Houston Area Liberty Campaign

Thanks to this HALC author’s friend, Rick, in MN….

 OK, I did my part.  Now You FIRE this around the world to everybody you know.  GRRRRR!!  I’m MAD AND YOU WILL BE TOO!
 
 Your   U.S.  House & Senate have voted themselves raises at $4,700 in the House
and $5,300 in the Senate.

1.     They voted to not give you a Social Security cost of living raise in 2010 and 2011 

2.     Your Medicare premiums will go up $285.60 for the 2-years and you will not get the 3% COLA: $660/yr. Your total 2-yr loss and cost is -$1,600 each or -$3,200 for husband and wife.                                                        

3.     Over 2-yrs The House & Senate each get $10,000 raises

4.     Do you feel SCREWED?

5.    WILL your cost of drugs – doctor fees – local taxes – food, etc., increase?  You better believe they will!
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Only God can bless us !!!

I heard the sound of Taps one night, when everything was still. I listened to the bugler play and felt a sudden chill.
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Original Editorial by HALC Member Jeff Larson

Now With 40% More Added Unconstitutionality

Will we be seeing more of these signs soon?

Well, this should be the third and final installment of Arizona Mythbusters, my look at Arizona SB 1070 as modified by Arizona HB 2162.  If you missed the first two parts of Arizona Mythbusters, you can find Part I here and  Part II here.  What I’ve been doing is just looking at the plain text of the new Arizona laws, and just trying to explain what it all really means.

Can you go to jail in Arizona just for taking an illegal to church?

Full disclosure:  I have an ancestor who was a lieutenant in George Washington’s Spy Corps, and I have a niece who is marrying an illegal later this year.  I understand Juan’s English better than I understood some of my grad school professors, and Sammie’s Spanish proficiency has been growing by leaps and bounds…mostly from helping Juan’s family in the kitchen at family get-togethers.

Juan and Sammie are grateful that they don’t live in Arizona.  Since Juan is already “in the system” and on his way to getting a green card because his mother is legal (she got amnesty a few years back), it is extremely unlikely that he’ll be deported unless he does something stupid, and Juan’s not that kind of guy.  But most illegals know someone who has been deported, and are very careful to avoid that fate.  In Juan and Sammie’s case, they’ve been reluctant to come to Texas for fear of him getting into immigration trouble.  They absolutely won’t visit Arizona, because if Sammie was driving, she could be thrown into jail, too.

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It’s Still The “Most Reprehensible Thing Since The Japanese Internment”

Arizona Immigrant

Hey, I hope you had a fine Memorial Day.  Myself, spent some time watching the video my daughter made for her history class, and tried to plumb the inner mysteries of Arizona SB 1070 as modified by Arizona HB 2162.  That’s right, it’s time for the second installment of Arizona Mythbusters!

We last left off with the new Section 11-1051 of Title 11 of the Arizona Statutes.  Today, we’ll start with the new Section 13-1509 that they added to Title 13 of the Statutes.  13-1509, subsection A:

“In addition to any violation of federal law, a person is guilty of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document if the person is in violation of 8 United States Code Section 1304(e) or 1306(a).”

Hmm.  That sounds like “Your papers, please?“  That sounds reminiscent of second class status of Jews in Germany prior to World War II when they had to have their papers with them at all times and were subject to routine inspections at the suspicion of being Jewish.  Well, according to US federal law (Section 1304(e) referenced above), all legal aliens must have their papers with them at all times and are subject to routine inspections at the suspicion of being an alien.  And that’s been the law of the land since 1940, when we were asking real Nazis in the US for “your papers, please?”  All the Arizona law does is also make it a state crime to be in violation of federal law.  Under federal law, the penalty for having a green card and not carrying it is a $100 fine and 30 days in jail.  Ouch!  Don’t leave home without that green card!  If prosecuted under state law, the penalty is reduced to 20 days for a first offense, 30 days for a subsequent offense.  There may be a loophole, though, that I’ll describe below.

Those Arizona legislators are real softies!

Immigrants really catch a break from Arizona if they never bothered to register in the first place.  Under Arizona law, it’s still a $100 fine and 20/30 days in jail.  On the federal side, failure to register is a $1000 fine and six months in the pokey.  So, if I was an illegal who failed to register, I’d rather be prosectuted by Arizona than by the feds.  Those Arizona legislators are real softies!
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[By HALC.us staff]

Why the choice of Justices sitting on the bench is vitally important …and how since they’re human too, they can royally eff it up for about 300 million other people.

In this writer’s personal opinion, the following are the top five worst rulings by the U. S. Supreme Court.  This was quite a difficult task to undertake, as there has been so much from the Court that seems to fly in the face of what is “good,” “right” and Constitutional.

I will give a basic layman’s case breakdown, the Court’s decision and subsequent case history (as far as being contested further in the lower courts after being “reversed and remanded” or being overturned by subsequent U. S. Supreme Court cases.  I will also give my “gems of reasoning” as to Constitutional issues and arguments that have been or will be quoted by legal scholars for decades to come.

[In case you’re interested in other people’s take on this subject, check here, here and here for other folks’ opinions as to the top five or ten U. S. Supreme Court decisions.  My top five pretty much mirrored those reflected in these other instances.  I got the idea for this article in light of the recent clamor over the Elena Kagan nomination for U. S. Supreme Court.]

*Per curiam means “by the court.”  It’s a phrase used to distinguish the whole court’s opinion versus one judge’s opinion.  Sometimes it denotes an opinion written by the Chief Justice or Presiding Judge, or to a brief announcement of the disposition of a case by court not accompanied by a written opinion.

**Slip opinion is the second version of an opinion which is sent to the printer later in the day on which the bench opinion is released by the Court. Each slip opinion has the same elements as the bench opinion–majority or plurality opinion, concurrences or dissents and a syllabus–but contains corrections not appearing in the bench opinion. Slip opinions are posted on this Website within minutes after the bench opinions are issued and remain posted until the opinions are published in bound volumes of the United States Reports.

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New Arizona Law is “Most Reprehensible Thing Since the Japanese Internment”

Arizona Senate Bill 1070 sure has been in the news a lot lately.  To read some accounts, you’d have thought Arizona Governor Jan Brewer had stolen a few pages from Adolph Hitler’s playbook, crossing out “Jews” wherever she found it and penciling in “Hispanics”.  So, what’s really going on with Arizona’s new laws, and should anyone whose last name ends with a “z” leave the state now before the authorities can finish building the concentration camps?

Should anyone whose last name ends with a “z” leave Arizona before the concentration camps are complete?

The first thing to know about Senate Bill (SB) 1070 is that it’s already been changed by House Bill 2162, which was intended to head off any legal challenges to SB 1070.  HB 2162 has already been signed by Governor Brewer.  In this article, whenever I talk about SB 1070, I’m referring to the version that was modified by HB 2162, since the two bills taken together are the law of the land in Arizona.

So, let’s go through it and see what it says.  There’s a lot to this, so I’m going to have to break it up into a least two parts.
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From a contributor to our companion group, Spring/Klein/Tomball Ron Paul PAC in SD 7.

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I once heard a profound piece of wisdom from a psychologist who crystallized for me the essence of being a parent.

He said the most important gift a mother can give her son is for him to really feel unconditional love from her, and it is the father’s greatest gift to teach him and inspire him to be a man.

And he said that the greatest gift a father could give his daughter is for her to feel his unconditional love and her mother’s greatest gift is to teach her and inspire her to be a woman.

My mother passed away on the Monday before Mother’s Day in 1997, less than a week after moving back to our hometown, and yet she lives on in my heart today.

The form may change but the essence remains. And since I can’t thank her in the flesh, but in the spirit, I thought I would share that spirit of love and gratitude with all of you Mothers out there because you are an important woman to at least one person’s life. And if you are a woman who thinks she is not a mother, just look around you and you will see the children you have mothered.

This weekend I thank my Mother for having made me to feel her unconditional love, so that I can in turn pass it on, and I would pass it on to a daughter if I had one. But since I don’t have a daughter, I decided to pass it on to the women who have been significant in my life, and you are such a woman, and I honor you for the love you share with your children. To you, I wish you a most fulfilling Mother’s Day.

I have included  a Press Release to make you aware of the origins of Mother’s Day to remind us all of what mothers already know, followed by some quotes about mothers from different people, and the last two quotes are meant for mothers.

Happy Mother’s Day Ladies,

Rick

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The Anti-War Origins of Mother’s Day

Each year the president issues a Mother’s Day Proclamation. The original Mother’s Day Proclamation was made in 1870. Written by Julia Ward Howe, perhaps best known today for having written the words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1862 when she was an antislavery activist, the original Proclamation was an impassioned call for peace and disarmament. In the years following the Civil War her political activism increased, as did her condemnation of war. Here are the words to the original Mother’s Day Proclamation:

“Arise then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

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[By HALC.us staff]
This Fire Dog Lake article discusses documents in the criminal trial of disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.  Chicago’s NBC affiliate station has posted previously redacted information that had been missing from a subpoena requesting that Barack Obama testify in the trial.

Perhaps the person doing the redaction work on the subpoena had little experience redacting personal information to be published.  Or, perhaps someone really wanted the real information to be seen so the citizens of Illinois, as well as the country as a whole, would know what Former Senator Obama has been up to all these years.  That trial court’s judge, Judge James B. Zagel, called an emergency meeting over redaction errors.

The hubub of this trial is that Barack Obama is claiming that he can’t be forced to testify at all in Blagojevich’s trial proceedings since he’s a sitting President.  This is despite the fact that the acts alleged by the U. S. Government in the state of Illinois against Blagojevich occurred when Obama was a mere U S Senator from Illinois.  NO immunity would apply.

(Think back to Bill Clinton and the “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”  Those acts occurred while Clinton was Governor of Arkansas and were not “official acts” of the office carrying out an official duty, so no immunity would apply.)

At the heart of the matter, Blagojevich’s defense attorneys allege that Tony Rezko, a former neighbor, former fundraiser and former friend of the Obamas, admitted to violating election law by personally contributing “a large sum of cash” to a public official’s campaign.  Blagojevich’s attorneys and other people in Blagojevich’s circle say that Barack Obama is the “public official.”

Blagojevich’s lawyers claim that Obama may not have been telling the truth when he said Rezko never relayed a request from a lobbyist to hold a fundraiser for Obama in exchange for favorable legislative action (Obama, however, refused to agree to the offer, Rezko allegedly says).  They also claim that Obama allegedly lied when he said he didn’t have any conversations with Rezko about a casino license.

On top of this Blagojevich case and the dozens of birth certificate challenge lawsuits around the country against Barack Obama, including the docket for Berg v. Obama, et al., 2:08-CV-04083-RBS, a Philadelphia, PA case regarding Obama’s eligibility to serve as United States President.  In order to view the documents hyperlink in the Berg case docket, you must either already have a PACER account set up, set one up or locate the documents from a source that already has purchased put on their website the documents.  PACER accounts have a set-up cost [but this writer is unsure about the amount of that] and $.08/page for downloading documents thereafter.  Here is the originating document in the case, the Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief.  This should be interesting, folks…  Keep tuned for more later.

[By HALC.us staff]
On Thursday, May 6, 2010, I got an automatic call asking me to “hold for an important message.”  I was going to hang up since I figured the caller wanted to sell me some Hardiplank siding or ask me to donate to save the endangered Deep East Texas Fire Ant Fungi.  But then the recording popped in with a statement saying to “hold for a live teleconference with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Empower Texans’ President Michael Sullivan.”  My Grandma K’s voice chimed up in my mind and said “Don’t hang up girl.”

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott

Empower Texans President Michael Q. Sullivan

The call turned out to really be a conference call with Attorney General Greg Abbott and Empower Texans’ Michael Quinn Sullivan. I thought, “Hmmm, this will be interesting.  I’ll stay put!!”

At one point during the conference call, there were approximately 53,000+ Texans on the call.  The purpose of the call was to discuss the lawsuit that the State of Texas, along with 12 other states, has filed against the United States government and several key secretaries of the United States government as to H. R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, (“the Act”).

That was an amazing thing to hear!!  While only one caller could be heard at a time, it’s reassuring to think that 52,999+ other Texans felt it was important enough to take their time to listen in and maybe ask a question of Attorney General Abbott.

You will be able to find the archived teleconference on the Empower Texans website by looking for the Texas flag with “Texas v ObamaCare” (in the middle of the line, near the top) or by clicking here.

The case that the state of Texas filed against the United States is styled The State of Florida, et. al v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, et. al., No. 3:10-cv-91, in the United States District Court, Northern Division of Florida, Pensacola Division.  Named individual defendants in the Florida suit, amongst six total, are Kathleen Sebelius, Sec. of Health and Human Services; Eric H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney General; and Timothy F. Geithner, Sec. of Treasury.

The Attorneys General involved in this lawsuit and the states they represent are:

Bill McCollum, Florida
Henry McMaster, South Carolina

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