Lincoln (NE) Journal Star: “The scheme concocted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her ‘deem’ team should never be used on such a major and controversial piece of legislation. Doing so violates the principles of accountability and responsible government.” (3/17/10)

It is critical that the 22 Democratic Congressmen who are undecided on the health

care vote hear from you today!

Your call could change the fate of health care.

John Adler (NJ-3)

DC Phone: (202) 225-4765

District Phone: (732) 608-7235

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Jason Altmire (PA-4)

DC Phone: (202) 225-2565

District Phone: (724) 378-0928

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Brian Baird (WA-3)

DC Phone: (202) 225-3536

District Phone: (360) 695-6292

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John Boccieri (OH-16)

DC Phone: (202) 225-3876

District Phone: (330) 489-4414

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Rick Boucher (VA-9)

DC Phone: (202) 225-3861

District Phone: (276) 628-1145

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Allen Boyd (FL-2)

DC Phone: (202) 225-5235

District Phone: (850) 561-3979

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Christopher Carney (PA-10)

DC Phone: (202) 225-3731

District Phone: (570) 644-1682

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Gerry Connolly (VA-11)

DC Phone: (202) 225-1492

District Phone: (703) 256-3071

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Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-3)

DC Phone: (202) 225-5406

District Phone: (814) 456-2038

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Joe Donnelly (IN-2)

DC Phone: (202) 225-3915

District Phone: (574) 288-2780

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Brad Ellsworth (IN-9)

DC Phone: (202) 225-4636

District Phone: (812) 465-6484

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Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD-AL)

DC Phone: (202) 225-2801

District Phone: (605) 367-8371

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Tim Holden (PA-17)

DC Phone: (202) 225-5546

District Phone: (610) 921-3502

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Frank Kratovil (MD-1)

DC Phone: (202) 225-5311

District Phone: (443) 262-9136

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Betsy Markey (CO-4)

DC Phone: (202) 225-4676

District Phone: (970) 221-7110

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Harry Mitchell (AZ-5)

DC Phone: (202) 225-2190

District Phone: (480) 946-2411

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Glenn Nye (VA-2)

DC Phone: (202) 225-4215

District Phone: (757) 326-6201

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Tom Perriello (VA-5)

DC Phone: (202) 225-4711

District Phone: (276) 656-2291

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Earl Pomeroy (ND-AL)

DC Phone: (202) 225-2611

District Phone: (701) 224-0355

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Mike Ross (AR-4)

DC Phone: (202) 225-3772

District Phone: (870) 881-0681

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Ike Skelton (MO-4)

DC Phone: (202) 225-2876

District Phone: (816) 228-4242

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John Tanner (TN-8)

DC Phone: (202) 225-4714

District Phone: (731) 885-7070

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Our thanks to the National Federation of Republican Women for making this

information available.

by Phil King –

I hope you can take time to read this article by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in which he explains why the State of Texas has sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Unchallenged, the EPA’s position on man-made carbon dioxide emissions and global warming will empower President Obama, Congress and federal agencies to enact sweeping “cap and trade” regulations. Cap and tax, as it is sometimes called, will be devastating to the Texas economy and will have no significant environmental benefit. Please join me in commending General Abbott for standing up to the Feds on our behalf. Link: http://www.philking.com/abbottsuesepa

State suing for responsible scientific conclusions
By GREG ABBOTT
HOUSTON CHRONCLE
March 13, 2010, 5:17PM
Share Print Share Del.icio.usDiggTwitterYahoo! BuzzFacebookStumbleUponThe Environmental Protection Agency recently concluded that man-made greenhouse gas emissions — including carbon dioxide — are harmful pollutants and must be regulated. The lawsuit I filed challenging that finding does not address the disputed science surrounding global warming. Instead, it focuses on the indisputable fact that the EPA relied on information that has been discredited, manipulated, lost or destroyed, and sometimes evaded peer review. The lawsuit does not attempt to show that the globe is not warming. It does, however, show that the process used by the EPA in deciding to regulate greenhouse gases is riddled with errors that render its conclusion untrustworthy.

Before regulating man-made greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA was required to conduct a scientific assessment. Rather than conduct its own assessment, the EPA relied on reports by third parties. The EPA’s conclusions rest primarily on information gathered by a creation of the United Nations called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC — an organization that has become mired in scandal because the reliability, objectivity and scientific validity of its work has come under fire.

For example, the IPCC reported that glaciers in the Himalayas were rapidly melting and would disappear by 2035. However, after the EPA reached its conclusion, the IPCC had to reverse itself and acknowledge that the Himalayan glaciers claim was false. The IPCC’s chairman was informed of the problem months before the erroneous report was published, but he did nothing to correct the report. Why? Perhaps because the research institute the chairman runs was seeking millions in grant funding to study those very same not so rapidly declining Himalayan glaciers.

The IPCC also incorrectly reported the Netherlands was highly susceptible to flooding from rising seas because 55 percent of its territory was below sea level. According to the Dutch government, that figure is far off the mark. And the IPCC reported that up to 40 percent of the Amazon rain forests would disappear because of climate change. That claim, too, had to be withdrawn after the IPCC realized the source of the Amazon claim was an environmental group’s report on logging — not climate change. Additionally, the IPCC report on which the EPA relies cited a boot-cleaning manual, publications by activist groups like Greenpeace and even graduate-student theses that were not subjected to peer review — not the stuff of rigorous science.

To reach its conclusions about man-made global warming, the IPCC relied heavily on temperature data supplied by the Climate Research Unit at Britain’s East Anglia University. Like the IPCC, the CRU has been mired in scandal. Recently released e-mails from CRU reveal candid exchanges among the world’s top climatologists that betray an agenda-driven, coordinated effort to manipulate data, undermine the independent peer-review process, violate open records laws and thwart objective scientific debate.

CRU scientists frequently did not use actual temperatures recorded at weather stations around the world. Instead, they recalculated — some would say manipulated — those temperature data to support their desired conclusion that the Earth is warming.

The CRU scientists’ e-mails reveal efforts to exclude from the IPCC report research that did not support global warming. As CRU’s then-chief, professor Phil Jones, put it: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. … I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

Worse yet, it is impossible to independently test or verify CRU’s calculations because raw temperature data sets have been lost or destroyed.

Since the e-mail scandal broke, the British Information Commissioner’s Office has stated that the scientists violated the United Kingdom’s Freedom of Information Act. The British Parliament is holding hearings. The British Meteorological Office has announced a multiyear review of its temperature data. And the Dutch government is investigating how the IPCC could have been so hapless that it incorrectly doubled the country’s sub-sea level territory. Bipartisan groups of lawmakers in Washington are equally troubled and have filed legislation that would strip the EPA of its ability to regulate carbon dioxide.

Do these errors mean the globe is not warming? No, but they demonstrate that the rigorous, objective scientific process has been abandoned in favor of political science. They also mandate that the EPA conduct a scientifically valid process before making a decision that could cost Americans trillions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Because the EPA failed to do its own independent scientific review, I am asking a court to order the EPA to do it.

Abbott is the 50th attorney general of Texas.

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SBOE to Adopt New Social Studies Standards

Starting tomorrow, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) takes up the adoption of new social studies standards for public schools – guidelines that will impact students around the country from kindergarten to 12th grade for the next ten years.

The controversy over the new requirements involves the impact and role of religion in America (including Christmas), the Founding Fathers, judicial activism v. judicial restraint, the greatness of America and the exclusion or inclusion of significant persons in U.S. history including Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Daniel Boone and more.

Liberty Institute will testify at the hearings.  Tomorrow we will host a press conference from the Texas Education Agency building where we, along with parents, teachers and other concerned citizens will draw a line in the sand on how Texas should teach history.

We are also on Fox and Friends tomorrow and Thursday mornings.

STAY ON TOP OF THIS ISSUE!

We will blog from the hearings, so visit our Texas Legislative Update blog Wednesday through Friday!

See our news interviews on the Texas Textbook Debate.

March 9, 2010

All across Texas citizens are calling for a renewed commitment to the 10th amendment and a reinvigorated adherence to the principle of Federalism and the doctrine of enumerated powers.

These Texans believe they were created in the image and likeness of God and endowed by Him – not Washington, not Austin — with certain inalienable rights.  They believe that governmental power properly resides, first, with the people, who then grant or delegate their power, reserve it, or prohibit its exercise.  They believe the Constitution assigns the federal government specific, but limited powers, and that most government functions are left to the states.  They believe the doctrine of enumerated powers is the principal line of defense against an overreaching federal government and that the Bill of Rights, added two years after the Constitution was ratified, provides further protection. They believe the principal role of government is to advance the cause of individual liberty.

For them the Constitution is not just some document.  And the Tenth Amendment means something.  The strength of the words, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” cannot be overstated.  They are central to determining the legitimacy of the exercise of federal power.

At the heart of conversations around water coolers, dinner tables, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Tea Parties is this simple question – by what authority is the federal government doing what it’s doing?  What’s the basis for the out-of-control spending, the bank and auto bailouts, the proposed takeover of healthcare, the specter of new taxes, and the vast and unchecked expansion of federal power?

Some seem not to realize that federal tax dollars do not grow on trees or fall from the sky; they come from taxing the American people.  But hard-working Americans are already taxed too much, are struggling to reduce their debt and balance their budgets, and are wondering when their elected leaders will force the federal government to do the same.

Telling the people that all federally funded programs can and must eternally increase in funding and size, and that we need more of them, like nationalized healthcare, is proposing an economically unsustainable course, which is the polite expression for what it really is, which is fiscal insanity. The American people already understand this; they want politicians who understand it, too.

Casting false and malicious aspersions of racial motives on those who are decrying today’s out-of-control federal government is plainly disingenuous, and unjustifiably incendiary. Moreover, making such fallacious racial accusations—which we also hear in the attacks on the Tea Partiers—distracts from and trivializes the serious issues we need to face as a nation.

Never should we forget the sorry compromise made by the Framers that allowed slavery to exist or the invocation of “states rights” to promote its continuation and the reign of Jim Crow.  But there is nothing in current efforts to revive the Tenth Amendment and the doctrine of enumerated powers that is intended to return to such inglorious times. The promise of the Civil War Amendments to ensure equal rights to all can be best realized, not in opposition to federalism, but in harmony with it.

LIBERTY INSTITUTE Voters Guide ~

See the Candidates’ position on Abortion, Gambling, Marriage, and more!

TEXAS EAGLE FORUM Voters Guide

Republican Primary Election Candidates

Important 2010 election dates

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 6, 2010

Eric Matthews Announces his Candidacy for Weatherford City Council Place 4

I am pleased to announce my candidacy for Weatherford City Council Place 4.  I have had a proven track record of success in both my business and as a U.S. Army Captain who served in Afghanistan.  As your Councilman for Place 4, I would be committed to bringing that proven leadership to bear on the financial problems and lack of direction that are currently plaguing our city.  My focus will be on restoring fiscal responsibility, result oriented management, citizen involvement, and transparency in the way the City operates and spends your tax dollars.

The cornerstone of my character has always been selfless service.  This is more than just a value that has guided me during my time as an officer in the United States Army; it’s also been a tenet that has inspired me to contribute as much as I could to my country and my community.  That is why if given the honor of representing the citizens of Weatherford as a City Council member, I will continue to make selfless service the driving force behind my dedication to the city and will always remain vigilant when it comes to keeping your taxes low and handling your money responsibly.

My wife Linda and I have called Weatherford home for more than 7 years.  I am proud to live and own a home here in Weatherford, where Linda and I are raising our wonderful daughter Taylor, who is 14 years old.  We know how lucky we are to have the opportunity to raise Taylor in a City like Weatherford. Just like you, I want to make sure Weatherford remains safe and beautiful for my family and neighbors.

Weatherford deserves a City Council that can provide real leadership for our city in these challenging times. Whether it’s serving my Country, providing for my family, or helping my community, I have always committed 100 percent of myself to all the things I believe in. I am proud of what I have been able to accomplish with my God given talents. As a member of the Weatherford City Council, I would not only be responsible to the Citizens of Weatherford, but also to my family to see that our City resolves the problems it faces today.

I hope you will join me in my goals to bring fiscal responsibility, transparency, service, and commitment to the Weatherford City Council.

Point of contact for this release is Eric Matthews.

Phone:  (682)556-9248

Email:  Eric@voteforEricMatthews.com

http://www.voteforericmatthews.com/

Look for Eric on FaceBook.

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“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is an ancient Arabian proverb that I believe may benefit those who supported a candidate who did not succeed in the 2010 Primary Election.

I recently saw a blog post that said, “If you are not supporting Perry, you are not opposing White – a liberal supporter of abortion on demand, gay marriage, sanctuary city for aliens, cap & trade, and gun control.”

I believe that is a powerful statement. If you really believe the things you say you do, how can you refuse to support Governor Rick Perry?  Your standards are not what you say they are; they’re what you demonstrate by your actions.

If you agree with the premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, I would encourage you to at least temporarily set aside your differences (real or perceived) with Governor Perry.  We can argue the merits of our opinions after we defeat our common enemy.

When the Indians are attacking, it’s time to circle the wagons. It is not the time for a family squabble.

How well do you know the enemy? How much do you know about Bill White?

Did you know Bill White, the former mayor of Houston –

supports gay marriage?

supports abortion on demand?  (Helped developed an “Abortion Supercenter” in Houston.)

supported making Houston a “sanctuary city” for illegal aliens?

opposes the 2^nd amendment?  Read this.

opposes tort reform?

supports Cap & Trade?

Heard enough? Watch this.

I believe we have four choices:

1. Vote for Perry.
2. Vote for White.
3. Vote for some third party candidate that cannot win, or
4. Don’t vote.

With which of these four choices will Texas best be served?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Is your opposition to Perry stronger than your opposition to White – I certainly hope not.

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Posted by Concerned Citizen on March 3rd, 2010

Yesterday we had our state Primary Elections here in Texas.  As I server as an election judge for my precinct, I am very involved in the political process in my county.  I will also be serving as a county and possible state delegate to our conventions this year and my wife is serving as the alternates.  This primary elections was a mile stone for me,  because it was this very primary of four years ago that encouraged me to create this very site.

During that primary, I learned what involvement in the political process meant and exactly what was at stake from a very personal point of view.  There was quite a bit of contention in the ‘O6 primary for our local government, so much so that it caused a schism between two major Republican women’s groups here in the county.  The race got pretty ugly at times and was very close indeed, yet it did turn out a lot of voters.  This year’s race was not so contentious, but none less critical for the issues that Texas faces.  I was very pleased yesterday to learn that we voted more than double the numbers that we did in this primary four years earlier.  Last night, sitting at one of the results parties and sipping on a Michelob Ultra, I was trying to figure out what was so different in this election versus the previous one.  Were the issues that different?  Not really.  Was there more contention between certain candidates this time?  No, actually I think there was less, or if it was the same it was more civil at least.  So, what had changed to bring over fifteen thousand people to the polls yesterday, when not even seven thousand had come before?

As I sat and talked to those around me, I began to realize that there has truly been an awakening in the past few years.  It has not just been in the movements like the TEA Party and 9/12 groups, but in everyday ordinary people, who are sick and tired of being told how to live their lives and how to spend their hard earned wealth.  I looked back to a comment made by one of the Democrat poll workers, while setting up the polling site yesterday.  She commented that she was a Democrat because she did not have enough money to be a Republican.  How odd, I thought, as I sat there through out the day watching person after person step through the door and wait in the long line for the Republican Party Primary, while the Democrat election clerk was able to cross stitch for a lack of traffic.  These people were not wealthy.  They came in to vote with the grease on their hands of a mechanic, the dirt under their nails of a farmer, the old worn boots of a ranch hand, the medical smock of a night shift nurse and the uniforms of police officers and firefighters.  The did not arrive in limousines or step out of a Lexus.  They came in all manner of vehicles from multiple different manufactures.  Many drove work trucks or small compact cars, some had SUV’s and mini-vans.  These were not wealthy bankers or captains of industry. They were everyday average people.  They were you and me.  They were the parents I meet at the soccer fields or pass by while shopping for groceries.  They were the kids that deliver my pizza and the crossing guard at my children’s school.  They were the heart of America and they were fed up.

By then end of the day, the Republican Primary at our polling site had out voted the Democrat one by 292 votes to a mere 38.  The results were more staggering county wide.  Over 14,000 Republican votes showed up at the polls yesterday, to a mere 1,200 Democrats.  The results state wide where not as drastic, but 2,082,965 Republicans voted compared to 974,454.  This is a still a significant deficit.  This is a message.  This is an awakening.

While I honor movement like the TEA Party and 9/12 Project, I have recently become very concerned with their actions and potentially their motives.  More and more it seems that they are becoming less of a protest movement aimed at stifling the extremes of government waste and championing states rights.  Some of their actions in recent days look more like a PAC than a genuine movement based on pure ideology.  During these elections in this state, these groups have come out in direct support of certain candidates while demeaning others.  Maybe it is just me, but when I first became involved with the TEA Party movement right at a year ago, I envisioned it as one not bound or beholden to any candidates.  I envisioned this movement as one that championed a conservative philosophy only, espousing the values and principles of our founding fathers and not turning into a political campaign arm for any candidate.  While I acknowledge the importance of such involvement in the election process, I always though that a movement such as the TEA Party would be a challenge to EVERY candidate, sort of a litmus test or measuring standard that they would have to meet.  I am just not sure that the spirit of the movement is still what it was at it’s inception.  I hope I am wrong and that this was just a little hiccup during a critical election, but I am concerned that if we do not focus our efforts as one united front against the oppression that we face from a heavy handed government, then wave of outrage that was felt when these movement were born, will break upon the steps of Congress like waves upon a rocky shore, leaving no lasting perceptible impact.

Conservatives from all walks of life showed up at the polls yesterday in this county and others like it across this state.  Now, we must unite them together in and face the challenges that we have ahead.  If we turn against one another now, over petty differences of opinion or slight variations in philosophy, and lose sight of the bigger picture.  We will have no chance of reversing this dangerous, destructive course that has been set for us by a distant, overbearing government.  We must set aside our smaller differences, for a time in the future when we have the luxury to argue amongst ourselves and focus on the main goal, taking our government back, one election at a time.

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Our thanks to this blogger for capturing the very essence of Conservatism in America!

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Please watch this 3 1/2 minute video and then take this Resolution to your precinct Convention:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPdwgNKQ9kQ