Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Illegals - 77% say Send Them Home

While Democrats Push for Amnesty, 77% of Americans Want Illegals Sent Home July 28, 2014 10:57 am  
(TPNN) – In November 2013, President Obama attempted to rev up his base by calling Republicans out for the ‘failure to pass immigration reform’, i.e. amnesty. During a speech at the Betty Ann Ong Chinese Recreation Center in San Francisco, he said, “It’s long past time to fix our broken immigration system.” He then claimed that Republicans in Congress were ‘unwilling’ to ‘catch up with the rest of the country’ insinuating that Americans supported sweeping amnesty.
With the massive influx of illegals crossing the southern border in an invasion swarm unlike any before, Obama has threatened to once again abuse executive privilege by granting amnesty to millions. Americans have been told that ‘it’s the right thing to do.’ But, a recent Economist/ You Gov.com poll clearly shows that Obama is either that out of touch with Americans or, as James Carville recently said, he simply doesn’t care what Americans think. Overwhelmingly, Americans do not agree with Obama’s amnesty plans.
The Washington Examiner reports that 81% of Americans believe the border crisis, including unaccompanied children crossing the border illegally, is serious. This is despite recent claims by Democrat Senator Harry Reid that the border is secure.
A whopping 77% say that illegals should be returned to their home countries. While the Left likes to portray those who believe these illegals, regardless of age, should be sent home as heartless, 66% expressed sympathy for whatever situation led them to journey illegally across the U.S border. However, a majority of Americans do not believe that violence in countries such as El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala are the main factor in them coming. In fact, 57% believe that illegals are coming to America due to a belief that the U.S. government is or will grant amnesty to illegal alien children.
Although Obama’s job approval numbers are falling, he is still threatening to grant amnesty via executive order to upwards of 5 million illegals. This possibility was confirmed by fellow Democrat Rep. Luis Gutierrez from Illinois who claims he has met with Obama in the White House to craft an amnesty plan.
Source: http://www.teaparty.org/democrats-push-amnesty-77-americans-want-illegals-sent-home-49574/
http://www.tpnn.com/2014/07/28/while-democrats-push-for-amnesty-77-of-americans-want-illegals-sent-home/
 

Obamacare Nullification Process

In 2014, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed a bill that bans the state from participating in significant portions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It goes into effect on July 1 of this year.

Introduced by Rep. Jason Spencer, the legislation pushes back against the ACA in four ways and will create serious impediments to the implementation of the federal act in Georgia. Specifically, the legislation:

1. Prohibits any state agencies, departments or political subdivisions from using resources or spending funds to advocate for the expansion of Medicaid. This provision works hand-in-hand with HB990 to make it more difficult to expand Medicaid. HB990 requires legislative approval for expansion of the program, barring the governor from doing it by executive order.2. Prohibits the state of Georgia from running an insurance exchange.3. Refuses and federal grant money for the purpose of creating or running a state insurance exchange.4. Ends the University of Georgia Health Navigator Program. It allows the school to complete the functions under the current grant but would prohibit it from getting a new one.

Each of these provisions creates impediments to the implementation and execution of the ACA in Georgia. We’ve seen the difficulties created by the number of states simply refusing to set up exchanges. The ACA was predicated on state cooperation. By refusing to help, passage of the Georgia bill puts the federal government in an almost impossible position. It never intended to run the healthcare system alone, and ultimately, it can’t do it without state help. Judge Andrew Napolitano agreed recently, pointing out that if a number of states were to refuse to participate with the ACA in a wholesale fashion, that multi-state action would “gut Obamacare.”A fifth provision that would have prohibited the Commissioner of Insurance from investigating or enforcing any alleged violation of federal health insurance requirements mandated by the ACA was amended out of the final bill. Spencer has already committed to pursuing that issue as a follow up bill in the 2015 legislative session. If passed into law, this would put the onus of enforcing federal mandates on the federal government, and it lacks any agency to take on that role. The feds expect the state to enforce its mandates. State refusal will create quite the problem.

Second Step

This action by Georgia is actually the second step towards an effective nullification of the ACA. More than a dozen states have already taken the first step with passage of a Health Care Freedom Act or Amendment in the past four years. These states have already codified in law or their state constitutions that “no governmental entity shall coerce, directly or indirectly, any individual to participate in a healthcare system, nor interfere with an individual’s freedom to directly purchase lawful medical services. ”These laws or constitutional provisions prohibit those states from supporting the ACA in any way that addresses the mandate. In order to operate an exchange, state employees would have to determine eligibility for ACA’s “premium assistance tax credits.” Those tax credits trigger penalties against employers (under the employer mandate) and residents (under the individual mandate). In addition, state employees would have to determine whether employers’ health benefits are “affordable.” A negative determination results in fines against the employer. These are key functions of an exchange. Ergo, if the state passes a law establishing an exchange, then that law would violate the state’s constitution or statute by indirectly compelling employers and individual residents to participate in a health care system. That sort of law seems precisely what the Health Freedom Act/Amendment exists to prevent.

Follow up legislation

Recommended steps for states in the 2015 legislative session:

1. For states that have passed Health Freedom Act v.1

 - legislation should be introduced and passed to ensure that state officials are expressly prohibited from taking actions supporting the ACA in any way that helps effectuate the mandate.

2. For all other states

 - the Georgia legislation is a good model for a first step. This can and should be introduced concurrently with other legislation in this list.

3. Health Freedom Act v.2

 - This bill prohibits health insurers from accepting federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that trigger the employer mandate. Health insurers accepting subsidies shall have their license to issue new business suspended for all business on exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act.

4. Insurance Commissioner

 - A narrow bill to prohibit the state Commissioner of Insurance from investigating or enforcing any alleged violation of federal health insurance requirements mandated by the ACA.

5. Reject grants

 - A bill to expressly reject ACA discretionary grants that aid in the federal takeover of state health insurance regulation.

6. Stop state executive action

 - In order to act as a legislative check on agency and executive branch implementation of the ACA, a bill should be introduced to empower legislators to investigate how much their state is spending on implementation, and ensure that ACA-compliant governors gain legislative approval before taking any further action.

7. Ban Medicaid expansion

 - As envisioned by the ACA’s authors, the Medicaid expansion would account for roughly half of the law’s $2 trillion of new entitlement spending over the first 10 years. The Supreme Court blocked Congress’ attempt to coerce states into implementing and, 25 states refused to do so. As a result, those states have already defunded almost a quarter of the ACA’s new entitlement spending. They are also helping to increase dissatisfaction with the law among hospitals and other providers that won’t receive the subsidies they were promised in return for their support. Legislation to ban this expansion should be introduced in states that have a) banned it by executive action only and b) not taken any action to prevent the expansion.

8. Ban the operation of a state-run exchange

 34 states have banned the creation of state-run exchanges under the ACA. Legislation to ban such action should be introduced in states that have a) banned it by executive action only and b) not taken any action to prohibit the operation of an exchange.

9. Prohibit enforcement of liens

 - States can pass legislation to prohibit city/county clerks from enforcing any IRS liens resulting from nonpayment of the ACA fine/tax. They can do the same with state-chartered banks.

10. Comprehensive anti-commandeering legislation

 - In conjunction with narrow bill(s) addressing specific areas from above, an all-encompassing bill to ban state participation in any and all portions of ACA implementation should be considered for introduction. Recognizing that passage of just one bill in a state session can take every ounce of time and energy that a state legislator has available, introduction by one person of all ten bills listed above is not sound strategy. We recommend that an interested legislator contact state legislative leadership to gauge support for one or more of the narrow steps forward and introduce a bill that is most likely to make progress and pass. Concurrently, to build support for future action, another portion or a comprehensive bill should be introduced and used as a tool to educate the public and other legislators alike.


Comments

This is a good first step, however, employers are still on the hook with the 50 employee and 30 hour workweek rules that impede job growth and family income. Medical providers are still on the hook with Obamacare regulations that increase already ridiculous costs.

The next economy crasher is EPA air and water regulations that need to be nullified by the Gold Dome. A fuller list of Georgia legislation needed is as follows:

Repeal Regionalism: Repeal HB 1216 that created regional commissions for economic development.  Repeal HB 277 that allowed Regional tax votes violating “home rule”.

Increase Employment: Nullify Obamacare to end the 30 hour rule and allow healthcare providers to dump costly and unnecessary regulations and lower costs. Ban further immigration in Georgia to allow unemployment to subside.

Keep Energy Prices Low: Nullify EPA Carbon Rules. The State can protect electric power consumers from the global warming hoax by refusing to comply with unconstitutional federal regulations.

Pass Georgia Sovereignty Laws to protect Georgia citizens from unconstitutional federal laws and regulations and protect property owners from federal seizure, interference and abuse.  Pass Georgia Property Rights Laws that protect property owners from government abuse at all levels.

Remove Common Core from Georgia and claim that federal involvement in education is unconstitutional.

Remove eligibility for all tax funded benefits from illegal aliens including drivers licenses, public schooling, medical care, in-state tuition and discrimination rules.

Cancel Georgia’s application to the Article V Convention of States.  It’s too dangerous to do this with the bad guys in charge.

Restrict all “economic development” funds and activities to returning manufacturing to Georgia.

Ban all Agenda 21 implementation in Georgia.

Restrict campaign contributions to be made by registered voters and only for candidates who would appear on their ballot.

Limit property tax increases to 3% per year to avoid large increases like those experienced by Hall County in 2014.

Limit government borrowing power from 10% of the tax registry to 100% of the government entities’ assets.

Require voter approval for all Bonds for all government entities wish to sell.

Norb Leahy,  Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Cityhood with Caution

Fair warning is owed to groups in DeKalb and Fulton counties looking into cityhood for unincorporated areas of these counties. 
Expect the usual sales pitch for seeking refuge from the “evil” county government.  You will be told that you as citizens will be able to control your own city government.  This isn’t really true.  Your city government will be controlled by the chamber of commerce, a city manager and UN Agenda 21 implementation consultants.  You might also be told that they would fix the roads.  This isn’t really true either.  Your roads actually have a better chance of improving less expensively under the county.  You will also be told that you can control your own zoning, but the UN now controls your zoning.  You will experience unnecessary rules, fees, permits and fines you’ve never seen enforced before, because the city will hire a Manager, who will tell the City Council to charge these to make more money for the City.
This is the worst of times and the best of times.  The best comes from the availability of federal grants laundered through unelected boards like MARTA and ARC.  These alone, of course, have caused prices for everything a city buys to double. This is not unlike the kind of inflation in prices you see when a government agency locates a major facility in or near a small rural town.  Rents suddenly double, home prices rise and grocery price rises follow.  In the end, some original residents sell out and move to cheaper digs.  This is simple supply/demand economics. 
In city business, the same supply/demand dynamics is in play, especially when the grants all call for bike lanes, green space, streetscapes, multi-use trails, parks, flowers, bushes and trees and every city and county can apply. Although bids are taken to select vendors for these luxuries, municipalities now use “formulas” to select vendors rather than the lowest bid.  This has fostered groups of cronies who are well connected to the unelected granting bodies.  The bad news is that these folks usually screw up the project and have to go back and fix it.  The really bad news is that the new city will be “advised” to budget millions of dollars on “economic development” for corporate welfare and UN Agenda 21 implementation.  The cookie-cutter master plans and ordinances will erode property rights and impose unnecessary expenses, fees, permits and fines.
In DeKalb and Fulton, failure to maintain roads, bridges, storm sewers, regular sewers, water lines and water treatment facilities have them playing catch-up.  Roads are in bad shape and storm sewers aren’t far behind.  This is very expensive critical infrastructure that should require most of our tax dollars, but cities and counties seem content to spend most of their money on luxuries instead of necessities.  The luxuries include expensive cookie cutter master plans and land use and zoning ordinances.  Unnecessary design costs accompany every road intersection re-do. Road milling and resurfacing costs are double because of road-bed rot.     
The worst news is that the federal government is bankrupt and has been for some time. Consequently, the Federal Reserve has been busy “printing” a 450% increase in the money supply, so more inflation is ahead. With just what they’ve printed so far, it will take 10% annual inflation for 45 years to pay off this 450%.  You will all pay dearly for you new bike lanes and million dollar intersection re-dos.
Many cities and counties have declared bankruptcy over the past several years.  Most notable is Detroit, the victim of the total off-shoring of the U.S. auto industry.  Closer to home, Jefferson County Alabama was ordered by the EPA to build a new water treatment plant that expanded into a total re-do.  They got caught on the wrong end of a Bond flip and couldn’t make the payments. This county outlawed septic tanks and wells to force citizens on to county water and property values collapsed.  In California, no less than a dozen cities have gone bankrupt by backing large commercial redevelopment projects and called to citizens to buy guns as they laid off their police forces.
Cobb County’s Braves grab and future bond cost puts Cobb on the radar for future financial difficulties. Likewise, Hall County property taxes jumped an average of 39% and lake front property lot assessments jumped 100% to 1000%. This could backfire as owners sell and buyers disappear.  Hall property owners are going for an annual cap, like 3 or 4% on future property tax increases in Georgia.
Counties are best equipped to deal with services that require economies of scale.  These are typically roads, bridges, storm sewers, regular sewers, water lines and water treatment facilities. Fire EMS, waste disposal and Police.  It appears that city public schools would make sense in Atlanta Metro.
New cities always want to set up their own Police, Parks and Road maintenance programs, but there is little noticeable difference from when the counties performed these functions.  New cities near CIDs will spend too much on “economic development” to re-do commercial areas.  The CID folks will likely be involved in cityhood campaigns, because they want access to tax dollars and corporate welfare tax holidays for commercial development and redevelopment. 
New cities bring excessive and intrusive compliance with codes, permits, fees and fines. Voters don’t really benefit from this extra layer of government, but the Chamber of Commerce, the CIDs and ARC will push to get these unincorporated areas to set up their own cities.  They will then be able to set up other unelected development and redevelopment boards to issue bonds without approval of the voters.  Georgia law allows them to do this.  Look at the Cobb Braves Bond court decision.
Dunwoody would have done better to establish a road and storm sewer special district to focus on critical infrastructure rather than squandering millions on consultants, studies and corporate welfare.
With “free money” for now, cities are scrambling for federal grants aimed at protecting us from global warming, a hoax, to implement UN Agenda 21, a treasonous scam.
Our economy is being propped up with printed dollars from a bankrupt federal government.  What do you think we should do ?
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

UN Agenda 21 California


Billionaires and U.N. agendas
Posted on July 28, 2014 Written by Cherie Zaslawsky
Kudos to Matt Gro­cott for address­ing U.N. Agenda 21 in Sue Lempert’s col­umn in the July 21 edi­tion of the Daily Jour­nal. The idea of a “U.N. plot” sounds nutty at first, until you real­ize the U.N. acts largely as a front for the bil­lion­aires and politi­cos push­ing this agenda. Recall that Rock­e­feller funded the U.N. head­quar­ters in New York City; Ted Turner donated $1 bil­lion to the U.N. Gates has given $26 bil­lion to “phil­an­thropy” — much to U.N. pro­grams; Buf­fett gave $31 bil­lion to Gates. Appar­ently these glob­al­ists love Agenda 21, essen­tially a two-tiered total­i­tar­ian sys­tem — every­thing severely rationed for us — food, water, hous­ing, energy, land-use, health care, etc. — and lim­it­less for the rul­ing elite.
In 2009, Rock­e­feller, Gates, Soros, Turner and Buf­fett gath­ered for a “let’s change the world” meet­ing. When these multi-billionaires dine together, we the peo­ple are on the menu. They have the com­bined power of a mighty coun­try — one poten­tially hos­tile to America’s free­dom and sovereignty.
Agenda 21, aka “Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment,” calls for “human set­tle­ments” in “tran­sit vil­lages” with only pub­lic tran­sit, no cars. Inter­est­ingly, San Car­los already has an approved tran­sit vil­lage, and the planned “Grand Boule­vard Ini­tia­tive” would turn El Camino Real into mainly a bus route. Fur­ther­more, “Plan Bay Area,” a regional blue­print for all our cities, co-opts local con­trol, rezones your prop­erty out from under you and forces urban­ized high-density hous­ing projects on our sub­urbs — all con­sis­tent with Agenda 21’s tem­plate. Res­i­dents should edu­cate them­selves and protest these regional plans that trump indi­vid­ual rights while urban­iz­ing and homog­e­niz­ing our cities. Our free­dom hangs in the balance.  Cherie Zaslawsky, Menlo Park

Related Posts

Democrats against 2nd Amendment

2nd Amendment Threat Narrowly Averted

46 Senators Voted to Give your 2nd Amendment Constitutional Rights to the U.N.

53 US Senators Voted AGAINST the UN Gun Confiscation – 46 Senators Sold Us Out

 

The U.N. Resolution 2117 lists 21 points dealing with firearms control, but perhaps of most interest is point number 11: “CALLS FOR MEMBER STATES TO SUPPORT WEAPONS COLLECTION, DISARMAMENT —”

HOORAY – 53-46 vote –

 

The U.S. Senate voted against the U.N. resolution. This is that brief, glorious moment in history when everyone stands around…reloading.

 

Now, Which 46 Senators Voted to Destroy Us? Well, let their names become known !! See below . If you vote in one of the states listed with these 46 “legis..traitors”… vote against them.

 

In a 53-46 vote, the Senate narrowly passed a measure that will stop the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.  The Statement of Purpose from the Bill reads:  “To uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.”  The U.N. Small Arms Treaty, which has been championed by the Obama Administration, would have effectively placed a global ban on the import and export of small firearms.  The ban would have affected all private gun owners in the U.S. and had language that would have implemented an international gun registry, now get this, on all private guns and ammo.

 

Astonishingly, 46 out of our 100 United States Senators were willing to give away our Constitutional rights to a foreign power.

 

Here are the 46 senators who voted to give your rights to the U.N.

Baldwin (D-WI)

Baucus (D-MT)

Bennett (D-CO)

Blumenthal (D-CT)

Boxer (D-CA)

Brown (D-OH)

Cantwell (D-WA)

Cardin (D-MD)

Carper (D-DE)

Casey (D-PA)

Coons (D-DE

Cowan (D-MA)

Durbin (D-IL)

Feinstein (D-CA)

Franken (D-MN)

Gillibrand (D-NY)

Harkin(D-IA)

Hirono (D-HI)

Johnson (D-SD)

Kaine (D-VA)

King (I-ME)

Klobuchar (D-MN)

Landrieu (D-LA)

Leahy (D-VT)

Levin (D-MI)

McCaskill (D-MO)

Menendez (D-NJ)

Merkley (D-OR)

Mikulski (D-MD)

Murphy (D-CT)

Murray (D-WA)

Nelson (D-FL)

Reed (D-RI)

Reid (D-NV)

Rockefeller (D-WV)

Sanders (I-VT)

Schatz (D-HI)

Schumer (D-NY)

Shaheen (D-NH)

Stabenow (D-MI)

Udall (D-CO)

Udall (D-NM)

Warner (D-VA)

Warren (D-MA)

Whitehouse (D-RI)

Wyden (D-OR)

 

Folks: This needs to go viral. These Senators voted to let the

UN take OUR guns. They need to lose their next election.

We have been betrayed.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Is it 3rd Party Time ?

Where Will Conservatives Go ?
After each election cycle, conservatives lick their wounds, huddle together and try to figure out where they should go from here.  There are the conversations about starting a 3rd party, but memories of the Ross Perot, Citizens United campaign of 1992 remind them not to go there.   We are inevitably left with getting ready to hold our nose and elect some more RINOs.
This time we have even more recovering Democrats running on the Republican ticket.  These folks are not like Ronald Reagan, who was knocked off his horse by Barry Goldwater in 1964.  They joined the Republican Party for more tactical reasons, like to get elected and give a whole new meaning to fecklessness.     
Our current day prophet for conservatism has been Ron Paul.  He was immediately embraced ty the Tea Party and conservatives have coalesced around his novel notion the U.S. Constitution and 10th Amendment should be followed as written.  This makes way too much sense for the media to embrace. 
Has we followed the Constitution we would not have a bankrupt federal government.  We would not have a $17 trillion National Debt, or $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities, or 100% inflation every 100 years.  We would have elected crooks and saboteurs, but they couldn’t have done this much damage.
The new conservatives agree that attacking fiscal issues is the way to turn around our economically imploding Republic. It is hoped that most Americans will answer “No” to the question:  “Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago ?”  The bigger problem is our fiscal future and voter apathy.  Apathetic citizens don’t vote.  They think it’s over and nothing can be done to save us.  This voter apathy turns into citizen atrophy, so these folks might as well line up for a ride to the gulag.
So we allowed a Muslim, Marxist, illegal alien to be elected as President of the United States, so where do we go from here ?  We fire him as soon as possible.  Hopefully, shortly after the Republicans take over the Senate.  Granted this will require 60 Senators to vote for impeachment, but that is not an impossible feat.  Some Democrats will see which way the wind is blowing and join in.  
So if the Democrats are “toast”, how will the sitting Republicans ever escape the image of being “feckless”. Nobody really believes that we can reverse our entrenchment in Facism by “working across the aisle”. That’s what got us into this mess.  Both parties will need a total overhaul to survive.
All we conservatives can do is to hammer away at the actions our legislatures need to take to dismantle this criminal enterprise we call government and its puppet-masters.  Our goals are populist-based and should appeal to all voters who want a better economy.  It’s based on removing impediments to the free market and disenfranchising destructive special interests.  We want to end the trickle-up redistribution of wealth we have been experiencing.
We support a plan that is based on stopping damaging EPA water and air regulations, keeping our inexpensive hydro and coal-fired electrical power generating systems and abandon UN Agenda 21 implementation.  We need to stop or reduce immigration to get our unemployment under control. We want to close the worst unconstitutional federal departments and give these functions to the States and the People. We want to get out of destructive trade agreements and treaties.  We want to drill all the oil and natural gas we can.  We want to be able to harvest trees and reopen our fishing rights and mine our own minerals. We want to end our Fascist Crony Capitalism and replace it with real Free Enterprise.  We certainly don’t want to lose our sovereignty and our Constitution and become part of a Communist Global Government under the UN or any other global oligarchy.  So, where are our voters ?  
“Big Money”, including the wealthy Marxists, global corporations, “Banksters”, international criminals, liberals, unions and the Chamber of Communists make all the big contributions to both parties aimed at advancing our march to communism.  Turning the tide to avoid sovereign suicide is much more difficult than it should be. Business interests should know that they are allowing U.S. citizens, their largest customer base to be decimated.  This is not a good long-term strategy.  Remember, this is our Bolshevik moment.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Israel v Arabs


Middle East Problem by Dennis Prager.
 
In a nutshell, it is this: One side wants the other side dead.

Israel wants to exist as a Jewish state and to live in peace. Israel also recognizes the right of Palestinians to have their own state and to live in peace. The problem, however, is that most Palestinians and many other Muslims and Arabs, do not recognize the right of the Jewish state of Israel to exist.
This has been true since 1947, when the United Nations voted to divide the land called Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

The Jews accepted the United Nations partition but no Arab or any other Muslim country accepted it.  When British rule ended on May 15, 1948, the armies of all the neighboring Arab states – Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, and Egypt – attacked the one-day old state of Israel in order to destroy it.  But, to the world's surprise, the little Jewish state survived.

Then it happened again. In 1967, the dictator of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, announced his plan, in his words, "to destroy Israel." He placed Egyptian troops on Israel’s border, and armies of surrounding Arab countries were also mobilized to attack. However, Israel preemptively attacked Egypt and Syria.

Israel did not attack Jordan, and begged Jordan’s king not to join the war. But he did. And only because of that did Israel take control of Jordanian land, specifically the "West Bank" of the Jordan River.  Shortly after the war, the Arab states went to Khartoum, Sudan and announced their famous three "No's: "No recognition, no peace, and no negotiations,"
What was Israel supposed to do?

Well, one thing Israel did, a little more than a decade later, in 1978, was to give the entire Sinai Peninsula – an area of land bigger than Israel itself, and with oil – back to Egypt because Egypt, under new leadership, signed a peace agreement with Israel.  So, Israel gave land for the promise of peace with Egypt, and it has always been willing to do the same thing with the Palestinians. All the Palestinians have ever had to do is recognize Israel as a Jewish state and promise to live in peace with it.

But when Israel has proposed trading land for peace – as it did in 2000 when it agreed to give the Palestinians a sovereign state in more than 95% of the West Bank and all of Gaza – the Palestinian leadership rejected the offer, and instead responded by sending waves of suicide terrorists into Israel.  Meanwhile, Palestinian radio, television, and school curricula remain filled with glorification of terrorists, demonization of Jews, and the daily repeated message that Israel should cease to exist.

So it’s not hard to explain the Middle-East dispute. One side wants the other dead. The motto of Hamas, the Palestinian rulers of Gaza, is: "We love death as much as the Jews love life."  There are 22 Arab states in the world – stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. There is one "Jewish State" in the world. And it is about the size of New Jersey. In fact, tiny El Salvador is larger than Israel.

Finally, think about these two questions: If, tomorrow, Israel laid down its arms and announced, "We will fight no more," what would happen? And if the Arab countries around Israel laid down their arms and announced "We will fight no more," what would happen?

In the first case there would be an immediate destruction of the state of Israel and the mass murder of its Jewish population. In the second case, there would be peace the next day. As I said at the outset, it is a simple problem to describe: one side wants the other dead – and if it didn't, there would be peace.

Please remember this: There has never been a state in the geographic area known as Palestine that was not Jewish. Israel is the third Jewish state to exist in that area. There was never an Arab state, never a Palestinian state, never a Muslim or any other state. That's the issue: why can't the one Jewish state the size of El Salvador be allowed to exist? That is the Middle-East problem.

Source: http://www.prageruniversity.com/Political-Science/Middle-East-Problem.html#.U9UsA-kg8qc

Cobb Bond Decision


The Cobb Superior Court decision in favor of the Braves Stadium Bonds suggests that under Georgia law, municipalities can borrow and spend whatever they want without voter approval.  Government shouldn’t be in the recreation business.
Georgia law caps municipal debt to 10% of the value of all property on their tax registry.  This is the first Georgia Law that needs to be reined in to make sense.  It should limit municipal borrowing to 100% of the municipality’s assets and not be leveraged to include citizen’s assets as it currently does.  Borrowing should include all bond sales and bank loans.
The next Georgia law that needs to be revisited is to ensure that any municipal borrowing, bond sales and tax holidays require voter approval.
Development, Redevelopment and CID powers should be reviewed to ensure that expenses, debt and losses from failed projects do not flow back to taxpayers.
The use of costly bond sales by government entities should be discouraged in favor of accrual accounts, there government entities would be expected to budget in advance for large expenditures. Government must be given incentives to drive down the cost of their services.  They are all paying crony vendors double what they should.  Government shouldn’t be in any business that can be done by the private sector without government subsidies. 
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
 

Open Border – Impeachment Issue

Rep. Puts Impeachment On Table In Closed Door Immigration Meeting, July 25, 2014 10:16 am  
(Breitbart) – In a free-wheeling discussion that touched on dozens of proposals for how to address the tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children streaming across the southern U.S. borders, one thread connected the calls to add to or change a border crisis proposal from GOP leadership: President Barack Obama.
The proposals included trying to prevent a future executive amnesty by Obama, telling the president what he should do to enforce the law in a non-binding resolution, and even putting impeachment on the table.
Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) told colleagues that the House should pass legislation with new steps to secure the border, and tell Obama if he didn’t implement it, they would impeach him. “He either enforces the laws on the books—as he was hired and elected to do—or he leaves Congress no option. This is not our choice, this is the President’s choice and I would advise him to uphold the law on the books,” Yoho said in a written statement after the meeting.
“People were hissing at that because they don’t want to go there,” said a GOP member who was in the room. At the other end of the spectrum, Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), a top proponent of comprehensive immigration reform, expressed befuddled frustration with conservative colleagues resistant to passing the package put together by a working group of members appointed by Speaker John Boehner. “I have all my ideas about this, a lot of you guys – what you tell me is, we gotta secure the border and send ‘em home. Now you have a chance to secure the border and send ‘em home, but you’re saying we can’t do it,” he said, to laughter.
There were divergent views from lawmakers on whether the meeting produced a strong impetus to pass a bill in the House next week, with some lawmakers saying the conference had achieved a consensus on moving forward while critics of the border package raised questions about whether it could secure the necessary votes. The discussion is, at this point, about optics, since it’s widely regarded that the House bill will not be enacted into law. “Whatever we do, we gotta figure Reid isn’t going to go ahead with it, so basically it’s a message bill, well we’re going to go tell our constituents, ‘well here’s what we’ve done, Reid won’t do it.’ So this is kind of just political blame shifting,” said Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
One option discussed is a resolution outlining steps Obama should take to secure the border. “Trent Franks mentioned he has a resolution that specifically lists all the ways the president has failed and invited the crisis, lists a number of things that the president could actually do to solve the crisis. I think there’s a lot of sense that that’s a good idea, right out of the gate, to do that. And then whatever you do after that, we’ll see,” DeSantis said. Another was addressing the push to address a future executive action by Obama in a stand-alone bill. “We could at least put it on the floor separately. That’s what my recommendation has been to the task force: if you don’t want to put it in the bill, at least let us vote on it,” said Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX). Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said he supported addressing Obama’s executive actions in the package. “I think we should, but we’ll see. I think we should, but I would vote for it anyway. Whatever comes out is a step in the right direction. You can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” he said. Members remarked about a very wide array of ideas being proposed. “Every subject under the moon” was discussed, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) said. “Oh, yeah – too many,” King said when asked if many views were expressed.
Source:http://www.teaparty.org/rep-puts-impeachment-table-closed-door-immigration-meeting-49138/
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/25/GOP-Special-Immigration-Conference
Comments
Ted Yoho’s option is the best.  It is crisp and doesn’t depend on the “what ifs” that have stymied the House all these years. It better be comprehensive and should include funding and repeals of laws that don’t allow our Military to protect our border. They would watch the Senate ignore their new border closing law and begin impeachment proceedings in the House prior to November.  That would get out the base and should help secure a Republican Senate in November.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader 
 

Net Worth Decline

The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less, by Anna Bernasek, July 26, 2014
Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.
The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Those are the figures for a household at the median point in the wealth distribution — the level at which there are an equal number of households whose worth is higher and lower. But during the same period, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially.
The Russell Sage study also examined net worth at the 95th percentile. (For households at that level, 94 percent of the population had less wealth and 4 percent had more.) It found that for this well-do-do slice of the population, household net worth increased 14 percent over the same 10 years. Other research, by economists like Edward Wolff at New York University, has shown even greater gains in wealth for the richest 1 percent of households.
For households at the median level of net worth, much of the damage has occurred since the start of the last recession in 2007. Until then, net worth had been rising for the typical household, although at a slower pace than for households in higher wealth brackets. But much of the gain for many typical households came from the rising value of their homes. Exclude that housing wealth and the picture is worse: Median net worth began to decline even earlier.
“The housing bubble basically hid a trend of declining financial wealth at the median that began in 2001,” said Fabian T. Pfeffer, the University of Michigan professor who is lead author of the Russell Sage Foundation study.
The reasons for these declines are complex and controversial, but one point seems clear: When only a few people are winning and more than half the population is losing, surely something is amiss. Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/business/the-typical-household-now-worth-a-third-less.html?_r=1
Comments
By 2003, the federal government had already sown the seeds of our demise. NAFTA passed in 1993 and the auto industry was abandoning Detroit, but the other manufacturers had not left the U.S. and we had a “war economy”.  Our National Debt was $5 trillion.  Laws like the Community Reinvestment Act and HUD rules forced Banks to make bad loans. They bundled them into securities that became worthless. The 2008 Meltdown was totally preventable.
By 2013, most manufacturing had left our shores and the federal government had added another $12 trillion to the National Debt.  The federal government also continued to spend twice as much as it took in, continued to disallow oil and gas exploration, launched debilitating EPA and other regulations to steal our farms and close our hydro and coal-fired electrical power plants, maintained open borders and increased immigration to 2 million a year and squandered $1 trillion a year on the global warming scam. Also, the Federal Reserve has increased the money supply by 450% and dollar decline is inevitable.
Thinking that they were helping our largest companies with NAFTA, federal government policies are decimating their U.S. customer base.  We are now facing further economic decline accompanied by 10% inflation over the next 45 years.  Excessive immigration is the sole reason for our high unemployment and Democrats want to increase it even more.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Regionalism & Agenda 21


UN Agenda 21 requires appointed, unelected regional governance identical to the communist soviet system used in the USSR.  When UN Agenda 21 was signed by George HW Bush in 1992, the citizens, through the Congress had no input.  Agenda 21 was implemented by Bill Clinton in 1993 by Executive Order and authorized federal agencies to work with the UN and thousands of federal grant supported “non-profits” to plan and implement this treason. 

In 2008 the Georgia Legislature approved the establishment of regional commissions with HR 1216.  In 2010 the Georgia Legislature approved HR 266, empowering the 12 regions to place T-SPLOST on the ballot.  It failed in 9 of Georgia’s 12 regions, but if it had passed, Georgia voters would have haplessly approved “regional governance”. These laws need to be repealed.  Regional governance violates the “home rule” provisions of the Georgia Constitution. 

In California, voters did approve their regional structures and their individual property rights were destroyed.  This was accomplished with $ trillions in federal grants and media silence.     

The Global Warming hoax was supposed to provide the reason we had to lose our freedom and prosperity in order to “save the planet”.  Now with no global warming for over 15 years, this hoax has been discredited, but US Agenda 21 implementation continues.  We may need to replace all of our elected officials for continuing to waste $1 trillion a year on the global warming myth.

We may be out of time.  The U.S., with a $17 trillion debt and a 450% increase in the money supply is technically bankrupt, but still printing $85 billion a month to prop up our decimated economy.  Unless we cut federal spending in half, remove job-killing federal actions and shift unconstitutional functions from the federal to the states soon, we will become a third-world, communist region of a UN One-World communist government, run by an oligarchy of wealthy global criminals.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

 

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Easements are Unconstitutional Scams


Green Group Under Scrutiny for Trespassing, Harassment at Woman’s Farm Kevin Mooney / @KevinMooneyDC / July 24, 2014

Robert Marmet knew he was supposed to inspect Martha Boneta’s farm, but he didn’t know exactly what for. He knew there were limits on what he could inspect, but he had no idea where they were.

So when Marmet, a senior energy policy analyst with the Piedmont Environmental Council, and his partner Mike Kane, a conservation officer with the group, turned up June 12 to inspect Boneta’s Liberty Farm in Paris, Va., they more or less inspected what they wanted to inspect.

They walked through the upstairs and downstairs portion of the barn that sits on the property. They inspected every room within—bathrooms, closets, storage rooms and offices. They looked over the farmer’s personal effects and even toured the basement area of the barn that housed some of the animals. They inspected “The Smithy,” an historical structure on the property that was once a blacksmith shop. They stood on chairs to peer into the loft area.

Martha Boneta’s farm is subject to regular and rigorous inspections — some say too rigorous — by an environmental group that enforces her easement.

What were they looking for? They were there on behalf of the PEC to enforce an easement on Boneta’s property. Easements are documents property owners sign that compensate them for agreeing to withhold land from commercial development. In Boneta’s case, the PEC accused her in a previous lawsuit of violating the agreement in a number of ways, the main one of which was to operate apartments on the property.

An agreement to settle that suit required PEC to acknowledge the accusation was false and Boneta did not have apartments on the property, but it permitted PEC to “measure for the size of an apartment.” This inspection obviously went far beyond that.

Boneta claims in a lawsuit filed last month in Fauquier County Circuit Court the inspections are part of a pattern of harassment. Her case accuses Peter Schwartz, a member of the elected Fauquier County Board of Supervisors and former member of the PEC board of directors, of, among other things, telling zoning officials he wants the rules “aggressively enforced” with regard to the farm.

She also claims PEC should not be allowed to be involved in the enforcement of the easement. She said before the PEC sold her the farm in 2006, it owned both the property and the easement, which is illegal under Virginia law.

Almost all property owners with easements must endure routine inspections by the land conservancies or other organizations that enforce the easements. Usually, they are low-key and friendly. Landowners are apprised of violations, and the sides work together to address them. This is not the case with Martha Boneta. A lawsuit Boneta filed seeks to halt invasive inspections of her farm by the Piedmont Environmental Council.

She told Marmet and Kane when they entered her property in June they could inspect only what the easement language allows. “It’s very clear,” she said. And if they “exceed what the language says, it is considered trespassing. In the past, you have demanded to inspect my closets and have photographed my personal private possessions, and this exceeds your authority.”

Marmet replied that, yes, he is an attorney—and a former judge, according to his bio on the PEC website—but he is not licensed to practice law in Virginia and is not familiar with the terms of the easement. If he was about to violate any of its terms, he told Boneta, “I ask that you give me notice.”

At which point, Mark Fitzgibbons, an attorney and neighbor who has supported legislation to protect traditional farming practices from intrusive zoning rules, stepped in. “The PEC has been placed on notice,” Fitzgibbons told Marmet. “The obligation is on you, not Martha Boneta, to know what the easement terms are.”

Fitzgibbons told The Daily Signal the inspections have gotten out of hand. “From what I’ve observed, these inspections are being conducted with an agenda greater than ensuring fidelity to the easement,” he said.

It does seem to me the PEC has crossed a line. They are going anywhere and everywhere across Martha’s property, and it does seem excessive. So, either they do not know what the easement terms really say, or they do know and are pushing boundaries of their easement authority. Also, if the terms of easement are vague, they are to be construed against the inspector, which opens the issue of trespassing.

Fitzgibbons is not alone in thinking the PEC has gone too far with its handling of Boneta. Several recent events suggest frustration with the organization and what many view as its heavy-handed tactics may be reaching critical mass.

There is Boneta’s lawsuit, in which she claims the PEC “attempted to convince the [county] zoning administrator and other local government officials” to issue zoning citations against her farm—and plenty of email and written correspondence obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests to support her version.

There is something called the Boneta Bill, signed into law by Terry McAuliffe, Virginia’s Democratic governor, and effective July 1. The legislation, which prevents local authorities from requiring special-use permits for conventional farming activities outlined in the law, proves members of Virginia’s General Assembly recognize the problem and have sympathy for Boneta.

The ‘Boneta Bill,” which became law in Virginia on July 1, allows farmers to engage in farming activities, such as beekeeping, regardless of easements. And there is the audit of Boneta’s 2010 and 2011 tax records that some suggest may amount to using the IRS against Boneta. A former IRS director sits on PEC’s board.

Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, a non-profit, free-enterprise group based in Virginia, is circulating a petition that calls on House Speaker John Boehner and other congressional leaders to investigate the PEC, its relationship with the county government and the actions the group has taken against Liberty Farm.

DeWeese said the documents reveal Schwartz, the county supervisor, knew about Boneta’s audit before she received the notice in the mail, and Fitzgibbons said he learned of the audit during a meeting with Schwartz in the supervisor’s private home on July 21, 2012—a few days before Boneta received her IRS letter.

“Martha [Boneta] stood up and resisted, and so now she is being targeted,” DeWeese said in an interview. “But this is not just Fauquier County. We see this happening all over the country. The PEC is one of many quasi groups operating behind the scenes. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of green groups just like the PEC pulling the strings of government.” DeWeese also said he is talking to state lawmakers about placing a “five-year opt out” provision on easements that would give property owners some flexibility.

“Right now the easements exist in perpetuity, and this is a problem because there is no real oversight for how they are managed,” DeWeese said. “The PEC can move the easements around to the government and other land trusts, and it’s a profit for them. But the landowner is stuck forever with the easement.” If there is a congressional investigation, DeWeese would like to see the PEC’s non-profit 501(c)(3) status come under scrutiny.

“The PEC was given an IRS designation as a non-profit educational institution and this comes with restrictions,” he said. “Given how they have interacted with the Fauquier County government and how they have treated Martha, I think this calls out for an investigation. If you cut off the PEC’s 501(c )(3) status, you can cut off PEC at the knees.”

The PEC has moved to dismiss Boneta’s suit in its entirety because it “has failed to set forth valid claims,” said Heather Richards, vice-president of conservation and rural programs, wrote in an email. The group also released a detailed post on its website that presents its side of the story.

“PEC and other land trusts across the country take our responsibility to uphold conservation easements in perpetuity seriously, and work hard to maintain positive relationships with landowners,” the post says. “We are saddened by the public misrepresentations about both the terms of this conservation easement and the facts surrounding the court case and its ensuing settlement, which was agreed to by all parties.” But questions remain.

Why was Boneta singled out for an audit, and how did Schwartz and others know about it beforehand? What does it say about the relationship between the PEC and Fauquier County government that a supervisor can encourage “aggressive enforcement?” How much inspection is needed to determine whether there are apartments in the barn? Martha Boneta’s Liberty Farm in Paris, Va., is subject to rigorous inspections by a green group that enforces the easement on her property.

Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, has studied conservation easements for decades. He said what began as a laudable effort to provide financially stressed landowner with tax breaks in exchange for setting aside land for conservation has been converted into a vehicle for government land grabs. The actions taken against Liberty Farm appear to bolster these concerns, he said.

“Mr. Marmet showed an appalling ignorance of the terms of the conservation easement he, representing the PEC, was on Martha Boneta’s property to enforce,” said Cohen, who witnessed the inspection in June. “One is left with the impression that the inspection was little more than a fishing expedition to find out how much he could get away with. That’s not right.”


Comments

Conservation Easements should be outlawed at the State level.  This is a scam and county officials who have installed “Conservation Easements” in their counties should be replaced.  These easements offer property tax breaks, but the loss of the use of the land destroys the market value of the land.  They end game is to bankrupt you and take your land.

All other “easements” should be reviewed for abuse everywhere.  This includes excessive easements from the centerline of roads.  We have 50 foot easements from the centerline of 2 lane roads.  Easements are unconstitutional.  The U.S. Constitution requires “just compensation” for citizens when government takes their land.  With easements, you lose the right to use the property, but continue to pay property taxes on it.  Municipalities should be required to pay property owners “fair value” for easements taken. This is a scam. 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader