SOURCE: http://thirdpartypolitics.us/blog/2010/02/20/tea-party-hijackers
by Raymond Kish, Vice-Chairman and 2010 Candidate CP of Missouri
The Tea Party needs to make a choice between an “R” or a “D”, or so says Sarah Palin. The GOP rock star told an audience full of Tea Party members in Arkansas on Tuesday night, Feb. 16, that the Independents, who make up the Tea Party movement, need to start thinking about picking a party.
I think she is right. The Tea Party needs to make a choice, but not from within the two-party system that Palin claims we are stuck with. The Tea Party needs to decide right now whether they are going to let this movement be stolen by failed establishment candidates, or whether or not it is going to press forward and elect independent and third party candidates.
We do have choices, and they are not limited to Republicans and Democrats.
The Tea Party, from its beginning, was formed in response to the failure of both parties to listen to the will of the people. For Sarah Palin to suggest that we should pick between those same two failed parties is an insult. The rank in file members of the Tea Party movement should throw their current leaders out on their ear for allowing a movement of independents and Constitutionalists to be highjacked by either party.
Palin rightly points out that the Tea Party is not a Political party and cannot run candidates, but she is wrong to say there are only two choices because there is another choice: The Constitution Party. The Constitution Party has candidates running for office all across the United States, and the Constitution Party platform fits the Tea Party like a glove.
The Republicans and Democrats share the blame for our current economic crisis, and neither party has any real solution on how to fix it. Both parties gave us bailouts and stimulus programs adding mountains of debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back. In spite of all that money being spent, we still had 473,000 people file for unemployment benefits in the second week of February and have lost over 8 million jobs since 2007. With a track record like that, there is no reason whatsoever that America should choose between either party currently in power.
To say we have to pick between two incompetent choices is absolute lunacy. What America needs to do right now is make the decision not to return either Party back to Washington or any State office for that matter. Vote in a party with American ideas; a Party who has an American view of how the government should be run; a party that realizes that the Constitution is more than a word you say at a rally to get some applause. They need to vote in The Constitution Party.
If Palin was a true tea party patriot, she would not be asking us to choose between a Marxist party and a Fascist party. She would be leading her followers to a truly American party. . . . . The Constitution Party.
We are a nation, who is ruled by the consent of the governed. It is time the people remove their consent from the two establishment parties and put a Constitution Party candidate into office. The only way for both establishment parties to get the message is for both establishment parties to lose. To vote for either a Republican or a Democrat is to give your consent to two political parties who have made a living out of betraying the American people, our Founding Fathers and our Constitution, which each one swears fidelity to upon taking office.
America, don’t be fooled. Neither establishment party can be trusted. Send the hijackers packing, and let’s continue to build upon a truly great movement of the people.
Group complains about electronic voting machines
A local leader of the conservative Constitution Party asked Raleigh County Commission members Tuesday to stop using the Election Systems & Software (iVotronic touch-screen voting machines currently used in West Virginia.
The machines are approved by Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, and her office recently paid around $500,000 for the Raleigh machines. The county anted up another $400,000.
Gene Stalnaker presented Commission president John Humphrey and Commissioner John Aliff with the Ohio Project EVEREST voting study.
Under state law, county commissions can choose not to use the machines, said Gene Stalnaker, Constitution Party treasurer.
“This report calls for the State of Ohio to do away with the machines six months before their election,” Stalnaker said. “There’s other states that use the same machines that also have done that.
“So I’m just asking you as commissioners to follow (state code) and call a meeting to do away with the machines.”
Humphrey said he’d received no complaints about the performance of the machines and that no other voters had expressed concerns.
“As of now, we have no reason to doubt these machines,” he said. Read More
Constitution Party of West Virginia wins free speech victory
The Rutherford Institute Wins Court Victory for West Virginia Constitution Party’s Right to Circulate Petitions at a State Park
ELKINS, W.Va. —Judge John Preston Bailey of the Northern District of West Virginia has ruled that a First Amendment lawsuit dealing with the right of a political group to circulate petitions and collect signatures at a state park can move forward. Officials with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR), which manages and controls the park, had asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit. Filed in April 2008 by Rutherford Institute attorneys on behalf of members of the Constitution Party of West Virginia, the lawsuit poses a constitutional challenge to a ban on politics in West Virginia state parks.
“Americans have a First Amendment right to the freedom of political expression,” stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “We cannot allow the government to silence. We have a right to be heard.” Read More
WV Resident Wants State Officials To Pay Up … In Gold & Silver Coins
Raleigh county resident, and WV Constitution Party Treasurer Gene Stalnaker strongly believes in the US Constitution. But, he feels that state officials are refusing to live up to the oath they swore to uphold. Stalnaker, like many other state residents, want the state to pay them in gold or silver coins, like the constitution instructs them to.
Stalnaker, a law abiding, hard working and taxpaying WV citizen has taken his request to state officials. What he has received in return is a tax audit by the state, and told by both Deputy Tax Commissioner Craig Griffith & Treasurer John Purdue that if he wants gold or silver, “go to a bank, cash your tax check and buy some gold & silver coins.â€
In fact, Stalnaker says that Purdue’s office told him if he did not cash the state tax refund check by the dated deadline, they would turn over his money to the “Unclaimed Property†division. And we all know that if you don’t claim the money within a specific amount of time, the state can take it.
When he requested a face to face with tax man Chris Morris (pictured left), he was told by one staff member that “he does not make appointments with the public.†John Purdue agreed to meet with Stalnaker and other concerned citizens. Stalnaker noted that Purdue, and his deputy, Paul Hill, showed up late claiming he was in a meeting with the governor discussing the economy.
During their brief meeting, Stalnaker said he had prepared a written outline to Commissioner Purdue to better explain what he was wanting. He said about 30 seconds into Purdue reading the letter, the Commissioners “jaw dropped about 3 feet.†Then standing straight up, Purdue said “I can’t answer this.†Several days later, Stalnaker received a letter from an attorney with the state who informed him they would not comply with his request, and they only paid tax refunds by check, which, according to the state is legal tender.
Bottom line, WV does not have any gold or silver coins on hand, and has no plans to get any. Read More
Write-in candidate Paugh pitches W.Va. sovereignty
As Uncle Sam tightens his wallet and lets fewer dollars trickle down to the states for highways, Constitution Party gubernatorial hopeful Butch Paugh sees a golden opportunity for West Virginia to turn free enterprise loose and spawn a healthier business climate.
That done, the write-in candidate theorizes, more businesses will invest huge sums in the state, creating more jobs and, in turn, expanding a tax base so that adequate dollars flow into the coffers of the financially strapped Division of Highways.
“We can build the tax base without increasing taxes if we would let the people produce more and not punish them for being a West Virginia citizen,” the Nettie resident told The Register-Herald editorial board.
“Businesses don’t like it here because of the tax structure. You can’t tax people into prosperity. That does not work. When you’re already on the bottom, kicking them again doesn’t work.”
Paugh says the state needs to take a penetrating and comprehensive look at how neighboring Virginia operates with lower taxes and a larger tax base. Read More
Religious groups join fight against national IDs
Critics of federal legislation to establish nationwide identification standards are tapping into religious groups to galvanize resistance to the statute.
The authors of a New Hampshire bill to make the Granite State the first to reject the so-called REAL ID Act have cited financial and constitutional concerns about its implementation. But several conservative Christian groups that have endorsed the New Hampshire proposal are largely motivated by their belief that the law is a sign of the apocalypse.
According to leaders of the movement against the statute, the cause has benefited immensely from the active participation of groups that view the law as the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy. Such groups refer to scripture that predicts that humans will be numbered by marks on their foreheads and hands before the arrival of the antichrist.
Katherine Albrecht, the founder of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, has lobbied extensively on behalf of the New Hampshire bill. She said religious groups have been valuable because they are highly mobile and well-organized.
Ervin (Butch) Paugh, a preacher and radio host in West Virginia who is running for governor on the Constitutionalist Party ticket, has been urging lawmakers in his state to follow New Hampshire’s lead. Joe Cicchirillo, a commissioner at West Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles, said he was impressed by Paugh’s knowledge of the issue when he met with him this month.
Read full article by Michael Martinez here.
Constitution Party Partisan Win
On November 2, 2004, Robert Miller, an activist in the Constitution Party, was elected County Surveyor of Grant County, West Virginia. He received ten write-in votes. No one else was running for the post.
From www.ballot-access.org.
WV Ballot Access Victory
On November 3, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin, a Clinton appointee, ruled that West Virginia may not charge a filing fee for declared write-in candidates. Phillips v Hechler, civ 6:00-894. The ruling upset a law that had been passed in 1993. The basis for the ruling is that the purpose of a filing fee is to keep a ballot from being crowded with too many names. That rationale has no application for write-in candidates.
The case was filed by Howard Phillips (Constitution Party presidential candidate), who was unable to qualify for the ballot, and who therefore depended on write-in votes in West Virginia. If the law had not been overturned, he would have had to pay $4,000 just to have his write-ins tallied (the fee is 1% of the annual salary of the office). The state has not yet said if it will appeal.
(From Ballot Access News.)
Meet Constitution Party's Howard Phillips
Candidate says GOP has ‘forfeited any claim on conservative support’
In California, it’s known as the American Independent Party. In Missouri, it’s the U.S. Taxpayers Party, and in Arkansas, the Conservative Party. But by whatever name, supporters of Howard Phillips for president believe they are the party of America’s founding fathers.
“We have to have a vision of victory,” he said. “We have to have a plan of winning. Ours is very simple: It is to reduce the federal government to the powers delegated to it by the states and enumerated in the complete text of the Constitution.”
Asked to explain the differences between Constitutionalists and other political parties, the candidate said the differences can be boiled down to each party’s “source of authority.”
Read full article by Julie Foster at WorldNetDaily.
Happy Birthday Paul Revere
Paul Revere (January 1, 1735 [O.S. December 21, 1734] – May 10, 1818) was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, Paul Revere’s Ride.
Revere was a prosperous and prominent Boston silversmith, who helped organize an intelligence and alarm system to keep watch on the British military. Revere later served as an officer in the Penobscot Expedition, one of the most disastrous campaigns of the American Revolutionary War, for which he was absolved of blame.