Posted 5/8/12
Candidate's Forum:  Wednesday, May 16th - Consumes River Elementary School 7:00 - 9:00 P.M. (Doors open at 6:30)
Our regular monthly meeting will consist of a candidate's forum of primary candidates for the 8th Assembly District and the 4th Supervisors District. All candidates have been invited. Come hear the candidates describe their ideas for representing you. CLICK HERE to go to our Election Page and a copy of the Forum Guide.

Posted 4/24/12
Friday, April 27 - Noon: The California Revolution Rise Up Bus Tour is coming to Rancho Murieta!
Join us and listen to motivating speakers and singers promoting Primary Election Accountability. Visit the Bus Tour web site CLICK HERE

Posted 2/16/12
April 14, 2012 - Tax Day Rally at the State Capitol. CLICK HERE for more information

1/18/12
Straw Poll Results
At our general meeting this evening we conducted a straw poll of the Presidential race:
PART 1: Considering the three core principles of the Tea Party Patriots, which candidate do you believe best represents these core principles :  Fiscal Responsibility-Constitutionally Limited Government - Free Markets ?
Newt Gingrich                      36%
Rick Santorum                     24%
Mitt Romney                        19%
Ron Paul                             18% 
Rick Perry                            1%
Sarah Palin                          1%
Herman Cain                        1%
Barack Obama                      0%

PART 2:  Based on your observations, which of the candidates do you feel has the best chance of winning the election?
Mitt Romney                         64%
Newt Gingrich                       24%
Barack Obama                       7%
Rick Santorum                       3%
Sarah Palin                            1%
Ron Paul                                1%
Rick Perry                               0% 

The results of this poll do not represent an endorsement of a candidate or a political party by the River Valley Tea Party Patriots.

Have an opinion to offer? We would like to hear from you! Please send it to info@rvtpp.org (Please limit your comments to 600 words or less.)

Posted 3/22/12
General Meeting Speech Presented by Dennis Berg at our March 21, 2012 General Meeting.
    Thank you Tim for that both informative and entertaining presentation.  I would also like to personally thank those of you here this evening attending our March Tea Party Patriot meeting.  This evening I ask you to think back to the days you were in school and got the written test that at least one question started with Compare and Contrast two concepts.  I do not know about you but I hated those kinds of questions.  This evening I would like to attempt to compare and contrast this month’s speaker Tim Donnelly with last months speaker Roger Niello.  Please do not panic, there will be no test.  For those of you who were not here last month, do not worry.  If I do my job right you will not be at a disadvantage.
    Last month’s guest, Roger Niello, is a very pleasant and entertaining gentleman.  In my conversations with him before and after the meeting coupled with his presentation I found him to be affable, knowledgeable and well prepared.  I must tell you though, in my mind he is of the political conservative middle in every respect.  His philosophy of change is through incrementalism and compromise.  He resides in the world of ‘it took a long time to get where we are today’ so it will take a long time to change the hearts and minds of the opposition and begin to dig out of the mess we are in.  Again, nice gentlemen and the kind I would love to talk with over a glass of wine.  Unfortunately, California politics and the fiscal situation we have been put in does not lend itself to a wine tasting party with cheese and crackers.
    This evening is the second time I have had the privilege to listen to Assemblyman Tim Donnelly.  In my mind he is an easy compare and contrast to Roger Niello.  I believe you can clearly see he is a take charge kind of a legislator.  I would highly recommend you the Tea Party Patriots here tonight to go to his website and review his proposed legislation over his career as the Assemblyman from the 59th District.  Personally I am loath to suggest new laws, with that said, I am all for legislation that corrects, eliminates or adds common sense to an out of control State government.   I am not going to take the time to review all of Tim’s legislation this evening, but suffice it to say I smiled in approval as I worked my way through the list.  One example: Proof of Citizenship prior to registering to vote.  How novel is that?! 
    So to sum up my compare and contrast between Mr. Niello and Mr. Donnelly, they are completely different in their approach to leadership in the legislature.  One would have you stand around and attempt to build coalitions through compromise and the other would establish common sense legislation for which the opposition would need to compromise.  For myself as a retired military man, I preferred taking the high ground and have those whom I battle to come to the table to compromise.  You say how can you do that when you are so outnumbered?  Stand your ground and make them look the fools that they are with their foolish legislation.  I found a quote on the politically far left California Legislator Tommy Ammiano’s website that supports my contention: “Just about every piece of historic legislation we’ve seen in the last decade in San Francisco has Ammiano’s fingerprints all over it.”  The interesting point of this is he is proud of the condition of San Francisco’s fiscal, cultural and moral condition.
    You may or may not agree with me, but I am of the opinion our State and Nation is in a condition that does not allow for much compromise.  We have already compromised our future and the future of our children and grandchildren.  Additionally, have we not already tried the compromise methodology with the Democrat run Legislature?  How well is that working?  I would like to see a show of hands here tonight.  How many of you believe it is time to change our approach to how we legislate in this state?  Come on raise your hand if you want real change brought to this state.  Now for those of you who raised your hand you just volunteered to take the Constitutional Amendment Initiative for a Part-time Legislature off your chair and collect signatures.  We need the people and not the politicians to control our California Legislature.  If we fail in this endeavor our politicians will get the signal that no one is watching and our State will continue to slide into monetary and civil chaos.  It is time for action and this is a small part of the action that you citizen patriots can take part in.
     As you all know by now, we are a nonprofit organization and we depend on your contributions to sustain our continuation of these events.  To that end, I have my twenty to put in the hat and kick off our fund raising.  Please be generous for we have some up coming expenses that will need to be funded.  Thank you for your kind attention.    
Dennis Berg

3/5/12
The Cost of Our "Rights"
Dennis Berg
           It never occurred to me one of the most talked about topics in the current political season would be a woman’s constitutional right to have ‘free’ birth control health care.  If one listens to Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown (Catholic) University Law student and presumably well educated person, she proclaims a right and the Catholic University or we tax payers an obligation to provide her free (to her) contraception coverage.  This begs the question, has our political season become so debased as to center on a woman’s right to sex with no consequences?
            I am reminded of a conversation I had with a flight attendant during my days as an airline pilot.  The crew had finished flying for the day and we all piled into a van to go to our layover hotel.  One of the young flight attendants got in the van and sat down and let out a loud groan and said, “I am so tired, what a long day.”  I very jokingly said to her as a means to boost her spirits, “A young woman like you with your energy should be ready to go out dancing tonight.”  She failed to find anything positive in that quip and immediately fired back at me, “We have it so much harder than you did at my age, we have to worry about AIDS.”  I found this to be a potential teaching moment, so I asked, “How old are you?” “I’m 26” came the answer.  I thought for a moment and responded, “Let me see, what was I doing at 26?  Oh yes, I remember, I was just married and seven days later left to fly combat missions in Vietnam.  Yes, you are right, you do have it tougher than I did.”  She fired back again, “We have AIDS to deal with.”  So I closed out the conversation with, “So let me see if I have this right, you just want to be able to have sex with no consequences?”
            Not much has changed over the decades since this incident happened.  We are still in the throws of trying to make the sexes equal in every respect.  I know it is highly controversial to think, let alone say, but just maybe there is a difference between women and men.  Life is not fair.  Women bear children, men do not.  If women have this ability (bearing children) do they not have an obligation to be careful with their bodies?  I completely agree, men as equal partners, should be held accountable in this sex without consequences process, but again, and it is unfair, women are the bearer of children and therefore should be far more cognizant of the consequences of sex.
            What is missing in our political discussion is the intrusion of Government into our lives and a misunderstanding/perversion of our Constitutional rights.  Rights as guaranteed by our Constitution should not cost us anything.  Your right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. should not cost me anything.  As usual, the liberals are stuck on equality.  They want equality of the sexes, equality of outcomes, equality in all of life.  They just cannot abide by life not being fair.  To this end, the liberals are not concerned about our country’s debt, after all the bill will be paid by the rich so they can be brought down to equality with all of us.  The bill will also be paid by unborn future generations of productive tax paying citizens.
            I must admit I am feeling sympathy for the position Ms. Fluke has found herself.  In my opinion Nancy Pelosi and the feminist Congresswomen who put Ms. Fluke in front of national television took full advantage of this naive young woman and unintentionally made her out to be a woman of questionable morals.  -Dennis Berg

2/15/12
Speech by Denny Berg at our General Meeting
Welcome to our February River Valley Tea Party Patriots meeting.  When I sat down to put together some thoughts for this evening I decided it was appropriate to cover the general topic of elections have consequences.  I will briefly highlight a couple of legislation bills that almost became law to support my contention that elections do have consequences.  One of these was Senate Bill 810 right here in California.  This bill would have put in place a single payer system of healthcare.  Put another way, this would have been socialized medicine for all Californians.  We ducked a bullet on this one since it fell two votes short of passing.  Another jewel of colossal government overreach was proposed legislation by Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio with his Gas Price Spike Act.  This legislation, if passed, would have establish a non-elected appointed by the President government panel to determine when excessive profits were being collected by oil companies.  Upon making this determination, taxes would be levied on the companies for up to 100% on the government determined excess profits.  Neither of these bills will become law NOW.  They will become law at some future point if we continue to elect politicians who are motivated by envy, class warfare and anti-free enterprise philosophy.   
    Now let me turn to a very uncomfortable topic for me to address, religion.  Religion and our rights to practice religion in our country is a fundamental part of both our Constitution and our heritage.  We at Tea Party Patriots stay clear of social issues since they can be more divisive than inclusive.  With that said, we have one leg of our key core values known as Constitutionally Limited Government.  Our current Administration is clearly violating the First Amendment of our Constitution.  The First Amendment has as its entering clause - “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  The President signed off on a Health and Human Services arbitrary ruling on the application of ObamaCare. In this ruling the Catholic Church will be required to provide contraceptive care, sterilization and abortion inducing pharmaceuticals.   I am not a lawyer, but it seems pretty clear this is directly contrary to the First Amendment clause of “prohibiting the free exercise of religion.”   Do we have an Administration tearing up our Constitution?  What our government is demanding of the Catholic church is to compromise their most fundamental religious beliefs.  Now you may or may not agree with the Church’s stance on reproductive rights, but that is not the issue, this is a direct assault on our Constitution.
    Pastor Martin Niemoller, was a World War Two surviver of Dachau concentration camp.  After the war he wrote a poem in which he lamented the famous, “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.”  After a litany of other groups he concluded the poem with a “Then they came for me and no one was left to speak up for me.”  I would like to paraphrase his poem by saying, ‘First they came for the Catholics and I did not speak out because I was not Catholic.’  Who will this government come for next? Mormons? Evangelicals? or maybe Tea Party members?
    As this unfolds over the coming months, it will be interesting to watch how the current administration will attempt to compromise or even back down from this Constitutional crisis.  Their first attempt at compromise is no compromise at all. To insist Catholic organizations will not pay for reproductive services, but their insurance companies will pick up the tab is nothing short of an obvious dodge.  All this does is provide a level of plausible deniability for the Church leadership when they self examine their own consciences.  In other words a means to rationalize the acceptance of this government mandate.  In the world of true morals and ethics this is absurd.  An administration to even propose a compromise such as this, is an administration that both fails to understand and is unwilling to understand the moral cliff they are pushing the Catholic hierarchy to face.  We now know what Nancy Pelosi meant when she said, “We have to pass this bill to find out what is in it.”
    The point of all this from my perspective is this: Are we beginning to see into the heart of a second term for this administration?  Thus far, the administration has demonstrated a willing disregard for the Constitution, respect for religion, and for a free enterprise system.  If the constitution is no longer a valid document to establish the rule of law for us, then what is in store for us in a second term?  In closing on this topic, I must admit as a practicing Catholic I have to wonder if the liberal wing of my church has learned anything?  For decades these church liberals have quietly wished for a more equitable distribution of our country’s wealth via government mandated redistribution.  Put succinctly, for decades the liberal wing of Catholicism has danced with the devil and now it is time to pay the piper.  
    I would like to shift gears to address a recent well publicized news event that has surfaced some questions about our organization.  As I am sure you will recall the Susan G. Komen Foundation had an embarrassing situation concerning the flow of their funds through Planned Parenthood.  Some of you may be wondering how your contributions and your email addresses are handled by our local River Valley Tea Party Patriots.  Let me assure you we are a local grass roots organization.  We do not send money, email addresses or other local information to the National or State Leadership of Tea Party Patriots.  Additionally, we do not take any directions or orders from any organization including Tea Party Patriot affiliated groups.  Even though we are independent of these groups we maintain a close collaborative relationship with these organization to improve the synergistic effect of greater numbers of like minded people.
    In closing, I thank you all for coming this evening and your kind attention.  As you know we have only one source of income to sustain our nonprofit organization.  This evening I will be passing the hat and here is my twenty to kick things off.  Thank you very much for your passed generosity and this evening.

1/25/12
Tea Party Patriots response to President Obama's State of the Union speech. Features Jenny Beth Martin, Co-founder and National Coordinator.
(Link to video) CLICK HERE

1/25/12
High Speed Rail "Bait and Switch"
Transmitted to letters@sacbee.com 1/24/12
(1/31/12 NOTE: The Sacramento Bee refused to publish this letter.)
- Bill Thacher

Editors, The Sacramento Bee:
    The editorial board and staff of the Bee continue to fail to report the most significant obfuscation by the California High Speed Rail Authority.
     Proposition 1A was sold to the public as a $43 billion, 800 mile system. The 2012 Business Plan reveals that the new projected construction cost is actually $98.5 to $117 billion for "Phase 1". "Phase 1" includes only the 520 mile segment from San Francisco to L.A. and does not include Sacramento and San Diego as promised in Proposition 1A.
    If you extrapolate the cost of the 280 miles that is omitted from the 2012 business plan the cost of the entire system is (as promised in Proposition 1A) is actually $151.5 to $180 billion, or 3.5 to 4.2 times higher than the promise in Proposition 1A. In spite of this fact, you continue to report it as a $98.5 billion project, which it is not.
    The public and private concerns and inconsistencies that you are reporting are merely symptoms of the efforts at an expensive "bait and switch" that the High Speed Rail Authority and its supporters are attempting to pull on the taxpayers of California. They are describing their effort in writing, in their own business plan. The Bee needs to report it.
- Bill Thacher, Rancho Murieta
CLICK HERE to jump to our High Speed Rail page.

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1/3/12
2012 A Year to Remember
- Dennis Berg
    Count me in the column of believing 2012 is the year of the most important election decision for our country since the Civil War.  As a country we are at a momentous turning point and must decide our future.  Are we going to return to some semblance of fiscal sanity with a vibrant economy or are we going to continue down the road toward a bankrupt entitlement economic system such as many countries in Europe?  Are we going to return to office those politicians supporting reckless spending and ever increasing government regulations and government bureaucracy?  What lies ahead of us is the daunting task of informing, educating and inspiring voters to turn back toward a Constitutionally Limited Government exercising Fiscal Responsibility and unleashing the Free Market Enterprise system.
        The River Valley Tea Party Patriots have scheduled for our January 18th monthly meeting a dynamic speaker to kick off our new year with a great number of thoughts to ponder toward this election year.  Mark Meckler is the National Coordinator and Co-Founder of the Tea Party Patriots and to have him as our guest speaker is a real treat and should not be missed.  He lives in Northern California and has graciously agreed to be our speaker to kick this election season off.  Mark has made numerous appearances on national television and can always be counted on to provide insight and encouragement to those of us who believe we need to center our government back on track toward Tea Party Patriot core values of Constitutionally Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility and Free Market Enterprise.
        As part of our January 18th meeting at Cosumnes River Valley Elementary School (CRES) we will be conducting a straw poll among you, our attendees.  During January’s meeting we intend to focus on the field of Presidential contenders.  The polling list will include our incumbent President.  It cannot be over emphasized a poll by our Tea Party Patriots is NOT an endorsement of any one candidate or our support in anyway toward a political party.  The purpose of a straw poll at our meeting is merely to inform and educate you on where our ‘members’ are trending in the election process. Future monthly meetings will include straw polls on other elective offices.
        After our December Christmas break we are looking forward to getting back into the monthly Tea Party Patriot meetings.  As always, we meet on the third Wednesday of each month at CRES.  Please mark your calendars for our 18th of January meeting. Our doors open at 6:30 PM with our meetings starting promptly at 7:00 PM and never ending after 9:00 PM.  Come early, bring a friend and enjoy the company of like minded friends and neighbors.  RVTPP.ORG

Dennis Berg, Rancho Murieta