MARICOPA COUNTY
REPUBLICAN BRIEFS
RepComm@cox.net
July 8, 2010
GOP Blood Drive. 10 am to 2 pm, July 21 a GOP Headquarters, 3501 N. 24th St., RSVP to : Carolyn Leff at 602-957-7770 or cleff@azgop.org to RSVP
Grijalva clashes with Goddard, Arpaio over AZ. Boycott http://www.azcentral.com/news/Blog/azdc/88515
Pinal County Sheriff Gets Threats
http://www.kpho.com/video/24152005/index.html
Reports from the Empire State indicate that the National Guard is assisting local law enforcement in Albany, that state’s capital city, to search and seize weapons from citizens — an apparent violation of the Fourth Amendment and the Posse Comitatus Act.
The unique charter of the National Guard creates a force that is a “joint reserve component of the United States Army” and therefore it is proscribed from exercising police power (the exclusive province of the state and the municipalities thereof) except under the very limited circumstances set forth in the Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act.
As with any act of Congress, the Posse Comitatus Act may be repealed by subsequent act of Congress. In the case of the Posse Comitatus Act, the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act of 2007, signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006, amended the law by adding the following language: “The President may employ the armed forces to restore public order in any State of the United States the President determines hinders the execution of laws or deprives the people of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.”
Fortunately for our Republic and the rule of law that has kept us free, the sweeping changes made by the Warner Act were completely repealed by passage of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. Accordingly, the present state of the applicable law governing the use of federal troops in matters of domestic law enforcement is the Insurrection Act of 1807.
Read the rest.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat running for governor, is calling on U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., to back off his high-profile support for an economic boycott of Arizona in protest of its controversial immigration law.
Goddard, who has seen Republican Gov. Jan Brewer‘s popularity surge since she signed Senate Bill 1070 in April, wrote to Grijalva in a letter dated Wednesday:
Federal Government Overpaid $47 Billion a Year Today, the White House is launching its second annual SAVE Award, which encourages federal employees to submit ideas on how to save taxpayer dollars. Federal employees will be able to rank the submissions submitted by colleagues, and then the general public will be able to vote on the top submissions later this year. Last year’s contest generated more than 38,000 submissions from government employees and more than 84,000 votes. Last year’s winner? A Department of Veterans Affairs employee from Colorado who suggested that VA medical centers should permit patients to take home extra bandages and medication when they are discharged. Estimated savings: $14.5 million by 2014. Not bad. But we have a better idea. How about paying federal employees what they would be worth in the private sector? Potential savings: $47 billion a year.
The Obama administration lost its court bid to maintain a six-month moratorium on offshore deepwater drilling which a federal judge ordered lifted last month.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the government’s emergency request to stay that judge’s order pending appeal.
The motion was denied because the government failed to show “a likelihood of irreparable injury if the stay is not granted,” the appeals panel judges wrote in a 2-1 ruling.
The government also “made no showing that there is any likelihood that drilling activities will be resumed pending appeal.”
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said he will soon issue a new order to block deepwater drilling regardless of how the court ruled and oil companies have not resumed drilling due to the legal uncertainties.
It is no secret that Illinois is going broke with over $6 BILLION in unpaid bills to social service providers, Medicaid doctors, mental health providers and schools. It is also no secret that the state has a $13 BILLION budget deficit that the Chicago Democrats who control the entire state failed to address. Next year’s budget deficit will be around $15 – $16 BILLION assuming the economy doesn’t do a double dip recession.
Just last week, Illinois overtook California as the riskiest state to insure against default on bond obligations. You would think cause a sense of urgency among the elected Democrats who control the state. You would be wrong.
Yesterday, we learned from the Associated Press that the Governor was busy doling out 20% raises to his top staff. While the rest of us worry about having jobs, see our hours cut and our pay stagnates, political cronies in the Quinn administration get fat raises.
Where is James Madison when you need him? Yesterday, the announcement came that the attorney general of the United States, at the direction of the president of the United States, is filing suit against the state of Arizona because . . . because why? The real reason is because they do not want Arizona to enforce the law with respect to illegal immigrants. The stated reason is that they do not want a state to be seen to usurp federal authority.
First, what about that law? Have you read it? It’s not long. Unlike the legislation coming out of Washington, it doesn’t bludgeon citizens with thousands — yes, thousands — of pages of gobbledygook. It’s an 18-page document whose main burden is to say that the federal immigration law already in place should be enforced. You wouldn’t know that from the liberal hysteria that the bill has sparked. But that is the case: you can find the text of Senate Bill 1070 here: read it and see. As Byron York noted in the Washington Examiner,
Contrary to the talk, it is a reasonable, limited, carefully-crafted measure designed to help law enforcement deal with a serious problem in Arizona. Its authors anticipated criticism and went to great lengths to make sure it is constitutional and will hold up in court. It is the criticism of the law that is over the top, not the law itself.
