East Side Tea Party

You may have paid last year's taxes yesterday but you are still paying this year's taxes. Tax Freedom Day doesn't come until April 26th this year. This means every dollar that you've earned this year is being used to pay the government, and sadly, the government is still overspending your contribution.

Orange County Education Outlook: An Update with Alicia Farrant April 4th - Alicia Farrant, a dedicated member of the Orange County School Board, will provide valuable updates on OCPS priorities, teacher recruitment and retention efforts, and the financial hurdles the schoolboard faces. RSVP to register your intent to attend.

I received an email this week from Orange County Government regarding a constituent’s concerns about the growing homeless encampments near Union Park Elementary School and the intersection of Colonial Drive and Dean Road.

This situation didn’t happen by accident. Orange County is directly responsible for concentrating this problem in a residential neighborhood by giving the Samaritan Center free rent in a location right next to three schools and a daycare.

While the center provides important services like showers, laundry, phone charging, mail pickup, and more, the reality is that it has become the daily hub and essentially the “home base” for hundreds of homeless individuals in our area. When the doors close at 7pm, many sleep in tents right outside, in nearby parks, and around local businesses.

The majority of this population struggles with drug addiction, mental illness, or both. Placing the Samaritan Center in the middle of a residential neighborhood has acted like a magnet, drawing more and more people to the area and creating serious safety concerns for families, students, and our community.

I have offered to help fund a relocation to a more appropriate industrial or commercial site, but that offer was declined. Orange County needs to do the right thing and move the Samaritan Center out of this residential area and away from our schools.

I’ve attached the email I sent the County in response to their email.

New Meeting Location Announced with Important Attendance Reminder Orange County Watch is returning to the familiar rhythm of meeting on the first Saturday of each month. The next gathering will take place on March 7th at 9 AM in a new, carefully chosen location. This change aims to bring stability and convenience to our meetings, which benefits everyone involved.R...

John Stemberger too little too late?

This is huge.

Scouting America just announced that it "will modify its policy to make clear that membership will be based solely on biological s*x at birth and not gender identity."

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The situation with Venezuela is difficult to parse. We are rarely a group that reacts to the day's news immediately. Some time and consideration is required to understand context.

THE ARGUMENT FOR THE ATTACK.
It is true that China has been making inroads into Latin America for quite some time. Venezuela joined a strategic partnership with China for protection. China has been pushing its communist agenda in Venezuela since Chavez. China has been using this relationship to force global policy in order to achieve its goals. Venezuela is one of many Latin American countries that is no longer able to refer to Taiwan as Taiwan because China is bending the will of the world to excuse its reclaim of the island.

Maduro is a dictator who's legitimacy as leader of Venezuela is dubious. Most accounts show that he lost an election with only 30% of the vote, but ignored the results to remain in power.

We have state actors from Venezuela in this country enabled through the Biden administration's open door immigration policies. Those Venezuelan agents create destabilizing gangs cause violence and push drugs which kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.

For Trump, this was his Monroe Doctrine or Cuban Missile Crisis. Warnings for the nations of the world to stay away from the American hemisphere.

FRUIT FROM THE POISONOUS TREE
We may assume the arguments above and more are true however, does that give the president the right to initiate a war without consulting congress? No. While we teach about the Monroe Doctrine and the Cuban Missile Crisis in history classes, none of them have been adopted into the Constitution as legal canon.

I understand that the surprise assault would not be a surprise if he went through the proper Congressional channels. Still, that is what the Constitution requires. The president has the ability to initiate combat in an urgent situation, but I see no evidence that last week was more urgent than the week before, or the week before that, or 3 weeks from now. If there is an imminent and urgent danger to the United States, the president has the ability to act without Congressional authority. Can that be argued here? Was the need so urgent that we could not hold confidential sessions with Congress? It is possible that more will be revealed. Right now I do not see the Cuban missile crisis of our time occurred in Venezuela and therefore excuse an emergency response.

The fruit from a poisonous tree adage applies here. Since the process was illegal it nullifies the righteousness of the outcome.

PRECEDENT DOES NOT CREATE POLICY
There are many who might read this and argue a long list of presidents such as Clinton and Obama who initiated similar acts of war without Congressional approval. To these arguments I concede, they are absolutely right. But a thousand wrongs don't make a single right. We are nation, supposedly run by the Rule of Law. We ordained a Constitution in this country not a king. The Constitution outlines the powers of the president and the entire Federal government. The Constitution restrains the president's ability to declare war. We cannot ignore this because one president has a good idea which you might agree.

In conclusion, this action may have had the best motives, but it was committed through an illegal process. The president does not require Congressional approval to use the military while in war. Outside of war, the president requires Congressional approval to commit an act of war on another country unless there is some urgent National Security need.

The Constitution's main function is to restrain the federal government. That restraint includes the President of the United States.

The conversation that politicians don't want to have is that innovation, competition and supply makes things more affordable. The government, thank God, does not.

The government can cause prices to rise, as they did, but reverse inflation is actually bad for the economy.

Negative inflation (deflation) triggers a vicious cycle: people delay spending expecting lower prices, which crushes demand, forcing businesses to cut production, wages, and jobs, leading to less spending and deeper economic contraction, while simultaneously increasing the real burden of debt and making it harder to repay. This slowdown discourages investment, raises unemployment, and can spiral into a recession or depression.

For example, in the past decade, pressure has been placed on cattle ranchers to reduce their land impact, simultaneously Bill Gates has become the largest owner of farmland in the United States as he converted many cattle ranches into vegetable "protein" farms. In this process cattle were slaughtered reducing beef prices temporarily, but bringing us into a difficult position where other cattle ranches need to be focused on breeding cattle instead of selling them to increase supply.

And yes, reducing our dependence on goods from China is going to raise prices. The alternative is worse.

Americans are thankful for our British ancestors and to bad rulers. Seriously, if it weren't for King John's heavy taxation and authoritarianism, the barons wouldn't have rebelled and the Magna Carta would never have been signed in Runnymede. That spark of Liberty festered and was allowed to bloom across the ocean where we combined the English tradition of a rule of law with the necessity of independence from a central government. Separated from the King's forceful hand we were able to experiment with the philosophies of Englishman John Locke and others. We were bonded by Protestant traditions encouraged by Martin Luther. Christianity allowed American self-government (both independent and bonded in faith) to work. That dream of liberty, founded in Runnymede, forged a nation.

Governments want beggars at the fort. Beggars cannot question.

A Beggar Goes Hungry - 1923 #shorts #trending #usa Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Under 's plan "Congress can balance the budget and begin paying down the national debt today. It draws on our lessons learned from the 1990s, proven reforms, and the kind of common-sense discipline every American family understands. Simply put, you can’t spend more than you earn."

We Can Balance the Budget Again Balancing the budget is not just good policy, it is a moral obligation to our country—and future generations.