision. In the case, Everson v. the Board of Education, they used a phrase which Jefferson himself made, but they used it in a way he never intended. In that decision, judging that a simple prayer could not be made in school, the Court cited the phrase "a wall of separation between Church and State" to mean that religion and the American public policy must be kept apart and that religion should not be taught in American classrooms.
The origin of that phrase was a letter President Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut. The Association had written to the President out of fear that the newly formed government would attempt to install a state-sanctioned religion, and prevent citizens from practicing religion freely where ever they wished. Jefferson was replying that the Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion to every citizen, and that the Constitution stood as a wall protecting the people's right to always practice religion without government orders.
Jefferson never intended that citizens be protected FROM religion, but that they be guaranteed the protection of a Godly government to practice religion anywhere and everywhere they desired. In government, in classrooms, in their homes, and in public.
When the United States Supreme Court established this legal precedent in 1947 (which 97% of the citizens at that time disagreed with), they began the process of tearing away the Foundation so carefully laid by the men who began this nation.
What has been the result of this undermining of our national Foundation?
In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that - under the redefined phrase, separation of church and state - it was unconstitutional for a student to even SEE a copy of the Ten Commandments in school. (Remember that Fisher Ames, who wrote the First Amendment they refer to, encouraged that the Bible be kept as the primary text book in public classrooms!) Such ideals as "do not kill" or "do not steal" were now considered by the government to be subversive doctrine, and not to be promoted to impressionable children.
Well, the children were impressed, alright!
Since that landmark decision:
• There has been a 500% increase in teen pregnancies - it's called a national crisis; but teaching abstinence and morals is considered subversive religious indoctrination.
• Violent crime has risen 794% faster than the population growth - I don't even have to remind you of Jonesboro, AR and Littleton, CO.
• Sexually transmitted diseases are rampant.
• Divorce and the death of family is now prevalent.
• We house in prison over 2 million of our youth who were raised under the new doctrine.
• 50% of today's youth smoke. And study after study shows that many of those go on to illegal drugs.
Our current government has succeeded in separating Church (or religion) from State (or the nation). And we are paying the price.
From the cradle to the rest home, our government is seeking (and finding!) ways to weed out citizens. Anyone that a humanistic, evolution-believing minority feels is in the way, is eliminated. Abortion, euthanasia, and selective medical care provisions are the tools used to remove anyone who stands in the way of a perfect society.
III)
That's where we are. And it's not a pretty picture.
It's the economy, stupid! … is stupid! It's not the economy, it's the Foundation we need to work on.
Fortunately, many of our citizens and their representatives in government are beginning to see the light. They are beginning to realize that, just like literacy and SAT scores, our country's quality of life has plummeted since our focus moved from our Foundation to our pocketbook. They are beginning to realize that maybe the men who originally plotted out this nation actually knew what they were doing.
As God-created individuals, every person has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I didn't say that; the men who dreamed and worked and prayed this nation into existence said it.
The reason that America is the land that so many are willing to risk their lives to come to is that we were founded on freedoms. So many areas of the world restrict religious freedom - America included, now. But originally, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence guaranteed to every American citizen the right to worship God wherever and whenever they desired.
We can all contribute to this counter-revolution. Every voting citizen can let elected representatives know that they are through with a flawed perversion of our system as it was originally intended.
You can write letters, send e-mails, support platforms, and vote encouragement to men and women who will stand for bringing the focus back where it belongs. And you can pray for your leaders who believe, as most Americans do, that We The People still deserve the America we were promised.
Tuesday 17 February 2009
Amhrán na bhFiann - Irish National Anthem
God bless Ireland forever! Stand tall and let your heart feel the glory.
Wednesday 11 February 2009
Just Say NO! to Stimulus Plan
Stimulus Can Sink Recession Into Depression
By WALTER E. WILLIAMS
in Investors Business Daily
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=319076189169608
Posted Monday, February 09, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Dr. Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Oakland, Calif.-based Independent Institute, penned an article in Monday's Christian Science Monitor that suggests the most intelligent recommendation that I've read to fix our economic mess. The title of his article gives his recommendation away: "Instead of stimulus, do nothing — seriously."
By WALTER E. WILLIAMS
in Investors Business Daily
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=319076189169608
Posted Monday, February 09, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Dr. Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Oakland, Calif.-based Independent Institute, penned an article in Monday's Christian Science Monitor that suggests the most intelligent recommendation that I've read to fix our economic mess. The title of his article gives his recommendation away: "Instead of stimulus, do nothing — seriously."
Stimulus package debate is over how much money should be spent, whether some should go to the National Endowment for the Arts, research sexually transmitted diseases or bail out Amtrak, our failing railroad system.
Higgs says, "Hardly anyone, however, is asking the most important question: Should the federal government be doing any of this?"
He adds, "Until the 1930s, the Constitution served as a major constraint on federal economic interventionism. The government's powers were understood to be just as the framers intended: few and explicitly enumerated in our founding document and its amendments.
"Search the Constitution as long as you like, and you will find no specific authority conveyed for the government to spend money on global-warming research, urban mass transit, food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid or countless other items in the stimulus package and, even without it, in the regular federal budget."
By bringing up the idea of constitutional restraints on Washington, Dr. Higgs is whistling Dixie. Americans have long ago abandoned respect for the constitutional limitations placed on the federal government. Our elected representatives represent that disrespect.
I'd ask Higgs: Isn't it unreasonable to expect a politician to do what he considers to be political suicide, namely conduct himself according to the letter and spirit of the Constitution?
While Americans, through ignorance or purpose, show contempt for our Constitution, I doubt whether they are indifferent between a growing or stagnating economy. Dr. Higgs tells us some of the economic history of the U.S.
In 1893, we had a depression; we got out of it without a stimulus package. A major recession hit the country in 1920-21; though sharp, it quickly reversed itself into what has been call the Roaring '20s.
In 1929 came an economic downturn, most notably featured by the stock market collapse, after which came massive government intervention — you might call it the nation's first stimulus package.
President Hoover and Congress responded to what might have been a two- or three-year sharp downturn with many of the policies President Obama and Congress are urging today. They raised tariffs, propped up wage rates, bailed out farmers, banks and other businesses, and financed state relief efforts.
When Franklin Roosevelt came to office, he became even more interventionist than Hoover and presided over protracted depression where the economy didn't fully recover until 1946.
Roosevelt didn't have an easy time with his agenda; he had to first emasculate the U.S. Supreme Court.
Higgs points out that federal courts had respect for the Constitution as late as the 1930s. They issued some 1,600 injunctions to restrain officials from carrying out acts of Congress.
The Supreme Court overturned as unconstitutional the New Deal's centerpieces such as the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act and other parts of Roosevelt's "stimulus package."
An outraged Roosevelt threatened to pack the court, and the court capitulated to where it is today giving Congress virtually unlimited powers to tax, spend and regulate.
My question to my fellow Americans is: Do we want a repeat of measures that failed dismally during the 1930s?
A more fundamental question is: Should Washington be guided by the Constitution?
In explaining the Constitution, James Madison, the document's acknowledged father, wrote in Federalist Paper 45:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce."
Has the Constitution been amended to permit Congress to tax, spend and regulate as it pleases or have Americans said, "To hell with the Constitution"?
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc
(NOTE: This article is posted strictly for educational comment purposes as allowed by "Fair Use" under the US Copyright Law; "§ 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use"
Monday 9 February 2009
Basic Math Re: Government Giving ...
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
The late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 to 2005
Former Pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, TN, USA
The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
The late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 to 2005
Former Pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, TN, USA
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