Will The State Defendent Please Rise

Statement by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer
PHOENIX – “Today I was notified that the federal government has filed a lawsuit against the State of Arizona.  It is wrong that our own federal government is suing the people of Arizona for helping to enforce federal immigration law.  As a direct result of failed and inconsistent federal enforcement, Arizona is under attack from violent Mexican drug and immigrant smuggling cartels.  Now, Arizona is under attack in federal court from President Obama and his Department of Justice.  Today’s filing is nothing more than a massive waste of taxpayer funds.  These funds could be better used against the violent Mexican cartels than the people of Arizona.
“The truth is the Arizona law is both reasonable and constitutional.  It mirrors substantially what has been federal law in the United States for many decades.  Arizona’s law is designed to complement, not supplant, enforcement of federal immigration laws.  Despite the Department of Justice’s claims in paragraph 62 of today’s lawsuit, Arizona is not trying ‘to establish its own immigration policy’ or ‘directly regulate the immigration status of aliens.’  Arizona Revised Statutes § 11-1051(E) states that the federal government, along with local law enforcement officers authorized by the federal government, can only determine an alien’s immigration status.   Subsection (L) of that same section goes on to state that the law ‘shall be implemented in a manner consistent with federal laws regulating immigration.’
“The irony is that President Obama’s Administration has chosen to sue Arizona for helping to enforce federal immigration law and not sue local governments that have adopted a patchwork of ‘sanctuary’ policies that directly violate federal law. These patchwork local ‘sanctuary’ policies instruct the police not to cooperate with federal immigration officials.
“The best thing government can do is to create a stable, predictable environment, governed by an easily understood set of rules or laws. We do not need to make this more complicated than it already is.  We must first and foremost create a secure border. Enhanced trade, economic opportunity and freedom will surely follow.
“I am pleased that President Obama and the Department of Justice did not pursue the baseless claims of illegal racial profiling in the lawsuit.   When signing S.B. 1070, I said, ‘My signature today represents my steadfast support for enforcing the law — both against illegal immigration AND against racial profiling.’ Arizona’s law expressly prohibits unconstitutional racial profiling.  However, words are not enough.  For this reason, I ordered the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board (AZPOST) to develop training on the new law for Arizona’s police officers.   AZPOST has completed the training course and has published it for the all world to see at www.azpost.state.az.us/SB1070infocenter.htm.  AZPOST has done its job professionally and served Arizona well.
“I will not stop fighting to protect the citizens of Arizona, and to defend Arizonans in federal court.  I have set up a legal defense fund to pay the substantial legal fees that Arizona has been, and will be, forced to incur as a result of all of these lawsuits.  Contributions to the Border Security and Immigration Defense Fund can be made at www.keepazsafe.com.  My legal team will not hesitate to assert the rights of the State of Arizona in this matter.  Arizona will ultimately prevail against the lawsuits – including this latest assault by the Obama Administration. Our laws will be found to be constitutional – because that is exactly what they are.”
So the President is playing politics with National Security.
The Dept. of Justice that dropped the Black Panther case because of race politics, is now suing Arizona for race politics.
Politics. Politics. Politics.
The exploitation of Illegal aliens reaches a new low.
“Setting immigration policy and enforcing immigration laws is a national responsibility,” US Attorney General Eric Holder said in the statement.
Arizona, the Justice Department said, “crossed a constitutional line.”
However, he added, “diverting federal resources away from dangerous aliens such as terrorism suspects and aliens with criminal records will impact the entire country’s safety.”
Yeah, stopping them coming across a porous border is definitely “diverting”!!
“The American people must wonder whether the Obama administration is really committed to securing the border when it sues a state that is simply trying to protect its people by enforcing immigration law,” Republicans John McCain and Jon Kyl said in a joint statement.
The real problem is that BOTH parties are not interested in securing the border, for different reasons, but neither wants to do it.
But only the Democrats and this President wants to sue a State to prevent anyone from doing something about it!
So the federal government will use taxpayers money to sue taxpayers for wanting security.
America, what a country!
“The nation’s immigration laws reflect a careful and considered balance of national law enforcement, foreign relations, and humanitarian interests,” the suit says.
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The lawsuit goes on to say that a “state may not establish its own immigration policy or enforce state laws in a manner that interferes with the federal immigration laws. The Constitution and the federal immigration laws do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local immigration policies throughout the country.”
So if the government wants to ignore national security and border security you aren’t allowed to do anything about it!
We are from the Government and we are here to protect you!
That is, if you’re politically advantageous to us, or we want to pander to you.
Otherwise, screw you!
When U.S. cities and even entire states declare themselves to be “sanctuaries” for illegal aliens, they act outside the law, and by their actions could be charged with a felony for each violation of federal law by “concealing, harboring, or sheltering illegal aliens” (8 U.S. Code, sections 1324 and 1325; Immigration and Naturalization Act sections 274 and 275).
Funny that President Obama and Eric Holder have no problem with “sanctuary” cities encroaching on immigration policy and enforcement.
It’s all Politics, all the time.
We, the Government, aren’t going to do anything about the Border, but you’re not allowed to do anything about it either!
So much for Protect from all enemies foreign and domestic.
Only if they are perceived to be politically advantageous to us.
Doesn’t that make you feel safer!

You Can Lie with Spin

Government these days isn’t about making the hard choices. It’s about making the choice that will sell, either to “your base” (thus ignoring everyone else) or by spin (which is inevitably deceitful) because it will benefit you or one of your “sides” interests.

They write 2000+ bills they won’t read. But expect everyone to follow.
They can’t be bothered to read SB1070, at a minimalist 16 pages.
Much easier to just play on people fears, anxiety,biases, and divide and conquer.
And when that doesn’t work, just lie.
Then there’s the politician favorite phrase these days, “I misspoke”.
No, we have it on tape or audio.
But they “misspoke”.
Then you get stuff like this:
President Barack Obama, fresh from a win on a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulations, on Saturday urged Congress to take up his proposal for a $90 billion, 10-year tax on banks as the next step in reform.
Obama wants to slap a 0.15 percent tax on the liabilities of the biggest U.S. financial institutions to recoup the costs to taxpayers of the financial bailout.
“We need to impose a fee on the banks that were the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer assistance at the height of our financial crisis — so we can recover every dime of taxpayer money,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
He does realize that a tax on business is passed onto the consumer right?
He doesn’t care. It sounds good.
It plays to his anti-capitalist base and the “wall street” anger that has been ginned up.
The fact that Congress in the 1990′s set up the roots of this problem and the Government agency in charge of monitoring them were too busy with Porn is not a matter for discussion.
And one of the biggest players in this whole mess, Fannie and Freddie were and are  ignored should be a sign.
Alinsky, Rules for Radicals:
Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.
Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. “If your people aren’t having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.”
Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself.
Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.
Daniel Foster at the conservative National Review Online argues that the bill is filled with unnecessary or useless measures.
“There is much in the bill that has nothing to do with ‘Wall Street’ or the root causes of the crisis (i.e. debit card and interchange fee rules),” Foster writes. “There is little in it that will ‘reform’ too big to fail or change the incentives for the kind of behavior that led to the crisis (implicit subsidies and bailout authority galore); and it was a ‘compromise’ mostly between Democrats.”

Then you have VP Joe Biden, a one man gaffe machine:
VP Biden ran into an ice cream shot owner (in his shop) who aked him to lower the taxes and he called the guy a “smartass”
And it gets better:
Vice President Joe Biden gave a stark assessment of the economy Friday, telling an audience of supporters, “there’s no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession.”
Appearing at a fundraiser with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) in Milwaukee, the vice president remarked that by the time he and President Obama took office in 2008, the gross domestic product had shrunk and hundreds of thousands of jobs had been lost.
“We inherited a godawful mess,” he said, adding there was “no way to regenerate $3 trillion that was lost. Not misplaced, lost.” (CBS)
Andrew Langer, The Daily Caller:

Ultimately, with election victory comes the responsibility of governance. That responsibility requires grappling with the excruciating problem of making tough choices. This is something all elected officials face at some time or another, and it is the caveat for anyone interested in pursuing a political career. Problems ensue when political leaders abdicate their responsibilities—and a case can be made that such abdication is an abuse of the public trust. And when it comes to domestic policy, there is no more important issue than the creation of a government’s annual budget.
For the past three years, there has been a disturbing trend of federal legislators essentially punting their responsibilities—whether it comes to oversight of federal agencies, understanding the constitutional implications of legislation, or, at its most basic, actually reading legislation being voted upon. This seemingly fundamental misunderstanding of the role of legislators in our republic has resulted in an unprecedented outpouring of public ire, from Tea Parties to very public “dressing downs” of congressmen at Town Hall meetings.
Congress should have gotten the message, yet as proof they are deaf to their constituencies, leaders in the House have recently done—or not done—something stunning. Congressional leaders have decided that they are unable to even propose, let alone pass, a federal budget this year.
They have ostensibly done this while they await the decision of President Obama’s “Deficit Commission,” a convenient fiction created to give cowardly Democrats the “cover” necessary for a tax increase following the 2010 elections. It is not their fault, they will argue when they eventually do propose a budget. They were forced to do this because of the recommendations of the commission.
It is an excuse that doesn’t hold water. Congress has the responsibility for the budget, which means that the majority party has the responsibility for getting it prepared and shepherded through the system and passed. It is, in fact, statutorily mandated. But without any consequences, the law has about as much real power as a Las Vegas illusionist: it’s great theatre, but it really doesn’t do what it claims.
The problem is that more and more government entities (including state and local governments) are shifting these powers to unelected commissions. While some might call it mere “punting”—moving the power to some other group of individuals—it’s more accurately a form of political surrender; the functional equivalent of throwing in the towel because, well, the job is just too darn hard, and, in an election cycle, these guys want the title but they don’t want the responsibilities to go along with it.
Spending and size of government are the two top issues going into this fall election, with healthcare reform playing a role in both. Voters not only are fed up with out-of-control spending, they’re genuinely fearful of the potential economic instability runaway spending creates. Controlling that spending is infinitely more complicated when government officials refuse to release a budget detailing just how that money is being spent. It was, interestingly enough, the continued secrecy of national budgets that brought Gorbachev to power as the Soviet Union’s last premier—and opening up those budgets to greater scrutiny one of the hallmarks of his Perestroika program. How ironic, then, that more than two decades later, America is moving in that direction—an entirely wrong direction—when it comes to budgets.
Americans are tired of cowardly politicians. They are tired of being lied to, of having polls say one thing and do quite the opposite. They are hungry for real leaders—leaders who mean what they say and say what they mean. Leaders who are willing to make the tough choices, like Gov. Chris Christie in New Jersey.
Whether it’s trying to shift responsibility or surrendering to the difficulties of governance, either way the result is the same: Americans’ government grows larger without anyone exercising fiscal restraint. Political leaders raise taxes to try and pay for their inability to control spending. Overall we all suffer. Unfortunately, in this case, waiting until January 2011 might just be too late.

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• The deficit will reach a stunning $1.5 trillion this year. Even after the recession ends, trillion-dollar deficits will persist, causing the national debt to double by 2020.
• Excessive spending—not low revenues—accounts for 92% of deficits by 2014 and 100% by 2017.
• Solutions that “split the difference” between tax hikes and spending cuts doesn’t really address the source of the problem: spending.
• Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest costs will surge by nearly $2 trillion by 2020. By comparison, the cost of extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts is 85% less at $404 billion.

Tax Increases Are Not the Solution

• Raising federal income taxes to pay for entitlement spending would require rates to double by 2050 and continue to rise thereafter.
• Balancing the budget with tax increases alone would increase the tax burden from an average of 18% of the economy to 30% by 2055.
• Layering on a value added tax (VAT)—a new national sales tax—would create a huge drag on the economy and family budgets.
• A VAT would cause the price of everything to rise by 15–20%. By 2019, 44 cents of every dollar would go to the federal government, compared to 15 cents today.

Tax Hikes Have Harmful Economic Consequences

• Tax increases take money from families and businesses, lowering savings and investment and killing jobs. This is especially harmful in the current economic climate.
• Future generations—who can’t yet vote—will be stuck paying the higher taxes and inheriting lower standards of living that go with it.
• Any new federal income taxes would be on top of state and local taxes, such as income, property, excise, fuel, and sales taxes.
• A VAT would become a cash cow for Congress to fund new spending and open the door for continued, stealthy rate increases.
• Twenty of 29 developed economies with a VAT have increased rates since passage. Denmark leads, having increased their VAT from 15 to 25% since it was enacted.

Congress has been mismanaging taxpayer dollars for decades. Can Washington really be trusted to use new revenues to close the deficit gap, or would they just spend the money on new programs? (heritage.org)

I would say no.
When you can just “misspeak” or “The previous administration…” or “the party of no” or just demonize someone else, why bother.
It is much easier to spend than to be responsible.
After all, it’s not the politician’s money.
It’s yours.
And you’ll always be there for them so why should they worry.

The Government Will Save You! Or Else...

Recommended Viewing: Gov. Christie of NJ gives a whining member of the teacher’s union a slap back. For once, someone who will stand toe to toe with liberals and push back!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuri7p_9pm4&feature=player_embedded
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Now on to the Financial “reform” bill being finalized in the Congress.
It’s supposed to protect you and me from “too big to fail”.
It’s supposed to protect the consumer against the greedy capitalist pigs called Banks.
Naturally, these are Liberals, so it doesn’t really do that at all.
Just like Health Care reform wasn’t really about Health care. It was about granting the government the power to decide who lives and who dies. Period.
Well, here’s the next nail in your coffin.
But, we are from the government and we are here to help you!
The bill authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury – a political appointee – to seize any financial company (bank or nonbank) simply because, in his opinion, it is too big to fail and in danger of insolvency.  This power can be used for political retribution, pressure for campaign funding, or any other abuse bureaucratic whim or partisan politics can conceive.  It is a power Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez would love to have!
The legislation also requires that any business that extends credit, in any form, needs to clear the loan instrument in advance with the new consumer protection agency.  The backlog of pending applications will strangle consumer credit.
And the bill fails to do the one thing it must do — regulate derivatives and make them transparent.  Senator Chris Dodd (D Ct) bowed to pressure from his sponsors on Wall Street and deleted the regulatory provision and set up a commission to study the situation for two years!  Senator Maria Cantwell (D Wash) protested the cop out with a no vote against the legislation.
These would be the financial fake money traders who caused the problem in the first place when all the bad debts from the subprime mortgage debacle-in-waiting started and eventually crashed.
Curiously, this was championed by the same guy who also championed the Subprime Mortgage mess, Now-retiring Sen. Chris Dodd.
Coincidence I think not.

So how did it pass?  Four Republicans sold out, that´s how!  Among the RINOs were, of course, Susan Collins and Olympia Snow of Maine.  But, surprisingly, Scott Brown (R Mass), the newly elected Massachusetts Miracle defected as did the normally stalwart Chuck Grassley (R Iowa).
Now the federal government has effectively taken over about one third of our national economy by passing Obamacare and regulatory reform in almost the same breath.
But that is only part of the story. The bill gives the secretary of the treasury (appointed by the president) powers that are a dictator’s dream come true. He would have the power to seize any bank or financial institution if, in his opinion, it is in danger of insolvency. One can imagine the threats coming from the White House to those banks who failed to make campaign contributions or endorse the presidential agenda.
Then there are the implications for our individual lives. The bill, as we explained in a previous story, would give the feds the right to peer into our bank accounts . . . yours and mine. But also the banks would have to get permission from the government to make individual loans. This is not merely a bank getting general approval to make loans. It is banks going to the government for approval of each and every individual loan.
It might look like this. John Smith goes to First Bank of Elm Street and asks for a car loan. The bank then sends an application to the federal government asking for permission to loan Mr. Smith the money. The feds look at Mr. Smith’s bank statement and find that he contributed money to the president’s political opponent last election. Mr. Smith can forget about his car loan . . . or home loan . . . or financing a new pair of socks.
With possible implications also, according to Glenn Beck, that it will be the “fault” of the lender if the person who they loan the money to defaults.
So imagine this: Your a Bank. If you loan Mr. Smith money, for say a house, and he defaults. He can go to the Consumer advocacy bureaucrats and complain that his rate was too high or whatever and the government can just say,” Bank, you were too greedy” and that’s that.
Now if you were a bank, would you loan any Mr. Smith’s any money?
And the economy comes to a grinding halt.
But at least your safe from greedy capitalist pigs!!
• The Financial Stability Oversight Council will be created and identify non-bank financial companies that “may pose risks to the financial stability of the United States in the event of their material financial distress or failure”
So if the government “deems” you too big a risk they can come in and break up your company, fire anyone they like and do what they deem necessary to “protect” you from these greedy capitalist pigs!
• The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection will be created — for you. They’ll be able to limit what financial products and services can be offered to consumers. And the bill mandates any financial institution that takes deposits, keep a record of the number and amount of those deposits and that customer addresses be “geo-coded for the collection of data regarding the census tracts of the residences or business locations of customers.” Geo-coded? Are they linking deposits to the Census Bureau?
They claim to be protecting you from “unfair and deceptive” practices. Unfair and deceptive are two words that are defined and often used in our laws, but there is another word they put in the bill: “abusive.” What does that even mean? No one really knows because it has not been used in this context before. Will its definition be up to the new super regulator who will be in charge of the agency? What is abusive? What if someone defaults on their loan or their house is foreclosed upon and they say “the interest rate is too high” or “I did not understand adjustable rate would adjust up” or “I am old, you should’ve explained it to me.”
Will the regulator decide the lender was abusive? It puts the pressure on the lender to not only offer full disclosure, but take full responsibility. Don’t worry if you can’t pay your loan, blame it on the abusive greedy bank.
Glenn Beck continues…
And here’s what is coming in the House’s financial bill:
• First and foremost, it does nothing to address the problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those two helped create the housing mess and then needed a $125 billion bailout, which they haven’t even scratched the surface on a payback.
• It creates a special protected class of “too big to fail” firms. In section 113, a “Financial Stability Oversight Council” is established, which will choose the firms deemed too big to fail. Hmm, can you think of any other massive financial institutions that don’t care if they fail because they know they will be bailed out by the government? Fannie and Freddie. So not only is this bill not doing anything to stop Fannie and Freddie, as they continue to lose hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, this bill will create more of them.
• Provides for seizure of private property without meaningful judicial review. The secretary of the treasury can order the seizure of any financial firm that he finds “in danger of default.” Again, a bureaucrat arbitrarily getting to make the distinction to just take over a financial firm whenever they feel like it. And, once the decision is approved, it’s nearly impossible to reverse.
• This Financial Stability Oversight Council, they’ve got nine regulatory authorities out there and this expands the reach outside of just financial firms. They can declare if a non-bank financial firm (insurance, finance companies, hedge funds) are “in trouble.” And guess what? They can turn it over to the treasury for regulation. Again, this distinction is completely arbitrary and comes from bureaucrats.
• Opens a line of credit to the treasury for additional government funding. Guess who’s irrelevant? You are, Congress! No more begging those pesky politicians for billions of dollars, like with TARP. No, we’ll just skip that and tap the ATM.
• Regulators can guarantee the debt of solvent banks as well. If there is a ‘liquidity crisis’ …
• The bill creates a new “Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.” They just want to “protect” consumers. Uh-huh. This bureau will have broad powers to limit what financial products and services can be offered to consumers.
It’s supposed to help, but it will only reduce choices and likely make credit more expensive and harder to get. It also allows them to track all of your financial transactions, just to “protect you.”
• Non-financial firms would be subject to financial regulations. Listen to how broad this is: Section 102 defines a “non-bank financial company” as a company “substantially engaged in activities… that are financial in nature.” Aren’t all companies financial in nature? Sure, bakeries are making cupcakes and bread, but isn’t that financial in nature?
And they’re making sure this bill is jammed down America’s throat by, I’m not kidding, July 4th.
So here is the Frankendodd monster giving us our independence by chaining our children and our freedoms by snooping through our credit cards.
This fits the progressive agenda to a T: Power and control. These guys are power hungry. This financial bill is the biggest reform since FDR. We’re making the same mistakes we make in the 1930s, except the first time we made these mistakes, the American people didn’t know what progressives were really about and there was no global structure in place. When FDR died in office, we could still reverse many of the things he tried to do. But this time, we won’t be able to, because your representatives won’t have any control.
Again: “Governance is not government — it is the framework of rules, institutions and practices that set limits on behavior of individuals, organizations and companies.”
Again, I ask you to call your representative at the IMF and complain if you don’t like that fact that America spent $50 billion in tax money to bail out Greece. Call your representative at the U.N. and say you won’t vote for him next time. Contact the World Bank and let them know that you’ll close your bank account with them if you have to.
This is why all of this matters: You have no representation. It’s just the way the world is now. It’s a global community.
Another thing FDR did not have, but Woodrow Wilson did, was Cass Sunstein.
He’s the regulatory czar, the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He controls everything — he nudges you. He never tells you what to do — he nudges you. Remember “The Truman show”? Sunstein is the director up there in the control room. You still have his “freedoms.” Sunstein is just using a lot of “choice architecture” around you.
Cass Sunstein has wanted that job in the control room his whole life — his whole life! In 2008, on the campaign trail, he went on a date with his soon to be wife, Samantha Power. She asked him what his dream job was. She said, “I expected him to say he dreamed of playing for the Red Sox… his eyes got real big and he said, ‘Ooh! OIRA!’”
Most people will say what’s the big deal with that job? Here’s a guy who’s wanted this job. What kind of geek wants this job? Well, any geek who knows history knows that’s one of the most powerful jobs in the world. You are looking at the power of the Fed and more.
Oh, by the way, if this financial regulation bill passes, how much control does government have over the economy? Twenty percent? Forty-eight percent? No — 60 percent.
We are teetering on the brink of totalitarianism in the land of the free. Folks, write your congressmen while there is still time.
But at least the government is looking out for you!
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An analysis of government data by USA Today found that “paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year.”
That’s only part of this sad story: “At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.”
If the share of private-sector pay is shrinking, income from government must necessarily be growing. Sure enough, during the first quarter, the federal government added 81,000 jobs while the private sector lost 4.71 million.
President Obama wants more. He’s asked federal agencies to accelerate and streamline hiring of federal workers at a time when laying off bureaucrats would be the far better course.
Even before Obama began to push federal hiring, working for Washington was a lucrative career choice. In 2008, the typical federal worker took home on average $67,691 in salary compared with $60,046 for the private sector.
During the first 18 months of the recession, USA Today reported in December, “Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.”
Government workers have also avoided the job losses we’ve seen in the private sector. Their unemployment rate from 2007 to 2010 has been 3%; the rate across private industry has been 7.9%.
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And finally, this liberal ditty. Now keep in mind the Liberals have no problem with a 13-story Islamic mosque being built practically across the street from ground zero by a radical muslim cleric…
But they do object to…The American Flag!!
(But don’t expect the Ministry of truth to tell you this one.)
An Army veteran in Wisconsin will be allowed to display an American flag until Memorial Day, but the symbol honoring his service in Iraq and Kosovo must come down next Tuesday, his wife told FoxNews.com.
Dawn Price, 27, of Oshkosh, Wis., said she received a call from officials at Midwest Realty Management early Wednesday indicating that she and her husband, Charlie, would be allowed to continue flying the American flag they’ve had in their window for months through the holiday weekend. The couple had previously been told they had to remove the flag by Saturday or face eviction due to a company policy that bans the display of flags, banners and political or religious materials.
“It’s basically an extension so we can fly the flag on Memorial Day,” Price told FoxNews.com. “It does need to come down after that.”
Charlie Price, 28, served tours of duty as a combat engineer in Iraq and Kosovo, his wife said. To honor his eight years of service, she began decorating their apartment during Veterans Day in November. An American flag topped off the display, she said.
“I knew it made Charlie really proud to see that,” she said. “And this isn’t something new. This has been up for quite some time now.”
Veterans’ groups were furious at the realtors’ refusal to allow the flag to fly.
“As a veteran, it sickens me that the Dawn and Charlie Price’s building management company would imply that the American flag could be construed as offensive by their residents,” said Ryan Gallucci, a spokesman for AmVets.
“We’re talking about our most revered national symbol. This is insulting to anyone who has defended our flag honorably, like Charlie Price.”
Dawn Price said she now works to amend the federal Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, which states no “condominium association, cooperative association, or residential real estate management association” may stop someone from flying the American flag. The law, however, does not apply to renters.
“This has been eating at us since Friday,” she said. ‘The best way to fight this isn’t getting an eviction and going after these people in court. That’s just going to cost us a lot of time, energy and money.”
Instead, Dawn Price said she either intends to place a curtain between the flag and the apartment window to block it from onlookers or will move it to a rear balcony come next week.
“We don’t want to fight the eviction,” she said. “We know we’d lose.”
Officials at Midwest Realty Management, which manages Brookside Apartments, where the Prices live, did not return several messages seeking comment. In a statement to the Oshkosh Northwestern, company officials said the policy was established to provide a consistent living environment for all residents.
“This policy was developed to insure that we are fair to everyone as we have many residents from diverse backgrounds,” the statement read. “By having a blanket policy of neutrality we have found that we are less likely to offend anyone and the aesthetic qualities of our apartment communities are maintained.”
Despite the brief reprieve, Dawn Price said her husband is disappointed by the flag flap.
“He actually sees it as a slap in the face to his service,” she said. “He’s pretty upset about it, especially right around Memorial Day.”(FOX)
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But the good news, if there is such a thing these days, there’s a Tea Party in San Francisco!!
No, the world did not end because of this fundamental contradiction.
But great “Unifier” can’t even win in San Francisco these days.
So there is hope.
Hope FOR Change.
Or else, in my lifetime, it will all go the way of the dinosaurs….