Conservative Happenings

Friday, July 3, 2015

DONNELLY LAUNCHES REFERENDUM TO OVERTURN NEW VACCINE LAW

Tim Donnelly (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

by MICHELLE MOONS2 Jul 2015San Diego, CA6

Former Assemblyman Tim Donnelly has launched a referendum against vaccine law SB277, pledging to work with every individual or group to collect the signatures needed to put the vaccine referendum on the 2016 ballot and let voters decide this issue.

“This is we, the people, exercising the people’s veto,” Donnelly told Breitbart News.

“This referendum is not about vaccinations; it is about defending the fundamental freedom of a parent to make an informed decision for their children without being unduly penalized by a government that believes it knows best.”

Many of SB277’s opponents indicated that they do vaccinate their children, but opposed the infringement on parental rights.

Hundreds of Californians from across the state fought a long battle against the bill in the legislature. On Tuesday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed SB277 into law. As of Tuesday, tens of thousands had signed petitions calling for Brown to veto three pieces of legislation related to vaccine requirements, including SB277. As of Thursday, nearly 100,000 had signed the petitions, combined.

“Do you think the government or parents should have more control about what is injected into your child’s body?” Donnelly asked. “The government is intimidating parents by denying children the right to education.”

Prior to SB277, if a parent chose to opt a child out of even one vaccination such as Hepatitis B, but still vaccinate for all other diseases as required, that parent could sign a personal belief waiver. SB277 eliminates that waiver, making California one of strictest states in the nation. Parents that still wish to opt out of even one vaccination will not be allowed to enroll that child in private or public school.

“They are stamping out a parents’ right to make their own medical decisions for their kids,” Donnelly told Breitbart News.

According to Donnelly, California already has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country. Centers for Disease Control statistics as of September 2014 show Californiavaccination rates in the young 19-35 month range within a reasonable range as compared to other states, he noted. CDC charts show California among the most vaccinated states for MMR, DTap and Hib.

Via: Breitbart

MONTANA: Gazette opinion: Take responsibility for terrible state budget

The State of Montana's finances aren't as rosy as we once imagined, and the same people who may have contributed to the mess may be the ones ultimately charged with cleaning it up.

Last week, the Legislative Audit Division told lawmakers that problems, misstatements and omissions are so common (more than 100 that have been discovered) in the state's finances that it could jeopardize Montana's bond ratings.

This wasn't just a single accidental oversight. Instead, the problems are deep -- 125 errors and lack of internal controls. Sadly, those controls, had they been in place, according to the audit division, could have caught these problems earlier. In other words, there weren't even controls in place to catch problems.

Though Montana Budget Director Dan Villa might have you believe some of these were nothing more than just goofy spreadsheet errors, the truth is more sobering. There is approximately $1 billion overstated accumulated depreciation, and $62 million in bonds were omitted altogether, said Tori Hunthausen of the Legislative Audit Division.

Let's pause. $62 million of bonds don't even show up on the books?

One billion dollars overstated? That's billion with a b.

These don't just appear to be simple rounding errors. The amounts aren't insignificant.

The question is: How do they simply disappear? How do those mistakes happen?

That's what remains unclear.

It's obvious that the state (eventually) caught it, thanks to the Legislative Audit Division. What's a bit more troubling is that Villa and Department of Administration director Sheila Hogan had to put a team in place with a new accountant.

The errors and omissions seems like basic accounting, but don't take our word for it.

Villa also told the committee that in a few cases zeroes had been left off figures.

Yikes. What kind of accountants are working for the state?

What still remains to be seen is what how will changes be implemented and how can we be certain this recent history won't repeat itself? How are the Montana leaders today ensuring that future leaders won't have to worry about the same problem?

It may seem like this is just a problem on paper. You know, change a few numbers on a spreadsheet and --viola!-- things get better.

But, if bond ratings get lowered, it means that Montana, normally lauded for its tight fiscal management, may have to suffer higher interest rates when we borrow money. In other words, our dollars won't buy as much and not as much may get done. We'll pay more and get less.

Via: Billing Gazette

America redefining its identity for the 21st century

An American flag decorates a picket fence in Londonderry, N.H., in this 2012 file photo. As it nears another birthday, America is forging the outlines of a new century. The country is moving with remarkable speed to cast aside some of the traditions and mores that dominated American life for centuries. | Cheryl Senter New York Times

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

dlightman@mcclatchydc.com

As it nears another birthday, America is forging the outlines of a new century.

It’s moving with now remarkable speed to cast aside some of the traditions and mores that dominated American life for centuries. The Confederate flag is coming down, 150 years after the end of the Civil War and a half-century after it was raised in defiance of civil rights. Marriage is being redefined. Whites are fast becoming a minority. And after electing its first African-American president, the country is poised to elect a new leader from among a roster including a woman, two Cuban-Americans, and the scion of an old Yankee family married to a Mexican-American.

All of it is driven by a new generation, magnified by demographic change and accelerated by social media.

The biggest influence is the millennial generation, born between 1982 and 2000, a massive group that represents about one-fourth of the nation’s population, a bigger percentage than the baby boomers who upended the American political system themselves.

The millenials are different. They’re more diverse than their parents’ generation. They came of age in a time already distant from the institutions that moderated the last century: the church, government, media.

And armed with smartphones and social media, they create mandates for change with their own contemporaneous means of associating. Finding comfort with newfound acquaintances in far-flung places and banding together to pressure decision-makers is now commonplace. More striking, the rise of these electronic communities means a softening of the peer pressure of traditional geographic neighborhoods, where outliers were often reluctant to become vocal for fear of ridicule or worse.

“Organizing today is easier. People don’t have to wait to see what their elders tell them,” said Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, director of CIRCLE, a nonpartisan group specializing in young voter research.

Via: McClatchy

Is the Clinton Email Coverup Unraveling?

Federal investigators may be closer to seizing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s illicit off-site email server as evidence emerges that she transmitted classified information through it and that key Obama White House officials knew about her clandestine email account for years.

On Tuesday the Department of State made available on its website 3,000 pages of Clinton’s emails. Clinton emphatically declared months ago that none of the thousands of emails she sent using her hacker-friendly dedicated server contained classified information.

As it turns out the State Department had to redact 25 of the newly unveiled emails because they contained the very same classified information Hillary said she didn’t send. This is but a fraction of the 55,000 pages of email the former secretary of state gave to the diplomatic agency for processing. Under federal court order, the State Department is conducting monthly Clinton document dumps after screening and redacting the emails.

Clinton has admitted that tens of thousands of the emails she sent that happened to be U.S. government property were deleted. Emails were scrubbed while subject to a subpoena from the House Select Committee that is investigating the terrorist attack on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that took place on Sept. 11, 2012.

Around the time of the attack Clinton scapegoated the innocent director of an anti-Islam movie trailer that almost nobody had seen. She claimed back then that the sophisticated military-style operation materialized spontaneously from an angry mob of protesters gathered outside the facility which was in Islamist-held territory. The Benghazi coverup the Obama administration engineered to get President Obama safely reelected in November 2012 has been gradually falling apart.

This new revelation that classified information went out into cyberspace by way of Clinton’s laughably insecure server clears the way for the U.S. government to seize the machine itself, theWashington Times reports.

Via: Canada Free Press

[VIDEO] Mom Charged With Endangerment for Letting 7-Year-Old Play in Park Right Across the Street

A 7-year-old in Westbrook, Maine, was playing at the park within eyesight of her family’s house. Someone called 911 (of course) and the police swooped in. They took the girl to the precinct because, as this WMTW reporter notes, “Mom wasn’t watching.”

What? Mom didn’t devote her afternoon to sitting at the side of the park and watching her child’s every move? Tsk, tsk. The child was on her own for about an hour, and as Police Chief Janine Roberts told the reporter, “That’s a long time for a 7-year-old girl to be by herself any place, let alone a park.”

Yes, the park is certainly the last place you’d ever want to see a kid hanging out. What kind of crazy mom would let her child go there?

The mother’s name is Nicole Jensen. She stressed that her kids check in with her every hour, and the park is usually filled with other parents, who take turns watching each other’s children.

Jensen has been charged with child endangerment.

Roberts was glad that the officers were able to “reunite” the mother and child—as if they had endured Hurricane Katrina, or something. She also thanked her department for having all the necessary “resources and facilities” to save this kid, even though the officers could have literally walked the girl across the street to her house if they were so concerned.

Let’s hope Jensen has learned her lesson: Parks aren’t for kids! They’re for real estate values. They’re props. You’re not supposed to let your kids actually, you know, play, in them.

If you watch to the end of the video, the reporter, David Charns, notes that the little girl and her brother are headed straight back to the park.

The little recidivists! Will they never learn?

Via: Reason

DC Bumps Its Minimum Wage To Highest In The Nation But Activists Still WANT MORE

NEVER ENOUGH

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser was proud to announce Wednesday the minimum-wage hike that took effect that day, though just across town activists were still fighting for more.

At $9.50, the District of Columbia minimum wage was already higher than any state in the nation before it rose to $10.50 Wednesday.

“Raising the minimum wage will give tens of thousands of Washingtonians a raise and boost the bottom lines of our local businesses,” Bowser said. “It’s good for workers, businesses and our economy,”

The minimum-wage hike came as part of a three-year initiative approved by the D.C. council in 2013 that will see it climb again in 2016 to $11.50– but some in the city still want more.

At a Board of Elections hearing later Wednesday afternoon, activists fighting for a $15 minimum wage attempted to get a ballot referendum in place to vote for another wage increase.

The “Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2016,” a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation, would continue the city’s incremental minimum wage increases, starting at $12.50 in 2017. It would creep up again each year until reaching $15.00 per hour by 2020.

Upon reaching $15.00 in 2020, the minimum wage would then increase annually to match the rising cost of living in the city.

D.C. government employees, though, would be exempt from the minimum wage levels if the law goes into effect.

If the board decides that the proposed initiative deserves a spot on the ballot, the activists will need to collect more than 20,000 signatures on a petition before it makes its way to voters.

Via: Daily Caller

ONE MORE MISSION: MARINE JIM WEBB TO TAKE ON HILLARY

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

by RICH TUCKER2 Jul 2015256

He’s served as a Marine in Vietnam, a citizen as Secretary of the Navy, and as a Virginian in the U.S. Senate. Now Jim Webb wants to serve his country again — as a presidential candidate.

He will challenge Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, and Lincoln Chaffee in the Democratic primaries.

Webb admits it won’t be easy.

“I understand the odds, particularly in today’s political climate where fair debate is so often drowned out by huge sums of money. I know that more than one candidate in this process intends to raise at least a billion dollars – some estimates run as high as two billion dollars – in direct and indirect financial support,” he writes in a letter to supporters.

Webb vows to focus on restoring the military. He criticizes both of the last two administrations, saying he wouldn’t have intervened in Iraq (Bush) or Libya (Obama). “And today I would not be the President to sign an executive order establishing a long-tem relationship with Iran if it accepts Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons,” Webb adds. The Iran agreement could be signed later this month.

Webb also prescribes an aggressive domestic policy. “Let’s give our younger people a cause worth fighting for. Let’s clean out the manure-filled stables of a political system that has become characterized by greed,” he writes. “Let’s rebuild an educational system that gives everyone a fair chance. A democracy is only as strong as the promise it offers its young citizens through the public education system.”

He concludes his announcement with two promises:

The first is that every endeavor will be based on the premise that has been the foundation of our society from the day the United States Constitution was signed: that we are a nation of laws, not of specially privileged people, and that our greatest strength comes from the power of our multicultural heritage.

And the second is that I mean what I say, that if I make a promise I will keep it, and that outside my faith and my family, my greatest love will always be for this amazing country that for more than 200 years has given so many people the opportunity to have a good life, raise a family, live in freedom, and achieve their dreams.

Via: Breitbart

California electricity rates to undergo biggest change in 15 years

California regulators radically revamped the way electricity rates work in the state, approving changes Friday that will raise monthly utility bills for the most energy-efficient homeowners while giving many bigger energy users a break.

The California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to narrow the gap between prices paid by people who use very little electricity and those who consume more. Over time, that gap has grown so wide that the most efficient Californians now pay less for electricity than the utilities spend supplying it to them.

California has long charged utility customers higher prices for using large amounts of electricity as a way to encourage conservation. And while the commission’s vote will benefit many homeowners who use more than average, the biggest energy “hogs” now will face a new penalty, a “super-user electric surcharge” designed to prod them to conserve.

In addition, most residential customers will soon pay different prices for electricity use at different times of day, with the highest prices likely hitting in the afternoon. The move, long studied by California officials, could reduce the strain on the state’s power grid when electricity demand reaches its daily, late-afternoon peak.

Shifting some electricity use to mid-day or the evening, in turn, could help the state integrate more solar and wind power into the energy mix. Solar power plants hit their maximum output just after noon, while California’s wind farms generate most of their electricity at night.

“The electricity industry is changing fast, and utility rates haven’t kept up with it,” said commission President Michael Picker. He said Friday that the utility commission needed to “make sure rates are reasonable and fair to all California utility customers.”

The changes will be phased in by 2019. They affect customers of Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. — not the customers of municipal utilities such as those serving Sacramento or Los Angeles.

“We’re committed to helping our customers and their families understand the changes and the best ways they can be energy efficient and save money,” said Greg Snapper, spokesman for PG&E.

Via: SFGate

Obama administration scales back deportations in policy shift

The Obama administration has begun a profound shift in its enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws, aiming to hasten the integration of long-term illegal immigrants into society rather than targeting them for deportation, according to documents and federal officials.

In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has taken steps to ensure that the majority of the United States’ 11.3 million undocumented immigrants can stay in this country, with agents narrowing enforcement efforts to three groups of illegal migrants: convicted criminals, terrorism threats or those who recently crossed the border.

While public attention has been focused on the court fight over President Obama’s highly publicized executive action on immigration, DHS has with little fanfare been training thousands of immigration agents nationwide to carry out new policies on everyday enforcement.

The legal battle centers on the constitutionality of a program that would officially shield as many as 5 million eligible illegal immigrants from deportation, mainly parents of children who are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. A federal judge put the program, known by the acronym DAPA, on hold in February after 26 states sued.

[Administration halts work on DAPA program ]

But the shift in DHS’s enforcement priorities, which are separate from the DAPA program and have not been challenged in court, could prove even more far-reaching.

The new policies direct agents to focus on the three priority groups and leave virtually everyone else alone. Demographic data shows that the typical undocumented immigrant has lived in the United States for a decade or more and has established strong community ties.

Via: Washington Post

[Commentary] Let moronic flag burners have their say

Protestors who equated the American flag with the Confederate standard only made themselves look ridiculous. (Advance file photo)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – Well, the flag burners have had their moment of free speech.

Now allow us to have ours.

Equating the American flag with the Confederate flag is moronic.

Burning the American flag to protest racism and police brutality is idiotic.

A group calling itself Disarm NYPD held a flag-burning protest in Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park on Wednesday night.

Bravo for them. They have a First Amendment right to free speech, including the burning of any flag they like. Even in the days leading up to the Fourth of July. I'll defend that right to the death.

Thankfully for them, the Constitutional protection extends to instances of ridiculous free speech as well. Supporting the group's First Amendment right doesn't mean we have to agree with it, after all.

The group burned a Confederate flag as well as Old Glory.

The Confederate flag has been in the news quite a bit these last two weeks, following the shooting massacre that took the lives of nine people at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Anger and grief over the massacre morphed into a debate over the Confederate flag, which had flown on the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse.

The flag is seen by many as a symbol of racism. Others say it represents Southern heritage and culture.

It's impossible to cleanse the flag of its association with slavery and secession and treason. But wherever you stand on the issue, the Confederate flag is not the same as the American flag to which we pledge allegiance.

That flag is a symbol of national unity. Never more so than when we celebrate our independence from tyranny. It's the flag that our soldiers have marched under for more than 200 years while helping secure freedom for people around the world.

Our allies in Europe were mighty glad to see that flag coming down the road after the carnage of two world wars, for instance.

And it was that flag that we mourned around, and rallied around, in the days and weeks following the 9/11 attacks, as we buried our dead and looked to bring the terrorists responsible to justice.

How can we forget those days, when the whole world was on our side? When we as Americans were all on one side, when we really did see that there is so much that unites us, despite our differences?

Via: silive

Charlie Daniels Celebrates Our Nation's Birthday: My Beautiful America

I have just completed a leg of our 2015 tour that has taken me across the entire heartland of America, Pacific to Atlantic, and once again I'm deeply touched by what this country means to me.

As the 239th Birthday of the greatest nation the world has never known approaches, I can think of no better way to use the Soapbox space this week than by celebrating the greatness of the blessed United States of America, by sharing a piece I wrote years ago that describes my feelings for my homeland.

This soapbox will be the most current until Monday July 6th.

Happy Fourth of July, my brothers and sisters and I hope you'll enjoy "My Beautiful America”.

My Beautiful America

Have you ever spent the late afternoon

Watching the purple shadows deepen in the Arizona desert?

Or seen a herd of Elk plough their way

Through waist deep snow on a cold Colorado dawn?

Did you ever see the sun go down in Hawaii

Or seen the stormy waves break over the rockbound coast of Maine

Or have you ever see an eagle fly up out of the mists of Alaska

Or a big October moon hanging full over the still Dakota badlands?

Have you ever tasted the gumbo in New Orleans, barbecue in Carolina

Or the chicken wings in Buffalo?

Have you ever had Brunswick stew in Macon, or cornbread in Birmingham?

Or briskets slow cooked over hill country mesquite wood?

Did you ever drink the water from a gurgling branch in Utah,

Or stand on the mountain above El Paso Del Norte

And see the lights twinkling clear over into Mexico

Did you ever jingle horses in the pre dawn stillness of a perfect Texas day

And watch their shod hooves kicking up sparks on the volcanic rock?

Or tended a trot line on a foggy Carolina morning,

Or heard the distant love song of a lovesick whippoorwill

On a pristine Tennessee late night?

Have you seen the faces on Mount Rushmore or stood at the Vietnam monument?

Have you ever crossed the mighty Mississippi,

Or been to the Daddy of ‘Em All in Cheyenne, Wyoming

Or seen the mighty Vols run out on the football field on a chilly autumn afternoon?

Did you ever see the Chicago skyline from Lakeshore Drive at night

Or the New England foliage in the fall,

Or the summer beauty of the Shenandoah valley,

Or Indiana covered with new snow?

Did you ever see a herd of wild horses running free

Across the empty spaces of Nevada?

Or catch a walleyed pike out of a cold Wisconsin stream,

Or marveled at the tall ships docked in the harbor at Baltimore?

Did you ever see the early morning dew sparkling on the bluegrass,

Or the wind stir the wheat fields on a hot Kansas afternoon

Or driven the lonely stretches of old Route 66

Have you ever heard the church bells peal their call to worship

On an early Sunday, in some small town in the Deep South?

Or passed through the Redwood Forest just as the sun was going down?

Have you ever been to Boise or Baxley or Beaufort or Billings?

Have you ever passed through Sanford or Suffolk or San Angelo

Have you ever seen the falls at Niagara

The Ice Palace in Saint Paul

Or the Gateway to the West?

This then is America!

The land God blesses with everything

And no Eiffel Tower: No Taj Mahal,

No Alps, No Andes

No native hut, nor Royal Palace

Can rival her awesome beauty,

Her diverse population, her monolithic majesty.

America the Free

America the mighty

America the beautiful

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

And to the republic for which it stands

One nation under God, indivisible

with liberty and justice for all.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, and for the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

Via: CNS News

Friday, July 3, 2015

Former Assemblyman Tim Donnelly has launched a referendum against vaccine law SB277, pledging to work with every individual or group to collect the signatures needed to put the vaccine referendum on the 2016 ballot and let voters decide this issue.

He’s served as a Marine in Vietnam, a citizen as Secretary of the Navy, and as a Virginian in the U.S. Senate. Now Jim Webb wants to serve his country again — as a presidential candidate.

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