Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Sebelius: Who's up for some "reeducation"?

posted at 8:45 am on August 31, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Sometimes, this administration seems so out of touch with the language of its nation that it borders on parody. Usually, that’s an introduction to a Joe Biden anecdote, but this time the quote comes from Kathleen Sebelius, straight out of the nation’s heartland by geography but more out of the Ivory Tower in practice. Yesterday, when addressing the strong opposition to ObamaCare throughout the nation, Sebelius chalked it up to ignorance and misinformation — and suggested a remedy that sounds as if it came out of Orwell, emphasis mine:

“Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the reform law] and what isn’t,” Sebelius told ABC News Radio in an interview Monday.

With several vulnerable House Democrats touting their votes against the bill, and Republicans running on repeal, Sebelius said “misinformation given on a 24/7 basis” has led to the enduring opposition nearly six months after the lengthy debate ended in Congress.

So, we have a lot of reeducation to do,” Sebelius said.

The administration is particularly concerned about the views of senior citizens – who “have been a target of a lot of the misinformation,” according to the health secretary.

“Re-education” has been a favorite effort by tyrannies over the past century or so, mainly (but not exclusively) communist. The most notorious programs came in China, Cambodia, and Vietnam, the latter of which produced the mass exodus of “boat people” to the US and other countries. “Re-education” has come to mean either brainwashing or intimidation of political dissidents.

In fact, it’s such a notorious term that no one in American politics would be foolish enough to use it, or at least so we thought. Clearly, Sebelius isn’t talking about setting up re-education camps in the Midwest, but it’s about as foolish a term to use as can be imagined in talking about the deep unpopularity of a government program that arguably sets the stage for government control of the health-care sector.

Americans don’t need “reeducation” efforts, and Democrats had just as much time to explain the benefits of ObamaCare as did critics to explain their opposition to it. The reason people don’t like it, and 60% of voters want it repealed, is because it’s a terrible bill that is killing business investment and expansion, as well as grasping unprecedented and unconstitutional power from Americans.

And as for seniors getting misinformation, well, perhaps Secretary Sebelius might want to start her “reeducation” efforts within HHS. Seems as though some of the misinformation has been coming from her own staff.

Update: I had already written the post and the headlines for it when Glenn Reynolds showed that great minds think alike.

Update II: Looks like reeducation will be a tall order, and getting taller:

A new poll shows that public support for health care reform dropped sharply in August – a dagger in Democrats’ hopes that their landmark legislation will help them in November’s midterm.

The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll has support for the bill dropping seven percentage points in August – down to 43 percent – while opposition rose 10 points to 45 percent. That’s the weakest showing since May – and a far cry from the bump proponents had hoped to see as some of the law’s more consumer-friendly provisions kick in.

Democrats said throughout the year-long debate on Capitol Hill that support for the overhaul would increase once the bill passed and Americans were able to take advantage of some of its benefits. But it appears voters’ opinions of the legislation were set more firmly than anyone thought during the bruising political fight.

Better get moving with that brainwashing truth-telling, Secretary Sebelius!

Update III: Think Sebelius will put this on the reeducation curriculum? Naaaaah. (via Guy Benson’s Twitter feed)

Obama's health care law getting less popular

President Obama's health care overhaul is getting less popular as time goes on.

After a slight uptick in June and July, the law's popularity sank to 43% in a Kaiser Family Foundation poll this month, while 45% said they opposed it. Just last month, 50% of Americans favored the law in the same poll.

Only 39% of those polled said the law would make the country better off, down from 43% in July; 37% said it would make the country worse off, up from 35%.

The reason for the increased wrath: Republicans. Some 77% of them now oppose the law, up from 69% the past two months. Among Democrats, 68% favor the law, down from 73% in July.

The law's eroding popularity comes just weeks before some provisions take effect on Sept. 23 -- or, more often, upon insurance companies' new plan years, usually Jan. 1. Those provisions include some that Obama and Democrats in Congress intended as popular, such as letting otherwise uninsured children stay on their parents' insurance plans until they turn 26.

It's been a while since the president had time to tout the law, what with the economy still in the tank and unemployment hovering near 10%. But you can expect him on the health care hustings around Sept. 23.

(Posted by Richard Wolf)

ABC, NPR and PBS Hosts Equate Christian and Muslim Violence

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

There was one thing more than any other that turned this New York, liberal, Jewish, Columbia University graduate student from modern liberalism. It was its use of moral equivalence to avoid confronting evil during the Cold War.

There was a time when liberalism was identified with anti-Communism; the liberal-led Korean and Vietnam Wars were examples. But the Vietnam War led liberals into the arms of the left, which had been morally confused about communism since its inception and had become essentially pacifist following the carnage of World War I.

After the Vietnam War, even liberals who continued to describe communism as evil were labeled "right-wingers" and "Cold Warriors." And the United States, with its moral flaws, was often likened to the Soviet Union. I recall asking the pre-eminent liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., in a public forum in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, if he would say that the United States was a morally superior society to that of the Soviet Union. He would not.

Little has changed regarding the Left's inability to identify and confront evil. And its moral equation of good guys and bad guys was made evident again in recent weeks by hosts on three major liberal networks -- ABC, NPR and PBS.

First, on May 25, PBS host Tavis Smiley interviewed Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the ex-Muslim Somali writer and activist for human, especially women's, rights in Islamic countries. After mentioning American Muslim terrorists Maj. Nidal Hasan (who murdered 13 and injured 30 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood) and Faisal Shahzad (who attempted to murder hundreds in Times Square), this dialogue ensued:

Ali: "Somehow, the idea got into their (Hasan's and Shahzad's) minds that to kill other people is a great thing to do and that they would be rewarded in the hereafter."

Smiley: "But Christians do that every single day in this country."

Ali: "Do they blow people up?"

Smiley: "Yes. Oh, Christians, every day, people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that's what Columbine is -- I could do this all day long. There are so many more examples of Christians -- and I happen to be a Christian.

"There are so many more examples, Ayaan, of Christians who do that than you could ever give me examples of Muslims who have done that inside this country, where you live and work."

Then, on Aug. 22, Michel Martin, host of NPR's "Tell Me More," in discussing whether the Islamic Center and mosque planned for near ground zero should be moved, said this on CNN's "Reliable Sources" with Howard Kurtz:

"Should anybody move a Catholic church? Did anybody move a Christian church after Timothy McVeigh, who adhered to a cultic white supremacist cultic version of Christianity, bombed (the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City)?"

And third, on Aug. 26, ABC "20/20" anchor Chris Cuomo tweeted this to his nearly one million followers:

"To all my christian brothers and sisters, especially catholics -- before u condemn muslims for violence, remember the crusades....study them."

I have known Smiley since the 1980s when we both worked at the same radio station in Los Angeles. He is smart, and he is a gentleman who has accorded me great respect both on his television show and off air.

How, then, does such a man equate Muslims who murder in the name of Islam with Americans who "murder every day," none one of whom commit their murders in the name of Christianity?

How does Martin equate the thousands of Islamic terrorists around the world, all of whom are devout Muslims, with a single American -- one who, in any case, professed no religion, let alone Christianity?

And how does Cuomo claim that Christians cannot condemn Muslims for violence because of the Christian Crusades?

First of all, the Crusades occurred a thousand years ago. One might as well argue that Jews cannot condemn Christian and secular anti-Semitic violence because Jews destroyed Canaanite communities 3,200 years ago.

Second, it is hardly a defense of Muslims to have to go back a thousand years to find comparable Christian conduct.

Third, even then there is little moral equivalence. The Crusades were waged in order to recapture lands that had been Christian for centuries until Muslim armies attacked them and destroyed most Christian communities in the Middle East. (Some Crusaders also massacred whole Jewish communities in Germany on the way to the Holy Land, and that was a grotesque evil -- which Church officials condemned at the time.) As the dean of Western Islamic scholars, Princeton Professor Bernard Lewis, has written, "The Crusades could more accurately be described as a limited, belated and, in the last analysis, ineffectual response to the jihad -- a failed attempt to recover by a Christian holy war what had been lost to a Muslim holy war."

So how did Smiley, Martin and Cuomo make such morally egregious statements?

The answer is not that these are bad people, let alone that they are not repulsed by terrorist violence.

The answer is leftism, the way of looking at the world that permeates high schools, universities, news and entertainment media. Those indoctrinated by leftist thinking become largely incapable of accurate moral judgments: They regarded America and the Soviet Union as morally similar. And today, they claim that people they call "extremists" within Christianity (who are they?) and Islamist terrorists and their supporters pose equal threats to America and the world.

That is how bright and decent people become moral relativists and thereby undermine the battles against the greatest evils -- communist totalitarianism in its time and Islamic totalitarianism in ours.

The only solution is to keep exposing leftist moral confusion. One problem, however, is that in countries without talk radio, an equivalent to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, conservative columnists and a vigorous anti-left political party, this is largely impossible.

The other major problem is that the media that dominate American life have little problem, indeed largely concur, with the foolish and dangerous comments made by their mainstream media colleagues. That is why these comments, worthy of universal moral condemnation, were ignored by the mainstream (i.e., leftwing) media. Instead, they directed mind-numbing attention and waves of opprobrium toward Dr. Laura.

Those who don't fight real evils fight imaginary ones.

We've Strayed So Far!

"On a few articles of more general and necessary use, the suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers. By these operations new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties. Education is here placed among the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal; but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country, and some of them to its preservation. The subject is now proposed for the consideration of Congress, because, if approved by the time the State legislatures shall have deliberated on this extension of the federal trusts, and the laws shall be passed, and other arrangements made for their execution, the necessary funds will be on hand and without employment. I suppose an amendment to the constitution, by consent of the States, necessary, because the objects now recommended are not among those enumerated in the constitution, and to which it permits the public moneys to be applied."
Sixth Annual Message (December 2, 1806) - Thomas Jefferson

"Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled "An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements," and which sets apart and pledges funds "for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense," I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.

The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such a commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress.

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.

A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.

If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and a reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest. "

Veto Message on the Internal Improvements Bill (March 3, 1817) - James Madison

"But, rely upon it, the design to collect an extravagant revenue and to burden you with taxes beyond the economical wants of the Government is not yet abandoned. The various interests which have combined together to impose a heavy tariff and to produce an overflowing Treasury are too strong and have too much at stake to surrender the contest. The corporations and wealthy individuals who are engaged in large manufacturing establishments desire a high tariff to increase their gains. Designing politicians will support it to conciliate their favor and to obtain the means of profuse expenditure for the purpose of purchasing influence in other quarters; and since the people have decided that the Federal Government can not be permitted to employ its income in internal improvements, efforts will be made to seduce and mislead the citizens of the several States by holding out to them the deceitful prospect of benefits to be derived from a surplus revenue collected by the General Government and annually divided among the States; and if, encouraged by these fallacious hopes, the States should disregard the principles of economy which ought to characterize every republican government, and should indulge in lavish expenditures exceeding their resources, they will before long find themselves oppressed with debts which they are unable to pay, and the temptation will become irresistible to support a high tariff in order to obtain a surplus for distribution. Do not allow yourselves, my fellow-citizens, to be misled on this subject. The Federal Government can not collect a surplus for such purposes without violating the principles of the Constitution and assuming powers which have not been granted. It is, moreover, a system of injustice, and if persisted in will inevitably lead to corruption, and must end in ruin. The surplus revenue will be drawn from the pockets of the people--from the farmer, the mechanic, and the laboring classes of society; but who will receive it when distributed among the States, where it is to be disposed of by leading State politicians, who have friends to favor and political partisans to gratify ? It will certainly not be returned to those who paid it and who have most need of it and are honestly entitled to it. There is but one safe rule, and that is to confine the General Government rigidly within the sphere of its appropriate duties. It has no power to raise a revenue or impose taxes except for the purposes enumerated in the Constitution, and if its income is found to exceed these wants it should be forthwith reduced and the burden of the people so far lightened."
Farewell Address (March 4, 1837) - Andrew Jackson

It is believed, however, that the great purposes for the attainment of which the federal government was instituted have not been lost sight of. Intrusted only with certain limited powers, cautiously enumerated, distinctly specified, and defined with a precision and clearness which would seem to defy misconstruction, it has been my constant aim to confine myself within the limits so clearly marked out and so carefully guarded. Having always been of opinion that the best preservative of the union of the states is to be found in a total abstinence from the exercise of all doubtful powers on the part of the federal government rather than in attempts to assume them by a loose construction of the Constitution or an ingenious perversion of its words, I have endeavored to avoid recommending any measure which I had reason to apprehend would, in the opinion even of a considerable minority of my fellow citizens, be regarded as trenching on the rights of the states or the provisions of the hallowed instrument of our Union. Viewing the aggregate powers of the federal government as a voluntary concession of the states, it seemed to me that such only should be exercised as were at the time intended to be given.
Fourth Annual Message to Congress (December 5, 1840) - Martin Van Buren

Glenn Beck Show - August 30, 2010

8/28: How The Media Missed The Message
Glenn Beck Show - August 30, 2010
Thank you all for a truly remarkable and historic weekend. You've seen the newspapers and media coverage of the Restoring Honor Rally, but no one is telling the accurate story. Tonight, Glenn tries to straighten out some of the misinformation that is being spread. You will see photos and hear stories that the media won't cover. However, there is still one thing the media could be right about- that this was just another rally that won't mean anything. You have the power to prove them wrong.
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Glenn Beck's Happy Warriors

Washington, D.C.

Pundits will debate whether the crowd at Glenn Beck's Saturday rally in Washington was the largest in recent political history, but it was certainly among the most impressive.

Mr. Beck is a television host and radio broadcaster with a checkered past and a penchant for incendiary remarks. But if he's judged by the quality of people of all colors that he attracted to the Lincoln Memorial, his stock can't help but rise.

Jason Riley discusses Glenn Beck's rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

One would not be able to find a more polite crowd at a political convention, certainly not at a professional sporting event, probably not even at an opera. In fact, judging by the behavior of the attendees following the event, you'd have a tough time finding churches in which people display more patience as others make their way to the exits.

This army of well-mannered folks that marched into Washington seemed comprised mainly of people who had once marched in the U.S. Army or other military branch, or at least had a family member who had. Perhaps that's not surprising, given that the event was a fund-raiser for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which provides scholarships to the children of elite troops killed in the performance of their duty. The day was largely devoted to expressions of gratitude for the sacrifices of U.S. soldiers, for great men of American history like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and for God.

But it didn't end there. Dave Roever, a Vietnam veteran, offered a closing prayer in which he thanked the Lord for the president and for the Congress. Despite the unpopularity of the latter two, no booing or catcalls could be heard.

Perhaps feeling defensive about how they would be portrayed in media reports, various attendees wore t-shirts noting that they were "Not violent" or "Non-violent." For other participants, there was no need for an explicit message. Relaxed young parents felt comfortable enough to push toddlers in strollers through the crowded areas along the memorial's reflecting pool.

Not only was the rally akin to a "huge church picnic" (in one Journal reporter's description), but one had to wonder if the over-achievers in this crowd actually left the area in better shape than they found it.

After the event, walking from the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool through Constitution Gardens, this reporter scanned 360 degrees and could not see a scrap of trash anywhere. Participants and volunteers had collected all their refuse and left it piled neatly in bags around the public garbage cans. Near Constitution Avenue, I did encounter one stray piece of paper—but too old and faded to have been left that day.

Given the huge representation of military families at the event, maybe it's not surprising the grounds were left ship-shape. A principal theme of the day was that attendees should restore the country by making improvements in their own lives—be the change you wish to see in the world, as Gandhi once put it.

Most of the participants were strictly amateurs in the business of activism. For many, it was their first appearance at a public demonstration. Their strikingly mild-mannered nature might inspire even Mr. Beck to acknowledge that in a crowd estimated at 300,000, the craziest person at the event might have been the one with the microphone. While he admits that he's part entertainer and prone to over-the-top comments, his followers appear to be sincerely responding to his message that Americans need to cling to their best traditions. (Mr. Beck's program appears on the Fox News Channel, which is owned by News Corp., which also owns this newspaper.)

The conservative Mr. Beck's ability to draw this many people to Washington may suggest enormous gains for Republicans come the fall. But the GOP shouldn't expect voters to simply hand them a congressional majority without making them earn it. If pregame chatter and off-season optimism translated into victory, the New York Jets and the Washington Redskins would meet in the Super Bowl every year.

Between Saturday's crowd in Washington and the tea partiers agitating for limited government, we may be witnessing the rebuilding of the Reagan coalition, the "fusion" of religious and economic conservatives that political theorist Frank Meyer once endorsed. Reagan always believed that the Republican Party was the natural home for this movement, but GOP leaders in Washington need to prove they are worthy of it.

Mr. Freeman is assistant editor of the Journal's editorial page.

Monday, August 30, 2010

The Last Refuge Of A Liberal



Friday, August 27, 2010Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed. Just yesterday it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the predicted 40-year liberal ascendancy (James Carville) into a full retreat. Ah, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the "bitter" people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging "to guns or religion or" -- this part is less remembered -- "antipathy toward people who aren't like them."



That's a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.

-- Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt, as represented by the Tea Party movement? Why, racist resentment toward a black president.

-- Disgust and alarm with the federal government's unwillingness to curb illegal immigration, as crystallized in the Arizona law? Nativism.

-- Opposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.

-- Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero? Islamophobia.

Now we know why the country has become "ungovernable," last year's excuse for the Democrats' failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?

Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities -- often lopsided majorities -- oppose President Obama's social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.

What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument. The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card. When the Tea Party arose, a spontaneous, leaderless and perfectly natural (and traditionally American) reaction to the vast expansion of government intrinsic to the president's proudly proclaimed transformational agenda, the liberal commentariat cast it as a mob of angry white yahoos disguising their antipathy to a black president by cleverly speaking in economic terms.

Then came Arizona and S.B. 1070. It seems impossible for the left to believe that people of good will could hold that: (a) illegal immigration should be illegal, (b) the federal government should not hold border enforcement hostage to comprehensive reform, i.e., amnesty, (c) every country has the right to determine the composition of its immigrant population.

As for Proposition 8, is it so hard to see why people might believe that a single judge overturning the will of 7 million voters is an affront to democracy? And that seeing merit in retaining the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions is something other than an alleged hatred of gays -- particularly since the opposite-gender requirement has characterized virtually every society in all the millennia until just a few years ago?

And now the mosque near Ground Zero. The intelligentsia is near unanimous that the only possible grounds for opposition is bigotry toward Muslims. This smug attribution of bigotry to two-thirds of the population hinges on the insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam, a proposition that dovetails perfectly with the Obama administration's pretense that we are at war with nothing more than "violent extremists" of inscrutable motive and indiscernible belief. Those who reject this as both ridiculous and politically correct (an admitted redundancy) are declared Islamophobes, the ad hominem du jour.

It is a measure of the corruption of liberal thought and the collapse of its self-confidence that, finding itself so widely repudiated, it resorts reflexively to the cheapest race-baiting (in a colorful variety of forms). Indeed, how can one reason with a nation of pitchfork-wielding mobs brimming with "antipathy toward people who aren't like them" -- blacks, Hispanics, gays and Muslims -- a nation that is, as Michelle Obama once put it succinctly, "just downright mean"?

The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama over-read his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.

Friday, August 27, 2010

More "Social Justice" Stuff

I went to the AFL-CIO website from a link on a post from GATEWAY PUNDIT. I decided to look into the AFL-CIO website on their "Allied Organizations" link. Among their allies was the American Center for International Labor Solidarity. After going to their mission statement, I found it interesting to see this:







"democracy and social justice"


Ah yes, the good old democracy and social justice


What Exactly Is 'Social Justice'?

This Is Not a Recovery

Op-Ed Columnist By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 26, 2010


What will Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, say in his big speech Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyo.? Will he hint at new steps to boost the economy? Stay tuned.

But we can safely predict what he and other officials will say about where we are right now: that the economy is continuing to recover, albeit more slowly than they would like. Unfortunately, that’s not true: this isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policy makers should be doing everything they can to change that fact.

The small sliver of truth in claims of continuing recovery is the fact that G.D.P. is still rising: we’re not in a classic recession, in which everything goes down. But so what?

The important question is whether growth is fast enough to bring down sky-high unemployment. We need about 2.5 percent growth just to keep unemployment from rising, and much faster growth to bring it significantly down. Yet growth is currently running somewhere between 1 and 2 percent, with a good chance that it will slow even further in the months ahead. Will the economy actually enter a double dip, with G.D.P. shrinking? Who cares? If unemployment rises for the rest of this year, which seems likely, it won’t matter whether the G.D.P. numbers are slightly positive or slightly negative.

All of this is obvious. Yet policy makers are in denial.

After its last monetary policy meeting, the Fed released a statement declaring that it “anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization” — Fedspeak for falling unemployment. Nothing in the data supports that kind of optimism. Meanwhile, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, says that “we’re on the road to recovery.” No, we aren’t.

Why are people who know better sugar-coating economic reality? The answer, I’m sorry to say, is that it’s all about evading responsibility.

In the case of the Fed, admitting that the economy isn’t recovering would put the institution under pressure to do more. And so far, at least, the Fed seems more afraid of the possible loss of face if it tries to help the economy and fails than it is of the costs to the American people if it does nothing, and settles for a recovery that isn’t.

In the case of the Obama administration, officials seem loath to admit that the original stimulus was too small. True, it was enough to limit the depth of the slump — a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office says unemployment would probably be well into double digits now without the stimulus — but it wasn’t big enough to bring unemployment down significantly.

Now, it’s arguable that even in early 2009, when President Obama was at the peak of his popularity, he couldn’t have gotten a bigger plan through the Senate. And he certainly couldn’t pass a supplemental stimulus now. So officials could, with considerable justification, place the onus for the non-recovery on Republican obstructionism. But they’ve chosen, instead, to draw smiley faces on a grim picture, convincing nobody. And the likely result in November — big gains for the obstructionists — will paralyze policy for years to come.

So what should officials be doing, aside from telling the truth about the economy?

The Fed has a number of options. It can buy more long-term and private debt; it can push down long-term interest rates by announcing its intention to keep short-term rates low; it can raise its medium-term target for inflation, making it less attractive for businesses to simply sit on their cash. Nobody can be sure how well these measures would work, but it’s better to try something that might not work than to make excuses while workers suffer.

The administration has less freedom of action, since it can’t get legislation past the Republican blockade. But it still has options. It can revamp its deeply unsuccessful attempt to aid troubled homeowners. It can use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored lenders, to engineer mortgage refinancing that puts money in the hands of American families — yes, Republicans will howl, but they’re doing that anyway. It can finally get serious about confronting China over its currency manipulation: how many times do the Chinese have to promise to change their policies, then renege, before the administration decides that it’s time to act?

Which of these options should policy makers pursue? If I had my way, all of them.

I know what some players both at the Fed and in the administration will say: they’ll warn about the risks of doing anything unconventional. But we’ve already seen the consequences of playing it safe, and waiting for recovery to happen all by itself: it’s landed us in what looks increasingly like a permanent state of stagnation and high unemployment. It’s time to admit that what we have now isn’t a recovery, and do whatever we can to change that situation.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Imam Rauf's Newly Discovered Audio Tapes

Friday, August 20, 2010
From Atlas Shrugs

Steve Emerson has unearthed 13 hours of audio tape of Imam Rauf. Emerson and his team of investigators has spent the past four weeks going through the newly found material. Rauf is a "radical extremist cleric who cloaks himself in sheep's clothing."

Among the revelations Emerson's team will reveal next week -- they found Rauf:

Defending wahhabism - a puritanical version of Islam that governs Saudi Arabia

Calling for the elimination of Israel by claiming a one-nation state, meaning no more Jewish State.

Defending Bin Laden's violence

Demonstrating that there is a lot more to this man than merely a cleric.

The American public now sees the "deception perpetrated by all these Islamic groups that claim they are against violence and terrorism and insist that their rights be respected but in reality are fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood."

Emerson states there is "definitely fraud involved in the entities that Rauf created in the last decade that are co-mingled." Emerson took it to the IRS, who said, "you have a case."

There is intel that the shady developers, the Gamal brothers, will be going to radical Islamic organizations to serve as connectors -- CAIR, MPAC -- so that they do their bidding for the money.

The mosque "is going to be a magnet for radicals." Emerson is not opposed to the building of mosques. He is "opposed to the building of radical mosques." ......"Unfortunately 80% of the mosques in the United States are controlled by the Wahhabists. That's the reality. No one wants to admit it. They're the ones that attract terrorists."

Listen to Emerson here on Bill Bennett (hat tip El Marco)

Terror map

Steve Emerson, head of the Investigative Project, has created a much-needed resource on Islamic terrorism in the USA here. Read this, explore the mosques and understand the fights being waged by concerned Americans against Muslim Brotherhood beachheads under the guise of mega mosque construction.




This is a link to an explanation of the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

Lenders Agree to Prop Up Ailing ShoreBank

By Charlie Gasparino Published May 17, 2010 | FOXBusiness

Some of the nation's largest banks have agreed to contribute enough money to save Chicago-based ShoreBank, the community lender with strong ties to the Obama administration, FOX Business has learned.

The banks have agreed to contribute $140 million to bail out the bank, while the federal government will donate tens of millions more, according to people close to the talks. In addition to major Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs (GS: 148.13 ,+1.03 ,+0.70%), which agreed to contribute $20 million to the bailout effort, as well as Citigroup (C: 3.76 ,-0.04 ,-1.05%) and JPMorgan (JPM: 37.14 ,+0.05 ,+0.13%), General Electric's (GE: 15.03 ,-0.22 ,-1.44%) GE Capital will also contribute $20 million to the rescue effort. All the firms have either received massive government assistance during the financial crisis or, in the case of Goldman Sachs, are facing multiple regulatory investigations into their business practices.

The bailout has been controversial. Senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett served on a Chicago civic organization with a director of the bank, and President Obama himself has singled out the bank for praise in lending to low-income communities.

But the bank has made its share of bad bets, and some of the Wall Street firms that have given money have said they've received political pressure to contribute to the bailout of a business that under normal circumstances would have been left to fail.

It's still unclear how much the federal government will contribute to save the bank because it's unclear exactly how much is needed to save the institution, which without the bailout would have been taken over by the FDIC. An announcement on the bailout is expected Tuesday morning.

ShoreBank of Chicago Said to Be Closed Today by FDIC


ShoreBank Said to Be Shut by FDIC

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will shut down ShoreBank Corp., according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

ShoreBank Corp., the Chicago lender operating under a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. cease-and- desist order for 13 months, will be shut and most of its assets will be bought by Urban Partnership Bank, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Urban Partnership, created to make the acquisition, will keep branches in Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit and continue to focus on low-income communities, the people said, speaking anonymously because the matter is private. Urban Partnership will have Tier 1 capital of at least 8 percent and its chief executive officer will be William Farrow, a former executive at the Chicago Board of Trade and Bank One Corp., they said.

“The good news is that the bank, under this new management, will still be there and serving the South Side community,” said Dory Rand, president of the Chicago-based Woodstock Institute, a non-profit that studies community lending. “They have made the South Side a decent place to live and work and do business.”

Investors include Goldman Sachs Group Inc., General Electric Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and several philanthropic groups, the people said. ShoreBank raised more than $145 million from the firms in May and the funds were placed in escrow pending a decision by the U.S. Treasury to provide another $75 million in bank bailout funds.

Capital Shrinks

The bank kept losing money and the government elected not to provide more capital, people with knowledge of the rescue efforts said. The private capital will now be used for Urban Partnership, the person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

ShoreBank was founded in 1973 in Chicago’s South Side, an area that includes some of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods. The area is also home to enclaves of wealth such as President Barack Obama’s Kenwood neighborhood, close to the University of Chicago.

The bank’s Tier 1 capital shrank to $4.1 million at the end of June from $26.3 million on March 31 and $43.5 million at the end of last year, according to the FDIC. The bank had “engaged in unsafe or unsound banking practices,” the FDIC said in its order last July. In March, ShoreBank was ordered by the FDIC to boost capital within 60 days, a deadline it missed.

ShoreBank posted a $119 million loss in 2009 and a $39.6 million loss in the first half of this year, according to FDIC figures. It had a net loss of $9.3 million in 2008.

Representative Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, said in May that firms that had banded together in an attempt to save ShoreBank were making the investments to gain favor the Obama administration.

To contact the reporters on this story: James Sterngold in New York at jsterngold2@bloomberg.net;

Side Effects: What Obamacare and the Death Star have in Common

Posted August 20th, 2010 at 11:00am

So far, 21 states have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare. As they move forward, it’s worth pondering what would happen to the health care overhaul if they succeed. Could one lawsuit be the proton torpedo that blows up the Obamacare Death Star?

Typically, courts can deem a legislative provision unconstitutional without it spelling doom for the entire piece of legislation. But Obamacare isn’t typical legislation.

Ben Domenech explains: “Most laws of large size and scope have something called a “severability clause” attached to them. Essentially, this means that if one part of a piece of large legislation is ruled unconstitutional by a court, that unconstitutional portion is “severed” from the rest of the bill — the ruling doesn’t stop the rest of the law from being enforced.”

Obamacare doesn’t have a severability clause, most likely due to the hurried manner it which it was rammed through Congress. And that omission constitutes a thermal exhaust port which may allow Jedi—aka, those challenging Obamacare in the courts—to annihilate the Empire’s mothership with just one deftly targeted legal torpedo.

That’s not a given, of course. For example, the Supreme Court could opt to vacate only the individual mandate and directly related provisions, leaving in place the bulk of the law. That would still stick us with a bill that expands Medicaid to cover 16 million more Americans, cuts Medicare spending across-the-board, imposes a slew of new taxes on Americans from every income bracket, and adds billions to the federal deficit.

It’s a scenario only an Emperor could love. Removing only the individual mandate would be disastrous. “The mandate is the only thing which made other anti-market regulatory demands (such as guaranteed issue and community rating) workable for the [insurance] industry,” Domenech notes. “Removing it and leaving other requirements intact would bring the entire insurance industry to the point of collapse.”

In the best case scenario, the absence of a severability clause would bring the entire Obamacare scheme crashing to the ground. That’s not likely. And if the courts remove the individual mandate while leaving all the legislation’s other provisions in place, if could spell doom—not for the Death Star, but for the health insurance industry.

So what’s the best answer? Congress could repeal the whole thing. And they wouldn’t need The Force to do it.

Dem allies deny they've changed their health reform strategy

By Mike Lillis - 08/20/10 06:29 PM ET

Democratic allies on Friday refuted a recent news report that they've shifted their election year health messaging strategy away from a discussion on cost.

The story, reported Thursday by Politico, argued that health reform proponents "are dramatically shifting their attempts to defend health care legislation, abandoning claims that it will reduce costs and the deficit and instead stressing a promise to 'improve it.'"

Citing a recent Powerpoint presentation created by the Herndon Alliance — a health advocacy group comprised largely of Democratic backers — Politico's Ben Smith argued that "Democrats are acknowledging the failure of their predictions that the health care legislation would grow more popular after its passage."

Not so, the Herndon Alliance said Friday.

"The Politico story … is wrong," the group said in a statement posted on its website. "Our research reaffirms that the more the public hears about the specific reforms in the law, the more they like it. And our research finds that there is a need to cut the political flak and give real information to the public."

The Powerpoint slides — based on recent surveys by Democratic pollsters and delivered Thursday to party allies in a private conference call — urged that Democrats touting health reform to voters should "keep claims small … and don't overpromise what the law delivers."

"Let voters know the healthcare law passed!" the presenters suggested.

The slides, Smith wrote, represent a concession "that groups typically supportive of Democratic causes — people under 40, non-college-educated women and Hispanic voters — have not been won over by the plan."

Republicans pounced on the news, with the office of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) pointing to the slides as indication of the Democrats' "dramatic surrender" on healthcare reform.

The Herndon Alliance disagrees.

"Hard-working people are thinking about the economy and just want to know how the law will help them and their families," the group said. "That is what the President and the administration have been doing."

The Alliance is made up of a long list of medical, faith-based and liberal advocacy groups, including MoveOn, the Mayo Clinic, AARP and the National Council of La Raza.

How Can We Eliminate the Deficit?

From Heritage.org

When President Barack Obama was selling his economic stimulus plan to the American people, he promised that, if enacted, the legislation would prevent unemployment from rising above 8 percent. Three billion dollars in Cash for Clunkers bailouts, $10 billion in government union bailouts, $16 billion in Medicaid bailouts, $13 billion in home buyer tax credits, and $814 billion in stimulus act spending later the nation's unemployment rate stands at 9.5 percent. And now the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that number is not going to come down any time soon. Yesterday, the CBO released its 10-year budget baseline predicting that the economy will grow at an anemic 2 percent next year (half the growth rate it predicted last summer) and that unemployment will remain above 9 percent through the rest of this year. And that wasn't even the worst news.

The CBO also said the federal deficit will surpass $1.3 trillion this year, and predicted an additional $6.2 trillion in deficits over the next decade. But even these numbers are too rosy. By law the CBO only analyzes federal budgets as written ignoring almost certain policy changes that include the annual "doc fix" (stopping cuts to doctor's Medicare payments), rising discretionary spending, and tax changes. Using more realistic assumptions, The Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl shows that: 1) annual budget deficits will never fall below $1 trillion and will reach nearly $2 trillion by 2020; 2) the national debt held by the public will pass 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020; 3) by 2020 half of all income tax revenues will go to pay just the interest on our $23 trillion national debt.

Even leftist economists are now admitting that this administration's borrow and spend economic plan has been a complete failure. But instead of cutting their losses, the left wants to double down ... with your tax dollars. Last month, Vice President Joe Biden told ABC News that the only problem with the Obama administration's economic policies was that they failed to spend more and drive us into debt faster. This is insanity. It must stop. To get our country back on the right track The Heritage Foundation's Solutions for America chapter on Reining in Runaway Spending and Deficits recommends:

Stop Digging: Washington should repeal the remaining stimulus funds, which have failed to create jobs and growth. Any new unemployment assistance should be offset by spending cuts elsewhere. Remaining TARP funds should be rescinded before they can be allocated to new spending. Most important, lawmakers must repeal Obamacare, a ticking spending and deficit time bomb.

Rein in Entitlements: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are driving long-term deficit growth. It is impossible to rein in runaway spending significantly without fundamentally reforming these programs.

Enact Spending Caps: Congress should enact a firm cap on the annual increase in total government spending, limited to inflation plus population growth. Lawmakers should exert all effort to keep overall federal spending to less than 20 percent of U.S. GDP, the historical post–World War II average for federal spending.

Empower States: Washington taxes families, subtracts a hefty administrative cost, and sends the remaining revenues back to state and local governments with specific rules dictating how they may and may not spend the money. Instead of performing many functions poorly, Congress should focus on performing a few functions well. Most highway, education, justice and economic development programs should be devolved to state and local governments.

Empower the Private Sector: Anyone who has dealt with the post office or lived in public housing understands how wasteful, inefficient and unresponsive government can be. Government ownership of business also crowds out private companies and encourages protected entities to take unnecessary risks. Any government function that can also be found in the yellow pages may be a candidate for privatization.

Ban Corporate Welfare: Even before the financial bailouts, Washington spent more on corporate welfare ($90 billion) than on homeland security ($70 billion). There is no justification for taxing working Americans to subsidize profitable companies. Lawmakers could start by reforming America’s largest corporate welfare program—farm subsidies, which are overwhelmingly distributed to large, profitable agribusinesses rather than struggling family farmers.

Bring Federal Pay in Line with the Private Sector: Federal employee total compensation—hourly wages plus benefits—is 30 to 40 percent above that of comparable private sector workers. Congress should bring equity to federal pay and align federal compensation with market rates. Doing so would save taxpayers approximately $47 billion a year.

These spending reforms may not be easy, but the alternative—record government debt and historic tax increases—is even worse.

Obamanomics: Touching lives $195,000 at a time

From The Daily Caller


Every time a report on the stimulus bill is released, one can almost hear the sound of ‘Yakety Sax’ playing in the background and the president’s team running around in frantic disarray.

It isn’t simply the absurdity of a recent Government Accountability Report (GAO), finding that each job ‘created’ by the stimulus bill costs an average of $194,213. It’s the fundamental shell game that the administration is playing with the public regarding the numbers, a game that can only be interpreted one of two ways – either the administration itself is inept in their reporting, or they assume the American people are too inept to catch on.

In fact, the jobs reporting has been such a muddled mess, that even liberal media stalwart, MSNBC, couldn’t keep track of their stories earlier in the year. On January 13th, they ran two stimulus related stories, one which touted the White House claim that the stimulus had saved two million jobs, and another which explained why calculating such a number is impossible.

Now however, the GAO report shows that the phrase ‘jobs created’ or ‘jobs saved’ is no longer the term of choice. They have decided to go with – wait for it – ‘lives touched’.

Essentially, we’ve now transitioned from the aforementioned terminology, on to ‘jobs funded’, and eventually landed on something reminiscent of an after school special, ‘lives touched’.

So what exactly defines a touched life?

A spokesperson from the CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company explains:

“Lives Touched” is a figure that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) uses to track the amount of people who have been positively affected by the Recovery Act funds. This total would include people who have been provided full time employment (i.e. saved and created jobs) through the Recovery Act and people who at some point have supported a project funded by the Recovery Act.

In other words, the administration has stumbled upon another way to inflate their job numbers. They were already reporting on those saved or created, but will now include ‘people who at some point have supported a project.’

Additionally, the significance of this coming from a CH2M spokesperson cannot be overstated. According to the Recovery.gov web site, the CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company is listed as having been awarded four of the top ten contracts from stimulus funds; contracts worth over $1.2 billion as of July 30th. The CH2M web site boasts of 4,547 ‘lives touched’ as of March, with only $471 million in contracts. The government web site, based on the four contracts over $1.2 billion, reports a grand total of 2,466 jobs funded. Meaning somehow, someway, the remaining $793 million is being used to touch the lives of 2,081 individuals. That’s $381,347 per touch.

This new accounting system being implemented by the DOE is essentially a cumulative analysis of all individuals who contribute anything to any given project. An overall headcount of sorts. According to reporting instructions for CH2M subcontractors, this constitutes the “total number of workers who have directly charged 1 or more hours of work time to a … contract”. One hour of work and your life has been touched.

Additionally, the report states that, “The lives touched headcount will remain the same or increase over time as new workers become involved with ARRA contracts. The total headcount will never decrease.”


In other words, a temporary, part-time, or seasonal worker can come into a project, work no more than one hour on said project, and that person will continue to appear in the headcount with each report. They will not be removed upon their departure from the project.

None of this comes as a surprise to those monitoring the efforts of the DOE, however. The GAO report lists the department as a high-risk agency due to their history of ‘ineffective oversight and poor management’. The New Mexican reports that, “In reporting statistics for job creation, DOE often reports three different numbers that GAO found confusing and potentially misleading.”

The disparity in the numbers is overwhelming, with the GAO claiming “calculations ranged from about 5,700 jobs to 20,200, depending on the methodology used.”

Frank Munger, who is covering another of the DOE’s projects at Oak Ridge, explains, “Obviously, the job counts done using the “lives touched” method are much, much higher than those that are calculated as full-time equivalents, but it doesn’t appear that DOE has done much to explain the difference in the reports circulating publicly.”

In fact, they not only report these numbers publicly, but fail to provide any context or explanation as to how the numbers were derived.

It’s all part of the overall deception however. The White House continues to throw out random numbers in their quest to convince the public that their behemoth stimulus bill is saving jobs at a massive rate.

Whether it is created, saved, funded, or touched, the Obama administration’s smoke and mirrors tactics continue. Perhaps that will change. Perhaps the American people will see right through these lies.

Perhaps the polls in November will clearly demonstrate how many lives aren’t being touched by the stimulus bill.

Rusty Weiss is a political writer for NewsBusters, and has appeared in the American Thinker, the Daily Caller, and FoxNews.com. He can be reached through his web site: www.mentalrecession.com.

White House’s ‘recovery summer’ could be slipping away

From The Hill

By Dustin Weaver 08/19/10 12:12 PM ET

A new Labor Department report that shows an unexpected jump in jobless claims may be the death knell for the White House’s “recovery summer.”

The Department of Labor announced seasonally adjusted applications for unemployment insurance increased to 500,000 last week, the highest level for the claims since mid-November.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 150 points Thursday morning after the claims report was released.

Jobless claims have increased four of the past five weeks, providing strong evidence that employers aren’t hiring amid the weak economic recovery. The modest job growth in recent months has been reflected in the national unemployment rate, which has held steady at 9.5 percent since June.

The weak job numbers are raising fears that the private sector may actually cut more jobs than it adds in August, which would likely cause the unemployment rate to rise. That scenario would be a political blow to Democrats, who fear Republicans will ride a wave of voter discontent on the economy to majorities in the House and Senate this fall.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in early August showed that two-thirds of voters think the economy has yet to hit rock bottom, and an increase in the unemployment rate would likely reinforce that perception.

The Obama administration had hoped to gain some momentum on economic issues heading into the midterm elections. The White House launched a six-week “recovery summer” campaign in mid-June to tout the achievements of the $787 billion economic stimulus, which officials said saved and created millions of jobs.

But a slew of disappointing economic reports this month have made it difficult for the administration to argue that progress has been made in the effort to bounce back from the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

In early August, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. lost 131,000 jobs in July as the government laid off temporary workers who were hired to conduct the Census. The private sector added a modest 71,000 jobs that month.

Around that same time, the government said the U.S. trade deficit expanded to $49.9 billion in July as exports fell 1.3 percent — the largest drop since April 2009, and a disconcerting sign of weakness in the manufacturing sector.

Meanwhile, the nation’s housing market has remained woeful. Rates on 30-year fixed mortgages dropped to 4.42 percent this week, the lowest level since Freddie Mac began tracking the statistic in 1971. RealtyTrac reported last week that foreclosures in the U.S. topped 300,000 in July, the 17th straight month of declines.

At a backyard roundtable on economic issues in Ohio on Wednesday, President Obama admitted the recovery isn’t happening fast enough.

“We're not going to get all 8 million jobs that were lost back overnight,” Obama said. “It's going to take some time. And a lot of it's sort of like recovering from an illness. You get a little bit stronger each day, and you take a few more steps each day. And that's where our economy's at right now.”

An Associated Press/GfK poll released on Wednesday found that only 41 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s handling of the economy, the lowest level of support yet recorded in the survey.

Indianapolis auto workers drive UAW executives out of meeting

From World Socialist Web Site

By Andre Damon, 17 August 2010

Workers at a General Motors stamping plant in Indianapolis, Indiana chased United Auto Workers executives out of a union meeting Sunday, after the UAW demanded workers accept a contract that would cut their wages in half.

As soon as three UAW International representatives took the podium, they were met with boos and shouts of opposition from many of the 631 workers currently employed at the plant. The officials, attempting to speak at the only informational meeting on the proposed contract changes, were forced out within minutes of taking the floor.

The incident once again exposes the immense class divide between workers and union officials, who are working actively with the auto companies to drive down wages and eliminate benefits.

A vote on the changes was originally scheduled for Monday, but was cancelled by the UAW after Sunday’s informational meeting made it clear that opposition was nearly unanimous. The new contract would, among other concessions, cut wages from an average of $29 an hour to $15.50.

General Motors, the UAW, and the state government have been working to sell the plant to JD Norman Industries, which was demanding the nearly 50 percent wage cuts as a condition for the sale. GM and the UAW are now denouncing workers for opposing the destruction of their living standards.

Workers at Local 23 voted 384-22 in May to reject reopening a previous contract, which had guaranteed that wages would remain intact in the event of a sale. GM first announced its intention to sell the plant in 2007, threatening to close it if it did not find a buyer.

Despite overwhelming opposition by the rank-and-file, UAW executives secretly continued negotiations with JD Norman, which they outlined in a document sent to workers last week.

The meeting Sunday, a video of which was posted on YouTube gives a glimpse of the immense hostility felt by auto workers to the UAW.

“Within five minutes of its start, a loud chorus of autoworkers shouted ‘no,’” reported the Indianapolis Star. “They could be easily heard on the sidewalk outside the union hall. Three UAW officials soon rushed out of the union hall and departed in a Chevrolet Suburban with Michigan license plates.”

UAW Region 3 Director Maurice Davison, clearly shaken up by the event and expressing the general contempt of officials for the membership, told the Indiana Star Press that the incident was a “mob scene.”

As the three UAW officials were leaving the building, workers shouted out, “Take Kennedy with you!” referring to Local 23 president Ray Kennedy, who has supported the plan to reopen the contract.

“No means no and that’s it. We said no. We said no again. We don’t want a contract. Close it,” auto worker Todd New told WTHR, a local television station. “They get their regular pay,” he said, referring to the union officials, “Why do they want to cut ours?”

“No matter how many jobs we will have at this facility, they will be poverty level and many families will have to take advantage of government programs,” added auto worker Carly Burkhart Kirchner.

Auto worker Nick Ellis told local news station WISHTV, “You just can’t live on $15.50 an hour.”

Rebekah Willis, a GM worker for four years, told the World Socialist Web Site that she was not prepared to accept a violation of the earlier contract that explicitly stated that workers’ wages were to be left intact in the event that the plant was sold.

“When we went to negotiations on this contract they knew this place was to be closed or retained,” she said. “This is why in our contract it states ‘upon sale of this facility the buyer will take on the existing contract with union member employees.’ We have held up our end, and now we expect GM to do the same,” she added.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has been instrumental in pushing the sale of the plant, drawing resentment from auto workers that paralleled their anger toward the UAW leadership.

“We’re talking about the governor and also Mo Davison, the director of Region 3 … I want to see both of them take a 50 percent cut in wages and benefits, exactly what they want to hoist on us,” said auto worker Joe Gaw.

Many of the workers currently employed at the plant have been forced to move many times throughout their careers. “You go to another plant, and eight months later they lay you off again,” Pamela Artist, a worker at the plant, told the local news.

Sections of the Local 23 leadership, including bargaining chairman Gregory Clark, expressed opposition to the closure. “We pay the International to represent us, not commit fraud and work against us,” said Clark.

These expressions of opposition, however, are intended to divert the immense opposition among workers into non-threatening channels, while keeping the rank-and-file trapped within the UAW. The fact of the matter is that the actions of the UAW in Indianapolis once again demonstrate that this is a company union that works actively to increase the exploitation of the working class.

The UAW has worked closely with the Obama administration in pushing through a Wall Street-organized restructuring of the auto industry, premised on a drastic lowering in the wages of auto workers. (See “The ‘return of Detroit’: Wall Street celebrates the destruction of workers’ jobs and wages”.)

Earlier this month, incoming UAW President Bob King declared that the UAW is “ready, willing and able to do what it takes” to ensure the success of the Big Three. He concluded, “The 21st-century UAW recognizes that flexibility, innovation, lean manufacturing and continuous cost improvement are paramount in the global marketplace.” In other words, the UAW will directly collaborate with the auto companies to impose poverty wages onto workers to boost the profits of the auto companies.

The explosion at the UAW meeting in Indianapolis is the latest in a series of events exposing the anger that is building up among auto workers. In January, workers at the New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI) plant in Fremont, California clashed sharply with UAW executives after the UAW refused to do anything to prevent the plant from being shut down.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Dems may use food stamp money to pay for Michelle Obama's nutrition initiative

By Russell Berman - 08/14/10 06:00 AM ET
From thehill.com

Democrats who reluctantly slashed a food stamp program to fund a state aid bill may have to do so again to pay for a top priority of first lady Michelle Obama.

The House will soon consider an $8 billion child nutrition bill that’s at the center of the first lady’s “Let’s Move” initiative. Before leaving for the summer recess, the Senate passed a smaller version of the legislation that is paid for by trimming the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.

The proposed cuts would come on top of a 13.6 percent food stamp reduction in the $26 billion Medicaid and education state funding bill that President Obama signed this week.

Food stamps have made multiple appearances on the fiscal chopping block because Democrats have few other places to turn to offset the cost of legislation.

Party leaders raided the budget to find off-setting tax increases and spending cuts to pay for their top legislative priorities, including the roughly $900 billion healthcare law. Congressional pay-as-you-go rules require lawmakers to offset all non-emergency spending.

Democrats have turned to the food stamp program because funding increases enacted in the stimulus package last year were already scheduled to phase out over time. The changes proposed in the state aid and nutrition bills would simply cut off that increase early, in March 2014. Because the cuts would not take effect for more than three years, Democratic leaders have voiced the hope that they will be able to stop them in future legislation.

But House liberals are balking now, saying that while they swallowed the food stamp cuts to pay for urgent funding for Medicaid and teachers, they will not vote for more cuts in the child nutrition bill. In a letter sent this week to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), 106 House Democrats urged the speaker to take the House version of the child nutrition bill, which does not slash food stamps, rather than the Senate version.

“This is one of the more egregious cases of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and is a vote we do not take lightly,” the lawmakers, led by Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said of their vote on the state aid bill.

The House version of the child nutrition bill, authored by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), passed the Education and Labor Committee earlier this year, but lawmakers must find a way to pay for it before it comes to the floor for a vote. “Chairman Miller is working to find other ways to pay for this bill,” a spokeswoman said when asked if cuts to the food stamp program would be used.

A House leadership aide noted that the food stamp decrease approved in the state aid bill will not take effect right away and will leave the program at the same funding level it was at before the stimulus law was signed. “That doesn’t mean many Democrats are not concerned about the issue, but this is a process which gives us time to deal with immediate issues (like jobs) and helping the economy grow, while giving you time to deal with the food stamp issue,” the aide said.

The nutrition bill is clearly a priority for Michelle Obama, who has made a push for healthy eating one of her signature policy issues at White House. When the House version of the nutrition bill won committee approval in July, it marked the first time she weighed in publicly on pending legislation.

The Obama administration has not directly addressed the debate over the food stamp cuts, but it is backing the Senate bill. “We strongly supported the Senate action and look forward to working with the House to get a final bill onto the president’s desk,” an administration official told The Hill.

The $4.5 billion Senate bill would expand eligibility for school meal programs, establish nutrition standards for all food sold in schools and provide a 6-cent increase for each school lunch to help cafeterias serve healthier meals. The $8 billion House version includes more money for expanding access to school lunches for children in low-income households.

The deeper food stamp reductions in the Senate version would set an earlier date — in November 2013 — for eliminating the increased benefits passed last year. A family of four would see their benefit reduced by $59 a month, or about 9 percent. The bill would also cut funding for nutrition education programs aimed at low-income neighborhoods and households.

“It’s very sad. I think it’s just illustrating what dire straits our federal government budget is in,” said Sheila Zedlewski, director of the Urban Institute’s Income and Benefits Center. “It’s unprecedented to raid one safety net program to feed another.”

Saturday, August 14, 2010

The Dodd-Frank Bailout is Already Here

Posted August 12th, 2010
From heritage.org

On July 21, when President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, he promised: “There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period.” How long will this Obama promise last? Well, The New York Times reports today that “the Obama administration on Wednesday pumped $3 billion into programs intended to stop the unemployed from losing their homes,” including a program announced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development that “will draw on $1 billion authorized by the new financial overhaul law.” That’s right. The Dodd-Frank “no more taxpayer-funded bailouts forever” bill is not even a month old, and already President Obama is using it to turn your tax dollars into yet another bailout.

And why is the Obama administration turning to Dodd-Frank bailout funds so soon after passage? Because its original mortgage bailout plan, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), has been a complete failure. Don’t take our word for it. Here are the words (pdf) of Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program Neil Barofsky:

"Unfortunately, HAMP continues to struggle to achieve its original stated objective, to help millions of homeowners avoid foreclosure “by reducing monthly payments to sustainable levels.” Despite a seemingly ever increasing array of HAMP-related initiatives designed to encourage participation in the program, the number of homeowners being helped through permanent modifications remains anemic, with fewer than 400,000 ongoing permanent modifications…and HAMP has not put an appreciable dent in foreclosure filings. Indeed, the number of trial and permanent modifications that have been canceled substantially exceeds the number of homeowners helped through permanent modifications.
...
The American people are essentially being asked to shoulder an additional $50 billion of national debt without being told, more than 16 months after the program’s announcement, how many people Treasury hopes to actually help stay in their homes as a result of these expenditures, how many people are intended to be helped through other subprograms, and how the program is performing against those expectations and goals. Without such clearly defined standards, positive comments regarding the progress or success of HAMP are simply not credible, and the growing public suspicion that the program is an outright failure will continue to spread."

Faced with the utter failure of its TARP funded mortgage bailout, the Obama administration is now turning to the left’s old stand-in for housing market interference: the government-sponsored entities (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae is now working with the National Council of State Housing Agencies to let people buy houses with little or no down payment just like the GSEs did at the height of the housing bubble. And last week, Freddie Mac was also promoting no-down payment loans, this time through an array of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs. All this despite the fact that last week Fannie Mae announced it lost $1.2 billion in the second quarter of this year, and this week Freddie Mac announced a $4.71 billion loss. Both companies were also forced to ask for more Obama bailout cash, including $1.5 billion of your tax dollars for Fannie and another $1.8 billion for Freddie.

No wonder the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill did nothing about Fannie and Freddie; the Obama administration had every intention of continuing to use them to prop up the housing market. These programs will do nothing but delay the inevitable housing market correction. Instead of letting the market sort out what these homes are really worth, the Obama administration is only prolonging economic hardship by making it harder for new home buyers to afford a moderately priced home and making it harder for those who need to move for work to sell their current homes.

As The Heritage Foundation’s Ron Utt has documented, in 2006 (the most recent year for which data are available for the countries being compared), the homeownership rate in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom matched or exceeded that in the United States. But none of these nations possess GSEs dedicated to expanding residential mortgage credit. It is far past time to end taxpayer bailouts, and Fannie and Freddie are one of the best places to start.

Friday, August 13, 2010

THE 2010 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE FEDERAL OASI TRUST FUNDS (SOCIAL SECURITY)

A. HIGHLIGHTS
The report’s major findings are summarized below.

In 2009

At the end of 2009, about 53 million people were receiving benefits:
36 million retired workers and dependents of retired workers, 6 million survivors of deceased workers, and 10 million disabled workers and dependents of disabled workers. During the year, an estimated 156 million people had earnings covered by Social Security and paid payroll taxes. Total expenditures in 2009 were $686 billion. Total income was $807 billion ($689 billion in tax revenue and $118 billion in interest earnings), and assets held in special issue U.S. Treasury securities grew to $2.5 trillion.

Short-Range Results

The assets of the OASI Trust Fund and of the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds are projected to be adequate over the next 10 years under the intermediate assumptions. However, the assets of the DI Trust Fund are projected to steadily decline over the next 10 years under the intermediate assumptions, falling below 100 percent of annual cost by the beginning of 2013 and continuing to decline until the trust fund is exhausted in 2018. Therefore, the DI Trust Fund does not satisfy the short-range test of financial adequacy. The combined assets of the OASI and DI Trust Funds are projected to grow from $2,540 billion at the beginning of 2010, or 355 percent of annual cost, to $3,774 billion at the beginning of 2019, or 309 percent of annual cost in that year under the intermediate assumptions. Combined assets were projected for last year’s report to be 360 percent of annual cost at the beginning of 2010 and 327 percent at the beginning of 2019.

Long-Range Results

Under the intermediate assumptions, OASDI cost generally increases more rapidly than tax income through 2035 because the retirement of the babyboom generation increases the number of beneficiaries much faster than subsequent relatively low-birth-rate generations increase the labor force. From 2035 to 2050, the cost rate declines somewhat due principally to the aging of the already retired baby-boom generation. Thereafter, increases in life expectancy generally cause OASDI cost to again increase relative to tax income, but more slowly than prior to 2035. Annual cost is projected to exceed tax income in 2010 and 2011, to be less than tax income in 2012 through 2014, then to exceed tax income in 2015 and remain higher throughout the remainder of the long-range period. Interest earnings on trust fund assets alone will be sufficient to cover the annual difference between cost and tax revenue until 2025. The dollar level of the Trust Funds is projected to be drawn down beginning in 2025 until assets are exhausted in 2037. Individually, the DI fund is projected to be exhausted in 2018 and the OASI fund in 2040. For the 75-year projection period, the actuarial deficit is 1.92 percent of taxable payroll, 0.08 percentage point smaller than in last year’s report. The open group unfunded obligation for OASDI over the 75-year period is $5.4 trillion in present value and is $0.1 trillion more than the measured level of a year ago. If the assumptions, methods, starting values, and the law had all remained unchanged, the unfunded obligation would have risen to about $5.7 trillion due to the change in the valuation date.
The OASDI annual cost rate is projected to increase from 13.09 percent of taxable payroll in 2010 to 16.73 percent in 2035 and to 17.43 percent in 2084, a level that is 4.12 percent of taxable payroll more than the projected income rate for 2084. For last year’s report, the OASDI cost for 2084 was estimated at 17.73 percent, or 4.39 percent of payroll more than the annual income rate for that year. Expressed in relation to the projected gross domestic product (GDP), OASDI cost is estimated to rise from the current level of 4.8 percent of GDP to about 6.1 percent in 2035, then to decline to 5.9 percent by 2050, and to remain between 5.9 and 6.0 percent through 2084.

Conclusion

Under the long-range intermediate assumptions, annual cost for the OASDI program is projected to exceed tax income in 2010 and 2011, to be less than tax income in 2012 through 2014, then to exceed tax income in 2015 and remain higher throughout the remainder of the long-range period. The combined OASI and DI Trust Funds are projected to increase in dollar level through 2024, and then to decline and become exhausted and thus unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2037. However, the DI Trust Fund is projected to become exhausted in 2018, so some action will be needed in the next few years. At a minimum, a reallocation of the payroll tax rate between OASI and DI would be necessary, as was done in 1994.
For the combined OASDI Trust Funds to remain solvent throughout the 75-year projection period, the combined payroll tax rate could be increased during the period in a manner equivalent to an immediate and permanent increase of 1.84 percentage points,1 scheduled benefits could be reduced during the period in a manner equivalent to an immediate and permanent reduction of 12.0 percent, general revenue transfers equivalent to $5.4 trillion in present value could be made during the period, or some combination of approaches could be adopted. Significantly larger changes would be required to maintain solvency beyond 75 years.
The projected trust fund shortfalls should be addressed in a timely way so that necessary changes can be phased in gradually and workers can be given time to plan for them. Implementing changes sooner will allow the needed revenue increases or benefit reductions to be spread over more generations.
Social Security plays a critical role in the lives of 54 million beneficiaries and 155 million covered workers and their families in 2010. With informed discussion, creative thinking, and timely legislative action, present and future Congresses and Presidents can ensure that Social Security continues to protect future generations.



I was looking at the www.moveon.org website today and saw that they had created a link called "Top 5 Social Security Myths". One of the myths was:
Myth: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.

Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than did 70 years ago.3 What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly--since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half.4 But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.


As you can see from the data below, yes life expectancy did go up, and I'm sure the data looks skewed because many people died when they were very young which decreased the life expectancy back in the thirties.
U.S. Life Expectancy at Birth, by Sex, in Selected Years (in years)

YearsTotalMalesFemales
1929-193159.257.760.9
1939-194163.661.665.9
1949-195168.165.571.0
1959-196169.966.873.2
1969-197170.867.074.6
1979-198173.970.177.6
1989-199175.471.878.8
200377.574.880.1


Source: CRS Report for Congress

However, after looking at some more details from government sources, I discovered something. If you look at the graph below, the number of people who reached the age of 65 years out of a total of 100,000 people back in the thirties was around 57,000 (I took the average of 53,195 and 60,366). But in 2006, the number of people who reached the age of 65 years out of a total of 100,000 people was 83,251. So if you look at it from a percentage point of view, 57% of all people reached the age of 65 back in the thirties and now 83% of people reach the age of 65. That's a big difference! So, as I discovered, there are a lot more people reaching the age of 65 and getting Social Security, and if you look at the number of people who are living longer by looking at more of the data from the link I have below, people are receiving the benefits for a lot longer. For example, the percentage of people who lived to age 90 was 3.4% in the thirties and went up to 21% in 2006. And that not only increases the length of time for Social Security, but also all of the other benefits people get (like health care).














Graph is based on Table 10. Survivorship by age, race, and sex: Death-registration states, 1900–1902 to 1919–1921, and United States, 1929–1931 to 2006.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Center for Health Statistics
3311 Toledo Road
Hyattsville, MD 20782