.

Today a friend sent me an email alert which was dated February 26, 2010 and apparently written by Phyllis Schlafly via the EagleForum.org. I checked the authorship via the same article being displayed on townhall.com though it was dated 02/23/2010.

I then dug into the facts a bit further and it seems that Phyllis, no matter how much I like her, is actually using some of the same tactics as championed by that nasty, smelly radical, Saul Alinsky. How do I know? Because I am reading Saul’s book, “Rules for Radicals”. Actually I am gaining insights that I previously did not have. Even though I take issue with Saul on a number of points, he is correct (IMHO) in a number of his assertions.

One of those assertions is that just about any means justifies the end. Obviously one of ends that Schlafly is working towards is the vilification of Obama and his leftist minions. To that end, Phyllis appears willing to stretch the truth. Saul, if I have read him correctly, would argue that is not bad. In fact the same was done during our revolutionary war when the British were vilified when in fact they were maybe (Saul’s numbers) 60 percent ‘bad’ and 40 percent ‘good’. Saul opines it is difficult to rouse the populace in a cause if you state, “Well, shucks, the Brits aren’t all bad, only 60 percent bad.” The firebrand Samuel Adams was one of the leaders of the revolution but when it came to Shay’s Rebellion against the newly minted United States of America government, Adams wanted those rebels put down hard. That is, it’s OK to rebel against the British but when the new government was instituted which included Adams, you can’t rebel against them. Now I know it gets a bit more complicated than just that and we could go another layer deeper but suffice it to say, when finding the means to accomplish an end, do not throw away good ole propaganda as a tool.

Thus in Schlafly’s piece there is a hue and cry regarding a teacher in Perry High School recruiting students for Obama’s Organizing for America. All this when in fact it was only one teacher going against school policy. So I ask that you read Schlafly’s piece then the subsequent article from foxnews.com which sheds a little different light on the truth.

I guess what troubles me is that Phyllis was willing to use half-truths to mobilize hostility against Obama and his minions/policies, just as the Left does against the Right and Bush. If you have been paying attention, I oppose dinglebarry with all that I write in Red Pills but I also, possibly naively, believe that we have to keep to the truth. The truth regarding dinglebarry is bad enough. So the sweet looking grand old lady of the Right has, in my mind, shed her ’sweet’ adjective. Maybe she’s been at this war too long? But I am glad she’s on “our” side.

From a 03/09/2010 email from a friend by Phyllis Schlafly dated 02/26/2010 entitled, “Organizing Kids for Obama”:

President Barack Obama’s budget has added more than $100 billion of federal taxpayers’ money to what is called “education,” so that means it will be spent by alumni of the Saul Alinsky school of radical community organizing and/or the Chicago Democratic machine. We’re indebted to Pamela Geller of AtlasShrugs.com for exposing the shocking use of some of these funds.

Obama is using the public schools to recruit a private army of high-schoolers to “build on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda.” We now know that Obama’s “agenda” is to move the United States into European-style Socialism.

Obama’s internet outreach during his campaign, Obama for America , has been renamed Organizing for America (OFA) in order to recruit students to join a cult of Obama and become activists for his goals. Geller discovered that the teacher of an 11th-grade government class in Massillon , Ohio , passed out the sign-up sheet, headed with Obama’s “O” logo, asking students to become interns for Organizing for America .

These interns will be given an intensive nine-week training course using comprehensive lesson plans. Assigned readings include Saul Alinsky’s notorious Rules for Radicals, Stir It Up: Lessons from Community Organizing and Advocacy by the left-wing activist Rinku Sen, and particular sections of Dreams From My Father dealing with Obama’s days as a community organizer in Chicago .

Republican students will be filtered out of the intern program by requiring applicants to answer questions that reveal their politics. One example is, “What one issue facing our country is important to you and why?”

Geller said the purpose of this training to become Alinsky-style community organizers, is “of course, to elect more Democrats.” The internship program is specifically geared to get the kids working in the 2010 elections.

The sign-up sheet for Organizing for America starts with this instruction: “Organizing for America , the successor organization to Obama for America , is building on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda of change.” The application explains that this national internship program is “working to make the change we fought so hard for in 2008 a reality in 2010 and beyond.”

This is not the first time Obama has tried to enlist schoolchildren into an Obama cult. Last fall, the instructions mailed to every school by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan added a very political dimension to Obama’s speech that was broadcast to public school children on September 8.

Geller explained the extensive political dimension of the new intern program. The OFA student interns will be trained in the goals and language of the left: “anti-war agitation, anti-capitalism, Marx, Lenin, [Bill] Ayers, LGBT agenda promotion, global warming, soft-on-jihad, and illegal immigration.”

Another item on OFA’s reading list is The New Organizers by Zack Exley. It brags about “an insurgent generation of organizers” inside the Obama campaign that has “almost without anyone noticing … built the Progressive movement a brand new and potentially durable people’s organization, in a dozen states, rooted at the neighborhood level.”

The ten-page “National Intern Organizer Curriculum” is very specific in describing the tactics that interns will be taught. It includes these components: “Using Story as an Organizing Tool, Building Relationships and Building Teams, Mobilizing to Win On the Issues (issue advocacy), Health Care Service Project.”

Passage of Obamacare is one of this intern project’s major goals. The curriculum promises to provide “insight on the strategy and plan behind the health care campaign” and “further motivate them to work on the issue.”

The sign-up sheet states that the “purpose” of training these students is “to build community” among the interns and teach them “to be leaders in OFA’s organizing work.” After all, Barack Obama knows a great deal about being a community organizer; that was his only job before he got into politics.

Job prospects may be bleak for many Americans, but they will be rosy for alumni of Obama’s intern program. After the students have been fully trained as Alinsky-style community organizers, they will be eligible for jobs in Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, or Learn and Serve America.

Those three so-called “service” organizations, which annually dole out millions of dollars to left-wing groups, are overseen by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The U.S. Senate just confirmed this Corporation’s new chief executive, Patrick Corvington, who was a senior official of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which has given over a million and a half dollars to the ACORN network of organizations.

From foxnews.com dated 02/03/2010 entitled, “Ohio High School Accused of Promoting Political Agenda in Classroom“:

An Ohio high school teacher’s giving students job applications for a Democratic organization that included suggested radical reading material has raising concerns of indoctrination in the classroom.

The government teacher at Perry High School in Massillon, Ohio, handed out forms recruiting students to intern for Organizing for America, a grassroots organization with direct ties to the Democratic National Committee and the successor organization for Obama for America.

Included on the forms was a suggested reading list that included Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and Organizing for America’s mission to build on the “movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda of change.”

No Republican equivalent was offered to the students, according to Perry schools’ Superintendent John Richard.

In an interview with FoxNews.com on Wednesday, Richard acknowledged that distribution of the forms violated school policy and said they were never submitted to school administrators for approval, but the teacher remains on the job.

“We don’t take sides politically, nor should we, and we certainly would not support students being indoctrinated politically or religiously or anything along those lines,” he said.

Richard said the social studies teacher, whom he did not name, had no intent of proselytizing his students and was “given the material by another person.” Richard said he “addressed” the issue with the teacher, though he declined to say what disciplinary action, if any, had been taken.

“The teacher should have looked through this material,” Richard said.

Reaction to the forms, first posted on the conservative blog site, Atlas Shrugs, has sparked national outrage, particularly in the blogosphere. Some bloggers called it a “sick intrusion” and said it was nothing more than an attempt to indoctrinate students, while another, Elliott Cook, wrote: “This is all voluntary!!! No one is forcing anyone to do anything they don’t want to do.”

One blogger claiming to be the parent of a girl in the class, wrote that students were given no option of signing up for a Republican internship.

“The only handout was this one,” blogger Gracenearing wrote. “My daughter even asked if there was anything else.”

The school also has been bombarded with e-mails calling for Richard to be fired, along with Perry High School principal Don Gregoire.

“I’ve been told to go apply in Cuba for a job,” Richard said, adding that angry e-mailers have labeled him a communist.

In a Feb. 1, 2010, letter obtained by FoxNews.com, Gregoire apologized to parents, saying the incident was “not acceptable.”

“We apologize that your son or daughter was given this information without approval,” Gregoire wrote. “This error in following Board Policy has been addressed and has been clearly communicated to staff.”

Click here to read the letter.

To Red Pills home page. This article, excluding the material cited or the material which is included herein but written by other authors or material covered by other copyrights, is copyright © 2009, by Gary Shumway. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s web site www.redpills.org is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved.
Gary Shumway is the author of Winging Through America and SCUBA Scoop.

Since the census forms are due to be mailed this month and because of the confusion over the 10-question census form and the American Community Survey (ACS) I thought Rep. Ron Paul’s article particularly timely.

From voteronpaul.com dated 03/08/2010 by Rep. Ron Paul entitled, “Ron Paul on the Census“:

Last week Congress voted to encourage participation in the 2010 census. I voted “No” on this resolution for the simple, obvious reason that the census- like so many government programs- has grown far beyond what the framers of our Constitution intended. {We can depend on Rep. Ron Paul!} The invasive nature of the current census raises serious questions about how and why government will use the collected information. It also demonstrates how the federal bureaucracy consistently encourages citizens to think of themselves in terms of groups, rather than as individual Americans. The not so subtle implication is that each group, whether ethnic, religious, social, or geographic, should speak up and demand its “fair share” of federal largesse.

Article I, section 2 of the Constitution calls for an enumeration of citizens every ten years, for the purpose of apportioning congressional seats among the various states. In other words, the census should be nothing more than a headcount. It was never intended to serve as a vehicle for gathering personal information on citizens.

But our voracious federal government thrives on collecting information. In fact, to prepare for the 2010 census state employees recorded GPS coordinates for every front door in the United States so they could locate individuals with greater accuracy! Once duly located, individuals are asked detailed questions concerning their name, address, race, home ownership, and whether they periodically spend time in prison or a nursing home – just to name a few examples.

From a constitutional perspective, of course, the answer to each of these questions is: “None of your business.” But the bigger question is – why government is so intent on compiling this information in the first place?

The Census Bureau claims that collected information is not shared with any federal agency; but rather is kept under lock and key for 72 years. It also claims that no information provided to census takers can be used against you by the government.

However, these promises can and have been abused in the past. Census data has been used to locate men who had not registered for the draft. Census data also was used to find Japanese-Americans for internment camps during World War II. Furthermore, the IRS has applied census information to detect alleged tax evaders. Some local governments even have used census data to check for compliance with zoning regulations.

It is not hard to imagine that information compiled by the census could be used against people in the future, despite claims to the contrary and the best intentions of those currently in charge of the Census Bureau. The government can and does change its mind about these things, and people have a right to be skeptical about government promises.

Yet there are consequences for not submitting to the census and its intrusive questions. If the form is not mailed back in time, households will experience the “pleasure” of a visit by a government worker asking the questions in person. If the government still does not get the information it wants, it can issue a fine of up to $5000.

If the federal government really wants to increase compliance with the census, it should abide by the Constitution and limit its inquiry to one simple question: How many people live here?

To Red Pills home page. This article, excluding the material cited or the material which is included herein but written by other authors or material covered by other copyrights, is copyright © 2009, by Gary Shumway. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s web site www.redpills.org is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved.
Gary Shumway is the author of Winging Through America and SCUBA Scoop.

I don’t know if I can handle the continued stream of relatively good articles regarding firearms ownership and the continued support of the Second Amendment. Not that it is all positive (see the moron Josh Sugerman on Huffington Post) but people are finally beginning to think about the rational vs emotional issues revolving around gun ownership and their own security. Study after study show the rational of gun ownership for self defense is founded in fact.

From rasmussenreports.com dated 03/05/2010 entitled, “69% Say Cities Don’t Have Right To Ban Handguns“:

The Supreme Court is wrestling with a major case questioning whether Chicago’s handgun ban violates the Second Amendment, but 69% of Americans say city governments do not have the right to prevent citizens from owning such guns.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 25% of adults think city governments do have that right.

These findings are unchanged from June 2008 just before the Supreme Court overturned a Washington, D.C. law banning handguns in that city. That decision also prompted an increase in the high court’s favorability ratings. Sizable majorities of Americans across virtually all demographic lines, including age, income, gender, race and political affiliation, share the belief that cities do not have the right to ban handgun ownership.

In part, that’s because 70% of all adults believe the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of an average citizen to own a gun. That’s down five points from a year ago but consistent with findings last October. Generally unchanged from those surveys is the 14% who say there’s not a constitutional right to gun ownership. Sixteen percent (16%) are not sure.

Americans have decidedly mixed feelings about the need for stricter gun control laws, however. Forty-two percent (42%) say tougher anti-gun laws are needed, but 49% disagree and say stricter gun control is not necessary.

In recent years, support for stronger gun control has ranged narrowly from a low of 39% in October to a high of 45% in April 2007 following the killings at Virginia Tech. The plurality (49%) of women favor stricter gun control laws, but 58% of men are opposed. Support for more gun control is considerably higher among those 18 to 29 than among those in any other age group.

Sixty-five percent (65%) of Democrats think America needs stronger anti-gun laws. Sixty-five percent (65%) of Republicans and 52% of voters not affiliated with either major party disagree.

Forty-four percent (44%) of Americans now say someone in their household owns a gun. Forty-eight percent (48%) say there is no gun in their house.

Interestingly, married adults and those with children living with them are much more likely to say there is a gun in the household than unmarrieds and those without children in the home.

Last June, 57% of Americans said gun sales were up in the United States because of a fear of increased government restriction on gun ownership. Twenty-three percent (23%) said gun sales have risen because of a fear of increased crime.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters now rate the Supreme Court’s performance as good or excellent, while 19% say it’s doing a poor job.

To Red Pills home page. This article, excluding the material cited or the material which is included herein but written by other authors or material covered by other copyrights, is copyright © 2009, by Gary Shumway. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s web site www.redpills.org is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved.
Gary Shumway is the author of Winging Through America and SCUBA Scoop.

I realize this probably does not surprise anyone but I thought it interesting. I mean the mad Ahmad, believes (or at least says he believes) that the Holocaust is a fabrication so for him to say that he is a 9/11 Truther, eh, it’s a small step. At least he does not deny that it actually happened, so he still is hanging on, though tentatively, to sanity.

Now I am NOT saying 9/11 Truthers are out of touch with reality. In fact, if you review some of the information they present and see the buildings collapse like they are undergoing demolition, there is room for doubt. But I will let those so inclined chase after that issue. I have issues which are of greater concern to me. That said, if would cause me to think twice if mad Ahmad showed up at one of my 9/11 Truther meetings.

From reuters.com dated 03/06/2010 by Ramin Mostafavi and Hashem Kalantari entitled, “Iran’s Ahmadinejad calls Sept 11 “big fabrication”“:

Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West and Israel, made the comment in a meeting with Intelligence Ministry personnel.

It came amid escalating tension in the long-running dispute between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear program, with the United States pushing for new U.N. sanctions against the major oil producer.

Ahmadinejad described the destruction of the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001 as a “complicated intelligence scenario and act,” IRNA reported.

He added: “The September 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan.” He did not elaborate.

Nearly 3,000 people died in the hijacked airliner attacks on New York and Washington, which were carried out by al Qaeda operatives.

In January, Ahmadinejad termed the September 11 attacks “suspicious” and accused the West of seeking to dominate the Middle East.

Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, was re-elected in a disputed presidential vote last June that stirred the largest display of internal unrest in the country since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

To Red Pills home page. The image used in this post was obtained from HERE and is basically unaltered. This article, excluding the material cited or the material which is included herein but written by other authors or material covered by other copyrights, is copyright © 2009, by Gary Shumway. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s web site www.redpills.org is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved.
Gary Shumway is the author of Winging Through America and SCUBA Scoop.

Prior to a couple of weeks ago I was posting on Red Pills four, five or more articles per weekday. Over the past few weeks and probably for the next several weeks, I will have to continue to restrain my posting urges to probably one to three articles per weekday. I am doing this because besides my usual weekday responsibilities, I have been involved in purchasing a house and looking for another programming contract. As a contract programmer I have had my current contract for nearly eight years but another company has outbid the company I was sub-contracting with and the winning bidder is bringing in their own people. Thus, I have been involved in seeking other employment. As we settle into our new home and I am once again gainfully employed, I hope that my posts on Red Pills will once again increase. I will keep you posted (pun intended.)

Thank you for bearing with me.

Gary

Former “Saturday Night Live” star Victoria Jackson has released a YouTube video that is on the verge of going viral that warns the American public, “There’s a communist living in the White House.”

Obama is most definitely a Marxist. A communist? Eh, splitting hairs. Bottom line, Obama ignores the Constitution, which he swore to follow and protect. Which of course makes him a damn liar as well. But we already knew that. Thank you, Victoria, even if you are (reaching for the barf bag) a McCain supporter, oh, and want Rush or Hannity as president!

And what would a goofy post be without Olbermann …

Sen. Jim Bunning stands up for America and actually holds the Senate accountable to at least a minuscule amount of financial sanity. Thank you, Sen. Bunning!

From buchanan.org dated 03/05/2010 by Patrick J. Buchanan entitled, “Pitching for America“:

It was Father’s Day, 1964, when the Phillies’ Jim Bunning, a father of seven, took the mound against the Mets.

Ninety pitches later, Bunning had struck out 10 and allowed not one batter to reach first base. Twenty-seven up, 27 down. The first perfect game in 86 years in the National League, and the finest hour of the Hall of Famer’s baseball career.

Beginning last week, Jim Bunning took the Senate floor for five straight days to object to Harry Reid’s call for unanimous consent to waive through a $10 billion spending bill. First, the Kentucky senator demanded, show me how we’re going to pay for it.

His own leadership abandoned Bunning. Susan Collins of Maine assured the Senate and country that Republicans did not back their colleague: “Senator Bunning’s views do not represent a majority of the caucus. It’s important that the American people understand that there is bipartisan support for extending these vital programs.”

Vital programs?

Had Bunning blocked rescue flights to Port au Prince or Santiago, or ammunition for the Marines in Marja?

No. Bunning had held up for a couple of days a vote on a $10 billion bill to extend unemployment benefits, make payments to doctors under Medicare and extend satellite TV to rural America. Reportedly, some 2,000 Transportation Department workers were furloughed for a few days.

“If we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 senators support,” Bunning said, “how can we tell the American people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything?”

Good question.

Indeed, the behavior of senators suggests that neither party appreciates the depth of the crisis we are in or the pain that will be required to get us out. Last week, Bunning did more than any senator in many moons to raise the consciousness of the country to the magnitude of the deficit-debt crisis.

His taking to the barricades may have inconvenienced some, but Bunning forced us all, briefly, to stare into the chasm.

Consider. Congress this year will spend $1.6 trillion more than it collects in revenue, with the largest outlays in that FY 2010 budget for defense at $719 billion and Social Security at $721 billion.

Thus, if the U.S. Government on Oct. 1, 2008, had shut down the Pentagon and furloughed every soldier and civilian here and around the world, and announced that it would not send out a Social Security check for a full year to any of the 50 million retired and elderly, we would still be $160 billion short of balancing the budget. If you zeroed out federal benefits to veterans for a full year, that, added in, would bring us close.

Such is the magnitude of the fiscal crisis facing the country.

To balance the budget this year would require a 43 percent across-the-board cut in every category of federal spending — defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Homeland Security, highways, etc. — or, if one used taxes alone, a 72-percent increase in federal tax revenues.

Budget cuts of that magnitude are impossible. They would cause a revolution. And any attempt at tax hikes of that magnitude would drain off all available consumer capital and hurl the economy into another Depression.

For the foreseeable future, then, this nation is going deeper into debt

And when Harry Reid and colleagues wave through yet another $10 billion for unemployment checks and making sure farm folks get yard dishes to see reruns of “The Sopranos,” the United States must go to Beijing, Tokyo or Riyadh and borrow the money.

That is the hole we are in.

And when one stares at some of those budget numbers, the priorities of the Obama administration seem almost surreal.

In George W. Bush’s last full year in office, we spent $29 billion for “international affairs.” The lion’s share of that was foreign aid. In FY 2011, the year for which Congress has begun to budget, spending for international affairs and foreign aid is to jump to $54 billion and continue to surge through the Obama years.

What is the rationale for the United States, the world’s greatest debtor nation, putting itself deeper in debt to China to send foreign aid to nations that will never repay us and that vote habitually with China and against us in the United Nations?

This city does not seem to grasp that the days of wine and roses are over. We are not in the 1950s or 1960s anymore. Then, we could throw open our markets to imports from the world. Then, we could dish out foreign aid and fight wars in Vietnam with 500,000 men, while maintaining 50,000 troops in Korea and 300,000 in Europe.

America is headed for a time when, like the British Empire, she is going to have to make painful choices, or have them forced upon us.

He may have been booed all last week, but Jim Bunning pitched one of the best games of his career.

To Red Pills home page. The image used in this post was obtained from HERE and is basically unaltered. This article, excluding the material cited or the material which is included herein but written by other authors or material covered by other copyrights, is copyright © 2009, by Gary Shumway. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s web site www.redpills.org is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved.
Gary Shumway is the author of Winging Through America and SCUBA Scoop.

The text book despot is in the news again. It is amazing that people don’t learn that every time a socialist/communist gets in power that they lose freedoms, government grows, and the economy and quality of life collapses. Go figure. Some people just want to be ignorant.

From washingtonpost.com dated 03/01/2010 entitled, “Report details violence and lost freedoms in Venezuela“:

THE ORGANIZATION of American States has failed to respond to the steady deterioration of Latin American democracy during the past few years, even though the defense of democracy is supposed to be one of its primary missions. Now the OAS — and governments throughout the region — have been shamed by one of its own branch organizations. Last week, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a searing and authoritative report on the destruction of Venezuela’s political institutions and the erosion of freedom under President Hugo Chávez. It’s a powerful and sometimes chilling account of what OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza and the organization’s permanent council have been ignoring.

In meticulous detail, the 300-page report documents how Mr. Chávez’s regime has done away with judicial independence, intimidated or eliminated opposition media, stripped elected opposition leaders of their powers, and used bogus criminal charges to silence human rights groups. Much of this has been reported. But the commission, made up of seven jurists and rights activists from Antigua, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the United States, offers a level of detail and a stance of impartiality that ought to discredit those defenders of Mr. Chávez who paint his critics as Yanqui imperialists or coup-plotters.

Particularly shocking is the commission’s account of the role that violence and murder have played in Mr. Chávez’s concentration of power. The report documents killings of journalists, opposition protesters and farmers; it says that 173 trade union leaders and members were slain between 1997 and 2009 “in the context of trade union violence, with contract killings being the most common method for attacking union leaders.” The report says that in 2008 Venezuela’s human rights ombudsman recorded 134 complaints of arbitrary killings by security forces, 87 allegations of torture and 33 cases of forced disappearance. It also asserts that radical groups allied with Mr. Chávez “are perpetrating acts of violence with the involvement or acquiescence of state agents.”

There has been no accountability for these acts. “Impunity,” says the report, “is a common characteristic that equally affects cases of reprisal against dissent, attacks on human rights defenders and on journalists, excessive use of force in response to peaceful protests, abuses of state force, common and organized crime, violence in prisons, violence against women, and other serious human rights violations.”

To read the report is to be dismayed anew by the silence of Venezuela’s neighbors and of the principal OAS organs. Mr. Insulza, characteristically, responded to the report with an arms-length statement that underlined the commission’s autonomy and suggested “dialogue” between it and Mr. Chávez’s government “to clear up doubts and differences.” Mr. Insulza is running for reelection as secretary general, so far without opposition; the United States supplies 60 percent of his budget. If his reaction to the report is any indication, Congress will be expected to fund OAS tolerance of Mr. Chávez’s repression for five more years.

To Red Pills home page. This article, excluding the material cited or the material which is included herein but written by other authors or material covered by other copyrights, is copyright © 2009, by Gary Shumway. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s web site www.redpills.org is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved.
Gary Shumway is the author of Winging Through America and SCUBA Scoop.

Ain’t government largess grand!?

From businessandmedia.org by Julia A. Seymour dated 03/03/2010 entitled, “Networks Ignore New Request for $15 Billion Bailout for Fannie Mae; Mortgage-backer has bled taxpayers for more than $75 billion, but is rarely criticized by the news media“:

A business partly responsible for the economic downturn requested another $15.3 billion bailout last week.

It wasn’t one of the news media’s usual suspects, like the banks or insurance giant AIG – the ones they have repeatedly scorned and scrutinized for needing bailouts. It was government favorite and Democratic donor Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association, created as a public-private hybrid in 1938 but taken over by the federal government in Sept. 2008.

There was no media outrage; in fact there was almost no coverage. Fannie Mae’s Feb. 26 request for more than $15 billion made few print headlines and was ignored entirely by ABC, CBS and NBC – despite the billions of taxpayers’ dollars that have gone to bail Fannie out in the past year and a half.

“The new request for aid will bring Fannie Mae’s total to more than $75 billion,” according to an Associated Press report that ran in the Los Angeles Times Feb. 27.

The only hint in that article about improper conduct leading to Fannie’s downfall was in the last sentence: “The two companies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) loosened their lending standards for borrowers during the real estate boom and are reeling from the consequences.”

That was an understatement – the problem at Fannie Mae has always been the socialized risk of implicit (now explicit) backing of the Treasury Dept. which enabled them to take excessive risks with minimal concern for the danger. Add to that powerful friends on Capitol Hill like Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, and a news media willing to ignore its failings; Fannie Mae was a disaster waiting to happen.

In the past three months, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac was only mentioned in seven stories by the three broadcast networks. Only three of those very brief mentions were at all critical of Fannie or Freddie.

But during that same time frame, the networks have criticized bailed out insurance giant AIG and “banks and securities firms,” including Goldman Sachs, J.P. MorganChase, Morgan Stanley.

A ‘Politically Correct’ Mission and Political Friends
So how have Fannie and Freddie mostly escaped the scrutiny of the network news?

In 2004, Newsweek’s Charles Gasparino provided an explanation in a CNN appearance: “Well, Fannie Mae is a very politically corrupt – it may be politically corrupt, but it’s a politically correct company. I mean, they do all the things that, let’s face, liberal journalists like, like put home mortgages out there for poor people. And so right now, beating up on Fannie Mae is kind of politically incorrect.”

Both companies are also well connected, especially to Democrats, in Washington, D.C.

“Fannie Mae was always a political beast, but it reached its elbow-swinging heights during the time when former Clinton administration budget director Franklin Raines sat in the CEO chair. Under Raines’ leadership, Fannie overstated earnings by a stunning $10.6 billion, all the while paying Raines and his senior management team massive bonuses,” the Motley Fool reported Sept. 10, 2008.

Motley Fool also pointed the finger at a few others, including Rep. Barney Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman (and Fannie regulator).

Some print outlets have examined Fannie and Freddie’s donations to politicians. The New York Times online attacked Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Sept. 24, 2008 for ties to Freddie Mac, but glossed over then Sen. Barack Obama’s, D-Ill., connection to Fannie and Freddie. And never mind Barney Frank’s (see related story).

The Times story buried campaign contribution figures for both candidates until the very last paragraph of the 1,401 word story. According to the article, since 2004 “Senator Obama has received about $126,000 in contributions from employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while Senator McCain, over the last decade, has received about $22,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.”

Obama was the number 2 recipient of contributions from Fannie and Freddie, compared to McCain’s 62 – but the Times didn’t mention that. {Are you livid yet?}

Networks’ Ignored Fannie and Freddie’s Problems in 2005, 2008 and 2010

The broadcasts networks rarely criticize Fannie Mae or its sibling Freddie Mac, despite accounting scandals and the 2008 taxpayer bailout.

ABC, CBS and NBC often attacked AIG, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and others for “greed” and for needing bailout funds. But when $42 million in cash compensation packages were announced on Christmas Eve for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, the networks couldn’t muster any anger toward the highly connected groups.

The Business & Media Institute found three brief mentions from ABC and CBS totaling 175 words about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between the bonus announcement and Jan. 5, 2010.

Not a single one of those reports used the word “bonus” or mentioned the Obama administration decision to extend the credit line of both government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), which already required more than $100 billion from taxpayers.

Unlike the broadcast networks, CNBC’s Rick Santelli was indignant about the stealth extension of funds to Fannie and Freddie. On Jan. 4, Santelli told viewers his New Year’s resolution to “mention Freddie and Fannie and every day maybe ask what’s wrong with S&P, Moody’s and Fitch. Because for us to re-nationalize off balance sheets these trillions of dollars of lecherous accounting gimmicks without having it affect the U.S. credit rating in my opinion is reprehensible.”

But the networks were used to ignoring such critics of Fannie and Freddie. In 2008, as the GSEs’ financial stability was crumbling there was almost no coverage of the pair despite serious criticism.

Charles W. Calomiris, finance and economics professor at Columbia Business School, and Peter J. Wallison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, laid the blame for the current financial crisis at the feet of Fannie and Freddie.

“The poor choices of these two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) – and their sponsors in Washington – are largely to blame for our current mess,” Calomiris and Wallison wrote in a Sept. 23 Wall Street Journal op-ed.

As problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac intensified in August and September 2008, the media switched to attacks on deregulation and Republicans, rather than the mortgage giants.

All the networks needed to do was read the Wall Street Journal to get an idea of how bad the coming crisis would be. As far back as 2002, the Journal was comparing Fannie Mae to Enron in its editorial pages. A Feb. 20, 2002 editorial entitled “Fannie Mae Enron?” exposed the high debt and poor risk management of Fannie and Freddie.

“The more we’ve since looked at Fan and Fred the more they look like poorly run hedge funds: lots of leverage and snarkily hedged risk. The word Enron ring any bells?” said the Journal editorial.

It turned out that Fannie Mae’s financial fiasco was – at that time – 19 times bigger than Enron’s. Yet, the TV news media on ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC barely made a peep. Now with the federal bailout, that number is much higher.

To Red Pills home page. This article, excluding the material cited or the material which is included herein but written by other authors or material covered by other copyrights, is copyright © 2009, by Gary Shumway. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s web site www.redpills.org is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved.
Gary Shumway is the author of Winging Through America and SCUBA Scoop.

No doubt you have heard of the Democrats threatening to use ‘reconciliation’ to pass their egregious health care (read government control of citizenry) legislation. Very bad legislation indeed.

Just so everyone is on the same page I will give you an article regarding their use of ‘reconciliation’ and then Newt Gingrich’s article on the pros/cons of that move. I know, I am no fan of Gingrich’s either but he does give a clearer understanding of the reason for the process and the process itself.

Here is the first article from abcnews.com by Jake Tapper dated 03/02/2010 entitled, “President Obama to Say Democrats Will Use Reconciliation to Pass Senate Health Care Reform Fix, If Not Given Up or Down Vote“:

White House officials tell ABC News that in his remarks tomorrow President Obama will indicate a willingness to work with Republicans on some issue to get a health care reform bill passed but will suggest that if it is necessary, Democrats will use the controversial “reconciliation” rules requiring only 51 Senate votes to pass the “fix” to the Senate bill, as opposed to the 60 votes to stop a filibuster and proceed to a vote on a bill.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been awaiting the president’s remarks direction on how health care reform will proceed.

In his remarks, scheduled to be at the White House, the president will paint a picture of what he will say will happen without a health care reform bill – skyrocketing premiums, everyone at the mercy of the insurance industry as recently seen with the 39% premium increases proposed by Anthem Blue Cross in California.

He will note that the “fixed” bill will include the proposal for a new “Health Insurance Rate Authority” to set guidelines for reasonable rate increases. If proposed premium increases are not justifiable per those Health Insurance Rate Authority guidelines, the Health and Human Services Secretary or state regulators could block them.

The plan to pass the bill includes having the House of Representatives pass the Democratic Senate health care reform legislation as well as a second bill containing various “fixes.”

The president will call for an up or down vote on health care reform, as has happened in the past, and though he won’t use the word “reconciliation,” he’ll make it clear that if they’re not given an up or down vote, Democrats will use the reconciliation rules as Republicans have done in the past.

White House officials will make the argument these rules are perfectly appropriate because the procedure is not being used for the whole bill, just for some fixes; because reconciliation rules are traditionally used for deficit reduction and health care reform will reduce the deficit; and because the reconciliation process has been used many times by Republicans for larger legislation such as the tax cuts pushed by President George W. Bush.

A White House official says the president will “reiterate why reform is so crucial and what it will mean for American families and businesses: they’ll have more control over their own health care, they’ll see lower costs , and they’ll see an end to insurance company abuses. He’ll note that his proposal includes the best ideas from both parties, and he’ll restate his preference for a comprehensive bill that will reduce premiums and end discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.”

The president will also extend a hand to work with Republicans on measures they have pushed, including $50 million for state grants for demonstration projects to explore alternatives to medical malpractice cases, and a crackdown on Medicaid and Medicare fraud as proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

He will also herald the removal of extraneous provisions in the bill such as the so-called “Cornhusker Kickback,” a deal to secure the support of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., in which the federal government would pay for Nebraska’s Medicaid expansion; and “Gator-aid,” the provision to shield Florida seniors from cuts to the Medicare Advantage program, secured by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

Mr. Obama will say that he will be working on exact legislative language in the next few days. Republicans can join him and Democratic congressional leaders of the House and Senate to makes these changes and to pass the bill, but either way the bill will be moving forward.

Now from Newt Gingrich from his ‘Newt Gingrich letter’ dated 03/03/2010 entitled, “What Is “Reconciliation” And Why Is It A Threat?”:

During last week’s health summit, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid uttered a remarkably dishonest and, in retrospect, ironic statement, claiming that “nobody is talking about reconciliation” to pass the health bill.

It was a dishonest statement because Democrats have been openly floating the specter of passing the health bill using reconciliation since it first became obvious it would have difficulty passing the Senate, including just days before the summit by Sen. Reid himself.

It was ironic because it seems that all the cable news shows, talk radio, blogs and pundits have been talking about since the summit is whether President Obama, Harry Reid, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will use the Senate budget reconciliation process to pass their big government, big bureaucracy health bill.

But what exactly is the reconciliation process? And why, exactly, is it so controversial a move to pass the health bill?

A Tool for Congress to Meet Spending Goals
The budget reconciliation process was created in 1974 as part of the law that created much of the modern rules and organizational structures used by Congress to pass the annual budget.

This new law required Congress to pass a budget resolution every year that would set the parameters by which the various congressional committees would write their specific parts of the total budget bill.

Within these budget resolutions, instructions can be given to specific congressional committees to create legislation that would alter current laws affecting spending and/or taxation in order to conform to the targets set out in the budget resolution.

To enhance Congress’ ability to meet budget resolution targets, these pieces of legislation are not passed under the normal rules of the Senate. Instead, they fall under the “budget reconciliation process” rules which prohibit unrelated amendments to the bills and set a maximum of 20 hours of debate on the floor. As a practical matter, this means only 51 votes are needed to pass a reconciliation bill because the limit on debate overrides the threat of a filibuster.

The Byrd Rule to Prevent Abuse of Reconciliation
While the budget reconciliation process was a success in its principal goal of giving Congress more power to meet the spending and revenue goals of the budget resolution, it quickly became prone to abuse.

Provisions that had nothing to do with meeting budget resolution requirements, even some that directly contradicted them, were passed using the reconciliation process.

To prevent this, the so-called “Byrd Rule,” named after Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, who introduced the legislation, was passed in 1985 and made permanent in 1990.

The Byrd Rule allows any senator to raise a point of order objection to provisions in a reconciliation bill that they consider extraneous to meeting budget resolutions requirements. Then, it is up to the chair – either the Vice President (as President of the Senate) or, more often, the presiding officer of the Senate if the Vice President is not present — whether that provision stays or is stricken.

However, the chair almost always relies on the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian to determine if that objection is legitimate. (Learn more about the parliamentarian here.)

This determination is made based on six tests created as part of the Byrd Rule used to weed out provisions that have nothing to do with raising or reducing taxes or spending. It takes a 3/5 majority vote to override the decision of the presiding officer if he or she finds that a provision violates one or more of these tests. (This Congressional Research Service report is a good primer on the Byrd rule if you want to learn more.)

Reconciliation in Action
Reconciliation has been used for 22 bills, of which, 14 were passed by Republican majorities. Nineteen of those bills were signed into law by the President. Three were vetoed. You can view a chart of these bills here.

Notice the similarity between them? All of these bills were obviously directly related to taxation and spending, and since 1985, have successfully met the Byrd rule tests.

Health Reform Is About More than Federal Spending
This is why passing the left’s big government, big bureaucracy health bill using the budget reconciliation process is so fundamentally dishonest and dangerous to Senate precedent.

Leaving aside the bill’s merits (which, to be clear, are abysmal), both its defenders and detractors would acknowledge that it is, for better or worse, a fundamental overhaul of the nation’s health system, both public and private. It sets new rules and regulations that span the entire healthcare sector. It is much larger in scope and more all encompassing in purpose than simply affecting federal spending and revenues.

This is not to say that the bill would not have some effect on the federal budget. Almost any piece of legislation could meet that meager standard.

The reconciliation process was only intended to be used for legislation directly related to meeting budget resolution spending and revenue goals.

The minor affect the left’s health bill would have on the deficit over 10 years (beyond that there is every reason to think it would increase the deficit substantially), even by charitable estimates, cannot be used to justify passing this sort of sweeping legislation using reconciliation.

This is one reason why a number of Democrats, including Sen. Robert Byrd, author of the Byrd Rule and who also helped create the budget reconciliation process in 1974, called the idea of using it to pass the health bill (and cap and trade) “an outrage that must be resisted.”

It’s also why Robert Byrd objected to President Clinton’s efforts to pass Hillarycare in 1993 using reconciliation.

Why should the left’s latest big government healthcare grab be held to any different standard?

Welfare Reform vs. the Left’s Big Government Health Bill
This week, the left is out in force, pointing to other significant pieces of legislation passed by Republicans using the budget reconciliation process as justification for passing their health care bill. One of the examples they are using is welfare reform.

Since welfare reform was passed while I was Speaker of the House, I am happy to compare the two cases.

First, welfare reform was an integral part of the Republican Congress’ efforts to balance the budget, producing immediate savings of over $50 billion dollars between 1997 and 2002. It was originally combined with the balanced budget act that President Clinton vetoed in 1995.

By contrast, for most of the debate over the health bill, the left has constantly boasted about how their bill was “deficit neutral“. President Obama repeatedly sought to assure the American people that he would not sign a bill that “added one dime” to the deficit. Medicare cuts were combined with new taxes to pay for the cost of new programs and bureaucracies.

So while real effective health reform would certainly have a positive effect on the deficit, it is clear that the left never intended for their health bill to be primarily a budget bill. Its focus was and still is on getting more people covered. It was only after Democratic leaders began setting the stage for passing the bill using reconciliation that they began emphasizing it as a way to reduce the deficit. (Paul Ryan explains here how their bill uses smoke and mirrors to create the illusion of savings).

Second, when we decided to roll welfare reform into the balanced budget bill in 1995, we never stopped the conference committee efforts to resolve the differences between the versions of the welfare reform legislation that passed in the House and Senate earlier in the year. This continuation of work, along with the active participation of the governors, allowed us to quickly produce the final bill in conference the next year, once it became clear that President Clinton was now finally ready to sign welfare reform.

In contrast, the Democrats have done an end run around the conference committee process that would resolve the differences between the House and Senate bills, instead trying to negotiate their final bill in secret at the White House. This process continues today, with President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid exploring different tricks they can use to ram a bill through their respective chambers without first producing a conference bill.

Third, welfare reform was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, with more Democrats voting for it in the House and Senate than opposing it. It was signed by a Democratic President. Bipartisanship was integral to the success of the bill.

Today, Democrats are turning to passing the bill using the reconciliation process precisely because they are rejecting bipartisanship. Republican Scott Brown’s stunning election in Massachusetts, thanks largely to opposition to the left’s health bill, has meant that the Democrats would need at least one Republican vote to break a filibuster in the Senate. And their bill is so bad they can’t get one.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, welfare reform was overwhelmingly popular with the American people. One poll showed that over 90 percent of Americans favored reform, including 88 percent of those on welfare.

As for the left’s health bill, after a year of debate and discussion, the American people have overwhelmingly rejected it. A poll we released at the Center for Health Transformation showed that it is opposed by a 2-1 margin. It is a fact that the more Americans learn about the left’s plan, both its substance and the corrupt manner in which it has been passed, the more they oppose it.

Three Corrupt Options for the Left
The left’s big government, big bureaucracy health bill is overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people. It is incapable of obtaining any bipartisan support in the Senate.

Faced with this reality, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid should do the responsible thing and scrap the unpopular bill and start over, focusing instead on smaller pieces of legislation that could obtain bipartisan support.

However, they’ve made it clear they aren’t willing to do this. The Democrats are determined to pass a comprehensive health bill no matter how unpopular it is. This means they have to use reconciliation to avoid needing 60 votes to end debate in the Senate.

There are several corrupt options available to the Democrats using reconciliation.

One option would be for the House to pass the exact same health bill the Senate passed in December (thus avoiding the need for the Senate to marshal 60 votes again for a final bill now that Scott Brown is in office) with an understanding that a separate bill with a series of fixes would be passed immediately afterward using the budget reconciliation process in the Senate.

The left argues that technically, this would keep the use of reconciliation fairly narrow. However, the plain truth of the matter is that the Democrats would be using the budget reconciliation process to pass a bill they could not otherwise pass using the normal legislative process. It is a dirty trick that ignores congressional tradition and the overwhelming opposition to the bill from America.

Another option is for the Democrats to try and pass the full health bill in the Senate with 51 votes using reconciliation and then for the House to pass the same bill that emerges from the Senate.

For all the reasons outlined above, this would be an enormously inappropriate use of the budget reconciliation process. But it also means that the left’s endlessly complicated bill that creates hundreds of new regulations, new programs, and new bureaucracies would have to survive the Byrd Rule tests, creating the possibility that by the time all the extraneous provisions are removed, the final “swiss cheesed” legislation would be unrecognizable.

For President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to promise to pass a bill when they, in reality, don’t know what the final bill will look like, is the height of irresponsibility. (Of course, they passed the stimulus without reading it so it would certainly fit with their precedent.)

How Far Are The Democrats Willing To Go?
Which brings us to a third, more drastic option for the Democrats to get their high tax, big government, big bureaucracy health bill passed.

As explained above, under the Byrd Rule, the vice president of the United States is ultimately responsible for deciding whether a provision in a reconciliation bill is extraneous. It is merely tradition that dictates he follow the advice of the parliamentarian, not a Senate rule.

To avoid their legislation being subjected to Byrd Rule tests, the vice president could choose simply to ignore the advice of the parliamentarian on points of order and rule to keep the extraneous provisions in the final bill. Any senator can appeal these rulings, but the appeal may be defeated with a simple majority vote.

To be clear, no vice president has ever acted in this fashion in the history of the reconciliation process. But no one has ever tried to push this kind of bill through reconciliation before either.

With the American people overwhelmingly opposed to the health bill, not to mention every other part of the left’s agenda, and the political environment turning increasingly toxic for the Democrats, President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi could decide to make a cynical, calculated political decision.

Faced with the high likelihood of political defeat in November, they could decide it is preferable to pass the bill they want and be defeated rather than to fail to get a health bill (or only a partial bill), and be defeated anyway.

In fact, this seems to be the message Speaker Pelosi was pushing this past weekend , dismissing her caucus’ concerns of defeat.

Republicans Must Vow To Replace the Left’s Health Bill
If the Democrats are bound and determined to exert all their power and manipulate every rule they can to pass their big government health bill, Republicans may not be able to stop its passage.

We’ll find out today as President Obama is set to announce his recommendation on the way forward.

But no matter what President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid decide, the bottom line for Republicans is that they must stand with the American people in opposing this bill.

This doesn’t just mean voting against it and using every parliamentary maneuver available to delay its passage.

It also means running on a platform of replacing whatever left-wing health bill the Democrats manage to pass with real health reform that empowers patients and doctors, not bureaucrats, to bring down health costs. And delivering on that promise in 2011 if Republicans gain control of Congress.

And if President Obama is still determined to ignore the will of the people by vetoing the Republican bill after such a clear message from America, it means that the Republican candidate for President in 2012 must run on a platform that includes signing the replacement of the left’s big government health bill. After all, no matter what dirty tricks the politician may try to get his way, in America, the people have the final say.

To Red Pills home page. This article, excluding the material cited or the material which is included herein but written by other authors or material covered by other copyrights, is copyright © 2009, by Gary Shumway. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s web site www.redpills.org is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved.
Gary Shumway is the author of Winging Through America and SCUBA Scoop.