"We have entered a period of global warming on steroids. It is a period in which every possible effort will be made to impose this Big Lie on all of us..."
--Alan Caruba, author of Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy
By Doug Hornig
In March 2004, we ran an article on a Pentagon-commissioned study on the possibility of abrupt and drastic climate change, such as happened 12,000 years ago when, according to estimates, the average global temperature rose by seven degrees in only twenty years and put a decisive end to the most recent ice age.
The result of the study, a brief paper titled, An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security, pushed certain computer models to their extreme, at which a sudden rise in global temperature results in a shutting down of the Gulf Stream and, counterintuitively, colder conditions for much of the planet.
That, of course, is just one projection among many. Other researchers have modeled quite different futures, with conditions both more and less dire.
In the past two and a half years, the debate over global warming, its potential effects, and (especially) the human role in bringing it about, has only intensified--with Al Gore's widely seen movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and his packed public lectures leading the way. Thus this seemed like an opportune time for us to revisit the topic.
The central question, it would seem, has been answered. Are we in a period of global warming?
Yes, sort of.
As always, the devil is in the details. While much has been made of record-breaking thermometer readings and "unprecedented" heat waves, the average global temperature has risen by just 1°F in the past hundred years. If this doesn't seem like much, well, it isn't and, moreover, it has been unevenly distributed: temperatures rose from 1920-1940, decreased for the next thirty years, increased again until the mid-1990s, and have been nearly flat since 1998.
This is not the result one would expect if human-generated greenhouse gas emissions, which have constantly increased, inevitably caused temperatures to rise. But such fluctuations--and even more dramatic ones--are not only commonplace, they are inevitable, given a dynamic feedback system like that which exists between the Earth and Sun. There is even one current theory that posits super-cycles, within which the average global temperature varies between 120°F and minus 50. It's a wonder that life has endured at all.
How then should we address the coming 21st-century climate change (something will surely happen), and the proposition that it will primarily be driven by man who, many claim, is creating a massive greenhouse effect through the burning of fossil fuels?
There are many aspects to this but, to begin at the beginning, Al Gore and others, including most of the media, have been telling us there now exists a "consensus" viewpoint on man-made (anthropogenic) global warming (or AGW). For purposes of economy, let's call them the alarmist faction. Furthermore, we're told that the faction questioning the majority view--we'll call them the skeptics--consists of only a tiny handful of shills for the oil industry.
Not so.
Take the famous "hockey stick," for example. This is a graph that is routinely trotted out by the alarmists, and plays a large role in Gore's film. It purports to show that global temperature was flat for most of the past millennium, before suddenly and ferociously spiking upward during the 20th century, thereby creating the business end of the hockey stick. I.e., AGW is out of control.
The graph was created by Dr. Michael Mann, then a climatologist at the University of Massachusetts, in a 1999 paper, and it was immediately and rather uncritically accepted.
One problem with Mann's and others' attempts to pin down global temps is that the thermometer wasn't invented until the early 18th century. For data before that point, we have to rely on reconstructions based on inferences from historical records, and climate proxy indicators, such as tree rings (upon which Mann heavily relied), corals, lake sediments and ice core samples. And even there, most of the work has been done in, and on, the Northern Hemisphere, since that's where most of the people are; we know little about what may have been going on to our south.
(Recent satellite tropospheric temperature data from NASA indicate that the Southern Hemisphere hasn't heated up at all in the past 25 years; perhaps we should be discussing "north hemispheric" rather than "global" warming.)
Now, granted that research scientists' methodologies have become increasingly sophisticated over the years, and high-speed computers have enabled the concatenation of huge amounts of data from many different sources. Many climatologists feel confident of their inferences about a given historical period. Nevertheless, it's wise to keep in mind that there are disagreements, that all estimates are subject to considerable margins of error, and that anyone who purports to "know" for certain exactly how hot or cold it was in 1066 is being disingenuous, at best.
So what are we to make of Mann's graph, in which actual thermometer-recorded temperatures for the past 150 years are casually grafted onto many more centuries of tree ring records? That's a bit like gluing an apple to an orange and calling it a new type of fruit. It's sloppy science.
Even if we completely accept the inferred temperatures scientists have given us--and even if we ignore the large margin of error Mann built into his original graph and which his disciples never bother to reproduce--there still emerges a very major problem with the hockey stick: the graph shouldn't be flat between 1000 and 1900. During those nine hundred years there were some very substantial fluctuations. Most notable are the Medieval Warm Period that began abruptly around 1000 and peaked somewhat above today's conditions around 1250 (thereby allowing the Vikings to establish farms in Greenland); and the Little Ice Age of the 15th-18th centuries, when it averaged a degree and a half colder.
The hockey stick simply ignores these periods, making them instead roughly flat, an alteration that geophysicist David Deming, of the University of Oklahoma, calls deliberate. He cites a colleague who, hoping to stir up alarmist sentiment over global warming, once wrote him that, "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warming Period."
They did. If you leave it in, along with the Little Ice Age, then the graph no longer looks like a hockey stick, but more like a snake slithering along the ground. We are at one of the peaks of warmth, but there was another a thousand years ago, along with a really frigid trough four centuries back. With this perspective, as Dr. Deming writes, "late-twentieth-century temperatures are not anomalous or unusually warm."
Dr. Deming's opinion was borne out by a June 2006 publication from the National Academy of Sciences, titled Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2000 Years. In it, the NAS slammed Mann's ignoring of the major hot and cold periods. Additionally, it said that "substantial uncertainties" surround the notion that the last half of the twentieth century was the warmest of the millennium and that, while the uncertainty increases the farther back in time one goes, "not all individual proxy records indicate that the recent warmth is unprecedented [...] Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that the 1990's are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium ..."
Commenting on the NAS study, the U.S. Senate's leading skeptic, James Inhofe (R-OK), said in a September 2006 floor speech, "This report shows that the planet warmed for about 200 years prior to the industrial age, when we were coming out of the depths of the Little Ice Age [...] Trying to prove man-made global warming by comparing the well-known fact that today's temperatures are warmer than during the Little Ice Age is akin to comparing summer to winter to show a catastrophic temperature trend."
Furthermore, the line at the end of the graph has suddenly gone flat. "There is a problem with global warming," says paleoclimatologist Bob Carter of Australia's James Cook University, "it stopped in 1998." Despite all the excess CO2 our SUVs have been pumping into the atmosphere, Carter says, "official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK [show that] the global average temperature did not increase between 1998-2005."
All in all, that is one broken hockey stick.
But isn't there still a "consensus" about global warming? Didn't most of the world's nations agree on that at Kyoto?
Well, consider a letter written to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in April of 2006, in an effort to get the government there to review actual climate change evidence before implementing provisions of the Kyoto Protocol.
The letter leads off by saying: "As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government's climate-change plans [...]
"Observational evidence," it continues, "does not support today's computer climate models [...] While the confident pronouncements of scientifically unqualified environmental groups may provide for sensational headlines, they are no basis for mature policy. The study of global climate change is [...] an 'emerging science,' one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded that it was not necessary [...]
"When the public comes to understand that there is no 'consensus' among climate scientists about the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change, the government will be in a far better position to develop plans that reflect reality..."
After all, the authors say in conclusion, "It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas."
Who signed this letter? 61 of the world's most prominent experts in the fields of Earth science, climatology, meteorology, geophysics, math and economics. Without them, the "consensus" is thin indeed.
Another consensus-buster came in the form of a reexamination of a study by UCSD social scientist Naomi Oreskes, published in Science, claiming that a review of abstracts of scientific papers on climate showed a 100% agreement that global warming is not the result of natural variations. Oreskes' study was featured in An Inconvenient Truth.
Unfortunately for Oreskes and Gore, Dr. Benny Peiser, a British social scientist, took a close look at the study and found that Oreskes had referenced only 928 out of nearly 12,000 available papers on the subject. Even among those 928, Peiser found that only 2% wholly endorsed the view that human activity is driving global warming, and several of the studies actually opposed that conclusion.
Another striking image that many will remember from An Inconvenient Truth is of huge chunks of glacial ice breaking off from Antarctica and floating away, presented as "evidence" that the polar continent is warming.
Actually, no. This is what glaciers do when they're growing. "The breaking glacial wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says Dr. Boris Winterhalter, a professor of marine geology at the University of Helsinki. "In Antarctica, the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades."
Some sections of Antarctica are warming, true enough. But others are cooling, with variations "probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems," says Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, a professor emeritus of geology at Stockholm University. Overall, Karlén says, the "mass balance" of Antarctica is positive--more ice is building up than melting off.
That's what's happening at the bottom of the world. What about at the top? Well, the Arctic was warmer in the 1930s than it is now. It cooled significantly in the '60s. It warmed until the early '80s, then cooled again through the mid-'90s. After a sudden 30% drop in ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic between 1996-1998, it has been rebuilding and is now near "normal" levels, whatever that means.
A 2003 paper by Igor Polyakov of the University of Alaska found no overall Arctic temperature rise since 1940. In fact, "For several published records, it is a decrease for the last 50 years," Karlén says.
Similarly, scare stories about the melting of Greenland's glaciers and the resulting rise of sea levels are premature. In October 2005, a study of Greenland ice was published by researchers from Bergen University's Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC). The researchers analyzed "a continuous satellite-altimeter height record of Greenland Ice Sheet [...] elevation changes over an 11-year period, 1992-2003."
The NERSC team found that "below 1500 meters, the elevation-change rate is minus 2.0 ± 0.9 cm/year, in qualitative agreement with reported thinning in the ice-sheet margins" (i.e., the alarmists are correct that glaciers are melting along the coast). However, "an increase of 6.4 ± 0.2 cm/year is found in the vast interior areas above 1500 meters." Averaged over the bulk of the ice sheet, the net result is a mean increase of about 5.4 cm/year. In plain terms, the Greenland ice is expanding, not contracting.
Alpine glaciers? Says Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric science at MIT, "Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century [i.e. before the Industrial Revolution], and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why."
There has also been steadily accumulating, supporting evidence that temperatures today bear about the same relationship to the millennial mean as did those in the Medieval Warm Period, to the upside, and the Little Ice Age, to the downside.
Researchers using proxies other than tree rings have fashioned a climate picture that is remarkably coherent, no matter where on the globe they look. To take one example, in 1996 Lloyd Keigwin, Senior Scientist of Geology and Geophysics at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, published a 3,000-year reconstruction of sea temperatures in the Sargasso Sea, using radiocarbon dating correlated with marine organism populations found in seabed sediments.
Keigwin's data clearly delineate the Medieval Warm Period (sea temps better than two degrees above the mean) and the Little Ice Age (more than two degrees below it), as well as spikes as high as four degrees above the mean in the first millennium B.C. Today, the Sargasso is right at the mean.
Other proxy studies have involved the study of coral off of Puerto Rico; of Kenyan and Taiwanese lake bed sediments; of oxygen-18 isotopes from ice cores in the Peruvian Andes and from South African stalagmites; and much more. In all of these studies, our era stands near the mid-point of temperature extremes between the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period.
Yet alarmists continue to proclaim that AGW is out of control.
One of the smoking guns they use is a 1996 report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC's website explains that it "does not carry out research nor does it monitor climate related data or other relevant parameters. It bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature." The panel is composed of representatives appointed by governments and organizations. Participation of delegates with appropriate expertise is "encouraged."
In '96 these experts concluded that, "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate," and set the basis for Kyoto.
However, Dr. Dick Morgan, a climatology researcher at England's Exeter University, notes that the globe is anything but uniform. Along with the warming parts, he says, there are massive areas that are cooling, including the NW Atlantic, North and South Pacific Ocean, the Amazon valley, north coast of South America and the Caribbean, the eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caucasus and Red Sea, New Zealand, and the Ganges Valley in India.
Furthermore, Morgan questions the IPCC's methodology. "Had the IPCC used the standard parameter for climate change (the 30-year average) and used an equal area projection, instead of the Mercator (which doubled the area of warming in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Ocean), warming and cooling would have been almost in balance."
And while we're on the subject of methodology, one further note. The alarmists' dire scenarios are based on computer models of the planet's future, and models are always iffy, to say the least. They depend on what data is put in and how that data is massaged. With regard to weather and climate, they're often way wrong.
Remember the ultra-violent hurricane season computers warned about for the summer of 2006? Didn't happen. But no doubt, after the savage storms of 2005, big hurricane seasons will continue to be predicted. Any of us can do that, with or without a super-computer and, eventually, the laws of probability will make sages of us.
Are the alarmists right about anything, then? Yes. For example, sea levels are rising. But then, they have been since the peak of the last Ice Age, 18,000 years ago. They've risen some 400 feet in the interim. "In recent millennia," writes S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia, "the rate has been 18 cm (7 inches) per century--and there is good argument for this rate to continue until the next ice age. Tidal gauges show no acceleration during the 20th century but only a steady rise [...] Evidently, the rise expected from melting glaciers and a warmer, expanding ocean is largely offset by loss of water from increased ocean evaporation and more ice accumulation on the Antarctic continent."
It is also true that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are increasing, from about 280 parts per million in the 19th century to some 387 ppm today, and that humans are primarily responsible for this. That's about a 38% jump in 100+ years, something the alarmists find, well, alarming.
It's not, Professor Lindzen maintains, writing that, "carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e. a greenhouse gas--albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system."
Not to mention that the relationship between CO2 levels and temperature is far from clear. There is an intricate interplay between release of the gas by humans and natural sources, and uptake by the ocean, plants and soil. Given the dynamism of the process, it is a bit surprising that atmospheric carbon dioxide has remained as stable as it has for the past millennium, before spiking up, in hockey stick fashion, only recently.
Will the upward curve continue indefinitely, as alarmists fear? Or will some other element of the system change, bringing CO2 levels down again? No one knows. What is known is that there have been more significant surface temperature changes during the past thousand years than we are experiencing today, and that CO2 levels were not a factor.
What was the deciding factor, then? Again, no one can say, except that it was probably a combination of ingredients.
The most important of these is the amount of solar radiation that is received on the Earth's surface. Everyone agrees that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (and, much more importantly, water vapor) can serve to trap the sun's heat and raise surface temperatures. But it's a feedback system, depending not only on greenhouse gas levels, but on how much heat there is to trap, and that varies for a number of reasons.
For one, the sun itself goes through periods of greater and lesser radiation, with the presence or absence of sunspots being a good indicator. Sunspots are cyclical. So is the variation in the shape of the Earth's orbit; when it's at its most elliptical, it receives about 20% less radiation than when it's at its least elliptical, a state it's now approaching. Also of influence are the regular changes in the tilt of the Earth's axis and the effects of planetary wobbling on that axis.
Finally, there's one other question that's seldom posed: what are the benefits of global warming? Now, we're not talking about it becoming so hot that the Earth becomes a skillet and we the bacon. But no model foresees that.
Some will be negatively impacted, but that's true of any change, man-made or natural. On the other hand, warmer temperatures mean later frosts and longer growing seasons. Crops could be raised where they cannot today. Ocean evaporation would rise, increasing the global supply of fresh water. Farmers could repopulate Greenland.
To us, that doesn't sound bad. What sounds much worse is that we may have the enormous good fortune to inhabit one of the most benign climatic eras ever, and that ice ages will continue to alternate with interglacials like the present. The giant glaciers tend to grow and recede on a 12,000-year cycle, which means they're about due to return again. When and if they do, they'll override our land, flatten our proud skyscrapers, and relentlessly drive humanity into ever more densely populated southern latitudes. Those already living there are not likely to open welcoming arms.
It isn't a pretty picture. Trapping a bit more of the sun's heat looks like a very viable alternative.
To sum up, in the spirit of full disclosure we cheerfully confess that we are not physicists, or climatologists, or any other kind of authority on the subject of global warming. We don't have a clue what's up for 2007, much less the coming century--best guess based on the evidence we've reviewed: continued moderate warming, due in some part to human activity--and we rather suspect no one else does, either. All we did was look into the debate, and we hope that we've brought to our readers' attention the fact that there is a debate, that the absolute "consensus" you hear about is a myth.
The consensus tale has been placed in the hands of some very potent myth makers, including prominent scientists, politicians, and most members of the media. We don't believe that all of them have been deliberately lying to us, although some have.
We do believe that the debate should be taking place out in the open, with both sides presenting evidence, rather than engaging in name calling. We also believe the mass media should do a better job of framing the debate, but we doubt that they will. Fear sells, and the absence of fear is a non-starter. It's just that simple. The media has glommed onto the alarmists' point of view, because it is apocalyptic and generates better headlines. The skeptics get short shrift.
Alarmist and skeptic alike, though, agree on one thing: The sun will eventually burn itself out, leaving Earth as a cold, lifeless rock.
Now that's global climate change.
Doug HornigDoug Hornig is an editor with Casey Research, the author of the Daily Resource column on KitcoCasey.com, and a regular contributor to What We Now Know. He has authored nine books, and his work has also appeared in Business Week, Playboy, and more. As a veteran journalist, he has been writing on a broad range of subjects for WWNK, including complex issues like the U.S. health care crisis and the Social Security debate.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
The "unfairity" of charity, part 1
I don't talk about it much, but I spent some time in Africa (Uganda) a few years back. I ran a clinic there, and we saved a lot of lives. At that time, what passed for "medicine" in much of sub-Saharan Africa was appalling. Even on a shoestring budget and using ordinary things like hydrogen peroxide, we worked near-miracles. Not that it did much good in the grand scope of the medical malaise on the Dark Continent... Beyond this, I barely got out of there with my life.
Such are the rewards of attempting to help those who will not help themselves by overthrowing their ineffectual leadership. Conditions were so bad that I routinely ran the risk of infection myself - and some of the African governments are so corrupt that your fate literally depends on the momentary whims of individual officials. Those, like myself, who go there to practice "charity medicine" sometimes don't come back. I was one of the lucky ones. I mention all of this today because of a sobering expose` I read in a recent issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. It's about a group of 6 medical professionals from other countries - 5 nurses from Bulgaria and a Palestinian doctor - who've languished in a Libyan prison for 8 YEARS...
According to the Libyan government, they're being held for allegedly intentionally infecting more than 400 children with the AIDS virus at a Benghazi Children's hospital in 1998. Sentenced to death for this obviously trumped-up crime in 2004, these 6 souls cling to life under the slim hope that a final appeal scheduled for December 19th, 2006 (the very day I'm writing this), might grant them a reprieve - or rather, some actual justice. This appeal is only happening because of a growing international protest against the Libyans government's treatment of these folks...
Now, aside from the obvious fact that it would take a nearly inconceivable set of circumstances to get 6 medical professionals - one of them a doctor who's no doubt bound by some kind of equivalent to the Hippocratic oath - to enter into a conspiracy of mass murder against the very children they journeyed so far and sacrificed so much to help, there's this: There isn't even any EVIDENCE linking them to the outbreak!
According to the Journal article, a team of international experts (including some from the World Health Organization) have scrutinized what evidence the Libyan government will allow them to: Things like patient charts, virus and blood samples, and hospital procedures... Their conclusion: Without doubt, the 1998 HIV outbreak at Al-Fateh Children's Hospital stems from the reuse of contaminated medical equipment by dollar-a-day care workers - NOT intentional infection by what were likely the only medically educated staff on hand.
Among their findings: * The particular strain of HIV virus that infects most of the 400 kids in question was rampant in the hospital BEFORE the now-imprisoned aid workers arrived * The hospital has a provably horrid sanitation and infection record - most of the 400 children were co-infected with Hepatitis C because of their stay in Al-Fateh * Syringes, surgical tubing, and other equipment relating to the injection of blood products were routinely used on multiple patients without sterilization * Infusions of unscreened-for-HIV albumin were commonly administered to children through this equipment during the time of the aid workers tenure
Apparently, none of this hard evidence matters to the Libyan court system. Nor does the letter of protest about the violation of these aid workers' human rights submitted to Libya by a panel of 100 Nobel Laureates! Why? Because holding these workers isn't about justice. I'll tell you what it IS about in the next Daily Dose...
Exposing the beware-ity of charity,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
Such are the rewards of attempting to help those who will not help themselves by overthrowing their ineffectual leadership. Conditions were so bad that I routinely ran the risk of infection myself - and some of the African governments are so corrupt that your fate literally depends on the momentary whims of individual officials. Those, like myself, who go there to practice "charity medicine" sometimes don't come back. I was one of the lucky ones. I mention all of this today because of a sobering expose` I read in a recent issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. It's about a group of 6 medical professionals from other countries - 5 nurses from Bulgaria and a Palestinian doctor - who've languished in a Libyan prison for 8 YEARS...
According to the Libyan government, they're being held for allegedly intentionally infecting more than 400 children with the AIDS virus at a Benghazi Children's hospital in 1998. Sentenced to death for this obviously trumped-up crime in 2004, these 6 souls cling to life under the slim hope that a final appeal scheduled for December 19th, 2006 (the very day I'm writing this), might grant them a reprieve - or rather, some actual justice. This appeal is only happening because of a growing international protest against the Libyans government's treatment of these folks...
Now, aside from the obvious fact that it would take a nearly inconceivable set of circumstances to get 6 medical professionals - one of them a doctor who's no doubt bound by some kind of equivalent to the Hippocratic oath - to enter into a conspiracy of mass murder against the very children they journeyed so far and sacrificed so much to help, there's this: There isn't even any EVIDENCE linking them to the outbreak!
According to the Journal article, a team of international experts (including some from the World Health Organization) have scrutinized what evidence the Libyan government will allow them to: Things like patient charts, virus and blood samples, and hospital procedures... Their conclusion: Without doubt, the 1998 HIV outbreak at Al-Fateh Children's Hospital stems from the reuse of contaminated medical equipment by dollar-a-day care workers - NOT intentional infection by what were likely the only medically educated staff on hand.
Among their findings: * The particular strain of HIV virus that infects most of the 400 kids in question was rampant in the hospital BEFORE the now-imprisoned aid workers arrived * The hospital has a provably horrid sanitation and infection record - most of the 400 children were co-infected with Hepatitis C because of their stay in Al-Fateh * Syringes, surgical tubing, and other equipment relating to the injection of blood products were routinely used on multiple patients without sterilization * Infusions of unscreened-for-HIV albumin were commonly administered to children through this equipment during the time of the aid workers tenure
Apparently, none of this hard evidence matters to the Libyan court system. Nor does the letter of protest about the violation of these aid workers' human rights submitted to Libya by a panel of 100 Nobel Laureates! Why? Because holding these workers isn't about justice. I'll tell you what it IS about in the next Daily Dose...
Exposing the beware-ity of charity,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
A Bush Tax Increase?
By Robert D. Novak
Townhall.com
WASHINGTON - More than the ascension of Nancy Pelosi & Co.
was disturbing congressional Republicans last week. They
worried that George W. Bush may proceed down the same path
that made his father a one-term president. Thus, they ask
this question: Will the current President Bush embrace a
tax increase that would produce potential economic disaster
and guaranteed political catastrophe?
Henry M. Paulson Jr. is a shark on Wall Street but a rookie
on Pennsylvania Avenue. As Bush's third secretary of the
Treasury, he has engaged in secret bipartisan talks
discussing an increase in the current $97,500 limit on
personal income subject to the Social Security payroll tax.
That would spike up the top marginal tax rate, demolishing
supply-side tax principles that Republican administrations
have purportedly followed for 26 years.
Paulson certainly has given the impression in those
discussions that he is amenable to raising the payroll tax,
but a senior White House aide cautions this decision has
not yet been made. "There is somebody higher than Hank
Paulson, and it is George W. Bush," he told me. Presidential
adviser Karl Rove (who was not the aide I just quoted)
attended conservative activist Grover Norquist's weekly
meeting last Wednesday and offered to bet anyone $5 that
there would be no increase in the payroll tax base. But
Bush himself has not unequivocally ruled out such a move,
as he has in rejecting any increase in the personal income
tax.
White House spokesman Tony Snow, an ardent supply-sider as
a columnist and commentator who must be personally against
a higher payroll tax, dances around the question in public
briefings. Congressional Republicans are running into a
stone wall from usually cooperative Treasury and Social
Security administration officials when they request
economic data that would demonstrate the folly of lifting
the payroll cap.
But Paulson is the source of most Republican apprehension.
He has engaged in private talks with Republican Sen.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sen. Joseph Lieberman
of Connecticut, who now calls himself an "Independent
Democrat." Graham for more than two years has been seeking
Lieberman's participation in a bipartisan Social Security
reform that includes a higher payroll tax base.
When Graham began crafting his compromise in November 2004,
the premise was that each party would accept something
painful. In return for Republicans agreeing to payroll
taxes on higher income, Democrats would have to swallow
Bush's proposed personal retirement accounts, which would
be financed by cutting into payroll taxes that now all go
into Social Security. But no Democrat, not even Lieberman,
is willing to accept that. Democrats refuse to talk with
Republicans about personal accounts "carved out" of the
present system.
Indeed, a "carve out" is now a dead letter. New personal
retirement accounts could be passed only as an "add on"
-- financed voluntarily by individuals whose contributions
to Social Security would remain unchanged. Higher payroll
taxes would be imposed only to save the present system as
part of a broader entitlement reform.
Republican concern over such an outcome stems in no small
part from the belief that multi-millionaire Paulson has
entered a realm foreign to him. One well-placed House
Republican, asking that his name not be used, expressed
alarm that a financier who sold $485 million worth of
Goldman Sachs stock in order to be confirmed at the
Treasury cannot appreciate how the payroll tax ravages
self-employed businessmen and farmers.
Eliminating the cap on payroll taxes would constitute the
largest tax increase in U.S. history, estimated by the
Heritage Foundation during the last Congress at $1.4
trillion over 10 years. This analysis predicted that such
a step would cost nearly a million jobs and more than $55
billion in projected personal savings.
The economic woe resulting from higher payroll taxes would
be matched by political damage to the president if this
outcome were adopted by the Democratic-controlled Congress
with his approval but support from only a few Republican
legislators. That political calamity can be averted if
Bush takes any payroll tax increase off the negotiating
table, just as Democrats refuse to talk about a partially
privatized Social Security system.
Townhall.com
WASHINGTON - More than the ascension of Nancy Pelosi & Co.
was disturbing congressional Republicans last week. They
worried that George W. Bush may proceed down the same path
that made his father a one-term president. Thus, they ask
this question: Will the current President Bush embrace a
tax increase that would produce potential economic disaster
and guaranteed political catastrophe?
Henry M. Paulson Jr. is a shark on Wall Street but a rookie
on Pennsylvania Avenue. As Bush's third secretary of the
Treasury, he has engaged in secret bipartisan talks
discussing an increase in the current $97,500 limit on
personal income subject to the Social Security payroll tax.
That would spike up the top marginal tax rate, demolishing
supply-side tax principles that Republican administrations
have purportedly followed for 26 years.
Paulson certainly has given the impression in those
discussions that he is amenable to raising the payroll tax,
but a senior White House aide cautions this decision has
not yet been made. "There is somebody higher than Hank
Paulson, and it is George W. Bush," he told me. Presidential
adviser Karl Rove (who was not the aide I just quoted)
attended conservative activist Grover Norquist's weekly
meeting last Wednesday and offered to bet anyone $5 that
there would be no increase in the payroll tax base. But
Bush himself has not unequivocally ruled out such a move,
as he has in rejecting any increase in the personal income
tax.
White House spokesman Tony Snow, an ardent supply-sider as
a columnist and commentator who must be personally against
a higher payroll tax, dances around the question in public
briefings. Congressional Republicans are running into a
stone wall from usually cooperative Treasury and Social
Security administration officials when they request
economic data that would demonstrate the folly of lifting
the payroll cap.
But Paulson is the source of most Republican apprehension.
He has engaged in private talks with Republican Sen.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sen. Joseph Lieberman
of Connecticut, who now calls himself an "Independent
Democrat." Graham for more than two years has been seeking
Lieberman's participation in a bipartisan Social Security
reform that includes a higher payroll tax base.
When Graham began crafting his compromise in November 2004,
the premise was that each party would accept something
painful. In return for Republicans agreeing to payroll
taxes on higher income, Democrats would have to swallow
Bush's proposed personal retirement accounts, which would
be financed by cutting into payroll taxes that now all go
into Social Security. But no Democrat, not even Lieberman,
is willing to accept that. Democrats refuse to talk with
Republicans about personal accounts "carved out" of the
present system.
Indeed, a "carve out" is now a dead letter. New personal
retirement accounts could be passed only as an "add on"
-- financed voluntarily by individuals whose contributions
to Social Security would remain unchanged. Higher payroll
taxes would be imposed only to save the present system as
part of a broader entitlement reform.
Republican concern over such an outcome stems in no small
part from the belief that multi-millionaire Paulson has
entered a realm foreign to him. One well-placed House
Republican, asking that his name not be used, expressed
alarm that a financier who sold $485 million worth of
Goldman Sachs stock in order to be confirmed at the
Treasury cannot appreciate how the payroll tax ravages
self-employed businessmen and farmers.
Eliminating the cap on payroll taxes would constitute the
largest tax increase in U.S. history, estimated by the
Heritage Foundation during the last Congress at $1.4
trillion over 10 years. This analysis predicted that such
a step would cost nearly a million jobs and more than $55
billion in projected personal savings.
The economic woe resulting from higher payroll taxes would
be matched by political damage to the president if this
outcome were adopted by the Democratic-controlled Congress
with his approval but support from only a few Republican
legislators. That political calamity can be averted if
Bush takes any payroll tax increase off the negotiating
table, just as Democrats refuse to talk about a partially
privatized Social Security system.
Why Is Congress Ignoring The Incredible Promise Of Adult Stem Cells?
By Rev. Louis P. SheldonChairman, Traditional Values Coalition
January 9, 2007 - Liberal Republicans and Democrats in Congress are rushing to overturn President Bush’s ban on expanded use of human embryos in stem cell research this week. Under consideration this week is H.R. 3, a bill that is designed to institutionalize the killing of unborn humans for their stem cells.
Why are liberals so determined to expand on the killing of the unborn? They already vigorously defend the so-called “right” of an abortionist to “terminate” the life of unborn children—even those in the ninth month of life. What drives these individuals to now view human embryos as spare body parts for others?
But, more to the point: Why do liberals consistently refuse to consider the promising results of adult stem cells, which are already being used to cure diseases?
For years, physicians have used adult stem cells, stem cells from umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid, placentas -- as well as gene therapy -- to help individuals with diseases. Significant progress is being made in the field of regenerative medicine – which uses the body’s own cells to regenerate damaged tissue.
The Washington Post, (January 8, 2007) reported on the promise of using cells in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women for the healing of diseases. These cells can grow into brain, muscle and other tissues!
These cells are apparently even easier to retrieve and to store than are embryonic stem cells – and don’t carry the ethical baggage with them. These cells can potentially be frozen and kept in a personalized tissue bank for future use. This is the latest breakthrough in the use of non-embryos for stem cells – and should be vigorously pursued.
Adult stem cells, on the other hand, have already been used to treat diseases successfully. The Journal of the American Medical Association has reported that 50% of those with Lupus who were treated with adult stem cells were disease-free 5 years after treatment; The Journal of Rheumatology found that 73% of those with rheumatoid arthritis could be controlled on medication after being treated with adult stem cells; and the journal Nature has reported that vision-impaired mice injected with adult stem cells showed improvement.
There is more: In 2004, the National Right To Life Committee reported that adult stem cells are used in more than 30 anti-cancer therapies! In addition, adult stem cells injected into damaged hearts have become healthy muscle tissue. Harvard Medical School researchers have successfully reversed juvenile onset diabetes in mice by using “precursor cells” taken from the spleens of healthy mice. In addition, severed spinal cords have been regenerated in mice by the use of gene therapy!
These are only a few of the many examples that can be given of the successful use of adult stem cells to cure diseases. On the contrary, there is not one case I’m aware of showing that the use of stem cells from unborn humans has been successfully used to cure any disease.
Why is Congress so eager to normalize the killing of unborn humans for their body parts? What sort of grisly mindset compels these legislators to believe it’s ethical to kill one human to benefit another? Is it because the embryo can’t donate, scream, protest, or picket? How can a civilized society accept the high-tech cannibalism involved in the deliberate killing of a human embryo to harvest its parts?
Perhaps our Congressmen should research the horrific practice in Communist China of killing political prisoners for their body parts. The same logic applies to the killing of unborn embryos for their parts. After all, why waste those eyes, livers, spleens, etc., of dead prisoners when they could benefit a high-ranking member of the Red Chinese Army? This is what has regularly occurred in China over the past decades. (After denying this practice for more than a decade, China’s leaders admitted what they were doing in 2006. They have now supposedly banned this practice. Lying to Capitalist news outlets is standard practice in this ruthless dictatorship so their assurance is suspect.)
So, will Chinese Communist ethics rule in Congress this week as legislators debate H.R. 3, or will our lawmakers reject this war against human embryos and focus on adult stem cell research and the promise that regenerative medicine holds?
We’ll know soon.
January 9, 2007 - Liberal Republicans and Democrats in Congress are rushing to overturn President Bush’s ban on expanded use of human embryos in stem cell research this week. Under consideration this week is H.R. 3, a bill that is designed to institutionalize the killing of unborn humans for their stem cells.
Why are liberals so determined to expand on the killing of the unborn? They already vigorously defend the so-called “right” of an abortionist to “terminate” the life of unborn children—even those in the ninth month of life. What drives these individuals to now view human embryos as spare body parts for others?
But, more to the point: Why do liberals consistently refuse to consider the promising results of adult stem cells, which are already being used to cure diseases?
For years, physicians have used adult stem cells, stem cells from umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid, placentas -- as well as gene therapy -- to help individuals with diseases. Significant progress is being made in the field of regenerative medicine – which uses the body’s own cells to regenerate damaged tissue.
The Washington Post, (January 8, 2007) reported on the promise of using cells in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women for the healing of diseases. These cells can grow into brain, muscle and other tissues!
These cells are apparently even easier to retrieve and to store than are embryonic stem cells – and don’t carry the ethical baggage with them. These cells can potentially be frozen and kept in a personalized tissue bank for future use. This is the latest breakthrough in the use of non-embryos for stem cells – and should be vigorously pursued.
Adult stem cells, on the other hand, have already been used to treat diseases successfully. The Journal of the American Medical Association has reported that 50% of those with Lupus who were treated with adult stem cells were disease-free 5 years after treatment; The Journal of Rheumatology found that 73% of those with rheumatoid arthritis could be controlled on medication after being treated with adult stem cells; and the journal Nature has reported that vision-impaired mice injected with adult stem cells showed improvement.
There is more: In 2004, the National Right To Life Committee reported that adult stem cells are used in more than 30 anti-cancer therapies! In addition, adult stem cells injected into damaged hearts have become healthy muscle tissue. Harvard Medical School researchers have successfully reversed juvenile onset diabetes in mice by using “precursor cells” taken from the spleens of healthy mice. In addition, severed spinal cords have been regenerated in mice by the use of gene therapy!
These are only a few of the many examples that can be given of the successful use of adult stem cells to cure diseases. On the contrary, there is not one case I’m aware of showing that the use of stem cells from unborn humans has been successfully used to cure any disease.
Why is Congress so eager to normalize the killing of unborn humans for their body parts? What sort of grisly mindset compels these legislators to believe it’s ethical to kill one human to benefit another? Is it because the embryo can’t donate, scream, protest, or picket? How can a civilized society accept the high-tech cannibalism involved in the deliberate killing of a human embryo to harvest its parts?
Perhaps our Congressmen should research the horrific practice in Communist China of killing political prisoners for their body parts. The same logic applies to the killing of unborn embryos for their parts. After all, why waste those eyes, livers, spleens, etc., of dead prisoners when they could benefit a high-ranking member of the Red Chinese Army? This is what has regularly occurred in China over the past decades. (After denying this practice for more than a decade, China’s leaders admitted what they were doing in 2006. They have now supposedly banned this practice. Lying to Capitalist news outlets is standard practice in this ruthless dictatorship so their assurance is suspect.)
So, will Chinese Communist ethics rule in Congress this week as legislators debate H.R. 3, or will our lawmakers reject this war against human embryos and focus on adult stem cell research and the promise that regenerative medicine holds?
We’ll know soon.
Time to Commie-proof your Latin American holdings
by J. Christoph Amberger
Venezuela’s reelected president Hugo Chavez went back to the business of renationalizing private companies. Yesterday, he announced plans to have the government take over Venezuela’s electrical and telecommunications companies.
According to him, these are “strategic sectors” that he feels are better off in his hands than in the hands of the markets and investors.
The New York Stock Exchange halted trading in Compania Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, whose ADR trades under the symbol VNT:NYSE. Still, the stock plummeted over 14%.
This is a good time to reassess stock and mutual fund positions from Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador in your portfolios. Chavez and his narco- and petro-communist bobbleheads in the region represent a threat to any of your assets that are invested in these countries.
Get rid of them while you can still get money for them.
Venezuela’s reelected president Hugo Chavez went back to the business of renationalizing private companies. Yesterday, he announced plans to have the government take over Venezuela’s electrical and telecommunications companies.
According to him, these are “strategic sectors” that he feels are better off in his hands than in the hands of the markets and investors.
The New York Stock Exchange halted trading in Compania Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, whose ADR trades under the symbol VNT:NYSE. Still, the stock plummeted over 14%.
This is a good time to reassess stock and mutual fund positions from Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador in your portfolios. Chavez and his narco- and petro-communist bobbleheads in the region represent a threat to any of your assets that are invested in these countries.
Get rid of them while you can still get money for them.
Friday, January 05, 2007
More methane-related atmospheric news
Backing up the findings of oft-ridiculed U.S. research on bovine flatulence, none other than the bloated and gas-spewing United Nations itself has now concluded that cow farts contribute more greenhouse gas (methane, Co2) to our atmosphere than all forms of mechanized transportation combined.
Whether or not the EPA will soon require "cow-talytic converters" on the beasts', uh, tailpipes remains to be seen...
Whether or not the EPA will soon require "cow-talytic converters" on the beasts', uh, tailpipes remains to be seen...
U.S.-Mexico Pact Revealed: Billions to Non-citizens
Dave Eberhart
Friday, Jan. 5, 2007
WASHINGTON -- As a result of lawsuits, the U.S. government released this week the actual U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement, an understanding signed between the Bush administration and the Mexican government in 2004 that would funnel billions of U.S. Social Security funds to Mexican citizens.
TREA Senior Citizens League, a Washington-based nonpartisan seniors group, announced this week that after Freedom of Information Act lawsuits it filed against the government, it had received the secret agreement document.
Brad Phillips, a spokesperson for TREA, told NewsMax that the language in the agreement "raises more questions than it answers — such as what is the cost and who is going to pay."
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has already warned that as a result of this agreement, the number of unauthorized Mexican workers and family members eligible for social security benefits will likely increase.
The Dreaded Loophole
TREA and other watchdog groups were hopeful that the agreement would directly address, and perhaps even moot, the hot-button issue of illegal immigrants at some point claiming U.S. Social Security benefits.
"A law called the Social Security Protection Act of 2004 forbids illegal immigrants from claiming Social Security benefits — but a loophole exists," Phillips explained.
"If an immigrant gains what's called a valid ‘work-authorized' Social Security number at some point, then he or she could eventually file a claim for benefits. The government would use all earnings to calculate the retirement benefit — even earnings while working illegally," Phillips added.
The U.S. commissioner of Social Security signed the agreement with the director general of the Mexican Social Security Institute on June 29, 2004. TREA has fought to make it public for over three and a half years, according to a press release from the organization.
In the meantime, the agreement has been slowly making its way through mandated reviews by the State Department and the White House. Once the White House submits it to Congress, lawmakers will have 60 legislative days to review it.
Either chamber may vote to pass a Resolution of Disapproval of the agreement — or it will take effect automatically at the end of the 60-day period. Furthermore, the Mexican Senate must affirmatively approve the totalization agreement.
In general, Totalization Agreements are between the United States and other countries to coordinate their respective social security programs. For instance, such agreements typically work to eliminate the need to pay social security taxes in both countries — when companies in one country send workers to the other country. Also they are crafted to protect benefit eligibility for workers who split their working careers between the two countries.
According to TREA, if an illegal worker working in the United States today gets a "work authorized" Social Security number — through guest-worker immigration legislation, the Totalization Agreement, or perhaps just over time — that worker could eventually apply for Social Security benefits once the worker has met eligibility requirements.
Unfair Advantage
For example, say TREA officials, a worker who turns 62 after 1990 generally needs 40 calendar quarters of coverage to receive retirement benefits. Under Totalization Agreements, workers are allowed to combine earnings from both countries in order to qualify for benefits.
The agreement with Mexico, like other Totalization Agreements, would allow workers to qualify with just six quarters, or 18 months, of U.S. coverage.
In addition, advised TREA, that worker could be able to claim credits for work performed while in the United States illegally. The SSA maintains an "earnings suspense file," which tracks wages that cannot be posted to individual workers' records because there is no match for a name and Social Security number.
Once an immigrant gains access to a work authorized Social Security number — whether a legal citizen or not — wages earned while in the United States unlawfully could be reinstated to the worker's new Social Security account, warned TREA officers.
Such writing-on-the-wall concerns are not just being sounded by TREA, however.
Warnings by the GAO
In a recent special report to Congress, the GAO voiced a number of issues latent in the agreement:
SSA has no written policies or procedures it follows when entering into Totalization Agreements, and the actions it took to assess the integrity and compatibility of Mexico's social security system were limited and neither transparent nor well-documented.
SSA provided no information showing that it assessed the reliability of Mexican earnings data and the internal controls used to ensure the integrity of information that SSA will rely on to pay Social Security benefits.
The proposed agreement will likely increase the number of unauthorized Mexican workers and family members eligible for Social Security benefits. Mexican workers who ordinarily could not receive Social Security retirement benefits because they lack the required 40 coverage credits for U.S. earnings could qualify for partial Social Security benefits with as few as six coverage credits.
Under the proposed agreement, more family members of covered Mexican workers would become newly entitled because the agreements usually waive rules that prevent payments to non-citizens' dependents and survivors living outside the United States.
The cost of such an agreement is highly uncertain. In March 2003, the Office of the Chief Actuary estimated that the cost of the Mexican agreement would be $78 million in the first year and would grow to $650 million (in constant 2002 dollars) in 2050. The actuarial cost estimate assumes the initial number of newly eligible Mexican beneficiaries is equivalent to the 50,000 beneficiaries living in Mexico today and would grow six-fold over time.
This previous proxy figure does not directly consider the estimated millions of current and former unauthorized workers and family members from Mexico and appears small in comparison with those estimates. The estimate also inherently assumes that the behavior of Mexican citizens would not change and does not recognize that an agreement would create an additional incentive for unauthorized workers to enter the United States to work and maintain documentation to claim their earnings under a false identity.
An analysis performed at the GAO's request shows that a measurable impact would occur with an increase of more than 25 percent in the estimate of initial, new beneficiaries. For prior agreements, error rates associated with estimating the expected number of new beneficiaries have frequently exceeded 25 percent, even in cases where uncertainties about the number of unauthorized workers were less prevalent.
Because of the significant number of unauthorized Mexican workers in the United States, the estimated cost of the proposed Totalization Agreement is even more uncertain than in prior agreements.
Playing by the Rules
"The Social Security Administration itself warns that Social Security is within decades of bankruptcy — yet, they seem to have no problem making agreements that hasten its demise," said Ralph McCutchen, chairman of TREA.
"Our 1.2 million elderly members didn't play by the rules and sacrifice through difficult times so we could fund millions of workers who crossed the border and decided to work here illegally," McCutchen added.
TREA officers also warn that Mexico's retirement system is radically different than that of other participating countries.
For example, only 40 percent of non-government workers participate in Mexico's system, whereas 96 percent of America's non-government workers do. In addition, the U.S. system is progressive, meaning lower wage earners get back much more than they put in; in Mexico, workers get back only what they put in, plus accrued interest.
Uncovering the Ugly Truth
"I applaud the persistent efforts of TREA Senior Citizens League to try to get documents from the U.S. government about the U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement," said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C. "The American people are finally beginning to get some of the information regarding this Agreement that they have been seeking for so long."
According to the Social Security Administration, the Social Security Trust Fund will begin paying out more than it is taking in by 2017, and will be exhausted by the year 2040.
Phillips noted that [before the emergence of the agreement] "the Administration always called it ludicrous to suggest that illegal immigrants could get their hands on our Social Security."
"We not hearing that anymore," Phillips lamented.
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
Friday, Jan. 5, 2007
WASHINGTON -- As a result of lawsuits, the U.S. government released this week the actual U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement, an understanding signed between the Bush administration and the Mexican government in 2004 that would funnel billions of U.S. Social Security funds to Mexican citizens.
TREA Senior Citizens League, a Washington-based nonpartisan seniors group, announced this week that after Freedom of Information Act lawsuits it filed against the government, it had received the secret agreement document.
Brad Phillips, a spokesperson for TREA, told NewsMax that the language in the agreement "raises more questions than it answers — such as what is the cost and who is going to pay."
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has already warned that as a result of this agreement, the number of unauthorized Mexican workers and family members eligible for social security benefits will likely increase.
The Dreaded Loophole
TREA and other watchdog groups were hopeful that the agreement would directly address, and perhaps even moot, the hot-button issue of illegal immigrants at some point claiming U.S. Social Security benefits.
"A law called the Social Security Protection Act of 2004 forbids illegal immigrants from claiming Social Security benefits — but a loophole exists," Phillips explained.
"If an immigrant gains what's called a valid ‘work-authorized' Social Security number at some point, then he or she could eventually file a claim for benefits. The government would use all earnings to calculate the retirement benefit — even earnings while working illegally," Phillips added.
The U.S. commissioner of Social Security signed the agreement with the director general of the Mexican Social Security Institute on June 29, 2004. TREA has fought to make it public for over three and a half years, according to a press release from the organization.
In the meantime, the agreement has been slowly making its way through mandated reviews by the State Department and the White House. Once the White House submits it to Congress, lawmakers will have 60 legislative days to review it.
Either chamber may vote to pass a Resolution of Disapproval of the agreement — or it will take effect automatically at the end of the 60-day period. Furthermore, the Mexican Senate must affirmatively approve the totalization agreement.
In general, Totalization Agreements are between the United States and other countries to coordinate their respective social security programs. For instance, such agreements typically work to eliminate the need to pay social security taxes in both countries — when companies in one country send workers to the other country. Also they are crafted to protect benefit eligibility for workers who split their working careers between the two countries.
According to TREA, if an illegal worker working in the United States today gets a "work authorized" Social Security number — through guest-worker immigration legislation, the Totalization Agreement, or perhaps just over time — that worker could eventually apply for Social Security benefits once the worker has met eligibility requirements.
Unfair Advantage
For example, say TREA officials, a worker who turns 62 after 1990 generally needs 40 calendar quarters of coverage to receive retirement benefits. Under Totalization Agreements, workers are allowed to combine earnings from both countries in order to qualify for benefits.
The agreement with Mexico, like other Totalization Agreements, would allow workers to qualify with just six quarters, or 18 months, of U.S. coverage.
In addition, advised TREA, that worker could be able to claim credits for work performed while in the United States illegally. The SSA maintains an "earnings suspense file," which tracks wages that cannot be posted to individual workers' records because there is no match for a name and Social Security number.
Once an immigrant gains access to a work authorized Social Security number — whether a legal citizen or not — wages earned while in the United States unlawfully could be reinstated to the worker's new Social Security account, warned TREA officers.
Such writing-on-the-wall concerns are not just being sounded by TREA, however.
Warnings by the GAO
In a recent special report to Congress, the GAO voiced a number of issues latent in the agreement:
SSA has no written policies or procedures it follows when entering into Totalization Agreements, and the actions it took to assess the integrity and compatibility of Mexico's social security system were limited and neither transparent nor well-documented.
SSA provided no information showing that it assessed the reliability of Mexican earnings data and the internal controls used to ensure the integrity of information that SSA will rely on to pay Social Security benefits.
The proposed agreement will likely increase the number of unauthorized Mexican workers and family members eligible for Social Security benefits. Mexican workers who ordinarily could not receive Social Security retirement benefits because they lack the required 40 coverage credits for U.S. earnings could qualify for partial Social Security benefits with as few as six coverage credits.
Under the proposed agreement, more family members of covered Mexican workers would become newly entitled because the agreements usually waive rules that prevent payments to non-citizens' dependents and survivors living outside the United States.
The cost of such an agreement is highly uncertain. In March 2003, the Office of the Chief Actuary estimated that the cost of the Mexican agreement would be $78 million in the first year and would grow to $650 million (in constant 2002 dollars) in 2050. The actuarial cost estimate assumes the initial number of newly eligible Mexican beneficiaries is equivalent to the 50,000 beneficiaries living in Mexico today and would grow six-fold over time.
This previous proxy figure does not directly consider the estimated millions of current and former unauthorized workers and family members from Mexico and appears small in comparison with those estimates. The estimate also inherently assumes that the behavior of Mexican citizens would not change and does not recognize that an agreement would create an additional incentive for unauthorized workers to enter the United States to work and maintain documentation to claim their earnings under a false identity.
An analysis performed at the GAO's request shows that a measurable impact would occur with an increase of more than 25 percent in the estimate of initial, new beneficiaries. For prior agreements, error rates associated with estimating the expected number of new beneficiaries have frequently exceeded 25 percent, even in cases where uncertainties about the number of unauthorized workers were less prevalent.
Because of the significant number of unauthorized Mexican workers in the United States, the estimated cost of the proposed Totalization Agreement is even more uncertain than in prior agreements.
Playing by the Rules
"The Social Security Administration itself warns that Social Security is within decades of bankruptcy — yet, they seem to have no problem making agreements that hasten its demise," said Ralph McCutchen, chairman of TREA.
"Our 1.2 million elderly members didn't play by the rules and sacrifice through difficult times so we could fund millions of workers who crossed the border and decided to work here illegally," McCutchen added.
TREA officers also warn that Mexico's retirement system is radically different than that of other participating countries.
For example, only 40 percent of non-government workers participate in Mexico's system, whereas 96 percent of America's non-government workers do. In addition, the U.S. system is progressive, meaning lower wage earners get back much more than they put in; in Mexico, workers get back only what they put in, plus accrued interest.
Uncovering the Ugly Truth
"I applaud the persistent efforts of TREA Senior Citizens League to try to get documents from the U.S. government about the U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement," said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C. "The American people are finally beginning to get some of the information regarding this Agreement that they have been seeking for so long."
According to the Social Security Administration, the Social Security Trust Fund will begin paying out more than it is taking in by 2017, and will be exhausted by the year 2040.
Phillips noted that [before the emergence of the agreement] "the Administration always called it ludicrous to suggest that illegal immigrants could get their hands on our Social Security."
"We not hearing that anymore," Phillips lamented.
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
Count Me In!
From a MD. resident to his senator
The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC, 20510
Dear Senator Sarbanes,
As a native Marylander and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.
My primary reason for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stem from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted.
If my understanding of this bill's provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for fiveyears, all I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out.
Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005.
Additionally, as an illegal alien I could begin using the local emergency room as my primary health care provider. Once I have stopped paying premiums for medical insurance, my accountant figures I could save almost $10,000 a year. Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications, as well as "in-state" tuition rates for many colleges throughout the United States for my son.
Lastly, I understand that illegal status would relieve me of the burden of renewing my driver's license and making those burdensome car insurance premiums. This is very important to me given that I still have college age children driving my car.
If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your assistance.
Your Loyal Constituent,
Pete McGlaughlin
Get your Forms (NOW)!! Call your Internal Revenue Service 1-800-289-1040.
Please pass this onto your friends so they can save on this great offer!!!!
The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC, 20510
Dear Senator Sarbanes,
As a native Marylander and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.
My primary reason for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stem from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted.
If my understanding of this bill's provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for fiveyears, all I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out.
Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005.
Additionally, as an illegal alien I could begin using the local emergency room as my primary health care provider. Once I have stopped paying premiums for medical insurance, my accountant figures I could save almost $10,000 a year. Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications, as well as "in-state" tuition rates for many colleges throughout the United States for my son.
Lastly, I understand that illegal status would relieve me of the burden of renewing my driver's license and making those burdensome car insurance premiums. This is very important to me given that I still have college age children driving my car.
If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your assistance.
Your Loyal Constituent,
Pete McGlaughlin
Get your Forms (NOW)!! Call your Internal Revenue Service 1-800-289-1040.
Please pass this onto your friends so they can save on this great offer!!!!
Pro-life Democrats?
I am and have always been opposed to embryonic stem cell research based on the idea that the technology will create a "market" for fetus harvesting and the poor will become nothing but "fetus farms for sale" which will eventually lead to nothing positive for these people either emotionally for physically. Unfortunately, it has already started see:
Women Paid to Carry Baby to 12 Weeks before “Harvesting” for Beauty Treatmentshttp://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/aug/06080805.html
Ukraine Killing Newborns To Harvest Stem Cells Says BBC With Video Evidencehttp://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/dec/06121202.html
By Robert D. Novak Townhall.com
WASHINGTON -- Near the top of the new Democratic congressional majority's agenda is passage of federal embryonic stem cell research legislation vetoed last year by President Bush, a measure that will answer a major question. There is no doubt the new bill will pass both houses of Congress.
What remains in doubt are the votes to be cast by newly elected Democrats who campaigned as pro-life advocates, particularly Sen. Bob Casey Jr. Outside the boundaries of his state of Pennsylvania, Casey is best known as the son of the Democrat most revered in the pro-life movement: the late Gov. Robert Casey. Denied the podium at the 1992 Democratic national convention because of anti-abortion views, the elder Casey planned a serious independent campaign for president before being stopped by poor health.
But will the son, less ardent a pro-lifer than the father, vote against the stem cell research bill as he once promised during the campaign? Will seven self-described pro-life Democrats newly elected to the House do the same?
Casey's vote may determine whether Bush's second veto is overridden by the Senate. The House will probably sustain a veto, with or without help from the seven Democrats. But apart from the stem cell bill, at stake is whether pro- lifers have any place in today's Democratic Party.
Certainly, that small fraction will be under intense pressure from party leaders. Casey won a nationally spotlighted contest, defeating eminent Republican conservative Sen. Rick Santorum. He cut into Santorum's conservative base by winning 36 percent of the state's hard pro-life vote.
The only recorded statement by Casey on stem cell research came in an interview on the Catholic website IgnatiusInsight.com on July 29, 2005: "I am and I have always been pro-life. I support the current [Bush administration] policy on embryonic stem cell research and would oppose the Castle bill to expand federal support of embryonic stem cell research."
That referred to the bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware that died in 2006 when the House sustain- ed Bush's veto. But a new version is likely to be consider- ed now in the Senate, where a supporter -- then Majority Leader Bill Frist -- conceded in a private session last year that the Castle bill was flawed and must be rewritten.
So, would Casey oppose any legislation that authorizes federally financed stem cell research on "left over" embryos from in-vitro fertilization clinics, as the Castle bill did? Casey the younger plays his cards close to his vest, and my efforts to get a commitment one way or another from the new senator or an aide were unavailing.
This is the arithmetic in the Senate, where a vetoed bill will go first. It would take 33 senators to sustain a Bush veto, if ailing Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson (S.D.) is unable to vote. Of the 36 Republicans who voted against the Castle bill, five were defeated for re-election: Santorum, George Allen in Virginia, Conrad Burns in Montana, Mike DeWine in Ohio and James Talent in Missouri. Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) was the only Senate Democrat who voted no last year, and that means one more Democrat would be needed this year. Casey's vote could be central.
The House sustained last year's veto by a 50-vote margin. Thirteen of those members were defeated in November. So, even if there are Republican defections, the burden will not fall on seven avowedly pro-life Democrats newly elected to the House: Heath Shuler (N.C.), Charlie Wilson (Ohio), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), Baron Hill (Ind.), Jason Altmire (Pa.) and Chris Carney (Pa.). With Speaker Nancy Pelosi putting this legislation on her 100-hour list, these pro-life House Democrats, nevertheless, will be under intense pressure, as will Nelson, Sen. Jon Tester, a pro-lifer who defeated Burns in Montana last year, and Bobby Casey.
Casey was embraced by pro-choice Democrats -- led by Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, as the best bet against Santorum. But they may not have bargained on Casey opposing them on the central party issue of stem cell research. The question of how much of a pro-lifer Casey is or can be in the 21st-century Democratic Party may be answered soon.
Women Paid to Carry Baby to 12 Weeks before “Harvesting” for Beauty Treatmentshttp://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/aug/06080805.html
Ukraine Killing Newborns To Harvest Stem Cells Says BBC With Video Evidencehttp://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/dec/06121202.html
By Robert D. Novak Townhall.com
WASHINGTON -- Near the top of the new Democratic congressional majority's agenda is passage of federal embryonic stem cell research legislation vetoed last year by President Bush, a measure that will answer a major question. There is no doubt the new bill will pass both houses of Congress.
What remains in doubt are the votes to be cast by newly elected Democrats who campaigned as pro-life advocates, particularly Sen. Bob Casey Jr. Outside the boundaries of his state of Pennsylvania, Casey is best known as the son of the Democrat most revered in the pro-life movement: the late Gov. Robert Casey. Denied the podium at the 1992 Democratic national convention because of anti-abortion views, the elder Casey planned a serious independent campaign for president before being stopped by poor health.
But will the son, less ardent a pro-lifer than the father, vote against the stem cell research bill as he once promised during the campaign? Will seven self-described pro-life Democrats newly elected to the House do the same?
Casey's vote may determine whether Bush's second veto is overridden by the Senate. The House will probably sustain a veto, with or without help from the seven Democrats. But apart from the stem cell bill, at stake is whether pro- lifers have any place in today's Democratic Party.
Certainly, that small fraction will be under intense pressure from party leaders. Casey won a nationally spotlighted contest, defeating eminent Republican conservative Sen. Rick Santorum. He cut into Santorum's conservative base by winning 36 percent of the state's hard pro-life vote.
The only recorded statement by Casey on stem cell research came in an interview on the Catholic website IgnatiusInsight.com on July 29, 2005: "I am and I have always been pro-life. I support the current [Bush administration] policy on embryonic stem cell research and would oppose the Castle bill to expand federal support of embryonic stem cell research."
That referred to the bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware that died in 2006 when the House sustain- ed Bush's veto. But a new version is likely to be consider- ed now in the Senate, where a supporter -- then Majority Leader Bill Frist -- conceded in a private session last year that the Castle bill was flawed and must be rewritten.
So, would Casey oppose any legislation that authorizes federally financed stem cell research on "left over" embryos from in-vitro fertilization clinics, as the Castle bill did? Casey the younger plays his cards close to his vest, and my efforts to get a commitment one way or another from the new senator or an aide were unavailing.
This is the arithmetic in the Senate, where a vetoed bill will go first. It would take 33 senators to sustain a Bush veto, if ailing Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson (S.D.) is unable to vote. Of the 36 Republicans who voted against the Castle bill, five were defeated for re-election: Santorum, George Allen in Virginia, Conrad Burns in Montana, Mike DeWine in Ohio and James Talent in Missouri. Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) was the only Senate Democrat who voted no last year, and that means one more Democrat would be needed this year. Casey's vote could be central.
The House sustained last year's veto by a 50-vote margin. Thirteen of those members were defeated in November. So, even if there are Republican defections, the burden will not fall on seven avowedly pro-life Democrats newly elected to the House: Heath Shuler (N.C.), Charlie Wilson (Ohio), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), Baron Hill (Ind.), Jason Altmire (Pa.) and Chris Carney (Pa.). With Speaker Nancy Pelosi putting this legislation on her 100-hour list, these pro-life House Democrats, nevertheless, will be under intense pressure, as will Nelson, Sen. Jon Tester, a pro-lifer who defeated Burns in Montana last year, and Bobby Casey.
Casey was embraced by pro-choice Democrats -- led by Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, as the best bet against Santorum. But they may not have bargained on Casey opposing them on the central party issue of stem cell research. The question of how much of a pro-lifer Casey is or can be in the 21st-century Democratic Party may be answered soon.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Pelosi Plutocrats
by J. Christoph Amberger
Half-fat cheddar cheese, bran flakes, camembert, sugar-coated puffed wheat, instant oatmeal, reduced-calorie mayonnaise, multi-grain hoop cereal, half-fat crème fraîche, take-out chicken nuggets, waffle fries, Greek yogurt, ham, sausages, bacon rashers, low-fat spreads, peanuts, cashew nuts, pistachio-nuts, peanut butter, raisins, sultanas, currants, low-fat potato chips, olive oil, butter, pizza, hamburgers, tomato ketchup, chocolate, brown sauce, cola and lemonade.
What are, among many others, foods banned from advertising during children’s TV by the British government.
We’re ecstatic that British children will no longer be tempted by unconscionable pushers of raisins, olive oil, and Greek sheep-milk yogurt as they spend their days watching unintelligible British children shows and extraterrestrial British soaps. In fact, we’re looking at Britain as a shining example of what we can look forward to in the States as the political pendulums swing back toward increased government meddling in the daily lives of its constituents.-- When Bill Clinton lived in the White House, he claimed that he signed his income tax forms “with a big smile on his face.” This was supposed to let people know just how much he loved contributing his fair share to the big U.S. Treasury pie, who’d then use his tax dollars to fund government cheese and Midnight basketball leagues.
I think Clinton’s smirk was more about the old boxer shorts he had donated -- and wrote off his taxes as a charitable donation, at four bucks a pop if memory serves right.
Now, things are different. These days, the IRS would require even Bubba to document that his underpants were in top condition when he donated them. And we don’t have a Democrat in the White House -- yet.
But we might as well. As I’m writing, Congress is convening in its new constellation. In the first hundred hours after the opening bell, Democrats have vowed to whip through a slew of bills. There’s just a presidential veto and a few wobbly votes in the senate that could keep them from it. And the Republican minority appears just as aimless and meandering as a Madonna movie script.
Now, granted, some bills sound perfectly reasonable, such as freeing up more Federal funds for research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans. Others aim at tightening ethics rules for lawmakers. (Personally, I savor the irony of just who exactly is promising to clean up whom here.)
But of course there are others that are supposed to give us a little taste of what’s ahead. Raising the minimum wage is on the top of the agenda. And who could argue with a bit of “reverse” corporate welfare? Of course, raising labor cost on the nickel of the American small business owner will be inevitably followed by populist tirades against American jobs being outsourced to China and India by evil capitalists.
Next in line, no matter if you take a gander at the playbook of 2004 presidential runner-up John Edwards or that of new media darling Barak Obama, is recycling the age-old liberal agenda -- bad ideas that have never ever worked for anyone who’s ever tried them... like taxing capital to create new jobs and the old standby, punishing work and ambition, saving and investing through higher tax rates.
The good news is that this will create thousands of rich and super-rich Americans in the next couple of years. Too bad that will happen mostly by redefining who’s rich: With an annual income of $80k or $100k, you, too, may be among the super rich before the decade’s over -- a veritable Pelosi Plutocrat.
Too bad, too, that this is going to affect a demographic that at this point in time is in dire need of building up their own capital to pay for retirement and healthcare: People who are forced to fork over more of their money to bankroll government social engineering programs typically have less money to invest to build capital.
That’s not quite without intention, I guess. The more people depend on government monies, the more will vote for people who promise them government monies.
But this is actually not a bad time to pick sides. To me, it boils down to two options: You can either throw in your lot with the collectivist revival, and keep your fingers crossed that there will still be enough ambitious hard-working Americans around eager to pay your retirement and health bills from their taxes, or you can use your new-year financial spring cleaning to plot out a course toward building up your own capital that would allow you to live the way you want -- without having to clamor for government handouts.
In the coming months, we plan to add to our daily and weekly financial coverage by partnering with our sister companies, Sovereign Society and International Living, to bring you proven and legal strategies to diversify your assets (both domestically and internationally), use tax havens and buy international real estate in view of streamlining your tax obligations and quality of life options.
After all, there’s nothing reactionary about that. Au contraire: Some of the top Democrats have already made sure that their own fortunes are not only big enough to afford them a cozy lifestyle but that their tax burden is not unduly high.
We figure that what’s good for minimizing the tax obligations of the Kennedy, the Heinz-Kerry, and the Soros fortunes will also serve you well as you work toward financial independence. And that’s what we at TaipanFinancialNews.com are all about.
Half-fat cheddar cheese, bran flakes, camembert, sugar-coated puffed wheat, instant oatmeal, reduced-calorie mayonnaise, multi-grain hoop cereal, half-fat crème fraîche, take-out chicken nuggets, waffle fries, Greek yogurt, ham, sausages, bacon rashers, low-fat spreads, peanuts, cashew nuts, pistachio-nuts, peanut butter, raisins, sultanas, currants, low-fat potato chips, olive oil, butter, pizza, hamburgers, tomato ketchup, chocolate, brown sauce, cola and lemonade.
What are, among many others, foods banned from advertising during children’s TV by the British government.
We’re ecstatic that British children will no longer be tempted by unconscionable pushers of raisins, olive oil, and Greek sheep-milk yogurt as they spend their days watching unintelligible British children shows and extraterrestrial British soaps. In fact, we’re looking at Britain as a shining example of what we can look forward to in the States as the political pendulums swing back toward increased government meddling in the daily lives of its constituents.-- When Bill Clinton lived in the White House, he claimed that he signed his income tax forms “with a big smile on his face.” This was supposed to let people know just how much he loved contributing his fair share to the big U.S. Treasury pie, who’d then use his tax dollars to fund government cheese and Midnight basketball leagues.
I think Clinton’s smirk was more about the old boxer shorts he had donated -- and wrote off his taxes as a charitable donation, at four bucks a pop if memory serves right.
Now, things are different. These days, the IRS would require even Bubba to document that his underpants were in top condition when he donated them. And we don’t have a Democrat in the White House -- yet.
But we might as well. As I’m writing, Congress is convening in its new constellation. In the first hundred hours after the opening bell, Democrats have vowed to whip through a slew of bills. There’s just a presidential veto and a few wobbly votes in the senate that could keep them from it. And the Republican minority appears just as aimless and meandering as a Madonna movie script.
Now, granted, some bills sound perfectly reasonable, such as freeing up more Federal funds for research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans. Others aim at tightening ethics rules for lawmakers. (Personally, I savor the irony of just who exactly is promising to clean up whom here.)
But of course there are others that are supposed to give us a little taste of what’s ahead. Raising the minimum wage is on the top of the agenda. And who could argue with a bit of “reverse” corporate welfare? Of course, raising labor cost on the nickel of the American small business owner will be inevitably followed by populist tirades against American jobs being outsourced to China and India by evil capitalists.
Next in line, no matter if you take a gander at the playbook of 2004 presidential runner-up John Edwards or that of new media darling Barak Obama, is recycling the age-old liberal agenda -- bad ideas that have never ever worked for anyone who’s ever tried them... like taxing capital to create new jobs and the old standby, punishing work and ambition, saving and investing through higher tax rates.
The good news is that this will create thousands of rich and super-rich Americans in the next couple of years. Too bad that will happen mostly by redefining who’s rich: With an annual income of $80k or $100k, you, too, may be among the super rich before the decade’s over -- a veritable Pelosi Plutocrat.
Too bad, too, that this is going to affect a demographic that at this point in time is in dire need of building up their own capital to pay for retirement and healthcare: People who are forced to fork over more of their money to bankroll government social engineering programs typically have less money to invest to build capital.
That’s not quite without intention, I guess. The more people depend on government monies, the more will vote for people who promise them government monies.
But this is actually not a bad time to pick sides. To me, it boils down to two options: You can either throw in your lot with the collectivist revival, and keep your fingers crossed that there will still be enough ambitious hard-working Americans around eager to pay your retirement and health bills from their taxes, or you can use your new-year financial spring cleaning to plot out a course toward building up your own capital that would allow you to live the way you want -- without having to clamor for government handouts.
In the coming months, we plan to add to our daily and weekly financial coverage by partnering with our sister companies, Sovereign Society and International Living, to bring you proven and legal strategies to diversify your assets (both domestically and internationally), use tax havens and buy international real estate in view of streamlining your tax obligations and quality of life options.
After all, there’s nothing reactionary about that. Au contraire: Some of the top Democrats have already made sure that their own fortunes are not only big enough to afford them a cozy lifestyle but that their tax burden is not unduly high.
We figure that what’s good for minimizing the tax obligations of the Kennedy, the Heinz-Kerry, and the Soros fortunes will also serve you well as you work toward financial independence. And that’s what we at TaipanFinancialNews.com are all about.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Eye of the Beholder
April 12, 2006
Eye of the Beholder by Victor Davis Hanson
The American Enterprise Online
War-torn Iraq has about 26 million residents, a peaceful California perhaps now 35 million. The former is a violent and impoverished landscape, the latter said to be paradise on Earth. But how you envision either place to some degree depends on the eye of the beholder and is predicated on what the daily media appear to make of each.
As a fifth-generation Californian, I deeply love this state, but still imagine what the reaction would be if the world awoke each morning to be told that once again there were six more murders, 27 rapes, 38 arsons, 180 robberies, and 360 instances of assault in California — yesterday, today, tomorrow, and every day. I wonder if the headlines would scream about “Nearly 200 poor Californians butchered again this month!”
How about a monthly media dose of “600 women raped in February alone!” Or try, “Over 600 violent robberies and assaults in March, with no end in sight!” Those do not even make up all of the state’s yearly 200,000 violent acts that law enforcement knows about.
Iraq’s judicial system seems a mess. On the eve of the war, Saddam let out 100,000 inmates from his vast prison archipelago. He himself still sits in the dock months after his trial began. But imagine an Iraq with a penal system like California’s with 170,000 criminals — an inmate population larger than those of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Singapore combined.
Just to house such a shadow population costs our state nearly $7 billion a year — or about the same price of keeping 40,000 Army personnel per year in Iraq. What would be the image of our Golden State if we were reminded each morning, “Another $20 million spent today on housing our criminals”?
Some of California’s most recent prison scandals would be easy to sensationalize: “Guards watch as inmates are raped!” Or “Correction officer accused of having sex with underaged detainee!” And apropos of Saddam’s sluggish trial, remember that our home state multiple murderer, Tookie Williams, was finally executed in December 2005 — 26 years after he was originally sentenced.
Much is made of the inability to patrol Iraq’s borders with Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. But California has only a single border with a foreign nation, not six. Yet over 3 million foreigners who snuck in illegally now live in our state. Worse, there are about 15,000 convicted alien felons incarcerated in our penal system, costing about $500 million a year. Imagine the potential tabloid headlines: “Illegal aliens in state comprise population larger than San Francisco!” or “Drugs, criminals, and smugglers given free pass into California!”
Every year, over 4,000 Californians die in car crashes — nearly twice the number of Americans lost so far in three years of combat operations in Iraq. In some sense, then, our badly maintained roads, and often poorly trained and sometimes intoxicated drivers, are even more lethal than Improvised Explosive Devices. Perhaps tomorrow’s headline might scream out at us: “300 Californians to perish this month on state highways! Hundreds more will be maimed and crippled!”
In 2001, California had 32 days of power outages, despite paying nearly the highest rates for electricity in the United States. Before complaining about the smoke in Baghdad rising from private generators, think back to the run on generators in California when they were contemplated as a future part of every household’s line of defense.
We’re told that Iraq’s finances are a mess. Yet until recently, so were California’s. Two years ago, Governor Schwarzenegger inherited a $38 billion annual budget shortfall. That could have made for strong morning newscast teasers: “Another $100 million borrowed today — $3 billion more in red ink to pile up by month’s end!”
So is California comparable to Iraq? Hardly. Yet it could easily be sketched by a reporter intent on doing so as a bank rupt, crime-ridden den with murderous highways, tens of thousands of inmates, with wide-open borders.
I myself recently returned home to California, without incident, from a visit to Iraq’s notorious Sunni Triangle. While I was gone, a drug-addicted criminal with a long list of convictions broke into our kitchen at 4 a.m., was surprised by my wife and daughter, and fled with our credit cards, cash, keys, and cell phones.
Sometimes I wonder who really was safer that week.
©2006 Victor Davis Hanson
Eye of the Beholder by Victor Davis Hanson
The American Enterprise Online
War-torn Iraq has about 26 million residents, a peaceful California perhaps now 35 million. The former is a violent and impoverished landscape, the latter said to be paradise on Earth. But how you envision either place to some degree depends on the eye of the beholder and is predicated on what the daily media appear to make of each.
As a fifth-generation Californian, I deeply love this state, but still imagine what the reaction would be if the world awoke each morning to be told that once again there were six more murders, 27 rapes, 38 arsons, 180 robberies, and 360 instances of assault in California — yesterday, today, tomorrow, and every day. I wonder if the headlines would scream about “Nearly 200 poor Californians butchered again this month!”
How about a monthly media dose of “600 women raped in February alone!” Or try, “Over 600 violent robberies and assaults in March, with no end in sight!” Those do not even make up all of the state’s yearly 200,000 violent acts that law enforcement knows about.
Iraq’s judicial system seems a mess. On the eve of the war, Saddam let out 100,000 inmates from his vast prison archipelago. He himself still sits in the dock months after his trial began. But imagine an Iraq with a penal system like California’s with 170,000 criminals — an inmate population larger than those of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Singapore combined.
Just to house such a shadow population costs our state nearly $7 billion a year — or about the same price of keeping 40,000 Army personnel per year in Iraq. What would be the image of our Golden State if we were reminded each morning, “Another $20 million spent today on housing our criminals”?
Some of California’s most recent prison scandals would be easy to sensationalize: “Guards watch as inmates are raped!” Or “Correction officer accused of having sex with underaged detainee!” And apropos of Saddam’s sluggish trial, remember that our home state multiple murderer, Tookie Williams, was finally executed in December 2005 — 26 years after he was originally sentenced.
Much is made of the inability to patrol Iraq’s borders with Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. But California has only a single border with a foreign nation, not six. Yet over 3 million foreigners who snuck in illegally now live in our state. Worse, there are about 15,000 convicted alien felons incarcerated in our penal system, costing about $500 million a year. Imagine the potential tabloid headlines: “Illegal aliens in state comprise population larger than San Francisco!” or “Drugs, criminals, and smugglers given free pass into California!”
Every year, over 4,000 Californians die in car crashes — nearly twice the number of Americans lost so far in three years of combat operations in Iraq. In some sense, then, our badly maintained roads, and often poorly trained and sometimes intoxicated drivers, are even more lethal than Improvised Explosive Devices. Perhaps tomorrow’s headline might scream out at us: “300 Californians to perish this month on state highways! Hundreds more will be maimed and crippled!”
In 2001, California had 32 days of power outages, despite paying nearly the highest rates for electricity in the United States. Before complaining about the smoke in Baghdad rising from private generators, think back to the run on generators in California when they were contemplated as a future part of every household’s line of defense.
We’re told that Iraq’s finances are a mess. Yet until recently, so were California’s. Two years ago, Governor Schwarzenegger inherited a $38 billion annual budget shortfall. That could have made for strong morning newscast teasers: “Another $100 million borrowed today — $3 billion more in red ink to pile up by month’s end!”
So is California comparable to Iraq? Hardly. Yet it could easily be sketched by a reporter intent on doing so as a bank rupt, crime-ridden den with murderous highways, tens of thousands of inmates, with wide-open borders.
I myself recently returned home to California, without incident, from a visit to Iraq’s notorious Sunni Triangle. While I was gone, a drug-addicted criminal with a long list of convictions broke into our kitchen at 4 a.m., was surprised by my wife and daughter, and fled with our credit cards, cash, keys, and cell phones.
Sometimes I wonder who really was safer that week.
©2006 Victor Davis Hanson
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Stop Congress from Restricting Grassroots Activism
As you saw below, it didn't take long for the new congress to start "restructuring" the constitution in order to take them from being elected representatives to becoming "government for life".
We need to take action now! McCain-Feingold made it so only the wealthy or Washington insiders could run for office, now "Madam Speaker" will make it hard for an informed citizenry to petition congress in an organized fashion,
Read on and then act as if your country depended on it!
We have a SERIOUS CONSTITUTIONAL EMERGENCY on our hands -- and we need YOUR help to put a stop to it!
With a new Congress in session, there are a lot of calls for "lobbying reform," to help "clean up" the high-priced favoritism that's all-too-common on BOTH sides of the aisle in Congress.
However, there are some proposals that are being advanced that would establish, for the first time, federal regulation of grassroots activity that is intended to encourage members of the public to communicate with Members of Congress about pending legislative matters -- so-called "grassroots lobbying."
In other words... some members of Congress want to take advantage of the current demands for "lobbying reform" and implement provisions that would actually be a restriction on the type of grassroots activism that YOU are a part of through RightMarch.com!
We take no issue with proposals that may be legitimate responses to recent allegations of certain unethical actions by Members of Congress, congressional staff and lobbyists. But nothing in those allegations provides ANY justification whatsoever for the notion that incumbent Members of Congress should seize authority to scrutinize and regulate the constitutionally protected efforts of groups such as RightMarch.com -- and even MoveOn.org -- to alert citizens regarding legislative developments in Congress, and to encourage them to communicate their views to their elected representatives. The First Amendment protects the right to "petition the government," and such activities are at the heart of our republic.
RightMarch.com has joined with dozens of other grassroots leaders in announcing that grassroots legislation being crafted by the left-wing group, "Public Citizen," for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the name of ethics and lobbying reform is hypocrisy since it would actually help protect the culture of corruption in Washington.
RightMarch joined with the Virginia-based Free Speech Coalition in a letter signed by 47 grassroots leaders that the grassroots reporting and penalty provisions being crafted by Public Citizen and others violate the First Amendment rights of small citizen action groups, yet creates loopholes for big corporations, unions, trade associations and membership special interests such as Public Citizen itself.
As Dick Dingman of the Free Speech Coalition noted, "Public Citizen fails to disclose how the grassroots legislation would hurt citizen advocates and critics, protect big special interests and assist corruption in Washington. Public Citizen, with its eight-figure assets and multi-million dollar revenues, shows no shame in being less than honest about so-called 'honest government' legislation."
Public Citizen acknowledges it is helping craft legislation for Pelosi modeled after her 2006 legislation, H.R. 4682. The bill would treat communications to the general public more harshly under lobbying disclosure law than actual lobbying conducted by high-priced K Street lobbyists! The new legislation hasn't been introduced yet, but its model, H.R. 4682, would create unprecedented restrictions and penalties, potentially criminal, on the free exercise of First Amendment rights by citizens to speak, publish, associate and petition the government.
Seriously -- you wouldn't believe how bad this bill is, and how much the Democrats want to restrict YOUR right to free speech!
First Amendment lawyer and Co-Counsel for the Free Speech Coalition, William J. Olson, said, "The Public Citizen/Pelosi bill would allow corporations, unions and even foreign interests to spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars mobilizing their shareholders, officers, employees and members, yet hide those expenditures. On the flipside, their bill would require real citizen associations to essentially obtain Congress's consent to communicate about important policy matters that impact on them. It's not just the imbalance that is wrong; it's a frontal attack on the First Amendment and political speech."
Nancy Pelosi and her leftist friends at Public Citizen plan to introduce -- AND PASS - this legislation in the FIRST 100 HOURS. We need to act NOW to generate enough heat to STOP THEM!
TAKE ACTION: Our good friend (and top-notch constitutional lawyer) Mark Fitzgibbons noted, "The grassroots legislation may be the most expansive and wrongly targeted regulation of First Amendment rights ever written. We hope that Democrats who pledged reform when campaigning will target real corruption instead of the rights of citizens to participate in their democracy," he concluded.
Free Speech Coalition Co-Counsel, Mark Weinberg, expressed confidence that his fellow liberal Democrats will see the light and correct these inequities. But we can't count on them -- we need to tell our legislators right away to support free speech!
Click below NOW to send a FREE message to your Congressman and both Senators, telling them to OPPOSE any attempt to restrict grassroots activism:
http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=9213151&type=CO
NOTE: You can go to http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/1/1/200135.shtml to read more about this terrible assault on our most basic freedoms.
Be sure to send this Alert to EVERYONE you know who wants to help tell Congress to support free speech rights and oppose restrictions on grassroots activism.
Thank you!
We need to take action now! McCain-Feingold made it so only the wealthy or Washington insiders could run for office, now "Madam Speaker" will make it hard for an informed citizenry to petition congress in an organized fashion,
Read on and then act as if your country depended on it!
We have a SERIOUS CONSTITUTIONAL EMERGENCY on our hands -- and we need YOUR help to put a stop to it!
With a new Congress in session, there are a lot of calls for "lobbying reform," to help "clean up" the high-priced favoritism that's all-too-common on BOTH sides of the aisle in Congress.
However, there are some proposals that are being advanced that would establish, for the first time, federal regulation of grassroots activity that is intended to encourage members of the public to communicate with Members of Congress about pending legislative matters -- so-called "grassroots lobbying."
In other words... some members of Congress want to take advantage of the current demands for "lobbying reform" and implement provisions that would actually be a restriction on the type of grassroots activism that YOU are a part of through RightMarch.com!
We take no issue with proposals that may be legitimate responses to recent allegations of certain unethical actions by Members of Congress, congressional staff and lobbyists. But nothing in those allegations provides ANY justification whatsoever for the notion that incumbent Members of Congress should seize authority to scrutinize and regulate the constitutionally protected efforts of groups such as RightMarch.com -- and even MoveOn.org -- to alert citizens regarding legislative developments in Congress, and to encourage them to communicate their views to their elected representatives. The First Amendment protects the right to "petition the government," and such activities are at the heart of our republic.
RightMarch.com has joined with dozens of other grassroots leaders in announcing that grassroots legislation being crafted by the left-wing group, "Public Citizen," for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the name of ethics and lobbying reform is hypocrisy since it would actually help protect the culture of corruption in Washington.
RightMarch joined with the Virginia-based Free Speech Coalition in a letter signed by 47 grassroots leaders that the grassroots reporting and penalty provisions being crafted by Public Citizen and others violate the First Amendment rights of small citizen action groups, yet creates loopholes for big corporations, unions, trade associations and membership special interests such as Public Citizen itself.
As Dick Dingman of the Free Speech Coalition noted, "Public Citizen fails to disclose how the grassroots legislation would hurt citizen advocates and critics, protect big special interests and assist corruption in Washington. Public Citizen, with its eight-figure assets and multi-million dollar revenues, shows no shame in being less than honest about so-called 'honest government' legislation."
Public Citizen acknowledges it is helping craft legislation for Pelosi modeled after her 2006 legislation, H.R. 4682. The bill would treat communications to the general public more harshly under lobbying disclosure law than actual lobbying conducted by high-priced K Street lobbyists! The new legislation hasn't been introduced yet, but its model, H.R. 4682, would create unprecedented restrictions and penalties, potentially criminal, on the free exercise of First Amendment rights by citizens to speak, publish, associate and petition the government.
Seriously -- you wouldn't believe how bad this bill is, and how much the Democrats want to restrict YOUR right to free speech!
First Amendment lawyer and Co-Counsel for the Free Speech Coalition, William J. Olson, said, "The Public Citizen/Pelosi bill would allow corporations, unions and even foreign interests to spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars mobilizing their shareholders, officers, employees and members, yet hide those expenditures. On the flipside, their bill would require real citizen associations to essentially obtain Congress's consent to communicate about important policy matters that impact on them. It's not just the imbalance that is wrong; it's a frontal attack on the First Amendment and political speech."
Nancy Pelosi and her leftist friends at Public Citizen plan to introduce -- AND PASS - this legislation in the FIRST 100 HOURS. We need to act NOW to generate enough heat to STOP THEM!
TAKE ACTION: Our good friend (and top-notch constitutional lawyer) Mark Fitzgibbons noted, "The grassroots legislation may be the most expansive and wrongly targeted regulation of First Amendment rights ever written. We hope that Democrats who pledged reform when campaigning will target real corruption instead of the rights of citizens to participate in their democracy," he concluded.
Free Speech Coalition Co-Counsel, Mark Weinberg, expressed confidence that his fellow liberal Democrats will see the light and correct these inequities. But we can't count on them -- we need to tell our legislators right away to support free speech!
Click below NOW to send a FREE message to your Congressman and both Senators, telling them to OPPOSE any attempt to restrict grassroots activism:
http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=9213151&type=CO
NOTE: You can go to http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/1/1/200135.shtml to read more about this terrible assault on our most basic freedoms.
Be sure to send this Alert to EVERYONE you know who wants to help tell Congress to support free speech rights and oppose restrictions on grassroots activism.
Thank you!
Pelosi Set to Attack Conservatives
Dave Eberhart, NewsMaxTuesday, Jan. 2, 2007
Leading Capitol Hill watchdogs are sounding alarms by plans of the soon-to-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her majority of House Democrats to ram through a new law that would seriously undermine free speech – and put restrictions on conservative groups and others who encourage ordinary citizens to directly deal with Congress.
Pelosi has already stated she is planning to push through major legislation during the first 100 session hours after the Democrats take control of Congress this week.
At the top of the list is seemingly good legislation intended to curb the power of lobbyists. But the Pelosi law goes far beyond bridling Washington influence peddlers. Under her proposed legislation, Pelosi will seek to control and limit any organization in America from encouraging citizens to communicate and influence Congress.
Unlike the other Pelosi New Year's resolutions (committing to no new deficit spending, fully enacting the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, raising the minimum wage, letting the feds bargain on prices for Medicare drugs, ramping-up stem cell research, cutting interest rates on college loans, cutting subsidies to oil companies, or protecting the status quo with Social Security), this one has the hackles up and bristling early on.
Richard A. Viguerie, the famous conservative direct-mail guru and author of the recent "Conservatives Betrayed: How the Republican Party Hijacked the Conservative Cause," has sounded a clarion call about the Pelosi lobbying initiative.
"The . . . plan is perhaps the most comprehensive regulation of political speech ever proposed, and would make small grassroots causes report quarterly to Congress -- the same as K Street lobbyists representing wealthy interests before Congress,' Viguerie says.
"Communications to as few as 500 citizens would trigger reporting under lobbying laws," he warns.
"The reporting requirements and more severe penalties being written in response to recent congressional corruption scandals would apply to those who have no Washington lobbyists, who make no political contributions, and who do not provide gifts, travel or anything of value to politicians," Viguerie continues.
Viguerie, who has cranked up GrassrootsFreedom.com to counter the bill, argues that in his opinion the thinly disguised intent of the enactment is to cripple the conservative movement, for which the grassroots are often the best and sometimes the only means of affecting public policy.
Just as Pelosi plans four days of celebration around her Jan. 4 swearing-in as the first female speaker of the House, concerned conservatives like Viguerie look to ramp up their own visibility on what they perceive as nothing less than a frontal assault on the First Amendment right to free speech.
When the celebrating Pelosi is attending a tea in the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium for some 400 female politicians, supporters and activists, or listening to Tony Bennett's serenade of "I left My Heart in San Francisco," opponents of the Pelosi plan hope to be flooding Congress with petitions, emails and phone calls; inspiring OpEds, and calling into talk radio shows about what they see as dangerous flaws in the bill.
Already down the blitz pike is a letter to Public Citizen opposing the legislation. It is signed by 47 conservative and other leaders – including Dave Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Paul Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation and coiner of "moral majority;" Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute; and Don Wildmon of American Family Association.
Public Citizen, a liberal government watchdog, has touted that it has helped Pelosi draft the legislation and wants lawmakers to adopt the Internal Revenue Service's definition of "lobbying," which includes communication that encourages the general public to contact a member of Congress on pending legislation or public policy.
Some controversial features of the bill:
It makes changes to the legal definition of "grassroots lobbying" and requires any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact their elected representatives to file a report with detailed information about their organization to the government on a quarterly basis.
Such report (above) would require, among other things, the detailing of the organization's expenditures, the issues focused on and the members of Congress and other federal officials who are targeted. A separate report must address each policy issue the group is advocating.
Causing additional heartburn among the critics is a broad exemption they say is wholly unfair and unbalanced. Significantly, the reporting requirement spelled out above would not apply to messages targeted at an organization's members, employees, officers or shareholders. In effect, this would let most corporations, trade associations and unions off the reporting hook.
William J. Olson, the co-counsel for the Free Speech Coalition, summarized his impression of how the unfairness would operate:
"The Public Citizen/Pelosi bill would allow corporations, unions and even foreign interests to spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars mobilizing their shareholders, officers, employees and members, yet hide those expenditures," Olson opined.
"On the flipside, their bill would require real citizen associations to essentially obtain Congress's consent to communicate about important policy matters that impact on them. It's not just the imbalance that is wrong; it's a frontal attack on the First Amendment and political speech," Olson concluded.
Not all the Pelosi changes are as nettlesome as the new reporting requirements. In most quarters other initiatives to bridle lobbying are more welcomed -- including:
A ban on House members and their staff from using corporate jets for travel taken as part of their official duties.
A ban on House members and their aides from taking anything of value from lobbyists -- including meals, tickets and entertainment. The prohibition would extend to gifts from nongovernmental groups that hire lobbyists.
Extending the current prohibition against lobbying on former members of Congress and senior staff executive staff from one year to two.
Ending the practice of adding narrow spending provision to bills after House-Senate negotiators have completed their work.
Broadening a rule change mandating lawmakers to disclose the sponsors of "earmarked" spending and tax measures before the bills become law.
Meanwhile, at noon on Jan. 4, 2007, the House will formally elect Pelosi speaker. Afterwards, the rounds of celebrations continue. In the evening, the invited partygoers will congratulate Pelosi – this time as she enjoys the crooning of Jimmy Buffett.
But burning the midnight oil as well will be Viguerie, who tells NewsMax that he and others fearful of what may roar in with the New Year are digging in for a fight.
Leading Capitol Hill watchdogs are sounding alarms by plans of the soon-to-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her majority of House Democrats to ram through a new law that would seriously undermine free speech – and put restrictions on conservative groups and others who encourage ordinary citizens to directly deal with Congress.
Pelosi has already stated she is planning to push through major legislation during the first 100 session hours after the Democrats take control of Congress this week.
At the top of the list is seemingly good legislation intended to curb the power of lobbyists. But the Pelosi law goes far beyond bridling Washington influence peddlers. Under her proposed legislation, Pelosi will seek to control and limit any organization in America from encouraging citizens to communicate and influence Congress.
Unlike the other Pelosi New Year's resolutions (committing to no new deficit spending, fully enacting the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, raising the minimum wage, letting the feds bargain on prices for Medicare drugs, ramping-up stem cell research, cutting interest rates on college loans, cutting subsidies to oil companies, or protecting the status quo with Social Security), this one has the hackles up and bristling early on.
Richard A. Viguerie, the famous conservative direct-mail guru and author of the recent "Conservatives Betrayed: How the Republican Party Hijacked the Conservative Cause," has sounded a clarion call about the Pelosi lobbying initiative.
"The . . . plan is perhaps the most comprehensive regulation of political speech ever proposed, and would make small grassroots causes report quarterly to Congress -- the same as K Street lobbyists representing wealthy interests before Congress,' Viguerie says.
"Communications to as few as 500 citizens would trigger reporting under lobbying laws," he warns.
"The reporting requirements and more severe penalties being written in response to recent congressional corruption scandals would apply to those who have no Washington lobbyists, who make no political contributions, and who do not provide gifts, travel or anything of value to politicians," Viguerie continues.
Viguerie, who has cranked up GrassrootsFreedom.com to counter the bill, argues that in his opinion the thinly disguised intent of the enactment is to cripple the conservative movement, for which the grassroots are often the best and sometimes the only means of affecting public policy.
Just as Pelosi plans four days of celebration around her Jan. 4 swearing-in as the first female speaker of the House, concerned conservatives like Viguerie look to ramp up their own visibility on what they perceive as nothing less than a frontal assault on the First Amendment right to free speech.
When the celebrating Pelosi is attending a tea in the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium for some 400 female politicians, supporters and activists, or listening to Tony Bennett's serenade of "I left My Heart in San Francisco," opponents of the Pelosi plan hope to be flooding Congress with petitions, emails and phone calls; inspiring OpEds, and calling into talk radio shows about what they see as dangerous flaws in the bill.
Already down the blitz pike is a letter to Public Citizen opposing the legislation. It is signed by 47 conservative and other leaders – including Dave Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Paul Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation and coiner of "moral majority;" Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute; and Don Wildmon of American Family Association.
Public Citizen, a liberal government watchdog, has touted that it has helped Pelosi draft the legislation and wants lawmakers to adopt the Internal Revenue Service's definition of "lobbying," which includes communication that encourages the general public to contact a member of Congress on pending legislation or public policy.
Some controversial features of the bill:
It makes changes to the legal definition of "grassroots lobbying" and requires any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact their elected representatives to file a report with detailed information about their organization to the government on a quarterly basis.
Such report (above) would require, among other things, the detailing of the organization's expenditures, the issues focused on and the members of Congress and other federal officials who are targeted. A separate report must address each policy issue the group is advocating.
Causing additional heartburn among the critics is a broad exemption they say is wholly unfair and unbalanced. Significantly, the reporting requirement spelled out above would not apply to messages targeted at an organization's members, employees, officers or shareholders. In effect, this would let most corporations, trade associations and unions off the reporting hook.
William J. Olson, the co-counsel for the Free Speech Coalition, summarized his impression of how the unfairness would operate:
"The Public Citizen/Pelosi bill would allow corporations, unions and even foreign interests to spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars mobilizing their shareholders, officers, employees and members, yet hide those expenditures," Olson opined.
"On the flipside, their bill would require real citizen associations to essentially obtain Congress's consent to communicate about important policy matters that impact on them. It's not just the imbalance that is wrong; it's a frontal attack on the First Amendment and political speech," Olson concluded.
Not all the Pelosi changes are as nettlesome as the new reporting requirements. In most quarters other initiatives to bridle lobbying are more welcomed -- including:
A ban on House members and their staff from using corporate jets for travel taken as part of their official duties.
A ban on House members and their aides from taking anything of value from lobbyists -- including meals, tickets and entertainment. The prohibition would extend to gifts from nongovernmental groups that hire lobbyists.
Extending the current prohibition against lobbying on former members of Congress and senior staff executive staff from one year to two.
Ending the practice of adding narrow spending provision to bills after House-Senate negotiators have completed their work.
Broadening a rule change mandating lawmakers to disclose the sponsors of "earmarked" spending and tax measures before the bills become law.
Meanwhile, at noon on Jan. 4, 2007, the House will formally elect Pelosi speaker. Afterwards, the rounds of celebrations continue. In the evening, the invited partygoers will congratulate Pelosi – this time as she enjoys the crooning of Jimmy Buffett.
But burning the midnight oil as well will be Viguerie, who tells NewsMax that he and others fearful of what may roar in with the New Year are digging in for a fight.
Getting Played
It's time once again to play the "What if it were a Natural Treatment?" game!
Let's say you own a giant vitamin company. And let's say you develop a vitamin B-3 product to treat schizophrenia and it becomes a best seller, racking up sales of more than $4 billion per year. But before you start daydreaming about owning your own tropical island and the private jet you would use to fly there, you should know that a lawyer recently gave the New York Times a big stack of your company's internal documents that reveal an effort by your executives to suppress information about the health risks associated with vitamin B-3.
Yeah, it turns out you've known for years that prolonged use of your product sharply increases obesity and high blood sugar risks. So brace yourself - you can probably expect a congressional inquiry and a widespread call from the mainstream media for a total ban of your product.
If only you manufactured a DRUG for schizophrenia instead. Because then you could count on getting one of those dreaded slaps on the wrist from the FDA.
Executives at Eli Lilly have apparently been playing a similar kind of game - but it's an exact reverse of the game played by you and your gigabucks vitamin company. Late last month, the New York Times reported that lawyer James B. Gottstein provided the Times with e-mail messages, memos, and other Lilly internal documents that reveal an apparent effort to suppress the health risks associated with a schizophrenia medication called Zyprexa.
Mr. Gottstein gained access to the documents through a case in which he represented mentally ill patients. Mr. Gottstein told the Times, "Patients should be told the truth about drugs like Zyprexa." What a concept! According to the Times, Lilly's records show that some patients have gained more than 100 pounds while using Zyprexa, while about 30 percent of patients who use the drug for at least a year gain more than 20 pounds.
Apparently, Lilly's records also show that medical officers for the company have known for years that the drug may prompt hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) and weight gain, but sales materials persuaded company representatives to promote Zyprexa as "safe," and "gentle." And the icing on the cake: Lilly has already paid $750 million to settle suits filed by Zyprexa patients who claimed to have developed type 2 diabetes while using the drug. The Times notes that there are thousands more of these suits pending.
Evidence? What evidence?
As you might expect, spokespeople for Lilly defended their drug, hauling out that lame old excuse that the documents had been taken out of context. Right - I'm sure if we knew the context, rapid weight gain and high blood sugar would actually seem like a very beneficial side effect! Lilly Reps also added that "no scientific evidence" had established Zyprexa as a cause of diabetes.
But then the Times slams that door with this detail: "Lilly has never conducted a clinical trial to determine exactly how much Zyprexa raises patients' diabetes risk." Cute, isn't it? You don't mount a trial that would produce scientific evidence about your product, but when the accusations start flying, you throw up your hands and say, "There's no scientific evidence!" Toward the end of the Times piece, there's a surprising moment of sanity when psychiatrist James Phelps explains that Zyprexa works very quickly, so he prescribes the drug to address emergency situations, such as acute psychosis with a danger of suicide.
He told the Times, "I'm trying to get my patients off Zyprexa, not put them on."
No playing around
Vitamin B-3 was not an arbitrary choice for the "What if it were a Natural Treatment?" game. Patients with schizophrenia are typically deficient in vitamin B-3 (also known as niacin), and in some cases patients respond to high doses of the vitamin. This was proven in a 1952 study that's mostly been ignored by the medical mainstream.
That first niacin/schizophrenia study was conducted by Abram Hoffer, M.D., who wrote a book on the subject more than 40 years later: "Vitamin B-3 and Schizophrenia: Discovery, Recovery, Controversy." You can find Dr. Hoffer's book on amazon.com.
Let's say you own a giant vitamin company. And let's say you develop a vitamin B-3 product to treat schizophrenia and it becomes a best seller, racking up sales of more than $4 billion per year. But before you start daydreaming about owning your own tropical island and the private jet you would use to fly there, you should know that a lawyer recently gave the New York Times a big stack of your company's internal documents that reveal an effort by your executives to suppress information about the health risks associated with vitamin B-3.
Yeah, it turns out you've known for years that prolonged use of your product sharply increases obesity and high blood sugar risks. So brace yourself - you can probably expect a congressional inquiry and a widespread call from the mainstream media for a total ban of your product.
If only you manufactured a DRUG for schizophrenia instead. Because then you could count on getting one of those dreaded slaps on the wrist from the FDA.
Executives at Eli Lilly have apparently been playing a similar kind of game - but it's an exact reverse of the game played by you and your gigabucks vitamin company. Late last month, the New York Times reported that lawyer James B. Gottstein provided the Times with e-mail messages, memos, and other Lilly internal documents that reveal an apparent effort to suppress the health risks associated with a schizophrenia medication called Zyprexa.
Mr. Gottstein gained access to the documents through a case in which he represented mentally ill patients. Mr. Gottstein told the Times, "Patients should be told the truth about drugs like Zyprexa." What a concept! According to the Times, Lilly's records show that some patients have gained more than 100 pounds while using Zyprexa, while about 30 percent of patients who use the drug for at least a year gain more than 20 pounds.
Apparently, Lilly's records also show that medical officers for the company have known for years that the drug may prompt hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) and weight gain, but sales materials persuaded company representatives to promote Zyprexa as "safe," and "gentle." And the icing on the cake: Lilly has already paid $750 million to settle suits filed by Zyprexa patients who claimed to have developed type 2 diabetes while using the drug. The Times notes that there are thousands more of these suits pending.
Evidence? What evidence?
As you might expect, spokespeople for Lilly defended their drug, hauling out that lame old excuse that the documents had been taken out of context. Right - I'm sure if we knew the context, rapid weight gain and high blood sugar would actually seem like a very beneficial side effect! Lilly Reps also added that "no scientific evidence" had established Zyprexa as a cause of diabetes.
But then the Times slams that door with this detail: "Lilly has never conducted a clinical trial to determine exactly how much Zyprexa raises patients' diabetes risk." Cute, isn't it? You don't mount a trial that would produce scientific evidence about your product, but when the accusations start flying, you throw up your hands and say, "There's no scientific evidence!" Toward the end of the Times piece, there's a surprising moment of sanity when psychiatrist James Phelps explains that Zyprexa works very quickly, so he prescribes the drug to address emergency situations, such as acute psychosis with a danger of suicide.
He told the Times, "I'm trying to get my patients off Zyprexa, not put them on."
No playing around
Vitamin B-3 was not an arbitrary choice for the "What if it were a Natural Treatment?" game. Patients with schizophrenia are typically deficient in vitamin B-3 (also known as niacin), and in some cases patients respond to high doses of the vitamin. This was proven in a 1952 study that's mostly been ignored by the medical mainstream.
That first niacin/schizophrenia study was conducted by Abram Hoffer, M.D., who wrote a book on the subject more than 40 years later: "Vitamin B-3 and Schizophrenia: Discovery, Recovery, Controversy." You can find Dr. Hoffer's book on amazon.com.
A Credo for the New Year
Today's comment is by our Chairman, John Pugsley. In addition to being a best-selling author and long-time hard money advocate, John helped found The Sovereign Society back in 1997.
Dear A-Letter Reader,
As 2007 rings in, individuals everywhere hope this year will finally bring a more peaceful and prosperous world to us all.
In many places, including such countries as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Darfur, peace and prosperity seem further away than ever. And for those in the developed countries, we face the specter of terrorism, inflation, recession, and assortment of other economic and social calamities. But the question remains: will 2007 bring solutions to such problems?
My own thoughts reflect back on history, and life’s lessons only learned through history.
Consider, for example, what lessons we might learn from the 14th century. Specifically, that was the time when the black plague swept through Europe. Accounts vary, but somewhere between half and three-quarters of the population died as a result of this dreadful disease. The people lived in terror of succumbing to it. And the major preoccupation was to find a cure.
As we look back we are aghast at their ignorance. Some thought certain odors prevented the plague, so the carried smelling apples on strings around their necks. Some believed the plague was God’s method of punishing sinners, so they flagellated themselves with sticks and chains to atone for their sins. Some thought the plague was carried on the night air, so they closed up their houses and refused to go outside after dark.
Some thought the devil brought the plague, so the killed the agents of the devil, witches, and black cats. In fact, they eventually killed almost all the cats.
Their problem, so clear to us now, was ignorance. The only effective remedy for any disease, of course, is to first determine the cause. But they were ignorant of the cause. No one knew of bacillus pestis, the microbe carried in rodent’s blood that was transferring the disease to humans through fleas. We now see clearly that their “remedies” achieved just the opposite of what they hoped. Flagellants subjected themselves to intense pain, and often died. Innocent men, women and children were accused of being witches and were hanged, drowned, or burned at the stake. Killing the cats left the rodents free to multiply, vastly adding to the spread of the plague.
Today we look back in disbelief at their destructive “solutions.” And yet in our supposed enlightened world, the vast majority of individuals everywhere are suffering from a plague equally as fearsome, and equally as misunderstood. Most individuals, are, in effect, burning witches and killing cats, in their own well-intentioned determination to solve the panoply of social ills, from inflation, to depression, to war.
Like the citizens of 14th century Europe, most individuals fail to understand the cause of conflict, and fail to identify their adversary. Like people in the 14th century who killed the cats, most people today believe that government is the cure. Here at The Sovereign Society, we believe the opposite: the central cause of the world’s economic woes is government itself.
In 1997, ten years ago, The Sovereign Society was conceived by a group of individuals who shared the conviction that peace and prosperity would be optimized when every individual’s property is rightfully his or hers to keep, control, and dispose of.
Having witnessed over our lifetimes the relentless expansion of government and the concomitant erosion of individual liberties, it was clear to us that the preponderance of aggression against private property did not come from criminals or from foreign nations, but from citizens’ own governments and judicial systems.
As Voltaire summed up the process 240 years ago: “The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.”
Most still believe government is a protector, and it grows because people believe it will cure the social ills that plague us. In fact, it is the source of our problems. By restricting individual liberty, by preventing individuals from freely producing and exchanging goods and services, and by taxing and inflating, government has become the source of social conflict.
Now in its tenth year, The Sovereign Society has members in two dozen countries around the world. The principles around which the Society was conceived are built into its Credo:
THAT individual liberty is the highest good in any society
THAT every individual has the natural right to keep, control, and dispose of his or her justly acquired property
THAT individuals are not the property of the government of the political jurisdiction in which they are born or reside
THAT individuals are sovereign unto themselves
THAT to whatever extent government interferes with the free exchange of goods or confiscates the property of citizens, it reduces the wealth of the nation
THAT when government takes from one to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral authority of government
THAT it is the right and responsibility every individual to defend his or her justly-acquired property from unjust and arbitrary seizure, expropriation, and taxation
THAT the goal of The Sovereign Society is to encourage and help individuals achieve and maintain individual sovereignty over their own lives and assetsIf individuals can successfully defend themselves and their assets from being plundered, they expand the pool of investment capital on which a society depends for progress, encourage production, stimulate saving, and increase the standard of living for all.
Simultaneously, by depriving governments and legal predators of resources, some who might be attracted to plunder are attracted instead to productive enterprises, increasing the standard of living for all.
This new year is just one more chance for you to fight this oppression and show others the way to a freer, more moral society.
JOHN PUGSLEY, ChairmanOn behalf of The Sovereign Society
Dear A-Letter Reader,
As 2007 rings in, individuals everywhere hope this year will finally bring a more peaceful and prosperous world to us all.
In many places, including such countries as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Darfur, peace and prosperity seem further away than ever. And for those in the developed countries, we face the specter of terrorism, inflation, recession, and assortment of other economic and social calamities. But the question remains: will 2007 bring solutions to such problems?
My own thoughts reflect back on history, and life’s lessons only learned through history.
Consider, for example, what lessons we might learn from the 14th century. Specifically, that was the time when the black plague swept through Europe. Accounts vary, but somewhere between half and three-quarters of the population died as a result of this dreadful disease. The people lived in terror of succumbing to it. And the major preoccupation was to find a cure.
As we look back we are aghast at their ignorance. Some thought certain odors prevented the plague, so the carried smelling apples on strings around their necks. Some believed the plague was God’s method of punishing sinners, so they flagellated themselves with sticks and chains to atone for their sins. Some thought the plague was carried on the night air, so they closed up their houses and refused to go outside after dark.
Some thought the devil brought the plague, so the killed the agents of the devil, witches, and black cats. In fact, they eventually killed almost all the cats.
Their problem, so clear to us now, was ignorance. The only effective remedy for any disease, of course, is to first determine the cause. But they were ignorant of the cause. No one knew of bacillus pestis, the microbe carried in rodent’s blood that was transferring the disease to humans through fleas. We now see clearly that their “remedies” achieved just the opposite of what they hoped. Flagellants subjected themselves to intense pain, and often died. Innocent men, women and children were accused of being witches and were hanged, drowned, or burned at the stake. Killing the cats left the rodents free to multiply, vastly adding to the spread of the plague.
Today we look back in disbelief at their destructive “solutions.” And yet in our supposed enlightened world, the vast majority of individuals everywhere are suffering from a plague equally as fearsome, and equally as misunderstood. Most individuals, are, in effect, burning witches and killing cats, in their own well-intentioned determination to solve the panoply of social ills, from inflation, to depression, to war.
Like the citizens of 14th century Europe, most individuals fail to understand the cause of conflict, and fail to identify their adversary. Like people in the 14th century who killed the cats, most people today believe that government is the cure. Here at The Sovereign Society, we believe the opposite: the central cause of the world’s economic woes is government itself.
In 1997, ten years ago, The Sovereign Society was conceived by a group of individuals who shared the conviction that peace and prosperity would be optimized when every individual’s property is rightfully his or hers to keep, control, and dispose of.
Having witnessed over our lifetimes the relentless expansion of government and the concomitant erosion of individual liberties, it was clear to us that the preponderance of aggression against private property did not come from criminals or from foreign nations, but from citizens’ own governments and judicial systems.
As Voltaire summed up the process 240 years ago: “The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.”
Most still believe government is a protector, and it grows because people believe it will cure the social ills that plague us. In fact, it is the source of our problems. By restricting individual liberty, by preventing individuals from freely producing and exchanging goods and services, and by taxing and inflating, government has become the source of social conflict.
Now in its tenth year, The Sovereign Society has members in two dozen countries around the world. The principles around which the Society was conceived are built into its Credo:
THAT individual liberty is the highest good in any society
THAT every individual has the natural right to keep, control, and dispose of his or her justly acquired property
THAT individuals are not the property of the government of the political jurisdiction in which they are born or reside
THAT individuals are sovereign unto themselves
THAT to whatever extent government interferes with the free exchange of goods or confiscates the property of citizens, it reduces the wealth of the nation
THAT when government takes from one to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral authority of government
THAT it is the right and responsibility every individual to defend his or her justly-acquired property from unjust and arbitrary seizure, expropriation, and taxation
THAT the goal of The Sovereign Society is to encourage and help individuals achieve and maintain individual sovereignty over their own lives and assetsIf individuals can successfully defend themselves and their assets from being plundered, they expand the pool of investment capital on which a society depends for progress, encourage production, stimulate saving, and increase the standard of living for all.
Simultaneously, by depriving governments and legal predators of resources, some who might be attracted to plunder are attracted instead to productive enterprises, increasing the standard of living for all.
This new year is just one more chance for you to fight this oppression and show others the way to a freer, more moral society.
JOHN PUGSLEY, ChairmanOn behalf of The Sovereign Society
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