PoliticalAction.com Blog

Alice Cooper On Tour

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA — In 1972, Alice Cooper ran against Richard Nixon for President of the United States. Alice Cooper was born Vincent Damon Furnier on February 4, 1948. Originally, Alice Cooper was the name of the band with Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and drummer Neal Smith. In 1975, Vincent adopted the band name as his own.

Songwriters: BUXTON, EDWARD / BRUCE, MICHAEL / DUNAWAY, DENNIS / SMITH, NEAL / COOPER, ALICE
I’m your top prime cut of meat, I’m your choice,
I wanna be elected,
I’m your yankee doodle dandy in a gold Rolls Royce,
I wanna be elected,
Kids want a saviour, don’t need a fake,
I wanna be elected,
We’re all gonna rock to the rules that I make,
I wanna be elected, elected, elected.

I never lied to you, I’ve always been cool,
I wanna be elected,
I gotta get the vote, and I told you ’bout school,
I wanna be elected, elected, elected,
Hallelujah, I wanna be selected,
Everyone in the United States of America.

We’re gonna win this one, take the country by storm,
We’re gonna be elected,
You and me together, young and strong,
We’re gonna be elected, elected, elected,
Respected, selected, call collected,
I wanna be elected, elected.

“And if I am elected
I promise the formation of a new party
A third party, the Wild Party!
I know we have problems,
We got problems right here in Central City,
We have problems on the North, South, East and West,
New York City, Saint Louis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles,
Detroit, Chicago,
Everybody has problems,
And personally, I don’t care.”

PENNSYLVANIA —

Your vote is your voice and your right. That’s why our efforts to protect the right to vote did not end with the Oct. 2 court decision that put a hold on the voter ID law for this election.

We have been working hard to educate voters about the fact the voter ID law is not in effect for now — a challenging task with the commonwealth’s misleading “Show it!” campaign and misinformation circulated by the state and several townships. We fought in court, unfortunately unsuccessfully, to force the state to clarify the state of the law to the public. Make sure you know your rights on Election Day by reading our voters’ rights brochure (in pdf).

ACLU of PA is part of a large coalition of groups who are working to identify and respond to problems on Election Day. Around the sate, we have lawyers on the ground, ready to go to court if needed to defend the right to vote. Call the Election Protection Hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683) to report any problems.

Thank you for supporting us throughout this crucial fight to make sure every eligible voter gets to cast a ballot.

Sincerely,

Reginald T. Shuford Executive Director, ACLU of Pennsylvania

by the New York Times

A Non-Issue in Campaign

During the 2012 presidential campaign, neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney, his Republican challenger, spoke much about climate change, despite the fact that both men agree that the world is warming and that humans are at least partly to blame. None of the moderators of the four general-election debates asked about climate change, nor did any of the candidates broach the topic.

Throughout the campaign, Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney have seemed most intent on trying to outdo each other as lovers of coal, oil and natural gas — the very fuels most responsible for rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Mr. Obama has supported broad climate change legislation, financed extensive clean energy projects and pushed new regulations to reduce global warming emissions from cars and power plants. But neither he nor Mr. Romney has laid out during the campaign a legislative or regulatory program to address the fundamental questions arising from one of the most vexing economic, environmental, political and humanitarian issues to face the planet

As governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Romney considered joining a regional cap-and-trade system, then abandoned it because of uncertainty over costs. He has opposed Mr. Obama’s steps to regulate emissions from power plants and vehicles. He has said he would reverse Mr. Obama’s air quality regulations and would renegotiate the auto efficiency standard of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 that automakers agreed to this year.

ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders. Warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related greenhouse gases — produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide jumped by the largest amount on record in 2010, upending the notion that the brief decline during the recession might persist through the recovery. Emissions rose 5.9 percent in 2010, according to the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists. The increase solidified a trend of ever-rising emissions that scientists fear will make it difficult, if not impossible, to forestall severe climate change in coming decades.

However, the technological, economic and political issues that have to be resolved before a concerted worldwide effort to reduce emissions can begin have gotten no simpler, particularly in the face of a global economic slowdown.

For almost two decades, the United Nations has sponsored annual global talks, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international treaty signed by 194 countries to cooperatively discuss global climate change and its impact. The conferences operate on the principle of consensus, meaning that any of the participating nations can hold up an agreement.

The conflicts and controversies discussed are monotonously familiar: the differing obligations of industrialized and developing nations, the question of who will pay to help poor nations adapt, the urgency of protecting tropical forests and the need to rapidly develop and deploy clean energy technology.

But the meetings have often ended in disillusionment, with incremental political progress but little real impact on the climate. The negotiating process itself has come under fire from some quarters, including the poorest nations who believe their needs are being neglected in the fight among the major economic powers. Criticism has also come from a small but vocal band of climate-change skeptics, many of them members of the United States Congress, who doubt the existence of human influence on the climate and ridicule international efforts to deal with it.

To all those posting about the presidential election, I offer, “Besides… don’t you get it… pity the president who inherits the fiscal cliff. He will feel the pain.”

Gary Johnson — Libertarian Party candidate; Former Governor of New Mexico
Mitt Romney — Democratic Presidential Nominee; President of the United States
Barack Obama — Republican Presidential Nominee; Former Governor of Massachusetts
Ron Paul — Declared 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate; U.S. Representative from the State of Texas

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,

Dear Citizen,

For more than a year we’ve been talking to you about the impact of the upcoming election. Now we want to hear from you.

Will you help determine the course our country takes after November 6?

The elections, now less than a week away, will impact whether small businesses and job creators have the certainty they need to invest, hire and grow our economy, or if they continue to be sidelined by regulations, tax uncertainty, and mandated decisions made by the government about their business.

As the U.S. Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue said, “If we get the business people and those who support and believe in American enterprise and economic freedom out to vote, we’re going to be better off no matter what.”

Do you plan to vote in the November 6th Elections?

America’s job creators need your help getting out the vote in the last days of the election.

We’ll see you at the polls.

Sincerely,

Rob Engstrom
Senior Vice President and National Political Director
U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Texas Straight Talk – A Weekly Column
Rep. and Presidential Candidate Dr. Ron Paul

If you thought the “Transportation Security Administration” would limit itself to conducting unconstitutional searches at airports, think again. The agency intends to assert jurisdiction over our nation’s highways, waterways, and railroads as well. TSA launched a new campaign of random checkpoints on Tennessee highways last week, complete with a sinister military-style acronym–VIP(E)R—as a name for the program.

As with TSA’s random searches at airports, these roadside searches are not based on any actual suspicion of criminal activity or any factual evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever by those detained. They are, in effect, completely random. So first we are told by the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens have no 4th amendment protections at border crossings, even when standing on U.S. soil. Now TSA takes the next logical step and simply detains and searches U.S. citizens at wholly internal checkpoints.

The slippery slope is here. When does it end? How many more infringements on our liberties, our property, and our basic human rights to travel freely will it take before people become fed up enough to demand respect from their government? When will we demand that the government heed obvious constitutional limitations, and stop treating ordinary Americans as criminal suspects in the absence of probable cause?

The real tragedy occurs when Americans incrementally become accustomed to this treatment on the roads just as they have become accustomed to it in the airports. We already accept arriving at the airport 2 or more hours before a flight to get through security; will we soon have to build in an extra 2 or 3 hours into our road trips to allow for checkpoint traffic?

Worse, some people are lulled into a false sense of security and are actually grateful for this added police presence! Should we really hail the expansion of the police state as an enhancement to safety? I submit that an attitude of acquiescence to TSA authority is thoroughly dangerous, un-American, and insulting to earlier freedom-loving generations who built this country.

I am certain people will complain about this, once they have to sit in stopped traffic for a few extra hours to allow for random searches of cars. However, I am also certain it merely will take another “foiled” plot to silence many people into gladly accepting more government mismanagement of safety.

Vigilant, observant, law-abiding, gun-owning citizens defend themselves and stop crimes every day before police can respond. That is the source of real security in America: the 2nd Amendment right to defend oneself. The answer is for people to be empowered to protect themselves. Yet how many weapons might these checkpoints confiscate? Even when individual go through all the legal hoops of licensing and permits, the chances of harassment or outright confiscation of weapons and detention of citizens when those weapons are found at a TSA checkpoint is extremely high.

Disarming the highways and filling them full of jack-booted thugs demanding to see our papers is no way to make them safer. Instead, it is a great way to expand government surveillance powers and tighten the noose around our liberties.

by Rep. Ron Paul | Texas Straight Talk
August 1, 2011

One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involved one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase. No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the cuts being discussed are illusory and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in prospective spending increases. This is akin to a family saving $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda.

But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about the unrepentant plundering of the American people. The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith in the credit of the United States being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family’s income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.

In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of cuts that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to cut. It would only take us five years to cut $1 trillion in Washington math just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.

A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply referred to that year’s spending levels, which would hardly do us fear, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever.

We pay 35% more for our military today than we did 10 years ago for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn’t have double the population or double the land area or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.

In Washington terms a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger cut than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.