Friends,

Freedom isn’t Free!!!!

It is becoming more apparent every day that vigilance is paramount to protecting the freedoms and liberty’s established by our Founding Fathers from an over reaching and burdensome and tyrannical government. Educating our selves in the activities of Federal Government is our personal responsibility. It is also our personal responsibility to inform others of activities that Federal government is involved in that are not enumerated in the Constitution, and activities that violate the constitution, and the authority and sovereignty of the States.

It is because of this responsibility that I share with you a video I just recently viewed. It is a 7 min video by Judge Napolitano that is very disturbing and I am asking you to view this video and share it

with everyone you know.

Cities, counties and states that haven’t been very kind to illegal immigrants over the years are suddenly dusting off their welcome mats. With the 2010 census about to get under way, those undocumented residents will be worth a lot of money for the next few weeks.

Jurisdictions across the country are reaching out to illegal immigrant communities, some of which are reluctant to participate, in an effort to convince them that filling out the census form is safe and that the information they provide won’t be used against them. Counting every last resident is vital for these districts, because the census numbers will be used to determine funding as well as legislative districts. The more people an area has, the more money it is eligible for, and the more representation it can get in Congress — which usually means even more money.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear McDonald v. Chicago, in which the Court will decide whether the City of Chicago can disarm it citizens by forbidding them from owning handguns, or whether gun ownership is a “privilege” of citizenship protected by the U.S. Constitution. In doing so, it will reconsider whether courts should play a more robust role in the protection of the basic liberties of the people.

Such a statement may seem counterintuitive. Of course courts protect rights; it’s their job to interpret the Constitution to do just that.

Read the rest.

Reporting from Washington – First there was the “tea party” protester. Now, meet the Tea-publican.

Conservative activists who once protested the political establishment are now flooding the lowest level of the Republican Party apparatus hoping to take over the party they once scorned — one precinct at a time.

Across the country, tea party groups that had focused on planning rallies are now educating members on how to run for local GOP precinct representative positions. The representatives help elect county party leaders, who write the platform and, in some places, determine endorsements.

“That’s where it all starts. That’s where the process of picking candidates begins. It’s not from [GOP leader] Michael Steele’s office down. It’s from the ground up,” said Philip Glass, whose National Precinct Alliance is among the groups advocating the strategy. “The party is over for the old guard.”

In Arizona and Ohio, Republican Party officials report an increase in candidates running for precinct positions, which often sit open due to lack of interest. In South Carolina, a coalition of tea party groups has made a formal agreement with the state GOP to urge its members to get engaged at the precinct level. In Nevada, a group of “constitutional conservatives” working under the tea party banner has already taken control of the Republican Party in the Las Vegas area, gaining enough strength to elect six of the seven members of the county executive committee.

Read the rest.

by William Watkins, Jr., The Independent Institute

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Byron Schlomach

I recently attended a meeting with Maurice McTigue, director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a former member of the New Zealand Parliament, and a man with wide experience in government reform. Attendance at the meeting, arranged by State Senator Sylvia Allen, should have been required for everyone in our state government.

Prior to comprehensive reforms 20 years ago, New Zealand was an economic mess, suffering from debt, continual deficits, and a stagnating economy. Out of desperation, New Zealand’s political leaders reduced government spending and enacted fundamental, wide-ranging reform. Since then, New Zealand’s national government has seen a single deficit; it was this year and due to the worldwide recession.

One instructive example given by Mr. McTigue concerned agriculture subsidies, which, among other things, were artificially inflating land prices. Everybody knew land prices would collapse when those subsidies ended. Some estimated 31 percent of farmers and at least seven major banks would go bankrupt. Yet, with no bailout or any other government involvement, only one-half of 1 percent of farmers went bankrupt. And not a single bank went under.

An outbreak of “spontaneous economic order,” as Mr. McTigue described it, resulted. Banks re-valued loans to avoid defaults. Farmers renegotiated payment schedules. People figured out how to navigate the changing economy without government intervention.

This example may seem most applicable to federal financial policies in response to the U.S. real estate meltdown; but, the lesson is broader. We commonly hear stories that if Arizona cuts spending on parks or education or health care, our economy will collapse. Yet New Zealand’s experience illustrates that fundamental reform, rethinking, and shrinking of government should be welcomed, not feared.

Byron Schlomach, Ph.D., is the director of the Goldwater Institute’s Center for Economic Prosperity.

Learn More:

New Zealand Herald: Survey ranks NZ in top six for economic freedom

New Zealand Herald: Unemployment at record low as job growth surges

Doing Business: Economy Rankings

President Obama issued Executive Order 13528 on January 11, 2010 establishing a Council of Governors ostensibly “to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State governments to protect our Nation and its people and property.”

If history has taught us anything, it is to beware of “cooperative partnerships” between the federal government and states. They invariably result in an expansion of federal authority and reach at the expense of the states and a diminution of individual rights and freedoms in the name of the general welfare and national security. So-called “cooperative federalism” is a snare and a delusion. Read more here

One direct result of the new Council of Governors will be to provide the federal government more control of state National Guards, allowing the president to synchronize and integrate federal military operations within the United States. The total disregard for the Posse Comitatus Act within this order is one more erosion of restrictions against the use of the military for law enforcement.

More generally, the new Council of Governors establishes a bureaucratic transmission belt for the president to conscript state governors to act as agents of the federal government. Indeed, by establishing this council, appointed by the president and presided over by the Secretary of Defense, President Obama is asking governors to engage in the ultimate act of sovereign suicide in the name of “intergovernmental cooperation and coordination.” This council represents the ultimate in “intergovernmentalism,” a perversion of true federalism.

Read the rest.

The President of the United States tomorrow will inform the Congress on the State of our Union, as he is constitutionally mandated to do. The past 12 months have seen our country head down a dangerous course, and The Heritage Foundation can only hope that the President will use this time of reflection, coming on the heels of a stunning electoral loss, to change direction.

Read the rest.