Friday, April 30, 2010

Score: Ohio Citizens: 1 - Secretary of State: 0

From The Cincinnati Tea Party.

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That's right - we won!

Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, the Ballot Board and Attorney General Richard Cordray just lost to the Ohio citizens.

What did they lose?

In Ohio Liberty Council v. Brunner, they attempted to prevent the Ohio citizens from determining their own future on the recently passed healthcare bill mandate, which states everyone must purchase government approved health insurance or be fined, with the possibility of jail time.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that our proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution is a single issue (which Brunner disputed), and we are free to move forward with the signature gathering process to get this amendment on the ballot.

Score: Freedom loving Ohioans 1 - Brunner and freedom inhibiting officials 0

I'd love to tell you that's all it takes, but unfortunately part of their strategy was effective. They delayed our signature gathering time period and we still need over 400,000 valid signatures from over 44 Ohio counties in just a couple months.

This will be difficult. It is possible, but your help is needed.

If you are interested in helping with this vital project through volunteering or donation - we will need all the help we can get. These donations will be used exclusively for initial costs of launching this effort (printing, cards, banners, flyers, etc). Click Here!

God help us all as we defend Ohioan's freedom to choose.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Puerto Rican statehood

Puerto Rican Statehood, the An overview of the pros and cons.

Argument On Puerto Rican Independence, Commonwealth or Statehood

Puerto Rican Statehood has been a hot issue for several years. Currently, there are three views on this issue. The first is state-hood, second is independence, and last is for Puerto Rico to stay a territorial commonwealth of the United States. In this report, I hope to show each view clearly and back it up with documentation.

VIEW OF STATEHOOD
Statehood supporters "see the United States as a union of 50 sovereign states united to give their citizens the best opportunity to succeed in life. "They believe that "Puerto Rico is in an unique position to join this union and partake of the benefits, and responsibilities, of being an integral part of the United States of America. There are economic, social, and political advantages to becoming the 51st state."


Twenty seven point one percent of Puerto Rican's who live in the United States prefer statehood . Residents of Puerto Rico voted on their status in 1993 in a non-binding advisory vote. Proponents of statehood won with 46.3 percent of the vote . The breakdown of statehood proponents in the U.S. is 57.4% of first generation, 25.7% of second generation, and 16.9% of third generation. Thirty point two percent of statehood proponents consider themselves as liberals, 22.6% are moderates, and 47.2% are conservative. The breakdown of statehood proponents based on language ability is 2.2% speak only English, 42% are better in English, 25% have no preference, 27.5 are better in Spanish, and 3.4 speak only Spanish.

Read the rest here: http://www.essortment.com/all/puertoricansta_rdla.htm

Puerto Rican Statehood

Castellanos glides over two key points. The first is that the referendum process has been structured in a way that stacks the deck. Even if a plurality of Puerto Ricans favors keeping their current status, the referendum process could end up leading to statehood. (Let's say that 48 percent want the current status, 40 percent want statehood, and 14 percent want independence. If everyone votes that way, then current-status loses the first referendum and statehood probably wins the second one.) Second, it's not clear that the U.S. has traditionally stood for "self-determination" understood in this peculiar way. Alaska and Hawaii, for example, had very large majorities in favor of statehood when they became states—not a bare majority, a plurality, or even a non-plurality that could be made to look like a majority after a rigged process.

Source - http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDk3NmMyNDE5M2M3NzA4NThiODEwMzZjYTJlNzNiNWI=

Omar Ahmad: Political change with pen and paper

From the good folks at TED.  This is a 6 minute video about the importance of writing a letter to a politician.

Politicians are strange creatures, says politician Omar Ahmad. And the best way to engage them on your pet issue is a monthly handwritten letter. Ahmad shows why old-fashioned correspondence is more effective than email, phone or even writing a check -- and shares the four simple steps to writing a letter that works.

Monday, April 26, 2010

"Rock-Solid" Film or Rock-Solid Head?

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Movie coming out that makes a hero of Dr. Death. Read about it here.


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Federal Court Attacks National Day of Prayer


"U.S. District Court Judge Bans National Day of Prayer"

Yes, the rumor you are hearing is true. A single federal district court judge is attempting to eliminate a tradition that goes back to 1775. U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb has granted an atheist organization's request to ban the National Day of Prayer. It is now up to the Obama administration to defend the Day of Prayer on appeal to the Circuit Court, and most likely the U.S. Supreme Court.

What is next? How long will it be before radical judges ban the celebration of Christmas in the United States?

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Lou Pritchett's Open Letter -He is scared.

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Although I am wary of the political leaning of folks at Snopes, I will sometimes inspect their report about a political subject, with intent of also searching further. This report on the veracity of Pritchett's open letter to Obama was believable. I'm posting the link here rather than the original email I received as it includes both the letter and the verification of it. Find this bold letter, approximately a year in age, here.


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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Utah Tea Party: We've Taken Over the State GOP

Could it happen in Ohio?

By: David A. Patten

In a surprising development that sets the stage for a dramatic political showdown, tea party and grass-roots conservatives tell Newsmax they have seized control of Utah's GOP delegate system, and are now in a position to select which candidates will represent the party in the midterm elections.


"Our feeling is that the majority of the Republican Party delegates are now tea party people," Brian Halladay, one of the founders of the grass-roots Utah Rising organization, tells Newsmax.


Utah GOP leaders say they can't be sure, but concede the activists' assessment may be accurate. 
"I'm sure they have a very strong bloc, and they may have control," Dave Hansen, chairman of the Utah GOP, tells Newsmax. "But we won't know that until we get to the convention."

Read the rest at Newsmax

Monday, April 19, 2010

The Right of the People ... Shall Not Be Infringed

To President George Bush, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Republican Leader John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

We, the people of these United States, rightfully petition our President, House of Representatives and Senate in affirmation of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

We affirm that said Amendment was established to define an individual "right of the People to keep and bear arms," and that there is no more important constitutional issue than that of defending the plain language and original intent of the Second Amendment.

The newly-emboldened Democrat Party, with Barack Hussein Obama leading the charge, is once again attempting to redefine the Second Amendment as a collective right only, as outlined on the ACLU's website under "Gun Control": "We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias. ... The ACLU therefore believes that the Second Amendment does not confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns."

read the rest here: http://patriotpost.us/petition/second-amendment/

The Story of "We the People"

I got this in an email from The History Channel and never knew it existed!  I’m ready to go and visit!

A trip to the National Constitution CenterNCC in Philadelphia is not just a visit—it's an experience. The first-ever museum dedicated to the U.S. ConstitutionNCC, the Center tells the story of America's defining document while at the same time inspiring visitors to help write the next chapter of American history.


The Center's core exhibition—The Story of We the PeopleNCC—looks back at the history of the Constitution, emphasizing the importance of active citizenship and how it has expanded over more than 200 years. But make sure to set aside some time ... the exhibit's more than 100 multimedia displays, films, photographs, texts, and artifacts can take almost three full days to get through.


Your visit to the Center also features the powerful theatrical performance "Freedom RisingNCC," which is narrated by a live actor and immerses the audience within a 360-degree theater. Signers' Hall, a stylized recreation of the Assembly Room where the signers of the Constitution met on Sept. 17, 1787, includes lifelike bronze statues of the 39 signers and the three dissenters that were present when the Constitution was signed.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

What Glenn Beck meant about social justice

Stu puts Wallis in his place

Jim Wallis is a liberal political hack masquerading as a pastor, even though the media presents him as a poor little innocent kitten being attacked by savage wolf Glenn Beck. What's the real story? Stu sets the record straight in this thrashing of Obama's spiritual advisor/delusional radical Jim Wallis in this editorial for the Washington Post.

(From Glenn’s daily email blast.)

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Obama Approval Index History

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Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

Lowest reached was -21 on three occasions, latest 3/20/10.
Had on a little bounce for a few days. Today -17. Follow
here.

Friday, April 16, 2010

So What Happened to Iraq?

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Were you among those who once knowingly asserted that President Bush entered Iraq for no reason other than a selfish Texas desire for oil?

"Meanwhile, Iraq’s democracy has for some time now proven itself independent from the U.S. — and that old antiwar accusation that we entered the war to control Iraqi oil was false.

Last June, the representative Iraqi government held its first oil auction — featuring transparent negotiations in which no American oil company was awarded an oil concession.

Instead, Chinese, Russian, British, French, and other national oil consortia were given the awards. These were legitimate contracts, too — not the sweetheart deals Saddam Hussein used to make with other governments in exchange for international political cover."


Read Victor Davis Hanson here.


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Jon Voight: Obama Feeding Americans Poison and Lies

Jon Voight was a guest on the Mike Huckabee show on April 10th, 2010. On the show he read an open letter to America and to Barack Obama where he discussed the future of America and the need for us all to get involved in our individual states Tea-Party movement in order to save our nation.

Read the rest here: http://www.thefoxnation.com/jon-voight/2010/04/11/watch-jon-voight-reads-letter-american-people

Morning Bell: Andy Stern’s America

Last night, Politico [2] reported that Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern is expected to resign and, according to The New York Times [3], the resignation is about to happen very soon. If Stern does resign, he will be doing so while at the top of his game. Stern told The Las Vegas Sun [4] last year: “We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama – $60.7 million to be exact – and we’re proud of it.” President Obama is well aware of his huge debt to the SEIU. That is why he admits in his autobiography, “I owe those unions.” [5] And it also explains why Stern is the most frequent Obama White House visitor [6], according to official visitor logs.

Read the rest here - http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/13/morning-bell-andy-stern%E2%80%99s-america/print/

Thursday, April 15, 2010

UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAW

NULLIFICATION
Nullification begins with the point that a federal law that violates the Constitution is no law at all. It is void and of no effect. If a law is unconstitutional and therefore void and of no effect, it is up to the states, the parties to the federal compact, to declare it so and thus refuse to enforce it.

It would be foolish and vain to wait for the federal government
or a branch thereof to condemn its own law!

Nullification provides a shield between the people of a state and an unconstitutional law from the federal government. The main point behind nullification is that the federal government cannot be
permitted to hold a monopoly on constitutional interpretation.

If the federal government has the exclusive right
to judge the extent of its own powers, it will continue to grow regardless of elections, the separation of powers and other limits on government power. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson both warned of this. The Constitution is only a piece of paper and cannot enforce itself. The checks and balances of the three branches of government cannot guarantee a limited government, since these three branches can simply unite against the independence of the states and the reserved rights of the people. This is especially true if one party controls all three branches of government.

The real check on federal power is the ability of the states to interpose to prevent the enforcement of unconstitutional laws. We cannot believe a bad law is settled because a nine politically well connected lawyers who are treated with awe have informed us that all is well. There is history for the general principle that an unconstitutional law is void. In Federalist Paper #78, Alexander Hamilton said “there is no position which depends on clearer principles, then that every act of a delegated authority contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men, acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”

How and by whom should an unconstitutional law be declared void? The federal courts are a branch of the federal government. How can they be expected to be impartial judges? The Supreme Court itself is a branch of the federal government. In a dispute between the states and the federal government (take the Arizona Immigration law), does the resolution come from the federal government? Jefferson refused to accept that answer

It was impossible for Jefferson to believe that the states would have agreed to a system that assured their unjust subordination! Spencer Roane, a Virginia Judge at that time said that if the federal judiciary were to arbitrate such a dispute between itself and the states, it would be presiding over its own case which is a clear absurdity!

Tea Party Express in Boston

The Tea party Express III rolled through Cleveland on Sunday on it’s way to Washington, DC.  Yesterday it stopped in Boston and Sarah Palin was the featured speaker.

Greatest line of the day in referring to President Obama and his efforts to “fundamentally transform America”: “We’ll keep clinging to our Constitution and our guns and religion and you can keep the change!”

You can watch her speech at PJTV.

Sarah Palin

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Tea Party leaders take issue with GOP

By Josh Sweigart, Staff Writer
Updated 12:05 AM Wednesday, April 14, 2010
HAMILTON — All four candidates for two seats on the Butler County Republican Party’s state central committee claim to adhere to “Tea Party values.”

All four say they have signed pledges to keep such Tea Party principles as fiscal responsibility, free markets and smaller government.

But two of them are accusing the other two of using state GOP resources to “scam and confuse potential voters into believing (their) candidates are endorsed by Tea Party organizations,” in the words of candidate Mark Haverkos.

He and fellow challenger Bobbi Radeck — both Tea Party activists — are taking issue with campaign material sent out on behalf of endorsed candidates Tim Evans and Mary Swain . The material includes a Tea Party logo and says the pair have “Tea Party values.”

Tea Party officials say they have not endorsed any candidate , but “The Ohio Republican Party is replete with people claiming they are suddenly Tea Party members,” said Katy Kern, a founder of the Liberty Twp. Tea Party.

Read more at: http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/tea-party-leaders-take-issue-with-gop-651366.html

The Roadmap Plan

INTRODUCTION
A Choice of Two Futures

Rarely before have the alternatives facing America been so starkly defined.

For the past year, Washington’s leaders have taken an already unsustainable budget outlook and made it far worse. They have exploited Americans’ genuine economic anxieties to justify an unrelenting and wide-ranging expansion of government. Their agenda has included, among other things, a failed, debt-financed economic “stimulus”; an attempt to control the Nation’s energy sector; increasing domination of housing and financial markets; the use of taxpayer dollars to seize part ownership of two nearly bankrupt auto makers; and, of course, the planned takeover of Americans’ health care, already heavily burdened, manipulated, and distorted by government spending and regulation. This domineering government brings taxes, rules, and mandates; generates excessive levels of spending, deficits, and debt; leads to economic stagnation and declining standards of living; and fosters a culture in which self-reliance is a vice and dependency a virtue – and as a result, the entire country weakens from within.

Read the rest here: http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/plan/

The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care)

Posted by nedryun (Profile)
Wednesday, April 14th at 9:46AM EDT

I recently finished an early copy of a book called The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care). It is a fascinating read about what took place in Colorado over the course of about 5 years, and how a group of very wealthy progressives changed the entire political landscape of Colorado by thinking outside the box.

Let me explain. The 2006 and 2008 election cycles were unkind to the Republican Party, but what happened in Colorado was something altogether different and totally new. A group of four mega-donors decided to ignore the state Democratic establishment and start from scratch with a brand new, privatized political infrastructure. Of course they were aided by the new campaign finance reform laws, but what the “Gang of Four” (Rutt Bridges, Tim Gill, Jared Polis and Pat Stryker) did was replicate all of the essential functions of the Colorado Democratic Party–and added a few more for good measure.

From policy generation to leadership recruiting, coalition building to grassroots activation, the Gang of Four personally funded dozens of 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4) and 527 organizations that worked in perfect harmony to take down the Republican establishment and install left-leaning policymakers in its place.
Source - http://www.redstate.com/nedryun/2010/04/14/the-blueprint-how-the-democrats-won-colorado-and-why-republicans-everywhere-should-care/

Nebraska First to Allow Women to Sue for Psychological Injury After Abortion


Doctors Must Screen for Coercion and Other Risk Factors for Abortion Complications


One of the greatest myths perpetuated by pro-abortion folk is that pro-life folk are only interested in the baby, not the mother. As pro-abortion talking points are being dismantled daily by advances in technology, thorough studies and first person testimonies, legislators around the country are seeing through the propaganda to an indisputable fact. With every abortion there are two victims, the mother and the child.

Nebraska Enacts First-Ever Abortion Ban Based on Fetal Pain

As incredible as it is to believe in this world of medical technology, there are still people who will tell you that some of God's children are "just a blob of tissue". When f0rced to admit medical facts the next the argument is, "Well they aren't developed enough to feel pain." Really? Only a few years ago it was not known that the heart is beating after only 18 days.* Not long ago it wasn't know that newborns dream ** and pre-born babies sleep at 4 weeks.*** My heart truly bleeds for post-abortive parents who believed the hype and now come to realize what they did. Nevertheless, in the attempt to prevent more tragedies, the truth must be known.

Two wonderful breakthroughs in the quest to save both mother and child have recently been established in Nebraska. Read them here and also here.

* Pro-Life action league, Chicago, 773 777 2900, ProLifeAction.org

** "He quoted a study by Roffwarg and Associates who at the start of their research believed that infants do not have REM [Rapid Eye Movement] sleep because they do not dream. But at the end of their study the researchers were startled to discover that not only do newborns dream – even on the first day of life – they actually dream more than the college students in their studies. (Science, 1966; 152:604)" From Today's News and Views, NRLC

*** "We now know that they [unborn children] begin to sleep at as early as 4 weeks of gestation (Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 1975;38:175). Dreams appear to be a kind of parallel processing by which we integrate our experience, making new connections in our brains. In the uterus, babies probably dream about the muted light they see and the sounds they hear such as heartbeats, voices and music." From Today's News and Views, NRLC


If you are pro-life and want the latest news, visit LifeSiteNews.com or
www.nationalrighttolifenews.org


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Lower and Simplify Taxes!

By John Stossel

It's that joyous time of year: income tax time. So I spend time with my accountant. I don't want to see him, but I must. I could not do what he's doing. The tax code has grown so complex that today most Americans hire someone to do their taxes.

For the money I pay my accountant, I could get a hundred massages. I could buy a fancy motorcycle. I could take a cruise ship to Venice and back.

Better yet, I could do some good in the world. I could pay for two Habitat for Humanity homes or help three kids escape government schools by paying their tuition at a good Catholic school.

What a shame that I pay my accountant instead.

How'd we get to this point?

Read the rest here.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The Laffer Curve: Past, Present, and Future

The Laffer Curve itself does not say whether a tax cut will raise or lower revenues. Revenue responses to a tax rate change will depend upon the tax system in place, the time period being considered, the ease of movement into underground activities, the level of tax rates already in place, the prevalence of legal and accounting-driven tax loopholes, and the proclivities of the productive factors. If the existing tax rate is too high--in the "prohibitive range" shown above--then a tax-rate cut would result in increased tax revenues. The economic effect of the tax cut would outweigh the arithmetic effect of the tax cut.

Source: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2004/06/The-Laffer-Curve-Past-Present-and-Future

As discussed on Glenn Beck's "The Plan".

Monday, April 12, 2010

Youth Vote, Can You Hear Obama Now?

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The media made much of the great number of young people who supported Obama for president. Their blogging and internet savvy provided an inestimable level of financial support and campaign rhetoric.

The Acorn buses were all over college campuses transporting students to register or vote, although one can question the level of Obama loyalty here, as the students were often rewarded for making the trip.

One can visit political forums and find many of those who still strongly support Obama to be young people. In these anonymous forums they reveal their age more by style of speech, knowledge and references than open sharing. In the same way, those with a conservative outlook seem to be a bit more, um, mature. Sort of like the Conservative Movement.

When will the taxpayers of tomorrow realize they’ve been betrayed? It is they who are looking forward to debt beyond anything their parents even imagined.

From National Review Online

“Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes — in 2019 alone — because of healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' official scorekeeper for legislation.”

Polls show rising unhappiness with the nohealth care law. Has reality begun to hit the youth?
I predict the average age of those at tea parties is going to slowly drop. The Mentor 9-12 Project welcomes patriots of any age. No entrance fee for those seventeen years and younger with parents.


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Friday, April 9, 2010

U.S. Marine Becomes First Blind Double Amputee to Re-Enlist

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He has no legs and no eyesight, but Marine Cpl. Matthew Bradford has four more years of military service ahead of him after becoming the first blind double-amputee to re-enlist.
Read of this hero here.

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Thursday, April 8, 2010

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Health Care and the Constitution

After a year of contentious debate, it became clear that the House intended to pass the health care bill by whatever means necessary, even if it required the use of a “deem and pass” procedure whereby Members would not vote directly on the bill. After a massive public outcry arose against that unconstitutional proposal (Article I, § 7, ¶ 2, and § 5, ¶ 3 direct that “the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays” on a measure rather than just “deeming” it passed), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (MD), head of the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, urged Democrat House Members to remain quiet and avoid talking about the unconstitutional process in an attempt to lessen the political backlash. 1

That procedure ultimately was not used, but once the health care bill passed, voters demanded of congressional leaders the constitutional provision that authorized the federal takeover of health care. In answering that question, Rep. John Conyers (MI) replied: “Under several clauses – the Good and Welfare Clause and a couple others. All the scholars – the constitutional scholars that I know (I’m chairman of the Judiciary committee, as you know) – they all say that there’s nothing unconstitutional in this bill.” 2

Of course, there is no Good and Welfare Clause in the Constitution, but assuming that Conyers simply made an honest mistake, he likely was referring to the General Welfare Clause, which appears in two locations:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTIONThe Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and GENERAL WELFARE of the United States. ART. 1, SEC. 8, PAR. 1


Source - http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=49126

Black Conservative Tea Party Backers Take Heat

Angela McGlowan

In this Feb. 10, 2010 photo, Fox News political analyst Angela McGlowan announces at the Tupelo, Miss., City Hall, that she is running for the 1st Congressional District as a Republican. Black conservatives are taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement, and McGlowan has spoken at several tea party events. (AP Photo/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Thomas Wells)

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - They've been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement—and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation's first black president.

"I've been told I hate myself. I've been called an Uncle Tom. I've been told I'm a spook at the door," said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government.

"Black Republicans find themselves always having to prove who they are. Because the assumption is the Republican Party is for whites and the Democratic Party is for blacks," he said.

Johnson and other black conservatives say they were drawn to the tea party movement because of what they consider its commonsense fiscal values of controlled spending, less taxes and smaller government. The fact that they're black—or that most tea partyers are white—should have nothing to do with it, they say.

Read the rest of the article at Breitbart here.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Gallup Shows Tea Party is Bi-Partisan and Multi-Racial

The tea parties look like America. This is news? This is surprising news? Apparently so.

Gallup informs us, "Tea Party supporters skew right politically; but demographically, they are generally representative of the public at large. That's the finding of a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted March 26-28, in which 28% of U.S. adults call themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement."

Hattip: Jim Geraghty

Monday, April 5, 2010

"We are over-taxed as it is!"

President Obama provided an answer to a simple question about us being over-taxed, even before Health Reform. His answer is 17 minutes long. There is a old saying that comes to mind here, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with......".

Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being 'over-taxed'

CHARLOTTE - Even by President Obama's loquacious standards, an answer he gave here on health care Friday was a doozy.

Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a "wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care" package.

"We are over-taxed as it is," Doris said bluntly.

Obama started out feisty. "Well, let's talk about that, because this is an area where there's been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I'm going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have," the president said.

He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer - more than 2,500 words long -- wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, "F-Map"). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as "FICA").

Read the rest of the article here.