As far as grassroots activism goes, the surge in Tea Parties across America is one of the more encouraging developments to recently take place. It reminds me of the "Conservative Revolution" of 1994, when the GOP reclaimed both the US Senate and House of Representatives. At that time, it had been over 40 years since the Republican Party controlled both the US House and Senate. And, between the two, the House victories were the most significant.
Contrary to the wishes of Congress, the Supreme Court and the lower courts, “we the people” in our capacity as jurors and state legislators have the power to nullify laws we find unconstitutional.
Did the founding fathers opine on this power? In 1790, James Wilson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and one of the original six Supreme Court justices said, “Suppose . . . a difference of senti... Continue reading ...
Posted by on Monday, February 1, 2010,
In :
Columns
The pressing need to revitalize “the Militia of the several States”
America is being buried in an avalanche of assaults upon her National independence, integrity, and identity—upon her economic prosperity and social stability—upon her cultural heritage—and even upon her ability to survive as a viable political and economic entity. The worst of these include:
Attacks by international “terrorists”—which, whatever their true sources and actual potentials for harm to persons and pro...
Last week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off their first round of hearings on the causes of the economic meltdown on Wall Street. The commission is being compared to the the Pecora Commission launched in 1932 to investigate the causes of the Great Depression. The Pecora commission is beloved by those who believe the solution to every problem is more laws because it was used to justify a number of new laws, inc... Continue reading ...
Posted by on Friday, January 15, 2010,
In :
Columns
"DOWNLOAD" FOR BEST COPY (To get the most out of this document, read and study carefully in its entirety.)
Please check pages 8 and 9 for critical information on the essential need for a strong well organized "State Militia" from Edwin Vieira Jr.
Please email and distribute to all officers of government on the local, county and state levels as possible. Particularly the governor and all members of the state legislature. Please also include those on your emailing list.
Posted by Chris Stevens on Monday, December 28, 2009,
In :
Columns
This article was first featured in Sunday's Idaho State Journal.
Once upon a time in a land far away there was a government that thought it had unlimited power over the lives of Americans. But we decided we didn't want bureaucrats running our lives and we fought a war for independence. We chartered a new course of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy.
Our Constitution placed restrictions on the government, not the peop... Continue reading ...
Posted by on Saturday, December 19, 2009,
In :
Columns
"Freedom in America has only one hope: the resurrection of State independence and sovereignty."
According to Rasmussen Reports, "Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters
nationwide say they're at least somewhat angry about the current policies of
the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry.
"The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27%
are not angry about the government's policies, including 10% who are Not at
All Angry."
Last week, in the name of protecting the little guy from Wall Street, the House passed HR 4173 to increase the little guy’s false sense of security in the financial system. This mammoth piece of legislation would massively increase government regulation and oversight in the banking industry under the misguided reasoning that more government could have stopped faulty lending practices, when in actuality it caused them. This bill would also greatly ... Continue reading ...
Posted by on Thursday, December 10, 2009,
In :
Columns
The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution states: “Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Upholding the Tenth Amendment is critical if we want to maintain our liberty in the face of unprecedented federal government control. Those of you that are outraged by the health care plan now being debated in the Senate have an opportunity to uphold the Tenth Amendment and, by so doin... Continue reading ...
Posted by on Sunday, November 29, 2009,
In :
Columns
Show Me the Money! We need to return to real money By Mark Balzer
What is money?
Money is an interesting concept. Three different dictionaries have slightly different definitions for money. The one thing they all agree on is that money is a medium of exchange. For anything to be money it ... http://www.pocatelloshops.com/new_blogs/politics/?p=5444
Copenhagen treaty and global warming conspiracy Falsified data used to promote treaty By Richard Larsen
There is nothing conservative about the war in Afghanistan. The Center for Defense Information said a few months ago that we had spent over $400 billion on the war and war-related costs there. Now, the Pentagon says it will cost about $1 billion for each 1,000 additional troops we send to Afghanistan. One Republican Member from California told me recently that we co... Continue reading ...
When those on the political left refer to defenders of the free market system as "right wingers," there is understandable concern about how the term is being abused. Classical liberals, the supporters of both economic and civil libertarianism, have been anything but "right wingers," quite the opposite.
In European political history, the right has been royalists, fascists, traditionalists and even militarists, while the left included ... Continue reading ...
Limited-government conservatives have been undermined by big-government neoconservatives.
The founders envisioned a federal government constitutionally limited to defending our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. For that to happen, we must have at least one political party that strongly advocates limiting the power of government. For much of the 19th century, that party was the Democrats. For... Continue reading ...
Posted by on Saturday, October 24, 2009,
In :
Columns
The United
States is bogged down in a war in
Afghanistan
where it’s military leaders are yelling for more troops.The
Dollar has plunged in value due to the result of numerous failed “bailouts,”
massive printing of new money, and the exodus of businesses nation wide.Citizens are up in arms over closed door meetings where socialists are
trying to force government health care upon them.Cap and trade
raises it’s ugly head.Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck as we... Continue reading ...
Posted by Chris Stevens on Sunday, October 18, 2009,
In :
Columns
The immature mud slinging that goes on between various political pundits really turns my stomach. Does it win people over calling them names? Does it solidify your base by demonizing others? Or does it just create hysteria in otherwise reasonable people towards their neighbors who might have different political ideas?
Instead of being so divisive, why not discover how you can agree with others? Not everything is left or right. People on both sides agree on a lot of issues. Many Statists on bot... Continue reading ...
Posted by on Sunday, October 11, 2009,
In :
Columns
From: Rep. Steven Thayn
Our country is in financial trouble for several reasons. One of the main reasons is that few openly discuss our current outmoded, inefficient entitlement system that was created before the importance of the family was recognized. Consider:
2/3 of the federal budget is allocated to social services (entitlements)
85 percent of the Idaho’s budget is for social services (Education and Health and Welfare)
In 1900, only 8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was nee...
The Cash for Clunkers and $8,000 Home Purchase Tax Credit are very interesting economic programs. Economics for me boils down to two main forces: supply and demand. When allowed to act freely, supply will balance with demand and set the appropriate price and quantity. However, government influence to increase demand or reduce supply keeps prices higher than the market would. Unfortunately, government programs typically punish those,... Continue reading ...
This was, to be sure, "the home of the free and the land of the brave." Americans were free simply because the government was too weak to intervene in the private affairs of the people — it did not have the money to do so — and they were brave because a free people is always venturesome. The obligation of freedom is a willingness to stand on your own feet.
The early American wanted it that way. He was wary of government, especially one that was out of his reach. ... Continue reading ...
Posted by on Tuesday, September 15, 2009,
In :
Columns
Within the text of the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, provision is made for the appointment of a Health Choices Commissioner(1). This commissioner will be granted such power as to make him a threat to the security of every American citizen. Please consider the following analysis of this great threat and do all within your power to help prevent this bill from becoming law.
According to this bill, the Health Choices Commissioner will have the authority to overrule portions of... Continue reading ...
August recess for the nation’s lawmakers was certainly not business as usual this year. With headlines and debate centered on the controversial overhaul of our health-care system, it could be fair to say many of them ran into constituent buzz-saws in their town hall meetings across the country.
While the exchanges at these meetings were sometimes confrontational, the freedom behind such truly grassroots response to a pr... Continue reading ...
Posted by Mark Balzer on Sunday, September 6, 2009,
In :
Columns
Cui bono? A simple legal term
literally who benefits? In other words who is enlarged who is made
freer given more liberty?
The opposite is “Cui plagalis” who
is penalized, or who loses? Or in other words who is restricted, who
is diminished who gets less power.
The question “who benefits” is used
to begin many criminal investigations. Who benefits from the death of
John Doe? Once this question is asked the police can begin to limit
their suspect list.
Posted by on Friday, August 28, 2009,
In :
Columns
"These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it Now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph." Thomas Paine, The Crisis, December 1776
An echo from two-hundred thirty-three years in the past resonates today in the hearts of ... Continue reading ...
Posted by on Thursday, August 20, 2009,
In :
Columns
Since the bailouts last fall, lawmakers have been behaving as quasi-owners of the bailed-out banks and businesses, leading to calls for increased regulation of executive compensation and other wasteful expenditures. We have heard much about bonuses and executive pay packages that sound more like lottery winnings than an honest salary.
Many lawmakers voted in favor of these unconstitutional bailouts, believing that these corporations were too big to fail, and allowing them to go under would ... Continue reading ...
Those who lived behind the “Iron Curtain,” or even in Nazi Germany, were fearful of expressing their true opinions about their government’s policies. Such reticence was necessary for they lived in fear that something they said might be reported to the authorities, leading to them being whisked away to the Gulag or the concentration camps.
Could such a thing happen in America? While I would certainly hope that it cou... Continue reading ...
Whether it is a “house,” “nation,” or any specific group, if that entity is “divided against itself” it cannot stand. A specific example of such division would be when I was in High School and two friends would run against each other for either Royalty or political office. Their friends’ votes would be divided and an actually weaker individual would claim the majority of votes. Pride goeth before the fall.
I received in my mail an invitation to a political fundrai... Continue reading ...
More than two centuries ago, our founders set forth a promise to our citizens of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Today those values are being squandered by an electorate that does not truly represent the people, who put their party before character. I write to you today as a supporter of the nationwide Tea Party movement.
I am not an elitist who got a tax cut, a domestic terrorist (as re... Continue reading ...
As most American school children know, one of the chief complaints that
the American colonists had against the mother country was that they
were taxed without their consent. "Taxation without representation is
tyranny," a phrase often credited to the revolutionary James Otis,
became an American maxim. Colonial Americans were anti-tax to begin
with, but to be taxed by a parliament three thousand miles away without
any say in the matter was into... Continue reading ...
If Ron Paul succeeds in getting the Fed audited, the consequences could be far-reaching. Assuming the audit isn't rigged to protect the guilty, as a similar bill was in 1978, the Fed will need every obfuscating Keynesian to testify and write editorials on its behalf, to reassure the public that monetary matters really are best left to the god... Continue reading ...
Posted by Mark Balzer on Monday, June 15, 2009,
In :
Columns
All young animals grow up. I have been watching the nesting robins in my front yard. First watching the nest building, the eggs being laid and tended, waiting for the eggs to hatch. Then watching the fledglings grow and eventually learn to fly and leave the nest.
This is the normal order of things, I guess since my wife and I are on the cusp of being empty nesters ourselves this natural process has taken on renewed significance. Like the robins the best we can do as parents is prepare our ch...
It has been alarming to me how the landscape of the American economy has become so dramatically altered over the past few months. The lines have become increasingly blurred between government ownership and corporate control with what’s happened in the auto and banking industries, and it appears the Obama administration is not going to stop there. Next stop is health care. Even more alarming is the fact that so many of our fellow citi...
I would consider myself to be the face of the average American. I’ve lived in Pocatello for about 24 years and raised most of my children here. I have four children. Two of my boys are in the military, one son in high school, and a daughter who works locally. I attended ISU and am a nurse. As time moves forward and changes come in our country I note that not all of this change is good. I have wondered how many of the laws being passed could be for the best when they are contra...
Posted by Mark Balzer on Monday, May 18, 2009,
In :
Columns
In addition to the Tea Parties this year where individual citizens expressed their displeasure about the actions of the Federal Government, 34 state legislatures including Idaho’s have introduced resolutions asserting their rights under the 10th Amendment.
The Tenth Amendment states; “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This means if the Constitution does not expr... Continue reading ...
The Federal Reserve's recent and unprecedented actions in the realm of monetary policy have provoked a backlash among the American people. Trillions of dollars worth of loans and guarantees have been provided to Wall Street firms, while Main Street Americans suffocate under harsh taxation, the prospect of higher debt levels and increasing inflation. These events have awakened many Ame...
Posted by on Thursday, April 30, 2009,
In :
Columns
Modern U.S. political history is a story of both parties, committed to statism, at war with American liberty.
"Americans are tired of partisan bickering. They are looking for their representatives in Washington to put partisanship aside and get to the work of the American people."
Statements like this have become a mantra over the past few decades. Like Democracy, "Bipartisanship" is now held up as an ideal and an end in and of itself. It would seem that no matter how ludicrous or destructi...
Posted by Mark Balzer on Tuesday, April 28, 2009,
In :
Columns
Tax Freedom Day this year will occur later this year than it ever has, according to the Tax Foundation the tax freedom day adjusted for the deficit will occur on May 29, 2009
In another measure, Deficit Day, the day where the federal government runs out of tax revenue and begins living on borrowed money occurs earlier this year than it ever has in the history of the country.
Our current President and Congress will have spent all the money our government will collect in taxes this year as of 8...
Posted by Bill Corbett on Tuesday, April 21, 2009,
In :
Columns
I love this great and beautiful country, and I often ask myself: “How did we allow ourselves to get into this current mess?” I think because too many of us thought another law would solve another injustice, we have turned the blessing of rule of law into a tyrant. Like Esau, we have traded our children’s, our grandchildren’s and our great-grandchildren’s birthrights for a bowl of lintel soup.
I attended the American Tea Party held in Pocatello last Wednesday where I was approached ...
Are Americans fed up with federal bailouts and stimulus packages? Of course they are, mostly...
All this after less than three months of the Obama administration, following eight years of President George W. Bush’s deficit spending.
Still, it would be an error to dismiss the tea parties as strictly a partisan phenomenon. Longtime Pocatello residents may recall the local revolt against property taxes led by the late Al Brewster, who gathered enough support to force local lawmakers to take ...
Posted by Chris Stevens on Sunday, April 19, 2009,
In :
Columns
How could anyone possibly be against opening the checkbooks to show us the spending? In today’s digital world, it’s very simple to put it online for everyone to see where they are spending our tax dollars. There’s no excuse for not doing this.
Spending transparency Web sites in numerous states and localities have saved millions through more efficient government operations, fewer information requests, more competitive contracting bids and lower risk of fraud...
Posted by Richard Larsen on Sunday, April 19, 2009,
In :
Columns
There was a certain sense of empowerment and cohesiveness at the Pocatello TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party held at the Pocatello City Hall parking lot on Wednesday. For many, it seemed comforting to know that they weren’t alone in feeling like our country is being steam-rolled to a socialistic state where those of us who work hard to provide for our families are shouldering the costs of an out-of-control spending machine in Washington. Participants were unified against expansion of governm... Continue reading ...
At the root of our social problems is the neglect of private property rights.
America was founded upon the idea that each individual had an unqualified right to the fruits of his labor.[4] This more than anything was what the founders meant when they spoke the word "liberty." It was the extent to which this right was respected that made America different than every other society in history, before or since. This was the great secret that made America the engine of prosperity and innovation tha...
Posted by Mark Balzer on Saturday, April 18, 2009,
In :
Columns
I would like to take a moment and focus on a couple I met this week, some would say have nothing, I think they have everything.
John Bell, Trina Tubbs, and their dog Bandit set up the Skull Shop on the vacant lot at the corner of Alameda and Jefferson for the last few weeks selling an eclectic selection of flags, belts, necklaces and other items.
John is from Anchorage Alaska. Trina is from Dillingham Alaska, Bandit joined up in one of the towns they set up in when Trina fell in love with ...
In addition to the Tea Parties this year where individual citizens expressed their displeasure about the actions of the Federal Government, 34 state legislatures including Idaho’s have introduced resolutions asserting their rights under the 10th Amendment. 
