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Moore Tea Citizens in 2016
Miriam Chu, Chair
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With the new year, the Board and others in Moore Tea Citizens will be doing some new things and improving others. For example, the format of the newsletter will be different (as you can see). We will be focusing more on the use and significance of our Website as our central data and communications hub.
The 2016 election cycle will be a major challenge for us all. Those of us in the thick of MTC’s activities will also be looking for more people—who believe that the nation is in duress—to step up and do more, and you’ll have opportunity to contribute your ideas as to what these activities will be.
We’ll address this more, next month.
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Life is what it is. We know that at some point we will all "go the way of all the earth," but that is only a little consolation when we lose a friend to death. A few days before Christmas,
Jerry Montgomery lost his battle with cancer. Jerry was one of MTC's men of action. He served as our Vice Chair until December when he stepped down. He was a committed fighter for the cause of freedom and an all-around good man. He and his wife, Joan, have been active members for years. Right up to the last week of his life, Jerry was actively thinking about and advising us on the next months and years. Not a man to pull punches, he threw the penalty flag on whomever got out of line, but was equally open to introspection and to others' opinions, giving in when he thought they held the stronger position.
Jerry’s death was a gut punch for many of us. Of course, we’re collecting ourselves and driving on, but it’s been a tough few weeks.
We miss you, Jerry.
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You may read his formal
obituary
in the Pilot.
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A New Look for the Newsletter
Newsletter Team
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As you see, we reformatted of our newsletter. The changes aren't just cosmetic, however. The new format will facilitate reading on smartphones, lead the reader to become more familiar with the MTC Website, and make content accessible and timely to those who do not subscribe. People around the world find our site via search engines
or links on other Websites
. Moore Co. residents may see our URL (Web address) on a Pocket Constitution or business card. Our goals are to educate and to spur Americans to think critically.
To this end, some of the content that we've traditionally put in our newsletters will now be on the Website, and the newsletter will link to it. Other things, such as this article, are only appropriate for the newsletter.
Your feedback will help our newsletter team refine it to be more useful for us all. You'll see the link, below.
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Monthly Dinner Program on January 18
Programs Team
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Come join us at Filly & Colt’s at Longleaf GC in Southern Pines on Monday, January 18th, from 5:30-7:30 pm. We have another great lineup of speakers for you! This month, our featured speaker will be Tami Fitzgerald, Executive Director of the
NC Values Coalition. Mrs. Fitzgerald will give us an update on the status of religious liberty in America. You will also have a chance to hear from at least two candidates:
Frank Roche and
Kay Daly, Republican Candidates for US House. Other candidates for other offices will likely be in attendance. Please be sure to RSVP online for the meeting.
We hope you had a Merry Christmas, and look forward to starting off the New Year “right” by seeing you on January 18th!
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Submit your
reservation
before
Saturday, Jan 16 to help preparations.
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Legislative Team Update
Peggy Smetana, Chair
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Falling Short on Rolling Back Federal Intervention in Education
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S. 1177, the
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), became law on Dec. 10. It calls itself "An Act to Re-authorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to ensure that every child achieves." — As if Congress could achieve its aim by words alo......
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Click
HERE to read and comment on this article.
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Last Minute Bills, Always and Again
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Talking of last-minute bills, how about the Omnibus Spending Bill!? What a flurry of activity to propose and pass it in one week! The Republicans claimed that, again, they were caught by the year-end deadline. You know, that deadline that never seemed to hamp......
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Click
HERE to read and comment on this article.
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What You Need to Know Before You Send Mail to Our Congresspeople
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Sending mail to our D.C. representatives is not the same as sending it to City Hall, and there some things we've learned about sending them "snail mail" that you need to know......
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Click
HERE to read and comment on this article.
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Pause and Introspect
Neil Oakley
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In the movie “The Empire Strikes Back,” Jedi Master Yoda instructs young Luke Skywalker to raise his X-wing fighter jet from the swamp. Skywalker says, “All right, I’ll give it a try"......
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Click
HERE
to read and comment on this article.
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The Moore Tea Citizens Website
Webmaster
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MTC is a real, volunteer, grass roots organization. We don’t have a professional Webmaster who can write HTML code so we depend on an inexpensive, off-the-shelf, "drag and drop" Website service called “Weebly” and depend on our volunteers to maintain it and provide content tips and alert us to problems.
We’re committed to posting only rational, ethical content that relates to our mission of defending liberty. We only post things with some intellectual value, so a cartoon that parodies a politician’s bad behavior might make the "cut," but one that simply ridicules his looks won't. We don’t post things like recipes, cat videos or wild conspiracy theories. When we post something that we believe has value but is unverifiable, we note that fact. For example, we recently posted a headline that a human rights monitoring group reported that a 20-year-old ISIS animal publicly “executed” his mother because she wasn’t toeing the line. We thought it was noteworthy because it is plausible and illustrates the nature of the threat we face, but we plainly noted it hasn't been validated.
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You can help us with content that you think is important. If you know of an upcoming event, find a credible story about one of our politicians acting corruptly, become aware of a judge or government actor abridging the rights of Americans, know of a business or location wherein otherwise legal handguns are prohibited, see an excellent video, etc., tell us! If there is an issue or question you'd like to see addressed, submit it. There are appropriate contact links for various types of content in different places around our Website but, if in doubt, you can always default to our
Input Form
.
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"Phishing" is a form of scam that is similar to fishing. The scammer throws out bait to a large group of people and waits to see who "bites." At that point, he may directly attempt to perpetrate a scam or he may simply note that he's got an active email address and sell it to businesses or criminals.
Direct scams take many forms. Two common ones are the promise of money/property, and the promise of friendship. With the first type, you're told you can make lots of money through a deal, inheritance, etc. The catch is that, sooner or later, you must FIRST send some money for some "very good" reason. The second type of scam is commonly perpetrated on lonely, elderly people and often originate in Jamaica. The scammers are patient and take the time to develop a relationship with the victim, who craves the interaction and comes to look forward to the emails and phone calls with great anticipation. Gradually and subtly, the scammer begins to lay the framework of their tragic story, sucking in their empathetic victims. Eventually they begin to ask for money. Some victims have sent such scammers 6-figure sums, over time.
Have you ever received an email message like the one below?
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If so, did your thought process go something like this?
"Who's Doreen Henning? Do I know a Doreen Henning? Women don't scam so maybe this is legitimate.
She must be a Christian (after all, she wrote "God Bless You"). I'll be able to learn more if I click on this
link and if it's just a scam I'll delete it."
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Don't do it! Instead, ask your yourself these questions:
- Is it hard for a scammer to get my email address? Not at all!
- Do I know Doreen Henning (or whomever)? No.
- Can someone name "John" or "Vladimir" claim to be "Doreen"? Yes.
- Is the sender's sex relevant to anything? No.
- Would anyone have granted me a lot of money? Unlikely.
- Would the executor of an estate, a bank official or anyone else in a position of responsibility for something important, contact you by email? Unlikely.
- If a legitimate person were to attempt first contact by email, would she not fully explain the situation and/or provide you a means of unequivocally validating her identity? Yes, if she's legit.
- If this is legit and I don't respond, will I lose the money? Of course not (that would be theft).
- Can it hurt just to click on the link to see what it's about? Yes! Doing so verifies the address is active, the site to which the link takes you may download malware (software that spies on you, steals your information, corrupts you computer device, pops up ads while you're online, etc.)
So what should you do? Immediately delete it. (Did you see that period after "delete it"?)
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Grammatically
, What does the
2nd Amendment Say? Isn't the Right Contingent on Having a Well Regulated Militia?
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I gave Mr. Brocki my name, then asked him to parse the following sentence:
"A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed"......
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Click
HERE to go to our "Rights Under Assault" page, then click the red "Experts..." link.
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I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.
~ Thomas Jefferson
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No Kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave.
~ James Burgh
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The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.
~Samuel Adams
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A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace.
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The way to safely forward
an email message from Moore Tea Citizens (like this one) is to click the "Safely forward this email to friends" button that will be at the bottom all our future mailings. It will ask you for the recipients' addresses but it is NOT a phishing scam. They won't be added to another list or be sold to third parties.
How should you
NOT do it? You should
NOT click the "forward" button in your email. Do
NOT do it the way you forward any other email.
Why?
Because the recipients of your forwarded mail can remove you from the MTC mailing list. This is because MTC uses an email service company called Constant Contact. This allows us to create professional looking messages and send email to our large number of subscribers. Constant Contact allows subscribers to unsubscribe by blocking the mailers from using their addresses. Once you unsubscribe, you can only get back on the mailing list by adding yourself. The downside of this feature is that the "unsubscribe" link in your email message is tied to your address, so if you forward it to me, I can unsubscribe you. When I click the link, it pops up a message asking if I'm sure I want to unsubscribe YOUR address, not mine. Even if it is re=forwarded by 10 people, the 11th can still unsubscribe YOU.
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Express Your Opinion About the Newsletter
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Do you particularly like a recurring section? Hate the cartoons? Like the new format? As you can imagine, getting your opinion is
important to our newsletter volunteers. You can anonymously submit the survey if you wish.
Giving us your thoughts will only take 1–5 minutes, depending on whether you have a lot to write. It will be available through the end of the month.
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Click HERE to take the survey!
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Support the businesses that
support Moore Tea Citizens
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Safely forward this email to friends
(By using this link, recipients cannot delete your subscription to MTC. The address you type will not be retained or used for any purpose beyond safely forwarding this email (i.e., this isn't a phishing scheme).
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