Worcester County Freedom Trail

This news just in from Rep. Karyn Polito (R-Shrewsbury). Kudos to the Republican caucus on Beacon Hill as yesterday they restored federal funding for abstinence programs in the 2008 state budget. The budget now goes to Gov Deval Patrick for approval.

Unfortunately, Gov Patrick has threatened to veto that line item. But I don’t understand why he would turn down federal funds that encourage our kids to have more meaningful relationships and discourage sexually transmitted diseases. What in heavens name is wrong with him?

According to Cardinal Seán O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston:

“The vocation of marriage is in crisis. Over the past twenty years, there has been more than a 60% decline in the number of marriages recorded in the Archdiocese of Boston; down from 12,274 in 1986 to 4,519 in 2006. At the national and local level, the Church has been responding to the many challenges faced by married couples. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is in the midst of a multi-year National Pastoral Initiative on Marriage.” 

For more information, see http://www.foryourmarriage.org/. And please pray for the sanctity and stability of marriage for our families and our children.

I am all for helping our fellow citizens of the world carve out a comfortable space to live and raise their families. But I am absolutely NOT for this latest Senate amnesty bill. It had so many holes in it, it might as well have been an open border itself.

The good news is that the Senate saw the error of its ways and the amnesty bill went down in flames today (again). This just in on Townhall.com:

White-House backed legislation to grant legal status to millions of illegal aliens failed to get the 60 Senate votes needed to proceed to a final vote of passage late Thursday morning.

It fell 14 votes short, 46-53

Many senators speculated that the controversial legislation may not be revisited until after the 2008 elections. Sen. Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.), a fierce opponent of the bill, noted on the Senate floor that the sergeant-at-arm’s office had informed him that because so many constituents had called the Senate in the run-up to the cloture vote, their phone system had crashed that morning.

That’s a lot of calls to crash the Senate phone system! I know my husband was one of the callers (I prefer email, myself). He called several Senators who were on the fence to calmly explain that this bill is wrong for the US and for immigrants (legal and illegal). It is so wrong that we would gladly send our political donations to any candidate running against those who were in favor of it. Republicans, Independents, Democrats…doesn’t matter. About an hour after his calls, Townhall reported that at least one of the Senators he called has changed his mind and would now vote against cloture.

Almost. This nasty anti-free speech law from Presidential hopeful Senator John McCain just got dealt a much needed blow by the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the Court upheld an appeals court ruling that an anti-abortion group should have been allowed to air ads during the final two months before the 2004 elections. The law unreasonably limits speech and violates the group’s First Amendment rights, the court said.

According to the AP, “The case involved advertisements that Wisconsin Right to Life was prevented from broadcasting. The ads asked voters to contact the state’s two senators, Democrats Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, and urge them not to filibuster President Bush’s judicial nominees. Feingold, a co-author of the campaign finance law, was up for re-election in 2004.”

Chief Justice Roberts said, “Discussion of issues cannot be suppressed simply because the issues also may be pertinent in an election. Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.”

Move over George Clooney. I am now officially in love with Chief Justice Roberts

On June 14, after the votes were cast and the final tally revealed, eleven legislators (nine who had voted for the Marriage Amendment at the Constitutional Convention held on Jan. 2; two freshmen legislators who ran and won election on “letting the people vote” last year) turned their back on the citizens of this Commonwealth and voted to deny the people a say on the definition of marriage. This is an outrage and these eleven legislators must understand that disloyalty has consequences.

These eleven Benedict Arnolds lied to every citizen in this state. Right up until the day of the vote, each of these legislators reiterated their commitment to voting “Yes” to give the people a right to voice their opinion on same-sex marriage. Unfortunately, the true character of these so-called “public servants” became apparent once the final vote was recorded.

House

Alicea, Geraldo
Rep.GeraldoAlicea@Hou.State.MA.US
State House Room 437 Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2425

Canavan, Christine E.
Rep.ChristineCanavan@Hou.State.MA.US
State House Room 122 Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2006

Kujawski, Paul
Rep.PaulKujawski@Hou.State.MA.US
State House Room 466 Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2017

Loscocco, Paul J.
Rep.PaulLoscocco@Hou.State.MA.US
State House Room 254 Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2220

Nyman, Robert J.
Rep.RobertNyman@Hou.State.MA.US
State House Room 527A Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2020

Puppolo, Angelo
Rep.AngeloPuppolo@Hou.State.MA.US
State House Room 437 Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2425

Ross, Richard J.
Rep.RichardRoss@Hou.State.MA.US
State House Room 237 Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2305

Vallee, James E.
Rep.JamesVallee@Hou.State.MA.US
State House Room 238 Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2380

Wallace, Brian P.
Rep.BrianWallace@Hou.State.MA.US
State House Room 472 Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2013

Senate

Gale D. Candaras
Gale.Candaras@state.ma.us
State House Room 213-B Boston, MA 02133
617-722-1291

Michael W. Morrissey
Michael.W.Morrissey@state.ma.us
State House Room 413-D Boston, MA 02137
617-722-1494

I had an interesting e-mail conversation with a local elected official who was bemoaning the fact that I gave kudos to the towns who recently vetoed their towns’ Prop 2 1/2 overrides. This person believes that overrides are irresponsible behavior on the part of voters. He went on to provide a detailed explanation of why Prop 2 1/2 is broken: health care costs are skyrocketing, school costs are skyrocketing, pension plans are bloating, etc. How can a town keep up?

My response, in a nutshell was this…Prop 2 1/2 is not broken. It is doing exacty what it was designed to do, stop the rapid escalation of government and its infringement in areas where it does not belong. In fact, in many ways Prop 2 1/2 is about the last mechanism we the taxpayers have to say “halt.”

Many of the programs mentioned above are NOT best delivered by the goverment. Many should be in the hands of the private sector where a competitive environment will weed out the worst and allow the best to percolate to the surface. And by turning some or all of these programs over to the private sector, the government will no longer have to manage the burden of a welfare system gone awry. One of our biggest social problems today is “entitlement” and how it’s changed people’s behavior to the point where they are unwilling to carry their fair share in the world.

Most of the local budget burdens are due to the public school system’s excessive overhead, including middle management positions and programs they have no right running in the first place (don’t get me started on how far afield the sex education programs have gone). Then there’s the monstrous debt burdens that have resulted from excessive building programs.

Why should we the voters be liable for government’s bad decisions all the time?

There may be a few times when thoughtful consideration of a new program requires an exception to the rule, like a new library in a growing town that heretofore had none. But until our towns get a handle on the rest of their budgets (mostly the school system), then the library is going to suffer.

Do you know that for the state of Massachusetts, about 50% of the budget goes toward paying down school debt on buildings. Many were bad decisions about building new schools or overbuilding schools, when renovating old ones would have sufficed at significantly lower cost.

So, kudos to all those towns who voted down this year’s Prop 2 1/2 overrides, including Shrewsbury, Uxbridge, Dartmouth, East Bridgewater, Rutland, Southborough, Ashland, Groton, and West Boylston.

I knew it. I warned you it wouldn’t be long before we see this kind of horrifying oppression of our deeply held religous beliefs. Here it is in black and white, already passed by the House and now in front of the Senate:

House bill H.R. 1592 and Senate bill S. 1105 would make negative statements concerning homosexuality, such as calling the practice of homosexuality a sin from the pulpit, a “hate crime” punishable by law. This dangerous legislation would take away your freedom of speech and your freedom of religion.  Consider what has already happened:

- A California lawsuit which is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court would make the use of the words “natural family,” “marriage” and “union of a man and a woman” and “hate speech” a crime in government workplaces.  The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled in favor of the plaintiffs! 

Don’t believe me? Check out the progress of these bills through the legislature: 

Overview: http://www3.capwiz.com/afanet/issues/bills/?bill=9668611

Full report: http://www3.capwiz.com/afanet/issues/bills/?bill=9668611&size=full

Apparently liberals only believe in “separation of church and state” when it suits their own purposes. Otherwise, they feel free to ride roughshod over the rest of us at any time and any place.

From the Wall Street Journal’s online Opinion Journal.

Lightning struck Rudy Giuliani’s microphone last night while he was trying to explain his pro-abortion position to the Republican base at the NH debates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibqwKb4cCsg

Umm, Rudy, you might want to rethink your position?!?!

Governor Mitt Romney has spent the last year trying very hard to convince the US that he’s a conservative. My husband and I have frequently debated the topic. I am of a mind that a cat doesn’t change their stripes that dramatically from one decade to the next. First Romney was for gay marriage, then he was against it. First Romney was pro-abortion, then he was anti-abortion. First Romney was for gun control, then he was against it. It looks like a clear pattern of flip-flopping to me. But my husband tells me there have been similiar turnarounds and that’s what party pressure is all about.

I’m not so sure that argument convinces me, though. If someone doesn’t really believe, then I don’t want them pretending they do in order to get elected. I’m an idealist — I want to know what the politician really believes in.

But I said, “OK, I’ll be patient and see where things go with Romney.”

Well, here’s the final straw in Romney’s coffin as far as I’m concerned. Caving to gay rights advocates in order to screw the Boy Scounts, figuratively speaking, of course.

Romney Opposes the Boy Scouts’ Ban on Homosexual Scoutmasters

Despite the over 2,500 pedophilia cases now on record involving homosexual scout leaders, Romney stated, “I feel that all people should be allowed to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.” In the same article, a BSA official criticized Romney for opposing Scout policy.
- Boston Globe, 10/27/1994

Romney Barred Boy Scouts From Public Participation in 2002 Olympics

The 2002 Olympics – run by Mitt Romney – was the only Olympics that restricted the Boy Scouts from participating. According to news reports, this was apparently because of pressure from homosexual activists. (But also, according to reports, homosexual groups participated fairly prominently.) Romney would not respond to reporters’ questions about that action.

The largest Boy Scout council in the country responded to the call for volunteers issued by the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, but the welcome mat was rolled up and the door slammed in its face. Olympic spokesmen for the 2002 winter games say the exclusion has nothing to do with recent protests by gay activists. While the organizing committee for the Olympic event is prominently displaying a call for local volunteers, they have explicitly let it be known that the Boy Scouts need not apply. “For us not to be involved is discouraging, considering the Atlanta games. The Scouting council there was extremely involved,” said Kay Godfrey, professional Scout executive for the Great Salt Lake Council of Boy Scouts.
- NewsMax.com, Dec. 18, 2000

I’ve never mistreated another human being, regardless of their race, weight, height, or sexual orientation. But Romney is just playing games here. This last quote is from a mere 6 years ago, not long before he took office as Governor here in Massachusetts.

Sorry, but I’m not believing his stories any more. I was warned by party insiders that he’s just a really good salesman. Well, he won’t fool this fool any more. I’m thinking I’m a Fred Thompson girl from here on in.