Tom Backers

Michigan, Michigan Politics

Virginia Gun Grab

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When in the course of human events...

This is America’s canary in the mineshaft…

Leave it to the Democrats to play on both sides of the fence at the same time. While attempting to misuse the Constitution to their advantage by fabricating impeachment articles against a President they do not believe was legally elected under its rules, they are demonstrating in Virginia the very purpose of the 2nd Amendment to it.

In case you missed it, the state government of Virginia is now totally controlled by the Democrats, courtesy of nearly $3 million in campaign donations to them by….Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg. Mr. Bloomberg also provided them with some legislation he wants them to pass of course, to include gun confiscation. The Democrats have suggested the Governor use the Virginia National Guard to accomplish the task anywhere in the state where compliance may be sketchy.

The legislation also outlaws citizen militias, imagine that…as a “well regulated militia” might pose a problem to enforcement. These people who threaten armed force against their citizens to implement unconstitutional laws are the same people who advocate for open borders and sanctuary cities for illegal aliens. The same people that have spent the last 3 years trying to undo the results of the 2016 election. They do not deserve to be in ANY position of political power, not in America.

January 20th 2020 the new session of the Virginia legislature begins…the call to arms has already gone out over social media…there will be a confrontation. I’m certain Mr. Bloomberg will be watching, I hope the rest of the country watches as well.

Molon Labe, Mr. Bloomberg, and please, come for mine personally…

For more background, visit this link…or do your own search…

https://www.newsmax.com/adamwilson/virginia-gun-control-sanctuary-second-amendment/2019/12/18/id/946502/

“These lawmakers, who work for us, U.S. citizens, are threatening to use the military against citizens to enforce gun confiscation and seize our private property.
If allowed, this would set a dangerous precedent across the country.
This action is precisely why the Second Amendment was created. It’s to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government.”

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2018 Michigan Gubernatorial Race, Conservative News, Elections, Michigan Politics, Republicans, State Convention

MIGOP Wins!!!

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The Michigan GOP Establishment achieves its objective…

The Michigan GOP Establishment achieves its objective…

2010 was a benchmark year for conservatives…”Flip the House” was the Tea Party battle cry, and Nancy Pelosi handed the House gavel to John Boehner…The ensuing MIGOP convention saw Dave Agema elected to the RNC over establishment Saul Anuzis, and the establishment held off a serious challenge to the party leadership by defeating the conservative challengers for the State Chair by 71 votes…The “Old Guard” realized they had a significant problem, and set about to to correct it almost immediately…They infiltrated Tea party groups around the state, neutralizing conservative efforts by gaining control of county and regional Tea Party groups, and rendering them mostly harmless…They packed the State and District Committees with a many establishment types as possible, and began changing the rules, or ignoring the established rules to secure their advantage…Voice votes at conventions were used against conservatives in place of ballot votes the establishment knew they would lose…

Conservatives that managed to get elected to offices within county GOP parties became targets also…Our precinct delegates that nearly stole the State convention were also on the establishment hit lists…The CD1 Chairmanship was rigged to elect Jesse Osmer over Adrian Pelousse by a single vote, the establishment pulled out all the stops in that instance…Party and District rules were ignored, slates were printed on the pencils used to mark ballots that were illegally collected and tallied…Elected officials that owed their office to the conservative movement betrayed the very people that put them there…The list goes on, and for most of you reading this, you know these are the facts…because you were there…Even local politics became tainted with the establishment purge…After helping several candidates for the Kalkaska Commission win their seats, and turn a 5-2 Democrat advantage into a 4-3 GOP Commission, I (and others) was literally blackballed from my own County party…Funny how now and again I still get asked for help…

In 2010 we gave them the US House, we gave them Snyder and both houses in the State legislature, in 2016 we gave them the Senate and Donald Trump…In return they gave us higher taxes and a utility monopoly in Michigan, the perpetuation of ObamaCare, and now recreational pot, bureaucratic redistricting, and no fault absentee voting…Soon to come are the National Popular Vote, and the destruction of the Constitution via a Convention of States…The more Republicans we elect, the more they act like Democrats…The result was predictable, and secured November 6th…With the conservative purge nearly complete, they gave us ballot proposals that only served to attract Democrat votes, and a candidate for Governor guaranteed to lose, not to mention giving the US House BACK to Nancy Pelosi…

Yes, the establishment won…Funny, I don’t see anyone celebrating…

God help us in 2020…

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Conservative News, Michigan, Michigan Politics

Swamp Party!!!…

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Drain the Swamp Michigan is one year old in January...

Happy Birthday Swamp Drainers!!!…

Come all members, curiosity seekers, RINOs (if you have the nerve), and Constitutional Liberty supporters…

We are celebrating our successes, and planning our agenda for the 2018 election year…

Food, door prizes, a birthday cake and cash bar…and a few laughs at government expense…

Hear our ads, and support us in our efforts to Drain the Swamp!!!

Tickets are $19.75 at EventBrite, $18 by mail, and $20 at the door..

Tickets may be ordered by mail at:

PO Box 5122
Cheboygan, MI
49721

Make checks payable to: DTS Michigan

 

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Michigan, Michigan Politics

The ‘transgender vote”…

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The Flap over the NDAA...

The transgender provision amendment to the NDAA…

When I first joined the Tea Party, and then formed one in Kalkaska County, I often quoted the organization’s 3 main principles:

Constitutionally limited government…

Fiscal responsibility…

and a Free Market economy…

To these I added one of my own:

RESPONSIVE Representation…

After waiting for the chaos surrounding the NDAA amendment defeat to strip funding for transgender surgery/therapy from the Defense Department budget, (which didn’t happen) I sent an e-mail to Congressman Bergman seeking clarification for his NO vote on the amendment…His response was nearly immediate…I received a call from James Hogge around 1 pm yesterday, requesting a dinner meeting with the Congressman in Traverse City…I was told I could extend the invitation to a small, but concerned group of grassroots supporters, which I did…The following is a synopsis of the evening’s events…

After the exchange of social pleasantries and small talk, the Congressman addressed the issue at hand, which was simply Constitutional authority…The Commander in Chief has discretion over the military budget, Congress DOES NOT…The function of Congress concerning the NDAA is to review and approve the DoD budget request for the coming budget cycle, and NOT to dictate how the budget is spent…This budget being debated is still a “Continuing Resolution” budget in order to allow it to proceed to “Reconciliation” needing just 51 votes in the Senate, which it should get…This new budget (if passed) will go into effect on October 1st of this year, and will be available to the DoD on January 1st of 2018…

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Michigan Politics

The Game Within the Game…

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Connecting the Dots in Michigan...

The “Gang” at the signing of the Gas Tax laws…

The Game Within the Game…

Connecting the dots in Michigan…

Anyone paying attention to what has been going on in Lansing for the past decade or so may be thinking the same thing: Our State government is out of control…and totally unaccountable to the people they are supposed to represent…

After Jennifer Granholm promised to “blow us away”, she did…laying the foundation for government cronyism by establishing the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, basically a slush fund which the government uses to pay back friends and donors with State contracts…The absolute best example of this would be the new Senate building, sold by a former MEDC Commissioner to the State for three times its appraised value…

Now comes Senate Bill 97, designed to expand this practice right down to the Township level…This bill (http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2017-2018/billintroduced/Senate/pdf/2017-SIB-0097.pdf) authorizes any government authority to designate taxing authority to any private business or group that develops infrastructure for health care, transportation, or ‘other’ development purposes…It also includes the use and enforcement of ‘eminent domain’…Think about that for a minute…

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Michigan, Michigan Politics

The State wants in…

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Follow the Money

The State wants in…

The new “marihuana” law…

Does a difference of one letter mean something in legal terms????…Can’t wait to find out…Anyway, back to the point…

As a Planning Commission member, the new medical marijuana (mariHuana???) laws directly affect my responsibilities a keeper of the Zoning Ordinance…The new laws take effect December 20th of this year, so we all might want to know what’s in them…As much as I hate wading through pages of legislative ‘legalese’, I have begun a cursory inspection…So far, looks like a great deal….for the State of Michigan…

So my being fairly conservative, I approached it from that perspective….To be blunt….the State wants in!!!…Seeing a thriving revenue stream go ‘untapped’ seems to be a cardinal sin to our State legislature, so they ‘fixed’ it…10 new licensing ‘fees’, two brand new taxes, two new ‘boards’ creating a total of 22 new government jobs would seem to do the trick…and I can plainly see more of this coming…Let’s do the “Readers Digest” version first, and we can discuss the issues later…

Five new licensing ‘fees’ (think tax) from the State, five again for any ‘municipality’ that decides to allow (and tax and regulate) any commercial operation connected with the industry…The legislature grants itself permission to ‘raid’ the “Michigan mariHuana registry fund, creates two ‘new’ regulatory boards (more later), and then actually ’taxes’ the commercial end of this…and puts the onus of implementation on the Townships, hence MY involvement…

I welcome any and all discussion here…should we be asked to write a new ordinance governing ‘commercial’ marijuana enterprises within our bounds, what safeguards should we insist be included???…I can make ‘private property rights’ arguments all day, but those need to be transmitted on a personal level to make them really ‘sink in’…I do not wish to suppress any committed commercial endeavor within my Township, but in order for that to happen, we must be ASKED to write the accommodating ordinance, which is why I post this….Please make this thread a topic of serious discussion…

Does one letter make a difference???…

I leave you with this, borrowed from a Libertarian post I saw recently…

“Any license or permit is simply the government stealing an individual liberty, in order to sell it back to you.”

More later…

Tom B…

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Elections, Michigan Politics

Trump Stump

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This should be the only speech Donald needs for the rest of the campaign…

“This is NOT an election between political parties, it is an election to determine the fate of future America…and there are only two…”

-You can vote for the America that has secure borders, or more of the same…

-You can vote for the America that has enforceable immigration laws, or more of the same…

-You can vote for the America that deports illegal alien criminals, or more of the same…

-You can vote for the America that has no ‘sanctuary cities’, or more of the same…

-You can vote for the America that has a strong military, or more of the same…

-You can vote for the America that defends its global interests, or more of the same…

-You can vote for the America that builds and manufactures goods again, or more of the same…

-You can vote for the America that reduces your taxes, or more, and more, and more of the same…

-You can vote for an America that creates good jobs again, or more of the same…

-You can vote for the America that respects the middle class, or more of the same…

-You can vote for an America that respects the Constitution, and Bill of Rights, or more of the same…

-You can vote for Donald Trump….or…more of the same….”

It’s pretty simple…14358635_622857464555469_1104066230296564179_n

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Michigan Politics

Nothing changes…

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...if nothing changes...

 

 

We’ve been here a hundred times before, preparing to ‘refresh’ the page that is our government. Problem is, we generally do not ‘refresh’ anything…we simply move the same names to different seats in the process. This contributes to the sense of ‘entitlement’ that constitutes Hillary Clinton’s entire Presidential campaign. It’s the “It’s MY turn!” syndrome embedded into the political process, and it has only been accelerated by the imposition of term limits. This has made our governments more a game of ‘musical chairs’ than an exercise in self determination.

I have been preaching for years that the MOST important election in any given cycle IS the primary. Nothing changes, if nothing changes. Yet there seems to be a change in the election atmosphere this time, Donald Trump is living proof. In Michigan tomorrow, we have a chance to extend this phenomenon of voter angst to our legislature, and to Congress. Primaries are notorious for lack of voter turnout, meaning a much smaller segment of the population determines who will be on the November ballot. Nothing changes if nothing changes.

Voters have a habit of simply tagging a name they recognize, without any thought to the person or politics behind that name. This has given us the financial and economic mess we find ourselves in now on a local, state, and national level. More of the same in different seats equals more of the same in different levels. We cannot effect change in our government without changing the people who are in it. We must undergo a background check to purchase a firearm, yet most folks don’t require a background check of candidates before they vote. We DO get the government we deserve, but do our kids deserve the government we have given them?

Nothing changes if nothing changes. The time has come, and it begins with tomorrow. Know whom you are voting for, do your homework. The responsibility for the future lies squarely in our hands, it is our DUTY and responsibility to know who and what are governments are, and remind them on occasion that they do indeed work FOR us. These same people have changed the Recall laws to make it virtually impossible to ‘fire’ them, leaving us only one option…vote them out! Sending career politicians from one level of government (which they have participated in screwing up) to ‘fix’ the next level is the textbook example of Einstein’s definition of insanity.

Tomorrow determines the direction of Michigan’s governments at all levels; more of the same, or will we begin to take back control of our own future? VOTE!!!…Take your friends with you, know your candidates, make the ‘unknown’ name on your ballot a real individual in your own mind, and toss out the liars and thieves that promise to represent ‘the people’ while making careers out of representing themselves.

Nothing changes, if nothing changes…

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Michigan Politics

Our Last Chance Dance…

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Buying the Future...

Most folks think we elect our governments, we do not…

Let’s look at this through the lens of reality for just a moment, and hope it sinks in…Money buys power, which in turn buys more money, through the trading of favors…Both parties hand pick their candidates for primary elections, which would appear to be ‘normal’ on its face, but they also provide these people with a well oiled mechanism not only to win, but also to destroy any and all competition…This was demonstrated with devastating effectiveness in the 2014 37th District Senate primary…Republican establishment lobbyists and support groups attacked Greg MacMaster with hideous ads and heralded the ‘virtues’ of Wayne Schmidt as a true ‘conservative’…When confronted (personally, by me) with the blatant lies and pandering of the campaign ads, Wayne simply said “I didn’t put those out.”…So I guess that made it just fine with him…

PastedGraphic-1There was also this mailer (again, “I didn’t put those out,”) that our ‘conservative’ Senator-to-be used to encourage ‘crossover’ voting in the primary…

Please note that the “League of Conservation Voters” (responsible for this, and many radio and TV ads) is NOT a ‘conservative’ organization, but Senator Schmidt had no problem embracing this support…and refuses to reject it and its venom…

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Conservative News, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Proposal 15-1, Taxes

Status Report-Recall

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previewBeen a little busy circling the wagons here…

We are now in the process of organizing volunteer circulators, have at least some in 6 of the 8 counties involved in the Schmidt recall. The good news…

“The minimum number of valid signatures required on a recall petition is equal to 25% of the total number of votes cast for all candidates for governor in the relevant Senate district in the most recent gubernatorial election. MCL 168.955. There is no requirement that a certain percentage of signatures come from each county that comprises the Senate district.

For the 37th State Senate District, the minimum number of valid signatures required is 23,384. For the 35th Senate District, the minimum number of valid signatures required is 22,491.”

The above quote is from the Bureau of Elections response to our e-mail concerning minimum requirements, this means that we could theoretically collect ALL 23,384 signatures from ONE county. Any one county come to mind? This alters our approach only slightly though, as circulators within and without Senate District 37 are hell bent on putting Wayne on an August recall ballot. So we will attempt to collect throughout the district.

In additional to the March 8th Presidential primary, in the first week of March, at least two of the candidates have scheduled visits to Traverse City. Donald Trump is one of them, and if previous crowds at his rallies are any indication, a few well placed circulators should have a field day roaming throughout the crowds. I would assume these same politicos will stop in Grand Rapids, aiding the folks running the Meekhof recall.

We have also scheduled an rVotes training session for our group(s) in mid-March to identify and contact likely signers and voters for reduction into highly ;localized walking lists. This system will allow us to contact and canvass the most likely signers of the petition, and these will be the most likely to vote to replace Schmidt.

We have reserved a domain name for the recall, which will be announced after the website has been established, along with a DBA, committee, and bank account for State and Federal (if necessary) accounting/reporting purposes. The site will also have a “Donate” button/page for contributions. Other campaign ‘goodies’ are in the works, but first we must establish a cohesive organization and business model.

2,000 petitions have been printed, and will be distributed shortly after Valentine’s Day (this one’s for you, Wayne)…Some basic training for new circulators will be accomplished at the same time, and signs/handouts distributed at these meetings. We have established County Captains (coordinators) in 4 counties to facilitate and monitor the petition process. We have 3 weeks to prepare for the signature launch, any volunteers may contact me at my e-mail: retvet242@yahoo.com, which has survived several hack attacks last month, or by phone: 231-709-0474.

Also of note, we have been warned to stay away from Charlevoix County by one John Haggard, which we take as a direct challenge of course.

Wish us good luck here in the second phase of this process. This is our chance to conduct a referendum on Wayne Schmidt’s performance as not only a State Senator, but a Rep in the 103rd and 104th. His record in the House is now also ”fair game”.

In pursuit of freedom,

Tom Backers

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