By Journal Now Staff
Here's how members of North Carolina's congressional delegation voted on major issues in the week ending Friday.
House
2012 military budget: Voting 283-136, the House on Wednesday approved the conference report (HR 1540) on a $662 billion military budget for fiscal 2012, including $117.2 billion for war in Afghanistan and Iraq, $52.5 billion for the military's health care system and $14.9 billion for naval shipbuilding. The bill requires that captured members of organizations such as al-Qaida be held in U.S. military custody and subjected to military justice. But terrorist suspects apprehended on U.S. soil who are U.S. citizens or resident aliens must be assigned to America's civilian criminal-justice system and thus accorded constitutional rights of due process. The bill toughens economic sanctions against Iran by denying access to the U.S. financial system to any foreign bank that conducts business with the Central Bank of Iran.
A yes vote backed the conference report. Voting yes: Reps. G.K. Butterfield, D-1st; Renee Ellmers, R-2nd; Virginia Foxx, R-5th; Mike McIntyre, D-7th; Larry Kissell, D-8th; Patrick T. McHenry, R-10th; Heath Shuler, D-11th.
Voting no: Reps. Walter B. Jones, R-3rd; David E. Price, D-4th; Melvin L. Watt, D-12th; Brad Miller, D-13th. Not voting: Howard Coble, R-6th; Sue Wilkins Myrick, R-9th.
Republican payroll-tax plan: Voting 234-193, the House on Tuesday passed a Republican bill (HR 3630) to renew through 2012 the temporary law under which employees this year are contributing 4.2 percent of their pay rather than the standard 6.2 percent to the Social Security Trust Fund. The bill also would speed construction of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to southern Texas; repeal Environmental Protection Agency air pollution curbs on industrial boilers; extend soon-to-expire unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless; reduce the maximum number of weeks for jobless checks from 99 to 59 while allowing states to impose requirements such as testing recipients for drugs; extend for two years existing Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors; and allow businesses to write off 100 percent of capital investments in a single year. The bill awaited Senate action.
A yes vote was to pass the bill. Voting yes: Ellmers, Jones, Foxx, Myrick, McHenry
Voting no: Butterfield, Price, McIntyre, Kissell, Shuler, Watt, Miller. Not voting: Coble.
Sanctions on Iran: Voting 410-11, the House on Wednesday sent the Senate a bill (HR 1905) to toughen existing U.S. economic sanctions on Iran.
A yes vote was to pass the bill. Voting yes: Butterfield, Ellmers, Jones, Price, Foxx, McIntyre, Kissell, McHenry, Shuler, Watt, Miller Not voting: Coble, Myrick
2012 intelligence budget: Voting 396-23, the House on Friday sent to President Barack Obama the conference report on a fiscal 2012 budget (HR 1892) of about $55 billion for U.S. intelligence agencies, up 4 percent from 2011. When certain military outlays are counted, the total U.S. spy budget for 2012 is expected to top $85 billion. A yes vote backed the conference report.
Voting yes: Butterfield, Ellmers, Price, Foxx, McIntyre, Kissell, McHenry, Shuler, Watt, Miller
Voting no: Jones Not voting: Coble, Myrick
Fiscal 2012 appropriations: Voting 296-121, the House on Friday sent to the Senate a bill (HR 2055) to appropriate $915 billion in fiscal 2012 for the 10 Cabinet departments and related agencies that have not yet received regular appropriations three months into the budget year. Among the bill's many policy changes are ones to delay new energy-efficiency standard for light bulbs and bar the District of Columbia from using its own funds to finance abortions. The bill grants major spending increases to the Pentagon and Securities and Exchange Commission while imposing flat, reduced or only slightly increased budgets on most other departments and agencies. When combined with regular appropriations enacted last month, the bill raises total 2012 discretionary spending to the $1.043 trillion mark set by last summer's bipartisan deal on raising the debt ceiling.
A yes vote was to pass the bill. Voting yes: Butterfield, Ellmers, Price, Foxx, McIntyre, Kissell, Myrick, Shuler, Watt, Miller
Voting no: Jones, McHenry. Not voting: Coble
CONTINUED:
http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2011/dec/18/wsmet14-roll-call-votes-in-congress-for-dec-18-ar-1726099/
Showing posts with label legislature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legislature. Show all posts
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
CANADA FREE PRESS: Separation of Powers: Responsibilities/Misuse of…
Open letter to our legislators…
By Online Bill Shimukonas, Sr. Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Dear Sirs, Mesdames,
Given the fact that many of you have not been upholding the promise you took when you were sworn into office, I thought I would remind you of your duties as a United States Congressman/woman and/or Senator. This country is going to the dogs and many of you, regardless of political party, are aiding and abetting that demise because you are not fulfilling your end of your work contract.
Because you, collectively, have conceded many of your sworn duties to the executive branch and therefore to a President who obviously and presumptuously misuses his executive privileges, and because you remain silent when he sanctions his perceived authority with pen and paper with no apparent regard for legitimacy of constitutional protocol, there are some among us who consider you guilty of conspiracy in what appears to be a blatant attempt to defraud this nation of its Constitutionally-bound sovereignty. This President and his administration have made it clear about where they wish to take this country. It does not include a destination where the Constitution is used as a road map. And for those representatives who are far too casual in their motives or otherwise own motives that are specific to the malicious intent of voiding America‘s bedrock foundation, our Constitution, the word conspiracy is just a little too mellow.
Remember, too, that we are still a Republic. Until we become something else, and we are obviously on the way to doing so, the mathematical formula for our basic form of democracy is still based on the concept of one person, one vote. That mathematical equation has changed dramatically, most particularly over the past number of decades. The electorate is now being subsidized more by the influence of lobby and, of course, profligate legislators who cater to self-serving interests rather than submitting to the favor of continuing liberty and underlying freedoms for all Americans. It’s time to get back to the basic dynamics of rule as fostered in our Constitution. Forget the political correctness crap. Put the special interests in their rightful place. Some issues of those groups are legitimate and do indeed deserve consideration in the appropriate forum; most, I submit, belong in the trash bin. Bottom line: Deal with reality head-on. And for those of you with conscience, keep in mind that there are legislators without conscience among you who will continue in their attempts to deflect the course of our history. I encourage you to Stand To. For those of you who legislate with forbearance and intellectual curiosity within the context of our form of Constitutional governance, no offense intended. I wish you well.
However, insofar as the warm bodies who simply take up space in the halls of Congress for reasons other than those that command allegiance to our Constitution, and then raise their hands to affirm linkage to issues that directly countermand the weight of traditional America’s historical sense of individualism or for personal gain, yes, I do hope you are offended. Thus, for you, for those committed to desecrating the vehicle through which so many American Dreams have been born, there is but one way to put it. You are undeserving of occupying chairs where once so many men and women dedicated to the preservation of our truly unique American identity once sat. The stink of your vicious, hateful anti traditional American values diatribes and your votes that endorse a Socialist agenda cling to you as does the pungent, hold-your-breath-as-you-pee, overused, sloppy, wet, paper-strewn floored outhouse. Your lack of respect for and your obvious ignorance of our history scream for redress. Were those of you who I collectively accuse of disrespect, disloyalty and, let us not forget incompetence, were you officers of the state in the Dumas of Josif Djugashvili’s Soviet Russia, you would be sent to Siberia for re-education…if he liked you. And you complain about water boarding. Give us a break.
However, since you live in this once great country where such things as the First Amendment still apply, paid for in blood lest you had forgotten, you are given a pass regardless of the venial rhetoric and your disaffected voting records. And, for whatever it may be worth, every time you do so, you spit on the graves of all the men and women who passed onto us a gift, one already paid for, bundled, packaged and delivered. For the uninformed or in the case of so many of our belligerent so-called leaders in Washington as well as others who occupy lesser seats at the state and local levels of government, it’s called freedom. Imagine that? Yes, comrades of Alinsky/Lenin doctrinal values, and it implies a form of governance that was founded on (wow, now get this), free will. And we don’t have to do squat other than manage it. That’s why you were elected. That is your job.
I urge you, all of you, to review the tasks that clearly define your responsibilities as noted at the end of this text. That is just a small part of the package, our gift from Americans past. Don’t throw it away for convivial concepts of often false ceremonious writs of mutated doctrine that history without exception defines, at best, as mediocre governance that suppresses, in the words of Thomas Wolfe, “the spirit of man.” It really is quite simple. It’s all about the Constitution, the root of our laws, and your oath to preserve that document. You need only follow the guidelines and then stand up vigorously, angrily if you must, to those who violate the same. You do that and a whole bunch of us will, as we say in the military, watch your back. It’s an honor thing. We’ve also taken the oath. But, I daresay, unlike many who simply put voice to the words, that oath is coded in our blood; and for many throughout the entirety of our short history, it was left on the battlefield. Therein lay the true worth of that document. No treasure, no intrusive or insidious argument contrary to the stated intent of those words in our Constitution can justify the cost of prohibitive change. And your oath, your conviction as to its worth, as is ours, is the key to preserving that treasure for all who follow.
Congress has General Powers of Legislation:
•To provide for the raising and disbursement of revenue.
•To borrow money; to coin money and to regulate its value; and to fix the standard of weights and measures.
•To regulate foreign and interstate commerce.
•To declare war, and to maintain an army and a navy.
•To establish post offices and post roads.
•To enact patent and copyright laws.
•To enact uniform naturalization and bankruptcy laws.
•To provide for the punishment of crimes against the United States.
•To establish courts inferior to the Supreme Court.
•To provide for organizing and calling out the militia.
•To admit new States into the Union.
•To provide for the government of the Territories.
•To exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, public lands, public buildings, forts and navy yards. (Granted, some legitimate amendments here).
•To enact all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States.
Powers and Duties of the President:
•Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy.
•Communicates with Congress by message.
•Approves or disapproves Acts of Congress.
•Makes treaties with advice and consent of the Senate.
•Commissions Public Officers of the United States.
•Grants reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States.
Spes sibi quisque . . . Let each man’s hope be in himself; let him trust to his own resources.
Have a nice day,
Bill Shimukonas, Sr.
De oppresso liber
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/print-friendly/41982
By Online Bill Shimukonas, Sr. Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Dear Sirs, Mesdames,
Given the fact that many of you have not been upholding the promise you took when you were sworn into office, I thought I would remind you of your duties as a United States Congressman/woman and/or Senator. This country is going to the dogs and many of you, regardless of political party, are aiding and abetting that demise because you are not fulfilling your end of your work contract.
Because you, collectively, have conceded many of your sworn duties to the executive branch and therefore to a President who obviously and presumptuously misuses his executive privileges, and because you remain silent when he sanctions his perceived authority with pen and paper with no apparent regard for legitimacy of constitutional protocol, there are some among us who consider you guilty of conspiracy in what appears to be a blatant attempt to defraud this nation of its Constitutionally-bound sovereignty. This President and his administration have made it clear about where they wish to take this country. It does not include a destination where the Constitution is used as a road map. And for those representatives who are far too casual in their motives or otherwise own motives that are specific to the malicious intent of voiding America‘s bedrock foundation, our Constitution, the word conspiracy is just a little too mellow.
Remember, too, that we are still a Republic. Until we become something else, and we are obviously on the way to doing so, the mathematical formula for our basic form of democracy is still based on the concept of one person, one vote. That mathematical equation has changed dramatically, most particularly over the past number of decades. The electorate is now being subsidized more by the influence of lobby and, of course, profligate legislators who cater to self-serving interests rather than submitting to the favor of continuing liberty and underlying freedoms for all Americans. It’s time to get back to the basic dynamics of rule as fostered in our Constitution. Forget the political correctness crap. Put the special interests in their rightful place. Some issues of those groups are legitimate and do indeed deserve consideration in the appropriate forum; most, I submit, belong in the trash bin. Bottom line: Deal with reality head-on. And for those of you with conscience, keep in mind that there are legislators without conscience among you who will continue in their attempts to deflect the course of our history. I encourage you to Stand To. For those of you who legislate with forbearance and intellectual curiosity within the context of our form of Constitutional governance, no offense intended. I wish you well.
However, insofar as the warm bodies who simply take up space in the halls of Congress for reasons other than those that command allegiance to our Constitution, and then raise their hands to affirm linkage to issues that directly countermand the weight of traditional America’s historical sense of individualism or for personal gain, yes, I do hope you are offended. Thus, for you, for those committed to desecrating the vehicle through which so many American Dreams have been born, there is but one way to put it. You are undeserving of occupying chairs where once so many men and women dedicated to the preservation of our truly unique American identity once sat. The stink of your vicious, hateful anti traditional American values diatribes and your votes that endorse a Socialist agenda cling to you as does the pungent, hold-your-breath-as-you-pee, overused, sloppy, wet, paper-strewn floored outhouse. Your lack of respect for and your obvious ignorance of our history scream for redress. Were those of you who I collectively accuse of disrespect, disloyalty and, let us not forget incompetence, were you officers of the state in the Dumas of Josif Djugashvili’s Soviet Russia, you would be sent to Siberia for re-education…if he liked you. And you complain about water boarding. Give us a break.
However, since you live in this once great country where such things as the First Amendment still apply, paid for in blood lest you had forgotten, you are given a pass regardless of the venial rhetoric and your disaffected voting records. And, for whatever it may be worth, every time you do so, you spit on the graves of all the men and women who passed onto us a gift, one already paid for, bundled, packaged and delivered. For the uninformed or in the case of so many of our belligerent so-called leaders in Washington as well as others who occupy lesser seats at the state and local levels of government, it’s called freedom. Imagine that? Yes, comrades of Alinsky/Lenin doctrinal values, and it implies a form of governance that was founded on (wow, now get this), free will. And we don’t have to do squat other than manage it. That’s why you were elected. That is your job.
I urge you, all of you, to review the tasks that clearly define your responsibilities as noted at the end of this text. That is just a small part of the package, our gift from Americans past. Don’t throw it away for convivial concepts of often false ceremonious writs of mutated doctrine that history without exception defines, at best, as mediocre governance that suppresses, in the words of Thomas Wolfe, “the spirit of man.” It really is quite simple. It’s all about the Constitution, the root of our laws, and your oath to preserve that document. You need only follow the guidelines and then stand up vigorously, angrily if you must, to those who violate the same. You do that and a whole bunch of us will, as we say in the military, watch your back. It’s an honor thing. We’ve also taken the oath. But, I daresay, unlike many who simply put voice to the words, that oath is coded in our blood; and for many throughout the entirety of our short history, it was left on the battlefield. Therein lay the true worth of that document. No treasure, no intrusive or insidious argument contrary to the stated intent of those words in our Constitution can justify the cost of prohibitive change. And your oath, your conviction as to its worth, as is ours, is the key to preserving that treasure for all who follow.
Congress has General Powers of Legislation:
•To provide for the raising and disbursement of revenue.
•To borrow money; to coin money and to regulate its value; and to fix the standard of weights and measures.
•To regulate foreign and interstate commerce.
•To declare war, and to maintain an army and a navy.
•To establish post offices and post roads.
•To enact patent and copyright laws.
•To enact uniform naturalization and bankruptcy laws.
•To provide for the punishment of crimes against the United States.
•To establish courts inferior to the Supreme Court.
•To provide for organizing and calling out the militia.
•To admit new States into the Union.
•To provide for the government of the Territories.
•To exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, public lands, public buildings, forts and navy yards. (Granted, some legitimate amendments here).
•To enact all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States.
Powers and Duties of the President:
•Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy.
•Communicates with Congress by message.
•Approves or disapproves Acts of Congress.
•Makes treaties with advice and consent of the Senate.
•Commissions Public Officers of the United States.
•Grants reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States.
Spes sibi quisque . . . Let each man’s hope be in himself; let him trust to his own resources.
Have a nice day,
Bill Shimukonas, Sr.
De oppresso liber
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/print-friendly/41982
Sunday, April 17, 2011
May 17th, 2011, 10:00-2:00 pm: NCFRW Legislative Day!
Meet at the Legislative Building Lobby, 16 West Jones Street, Raleigh, NC.
10:30 am--Attend the Marriage Rally at Halifax Mall, behind the Legislative Building. The keynote speaker is Dr. David Gibbs, Jr., founder of the Christian Law Association, and host of the "Legal Alert." 12:00 noon to 2:00 pm--Lunch with the legislators, and present "Marriage Amendment" petitions in the Legislative Building Auditorium. Lunch is $10.00 and reservations are needed by Wednesday, May 11th. The money will be collected in cash on May 17th. Point of contact is Brenda T. Formo at nc.eagle.eye@live.com or (336) 605- 5848.
10:30 am--Attend the Marriage Rally at Halifax Mall, behind the Legislative Building. The keynote speaker is Dr. David Gibbs, Jr., founder of the Christian Law Association, and host of the "Legal Alert." 12:00 noon to 2:00 pm--Lunch with the legislators, and present "Marriage Amendment" petitions in the Legislative Building Auditorium. Lunch is $10.00 and reservations are needed by Wednesday, May 11th. The money will be collected in cash on May 17th. Point of contact is Brenda T. Formo at nc.eagle.eye@live.com or (336) 605- 5848.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Follow the Money
Governor vetoes bill in order to protect incentives giveaways
This week the governor vetoed the Legislature’s budget-savings bill in order to protect money in some of the state’s largest incentives funds. Shrouded in secrecy, Perdue’s office sent out a message on Twitter that pointed to several potential projects across the state that they said could be jeopardized if the governor’s deal sweeteners were taken away. The names of the companies being recruited weren't mentioned. The Twitter message went on to say there were "several other, new projects promising 900 jobs and a more than $100 (million) investment that may need a grant to seal the deal." Referencing the “but for” test, Republican lawmakers have said their bill would still allow Perdue to come to the Legislature to approve incentives to lure businesses if they are really necessary during the remainder of the fiscal year. “Perdue's veto proves she'd rather roll the dice with your tax dollars than protect jobs now and right-size state government," tweeted Senate leader Phil Berger. READ MORE:
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=aabacd8f9a906ae57d21cb4b1&id=5aa6291a9d&e=f930f34c6b
This week the governor vetoed the Legislature’s budget-savings bill in order to protect money in some of the state’s largest incentives funds. Shrouded in secrecy, Perdue’s office sent out a message on Twitter that pointed to several potential projects across the state that they said could be jeopardized if the governor’s deal sweeteners were taken away. The names of the companies being recruited weren't mentioned. The Twitter message went on to say there were "several other, new projects promising 900 jobs and a more than $100 (million) investment that may need a grant to seal the deal." Referencing the “but for” test, Republican lawmakers have said their bill would still allow Perdue to come to the Legislature to approve incentives to lure businesses if they are really necessary during the remainder of the fiscal year. “Perdue's veto proves she'd rather roll the dice with your tax dollars than protect jobs now and right-size state government," tweeted Senate leader Phil Berger. READ MORE:
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=aabacd8f9a906ae57d21cb4b1&id=5aa6291a9d&e=f930f34c6b
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
