The truth is non-partisan

Kevin Hamilton's Letter on Proposition 8 and the Mormon Church

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:46:00 +0000

Dear Friends,

In the aftermath of the recent election, we may find ourselves oddly
on the defensive regarding our support for the Yes on Proposition 8
cause. Our young people have been especially subject to mean-spirited
comments by high school friends and teachers. We have nothing to be
ashamed of. We did nothing wrong. In fact, we did everything that a
civic-minded American can and should do. I have put together a few
facts that help me to appreciate our position better. For example:

1. Mormons make up less than 2 percent of the population of
California. There are approximately 800,000 LDS out of a total total
population of approximately 34 million.Mormon voters were less than 5
percent of the yes vote.

2. If one estimates that 250,000 LDS are registered voters (the rest
being children), then LDS voters made up 4.6 percent of the yes vote
and 2.4 percent of the total Proposition 8 vote.

3. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) donated
no money to the Yes on 8 campaign. Individual members of the church
were encouraged to support the Yes on 8 efforts and, exercising their
constitutional right to free speech, donated whatever they felt like
donating.

4. The No on 8 campaign raised more money than the Yes on 8 campaign.
Unofficial estimates put No on 8 at $38 million and Yes on 8 at $32
million, making it the most expensive non-presidential election in the
country.

5. Advertising messages for the Yes on 8 campaign are based on case
law and real-life situations. The No on 8 supporters have insisted
that the Yes on 8 messaging is based on lies. Every Yes on 8 claim is
supported.

6. The majority of our friends and neighbors voted Yes on 8. Los
Angeles County voted in favor of Yes on 8. Ventura County voted in
favor of Yes on 8.

7. African-Americans overwhelmingly supported Yes on 8. Exit polls
show that 70 percent of black voters chose Yes on 8. This was
interesting because the majority of these voters voted for
President-elect Obama. No on 8 supporters had assumed that Obama
voters would vote No on 8.

8. The majority of Latino voters voted Yes on 8. Exit polls show that
the majority of Latinos supported Yes on 8 and cited religious beliefs
(assumed to be primarily Catholic).

9. The Yes on 8 coalition was a broad spectrum of religious
organizations. Catholics, evangelicals, Protestants, Orthodox Jews,
Muslims -- all supported Yes on 8. It is estimated that there are 10
million Catholics and 10 million Protestants in California. Mormons
were a tiny fraction of the population represented by Yes on 8
coalition members.

10. Not all Mormons voted in favor of Proposition 8. Our faith accords
that each person be allowed to choose for him or herself. Church
leaders have asked members to treat other members with "civility,
respect and love," despite their differing views.

11. The church did not violate the principle of separation of church
and state. This principle is derived from the First Amendment to the
United States' Constitution, which reads, "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof?" The phrase "separation of church and state", which
does not appear in the Constitution itself, is generally traced to an
1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson, although it has since been quoted in
several opinions handed down by the United States Supreme Court in
recent years. The LDS Church is under no obligation to refrain from
participating in the political process to the extent permitted by law.
U.S. election law is very clear that churches may not endorse
candidates, but may support issues. The church has always been very
careful on this matter and occasionally (not often) chooses to support
causes that it feels to be of a moral nature.

12. Supporters of Proposition 8 did exactly what the Constitution
provides for all citizens: they exercised their First Amendment rights
to speak out on an issue that concerned them, make contributions to a
cause that they support and then vote in the regular electoral
process. For the most part, this seems to have been done in an open,
fair and civil way. Opponents of 8 have accused supporters of being
bigots, liars and worse. The fact is, we simply did what Americans do
-- we spoke up, we campaigned and we voted....

These are my personal opinions and thoughts; any errors are mine and
in no way reflect official church policy or doctrine.

Thanks,
Kevin Hamilton

MormonTimes.com is produced by the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Utah.
It is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints.

What can Missouri do?

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:17:00 +0000

In Missouri each time someone buys a a fishing license the state gets
back $11 in federal aid. If a person buys a hunting license, it's
$17. Apparently the federal aid comes from federal excise taxes on
firearms, ammunition, archery equipment, fishing gear, and motorboat
fuel.

Firstly, why do we pay federal excise taxes on these things? Control
of these items is not within the Constitutional powers of the federal
government. (See Amendment 9 and 10 at
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rights1.asp#9)

And then secondly, why is the state on the federal dole? The lesson I
have learned from working for government and government agencies is
that whenever government gives something they want something in
return. For now it may only be reporting the number of licenses
purchased. Tomorrow it will be something else. We lose our
self-determination and independence whenever we take from government.

So what can Missouri do (and other states as well)? Opt out of
receiving federal aid and stop sending the federal government
information or being involved in federal programs. I'm sure this like
No Child Left Behind is just the tip of the federal ice berg.

This section from the Missouri Department of Conservation website is
very interesting. Read more at
http://www.mdc.mo.gov/regs/permitfaq.htm

3. Q. What can Missouri do to maximize the amount of federal aid we receive?

A. Every time anyone purchases (anywhere in the U.S.) a firearm,
ammunition, archery equipment, fishing gear, or motorboat fuel that
person pays a federal excise tax on that purchase.

An elaborate formula—based in part on hunting and fishing permit
sales—is used to determine how much each state gets back. When hunters
or anglers are exempt from purchasing permits, they are not counted in
the formula.

These funds accumulate in two programs: the Wildlife Restoration
Program (Pittman-Robertson Act) and the Sport Fish Restoration Program
(Dingell-Johnson / Wallop-Breau Act).

Every person who purchases a Missouri hunting or fishing permit is
counted as a paid permit holder, and we report the total number to the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The FWS then calculates how much of the
federal tax can be returned to Missouri, which is then used for
habitat restoration, wildlife management, boat ramp construction, and
other good works. In 2007, for each person who purchased a fishing
permit, Missouri received $11 in federal aid. For each person who
purchased a hunting permit, $17 in federal aid was returned to
Missouri.

Consequently, the more paid license holders Missouri can report, the
greater our potential return of federal funds. Landowners, lessees,
people over age 65 and others who receive no-cost permits or are
exempt cannot be counted.

In Flanders Fields

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:44:00 +0000

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most
memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the
terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is
the story of the making of that poem as described by an author at
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm:

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South
African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the
screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard
enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major
McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating
from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating
injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in
the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae
later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that
seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day
if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would
have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former
student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell
burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in
the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had
performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the
dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards
north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The
major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical
texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang
up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes
of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two
year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted
McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on
writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was
very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around
from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from
Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO.
Allinson was moved by what he read:

"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us
both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually
were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred
to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me
just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it,
McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and
sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected
it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

Free market versus centrally planned economy

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:27:00 +0000

"The free market works so much better than a centrally planned
economy," writes Congressman Ron Paul. "With central planning,
everything shifts from one's own judgment about safety, wisdom and
relative benefits of a behavior, to the discretion of government
bureaucrats. The question then becomes 'what can I get away with,'
and there will always be advantages for those who can afford lawyers
to find the loopholes. The result then is that bad behavior, that
would quickly fail under the free market, is propped up, protected and
perpetuated, and sometimes good behavior is actually discouraged."

Joe and the Media

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:39:00 +0000

Let's See-----

A Guy named Joe, who happens to be a plumber with ambitions for a
bigger business, questioned and challenged a Guy named Barack, who
happens to be running for President of the US/Leader of the Free
World.

And within 24 hours the Media has given us more information about
Joe's life than they've give n us about Barack's life in the past 18
months.

Thanks to a diligent press corps, we now know about Joe's professional
licensing status, his income tax situation, his employment history,
his domestic squabbles, his voting record, everything associated with
his personal identity; his education. It's probably been reported
somewhere whether he wears boxers or briefs.

Thanks to a lazy press corps. We still don't know what grades Obama
made in college; how he got into Harvard; when he met Bill the bomber
Ayers; when he stopped doing illegal drugs; his medical history ;
whether he still smokes cigarettes; the extent of his affiliation with
socialist/communist organizations; why he's no longer a licensed
attorney; whether he lied on his Bar application;

Whether he qualify for a security clearance if he were just an average
Joe; what passport he used to travel to Pakistan in 1981; who his
ex-girlfriends are; whether he was or still is an Indonesian citizen;
why his Kenyan grandmother insists he was born there; whether he was
ever legally named Barry Soetoro or anything else besides Barack
Hussein Obama;

Why he needed the help of a crook to purchase his family home; where
he was on Nov. 6 and 7, 1 999; what the long-version of his birth
certificate says; why he helped an anti-American, pro-Islamic
candidate for Kenyan President against US interests; why he listened
to Rev. Wright's sermons for 20 years; how many times he took his kids
to a Rev. Wright sermon; what he actually did as chair of the
Annenberg Challenge; the depth of his relationship with ACORN.

Well, you get the idea.

But, really, I am SO relieved that the Mainstream Media has done its
job vetting Joe The Plumber, who is NOT running for public office, but
who had the AUDACITY to challenge Barack Hussein Obama, who wants my
vote for President of the United States of America."

-- author unknown

And now this from the Washington Post:

Joe the Plumber is not exactly a plumber, he's "not even close" to making the kind of money that would result in higher taxes from Democrat Barack Obama's proposals and has such an aversion to taxes that a lien was filed against him by the state of Ohio.

Such is the whirlwind of information that has come out about Joe Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, since Republican John McCain made him famous in last night's debate. McCain mentioned him more than 20 times to use him as a symbol of hard-working Americans who would be hurt by Obama's tax policies. Obama and Wurzelbacher met earlier in the week in Toledo, where Wurzelbacher said Obama's plans to raise taxes on those making $250,000 a year or more would penalize him in his plans to buy the plumbing business for which he works.

Wurzelbacher since then has been on Fox News, interviewed by CBS's Katie Couric and appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Warren Buffett's buying American

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:39:00 +0000

Warren Buffett is buying American and so should we. Buffett is putting
all his stock in American equities. However, for those of us who
can't afford today's good buys in stocks, we can still invest in
American goods and services. Each time we buy foreign goods at
WalMart or wherever we tip the balance of trade scale just a little
further in the direction of foreign countries and increase our debt to
them. We owe China and Saudi Arabia because we can't kick the habit
of cheap goods and foreign petroleum. Buying American would give our
economy a boost and save American jobs.

From Independent Weekly: B.J. Lawson, the hybrid candidate

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:18:00 +0000

This article from the Independent Weekly web site was sent to you by fisherhouse.nonpartisan@blogger.com.

Comment from fisherhouse.nonpartisan@blogger.com:

B.J.Lawson supports the Constitution, small government, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. His homepage is http://www.lawsonforcongress.com/

http://localhost/gyrobase/Content?oid=266929

Posted on OCTOBER 15, 2008:

B.J. LAWSON, THE HYBRID CANDIDATE
Republican newcomer aims for disenfranchised David Price voters

By Lisa Sorg

[image-2]Ray McKinnon is the type of voter assumed to be a solid North Carolina Democrat: African-American, a youth pastor, Hillary Clinton-turned-Barack Obama supporter and lifelong party member. He lives in Orange County, which, with Durham and parts of Wake and Chatham counties, forms the Fourth Congressional District, the most progressive political jurisdiction in the state, and maybe south of the Mason-Dixon line.

In 2006, McKinnon voted for U.S. Rep. David Price, the longtime Democratic incumbent, and likely would have again this fall had he not met B.J. Lawson.

McKinnon was campaigning for Clinton earlier this year in Hillsborough when he met Lawson. The Republican challenger handed McKinnon a pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution and shortly afterward, Lawson had a convert.

"I probably would not have considered a Republican, because I don't think Republicans are friends to civil liberties," said McKinnon, who now runs the blog demsforlawson.com and is a Lawson campaign field organizer.

In 2001, Price, like most of Congress, voted for the USA PATRIOT Act, which gave the Bush administration the green light to mow over fundamental constitutional protections, including those prohibiting illegal search and seizure and guaranteeing freedom of speech and assembly. Although four years later Price opposed reauthorizing existing provisions in the act, for McKinnon, Price's original vote was a deal-breaker.

Press play to begin Listen to the complete Lawson-Price debate (1:04, recorded at UNC-CH Oct. 14) "B.J. and I don't agree on everything, but I agree with him more than Price," said McKinnon, who until recently was unaware of Price's stance on the legislation. "I'm going to vote my principles. And B.J. is the only Republican I'm voting for."

In an election year largely unfavorable to Republicans, Lawson is running an ambitious campaign to unseat an entrenched veteran congressman who, despite voting for many progressive causes in his 20 years on Capitol Hill, has been criticized by some Democrats for representing Washington over his constituents.

An odd amalgam of progressive stances and Libertarianism, Lawson has hammered his opponent on his support for controversial anti-civil liberties legislation, his tacit approval of Homeland Security's proposed National Agro and Bio-Defense Facility and, by extension, his campaign largesse partially padded by defense contractors.

Among Republicans, Lawson is somewhat of an outlier. He opposes the death penalty, a constitutional amendment on same-sex marriage and the "unrelenting globalism driven by corporate interests." His viewpoints may appeal to disillusioned Republicans, but they risk alienating the old guard, so much so that in the primary, many party insiders actively supported Lawson's opponent, the far-right candidate Augustus Cho.

Yet Lawson has raised nearly a half-million dollars in campaign contributions, even without major support from the party establishment. Last week, Ron Paul gave him props in an e-mail to his supporters, generating $170,000 in online contributions for Lawson in one day—and in total, $230,000.

Money, charisma and a resonating message: The 34-year-old Lawson is the first GOP candidate to run a viable campaign against Price since Fred Heineman narrowly defeated the Democrat during the Republican Revolution of 1994. (Price reclaimed his seat two years later.)

With less than three weeks until the election, Lawson may not have enough time to get his message across to win. Jack Sanders, chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party, said that while sometimes Price is "more centrist than some Democrats may prefer," the party faithful will vote for the congressman.

But by peeling off disenfranchised members of both parties, plus courting a few protest votes, Lawson could receive more than 37 percent of the vote, the most ballots cast for a GOP candidate since 2000. With those numbers, even a loss would be an enormous achievement for a Republican in the Fourth District.

"B.J.'s on the right side of history," said McKinnon. "I think people are underestimating him."

At the Cary VFW Hall last month, Lawson hosted a Freedom Barbecue and fundraiser. In the parking lot, cars were emblazoned with Ron Paul bumper stickers—and a few McCains—while inside, Lawson supporters wore T-shirts that read "Every Day is Constitution Day."

After a prayer and group sing of "God Bless America," Lawson took the stage. Dressed neatly in a pine-green polo shirt and khaki pants, his hair cut short above the ears, he outlined what he sees as America's greatest challenges—while criticizing mainstream political discourse. "We've been at war since my kids were born. We're $9.6 trillion in debt. We're bailing out Freddie and Fannie and Lehman [Brothers]. And all we can think about is dresses and shoes and lipstick on pigs."

"We have a document," he went on, pulling a copy of the U.S. Constitution out of his pocket, "that tells Congress how to behave. We need to hold our representatives accountable. It's not about putting partisan labels on folks."

The Republican label, especially this year, can be detrimental in the Fourth District. Lawson, while a lifelong member of the GOP, has distanced himself from the party mainstream.

"The biggest problem is the R next to his name," said Marc Conaghan, a Lawson campaign volunteer (a Scottish citizen, he can't vote). "People are judging by party affiliation instead of looking at his principles."

In one breath, his principles echo the free-market right: the elimination of federal income tax and "onerous" regulations, and the establishment of health care savings accounts instead of universal health insurance. Yet, at times, Lawson sounds like a true blue progressive, opposing the war in Iraq—and the war on drugs—and calling for local, sustainable communities.

Former Democrat Donald Van Beveren of Chapel Hill is supporting Lawson and attended his fundraiser. "He has strong stands on the war, the monetary system, civil liberties," said Van Beveren, who is registered as unaffiliated.

[image-3]

Several elected Republicans attended Lawson's shindig—Cary Town Councilman Don Franz, Holly Springs Mayor Dick Sears and state Rep. Marilyn Avila—but it's well known that many traditional party operatives have withheld their support.

Martha Jenkins, Fourth District Congressional chairwoman for the Republican Party, declined to be interviewed for this story. According to Lawson, she told him not to run for office. In Durham, Melodie Parrish resigned as GOP chair after Cho lost the primary.

"I have a lot of hostility toward the misguided ideas and people who are pushing the Republican party off the cliff," Lawson said. "But I look at this pragmatically. I'm a Republican. I want to make a difference, and we're in a two-party system. I want to reform from within. "

Some Republicans are taking note. Wake County GOP Chairman David Robinson said his group endorsed Lawson unanimously. "B.J. has new ideas and his message has matured over time. His focus is very much on limiting the federal government. He's energized a younger crowd, and that's good for us."

David Smudski, who replaced Parrish as Durham County GOP chair, offered guarded praise. "He's not traditional, but he is different than what a Democrat would offer."

Lawson grew up in Lakeland, Fla., one of two children. His family is solid Republican, and Lawson phone-banked for the elder George Bush in the late 1980s. In 1992, Lawson enrolled at Duke University, in part to be closer to his high school sweetheart, JoLynn—now his wife—who was attending Furman in South Carolina. After receiving his bachelor's degree in biomedical and electrical engineering, he was accepted into Duke medical school. During his training, Lawson became frustrated with the difficulty of getting timely and accurate patient data, and six months into his neurosurgery residency, he left. On New Year's Eve 2000, Lawson handed over his patient cards to the chief resident at Durham Regional Hospital and went on to co-found a hospital software company, MercuryMD. The software delivers patient information to a doctor's or nurse's PDA or other handheld device.

"He left the security of residency for the freedom of what he wanted to do," said Galen Wagner, an associate professor of medicine at Duke. "He went from engineering to medicine to politics. It takes courage to say, 'I'm going to take the risk for the freedom to follow my own interests.'"

Lawson and fellow ex-resident Alan Ying sold MercuryMD to Thomson, a Canadian company, in 2006. The next summer, Lawson and his wife traveled to China, where he re-read the U.S. Constitution on the Internet from his Shanghai hotel.

Lawson had already experienced a political epiphany by watching a YouTube video of Ron Paul in the South Carolina debate, but in rereading the Constitution "in the context of being in China and as a thinking adult," Lawson said, he realized how far America had strayed from its founding documents.

Back in Raleigh, he joined other Paul supporters in compiling "Liberty Packs"—copies of the Constitution, Paul DVDs and printouts of position statements—and distributing them at the state fair. "It was so amazing to see how easy it was to give someone a copy of the Constitution. People are hungry for an honest discussion."

Last fall, Lawson decided to run for office and chose Price as his target. "He gets 65 percent of the vote without trying, and the Republicans never mount a challenge," he said. "But I began to realize Price is not serving the people."

Mark Granville, who left SAS to join MercuryMD and still works for the parent company, said Lawson "isn't a typical politician, and that's frightening to people if it's not their style." A lifelong Republican, Granville is disillusioned with the GOP, and this year, his votes will show it: "B.J.'s the only Republican I'll vote for this time."

A line tailed outside the room at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, where Price was hosting a Town Hall meeting with his constituents. But on this summer evening, the crowd was angry. They called for Price to lead the legislative charge to end the war in Iraq—he had voted against it—and to impeach Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. They wanted an explanation of Price's stance on the NBAF and his vote on civil liberties legislation, including HR 1955, the cumbersomely named Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.

Its intent is ostensibly to establish both a 10-member commission to "examine and report upon the facts of ... homegrown terrorism" and a Center for Excellence at a U.S. university to study the roots of terrorism and to "conduct a survey" of foreign countries' methods of terrorism prevention. However, the bill's language is nebulous, leaving open what qualifies as an extremist belief system, and implying that the Internet is a dangerous pipeline for terrorist-related propaganda, raising concerns about censorship and surveillance. U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, also known to carry the Constitution in his pocket, calls it the "thought crimes bill" because it focuses on what people might do, rather than what they have done.

Lawson approached the mic. "I'm your Republican opponent. Do you read these pieces of legislation before signing them?"

"This is not a political event," Price replied sharply. "Of course I've read the bills. And I've voted for amendments on some and against others."

[image-4]

Civil liberties have become a litmus test issue for voters. Margaret Misch, a member of the Orange County Bill of Rights Defense Committee and a prominent civil liberties watchdog, has met several times with Price about such legislation. And most of the time she's been disappointed. "I'm holding my nose and voting for David Price," she said. "He's not the worst one, but he's not always been where we needed him to be."

After voting for the PATRIOT Act, in 2005, Price opposed extending several of its provisions, which were due to expire. He opposed retroactive immunity for telecom companies that, with Bush's blessing, helped spy on Americans.

However, Price voted for HR 1955, which would cost an estimated $24 million through 2012 to implement. Civil liberties protections are included in the bill, but are subject to internal review, not independent oversight.

Campaign spokesman Phil Feagan said the bill merely sets up a commission and "is not setting forth law."

Misch is unconvinced. "He defended his vote and dismissed our concerns about the First and Fourth Amendments." She read from a letter Price wrote her. "He justified it as simply attempting to 'foster our understanding of the process by which individuals in the U.S. are or might be led down the terrorist path.'"

Price's centrist stances may stem from his need to cater to conservative and moderate Democrats in western Wake County, where Lawson lives.

"Price is extremely cautious," Misch added. "He will not be out front where it's conspicuous to take a stand."

Yet even in Wake County, many people oppose the bio lab proposed in Butner—including U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, who reversed himself after public outcry about the project. Dozens of people turned out at Price's town hall meeting to complain about his support for Homeland Security's proposal. A month earlier, the department had issued a 1,000-page environmental analysis of the proposed sites, a document rife with missing data. NBAF opponents pummeled Price with questions, and in return, he gave mushy answers: "I'm going to ask very tough questions about NBAF. But I'm not going to develop a firm opinion about it until the facts are in."

David Krabbe, who lives near Rougemont, has fought the NBAF for more than a year. "I'm furious with David Price over his support for this facility. He's clueless," Krabbe said, adding that last month Price erroneously stated in a town hall meeting the number and type of diseases that would be studied at the facility. "Homeland Security doesn't have a monopoly on information. I will vote for B.J."

Price has a powerful position holding the purse strings as the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcomittee on Homeland Security. He's used his leverage to lure a $15 million Homeland Security grant to UNC to study natural disasters in coastal areas, but his coziness with the department and at least $59,000 in campaign contributions this election cycle (as of June 30) from the defense industry have prompted some constituents to wonder about insiders' influence.

Feagan justified Price's stance by saying he "has to walk a fine line and reserve judgment" as the subcommittee chairman. "He takes his role as chairman very seriously, and it's not for him to advocate or oppose any specific site."

Price's conflict only feeds criticism that he favors Washington—in this case, the subcommittee and its interests—over those who elected him.

"He's taken honorable positions in the past, but he's siding with big business," Krabbe said. "He has taken his base and district for granted."

Krabbe is so disgruntled with Price that he is voting for Lawson despite their differences on abortion; Krabbe is pro-choice. Lawson is not and, like many Republicans, supports overturning Roe v. Wade. He has said abortion rights should be a state issue, not a federal one.

"I disagree with B.J. about abortion," said Krabbe. "I'm disappointed with that. But he's really intelligent and I have a lot of respect for him."

"Abortion is the most effective splinter issue we have," Lawson said. "Because I might believe life begins at conception, that doesn't mean I want helpless women dying from back-alley abortions.

"What I object to is that the Supreme Court exceeded its constitutional authority to set a blanket ruling over a very personal issue. But as a physician, my goal is not to have the government in every exam room."

However, critics point out not only that the court's decision has held for 35 years, but there are logistical and civil rights issues facing women living in states where abortion would be illegal.

It is on a few key progressive issues on which Price has been strong—abortion, health care and federal funding of social services—where Lawson risks losing voters he would need to beat him.

"I disagree with B.J. in that I believe it's very important not to think that the free market can handle anything," said McKinnon, the Orange County Democrat and Obama supporter.

But as a pro-life Democrat, he often votes for candidates who hold opposite views on abortion; he's not a single-issue voter. "I'm not going to give my vote just to pro-life candidates. I'm for a candidate who is going to represent me, who is accessible. I think David Price is a great guy, but it's time to move on."

Editor's Note: A debate between B.J. Lawson and David Price was happening at press time. Check our Elections section for debate coverage, candidate questionnaires and updates on campaign finance reports.

fisherhousejohn sent you a video: "Glenn Beck: Obama National Anthem"

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:49:00 +0000

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fisherhousejohn has shared a video with you on YouTube: New national anthem. Glenn Beck: Obama National Anthem Obama National Anthem
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fisherhousejohn sent you a video: "Glenn Beck presents the Obama National Anthem"

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:49:00 +0000

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fisherhousejohn has shared a video with you on YouTube: Glenn Beck presents the Obama National Anthem Glenn Beck can be seen weeknights on Headline News at 7p, 9p and midnight ET. Glenn Beck can also be heard on more than 300 radio stations nationwide. Learn more at http://www.glennbeck.com
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fisherhousejohn sent you a video: "new world order is the endgame, says glenn beck"

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:43:00 +0000

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fisherhousejohn has shared a video with you on YouTube: One world order. new world order is the endgame, says glenn beck "There is a global meltdown coming. It is global depression. And one world currency and one world financial system is the endgame... China said last week they want one global currency. France said yesterday they want one world order - a new world order at the end of this event." media monarchy dot com
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fisherhousejohn sent you a video: "The October Surprise—Suit To Remove Barack Obama From The Ballot. Barack Obama And The Democratic National Committee Are Committing Fraud Against The American People"

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:45:00 +0000

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fisherhousejohn has shared a video with you on YouTube: Barack Obama has not produced proof that he is a U.S. citizen. Some evidence suggests he was born in Kenya. The October Surprise—Suit To Remove Barack Obama From The Ballot. Barack Obama And The Democratic National Committee Are Committing Fraud Against The American People http://www.obamacrimes.com/attachments/001_ObamaComplaint.pdf http://www.obamacrimes.com/attachments/001_ObamaMemSupportTRO082108.pdf http://www.obamacrimes.com/attachments/001_ObamaMotionforTRO.pdf http://www.obamacrimes.com/attachments/001_ObamaTempOrder.pdf Copied from the YouTube video: I Invented The Internet (Ep. 6: October Surprise)
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Spiraling downward

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:43:00 +0000

Yesterday the Federal Reserve Bank and other central banks around the
world in concert lowered interest rates.

The $700 billion bailout was not working to restore confidence in
financial institutions and the economy, so the Fed felt a reduction in
interest rates was necessary to get business borrowing again.

The British government also announced that it has purchased interest
in financial institutions as a way of assuring consumers and restoring
confidence in that country's banks. A similar measure is being
bantered around Washington.

Although he wouldn't say it directly, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry
Paulson suggested that the bailout legislation has given him the
authority to take a wide range of actions that might include buying
stock in banks and other financial institutions. "I'm not going to
speculate on all the things we may have to do," he said. "I would
simply say we have a broad range of authorities and tools...to work
with going forward here."

Speaking at a news conference ahead of a Friday meeting of Group of
Seven finance ministers, Paulson also said, "We will use all of the
tools we've been given to maximum effectiveness, including
strengthening the capitalization of financial institutions of every
size,"

Congress in passing the bailout legislation has opened a Pandora's
box. The bailout was wrong in the first place, because by increasing
money supply, it further threatened the value of the low U.S. dollar.

These latest actions in lowering interest rates in the U.S. and around
the world are an admission that the bailout isn't working.

The next step on the spiral down further into socialism is government
ownership of banks. And, Paulson seems to be saying he now has the
authority to do that in America.

We are seeing a further erosion of Congressional powers as the
legislative branch gives more authority to bureaucrats in the
executive.

This is happening in the midst of an election where neither of the
major candidates will take a leadership role to halt this foolishness.
In Tuesday's presidential debate neither candidate said anything
about the bailout, its consequences, or future drastic measures being
talked about to restore confidence in the U.S. economy. It was as if
the problem doesn't exist.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4980LA20081009

Attack strategy is not working for McCain

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:33:00 +0000

Senator John McCain is losing the presidential election because he has
adopted a strategy of attack rather than letting people know what he
will do as president.
McCain built his reputation as a maverick, distancing himself from
less popular decisions of an unpopular President Bush and other
Republicans. Now his policy of attack has distanced him from the
public and the press.
According to the New York Times, McCain's effort to regain the upper
hand by portraying Obama as liberal and unprepared has backfired.
"He has run advertisements labeling Mr. Obama as a celebrity and other
spots saying that Mr. Obama would raise taxes and that he had
supported the teaching of sex education to kindergartners, which is
false. And the Republican convention was dominated by speeches, some
of them laced with sarcasm, that questioned Mr. Obama's readiness." An
overwhelming majority of the advertisements that McCain ran this past
week attacked Obama.
However, "some Republican strategists who once worked for Mr. McCain
say that the attacks and false statements have weakened the brand he
built over the years as a straight talker who lamented the bitterness
of modern politics."
More than half of the respondents in a New York Times/CBS News poll
taken in late September said that "Mr. McCain spent more time
attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president."
While Mr. McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, may have
done much to establish herself as a strong candidate in the debate
Thursday night, much more of the debate was on Palin than on Obama.
She has been trying to overcome her rocky performance in recent
interviews, where she has had to defend her own record rather than
convincing viewers of her leadership potential.
On Friday after the debate, Palin returned to the campaign trail and
tried to redirect the flurry of news media attention away from her and
onto Mr. Obama's record.
According to the NYTimes, Palin said in an interview on the Fox News
Channel that one of her regrets about her recent interviews on CBS
News, in which she seemed ill-informed to many people, was that she
had been unable to effectively press her case against Mr. Obama.
"I wanted to talk about Barack Obama increasing taxes, which would
lead to killing jobs," Palin said on Fox. "I wanted to talk about his
proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars.
Some of his comments that he has made about the war that I think may,
in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next
commander in chief."
See the complete story at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04campaign.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Palin and Biden debate

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:57:00 +0000

It appears that the hoped for emergence of Sarah Palin as the new
spokesperson for conservatism didn't happen during Thursday night's
vice-presidential debate. New York Times writer Charles Blow watched
the debate with a Young Republicans Club. He went expecting much more
from Gov. Palin than what he found. Instead he saw qualities in
Democrat Joe Biden that seemed to surprise him.

"Through the booing and hissing, I saw a strong, authoritative,
confident and sensitive candidate emerge. On the whole, he came across
as intelligent and relatable; a real person," wrote Blow. "That's a
quality that often eludes Barack Obama."

Blow seems to think Biden did a good job of reintroducing himself to
Americans. "Palin had stolen the spotlight, and he was campaigning in
the shadows. The media was ignoring him. Voters didn't know him. In a
recent New York Times/CBS News poll, 32 percent of Democrats, 38
percent of independents and 41 percent of Republicans said they didn't
know or had no answer when asked to say what they most liked about
Biden."

"That night he reintroduced himself with panache and probably further
strengthened an already strengthening Democratic ticket," wrote Blow.

See his column at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04blow.html?em

MEDIA DARLINGS - OBAMA AND McCAIN

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:27:00 +0000

Positive or negative media coverage can make or break a political
campaign, especially in a presidential race. Both McCain and Obama
have received favorable coverage, but will it continue?

"It almost never happens that there are two media favorites in one
political race — and yet this year, there are," said David Folkenlik
on National Public Radio.

Both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama can attribute their
popularity and their choice as candidates of the Republican and
Democratic Parties to the media. This doesn't mean they never receive
negative coverage; however, according to Folkenlik, during their
Senate careers and throughout the presidential campaign, both have
received "pretty positive press."

Read the rest of the story at:
http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/402-media-darlings

More perspective on Money

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:05:00 +0000

My friend Darren wrote:

Local control of wealth is what we need to get back to, instead of
money of the realm.

What King George III did was to support the policies of the Bank of
England's owners that were using the Crown and the British people as
an empire building engine, the colonists said that these empire
builders were trampling upon their Saxon Liberties of the Gospel.

We need to do this all over again and tell our President that we will
no longer accept the policies of the Federal Reserve Bank controlling
our country on behalf of the Banks owners.

Once again Government is trampling upon our Ancestral Saxon Liberties
of the Gospel.

You can see Darren's latest post at:

http://ldsfreedomforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4206&p=42080#p42080

Help Elect the Next Ron Paul on October 7th

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 09:37:00 +0000

Dear Friend,

A lot of folks have begun calling B.J. Lawson the next Ron Paul. The
comparison is very flattering. . . for me.

For those who are not yet familiar, B.J. Lawson is a wonderful young
candidate running for Congress in North Carolina's Fourth
Congressional District. B.J. is a medical doctor, family man,
Constitutionalist and a fierce defender of individual freedom. We need
B.J. Lawson in Congress to stand beside me in the fight for liberty,
and against the corporate socialism that has overtaken our economy!

B.J. is running against an entrenched big government liberal who voted
for the $700 billion taxpayer bailout of Wall Street and has a long
history of voting for huge spending, raiding your social security
trust fund for pet projects, and even voted for the Patriot Act.

A recent poll shows B.J. Lawson within striking distance in this
election, but he needs your help!

B.J. needs $250,000, right away, to run the campaign he needs to take
this race right down the the wire. I know that if we band together, we
can help him get the money he needs.

I am asking you, as a fellow Defender of Liberty, to mark the four
week countdown to this November's election and join with me and donate
to B.J. Lawson's campaign this Tuesday, October 7th. I know times are
tough, but that is all the more reason why we need to send a message
and help B.J. Lawson.

Contributions can be made at http://www.lawsonforcongress.com

This one-day "Money Bomb" could be what it takes to propel the next
Ron Paul into Congress. I hope you will join me to support B.J. Lawson
with your on-line contribution this Tuesday, October 7th.

Sincerely,

Ron Paul

Bail Out Law--read for yourself

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 09:17:00 +0000

I was curious to read what this law actually has in it. Read through
the titles and you can get a flavor for it…it's scary.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.1424.eas:

Mark

Active-duty Army Unit to serve for the first time in the U.S.

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:28:00 +0000

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT (Brigade Combat Team) will
be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service
component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force
for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist
attacks.

According to US Army Times, helping 'people at home' may become a
permanent role for the active Army.

Although units were called up during Hurricane Katrina, this will be
the first time an active-duty army unit will serve full time in the
United States.

Based at Ft. Stewart, Georgia, the brigade is training for a variety
of Homeland Security tasks. "They may be called upon to help with
civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific
scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a
chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive,
or CBRNE," states the US Army Times.

This action contravenes the 'Posse Comitatus Act' (PCA), but is
allowed by a 2006 Act which lets the President use the military in
major public emergencies.

"The 'Posse Comitatus Act' (PCA), Title 18 of the U.S. Code (USC),
Section 1385, states:

"'Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly
authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any
part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to
execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not
more than two years, or both."

Sourcewatch describes the potential abuses of the Act which has made
the permanent posting of active-duty soldiers possible.

The John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006 (PL 109-364),
"named for the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman from
Virginia," was signed October 17, 2006, by President George W. Bush.
The Act "has a provocative provision called 'Use of the Armed Forces
in Major Public Emergencies'," the thrust of which "seems to be about
giving the federal government a far stronger hand in coordinating
responses to [Hurricane] Katrina-like disasters," Jeff Stein, CQ
National Security Editor wrote December 1, 2006.

"But on closer inspection, its language also alters the
two-centuries-old Insurrection Act, which Congress passed in 1807 to
limit the president's power to deploy troops within the United States
... 'to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence,
unlawful combination, or conspiracy'," Stein wrote.

"But the amended law takes the cuffs off" and "critics say it's a
formula for executive branch mischief," Stein wrote, as "the new
language adds 'natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public
health emergency, terrorist attack or incident' to the list of
conditions permitting the President to take over local authority -
particularly 'if domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that
the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable
of maintaining public order.'"

"One of the few to complain, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., warned that
the measure virtually invites the White House to declare federal
martial law. ... It 'subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus
statutes that limit the military's involvement in law enforcement,
thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law,' he
said in remarks submitted to the Congressional Record on Sept. 29,
2006."

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Establishing_martial_law_in_the_United_States
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Posse_Comitatus_Act
http://public.cq.com/public/20061201_homeland.html

Ron Paul's Answer to Mr. Bush

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:05:00 +0000

The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted
has arrived.

We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created
credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being
proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No
liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing
more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions
in our economy - all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment
- and prevent the market's attempt to re-establish rational pricing of
houses and other assets.

Last night the president addressed the nation about the financial
crisis. There is no point in going through his remarks line by line,
since I'd only be repeating what I've been saying over and over - not
just for the past several days, but for years and even decades.

Still, at least a few observations are necessary.

The president assures us that his administration "is working with
Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in
our markets." Care to take a guess at whether the Federal Reserve and
its money creation spree were even mentioned?

We are told that "low interest rates" led to excessive borrowing, but
we are not told how these low interest rates came about. They were a
deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve. As always, artificially low
interest rates distort the market. Entrepreneurs engage in
malinvestments - investments that do not make sense in light of
current resource availability, that occur in more temporally remote
stages of the capital structure than the pattern of consumer demand
can support, and that would not have been made at all if the interest
rate had been permitted to tell the truth instead of being toyed with
by the Fed.

Not a word about any of that, of course, because Americans might then
discover how the great wise men in Washington caused this great
debacle. Better to keep scapegoating the mortgage industry or "wildcat
capitalism" (as if we actually have a pure free market!).

Speaking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the president said:
"Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed
they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to
borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable
investments, and put our financial system at risk."

Doesn't that prove the foolishness of chartering Fannie and Freddie in
the first place? Doesn't that suggest that maybe, just maybe,
government may have contributed to this mess? And of course, by
bailing out Fannie and Freddie, hasn't the federal government shown
that the "many" who "believed they were guaranteed by the federal
government" were in fact correct?

Then come the scare tactics. If we don't give dictatorial powers to
the Treasury Secretary "the stock market would drop even more, which
would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your
home could plummet." Left unsaid, naturally, is that with the bailout
and all the money and credit that must be produced out of thin air to
fund it, the value of your retirement account will drop anyway,
because the value of the dollar will suffer a precipitous decline. As
for home prices, they are obviously much too high, and supply and
demand cannot equilibrate if government insists on propping them up.

It's the same destructive strategy that government tried during the
Great Depression: prop up prices at all costs. The Depression went on
for over a decade. On the other hand, when liquidation was allowed to
occur in the equally devastating downturn of 1921, the economy
recovered within less than a year.

The president also tells us that Senators McCain and Obama will join
him at the White House today in order to figure out how to get the
bipartisan bailout passed. The two senators would do their country
much more good if they stayed on the campaign trail debating who the
bigger celebrity is, or whatever it is that occupies their attention
these days.

F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks'
manipulation of interest rates creates the boom-bust cycle with which
we are sadly familiar. In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression,
he described the foolish policies being pursued in his day - and which
are being proposed, just as destructively, in our own:

Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments
brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable
means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place;
and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without
success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression,
has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion.

To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to
cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are
suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further
misdirection - a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe
crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end... It is
probably to this experiment, together with the attempts to prevent
liquidation once the crisis had come, that we owe the exceptional
severity and duration of the depression.

The only thing we learn from history, I am afraid, is that we do not
learn from history.

The very people who have spent the past several years assuring us that
the economy is fundamentally sound, and who themselves foolishly
cheered the extension of all these novel kinds of mortgages, are the
ones who now claim to be the experts who will restore prosperity! Just
how spectacularly wrong, how utterly without a clue, does someone have
to be before his expert status is called into question?

Oh, and did you notice that the bailout is now being called a "rescue
plan"? I guess "bailout" wasn't sitting too well with the American
people.

The very people who with somber faces tell us of their deep concern
for the spread of democracy around the world are the ones most
insistent on forcing a bill through Congress that the American people
overwhelmingly oppose. The very fact that some of you seem to think
you're supposed to have a voice in all this actually seems to annoy
them.

I continue to urge you to contact your representatives and give them a
piece of your mind. I myself am doing everything I can to promote the
correct point of view on the crisis. Be sure also to educate
yourselves on these subjects - the Campaign for Liberty blog is an
excellent place to start. Read the posts, ask questions in the comment
section, and learn.

H.G. Wells once said that civilization was in a race between education
and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide
as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we
have.

In liberty,

Ron Paul

Time is running out

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:35:00 +0000

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Dear Friends,

Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant
media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders
are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty
that disaster is about to strike.

The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat
is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes
a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again
bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people
a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will
have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said
the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist
than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is
socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks,
the Wall Streeters."

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being
told it's unavoidable.

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish
that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But
that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that
those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable
consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound,
Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve
System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the
culprit, in this mess!

• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700
billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700
billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.

• Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the
Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.

• Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the
authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency
discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any
administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up
whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it,
and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly
necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh.

Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the
American people. The two major party candidates for president
themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of
this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly
presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash
brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display,
really.

Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end
of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the
crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a
Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven
percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call
them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for
anyone who supports this atrocity.

The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care
about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our
government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that
average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the
fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?

When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means
standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics
and the media?

Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we
are, and what kind of country we shall be.

In liberty,

Ron Paul

________________________________

Political Advertisement paid for by Committee to Re-Elect Ron Paul

________________________________

How do we get the major candidates to talk about the most important issues?

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:44:00 +0000

We Agree
September 10th, 2008 by Don Rasmussen

The Republican/Democrat duopoly has, for far too long, ignored the
most important issues facing our nation. However, alternate
candidates Chuck Baldwin, Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader agree with
Ron Paul on four key principles central to the health of our nation.
These principles should be key in the considerations of every voter
this November and in every election.

We Agree

Foreign Policy: The Iraq War must end as quickly as possible with
removal of all our soldiers from the region. We must initiate the
return of our soldiers from around the world, including Korea, Japan,
Europe and the entire Middle East. We must cease the war propaganda,
threats of a blockade and plans for attacks on Iran, nor should we
re-ignite the cold war with Russia over Georgia. We must be willing to
talk to all countries and offer friendship and trade and travel to all
who are willing. We must take off the table the threat of a nuclear
first strike against all nations.

Privacy: We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all
persons under US jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the
Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation.
We must reject the notion and practice of torture, eliminations of
habeas corpus, secret tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny
immunity for corporations that spy willingly on the people for the
benefit of the government. We must reject the unitary presidency, the
illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive
orders.

The National Debt: We believe that there should be no increase in the
national debt. The burden of debt placed on the next generation is
unjust and already threatening our economy and the value of our
dollar. We must pay our bills as we go along and not unfairly place
this burden on a future generation.

The Federal Reserve: We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and
audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with
the banking, corporate, and other financial institutions. The
arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind
closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests must be ended.
There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no corporate
subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for their
crimes and frauds.

Look at Ron Paul and Ralph Nader interview at
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/

Oppose US involvement in the UN millennial project

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:22:00 +0000

If you don't want the Senate to approve Sen. Obama's S. 2433 to set in
motion legislation to require the United States to spend hundreds of
billions of dollars of new United Nations-inspired foreign aid
spending by 2015, then please read on and an email message to your
senators. Please act now! This bill could come up for a vote in the
full Senate soon. The House has already passed its version of this
bill (H.R. 1302) by a voice vote on September 25, 2007.

In September 2000 the UN General Assembly adopted the "United Nations
Millennium Declaration ," a very comprehensive, nine-page document
that ends:
We solemnly reaffirm, on this historic occasion, that the United
Nations is the indispensable common house of the entire human family,
through which we will seek to realize our universal aspirations for
peace, cooperation and development. We therefore pledge our unstinting
support for these common objectives and our determination to achieve
them.

The Declaration's section on Development and Poverty Eradication sets
the goal "To halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the world's
people whose income is less than one dollar a day."

Then, in 2002 the UN's International Conference on Financing for
Development in Monterrey, Mexico, established a goal for foreign aid
to impoverished nations - 0.7 percent of the gross national product
(GNP) of developed nations.

Next we have Senator Obama's S. 2433 Global Poverty Act of 2007 which
he introduced in the Senate on December 7, 2007. His bill is nearly
identical to a House bill (H.R. 1302) that was passed in the House by
a voice vote on September 25, 2007. The purpose of S. 2433 is:
To require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive
strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of
promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme
global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal
of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between
1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.

Thus, S. 2433 does not authorize or appropriate any money to fight
global poverty, but only requires the President to develop a strategy
to achieve UN Millennium Development goals, such as halving the
proportion of people in the world who live on less than $1 per day by
2015. However, based on the 2002 UN goal of foreign aid spending of
0.7 percent of GNP by developed nations, it has been estimated by some
conservative commentators that achieving the Millennium Declaration's
development goal of poverty reduction could cost the U.S. over $800
billion by 2015.

Although the Millennium Declaration also contains a whole host of
other UN pet projects, such as greater UN regulation of light weapons
and imposing the Kyoto Protocol to reduce global warming on the U.S.,
these projects are not addressed by S. 2433.

One interesting aspect of this S. 2433 bill is that when the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee slightly amended the bill before reporting
it out of committee with a favorable recommendation on April 24, they
carefully went through the bill and wherever the words "United Nations
Millennium Development Goals" appear, they deleted the words "United
Nations." However, at the very end of the bill the committee was
forced to admit the UN connection with the Millenium Development Goals
when they explained:
The term "Millennium Development Goals" means the goals set out in the
United Nations Millennium Declaration, General Assembly Resolution
55/2 (2000) .

I believe there are better ways to provide relief in developing
countries. One way is to make donations through legitimate
non-government aid programs. Another is to oppose government farm
subsidies in developed countries. This would provide an even playing
field for developing nations.

In response to my concerns I sent the following letter to my senators.

Dear Senator Bond and Senator McCaskill,

Please vote NO on Senator Obama's Global Poverty Act of 2007 (S. 2433),
which would set in motion future legislation to add potentially hundreds
of billions of dollars of new foreign aid spending by 2015 to help carry
out the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals.

These goals were stated in the United Nations Millennium Declaration,
General Assembly Resolution 55/2 (2000) and are available at
http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.pdf.

The United States government should not be committing our nation to any
such huge increase in foreign aid spending, especially not for United
Nations programs. UN programs waste money and our contributions are not
appreciated. Our commitment to the UN is disproportional to the benefits
we receive as a nation.

I donate monthly to humanitarian services through my church. I believe
individual commitment and donations are a better approach to helping
others around the world.

Sincerely, John Fisher

For more information and to take action go to: http://capwiz.com/jbs/issues/alert/?alertid=11590351

"Not Yours to Give"

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:47:00 +0000

My friend, Cecil Ash, is running for the state legislature in Arizona. Here is a story he included on his webpage.

The following story is from THE LIFE OF COLONEL DAVID CROCKETT, compiled by Edward S. Ellis (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1984). Beyond being a good story, it teaches a valuable lesson for all who serve in government. Public service is a public trust. I offer it here as an indication of my attitude toward the taxes you pay. Every elected official of our government should hope to leave a legacy such as the one left by Davy Crockett.

Davy Crockett

Member of Congress

1827-31, 1832-35

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:

"Mr. Speaker --- I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased.

Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and, if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

I began: "Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and---
"Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again."

This was a sockdolager . . . I begged him to tell me what was the matter.
"Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intended by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest…but an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provision. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is."

"I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon an constitutional question."

"No, Colonel, there's no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings in Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some suffers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?"

"Well, my friend, I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did."

"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give to anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you had the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to anything and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the suffers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditable; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.

"So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you."

I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, for the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him: "Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot."

He laughingly replied: "Yes Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way."

"If I don't," I said. "I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it."

"No Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days. And we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you."

"Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-by. I must know your name."
"My name is Bunce."
"Not Horatio Bunce?"
"Yes."
"Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend."

It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain; no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.

Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him --- no, that is not the word --- I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times a year; and I will tell you sir, if everyone who professes to be a Christian, lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted --- at least, they all knew me.

In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

"Fellow-citizens --- I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgement is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only."

I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying: "And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce convinced me of my error.

"It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so."

He came upon the stand and said: "Fellow-citizens --- It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today."

He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.

I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my checks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the reputation I have ever made, or shall ever make, as a member of Congress.

"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday. There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men --- men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased --- a debt which could not be paid by money --- and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."

"Hatch: FISA critics are like those 'wear tin foil hats'"

noreply@blogger.com (FisherHouse) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:03:00 +0000

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I wear my tinfoil hat even when I sleep. Thanks for making my day, Sen. Hatch. Hatch: FISA critics are like those 'wear tin foil hats' On the Senate floor, 6/25/08.
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