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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 14 May 2001 | Vol. II, No. 56 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 14 May 2001 | Vol. II, No. 56 | ||
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TCN Exclusive Commentary
By Robert Marlett
In just over 200 years, this nation – the greatest nation the world has ever known – has gone from being a republic of loosely federated states in which the citizens were assigned the duty of its protection and its control, to being a laughable democracy/ bureaucracy in which only those citizens not deemed a threat to the ruling bureaucrats are permitted to own weapons, fewer still are allowed to carry those weapons, and even then the type of weapons they can carry, own, and use are severely limited . The motto of "One nation, under God" and the doctrine of total religious freedom has been changed to being "Separation of church and state" to the extent that government funding is withheld for any organization that is, or cooperates with religious groups. Churches, which the government once knew it had no right to tax or control in any way, are now being closed and confiscated by state and federal authorities for refusing to be licensed, or failure to pay taxes. Churches meeting without licenses can by deemed "unlawful assemblies" in the land where freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the right to peaceably assemble were once guaranteed by law as inalienable rights.
How has this happened? Slowly and subtly, changes in terminology and education have prepared the minds of American citizens to stand idly by while their rights and their roots have been eroded till they exist only in archaic documents. Those who recognized the eventual outcome of minor changes were (and are) labeled as extremists or radicals in a society that wants to force everybody to " fit in" . the last generation of Americans who knew a free nation are dying around us every day, and the average American does realize that his children are by law the property of the state, and in many states he doesn't even have the right to exist unless he pays the state for an identification card. (in Florida for example, any person suspected of being over the age of 16 who does not produce a state ID card or drivers license upon the request of any law enforcement officer can be held for 72 hours for identification purposes, and then charged with a misdemeanor and incarcerated for up to 90 days.) Those laws which once protected us from warrantless search and arrest have been totally negated by new laws and court rulings giving police the right to "detain" and search any person deemed by that officer to be suspicious. Government has been expanded by adding positions and agencies that are appointed rather than elected and which have virtually absolute power in their realm of duty (which invariably is expanded once the agency or position has been established) thus destroying both the check and balance system as well as the democratic principles upon which the republic was founded. (Examples of these would include the Environmental protection agency (EPA) the national transportation safety board (NTSB) the Department of environmental protection (DEP), the department of health and rehabilitative services (HRS), and the federal communications commission (FCC) just to name a few.) These illegal and totally unconstitutional agencies make "regulations" which have the same force as federal law, but don't have to go through the system of checks and balances designed to weed out bad legislation.
What affect have they had? Free enterprise has been abolished when the FCC decided to limit the number of radio stations and TV stations in any one area, and limit the power of their transmitters. The entire system of getting approval for a broadcasting license and call letters is now totally corrupt. Free enterprise has also been mutilated by DEP / EPA regulations, which make it virtually impossible for small business owners to compete with major corporations, even in a localized market. DEP regulations have destroyed entire communities by banning or overly restricting the main local source of economic income.(Lobstering in New England, netting in parts of Florida and Texas, for example.)
DEP/EPA regulations have forced higher costs and therefor higher prices on everything from fish and corn to lumber and highway construction. Because of the increased cost, American companies can no longer compete with foreign – often state owned – enterprise, thus creating unemployment for American workers, while American dollars are fueling communist countries. Not only has our government failed to protect its citizenry from foreign enterprise, it has – by allowing unconstitutional agencies to enact laws illegally – protected foreign enterprise from American competition. Thus, one of the stated purposes of our government has been not only doomed to failure, but totally reversed by "regulations" passed under the often questionable cloak of protecting the environment – a grand idea, but not by any means one of the purposes of the federal government.
I'm reminded of the lines in the Declaration of Independence, which immediately follow perhaps its most well known line:
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" . We are all well familiar with these lines, and yet the next few hold truths we soon forget. "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such a form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." Oh how soon we forget the price paid by our forefathers to obtain the liberties and rights that we allow to be eroded, limited, restricted, and regulated into the memories of our grandparents.
The United Nations recently voted to kick the United States off the Commission on Human Rights. The U.S. was swiftly replaced by that humanitarian giant, Sudan. Sudan, home to government-approved torture, murder and other horrors against Christians and other non-Moslems in the south, joins those other shrines of liberty, Communist China, Cuba, Libya and Vietnam, among others. Sudan, not content just to kill or maim those who refuse conversion to Islam, has also revived the slave trade to make a buck or two.
On the very same day U.N. member nations voted secretly to boot the U.S. off the Commission on Human Rights, they also dropped us from their International Narcotics Board.
Despite these stinging slaps in the face to the U.S., U.N. bureaucrats still expect Americans to pony up $244 million in dues next year to bankroll United Nations. The U.N. specializes in global disarmament of civilians, erosion of American liberties and national sovereignty, dismantling the traditional family, and other high hopes of international socialists.
The House voted 252-165 to withhold the $244 million until the U.S. is reinstated on the human rights commission.
The House is right on target. They shouldn't pay the $244 million.
The United Nations has been working for decades to undermine American sovereignty. We pour multiplied millions of dollars into other nations in foreign aid, then those countries turn right around and stab us in the back in the U.N. They take our money, then drop kick us from the human rights and narcotics review boards.
The U.N. shouldn't get one thin dime of the $244 million. Enough is enough.
Send a fax to ALL 100 Senators asking them to support the House in withholding the $244 million from the U.N. We will send a fax to each U.S. Senator and personalize it with your name and address. Each fax will be sent within one business day and urge them to vote with the House and keep the $244 million from the United Nations.
You can us this link to send faxes to ALL 100 U.S. Senators to urge them to withhold the $244 million from the U.N.:
http://www.campaigncontribution.com/email/un/
[ Sixty Second Activist ]
In the last few months, a line of farm and commodity groups have paraded before Senate and House agriculture committees like robots to demand the same thing: more money! Even by Washington standards of wanton greed, the spectacle has been appalling.
More than 20 farm and commodity organizations have called on Congress to approve $9 billion in farmer relief for FY 2001 and $12 billion annually through 2011. These amounts would be in addition to Congressional Budget Office projections for farm program outlays for each fiscal year.
These farm groups argue that the federal government should provide additional agricultural funding "equal to at least the same level of emergency (italics added) economic loss assistance" that was provided for the 2000 crop.
In other words, without the foggiest idea of whether there will be bumper crops, flood or drought or whether crop prices will rise or fall, they want to lock in past spending levels at a minimum and actually increase them by as much as $3 billion annually.
Most of these farm groups believe that agriculture is in a crisis situation because despite $25 billion in farm relief over the last three years, net cash farm income has not set a new record high each year.
In fact, net cash income for 2000 was the fourth largest on record at $56.4 billion. That is only about $2 billion lower than the annual average of $58.1 billion for the record-setting years of 1996 and 1997. In other words, farmers believe they are "entitled" to use tax dollars to increase their incomes to record levels each year.
Some of the farm groups' congressional supporters have the gall to claim that permanent increases in spending, rather than ad hoc increases based on actual need, will somehow benefit taxpayers. The theory is that taxpayers would rather have the farm bailout set excessively high so that the spending amount won't fluctuate from year to year. Following that logic, why not just fund every federal program at its highest level and take even more tax dollars from hard working Americans?
Even one of U.S. agriculture's staunchest advocates, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), seems appalled. Roberts hit the nail on the head in observing that some farm organizations "come to see us not to talk about policy but to say how much money they want," concluding that they (the farm groups) are "treating the U.S. Department of Agriculture like an ATM machine."
However, according to Rep. Charles Stenholm (D-Texas), the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, "I don't believe you can say that anyone has asked for too much."
As far as these farm commodity groups are concerned, there is no such thing as too much. They will always be "entitled" to more and more.
[ CAGW ]
Disgraced ex-president Bill Clinton said Saturday that he won't stay on the political sidelines forever and in fact may run for office sometime in the future.
"Maybe someday 'I'll run for something again," Clinton told a United Federation of Teachers audience in New York City, where he appeared to accept the union's humanitarian award.
Clinton's announcement is seen by some as a none too subtle attempt to shore up position within the Democratic Party in the wake of his tawdry exit from the White House five months ago, which was marred by allegations that he sold pardons while his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, stole furniture.
Last week the New York Daily News reported that several Clinton aides had been turned away from top posts at the Democratic National Committee; a signal that party leaders have grown anxious to move beyond the Clinton era.
After his speech, Clinton told the New York Post that he wouldn't be throwing his hat into the ring "anytime soon," explaining that he needed to support his wife and daughter Chelsea in the meantime.
[ NewsMax ]
TCN Comment: Bubba should be running, but not for political office. It is amazing fact that Bill Clinton is allowed to walk freely considering the vast cloud of evidence of illegal activity that swirls around him. Clinton is already a serious blight on the history of US political history. Any further election to any office other than federal inmate should be completely beyond question.
Atlantic Monthly Contributing Editor Jeffrey Tayler, who has lived half his adult life in Russia, doesn´t paint a very flattering picture of the country in the May issue of the magazine.
He says Russia´s internal problems are so severe that her descent into "social catastrophe and strategic irrelevance" is unstoppable.
Russia is destined to "shrink demographically, weaken economically, and possibly disintegrate territorially," he writes, adding that in due time "Russia will concern the rest of the world no more than any Third World country with abundant resources, an impoverished people, and a corrupt government."
[ Inside the Beltway ]
It was so predictable.
When the U.S. pulled out of the Canal Zone last year, critics of the move said Panama would destabilize and be ripe for subversion by unfriendly powers.
Now we hear that Panama's economy is in meltdown and on Wednesday, May 9, some 10,000 demonstrators took to the streets, effectively shutting down Panama City.
What's the problem?
At first blush it's oil prices. Oil prices have more than doubled in the past year – and now the world is feeling the effects.
Because of the price rise, private bus operators in Panama have had to up their standard fair for a bus ride from 15 cents to 25 cents.
Obviously, in a country where the per capita income is $7,600, that is a lot of money.
The protests started out in the past month as small, organized by university students.
But last Friday, the crowds burgeoned to more than 10,000.
Who is filling the ranks of the protesters? Labor organizers and members of the PRD – Manuel Noriega's old party.
Both groups are trying to capitalize on the oil price increase to undermine the current government of Mireya Moscoso.
An old State Dept. hand very familiar with the situation in Panama tells NewsMax that the labor unions taking to the streets are backed by Fidel Castro.
No surprise here.
Castro has been using international labor to export revolution throughout Latin America – and he recently held a conference of labor unions in Havana with another one planned soon in Caracas.
A major newspaper editor is warning of bigger demonstrations next week and more turmoil in the months to come.
Moscoso's government could be much stronger had she not inherited a bad hand from her predecessor. By kicking the Americans out of the Canal Zone, the country lost approximately $400,000 million a year of its GNP.
With a booming world-wide economy that had little effect – but with a weak economy and growing oil prices – Panamanians may just regret asking for the Canal.
[ NewsMax ]
Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy and his committee staff were able to hold up the Solicitor General nomination of Washington attorney Ted Olson claiming, in part, that Olson misled the committee about what he knew and when he knew it about the so-called "Arkansas Project" undertaken by The American Spectator.
Yet to stall the nominations, Leahy and his staff are using the investigative resources of left-wing foundations and think tanks operating out of New York, including groups underwritten by the Nation Institute, the nonprofit organization that underwrites The Nation magazine. According to a Republican Judiciary Committee source, Leahy and his staff used research reports and materials that included information about Hatch, Olson, and several other members of the conservative Federalist Society that was collected by reporters and researchers working for a New York-based organization identifying itself as the Institute for Democracy Studies. The IDS is a tax-exempt organization founded in 1999, and is an offshoot of the Center for Democracy Studies, a think tank financed in part by the Nation Institute.
Back in 1996, the Center for Democracy Studies financed a major investigation of the conservative Christian men's organization, the Promise Keepers, and the results of that investigation were published in The Nation. The authors of that report? Joe Conason, Lee Cokorinos, and Alfred Ross. Conason is well-known for his work against Olson. But today, the president of the Institute for Democracy Studies is Alfred Ross and his director of research is Lee Cokorinos. "If Leahy is using material collected by tax-exempt organizations for political reasons, it's something we have to look at. This is outrageous," says the Republican Judiciary Committee staffer. "It's the pot calling the kettle black."
[ Washington Prowler ]
Hanging chads continue dangling in the mind of Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who more than six months after Election Day is calling on all persons with stories pertaining to voting-rights irregularities to call 1-866-512-VOTE.
Last week, the DNC´s Voting Rights Institute held its first hearing in Riviera, Fla., with Mr. McAuliffe and DNC National Development Chairman Maynard Jackson addressing not only voting irregularities, but short- and long-term fixes to voter reform.
"Every citizen of this nation has the right to register to vote, enter a polling place without impediment, cast their vote and have that vote counted," says Mr. McAuliffe, "ensuring that the thousands of voices that were silenced during the last election cycle because their votes were not counted will never have their democracy denied again."
Mr. Jackson was more blunt, calling the Florida hearing the beginning of a nationwide grass-roots movement to guarantee every American the right to vote without being "trampled upon."
Late last week, eight major newspapers completed a review of 171,908 disputed Florida ballots from the 2000 presidential election, finding that George W. Bush would have won a hand recount requested, albeit unsuccessfully, by Al Gore.
[ John McCaslin ]
A spokesperson for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) denied Monday that the senator is planning to leave the Republican Party to join the Democrats. A report in Sunday's Parade Magazine, a Sunday supplement that is distributed to hundreds of newspapers around the country, reported that McCain was planning to switch parties. Appearing on Meet the Press Sunday, McCain said he remains focused on campaign finance reform. He said his bill, which passed the Senate last month, must pass the House in June if it's going to survive. The Senate bill would ban unregulated donations to political parties. It also would raise individual contribution limits from $1,000 to $2,000 a year and restrict certain political advertising paid for by labor, corporate and some advocacy groups.
[ CNSNews.com ]
TCN Comment: McCain is one of many RINO's (Republican in Name Only) in the Senate that really foul the Constitutional plan of government. While the official numbers show a tied Senate, 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, that tie is only in name. Ideologically the count is more like 60 Democrats and 40 Republicans, but the numbers vary depending upon the issue being discussed.
The question remains however why some RINOs remain in the Republican Party. McCain, Jeffords, Chaffee, Snowe and several others calling themselves Republicans is pure political dishonesty. Why do they not switch? That would require a degree of political honesty and it simply is not in the make-up of a RINO.
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