NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

Joy to the World, Celebrate Christmas

No Meeting will be held in December for Texas County Republicans. The Next Meeting of Texas County Republicans will be 7 P.M. Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at the Lions Den on U.S. 63 north of Houston. The meeting will be preceded by a pot luck supper at 6PM.

 

The Next Meeting of the Texas County Federation of Republican Women will start at noon, Saturday, December 8 at the home of Georgia Adey, 8707 Highway E. Georgia and Sharon Rees will be co-hostesses. From Houston go north on U.S. 63 and turn left on Highway E. Go approximately ½ mile and turn left at the gate posts with “A” on them. Those attending are urged to bring gifts for the USO at Fort Leonard Wood.

 

An Earthquake Insurance Task Force has been appointed by Governor Blunt to determine the impact of a catastrophic loss on the private and public infrastructure of the state. He asked the taskforce to look at the availability and affordability of earthquake insurance and the insurance industry’s ability to fulfill their customers’ needs. The task force includes twelve persons who are leaders in the matters of insurance, construction and geology plus two members from each chamber of the legislature.   A preliminary report was requested by February 1, 2008. (Gov. Blunt News Release)

 

Congress Eliminated Funding for the Anti-Methamphetamine task forces. Governor Matt Blunt calls this unacceptable and announced his plan to provide $1.8 million in supplemental funding. This will prevent the elimination of the Missouri Sheriff’s Methamphetamine Relief Team (MoSMART) and provide resources to 48 sheriff’s office and drug task force employees around Missouri. The Missouri State Highway Patrol has reported that since Missouri’s new meth law took effect meth incidents have declined 40 percent. Meth incidents include chemical equipment, glassware seizures and identified dumpsites. (Gov. Blunt News Release)

 

A Rural High-Speed Internet Task Force has been appointed by Governor Blunt to find innovative solutions to provide high-speed access to all Missourians. Rural schools need to connect to the world and Missouri farmers must access the internet to compete in a global economy.  Lt. Governor Peter Kinder will chair the group who were asked to (1) Assess the current level of high-speed internet access available in Missouri, (2) Identify barriers to deployment to underserved areas, including economic, geographic, regulatory and market barriers, (3) Identify potential options to increase deployment, (4) Review best practices in other states, and (5) Recommend statutory, regulatory and policy changes needed to increase its availability. Twenty five were appointed to the group that includes leaders from local telephone companies as well as others in technology industries. (Gov. Blunt News Release)           

 

Governor Blunt Met with Japanese Business Leaders at the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Annual Dinner in New York recently as part of his continued efforts to strengthen Missouri’s presence in the global economy. Japan is Missouri’s fifth largest export partner. In 2006 $546 million in goods were exported to Japan. Chemicals are the largest exports, followed by food and food products, transportation equipment, minerals and ores. Missouri is home to 70 Japanese-owned manufacturing companies which employ about 6,400 workers. (Gov. Blunt News Release)

 

A Survey done for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV shows Jay Nixon is leading Governor Blunt by 51 to 42 with nine percent undecided. Blunt’s elimination of 100,000 from the Medicaid Program soon after he took office is his biggest burden. (Missourinet)  97,000 new jobs have been created since the governor took office. However, the Post-Dispatch doesn’t consider that fact as newsworthy. Ed.

 

Another Survey for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV sees next year’s presidential election as making the best of a bad choice. A lot of people don’t like Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani but think they would be their party’s nominees and she would win. The survey shows Clinton, Obama or Edwards would beat any of the top four Republican candidates, Giuliani, Romney, Thompson and McCain. (Missourinet)

 

The most successful people are those who are good at plan B. (James Yorke)

Democrats Want Us to Believe that the tax cuts passed by the Republican Congress have shifted the burden to the poor. Not true.  IRS statistics show that the top one percent of tax payers in 1999 paid 36 percent of the taxes, while in 2005 they paid 39 percent. The bottom 50 percent, those with incomes of less than $30,000 paid 4 percent of the taxes in 1999 but in 2005 they paid only 3 percent. (TownHall.com by Walter Williams)

 

Issues are Secondary  D.C. insiders, the media and interest groups don’t understand how Rudy Giuliani has stayed atop the GOP field for so long? It’s because people admire his leadership persona despite his positions on issues. How is Hillary Clinton, who voted for the war, winning over primary voters who are anti-war? She represents the Clinton restoration. Issues are secondary. (From an article by Patrick Ruffin in TownHall.com)

 

The Most Earmarks: Senator Hillary Clinton has won tens of millions of dollars in earmarked funds this year more than any of her rivals for the Democratic nomination. An appropriations conference reports shows that she has requested at least $530 million worth of projects. Senator Obama’s figure is $40.6 million. A spokesman from Senator McCain’s office said he has never requested an earmark. (The Hill)

 

Mitt Romney is a Liberal. How do you think he got elected to the most left wing state in America? He was as pro-abortion, pro-gay agenda, pro-gun control as Ted Kennedy when elected governor. Romney gave the bay state a socialist government health care plan entitled “Commonwealth Care.” Only months after going into effect the plan was costing $150 million more than the public was first told. And the plan pays for abortions. (From an article by Gregg Jackson in TownHall.com) Mr. Romney tells us he has changed.

 

Rudy Giuliani’s Economic Adviser, Michael Boskin said: “There is no - let me repeat – no example in the last quarter century of a large complex economy that has been successful with high taxes.” He added: “The Western Europeans have seen their standards of living decline by 30 percent in a little more than a generation because of their taxes.” The U.S. has outperformed  the competition over the last quarter century. A more pressing issue is what does it do to a democracy when people see government as something only other people pay for? (From an article by Jonah Goldberg inTownHall.com)

 

A Survey of  54 Scientists, members of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), were questioned about global warming. The results show that less than half said a one degree Celsius increase is “flatly undesirable.” Sixty one percent said there is no such thing as an “ideal climate.” Only 20 percent said that human activity is the principal driver of climate change. (CNS News.com)

 

Mexican President Felipe Calderon at a recent meeting with U.S. governors said that immigration is an inevitable and natural phenomenon. He urged the U.S. to approve reforms that would allow more Mexicans to work legally north of the border and demanded that the United States respect the “right to work wherever one can make the greatest contribution.” Calderon said, “we do not celebrate migration…our best people are the ones to go.” (NewsMax.com)

 

The Latest Fad by Educators was announced by The New York Times that freshmen at Dwight Morrow High School in New Jersey must declare a major. And they must take at least one course in that subject every trimester for four years. The major will be noted on their diplomas. But if the student changes his mind he is out of luck because they cannot make a change unless there is a “compelling reason.” The Times cited a case where a girl of 14 stated she wanted to become a lawyer, but after two years she realized how much she would have to study “boring” cases and tried to switch to computers but found she was locked in. (TownHall)

 

“We just can’t trust the American People to make those types of choices. Government has to make those choices for the people.” (From the book “I’ve always been a Yankee fan” by Thomas Kuiper page 20, Hillary Clinton to Representative Dennis Hastert in 1993 discussing her taxpayer-funded health care plan)

 

Religious Gap? A recent poll by Rasmussen Reports found that 67 percent of American adults like stories to use the phrase “Merry Christmas.” Just 26 percent prefer “Happy Holidays.”From  apolitically partisan view-

Point 88 percent of Republicans prefer Merry Christmas while just 57 percent of Democrats favor the saying.

 

 

No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. (Mark Twain 1866)

 

 

The condensation of an article by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann published by TownHall.com

 

Readers should bear in mind that these are the opinions of the authors who apparently assume there would be a Democrat controlled Senate and House of Representatives to carry out her proposals.

 

“When a presidential candidate refuses to reveal the specifics of her campaign program, taking the position that she ‘won’t answer hypothetical questions,’ how are we going to gauge her candidacy and intentions? There is only one way: We must be detectives, reading her statements – particularly between the lines – to figure out her ideas and governing philosophy. We also need to examine the agenda being formulated in Congress to help us fill in the blanks. She will never tell us.”

 

TAXES Hillary makes no secret of her intention to roll back Bush’s tax cuts on the wealthy. She would raise the top bracket restoring the 39.6% bracket from its current 35% level.  She would raise the capital gains tax, restoring it to 20% or maybe higher or maybe taxing capital gains as ordinary income. She would also roll back the estate tax reductions of recent years. The tax on dividends would be raised to 30% from its current 15%. She will be more radical in raising taxes than Bush was in cutting them.

 

SOCIAL SECURITY  The first step is to raise the Social Security (FICA) taxes. She would not raise the rate as that would impact her liberal base but would raise the threshold and tax all income over $200,000. She will dress up these increases as tax relief for the middle class.

 

EXTENDING MIDDLE CLASS TAX CUTS First she will take credit for renewing the Bush tax cuts in the middle and lower income tax brackets. Since these are slated to expire in the early years of the next president’s first term, their extension will be billed as a middle class tax cut.

 

THE ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX CUT She will change the nature and structure of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) so that it does not affect the middle class as drastically as it would if left unchanged. Inflation and increased prosperity has moved 23 million Americans into a position where AMT would apply to them. Hillary never mentions that it was her husband who vetoed the repeal of the AMT in 1999. She would leave you to believe that it was all Bush’s fault.

 

By cutting the two theoretical tax increases – renewing Bush’s middle income cuts and reforming the AMT – she can show the biggest tax reduction in history while at the same time legislating the biggest net increase in history.

 

HEALTH CARE  Hillary pretends that she would simply move to cover 45-50 million uninsured and leave everybody else’s health care in tact. But adding 50 million Americans will drastically increase the demand for all manner of health care and hospital services. The fact that most of those who will be newly covered are illegal immigrants or other people living just below the poverty level indicates an especially high rate of increase in demand for services. But the supply won’t go up. There will be no sudden increase in the number of doctors, nurses or hospital beds.

 

With a constant supply and a rapidly increasing demand, prices for health care will skyrocket. Currently we have 16% of or Gross Domestic Product going to health care. How much more can we afford? No other country has more than 11% of its economy devoted to the medical sector.  That would drive up prices and the administration would have to resort to price controls. (Editor’s note: and price controls always lead to shortages thereby rationing health services as we have seen in other countries) The taxes Hillary will raise can always be repealed, but her health care changes are forever. (Continued on Page Four)

 

 

 

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. (P.J. O’Rourke)

 

What Hillary Would Do (Continued )

 

EDUCATION Congressman George Miller, Chairman of the House Education Committee proposes that rates of graduation be used as a substitute for test scores used under the No Child Left behind Act. The move to graduate more students will undoubtedly result in accommodating mediocrity as a result of pressure from the teachers’ unions.

 

IMMIGRATION  Hillary is the co-sponsor of two key bills: The SOLVE Act and the DREAM Act. These two acronyms describe legislation which would give every illegal immigrant, and their children, legal status if they have lived in the United States for five years. They would not be required to learn English, have a job, stay arrest-free, pay taxes or jump through any of the hoops set up by the Bush Administration. The laws also guarantee in-state tuition for all children of illegal immigrants who have lived her for five years. And since they would now get legal status, they would be eligible for another of Hillary’s promises, free health insurance for all citizens and legal immigrant children.

 

SOCIAL POLICIES  Hillary realizes, as Bill once said, that any government entitlement for poor people can be easily repealed since they lack the political power and practical voting strength. But, middle class entitlements, once granted, last forever – see Social Security, Medicare and rent control in New York City. Hillary will bring us closer to the Swedish, French, and German model where everybody gets a check from the government, regardless of their wealth or income, making it impossible to criticize the program.

 

TERRORISM  Hillary will have to respond to the demands of the left to curtail programs like Guantanamo and aggressive interrogation techniques even though these steps would make us more vulnerable to attacks. Look for her to curtail the wiretapping without warrants by NSA and to weaken the Patriot Act.

 

IRAQ  Don’t think that Hillary would withdraw from Iraq! She won’t. If anything, she may increase our commitment there and extend it for many years. When interviewed by the New York Times in March, she suggested several missions she felt would have to continue under her presidency:   Policing the border with Iran, Hunting al Qaeda in the provinces, and Providing intelligence, logistical, air and training support to the Iraqi Army as needed.

 

AS PRESIDENT, Hillary Clinton’s most pressing concern will be to show the world and her domestic audience that she is tough. Overcoming misconceptions of how a woman might govern, she will be at great pains to demonstrate her strength and firmness. These concerns, plus her own views on the Iraqi situation, will keep us in Iraq for most of her first term.

 

It will be interesting to see how the Democratic liberal base takes to her Iraq policy. It is easy to see her becoming subject to the same kind of abuse and criticism as Lyndon Johnson was when he escalated our troop commitments to Vietnam after winning the 1964 election on a peace platform.

 

The authors’ foregoing comments make no mention of the type of people that Hillary Clinton would appoint to each cabinet position, federal department, federal judge or Supreme Court.. We can probably be guided by the appointments made by Bill Clinton. Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Donna Shalala come to mind.

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Much of the Social History of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good. (Thomas Sowell)

 

 

Tolerance is another word for indifference. (W. Somerset Maugham)

 
 

The Danish Experience

By Susan MacAllen, Source the Family Security Foundation, Inc

 

In 1978-79 I was living and studying in Denmark. But in 1978, even in Copenhagen, one didn’t see Muslim immigrants. The Danish population embraced visitors, celebrated the exotic and went out of its way to protect each of its citizens. It was proud of its new brand of social liberalism, one in development since the conservatives lost power in 1929, a system where no worker had to struggle to survive, where one could count on the state as perhaps no other western nation at the time. The rest of Europe saw the Scandinavians as free-thinking, progressive and infinitely generous in their welfare policies. Denmark boasted low crime rates, devotion to environment, a superior educational system and a history of humanitarianism.

 

Denmark was also most generous in its immigration policies. It offered the best welcome in Europe to the new immigrant, a generous welcome from first arrival plus additional perks in transportation, housing and education. It was determined to set a world example for inclusiveness and multiculturalism. How could it have predicted that one day in 2005 a series of political cartoons in a newspaper would spark violence that would leave dozens dead, all because its commitment to multiculturalism would come back and bite?

 

By the 1990’s the growing Muslim population was obvious. Its unwillingness to integrate into Danish society was also obvious. Years of immigrants had settled into Muslim-exclusive enclaves. As Muslim leadership became more vocal about what they considered the decadence of Denmark’s liberal way of life, the Danes, once so welcoming, began to feel slighted. Many Danes began to see Islam as incompatible with their long-standing values: belief in personal liberty and free speech, in equality for women, in tolerance for other ethnic groups, and a deep pride in Danish heritage and history.

 

The New York Post in 2002 ran an article by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard, in which they forecasted accurately the growing immigrant problem in Denmark would explode. In the article they reported:

 

• “Muslim immigrants constitute 5 percent of the population but consume nearly 40 percent of welfare spending.”
• “Muslims’ share of Denmark’s 5.4 million people is small but make up a majority of the country’s convicted rapists, a combustible issue since practically all of the female victims are non-Muslim.”
• “Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population. A survey found only 5 percent of Muslims immigrants would marry a Dane.”
• “Forced marriages…promising a new born daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death.”
• “Muslim leaders openly declare their goal is to introduce Islamic law once Denmark’s Muslim population grows large enough. That’s not a remote prospect. If present trends continue one sociologist estimates that in 40 years every third inhabitant of Denmark will be Muslim.”

 

It is easy to understand why a growing number of Danes would feel that Muslim immigrants show little respect for Danish values and laws. An example is the phenomenon common to other European countries and the U.S.: some Muslims in Denmark who opted to leave the Muslim faith have been murdered in the name of Islam, while other hide in fear for their lives.

 

Jews are also threatened and harassed openly by Muslim leaders in Denmark, a country where once Christian citizens worked to smuggle out nearly 7,000 Jews before the Nazis could invade.

 

In 2001, Denmark elected the most conservative government in 70 years, one that has non-generous ideas about liberal unfettered immigration. Today, Denmark has the strictest immigration policies in Europe.

(Continued on Page Six)

 

 

The future has a way of arriving unannounced. (George Will)

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The Danish Experience (continued from Page Five)

 

If you wish to become Danish:

• You must attend three years of language classes. You must pass a test on Danish history, culture and a Danish language test.
• You must live in Denmark for seven years before applying for citizenship. You must demonstrate an intent to work and have a job waiting.
• If you wish to bring a spouse into Denmark, you must both be over 24 years of age, and you won’t find it so easy to move your friends and family to Denmark with you.
• You will not be allowed to build a mosque in Copenhagen. Although your children have a choice of some 30 Arabic culture and language schools in Denmark, they will be strongly encouraged to assimilate to Danish society in ways past immigrants were not.

 

In 2006, the Danish minister of employment, Claus Frederiksen, spoke publicly of the burden of Muslim immigrants on the Danish welfare system. The Danish Welfare Committee calculated that if immigration from third world countries were blocked, 75 percent of the cuts needed to sustain the huge welfare system in coming decades would not be necessary.

 

In other words, the welfare system as it existed was being exploited by immigrants to the point of eventually bankrupting the government. “We are simply forced to adopt a new policy on immigration.” The Welfare Committee’s calculations show how unsuccessful the integration of immigrants has been.

 

A large thorn in the side of Denmark’s imams is the Minister of Immigration and Integration, Rikke Hvilshoj. She makes no bones about the new policy toward immigration. “The number of foreigners coming to the country makes a difference,” she says. “There is an inverse correlation between how many come here and how well we can receive the foreigners that come. Denmark should be a country with room for different cultures and religion. Some values, however, are more important than others. We refuse to question democracy, equal rights and freedom of speech.”

 

Hvilshoj has paid a price for her show of backbone. Perhaps to test her resolve, the leading radical imam in Denmark, Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, demanded that the government pay blood money to the family of a Muslim who was murdered in a suburb of Copenhagen, stating the family’s thirst for revenge could be thwarted for money.

 

When Hvilshoj dismissed his demand, he argued that in Muslim culture the payment of retribution money was common, to which Hvilshoj replied that what is done in a Muslim country is not necessarily what is done in Denmark.

 

The Muslim reply came soon after:  her house was torched while she, her husband and children slept. All managed to escape unharmed, but she and her family were moved to a secret location and bodyguards were assigned for the first time in a country where murderous violence was once so scarce.

 

Her government has slid to the right, and her borders have tightened. Many believe that what happens in the next decade will determine whether Denmark survives as a bastion of good living, humane thinking and social responsibility, or whether it becomes a nation at civil war with supporters of Sharia law. Meanwhile, Americans clamor for stricter immigration policies and demand an end to state welfare programs that allow many immigrants to live on the public dole. As we in America look at the enclaves of Muslims among us, and see those who enter our shores too easily, dare live on our taxes, yet refuse to embrace our culture, respect our traditions, participate in our legal system, obey our laws, speak our language, appreciate our history….we would do well to look at Denmark and say a prayer for our future.

 

 

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