“As of today, both the Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly have released potential redistricting maps for the next decade’s elections,” said Sam Goldstein, State Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Indiana. “The previous Secretary of State, Republican Todd Rokita, put forth a common sense approach that would keep communities together. It is unfortunate [...]
If the Constitutional Amendment to Ban Gay Marriage Moves to a Public Vote, what would you choose? I would not vote in favor of this amendent because government should have no role in marriage or it is discriminatory. – 80.77% (105 votes) I would vote in favor of putting traditional marriage in the Indiana Constitution. [...]
SPECIAL GUEST EDITORIAL
by Scott Portman
As a budget was agreed upon earlier this week, there still remains some controversy over the decision to only cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by only 16 percent in total. Business leaders and GOP representatives remain frustrated with the lack of action to cut down on the EPA’s lofty and expensive regulations that in their opinion, effect industry revenue and employment growth.
As the resolution certainly pleased some and upset others on Monday, many of these business leaders and Republican reps still see a polluted future in business, with reference to EPA regulations. The $1.6 billion cut to the EPA represents just half of the cut that was hoped for, in regards to the EPA. The EPA cuts agreed upon in the resolution would only serve to cut down on some of the smaller initiatives of the EPA that have little impact on business and the environment.
The GOP has used the early months of the year to point out the flaws in certain initiatives of the EPA, primarily the Clean Air Act. They view the Clean Air Act as an enabler to the EPA’s power in monitoring businesses through the Cap and Trade Agenda. The GOP took further steps to lessen the EPA’s power by introducing the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 just last month. This act was developed to take direct aim at the cap and trade agenda, as well as taking some of the power and decision making away from the EPA.
Republicans James Inhofe, Fred Upton, and Ed Whitfield helped to introduce the Energy Tax Prevention Act and were adamant about the change that it would bring upon and how it would help the people. In a post release draft they exclaimed that “With this draft proposal, we are initiating a deliberative, transparent process that we hope will prevent EPA from imposing by regulation the massive cap-and-trade tax that Congress rejected last year. We firmly believe federal bureaucrats should not be unilaterally setting national climate change policy, and with good reason: EPA’s cap-and-trade tax agenda will cost jobs, undermine the competitiveness of America’s manufacturers, and, as EPA has conceded, will have no meaningful impact on climate.”
Inhofe and other Republicans have been forward in saying that they aren’t looking to destroy the EPA, they would just rather see their resources be used more proficiently on things that will help the US citizens more directly. For example, an EPA initiative such as asbestos removal, which has a direct impact on citizen health, should be given more resources and effort. Asbestos removal helps prevent numbers of mesothelioma cases every year in the United States. Through the EPA’s efforts to abate this material from areas all over, they are in some cases, saving lives. As mesothelioma life expectancy is very small and severe, an increased effort towards a program like this could help save citizens directly from environmentally related and life threatening risks.
Amidst all the controversy that has surrounded the US budget for the past month or so, the GOP will certainly look to continue their effort to show the EPA regulations for what they truly are, unnecessary. Even though the EPA budget has been decided on for the year 2011, further exploration of cuts to unnecessary regulations should be invested, while effective programs should be given more resources in the long term.
Scott Portman is a health, safety, and political advocate. He has a great passion for economics and American fiscal policy. He is a graduate of University of South Florida and is an aspiring journalist.
Moderate Republicans support Free Market principles
From Eric Dondero:
The Washington Examiner reports "All Senate Dems, including Manchin, vote to protect Obamacare funding":
All Democrats in the U.S. Senate just voted to preserve funding for the national health care law, with the measure being rejected by a 47 to 53 vote straight party line vote.
As the Examiner and other major media sources have noted, at least four Democrat Senators who are vulnerable in next year's elections, voted for the measure to preserve funding. From Doug Gibson, the Political Surf blog:
The four are Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Claire MacCaskill, D-Mo., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Jon Tester, D-Mont. Those four states trend conservative and all four are facing tough races next year.
Of interest to Republicans, every single moderate Republican to their great credit, voted to defund ObamaCare. This includes two well-known moderates who are up for reelection next year and one - Olympia Snowe - who is facing a primary challenge.
From Eric Dondero:
The Pat Quinn/Rahm Emanuel/Dick Durbin/Rod Blagojevich/Barack Hussein Obama State strikes again.
Note the blatant editorializing in this "news report" by the Gate House New Service out of Springfield (via GalvaNews.com)"Illinois House moves to ban trans fat in foods":
Illinois is poised to become the second state in the country (after California) to ban artery-clogging artificial trans fats.
The Illinois House last week approved a bill to eliminate artificial trans fats from restaurant and bakery food and food sold in school vending machines by January 2013. Cafeterias operated by state and local governments and schools would not be included in the ban until January 2016.
“Trans fats are like bacon grease pouring down your sink clogging your pipes,” said Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, sponsor of House Bill 1600. “That’s exactly what trans fats do to your arteries. You can still have fried foods and baked goods without trans fats.”
Naturally, Republicans, and one brave rural IL Democrat, are the only ones standing against this Nanny-State imposition on individual liberties. Continuing:
“It’s yet another nanny-state mandate on the public when the businesses and communities are perfectly capable of making these decisions themselves,” said Rep. David Leitch, R-Peoria.
“We don’t have to be a watchdog for everyone,” argued Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley. “We tell people to do a lot of things, and it would probably be good if they did them, but maybe at some point they’d like to decide on their own if they should do them or not.”
Editor's note - This website has few opportunities to praise Democrats. Rep. Mautino (photo - right), thank you.
From Cliff Thies:
Sarah Palin hits a home run in Madison!
"I am so proud to be with you today. Madison, these are the front lines in the battle for the future of our country."
Latest - Trump at 26%, Ron Paul at 5%
From Eric Dondero:
Our own contributing editor Roger Stone is quoted in an article on the ABC News website this morning, "Donald Trump's Political 'Pit Bull': Meet Michael Cohen - Not What You Might Think, Top Trump Aide Voted For Obama In 2008." An interesting bit of info pops up in the article regarding Ron Paul's presidential campaign. Seems the Paul camp has already hit at Trump.
A case in point, Stone said, was Cohen's one-day Iowa trip that led to questions about his role as both a Trump Organization employee and a promoter of his boss's potential presidential campaign -- questions that he sought to answer by stating unequivocally that the trip and the website were paid for, not with any of Trump's money, but out of pockets of Cohen and Rahr, who made a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry.
Still, the trip triggered a complaint to the Federal Election Commission by a supporter of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who alleged that the trip violated election law.
Back in February at C-PAC Ron Paul supporters shouted and jeered during Trump's speech. He shot back, "You're guy, he can't win." Which brought even louder denunciations from the young Paul supporters.
Very latest poll from PPP (via ANI) released yesterday:
Trump leads with 26 percent votes, followed by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's 17 percent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 15 percent and ex-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's 11 percent votes.
Rounding out the bottom of the list were former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with 8 percent, Texas Republican Ron Paul with 5 percent, Minnesota Republcan Michele Bachmann and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty with 4 percent votes.
New book released on Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls-Wilder
From Eric Dondero:
Ayn Rand has gained an enormous amount of attention these past few days for the release of the film Atlas Shrugged. But another contemporary libertarian associate of Rand may also get her due with the release of a new book "The Wilder Life." Wendy McClure, a self-described Wilder fanatic from Chicago is the author. She's currently on a book tour. Quoted in St. Louis Today:
"I think it's because the descriptions were so vivid and also something about the point of view … there's immediate identification."
Continuing from Stltoday.com:
McClure collected at least six bonnets herself while traveling to "Little House" sites in Missouri, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas and New York. During her trips, she waded in Plum Creek, watched pageants and Laura look-alike contests and beheld Pa Ingalls' real fiddle in Mansfield, Mo.
McClure read the nine-book series in the 1970s and early '80s and thought the "Little House" stories were "almost as self-contained and mystical as Narnia or Oz," she writes in "The Wilder Life."
A libetarian inspiration for Sarah Palin
And on the libertarian connection to the series:
She's also not the kind who dredges up quotes to promote libertarianism. Nor does she home-school or read New Pioneer magazine for survivalist tips.
"Little House on the Prairie," read throughout the world, is the book Sarah Palin's sister cited in 2008 when asked what the vice presidential candidate liked as a child. In 2009, Judith Thurman recounted that citation as part of a story about how Laura and Rose both became successful writers, crabby collaborators and critics of the New Deal.
As Thurman wrote for The New Yorker, Rose Wilder Lane is considered with Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson "a founding mother" of libertarianism. She left her estate and the rights to the "Little House" books to her close friend, Roger Lea MacBride, a Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1976.
In addition to her own pioneer novels, Lane wrote a biography of Herbert Hoover (her papers are at his presidential library) and nonfiction such as "The Discovery of Freedom" and "Give Me Liberty."
MacBride added to the "Little House" oeuvre by writing fiction featuring Rose and publishing some Wilder material after Laura died.
Order the book from Barnes & Noble.
Background - Roger MacBride, Rose's adopted grandson, lent great inspiration to this very website. He was my friend, Clifford's friend and served as National Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus from 1992 - 1995. I was with Roger the last three weeks of his life. He and I (and Libertarian Party of Alaska Chair Scott Kohlhaas) walked the halls of congress lobbying for the abolishment of Selective Service during the 1995 GOP Revolution. We visited with 5 congressmen, including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California. Note also, Roger was a Vermont state legislator in the mid-1960s, and was the very first person ever to run for public office as a "libertarian," when he ran for Governor of VT in 1966 in the GOP primaries. He is best known for having cast an electoral vote in 1972 as a Nixon delegate for the Libertarian ticket of John Hospers/Toni Nathan, making Nathan the very first woman in US history to receive an electoral vote (12 years before Geraldine Ferraro and 37 years before Palin.)
Highlights:
"A certificate of live birth is a big, big step down, from a birth certificate..."
"Why did he spend millions of dollars to try to stay away from this issue?"
"Look, he's got a grandmother in Kenya who says he was born in Kenya at the hospital. Then there was bedlam in the room, bedlam. I don't mean like a little. I mean cause he was close to becomming president, and there were a lot of people in that room. And she was talking to a reporter with a lot of handlers. So, they have the grandmother, she is Kenyan. Then all of a sudden 51 seconds later he asked the question again and you hear people saying No, no Hawaii, Hawaii. Okay, gimmee a break."
"It's one of two things. Either he wasn't born in the country, or there's something on the certificate he doesn't want people to know... Maybe it says he's Muslim."
Socialist, Nanny-Stater, Islamist and a Black Panther Party aligned, Rapper Thug
Meet Rep. Jamilah Nasheed, a Democrat from St. Louis. She's been in the news of late for a verbal brawl with another legislator, ironically, a fellow Democrat at a rap concert.
From KPLR11, St. Louis, April 11:
"She clearly threatened me," said Nasheed, who represents part of St. Louis city. "She threatened me, she said 'If I had a knife I would cut your throat, your f-ing throat.' That's what she said to me."
But Chapelle-Nadal denies it, saying that Nasheed came into the corporate suit where the senator and some friends were watching a concert by hip-hip star Lil' Wayne at Scottrade Center.
"I tried to ignore her," said [Sen.] Chapelle-Nadal, whose senate district covers a part of St. Louis County. "She had said I was mentally unfit, so I turned around and said listen, if I was as mentally unfit as you say I am, then I would have done something as criminal as you did when you stabbed someone."
Nasheed has often spoken about how she was a gang member in high school, and once went to jail for stabbing someone in a fight.
Former state representative Jim Avery, a friend of both women, was in the suite at the time, and supports Chapelle-Nadal's version of events. "Jamilah came into the suite where we were from an adjoining suite to confront Maria..."
At issue is a dispute over local control over the city police department.
But on a whole range of issues she is what you might call a libertarian Republican's worst nightmare.
Nasheed was the keynote speaker last Saturday at a Pro-Sharia Law rally for Muslims at the State Capitol in Jefferson City.
From ColumbiaMissourian.com "Eastern Missouri ACLU hosts first Muslim Day at Capitol" April 15:
Rep. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis City, spoke at a press conference for Muslim Day. She greeted the crowd in Arabic and went on to encourage them all to be active as Muslims in state government.
"[Islam] is about peace and harmony," Nasheed said. "Exercise your right at the polling places in November of 2012 because we can no longer allow for individuals to attack Islam in the way Islam has been attacked at the state Capitol."
The rally was organized to protest a Bill by two Republican State Reps. to block the institution of Sharia Law in Missouri courts.
She is a staunch supporter of Public Workers Unions, Teachers Unions, and compulsory education. (Insider Politics TheSource). She has also been a solid "Yes" vote on socialized health care, minimum wage increase, and increases funding for social services (Project Vote Smart).
On civil liberties issues she has proved just as bad. Rep. Nasheed is the prime sponsor of legislative efforts to hike taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products statewide in Missouri.
Watch a video or YouTube video of Rep. Nasheed advocating higher taxes on cigarettes.
Photos of Nasheed at a rally with the Black Panther Party and with 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (MO Political News svc.)
"too much government" doing too many things
From ABC4.com Salt Lake City, "Cautionary tale hits the big screen" April 16:
Chair of the Utah Young Republicans Daniel Burton says, “We've heard it's low budget but we still hope the principals that Ayn Rand talked about in her book are well displayed in the movie.”
Principals held strong by Utah’s Republican party; that a society where the individual is not free to create is doomed; that civilization cannot exist where there is too much government control. Burton says, “It's a cautionary tale. It's a metaphor for what can happen when too much government gets involved in doing too much for everybody.”
Editor's note - The Utah YRs website is headlining the premiere of Atlas Shrugged in SLC with a special exclusive showing for Young Republicans tonight, Mega-Plex Jordan Commons in Sandy , Theater #8, at 7:30 PM on Saturday, april 16.
An Ayn Randian wing of the GOP
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer Cleveland.com "‘Atlas Shrugged’ Movie Is a Dream Come True for Sarah Palin" April 16:
The movie comes amid strong support nationally for many of its themes today – the dangers of an invasive government and the rights of the individual – that are at the core of movements like the Tea Party and parts of the Republican Party.
Long influential in the Libertarian Party and part of the Republican Party, sales of “Atlas Shrugged” have surged in recent years. According to the Ayn Rand Institute, the novel sold 500,000 copies in 2009 – well over the previous high of 200,000 in a single year – and more than 1 million have been sold since that year.
A lot of reflections "of what Rand wrote about"
From TodayNews24.com "‘Atlas Shrugged’ Movie" April 16:
Cuyahoga County Republican Party Chairman Rob Frost said he read “Atlas Shrugged” last year and was struck by her warnings of the dangers of extensive government and corporate welfare.
“People are seeing reflections of what Rand wrote about,” Frost said, though he cautioned that the story has more extreme examples than exist today.
“I don’t believe the American people would ever let it get as far as Rand portrays,” he said. “We’re seeing the electorate pushing back.”
From Eric Dondero:
The official premiere of Atlas Shrugged took place in Washington, DC this week, and according to one news source, there were a number of freshman, most likely Republican, congressman in the audience.
From the UK Independent, "Atlas Shrugged – and The Tea Party poured in to watch" April 16:
line after line of middle-age white people wearing tricorn hats, stars-and-stripes T-shirts and pin badges suggesting that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This is the Tea Party, on a big night out.
The occasion was the launch of Atlas Shrugged, a film version of a novel written in 1957 by Ayn Rand. The book, a 1200-page parable espousing the author's robust libertarian philosophy, has for years been popular bedtime reading for members of the Republican right...
The trailer for Atlas Shrugged was unveiled earlier this year at Cpac, the annual conference for right-wing Republicans, driving thousands of fans to its YouTube page (versions of it have now surpassed two million "views"). Its official premiere, at a Washington railway station this week, was attended by several Tea Party-endorsed freshman congressmen...
No word on who the mysterious congressmen were? Only one former congressmen is confirmed to have seen the movie.
From Philly.com:
former Texas congressman Dick Armey, has launched a national effort to get Atlas Shrugged into as many theaters as possible. The FreedomWorks website exhorted visitors to "Demand Atlas Shrugged at a Theater Near You on April 15th!"
Reduce Taxes, reduce the "Nanny-State" on Business to get Cali's Economy back up to speed
A group of California lawmakers visited Austin, Texas last week to learn more about the State's booming economy. As the Austin Statesman points out "in the past three years, California has lost 1.2 million jobs; Texas has gained 164,000 jobs in the same period."
More from the Statesman.com:
"We got a great message: Regulatory oversight (in California) is too much, the taxes are too high, we need to streamline government and not become a 'nanny' state like we've become," said state Assemblyman Dan Logue, a Republican from the Sacramento area who led the delegation.
"We talked to businesses who tried to make it in California and relocated (to Texas) because it's nearly impossible to do it there. We have to identify the reasons why."
The group met with Governor Rick Perry and a number of business advocates. Reducing regulations and tort reform were the two most frequently mentioned suggestions.
Another Republican chimed in:
"There's opportunity here; you can smell it," Assemblyman Mike Merrell, a Republican from Rancho Cucamonga, told Texas business owners at Friday's hearing. "We need to follow your plan."
Even though it was an overwhelmingly Republican delegation, Democrat Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco Mayor, also took part.
From Eric Dondero:
Lo and behold. It took a Republican to quote one of the greatest monster metal bands of all-time on the House floor:
I was sitting here today and I realized why it was I wanted to listen to the melodius strains of Page, Plant, Jones and Jon Bonham. It's because for the Democrat Party the Song remains the Same.
Cong. McCotter plays lead guitar in an amateur rock band in his home State of Michigan.
H/t Weasel Z...
From Eric Dondero:
The Wisconsin State Supreme Court is 4 to 3 conservative to liberal. An election was held on Thursday to replace the outgoing Supreme Court Justice, a conservative. If the conservatives would have lost the election, it is highly likely that Governor Scott Walker's government union-busting reforms would have been overturned.
But despite what looked like a nail-biter late Tuesday night, the Right got the news it was hoping for.
From the NY Times, Politics, April 8:
Mr. Prosser — who had been about 200 ballots behind JoAnne Kloppenburg in a contest that seemed bound for a recount — had a net gain of more than 7,500 votes, and now has an overall lead of about that size. Although the election may still go to a recount, it is now highly unlikely that the outcome will change, unless another county discovers a discrepancy of the same magnitude, but in Ms. Kloppenburg’s favor
A vote counting error of more than 14,000 votes, by Kathy Nickolaus, the county clerk in Waukesha County, led to an early night call for liberal Kloppenburg.
Note - Prosser was enthusiastically endorsed by Sarah Palin.
"Racist, Bullshit, Birther Shit!"
From Eric Dondero:
Seems anyone who supports having native-born Americans elected to the Presidency of the United States of America is now considered "a racist."
Actor, John Legend calls Trump a "racist." From HollywoodGossip.com:
"He needs to stop saying that racist bulls**t birther s**t," Legend told N.Y. Magazine. "Quote me please. He should be ashamed of himself. It's awful, really."
And this from Hollyscoop on Trump asking to see Obama's birth certificate:
Bill Cosby appeared on the Today show, saying "Oh please, with Donald Trump. The only thing he's running is his mouth."
See related LR article, "Cosby takes a nasty bigoted swipe at White People" Jan. 2009.
From Eric Dondero:
Now this is very cool. One of the very top Right websites, Ace of Spades with 50,000+ visitors a day, linked to Libertarian Republican yesterday. I believe this was our first link ever from Ace. We've been linked before from NR, InstaPundit, and HotAir.com.
The link came for our article on the American media covering up the Muslim connection to the Brazilian shooting of 29 schoolchildren.
As Ace dryly notes, even the Muslim media overseas is talking of a strong Islamic connection to the shooting.
Al Aribiya, oddly enough, notes that the New York Times is pinning this on... Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, not really, but the New York Times buries his Islamism very much down-page and makes a muddle of his actual religious beliefs.
The link to LR was as follows:
While the New York Times expresses bafflement, Brazilian media is actually doing some reporting.
In an interview with Radio Band News, Rosilane Menezes, sister of gunman Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, said he was strange, reserved and without friends.
"He was so focused on things related to Islam and had let his beard grow long. He was weird, he was on the internet all day reading related issues and it was very strange, very secretive," she said.
Then a couple paragraphs later, Ace quotes LR again:
As that last blog notes:
The 36-paragraph AP article, makes no mention of his Islamic affiliation or beliefs.
36 paragraphs. And not any room to tell Americans (or anyone who doesn't speak Portuguese) what the Brazilians already know.
I speak fluent Portuguese (Spanish, Italian & French), and was able to quickly translate texts from Brazilian media reports.
