The Republican Club of Sun City NEWSLETTER

October 2012 Everett Schmidt, Editor Sun City Texas

“SGT. SAM” TO ADDRESS CLUB

“Sgt. Sam” Cox, radio talk show panelist heard on radio station KLBJ, will address the club during its dinner meeting scheduled for Saturday, October 13 in the ballroom of the Social Center in Sun City.

Being unabashedly conservative, well-informed, persuasive, combative and witty, he can deliver a message which may be exactly what conservative Republicans need to hear at this crucial stage of an election which virtually all observers agree is the most important election of our lifetimes.

Consistent with the requirements of his position on the radio, he is highly opinionated, leaving some of his listeners on occasion to find themselves in disagreement with him on important but controversial local issues (family matters, police, local government, etc.), but on national issues, including those involving the Constitution and Judeo-Christian values, conservative Republicans will find – and appreciate – the fact that he is a formidable advocate for their side.

He is uniquely consistent and frank, bringing to mind the saying, “They don’t make ’em like that any more.”

He (along with fellow panelists Mark and Ed) can be heard on KLBJ 590 AM and KLBJ 99.7 FM daily, M – F, from 5:30 AM to 10:00 AM. A “best of” series of broadcasts can be heard on Saturday nights from 7 – 9 PM.

The Social Period, Dinner and Program. A social period will begin at 6:00 PM. The dinner will begin at 6:30 PM, and will be followed by the program. The dinner will consist of grilled chicken breast, buttered potatoes, green beans, and salad.

Cost. Cost is $16 per person. Checks made out to The Republican Club of Sun City should be mailed to: The Republican Club of Sun City, 1530 Sun City Blvd., Suite 120, Box 227, Georgetown, TX 78633.
The deadline for payment or reservations is Sunday, October 7.

Club treasurer Dorothy Carlyle has set up a special collection box on her front porch at 173 Whispering Wind for individuals wishing to hand-deliver payments, provided delivery is made by the Sunday deadline. For information about reservations, contact Dorothy at 864-0353 or dcarlyle@suddenlink.net

VISITORS ARE WELCOME! If there is one occasion when club members should bring guests to a meeting to help build up momentum for the election, this is “it.”

STATE COMPTROLLER TO ADDRESS CLUB IN NOVEMBER

Susan Combs, State Comptroller, will address the club during its dinner meeting scheduled for Thursday, November 15.

Details of that meeting will be provided in the November newsletter.

OTHER CLUB NEWS

Club president Harlow Fisher announced that, upon authorization of the Executive Committee, $3,000 of club funds were donated to the Williamson County Republican Party. Inasmuch as Texas continues to be a strongly Republican state, the Romney-Ryan campaign does not provide any funds for signs, stickers, buttons and other campaign items, electing instead to send money to contested states. This means that expenses for such items must be borne locally – hence the contribution.

He briefly discussed at the September meeting the proposed addition to the bylaws, one concerning the attendance of non-members at meetings. The language of the proposed bylaw was published in the September newsletter, and was revealed on a handout distributed at the September meeting. The vote on the proposal will take place during the November meeting.

The Nominating Committee will submit its nominees for next year’s club officers during the October meeting. Voting on those nominations and any nominations submitted from the floor will take place during the

November meeting.
Sample ballots are available at the Williamson County web site, www.Wilco.org. Click on “Elections.” Romney-Ryan lawn signs, stickers and buttons will be available at the club’s October meeting for as

long as they last. A donation to cover the cost of these items – which are also available at the party headquarters – will be appreciated.

Club treasurer Dorothy Carlyle reports that the number of attendees at the September meeting was 119.

WILCO TEA PARTY SPONSORS RALLY

The Wilco Tea Party Movement will sponsor a “Get Out the Vote Rally” on Saturday, October 6, from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the Georgetown Airport, in the Gantt Hanger, 221 Stearman Drive.

Six different speakers, among them actress Janine Turner, will speak on a variety of subjects, including “Signs We Are Turning to Socialism,” “Losing Christian Rights,” “Changing the Black Vote,” “Agenda 21,” and the film “They Come to America.”

The event is free and open to the public.

THE ALL-IMPORTANT THIRD COURT OF APPEALS RACES

All of the state’s appeals courts are important, but the Third Court of Appeals is uniquely important, primarily because, being headquartered in Austin where the state government is also located, it will hear cases (on appeal) having their genesis in issues stemming from acts of the legislature and actions of state agencies. A proper judicial philosophy on the part of the members of that court is therefore extremely important.

And there is another extremely important factor at play: Of the 6 positions on that court, 4 of them (that’s 2/3 of them) are contested positions in the coming election; i.e., there are 4 Republican candidates for 4 positions, and each Republican candidate has a Democrat opponent.

Some Republican voters may be reluctant to vote in judicial races because they are not familiar with the legal matters the courts adjudicate, or because they are not familiar with the names of the Republican candidates.

But if those voters withhold their votes, there can be adverse consequences: one or more Democrats could be elected to that court, thereby to damage its reputation.

By now, it should be apparent that Democrat judges – at all levels – tend to make liberal, extra- constitutional rulings. With respect to the Third Court races, there is already evidence supporting that conclusion should any of the Democrat candidates be elected. For example, one Democrat candidate, reportedly, is openly advocating support for the concept of a “living constitution” – which is tantamount to supporting a concept of “legislating from the bench.”

Another Democrat candidate, Diane Henson, currently a justice on the Third Court, refused to recuse herself from a now-pending case involving former GOP House representative and majority leader Tom Delay, even though she reportedly made statements strongly suggesting bias. According to the Austin American- Statesman, Henson said the GOP had “filled the courts, our appellate courts, with extremists, with people that are controlled by special interests, big insurance companies and big corporations.” Also, that the only activist judges in Texas are “those conservative rightwing zealots that control our courts today, and they’re all Republicans.”

Apparently, believing Justice Henson could not serve impartially in the DeLay trial, Texas Supreme Court Justice Wallace Jefferson, who oversees the Third Court, and who, in wake of her refusal to recuse herself, replaced her on the three-judge panel assigned to hear the DeLay case.

Williamson County, with its strong Republican base, and Sun City, with both a strong GOP base and a high voter turnout, is viewed as a counter-balance to the liberal-left vote of Travis County.

The four Republican candidates for the Third Court of Appeals positions are: Jeff Rose (Place 2), an incumbent
Scott Field (Place 3)
David Puryear (Place 5), an incumbent

Bob Pemberton (Place 6), an incumbent

SOME DILEMMAS IN THE WELFARE AND ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS

Foreword. The debt and cost of entitlement programs are staggering. While one may hear that the federal government provides funding by printing money, that is no longer the case. A Wall Street Journal writer, in fielding the question, “Does the Fed really print all this money?”, responded as follows: “No. That would take eons. The Fed simply adds zeros to its magic spreadsheets, and viola`, money!” Thus we have further debauched our currency.

Dilemmas now emerge. One observer remarked, “If you want more of something, then subsidize it.” Ronald Reagan, upon noting the abject failure of Lyndon Johnson’s so-called “War on Poverty,” quipped, “poverty won!” These two quotes summarize some of the nation’s dilemmas.

The growth of debt and entitlements (social security, Medicare/Medicaid, other entitlements) has grown to levels virtually impossible for the lay person to comprehend or use when considering policy. But some understanding may be obtained by noting the graphs in Appendix A of this newsletter. One graph, reproduced from a newsletter of Point of View and somewhat modified, provides some perspective of the relationship between the national debt and the entitlements.

The welfare system is expansive at all levels. At the federal level, 67 million Americans – that’s one out of every five Americans – are receiving some form of aid. The federal government operates more that 70 means- tested welfare or anti-poverty programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care and targeted services for the poor.

In Texas, according to PolitiFactofTexas, more that 55 percent of Texas births are paid for by Medicaid, at an average cost of $11,600, for a total of 22 billion per year for birth and delivery related services.

In Williamson County, according to the Sun, more that one in 10 children, about 10,000, live in poverty. In Georgetown, 15 percent of children in school, or 1,707 students, are living in poverty.

But what is poverty? According to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, “In reality, typical poor Americans live in a house or apartment that is in good repair and larger than the average home of non-poor persons in France, England or Sweden. Some 80 percent of the poor have air conditioning, nearly two-thirds have cable TV, half have a computer and almost a third have a wide screen HD television.

It now seems obvious that there should be some serious “soul searching” about the objectives and characteristics of our welfare and entitlement programs lest we continue down the same pathway to collapse.

This report is to suggest some considerations for that “soul searching.”

Fairness. There are several questions regarding fairness, particularly with regard to distribution of wealth confiscated to give to others. For example, is it fair, as Heritage Foundation reports, that the richest 20 percent of taxpayers shoulder 86 percent of the federal income tax burden, and that, while the richest one percent earn 16 percent of all income, they pay 36.7 percent of all federal income taxes?

And then there is the question of fairness in regard to the amount of benefits welfare recipients receive in comparison with the disposable income of average Americans. The Heritage Foundation finds that the average American relying on federal government assistance receives $300 more in benefits ($32,748) annually that the average American’s disposable personal income ($32,446).

Has the reader ever heard any in-depth debate of the fairness of our tax code?

Morality. Columnist Walter Williams poses some hypothetical situations to address the morality of one person’s money being confiscated for the benefit of another:

To help [an elderly, hungry] woman, I walk up to you using intimidation and threats and demand that you give men $200. Having taken your money, I then purchase food, shelter and medical assistance for the woman. Would I be guilty of a crime? A moral person would answer in the affirmative. I’ve committed theft by taking the property of one person to give to another.

Most Americans would agree that it would be theft regardless of what I did with the money.
Now comes the hard part. Would it still be theft if I were able to get three people to agree that I should take your money? What if I got 100 people to agree – 100,000 or 200 million people? What if instead of personally taking your money to assist the woman, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take your money? In other words, does an act that’s clearly immoral and illegal when done privately become moral when it is done legally and collectively? Put another way, does legality establish morality?

Constitutionality. While it may be like water over the dam, the issue of constitutionality of welfare should be discussed because (1) it is well established by founders that no such constitutionality exists, and (2)

perhaps the Supreme Court can maneuver the law back to the right direction – toward state prerogatives. Corruption. Columnist Dennis Prager, in an op-ed column, cites 10 corrupting effects of the welfare state, of which 5 follow: (1) nothing more guarantees the erosion of character than getting something for nothing; (2) citizens of liberal welfare states become increasingly narcissistic; (3) the welfare state corrupts family life; (4) the welfare state inhibits the maturation of its young citizens into responsible adults; and (5) the left see society’s and the world’s great battle as between the rich and poor rather than between good and evil. Equality therefore

trumps morality.
Columnist Pat Buchanan notes the following disturbing result largely flowing from the welfare state: Half

of all children born to women under 30 in America now are illegitimate. Three in 10 white children are born out of wedlock, as are 53 percent of Hispanic babies and 73 percent of black babies.

Charity? Author Paul A. Rahe discusses the position of some churches – and especially the Catholic church – which equates government’s distribution of wealth with charity. Says Rahi:

the American Catholic Church fell prey to a conceit that had long before ensnared a great many mainstream Protestants in the United States – the notion that public provision is somehow akin to charity – and so they fostered state paternalism and undermined what they professed to teach: that charity is an individual responsibility and that it is appropriate that the laity join together under the leadership of the Church to alleviate the suffering of the poor. In its place, they helped establish the Machiavellian principle that underpins modern liberalism – the notion that it is our Christian duty to confiscate other people’s money and redistribute it.

One writer notes that “charity can only be charity when it is voluntary.”

COURTS NOW FORCED TO DEFINE “FREE EXERCISE” OF RELIGION

The informed reader is aware that there has been a plethora of Supreme Court rulings providing – or attempting to provide – definition to the clause “establishment of religion” found in the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution. More recently, thanks to certain language in ObamaCare, courts are now forced to provide definition of another clause in that Amendment, namely the “free exercise” of religion, a clause often thought to be in conflict with the “establishment” clause. (Following is pertinent language from the Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . .”)

The informed reader also is aware that Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius, has ruled that requirements concerning the availability of insurance covering contraception and abortion-related matters mandated for churches are different from the mandates imposed upon church-related enterprises, such as hospitals and universities. Churches are more likely than church-related entities to be given exemptions. In any case, there are now ongoing lawsuits involving those two categories.

Now a third category of dispute has surfaced – this one involving a secular business owner whose firm has no direct or indirect relationship with a church. He simply objects to having to provide insurance for issues relating to abortion. The firm is Hercules Industries, a manufacturer of air conditioning and related equipment.

If that firm did not provide its employees a “full range of services” – including those relating to abortion – it could be fined as much as $10 million a year.

Claiming the HHS mandate violated their religious freedom, the owners went to federal court which, according to a Focus on the Family report, “agreed there are significant issues at stake in the case that no one has ever ruled on before, and said the firm doesn’t have to offer the insurance as long as the case is ongoing.” The firm was thus given some relief – temporarily.

Focus on the Family then explains that the significant issue which “no one has ever ruled on before” involves the personhood of a corporation:

• Specifically, do corporations have the same right to religious freedom as individuals? If the court finds that they don’t, that would mean the Obama administration’s definition of freedom of religion prevails – meaning that all we are left with is the “right to worship” as we see fit when in the privacy or our homes or within the four walls of the church.
• If, however, the court finds that business owners car freely exercise their faith in the realm of commerce, it will strike a major blow for religious freedom in our country. [But note that personhood of corporations

is given legal recognition is some settings.]

While that case is pending, other issues – some quite unusual – are beginning to surface. One involves the Muslim army Major Hasan who murdered a number of Ft. Hood personnel at that installation, and who, while his trial is underway, refuses to shave his beard, as army regulations prescribe, claiming the beard represents a “free exercise” of his Muslim religion.

Another issue involves the act of circumcising a male child, an act deemed particularly important by members of the Jewish and Muslim faiths to be a command of their respective religions. The issue is already a hot issue in Germany where a Cologne judge ruled the “physical integrity” of a baby boy beats religious ritual. There is at least one similar case reported in America.

Another basis of dispute now emerging is one involving the question of whether Islam is a religion or a political system or some mixture thereof. One who does a Google search on that question may be surprised at the number of news articles and essays on that subject, that situation possibly resulting from the “politically correct” definition of Islam being given in this country which tends to overlook the political aspect.

With respect to the issue at hand, one writer contends, “The West makes a natural mistake in their understanding of Islamic tradition, assuming that religion means the same for Muslims as it has meant for most other religious adherents . . . “

Instead of religion being separated from state matters (as it is in the West), Islam is a “total way of life” and can “never be separated from social, political, or economic life.” Islam has texts which define “how people are to dress, how to defecate, how to wear/grow/groom hair, the order in which to put on clothes, personal habits, etc.” In regard to a matter which might relate to the Major Hasan issue, one writer asserts that traditionalist men must “assure that their beard is never shorter than the length of their fist.”

Shariah law is already a major problem in Europe. And courts in this country are having to deal with Muslims who attempt to follow Shariah law, even when contrary to our laws. For example, a Muslim father in Texas shot his two teenage daughters to death because they were having “unsanctioned boyfriends.” An Ohio teenager made headlines in 2009 when she fled to Florida out of fear that she would be the victim of a Muslim “honor killing.” There are many other such incidents reported.

NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE
(Some random observations on this crazy world in which we live)

Presidential/Vice Presidential Debates. Following is the schedule of candidate debates:
Oct. 3 – Presidential debate on domestic policy Oct. 16 – Presidential debate, town hall style Oct. 11- Vice Presidential debate Oct. 22 – Presidential debate on foreign policy

State Initiatives on Gay Marriage Continue. The nation’s largest gay-rights advocacy group, Human Rights Campaign, said it would spend $1 million in four states holding marriage ballot initiatives this year. A spokesman for that group stated, “We are committed to making sure this is the year that our opponents can no longer claim Americans will not support marriage equality at the ballot box.”

If the initiative succeeds in Maine, the state would legalize same-sex marriage.

Voters in Maryland and Washington will decide to approve or disapprove the legislature’s legalization of same-sex marriage – while Minnesota’s ballot initiative would ban same-sex marriage, keeping the traditional definition of marriage.

Percentage of Homosexuals is Over-Estimated. OneNewsNow.com reports that a Gallup poll released in 2011 revealed that the perception of the American public is that nearly 25 percent of the population is “gay” or lesbian.

Peter La Barbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality contends the actual figure – even from many homosexual activist groups – is more like 1.7 percent homosexual and another 1.8 percent as bisexual. “And so why are we giving such weight to this special-interest group?” he asks.

Social Security Recipients Can’t Refuse Medicare. Providing an indicator of future litigation over healthcare matters is the report that a federal appeals court ruled that seniors who receive Social Security cannot opt out of their Medicare benefits. What motivated the seniors was their belief that private insurers limit their coverage because they are eligible for Medicare when their preference was for coverage by private insurers.

An attorney for the plaintiffs explained that his clients wanted to keep their Social Security because they

earned it, but none of them wanted Medicare Part A.