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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 10 December 2001 | Vol II, No. 83 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 10 December 2001 | Vol II, No. 83 | ||
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[ CNSNews.com ]
An oversized farm subsidy bill coming before Congress soon could force Americans to pay more for their milk, economists and a government watchdog group say.
The Senate is poised to take up the 1,000-page, $170 billion farm-spending bill as early as this week and with it a Senate amendment that would establish a price floor for milk. That would result in a ten percent (26 cents) increase in a gallon of milk, by the calculations of University of Missouri economists.
"This is a very expensive and excessive farm bill," said Thomas A. Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. "While nobody is looking, they're trying to get it through."
Although the five-year agriculture-spending bill is not scheduled for reauthorization until next year, its advocates decided to press the matter early, especially now that White House budget forecasters are predicting a 3-year budget shortfall.
"Simply put, this is akin to establishing a national dairy compact, which would impose a milk tax on all Americans," according to CAGW.
The provision would also create a new government subsidy for dairy farmers by requiring the federal Department of Agriculture to put up to $300 million annually into a trust fund, to be paid out to dairy farmers based on their monthly output of milk.
Altogether, the total cost of milk to consumers would increase by $1.8 billion annually, according to the university scholars.
Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy authored the amendment in question. A Leahy spokesman disputed CAGW's assertions.
"Consumers should look with a jaundiced eye to these same opponents trotting out the same arguments against the national plan," said spokesman David Carle.
Leahy and other New England interests have been fuming over the loss of the New Deal-era dairy compact, which Congress failed to renew last year.
The Leahy plan "would stabilize the price of milk so that farmers would get a fair price, so that there would continue to be a source of fresh milk locally," said Carle. "There wouldn't be severe price declines to farmer or consumers.
"Consumers haven't benefited, just as farmers haven't," he added. "When prices have declined, like prices on December 1 declined 33 cents, consumers nationwide haven't seen a decline in the price of a gallon of milk. The processors [of milk] collect that when prices fall. When prices rise, they readily pass that onto consumers."
Anyway, Carle said, "For decades there have been programs in effect at the national level protecting farmers of other commodities, grains and other products from severe price declines. This would do that for dairy farmers."
Tad DeHaven, a Cato Institute scholar, disputes the notion that the price supports don't cost a thing.
"The bottom line is you're propping up prices for farmers," said DeHaven. That causes farmers to over-produce, leading to a market glut and a bigger cost to consumers, he said.
"If they force the processors to pay the difference between the market price and price supports, they'll pass the additional price onto the consumer," DeHaven predicted.
This was "part of the deal in getting [Vermont Sen. Jim] Jeffords to switch" his political affiliation to Independent and throwing his support behind the the Democratic Party earlier this year, he said. "This is payback time now."
For procedural reasons, the farm bill will need 60 votes in the Senate to progress to the Senate-House conference committee.
Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told reporters recently that he would not lead a filibuster of the bill but said he does not expect the bill to survive conference committee. He called the bill "terribly written" and criticized Leahy's price support plan, saying milk prices would rise.
[ Las Vegas Review Journal ]
"On Thursday, Attorney General John Ashcroft had an opportunity to reassure his critics and the public in general that the Bush administration would conduct the war on terrorism aggressively, while ensuring that the constitutional liberties of Americans would continue to be safeguarded. He could have stated that any expansion of government powers needed to track down the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, and to prevent future acts of terror, would be temporary and used in the most limited instances. Unfortunately, Mr. Ashcroft squandered this chance.
"In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Ashcroft hinted that merely voicing concerns about newly expanded law enforcement powers was tantamount to harboring terrorists. . . . His implication is lamentable. Law enforcement agencies should have no qualms asking for broader authority to hunt down terrorists and their supporters. But there are legitimate reasons to question the new laws that expand the government's ability to wiretap phones, examine financial transactions and monitor e-mail -- often with minimal judicial review."
"Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people; they fix too for the people the principles of their political creed." --Thomas Jefferson
"The Bible was as much America's founding document as the Declaration of Independence or Constitution. The Founding Fathers' beliefs in liberty, equality before the law and representative government came from Sinai. The Constitution is a covenant reflecting a much older covenant." --Don Feder
"The Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom." --Dwight D. Eisenhower
"...[T]he world has been changed for the better precisely because Christians weren't willing to treat their faith as a purely private matter. In no area has this been more true than in Christianity's championing of the weak, the poor, the sick, and the defenseless." --Charles Colson
"Man ... must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator...." --William Blackstone
"No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness." --George MacDonald
[ Keep and Bear Arms ]
On Friday, November 30th the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected both of Dr. Emerson's motions for rehearings.
This leaves an appeal to the United States Supreme Court as the only option for Dr. Emerson. Attorneys David Guinn and Aaron Clements are working on drafting the Appeal.
This appeal is necessary because while the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals clearly and articulately held that the Second Amendment is an individual right, Dr. Emerson is still facing federal felony charges because of an anti-gun rights prosecutor.
The importance of a U.S. Supreme Court victory cannot be overstated. Such a decision is crucial to destroy the "collective rights" myth perpetrated by every gun control group and many courts without any historical analysis of the Second Amendment or its placement in the Bill of Rights.
If the Second Amendment is affirmed by the highest Court as an individual right, AND the federal gun law is overturned as in the District Court decision, many other draconian gun laws could likely be ruled unconstitutional. This includes sweeping gun bans, excessive bureaucratic red tape, and arbitrary and capricious discrimination in denying licenses to name but a few of many current abuses. A victory for the individual interpretation would be especially helpful for those people living in places like California, New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C. and Chicago.
In truth, while a Fifth Circuit victory would have been helpful, it would only be binding in the states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. A U.S. Supreme Court victory for Dr. Emerson would force all the lower courts throughout the country to recognize the Second Amendment as an individual right in future cases.
But with this appeal comes risk. If the Supreme Court decides to take this case, the Supreme Court will write its own opinion regarding the Second Amendment. And since Dr. Emerson is appealing the decision to prevent further prosecution, it is our obligation to make sure that the gains we have made are retained in any further decisions, and hopefully they will be strengthened.
To conduct a proper defense, Dr. Emerson's attorneys need funds immediately. The Second Amendment Foundation's Emerson Defense Fund and its supporters: the Fifty Caliber Shooters Policy Institute, the Washington Arms Collectors, and KeepAndBearArms.com have provided nearly $15,000 to Dr. Emerson's Defense already.
Thank you to all who have contributed to the Emerson Defense Fund.
But more is needed because the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is our best and only shot. I honestly can't think of another Second Amendment case in the country that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court in the near future that could be seen as favorably as the Emerson case.
Emerson is literally the most important Second Amendment case in over a half century. And if we lose this appeal, then the gun grabbers will unleash the mother-of-all gun control proposals. Without the fear of the Second Amendment, their real agenda will be revealed once again -- gun bans!
Please help us today, as the appeal must be filed within 90 days from the Fifth Circuits Denial and the clock is ticking. Funding for the appeal must begin right now.
The SAF Emerson Defense Fund is tax-deductible and your contributions will help defend your rights of firearms ownership for you, your children and your grandchildren.
https://wwws.mainstream.net/saf/contribute/contribute_form.html
[ NewsMax.com ]
CBS News veteran Bernard Goldberg, author of the blockbuster "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News," Tuesday night revealed the two faces of anchorman Dan Rather.
One is charming, funny and generous. But the other - "If he thinks you've crossed him, you're dead," Goldberg said on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" show. "He confuses dissent with betrayal."
Goldberg pointed out CBS's hypocrisy in attacking his book. "They invented whistle-blowers." He said the media would treat him like a hero if he wrote the same kind of charges but worked for the politically incorrect tobacco industry.
"They ought to spend a little less time attacking me and start addressing the problem because they're hemorrhaging audience," he observed.
Goldberg said Rather and the other Big Media big cheeses didn't plot to promote a leftist agenda but instead were out of touch with the real America. They hobnob only with their fellow liberal elitists in the Beltway and Manhattan and seldom even consider there are other places and points of view, he noted.
[ NewsMax ]
Richard Riordan, who says he's against abortion but favors giving women the right to abort their unborn children is actively seeking the support of pro-abortion Republican women in his campaign for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in California.
The former Los Angeles mayor, who even supports having the state pay for abortions for women who can't afford them, says he wants to lure back Republican women who have allegedly drifted away from their party over the abortion issue.
"I'm in favor of the right for women to make their own moral choice," Riordan told the San Francisco Chronicle recently. "I believe economically disadvantaged women should have access to medical funds, so they have the same right to make the choice as any other woman. You're not really giving the choice to somebody unless they have the wherewithal (to pay for an abortion)."
According to Carla Marinucci, the Chronicle's Political Writer, Riordan claims that abortion "is among the issues that have cost the GOP dearly in recent elections, as when 1998 gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren went down to a landslide defeat against Democrat Gray Davis."
"Look at the vast majority of Republican women -- they're pro-choice," Riordan told the Chronicle reporter. "We've lost most of them in the last couple of elections."
That claim didn't wash with political strategist Jeff Flint, who is working with the campaign of conservative Bill Simon. He told the Chronicle: "GOP primary voters are probably the most pro-life subset of the whole electorate you can find, . . . and married GOP women are probably the most pro- life group of all. I don't think the evidence supports the suggestion that a lot of (Republican) women have walked away."
Florida guv wannabe Janet Reno got a frosty reception in Tallahassee last week, thanks to her well-known record as Bill Clinton's aider and abettor.
Reno, dubbed the most incompetent attorney general in modern history by Fox News star Bill O'Reilly, was introduced as a visitor in the state House.
"We decided that we had to demonstrate ... that we did not welcome Ms. Reno to the House of Representatives considering the manner in which she treated Elian Gonzalez," said Rep. Carlos Lacasa, R-Miami.
Cuban-American lawmakers and three other Republican legislators got up and walked out, the Associated Press reported.
"I know they feel very strongly, but I made a decision based on what was right for a little boy and his daddy," Reno said after leaving the chamber.
Will she also make that "for the children" claim about Waco?
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