Archive for August, 2011

When you hear the term “Administrative Rules,” do your eyes glaze over? Doesn’t the term itself just sound boring? “Administrative Rules” are not a favorite topic when we get together with our friends or family and discuss politics or government.

Maybe they should be.

Administrative Rules are rules enacted by non-elected bureaucrats of state and federal agencies. At the federal level, the EPA, OSHA and the FCC are famous for passing restrictive administrative rules. At the state level, the DNR is notorious for passing difficult rules.

There are lots and lots of administrative rules, and these rules have the force of law without ever being voted on by lawmakers.

The DNR passes rules regarding hunting, fishing, boating, creeks, rivers, lakes, piers, putting in culverts, where you can and can’t build, how to upgrade your business, etc., etc., etc. All these rules cost people money and time. There are also other agencies, such as the Department of Safety and Professional Services (formerly Regulation and Licensing), that have created a plethora of administrative rules.

On the federal level, the EPA continually passes regulations that have the force of law without the people’s representatives in the House and Senate voting on them. These regulations increase costs on people and businesses. Companies that produce electricity are facing rules that are going to cost everyone a whole lot of money on their electric bills. That means businesses have to charge higher prices, lay people off or both.

When families, businesses and the economy are struggling, is it really time for new, expensive EPA rules that cost everyone more? Gas and electric (energy) are the current target.

I am introducing a bill that will require the legislature to pass and the governor to sign an authorization bill before an administrative rule takes effect. After all, these rules do have the force of law. Lawmakers are supposed to vote on laws, even if they’re called rules. These Administrative Rules affect families and businesses in the same way laws do.

Separation of powers is an important part of our government. Laws are supposed to be passed by the people’s representatives in the legislature and signed into law by governors or presidents. Rules that have the force of law shouldn’t be left in the hands of non-elected bureaucrats.

From Lasee’s Notes 8/18/11, by Sen. Frank Lasee.

State Capitol Room 104S- PO Box 7882, Madison, WI 53708
(608) 266-3512
Email: Sen.Lasee@ legis.wisconsin.gov

Obviously something is rotten on Pennsylvania Avenue; no intelligent American president would do the things Obama has done. There has been talk of his inexperience, incompetence, or just plain stupidity to explain his Bizarro-administration. However, Obama is not incompetent; he is an intelligent anti-American president. Obama is not a failure at his job — his job is the failure of our country.

Liberty-minded folk have several reasons why we assume another person is incompetent rather than malicious. One reason is our belief that a person is “innocent until proven guilty”; another is the natural presumption others are similar to ourselves. Unfortunately, these ideas have been coupled with a pair of dangerously pragmatic moral equivalencies foisted upon us all: “Who am I to judge?” and “They couldn’t possibly mean that.” As long as there is any possibility that Obama is just in over his head and doesn’t mean what he says and does, many will excuse him on those grounds.

Every American must judge Obama and his ideas and understand he does mean what he says, and realize there is no excuse, save one — Barack Obama is an anti-American in thought and deed.

Obama gets dreams from his socialist father. . . .

Read more by Boyd Richard Boyd in American Thinker

Colleges’ sick ‘orientation’ game

Parents sending children off to college for the first time, beware: Their “freshman orientation” is all too likely to include being herded through a “tunnel of oppression” to learn about the evils of “white privilege,” being lectured about how they’re part of a “rape culture” or being forced to discuss their sexual identities with complete strangers — before they even meet their first professor.

That’s right: For all we hear about faculty ideological or political bias, campus administrators are often worse when it comes to brainwashing students.

Consider the shocking account from a student trained to be a dorm supervisor — a resident adviser, or RA — at DePauw University in Indiana. One of her first duties last fall was to lead her new students through a house decorated as a “Tunnel of Oppression,” where supposedly “realistic” demonstrations in each room taught lessons such as how religious parents hate their gay children, Muslims would find no friends on a predominantly non-Muslim campus and overweight women suffer from eating disorders.

Read more by ROBERT SHIBLEY, 8/25/2011 in the NY Post

Speakers: State Sen Mary Lazich and Milw Cty Supervisor Joe Sanfelippo

We also hope to be welcoming new members who joined the RPMC during the Wisconsin State Fair.

Wednesday Sept. 14, from 6:30 pm - 8:15 pm.

Franklin Public Library - 9151 W. Loomis Road, Room: Fadrow B

Contact Rose Ann Dieck 414-421-9337
swsrepublicanclub@ yahoo.com

Americans eager to give after the 9/11 terrorist attacks poured $1.5 billion into hundreds of charities established to serve the victims, their families and their memories. But a decade later, an Associated Press investigation shows that many of those non-profits have failed miserably.

There are those that spent huge sums on themselves, those that cannot account for the money they received, those that have few results to show for their spending and those that have yet to file required income tax returns. Yet many of the charities continue to raise money in the name of September 11.

One charity raised more than $700,000 for a giant memorial quilt, but there is no quilt. Another raised more than $4 million to help victims, but didn’t account publicly for how it spent all of the money. A third helps support a 9/11 flag sold by the founder’s for-profit company.

Read more from the Daily Mail on 8/25/2011

WAUSAU (WAOW) — Newsline 9 has learned Rep. Sean Duffy has been told he is not allowed in this year’s Labor Day parade in Wausau.

Duffy’s office received that news earlier this week from parade organizers. His office was also told no Republicans will be allowed this year.

The parade is sponsored by the Marathon County Labor Council. A Wausau city spokeswoman said the city does not contribute any money to the parade.

Read more at Newsline 9 in Wausau.

One of the most outrageous “open secrets” of U.S. government policy these days is that the Federal Reserve is still paying big banks not to lend money.

And it’s doing that while screwing average Americans who have been responsible and lived within their means.

Huh?

Seriously:

The Federal Reserve is quietly continuing with one of the many outrageous bank-bailout programs it initiated during the financial crisis–the one in which it pays big banks interest on their “excess reserves.”

What are “excess reserves”?

Money that the banks have but aren’t lending out–money that banks are just keeping on deposit at the Fed.

The Fed is paying banks 0.25% interest on this money.

0.25% interest may not sound like much, but it’s more than the banks are paying you to keep money in your savings or money-market account. It’s also more than you’ll earn if you lend the Federal government money for 2 years.

Oh, by the way, why, exactly, are you earning so little interest in your savings accounts and money-market funds?

Well, because, thanks to another one of its bank-bailout programs, the Fed is keeping short-term interest rates at zero.

In other words, the Fed is paying banks not to lend money and screwing you, American citizens, because you’re dumb enough to have saved money.

This is just so bass-ackwards it’s not to be believed.

Read more by Henry Blodget, 8/17/2011, at Business Insider

Affiliates of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer foundation gave more than half a million dollars to Planned Parenthood in 2010, according to federal tax records.

The American Life League obtained copies of the financial documents, which totaled donations from 18 Komen affiliates at $569,159.

Affiliates in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington all gave money. You can view a full spreadsheet of the donations here.

Read more by Madeleine Morgenstern, 8/25/2011, in The Blaze

This week in history was a bad week for the private ownership of gold. On August 28, 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order prohibiting the “hoarding” of gold by Americans. Private citizens were required to surrender any “gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates” they owned. The order also placed limits on the export of precious metals.

–SNIP– The printing presses have never stopped since.

Read more by Chip Wood at Personal Liberty

Upcoming federal change would drop levels in water

Rather than wait for new federal guidelines, city leaders have opted to quit adding fluoride to city water altogether.

The Spring Hill Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted unanimously Monday for the change, which was requested by Alderman Amy Wurth.

Only one person at the meeting asked the board to continue the practice: Dr. Dennis Gardner, who urged Spring Hill not to “unravel” the advances that fluoridated water have made in preventing tooth decay since community water fluoridation began in 1945.

The change, which is expected by Nov. 1, would save the city $21,264 a year for the raw sodium fluoride.

–SNIP– The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in January announced plans to lower the recommended level of fluoride in drinking water to reduce the possibility of children receiving too much fluoride.

Read more by Jill Cecil Wiersma and Kevin Walters, 8/16/2011 in The Tennessean

The Obama administration is setting the stage for the dismantling of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and poses the greatest threat to its existence today, according to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings.

The 800-mile pipeline cost $8 billion to construct in the 1970s, and has moved more than 18 billion barrels of crude oil. Three oil companies constructed it, in the face of significant opposition from environmentalists, in response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo.

The federal government approved the pipeline as part of a strategy to secure domestic alternatives to oil from the Middle East. But the Natural Resources Committee notes that the law authorizing the then-controversial pipeline’s construction came with a caveat: If the pipeline should ever cease being viable, it must dismantled.

That day could come within the next decade.

Read more by John Rossomando, 8/25/2011, at The Daily Caller

Palin’s vision of US military policy: If we have to fight, we fight to win. To do that, we use overwhelming force.

In May, Governor Palin gave a speech at a “Tribute to the Troops” event at Colorado Christian University. As part of this speech, Governor Palin outlined a clear vision of American military policy, which has now become known as the Palin doctrine by many:

There’s a lesson here then for the effective use of force, as opposed to sending our troops on missions that are ill-defined. And it can be argued that our involvement elsewhere, say in Libya, is an example of a lack of clarity. See, these are deadly serious questions that we must ask ourselves when we contemplate sending Americans into harm’s way. Our men and women in uniform deserve a clear understanding of U.S. positions on such a crucial decision. I believe our criteria before we send our young men and women—America’s finest—into harm’s way should be spelled out clearly when it comes to the use of our military force. I can tell you what I believe that criteria should be in five points.

First, we should only commit our forces when clear and vital American interests are at stake. Period.

Second, if we have to fight, we fight to win.

Third, we must have . . .

Read more in an Op-Ed by Whitney Pitcher, a writer who is a member of Conservatives4Palin, writing 8/26/2011 in Israel National News

The residues of liberalism’s Wisconsin Woodstock — 1960s radicalism redux: operatic lamentations, theatrical demonstrations and electoral futilities — are words of plaintive defiance painted on sidewalks around the state capitol. “Solidarity forever” was perhaps painted by a graduate student forever at the University of Wisconsin. “Repubs steal elections” is an odd accusation from people who, seeking to overturn the 2010 elections, cheered Democratic lawmakers who fled to Illinois — a congenial refuge for labor-subservient Democrats — in order to paralyze the duly elected legislature. The authors of the sidewalk graffiti have at least read Jefferson: “The tree of liberty is watered by the blood of tyrants.” The tyrant is “$cott Walker American Fa$ci$t.”

Who, on a recent morning, was enjoying the view and the turn of events. From the governor’s mansion on the shore of sparkling Lake Mendota you can see on the far shore the famously liberal university, from which came many of those who protested his “budget repair” bill that already seems to have repaired many communities’ budgets, in addition to the state’s.

Read more by George Will, 8/24/2011, at the Washington Post

The Republican Party of Wisconsin
cordially invites you to the
2011 Victory Kick Off Party
Thursday August 25th, 2011
Special Guest Governor Walker
General Reception begins at 6:45 pm
Milwaukee Athletic Club, Milwaukee, WI

Host Committee:
Platinum ($2500) Round Table (5:30 pm) and Photo Op
Gold ($1000) Photo Oppportunity (6:00 pm)
Silver ($500) Name on invitation
General Attendance: $250 Per Couple

Please RSVP by August 22 to Dan Morse at 608-770–2819
(dan@dmorseconsulting.com), or Colleen Coyle at 608-257-8024

General Invites (PDF)

General Response Card (PDF)

Republican Party of Wisconsin

Vice President Biden mistakenly claimed Americans own 85% of U.S. Treasury securities during his visit to China. Americans own 54% of the U.S. public debt — that is, the amount of debt held by the public. They own 69% of the total debt, which includes money the U.S. government owes itself.

At several stops in China, Vice President Biden sought to reassure the Chinese that their investments in U.S. treasuries are safe. Biden’s reassurances — including his mistaken claim about how much of the Treasuries are owned by Americans — had been widely reported in the news media.

Read more by Eugene Kiely, Factcheck.org, in USA Today, 8/23/2011