ACORN Sues Over ‘Unconstitutional’ Funding Cuts By Congress

Ah! the poor babies miss getting my tax money. 

A  non-profit organization filed a lawsuit against the federal government Thursday morning, seeking to overturn a law stopping the flow of federal funds to ACORN. 

The suit, filed in federal court in New York, claims that bills passed by the House and Senate to defund the group qualify as bills of attainder, legislation that unfairly targets one group. Such bills are unconstitutional. 

The suit will seek to restore funding and roll-back the ban, which was passed as part of the legislative branch appropriations bill in September. 

ACORN claims that the legislation was of “malicious and punitive intent.” The suit also claims Congress violated the Fifth Amendment by skirting due process before doling out the punishment of the funding cut. OMB Director Peter Orszag and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are listed as co-defendants in the suit. 

Efforts to defund ACORN became popular among Democrats and Republicans after conservative activists caught the organization’s employees in several offices advising actors posing as a pimp and politician, along with his prostitute girlfriend, on how to evade taxes and set up a brothel. 

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) and others in Congress quickly moved to ensure no federal funds were steered to the group – measures that got support from even the most ardent liberals like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). 

The lawsuit, which was brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, says that ACORN has been subject to “heavily funded and orchestrated political campaigns.” 

But this effort represents a complete reversal from ACORN, which emphasized to reporters and the public that the money it received from the federal government was not essential to its existence.

Now the group is taking a bold step to restore its federal funding by accusing Congress of violating the Constitution. 

The court filing claims ACORN has been bruised badly by the legislation. It says it has had to lay off employees, close offices and “drastically” reduce services. 

But the complaint also offers a small peak into and how much ACORN truly relies on the government for money. It cites FEMA pulling back roughly $1 million in funding for fire safety assessments after the legislation passed. The filing also shows that the organization lost out on a $780,000 EPA grant to educate poor communities about asthma and a separate grant to set up public computer centers for the poor in five cities. 

And the suit highlights a few members of Congress as being especially critical of the group. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is cited as having “(attacked) ACORN for years.” It quotes Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) trying to tie President Barack Obama to the group. And it cites Republican Reps. Steve King (Iowa) and Todd Akin (Mo.) calling a Obama campaign poster in ACORN’s headquarters a “Jeremiah Wright moment.”

Successful cases proving a bill of attainder are rare in the United States, said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert at George Washington University who successfully argued the last attainder case in 2003.

Turley said ACORN has a “legitimate claim” for asking a court to overturn the law, on the standing that barring the organization from receiving funds could be considered “legislative punishment.” Congress has equally compelling arguments, he said, but may have acted in haste because it did not hold hearings and create a complete record documenting ACORN’s misconduct.

“Congress may wish it had acted with a bit more deliberation,” Turley said.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29436.html

I Want One Of These…Live Streaming

Too bad we could not put this in the closed door sessions of Congress:

 

Black Columbia Prof suckers Punches White Young Female

By PERRY CHIARAMONTE, BETH STEBNER and JEREMY OLSHAN

Last Updated: 1:17 PM, November 10, 2009

Posted: 2:57 AM, November 10, 2009

A prominent Columbia architecture professor punched a female university employee in the face at a Harlem bar during a heated argument about race relations, cops said yesterday.   Police busted Lionel McIntyre, 59, for assault yesterday after his bruised victim, Camille Davis, filed charges.   McIntyre and Davis, who works as a production manager in the school’s theater department, are both regulars at Toast, a popular university bar on Broadway and 125th Street, sources said.   The professor, who is black, had been engaged in a fiery discussion about “white privilege” with Davis, who is white, and another male regular, who is also white, Friday night at 10:30 when fists started flying, patrons said.  McIntyre, who is known as “Mac” at the bar, shoved Davis, and when the other patron and a bar employee tried to break it up, the prof slugged Davis in the face, witnesses said.   ”The punch was so loud, the kitchen workers in the back heard it over all the noise,” bar back Richie Velez, 28, told The Post. “I was on my way over when he punched Camille and she fell on top of me.”   The other patron involved in the dispute said McIntyre then took a swing at him after he yelled, “You don’t hit a woman!”   ”He knocked the glasses right off my face,” said the man, who would only give his first name as “Shannon.” “The punch came out of nowhere. Mac was talking to us about white privilege and what I was doing about it — apparently I wasn’t doing enough.”   McIntyre had squabbled with Davis several weeks earlier over issues involving race, witnesses said. As soon as the professor threw the punch Friday, server Rob Dalton and another employee tossed him out.   ”It was a real sucker punch,” Dalton said. “Camille’s a great lady, always nice to everybody, and doesn’t deserve anything like this.”   Davis was spotted wearing sunglasses yesterday to conceal the black eye. Reached at her Columbia office, she declined to comment on the alleged attack. McIntyre was released without bail at his arraignment last night. “It was a very unfortunate event,” he said afterwards. “I didn’t mean for it to explode the way it did.” Additional reporting

A prominent Columbia architecture professor punched a female university employee in the face at a Harlem bar during a heated argument about race relations, cops said yesterday.

Police busted Lionel McIntyre, 59, for assault yesterday after his bruised victim, Camille Davis, filed charges.

McIntyre and Davis, who works as a production manager in the school’s theater department, are both regulars at Toast, a popular university bar on Broadway and 125th Street, sources said.

The professor, who is black, had been engaged in a fiery discussion about “white privilege” with Davis, who is white, and another male regular, who is also white, Friday night at 10:30 when fists started flying, patrons said.

McIntyre, who is known as “Mac” at the bar, shoved Davis, and when the other patron and a bar employee tried to break it up, the prof slugged Davis in the face, witnesses said.

“The punch was so loud, the kitchen workers in the back heard it over all the noise,” bar back Richie Velez, 28, told The Post. “I was on my way over when he punched Camille and she fell on top of me.”

The other patron involved in the dispute said McIntyre then took a swing at him after he yelled, “You don’t hit a woman!”

“He knocked the glasses right off my face,” said the man, who would only give his first name as “Shannon.” “The punch came out of nowhere. Mac was talking to us about white privilege and what I was doing about it — apparently I wasn’t doing enough.”

McIntyre had squabbled with Davis several weeks earlier over issues involving race, witnesses said. As soon as the professor threw the punch Friday, server Rob Dalton and another employee tossed him out.

“It was a real sucker punch,” Dalton said. “Camille’s a great lady, always nice to everybody, and doesn’t deserve anything like this.”

Davis was spotted wearing sunglasses yesterday to conceal the black eye. Reached at her Columbia office, she declined to comment on the alleged attack.

McIntyre was released without bail at his arraignment last night.

“It was a very unfortunate event,” he said afterwards. “I didn’t mean for it to explode the way it did.”

Additional reporting by Sarah Makuta

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/prof_busted_in_columbia_gal_punch_JmsXQ3NzaAt8uG6uUySGTN#ixzz0WfqIdJrz

Explanation of how “Derivative Markets” destroyed the World Economy

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit . She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit .

By providing her customers’ freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases massively. A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral…. Read More

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then bundled and traded on international security markets. Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so informs Heidi. 

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since, Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and the eleven employees lose their jobs. 

Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the various BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers. 

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from their cronies in Government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Heidi’s bar.

Now, do you understand?

Bill Owens was quickly sworn into office to quickly

Democrat Bill Owens delivers his victory speech at his headquarters in Plattsburgh last week. Owens declared victory after Conservative nominee Doug Hoffman conceded the 23rd Congressional District race election night. Now recanvassing shows the special election has narrowed to a 3,000-vote difference, and will be decided by a count of absentee ballots.

» Updated county-by-county NY-23 vote totals (PDF)Washington — Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded the race in the 23rd Congressional District last week after receiving two pieces of grim news for his campaign: He was down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night, and he had barely won his stronghold in Oswego County.

As it turns out, neither was true.

But Hoffman’s concession — based on snafus in Oswego County and elsewhere that left his vote undercounted — set off a chain of events that echoed all the way to Washington, D.C., and helped secure passage of a historic health care reform bill.

Democratic Rep. Bill Owens was quickly sworn into office on Friday, a day before the rare weekend vote in the House of Representatives. His support sealed his party’s narrow victory on the health care legislation.

Now a recanvassing in the 11-county district shows that Owens’ lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.

In Oswego County, where Hoffman was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes — 12,748 to 11,000.

The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which about 10,200 were distributed, said John Conklin, communications director for the state Board of Elections.

Under a new law in New York that extended deadlines, military and overseas ballots received by this coming Monday (and postmarked by Nov. 2) will be counted. Standard absentee ballots had to be returned this past Monday.

Conklin said the state sent a letter to the House Clerk last week explaining that no winner had been determined in the 23rd District, and therefore the state had not certified the election. But the letter noted that Owens still led by about 3,000 votes, and that the special election was not contested — two factors that legally allowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to swear in Owens on Friday.

“We sent a letter to the clerk laying out the totals,” Conklin said. “The key is that Hoffman conceded, which means the race is not contested. However, all ballots will be counted, and if the result changes, Owens will have to be removed.”

Before Owens was sworn in Friday, Rep. John Garamendi, a Democrat who won a special election in California, was sworn in Thursday. The two gave Pelosi the votes she needed to reach a majority of 218 and pass the historic health care reform legislation in the House.

The bill passed 220-215 late Saturday with the support of only one Republican. The Republican, Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana, said he voted for the legislation only after seeing that Democrats had the 218 votes needed for passage.

Now Hoffman, who campaigned against the health care reform bill, is carefully watching as the 23rd District race tightens and he is left to wonder if he conceded too soon.

“I don’t know if we would have conceded on election night,” Rob Ryan, Hoffman’s campaign spokesman, said Wednesday while discussing the latest results of the recanvassing. “I’m someone who doesn’t like to look back. But would we have taken longer to make a decision on election night? Probably, if we knew it was only 3,000 votes making the difference.”

Ryan, while acknowledging that Hoffman’s chances of pulling off a come-from-behind victory are still remote, said the campaign is looking at its legal options.

“We’re basically watching and waiting,” Ryan said. “We’ve been looking very closely at the recanvass. We’re going to see how this week shapes up, and then we’re going to determine what to do.”

Ryan said an important factor in the decision to concede was the unexpected — and erroneous — close vote in Oswego County, where polls had Hoffman with a double digit percentage point lead heading into Election Day.

“That’s the thing that threw us off,” Ryan said.

Oswego County elections officials blame the mistakes on “chaos” in their call-in center that included a phone system foul-up and inspectors who read numbers incorrectly when phoning in results. Of 245 races in the county — not including the congressional and court races — 84 had incorrect totals reported election night.

In the congressional race, more votes were cast in Oswego County than any other in the 11-county district.

The district’s second biggest voter turnout was in Jefferson County, where Hoffman also has benefited from a turnaround since election night, gaining about 700 votes. Owens led Hoffman by 300 votes on the final election night tally. But after recanvassing, Hoffman now leads by 424 votes, 10,884 to 10,460.

Jerry Eaton, the Republican elections commissioner for Jefferson County, said inspectors found a problem in four districts where Hoffman’s vote total was mistakenly entered as zero.

“Hoffman definitely gained votes where he didn’t have them,” Eaton said.

Jefferson County, home of Fort Drum and the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, distributed 2,299 absentee ballots for the special election. As of this week, 1,303 had been returned but not counted, Eaton said. He said the county will begin counting the absentee ballots earyl next week.

Conklin, of the state Board of Elections, said officials did not have updated absentee ballot totals from the other counties.

When asked about the tightening race, Owens spokesman Jon Boughtin released a statement without directly addressing the election. “Since being elected, Congressman Owens has remained focused on the issues at hand: working with local leaders to address the Champlain Bridge closure, meeting with commanders at Fort Drum and continuing the work to strengthen Upstate New York,” the statement said.

Ryan said the absentee ballots are likely to favor Hoffman because most were likely mailed before Republican Dede Scozzafava suspended her campaign three days before the election.

“For Doug to win, we needed a three-way race,” Ryan said, adding that the campaign’s internal polls showed Hoffman would win with all three candidates.

“Given the majority of these ballots are from a three-way race, we think the ballots are going to break Doug’s way,” Ryan said.

Ryan declined to say what percentage of the absentee vote the campaign believes Hoffman would need to win the race. Nevertheless, Hoffman’s campaign is optimistic.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/its_not_over_recanvassing_shows_ny23_race.html

“When people look back at this race, it was a remote possibility that Doug Hoffman would be a contender,” Ryan said. “But miracles do happen.

Lou Dobbs says he is leaving CNN

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer David Bauder, Ap Television Writer – 1 hr 6 mins ago

NEW YORK – CNN’s Lou Dobbs, a lightning rod for criticism following his transition from a business journalist to an opinionated anchor on such issues as illegal immigration, told viewers on Wednesday that he was quitting his nightly show to pursue new opportunities.

“This will be my last broadcast,” Dobbs said after giving the day’s headlines. Dobbs, who hosts a daily radio show unrelated to CNN, said the network had allowed him to be released early from his contract.

Dobbs was a CNN original, signing on when the cable network started in 1980. For much of that time, he hosted a nightly business broadcast that became one of the most influential shows in the corporate world, and CNN’s most profitable show for advertising revenue.

But Dobbs said his world view changed after the 2001 terrorist attacks and corporate corruption scandals, and he began to more freely express his opinions. He was particularly persistent in bringing the immigration issue to the fore, winning him both higher ratings and enemies. Latino groups had an active petition drive seeking his removal.

His presence became awkward for CNN, particularly as it began emphasizing reporting and non-opinion shows. He angered management this summer by pressing questions about President Barack Obama’s birth site after CNN reporters determined there was no issue.

Dobbs said the decision came after months of discussion with CNN U.S. President Jon Klein. Dobbs said he wanted to concentrate on his role as a commentator and on advocacy journalism.

Klein hailed Dobbs’ “appetite for big ideas, the megawatt smile and larger-than-life presence he brought to our newsroom.”

“With characteristic forthrightness, Lou has now decided to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere,” Klein said. “We respect his decision.”

Dobbs said he was proud of his role in helping to build the first cable news network. He said some leaders in media, politics and business “have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving.”

Seated at an anchor desk in front of a screen with a fluttering American flag, Dobbs mentioned his interest in issues such as health care, jobs, immigration, climate change and the wars.

“Unfortunately, these issues are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than rigorous empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion,” he said. “I will be working diligently to change that as best I can.”

His resignation was hailed by activists who were seeking his ouster.

“Our contention all along was that Lou Dobbs — who has a long history of spreading lies and conspiracy theories about immigrants and Latinos — does not belong on the most trusted name in news,” said Roberto Lovato, co-founder of Presente.org. “We are thrilled that Dobbs no longer has the legitimate platform from which to incite fear and hate.”

Tom Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the leading Latino legal organization, said, “The Latino community can and should celebrate that Lou Dobbs is no longer on CNN.”

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat from Dobbs’ home state of New Jersey and the Senate’s only Hispanic member, called it “addition by subtraction” for CNN.

Dobbs did not immediately return telephone and e-mail messages to talk about his critics.

Although he joined CNN in 1980, Dobbs left the network for two years in 1999, after angrily complaining on the air about a decision by then-CNN President Rick Kaplan to switch away from his show to a live news event. An Internet venture failed and when Kaplan left CNN, Dobbs returned.

Dobbs’ ratings had cooled from the height of the immigration discussion. But his 879,000 viewers on Tuesday still eclipsed MSNBC’s Chris Matthews (Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith had more than double the audience) and even beat Campbell Brown’s CNN show, which followed Dobbs at 8 p.m. ET in prime-time, according to the Nielsen Co.

A decision on who will replace Dobbs is expected to be announced Thursday

The GOP’s Toxic Tea Party

When Newt Gingrich warned Republicans that they were making a grave “mistake” by driving out moderates and enforcing the angry orthodoxy of the far right, the sober tone of his remarks was stunning.

This is a politician who is no stranger himself to the wilder shores of extremism, a populist and a purist who rose to great power against the GOP establishment, and a demagogue whose lexicon lacerated the “Democrat Party” as decadent, elitist, unpatriotic and immoral.

In his day, Gingrich channeled the same phobias and fury as the Tea Party activists whose growing influence in Republican ranks seems to have shaken him so badly. Why is Newt scared now?

Despite his habitual ranting against the Eastern elites, the former House speaker is a professional historian and an intellectual with wide-ranging interests — making him a figure of potential suspicion to radio talkers without much formal education and the raving mobs that follow them.

Much as he exploited the prejudices of the religious right and fantasies of the conspiracy crowd, Gingrich has always affected a more sophisticated and urbane attitude. He may be troubled to realize that he suddenly ranks far lower than Sarah Palin, who can barely muster a coherent political thought, or Glenn Beck, who enthralls his audience with weird, weepy rants.

Leaving aside any lingering presidential ambitions, Gingrich understandably feels that brand of leadership will have a very limited appeal for most Americans — and that the more voters see of it, the less they will like it.

Is it fair to stigmatize the tea-baggers and their leaders as a movement of the fringe? In New York’s 23rd congressional district, Douglas Hoffman, the right-wing carpetbagger who drove out moderate local Republican Dede Scozzafava, apprenticed himself to Beck, obsequiously flattering the Fox News host as his “mentor.”

Hoffman signed a pledge to uphold the “912 principles and values” endorsed by Beck — a juvenile tract that demands honesty, thrift, humility and charity even as it complains that government forces citizens to “share” when they don’t want to.

(As far as Beck is concerned, all Democrats are “Marxist” and almost all Republicans are “Marxist lite.”)

No doubt Hoffman is eagerly studying the collected writings of the late Cleon Skousen, the Beck-endorsed prophet whose speeches used to stir up meetings of the John Birch Society, mostly against Republicans of the Rockefeller and Kissinger variety. He has plenty of time for reading now, after losing the special election to Democrat Bill Owens.

If the revival of Birchite mania troubles Gingrich, then the Palin phenomenon, now breaking loose with the publication of her memoir, must be equally disturbing. The former Alaska governor has a long, Beck-like history of affiliation with bizarre causes and characters, including an Alaskan secessionist party and a Kenyan witch-hunting evangelist who conducted an exorcism rite in her Wasilla church. She will ignore or minimize those episodes in “Going Rogue,” but putting extra lipstick on this pit bull may not help.

Most Americans don’t know much yet about the idiosyncratic ideology of the Tea Party crowd, beyond their conviction that President Obama was born in Kenya (and that his birth announcement in the Hawaii newspapers is therefore part of a plot that dates back to the Kennedy era). But what they have seen so far, they don’t seem to like: The more that Beck, Palin and kindred spirits appear to represent the Republican brand, the less appeal that brand possesses.

From the perspective of Gingrich and other veteran Republicans, there is deep irony in these untoward developments. Many of the Tea Party types actually hate Republican politicians, unless, like Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater, they are already dead. They hate Democrats, too, of course — and lots of other people — but their invective against Republicans is suffused with special outrage.

If they have their way, every Republican who doesn’t adhere to the Beck canon will be driven out at the end of a pitchfork, just like poor Dede Scozzafava.

Fifteen years ago, when Newt rode to power on the resentments of the religious right, the gun lobby and the economic royalists, he celebrated their extremism as the political style of “normal Americans.” Today when he hears the violent rhetoric, the hateful threats and the fanatical intolerance, he knows they are talking about him, too.

Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer (www.observer.com). To find out more about Joe Conason, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Who Has the Tea Bag?

 

President Clinton weighed in on the tea party protests calling patriots tea-baggers:

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Clinton described the ongoing tea party protests against the Democratic agenda as a sign his party was making progress.

Whitehouse quoted Clinton arguing: “The reason the tea-baggers are so inflamed is because we are winning.”

Someone needs to inform the ex-President that there is a difference between patriots and conservatives. A patriot is able and willing to take a stand to actively defend this country against the usurpation of our Constitution. You may want to get an accurate accounting of these patriots in Washington on 9-12 and 11-5.

Speaking of usurpers, I hope you have not forgotten this inspiring speech:

 

 

Our current president also refers to patriots as teabag, anti-government people below:

Mr. Obama, during his private pep talk to Democrats, recognized Mr. Owens election and then posed a question to the other lawmakers. According to Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who supports the health care bill, the president asked, “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”

You may want to read this article because the quote is from a secondhand source.

I have heard the phrase: respect the office of the President.  Really?

These are the times that try men’s souls when the people fighting for our children’s future are ridiculed as sexual perverts by two Presidents. At some point, Americans will realize that our country is fiscally bankrupt, our leaders are morally bankrupt and that Thomas Jefferson was prescient in the following quote:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Is it time for Americans to relinquish control of our republic and surrender it to ruin? Or is now the time foretold by Samuel Adams?

“If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.”

 

Will December 16^th, 2009 be the tipping point for the restoration of the Constitution and principles that people still sacrifice their lives to give us liberty that we so lightly cherish?

David DeGerolamo

 

Our Next Step for Health Care

by NC Freeom

http://ncfreedom.us/2009/11/10/our-next-step-for-health-care/

The House of Representatives passed HR 3962 late on a Saturday night. The Senate will pass a version by the end of this year and this legislation will become law even though it is unconstitutional.

What can we do since the voice of the people is no longer relevant in Washington, DC? Let’s look at our North Carolina state Constitution for a solution:

Article 1

Sec. 12.  Right of assembly and petition.

The people have a right to assemble together to consult for their common good, to instruct their representatives, and to apply to the General Assembly for redress of grievances; but secret political societies are dangerous to the liberties of a free people and shall not be tolerated.

It is past time to instruct our state representatives. A special session of the North Carolina General Assembly may be convened as outlined in Article 2, Section 11(2) below:

Article 2

Sec. 11.  Sessions.

(1)        Regular Sessions.  The General Assembly shall meet in regular session in 1973 and every two years thereafter on the day prescribed by law.  Neither house shall proceed upon public business unless a majority of all of its members are actually present.

(2)        Extra sessions on legislative call.  The President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall convene the General Assembly in extra session by their joint proclamation upon receipt by the President of the Senate of written requests therefore signed by three-fifths of all the members of the Senate and upon receipt by the Speaker of the House of Representatives of written requests therefore signed by three-fifths of all the members of the House of Representatives.

If the federal government will not listen to the people, let’s take the fight to the federal government by protesting at our state legislator’s offices until they convene an extra session of the General Assembly to pass legislation that will allow North Carolina to “opt-out” of federal health care. Since the legislation has no legal basis under the Constitution, we have no reason to follow its mandate. The states of Texas and Florida are preparing their legislation to ignore federal health care. Let’s show the country that North Carolina understands the 10^th amendment as well as any other state since our own governor Thomas Burke was the one man responsible for its inclusion in the Bill of Rights.

Under Article 2, Section 12 of our state constitution, each member of the General Assembly takes an oath or affirmation (see James 5:12) to support the Constitution of the United States. I say it is past time to stand up and assert our state’s rights and the Constitution.

Sec. 12.  Oath of members.

Each member of the General Assembly, before taking his seat, shall take an oath or affirmation that he will support the Constitution and laws of the United States and the Constitution of the State of North Carolina, and will faithfully discharge his duty as a member of the Senate or House of Representatives.

Pass this information along to as many patriotic groups in the state and NCFreedom.us will coordinate the protests across North Carolina.

David DeGerolamo

Congressman Heath Shuler: Red Tie-Republican Spotter

by NC Freedom

http://western.ncfreedom.us/2009/11/11/congressman-heath-shuler-red-tie-republican-spotter/

Toward the end of our time together Shuler said something, that made everything else he had done and said make sense. We were sitting around the coffee table and he leaned forward and said, “You’re a registered Republican aren’t you?” I responded, ” Yes.” ( I wish I had responded, “Does it matter?”) After my response he said, “I knew that, the red tie you are wearing gave you away.” I was honestly unaware, that apparently in Washington and some other places, a red tie is a flag for a Republican. I had worn a suit out of respect for his office, a blue one, and red seemed logical. Who knew?

I was in shock. I am a tax payer. I had driven over 400 miles to be there. My intent in being there was to express my concern over the size, scope, and direction of the federal government. And to him, a man living off the backs of tax payers, I was nothing more than a red tie. But then it all made sense. He had labeled me less than one second after seeing me. That helped explain why my first “was that an insult?” occurred within 60 seconds.

At one point during the conversation I told him he had done nothing but label me since I had gotten there. He paused, looked down, said he was sorry, and then continued!

At another point I asked him how many people in his district did he think had inadequate health care. He responded 25%. I asked “So 25% of the population is going to dictate to 75% of the population?” He responded with a smile of his face, “That’s America.” He had no response when I said, “That ain’t right.” That, by the way, is NOT America. That IS Washington. By that same math, I should have been talking to Carl Mumpower in that Congressional office, Shuler’s challenger in the last election. Again, something else I wish I had said.

I came away convinced he views the federal government as the big charity in the sky. He said many times, “we have to help those people”. I never was quite sure who “those” people are. Apparently a $1.4 trillion deficit in the most recent fiscal year is just a bother. He had no response when I asked who helped “those” people before the federal government got so big.

The meeting was bizarre in part because I was never offered the most basic of hospitalities. There was never a “welcome to Washington,” nor was there an offer of a glass of water. It was informative because I now recognize Shuler as a perfect Washington Democrat–a candidate hand picked for his celebrity rather than intellect or knowledge of government, with a basic disdain of the Constitution, with a bent to satisfy his charitable desires with someone else’s money. It was disappointing because I left the meeting with less respect for the Congressman from my district than I had when I arrived.

As a post script, I had a chance, fortuitous phone conversation on the way home, which made me feel better about about the meeting. The conversation was with a self described liberal Democrat from Asheville. I told him of my experience. He laughed and said he had had the same type experience with Shuler and his staff. I was shocked. He’s on their side, actively involved. He said because he is young and from Asheville, Shuler and his staff have labeled him as a flaming Progressive, and distance themselves from him. He too used the word label, to describe how they have interacted with him.

These are not the words or actions of a man who voted against socialized medicine on principle. By standing for nothing, Rep. Shuler has put himself in an untenable position. He cannot be counted on, his voting record is completely inconsistent, and the only interest he faithfully represents is the Congressional Democratic Caucus.

Rep. Shuler did vote “nay” on Pelosi’s Health Care Bill, but do not make the mistake of believing he represented us. If you weren’t certain, the above encounter should put to rest any doubts you have about what Rep. Shuler thinks about health care and about you.

The truth is, he might just as well have voted “yea.” At least, that would have been the honest thing to do.

Opinion articles from NC Freedom members. The views expressed in Editorial articles published on NC Freedom are those of the authors alone. They may or may not represent the views or opinions of NC Freedom or those who volunteer to maintain the site. 

Toward the end of our time together Shuler said something, that made everything else he had done and said make sense. We were sitting around the coffee table and he leaned forward and said, “You’re a registered Republican aren’t you?” I responded, ” Yes.” ( I wish I had responded, “Does it matter?”) After my response he said, “I knew that, the red tie you are wearing gave you away.” I was honestly unaware, that apparently in Washington and some other places, a red tie is a flag for a Republican. I had worn a suit out of respect for his office, a blue one, and red seemed logical. Who knew?

I was in shock. I am a tax payer. I had driven over 400 miles to be there. My intent in being there was to express my concern over the size, scope, and direction of the federal government. And to him, a man living off the backs of tax payers, I was nothing more than a red tie. But then it all made sense. He had labeled me less than one second after seeing me. That helped explain why my first “was that an insult?” occurred within 60 seconds.

At one point during the conversation I told him he had done nothing but label me since I had gotten there. He paused, looked down, said he was sorry, and then continued!

At another point I asked him how many people in his district did he think had inadequate health care. He responded 25%. I asked “So 25% of the population is going to dictate to 75% of the population?” He responded with a smile of his face, “That’s America.” He had no response when I said, “That ain’t right.” That, by the way, is NOT America. That IS Washington. By that same math, I should have been talking to Carl Mumpower in that Congressional office, Shuler’s challenger in the last election. Again, something else I wish I had said.

I came away convinced he views the federal government as the big charity in the sky. He said many times, “we have to help those people”. I never was quite sure who “those” people are. Apparently a $1.4 trillion deficit in the most recent fiscal year is just a bother. He had no response when I asked who helped “those” people before the federal government got so big.

The meeting was bizarre in part because I was never offered the most basic of hospitalities. There was never a “welcome to Washington,” nor was there an offer of a glass of water. It was informative because I now recognize Shuler as a perfect Washington Democrat–a candidate hand picked for his celebrity rather than intellect or knowledge of government, with a basic disdain of the Constitution, with a bent to satisfy his charitable desires with someone else’s money. It was disappointing because I left the meeting with less respect for the Congressman from my district than I had when I arrived.

As a post script, I had a chance, fortuitous phone conversation on the way home, which made me feel better about about the meeting. The conversation was with a self described liberal Democrat from Asheville. I told him of my experience. He laughed and said he had had the same type experience with Shuler and his staff. I was shocked. He’s on their side, actively involved. He said because he is young and from Asheville, Shuler and his staff have labeled him as a flaming Progressive, and distance themselves from him. He too used the word label, to describe how they have interacted with him.

These are not the words or actions of a man who voted against socialized medicine on principle. By standing for nothing, Rep. Shuler has put himself in an untenable position. He cannot be counted on, his voting record is completely inconsistent, and the only interest he faithfully represents is the Congressional Democratic Caucus.

Rep. Shuler did vote “nay” on Pelosi’s Health Care Bill, but do not make the mistake of believing he represented us. If you weren’t certain, the above encounter should put to rest any doubts you have about what Rep. Shuler thinks about health care and about you.

The truth is, he might just as well have voted “yea.” At least, that would have been the honest thing to do.

Opinion articles from NC Freedom members. The views expressed in Editorial articles published on NC Freedom are those of the authors alone. They may or may not represent the views or opinions of NC Freedom or those who volunteer to maintain the site.

 

Some interesting new information about our Washington trip and the one of us who did get in to see Heath Shuler:

Fifteen Minutes with Heath

This past Thursday I joined 25,000 or so of my fellow liberty loving citizens in Washington DC, at a rally to urge Congress to oppose the effort by some in the US government to destroy the greatest health care system in the world. It was a whirlwind –31 hours round trip, over 900 miles and 14 hours in the car.

The trip included some scheduled time to meet with elected officials from North Carolina, and/or their representatives. The meetings were intended for the entire Asheville group, but because the schedule for the day was so fluid, none of us knew whether the meetings would actually occur as planned.

The meeting with Heath Shuler was scheduled for 1 PM, which was during the middle of the rally. I hated to leave the rally in progress. But I was carrying a letter I had written to Mr. Shuler two weeks ago, for which I had received no response. The lack of response was not unexpected, all things considered. The letter outlined why I believe he and others should vote against the current health care legislation.

At 10 minutes to one I pulled away from the rally. A police officer pointed me toward the Cannon Building, where Shuler’s office is located. I walked up the hill, went through the metal detectors, walked up to the 4th floor, found office # 422, and bam, I was in the Congressman’s office. Pretty cool I thought.

There was a lot of activity in the office. His staff was friendly and engaging. It was almost 1:15, and at first I was told Shuler was not there. I handed one of the staffers the letter. Then another staffer who appeared to have some seniority told me he was there, but had a meeting at 1:30 he could not break. Because the rest of the Asheville group was stationed almost at the very front of the stage at the rally, I doubted they would be able to get there by 1:30. She asked if I wanted to go ahead and see him by myself, and I said sure. What happened next was both bizarre, informative, and very disappointing.

Have you ever been in a conversation in which you thought you had been insulted, but you weren’t sure, because the person had no reason to insult you? Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a person who was constantly being defensive, so much so the person ends up coming across as immature? Have you ever had someone attempt to beat you with a morality stick, without a reason or the credentials to do so? Those three questions characterize my 15 minutes with Heath Shuler.