Quote of the Day

"Today's union movement has a direct stake in big government, no matter how well that serves the public. Government unions do not want more efficient government; that means fewer dues-paying union members. Government unions do not want reasonable benefits; they want to retire in their 50s... Taxes pay for all this, which explains union opposition to tax relief. It means less money for them. Government unions have lobbied for almost every recent tax increase."

James Sherk

Quotes of the Day

"Obama is murder on American commerce, but he has been very good for China."

Human Events

"What we have witnessed over the last three years has been not just the rapid erosion of our traditional American morals and values, and our constitutional republic and political system, but the growth of a mindless lawlessness, an attitude that the ends justify the means, even if you have no clear idea of what the ends actually are. We have witnessed the growth of institutional nihilism, based on the destructive, half-baked Marxism of Saul Alinsky and the New Left of the 1960s, and its uncritical acceptance by the mindless Marxist minions who make up the base of today’s Democrat Party. Totally uncool."

Michael Oberndorf, RPA

Quote of the Day

"Obama's attempt to redefine American values in his and Karl Marx's image is a violent and evil yet devious attack at the heart of America itself.  His values are not American values.  His principles are diametrically opposed to our time-tested founding principles.  He is at war with them and he must be defeated, his policies must reversed, and constitutionally limited government must be restored."

Matthew Burke

Quote of the Day

"Last night I witnessed one of the worst examples of media bias I have seen a while. CBS News led off its nightly broadcast with the tarmac exchange between Barack Obama and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. That was followed by veteran reporter Bob Schieffer condemning America's "vulgar politics" and overheated campaign rhetoric. According to Schieffer, Brewer's finger in Obama's face was the worst example of "public rudeness" toward any president that he could recall. 

I guess Bob Schieffer doesn't recall the MoveOn.org ads comparing George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler. He obviously doesn't recall Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid calling President Bush a "loser" and a "liar." 

While we're on the subject of "vulgar politics," what about stealing the identity of an office holder in order to implicate him in illegal or unethical behavior? What about the smears against Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork? Perhaps, like Chris Matthews, Bob Schieffer feels it is his job to help Obama succeed! 

This is just a taste of what we can expect as the campaign heats up in the weeks and months ahead. Please help us expose the liberal media's bias. Continue to share these reports with your friends and family members. Working together we can end the Obama nightmare and put America back on the right track!"

Gary Bauer 

Campaign for Working Families

Video Picks of the Day

February 21st: Dr. James C. Miller, Guest Speaker in Madison

Dr. James C. Miller III will be the Guest Speaker at the February 21st meeting of the Madison County Republican Women, 6:30-8:30 PM, at the Madison Presbyterian Church, Rt. 722 at the north traffic light, 1236 Fishback Road. 

Dr. Miller served as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service under President George W. Bush and was a member of President Ronald Reagan's Cabinet. 

Currently, Dr. Miller is a Senior Advisor at Husch Blackwell, LLP, an international commercial law firm.  He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.  In addition, he is Chairman of the Executive Committee of the International Tax and Investment Center, and a member of the Board of Directors of Americans for Prosperity. 

Everyone is invited to attend this informative meeting. The evening's menu features Chicken casseroles, cranberry sauce, salads, green beans, coleslaw, Asian slaw, desserts, tea and lemonade. Dinner: $7. 

February 7th: Support School Choice

Show Your Support for School Choice

I would like to cordially invite you to participate in a school choice rally that will take place on Tuesday, February 7^th from 11 a.m. to noon on the Virginia State Capitol lawn in front of the Bell Tower, with Delegate Jimmie Massie, Senator Mark Obenshain and Keynote Speaker Governor Bob McDonnell.  You, students, teachers, parents, administrators, homeschoolers and school choice advocates will also hear from key school choice legislators and leaders from across the Commonwealth.  Come show your support for school choice in Virginia.  We are hoping to bring media attention to this event and it is critical to have a good turnout. 

At the conclusion of the rally, we will have free tours available of the Virginia State Capitol, Virginia Supreme Court and the Governor's Mansion.  However, you must register in advance.  Most tours begin at 12:30 p.m and last for an hour.  Space is limited, so please contact us today.  The last day to register for a tour is Wednesday, February 1^st at noon.

To RSVP for the rally, please click here to register.  To schedule a tour, contact Amanda Chase (amanda.chase@familyfoundation.org or 804-370-8727) by Wednesday, February 1^st.  We hope to see you there!

Victoria Cobb, President

Family Foundation

Feb. 20th: Donna Holt to Speak in Culpeper

Founding Fathers Republican Women of Culpeper, VA invite you to our February 20th meeting, 7PM, St. Stephen's Episcopal Church Parish Hall, N. East St., Culpeper, VA.

Nationally known, dynamic and passionate advocate, Donna Holt will speak on sustainable development.  She is volunteer Director of Campaign for Liberty and a strong advocate for property rights and preserving our freedom and liberty.

Learn about the looming threat to private property rights as the Commonwealth of Virginia and the rest of the nation moves toward a more "sustainable future". Donna Holt, President and Executive Director of Virginia Campaign for Liberty, will reveal the official documents published by countless government agencies and non-government organizations as public policy for the transformation of our great nation for a "Sustainable America".  

These documents were rarely reported in the news, and average working people as well as state and local lawmakers have no idea what sustainable development really means, and even less knowledge of what is in store for the future. If the vision of sustainable development continues to unfold as it has in the last decade, life in the Commonwealth and the rest of the nation will be quite different. 

You will learn the origins of Sustainable Development, what it really means, how it came to the United States, how it undermines the principles of federalism and the U.S. Constitution, how it is being implemented and how it will result in a wrenching transformation of America.

Quote of the Day

"The Girl Scouts have been “pro-choice” for years, but now they’ve been caught supporting promiscuous sex for girls. The Planned Parenthood sex guide offered at that “girls only” U.N. meeting offered this advice on Page 11: “Some people have sex when they have been drinking alcohol or using drugs. This is your choice. … If you want to have sex and think you might get drunk or high, plan ahead by bringing condoms and lube or putting them close to where you usually have sex.”

Heard enough? There’s a lot more at 100questionsforthegirlscouts.org."

Cathy Cleaver Ruse

Quote of the Day

"Last month a bi-partisan majority in Congress passed legislation demanding a decision on the pipeline within 60 days. Congress took this unusual step because the Obama White House said it would wait until after the 2012 elections to make a decision. The administration now claims it is denying approval because it can't make an informed decision in 60 days. But according to the Wall Street Journal, "The U.S. government has been reviewing the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline since 2008." 

So this project has been under government review for four years -- that's 1,460 days -- and Obama still can't give us an answer? We developed the atomic bomb in less time. We built the Empire State Building in less time. The Hoover Dam took less than five years to build. 

But Obama just can't bring himself to approve a pipeline that would provide America with oil from Canada and create tens of thousands of jobs in the process -- even when his own advisors recommend it. He rejects the one really "shovel ready" project on his desk while spending billions on failed alternative energy companies. 

Why would Obama do this? Because the radical environmentalist movement has made the Keystone pipeline a litmus test issue. They have drawn a "line in the sand" on the use of "dirty" tar sands oil. 

But the oil will be used. The pipeline will be built -- going west, instead of south, to load the oil on Chinese tankers. China desperately wants it. In fact, the Chinese are already aggressively buying up interests in Canada's tar sands and Prime Minister Harper is headed to China next month. According to Canadian news reports, "A decision by U.S. President Barack Obama to delay approval for a major pipeline expansion through the country led to Harper talk about finding other customers for Canadian oil." 

By the way, petroleum analysts are warning that 2012 could be "the most painful year at the pump that we have ever seen." 

My friends, let me remind you what President Obama's former National Security Advisor, Gen. Jim Jones, said last month about the failure of this administration to develop a serious energy policy:

"If we get to the point where we cannot bring ourselves to do what is in our national interest, then we are clearly in a period of decline… A nation that fails to secure the energy its citizens and its economic engine need to keep functioning leaves itself vulnerable to external contingencies in a dangerous and uncertain world and to the whims of foreign leaders and other actors who may not always have its interests at heart.""

Gary Bauer

Campaign for Working Families

Video Pick of the Day

A Prayer for Blessings and Protection

Let us pray,

Most holy and glorious Lord God, the giver of all good gifts.

Thou hast promised where two or three are gathered together in thy name, thou wilt be in the midst of them and bless them. As we go forward in this New Year we pray for your blessings and protection. Give us wisdom and courage to carry on according to thy teachings and understanding.

We pray for our nation every day and that our citizens will stand up for what is right as given to us in our Judeo-Christian religion, way of life and culture.

We pray for all of those in our community who are bedridden, in wheelchairs and immobile.

We pray for our armed forces members located throughout the world. We pray for all of our fireman, rescue personnel, police officers and all those brave men and women who risk their lives for our safety.

For this coming year, we commend our nation and its entire population into your hands.

We pray in the name of our lord and savior Jesus Christ,

Amen  

John Underwood

MCRW Chaplain

Quote of the Day

"While the health of our economy is front and center in this year's election, the health of our families deserves greater attention. Just as only virtuous people will remain free, our country's economic health is linked to the health of our most important values -- hard work, personal responsibility and discipline -- and social institutions -- marriage and the family."

Gary Bauer

Campaign for Working Families

Read Gary's latest column

Quote of the Day

"The Muslim world cannot control its own violence, only channel it. There is no off switch. Only pipes that they can use to funnel it our direction. They cannot offer us peace. It is not within their power. Only by directing their own violence inward could they do this. And that is obviously not in their interest. Only by forcefully demonstrating that the violence is absolutely not in their interest, will we ever put a stop to it. And to do that we would have to pose more of a threat to them, than their own people do. Appeasement is the worst possible way to go about doing that."

Daniel Greenfield

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VIRGINIA PROPERTY RIGHTS

Quote of the Day

"After three years of Barack Obama, the verdict is in. The official slogan for the era of Obama should be: “Dude, where’s my welfare?”"

Patrick Chisholm

"Almost a year ago, Obama promised in his State of the Union address to create a leaner, more efficient federal bureaucracy. Since then, Republicans — both on Capitol Hill and in the presidential campaign — have charged that the administration’s health-care, environmental and financial reforms have added layers of red tape and costs at the worse possible time."

Cowboy Byte

Quote of the Day

"Truly, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) belongs in a museum somewhere in an exhibit about what can happen when you elect Democrat majorities to the House, Senate and White House. Like so much else in the Democratic agenda (Dodd-Frank, environmental regulation, mortgage relief), it relies not on incentives, competition or patient choice but on blatant government coercion."

Mona Charen

"The problem with our current system isn’t that sex-ed classes lean too far in one direction or another.  It’s that most parents have little control over such decisions because their child is assigned to a public school and has few options other than to enroll their child in that school. If parents had more control over such decisions — for example, if they had control of the$10,000 that is, on average, spent on each child in a public K–12 school and could use that money to pay tuition at any school they want — then they could select a program that reflects their values."

CARRIE L. LUKAS

January 17th: MCRW Chili Fest

ALZHEIMER'S AUTHORITY TO SPEAK AT GOP CHILI FESTIVAL

Jane Dalton from Alzheimer's Aging will the Guest Speaker at the Madison County Republican Women's 12th Annual Chili Festival, January 17th, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Come and enjoy delicious chili with all the fixin's. Dinner $7.  

The event will be held at the Madison Presbyterian Church, which is just off U.S. 29 on Fishback Road at the north end of Madison. For information, call (540) 547-2156 or (540) 923-4300. The club meets on the 3rd Tuesday of each month except for the month July.

January 20th: Seminar on the US Constitution

As you may have read in the Rappahannock News this week, Friends of Liberty will sponsor a seven-week seminar on the U.S. Constitution and its relevance today, starting January 20. We invite all of you to attend. This is part of our expanding effort to reach out to the community with our message of conservative principles and Constitutional government.

What follows is the article with all the details. Please be sure to RSVP to Jim Gannon if you wish to attend at 540-675-3657 or gannon54@comcast.net.  (We don't expect everyone to attend every week of the seven weekly sessions, so feel welcome if you can come for some but not all of the discussions.)




Does the U.S. Constitution still matter?




That was the title of the cover-story in Time Magazine last July 4, which suggested that the nation's founding document might just be an "obstacle" on the road to progress in 21st Century America.




The Constitution and its relevance today will be the focus of an upcoming seven-week discussion seminar to be conducted at the Rappahannock County Library starting Friday, January 20.

Led by a local journalist and local lawyer, the informal lunch-time discussion series is titled "Lunch with the Founding Fathers-Revitalizing the Constitution." The sessions are free and open to the public. Attendees are invited to bring a brown-bag lunch to the talks, which will be held every Friday from January 20 through March 2, starting at 12 noon. The sessions will run 60 to 90 minutes. 

The discussions will range in subject matter from the Constitutional Convention of 1789 to the current controversies over the meaning of the nation's supreme law, such as the challenge to the constitutionality of national health-care legislation which the U.S. Supreme Court will hear this spring. 

"The topic is as historical as America's roots and as current as the battle over Obamacare," said Jim Gannon of Flint Hill, a retired newspaper editor, who will be one of the two discussion moderators. Hurley Smith, who earned his law degree at Notre Dame Law School and worked as a corporate counsel at Ford Motor Co., will co-lead the sessions.

The discussions will cover the background to and development of the Constitution, its founding principles, the federal system of government that it designed, and important court-case determinations that interpreted its meaning in the modern world. The course will use as its text Matthew Spaulding's book, "We Still Hold These Truths," published by the Heritage Foundation. Paperback copies of the text will be available to the participants at $10 each. 




This seminar is sponsored by Friends of Liberty, a local citizen's group dedicated to liberty, limited government and Constitutional conservatism. Space is limited, so if you wish to attend, please contact Jim Gannon at 540-675-3657 or by e-mail to gannon54@comcast.net to reserve a place. 




P.S. Get a jump-start on the seminar: You can order the book We Still Hold These Truths by Matthew Spaulding, from amazon.com, or (better yet) directly through Heritage Foundation at a special discount price of $9.  Just go to www.westillholdthesetruths.org   to order. Our sessions will focus on specific chapters of this book. 

Quote of the Day

"In the Army it is understood that the Generals will sometimes make mistakes. It is also understood that it is ultimately the Soldiers who pay for them. But understand clearly that it is the mistakes and ill-conceived miscalculations of politicians that ultimately fill our gardens of stone with the bodies of American Soldiers."

J. D. Pendry

Quote of the Day

"The Obama strategy is banking that counterinsurgency and small conflicts, not long land wars, are in the future.

Poor predictions."

Rowan Scarborough

Quote of the Day

"A tyrant's agenda calls for the attenuation or the elimination of the market and what is implied by it -- voluntary exchange. Tyrants do not trust that people acting voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. They want to replace the market with economic planning and regulation."

Walter E. Wiliams

Quote of the Day

"The small government movement is the only social movement I know if that if they “win”, they will leave you alone."

Jeff Carter

Quote of the Day

"Memo to Obamanites: Please don't bore me with your "Obama didn't start the war - Bush did!" argument, just as you do with your "Obama didn't screw up the economy, Bush did!" excuse. We (you) hired Captain Teleprompter to fix things,did we (you) not? His continual whining - and that of his sock puppets - about everything being Bush's fault has reached its political statute of limitations; Dear Leader has been at it for three years, loons; wise up."

Michael Miller