Like the idea of being arrested without warrant and jailed indefinitely without trial? If no, then ask Senators Baker and Yaw to cosponsor SB 999 requiring non-cooperation with the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that empowers the federal government to arrest and detain Pennsylvanians without charge or trial on U.S. soil.

Sections 1021 and 1022 of the NDAA were added by Congress to broaden the war on terror to a neighborhood near you. Legal experts from both the right and left have determined this limitless power unconstitutionally infringes upon our centuries-old habeas corpus protections against being detained without hearing or trial.

Similar to Pennsylvania’s Personal Liberty Laws of 1847 which prohibited state employees from enforcing the federal Fugitive Slave Act, SB 999 prohibits Pennsylvania officials and Pennsylvania jails to be used to trade your Bill of Rights for the Law of War.

Some may find Guantanamo a lovely place during our cold, snowy winters, but my goal is to keep Pennsylvanians out of it. Please join me and call Senators Baker and Yaw today!

Sincerely,

Benjamin Gross

Legal Director, Pennsylvania Tenth Amendment Center

Rosslyn Farms, PA

What Goodwill means to me is that I have fun doing activities and learning about healthy living and eating healthier too; and learning different things with the staff and clients here at Goodwill Industries. I really, really love being here a whole lot so far. We learn how to make different kind of healthy food for lunch. We do exercise before we do any activities in the morning. We are trying to do all our goals with the staff here at Goodwill. Being here at Goodwill with great friends and playing games and doing activities with them.

We are learning different communication skills/different kinds of skills, too. We go out with the staff to lunch, bowling, fairs, and other stuff too. Each month we get our schedules to take home so we know what’s going on that day they are scheduled for the program. Like for me I’m scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday too. But I have Fridays off.

Once again what Goodwill means to me is to learn different things do activities and other stuff too. There’s a whole lot to learn at Goodwill Industries right now as I speak. Goodwill Industries is helping me with my goals a whole so far. They are doing a great job by helping with the clients out with their goals and teach us different things too.

This is what Goodwill Industries means to me.

Sincerely,

Shelly Sunderlin

Consumer, Goodwill Industries

Montrose, PA

I have just recently communicated my views to our Honorable Senator, Pat Toomey, concerning defunding of ObamaCare and a return to Regular Order for all appropriations bills, i.e., constitutional government, rather than funding of the government through CR (Continuing Resolution). Herewith, I provide Senator Toomey’s request for clarification of his views, followed by my response to his letter. It is my hope that your readers may be inspired to “reach out to Senator Toomey” so that he may also “keep [their] views in mind.”

August 21, 2013

Dear Kerri Ellen,

Thank you for contacting my office about discretionary funding and ObamaCare. I appreciate hearing from you.

The president’s health care law is fundamentally wrong in its approach to improving our nation’s health care system. This law imposes onerous new mandates and regulations that will have numerous unintended consequences. It’s bad for patients, it’s bad for doctors, and it’s bad for our economy. Additionally, it threatens to put serious strains on our nation's long term fiscal outlook.

Since the law’s unfortunate adoption, I have made it perfectly clear that I want to completely repeal ObamaCare. I am in favor of defunding it to the extent we can and have consistently voted in favor of efforts to undo the law. I also am an original cosponsor of legislation, including one introduced by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), that would achieve this goal.

As you may know, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is circulating a letter to Senate Leadership pledging not to support a continuing resolution or any other appropriations legislation that includes ObamaCare funding. While I value your input on this matter and support the intentions behind Senator Lee’s letter, I have not signed onto it at this point. My reasons are tactical. The question is – would my signing the letter help us get ObamaCare dismantled, defunded, or repealed sooner? For a number of reasons, I am not convinced that it would.

For instance, the vast majority of ObamaCare is funded outside the discretionary spending process. Even if we eliminated all ObamaCare discretionary funding in a continuing resolution or other appropriations bill, a substantial majority of the law would still go forward – including all of the taxes, the harmful individual mandate, and the insurance exchanges. In addition, President Obama is not going to sign a bill that totally eliminates his signature achievement. Shutting down the government will unfortunately not change this outcome, and the fallout from such an unsuccessful effort could undermine our efforts to dismantle ObamaCare.

Instead of focusing solely on discretionary funding bills as a tactic, I will continue working with my Senate colleagues on a broader array of strategies to dismantle ObamaCare. As the American people become increasingly aware of how awful this law is for them, I remain hopeful that we can achieve this goal. This effort could include dismantling ObamaCare piece-by-piece – for instance, we could delay or eliminate the individual mandate or repeal the harmful medical device tax. As I continue engaging with Senator Lee and other colleagues on this important issue, please be assured that I will keep your concerns in mind.

Again, thank you for reaching out to me. Please do not hesitate to contact my office in the future

Sincerely,

Pat Toomey

Honorable Senator Toomey:

Thank you for your swift reply to my letter of concern concerning defunding ObamaCare. Please allow me to help you understand the defunding effort a bit better. I believe if you fully understand the defunding drive you will be in a superior position to defend it from the detractors who have misled you thus far.

If you were to sign on with Senator Lee, and I trust you could clarify this with him, you should condition it upon the defunding of all "enforcement mechanisms" which you have thus far believed would still go into effect even if you defund "discretionary" spending for implementing ObamaCare. Please let me explain. Defunding ObamaCare should explicitly include defunding of IRS to hire new agents; enforce the HCA; change or create IRS forms to enforce ObamaCare; collect medical device taxes; enforce sanctions against insurance companies and medical establishments; set-up or run state exchanges by the federal government; etc. You see where I am going? Do not authorize spending for any of these unconstitutional activities. To support them is to be complicit in the destruction of the greatest medical care system in the world.

You needn't worry about whether or not President Obama would sign bills that do not include funding for ObamaCare. That is his presidential prerogative. He would be shut-ting down the government - not Congress, so long as Congress has done their work and passed the appropriations to keep the government running. As long as the House remains adamant in not appropriating funds for ObamaCare, the President cannot win. He may sign appropriations bills which fund the rest of government, or he may reject them. That should be the least of your worries. Remember, the government shuts down from Friday afternoon to Monday morning every week, and America runs even better when the government is not operating to persecute the American people.

Buck up, Pat! We can win this fight. This is the tactical path to victory. Yes, it will be a long hard fight, but what is the alternative? I'll tell you, it's tyranny! It's the total destruction of our way of life, of the America we loved, of the America of our Founding Fathers.

Sincerely,

Kerri Ellen Wilder

Susquehanna, PA

Since George Stark is employed by Cabot, he finds it necessary to promote it as a laudable company.

Cabot has 342 gas wells drilled or being developed in Pa., so far. Cabot has a total of 510 violations so far in Pa. and 140 wells with violations and has paid $188,069.00 in fines for the violations so far.

Would anyone want a company with that kind of a record in their county, neighborhoods, near their schools and farms? Why are they still allowed to operate? Why is their permit to operate not rescinded? I asked the DEP reps a number of times, how many violations will be enough before you take away Cabot's permit to operate in our County and State?

Cabot is still under the 2010 Consent Order in Dimock, Pa., where the DEP still has a ban for no further drilling by Cabot. There is still too much methane in water wells in a 9 square mile zone around Carter Rd. in Dimock. Methane over 7 mg/per liter is considered to high to allow by the DEP. Cabot is not allowed to drill in 9 square miles of Susquehanna County but allowed to drill elsewhere throughout our State.

Cabot has a repair rig for the past six months on SR 3023 in Dimock, Pa., trying to repair a gas well leaking methane. There are new cases of water contamination near this rig on SR 3023 , where families have to receive daily deliveries of replacementwater paid for by Cabot and have "water buffaloes", plastic containers, to hold their household water and methane vent stacks over their water wells. I have seen these personally myself.

The lastest gas well with leaking-methane issues is on the Costello gas well pad. Come and see it on SR 3023 on the Costello property. With this kind of track record, why would George Stark still promote this company he works for and gets paid well for?

Information about Cabot's record taken from DEP records on the www.marcellusgas.org site.

Sincerely,

Vera Scroggins

Brackney, Pa.

George Stark is the Director of External Affairs for Cabot Oil & Gas. This is a reply to his letter that appeared in last week's August 21st Transcript Issue.

Dear George Stark: Regarding you self-congratulatory letter on what a bang-up job Cabot is doing, I suggest you find a more suitable location to pat yourself on the back, perhaps one farther down on your anatomy.

Not to quibble, George, but your statement that for “the last 100 years, the United States has relied heavily on foreign sources of energy, ” was wildly incorrect. That was about the time the Model T was first sold and hardly a time when we were “heavily” dependent on imports. That misstatement made me suspicious about the content of the rest of your letter, a suspicion that turned out to be justified.

You go on to boast that “Cabot is using natural gas to fuel 60 of its fleet vehicles” as well as sundry other machinery. It is in Cabot's interest to do so since it is obviously the cheapest fuel for a NG company to obtain. No bragging rights here.

But when you state that your company “is a tremendous environment [benefit] helping to reduce greenhouse emissions from the air we breathe every single day,” well clearly, you went over the top.

First, greenhouse emissions have little to do with the “air we breathe.” Greenhouse gases affect the ionosphere, which is about 100 miles above the “air we breathe.”

Back down to Earth and your fleet of green vehicles. If you are interested in the environment, I suggest you switch all your NG powered machinery back to gasoline. The problem is fugitive emissions of methane.

Fugitive emissions are leaks of methane from pipelines, valves, routine venting, and accidents. They occur at every stage of NG production. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 6.6 million tons of fugitive methane leaked from NG systems in 2011.

About 90 percent of NG is methane, and methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases known. It is 72 times stronger than carbon dioxide. Mining and transporting NG releases significant amounts of this most damaging greenhouse gas.

But that's only one of a laundry list of activities that fracking contributes to fouling our own nest. NG mining is exempt from a number of major federal environmental laws that would otherwise make horizontal fracking illegal.

The short list includes the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which exempts the industry from laws that govern the disposal of hazardous waste.

And Cabot's safety record is far from stellar, closer to stygian.

Chesapeake takes first place as the leading driller in Pennsylvania with Cabot winning a dishonorable mention in the No. 7 slot. However, when it comes to the total number of violations, Cabot pulls ahead to the No. 2 position but still behind Chesapeake. But if the number of violations per well is the criterion, Cabot finally outpaces Chesapeake and takes the winner's cup for the worst violator.

With no apologies for raining on your parade, George, of all the fossil fuels, NG is the dirtiest.

NG is the most injurious to the land. Hundreds of thousands of acres are stripped bare and leveled for pads, roads, and pipelines. The “air we breathe every single day” must play host to toxic vapors, dust, noise, and nighttime light pollution.

Finally, our drinking water is placed in grave jeopardy with the unproven assumption that the trillions of gallons of highly poisonous water forced-pumped into the ground will remain there sequestered for millenniums.

Otherwise enjoyed your letter, George. Write again.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA

Congress is on recess until the end of August. After Labor Day, they will begin the process of finally destroying what is left of America by passing yet another Continuing Resolution, thereby funding Obamacare. Continuing Resolutions are in lieu of a budget being submitted to Congress by the president. Potus hasn’t submitted a viable budget to Congress in four years.

Congressional discussions will take place behind closed doors, where they’ll ‘pass the bills’ without even reading them. Then, amnesty will be granted to illegal aliens. We have immigration laws on the books. They’re not being enforced!

Why have none of our representatives - in the House or the Senate - scheduled Town Hall meetings during this recess? The answer is simple: They’re hiding because they can’t defend their positions on Obamacare and their lack of a spine to de-fund it. They can’t defend their positions on amnesty, even though they know full well that WE, THE PEOPLE, oppose it. Career politicians don’t want us to know where they stand until the votes are cast, their will be done. They believe that WE, THE PEOPLE, are irrelevant and therefore don’t deserve to hear from them.

Now it’s time for them to hear from us! A Tea Party Town Hall will take place on Saturday, September 7 at 2 p.m at the Jackson Baptist Church in Jackson, PA. Mike Henry, Regional Director of Heritage Action, will be a featured speaker. Obamacare and amnesty will be addressed with or without our politicians being present. What difference, at this point, does it make? As far as WE, THE PEOPLE are concerned, it will make a big difference.

Before the Town Hall takes place, you could take the following actions: Make phone calls to your two senators and congressman. Include phone calls to Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell. Give them your name, address and phone number and tell them you want them to de-fund Obamacare; tell them you want them to enforce the immigration laws already on the books. Tell the person you speak with that you want a written answer from your representative. Follow up with an email to each of these representatives. Every eligible voter in your household could do the same thing- place a call and send an email. There is strength in numbers!

The phone number for each representative is listed below. For the email address, go to “United States House of Representatives” and “United States Senate” and find the web sites for each official, then fill in the form and send your email: Senator Pat Toomey - 202-224-4254 & email (from web site); Senator Bob Casey - 1-866-802-2833 & email (from web site); Speaker of the House John Boehner - 202-225-0600’ House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor Email only (from web site); House Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy Email only (from web site); Rep. Tom Marino - 202-225-3731 & email (from web site); Rep. Lou Barletta - 1-855-241-5144 & email (from web site).

Sincerely,

Bruce & Edna Paskoff

Coordinators,

NEPA Spirit Of 1776

Montrose, PA