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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 14 February 2001 | Vol. II #22 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 14 February 2001 | Vol. II #22 | ||
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President Bush announced his plan to allow private charities and religious organizations a greater role in delivering social services currently provided mostly by the federal government. He certainly is correct in his assertion that private groups do a better job of running food banks, day care centers, drug treatment centers, and other social programs. I applaud his desire to transfer funds away from government agencies and into the private sector. I certainly disagree with critics who misunderstand the First Amendment and view the President's proposal as a sinister endorsement of religion. Bush especially should be credited for offering an alternative to the status quo, because federal agencies simply do a terrible job of providing social services.
The proposal has risks, however. First, the federal welfare state simply may expand in size and scope. Congress seemingly is incapable of reducing spending, instead adding billions to the budget every year. This excessive spending may expand to fund private organizations in addition to current funding for federal agencies. I doubt seriously that savings created by the substitution of efficient private organizations for inefficient federal agencies will ever be reflected in the federal budget. The more likely scenario is that government spending will grow more than ever.
Second, religious organizations risk the sanctity of their faith when they involve themselves with government. The government will have to decide what religious organizations qualify for federal funds, which puts it in the untenable position of deciding which faiths are legitimate. Would the pro-abortion Health and Human Services department ever surrender funds to a strongly pro-life Catholic charity? Would American taxpayers support funding for an organization viewed by many as a cult, if it ran an efficient soup kitchen? These uncomfortable questions suggest that some faiths would be tempted to change their message to win favor with the government. The liberal collectivists have the argument against the President's proposal all wrong: the danger is not that government will be influenced by religion, but rather that religion will be influenced by government.
The better approach is to abide by constitutional strictures and get the federal government completely out of the business of providing social services. Private charities and religious organizations will flourish in this country if we simply get government out of the way. First and foremost, we must exempt such organizations from regulations which constantly thwart their efforts. Second, we must endorse the proposal by President Bush to allow all Americans a deduction for charitable contributions, regardless of whether they itemize deductions or not. The majority of taxpayers apply the standard deduction, and they should enjoy a tax benefit for giving to charity even in small amounts. We should allow a 100% deduction for all contributions, regardless of whether to a standard charity, a charitable foundation or trust, or a religious organization. Finally, we must massively reduce government spending, so that income taxes can be lowered drastically. Americans are charitable by nature, but they rightfully resent losing nearly half their incomes to various levels of government. American charities would see huge increases in their budgets for providing social services if taxes were reduced to sane levels.
The Maryland Court of Appeals issued a salutary ruling yesterday when it reversed a finding that a juvenile defendant had violated the state's concealed weapons law by hiding a shotgun under his mattress — in his parents' home.
The youth had been charged with violating the concealed weapons law after his mother called police upon discovering the weapon. But as the court noted, the charge, if allowed to stand, would mean that anyone who places a rifle in a locked cabinet — or even a kitchen knife in a drawer, for that matter — would be technically guilty of violating the law by "concealing" a weapon. In order to comply with the law as interpreted by the prosecutors who filed the original charge against the Maryland youth, "a resident or owner of premises would have to keep his guns, his rifles, his shotguns, and every other type of weapon, or potential weapon, in the open, i.e. standing in the corner, on the coffee table, on the counter, on top of the bed, in the center of the floor" and so on. This is an "absurd" reading of the law, the court further added.
Quite so. And for once, a court has repudiated prosecutorial overreach in a gun-control case. The idea that one could be charged with a major "crime" merely for putting a weapon out of harm's way — in one's own home — is an astonishing concept. It's especially egregious, too, in the sense that such an interpretation would have effectively criminalized the most responsible gun owners — that is, gun owners who place their firearms in secure, hidden places out of reach of children and others. As the opinion of the court further stated: "How could a responsible hunter place shotguns in a cabinet without concealing them and violating this statute?" Answer: He could not — at least, not under the interpretation used by prosecutors in the case of the shotgun-hiding Maryland boy.
Again, we have clear evidence of bad cases making bad law. Prosecutors may have understandably wanted to teach the young man — who had no business owning a shotgun at all — a well-deserved lesson. But it was not necessary to imperil the rights of law-abiding and responsible gun owners in the process. Maryland's Court of Appeals issued a sound judgment in this case and is to be commended for its reasoning.
[ Washington Times ]
Dear friend of liberty,
House Concurrent Resolution 23 (H.C.R. 23) was submitted Thursday, February 8, 2001 by Representatives Ron Paul (Texas), Virgil Goode (Virginia), Walter Jones (North Carolina), Roscoe Bartlett (Maryland), and John Duncan (Tennessee). H.C.R. 23 expresses "the sense of Congress that President George W. Bush should declare to all nations that the United States does not intend to assent to or ratify the International Criminal Court Treaty...and the signature of former President Clinton to that treaty should not be construed otherwise." H.C.R. 23 was referred to the House International Relations Committee of which Representative Paul is a member.
Representative Henry Hyde (Illinois), the new chairman of the House International Relations Committee, recently stated to Insight magazine (01/26/01), "I think that the defense of our sovereignty is one of the big issues currently before the International Relations Committee. This International Criminal Court [ICC agreement] that the president just signed is an assault on our sovereignty. We would yield jurisdiction for criminal prosecutions for our citizens in foreign courts. I think that would be a serious mistake." Mr. Hyde continued, "Surely there's a principle at stake, and the principle is whether we yield jurisdiction, hence part of our sovereignty, to a foreign entity constituted not by American citizens under the U.S. Constitution, which protects society and citizens, but to a foreign entity over which we have no sovereign control."
Opposition to the United States subjugating itself to the International Criminal Court is mounting. President Bush, members of Congress, former secretaries of the departments of State and Defense, the current Department of Defense, public policy foundations, newspaper editorial boards, and columnists are opposed to us yielding our national sovereignty; yielding our judicial system; yielding our constitution to an international tribunal based in the Netherlands.
Opposition to the International Criminal Court is mounting among the American public. Since launching our nationwide petition drive just a few weeks ago, 19,782 people have signed our petition addressed to President Bush. However, it's not just the American public. People from Canada, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Namibia, Brazil, Israel, and Belgium have signed our petition. One gentleman from United kingdom wrote, "You can help save the sovereignty of all countries."
Our petition drive to President Bush has already started. If you have not signed our petition, please do so now. Today, our drive to get H.C.R. 23 passed begins. Therefore, please urge your U.S. representative to cosponsor H.C.R. 23 today. You can sign our petition and write to your U.S. representative by going to http://www.thelibertycommittee.org and clicking "International Criminal Court." The text of H.C.R. 23 is posted there along with numerous items about the International Criminal Court.
Please sign our petition, if you have not already done so, and write to your U.S. representative urging him to cosponsor H.C.R. 23. Please ask family and friends to do the same.
Thank you for your help!
Kent Snyder
The Liberty Committee
http://www.thelibertycommittee.org
P.S. Please note that some new members of the U.S. House are still in the process of setting up their E-mail and Web systems. Your message to them can be printed for mailing.
[ Liberty Committee ]
Home schooling is perfectly legal in Kentucky, but on Tuesday, February 13, 2001, a district court judge found a home schooled teenager guilty of habitual truancy and ordered her to attend public school every single day until she graduates. HSLDA Attorney David Gordon, who represented the family at the trial, has filed an emergency petition to block this order while the family appeals this shocking verdict. HSLDA asks for your prayers for an immediate response from the appeals court.
Sarah Dukes was accused of being absent from the public school on days that she was in attendance at a legal home school. District Court Judge Carol Browning refused to consider whether her home school was in compliance with the law. Once she concluded that Sarah was a habitual truant, Judge Browning rejected all efforts to allow her to continue her education at home. The judge ignored expert testimony about Sarah's home school program that was offered by Dr. Brian Ray, head of the National Home Education Research Institute.
The judge allowed her personal opinion to cloud her legal thinking. Home schooling was simply not appropriate at the high school level, Judge Browning insisted. The judge told Sarah that even though she herself had earned an advanced degree, she was still not qualified to give her own child the education he deserved. On that basis, she ordered Sarah to go back to public school immediately.
A Kentucky appeals court has already overturned one outrageous order in this case. Earlier this fall, Judge Browning issued a "pick-up order" for Sarah and an arrest warrant for her mother. The appellate court issued a writ of prohibition, blocking these orders. The higher court found that Judge Browning had ignored the family's rights by issuing the warrant and pick-up order without any notice or opportunity to be heard.
Without similar action by the higher court right now, Sarah may be forced to attend public school for many months while she appeals her conviction and sentence. Please pray for Sarah and her family in their hour of need.
[ HSLDA.org ]
Democrats are still looking to ongoing media recounts of Florida's dimpled, pregnant and hanging chads on ballots cast in last November's election to damage President George Bush before he consolidates his power.
Just two weeks ago, newly crowned Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe made the rounds of the Sunday morning TV talk shows to warn that the recount results would shake up Washington.
Already the Palm Beach Post has reported that if dimpled ballots had been counted in Palm Beach County, Al Gore would have picked up enough votes to carry the state.
More recently the Miami Herald claimed that if all the "overvotes" had been counted in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties, Gore would have carried the state by a 5,000-vote margin.
Of course, that presumes that the "overvoters," who in some cases punched chads for six or more presidential candidates per ballot, really intended to vote for Al Gore.
Enter Judicial Watch, the Washington-based legal watchdog group that has been quietly laboring away on its own Florida recount behind the scenes. On Monday the public interest law firm issued a press release on its findings in Broward County.
The Judicial Watch analysis, compiled by the forensic accounting firm Johnson, Lambert & Co., discovered that when the Broward County canvassing board loosened its ballot standards in the middle of the official recount, the decision added 884 new votes to the Gore column - 470 more than George Bush picked up.
The decision to award more votes to either candidate was "extremely subjective," said the watchdog group, with dimpled ballots included in the recount that were "indistinguishable" from those ultimately ruled as "no votes."
What's more, with more than three months elapsed since the election the ballots have become extremely disorganized:
"There were no separators within the box delineating ballots which were counted as votes, undervotes, or overvotes. A county employee 'found' the various catagories of ballots by looking at the ballots and trying to determine where the various catagories began and ended within a box."
County officials, said Judicial Watch, provided no reconcilliation showing whether all the appropriate ballots were even turned over.
"The audit's results show that Broward County's recount cannot be trusted to be an accurate reflection of the will of the Broward County voter," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
Fitton told NewsMax.com that the full Johnson, Lambert audit of Broward County will be available at www.judicialwatch.org next week.
[ NewsMax ]
Liberal nonprofit groups may have broken tax laws in using tax-exempt funds and federal grants to lobby against Bush Cabinet nominees and even for candidates.
Nonprofit policy and advocacy groups that opposed the nominations of John Ashcroft for attorney general and Gale Norton for interior secretary, and spent millions of dollars on behalf of Al Gore's presidential bid, have been receiving federal grants since as early as 1996. Most nonprofits, known in the tax code as Section 501(c) organizations, are tax-exempt and contributions to them are tax deductible.
Because of the strong effort by liberal nonprofit groups to halt the Ashcroft and Norton nominations, critics are beginning to examine whether their policies legally can be supported by public funds and whether any of the public money has been used for partisan politics or lobbying.
In early February, the Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative public-interest law firm, forwarded to the IRS a list of groups involved in the anti-Ashcroft battle and asked the IRS to determine whether they accurately reported their lobbying activities and whether they are in violation of tax laws.
Lobbying by 501(c) organizations that is intended to influence the presidential-appointment process is considered political activity and must be reported fully. If it has become a major part of the organization's activity, in many cases the privilege of tax-deductibility may be withdrawn.
According to Landmark Legal Foundation President Mark Levin, "Published reports reveal that scores of liberal, 501(c), tax-exempt groups spent the last month, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars, in a well-coordinated and highly organized lobbying campaign against the Ashcroft nomination. They also have announced that they will lobby against future nominees they consider too conservative. The IRS must look at these activities very carefully to ensure that these organizations are not skirting the law or failing to pay their taxes."
As reported here in early January (see "The Left Assaults John Ashcroft," Feb. 12), members of dozens of 501(c) organizations met in Washington at the offices of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), where they launched a comprehensive lobbying campaign against the Ashcroft nomination. Staff of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee and of four leading Democratic senators, including Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., were in attendance.
The Landmark Legal Foundation has written to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who was Senate Judiciary Committee chairman during the Ashcroft hearings, seeking the identity of members of the Senate staff in attendance at the lobby-planning meeting, a description of their role at the meeting and whether they attended with his knowledge. "The public has a right to know whether these nonprofit organizations, with your encouragement, are using tax-exempt funds or federal funds to lobby senators," Levin wrote to the highly partisan Leahy. As Insight goes to press, Leahy has not yet responded.
Among those listed as having representatives in attendance were: the American Bar Association (ABA); American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice; Feminist Majority; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium; National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems; National Black Women's Health Project; National Coalition Against Domestic Violence; National Council of Jewish Women; National Education Association; NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund; Organization of Chinese-Americans; Physicians for Social Responsibility; Planned Parenthood (USA); Sentencing Project; Sierra Club; and Youth Law Center.
The ABA was swift to respond to Levin, acknowledging that an ABA employee attended the meeting, but said it was solely for informational purposes and that its observer did not otherwise participate in the meeting or in any of the activities of the coalition of organizations that was formed to oppose the Ashcroft nomination.
The ABA wrote that it did not take a position for or against the nomination of Ashcroft, denied involvement in a coalition to defeat him and insisted its name be taken off the list of groups submitted to Leahy and the IRS.
According to the Federal Assistance Award Data System (FAADS), the ABA has received more than $14 million in government grants since 1996. Apparently its lawyers realized its vulnerability. "We are totally nonpartisan, we have no PAC [political action committee], do not endorse candidates and did not take any position on the nomination of John Ashcroft for attorney general," ABA spokesman Robert Evans insists to Insight.
As for the government money, Evans says the ABA receives a lot of it and uses it on hundreds of projects, including one to help establish democracies in Eastern Europe. He tells Insight that all that money goes into its 501(c)(3) arm but that he does not have a list of those projects funded by the tax dollars.
According to an Insight source present at the Jan. 9 meeting at the AAUW building in Washington, an agenda of opposition to Ashcroft was planned and those present were called upon to report what their organization was doing to oppose the nomination.
One of these, as noted, is the nonprofit, pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood (USA), which received $27 million in federal grants in 1999, about one-third of its budget. It seeks to get around restrictions on political activity through the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) group, which is allowed to produce campaign and fund-raising manuals. But federal law prohibits 501(c)(4) organizations that receive federal funds from using that money to engage in lobbying activity. Planned Parenthood did not return Insight's calls asking if the group had used public funds to lobby against Ashcroft.
Planned Parenthood long has been neck deep in politics, but it launched its biggest ad buy ever in September 2000 with an attack on then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, paid for by the 501(c)(4) Planned Parenthood Action Fund. "Technically these funds are legal but, when a group like Planned Parenthood receives so much taxpayer money, it is hard to delineate where that money is spent. It all seems to go into one pot, and that is what worries us," says Andrew Walker of the Capital Research Center. Perhaps so, but other critics are convinced the anti-Bush ads amounted to an illegal campaign contribution.
The Sierra Club, an environmentalist nonprofit organization, opposed not only the nomination of Ashcroft but also of Norton. Spokesman Bruce Hamilton tells Insight that the Sierra Club is a 501 (c)(4) group, adding, "and we lobby. … I hope we were at lots of meetings with senators!"
The $12,000 received from the government by the Sierra Club was not applied for but was a government contract for the group to participate in national-park maintenance, says Hamilton. "Frankly, the government gets a good deal from us because it costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this." In the fall the Sierra Club launched what it termed its largest-ever air/ground blitz in a presidential race and 12 congressional contests. Spending a total of $3 million in October, the pre-election push included broadcast ads and printed voter guides. It was the final phase of the group's $8 million election-year "environmental ad campaign." Millions of dollars were poured into ads criticizing Bush's record in Texas that were aired nationwide.
Hamilton assured Insight that these activities were not funded by taxpayers. "We have a PAC and voter-education fund through which we endorse and educate the public on candidates," he says.
Critics still voice concern. "The environmental movement has a major influence on American politics, so it is important for the public to know that some of the major environmental groups are publicly funded," says the Capital Research Center's Terence Scanlon.
Another group opposed to the Norton confirmation was the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) which, according to FAADS, has received $1.5 million in government grants since 1996 and is most famous for its claim that the pesticide damionzide (Alar) used on apples causes cancer, a claim that the scientific community agrees is false.
Scanlon observes, "Long before Gale Norton was nominated, NRDC had a long track record of suing companies for alleged violations of federal regulations and gained national fame through its sensational allegations about cancer-causing apples. Despite this, taxpayers are forced to continue to fund NRDC's activities." Its lobbying is a special concern.
Another nonprofit group receiving government funds that sent a representative to the anti-Ashcroft meeting was the NAACP. Its National Voter Fund and Americans for Equality spent millions of dollars on political ads and voter-education projects last year. They also spent millions on political ads during the campaign, including a controversial ad that implied the lynching of African-American James Byrd somehow was linked to Texas Gov. Bush's opposition to hate-crimes legislation. Whether they used government funds in this effort is not clear.
After several calls and a fax requesting interviews, a press spokesman for the NAACP told Insight she was unsure whether this magazine's questions could be answered before deadline since the press office was understaffed and president Kweisi Mfume, a former Democratic congressman, and all public-relations staff were traveling.
[ Catherine Edwards, Insight Magazine ]
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced a resolution Thursday calling for Congress and the president to renounce U.S. support for the United Nations international criminal court.
"The Clinton administration signed the treaty, and the U.N. views the signature as final. It arrogantly announced that signatures from 60 nations will suffice to authorize creation of the international court," said Paul.
"Once the court is in place, the U.N. will have the mechanism it needs to enforce its global edicts against American citizens."
He said he planned to seek support from his colleagues on the International Relations Committee.
"This is not a partisan issue," Paul said. "This is an issue of American sovereignty. American citizens have a right to constitutional protections.
"Congress must insure that no American ever faces trial before an unconstitutional international court."
Ex-President Clinton's fundraising team tried to get millionaire Democrat donor Denise Rich to fork over a whopping $25 million for the William J. Clinton Presidential Library Foundation, a report hitting newsstands this week claims.
"Clinton fundraisers pressed the flamboyant singer-socialite for.... as much as $25 million for the library fund," Rich's friends tell U.S. News & World Report.
"A wealthy benefactor of the library and longtime Democratic contributor said fundraisers had suggested a donation of at least $10 million" to Ms. Rich, adds the magazine.
Clinton's big-buck squeeze on the wealthy New Yorker came as she was begging him to pardon her ex-husband, fugitive-billionaire Marc Rich.
Martin Pollner, Ms. Rich's New York attorney, denied his client was a victim of the budget-busting Clinton shakedown, telling the New York Times Monday that the claim was "ridiculous."
Still, while the amount Rich has given so far is believed to be far less (with sources citing numbers from $450,000 to $1.4 million), her Washington attorney, Carol Elder Bruce, told investigators last week that Rich's donation was in fact an "enormous, enormous" amount.
And others solicited by the Clinton Foundation have reportedly contributed amounts identical to the one Clinton established as a minimum for Rich. "California supermarket magnate Ron Burkle.... is prepared to give $5 million to $10 million" to the Clinton Library Fund, reported the Washington Post in October 1999.
"Fox Family Worldwide chairman Haim Saban and Universal Studios chairman emeritus Lew Wasserman have committed to similar sums," the paper added.
[ NewsMax ]
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