Houston Area Liberty Campaign

by Kaili Joy Gray aka Angry Mouse

April 30,2010 – Houston
The Houston Tea Party Society hosted an event at the Crowne Plaza Hotel to allow candidates for the 2010 Congressional Races in the Houston and Southeast Texas to participate and sign the Contract From America.    The event was open to all congressional Candidates in the South East Texas area including incumbents and challengers.

The Contract from America is self described as a grassroots-generated, crowd-sourced, bottom-up call for real economic conservative and good governance reform in Congress.   The initative was developed within the decentralized tea party and 912 movements. Ryan Hecker, a Houston Tea Party Society activist, developed the concept of creating a grassroots-generated call for reform prior to the April 15, 2009 Tax Day Tea Party rallies.

John Culberson (R ) of Texas District 7 was the only incumbent present for the signing.    The candidates in attendance included Libertarians Bruce West of the 8^th district, David Smith of the 2^nd District and Steve Susman of the 22^nd District.   Republican signers for the contract were John Faulk – District 18.

Congressional candidate David Smith, CD 2-TX

John Culberson was the first to sign the contract.   Before signing the contract, he took exception to the 9^th item which was to reduce pork.   The contract states that congress will not pass any earmarks until the budget is balanced and only then with a 2/3 majority vote.    Culberson declined to include that item and used a “Line item veto” with that rule.

All other candidates signed the contract without any exceptions or exemptions.   David Smith who is opposing Ted Poe of the 2^ndCongressional District, used his time to mention “Fiscal Responsibility is vital to our economy and our government.”   He also noted that he had been busy campaigning in a non-stop door to door campaign.

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This is a very interesting cartoon from 1948.  Still very relevant today and is especially chilling in parts, especially when they talk about how the ISM just wants to divide & conquer by playing the race, age, sex, religion and party cards…

Pay close attention to some of the comments.  Many give a good plan of action for righting the direction we’re headed…  and follow the parallels for today’s political climate.

From: http://www.medinafortexas.com/
Published 11/09/2009 – 3:58 p.m. CST

Debra Medina, a registered nurse and candidate for governor, is taking the lead in defending Texas against the nationalization of healthcare.

“This bill devastates freedom and destroys healthcare. Texas must nullify the action by congress and fight for an injunction in the federal courts. I am urging Governor Perry today to call the Texas Legislature into special session. I am encouraging Attorney General Abbott to begin the work necessary to obtain an injunction against the IRS and the 111 other federal agencies empowered in this legislation to further embed Washington D.C. in our lives. These actions are critical to insuring that Texans are free to make our own decisions about healthcare” stated Medina.

As the U.S. Senate takes up HR 3962, the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” Texans must mobilize now as never before! We must not wait, there can be no delay. We must prepare for the eventuality that the U. S. Senate will pass this bill and be ready to immediately defend the sovereignty of the great state of Texas.

The Texas Legislature must act. Please call your state representative and state senator today. Find your district and their number here:  http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/. Ask them to demand that the governor call a special session to address the nationalization of healthcare; to nullify those actions by Congress that undermine the sovereignty of Texas.

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[This article originally ran in The New Republic, September 7, 1987, pp. 19-21]
[Story illustrations from online sources]

Why Americans Don’t Vote
And what to do about it.

By: Robert Kuttner

THE UNIVERSAL vote is both the essence of political democracy and its most jarringly radical aspect. When people from all economic walks of life have an equal say in governance, ordinary power relationships are transformed. Some people, by dint of wealth, education, or position, normally enjoy more influence than others. Yet in the electoral realm, these deep economic and social inequalities are supposedly neutralized by the egalitarian logic of one person-one vote.

Not surprisingly, modern democracies experience a tension between these two sets of logic–the economic and the political. The tension is evident whenever campaign contributions buy votes, whenever family fortunes win elections, whenever the political power of have-nots takes something of economic value from the haves, or whenever wide differences in voting participation exist between different races or social classes. The tension is especially acute in the United States, which is both the most durably democratic of nations and the most fiercely capitalist of the democracies. Ours is also the democracy where the fewest citizens bother to vote. In the 1986 election, voting turnout as a fraction of the adult population, about 38 percent, was the lowest since the wartime election of 1942. In states outside the South, it was the lowest since 1798.

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Why an individual mandate could be struck down by the courts.

By DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. AND LEE A. CASEY

Image by Chad Crowe

Federal legislation requiring that every American have health insurance is part of all the major health-care reform plans now being considered in Washington. Such a mandate, however, would expand the federal government’s authority over individual Americans to an unprecedented degree. It is also profoundly unconstitutional.

An individual mandate has been a hardy perennial of health-care reform proposals since HillaryCare in the early 1990s. President Barack Obama defended its merits before Congress last week, claiming that uninsured people still use medical services and impose the costs on everyone else. But the reality is far different. Certainly some uninsured use emergency rooms in lieu of primary care physicians, but the majority are young people who forgo insurance precisely because they do not expect to need much medical care. When they do, these uninsured pay full freight, often at premium rates, thereby actually subsidizing insured Americans.

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When politicians and their supporters look for examples of strong defenders of freedom and our Constitution they can look no further than Grover Cleveland and his mountain of vetoes. Both of our major parties should take a look at Cleveland’s actions.

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Source: Mises Daily by Grover Cleveland | Posted on 8/20/2009 12:00:00 AM

[Of President Grover Cleveland's 584 vetoes, that of the "Texas Seed Bill" (February 16, 1887) may be the most famous. Members of Congress wanted to help suffering farmers in the American West, but Cleveland rejected their bill, citing the limited mission of the general government and arguing that private charity and already-existing government programs should furnish the necessary aid.]

Stephen Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)

To the House of Representatives:

I return without my approval House bill number 10203, entitled “An Act to enable the Commissioner of Agriculture to make a special distribution of seeds in drought-stricken counties of Texas, and making an appropriation therefor.”

It is represented that a long-continued and extensive drought has existed in certain portions of the State of Texas, resulting in a failure of crops and consequent distress and destitution.

Though there has been some difference in statements concerning the extent of the people’s needs in the localities thus affected, there seems to be no doubt that there has existed a condition calling for relief; and I am willing to believe that, notwithstanding the aid already furnished, a donation of seed grain to the farmers located in this region, to enable them to put in new crops, would serve to avert a continuance or return of an unfortunate blight.

And yet I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose.

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William Kostric appeared at a New Hampshire Obama town-hall bearing a pistol on his thigh. He had a license to open-carry and had been approved to be there by the Sheriff and Secret service. Our friends at MSNBC, however, completely flipped out.

My favorite quote, “My question is, why cant we get rid of him NOW?” Of course, each anchor makes not-so-subtle suggestions that Kostric is likely a racist assassin.

Chris Matthews hosted Kostric in a follow up interview on Hardball and Kostric handled himself exceptionally. Matthews repeatedly attempts to corner Kostric and marginalize him by asking him about his views on Obama’s presidential legitimacy (are you a birther) before attempting to frame the argument against gun rights.

Kostric does a great job re-framing the conversation while staying calm, demonstrating his well reasoned positions.

Do a quick search for William Kostric and you’ll find a slew of liberal blogs painting him as a home grown terrorist. Some, like the Daily Kos, go as far as actually tagging the story as such.

Daily Kos uses tags to slander William Kostric

I find it extremely disturbing that the very fear many had about the previous administration’s loose use of “enemy combatant” suddenly becomes O.K. when it’s someone you don’t agree with.

Sounds like a witch hunt is brewing.

Oh boy, oh boy. Texas has just joined the growing list of states asserting their 10th amendment rights. According to the Texas Legislature, HCR 50 has passed with 99 Yeas, 36 Nays, 4 Present, not voting. Although the vote has not yet been certified by the House Journal Clerk, this is big news for the cause of Liberty and constitutional governance for Texans.
 The 81st Texas Legislature describes HR50 as follows:

Affirming that the State of Texas claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution, serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates, and providing that certain federal legislation be prohibited or repealed.

Why this matters

There’s alot of confusion about this topic for the average person. Some have asked if this means Texas is going to secede. This bill, and those like it, have nothing to do with secession but rather ensuring that the citizens are still able to locally access and control their government – as was intended by the Founders. 

When a State asserts their 10th amendment rights they are simply reminding the Federal government that if any federal laws imposed upon a State are deemed in excess of the Federal government’s constitutionally granted authority (a.k.a. “totally illegal”), the State can disregard the law through something called “Nullification”.

It’s like reminding a bossy in-law that this is your house, not theirs and you’ll paint the walls any way you darn well please.

To read the full Resolution text and how your congressman voted click the link below.

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