Native American tribes tired of waiting for the U.S. government to honor centuries-old treaties are buying back land where their ancestors lived and putting it in federal trust.
Native Americans say the purchases will help protect their culture and way of life by preserving burial grounds and areas where sacred rituals are held. They also provide land for farming, timber and other efforts to make the tribes self-sustaining.
Tribes put more than 840,000 acres — or roughly the equivalent of the state of Rhode Island — into trust from 1998 to 2007
Naturally, where are they getting the money? From all of the money lost by whites in the casinos! You have to love the irony.
And this would stand a chance of accelerating if things go really south as the federal government continues to borrow and spend more and more money it doesn’t have. There will reach a point where the debt buyers (especially China) simply says ‘No’. The lenders are preparing for that day, making major investments in strategic materials (China in copper in Zambia, Peru and Afghanistan, the Arabs in aluminum) in preparation for a dollar collapse.
The U.S. will have only two options to pay off the debt; the one everyone expects is with hyper-inflation; blowing up the dollar at say 40% per year inflation for several years and paying off with yen-level dollars. But what if the Chinese demand collateral instead to keep the U.S. government afloat? Then we get in the National yard sale mode.
If the Chinese gain land in default, they’re even worse gamblers than Caucasians; the Native American reacquisition of America could accelerate. Give them a couple hundred years and they’ll have it ALL back. Hopefully, they’ll be kindly landlords and let us stay.
Merry Christmas! If a ’spiritual secularist’ that hasn’t attended church more than a dozen times in 30 years may wish it.
The first White Christmas in Texas for 80 years. I credit the leftover Gore effect from the Copenhagen Global Warming debacle:
It’s been a crazy year, especially with all the political activity of the second half. I though I’d left it all behind, but the need for it now is greatest; especially by those of us in it for philosophical and not personal reasons.
And the reactions of many of the political ‘regulars’ is the most interesting aspect; it really seems they don’t know how to deal with such people. I’m supposedly a mean, angry, racist type; anything to paint those of us in this for non-eprsonal gain as some sort- any sort- of zealot. Possibly that is how they identify ‘extremists’ from ‘moderates’. A ‘moderate’ is one whose political position is ONLY based on their personal benefit, not what they perceive as right or wrong. believing in a philosophical underpinning of political involvement makes the moderate elitists extremely nervous.
There have been warnings issued about not talking about the power structures and the ’slates’ forming up for the grand battle royale forming up locally. Warnings that these powerful elites have long memories and such discussions will make them very angry. These warnings are based on the fact that these people cannot imagine people being politically active without personal political ambition at any but the lowest level. Are they in for a surprise.
They will in the end try to paint those of us in this effort as various forms of nefarious zealots. But if fighting for fiscal sanity in government is extremism, then a whole bunch of people will be willing to accept the label.
Still massively busy on political shenanigans. Candidate vetting and discussions, rallies, etc. Set up to rally at Sarah Palin’s book signing on a sub-freezing day. Went very early to see how many were braving the cold and found Sarah actually there greeting the early people.
A full report here on our Tea Party site. I also expended three seconds of 15 minutes. .. Looking like an aging hippie with my now full beard and Transistion lensed glasses on; from 1:05 to 1:09.
Then I run into a reminder of this. The discussion is out there that this case is direct retribution for the SEALs actually taking out those three pirates in Somalia! The Administration had wanted to show their diplomatic prowess. I didn’t think anything could make this more disgusting, but that would.
The 52nd has more ‘recovery money’ spent in it ($8.9 million), but has recorded no jobs so it must be unpopulated.
The 58th has 45 jobs, but only $3.6 million in ‘recovery money’.
Easy choice, I hereby am an official candidatate for the 52nd. Without the jobs, I should be able to just pocket the money. Of course, to do so and get away with it, I’ll have to run as a Democrat.
As I sit here resting my tired feet from completing a door-to-door full precinct walk for a challenger to a RINO incumbent, I decided to put together a bit of a summary of what I’ve been doing for the last few months. Now I understand why I’m a bit tired:
Add to this two training sessions, probably 20 meetings, 3 candidate vettings, 2 candidate forums, maintenance of the northtexasteaparty site (including many hours mashing up much of the video and all of the pictures involved) and dealing with an average of 40 emails and a half-dozen phone calls a day.
Why am I doing this, though? I’m not running for anything (and had to assure a few nervous politicians about that) and political clout doesn’t interest me. I’m not an up and comer worried about the advancement of my career.
I got a reminder of the ‘Why’ at this last rally by the people in the picture on the right. It’s always been about my son on the left, but- away at college- I rarely get a visual reminder from him. Not that he’s not constantly in my mind, especially with his medical issues, but visualization is always helpful. This young family showed up at a recent rally- with this adorable little girl- and reminded me (and a few other older, crusty types) what this is all about. So I’d like to thank Julie McCarty for bringing her family out to rally with us. We are fighting for your generations, not ours.
In all of these rallies, I have noted a number of things about the liberal side of the aisle. Primarily what they are lacking within their group. It really makes an enlightening list:
Spontaneity: The vast majority of their signage is professionally produced and- even those that aren’t- are generally handed out and collected back up again by their paid leadership. Ours are 95+% handmade and individually handled. And our groups have no paid leadership.
Families: I have yet to see any younger kids (outside the college-aged). Even couples are rare in their rallies.
‘Producer’ aged participants: that being between 30 and 60. Most of the Left shows up younger than 30, with a handful of retirees. Our average age is older, probably 50, but still with a more diverse age group.
Veterans: probably a third of our participants are veterans, primarily older ones.
Patriotic/National symbols of flags of any kind: Our efforts nearly always have American and Gadsten flags on prominent display. We recognize and honor those symbols of the rights granted to us in this country; rights lacking in so many other places.
Humor: Our crew has a great time at these events; other than one young MoveOn ‘manager’ and a Reverend from the Peace Center, the rest of their troops are a rather dour lot. I thought we were supposed to be an ‘angry mob’.; someone needs to tell Chuck Smith, an ex-Army Ranger below:
MoveOn, trying to intimidate the Blue Dog Democrats, asked their members to pledge money for campaigns to keep them in line:
But the vote never happens—because one Democratic senator joins Republicans to filibuster and block a vote. 2009 becomes just another year when health care reform failed.
If someone decided to take on that senator in the Democratic primary afterwards, would you chip in to help the challenger? I know I would.
Here’s the thing: If thousands of us make it clear we’d do the same, and Democratic senators know it, we might just be able to keep this nightmare scenario from ever coming to pass.
That’s why, today, we’re launching the Health Care Accountability Pledge. Everyone says how much they’d contribute, we publicize the amount, and anyone thinking of running a primary challenge against a Democrat who blocks a vote on health care reform knows how much support they’d have right off the bat. You don’t have to enter your credit card info. Just click on an amount below to pledge:
Problem is: these ‘pledges’ required no credit card information and nothing but a MoveOn login to ‘commit’ to. So, in the spirit of that, I ask people to ‘pledge’ their support for Blue Dogs who vote to protect their constituents from government takeover of Health Care. Will you help out? Click your pledge below!
Come on, people; dig deep in that fictional pocket! It’s just as real as the available money currently available to fund the government takeover of Health Care (and a whole lot less damaging to future generations!)
The Republican Party continues to surrender principle for compromise, a strategy that continues to be a losing one. It is no wonder that 73% of Republican voters say te leadership does not represent them. That leadership needs to be replaced with solid conservatives who understand that becoming the Democrats Lite will never be a winning strategy against the real thing. And only works to roll our country that much fasther toward the fiscal cliff.
As long as the GOP gives active support to liberals in the Party, and their members continue to vote for just slightly smaller paths to national bankruptcy, and support corrupt practices such as massive earmark usage, they will not see a single dime from me. And the days of pulling single-party levers are long over. This from someone who was once a GOP County Chairman.
I am an independent conservative and proud that my principles matter. Consisider me a Rogue; I have better company there. The NRC keep sending this mail to me and I’ll start adding a pound or so of iron plate to the envelope, so they can pay return postage on that as well.
The first is based on my Africa experience (and I SO need to get back; next year, when my girl graduates from college):
The second is related to that: unkept political promises are one thing; personal ones are more serious:
The guy just won an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize; the least he could do is use a little of it to honor the personal commitment he made while in Africa. If he were to do so, I’d send a letter of appreciation to the man (even while disagreeing with the politician’s policies).
Also participated in a soap box session; did so-so (though the crowd thought well enough of me that I finished 2nd out of 4):
This picture at the protest and counter-protest at Sen. Cornyn’s Dallas office Oct. 14th speaks volumes.
One sign hand-assembled from a printer’s output, the other professionally printed at significant expense with the proud MoveOn.org logo in the bottom right corner… and MISSPELLED! It’s “Whose Side are you on?”, Dolt!
After an English teacher in the Tea Party group (far larger; 80-28) pointed it out for them, another pro-Private Care supporter said’ “An example of government-run education.” When the English teacher was asked if she was offended by that statement, she said “Goodness, no! I teach in private schools!”
Maybe the ‘Obamanation’ sign was referring to the English mutilation by Obama supporters.
Oh, there are plenty of the signs made with marker and posterboard that the Tea Parties wave with misspellings and bad grammar; and you’ll find both offenses on this blog. But all that does is diminish the individuals involved; that printshop sign reflects directly on a multi-million dollar operation. And that is amusing.
They also tried some street theater of wit, but only got halfway there. The MoveOn minions put on a street play with four dressed up as filthy rich Insurers protesting against Government Health Care. Problem is, when they mingling in with all the VERY middle class jeans and working slacks or REAL opponents of Government Health Care, it was only laughable. One of the Tea Partiers recognized the blond as someone who was arrested for deliberately spitting on a 9-12 rally participant in Ft. Worth.
The Patriot on the left has history of serving his country honorably; the Bad Actor on the right spits on such if she disagrees with them. Any questions?
If your going to imitate your opposition, learn to do it right, like Chuck does here (another vet of honorable service):
The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) have long had a huge disconnect between their liberal, big-government ‘leadership’ (a lot of which is not even old enough to be members themselves) and their rank-and-file. Nothing has so enlarged that disconnect as the current ‘under-the table’ support the AARP leadership is giving the current healthcare proposals (which counts on it ’savings’ by taking a half-trillion from medicare). I am proud to be a member of the small group (though wasn’t there personally) that generated the video that visualized it for the nation. (As you watch the video at the link, note the age of the leadership ‘defenders’; only one qualifies to actually be a member of the group).
This problem with this disconnect is that it is as wide as the video indicates and is long-term. AARP was built on an outdated model of retiring at 65 and counting on the federal ‘insurance policy’ to keep you afloat as you sit in your rocker for the next decade and kick off with little fuss (or expense). That model may have changed in advertising mindset to a more positive model, but the background structure changed to something far more negative; a greater and greater dependency on and advocacy for growing federal involement in the elder’s lives. Medicare was the beginning (and I am old enough to remember it); that program has done some good things, but it established an unsustainable model (as Reagan lectured on before it was passed) and- more seriously- a mindset of entitlement that has massively exceeded the intitial insurance concept.
Now many elders are realizing the fallacy behind this and also that the AARP is no longer their advocate, if they desire to retain as much independence from the government as possible.
Maybe it’s time for a new organization; one that recognizes those of us willing to continue to work (at least part-time, or in charitable efforts) in our retirement. one who organizes elders to help take care of themselves, to rely less on government and family. and to keep elders busy on productive activities, rather than ‘make-busy’ work. And an organization that works to protect elder from the government, rather than turn them over to the government.
So I propose the formation of the American Association of Elder Independents, a group to counter the direction of AARP. An organization to support:
Elders wishing to continue to work and not be penalized for it
Elders interested in forming cooperatives to to support each other and reduce dependency on institutions and family for day-to-day support and healthcare
Elders wanting to continue to contribute to the world right to the end of their days.
Anybody with big resources willing to take a crack at forming this?
When the National Republican Committee keeps 
The guy just won an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize; the least he could do is use a little of it to 
