From Birmingham to D.C.

Recess Rallies

If you're interested, I just got an email containing a list of where rallies will be help in our area.

If you are against a single payer system, Moore is the only one on the list in favor, the other's are not.

On August 22nd, 2009, rallies will be held outside every congressional office in the country to send a strong message to each and every member of congress. Below you will find a listing of all the Recess Rallies planned for your state - if there is an event listed for your congressional district, we encourage you to spread the message to your friends, neighbors and co-workers, and to attend the rally. If there is not an event listed for your district, we encourage you to take ownership at the local level by becoming the organizer.

District 1

Representative Jerry Moran

The rally for this district will not be held at the congressional office, but in an alternate location:
- Location: Saline County Building, 300 West Ash, Salina, KA 67401 — Robert Caldwell Plaza
- Time: Noon
- Contact: Joe Winship
- Email: joe@salinateaparty.com
- Website: http://www.salinateaparty.com

District 2

Representative Lynn Jenkins

701 North Broadway Street
Pittsburgh, KS 66762
Voice: 620-231-5966
FAX: 620-231-5972

3550 SW 5th Street
Topeka, KS 66606
Voice: 785-234-5966
FAX: 785-234-5967

District 3

Representative Dennis Moore

The District 3 rally will be held at a single office:
8417 Santa Fe Drive, Suite 101
Overland Park, KS 66212
Voice: 913-383-2013
FAX: 913-383-2088
- Time: 10:00 AM to noon
- Rally Contact: Amanda Grosserode
- Email: kansascityteaparty@gmail.com
- Website: http://www.kansascityteaparty.wordpress.com

District 4

Representative Todd Tiahrt

155 North Market Street, Suite 400
Wichita, KS 67202
Voice: 316-262-8992
FAX: 316-262-5309

TEA Party planned in Wichita

An American Tea Party

September 11, 2009, from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Sedgwick County Park, Wichita, Kansas

This is more than a protest, it is a celebration of patriotism and an opportunity.

People want to get involved but don’t know where to go to become involved. This event invites you, your organizations, your business, your campaigns and your government agencies to showcase what you have to offer.

We have a large enough area that we are offering areas where a group can set up a table, tent or booth to hand out literature, sign up members, sign petitions, solicit campaign funds, register voters and invite people to volunteer and become more active citizens.

If you want to do a fundraiser we are looking for people who want to provide food and beverages or other types of vendors. The cost of a space is $100.00.

This event is expensive to put on so we would appreciate ANY and all possible donations. This event will include music, speeches, presentations, vendors, food and beverage. The idea is to have fun, be heard and get involved.

It is a NON-Partisan event and will be free to the public. Everyone who behaves courteously is welcome regardless of their party affiliation.

Send donations or space requests to:

Kansans for Liberty
11509 Valley Hi Drive
Wichita, KS 67209

For more information call Lynda Tyler at 316-722-8031 or email to info@Kansansforliberty.com. The website is at Kansans for Liberty.

Independence Day

I will be busy tomorrow, so I thought I would take a moment to wish you all a Happy 4th of July!

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been ahem and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

The Greatest War, the Greatest Generation

My father, who was not in WWII, lay dieing in his hospice room. Next to him another man lie dying. I remember my father fondly of course. The years he spent raising me, the hours he spent cheering me, and the weeks he spent with my family before he died. The stranger that he shared his room with also left an impression.

His name was Norman. And to be honest I don't recall if it was his last or first name, but as we were in a V.A. I assumed it was his last. And we never properly introduced ourselves.

Norman and my father spent hours talking, while my father could still breath. My father told Norman and I the role the Navy really took at the Bay of Pigs, and never once acted as if it was a defeat. He told Norman about some of the pranks that the crew would play on one of the Destroyers my father was stationed on, the USS Charles S Sperry. Norman was a stoic man. Listened while my father prattled on, never interrupting and seemed generally happy to listen to my father.

Norman was Airborne, he was there on D-Day. He would whisper stories here and there to my father. It was a way for them to top one another. Neither talked about horrors, or honors for that matter. It was always about their friends. They would smile and laugh, you could hear their laughter down the quiet halls.

Norman survived Normandy, only to out live everyone in his family. His wife, his beloved, whose picture sat on the window sill smiled back at me, died years before. She was his first and only love. And sometimes you could feel that Norman was jealous of his wife, she had died before his two sons did. Their military photos had their own place of honor on the brightly lit window sill. A handsome family to say the least.

Norman never complained. But he was alone. I was his only visitor besides the occasional VFW volunteer, or candy striper. He would smile politely, but seemed annoyed that they would be there. I hoped that he never got annoyed with me, but I was dutifully there, next to my father every day. I walked the halls, greeting and smiling to the other hospice patients. All of whom had seen one war or another.

I never saw photos of grandchildren, so I assumed that he was indeed the last of his blood. No flowers came, or gifts for various holidays were visible at the time of my visits. Norman was all alone. Most of the men in the VA were alone. Rarely did I run into another visitor. I held all the boys attention, smoking and talking out front, the boys were happy to tell me their stories, and the stories of their friends that died years upon years before. The glistening wet of their fondness often appeared in their eyes. But not Norman's, as I said, he was stoic about his death, and the fondness of fallen comrades.

Norman had the capacity to complain, but he never used it in front of me. It was how they were raised. You take your lot in life, and make the best of it. A lesson we should all take from them.

Norman died shortly after my father, no one sat vigil at his bedside. Something that I would later feel guilt about. Even though Norman would have never complained about it. He was and still in my thoughts.

We remember these soldiers on this day. But for how long? Will there come a point that we are so blase about war, and about the boys we send. Will we rewrite chapters of history to make them seem like they were the bad guys? Will we apologize for their actions? Or will we take time now to meet the boys that are left with us, not just the ones alone, but the ones with a room full of family? Will we seek out our beloved boys to thank them, to tell them that they are our hero's? Will we sit quietly and allow them to tell us about their lives, their friends, their loves? Will we promise them face to face that we will not forget them nor their friends that they hold so dear?

I silently promised Norman, I would never forget him.

Activist Training

Last night I attended a seminar on how to be an activist. Unfortunately it fell flat. Before I start, allow me to say that if you are just getting interested in a cause or politics and you have no clue where to start, that this seminar will be beneficial to you. However if you are already active, promote a business, or sell yourself to the public, this is not for you.

It was like I was sitting in a Jr. High Civics class.

The opening lecture was by a Politician, Rep. Shari Weber. She was enthusiastic, and really getting us motivated. She was asked about the legality of the GM bankruptcy, and them closing dealerships. Since these dealerships are privately owned, she said that it was very illegal, and then said, "But it's happening, and look what road we have been going down." I almost felt like she was ready to give up, but then she started becoming angry. That gives you a bit of hope.

Then came the Political Science grads. Who I believe just graduated. It was difficult to pay attention to the first Lady. She spoke in a manner that screamed teen girl. She had yet to grow out of that, and it made it difficult to stay enthusiastic about it. I wasn't the youngest in the group, usually I am There were 2 other's that looked to be my age, and a 20 something year old was seated next to me. The rest of the room were older men and women, many of whom had protest back in 1969 as liberals, and who were now seated in this room to protest a more conservative ideal.

I also discovered that this wasn't sponsored by the Sam Adams Alliance, but by American Majority. A relatively new group, operating in only 7 states. But they do work closely with Sam Adams Alliance. The speakers kept reiterating that they were a bipartisan group, however a pamphlet I was given talked about conservatism only. I was concerned that maybe, because I am not a conservative that I was in the wrong place.

The first political science grad spoke about building a coalition and reaching your community. She spoke for 40 minutes, but I can break it down for you in a few sentences. First have a cause you are passionate about and then talk to other's about it. Find out the legalities of your area about establishing a coalition, then sell yourself and your opinions as much as possible. Carry a business card with you at all times to hand to other's as you network. And speak to every one in an 8th- to 12th grade level. Don't fret over if the person you are networking with has "connections" coalition start with the minority first, then the big wigs jump on the band wagon. Have set goals, and walk the walk, not just talk.

Then we were told how to organize meaningful events. I think I blackout at one point of the lecture. It is mainly about advertising your self and your cause. Write up invites, make sure dates don't conflict, delegate chores. And that small events are just as important as large ones.

We seemed to be encouraged to invite our local politicians over for a Candidate coffee. A way to help our candidate meet and greet the locals, and find out more about the politician.

At break it was mentioned that this lecture was missing something. I turned around and said, enthusiasm. It was a dry lecture, and we were about to find out how dry it was. Next came roles of the government.

I went a little mad during that lecture. You could not tell me that we really needed to sit through 20 minutes of government 101 in a group like this one. This weren't new hats sitting in that room. And I am sure you all know the roles of government, so I will not re-hash all of that for you.

Government accountability was next. The only helpful info that I could glean was the various resource one could go to on the web. Judgepedia, Ballotpedia, Sunshine review. For Kansas; Kanview, Flint hills center.

The highlight of the evening was meeting the founder of the Wichita Chapter of the 912ers. She was concerned about so few people showing up to there meetings. I had no idea that there was a Wichita Chapter. But now that I know, I will do my best to attend and get the word out to all of you. You can go to the state wide site to find a Kansas Chapter near you.

If you are not political, but are looking to start. If this is your first time speaking out and you are nervous or don't know how to begin, then this seminar would be good for you. However, if you, like me, have been active for years, just keep plugging away. Write to your officials, call them out on various new media sources, hold them accountable for their actions, or lack there of. And remember, they work for us. We pay their salary, they need to be reminded of that, and they need to listen to were we stand. Even if it isn't the popular view, tell them.

Kansas Sovereignty?

Many States are beginning to strike back against the Federal Government. Legislators are seeing their own Constitutional rights going by the way side. And if they are affected, then they know that their constituency is affected as well.

Bill # 1615
(pdf)

Be it resolved by the Senate of the State of Kansas, the House of Representatives
concurring therein: That the State of Kansas hereby claims
sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to
the federal government by the Constitution of the United States;
Be it further resolved: That this serve as Notice and Demand to the
federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers;

Here is an article from the Wichita Eagle.

How can you help this pass? Find your local Representative and write them. Tell them that you want this bill to be passed. Kansas should declare their Sovereignty!

Kansas Tea Parties

Today is the day that many people from all walks of life will be out all over the Country lifting their voices in opposition to what our House and Congress has done, and might be doing to us.

If you are attending the Wichita Tea party here are a few things you need to know;

Parking

Please help us be good guests on airport grounds. It is important that we not park on:

• Main roads such as Harry Street
• At the entrances of businesses
• On the grass of Airport grounds
• Best Western property

We can park on:

• Side streets. There are many off of Harry Street.
• In the field west of Best Western, on the access road for Kellogg. There will be signs to guide you. From Kellogg take the Airport exit and follow the signs to the access road on the south side of Kellogg towards Dugan Road. Buses will shuttle you to the event location.

The Party is scheduled to start at 4:15 at the Airport Post Office, and end at 8 pm. Bring a plunger if you are not bringing a sign. For more info, go to Wichita Tea Party.

The list of Speakers seems to be a who's who of Republican Kansas.

• Nancy Armstrong, veteran, blogger and organizer
• Cheryl Green, farmer, mother and organizer
• Susan Estes, Americans for Prosperity and organizer
• Shari Weber, American Majority
• Sedgwick County Commissioner Karl Peterjohn
• State Representative Jason Watkins
• State Senator Susan Wagle
• Congressman Jerry Moran
• Vicki Tiahrt on behalf of Congressman Todd Tiahrt
• US Senator Sam Brownback

For more Kansas locations go to the Tax Day Tea Party website.
Now for my opinion.

The list disappoints me a bit. But we are in Kansas and the majority of our reps are Republicans. I hate to see this portrayed as a Republican cause. I am not a Republican. Most of my life I was a democrat. As I became older, my social views strayed from that party, but neither parties encompass what I truly believe in. I am an Independent.

The news reports that are coming out, proclaiming that the TEA parties are the brain child of Glenn Beck, and the reports that the people attending are white supremacists not only hurts me, but disappoints me. I am losing much faith in the democratic party. I have read comment after comment about TEA party attendees being ignorant, uneducated, and being in the top 1% of wealth earners. Of course these weren't the words used, more like "idiots, stupid, hate mongers, and rich assholes." I applaud their vocabulary.

I am the working poor. I was raised upper middle class. I am educated and my husband is highly educated. Those that know me via blog, know that our choices were just that, and we choose to live differently than the "elite" would have. We pay attention to the politics of our country, and we fear for our nation. And not because of a Black President, or a democratic majority. We fear because our reps no longer seem to be listening to what we Will. The president merely suggests what laws he wants enacted, the house and congress decided if this is good and wise and if the people that they work for would agree in majority. It's isn't just about TARP or the other Bailouts, and it definitely isn't just about AIG. It is about what our future holds. We are a republic. We are a capitalist Nation. We work to achieve our own dreams and are free to gain wealth.

I understand the envy, jealousy and hatred that people feel towards the wealthy. But to punish them, to threaten them does us all an injustice. Those that create jobs are now considered "wealthy". With new tax laws and new forced national health care, more of these employers will keep their personal down, and keep their wealth under the overly taxable tax bracket. We are guaranteed to see our nation fail as a Great Nation in these scenario situations. Envy and hatred does not help you become a good person, nor does it enable you to become more than what your current station is in life. Those sentiments are better left behind or turned inward and around to help motivate and propel you to what you have always dreamed you would be. It does no justice to yourself to keep yourself down.

I read the comments left by proclaimed Liberals and I hope I have never uttered the words that spill from their fingertips. I read the comments by proclaimed Conservatives and hope that I never become like that. Anger is good as long as it is productive. Vile remarks with misspelled words does neither party good. Thinly veiled threats make us all sound naive.

We protest what our Representatives have begun to do to us, we protest what they claim to be, we protest what their so called good intentions will ultimately be. We protest that we no longer have a good strong voice in our own home. We protest so that our children will have a choice in their own futures. And we protest so that we do not have to pay for others mistakes.