* The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the Arkansas River can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in Little Rock.
* No person shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of the returns.
* A man can legally beat his wife, but not more than once a month.
Dear friend of liberty,
I’m disappointed to tell you that two weeks ago the Pennsylvania state Senate voted to criminalize Pennsylvania’s teenagers for the very human experience of coming to terms with their sexuality.
In a move that showed more concern for what occurs in our teens’ bedrooms than for real criminals, the Senate passed legislation to criminalize underage teens for “sexting,” the electronic distribution of semi-nude, nude, or sexually explicit images.
Would you like to find out if your state senator was one of 12 senators who voted against this bill? You should then take one minute to contact your state senator and share your feelings about the vote on the sexting bill.
Incredibly, the bill, which was signed by Governor Corbett last week, even criminalizes victims of abuse. For example, a teen could produce a picture of herself or himself in a state of semi-nudity and send it to one other person, such as a dating partner. If that picture is later distributed to others against the will of the person in the photo, she is still guilty of a crime, compounding her suffering as a victim.
This is a public health issue that is best handled by parents and child development professionals, not the government and not district attorneys. Tell your state senator that you support civil liberties and Pennsylvania’s kids.
In liberty,
| Andy Hoover Legislative Director ACLU of PA |
Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania (LPPA)
3915 Union Deposit Road #223
Harrisburg, PA 17109
www.lppa.org
For Immediate Release: February 17, 2010
Contact: Doug Leard (Media Relations) at Media-Relations@lppa.org or
Michael Robertson (Chair) at 1-800-R-RIGHTS / chair@lppa.org
Harrisburg – If our state government in Harrisburg were a household, its kitchen and its budget wouldn’t pass home economics. The cafeteria in Pennsylvania’s Capitol, the Capitol Cafe, failed a Department of Agriculture inspection. According to the Pennsylvania Independent (www.paindependent.com), the cafe was sited for “13 violations including the presence of rodents, improper storage of food, and contamination during food preparation, storage and display.” The café had already been closed in December due to a series of violations.
The Capitol Cafe is just the tip of the iceberg lettuce when it comes to
the woes of Harrisburg politicians. In his annual budget address, Governor Rendell warned of the approaching “fiscal tsunami” facing Pennsylvania.
Rendell indicated that in fiscal year 2011-12, Pennsylvania will lose $2.3
billion that is currently coming from federal tax dollars. In fiscal year
2012 – 13, Pennsylvania faces a $5.6 billion shortfall in public employee
pension plan liabilities. Meanwhile, General Fund revenues for the 2009-10 fiscal year are $374 million below estimate.
“How can we trust politicians in the Capitol to effectively manage an
impending crisis when they can’t run their day-to-day household? asked LPPA Media Relations Chair, S. Douglas Leard. “Now they’re talking about taking even more money from our households to pay for theirs. All this points to the need for new leadership in Harrisburg who can run the state household as well as Pennsylvanians run theirs.”
According to the Commonwealth Foundation, since 2003 when Governor Rendell took office, “Pennsylvania’s burden of state and local taxes has increased from the 17th heaviest in the nation to the 11th. State spending has increased by $3600 per family of four (in inflation-adjusted dollars). State debt has increased by $18 billion to a whopping $41 billion – a 78 percent increase – or $5,600 per family of four.”
“If Pennsylvanians are interested in getting our Commonwealth cleaned up, I encourage them to enlist the aid of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania.” remarked LPPA Chair Michael Robertson. “The Libertarian Party is dedicated to focusing on the rights of the individual and responsible, limited government. We need this focus if we are to get our legislative houses in order.”
The Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in Pennsylvania
and the United States . More than 200,000 people across the country are registered Libertarians, and Libertarians serve in hundreds of elected offices. Please visit www.LP.org or www.LPPA.org for more information.
Patrick Henry Sellers is running for US Congress to represent Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District (southeast). Pat can win the GOP primary race and I’ll explain why. First, let me tell you that Pat is the right person for the job. He’s our kind of guy and I know what I’m talking about here. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. agrees and has endorsed him. Please read Pat’s PLATFORM.
Pat was an indefatigable Ron Paul supporter. He started one of the earliest Ron Paul meetups, #314 in June 2007 in Chester County, the heart of the Congressional District. His crew was very active. I worked closely with him as Ron’s former Pennsylvania Field Director during Ron’s Presidential campaign.
JOIN US to become one of Pat’s supporters. We need volunteers at both the local and national level. Give us your feedback. Please also kindly DONATE generously to Pat’s campaign. I did so and I decided to join his campaign team as well. His team is all volunteer.
The Opposition – RINO #1
Despite Americans’ overwhelming opposition, incumbent Congressman Jim Gerlach broke Republican ranks to vote for the Bailout. His record is a disaster: he also voted for Cash for Clunkers, the Hate Crime bill, its sexual orientation amendment, warrantless searches and other federal overreaching and destruction of liberty. He has angered many conservative rank and file. Gerlach tried to run for Governor but he raised insufficient funds, so he now wants to hold onto his Congressional seat. He just can’t stop bailing out. Apart from his record, Gerlach has three other problems: cash, a rich RINO #2 opponent — and Patrick Henry Sellers.
Law prohibits Gerlach from transferring his Gubernatorial campaign funds to his Congressional campaign. His Congressional account had only $35,000 in Sept. 2009. Right now, he’s busy collecting commitments and pledges from people who already donated to his expired campaign. NRCC funding may well be unlikely for two reasons: they are low on cash and Gerlach’s last general election was tight.
The Opposition – RINO #2
RINO Steve Welch has admitted voting for Joe Sestak (D-PA) in 2006 and for Obama in the 2008 primary. He also donated to Sestak’s campaign. He doesn’t realize it yet, but that probably makes him toast. Welch has low name recognition and will, in his substantially self-funded race, target Gerlach.
The upshot is that Gerlach and Welch are damaged-goods candidates with political bulls-eyes on their foreheads.
Pat Sellers is the only conservative in the race. Pat will campaign on the economy with the subtexts of salvaging national finances while improving business competitiveness and national security by dramatically reducing the scope and scale of government. That includes sound money, phasing out the income tax and the Fed, and reverting to a common sense non-interventionist foreign policy that entails bringing our troops home and ceasing the squandering of military assets. In a nutshell, peace, freedom and prosperity. You’ve heard that expression previously from a certain doctor.
Please mark the inauguration of Pat’s campaign fundraising with a Donation. We will soon be calling people in the freedom movement in the 6th District and throughout Pennsylvania for donations, and we need and respectfully request intellectual and financial support of the movement at the national level as well. We’re going to do this. Pat will add to Ron’s voice.
The Revolution continues. Spread the message. Patrick Henry Sellers is running.
Yours very truly,
William E. Faust
Sellers for US Congress
Jake Towne, independent candidate for US Congress in PA-15, today announced his support of HR 4248, the Free Competition in Currency Act of 2009, and urges the current incumbent to co-sponsor the bill. The short 374-word bill is inline with the campaign’s theme of sound money and would revoke legal tender laws enabling Americans to use other currencies if they so choose to compete with the unbacked script currency issued by the Federal Reserve.
Towne just released his “Sound Money and Jobs” campaign plank (attached in PDF) which explains to all residents the dire importance of sound money, and provides evidence linking the troubles of the American economy to the governments’ actions to devalue the dollar and suppress the gold price. While unknown to most Americans, gold is one of the world’s largest financial markets, trading over $20 billion USD per trading DAY on the London exchange alone.
The campaign’s last “Towne” Hall was well attended by many newcomers, and the next event open to the public at no cost is Monday, February 1, 2010 at the Bethlehem Township Community Center, 2900 Farmersville Road at 7 PM. (Details here.)
Towne is not endorsed by nor affiliated with the sponsor of HR 4248, Pennsylvania-born Dr. Ronald Paul. Paul also recently introduced HR 1207, a bill to audit the Federal Reserve – which has never been thoroughly audited since its founding in 1913. Towne successfully petitioned the incumbent Congressman for several months before he agreed to co-sponsor this no-brainer piece of legislation and hopes the same can be done here. (The incumbent’s fundamental lack of understanding on monetary policy is demonstrated in this question I asked at a town hall.)
January 21, 2010
Contact: Jake Towne
Email: TowneForCongress@gmail.com
Website: TowneForCongress.com
He led the fight against Real ID in Pennsylvania.
He introduced the 10th Amendment resolution in PA.
State Rep. Sam Rohrer (R – 128 – Berks/Chester counties) announced on November 17th that he’s running for governor. His primary opponents are Tom Corbett, Attorney General (establishment favorite; neocons first choice) and Rep. Jim Gerlach (neocons second choice).
All the RP activists know who he because of Real ID. Democrats are changing registration to help in Sam’s campaign. The goal: eliminate property taxes in PA.
If all the C4L, 9/12, WTP groups etc. get behind him, he has a chance to win!
http://www.samrohrer.org/
Pennsylvania’s Rally for the 10th Amendment – Sam Rohrer 03-16-09
We can all breathe happier now that Sam Rohrer has announced his candidacy for Governor. Our country has provided to us
the rights and ability to place in positions of power the men and women who best represent us.
We can be proud to elect a strong and successful activist to Governor in Sam Rohrer. No more wastefu, incompetent ideologies, but instead a confident commitment to the principle of freedom.
Mr. Rohrer will provide leadership and fulfill the government’s duty to citizens and our families. This is an opportunity to reform our state, and offer a unique vision on how to move forward. I, for one, am ecstatic.
Ryan Borek
Shillington PA
Rep. Matthew E. Baker (R) introduced legislation (HB 2053) yesterday with 37 other house members which will ‘Providing for the rights of individuals to purchase private health care insurance; and prohibiting certain governmental action. The bill known as Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act.
Its three pages long and my favorite Section is 5:
23 Section 5. Participation in related laws.
24 Neither the Governor nor the Department of Health, the
25 Department of Public Welfare or any other Commonwealth agency
26 shall participate in the compliance with any Federal law,
27 regulation or policy that would compromise the freedom of choice
28 in health care of any resident of this Commonwealth.
You can read the bill here: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/PN/Public/btCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&sessYr=2009&sessInd=0&billBody=H&billTyp=B&billNbr=2053&pn=2829
HOUSE CO-SPONSORS:
Cutler
Watson
Clymer
Barrar
Benninghoff
Boyd
Causer
Creighton
Everett
Gabler
Geist
Gingrich
Grell
Grove
Hess
Hutchinson
Kauffman
M. Keller
Krieger
Maher
Major
Marshall
Metzgar
Miller
Moul
Murt
Pickett
Quinn
Rapp
Rock
Rohrer
Saylor
Stern
Stevenson
Swanger
Tallman
True
-An Open Letter to the President-
July 3, 2009
Dear Friends,
In just another day, we will all observe Independence Day. Yet, like you, we all realize that our freedoms have never been so threatened both from within and without. We wonder what actions we should take. We wonder what happens if we wait too long? I know we all wish for some clarion call from some leader with a response commensurate to the challenges we are seeing. A recent news analysis from Rachel Maddow (MSNBC News) of a major policy speech made by our President in May prompted me to write this open letter to the President as my next step. As you watch this news clip, you will likely find that the President’s attitude toward the Rule of Law and the Constitution is even more alarming than what he is proposing. I hope that this video and my letter will further develop your thinking as we celebrate Independence Day. While I stop short of suggesting a specific collective action that American citizens can take, I believe that history lays out the pattern.
Please watch this video, and then read my “Open Letter to the President.”
Dear Mr. President,
I write to you as one elected official to another on behalf of average American citizens. We listen to your words and measure them carefully. With hope, we watch your actions. We then look to history and compare the events of our day with the events of yesterday. We look to our Founders and read carefully their intellectual discourses and their moral debate. They ultimately concluded that the actions of the king were best described as tyranny, because they could not be honestly described any other way. Having come to such a serious and reasoned conclusion, their path was charted-unknown as to its outcome-but certain as to its demand upon them. Mr. President, we are doing what Americans have done before.
Many of your words, at face value, inspire and offer some level of hope. This is why many Americans cast their vote for you. Yet, now that you are in office, your actions are inspiring fear and distrust. At nearly every level, Americans, regardless of political party, are being forced to walk down the same road our Founders were forced to walk – questioning, analyzing, and looking deep within their souls. The similarities between the past and the present are amazing. If you desire to test the American people’s resolve and challenge their patience, you are accomplishing your goal. You know what is happening within the hearts and minds of the average American. That is why state legislatures are offering and passing resolutions, re-affirming the 10th Amendment and state sovereignty issue. That is why the Tea Party movement is growing by the day and is attended by rich and poor alike. That is why you and Congress are hearing from the American public in record numbers on an increasing range of major issues including the bail-out, the stimulus plan, “cap and tax”, and government intrusion into health care.
Your speech sounds sensitive to the economic and emotional needs so heavy on our people. Yet, your continued references to being guided by the “Rule of Law” (our Founders knew this meant God’s Higher Law and the Highest Law of the Land – the Constitution) are hollow and disingenuous. Your recent speech in front of the original Constitution of the United States of America in the National Archives makes it all so clear that your words mean nothing. Your agenda and you yourself appear to be that “rule of law” – effectively setting aside all Constitutional constraints. It’s unfortunate that I must be so direct, but you are leaving the American people with very few options.
Mr. President, it is clear by your speech and actions that your oath to the Constitution is not binding to you and, therefore, is a broken oath. On many fronts, so much of significance has happened in such a short time. You (and the Congress) are overriding state sovereignty and encouraging the states into unsustainable programs through Stimulus Funds: this will force them to beg you and the elite in Washington for help when the funding runs out. Your policies are destroying the wealth of hard-working Americans by plunging this nation into inescapable debt to our enemies and by justifying the disastrous printing of trillions in fiat money. What you and the Federal Reserve do not destroy immediately by exploding our debt, will be completely devoured by the ensuing hyper-inflation. What an insidious way for you and Congress to spend what you do not have by robbing it from every hard-working American who has responsibly worked and saved!
You have violated historic contract law by choosing who wins and who loses, while Chrysler and General Motors is eviscerated and turned into ‘Government Motors’. You have thumbed your nose at the ‘Balance of Power’, so carefully conceived and implemented by our Founders, by appointing unaccountable “Czars” to function as your direct emissaries over fundamental areas of public policy, thereby blatantly by-passing the checks and balances of Congressional oversight. You pursue special interest agendas motivated by the faddish science of “Global Warming” or “Climate Change”, or whatever it will be called next. In the ‘cap and tax’ plan, you justify the biggest tax assault on the American people ever conceived. Yet, you boldly assure the American people that it will cost them nothing, since only the “polluters” will pay. But, in the process you will destroy thousands of truly sustainable jobs (in exchange for temporary “green” jobs – like insulating buildings and re-caulking windows). Bringing America to its knees in financial dependence, in energy dependence, and a gutted manufacturing sector is sadly what’s happening. It appears that in reality, the “Change” you promised is just your personal change-clearly not what the American people so desperately hoped for.
So Mr. President, these things that I and the American people have come to observe and conclude are bringing this nation to a point closer each day that resembles the circumstances that forced the hearts, the minds and then the hands of our Founders. As we quickly approach the remembering of Independence Day – July 4, 2009, please remember that as you make your choices, so must we. May you and all the American people reread the Declaration of Independence – very carefully. Identify the principles they clearly stated and then apply them to today. Feel the intensity of the letter sent to the King. Understand the careful steps they undertook to make the moral case for freedom and independence in the context of the history of mankind. Note in particular the foundational precepts woven into paragraph two, written as much for the benefit of Americans yet unknown and unborn as it was a message to King George. As the President who holds the highest elected position in both honor and responsibility in this Republic, place yourself in the position of the King, look in the mirror, and then look across this great land at the faces of our great people and listen to their pleas. The King didn’t know for sure all that Declaration Letter would mean for him, but I am certain that he knew he had ignited the will and passion of a freedom-loving people for which only time would prove the outcome.
So it is today. Now, we have the Constitution against which to compare the words and actions of those in public office. The people, Mr. President, are awaking. They are realigning their priorities, purifying their motivations, and galvanizing their wills. Their freedom and their families are what they love and, thankfully, what they will defend. As to what comes next, I cannot say. I do know that another Declaration Letter is not necessary since this country already belongs to us. Our freedom and this republic are already ours. It is the return of freedom they demand. It is nothing less than the adherence to the Constitution and to the oath we have both taken that they demand. We, continuing to carefully note and compare as our Founders did, are also coming to serious and reasoned conclusions. Our path is charted – unknown perhaps as to its ultimate outcome – but certain as to its demand upon us.
From all those who love their Freedom,
Samuel E. Rohrer
State Representative Sam Rohrer
District 128 – Berks County
Governor calls CF’s job loss projections “ludicrous”
Commonwealth Foundation President and CEO Matthew J. Brouillette issued the following statement in response to Gov. Rendell’s critique of the Commonwealth Foundation’s economical modeling projections that Pennsylvania would have nearly 24,000 fewer jobs as a result of his proposed 16 percent hike in the state personal income tax:
__________________________________________________________________________
“Gov. Rendell’s critique of the Commonwealth Foundation’s projections of job losses under his proposed tax increase as ‘ludicrous’ is historically and economically ignorant.
The Governor’s campaign to raise taxes on working Pennsylvanians and small businesses ignores the basic laws of economics. By denying that citizens and businesses would respond to higher taxes, the Governor ignores the fact that people will have less money to spend, and small business owners will have fewer resources to invest in their enterprises.
What is truly ludicrous is that Gov. Rendell ignores the historical evidence that individuals and businesses respond to higher taxes by relocating to states or countries with lower tax rates. This is why Pennsylvania has been one of the largest out-migration states in the nation.
Gov. Rendell’s claim that Pennsylvania has the 2nd lowest income tax rate also distorts the facts in pursuit of his political agenda. Nine states have no income tax, or tax only dividends and interest. Most states have lower starting personal income tax rates, standard deductions, and additional tax credits or deductions. Thus, Pennsylvania ranks much higher in state income tax revenue collected per capita—28th highest, to be exact.
The Governor also conveniently ignores that Pennsylvania has local income taxes which are among the highest in the nation. In terms of state and local income taxes per person, Pennsylvania already ranks 16th highest. Most importantly, when the overall tax burden is considered—including income, corporate, sales and property taxes—Pennsylvania has the 11th highest state and local tax burden in the nation. That makes us already uncompetitive relative to other states, which is why we rank 34th in the nation in job growth under Gov. Rendell’s tenure. Raising or creating new taxes will only make things worse for Pennsylvania.”
###
Thanks to The Commonwealth Foundation for this article
The Commonwealth Foundation (www.CommonwealthFoundation.org) is an independent, non-profit public policy research and educational institute based in Harrisburg, PA.