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Martin 9/12 Calendar (& City of Stuart)

Monday, December 29, 2014

A Gentle Reminder for the New Year

As we close 2014 it may be prudent to remind our readers and subscribers of certain principles that guide our work. We recommend that everyone review the words of Russell Kirk on Conservatism. To entice you to complete this task, we offer the following excerpt:

It has been said by liberal intellectuals that the conservative believes all social questions, at heart, to be questions of private morality. Properly understood, this statement is quite true. A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be.

You may link to the article HERE...

Enjoy your New Year's celebration.

Martin 9/12 Committee

Support for Common Core could cost Jeb Bush in a GOP primary

TALLAHASSEE — Jeb Bush never wavered in his support for the Common Core state standards — not even after the education benchmarks became a target for tea party groups decrying federal overreach in education.

That may hurt the former Florida governor, who has said he is considering a run for the White House.

Bush would find himself in a crowded field of Republican candidates, some of whom — along with ardent conservatives nationwide — have stepped up their attacks on Common Core.

Speaking this week on Fox News Sunday, conservative syndicated columnist George Will said Bush has "four strikes against him — Common Core, immigration, his name and the big sign on his back that says establishment choice."

Read the story at TampaBay.com...

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Issa Releases Report on IRS Targeting as 113th Congress Concludes

Issa Releases Report on IRS Targeting as 113th Congress Concludes

December 23, 2014

Review of 1.3 million pages and 52 transcribed reveals evidence of bias, politics in IRS

WASHINGTON – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., today released a new staff report, “The Internal Revenue Service’s Targeting of Conservative Tax-Exempt Applicants: Report of Findings for the 113th Congress.” The report represents findings from the review of over 1.3 million pages of documents and 52 transcribed interviews with IRS, Treasury, and Justice Department employees.

The report’s conclusion reads in part:

Conservative organizations were not just singled out because of their political beliefs—they were targeted by IRS officials and employees who expressed a general loathing toward them even while begrudgingly admitting that those organizations were in compliance with the only thing the IRS should care about: the federal tax code. Documents and interviews show IRS officials failed to limit their professional judgments to enforcing the tax code and instead inserted their own beliefs and judgments into federal matters to influence outcomes and decisions. One IRS agent wrote about an organization applying for 501(c)(4) status that donated to other organizations that engaged in political activity, “I’m not sure we can deny them because, technically, I don’t know that I can deny them simply for donating to another 501(c)(4).” Another agent responded, “This sounds like a bad org . . . This org gives me an icky feeling.”

 

Highlights of the report:

 

Jeb Bush ♥ Common Core State Standards

Saturday, December 20, 2014

REPORT: The Chain of Environmental Command

EPW Republicans release in-depth environmental collusion report, “The Chain of Environmental Command: How a Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama’s EPA”

July 30, 2014

U.S Environment and Public Works Committee Republicans released a report today highlighting the collusion between environmental activists, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and billionaires using large sums of money to influence environmental public policy.

The Chain of Environmental Command: How a Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama's EPA

The report uncovers the sophisticated practice of how wealthy donors, referred to in the report as the "Billionaire's Club," funnel money to far-left environmental activists through public charities. It also shows that current leadership at the EPA is very much an active partner in the far-left environmental movement, and even sponsors their efforts through grants to environmental activists.

Key points from the report:

• The "Billionaire's Club," an exclusive group of wealthy individuals, directs the far-left environmental movement. The members of this elite liberal club funnel their fortunes through private foundations to execute their personal political agenda, which is centered around restricting the use of fossil fuels in the United States.

• Public charities attempt to provide the maximum amount of control to their donors through fiscal sponsorships, which are a legally suspect innovation unique to the left, whereby the charity essentially sells its nonprofit status to a group for a fee.

• Public charity activist groups discussed in this report propagate the false notion that they are independent, citizen-funded groups working altruistically. In reality, they work in tandem with wealthy donors to maximize the value of the donors' tax deductible donations and leverage their combined resources to influence elections and policy outcomes, with a focus on the EPA.

• Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) is a place where wealthy donors meet and coordinate the distribution of grants to advance the environmental movement. It is a secretive organization, refusing to disclose their membership list to Congress.

• The Obama Administration has installed an audacious green-revolving door among senior officials at EPA, which has become a valuable asset for the environmental movement and its wealthy donors.

• Former environmentalists working at EPA funnel government money through grants to their former employers and colleagues.

• Under President Obama, EPA has given more than $27 million in taxpayer-funded grants to major environmental groups. Notably, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund - two key activists groups with significant ties to senior EPA officials - have collected more than $1 million in funding each.

• EPA also gives grants to lesser-known groups. For example, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade received hundreds of thousands of grants under former Administrator Lisa Jackson despite challenges by state regulators over the use of such grants.

• In New York and Colorado, a pseudo grassroots effort to attack hydraulic fracturing has germinated from massive amounts of funding by the NY-based Park Foundation, as well as CA-based Schmidt Family Foundation and Tides Foundation.

• Bold Nebraska is another example of faux grassroots where a purportedly local organization is, in fact, an arm of the Billionaire's Club. It is a shield for wealthy and distant non-Nebraskan interests who seek to advance a political agenda without drawing attention to the fact that they have little connection to the state.

• The circumstances surrounding the flow of money from 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) groups, and the likelihood of lax oversight, raises questions as to whether 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundations and charities are indirectly funding political activities.

• 501(c)(4) Green Tech Action Fund receives millions of dollars from green 501(c)(3) organizations, then distributes the funds to other 501(c)(4) groups that donate to political campaigns.

• The Billionaire's Club knowingly collaborates with questionable offshore funders to maximize support for the far-left environmental movement.

SOURCE

Sunday, December 14, 2014

TheBlaze.com: Ted Cruz Forced the Senate to Vote on Obama’s Immigration Plan — Here’s How it Turned Out

Dec. 13, 2014 9:51pm Pete Kasperowicz Furnace

On Saturday night, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won a battle, but not the war, against President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration.

Cruz led the fight to force a Senate vote on Obama’s immigration plans, as a condition of approving a massive, $1.1 trillion spending bill for 2015. He was able to make that vote happen by arguing that the spending bill violated the Constitution because it would fund Obama’s plan — a plan Cruz and other Republicans say is illegal because it rewrites immigration law without any input from Congress.

Read the details on TheBlaze.com…

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Eagle Forum: New, Legally Binding Treaty Emerges on First Day of UN’s Lima Climate Conference

By Cathie Adams
President, Texas Eagle Forum
Eagle Forum UN Issues Chairman

December 2, 2014

At a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Lima, Peru, delegates from 196 parties are drafting a new legally binding treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that is to be completed next year in Paris, France. At the outset of negotiations, environmentalists are calling for the new treaty to mandate a cap and tax on greenhouse gas emissions to go into effect by 2020, and to eliminate the use of fossil fuels altogether by 2050.

President Obama’s recent climate announcement with China, that the U.S. would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 28% below 2005 levels by 2025 is a boost to environmentalists at the Peru meeting that extends from December 1-12.

Stated by Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace, “In Lima, the countries must agree on the long-term goal of phasing out fossil fuel emissions to zero by mid-century while moving towards 100% renewable energy for all in a fair transition period. Subsidies for fossil fuel industries must be shifted towards renewable energy deployment and climate adaptation for vulnerable countries. In countries like the US, China, and the EU, the phase-out of coal must be accelerated.”

Enrique Maurtua Konstantinidis, international policy adviser for Climate Action Network Latin America added, “We must leave fossil fuels in the ground and not repeat the steps of the developed countries that brought us to this point.”

The UNFCCC thesis is that rich nations are responsible for climate change because they burn fossil fuels to produce energy, even though there is no conclusive science to substantiate the claims. Furthermore, the poor nations want the rich nations fork over a minimum of $100 million annually for the UN’s Green Climate Fund that is to afford renewable energy for the poor.

On the first day of the conference, Climate Action Network, a conglomerate of 900 radical green groups from about 100 nations, mocked Australia, Belgium, Ireland and Austria because they have yet to donate to a new Green Climate Fund. With a new legally binding treaty, they hope to make nations pay penalties for using fossil fuels. The climate will continue to change, even if nations are energy poor.

Remember it was President Bill Clinton’s VP Al Gore who flew to Kyoto, Japan in 1997 to revive talks for the same scheme to cap and tax greenhouse gas emissions. That treaty was never ratified by the U.S. Senate because it would have killed American jobs and devastated our economy. Even so, Americans should expect Obama to sign the new legally binding treaty before he leaves office, which should make American voters cautious about electing another President Clinton in 2016.

SOURCE

SSN: Department of Agriculture Wants State to Reject Bad Martin County Sewage Amendment

By: NANCY SMITH | Posted: December 3, 2014

SunshineStateMartin County, among the Florida counties that suffered most from toxic water pollution in the St. Lucie estuary and Indian River Lagoon in 2013, has rewritten part of its comprehensive plan to encourage not less, but more river pollution, according a Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services analysis.

The department finds that unacceptable.

READ the story at SunshineStateNews.com…

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