Mike Lee - Fighting for the Constitution

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is a gem. He continually stands up to the seemingly daily attacks upon the U.S. Constitution by the Obama Administration. Senator Lee is currently co-sponsoring a bill to make the Obama Administration, and future Administrations, Democrat or Republican, have to seek Congressional approval for any regulations formed through the Departments, like the EPA, that have more than a $100 million effect on the national economy as determined by the GAO.

This is a welcome and much needed change, as Obama directs his administration to legislate through their implied regulatory authority as opposed of going through the People's representatives in Congress. What has transpired is hundreds of regulations that are choking our economy and individual/states rights.....

He is also looking to scale back the federal government's control over federally owned land within a state. Just this week Lee introduced a bill in the Senate that would require the federal government to seek approval from a state legislature prior to making a federal land designation in that state. Such designations could include classifying an area as a national park, national monument or national recreation area.

 "Too often, the federal government ignores the people's rights to determine for themselves how best to utilize their own land," Lee said in a statement announcing the bill's introduction. "States with smaller populations, like Utah, end up with only a limited voice in Congress. The process should include greater protections for states and local communities against unwanted and often economically damaging decisions."

The bill comes on the heels of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar dedicating two new conservation areas in southern Utah this week. The areas are a result of a bill that passed through Congress in 2009 sponsored by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Lee's predecessor, Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. Had Lee's proposal been in place then, the state Legislature would have had to sign off on the land designations.

The proposal also would have an effect on the president's ability to use the Antiquities Act to designate areas of federally owned land as national monuments. President Bill Clinton designated a portion of southern Utah as a monument via the act in 1996. Under Lee's proposal the president would need approval from the state legislature before the president's actions become permanent.

 In the video below, Senator Lee appears before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, testifying against President Obama's unconstitutional appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board. Mike Lee is a first term Senator and rising star in the Republican party and Tea Party community. It gives me hope to see Legislators like him, Allan West, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and a few others.

The National Patriot Primer

We The People Versus Obama, by Craig Andersen on May 2, 2012, commentary via the National Patriot. Read the full article here. I am including a short primer below, which should serve to entice people to go to the National Patriot site and read Andersen's full work.

Anderson starts by linking Obama's slogan "Forward" to Communist and Socialists movements/publications of the same name (Forward) from many other countries, saying "(Forward)..it stands for the same thing regardless of the language......

Avante!, organ of the Portuguese Communist Party

Avanti!, organ of the Italian Socialist Party Eteenpäin,

Finnish-language newspaper in the United States Új Előre (‘New Forward’),

a Hungarian-language newspaper in the United States Voorwaarts!,

organ of the Communist Youth Movement (Netherlands)

Andersen moves on to succinctly sum up Obama's makeup. We don’t know who he really is but we DO know WHAT he really is.
We don’t know where he came from but we DO know where he’s leading us.
We don’t know what he wrote in his college thesis but we DO know what he writes in his Executive Orders.
We don’t know who paid for his college education but we DO know he wants US to pay more.

We know he cares more for Hamas and the Palestinian Authority than he care for Israel.
We know that he wanted a dictator out of Egypt so he could be replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood.
He has his own law enforcement arm which supplied weapons to Mexican drug cartels.
He swore to uphold and defend our Constitution and both he and the head of his law enforcement arm have subverted it.
We know he stands FOR illegal immigration and AGAINST individual states that want to enforce federal immigration law.
We know he takes credit for what others have done and assesses blame to others for what he has done. We know the Social Security number associated with him came from a state in which he never lived and belonged to someone else.
We know he attended a church for 20 years where the preacher, a close family friend and his spiritual adviser spoke of “God DAMN America” and he claimed to have no idea of Rev. Wright’s ideology.
We know he wants class warfare and stands with the occupy fringe.
We know he’s a race baiter. We know he traveled the world apologizing for American exceptionalism.
We know he bowed down to foreign leaders.

Illinois Failing - Pensions Have To Change

There are several clear examples of states that are/were failing financially due to many factors: the recession beginning several years ago, gold plated state governmental retirement benefits (think Greece like) and union control of many aspects of state governmental labor institutions. Also impacting, of course, is the regulatory nation that the Obama Administration has forced down the states' throats, with is killing small businesses. It is no accident that the states finding solutions to their big deficits and debt are lead by Republicans (Wisconsin and Ohio) and the states that are most at risk of bankruptcy are controlled by Democrats and their union puppet masters (California and Michigan). However, there is a glint of hope. Many State Democrat legislators and Governors are seeing the truth, that they cannot sustain big government programs and massive union over the top pensions and benefits. This is also happening in the Federal Government with a few Democrat Senators and Congressmen now saying Obamacare was a mistake. Hey, welcome to reality!

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is one of these Democrats who are seeing the light. Whether or not they are coming to terms because of their political viability being threatened or because they can actually see the bleak future of spending money they don't have is besides the point, at least the conversations are taking place and solutions being explored.

According to Reuters, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced a series of proposals to help save the state's floundering pension systems. For years Illinois' pension program has been in crisis and has continued to be short of billions of dollars worth of funds. The governor's proposals would slash costs associated with the programs while making several major changes in the requirements:

* The state pension systems is approximately $85 billion short of the money needed to fully fund it, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
* Roughly 90 percent of current state retirees receive some state assistance or subsidies for health care and Illinois is expecting to spend $950 million on retiree health care for the next fiscal year.
* Gov. Quinn said regarding his suggestion pension program changes, "I didn't create the problem. But I'm here to solve it. I know that I was put on earth to get this done," the Chicago Tribune reported.
* The governor is proposing the state raise the retirement age from 60 to 67 for full benefits, according to the University of Illinois at Springfield.
* If the suggested changes take place, employee contributions would increase 3 percent, but while participating in the plan is voluntary for state employees, those who do not participate will forfeit their retirement health care coverage.
* The governor is also proposing to reduce the cost-of-living increase in retirement pensions to the lesser of 3 percent or half of what the consumer price index is at. The Huffington Post reported that overall, the planned reforms, which would be slowly phased in over several years, would save the state $65 billion to $85 billion by 2045.
* Pensions are expected to cost the state about $5.2 billion, or 15 percent of general of general revenue spending, in the upcoming fiscal year.
* Even Cook County 's pension funds are struggling to stay afloat and they are expected to be fully tapped out in 26 years without changes.
* Pensions in the public sector would be limited to only state employees, a move that comes after a Chicago Tribune investigation revealed individuals employed by unions and groups, have been able to collect state retirement pensions. So there it is, controlled by self serving Dems for decades, Illinois is now at a Greece like point where major changes are necessary in order to have the system.