Brownsville Tea Party Association

Archive for the ‘The Constitution’ Category

Join us on Sundays from 1:00 pm to 2:00 in front of the Paseo Plaza along FM 802. Bring your signs or use one of ours.

ATTENTION: Monday, June 27th: if you’re able to go to the Capitol. Please go to the rotunda 2nd floor, West wing. Go to the pages desk & ask to fill out a message card to your member. The page will then hand carry your note onto the House floor to your member. You may then watch the proceedings from the gallery (on the 3rd floor) or attend the Sen. Transp. Comm. hearing to register your support of HB 41/SB29 (attached and safe to open).

PLEASE SHARE!!!

Steve Baysinger
Chair, Tenth Amendment Center (Texas)

http://tenthamendmendmentcenter.com

Speaker Boehner,

Along with many Americans, I have reached my saturation point with our public servants and the corruption that runs rampant amongst you. The violation of Fiduciary trust has gone beyond questionable activities amongst a few and grown to an undeniable level of blatant Treason for which each and every one of you is GUILTY.

We, concerned citizens who come from all walks of life and educational backgrounds and span all Parties and age groups, have found common ground and are committed to exposing the criminals at all levels of our government. We are the disenfranchised and betrayed citizens with no Party and no representatives in our failed government.

NOTE: The following is an email I received from JoAnn Fleming, a member of the Texas Tea Party Advisory Committee (TTPAC), which is composed of a group of Tea Party leaders from across Texas. The purpose of the TTPAC is to act as a sort of watchdog group and liaison between the Tea Party movement in Texas and the Texas Legislature, specifically the legsilators who make up the Texas Tea Party Caucus.

There has always been the very real possibility that the TTPAC would be co-opted by Republicans in the legislature, who would simply use the group to advance their agenda with little or no input from them. Ms. Fleming alludes to this in her email.

-Chris

———-

Patriots,
 
Please use the following as you see fit.  You have my permission to forward, to post, to print, to distribute to anybody or nobody.  This is my way of putting folks on notice that not everybody is ready to throw confetti at a celebratory parade for the 82nd session of the TX Legislature. 
 
While I was out of state from 5/23 – 5/31/11 due to my father’s illness, a 2011 TEA Party Caucus Legislative Update was circulated.  This was picked up and further circulated by some folks who surely must have had the best of intentions.  

One of the circulators stated, “I think we owe the Leadership of this State a pat on the back.  Call your State Rep. and tell them good job.  The media has been hammering them.”  

As Chair of the Tea Party Caucus Advisory Committee, it is my responsibility to keep plenty of daylight between what the TP Caucus (legislators & staff) says about the session and what the Advisory Committee believes the People of Texas must know before they give any pats on the back or re-elect anybody.
 
Now, to set the record straight:
 
1) True to our role as the
independent Advisory Committee to the TEA Party Caucus of the Texas Legislature, we re-emphasize that we are not an arm of the TEA Party Caucus. We are not political groupies or Republican Party cheerleaders.  While we respect and work with various statewide conservative organizations who have posted complimentary remarks about a “successful session,” the TEA Party Caucus Advisory Committee is not a “me too” group.  Our goal is to save our state from becoming California. .

Our goal is to advance Liberty, fiscal responsibility, adherence to the rule of law, election integrity, private property rights, and true transparency in a limited state government.  Period.  

This covers everything from the state budget to the 2nd and 10th Amendments to education reform/funding to sanctuary cities to eminent domain to redistricting. 
 
2) Our assessment of the 82nd Legislative Session is in progress.  It will be factual.  It will be hard-hitting.  It will not contain spin or give cover to protect any party, any politician, or any lame excuse for not getting the job done.  It will give credit where credit is due, but it will also place responsibility squarely and firmly on the shoulders of those who deserve to be called out.  We will hold all officials accountable for their actions or inaction. 

In today’s political climate, it is fashionable to use heated “fed up” rhetoric to bash the feds, bash the opposing political party, and pound the table to impress the conservative masses.   Trouble is — all that talk and no real action does not impress us. 

This legislative session was an opportunity for Texas to stand tall, stand proud, and lead the way.  Instead, we’ve had much of the same old game-playing, deal-making, “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” business as usual.  That’s not what we voted for last March and November.  And that’s not what we will be voting for in March and November 2012.
 
3) Once the Special Session of the 82nd Legislative Session is over, many members of the TEA Party Advisory Committee have made a commitment to each other to continue our work.  We will offer recommendations for Legislature Interim Studies and will continue to press for true state government reforms as embodied in our Fourteen Point Plan.  We must get government back into a constitution-sized box at the state and federal level.  

On the road to doing that, we will incur the wrath of liberals, statists, progressives, party establishment types, status quo protectors, and the self-proclaimed ruling elite.  Fine with us. 

Let’s roll. 

JoAnn Fleming, Chair, Advisory Committee to the TX Legislature’s TEA Party Caucus

What good is having a super-majority House in the Texas Lege if our Republicans are going to ignore the Conservative mandate the voters sent them in November, and instead — behind the exceptionally failed “leadership” of Speaker Joe Straus — are going to vote for more government intrusion and more government regulation while diminishing personal freedoms and liberties?

In this case, I’m talking about the statewide smoking ban (as an amendment on Senate Bill 1811):

The Texas House tonight passed an amendment to create a statewide smoking ban.

The close vote, 73-66, came during debate on the enormous budget-related bill, Senate Bill 1811.

The amendment by Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton, was one of a few opposed by the measure’s House sponsor, Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, that actually passed.

The amendment would ban smoking in public places, which would include bars and restaurants because they are places where anyone would be welcome.

But some of Crownover’s tea party-leaning Republican colleagues fought her on the amendment because they believed it would infringe on rights of business owners.

No, we don’t believe it would infringe on the private property rights of business owners, we know that it infringes on the private property rights of business owners. What other legal activities is the House comfortable with prohibiting? What legal activity are they going to go after next?

Making sure that we find a good Conservative candidate to primary Ms. Crownover when she’s up for re-election should be one of the top priorities of Conservatives. Right along side of putting Speaker Straus out to pasture as well.

This still has to make it through the Senate, those Republicans haven’t shown much more of a Conservative backbone than their House counterparts.

UPDATE and Correction:  I was looking at the wrong record vote. My representative, Paul Workman (R-HD 47) voted NO to this freedom-robbing bill. Good for him. I originally posted that he voted in favor of it.

Business owners and a free market should be allowed to decide if smoking is permitted in a private business or not. If there is no market for a bar where smoking is permitted, then it will fail on it’s own without any government intrusion, as expressed by Rep. Jose Aliseda, R-Beeville, who succeeded in exempting pool halls:

“I am not a smoker, but I believe that a private business owner should have the right to choose their own business model.”

Well, at least we have at least one Conservative in the House GOP. In November 2012, we will look to add a bunch more Conservatives to the Texas Legislator (by kicking out a bunch of Republicans). Yeah, I’m talking about you, specifically Mr. Workman. I hope you enjoyed enriching all of your construction industry buddies and personal interests as best you could in your freshman session, because you are one-and-done, sir.

A collection of news articles, opinion pieces, and podcasts that I read and listened to today.

Investor’s Business Daily

•  On The Right: Reagan Model Will Humble Arrogant China - Is there a new Cold War developing between China and the United States? That’s a question hovering over President Hu Jintao and his entourage as they come to Washington to discuss military, trade, and financial flash points with the Obama administration.
•  Obama’s Latest Gift To Castro - Diplomacy: At a time when socialist mismanagement has put Cuba on the ropes, the Obama administration has decided to unleash a new wave of U.S. visits and remittances to tide the dictatorship over. For Castro, it’s pennies from heaven.
•  Polls Apart - Opinion: “Raw feelings over health care law have eased, poll suggests,” shouts an Associated Press headline that ran last weekend, just days before Congress was set to vote. Really? Our poll suggests just the opposite.
•  Editorial: U.K. Vs. ObamaCare - Medicine: As the House moves to repeal the nationalization of health care, Britain plans to take a scalpel to its National Health Service, opening it up to competition and letting doctors and patients call the shots.
• Telling It Like It Really Was And Is - Massacre In Arizona: The more facts that come out about the accused shooter in Tucson, the less confident we are in our schools and the more we fear scourges such as political correctness will be the death of us yet.

The Laura Ingraham Show

• Laura squared! Dr. Laura Schlessinger answer your calls – January 18, 2011 (mp3)

Mark Levin

• 01/18 The Mark Levin Show

American Thinker

• Tucson and the Kamikaze Left - Following their shellacking in the first regularly scheduled federal election of the Tea Party era, the political left and the ruling-class media made predictable calls for civility in political discourse.
• Why the Left Hates Sarah Palin - When I was ten years old, I participated in an act of unadulterated group evil.  It happened at a sleep-away camp in the Catskill Mountains.
• Preserving States’ Rights and the Constitution - The Republican House of Representative read the Constitution, including all its amendments, aloud.  I wonder how many listeners grasped the salient virtue of our Constitution: the document is maddeningly vague about personal liberty.
• Tucson and the Politics of Lament - Exploiting victims and massaging responsibility to achieve retribution.
• Obama’s Cellophane Man - Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, after signs of life, has been returned to his cellophane wrapping.
• No Stronger Friend…than France? - Even for an unapologetic Francophile like me, President Obama’s latest diplomatic gaffe was too much to swallow.
• Tunisia Meltdown - Tunisia, until a few days ago, gave every appearance of being among the most advanced and benign Arab regimes.

I’ve stated before that we should be careful what we wish for. Those of us who work in quasi-governmental jobs could wind up losing our jobs, benefits, and/or retirement pensions if we suddenly roll back 100 years of Progressivism in government.

Millions of Americans are addicted to the opiate of government. For some, it is a problem that spans generations. Simply removing the steady IV drip-drip-drip of subsidized health care, welfare, unemployment, retirement, and so on would be a huge shock to our system.

I’m not saying that it should not be done. We just need to be careful and realize that this is a long-term goal.

The Election’s Done; Now What?

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

1. The Democrat party is no longer a party that patriotic Americans can trust or identify with.
2. In just two short years, the Democrat party has increased out national debt 44 percent, and it now stands at $13,000,000,000,000.
3. The Democrat party has governed against and in spite of the will of the American people.
4. The Obama Administration is composed of radicals, community agitators, environmental whackjobs, self-proclaimed marxists, terrorist sympathizers, alinsky-ites, anticapitalists, anti-Constitutionalists, and other assorted America-hating statists.
5. The Democrat party as a whole – not merely its leadership – is to blame for the serial assaults suffered by our sacred institutions, and the damage wrought may be irreversible.
6. The Democrat party and their willing accomplices in the national media sold the American people a bill of goods with Barack Obama, and we want our money (along with our national pride) BACK.
7. A radical Alinsky-inspired Democrat as President, unstoppable Democrat majorities in both Houses of Congress, numerous activist judges throughout the Judiciary, unelected bureaucrats beholden to an elite ruling class – There is no balance in government today. 
8. The prevailing political philosophy of today’s Democrat party is decidely un-American.
9. Every compromise with the Democrat majority in Congress has been harmful to our Constitutional republic.
10. Two years of Obamanomics proves that this is not the “change” we need or want.

Kathie Glass Signed Tea Party Patriots Pledge