In the America that I know and love, healthcare is not an entitlement subject to government regulation. If it were, the same would be true for all essential goods and services. Can we expect a government-mandated exchange for breakfast cereals, shoes, and baby diapers to follow Obama’s healthcare insurance exchange? Where will it stop? Nonessential goods and services would also require an exchange under the Obamacare model considering that not all healthcare is essential. Some healthcare profoundly enriches our lives rather than sustaining it. Perhaps the only thing saving us for the time being from an exchange for each of life’s simple pleasures such as air conditioning, a hot tub, or a cold beer at a barbeque is the fact that this administration lost control of Congress.

What is clear is that it is up to us to arrest this trend and stop the insanity before our government follows its thinking to its logical conclusion, which is that the food we rely on, the clothes on our back, the roof over our head, and our transportation to work are also things we all must access at some point in our life, thus qualify as entitlements that require subsidy and regulation by government standards.

No matter where Rhode Islanders fall on the spectrum of assumptions of what the span and reach of our government should be, it’s unlikely that they have any concept of who’s toying with our healthcare system and their lack of expertise. Everyone agrees that affordable care and an efficient delivery system is vital to our quality of life. We are precariously relying on a system that’s in a stranglehold of costly, wasteful government regulations. The Rhode Island General Assembly apparently agrees that our system is under duress because it did what bad government does when faced with a problem, set up a Special Senate Commission to study the problem.

Meeting minutes from a gathering of the Executive Committee of the RI Healthcare Reform Commission on …More

A great deal of my hope is rooted in knowing that our veterans love this country and protecting Americans enough to secure and guard the integrity of our elections. I can think of nothing else that has taken a greater toll on our freedom, security, and ultimately our prosperity than the corruption of our electoral process and the self-serving delegates it has produced. However, if we have an edge in fighting this war on our own soil it is that every civilian has the unique opportunity to work right alongside of them. It requires no special training or brute body strength. It is an equal opportunity position that does not discriminate based on sex, color, religion, or handicapping condition. Residents of assisted-living facilities and nursing homes, students, employees at all levels in every field, consumers of public and private services, even simply sitting on a park bench or the beach, every one of us has the opportunity to watch, listen, and report abuse of another person or animal, crime against people or property, or waste of our precious resources and damage to our homeland. Look around wherever your days take you and listen. You’ll be amazed at how many people share your dedication to American values, how quickly you can build an impenetrable network with our veterans, and what you can achieve by just looking, listening, and engaging.More

INCLIMATE WEATHER TRASH AND RECYCLING PICKUP SCHEDULE

FOR SATURDAY, JANUARY 21st 2012

In response to possible snow accumulation starting later on this evening, Waste Management will begin garbage and recycling pick up at 5:00 am, Saturday January 21ST.

Please have your trash receptacles and recycling bins curb side by this time.

* This notice applies to Cranston Residents whose regularly scheduled trash pick-up is in on Friday.More

Today Jessica Ahlquist, student at Cranston High School West, must feel a little less alone. Senior U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux agreed with her that the prayer mural in the school auditorium must come down in the interest of her religious liberty – and yours and mine really. Besides a civics lesson in the role the ACLU plays in our nation, I ask you this, what did Jessica learn from the experience? Does she know that America, and the religious liberty we all enjoy, started right here in Rhode Island not far from the campus she has walked countless times? Was she saying that she got a taste of what life must have been like for Roger Williams when she testified that she felt “excluded, ostracized, and devalued” in asserting her beliefs.

Judge Lagueux may have thought so because he relied in part on William’s providential words in his efforts to deliver justice for Jessica. Lagueux wrote:

“This Court has tried to resist the temptation of injecting lofty rhetoric into this opinion, but nonetheless was moved by the words, as quoted in Schempp, of Roger Williams, the founder of our state, who left the Massachusetts Bay Colony in pursuit of religious liberty.

“There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth, or human combination, or society. It hath fallen out sometimes, that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked on one ship; upon which supposal, I affirm that all the liberty of conscience I ever pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges, that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ship’s prayers or worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any.””

I don’t know about you, but it saddens me that my fellow believers in Our Heavenly Father seem intent on throwing overboard the “liberty of conscience” Roger Williams …More

Everybody with 20 year old plus cars should file tax appeals. It is really important to do so.More