It’s Not Just Who is Warren…But Why?
Posted on April 20, 2012 at 2:30 pm
By Jim Hatherley
Chairman of the Westborough Republican Town Committee
Did it ever occur to you that as hard as you would like to learn, some things may just be beyond your understanding? Here are a few of my examples:
- College education costs - why do they increase greater than the inflation rate every year?
- Why do traffic jams just suddenly clear up without any sign of the cause as you regain speed?
- Despite the complaints about the inadequacies of one-party government, why are only 11% of Bay Staters registered as Republicans?
There are just so many things that defy rational explanation. And now, after seeing the headline that Elizabeth Warren had doubled Scott Brown in first quarter fund raising, I am having another of those moments. What can possibly qualify Elizabeth Warren for US Senator?
Read the entire article here http://westborough.patch.com/blog_posts/its-not-just-who-is-warren-but-why |
HRTC Officers Elected
For those of you who missed the April 11 HRTC Meeting, join us in congratulating the new Officers: James E. De Zutter, Chair; Don N. Graham, Vice Chair; Pamela R. Marston, Secretary; and Marylin Morgan, Treasurer.
The next Harvard RTC Meeting will be Wednesday, May 9 - 7:30 pm at the Hildreth House. Check the "Events" page for updates.
Our guest speaker on May 9 will be Dean Cavaretta who is running for State Senate against incumbent Sen. Eldridge. You can read more about him at www.deancavaretta.com and contribute to his campaign by mailing checks to "The Cavaretta Committee", PO Box 136, Stow, MA 01775.
Please invite your friends and neighbors to attend the May 9 meeting!
HRTC Membership applications are available - contact Julie (
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
) if you'd like one snail mailed or emailed.
Don't forget that you can contribute to the HRTC general fund or scholarship fund using a credit card via the "Donate" button on the "Join/Contribute" page of our website.
Happy Patriots' Day! |
Scott Brown’s pledge to be ‘41st vote’ against Obama health plan may have repercussions in Supreme Court fight
By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff
US Senator Scott Brown was elected in 2010 with a promise to be the 41st vote against President Obama’s health care overhaul. Democrats in the Senate found a way to deny the Republican senator that opportunity, using parliamentary maneuvers to push the bill through without him.
But now, as the law is under review in the Supreme Court, Brown’s opposition could prove to have an indirect, but significant, effect on whether it is overturned in its entirety.
Because Democrats in the Senate were reluctant to bring the bill up for a second full vote after Brown’s election in 2010, facing a probable filibuster, they were unable to insert language that could have made the law more difficult to overturn.
Brown’s election to the Senate was certainly not the only factor in the law’s potential demise. And it remains to be seen what effect the missing language -- known as a severability clause -- will have in the Supreme Court’s deliberations. But officials involved in the negotiations around the bill’s passage agreed Wednesday that Brown’s opposition was a factor in the Senate’s inability to insert a severability clause.
Read the entire article at http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2012/03/scott-brown-pledge-vote-against-obama-health-plan-reverberating-court-fight/INmIdzJ2A465JGfljO7NVM/index.html |
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Obama Stimulus Turns Three: What Has It Achieved?
By JOHN MERLINE, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 02/17/2012 03:25 PM ET
http://news.investors.com/article/601526/201202171525/obama-economic-stimulus-turns-three.htm
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Obama's Recess Appointments: An Impeachable Offense?
Investor's Business Daily Editorial
Posted 01/05/2012 07:02 PM ET
Constitution: President Obama's nonrecess "recess appointments" can't be excused as over-the-top electioneering. This president has crossed over from socialistic extremism into lawlessness and, perhaps, impeachability.
The U.S. Constitution established a strong presidency — so strong that even one of the most esteemed founding fathers, Patrick Henry, worried it would be kinglike. But this week saw a president exceed even those broad constitutional powers because doing so fits his election-year narrative of a "do-nothing Congress" so well.
Now we have the makings of a banana republic, where the rule of clearly written constitutional law is compromised by a ruler's subjective whim.
The Constitution is crystal clear on the recess appointment authority of the president.
"The president shall have power," Article II, section 2 states, "to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session."
The Senate has not been in recess. And Congress' authority over when it is and isn't in recess is no small matter of parliamentary procedure. Rather, it is a power the Framers explicitly bestowed in Article I, Section 5:
"Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days."
Yet Obama on Wednesday, with no recess in effect and against the publicly stated position of his own
Justice Department, made four "recess appointments."
Former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray was named head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — a new, intrusive federal agency established last year by the Dodd-Frank law — and three spots on the National Labor Relations Board were filled.
The GOP-majority House has been keeping Congress in session, using its lawful power to prevent Obama from steamrolling someone into the CFPB position outside the usual Senate confirmation process because, as House Speaker John Boehner explained Wednesday, "the agency it heads is bad for jobs and bad for the economy."
Some may say these are small-potato government jobs not worth a big confrontation. But if a president can trample the Constitution on these appointments, the door opens for similar abuses of power with Cabinet secretaries and judicial nominations.
As Boehner warned, "The precedent that would be set by this cavalier action would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our Constitution."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., until recently agreed with the Obama and Clinton Justice Departments — and with just about every other legal expert, liberal, conservative and middle of the road — that presidents have to wait for Congress to be out of session three days before legally making a recess appointment.
http://news.investors.com/Article/596910/201201051902/obamas-banana-republic-abuse-of-power.htm
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Why Romney and Santorum Fought to a Draw in Iowa
By Ronald Brownstein
Updated: January 4, 2012 | 12:03 p.m.
Ron Paul expanded the electorate. Mitt Romney slightly advanced from his key beachheads in 2008. Evangelical Christians splintered but gave Rick Santorum the largest slice of their votes.
Those dynamics, captured in the Edison Research National Election Pool entrance poll at the Iowa caucuses, explained the tight three-way race among the top contenders in Iowa.
The big story in Iowa appears to be that Romney’s camp is getting the result it wanted despite a merely workmanlike showing for their own candidate. That’s because the Iowa results will elevate Paul and Santorum, who face the greatest hurdles in building a national campaign, while depressing Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry -- either of whom might have had more chance to emerge as a threat to Romney if they had received a boost from Iowa.
Still, the results leave open the question that has dogged the former Massachusetts governor all year: whether outside of his home terrain in New Hampshire, he can expand his support much beyond 25 to 30 percent of the Republican electorate.
As in many polls over the past year, Romney turned in a solid but hardly spectacular performance. Despite facing what is arguably a much weaker field than 2008, Romney only modestly increased his share of the vote even among the groups that were most favorable to him last time, like voters who do not identify as evangelical Christians and the most affluent caucus-goers, and slipped among some others, like evangelicals.
Read the entire article at http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/why-romney-and-santorum-fought-to-a-draw-in-iowa-20120103 |
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