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With President Obama expected tomorrow for the North American Leaders' Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, a coalition of American legislators and activists took a message to the Mexican media, denouncing economic partnerships that would undermine national sovereignty and blasting Obama's failure to keep his promises on transparency and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Howard Phillips, chairman of The Conservative Caucus and head of the Coalition to Block the North American Union, spoke to Mexican print, television and radio media about the summit, which was known in previous years as the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership, or...

In 1958 Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society, made some startling predictions against American Liberty. He believed there was a group of insiders intent on “the surrender of American sovereignty piece by piece and step by step to various international organizations of which the United Nations is the outstanding but far from the only example.” He laid out his predictions in 10 points and repeated them in a 1974 conference: 1. Greatly expanded government spending for every conceivable means of getting rid of ever larger sums of American money as wastefully as possible.

Understanding how the Constitution was based on the Declaration of Independence provides the knowledge needed to defend our God-given rights. Would any reasonably prudent businessman sign a proposed contract involving a large-scale venture to be conducted over many years, if the other party admitted that most of the contract's terms were undefined, that some terms were so vague as to be undefinable, and that in the future he intended to interpret all of the contract's provisions in whatever matter might suit his own purposes at that time? Obviously not. Yet this is precisely the theory of "the living Constitution" that...

President-elect Barack Obama's "Blueprint for Change" calls for "affordable, accessible health care for all." After a quote from a speech he gave in Iowa City explaining that we have an "obligation" to "turn the page on the failed politics of yesterday's health care debates," he outlines his plans "at a glance." According to the brief summary, 45.5 million people aren't covered, costs have doubled over the last eight years, and not enough money is spent on preventative care. The legislation Obama plans to sign into law by the end of his first term would somehow reduce the cost of healthcare...

The Bailout and the Constitution | Print | E-mail Written by Patrick Krey Friday, 14 November 2008 00:52 The $700 billion bank bailout plan will use taxpayer money to purchase troubled assets. How does this stack up against the limited federal powers granted by the Constitution? It is sadly ironic that one of the first things new law students get is a pocket Constitution because, over the next three years, they learn that modern federal laws have nearly nothing to do with what is specifically enumerated in that document. This unconstitutional trend continues with the recent record-setting bailout, which is...

The Bailout and the Constitution | Print | E-mail Written by Patrick Krey Friday, 14 November 2008 00:52 The $700 billion bank bailout plan will use taxpayer money to purchase troubled assets. How does this stack up against the limited federal powers granted by the Constitution? It is sadly ironic that one of the first things new law students get is a pocket Constitution because, over the next three years, they learn that modern federal laws have nearly nothing to do with what is specifically enumerated in that document. This unconstitutional trend continues with the recent record-setting bailout, which is...

Madison - Former Republican presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas will keynote Saturday's session of the 50th anniversary of the Appleton-based John Birch Society. Paul will be one of three speakers at the 8 p.m. Saturday event at the Best Western Bridgewood Resort Hotel in Neenah, according to spokesman Bill Hahn. Also speaking at that event will be Hilliard Welch, son of Society founder Robert Welch, and Society chief executive Arthur Thompson. A physician and an icon among some conservatives, Paul calls himself "America's No. 1 defender of liberty." He did not win any Republican presidential primaries, however....

In a picture supplied by Sarah Palin's family to the Associated Press, Palin appears with some rather odd reading matter: The magazine of the ultraconservative John Birch Society. The picture, dating to 1995, when Palin was a member of the Wasilla City Council, ran beside a profile of Palin in Saturday's New York Times. The magazine, The New American, is sitting on top of her calendar on her desk, unopened....

It has been 25 years since Korean Airlines Flight 007, carrying 269 passengers and crew, including Congressman Larry McDonald of Georgia, was fired on by a Soviet fighter jet off the coast of Siberia. At the time, McDonald was chairman of the John Birch Society (a subsidiary of which publishes THE NEW AMERICAN). Although several speakers eulogized McDonald at a Washington, D.C., memorial service 10 days following the September 1, 1983 attack, the words most remembered by both this magazine’s editor, Gary Benoit, and this writer were delivered by the late Senator Jesse Helms, who passed away on July 4....

A homeowner suddenly confronted by a knife-wielding intruder reaches desperately for a handgun with which to defend himself. But the firearm lies disassembled and unloaded in a drawer, useless. Before the homeowner can reassemble and load his pistol, and confront his attacker, the assailant strikes, and strikes again — with fatal results. The real cause of the homeowner’s death in this scenario? That he had the misfortune to reside in the District of Columbia. For besides banning most semiautomatic pistols (the type of firearm that most knowledgeable Americans prefer for personal self-defense), the District requires that all registered handguns possessed...

In response to the housing crisis, the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 (H.R. 3221) passed in the House (272-152) on July 23 and in the Senate (72-13) on July 26. This legislation added another new agency to the goliath federal bureaucracy, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), to oversee and regulate three Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs): Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Bank System. The new FHFA is required to consult the Federal Reserve before issuing any regulations, orders, or guidelines concerning GSEs through 2009. Thus the Federal Reserve’s power has been enhanced...

A modern society such as that in the United States requires personal transportation — cargo trucks, planes, and cars — to make a market economy work. Any serious effort to move our country to mass transportation, such as trains and buses, for everyone and everything all the time — or even most of the time — would destroy not only our economy, but the American way of life. To provide our personal transportation for the foreseeable future, the United States needs oil or an oil substitute. Electric vehicles, the proposed solution by many for America’s transportation problems, have serious drawbacks...

One day in December of 2005, Colleen Nestler came to Santa Fe County District Court in New Mexico with a bizarre seven-page typed statement and requested a domestic-abuse restraining order against late-night TV host David Letterman. She stated, under oath, that Letterman seriously abused her by causing her bankruptcy, mental cruelty, and sleep deprivation since 1994. Nestler also alleged that he sent her secret signals “in code words” through his television program for many years and that he “responded to my thoughts of love” by expressing that he wanted to marry her. Judge Daniel Sanchez issued a restraining order against...

Its name somewhat anachronistically means "assembly of old men." George Washington famously -- and, it must now be admitted, with excessive optimism -- characterized it as an institutional saucer intended to cool legislation passed in the intemperate heat of the moment. Its members demand, with entirely unwarranted self-approval, to be called, collectively, the World's Greatest Deliberative Body. Sober observers understand it to be the most corrupt legislative assembly in human history. To those characterizations of the United States Senate we must now add another, perhaps the final one: Gravedigger of the republic. With the Senate's passage of the Fannie Mae/Freddie...

In June 2000 global-warming prophesier Ross Gelbspan lamented, “Over the last seven years, the fossil-fuel lobby has mounted an extremely effective campaign of disinformation to persuade the public and policymakers that the issue of atmospheric warming is still stuck in the limbo of scientific uncertainty. That campaign for the longest time targeted the science. It then misrepresented the economics. And most recently it attacked the diplomatic foundations of the climate convention. And it has been extraordinarily successful in creating a relentless drumbeat of doubt in the public mind.” A lot has changed since then. In the past seven years, forecasters...

On March 13 the Oklahoma House passed House Joint Resolution 1089, sponsored by Rep. Charles Key and Sen. Randy Brogdon, “claiming sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over certain powers,” by an overwhelming vote of 92 to 3. Opponents of the measure in the Senate managed to keep it from being debated and voted on before this year’s legislative session ended. The rest of the nation took little notice of the Oklahoma House’s affirmation of the Tenth Amendment at the time. However, suddenly in mid-June news of the vote on HJR1089 went viral. Google...

The Netherlands was for centuries one of Europe’s wealthiest economies. During the 17th century, the country arguably had freest economy of that era, and it is one of the birthplaces of the modern free-market system. That legacy was not abandoned until the 1960s, but there are now encouraging signs that the Netherlands has begun returning to its roots, though admittedly the still-socialistic country has a long way to go. Such is the case with its universal healthcare system, where the latest reforms are occurring.

A nuclear power plant is arguably the most extraordinary product of engineering and scientific know-how in the history of mankind. Once every 18 months or so, a truckload of metal is delivered to the nuclear plant. The metal is uranium, which has been processed to increase the proportion of the isotope known as Uranium-235. This fuel for the power plant is not dangerous and can be held in one’s hands without risk. Only a few decades ago, its primary use was to impart an orange color to ceramics such as Fiestaware.

In 1943, when Germany had virtually no sources of petroleum to fuel its Luftwaffe, U-boats, and Tiger tanks, its scientists (arguably among the best in the world at that time) didn’t turn to solar and wind power. Evil does not equate to naïveté. Hitler’s technical advisers turned to another energy source to keep their Wehrmacht running steadily for several years without petroleum. They used the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert coal into diesel fuel and employed the Bergius hydrogenation (or liquefaction) process to convert coal into aviation gasoline and high-quality truck and automobile gasoline.

Coal in Your Car’s Tank by Ed Hiserodt In 1943, when Germany had virtually no sources of petroleum to fuel its Luftwaffe, U-boats, and Tiger tanks, its scientists (arguably among the best in the world at that time) didn’t turn to solar and wind power. Evil does not equate to naïveté. Hitler’s technical advisers turned to another energy source to keep their Wehrmacht running steadily for several years without petroleum. They used the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert coal into diesel fuel and employed the Bergius hydrogenation (or liquefaction) process to convert coal into aviation gasoline and high-quality truck and automobile...