There is still time to win up to $1000 in the Freedom Festival Media Contest. The deadline is 2 weeks aw

There is still time to win up to $1000 in the Freedom Festival Media Contest. The deadline is 2 weeks away.

Some highlights of our contest include--

• Win up to $1000!
• Any Utah resident can enter (no age limit).
• More than one person can work on an entry.
• Time Limit:  1-2 minutes.
• Deadline: May 27, 2011.
• Theme: American Values: Family, Freedom, God, & Country.

For more information, please see our website at www.freedomfestival.org. I would appreciate it if you would forward this information again. 

Thank you so much for your help.

New Pages!

We are pleased to bring you the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights on our blog.  We hope that you enjoy reading these important documents and that you take the time to read and study them.  If you are interested in learning more about the principles the documents are based on, we recommend you take a look at "The Christian History of the Constitution," John Locke's "Two Treatisies on Government," David Mccullough's "John Adams," Catherine Drinker Bowen's "Miracle at Philadelphia," and "A More Perfect Union." For further primary research into Constitutional history, we also recommend going to The Constitutional Sources Project and checking out their collection of primary source documents.

Happy reading!

Quick Thoughts: University of Virginia's Global Warming Problem

Virginia's Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, has subpoenaed documents from a scientist working at the University of Virginia. Such an action is permissible under a statute passed in 2002 to help curb and prevent employees at public Universities from defrauding public tax dollars. The Democrats in the State Assembly are, of course, aghast.

Funny that the Democrats should be concerned about the use of the subpoena for investigating potential misuse of public dollars; aren't they supposed to be the party of ethics and governmental responsibility?  (I guess that that principle goes out the window when they hope to use the issue to gain electoral ground (read the Washington Post story here)).

Suspicions about the professor have led to previous investigations as well.  Chances are that if he's raised eyebrows before, he's likely to raise them again. 

If he did tamper with his evidence and data then he is defrauding the public of tax dollars and needs to be punished. 

Rahm Emmanuel Is Not a Chicago Resident

An appellate panel in Chicago ruled that Rahm Emanuel is not a Chicago resident and is ineligible to run for Mayor (read it here). People are now bemoaning the judicial activism in the courts because of this ruling. This in spite of the fact that the courts are designated to rule on legal issues.

It makes you wonder why people want Rahm as Mayor in the first place.  Chicago is notorious for its corrupt politicians.  Why do they think that Rahm would be that much better?

Quick Thoughts: Obamacare Replacement

It looks like Ezra Klein was wrong again.  Yesterday he savaged the republicans for repealing Obamacare but not having a replacement.  Little did he know (or maybe he wasn't paying attention) that the GOP was working to make good replacement policy (read about it here).  The GOP has set up committees to actually study and find verifiable evidence of policies which would actually cause health care costs to go down and not skyrocket like they have so far under Obamacare.  Some of the possible policies that they are looking at include: buying insurance across state lines, creating insurance associations to decrease costs and others.

It's kind of a shock to have Congress trying to look at market based reforms and methods of improving the market before passing laws.


Make your voices heard too.  Contact  your Congressmen and Senators by visiting their webpages: http://www.house.gov/ and http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

News: Obamacare Repealed!

One year after the passage of Obamacare, the House of Representatives voted yesterday in a 245 to 189 vote, to repeal Obamacare.   Now we wait to see if Harry Reid will bring it to the floor of the Senate for a vote.  If you'd like to contact your senator click here.    Hopefully the Senate will be persuaded that Obamacare needs to be repealed.  Let's let our voices be heard!

Loughner was a Bush Hater

The Communist Manifesto

Mein Kampf

The New York Times just reported that Jared Loughner hated (well, probably still hates) George W. Bush, and that some of his favorite books were: the Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, Animal Farm, and Farenheit 451.  Much to the dismay of the news outlets, Sheriff Dupnik, Barak Obama, and some Palin haters, it would appear that Loughner was more of a product of radical leftists, than of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the Tea Party.   Click here to read the full story. 

Quick Thoughts: No federal funds means federal control?

NPR is fearful of more governmental intrusion over two recent bills introduced by Rep Doug Lamborn to cut off federal subsidies to NPR and reduce federal spending.

I would understand if the fear were about losing money and suddenly having to compete in the marketplace that everyone else in radio does, but I'm a little confused about being afraid of the government controlling your broadcasting without giving you money? 

That's a bit odd, because when you loose federal funding, you usually loose the strings that come with that money. When the federal government gives you the strings without the money, that's called an unfunded mandate. Usually, only States have to deal with both funded and unfunded mandates from the feds (think No Child Left Behind and Obamacare) and they hate both.

You would think that the fact Rep. Slaughter (remember her rule that would have "deemed" Obamacare into law without a vote?) is trying to increase FCC control what is said and how it is said over the airwaves would be more worrisome for NPR.

It makes you wonder if NPR is trying to be a propaganda machine?

CBS Poll: Tucson Shooting and Rhetoric Not Related

Breaking news!

CBS just did a poll indicating that over 55% of people don't feel that the Tucson shooting and political rhetoric are related. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20028105-503544.html

Contrary to the suppositions of those clamoring for the FCC to reinstate the "fairness doctrine" (regulation requiring radio broadcasters to give equal time to opposing voices) people are able, at least in this instance,  to see what is reported to them and decide the truth for themselves.

Now, how much more informed would we be if the news outlets would actually report?

Look at that: Polling on Obamacare and Deficit

Rasmussen Reports just came out with a poll showing that only 29% of people think that repealing Obamacare will increase the deficit.  A huge majority of Americans get what the CBO, and Nancy Pelosi seem unable to understand: adding another trillion dollars (estimated conservatively) to the Federal budget increases the deficit, regardless of how many times we double count "savings" from Medicare.  The tax increases in the bill aren't going to bring in as much in revenue estimated either.  Tax increases usually equal lesser federal revenues, while lower taxes usually equal higher tax revenues.  Just look at the JFK, Reagan, and Bush '43 tax cuts.  Tax revenues increased after each tax cut.

Here's to hoping for a repeal of Obamacare.

Quick Thoughts: A Crabby Analogy

If you've ever gone crabbing, you've seen the selfish behavior of crabs. When you pull your crabs out of the trap and put them in a bucket they will try to escape. Inevitably whenever one tries to get to the top, the others will pull him back down. The bucket stays full of crabs because none of them will allow any of the others to get out.

Usually we think of this attitude being a bad thing, i.e. not allowing someone in your community to achieve and leave their bad circumstances. Businesses, too, will explain the negative effects of the crab in a bucket mentality to inspire their workers to work more efficiently.

When applied to a government, however, this is a great thing. The different branches of government have a tendency to try and do more and take more power. The Founders used checks and balances to allow the different branches to use that mentality to stop other branches from taking more and more power (for more detail on that see here).

The more the government does, the less we are able to do ourselves. The less they do, the more freedoms we have. This built in feature of using jealousy to have government restrain itself is kind of comforting.