February, 2016, Part 3, Will The Center Hold: Welfare Reform, State Takeover of Federal Land and Suing Over Amnesty

We occasionally do a review of the theme, “will the center hold.” Given the ever growing reach and encroachment of the Federal government and Obama administration into state matters and citizens’ lives, we have often reported on the increasing pushback against that overreach. From everything from Obama Care to Common Core to gun control to NSA spying, Americans are reasserting their right to tell the Federal government and Washington politicians that citizens in this country hold the power, not them.

Which has led us more than once to contemplate what would happen if Washington enacted a law or the President executed an executive order and the rest of the country simply ignored it? Would the center hold or would we be looking at serious fissures within the country? 

For a few days we have been reviewing where the rest of the country is telling Obama and the Washington political class to stop their power grab and overreaching into our lives: 

1) As you or may not know, in many western states, the Federal government owns/controls more than half of the entire ground area of the state. This has ticked off state citizens and politicians for a long time since they feel that they should be in control of their local areas, forests, parks, etc. and not be forced to deal with dictates from far away Washington. Up until recently, this was not a front burner issue with anyone.

But as the Obama administration has continued its overreach into the lives and freedoms of every American, the states are starting to get feisty when it comes to controlling their own state’s territories. The one state actually being proactive in potentially taking its state’s lands back from the Federal government is Utah. Utah’s state government recently completed a study that shows that there is legal reasoning and precedent that would allow it to challenge the Federal government’s control of Utah’s lands and turn control of those lands over to the state of Utah. 

If successful, states and their citizens across much of the west will be able to take far more control over their lands, their homes, and their economic future and not live under the dictates of a Washington political class that does what is right for themselves and not what is right for states’ citizens.

2) One of the biggest push backs that citizens and states have had to do against an overreaching Federal government is in the area of gun control. The Obama administration has been especially persistent in stripping the Constitutional gun rights of ordinary American citizens with a stupid public stance of protecting Americans from themselves. He and others of his ilk are oblivious to the reality that gun control measures do nothing to take the guns out of the hands of criminals and only end up making it more difficult for law abiding citizens to protect themselves. 

According to an article written by Teresa Monroe-Hamilton for the I Have The Truth website on January 31, 2016, two Tennessee state government politicians are really sticking to Obama and the other gun grabbers. They are putting forth legislation that states if a location insists on being a gun free zone and someone who has a valid, licensed and legal concealed carry permit gets hurt at the location, they can sue that location for not allowing themselves to protect themselves. 

This of course assumes that you survived the violent crime that got you hurt in the gun free zone. But such a law, if passed, might give a gun free zone advocate second thoughts about that status if they knew they would be sued for denying Second Amendment rights to someone. 

The logic of the legislation as explained by one of the politicians, state representative Jeremy Faison, goes as follows: “I believe in the Second Amendment; I don’t believe a person should be held back from having a gun. However, I also believe in property rights. If you have a business, and you don’t want guns there, you certainly have a right to do that. That being said, if you’re going to deny me protecting myself, then you should protect me. If you haven’t protected me, and you don’t allow me to protect myself, then I’m going to say it’s your fault if something happens.” 

I am sure that Obama would fume if he heard this logical, cogent argument. Consider this pending legislation in light of a recent tragic shooting where two police officers actually died responding to a call at a Panera Bread location. Panera Bread locations are official gun free zones, as proclaimed by the Panera management. Despite Panera being a gun free zone, a Panera customer brought a gun into the restaurant and ended up killing two police officers. 

As we have said many times before, criminals do not follow rules and laws, that is why they are criminals. That did not stop this criminal from ignoring Panera’s policy and the results were tragic. Gun free zones make it that much easier for violent criminals. In Tennessee, a more coherent gun free zone could be in the offing, regardless of what Obama thinks.

3) According to recent reporting by The Hill, 25 states are now part of a lawsuit that challenges Obama’s amnesty plans, claiming that his administration overstepped its limits by issuing work permits to illegal immigrants and promising them they will not be deported. The states who filed their opposition are: Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin. As you can see, many of the states that are part of the suit are in the southern part of the country where many of the illegal immigrants and the problems they bring are likely most intense.

What is interesting is that 12 states filed a legal brief to defend Obama's overreach and override of existing laws. Every one of those states are far away from most of the illegal immigrant problems with the exception of California, the land of fruits and nuts: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington state and the District of Columbia.

Whatever, this promises to be a major lawsuit and one that pits states against the Federal government and states against states. Will the center hold? 

4) Utah is not the only people interesting in wresting control of their state’s lands back from the Federal government. Some people in Congress are also getting interested in curbing Federal government overreach into states land management:

• Oregon Congressman Greg Walden recently weighed in: “More than half of my [Congressional] district is under Federal management. They have come out with these proposals to close roads into the forests. The have ignored public input.”
• In 2014, Senator Ted Cruz proposed legislation that would prohibit the Federal government from owning more than 50% of the land in any one state.
• Nevada Congressman Cresent Hardy has introduced legislation that would prohibit the Federal government from buying any new land unless it could pass a balanced budget.

Unless something is done, there is a real chance that bloodshed is a potential outcome as the tensions over Federal use and dictatorship of western state lands become more intense. We had the Bundy/Fed standoff in Nevada a few years ago. We recently had the armed standoff in Oregon where there was a fatality. 

Last summer, citizens rallied around mine owners at the owners’ request to provide security at mines in Oregon and Montana after complaints about Federal land managers. In December, 2015, Phil Lyman, an elected official in Utah, got a 10 day jail sentence after he led a protest ride of all terrain vehicles through Federal land that had been closed to local access. Dangerous times.

The frustration of Federal bureaucracy encroaching on states’ lands is summed up by Erin and Jeff Maupin, cattle ranchers in Oregon that pay the Feds to allow their cattle to graze on Federal lands. They have tried to work with the Federal government representatives but come away frustrated by the overwhelming regulations on grazing and environmental issues: “We want somebody to make sure we’re doing it right. But it’s got to the point where there’s no common sense in it.”

Similar frustration come from Leland Pollock, a commissioner in Garfield County, Utah: “The land policies now are, basically, lock it up and throw away the key. It’s land with no use. The local economy’s really suffered as a result. Grazing has been reduced. We used to have a thriving timber industry — that’s all but gone.”

Will the center hold and more importantly, will someone else get killed as Americans push back on the meddling of the Federal government in their lives and homelands out west?

5) One last topic for this month’s edition on “will the center hold?” Starting in early 2016, all able bodied welfare recipients in 23 North Carolina counties will receive government checks only if they work. Specifically, in order to get food assistance, food stamps, under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, these people must work, volunteer, or train at least 20 hours per week in order to continue to get food assistance.

Welfare recipients have 90 days to find a job after the rules take effect. When the state of Maine did a similar program, it found that its welfare roles dropped by 80%, saving state taxpayers a bundle of money. I would assume the same effect will happen here with North Carolina taxpayers feeling the benefit. If only the Federal government would do the same types of common sense things would every American taxpayer get the benefit.

So today we learned that another state is showing the Federal government how to save on welfare costs, a number of states and their citizens and politicians are in the process of trying to figure out how to get the Federal government out of controlling their states’ lands, and half the states are suing the Federal government over amnesty to protect the interests and safety of their own citizens,

Never have so many pushed back so hard on Washington which raises the scenario: what happens when Washington issues an edict and the rest of the country ignores it and yawns in its face? Interesting, and increasingly dangerous times, we live in.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

December, 2014, Part 2, Will The Center Hold: Common Core, Suing The Feds, and Gun Control Rebellion

On a semi-regular basis, we check in with a continuing theme in this blog that we call: “Will the center hold?” Never in my life have I seen a political class so out of control and consequently, we are witnessing a backlash against this overreaching and intrusive political class. 

Which raises a question: are we getting to a point that one day soon we may see Washington enact a law or create a regulation and the rest of the country simply ignores it? What happens when the country tells Washington to go pound sand on something and refuses to support it? Will the center hold or does the country splinter into who know what?

Most of this backlash and pushback is against the un-Constitutional overreach of the Washington political class. Those in Washington have been pushing a variety of issues and actions that do not sit well with large parts of the country. These issues include, but are not limited to, gun control, Common Core education standards, Michelle Obama’s healthy eating/school lunch legislation, Federal government land grabs, NSA spying on innocent citizens, IRS harassment, etc.

Over the past two days, we updated where state and local governments and individual citizens are rebelling against this overreaching and increasingly repressive set of politicians. When reviewing these updates keep in mind the overall question: will the center hold once the rest of the country actually starts to ignore Washington dictates?

Today is the second of two posts to address the “will the center hold” question, the first was posted yesterday.

1) Regarding the push back against Common Core education standards, the Heritage Foundation did a story on their website on December 20, 2014 about how it is being resisted across the country. It was written by Edwin Feulner and was originally published in the Washington Examiner.

Mr. Feulner discusses the reality that parents, teachers, students and lawmakers have become increasingly vocal in their resistance of the Federally developed and implemented Common Core standards and are starting to take action to get out from under those standards. As an example, he cites Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal who once backed Common Core, stating in 2012 that he expected Common Core to “raise expectations for every child.” 

However, two short years later, Jindal decided to pull Louisiana out of the program. He believes that the states and the country were lied to and sold a bad program, likening it “bait and switch.” scam. 

According to this writer, nineteen states have made significant efforts to push back against Common Core. Indiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Louisiana have exited the standards altogether already, and others appear poised to do likewise. Why the rebellion, beyond the obvious reason that where Common Core has already been implemented, learning has degraded? Consider a quote from education researcher Lindsey Burke: 

“Adopting Common Core national standards and tests surrenders control of the content taught in local schools to distant national organizations and bureaucrats in Washington. It is the antithesis of reform that would put control of education in the hands of those closest to students: local school leaders and parents.”

Another Federal, mandated, dictatorial program that is not going anywhere if the trend of dumping Common Core continues to spread, leaving the country again poorer and without a solution.

2) No state has pushed back more against Washington’s overreach than Texas. Consider the push back tally that was recently reported by the www.youngcons.com website:

• Texas is one of 24 states that are suing the Obama administration and the Federal government for his illegal and un-Constitutional orders on immigration.
• The latest four states to join the effort are Arkansas, Michigan, North Dakota and Oklahoma.
• Texas has now sued the Federal government 27 times since Obama came into office six years ago. 
• President George W. Bush was sued three times in eight years by Texas during his eight years in office.

The article goes on to tally the “wins” and losses” in this suing the Federal government game by Texas. And while keeping the Federal government in line is definitely the right thing to do, one would have hoped it could have been done by following current laws on the books and the Constitution by the Washington political class rather than diverting taxpayer wealth into lawyers’ pockets and lawsuits.

3) Sometimes out of control government actions are not confined to Washington’s efforts to control our lives. The Maryland state government recently enacted a law a law banning “assault weapons” and magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. New gun buyers in Maryland must also submit their fingerprints and undergo mandatory gun training. Failure to comply with the law can result in a three-year prison sentence and/or a $5,000 fine.

In response to these attacks on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans, 21 other states have come together in a law suit to abolish the new, restrictive gun control laws in Maryland and make sure that they are not implemented elsewhere. While the law which was immediately challenged and upheld by a Federal judge, it is now being reviewed in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

4) Staying with the protection of Second Amendment rights by an overreaching political class, consider some facts that were included in a November 12, 2014 article in the Reason magazine’s Hit and Run blog that was written by J.D. Tuccille:

• Tens of thousands of Connecticut gun owners became potential felons rather than comply with that state's new gun registration law. 
• New York's similar gun registration law resulted in such low compliance when it went into effect that government officials refused to reveal how many people have and have not abided by the law. This secrecy resulted in the New York State Committee on Open Government saying the secrecy “thumbs its nose at the law” itself.
• Large numbers of Washington state’s residents are not happy about i594, a law that requires background check requirements on even private transactions, and planned a rally in mass disobedience December, 2014. Research shows that the Washington rally did occur and was well attended by over 5,000 Second Amendment rights supporters. 

More examples of citizens rising up to resist politicians violating the Constitution and freedom and liberties. 

Common Core rejection, record number of lawsuits against the Federal government and this Presidential administration, non-violent civil disobedience, and a whole host of other resistance efforts to overreaching politicians continues to raise the issue: what happens if the Washington political class issues a law or regulation and the rest of the country simply ignores it? Will the center hold? More excitement sure to come as the Obama administration strives to create any kind of legacy for this failed presidency, an effort sure to be resisted by the rest of America and Americans.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

November, 2014 Part 2, Will The Center Hold: More Common Core Rebellions, School Lunch Debacles Continue, And Arizona Asserts Its Independence

We are going to spend a few days visiting an occasional and recurring topic in this blog, namely whether or not the country can hang together, given the growing resistance around the nation to an overreaching and increasingly repressive Federal government. Previous discussions on this topic can be Accessed by typing in the phrase, “will the center hold” in the search box above.

The growing grass roots resistance against the Federal government covers a wide range of topics including gun control, Obama Care, Common Core, warrantless spying on citizens, and other topics important to the American people. The resistance ranges from individual citizens to state legislatures and really raises a basic question: what happens to the country if Washington issues a decree or law and the rest of the country simply ignores it or aggressively resists it? Will the center hold?

The latest resistance efforts start below and will likely go on for a few days after:

1) In the recent elections, the state of Arizona and its voters took a giant step towards formally reasserting the rights of the state and its citizens. Arizona voters approved Proposition 122, an amendment to the state constitution that enshrines nullification, or anti-commandeering. Specifically, the amendment permits the state to “exercise its sovereign authority to restrict the actions of its personnel and the use of its financial resources to purposes that are consistent with the Constitution.”

In other words, Arizona citizens can now more easily tell the Federal government to pound sand when the state and its citizens in Arizona feel the Federal government is overstepping its Constitutional limits. It will allow Arizonans to refuse to enforce Federal laws by allowing voters to hold and vote on referendums on such issues as withholding state resources from enforcing Obamacare, Federal impingement on American’s Second Amendment rights, NSA spying programs, and other measures, according to the Tenth Amendment Center.

While Arizona citizens could have held such referendums at any time in the past, adding this new language to the state’s constitution means that such referendums will now be statutory, rather than constitutional, making it easier and far less expensive to get on the ballot for the people to decide.

Apparently there is legal precedent for this type of action. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld previous efforts by states to refuse to implement federal programs. These efforts include: Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), New York v. US (1992), Printz v. US (1997) and National Federation of Businesses v. Sebelius (2012).

Thus, it appears that the Arizona not only is a slap against Washington’s infringement on state rights and citizens’ personal freedoms but it also has a strong legal underpinning. Which again raises the central question we have been asking: what happens when Washington tells the state government and state citizens in Arizona to implement a Federal program and Arizona says, “thanks but no thanks?”

2) Yesterday, we discussed the bravery and initiative of a Wisconsin high school senior that was battling against the idiocy of the latest Washington school lunch guidelines. But it seems that not only are kids resisting Michelle Obama’s food dictates, but teachers across the country are also getting in on the food rebellion.

According to an article written by Kyle Olson for the Education Action Group that appeared on November 7, 2014, many teachers aren’t happy with how the new Federal school snack rules, e.g. banning birthday cakes in classrooms, have impacted their classrooms. They are so unhappy that “Nearly every teacher” at Tyler’s Bonner Elementary School are turning their noses up at the new rules, according to TV station KLTV: “Ridiculous,” Debbie Oliver, a 5th grade teacher, says. “To me, it might be saying, let’s not have any kind of fun in school anymore. It would be one thing if teachers were constantly bombarding the kids with treats and candy and cokes and stuff like that, but that’s not realistic. That’s not even happening.”

While the Washington nutrition rules are supposedly to curb childhood obesity, the teachers think they’re missing their mark.
“A lot of us are obese. That’s true,” teacher Camille Moore said. “But I don’t think we’re getting obese in the classroom.”

Meanwhile, the lunch rules aren’t going over much better in Michigan’s Pinckney school district, which has seen a dramatic drop in school lunch purchases as a result of the nutrition guidelines: “It’s frustrating because we want to serve these kids, but there are less students in the lunch line,” Linda Moskalik, the district’s assistant superintendent of finances and operations.

As with other school districts around the country, because of the new rules, kids in Pinckney are going hungry rather than eat the new food, a very bad unintended consequence of the Michelle Obama push. Before the “healthy” rules were implemented, food sales at Pinckney schools during the 2011-2012 school year were roughly $400,443.

The next school year, the district’s lunch sales dropped to $377,200, or 5.8%. During the 2013-2014 school year, they dropped an another 4%. In order to get the Federal government financial support, schools are required to give students the prescribed servings of fruits and vegetables.

But what is the reality of the new lunch guidelines? Not good: “As soon as they leave the lunch line, they will throw the food right in the garbage, which is a waste of food,” according to a teacher quoted in the article.

“I have a particular thing with frozen foods, and I kind of feel like some of the lunch foods taste like they’re frozen,” Lewis Tate, an eighth-grader at Charlottesville, Virginia’s Buford Middle School, tells Charlottesville Tomorrow. “One of the reasons I pack my lunch so often is because if I don’t know where my food came from I don’t like eating it.”

“Most of the food is just defrosted,” adds Maggie Vidal, a sophomore at Western Albemarle High School.

What good is having a so-called healthy lunch menu if kids do not eat it, especially if the food is unappetizing, recently defrosted, and insufficient for kids to learn and be active with? Unintended consequences of another bad Federal program.

No sane person could deny that we have an obesity problem in this country. But you do not solve this problem by denying a birthday cake in the classroom every once in a awhile, serving recently defrosted tasteless food in school cafeterias, or penalizing schools financially. You launch a nationwide, long term public health strategy and program to educate and change underlying behaviors, starting in the home, not in the school cafeteria line.

3) Common Core is getting rebutted across the country, with the state of Maine being the latest to join the surge of taking back control of heir kids’ education.

Maine Governor Paul LePage recently stated he was convinced that his state needed to get out from under Common Core and find another education solution for Maine’s kids. The impetus for his decision and awakening occurred after he observed that Massachusetts fell from being first in the country for education to seventh place after adopting Common Core standards.

LePage recent told WABI in Maine: “First of all, there is always a better way. And I no longer support Common Core, and I say that because we have been in Common Core for several years here in Maine. But after seeing what has happened to Massachusetts—they were the number one education system in America prior to adopting Common Core. That tells me that we need to take a hard look, maybe it would be better going back to what they had before.”

If that is not a slap across the face of the Federal government. After all of the effort, all of the expense, and all of the promotion, this governor has reached the conclusion that doing nothing is better than enacting Common Core principles. Another failed Federal government program that the rest of America is starting to reject.

4) Resistance to the Federal government takes many forms but probably not many are as forceful as the recent line in the sand that newly elected Texas governor Greg Abbott drew. In a recent television interview, Abbott said Texas will sue the Obama administration if the President tries to overstep the bounds of his executive power and interfere in immigration and naturalization issues and existing immigration laws: “If the president crosses the line he’s going to see an overwhelming rejection of what he’s trying to do, so he better not overstep. If he does, for one of course we’ll be involved with another lawsuit against him but [for] another you can expect quite a strong pushback [from the people].”

It does not look like Washington will get much help from the state of Texas if it decides to ignore existing immigration laws and may well find itself in front of a judge as Texas dares the Feds to disobey standing laws.

I can think of no time in our past where states were willing to pass amendments to the state constitution to inhibit Federal government overreach or sue Federal government for disobeying its own laws or tell Washington bureaucrats that we will ignore your nutrition and education guidelines and do what is best for our kids. Never before have I observed Americans actively taking back their liberties and freedoms that the Federal government has eroded over time.

At what point to Federal actions and initiatives become mere suggestions to the rest of the country? And at that time, when we ignore what is usually expensive and ineffective Federal laws and acts, does the center hold? More rebellions against the center tomorrow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

November, 2014, Part 1, Will The Center Hold: Common Core, School Lunches, and Border Sedurity Unrest

We are going to spend a few days visiting an occasional recurring topic in this blog, namely whether or not the country can hang together, given the growing resistance around the nation to an overreaching and increasingly repressive Federal government. Previous discussions on this topic can be accessed by typing in the phrase, “will the center hold” in the search box above.

The growing grass roots resistance against the Federal government covers a wide range of topics including gun control, Obama Care, Common Core, warrantless spying on citizens, and other topics important to the American people. The resistance ranges from individual citizens to state legislations and really raises a basic question: what happens to the country if Washington issues a decree or law and the rest of the country simply ignores it or aggressively resists it? Will the center hold?

The latest resistance efforts start below and will likely go on for a few days after:

1) It is not just adults who are resisting the overreach of Washington. A Wisconsin high school senior is tired of being force fed tasteless and inadequate school lunches as a result of Washignton’s and Michelle Obama’s ill conceived and ill thought out school lunch guidelines. She doing something about it. Meghan Hellrood of D.C. Everest High School in Schofield, Wisconsin, is tired of the sub-par quality food and the one-size-fits-all mentality that the new school lunch regulations have produced.

She has organized a boycott to draw attention to the new regulations and show politicians in Washington that students don’t agree with the act and its one size fits all mentality and that students want something better: “I love my school. My school is fantastic. And I know that they’re not the ones that have started this entire regulation. So what I really want is for this to go to Washington, basically. We can’t just depend on our local schools, because there’s thousands of other schools that also comply with this act. So if we go to Washington, maybe they’ll see that so many kids are upset with this and that there needs to be a change.”

Hellrood points out that the logic of how the one size fits all mentality of the law is not realistic for all students. She points out the following facts in a very logical manner:

- Even at 90 pounds and 4 feet 11 inches, she says the food provided is not enough to fill even her up: “I’m served the same amount of food that the 220-pound senior football star is,” commenting that she can’t even imagine how hungry the athletes must be.

- She also points out that her peers at school complain that they are not performing as well in the classroom or on the field because they are hungry and “out of energy." 

- Athough some students who can afford it often bring food with them to supplement what they are getting in the cafeteria, or run to a convenience store after school to grab something to eat before practice or a game, many other students are going hungry.

- According to her experience, at her school, rather than providing higher quality, healthy foods, her school is providing smaller portions of the same processed foods they were serving before in order to keep them within the new Washington nutritional guidelines: “The whole point of it was to get healthier foods, but instead of healthier foods, we’re getting smaller portions of more processed foods.”

Good for her, speaking up and taking action against another Washington disaster that is causing more pain and heartache than it is curing.

2) States across the country have decided that having Washington dictate the educational standards in their state, another Washington one size fits all disaster, via the so-called Common Core program is not for them. Many of them have opted out of all or parts of the program and have told Washington they will educate their kids the way they see fit, not the way the Washington political class sees fit.

The Medina (Ohio) Gazette recently ran an article that showed that not only are state governments fed up with Common Core but an individual local mother is also. Rene Antonio of Harrisville Township said she’ll withdraw her second grade daughter by December 15 from the local public school and either place her in a private school, if she can find one that hasn’t also adopted the Common Core educational standards, or home-school her.

She has started a Facebook page called “Ohio Students Strike Common Core,” that has already accumulated more than 400 likes: “I’m trying to be unbiased on my page because everyone has different reasons for not liking it. Children’s minds don’t adapt to the Common Core like they’re expected to. It takes away from the child’s ability to explore.”

Not only does it take away the child’s ability to explore, it also is not a good way to educate, as we have discussed previously. Consider what happened to test scores in Maryland after Common Core had been in place for a few years:

Thus, you can see why a mother like Ms.Antonio would be concerned about the welfare and education attainment of her daughter.

Fortunately, there may be help on the way for her and other concerned Ohio parents. Ohio House Bill 597 is pending in the Ohio state government legislature. If passed, it would repeal Common Core in the state, a reality that would make Ms. Antonio and many other parents in Ohio quite happy: “Everyone I’ve talked to about it are against the Common Core. We are the parents, we have a say, and if enough people pull their children out of school, they’re going to have to do something about it. These aren’t the government’s children, and they aren’t the state’s children.”

Good for her, standing up like millions of others across the country, fighting an overreaching and incompetent set of Washington politicians who saddle us with outrageously bad programs such as Common Core and Obama Care. Programs that are ineffective, expensive, and affront to liberty and personal freedom.

3) It is no secret that our southern border security is a joke. There is very little security, it is porous which allows illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and it is a gateway for terrorists to enter the country without much threat of being apprehended.

However, rather than sitting back and allowing the Federal government to continue is mishandling of border security, a group of sheriffs from across the country are taking action to prod the Washington political class to actually do their job. A letter being circulated by Bristol County, Massachusetts Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, is attempting to organize American sheriffs to march on the capital on December 10, in order to “encourage immediate action by Congress and the Administration [sic] that will secure border security once and for all.”

According to the letter, the effort will be joined by U.S. Senators Jeff Sessions and David Vitter as well as “other members of Congress” as they publicly seek redress at the Capitol Building. According to the letter, the effort seeks to achieve border security “as the first step in achieving legitimate immigration reform in the future.”

The letter goes on to state: “As you know, the policies of recent years that encourage immigrants to illegally enter our country have created serious threats to our domestic… security. The citizens of our nation are counting on [sheriffs] to fulfill our oath to preserve law and order and live up to our responsibilities as guardians of the United States Constitution.”

According to the contents of the letter, Sheriff Hodgson hopes to get at least 200 sheriffs to come to Washington for the protest and to make the point that Washington has failed to 1) secure the border and 2) develop and deploy an effective and fair immigration policy, something it should have done decades ago.

That will do it for today but more backlash and fight back against the Federal government activities will be discussed in the next few days. But today we learned that concerned citizens across the country, from a high school kid in Wisconsin to a concerned mother in Ohio to a sensible and concerned sheriff in Massachusetts, are telling Washington to either back off or how they should be doing their job.

As always, if enough of America does the same, will the center hold? If enough Americans ignore the failed school lunch policies of Washington, if enough Americans ignore the Common Core mandates of Washington, if enough sheriffs ignore the failed immigration policies of Washington, what happens? Interesting times we live in.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w