TELLING IT LIKE IT IS !

In the past week, three of President Obama’s current most objectionable nominees had confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate:

David Ogden – Nominated to the high-ranking post of Deputy Attorney General of the United States. As a private attorney, Ogden worked for the ACLU and filed a brief in the landmark abortion case Planned Parenthood v. Casey that denied the existence of adverse mental health effects of abortion on women. Ogden has also been one of the nation’s most prominent porn defense attorneys, representing not only Playboy and Penthouse, but also PHE, Inc., the largest distributor of hardcore pornography in the United States.

Thomas Perrelli – He is Obama’s nominee for Associate Attorney General at the Justice Department. Perrelli won media attention as the attorney for Michael Schiavo, the Florida man who defeated Terri Schiavo’s family in their desperate attempt to keep her from being brutally starved and dehydrated to death at Michael’s insistence. Terri Schiavo collapsed under mysterious circumstances and was denied rehabilitation after funds won in a court settlement were allegedly diverted by Michael Schiavo for other uses.

Elena Kagan – She is well-credentialed as the dean of Harvard Law School and Obama’s choice for Solicitor General, a post so powerful its occupant is often called the “10^th Supreme Court justice. The outlandish thing is Kagan has never argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, but she and other law school officials sued to overturn the Solomon amendment, that had been adopted by Congress to ensure that law schools could not use homosexual rights rules to deny U.S. Armed Forces recruiters access to law school campuses.

The U.S. Senate will vote soon on these key appointments that will determine U.S. legal policy for years to come. These appointments will champion abortion on demand, legalized obscenity, special rights for homosexuals, and euthanasia. Votes may occur in the next 72 hours – please contact your two U.S. senators today and tell them that these nominees should not go forward.

A little control over the media would be a good thing, according to California Attorney General Jerry Brown. Brown came out in favor of the Fairness Doctrine while appearing on the Michael Savage radio show this past Friday night.

The Fairness Doctrine would require and enforce radio stations carrying conservative talk show hosts to give equal time to dissenting liberal commentators. In essence, the left-wing Democrats and President Barack Obama are relying on the Fairness Doctrine to be a great hindrance to conservative talk radio, and work towards driving conservative talk radio off the air.

Conservatives are in the minority in the media, and many in Brown’s Democratic Party would like to see the conservative talk show hosts taken off the air via the Fairness Doctrine. Brown stated the current situation of having talk radio dominated by conservatives allows for “one-sided presentations.” Hmm, I wonder who would benefit from that, with no voice to bring the left to task? … taking away our freedom of speech to silence any dissenting voices from the socialist doctrine. I’m sure the left wouldn’t be one-sided!

Former President Bill Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Debby Stabenow have all called for the re-establishment of the doctrine. All three want conservative voices constrained in the media. This would allow them a one-sided party propaganda machine … even though they have close to that currently.

Brown said, “I think we need a robust range of opinions on the air.” He added that “a little state control wouldn’t hurt anybody” and said that anyone who would warn against the doctrine was “paranoid.”

Really? I wouldn’t say those against the Fairness Doctrine are “paranoid,” I would say they are “realists” about exactly how this anti-free speech doctrine will affect the freedom of our country with a one-sided voice from the left. What Brown meant was a fixed playing field so the outcome of the game would be in favor of the left.

The big picture of this Fairness Doctrine is aimed at silencing conservative voices … taking away freedom of speech.

“A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.” – President Obama, Feb. 4.

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared “we have chosen hope over fear” … until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An brazen executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. This followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn’t understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Then, Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent. Isn’t one too much though?

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As once observed in Washington, the real scandal isn’t what’s illegal, but what’s legal. The unfortunate thing is things can be legal and not ethical at the same time. What made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years. He had been getting $1 million per year from a law firm … but he’s not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don’t get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal’s private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he had come to Washington to upend.

Yet more damaging to Obama’s image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the “stimulus” package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat moguls of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama’s name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It’s not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections. It’s not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It’s the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus – and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress’s own budget office says won’t be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven interests and views that Obama said he came to Washington to abolish.

Not only did Obama say what he wanted to abolish but also that he wanted to create something new – a new politics where the prosperous pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the “fierce urgency of now” changed those goals, if they were real in the first place. This new age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington.

After Obama’s miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its trance. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that this president told better than anyone. This awakening took all of two and a half weeks!

All protections for U.S. workers were stripped from the Stimulus Bill tonight. Illegal aliens can be hired at the same rate as usual.

UNBELIEVABLE — Democratic Leadership Requires Stimulus Job Access for Illegal Aliens — IT’S FINAL

By Roy Beck, Wednesday, February 11, 2009, 8:58 PM

AND BAILED-OUT BANKS ARE GIVEN BACK PERMISSION TO FIRE AMERICANS AND REPLACE WITH FOREIGN WORKERS

House Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid and the Obama White House were absolutely certain about one thing for the House/Senate negotiating committee on the Stimulus Bill: There was to be no special restriction to keep illegal aliens from getting new jobs created by the bill at a cost of $250,000 to $500,000 each.

The Democratic leadership of our federal government made it clear that there has been no change from eight years of a Republican White House that let the Chamber of Commerce call the shots on immigration.

Pelosi, Reid and Obama gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce exactly what it wanted – freedom for unscrupulous businesses to continue to hire illegal aliens at the same rate as in the past, and to use the hundreds of billions of Stimulus dollars to do it.

Rep. Calvert (R-Calif.) was the one who inserted E-Verify language into the Stimulus Bill in the House Appropriations Committee. Tonight, he stated the sad betrayal of the American workers. His words take on a partisan tone. As a studiously non-partisan organization, NumbersUSA is uncomfortable when issues are stated in partisan ways. But in this case, there is no question but that the national Democratic leadership sold out the interests of the American working man and woman.

Tonight, behind closed doors with no input from House Republicans, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid crafted the so-called compromise on the stimulus bill. What we now know is that while billions of American taxpayer dollars are going to be spent, there is no assurance that the jobs created will go to American workers. The two amendments that had been accepted by the House Appropriations Committee were stripped without discussion or debate.

– Rep. Ken Calvert of California

The House of Representatives had included two provisions in its Stimulus bill to make sure that the huge sums of money would create jobs only for legally authorized workers. One provision reauthorized the current voluntary E-Verify program which expires March 6. The other required local government or business receiving stimulus funds to run their new hires through the electronic 99.5%-accurate E-Verify system. There were no publicly stated objections to this.

But the U.S. Senate repeatedly brushed aside Alabama Sen. Sessions‘ efforts to introduce the same protections into its Stimulus bill.

When the House and Senate negotiators sat down, the leader of the House, Rep. Pelosi, tossed aside the will of the Members of the House of Representatives and did the bidding of the most unscrupulous businesses of America.

The American people have repeatedly voiced their support for employment verification and yet we find that once again special interests win out. The one candle in the darkness of this disastrous bill was the reauthorization and requirements to use E-Verify. Now all we are left is a bill that places illegal immigrant interests above those of hard working American families and leaves the bill at the foot of future generations.

– Rep. Calvert

Furthermore, Pelosi, Reid and Obama also demanded the stripping of the one protection that had been included by the Senate.

Sen. Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Grassley of Iowa had gotten unanimous approval in the Senate to include language that bailed-out banks could no longer be allowed to fire American workers and replace them with foreign workers.

Pelosi, Reid and Obama made sure that banks can continue to discriminate against Americans in favor of cheaper more compliant foreign workers.

Friends, this is an injustice that will come to plague the perpetrators as time moves on.

But the extent to which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce can continue to call the shots on using illegal foreign workers and importing additional authorized foreign workers will depend on how hard each of you reading this will work to spread this story in every newspaper, talk show and website.

These closed-door affronts to fair-play and compassion were executed because the leaders believed they will get by with it.

…. because they believe the American people are too tired, too dispirited and too baffled by the complexity of the trillions of dollars of bail-outs to hold their leaders accountable.

I hope you will use our free fax-sending system to make your opinions known.

The negotiated Stimulus Bill is expected to come to a vote in the House and Senate this week and then go to Pres. Obama for his signature by next Monday.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

P.S. As you write your comments, please try to stay civil. It will be difficult because you will be so angry. But what we all need to hear is quick stories of what you have done to spread this tale of betrayal to others. Let’s be inspired to greater action by each other’s deeds large and small.

Go to the NumbersUSA home page to read my full blog and our news stories about this incredible betrayal of the American worker.

Our Action Buffet Team will be putting up new action notes on your corkboards for several more hours tonight. If you read this before Thursday morning, know that not everything is posted yet.

NumbersUSA – relies upon individuals like you to reach its goal of an environmentally sustainable and economically just America.

Check out the Science and Public Policy Institute website.

Most Recent Articles

• Sea Level Rise The scare: An article published in early February 2009 by Jonathan Leake, the environment editor of The Times of London, said “The ice caps are melting so fast that the world’s oceans are rising more than twice as fast as they were in the 1970s.”
• A Storm of Errors A scientific and socio-economic analysis of multiple errors of science, fact, and data in the “science” chapter of the final report of the Arkansas Governor’s Commission on “global warming”
• Green-collar jobs – or con jobs? Environmental-union-politico alliances use their clout to promote new energy, economic vision. Will it create jobs, without impacting existing jobs, living standards and economic opportunities? The quest to be “green” has spawned countless proposals, programs, laws and advertising campaigns. In Washington, DC a “Green Jobs Advisory Council” is promoting policies for green buildings, energy efficiency, renewable energy, city infrastructure, and lower carbon emissions.
• Observed Climate Change and the Negligible Effect on Greehouse Gases in the State of Ohio
• Carbon Credits: Another Corrupt Currency? The real hockey-stick graph

Popular Articles

• 35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie
• Proved: There is No Climate Crisis
• Fallacies about Global Warming
• Greenhouse Warming? What Greenhouse Warming?
• “Consensus”? What “Consensus”?Among Climate Scientists, The Debate Is Not Over

I not only read what Star writes and listen to what she says but see her as a leader, who wants so much more for America and black Americans than they seem to want for themselves.  Freedom doesn’t come from socialism … it is really a voluntary step into slavery.  Star sees the big picture from her past, our present, and your future.  You would do well to listen to her.  That’s why you see her latest article here.

Back On Uncle Sam’s Plantation
Star Parker – Syndicated Columnist – 2/9/2009 8:00:00 AM

Six years ago I wrote a book called Uncle Sam’s Plantation. I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside the welfare state and my own transformation out of it.

I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas — a poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on capitalism.

I talked about government programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children (EANF), Section 8 Housing, and Food Stamps.

A vast sea of perhaps well-intentioned government programs, all initially set into motion in the 1960s that were going to lift the nation’s poor out of poverty.

A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those who accepted the invitation switched mindsets from “How do I take care of myself?” to “What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?”

Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems — the kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others.

The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broken black families.

Through God’s grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.

I had the privilege of working on welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican Congress and signed 50 percent.

I thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our poor black communities and replacing it with wealth-producing American capitalism.

But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite direction.

Instead of poor America on socialism becoming more like rich American on capitalism, rich America on capitalism is becoming like poor America on socialism.

Uncle Sam has welcomed our banks onto the plantation and they have said, “Thank you, Suh.”

Now, instead of thinking about what creative things need to be done to serve customers, they are thinking about what they have to tell Massah in order to get their cash.

There is some kind of irony that this is all happening under our first black president on the 200th anniversary of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

Worse, socialism seems to be the element of our new young president. And maybe even more troubling, our corporate executives seem happy to move onto the plantation.

In an op-ed on the opinion page of the Washington Post, Mr. Obama is clear that the goal of his trillion dollar spending plan is much more than short term economic stimulus.

“This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending – it’s a strategy for America’s long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, healthcare, and education.”

Perhaps more incredibly, Obama seems to think that government taking over an economy is a new idea. Or that massive growth in government can take place “with unprecedented transparency and accountability.”

Yes, sir, we heard it from Jimmy Carter when he created the Department of Energy, the Synfuels Corporation, and the Department of Education.

Or how about the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 – The War on Poverty – which President Johnson said “… does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done. It charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty.”

Trillions of dollars later, black poverty is the same. But black families are not, with triple the incidence of single-parent homes and out-of-wedlock births.

It’s not complicated. Americans can accept Barack Obama’s invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they can choose personal responsibility and freedom.

Does anyone really need to think about what the choice should be?

President Obama’s hopes for a spirit of bipartisanship, if it was there for the right reasons, sank the moment Republican leaders got their hands on the bill’s fine print. A bill that was pre-created by a select handful of liberal socialist Democrats with no input from Republicans or moderate Democrats. A bill that is so full of pork and paybacks it is astonishing. A bill with very little real stimulus but massive spending. A bill that will change America forever and for the worst. A bill that the American people will be forced to accept. A bill that will pass.

Even though the American people seem to be catching a new wave of skepticism about this liberal plan it will be too late. According to the latest Rasmussen poll 63% of voters are now not in support of the President’s plan. A plan that reeks of government control and social engineering. A plan that will burden multiple generations in many ways. A plan that was devoid of real change. A plan that has changed a projected hope to hype!

As the shady elements of the stimulus are unveiled more people are understanding what’s at stake. Even the New York Times confirmed an article that the “Stimulus Offers Road to Retooling Social Policy” with “little notice and no public hearings.” This bill did not come from the usual process with normal public hearings. All normal processes were fast-tracked.

Any later “compromises” in the bill have not been comprehensive but token in nature. After all, the Democrats continue to remind everyone that they won the election, and they will pass the bill and authorize Obama’s social agenda. The Democrats really only sought Republican assistance so when the bill fails to stimulate they can have someone else to share the blame. I applaud most of the Republicans for thus far showing real backbone against this unprecedented government expansion.

The audacity of hope was railroaded by the audacity of hype!

A congressional pay raise is ludicrous while jobs are being lost and cut.

While President Obama has called on Americans to make sacrifices in the way they live, members of Congress and politicians should also be making personal sacrifices and remember that they exist to serve the people.

But instead America’s leaders on Capitol Hill are living like kings and committing abuses of office.  Our government has become a culture of corruption.  Recent Democrat tax “mistakes” are just touching the surface.

Congress has once again given itself a pay raise during a time when nearly a million people have lost their homes in foreclosure and almost 40 million Americans are living under the poverty line.  People are losing their jobs daily … 600,000 in January.  The current unemployment rate is now 13.9%.  This is a 9% increase from 4.9% unemployment a year ago.  Then there are those who have a job but have taken a big pay cut so they could keep their job, or took whatever employment they could find.

The Congress currently enjoys six-figure salaries.  They acquire millions of dollars in benefits from their home offices.  They receive 32 trips home a year and we pay for the flights back and forth … when we have fax machines, the Internet and e-mail.  They get all sorts of other things as well … including free haircuts, free parking, and free limousine service.

In addition members of Congress get to participate in a generous taxpayer-funded retirement program that is not available to average Americans.  Think about it … four years in Congress and a free retirement plan for life.  These are the things they built into the system for themselves.  It is a corrupt system.  While most of us are trying to make ends meet they are bellying up to the trough.

It is high time for the American people to say enough is enough, and demand real reform in Washington.  That means RIGHT CHANGE as opposed to “real change” and business as usual.  Right change for the American people is what is necessary.

The only thing being stimulated are those being paid back for their donations and favors!

That is a question more Americans are asking now that details are trickling in about the controversial $825 billion plus “economic recovery” package.

This “stimulus” bill so far is over 1,588 pages with only 5% of the legislation actually going towards infrastructure. The rest of the bill reads like a taxpayer funded payoff to groups that have supported liberal/socialist Democrats’ interests.  The cost to every American household will be over $10,000.00.

Real Cost of Stimulus Plan? Almost $1.2 Trillion

Taxpayers will pay much more for the fiscal stimulus than previously revealed – over $1.17 trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Most sources have assessed the cost of the stimulus package at approximately $825 billion. But the CBO reports those estimates do not include the cost of the money that must be borrowed to pay for the plan. CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf estimated the cost of borrowing the money would be $347.1 billion – or about 42% of the cost of the projects. That would push the total cost of the stimulus package to over $1.17 trillion. The true cost may climb even higher, however, because the CBO’S calculations are all based on its low-end estimate that the base cost of the stimulus package will be just $815.9 billion, compared to the $825 figure commonly used. The higher the cost, the more expensive the program is to finance and the greater the total debt burden on future taxpayers.

The last several months are a foreshadowing of a new era of government activism, rather than an unfortunate but necessary (and anomalous) emergency action. We will soon shift from a market-based economy to a political one in which the government picks winners and losers and extends its reach and power in unprecedented ways.

Democrat Absurdities in Obama’s Spending Plan

As the veil begins to drop from the shady elements of the stimulus, more people are beginning to understand what’s at stake. Today’s New York Times reads, “Stimulus Offers Road to Retooling Social Policy” with “little notice and no public hearings.” The 1,588 page H.R. 1 has plenty of waste, wish lists and pork.

As the list grows it and the subjects are decoded into everyday language, it is extraordinary and mind numbingly stupid for them to be part of a “stimulus package.” And how exactly do these items create new, immediate, sustainable jobs for everyday people?

This is not a complete list, and to be fair a couple of these were dropped*, or partially dropped, but the rest are still there.

• $2 billion to help subsidize child care.
• $400 million for research into global warming.
• $2.4 billion for projects to demonstrate how carbon greenhouse gas can be safely removed from the atmosphere.
• $650 million for coupons to help consumers convert their TV sets from analog to digital, part of the digital TV conversion.
• $600 million to buy a new fleet of cars for federal employees and government departments.
• $75 million to fund programs to help people quit smoking.
• $21 million to re-sod the National Mall, which suffered heavy use during the Inauguration.
• $2.25 billion for national parks. This item has sparked calls for an investigation, because the chief lobbyist of the National Parks Association is the son of Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wisc. The $2.25 billion is about equal to the National Park Service’s entire annual budget. The Washington Times reports it is a threefold increase over what was originally proposed for parks in the stimulus bill. Obey is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
• $335 million for treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.
• $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.
• $4.19 billion to stave off foreclosures via the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The bill allows nonprofits to compete with cities and states for $3.44 billion of the money, which means a substantial amount of it will be captured by ACORN, the controversial activist group currently under federal investigation for vote fraud. Another $750 million would be exclusively reserved for nonprofits such as ACORN – meaning cities and states are barred from receiving that money. This money highly likely to be a “payoff” for the partisan political activities community groups in the last election cycle.
• $44 million to renovate the headquarters building of the Agriculture Department.
• $32 billion for a “smart electricity grid to minimize waste.
• $87 billion of Medicaid funds, to aid states.
• $53.4 billion for science facilities, high speed Internet, and miscellaneous energy and environmental programs.
• $13 billion to repair and weatherize public housing, help the homeless, repair foreclosed homes.
• $20 billion for quicker depreciation and write-offs for equipment.
• $10.3 billion for tax credits to help families defray the cost of college tuition.
• $20 billion over five years for an expanded food stamp program.
• $360 million to potentially be used to put on transsexual beauty pageants and erotic art shows.
• $300 million for Americorps
• $246 million tax break for Hollywood film investors.
• $1.4 billion to the National Science Foundation at the same time its employees are under investigation for viewing and emailing porn on the taxpayers’ dime.
  

More to come . . .

So Al Gore braved the winter storm and the world’s sense of irony to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on global warming. As usual, Mr. Gore’s testimony was riddled with scientifically questionable claims and hyperbole passed off as indisputable facts: “This would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on earth … And this is within the century, if we don’t change.” As usual, Mr. Gore’s claim of a scientific consensus that, “The scientists are practically screaming from the rooftops” went unchallenged despite more and more scientists coming out as skeptics. And as usual, Mr. Gore’s standing to profit from alternative fuel technology subsidies, as he hoped to include in the stimulus, went ignored by the media and committee alike. As usual, the dissenters did their best to point out Gore’s inconsistencies. As usual, they were ignored by the media.

However, something very unusual is happening despite business-as-usual on The Hill. The American people are starting to catch on to these inconsistencies. According to new polls, those who believe this “global warming” push to be a natural phenomenon of long-term planetary trends or cycles, instead of being created by man has increased almost 10% in just a matter of months.

An interesting article came out today from the usually reliably left-leaning Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. Within it, Mr. Milbank mercilessly mocks the former Vice President, repeatedly referring to him as the “Goracle” and mocking members of the committee for fawning at his feet.

Could Al Gore be wearing out his welcome not just with the American public, but even with his once staunchest allies?

One can only hope.