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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 9 March 2001 | Vol. II #35 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 9 March 2001 | Vol. II #35 | ||
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Leftist Democrats have failed to stack the census with statistical estimates of 3.3 million persons who may not exist but they claim as political allies.
The decision is now in: The Census Bureau will count only those Americans its enumerators have actually counted, which is how it has always been done since the Constitution first required an "actual enumeration" every 10 years.
Democrats and activist organizations purporting to represent non-white Americans have endeavored for years to get the bureau to make what amounts to statistical guesses about how many people may have been missed when the door-to-door and direct-mail tabulations are made every decade.
They failed in the past, and they failed again, this time with the bureau under the direction of the new Republican commerce secretary, Don Evans, whose Cabinet department runs the Census Bureau.
When it appeared as though civil-service officials within the bureau might recommend to the secretary that he opt to use "statistical sampling" to arrive at "adjusted" census figures, to add more minorities to the final tally, the Democratic Party insisted their recommendation be followed.
Liberals charged that if the Bush-Cheney administration did not accept the recommendation of the bureau's non-political experts it would be "politicizing" the census results.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson went so far as to charge that President Bush "stole the election" and "now he is trying to steal the census."
To their dismay, the recommendation of the statisticians turned out to be just the opposite from what they had wanted.
It called for using the actual-count figures, which it said has now become the most-accurate way of enumerating the American population.
Evans accepted that recommendation, and the wind - at least temporarily - was let out of the pro-sampling advocates' sails.
Result: The actual-count figures will go out to the states by no later than April 1.
Those are the data that state legislatures use in drawing the new boundary lines for congressional and state legislative districts.
They are also the basis on which the federal government sends back to the states some $185 billion in revenues it has collected from taxpayers nationwide.
Those are the two principal concerns Democrats have had when they pressed for a statistically estimated, rather than actual, count - because they thought that would work to their advantage politically.
They had placed high hopes on a statistically adjusted census giving them a realignment of congressional districts that would enable the Democratic Party to regain control of the narrowly divided House of Representatives in the 2002 election.
The actual count of Americans in the 2000 census is 282,421,906.
As reported by the Associated Press, a bureau survey made after the 2000 tally estimated a net "undercount" of 1.2 percent of Americans, or about 3.3 million persons.
The AP said that was down from the estimate of 1.6 percent made after the 1990 census, or about 4 million persons.
The Bush-Cheney administration has contended that as the Census Bureau's enumeration techniques continue to improve, the actual count is getting increasingly accurate and the argument for a statistical adjustment is growing weaker.
One of the objections to statistical sampling is that in order to make a final count come out the way those designing the sampling think it should, in some instances the numbers of non-minorities actually counted have to be reduced to raise the numbers of minorities being estimated.
Opponents of the actual count indicate Evans' decision will be challenged in court.
[ NewsMax ]
Structurally deficient bridges, unsafe dams and overcrowded and outdated school buildings are some of the problems cited in a report from an engineering group on the infrastructure of the United States, and it says it will cost $1.3 trillion to fix them.
The review, released Thursday by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), says the money is needed over the next five years to shore up the nation's crumbling infrastructure, which it graded as a D+ overall.
The 2001 report card sites explosive population growth, school enrollment outpacing education investment and maintenance, political red tape and an aging system for the almost failing grade. It also calls for a partnership between citizens, local, state and federal government and the private sector to remedy the problem.
TCN Comment: It is not the federal governments responsibility to fix school buildings, roads and bridges across this country. If local governments need more money to rebuild and repair infrastructure, then they need to either cut unnecessary spending or a tax increase so that they can do it!
I really hate it that there is a bridge that needs repaired in rural Kentucky, but it is a Kentucky problem, not a federal problem regardless of the position held by American Society of Democratic Civil Engineers.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Tuesday designated 4.1 million acres in 28 California counties as critical habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog.
This native amphibian is widely believed to have inspired Mark Twain's fabled short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."
About 32 percent of the 4.1 million acres designated are in public ownership and managed by either federal, state or local government entities. The remainder of the acreage is in private ownership.
[ Sacbee News ]
TCN Editorial Comment: Tell us again that Dubya is a conservative. His administration just made a land-grab of 2.8 million privately owned acres. True conservatives support private ownership of real estate.
You are flat wrong if you call yourself a conservative and are willing to overlook all of the liberal moves of this administration. Conservatives aren't land grabbers, church grabbers and tax grabbers. Those are liberal traits clearly exhibited by our present administration.
This administration has done unbelievable damage to freedom of religion and property rights. It is time for conservatives to admit that the Republican party no longer has any intention of representing them. They will pay lip service to conservative causes and they will lie through their teeth to get your vote, but they will not support those issues you see important.
This administration is expanding the federal government and has no plans to cut anything. This is not a conservative position.
The Republican "leadership" (oxymoron) in both the House and the Senate are doing their best to gut the tax cut, a tax cut that is ridiculously small to start with. Why? So they can spend it on pork! So they can expand federal programs in their districts by over-taxing. Over-taxing to enable over-spending is not a conservative policy. It is a liberal policy. The Republicans will blame it on the Democrats, but the House Ways and Means Committee is Republican controlled just as the rest of the House is Republican controlled. There is no excuse for the trashing they gave to the tax cut before presenting it to the House.
Rich Lowry, the 32-year-old National Review editor, is eyeing the nation's second toughest job: mayor of New York.
An interesting aspect of the story is that Lowry, if he accepts the profferred nomination of the Conservative Party, would be trying to upend another media figure, Michael Bloomberg, who stepped down this week as chairman of the financial news service he founded to gear up for a bid to succeed Rudolph Giuliani this fall.
"This looks to be shaping up as a race where conservative ideas are entirely missing," Lowry said. "You have Michael Bloomberg, a liberal Democrat, running as a Republican simply because it's the easiest route to Gracie Mansion. He wouldn't know a conservative idea if it showed up in his bank statement."
Bloomberg, who would bankroll his own campaign, donated $2,000 to the campaign of Al Gore, $1,000 to Bill Bradley and $290,000 to Democratic candidates and committees (while giving a mere $8,000 to John McCain and other Republicans).
Lowry says Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long approached him because he liked the editor's performance on such cable programs as "Hardball."
"I think he'd be able to articulate conservative ideas very clearly and bring some national attention to the race just based on who he is," said Long, whose approach was first reported in yesterday's New York Post. "I don't think his age has anything to do with it."
He said the four Democratic candidates -- Public Advocate Mark Green, Comptroller Alan Hevesi, Council Speaker Peter Vallone and Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer -- won't be talking about such issues as school vouchers.
Lowry says he's still thinking about it and wants to make sure he can raise enough money to run television ads. But he had a television-ready response when asked whether he would face a Hillary carpetbagger problem:
"I've lived here for three years, at least, and I'm a genuine Yankees fan."
How is the game played in our nation's capital? Please let me share with you an incident that happened just a few hours ago.
For the first time, Secretary Colin Powell testified before the House International Relations Committee today. The purpose of the hearing was to allow Secretary Powell to present his justification for the Department of State's fiscal year 2002 budget and answer questions from committee members on a variety of foreign-policy issues.
There are 49 members of the committee -- about 40 were present during Secretary Powell's appearance. After opening comments by Chairman Henry Hyde (IL), ranking member Tom Lantos (CA), and Secretary Powell, questions from the committee's other members began. Each member had five minutes to make comments and ask questions of Secretary Powell. However, not every member was given his opportunity. The hearing was adjourned just before Congressman Ron Paul had his turn due to "Secretary Powell's time."
Was this a coincidence? I truly don't believe it was. There are two reasons: 1. Congressman Ron Paul is a well-known quantity. He was denied a seat on the House International Relations Committee when he first requested it in 1997, after a well-known, foreign-interest lobby sabotaged his bid. Why? Dr. Paul strictly follows U.S. constitutional guidelines against foreign entanglements and unconstitutional interventions -- and that includes all foreign aid.
2. Immediately after the adjournment was announced, just one turn before Congressman Paul's time to ask questions, a fellow member sitting beside him, leaned over to Congressman Paul and said, "Hmm..had a tough question for them, didn't you." (He knows how the system works.)
Yes, Congressman Paul had many tough questions and comments for Secretary Powell.
Yes, Chairman Hyde, Secretary Powell and others undoubtedly knew that Congressman Paul had these questions and comments; tough questions and comments that are firmly in the minds of so many American citizens.
That is why what we do as activists for liberty matters so much.
[ Kent Snyder, The Liberty Committee ]
Calling themselves "Perverts for Cellucci," a band of demonstrators dressed in trench coats, dark glasses and wearing skin-toned leggings to simulate flashers protested outside the Senate Wednesday against the nomination of Massachusetts Republican Gov. Paul Cellucci as U.S. ambassador to Canada.
Members of Public Advocate of the United States, a grassroots conservative group that promotes family issues, handed out flyers to an amused public detailing Cellucci's support for a radical homosexual agenda in Massachusetts government schools, and called on senators to scuttle the nomination.
"People we spoke to were amazed to learn how radical Cellucci's views are," said Jesse Binnall, the event's organizer.
Wednesday's demonstration was the latest in a series of protests by family groups against Cellucci. Concerned Women for America, the Eagle Forum and the American Family Association are uniting with Massachusetts groups, and even conservative groups and lawmakers in Canada, to block the nomination. Brian Camenker, president of the Parents' Rights Coalition, met privately last week with about a half-dozen Republican staff members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss Cellucci's nomination.
Camenker gave staffers packets of materials used in Massachusetts government schools to teach homosexual sex techniques, including audiotapes of a conference sponsored jointly by the Massachusetts Department of Education and Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.
The tapes, which family groups plan to send to all 100 senators, were secretly recorded last March during a teachers' conference at Tufts University, where state teachers received state professional development credits for teaching children as young as 14 about "extremely dangerous and bizarre" homosexual sex acts.
The conference, which also featured "candid question-and-answer sessions," led to the firing of two Department of Education officials who participated in the program.
The staffers "were genuinely shocked at what they heard, but they wouldn't commit to taking any action and used the fact that the nomination hasn't been made official yet as an excuse not to commit themselves," Camenker said.
Committee chairman Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., sank former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld's nomination to be ambassador to Mexico in what played out as a fight between the party's liberal wing and its conservatives, Camenker noted.
Some conservatives are declining to take a public stand on the issue, opponents of the nomination said, apparently out of fear of embarrassing President Bush, a longtime family friend of Cellucci.
Since his election, Bush has received high marks from family groups for his nomination of John Ashcroft for attorney general, his opposition to abortion, and support for many issues close to conservatives' hearts.
But family groups are concerned that Bush met with the Log Cabin Republicans, a homosexual advocacy group within the GOP, while refusing to meet with former homosexuals. Why would the president, who acknowledged he had to give up drinking in the early 1980s for the sake of his health, refuse to meet with people who felt they had to leave the homosexual life for the same reason, they ask.
"Unfortunately the president doesn't have a strong ideological grounding on these issues," Camenker said.
** Appeasing the Liberals
"He sees this in strictly political terms. I think he's going overboard on wanting to be nice to the liberals in order to keep them from being as nasty and hostile as they usually are. It's very troubling."
Cellucci's $1.5 million annual "funding of homosexual activism in public schools is unprecedented in this country. His office has told me personally they would consider it a waste of time to talk to parents because the governor has already made up his mind and that he supports these programs," Camenker said.
Camenker also faulted Cellucci for his nomination of two Supreme Court justices who had been on the board of directors of Planned Parenthood. As lieutenant governor, Cellucci co-sponsored a bill to lower the age of consent for abortions to 16.
"We feel this nomination is a slap in the face to conservatives," Camenker said.
Peter LaBarbera, director of the Americans For Truth Project of Kerusso Ministries, said opposition to Cellucci was a growing grassroots effort and was above party politics.
"We don't care if they're Republicans or Democrats - if they're promoting homosexuality to kids, they're going to get called on it," he said.
"I hope what grows out of this is that politicians understand that there is a principled movement out there involving millions of people, just like the pro-life movement, and you can't just do anything you want and ignore them," he said.
[ NewsMax ]
This has been making its way around the internet for some time and I have received it from many sources, but the numbers always make me stop and think….Ed.
READ THIS RIGHT TO THE END
If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:
There would be:
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.
The following is also something to ponder...If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three Billion people in the world.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy.
If you can read this message you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.
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