Directly following his monologue he talks with authors, Tom Woods and Kevin Gutzman regarding the Constitution, enumerated powers, and nullification. This show is a must-see for all of us.

Watch the entire show below, but if you don’t have time then take 10 and watch the first segment. It makes me happy that Beck has obviously given the Judge near free reign about what guests appear on the show and the topics that are discussed.

When the Judge is host of the Glenn Beck show, the show is no longer the Glenn Beck show. It becomes Freedom Watch, the Judge’s current online only show.

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Well, that’s what they want you to think. I want to know why the debate is now all about whether or not there should be a public option and little else? This shows us how Obama and his fellow looters are now firmly in the lead on this debate. The argument is no longer about whether we should have the government more involved in health care, but whether the government should provide health care.

The question is no longer “why are we doing this?” Instead, the question is “how do we do it?”

If Pelosi has her way, this is how:

The new House proposal is similar to one drafted by Democrats months ago. It requires Americans to buy health insurance by 2013 or pay a fine, creates a government-run program similar to Medicare to compete with private insurers and lets 15 million additional people enroll in Medicaid by easing eligibility requirements.

But in an effort to make the bill more appealing to moderates in her party, Pelosi altered some of the fine print. The proposed government-run “public option,” for instance, would negotiate for how much to pay doctors and hospitals rather than relying on government-set rates, as Medicare does.

Echoing concerns raised by his Republican colleagues, Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan said the bill’s heft, at 1,990 pages, indicated how it would expand the government’s role in health care: “Families will face higher taxes,” he said.

Replacing the above word “higher” with “astronomical” would be more honest. One need not read past page 4 (3d) to find the most offensive words to free market liberty loving Americans:

“initiates shared responsibility among workers, employers, and the Government; so that all Americans have coverage of essential health benefits.”

The word “initiates” should be replaced with the more honest word, “forces”. This phrase is a pure unadulterated call for socialism. When you force someone to share, it’s no longer sharing. It is theft, well-intended theft, but theft nonetheless.

Why do we get put in jail if we steal money to give to the poor yet it is perfectly fine for the government to do it without repercussions? I suppose the answer is: they own the jails.

Why do we get put in jail if we murder someone yet it is perfectly fine for government troops to kill people?

Are government humans more special than civilian humans? They seem to be able to operate outside the scope of morality.

The bill would establish a new federal government department inappropriately called the “Health Choices Administration” with the “Health Choices Commissioner” at the head. I can’t wait for their ad slogan to come out: “The Health Choices Administration: Be Nice, we can choose whether you live or die!”

Under this bill the Health Choices Commissioner has the power to regulate a new “market” they call the “Health Services Exchange”. This is the so-called new “free market” where the government public option health care is to compete with private health insurers. Yet somehow this is supposed to allow private insurers to compete on a level playing field? Please.

This bill becoming law would signal the end of private health insurance. It is only a matter of time before the public option will be the only option.

The government owns the jails now. The government tells you what you can put in your body. With socialized medicine the government is just continuing its assault on individual liberty. There is no “I”, only “We”.

Check it out below.

“Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and our wealth are in jeopardy.” – Dr. Ron Paul

Originally published October 16, 2009 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/liberty-candidates-2010-the-year-of-hope-1

Ever wonder what happened to that sense of hope and change that most of the voters in the United States were swept up by last fall?

America does need “hope.” America does need “change.”

However, the mainstream Republican and Democratic party machines are both repeating like bad records – “more spending, more taxes, more war, more debt.”

If you flip the record, all you hear is “less liberty, fewer jobs, less prosperity.”

Why doesn’t America consider a sound money and slashing federal spending?

Why doesn’t America consider auditing and cutting back the powers of the ruinous FED?

Why doesn’t America consider destroying the IMMORAL and UNNECESSARY federal income tax?

Why doesn’t America consider a different foreign policy – where there is third choice besides bombing or economic sanctions? Why not replace the blowback our foreign policy has resulted in with a little love and peaceful trade?

Why doesn’t America replace its civil liberties that were stripped during the unconstitutional USA PATRIOT Act, which blasphemes the very concept of individual liberty?

Why doesn’t America consider replacing our “crony corporatism” system with a truly free market?

And, above all, WHY DOESN’T AMERICA MAKE ITS POLITICIANS ACCOUNTABLE TO THEM???

These images are not intended as an anti-Obama ad, but rather as a statement in the power of the individual. The hope for our futures will not come from following any single man!  It is only by thinking for ourselves, and realizing that all hope for change lies inside each of us, and the key to unlock the change rests in each of our minds.

To download the image, please right-click, select “Save Image As…” and save to your desktop and use however you like. We make the suggestion that all Facebook supporters use this image for their profile picture for awhile. Its message is powerful and simple enough to reach many who do not realize that there is something dreadfully wrong with America, and only together can we bring into being a revolution in thought.

Remember, the truth persists and illuminates, even if there is no one to utter it.  Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

The campaign gives its sincere thanks to Erik Gumbrecht for the concept and Ernest Ibarra, Jr. for the graphic design.

Restore the Republic! Re-legalize the Constitution!

Jake Towne, Candidate for US House PA-15  TowneForCongress.com

Dr. Mike Vasovski, Candidate for US House SC-3 VasovskiForCongress.com

Paul Lambert, Candidate for US House AL-6 VoteLambert.org

Jaynee Germond, Candidate for US House OR-4  Germond2010.com

William Kern, Candidate for US House NJ-1, KernForCongress.com

RJ Harris, Candidate for US House OK-4 RJHarris2010.com

Each of the above candidates have the answers to the above questions.

Towne for Congress addresses them with the below links.

• Campaign Principles
• Sound Monetary Policy and the FED
• The Federal Income Tax
• The Wars Abroad
• Corporatism and Bailouts
• Accountability through the novel yet simple Our Open Office plan
• Health Care

Jake Towne for Congress – Hope and Change Ad

As described by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an ever-watchful guardian of the Constitution, these Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations authorize the FBI – without going to a court – “to open investigative ‘assessments’ of any American without any factual predicate or suspicion. Such ‘assessments’ allow the use of intrusive techniques to surreptitiously collect information on people suspected of no wrongdoing and no connection with any foreign entity. These inquiries may include the collection of information from online sources and commercial databases.”

FBI agents, moreover, as I have previously reported, can infiltrate lawful civic and political groups, along with religious places of worship, and may take into account, in their threat “assessments,” race, ethnicity and religion. The press has largely been uninterested in this suspension of the Bill of Rights – but we know a lot about David Letterman.

President Obama has expressed no objections to these radical revisions of the Constitution, a founding document he used to educate students about at the University of Chicago. His attorney general, Eric Holder, said calmly during his Senate confirmation hearing: “The guidelines are necessary because the FBI is changing its mission … from a pure investigating agency to one that deals with national security.”

It was the same Eric Holder who said, while George W. Bush was president: “I never thought that I would see the day when a president would act in direct defiance of federal law by authorizing warrantless NSA (National Security Agency) surveillance of American citizens.”

I keep waiting for President Obama to live up to any of his campaign promises.  Are we sure Bush isn’t still in office?

Read the entire Hentoff commentary here.

• Several safeguards found in the JUSTICE Act are not in the new bill
• The Committee defeated amendments requiring evidence that targets of business records requests and National Security Letters must have some connection to terrorism or espionage.

But hope is not lost . . .

• The Senate Judiciary’s bill (S. 1692) hasn’t yet passed the full Senate
• In 2006, almost two-thirds of House Democrats, including now-Speaker Pelosi, voted AGAINST the PATRIOT renewal
• The voters did not punish these Democrats for their votes; in fact, later that year Democrats won control of Congress

The Obama Administration generally wants the continuation of the Bush status quo on civil liberties. We must encourage Congress to listen to the people instead of the President. If House Democrats show some backbone, they could exercise leverage by . . .

• Introducing and passing the JUSTICE Act,
• Adding greater civil liberties protections to any PATRIOT renewal bill, or . . .
• Threatening to do NOTHING and allow three provisions of the PATRIOT Act to expire on December 31

Send your elected representatives a letter demanding that they roll back the Patriot Act.

This is what I said in my personal comments:

I was disappointed with the results of the Senate Judiciary hearings last week. We must have strong civil liberties protections in any PATRIOT Act renewal bill. I hope a better bill is produced on the Senate floor, and encourage the House to pass the JUSTICE Act. If Congress can’t provide better safeguards for my civil liberties, please oppose any PATRIOT Act renewal bill and work to repeal the PATRIOT Act outright.

You can send your letter here.

James Wilson
Assistant Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

A piece by Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com a few weeks ago points out many examples how so much of Obama’s talk of change was just that: talk.

“When it comes to uprooting (’changing’) the Bush/Cheney approach to terrorism and civil liberties — the issue which generated as much opposition to the last presidency as anything else — the Obama administration has proven rather conclusively that tiny and cosmetic adjustments are the most it is willing to do.

“They love announcing new policies that cast the appearance of change but which have no effect whatsoever on presidential powers.

“With great fanfare, they announced the closing of CIA black sites — at a time when none was operating.

“They trumpeted the President’s order that no interrogation tactics outside of the Army Field Manual could be used — at a time when approval for such tactics had been withdrawn.

“They repudiated the most extreme elements of the Bush/Addington/Yoo ‘inherent power’ theories — while maintaining alternative justifications to enable the same exact policies to proceed exactly as is.

“They flamboyantly touted the closing of Guantanamo — while aggressively defending the right to abduct people from around the world and then imprison them with no due process at Bagram.

“Their ‘changes’ exist solely in theory — which isn’t to say that they are all irrelevant, but it is to say that they change nothing in practice:  i.e., in reality.”

Then a week later, Greenwald posted an update, saying:

“Isn’t it so interesting how the phrase ‘Patriot Act’ was the symbol of everything Democrats claimed to find so heinous during the Bush years, but now that there’s a Democratic President, Senate and Congress, it’s absolutely certain that the Patriot Act will continue, and civil libertarians are reduced to hoping that there may be some tiny modifications to it, and even that’s highly unlikely?”

Indeed.

Quote of the Day: “I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.” — DownsizeDC.org co-founder Harry Browne (1933-2006)

You can read our response here.

What we didn’t mention in the previous Dispatch was the Constitutional problem of the War on Drugs. That’s because . . .

Many people seem not to care what the Constitution requires. Today’s message is for those who do care.

Drug control is NOT a Constitutional power of the federal government. At the very most the federal government could, perhaps, ban the importation of drugs, and prohibit their sale across state lines under the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8.

But nowhere in the Constitution is Congress empowered to prohibit the sale or possession of any item within state boundaries. The Tenth Amendment dictates that whatever Congress is not empowered to do must be left to the States, or to the people. This means Congress cannot . . .

* forbid the personal possession or use of drugs
* prohibit drug sales within the same state
* intervene in other countries with money or troops to fight undeclared drug wars

This means that drug prohibition laws can only exist at the state level. Imagine what could happen if some states had no prohibition laws, while other states had prohibition laws of differing severity. Competing claims about drug prohibition could be tested, in the real world. As it is . . .

Federal prohibition laws not only prohibit the sale and use of drugs, they also prohibit us from learning what would work best.

The 10th Amendment’s Constitutional restrictions on federal power used to be well-known and understood. For instance, those who wanted to prohibit alcohol in the 1910’s knew that the Constitution didn’t give Congress the power to do this. So they had to pass the 18th Amendment, ratified in 1919.

Alcohol prohibition was a failure, so in 1933 the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment.

If prohibiting alcohol required a Constitutional Amendment, how does prohibiting other drugs NOT require a Constitutional Amendment?

It’s an important question. To ignore the Constitutional process is to ignore the rule of law. No matter how one feels about drug use, the rule of law, especially as applied to government power, is essential to protecting our lives, freedoms, and property. With this in mind . . .

We want to ask you to do something different today. We’ve changed the message to Congress for our “Help End the Mexican Civil War” campaign. For today’s action item it reads . . .

“You’ve sworn an oath to protect the Constitution, so could you please answer three questions. 1. Where does the Constitution authorize the federal government to wage a War on Drugs? 2. If alcohol prohibition required a Constitutional Amendment, how does prohibiting other drugs NOT require a Constitutional Amendment? 3. Shouldn’t we be allowed to learn what works best by having states with different drug laws, or NO drug laws, in keeping with the 10th Amendment? I would appreciate an honest, thoughtful response.”

If members of Congress receive enough of these messages, some will feel compelled to reply. We want to see what form these responses take, and we’d like to compare the names of those who respond with the list of those who have co-sponsored the “Enumerated Powers Act.”

Remember, the “Enumerated Powers Act” would require Congress to cite its Constitutional authority for every law it passes. This would be impossible for them to do in the case of most drug prohibition laws, except those provisions that might squeeze through under the Commerce Clause.

If you receive a response could you please forward it to us, so we can publish it on our blog? Please let us know if you want us to omit your name to protect your privacy. Or, you can post the response in the Comments section of this blog post:

http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/don-t-read-this-if-you-care-about-the-constitution

You can send your Constitutional questions to Congress here.

Please share this Dispatch with any friends who care about Constitutional requirements.

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

& Downsize DC Foundation

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.

The court said it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs immediately following the high court’s decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave.

The new case tests whether last year’s ruling applies as well to local and state laws.

While this is good news for hopeful gun rights activists it raises questions for die hard Constitutionalists. The dirty details of “incorporation” reveals some divisions among us. I’ve previously discussed my own thoughts on “incorporation”, but I can certainly understand the opposing viewpoint. The question came up earlier this year when the states rights argument was utilized by the anti-gun rights Senators in reference to the Thune amendment that would have permitted concealed carry reciprocity between the states.

The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court has a very good chance of voting in favor of 2nd Amendment incorporation. Perhaps, the more interesting thing, similar to Heller, will be what the majority opinion says at the conclusion of the case.

The discussion lasts about 14 minutes. Following the interview Beck reiterates that he doesn’t agree with Ron Paul on some things, but when it comes to the Fed Glenn says he is “Dead Right.” Following that Beck goes into a discussion on foreign policy as it relates to Afghanistan.

Listen to the audio below.

Download audio file (rp-beck-endthefed-09302009.mp3)

Quote of the Day: “The JUSTICE Act will allow intelligence agents to monitor terrorism suspects while putting checks in place to ensure that law-abiding Americans’ privacy and civil liberties are protected.” – Sen. Daniel Akaka

• The Patriot Act authorized “sneak and peak” warrants that allow the government to search your home without your knowledge.In 2008, this power was used just three times in terrorism investigations and 760 times in regular criminal investigations.
• It also authorized National Security Letters (NSLs). NSLs allow federal agents to seize your personal records without a warrant, even when there’s no suspicion of wrongdoing. The FBI can also prohibit you from telling anyone that you’ve been searched because of an NSL. The FBI was found to have abused this power thousands of times.
• Under the FISA Amendments Act, government can engage in wiretapping without a warrant

The good news is that some parts of the PATRIOT Act will expire at the end of the year unless Congress renews them. This provides an opportunity to roll back many dangerous provisions. Toward this end Senator Russ Feingold introduced the JUSTICE Act (S. 1686) on September 17, Constitution Day. JUSTICE stands for the Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts. This bill would . . .

• narrow the scope of “sneak and peak” warrants so they can’t be used in common criminal cases
• ensure judicial review of NSLs and require that they only be used in terrorism or espionage investigations
• prevent roving wiretaps of unnamed suspects that allow the government to monitor the conversations of innocent people
• revoke the retroactive immunity provision of the FISA Amendments Act that has shielded the telecom companies that collaborated with the government in illegal surveillance
• provide additional privacy protections outlined here

In short, the JUSTICE Act would give government agents powerful tools to spy on suspected terrorists, while preventing them from spying on YOU.

We would prefer to repeal the PATRIOT Act entirely, but until that can happen the provisions of the JUSTICE Act would move things in the right direction. Please take action to pass the JUSTICE Act.

• Go to our new campaign “Roll Back the Patriot Act” and send your letter to Congress
• If your Senator is on the Judiciary Committee, please also call him or her on the phone and urge him or her to support the JUSTICE Act. If your Senator is not on the Committee please call the Committee Directly to urge them to vote the JUSTICE Act out of committee. You can see a list of the Committee members here.
• The phone number for the Senate Judiciary Committee is 202-224-7703

Thank-you for being a DC Downsizer. To see how we’re growing, check out the Keeping Score section below my signature.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

KEEPING SCORE REPORT

Your Downsize DC Army shrank by 12 net new members over the weekend. This brings our total growth for the year to 3,895. The Downsize DC Army now stands at 28,243, 24% of the way between 28,000 and 29,000.

YOU can make the army KEEP GROWING by following our quick and easy instructions for personalized recruiting.

We can also grow faster by spreading the word through the media. Please help us do this by starting a monthly credit card pledge — it can be as low as $5 a month (which is just 17 cents per day). You can start your pledge using our secure online contribution form.

Please let us know if its okay to advertise your support here:

NEW MONTHLY PLEDGERS IN SEPTEMBER: Gerry Benton, Henrik Pedersen, James Spaller, John Houghton, Poul Petersen, Mark Wilczek, Mann Page Ciesemier, Leslie Thomas-Rieser, Jim Lorenz, Chelsea Moller, 3 unlisted — (12 new pledgers total) PLEDGERS FROM AUGUST: Glen Ihrig, Gary J Leidy, David Bergland, Gary T Gorski, Don J Crites, 8 unlisted — (13 new pledgers total)

Or, you could make a one-time donation. Please let us know on our secure contribution form if its okay to advertise your support here:

NEW ONE TIME DONORS IN SEPTEMBER: Jamie Sigler, M. W. Baumeister, Pamela Sanderson, Brad Peters, Michael Lord, David D Segesta, John O’Donnell, Robert C. Jones, Jr., A.J. Stukenborg, Nathan Bailey, 5 unlisted — (15 new donations total) DONORS FROM AUGUST: Sharon Mears, John Matthews, Patricia Barnum, Brian Travis, Sarah Franke, Dirk Doebereiner, James Wahler, Meredith Weaver, Stephen Moffett, Matthew Whitlock, Dan Litwin, Russell Kominski, Veronica Arnold, Michael Bayback, Ann & Todd Secoy (in memory of Julia Bitner), James Marranca, Kay Samalin, David Hyatt, Douglas Steinschneider, Lily Riker, Nicholas C. Beason, Mr. Marlin, Edward J. Krieger, Lynnette Thompson, 17 unlisted — (41 total)

If a tax deduction is important you can get one by contributing to the educational outreach efforts of the Downsize DC Foundation. Contribute at the Foundation’s secure contribution form.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

& Downsize DC Foundation