Memorial Day: more than a parade or a backyard barbecue

From the Memorial Day website here:

Memorial Day used to be a solemn day of mourning, a sacred day of remembrance to honor those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms. Businesses closed for the day. Towns held parades honoring the fallen, the parade routes often times ending at a local cemetery, where Memorial Day speeches were given and prayers offered up. People took the time that day to clean and decorate with flowers and flags the graves of those the fell in service to their country. 

We need to remember with sincere respect those who paid the price for our freedoms; we need to keep in sacred remembrance those who died serving their country. We need to never let them be forgotten. However, over the years the original meaning and spirit of Memorial Day has faded from the public consciousness. “Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.” -- General Logan - May 5, 1868 

On Memorial Day we need to stop and pay with sincere conviction our respects for those who died protecting and preserving the freedoms we enjoy, for we owe those honored dead more than we can ever repay.

“If it is considered a holiday, why is it so? I consider it to be a national day of mourning. This is how we observe this day in our home. Because of what that day represents the rest of the days of the year are our holidays.” -- F L Lloyd West Chester, Pa USA - February 26, 2000

And from the home page:

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the “National Moment of Remembrance“ resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans “To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to ‘Taps.”

The Moment of Remembrance is a step in the right direction to returning the meaning back to the day. What is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Set aside one day out of the year for the nation to get together to remember, reflect and honor those who have given their all in service to their country.

But what may be needed to return the solemn, and even sacred, spirit back to Memorial Day is for a return to its traditional day of observance. Many feel that when Congress made the day into a three-day weekend in with the National Holiday Act of 1971, it made it all the easier for people to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day. As the VFW stated in its 2002 Memorial Day address: “Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public’s nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.”

On January 19, 1999 Senator Inouye introduced bill S 189 to the Senate which proposes to restore the traditional day of observance of Memorial Day back to May 30th instead of “the last Monday in May”. On April 19, 1999 Representative Gibbons introduced the bill to the House (H.R. 1474). The bills were referred the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Government Reform.

To date, there has been no further developments on the bill. Please write your Representative and your Senators, urging them to support these bills. You can also contact Mr. Inouye to let him know of your support.

Remember and honor.

Lots of IRS Protests across the country - and in Cleveland

Today, Tea Party Patriots across the country protested the egregious abuse of power by the IRS, in particular its partisan targeting of conservative groups seeking 501(c)(3) or (4) classification and harassing contributors to the Romney campaign.

Among the blogs covering the protests in front of IRS offices nationwide, with photographs, are Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, and Gateway Pundit.

The Plain Dealer report of the Cleveland protest is here. Over 50 patriots gathered downtown, most carrying signs. Report your story or forward photos to Tea Party Patriots.

Benghazi, the AP communication records scandal, or the IRS's targeting of patriots?

Anyone who is paying attention is horrified at the outrageous abuses of power on full display in DC. But which of the three headline-making scandals (to which I would add Fast and Furious) is the worst? In his column “Last Week’s Conspiracy Theories are This Week’s Reality,” Erik Rush at Canadian Free Press has a good analysis:

It is now safe to say that if one cannot see the abject evil of the Obama administration as well as the endemic corruption and criminality in our federal government, it is only because they are refusing to look. Due to what some are calling a “perfect storm of circumstances, three scandals have rocked Washington, but these are only the grossest symptoms of the systemic infection that has been festering there for decades.

Those such as myself who suspected on September 12, 2012 that the Obama administration’s narrative relative to the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya, was a false one were mocked and ridiculed (as was I personally in 2008 upon claiming that a communist was in the running for the White House). We now know that not only was the narrative false, but that President Obama and his cabinet are probably guilty of criminal action surrounding their responses and subsequent coverup of the actual events in Benghazi that night.

On the heels of whistleblowers’ testimony before Congress last week, the monumentally egregious practices of the Internal Revenue Service pertaining to conservative nonprofit applicants, and the Department of Justice’s collection of communications records from reporters and editors at the Associated Press have emerged. These have given us the opportunity for an unvarnished glimpse into the machinations of the Obama administration—and into our possible future. 

While Benghazi is the most heinous on one level (since it resulted in the deaths of four Americans), and the AP scandal is a direct and unlawful assault on the First Amendment, the IRS debacle most readily carries the specter of totalitarian oppression, particularly since this agency is being tasked with executing many areas of Obamacare [emphasis added]. It may be the messiest, and the one with the most visible loose ends. Let us examine just a few of the established facts attendant to recent revelations about the IRS:

It has been established via The New York Times (no less) and other media that Senate Democrats pressured the IRS to engage in the very behavior that came to light.

It has been established via USA Today that during the period in question (2010-2012), the IRS almost indiscriminately approved applications for liberal nonprofit applicants (despite the number of these being lower than in the past) while denying applications from conservative groups.

It has been established that liberal activist organizations (at least one funded by financier and former Nazi collaborator George Soros) received documentation on the aforementioned conservative nonprofit applicants from the IRS.

It has been established via the Landmark Legal Foundation that untoward practices have been employed by congressional lawmakers and the executive branch, who have used the IRS as a weapon of harassment, for decades (the Landmark Legal Foundation has been integral in uncovering recent IRS abuses). One of these is third-party audits, a monstrous practice wherein government officials request or order the IRS to audit an individual or a business. Similar offenses were actually included among the Articles of Impeachment for Richard M. Nixon.

It has been established that the IRS recently seized the medical records of 10 million Americans during an investigation into the finances of one company.

It is essential that the IRS be abolished and the tax code shredded, but it is much more important that Americans recognize these phenomena as major symptoms of that into which our government has mutated.

Outraged? Join us on Tuesday, May 21 at 12pm Noon in front of the downtown Cleveland IRS office  to show the public this abuse of power against the citizens of the country will NOT be tolerated!

Date: Tuesday May 21, 2013

Time: 12pm Noon - 1:30pm

Location: IRS / Cleveland Office (Click for Map)

Address: 1240 E. 9th St. Cleveland, OH (west side of the street, just south of Lakeside Ave.)

TUESDAY MAY 21 AT NOON: STAND UP TO THE IRS

The public is finally learning of the tyrannical abuse of power emanating from this Administration from Benghazi, to the Associated Press wire tapping to the bias and unwarranted harassment of Tea Party, Liberty and conservative groups from IRS. 

Continuing to lead the fight against this rogue Administration and the abuse of power by the IRS, Tea Party Patriots flew a multitude of liberty minded group leaders from all over the country to DC this week to join Jenny Beth Martin for a press conference on Capital Hill to discuss the IRS scandal. 

 

Click here to view press conference.

To continue the pressure, Tea Party & Liberty groups are hosting a day of protest against the IRS at locations across the U.S. this coming Tuesday 5/21/13.

Make no mistake, the targeting of citizens by the government was no mistake and was done to silent a certain group of people for their beliefs. 

This is the United States of America and regardless of one's political beliefs or leanings, in the United States of America, nobody should tolerate any Administration using government agency's to target people for their beliefs and exercising their 1st Amendment rights.

Please stand united with fellow Patriots across the U.S. and join us this Tuesday 5/21/13 at 12pm Noon at the downtown Cleveland IRS office to show the public this abuse of power against the citizens of the country will NOT be tolerated!

Date: Tuesday 5/21/13
Time: 12pm Noon - 1:30pm
Location: IRS / Cleveland Office (Click for Map)
Address:1240 E. 9th St. Cleveland, OH (west side of the street, just south of Lakeside Ave.)

Please bring your flags, message related signs, etc.....

IRS commissioner for tax-exempt organizations now in charge of Obamacare enforcement???

The current administration fails to profile terrorists, while the IRS has been profiling patriot, liberty groups, and other related tea party organizations. It is not going to be enough to call for a few token resignations, such as interim personnel whose days were numbered anyway, such as IRS Acting Commissioner Steven Miller. 

 

This is this same IRS that will be in charge of enforcing key elements of Obamacare. And it just got worse. According to ABC News [emphasis added]:

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.

As bad as the appointment of Sarah Hall Ingram is, does anyone really think it’s a good idea for the beloved IRS to dictate to citizens on health care matters? (Postscript: Not that it will eliminate nationalized healthcare, but The House of Representatives voted again today to repeal Obamacare, mostly along  party lines in a 229-195 vote. There is no chance it will pass in the Senate.)

Stop Common Core in Ohio Weekly Action Items

From Ohioans Against Common Core --

       Hey Ohio Legislators…Have you heard?

It has been an action packed week! Common Core has become a top story, especially here in the midwest. Indiana Govenor Mike Pence signed the one year pause on Common Core implementation and Kentucky experienced first hand the ramifications of an untested, centrally planned, computer dependent assessment. How can our representatives chance the education of Ohio’s kids to an untested program? If it was really about the standards, why were they adopted before they were written?

LEVEL ONE PRIORITY – HOUSE EDUCATION  COMMITTEE CALLS

House Education Chair, Gerald Stebelton has scheduled a Pro-Common Core presentation to be made by Greater Columbus area superintendents for this Tuesday, May 14th at 4:00 pm, in Statehhouse Mtg Rm 116. Please make sure they hear from you before Tuesday’s presentation.

Please call each of the committee members listed below and ask them the following:

1. Did you hear that Indiana has put common core on pause to thoroughly vet the standards? National Review Online-Two Moms vs Common Core
2. Did you hear that four states including Kentucky experienced severe technical problems during online testing including a server crash that will require all tests to be retaken? Washington Post-Severe Technical Problems Raise Concerns Over Online Tests
3. Did you hear Georgia State Superintendent John Barge warn that Common Core will result in a federal curriculum? Marietta Daily Journal-Common Core Will Bring National Assessment and Federal Curriculum

Legislator switchboard – 800-282-0253

Gerald Stebelton-Chair (very pro-common core), Andrew Brenner, John Becker, Tim Derickson, Bill Hayes, Michael Henne, Matt Huffman, Stephanie Kunze, Kristina Roegner, Marilyn Slaby, Ryan Smith, Andy Thompson

LEVEL TWO PRIORITY – SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE CALLS 

Same action as above – 800-282-0253 

Peggy Lehner-Chair (very pro-common core), Cliff Hite, Troy Balderson, Bill Beagle, Bill Coley, Randy Gardner, Gayle Manning

LEVEL THREE PRIORITY – THANK YOU CALLS

Senator Grassley and Representative Luetkemeyer each solicited Common Core defunding letters within the U.S. Senate and House.  Neither of our Senators sign on but three Ohio Representatives did and deserve our thanks. Their acknowledgment of this federal intrusion lends credibility to our effort to pause Common Core and vet it through our state legislative process, particularly Rep. Jim Jordan’s. As a former Ohio House member, he is well respected and is a staunch school choice advocate. Representative Luetkemeyer’s letter with signers
Rep. Jim Jordan   202-225-2676
Rep Bill Johnson   202-225-5705
Rep. Brad Wenstrup   202-225-3164

SUMMARY

The massive effort to research and educate Ohioans on the implications of Common Core continues. We greatly appreciate your support and ask you to continue to spread the word. The powers that be will always take the path of least resistance. It’s now our job to make that path an exit from Common Core.

Yours In Liberty,

OACC

Senator Rob Portman; Keynote Speaker at Pro-Amnesty Event

Already being undermined on the immigration reform fight raging in D.C. by Senator Marco Rubio, the Cato Institute, some national Tea Party groups and some Tea Party groups in Ohio ridiculously claiming that illegal immigrants are good for the economy, we find Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) trying to one up all of them.

Today, the pro-amnesty for illegal immigrants group, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) will be hosting their 2013 LULAC Ohio Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio and they are proudly promoting that Senator Rob Portman will be a keynote speaker for the event.

Along with his new found love of amnesty for illegal immigrants, and knowing he has done a 180 degree pirouette on marriage, it appears Senator Portman has made himself a new friend....

1. RubenCastillaHerrera ‏@LatinoLdrSHIFT2h

   Just asked Sen. Portman to support Immigration reform, UAFA inclusion & ask the President to stop the deportations. Led a prayer w/him

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   •  Reply 
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2. RubenCastillaHerrera ‏@LatinoLdrSHIFT2h

   About to have a private meeting with Sen. Rob Portman in a back room at LULAC conference

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3. RubenCastillaHerrera ‏@LatinoLdrSHIFT5h

   Hosting a conversation on Queer Latino identity at the #Ohio state #LULAC conference.

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4. RubenCastillaHerrera ‏@LatinoLdrSHIFT5h

   It's time to take a stand on immigration reform at the #OHIO LULAC conference @robportman.

    View conversation
5. RubenCastillaHerrera ‏@LatinoLdrSHIFT18h

   It's time to take a stand on immigration reform at the #OHIO LULAC conference @robportman.

   Expand

Also speaking at the event with Senator Portman, Ruben Castilla Herrera will discuss LGBT issues in the Latino community at today's LULAC event where the group is expected to endorse the Freedom to Marry and Religious Freedom amendment being debated in the Gang of 8's immigration reform bill.

Marketplace "Fairness" Act is anything but

Attention Internet Shoppers

In The Hill today:

The Senate passed the bipartisan Marketplace Fairness Act by a 69 to 27 vote on Monday, with most Democrats — except for five who represent states without a sales tax — backing the bill.Senate Republicans split roughly down the middle — 21 for, and 22 against — on the proposal. The breakdown underscores that the measure likely faces a rockier path in the GOP-controlled House.

Tea Party Patriots had alerted members before the Senate vote:

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) outlined why all supporters of free markets and low taxes should oppose this bill. Among other reasons:

Naturally, state and local governments are salivating at the prospect of getting a purported $23 billion in new revenue from the private economy. Especially when the out-of-state consumers paying those taxes and the out-of-state businesses owners who collect them can’t vote them out of office.

Last but not least, this bill doesn’t pass constitutional muster. The MFA overturns the fundamental idea that states’ taxing authority ends at their borders. The Supreme Court has said that an out-of-state business could subject itself to a state’s taxing power if due-process concerns are satisfied, namely that the business purposefully targets its activities in that state. But because pure Internet sales by their nature don’t target any one state, this legislation presents a serious constitutional problem.

In addition to the ... reasons cited above, the bill would make bad law because it would be a bureaucratic nightmare. . . :

[Lawmakers] who vote for it are voting to impose audits, compliance costs, lost wages, and inefficiency on small businesses in every state. And they are potentially crippling an engine of new job creation at a time of economic struggle. This bill will not create jobs; it will not create new opportunities; and it will not create the economic growth our country needs and our people deserve.

This bill would make for extremely bad law. It’s time to put the quash to it today, and not risk its passage in the House.

-----
Now that this bad bill has passed the Senate, we'll have to double down on the House as soon as it gets on the calendar.

Food Stamp Give Away to Illegal Immigrants Must be Stopped!

Already not having enough money to continue funding a signature program of Obamacare, medical coverage for pre-existing conditions, President Obama's Department of Agriculture is actively promoting and funding a program for illegal immigrants to get food stamps. 

In pushing healthy American citizens to the back of the bus and forcing us to pay to feed illegal immigrants while many Americans still go hungry, President Obama also sends a message to those Americans with pre-existing medical conditions that he would rather feed illegal immigrants over treating their health issues as he promised....

From The Washington Examiner -- 

With food stamp spending in the United States skyrocketing since the beginning of the recession, the Department of Agriculture is paying to promote food stamp usage to illegal immigrants for the sake of their American children, according to documents obtained by a government watchdog.

“The promotion of the food stamp program, now known as “SNAP” (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flyer provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA with a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance,” Judicial Watch announced today.

“Emphasized in bold and underlined, the statement reads, ‘You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.’”

Under President Obama's watch food stamp benefits have increased more than double each year. In addition, with the removing of a 1996 requirement that individuals receiving SNAP must have a job or be enrolled in work training and lowering the bar for SNAP eligibility - people receiving food stamps has increased to an all time high of 47.8 million people.

To find out how many people in your county are on food stamps, click here.

Senator John Thune (R-SD) and Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) have introduced a bill, "Streamlining the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SSNAP) Act" in attempts to stop this foolishness and reign in the rampant fraud, waste and abuse of an already out of control food stamp program....

The food stamp program may be cut when Congress moves to pass a farm bill this year. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., introduced a bill last week to cut $30 billion from the $760 billion the program is expected to spend over the next ten years.

“Since President Obama came into office, SNAP participation has increased at 10 times the rate of job creation, the annual spending on SNAP has doubled, and one in seven Americans now participates in SNAP,” Thune said in a statement on the bill. “This explosive growth in both the SNAP enrollment and federal cost of the program is alarming and requires lawmakers to take cost-effective legislative control measures.”

“We save taxpayers $30 billion and make sure that families in need still receive a helping hand,” Stutzman added. “This is a common-sense start for Congress’ Farm Bill discussions as we look for ways to tackle Washington’s nearly $17 trillion debt.”

This common sense bill will also protect and help assure that Americans that really do need these benefits will still receive them. 

This is important as the Obama Administration's progressive policies have clearly shown their repeated willingness to push Americans to the back of the bus. Most notably, it is the elderly, sick, less fortunate and low-income Americans - that Obama claims to protect - that most often suffer the undue hardships of these policies.

Please contact your Senator and Congressman and ask them to support Senator Thune and Rep. Stutzman's "Streamlining the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SSNAP) Act".

To read a one-page over view of the bill, click here.  

For contact info for your Senator - click here.  For contact info for your Congressman - click here.

EPA’s Proposed Regulations Will Stifle Technologies That Allow Continued Use of Abundant, Affordable Coal

From our friends at Count on Coal -- 

EPA’s Proposed Regulations Will Stifle Technologies                  That Allow Continued Use of Abundant, Affordable Coal

Coal is America’s most abundant fossil fuel energy source and, historically, our most consistently affordable. It can and must continue to play a vital role in the nation’s energy future, with advancing technology assuring us of cleaner-burning coal to address environmental concerns.

Despite these technological advances and cleaner coal burning technologies, the most common use of coal in America – electricity generation – could be brought to a halt by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed greenhouse gas (GHG) new source performance standard (NSPS) regulations for new fossil fuel-based electric generating sources.

These regulations threaten to stifle technological advancement and make coal unusable for power generation in either existing or new power plants – a matter of tremendous importance to a nation that generates 43 percent of its electricity using coal. This could leave business, industrial and residential consumers open to surges in power costs when, inevitably, the cost of natural gas rises. 

The EPA is proposing standards unprecedented under the Clean Air Act, effectively banning construction of new coal-fired power plants. It requires that all future plants using fossil fuels—coal or gas—emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour. Even the most modern, efficient coal boiler emits 1,800 pounds, while combined cycle natural gas turbines come in barely under that threshold. This is simply a matter of regulatory policy favoring natural gas as an electricity generator and ignoring the promise that new technology holds for cleaner-burning coal. 

The regulations also will prevent upgrades of existing plants to improve efficiency and facilitate more electricity generation with less fuel and less emissions. This will cost America opportunities to provide economic stimulus through new manufacturing and construction jobs.

The goal of near-zero emissions from coal is within sight. New technologies will allow us to modernize the existing coal-fueled generation fleet, improving efficiency and reducing emissions while continuing to produce low-cost electricity. 

With innovation and technological advances, America can continue to use coal and continue to lower emissions at the same time.