Posted by ramsey67 on 01/17/10

Sovereignty of Nebraska

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

When lost, even the most hard-headed travelers will consult their maps. After a decade of confusion and the election of an Orwellian government the American people have finally consulted their "road map to freedom", the U.S. Constitution. Across the country they have shed the 150-year-old Civil War stigma associated with "States' Rights" and revisited the concept in order to reverse the slide toward total control by a corrupt federal government. Nebraska held its own "States Sovereignty Symposium" in Omaha on January 16, 2010.

The event was organized by Gregory Boyle and several other area activists led by Sheila Heieck of Americans for Prosperity. Speakers included Congressman Lee Terry, Constitutional scholar Glenn Freeman, Tennessee State Rep. Susan Lynn, Oklahoma State Rep. Charles Key, Nebraska State Senator Tony Fulton, and keynote speaker Judge Andrew Napolitano of FOX News. Activist groups at the event included Americans for Prosperity, National Council of Censors, People's Constitution Coalition of Ohio, "A New America" movie, Platte Institute for Economic Research, and Campaign for Liberty.

The States held many more responsibilities than the national government in the early days of this country. The first government was very decentralized under the Articles of Confederation from 1777-1788. The U.S. Constitution created a stronger national government but retained the separation of powers between states and the federal government. Natural Rights were implied, but were added in the Bill of Rights to unequivocally restrict the power of the federal government. This included the 9th and 10th Amendments, which prevented the federal government from enacting arbitrary statutes unrelated to their enumerated powers. It was a division of labor - the federal government would handle foreign policy and little else, while the states would handle most of the day-to-day functions of governance.

The U.S. Government in 2010 is clearly having problems with the economy, the undeclared wars, border security, unfunded liabilities and more. It has "bitten off more than it can chew." A return to Constitutional governance would divide those responsibilities with the states and allow the federal government to focus on the issues it can handle, the issues it is allowed to handle.

Senator Fulton has recently introduced a resolution, LR 292, to reaffirm Nebraska's sovereignty. Senator Beau McCoy of Elkhorn has introduced an Amendment to the State Constitution taking it one step further for one specific issue: health insurance reform. LR 289CA would protect individuals' choice for health insurance or lack thereof, in spite of federal legislation that may mandate insurance.

The lack of respect for federalism and the Constitution on the part of the federal government is shocking. Americans must become aware of our country's slide toward totalitarianism. We must stop it, for it won't be benevolent. Please support State Sovereignty.

 
Posted by ramsey67 on 12/02/09
Last updated 12/02/09

Hello, Campaign for Liberty,

  We had a last minute political activity last night that was brought to us courtesy Patrick Bonnett.  The MUD Board was set to increase the Water Rate by 2.3% and the Gas rate by 3.3%, on top of new surcharges begun last year.  There was $59,000 in the budget for extraneous spending for kids' parties, picnics, sports league memberships, etc.  I sent out an email blast to call the MUD Board to ask for a reduction in this spending.  I want to recap what happened:

First, I apologize for putting the wrong percentage in the message (1.17%) when it was actually a much smaller number (0.0117%).  The $59,000 is small potatoes, for sure, but any wasteful spending on the taxpayer's dime is unacceptable.  The good news is that, in fact, $219,000 in discretionary spending was slashed from the budget - more than expected!

Second, the gas rate hike was not approved.  It may have been a technicality for now, but it provides us a terrific opportunity.  It will be brought back for review on December 18th.  Meanwhile, the lack of gas rate hike has pushed MUD from an $18 million deficit to a $25 million deficit.  One of the key costs related to this is "FEDERALLY MANDATED PROJECTS". 

Excuse me, but why is the federal government mandating any utilities work in our city?  Where in the Constitution does it say the federal government has the right to order utilities projects in far-off cities?  People, we are in a major economic downturn in large part because our federal government is dysfunctional.  There is a separation of powers for a reason.  Maybe if the federal government was focusing on ITS mandates - defense, upholding the rule of law, providing reasonable foreign relations, coining and regulating money, etc., instead of micromanaging local governments, we would not be indebted domestically and dazed-and-confused overseas.

The opportunity is this: we called in to MUD this morning in a negative fashion - angry over perceived abuses of the power of taxation.  From now until December 18th we can call in to MUD in SUPPORT of our local elected officials.  What needs to happen to reduce this $25 million deficit is for we the people to become politically active, call our MUD Board, and make a petition in support of them and their SOVEREIGNTY over their domain of Omaha's gas and water.  No more federal MANDATES.  We'll take suggestions, but they are not our overlords.  They need to focus on federal issues and let the good people of Omaha and our elected MUD Board run our own city.

One more thing: in terms of tone, "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar".  This morning when I talked to Ron Bucher I first asked him to consider cutting the discretionary spending.  When he replied that it was essentially a drop in the bucket, I said, "ok, please consider it anyway because every little bit helps, AND by the way, what other expenditures could possibly be reduced to save money?"

Please think on this and get back to me.  We have at least one person in the group who is familiar with the internals of MUD, perhaps we can get some more information on the federal mandates, the overall budget, and ideas for how to make a petition like this work.  This is the kind of political action that WE all need to do in order to get our economy and government back on track.  For best results, respond on the Campaign for Liberty website blog.

Thanks,

Will Ramsey

 
Posted by JonTucker on 06/21/09
Last updated 06/21/09

Here is an overview of what was discussed at the last Coffee with Lee Terry at Jimmy C's on North 30th in Omaha on June 20, 2009.  (Warning, I throw my opinion through-out this wrap-up.)

There were about 35 people in attendance of which about 10 people were there by accident.  There were four identified C4L people present.  The session lasted just over an hour after starting around 8:30 AM.  Lee Terry needed to leave in order to get into the Juneteenth parade.

The majority of the time was spent discussing health care.  Congressman Terry said that Obama doesn't provide details to Congress on what he wants in a bill.  Instead he says, "We'll have health care", then it is up to the democrats in Congress to come up with the wording.  (In my opinion this is equivalent to the Clinton days where every policy proposal was floated as a trial balloon where public opinion formed the policy.  You never did really know what Clinton stood for since it changed with the wind.  BTW, this sounds like the Mayor of Omaha.)  With this process, Obama can then be exonerated because if some legislation fails he can blame Congress, but if it passes, he gets all the glory.

As for the health care issues, most in attendance were against government run health care.  There were a few in the crowd that complained about the current costs of insurance, etc.  Although Congressman Terry only provided the idea that people should be able to opt in independently to similar plans that he has, he never really discussed how people who can't afford these opt-in programs can get access to health care.  He repeated that the new system should include private insurance companies in some way. (In my opinion, what is even more troubling is the overall concept that people are now in-grained to first think that the government is always there to solve their problem.  Nobody brings up the idea that the problem with health care is a local problem and not a government problem.  Local as in people see insurance as a savings account where they get their money back and not as a catastrophic event type of thing.  If people were educated to save for a rainy day to pay for the doctor visit when they had the sniffles, and because of this they'd pay much lower insurance premiums for the catastrophic events, this entire health care problem would not be a problem.  Remember the increase in money and credit into a market (in this case health care through insurance-as-a-savings-plan) results in rising prices.)

Congressman Terry called himself "light" green in regard to the environment since he does see the need to reduce our C02 emissions, but doesn't want to go so far to the left as some people do where it impacts businesses and the individual so much.  The Cap-and-Trade legislation was supposed to come to the floor the week of June 22nd, but as of now it doesn't seem to have the support needed to pass it the way the democrat leadership wants.  Congressman Terry said that we in the midwest rely on coal for our electricity needs and that we'll be hit the hardest in this cap-and-trade program.  He'd like to see us look more toward nuclear as the option and gave examples of France and Japan recycling 90% of their nuclear waste back into creating more energy.  But, he said most democrats don't want nuclear power.  (In my opinion, the people who don't want nuclear energy were duped by the fossil fuel companies back in the 70's to just further the case of staying on fossil fuels.  Too bad the tree huggers never figured out that they've been played.)

A member of the C4L pointed out to Congressman Terry that Congressman Larry McDonald, before his plane was shot down, would stop reading a bill and declined to vote for it if he found a sentence that was unconstitutional.  This C4Ler asked Congressman Terry if he does the same thing, which the Congressman replied that yes he does, but the problem is that what he views as unconstitutional may not be the same as what you or someone else thinks is unconstitutional.  (In my opinion this sounds worse than it really is.  Congressman Terry wasn't trying to come off as he likes some kind of open interpretation of the Constitution, just that there is opinion in these matters.  Even those of us in the liberty movement may not agree on an interpretation of the Constitution.)

That just about wraps up the time spent with Congressman Terry.  As of now, there are no more Coffee's scheduled, but that may change in the future.  Congressman Terry is busy with parade season, etc., and will probably resume these discussions in the fall.