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Sorry, President Obama, The Senate Is Not Your Rubber Stamp - by Jason Pye
In the White House’s Rose Garden on Wednesday, President Barack Obama
named his nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. The nominee
does not matter in this debate. Really, the process is the issue. The
Senate's role is not what the White House and those friendly to this
president are making it out to be.
In his usual manner, President Obama spent much of the introduction of his nominee complaining about Senate Republicans, the vast majority of whom have said they will not considering a nominee in an election year. What Republicans are saying is, of course, not out of the ordinary. As FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon recently noted at RedState, in 1992, then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-Del.) had exactly the same position. Read more here...  Criminal Justice Reform a Bipartisan Winner - by Adam Brandon and Wade Henderson via Las Vegas Review-Journal Since one in three adults have a criminal record, nearly every American has a family member, loved one or neighbor who has — or who will — come in contact with the criminal justice system. These numbers are mind-boggling and create a huge financial burden on taxpayers, who shoulder an enormous $80 billion annual price tag to maintain a prison system that winds up sending more and more people back to jail. Not to mention, the costs keep getting worse — taxpayer spending on those prisons has increased nearly 600 percent in the past 30 years. Our bipartisan coalition, the U.S. Justice Action Network, came together to take action and showcase the growing support across the country for justice reform. We polled likely voters in Nevada and five other key 2016 battleground states, and it’s clear there is a strong consensus on this issue. An overwhelming majority of likely voters in Nevada, regardless of political party, agree that the current criminal justice system imprisons too many for too long, mandatory minimum sentences should be replaced, and judges should have greater discretion in determining sentences. Read more here... Budget Resolution Is More of the Same from Republicans Following the release of the House’s fiscal year 2017 budget resolution from committee, FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon commented: “It’s disappointing that leadership isn’t willing to fight for even modest fiscal responsibility. After John Boehner and President Obama teamed up to break the spending caps, we had hoped that Republicans would unite to roll back those excesses. Instead, what we’re seeing is more of the same.” “The House Freedom Caucus didn’t ask for anything outrageous, just a return to the Budget Control Act levels of last year. The fact that this is now a controversial position when Republicans control both chambers of Congress shows how far the party has drifted from its moorings.” Read more here... Generational Theft: Jason Stapleton Tackles Entitlement Reform - by Remso Martinez Recently I got to chat with my friend Jason Stapleton, host of the popular online show the Jason Stapleton Program, and founder and CEO of TradeEmpowered. Jason took the time to answer some important questions and shed light on the crisis regarding entitlement reform, and how the millennial generation is getting scammed out of a prosperous future. Remso: Back in 2013 alone, the generation that turned 65 received $327 thousand dollars more in lifetime government benefits than they paid in federal taxes. On the other hand, children born in the next ten to twenty years will have a lifetime deficit on this basis of $421 thousand dollars. How are we supposed to be a free people if we are slaves to debt the moment we breathe air? Jason: That’s a fair question. I think too often we fall victim to the lies politicians tell. That’s what Social Security is. It’s a promise the politicians made that they never intended to keep. The idea of the “lock box” for your benefits never materialized. It became a giant fund government used to draw on. “The debtor is always slave to the lender” so to speak. The more we borrow the deeper in debt and more enslaved we make our children. So to answer your question directly, we cannot be a free people as long as we are slaves to an ever increasing national debt. Read more here...  
Sentencing decisions have traditionally been made by judges, but since
the 1980s, the use of federal mandatory minimum sentences has been
increasingly common. This policy inserts big government into the
courtroom, contributes to prison overcrowding, and misallocates
resources away from society’s worst criminals. Read more here...
Civil Disobedience at Apple
- by Logan Albright Engineers at Apple are drawing a line in the sand. According to The Hill, multiple employees of the company have stated that they will outright refuse to comply with orders from the FBI to weaken iPhone security, should the agency prevail in an ongoing court battle. For some, this would mean resigning from the company, for others, simply declining to write specific code, whatever the cost may be to their professional futures. This is the kind of admirable civil disobedience that has always been the most effective way of pushing back against government overreach. In this case, what the FBI is asking for is such an egregious transgression of basic liberties that men of good conscience can hardly do other than resist. Read more here... - by Joseph Donoso
Recently, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed a set of new privacy
regulations addressing the transfer and use of consumer information.
Just as he had done previously with the set-top box proposal,
Wheeler portrayed the new regulations as unilaterally beneficial to
consumers. Of course, no regulatory case at the FCC is ever so simple,
and there is much more at play here, including the potential for
cronyism and regulatory power-grabs.
Wheeler’s particular proposals address the ways that internet service providers, or ISPs, use the information they receive regarding consumer traffic. The new regulations would require explicit consent from consumers before ISPs begin using that information for commercial and marketing uses. Exceptions do remain, however, as the new regulations wouldn’t require consent for ISPs to market different services that their parent companies provide. Read more here...  Make freedom work, Jason Pye Communications Director, FreedomWorks 
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