BUSTED: An Abuse of Power: President Obama's "Recess" Appointments

Is this a sign that sanity is beginning to be restored to Washington D.C.?

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, January 25, 10:12 AM

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to fill vacancies on a labor relations panel, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that Obama did not have the power to make three recess appointments last year to the National Labor Relations Board.

The unanimous decision is an embarrassing setback for the president, who made the appointments after Senate Republicans spent months blocking his choices for an agency they contended was biased in favor of unions.

The ruling also throws into question Obama’s recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Cordray’s appointment, also made under the recess circumstance, has been challenged in a separate case.

Obama claims he acted properly in the case of the NLRB appointments because the Senate was away for the holidays on a 20-day recess. But the three-judge panel ruled that the Senate technically stayed in session when it was gaveled in and out every few days for so-called “pro forma” sessions.

GOP lawmakers used the tactic — as Democrats have in the past as well — to specifically to prevent the president from using his recess power. GOP lawmakers contend the labor board has been too pro-union in its decisions. They had also vigorously opposed the nomination of Cordray.

The Obama administration is expected to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but if it stands, it means hundreds of decisions issued by the board over more than a year are invalid. It also would leave the five-member labor board with just one validly appointed member, effectively shutting it down. The board is allowed to issue decisions only when it has at least three sitting members.

On Jan. 4, 2012, Obama appointed Deputy Labor Secretary Sharon Block, union lawyer Richard Griffin and NLRB counsel Terence Flynn to fill vacancies on the NLRB, giving it a full contingent for the first time in more than a year. Block and Griffin are Democrats, while Flynn is a Republican. Flynn stepped down from the board last year.

Obama also appointed Cordray on the same day.

The court’s decision is a victory for Republicans and business groups that have been attacking the labor board for issuing a series of decisions and rules that make it easier for the nation’s labor unions to organize new members.

‘No Budget No Pay’: House Votes To Hold Its Own Salaries If Budget Isn’t Passed

Well, this one should have been a 'no-brainer' and should have happened sooner.

The House of Representatives voted today to approve a three-month extension of the debt limit in a bill that concurrently pressures lawmakers to adopt a budget or have their pay withheld. 

The bill, known as the No Budget No Pay Act of 2013, directs both chambers of Congress to adopt a budget resolution for fiscal year 2014 by April 15, 2013. If either body fails to pass a budget, members of that body would have their paychecks put into an escrow account starting on April 16 until that body adopts a budget. Any pay that is withheld would eventually be released at the end of the current Congress even if a budget doesn’t ever pass.

The bill will require the House and Senate each to pass a budget, and Member pay will be withheld if they fail.  

Okay…it's now time for the Senate to act. It has been almost four years since the Senate has passed a budget, while our national debt has skyrocketed by over $5 trillion.  This is basic to their jobs -- and required by law. Yet, Congress seems to think it's bigger than the law.

The fact of the matter is, if Members of Congress can't pass a budget on time, they wouldn't get paid until they did.  

Will this measure force our government to finally start working for the people?

~Brought to you by CharlottePAC.org

Democrats Have No Right to Claim Lincoln's Legacy

by Pajamasmedia

Published on Jan 16, 2013

The Democratic Party opposed President Lincoln and just about every other civil rights advance in the United States. They started the KKK.  So what gives the Democrats and Hollywood liberals the right to claim Abraham Lincoln as their president?

Is Hollywood stealing Lincoln's Republican legacy like they did with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's relationship with Republicans?  In 1854, Republicans were not afraid to speak up!

Hear what AlfonZo Rachel thinks.




What do you think?  Is it time Republicans boldly reclaim their legacy?  Is it time for the original Republicans to come back home?

~Brought to you by CharlottePAC.org.

Please comment below or send your questions to Charlotte@CharlottePAC.org.

IN REMEMBERANCE: WHY MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR WAS A GREAT LEADER

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was no Pseudo Leader. 

When Dr. King devised a plan…he avoided putting a Band-Aid on the problem in order to make it appear that the problem was solved.  Instead, he crafted steps to bring about solutions and he appealed to willing Republican Congressional leaders for legislation to broaden existing laws to protect African-Americans.  They did not let him down. Dr. King’s plan, more than any event during that time, forced Americans to sit up and take notice and to get involved to bring about a change in our nation.

Group-think and the pseudo leaders of today are destroying communities by spending too much of their time cleaving to century-old crimes and stirring racial tensions. 

In his 1950 essay An Autobiography of Religious Development, Dr. King Jr. wrote that his father was a major influence on his life choices.  He stated that his admiration for his father was a great moving factor in his life; He set forth a noble example that he didn't mind following.

King Jr. often recounted that his father frequently sent him to work in the fields. He said that in this way he would gain a healthier respect for his forefathers. This was a driving factor in his civil rights movements across the United States.

In a 2008 Associated Press story, King’s son and namesake Martin Luther King III said: "It is disingenuous to imply that my father was a Republican. He never endorsed any presidential candidate, and there is certainly no evidence that he ever even voted for a Republican." 

As I will show below, his statement is not true and not supported by historical facts.

In 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy voted for the Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower.  He later told Nixon of his vote during a public meeting in Ghana, where they were attending a presidential inauguration.  

Also, Daddy King (father of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) and nearly all of the most powerful preachers of the National Baptist Convention were life-long Republicans.

On June 23, 1958, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower invited Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to the White House to discuss the progress he was making on Civil Rights. Other African American leaders in the meeting included Roy Wilkins, Lester Granger and A. Philip Randolph.

Dr. King’s niece, Alveda C. King, a founder of the group King for America, also verified, "My uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during his lifetime, was a Republican." It is easily verifiable that MLK subscribed to Republican values, such as freedom, self-reliance and liberty, and that most black voters before 1960 associated themselves with the Grand Old Party -- the Party of Lincoln -- that passed the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution ending slavery and guaranteeing equal rights in the 19th century.   

 Dr. Kenneth W. Goings, professor and past chairman of the Department of African American and African Studies at Ohio State University, said in an email message that King may have had to register as a Republican to vote in Alabama in the 1950s. Goings said: "Daddy King was a Republican as were most African Americans in the South until the early 1940s. But the combination of Dem. Party outreach and Republican Southern strategy meant that by the 1950s the South was well on the way to the split that is evident now. I’ve not seen any written evidence that MLK Jr. was a Republican, but if he registered to vote it would have been as a Republican in Alabama simply because the Dems. would not allow black voters." My Lord, Black Americans, wake up! "Dems would not allow black voters"?!

To show his appreciation to President Kennedy for releasing him from jail, Dr. King was strongly advised by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, that he should not align himself with the Republican Party.  Yet, he refused to align himself with the Democratic Party.  The fact of the matter is this, he had "very positive feelings" about Republican Richard Nixon in the late 1950s and "extremely positive feelings" about Republican Nelson Rockefeller, the New York governor who later served as vice president. Dr. King became "a very harsh critic" of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson over his escalation of the Vietnam War and "wouldn't necessarily have backed (Democratic presidential nominee) Hubert Humphrey in '68 had he (King) lived."

During my congressional campaign, I was pleased to see the responses from citizen voters in Memphis when asked if Dr. Martin Luther King was a Republican.  Very few black Americans showed surprise. I spoke to quite a number of people who understood history and knew the truth in their hearts concerning Dr. Martin Luther King’s convictions, for others, it was an education.

I believe in my heart that we can bring about liberty and prosperity, starting in Memphis and spreading throughout the nation, as we get back to the true message of Dr. King, which is that of freedom, liberty, and self-respect; and judging a person by their character, not by the color of their skin.  Dr. Martin Luther King fought, not just for civil rights for African Americans, but for social justice for all.  That's what keeps his mission compellingly alive. He understood that the Republican Party of Lincoln was the party of freedom, self-reliance and liberty. He did not come to Memphis to fight for the sanitation workers so that they could receive government handouts. He fought for their right to equal pay and dignity, which included fair treatment on their jobs.

To whom did Dr. King make his appeals for freedom? He wrote a letter of thanks to  President Dwight Eisenhower for providing escorts and protection for the nine black students' entering Little Rock Central High School, an all-white public school, for the first time since the Reconstruction era, against the directives of Arkansas governor, Orval Faubus (D).  Numerous times, he contacted Senator Everett Dirksen (R-Ill.), who was a civil rights hero.  During his sixteen years in the House of Representatives, Dirksen voted for anti-poll-tax and anti-lynching measures, and ended a record-breaking Democrat- led filibuster, that had consumed fifty-seven working days, against the passage of the Civil Rights Bill. Dirksen stood for civil rights, in spite of receiving little support among Chicago’s black voters and he was picketed at his home by rights activists.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (left), Senator Everett Dirksen, R-Ill. (right), and John Lewis (far right) meet shortly before King's "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington in August 1963.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Senator Everett Dirksen and freedom fighters from all over (which included blacks and whites), fought for liberty during the Civil Rights movement. Without their sacrifice, I feel as though it would have been difficult to obtain the type of life, or educational and employment opportunities that I have had. I'm not even sure if I'd be alive today, if it had not been for those heroic freedom fighters.

What Dr. King did not know was that history would be rewritten through slander, fear and flat out lies about what the Republican Party represents. In order to keep the lie alive, it became necessary to keep tension and separation going between the political parties. Therefore, just before every election, mind-control accusations of racism would start, which invoked an unnecessary fear of a return to slavery. 

For example, VP Joe Biden, recently quoted, “‘gonna to put y’all back in chains.’ Quotes like that have worked for over 60 years in our Black American communities. What have we gotten for our loyalty? 

I grew up in a family which hung two pictures on the wall. The first was of Jesus breaking bread with his twelve disciples at the ‘Last Supper.’ The other was that of Dr. Martin Luther King, flanked on both sides by our slain 37th President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his brother, Senator Robert Kennedy.  While in school, we were taught to say the president's full name, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, which demonstrated the respect our teachers gave to our 37th president. We would also start each morning by reading a scripture and afterwards, pledging allegiance to the flag, which reinforced what we learned at home concerning respect for religion and our country.  Those two pictures molded many young lives, mine included.

The implied message was that Jesus, Dr. King, President Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy were to be our life models.  The Kennedys represented the Democratic Party. At that time, the party was viewed differently. 

Dr. Martin Luther King spoke loud and often, in the final days of his life, about economic injustice, about poverty and freedom. But, he would be appalled at how his sacrifice has been twisted to shatter lives and destroy the incentive to reach one's full potential, since the government has come in, like a cancer, killing the cells of drive and self-determination, and replacing them with a life-long dependency on what is falsely seen as the "cure":  the government drugs of welfare, free phones, free healthcare and yes, food stamps.  

Dr.  King very wisely labeled the last act of his epic, but short life, the "Poor People's Campaign", because he understood that while racism was (and is) a great oppressive force in our land, freedom can be had as a result of a good education and hard work. Millions upon millions of Americans are habitually looking for employment only to experience more discouragement and desperation. Sadly, today, many people have not been taught how jobs are created and the fundamentals of economics. The current administration does not understand how powerful an unshackled free market is for job creation.

I have been called a sell-out.  After facing the loss of every material thing I thought was important to me and to still be able to land on my feet, a better person than I was before, name calling has no effect on me.

Sellout is just a term that people use to enslave us and keep us distracted from real problems. We need leaders who will support choice and market-based reforms that will prepare us to achieve the American dream.

I am in the poverty-class for now, by choice, yet I have come from generations of poverty, dating back to American slavery in the 1800s. What I have, which they did not have, is an education, a chance to live in a country, which under normal circumstances would allow me to achieve riches, through hard work and integrity. 

And I, like  Dr. King, I have a dream. That dream is that Memphis, Tennessee, the place where Dr. King,. Jr. lost his life, in a horrific assassination, where the seed of the 20th century slavery began, will be the place where, though we have taken a 50 year detour, we will finally get to the ‘Promise Land.’

______________________________________________________

PolitiFact's report about the Bergmann's billboard http://www.politifact.com/tennessee/statements/2012/jan/23/charlotte-bergmann/another-republican-claims-martin-luther-king-jr-wa/

http://wreg.com/2012/10/26/texas-billboards-claim-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-a-republican/

  ~Brought to you by CharlottePAC and Lynne Roberts, COO Frederick Douglass Republicans/Liberty Messenger

More reading: http://www.humanevents.com/2006/08/16/why-martin-luther-king-was-republican/

BEWARE: Liberals' Political Adversary to the Tea Party & the GOP!

Progressive coalition ‘Democracy Initiative’ aims to rebuild liberal politics

Ned Resnikoff, @resnikoff

(Ben Jealous (C), president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), speaks outside the White House on November 16, 2012. (TOBY JORRIN/AFP/Getty Images))

A coalition of the largest labor unions, environmental groups and civil liberties organizations in America are banding together to combat policies they believe threaten all of them. On Wednesday, Mother Jones reported that the group of influential organizations had formed a “Democracy Initiative” with the intention of removing some of the biggest political roadblocks to progressive legislation.

The Democracy Initiative’s platform, writes Mother Jones’Andy Kroll, has three major planks: “getting big money out of politics, expanding the voting rolls while fighting voter ID laws, and rewriting Senate rules to curb the use of the filibuster to block legislation.”

Accomplishing those three goals, the group believes, would remove the biggest threats to American liberalism. Corporate influence over legislators, voter ID laws that target poor and non-white votes, and Senate rules which make it easy to block new legislation, the theory goes, all favor right-wing governance. As a result, groups as diverse as the NAACP, labor unions like the National Education Association, and the Sierra Club all see their interests under risk.

Kroll reports that the group would likely try to oust Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., “Public Enemy No. 1 for campaign finance reform,” when he runs for reelection in 2014. The group may also target major corporate interests—such as Chevron and the members of the American Legislative Exchange Council—directly.

The ultimate shape of the Democracy Initiative’s grand strategy remains to be seen. However, in its nascent form, the coalition invites stylistic comparison to its enemies on the right: the aforementioned ALEC, Americans for Prosperity, and other such groups. Like those organizations, the Democracy Initiative plans to bring together a diverse group with overlapping interests and play the “inside game” in an attempt to dismantle its opponents’ political infrastructure. Conservative interests have had a lot of success in pushing game-changing legislation through state governments, targeting powerful members of Congress, and generally trying to undermine the most powerful left-wing organizations.

There is reason to be skeptical that liberals can win at the same game. Left and right are not symmetrical—political theorists such as Corey Robin argue that conservatism is, at heart, a defense of hierarchy and “the private life of power.” The right excels at the inside game, in part, because they are the movement of the inside. Even if the Democracy Initiative could match its conservative counterparts in funding (an unlikely proposition given the liberal experience with fundraising for Super PACs), America’s political elites will still overwhelmingly be drawn from the same cultural and ideological background as its business elites.

That is not to say there is no value for the left in lobbying legislatures and fighting electoral campaigns on the federal level. However, national progressive organizations often miss the other side of the equation: the left’s biggest successes throughout American history have largely been the product of broad-based social movements. The civil rights movement of the sixties and the labor movement of the thirties certainly fought within the halls of power, but they’re most visible campaigns were fought in those areas of life not usually considered “political”: The workplace, the segregated diner, and so on.

Those fights were only possible because these movements recognized and fostered the link between seemingly abstract political issues and personal experiences of oppression. The whole concept of “social justice” is founded on this link. It remains unclear whether the Democracy Initiative has a clear theory of social justice, or whether it is even interested in social movement politics. If the coalition is interested in social movement politics, then it must be willing to engage with and grow local activism—to not just lead, but allow itself to be led, by local communities.

President Awards a 'Do Nothing' Congress and VP Biden a Raise Before the Fiscal Cliff! Dive!

If we were in such bad shape financially, why is the President still spending?   

After rushing back from his Christmas vacation in Hawaii, the President made a speech concerning the results of the last-minute 'fiscal cliff' meeting.  During that speech the President forgot to mention that he's signed an Executive Order on the day before, calling for a pay increase gift to federal workers, and Vice President Joe Biden.  Also, returning members of Congress will receive a small increase. There was no mention of merit in granting this pay raise.  

The President willfully and arrogantly presides over spending as in the days of Louis XVI of France, while pretending to fight for the middle class. In this instance, the President spends and the middle class' taxes goes up even more.

Friday's last minute meeting was between President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to negotiate a deal to avert the quickly-approaching “fiscal cliff,” a combination of tax increases and deep spending cuts set to take effect next year unless Congress comes up with a budget plan.

Pay Raises Detail.

Vice President Biden will get a raise, and take home $231,900 before taxes next year. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will get $224,600 next year, up from $223,500, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) will take in $194,400, up from $193,400.

Wake up America!  You're being hoodwinked, deceived and robbed blind by the old shell game.

~Brought to you by CharlottePAC.org

The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/appropriations/274781-congress-federal-workers-to-get-pay-increase

Huffington Post:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/28/obama-pay-raise-congress_n_2377714.html

200 Utah Teachers Take Free Firearms Training Class

The Main Stream Media would love to make NRA President, Wayne Lapierre appear to be crazy for suggesting armed security in every school, but, these Utah teachers don't agree!

Published December 28, 2012

FoxNews.com

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Kasey Hansen, a special education teacher from Salt Lake City, Utah, says she would take a bullet for any of her students, but if faced with a gunman threatening her class, she would rather be able to shoot back. Dec. 27, 2012: Clark Aposhian, President of Utah Shooting Sport Council, demonstrates with a plastic gun during concealed-weapons training for 200 Utah teachers.

SALT LAKE CITY –  Gun-rights advocates in Utah offered six hours of training Thursday in handling concealed weapons for hundreds of Utah teachers in the wake of the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

The latest effort to arm teachers to confront school assailants was organized by the Utah Shooting Sports Council, which hosted the training session to help educators become eligible for concealed firearm permits, FOX 13 News reported.

More than 200 teachers flocked to the training class in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley City. Raye Ann Blauer, a kindergarten teacher, told FOX 13 she is considering using her permit to carry a firearm at school.

“[A]fter everything that happened in Connecticut, I want to be aware of how I can help in the classroom and protect my kids and whatnot. Be aware,” Blauer said. “I think it’s really smart. Especially with everything that’s happened lately.”  English teacher Kevin Leatherbarrow holds a license to carry a concealed weapon and doesn't see anything wrong with arming teachers in the aftermath of the deadly Connecticut school shooting.
"We're sitting ducks," said Leatherbarrow, who works at a Utah charter school. "You don't have a chance in hell. You're dead -- no ifs, ands or buts."

In Ohio, a firearms group said it was launching a test program in tactical firearms training for 24 teachers. The Arizona attorney general is proposing a change to state law to allow an educator in each school to carry a gun.

The moves come after the National Rifle Association proposed placing an armed officer at each of the nation's schools after a gunman on Dec. 14 killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

There are already police officers in some of the nation's schools. Parents and educators, however, have questioned how safe the NRA proposal would keep kids, whether it would be economically feasible and how it would alter student life.
Some educators say it is dangerous to allow guns. Among the dangers are teachers being overpowered for their weapons or students getting them and accidentally or purposely shooting classmates.

"It's a terrible idea," said Carol Lear, a chief lawyer for the Utah Office of Education. "It's a horrible, terrible, no-good, rotten idea." Utah educators say they would ban guns if they could, but legislators left them with no choice. State law forbids schools, districts or college campuses from imposing their own gun restrictions.

Educators say they have no way of knowing how many teachers are armed. Gun-rights advocates estimate 1 percent of Utah teachers, or 240, are licensed to carry concealed weapons. It's not known how many do so at school.

Gun-rights advocates say teachers can act more quickly than law enforcement in the critical first few minutes to protect children from the kind of deadly shooting that took place in Connecticut.

"We're not suggesting that teachers roam the halls" for an armed intruder, said Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council, the state's leading gun lobby. "They should lock down the classroom. But a gun is one more option if the shooter" breaks into a classroom, he said.

The council said it would waive its $50 fee for the training. Instruction will feature plastic guns and a major emphasis will be for people who are facing deadly threats to announce they have a gun and retreat or take cover before trying to shoot, he said. 

"Mass shootings may still be rare, but that doesn't help you when the monster comes in." At the class, teachers offered their fingerprints for a permit as an instructor in the "psychology of mass violence" kicked off the gun class.

"I just bought a bra holster," said Jessica Fiveash, a 32-year-old Utah teacher and wife of a retired Army sergeant who grew up shooting and said she had no hesitation packing a gun at school. "Women can't really carry a gun on their hip." 

Utah is among few states that let people carry licensed concealed weapons into public schools without exception, the National Conference of State Legislatures says in a 2012 compendium of state gun laws.

Leatherbarrow said he often felt threatened while working at an inner-city school in Buffalo, N.Y., where he got a license to carry a pistol. He moved less than a year ago to Utah, where he feels safer. 

But he said gun violence can break out anywhere. He said he was highly trained in handling guns -- and was taking criticism from parents who don't appreciate his views on school safety.

"I'm in agreement not everybody should be carrying firearms in school. They're not trained. But for some parents to think we're cowboys, that frustrates me," he said. "I wish parents would understand."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/28/teachers-in-utah-ohio-get-free-gun-training/#ixzz2GMlAtetv

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