President Obama is imposing provisions of the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty (UNLOST) on U.S. policy, even though the Senate has not ratified that treaty.

According to a "Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies" issued on June 12 with the subtitle, "National Policy for the Oceans, Our Coasts, And the Great Lakes", Obama says the following:

"To succeed in protecting the oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes, the United States needs to act within a unifying framework under a clear national policy, including a comprehensive, ecosystem-based framework for the longterm conservation and use of our resources.

"In order to better meet our Nation’s stewardship responsibilities for the oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes, there is established an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force (Task Force), to be led by the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. The Task Force shall be composed of senior policy-level officials from the executive departments, agencies, and offices represented on the Committee on Ocean Policy established by section 3 of Executive Order 13366 of December 17, 2004. This Task Force is not meant to duplicate that structure, but rather is intended to be a temporary entity with the following responsibilities:

"1. Within 90 days from the date of this memorandum, the Task Force shall develop recommendations that include:

"a. A national policy that ensures the protection, maintenance, and restoration of the health of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems and resources, enhances the sustainability of ocean and coastal economies, preserves our maritime heritage, provides for adaptive management to enhance our understanding of and capacity to respond to climate change, and is coordinated with our national security and foreign policy interests. The recommendations should prioritize upholding our stewardship responsibilities and ensuring accountability for all of our actions affecting ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources, and be consistent with international law, including customary international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. …

"2. Within 180 days from the date of this memorandum, the Task Force shall develop, with appropriate public input, a recommended framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning. This framework should be a comprehensive, integrated, ecosystem-based approach that addresses conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources consistent with international law, including customary international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea."

(Read the full document)

"June 15: At the annual awards gala of the Americas Society, the 350 guests toasted David Rockefeller, the society’s founder, in celebration of his 94^th birthday." Source: Bill Cunningham, The New York Times, 6/21/09, p. 10

"What is NORPASS?

"The North American Preclearance and Safety System, or NORPASS, is a partnership of state and provincial agencies and trucking industry representatives who are committed to promoting safe and efficient trucking throughout North America. The NORPASS partners work together to deploy mainline screening systems at weigh stations, thus allowing safe and legal trucks to proceed unimpeded while enforcement resources are focused on high-risk motor carriers.

"How does it work?

"Each trucker who registers his/her vehicle to participate in NORPASS receives a small transponder to mount on the windshield (or if the trucker already has a compatible transponder, he/she may enroll it at no cost). As the truck approaches a NORPASS weigh station, a roadside reader detects the transponder and a computer in the scale house checks the credentials. Some stations are also equipped with weigh-in-motion equipment. If everything passes, a signal is sent back to the truck and the transponder gives a green light indicating that the driver may bypass the weigh station. If a problem is detected with the truck, the transponder returns a red signal, indicating that the driver must pull in. The system also samples randomly so any participating trucker can expect to receive an occasional red light.

"Where does NORPASS work?

"There are currently nine member states/provinces (Alaska, British Columbia, Connecticut, Idaho, Kentucky, New York, Quebec, South Dakota, Washington) and two partner states (North Carolina, Oregon), all offering open/interoperable weigh station bypassing. In addition, NORPASS transponders can be registered for use with tolling on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington. To view the latest information regarding coverage, see the coverage page.

"How much does it cost?

"There are no fees for participating in NORPASS member states. This means no annual fees; no fees for green lights; no fees ever! However, the truck must have a transponder which will work in the system. These cost roughly US$45 and can be purchased directly through NORPASS.

"Who sees the information collected at the weigh station and how is it used?

"NORPASS member states designed their systems to improve the efficiency and safety of motor carrier operations. NORPASS member states agree to use the information collected by the state solely for the purposes of statistical evaluation of the system and determining each truck’s bypass status.

"Can I use a NORPASS transponder in other states or bypass systems?

"Yes. Your NORPASS transponder will work in all NORPASS states, and is fully compatible with the North Carolina TransExpress Program and PrePass.

"How can I save on tolling also?

"For customers interested in toll discounts, we recommend the BestPass (www.bestpass.com) transponder which is compatible with several toll collection systems (including E-ZPass), as well as NORPASS, for weigh station bypassing. If you already have a BestPass transponder, you can simply apply to have NORPASS added to it so you do not have to purchase a new transponder.

"I'm ready. How can I join?

"You can apply online, by mail, or by fax. For more information, see the apply page.

"Parlez-vous français?

"Cliquez ici pour plus d’informations en français.

"¿Hablas español?

"Haga clic aquí para obtener información en español." Source: http://www.norpass.net/index.php, 5/15/09

"Census data from the Mexican government indicate an extraordinary decline in the number of Mexican immigrants going to the United States.

"The recently released data show that about 226,000 fewer people emigrated from Mexico to other countries during the year that ended in August 2008 than during the previous year, a decline of 25 percent. All but a very small fraction of emigration, both legal and illegal, from Mexico is to the United States. …

"Mexican and American researchers say that the current decline, which has also been manifested in a decrease in arrests along the border, is largely a result of Mexicans’ deciding to delay illegal crossings because of the lack of jobs in the ailing American economy.

"The trend emerged clearly with the onset of the recession and, demographers say, provides new evidence that illegal immigrants from Mexico, by far the biggest source of unauthorized migration to the United States, are drawn by jobs and respond to a sinking labor market by staying away. …

"On the American side, near Calexico, Calif., Border Patrol vans return empty to their base after agents comb the desert for illegal crossers. …

"With so many Mexicans remaining in their home villages, the population of illegal immigrants in the United States stopped growing and might have slightly decreased in the last year, an abrupt shift after a decade of yearly influxes, research by demographers in the United States shows. Mexicans account for 32 percent of immigrants in the United States, and more than half of them lack legal status, the Pew center has reported.

"Still, at least 11 million illegal immigrants remain in the United States, the demographers say. Despite collapsing job markets in construction and other low-wage work, there has been no exodus among Mexicans living in the United States, the Mexican census figures show. About the same number of migrants – 450,000 – returned to Mexico in 2008 as in 2007. …

" ‘The latest evidence suggests that you can reverse the flow,’ said Steven A. Camarota, a demographer at the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group in Washington that calls for reduced immigration. ‘It is not set in stone, so with some mix of enforcement and the economy, fewer will come and more will go home.’ …

"Most immigrants now need smugglers to guide them through searing deserts and hidden mountain passes where there are gaps in Border Patrol surveillance. In Mexicali, smugglers’ fees are now $3,000 to $5,000 for a trip to Los Angeles, immigrants and social workers said. They reported that Mexicans’ relatives in the United States, struggling to hold on to their own jobs, no longer had money to lend to a family member to pay a smuggler." Source: From Mexicali, Mexico, Julia Preston, The New York Times, 5/15/09, pp. 1, A4

"The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.

"Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.

"The grant, made last November, refers to prostitutes as ‘female sex workers’ – or FSW – and their handlers as ‘gatekeepers.’

" ‘Previous studies in Asia and Africa and our own data from FSWs [female sex workers] in China suggest that the social norms and institutional policy within commercial sex venues as well as agents overseeing the FSWs (i.e., the "gatekeepers", defined as persons who manage the establishments and/or sex workers) are potentially of great importance in influencing alcohol use and sexual behavior among establishment-based FSWs,’ says the NIH grant abstract submitted by Dr. Li.

" ‘Therefore, in this application, we propose to develop, implement, and evaluate a venue-based alcohol use and HIV risk reduction intervention focusing on both environmental and individual factors among venue-based FSWs in China,’ says the abstract.

"The research will take place in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi. …

" ‘(1) gatekeeper training with a focus on changing or enhancing the protective social norms and policy/practice at the establishment level; (2) FSW (female sex workers) training with a focus on the acquisition of communication skills (negotiating, limit setting) and behavioral skills (e.g., condom use skills, consistent condom use); and (3) semi-annual boosters to reinforce both social norms within establishments and individual skills,’ wrote Li.

"The doctor said the heart of the study involves ‘a community-based cluster randomized controlled trial among 100 commercial sex venues in Beihai, a costal tourist city in Guangxi.’ …

" ‘Li said his study is being done in China rather than the U.S. because prostitution occurs with alcohol use in the United States like it does in China, Americans will be able to benefit from the project’s findings.

" ‘We want to get some understanding of the fundamental role of alcohol use and HIV risk,’ he said. ‘We use the population in China as our targeted population to look at the basic issues. I think the findings will benefit the American people, too.’ …

"According to Li, there may be as many as 10 million female prostitutes in China with the majority raging from teenagers to those in their 20s." Source: Edwin Mora, www.CNSNews.com, 5/12/09

Howard Phillips, Chairman of The Conservative Caucus, has called upon members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to probe Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor regarding the following questions:

###

"President Barack Obama was just past his first ‘100 days in office’ when David Souter’s retirement gave him the opportunity to submit his first Supreme Court nominee to Congress. He had been planning for this moment. During his campaign for the presidency, Obama explained what he would look for in a nominee to the high court:

" ‘We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.’^[1]

"President Obama reiterated his commitment to ‘empathy’ last week when he commented on Justice Souter’s resignation. He promised to seek someone ‘who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook.’ Apparently, to President Obama, a basic understanding of the plain text of the Constitution is now ‘abstract legal theory.’ But empathy, he says, will produce justice.

"Once again, President Obama has demonstrated that the ‘change we can believe in’ is not the change we need in this country. What we need is a change towards constitutional and biblical fidelity.

"Writing in 1833 in his famous Commentaries on the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story explained that empathy is not the same as justice. Justice must be ‘freely, fully, and impartially administered.’ Without impartial justice, ‘neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected. And if these, or either of them, are regulated by no certain laws, and are subject to no certain principles, and are held by no certain tenure, and are redressed, when violated, by no certain remedies, society fails of all its value; and men may as well return to a state of savage and barbarous independence.’^[2]

"By seeking to nominate to the high court, judges who ‘got the heart, the empathy’ — as opposed to judges who are faithful to the law of the land — we are heading toward that ‘state of savage and barbarous independence’ that Justice Story warned about. That was two centuries ago. Justice Story wasn’t the first.

"Writing 3,500 years ago in the book of Leviticus, the ultimate Law-giver explained the proper role of judges:

" ‘Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour’ (Leviticus 19:15).

"In this text of Scripture, there is no reference to how judges feel about a matter, or how judges should ‘empathize’ with the parties to the case, or even how judges should use their own ethnic background to decide the matter before the bar. The command is to ‘not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty.’ Not feel their pain!

"Contrary to what the ACLU or even the president himself might want, our legal system has codified this biblical command not to respect either the ‘poor’ or the ‘mighty’ in our own republic. The United States Code prescribes the oath that all federal justices or judges are to swear or affirm before performing their duties. The oath states:

" ‘I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [job title] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.^[3]’

"President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, was picked for her empathy rather than her impartiality. In fact, Judge Sotomayor has a record of showing partiality both in her written opinions and as well as outside the courtroom.

"In a 2001 speech at the University of California at Berkeley, Judge Sotomayor said that the ethnicity and sex of a judge ‘may and will make a difference in our judging.’ She went on to declare that ‘I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.’

"Fast forward to 2008, where we see how Judge Sotomayor applies her judicial philosophy of ‘empathy’ in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano (now before the U.S. Supreme Court). In that case, local firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, took an examination in hopes of getting promoted. When the results came out, the majority of those who took the test and passed were ‘white.’ The town decided to disregard that exam. The firefighters who passed the test were passed up for promotion, and they sued the town for reverse discrimination. On appeal to the Second Circuit Court where Judge Sotomayor sits, Judge Sotomayor refused to examine the issues of the ‘white’ firemen and threw out the case. So much for Judge Sotomayor’s ‘empathy’ for both sides.

"And finally, one cannot forget the gaffe committed in 2005 in which Judge Sotomayor explained at a Duke Law School forum that it is at ‘the court of appeals is where policy is made.’ Isn’t that the job of the legislature? Judge Sotomayor caught her mistake and quickly said, ‘We don’t make law, I’m not promoting that, I’m not advocating that, you know.’ However, you have to ask yourself, how does an ‘extremely qualified’ judge make a mistake like that?

"Jesus Christ said that ‘out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.’

"I think it’s clear where Judge Sotomayor’s heart is — she thinks that her job is to ‘empathize’ with the parties before her as opposed to judging ‘in righteousness . . . thy neighbour.’ And this is why she is disqualified to be our next U.S. Supreme Court justice."

1. A widely quoted 2007 speech that then Sen. Obama gave to Planned Parenthood. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/supreme-court/2009/05/obamasempathystandard_drawin.html?hpid=news-col-blog

2. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/preambles21.html

3. Title 28 chapter 21 § 453.

______________________________

Mr. Renaud is in his final year of law school at the Oak Brook School of Law in Fresno, California and is an official of Vision Forum Ministries in San Antonio, Texas.

###

"My name is George C. Joseph.  I am the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu, a family owned and operated business in Melbourne, Florida. My family bought and paid for this automobile franchise 35 years ago in 1974. I am the second generation to manage this business.

"We currently employ 50+ people and before the economic slowdown we employed over 70 local people.  We are active in the community and the local chamber of commerce. We deal with several dozen local vendors on a day to day basis and many more during a month.  All depend on our business for part of their livelihood. 

"We are financially strong with great respect in the market place and community.  We have strong local presence and stability. I work every day the store is open, nine to ten hours a day. I know most of our customers and all our employees.  Sunshine Dodge is my life.

"On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them.

"My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of 3 million dollars.  This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9, 2009. Without the Dodge franchise we can no longer sell a new Dodge as "new," nor will we be able to do any warranty service work.

"Additionally, my Dodge parts inventory, (approximately $300,000.) is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service.  There is no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or parts inventory.

"Our facility was recently totally renovated at Chrysler's insistence, incurring a multi-million dollar debt in the form of a mortgage at Sun Trust Bank.   

"HOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN THIS HAPPEN?  

"THIS IS A PRIVATE BUSINESS NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY

"This is beyond imagination!  My business is being stolen from me through NO FAULT OF OUR OWN.  We did NOTHING wrong.

"This atrocity will most likely force my family into bankruptcy.  This will also cause our 50+ employees to be unemployed. How will they provide for their families?  This is a total economic disaster.

"HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN IN A FREE MARKET ECONOMY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

"I beseech your help, and look forward to your reply. Thank you.

Sincerely,

George C. Joseph

President & Owner

Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu"

Source: tothepointnews.com, 5/26/09 

When I was Director of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) in 1973, I cut off the money to all of the entities promoted by Richard Cloward and Francis Fox Piven.

For example, prior to my tenure, under Sargent Shriver, Don Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney, more than 500 chapters of the National Welfare Rights organization were created at taxpayer expense to implement the Cloward-Piven strategy.

Despite my efforts to Defund the Left, when I resigned as OEO Director, following President Nixon’s decision to continue funding the agency and its programs at an even higher level, the Left was refunded by my successors under Presidents Nixon and Ford.

"ACORN, the radical organization charged with voter fraud in several states, owes its origin to a revolutionary strategy developed by two Columbia University sociologists in the 1960s.

"After completing his legal education at Harvard, Barack Obama returned to Chicago to work in an ACORN-funded voter registration project that developed directly out of this radical revolutionary strategy.

"On … May 2, 1966, Columbia’s Professor of Social Work Richard A. Cloward, and his then research associate Frances Fox Piven, wrote a pivotal article in The Nation, articulating ‘a strategy to end poverty.’

"In what became known as the Cloward-Piven strategy, the article argued a revolutionary approach to mobilizing the poor in the form of class warfare against capitalist forces viewed as exploiting labor and oppressing the poor. …

"Cloward and Piven argued a ‘guaranteed annual income’ should be established as an entitlement for the poor, a right the poor could assert and demand to be paid.

"Arguing for massive registration of poor in existing social welfare programs, Cloward and Piven sought to create a crisis that could be exploited to obtain a fundamental redistribution of power in favor of the ‘have-nots.’

"Advancing their socialist revolutionary aims, Cloward and Piven explained the crisis they sought ‘can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.’

"The Cloward-Piven strategy sought to apply the tactics of the revolutionary civil rights movement, including urban riots, to the poor as a whole, transcending interest-group politics defined by race to involve interest-group politics defined by class.

"Radical black activist George Wiley created the National Welfare [Rights] Organization, or NWRO, to implement the Cloward-Piven strategy.

"Sol Stern, writing in the City Journal, noted that foot soldiers hired by the NWRO were successful in expanding welfare rolls from 4.3 million to 10.8 million by the mid-1970s. The result was that in New York City, where the strategy had been particularly successful, ‘one person was on the welfare rolls … for every two working in the city’s private economy.’

"James Simpson, a former White House staff economist and budget analyst, asserts in American Thinker that the ‘vast expansion of welfare in New York City that came of the NWRO’s Cloward-Piven tactics sent the city into bankruptcy in 1975.’

"William Radke, the founder of ACORN, was a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS, before he dropped out of Williams College in 1968 to join the anti-draft movement protesting the Vietnam War.

"He next worked for George Wiley’s NWRO in Springfield, Mass., before leaving for Little Rock, Ark., in 1970. In Little Rock he formed the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now, an organization whose name he morphed into the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, to form a national organization.

"With ACORN, Radke resolved to apply the Cloward-Piven strategy as a ‘community organizer’ in an effort to recruit radicals to register to vote as Democrats, often fraudulently, in local, state and national elections.

"Radke’s idea was to create a crisis in voter registration similar to the crisis in registration for welfare benefits that Cloward and Piven had initially sought to cause.

"Funded heavily by George Soros through his Open Society Institute, ACORN has followed a three-point strategy that James Simpson described as follows:

1. "Register as many Democratic voters as possible, legal or otherwise, and help them vote, multiple times if possible.
2. "Overwhelm the system with fraudulent registrations using multiple entries of the same name, names of deceased, random names from the phone book, even contrived names.
3. "Make the system difficult to police by lobbying for minimal identification standards required of voters arriving at polling stations to vote.

"In 1992, while he was working as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama headed the Chicago operations of Project Vote!, an ACORN effort to register voters nationally. In Chicago, Obama had his biggest impact registering African-American voters on Chicago’s South Side." Source: WorldNetDaily, 5/14/09, Jerome R. Corsi

(CNSNews.com, 5/4/09) – "The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding a study that seeks to discover a link between drinking and having sex among homosexuals in Argentina.

"The study will send researchers to six bars in Buenos Aires to interview both patrons and proprietors in an effort to discover what it is about those bars that may encourage the risky behavior.
 
"The study began on Sept. 30, 2008, and runs through Aug. 31, 2010. It already has cost taxpayers $198,776. By the time the project ends, it will have cost $403,902, according to NIH.
 
"The grant, awarded to the New York State Psychiatric Institute, was provided by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the division of NIH that studies the effects of alcohol and alcoholism.
 
"The study’s primary focus is to determine the relationship among drinking, bars frequented by homosexuals, and risky sexual behavior to see if certain bars in Argentina might be good targets for HIV-prevention campaigns. 
 
" ‘Targeting public venues in Buenos Aires where men meet, alcohol is consumed, and sexual behavior occurs, the goal of this two-year exploratory study is to understand the various factors that contribute to the creation of a high-risk sexual space,’ the study’s abstract explains.

" ‘To that end, the study seeks to describe the relative contribution of physical characteristics of the place, patron characteristics, type and level of alcohol consumption, and social dynamics that are at play and potentiate each other to result in sexual risk behavior.’
 
"The study has six goals, including the collection of information on six specific bars in Buenos Aires; the appearance, of those bars, alcohol availability, patrons, and types of sexual behavior taking place. The study also seeks to identify which factors contribute to alcohol consumption and sexual behavior in the bars.
 
" ‘The specific aims of this study are to … 2) identify factors that contribute to alcohol use and high-risk sexual behavior in the venues,’ says the abstract.
 
"Researchers will interview 48 of the men who patronize the bars, as well as the bar staff to gather information on the types of alcohol consumed and sexual behavior engaged in. …

"While the study is being conducted in Argentina, it is being funded with U.S. tax dollars.  The grant recipients--who could not be reached for comment--say in the abstract that information gathered in the bars in Argentina might help inform similar efforts in America. …
 
"The study is among a number funded by the NIAAA to examine the relationship between drinking and the spread of HIV, including a study of tourism, prostitution, and HIV in the Dominican Republic and another study examining drinking and HIV among prostitutes in China."

TO: MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 "The D.C. Council overwhelmingly approved a bill yesterday to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, in a vote that followed a sharp exchange between an openly gay member and a civil rights champion and set off shouts of reproach from local ministers.

"The council passed the measure by a vote of 12 to 1. During the debate, council member David A. Catania (I-At Large) accused Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), who cast the dissenting vote, of having taken a ‘bigoted’ position.

"After the vote, enraged African American ministers stormed the hallway outside the council chambers and vowed that they will work to oust the members who supported the bill. …

"Barry, who said he supports gay rights and civil unions, warned after the vote that the District could erupt if the council does not proceed slowly on same-sex marriage.

" ‘All hell is going to break lose,’ Barry said. ‘We may have a civil war. The black community is just adamant against this.’

"Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) has said he will sign the bill recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. The council’s action puts the matter before Congress, which under the Home Rule Charter has 30 days to review District legislation. The bill could present the House and Senate with their biggest test on the same-sex marriage issue since Congress approved the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. …

"Several council members and gay rights advocates are hopeful that the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate will be able to stop congressional intervention.

" ‘I do not believe that a serious attempt to overturn the council bill will be made or will be successful,’ said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who praised the council’s decision. …

"Barry, a prominent figure during the civil rights movement, said that he ‘agonized’ over whether to oppose the bill but that he decided to stand with the ‘ministers who stand on the moral compass of God.’

" ‘I am representing my constituents,’ said Barry, who later told reporters that ‘98 percent of my constituents are black, and we don’t have but a handful of openly gay residents.’ …

" ‘We need a new council. They are destroying our youth,’ a same-sex marriage opponent, Paul Trantham of Southeast Washington, shouted in the hallway during the ruckus. ‘Every minister who fears God should be here. This is disrespectful to the nation’s capital. There is nothing equal about same-sex marriage.’

"This week, more than 100 black ministers signed a letter to Fenty opposing the measure." Source: The Washington Post, 5/6/09, Tim Craig

Apparently preserved in alcohol, Tom Braden recently died at the age of 92.

When Pat Buchanan could no longer stand nightly arguments with Braden on CNN’s one-hour "Crossfire" program and WRC Radio’s three-hour debate, he graciously turned the task over to me.

When Braden was drunk, he was crude, rude, nasty, and belligerent. He was only slightly less so when there was no alcohol on his breath.

Braden led a very sad life. In return for a major payoff from Nelson Rockefeller, Braden permitted his wife to be Rockefeller’s mistress. Similarly, he looked the other way when his wife had intimate relations with Bobby Kennedy and Robert McNamara.

When Braden’s daughter was raped by a black man, he became a virulent supporter of abortion.

Braden was a top official of the Central Intelligence Agency, giving money to Left-wing students to represent the United States at international conferences, corrupting with subsidies the U.S. National Student Association, and providing the money which permitted the Communist Party newspaper, The Daily Worker, to publish on a regular basis.

In summary, Braden was a bitter, nasty man who took pride in his friendships with wealthy, famous liberals and who had no shame when it came to some of the horrible decisions he made in the course of his life. Perhaps that is why he was an unreformed alcoholic and perhaps it was alcohol that kept him alive until past his 92^nd birthday.

As described in The Washington Post (4/4/09): "Tom Braden, 92, author of the memoir-turned-television series ‘Eight Is Enough’ and a former CIA official who became the liberal voice on CNN's talk show ‘Crossfire’ in the 1980s, died of cardiac arrest April 3 at his home in Denver.

"Mr. Braden, a syndicated newspaper columnist, was best known for his autobiographical novel about his life as the father of eight children, which was published in 1975 and adapted as an ABC comedy-drama two years later. Mr. Braden was also one of the early practitioners of the televised arguments that masquerade as interview shows when he became the sparring partner of former Nixon adviser Pat Buchanan on ‘Crossfire’ in 1982.

"In the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Braden's Chevy Chase home became an informal salon for the journalistic and political elite, where Henry Kissinger spent Christmas Eves, AFL-CIO chief Lane Kirkland spent Thanksgivings and Mr. Braden and his vivacious wife, Joan, entertained everyone from former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to next-door neighbor and NBC anchorman David Brinkley.

"As a CIA official in the early 1950s, Mr. Braden was head of the International Organizations Division which promoted anti-communism by secretly funding groups including the AFL-CIO and the National Student Association, sending the Boston Symphony Orchestra on a European tour and publishing Encounter magazine. After Ramparts magazine exposed the CIA's system of funding anti-communist front organizations all over the globe, Mr. Braden defended the program in an article in a 1967 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. He said the secret program was his idea.

"Keeping secrets from Congress, he wrote, simply made good sense: "In the early 1950s, when the cold war was really hot, the idea that Congress would have approved many of our projects was about as likely as the John Birch Society's approving Medicare.’

"In 1977, Mr. Braden replaced former Robert F. Kennedy campaign aide Frank Mankiewicz on a nationally syndicated WRC radio spot called ‘Confrontation,’ paired against the conservative Buchanan. The radio show jumped to late-night TV on ‘After Hours’ on the old WDVM with local broadcaster Gordon Peterson as the moderator.

"Mr. Braden and Buchanan became known as the ‘Punch and Judy’ of Washington commentators. Guests left the broadcast studio saying they felt as if they'd been in a bar fight. Others never got to speak at all because Mr. Braden and Buchanan were so intent on attacking each other's positions. Later, CNN picked up the show and renamed it ‘Crossfire.’ Mr. Braden was replaced in 1989 by political journalist Michael Kinsley. …

"Thomas Wardell Braden II was born Feb. 22, 1917, in Greene, Iowa. He left high school during the Depression and was sent to New York by his parents to work as a printer for a family friend. He graduated in 1940 from Dartmouth College, which admitted high school dropouts. …

"Mr. Braden joined the CIA in 1950, working as an assistant to Allen W. Dulles, who became CIA director. In 1954, he bought the Blade-Tribune newspaper of Oceanside, Calif., with a $185,000 loan from Nelson Rockefeller, the industrialist and later New York governor, for whom his wife worked. Mr. Braden unsuccessfully ran for lieutenant governor in 1966 on the Democratic Party ticket."

Ron Paul and I, among many others, had a friend in common: Burt Blumert, who once hosted me at his lovely home on Half Moon Bay in California.

Here’s what Ron Paul had to say about Burt Blumert:

"Burton Samuel Blumert passed away on Monday March 30, following a long battle with cancer. Burt was a true hero of the freedom movement and my close friend, advisor, and business partner.

"As the founder and manager of Camino Coins in Burlingame, CA, Burt was one of the nation’s leading dealers in gold and silver coins. A student of Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian school of economics, Burt understood the important role precious metals played in protecting ordinary citizens from the damage wrought by fiat money and inflation. Thus, he regarded his work as a coin dealer not just as a business, but as an opportunity to help people by providing them with some protection from the Federal Reserve’s inflation tax.

"After I stepped down from Congress in 1984, I partnered with Burt in the coin business, a partnership which lasted until I returned to Congress in 1996. Our partnership was based on nothing more than our words. As anyone who ever dealt with Burt could testify, that was all that was needed, because Burt’s word was truly his bond. I am unaware of anyone who dealt with Burt who questioned his integrity or his commitment to his customers.

"As well-known and respected as he was for his leadership in the coin business, Burt was best known as a promoter of libertarian ideas. Burt was a long time friend and patron of Murray Rothbard, one of Mises’s top American students and a pioneer in economics, political theory, history, and much else. Burt helped Murray establish the Center for Libertarian Studies, and served as its president from 1975 until his death.

"Burt also played a key role in the flourishing of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which, as its name suggests, is the leading center for the promotion and development of Austrian economics and libertarian political theory in the nation. Burt served as a founding board member of the Institute and he chaired the Institute's board after the original chair, Mrs. Margit von Mises, passed away in 1993. He also published The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, a well-read libertarian newsletter written by Murray Rothbard and Mises Institute President Lew Rockwell.

"Burt played a major role in making the ideas of liberty a force on the internet by serving as the publisher of LewRockwell.com, as well supporting the development of Mises.org. Burt also played an instrumental role in the development of Antiwar.com. Burt also served as chairman of my first run for the presidency, and important counselor in the second.

"In addition to his work with these organizations, Burt was a friend, mentor, and patron to numerous libertarian scholars and activists. He was incredibly generous with both his time and his resources. Talking to Burt was always a treat, because he had one of the best senses of humor I have ever known, and it seemed like he was always in a good mood. Events that would send his friends into fits of depression, rage, or both would be used by Burt as fodder for a series of jokes and wisecracks. Even in the last days of his battle with cancer he remained upbeat. One of Burt’s friends called him shortly after learning about Burt’s cancer, but instead of consoling Burt, this friend ending up having his sprits lifted by Burt’s humor.

"It is somewhat of a comfort to myself, and I am sure to Burt’s other friends, to know that he lived long enough to see so many of his efforts bear fruit. Today, the Mises Institute teaches sound economics and the principles of liberty to thousands of students every year while Mises.org is one of the leading economics websites in the world. LewRockwell.com is one of the top providers of political, economic, and cultural commentary on the web, while Antiwar.com is the leading source of information for scholars, journalists, and activists looking for material to combat the propaganda of the war party.

"As I travel across the country, I am astounded at the number of young people I met who are interested in the cause of individual liberty, peace, and sound money. Many of them got their introduction to these ideas through one of the many organizations nurtured by Burt Blumert.

"Madame Speaker, perhaps the highest compliment one can pay to a departed friend is to say that they left the world better than they found it. That is certainly true in the case of Burt Blumert. While I am saddened that I will never again benefit from Burt’s good humor and wise counsel, I am comforted by knowing that I was blessed by his friendship and the thought that the vibrant and growing freedom movement will serve as a living monument to Burt for years to come. I therefore join friends of liberty around the world in mourning Burt’s passing, and saluting all he accomplished during his lifetime." Source: Rep. Ron Paul, M.D. (R-Tex.), before the U.S. House of Representatives, April 2, 2009, www.LewRockwell.com, 4/3/09

The Conservative Caucus has long been known as the leader of the "Defund the Left" movement, seeking to cut off Federal funding of organizations (almost always left-wing) which receive taxpayer subsidies while lobbying Federal, state, and local governments.

A small but encouraging victory on this front was recently won by U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) when she persuaded the House to prohibit Federally funded "volunteers" from being assigned to such groups as ACORN and Planned Parenthood. Congressman Foxx’s amendment to H.R. 1388 (the GIVE Act) excludes organizations involved in lobbying or providing or promoting abortion services, as well as any groups that have been indicted for voter fraud.

Knowing that such groups often evade this type of restriction by setting up a separate organization, sharing staff and office space, to carry out the prohibited activity, the Foxx amendment spreads a broader net, excluding any organization that is "co-located on the same premises" as a prohibited group.

The vote on the Foxx amendment (House roll call 139, March 18) was 318-105. It is probable that some of those voting for it hope to see the amendment removed by the House-Senate conference. This is something that TCC will be watching.

The proposed Social Security totalization agreement between the United States and Mexico faces strong opposition from the public, according to a poll conducted by The Conservative Caucus Foundation (TCCF). The agreement would allow Mexicans who have worked in the United States and returned to Mexico (including illegal aliens) to receive U.S. Social Security benefits. Mexicans would be eligible even if they had not worked the 40 quarters required of U.S. Social Security recipients.

When asked whether Congress should overturn the agreement (which has not yet been submitted for approval), 98% said yes and only 2% no. The idea of a "global welfare system" was also opposed by 98%.

Only 38% had heard about the agreement, which was signed in 2004.

The poll was conducted by mail during early 2009 and received about 1,000 responses.

The Conservative Caucus Foundation (TCCF), founded in 1976, has published studies on many public policy issues, including some concerning Red China, the Panama Canal, nuclear disarmament, and SDI.

The Washington Post is left-wing, but it has correctly described what the Obama budget will cost taxpayers. In an editorial (The Budget Gimmick’s Return, March 26, 2009) referring to attempts by the House and Senate budget committees to disguise the size of future deficits, the Post says "Like Mr. Obama, the Democrats in Congress want to spend more on education, energy and other popular programs. Like Mr. Obama, they don’t want to level with voters about the need to pay for such programs through increased taxes."

On the same day’s op-ed page, Alice Rivlin (Clinton’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget) points out that the Obama taxes on energy use and charitable donations "will not fully compensate for the rising spending" and goes on to recommend tax increases on those with incomes below $250,000. Just above her column, E. J. Dionne says that Obama should "come right out and say we’ll need broad-based tax increases", but recognizes that such honesty "would be suicidal" politically.

President Obama was elected by telling Americans almost all of them would receive a bigger tax cut from him than from John McCain. His budget puts the lie to his promise. Americans will pay the cost of Obama’s budget, either directly through taxes or indirectly through inflation that might exceed even that of the Carter administration.

Americans overwhelmingly agree that restoration of the "Fairness Doctrine" would be a form of censorship, according to a poll conducted by The Conservative Caucus (TCC).

Ninety-four percent described the Fairness Doctrine as a "very serious threat" to freedom of speech, and 92% believed it would force many radio stations to cancel conservative talk shows. Only 2% thought that Congressional supporters were honestly concerned with fairness, while 98% said that the purpose was to "shut down conservative radio".

Earlier this month, an attempt to amend the omnibus appropriations act to prohibit restoration of the Fairness Doctrine was defeated in the Senate, 50-47.

The Fairness Doctrine, originally adopted with the stated intention of regulating radio and TV in order to provide balanced coverage, was revoked by the Federal Communications Commission during the Reagan administration on free speech grounds.

The poll was conducted by mail during January and February with about 6,000 responses.

The Conservative Caucus (TCC) is a grass roots action organization, formed in 1974. It was active in defeating the SALT II Treaty, repealing the Catastrophic Coverage Act, blocking the Clinton health-care takeover, and impeaching President Clinton.

Americans want English to be the nation’s official language according to a poll conducted by The Conservative Caucus Foundation (TCCF). Ninety-nine percent of those responding to the poll supported making English the official language.

There was also 96% support for revoking Executive Order 13166 (issued by President Clinton) which required Federal, state, and local government agencies to conduct more of their business in other languages. Ninety-nine percent agreed that it is "patriotic and for the good of all immigrants to learn our nation’s unifying language."

The tax burden of illegal immigrants who do not speak English was a concern to 99%, and 99% opposed continuing to provide government forms in a language other than English.

The poll was conducted by mail during early 2009 and received about 3,000 responses.

The Conservative Caucus Foundation (TCCF), founded in1976, has published studies on many public policy issues, including some concerning Red China, the Panama Canal, the START treaties, and SDI.

"So far, sixteen lesbian and gay individuals have received appointments from President Barack Obama. Many of these people applied for their positions through the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute’s Presidential Appointments Project.

"The appointees are:

Home "Gov. David A. Paterson bypassed a couple of better-known contenders… and appointed Kirsten Gillibrand, a low-profile congresswoman from the rural, conservative Hudson Valley, to New York’s open Senate seat, potentially boosting his own prospects for election in 2010 but sowing new divisions in the state Democratic Party. …

"Gillibrand’s centrist voting record sets her at odds with most of her Democratic colleagues in New York. She boasts a perfect favorable rating from the National Rifle Association, in a state with some of the strictest gun laws in the country. She has supported tighter measures against illegal immigrants in a state generally known for sanctuary. And she was the only New York Democrat to vote against the $700 billion federal financial bailout plan, which was considered a fiscal lifeline for New York City. …

"The New York Immigration Coalition said in a statement: ‘During her tenure in the House, Representative Gillibrand took positions on immigration that are deeply troubling, to say the least.’ She supported giving local police the power to enforce immigration laws and backed a fence along the U.S. southern border, but opposed any path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country, the group said."

Source: Keith Richburg, The Washington Post, 1/24/09, p. A3

The sell-out senators who voted to disregard the Constitution of the United States and assign a vote to D.C. in the U.S. House of Representatives as if it were a state were: Thad Cochran (R-MS), Susan Collins (R-ME), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Dick Lugar (R-IN), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Arlen Specter (R-PA), and George Voinovich (R-OH).

Democrats who voted to support the Constitution by opposing the legislation were Max Baucus of Montana and Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Alabama Governor Guy Hunt played an instrumental role in launching Roy Moore’s judicial career long before Judge Moore became Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

"Guy Hunt, 75, who in 1987 became Alabama's first Republican governor since Reconstruction but six years later was the state's first governor removed from office for a criminal conviction, died of cancer Jan. 30 at Trinity Medical Center in Birmingham.

The former Amway salesman, farmer and Primitive Baptist preacher was dismissed as a bumpkin by some when he entered the governor's race in 1986. But he pulled a spectacular upset when internal feuding split the Democratic Party, sending a majority of voters into Mr. Hunt's GOP column.

"He won reelection in 1990, but halfway through his second term he was convicted of violating the state ethics law for misusing 1987 inaugural funds, and removed from office. He later received a pardon but could never restart his political career.

"Being governor allowed Mr. Hunt to appoint hundreds of Republicans to state boards and commission and fill vacancies in state and county offices with Republicans. By the time he left office, the Republican Party had started winning other statewide offices, and Alabama had become a two-party state after more than a century of Democratic dominance.

" ‘That was the beginning of the power of the Republican Party in Alabama, and Democrats did it to themselves,’ said Democrat Lowell Barron, an influential state senator and a frequent political ally of Mr. Hunt's.

"Mr. Hunt was a product of rural northern Alabama, growing up on a small farm in Cullman County, marrying at 17 rather than going to college, serving in the Army during the Korean War and returning home to Holly Pond to become a minister in the Primitive Baptist Church in 1958.

"He was a Cullman County probate judge in the 1960s and 1970s.

"A state leader for Ronald Reagan in the 1976 and 1980 presidential campaigns, he was rewarded when Reagan appointed him state executive director of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service in 1981. He quit the job in 1985 and ran for governor, winning the office after the Democrats got into an internal fight over one of their candidates.

‘That created a voter backlash that swept Mr. Hunt into office with 56 percent of the vote. He became the first Republican elected to lead Alabama since 1872.

"Barron said many people underestimated Mr. Hunt after his election because of his laid-back, country manner, but he worked quickly to develop good relations with Democrats, who dominated the legislature.

"In his first year in office, Mr. Hunt got the legislature to enact laws capping big punitive damage verdicts by juries that were earning Alabama a reputation as ‘tort hell.’ The laws drew national attention, and Mr. Hunt celebrated by erecting a billboard in New York that declared the state ‘Open for Business.’

"Mr. Hunt's celebration didn't last long, because the Democrat-dominated Alabama Supreme Court dismantled key parts of the ‘tort reform’ package.

"Mr. Hunt took a hands-on approach to recruiting new industry to Alabama and, in his first year in office, was named one of the nation's top governors by U.S. News & World Report." Source: The Washington Post, 2/1/09. p. C8, Phillip Rawls

Whenever one runs out of evidence of the stupidity and grasp of Big Brother government, new examples arise.

On February 5^th, President Obama issued a memo for the Secretary of Energy regarding "Appliance Efficiency Standards". Here is some of what the memo had to say: "Under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA), the Department of Energy (DOE) is required to establish by certain dates energy efficiency standards for a broad class of residential and commercial products. These products are appliances and other equipment used in consumers’ homes and in commercial establishments. In the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT), the Congress directed the DOE to develop a plan to issue expeditiously efficiency standards for those products with respect to which the Department had not yet met the deadlines specified in the EPCA.

"In 2005, 14 States and various other entities brought suit alleging that the DOE had failed to comply with deadlines and other requirements in the EPCA. In November 2006, the DOE entered into a consent decree under which the DOE agreed to publish final rules regarding 22 product categories

by specific deadlines, the latest of which is June 30, 2011. The consent decree includes target dates for the rulemaking processes and sets deadlines for issuance of final rules with respect to each product category. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) directed the DOE to establish energy standards for additional product categories.

"The DOE remains subject to outstanding deadlines with respect to 15 of the 22 product categories covered by the consent decree, as well as statutory deadlines for a number of additional product categories. These efficiency standards, once implemented, will result in significant energy savings for the American people.

"Therefore, I request that:

Source: Federal Register, Vol. 74, No. 25, February 9, 2009, Presidential Documents

"Obama planned to sign an executive order later in the day creating the White House Office on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. It would expand and refocus the faith-based office founded by former President George W. Bush. …

"During his presidential campaign, Obama said he wanted to expand White House faith-based efforts begun under Bush. But while he endorsed Bush's initiative to give religious groups more access to federal funding, he also promised to make some changes to the office.

"Obama's advisers want to be certain tax dollars sent to the faith-based social service groups are used for secular purposes, such as feeding the hungry or housing the homeless, and not for religious evangelism. The administration doesn't want to be perceived as managing the groups yet does want transparency and accountability. " Source: Newsmax.com, 2/5/09

Americans favor stronger action against illegal aliens, especially in regard to protection from the cost to taxpayers, according to a poll conducted by The Conservative Caucus (TCC).

The poll found unanimous opposition to amnesty for illegals and to continuing to pay at least $68 billion each year for "emergency medical care, schooling, and government services". Opposition to free medical care reached 99.5%/

Advocates of amnesty are expected to push Congress for favorable legislation later this year, and some portions of the stimulus bill are likely to provide funds to illegal aliens.

The poll was conducted by mail during late 2008 with about 1,200 responses.

The Conservative Caucus (TCC) is a grass roots action organization, formed in 1974. It was active in defending the SALT II Treaty, repealing the Catastrophic Coverage Act, blocking the Clinton health-care takeover, and impeaching President Clinton.

Should Americans continue to fork over $68 BILLION every year to cover the costs of emergency medical care, schooling and government services for relatives of illegal alien lawbreakers?
Yes 0% No 100%Home Undecided 0%

Should taxpayers in such states as Illinois continue to provide free medical care for relatives of illegal aliens?
Yes 0% No 99.5% Undecided 0.5%

Should our politicians grant amnesty to the 12-20 million illegal aliens who have, by definition, already broken the law to enter our country?
Yes 0% No 100% Undecided 0%

Is it right that illegal aliens reap the benefits of America, while you and I pay the price?
Yes 0% No 99.5% Undecided 0.5%

"D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) has again failed to file his tax returns.

"The former District mayor has not submitted federal or city tax forms for 2007 – the second instance in which he has not filed required returns while on probation for tax offenses, said two sources familiar with the situation.

"Two years ago, federal prosecutors failed to convince a federal judge that Barry should be jailed for violating the terms of his probation, which was ordered in 2006, because he did not file 2005 tax returns. The probation expires in March. …

"Barry’s current trouble stems from a guilty plea in 2005 to two misdemeanor tax charges. He admitted not filing federal or D.C. tax returns from 1999 through 2004 and said that he did not pay most of the taxes he owed on more than $500,000 in income. U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson sentenced him to three years of probation in March 2006.

"In less than a year, federal prosecutors returned to court and asked Robinson to revoke Barry’s probation and send him to jail because he had failed to file 2005 returns. Prosecutors said at the time that the judge should send Barry to jail to make ‘clear to this defendant that he is not above the law.’" Source: The Washington Post, 1/29/09, p. B4, Del Quentin Wilber and Nikita Stewart

"Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.

"Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

"Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version). …

"One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and ‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, ‘Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.’ According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and ‘learn to operate less like solo practitioners.’…

"Hospitals and doctors that are not ‘meaningful users’ of the new system will face penalties.  ‘Meaningful user’ isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose ‘more stringent measures of meaningful use over time’ (511, 518, 540-541)

"What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the ‘tough’ decisions elected politicians won’t make.

"The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept ‘hopeless diagnoses’ and ‘forgo experimental treatments,’ and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system. …

"Daschle says health-care reform ‘will not be pain free.’ Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

"Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

"The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

"In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision. …

"If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.

"The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

"Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. ‘If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,’ he said. ‘The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.’" Source: Bloomberg.com, Betsy McCaughey, 2/9/09

"President Obama yesterday lifted a ban on U.S. funding for international health groups that perform abortions, promote legalizing the procedure or provide counseling about terminating pregnancies.

"Obama issued a memorandum rescinding the Mexico City Policy, also known as the ‘global gag rule,’ which President Ronald Reagan originally instituted in 1984, President Bill Clinton reversed in 1993 and President George W. Bush revived in 2001.

"The memorandum revokes Bush’s order, calling the limitations on funding ‘excessively broad’ and adding that ‘they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family programs in foreign nations.’ In an accompanying statement, Obama said he would also work with Congress to restore U.S. funding support for the United Nations Population Fund ‘to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries.’ " Source: Rob Stein and Michael Shear, The Washington Post, 1/24/09, p. A3

"A little-discussed provision in President Obama's economic stimulus plan would demand that every American submit to a government program for electronic medical records without a choice to opt out, and it has privacy advocates more than a little alarmed.

"Patients might be alarmed, too, privacy advocates said, if they realized information such as documentation on abortions, mental health problems, impotence, being labeled as a non-compliant patient, lawsuits against doctors and sexual problems could be shared electronically with, perhaps, millions of people.

"Sue A. Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom, said unless people have the right to decide ‘if and when’ their health information is shared, there is no real privacy.

" ‘President Obama has pledged to advance freedom,’ she said. ‘Therefore the freedom to choose not to participate in a national electronic health-records system must be upheld.’

"Blevins' organization, one of the few raising the alarm at this point, said the stimulus plan would impose an electronic health records system on every person in the U.S. without any provision for seeking patient consent or allowing them not to participate.

" ‘Without those protections, Americans' electronic health records could be shared – without their consent – with over 600,000 covered entities through the forthcoming nationally linked electronic health-records network,’ Blevins said. …

"According to the institute, the measure currently includes plans for:

• An electronic health record ‘for each person in the United States by 2014.’
• A national coordinator to develop a ‘nationwide health information technology infrastructure that allows for the electronic use and exchange of information.’

A core principle of Presidential accountability is that the Executive Branch and its employees should be accountable to the Chief Executive so that he, in turn, can be accountable to the people and the states which chose him.

That’s why one of the good things the Bush Administration did was rejecting potential employees linked to Democratic and Left-wing organizations instead, wherever possible, favoring conservative applicants.

"Senior Justice Department officials broke civil service laws by rejecting scores of young applicants who had links to Democrats or liberal organizations, according to a biting report issued yesterday.

"The report by the Justice Department inspector general and the Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that a pair of high-ranking political appointees who are no longer with the department had violated department policy and the Civil Service Reform Act by using ideological reasons to scuttle the candidacy of lawyers who applied to the elite honors and summer intern programs." Source: Carrie Johnson, The Washington Post, 6/25/08, p. A11

"He failed to pay self-employment taxes for money he earned 2001 to 2004 while working for the IMF, according to materials released by the Senate committee. In 2006, the IRS notified him that he owed $14,847 in self-employment taxes and $1,885 in interest from 2003 and 2004, which he paid after an audit. The IRS waived penalties for those tax years.

"Transition officials discovered last fall that Geithner also had not paid the taxes in 2001 or 2002. He paid $19,176 in back taxes and $6,794 in interest for 2001 and 2002 several days before Obama announced his choice, the committee documents showed. All told, Geithner had failed to pay $34,023 in self-employment taxes for the years 2001 to 2004.

"No penalties, of course. For you or me, penalties. But not for him.

"Initially, he told the committee that he had messed up because he used TurboTax. …

"Under questioning, he was unable to show how TurboTax caused this error. This is reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's inability to produce evidence of exactly how she made $100,000 by trading cattle futures. Nobody pressed the issue with her, then or now. …

"This is a man who was paid $398,000 a year at the New York Federal Reserve, the man who will officially be in charge of the Internal Revenue Service.

" ‘Nice work if you can get it, and if you get it, tell me how.’ Of course, I know how. As soon as he was out of grad school, he went to work for Kissinger and Associates." Source: Gary North’s Reality Check, 1/23/09

The New York Times Editorial Board has wasted no time in giving its marching orders to the new U.S. Senator from New York State, Kirsten Gillibrand.

In a January 31 Editorial, here is what the Times had to say from its heights on Mount Olympus:

"What we have seen so far adds up to the same riddle she posed when Gov. David Paterson picked her: Can she represent a constituency beyond the narrow politics of her district, where she has been a bullet-headed opponent of gun control, proudly basking in the extremist affections of the National Rifle Association?

"It’s not that Ms. Gillibrand is never willing to step out on a limb as a Democrat from a rural, Republican district. She has been a stout defender of women’s rights. And there was the speed, startling to say the least, with which she came around to embrace gay marriage. …

"Ms. Gillibrand’s House votes on immigration amounted to a repudiation of New York’s special gift to America. She allied herself solidly with expulsionist Republicans, who reject assimilation in favor of locking down the border, deporting 12 million illegal immigrants and enshrining English as America’s one true tongue. She has favored enforcement rigidity over common sense; she was one of the first to denounce former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s well-meaning effort to make sure illegal immigrants drive with licenses and insurance.

"Ms. Gillibrand has not shown that she understands the ineffectiveness and moral bankruptcy of enforcement-only schemes. To take one example: The SAVE Act, which she co-sponsored, was all about border fencing and requiring everyone in America to prove legal status before being allowed to work. Nothing in it required or allowed immigrants to come forward and legalize. It was meant to seem tough, but was actually a weak reassertion of the status quo, in which undocumented immigrants are denied hope of legal status while the government tries to make them so miserable that they go home. That is a recipe for creating and exploiting a cheap, docile underclass.

"Ms. Gillibrand does understand that the country needs to increase and streamline legal immigration. But defending immigration should be an absolute minimum qualification for a political leader from this state. New Yorkers should expect much more."

"The $800 billion-plus economic stimulus measure making its way through Congress could steer government checks to illegal immigrants, a top Republican congressional official asserted Thursday.

"The legislation, which would send tax credits of $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple, expressly disqualifies nonresident aliens, but it would allow people who don't have Social Security numbers to be eligible for the checks.

"Undocumented immigrants who are not eligible for a Social Security number can file tax returns with an alternative number. A House-passed version of the economic recovery bill and one making its way through the Senate would allow anyone with such a number, called an individual taxpayer identification number, to qualify for the tax credits. …

"Republicans have already blasted the package for including what they argue is wasteful spending and omitting tax cuts for wealthier people and businesses they say are needed to jump-start the anemic economy.

"Not a single Republican voted for an $819 billion version of the plan when it passed the House on Wednesday." Source: Julie Hirschfeld Davis, AP, 1/29/09