Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin
of March 15, 2005
ALBERTO GONZALES PROMISES TO DEFEND ROE v. WADE
AS BUSH’S ATTORNEY-GENERAL
"Bush’s Attorney-General-designate, Alberto
Gonzales, one of his most trusted aides over the years, said the
following in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary
Committee: ‘Thank you, Senator. Of course, the Supreme Court
has recognized a right of privacy in our Constitution, and in Roe
the court held that that right of privacy includes a woman’s right
to choose to have an abortion. A little over a decade ago, the
court, in Casey, had an opportunity to revisit that issue.
They made a – they declined to overturn Roe, and of course made
a new standard that any restriction that constituted an "undue
burden" on a woman’s right to choose could not be sustained.
My judgment is that the court has had an opportunity – ample
opportunities – to look at this issue. It has declined to do so.
And as far as I’m concerned, it (Roe versus Wade) is the
law of the land and I will enforce it.’ " Source: Thomas
Droleskey, Ph.D., The Remnant, 2/15/05, pp. 10, 11
CONDI IS LOST AT SEA
"During her confirmation hearings, Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice was asked a question that got lost in the
Barbara Boxer brouhaha: Did the administration favor the
ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST?
"Rice said the administration ‘would
certainly like to see it pass as soon as possible.’ Assuming she
was authorized to say that by President Bush … the question is
why?"
REAGAN SAID NO TO UNLOST, BUT GWB IS PUSHING IT
"LOST was a bad idea when President Reagan
refused to sign it in 1982 and actually fired the State Department
staff members who helped negotiate it. It was drafted at the behest
of Soviet bloc and Third World dictators interested in a scheme to
weaken U.S. power while transferring wealth to the developing world."
TREATY WOULD TURN OVER THE OCEANS TO KOFI ANNAN
AND U.N. JUDGES
"The Convention on the Law of the Sea would
do to our maritime activities – military and economic – what the
ICC would have done to our system of criminal justice: place it
under the thumb of a supranational body, in this case the
discredited and corrupt U.N.
"… LOST would have created an agency to
regulate 70% of the Earth’s surface, placing seabed mining,
fishing rights and deep-sea oil exploration under the control of a
global bureaucracy. Reagan didn’t think the U.S. should be a
part of this global resource grab and redistribution of wealth.
…"
UNLOST WOULD FORCE U.S. NAVY TO TRIM ITS SAILS
"LOST would also crimp our use of naval
power. Signatory Communist China contends, for example, that the
treaty bans an initiative under which we can stop and search ships
on the high seas suspected of transporting WMD on behalf of
terrorists.
"Who’d decide such a dispute? An
international court, of course, specifically a Law of the Sea
Tribunal with power to compel changes in our military and economic
policies. The likes of Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka would have a veto
over our use of the seas."
WHY SHOULD GULLIVER SURRENDER TO THE LILLIPUTIANS?
"When John Kerry declared that U.S. actions
be subjected to a ‘global test,’ Bush rightly responded that our
national security was too important to be left to bodies such as the
United Nations Security Council. So why the administration support
for LOST? Deep-six this treaty, Mr. President." Source: Investor’s
Business Daily editorial, 2/11/05, p. A14
BUSH’S NAVAL REDUCTION BUDGET IS VERY DANGEROUS
"President Bush’s plan for the Navy
calls for buying fewer ships, while China, a potential security hot
spot, is increasing and repositioning its fleet. It’s a
prospect that concerns some lawmakers. …
"The Pentagon says buying fewer ships than
previously planned won’t affect combat ability. Previous
budgets envisioned purchasing six Virginia-class attack submarines,
seven DD(X) destroyers and 10 San Antonio-class amphibious landing
ships through 2011."
DOWN FROM SIX TO THREE SUBMARINES, SEVEN TO FIVE
DESTROYERS, AND ONE LESS CARRIER
"The 2006 budget calls for three submarines,
five destroyers and nine landing ships. It also proposes eliminating
one of the Navy’s 12 aircraft carriers. … The budget calls for
buying fewer planes, ships and submarines in favor of spending more
on counterterrorism."
RED CHINA ADDS, U.S SUBTRACTS
"Republicans and Democrats argued that
cutting back now could jeopardize the Navy’s long-term domination
of the seas, particularly in light of China’s military
improvements. …
" ‘I recognize that our naval fleet still
remains the most technologically advanced in the world. But the
decreasing number of ships being procured, particularly in the light
of the Chinese buildup, really concerns me,’ [Republican Sen.
Susan Collins] said.
" ‘Are you concerned about projections that
the Chinese fleet may well surpass the American fleet in terms of
numbers in just a decade’s time?’
" ‘Senator,’ [Defense Secretary] Rumsfeld
replied, ‘it is an issue that the department thinks about and is
concerned about and is attentive to.’ …
"China has invested heavily in its own
defense in the past few years. Prohibited from buying U.S. and
European arms under an embargo, Beijing purchased at least $13
billion worth of weapons from Russia between 1993 and 2003,
according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
China’s arsenals now are stocked with Russian-made submarines,
destroyers, supersonic fighters and anti-ship missiles, as well as
weapons it increasingly is making on its own.
"CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate
Intelligence Committee this week that China last year increased its
ballistic missile forces and rolled out several new submarines.
‘Improved Chinese capabilities threaten U.S. forces in the region,’
Goss said. … Rumsfeld has said, China is moving its naval vessels
farther from its shores.
"Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., told Rumsfeld
during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday that he
recently returned from China with ‘a big concern’ about the U.S.
fleet after he witnessed China’s naval buildup.
" ‘We looked at their steel mills,’
Forbes said. ‘They’re throwing out steel as fast as you can
watch it; running it 24 hours a day.’ " Source: NewsMax.com
Wires, 2/18/05
Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin
of May 31, 2004
WHY DOES PRESIDENT BUSH USE YOUR TAX DOLLARS TO
FUND PRO-ABORTION ACTIVISTS?
"FRC [the Family Research Council] has
learned that three government agencies are promoting the abortion
industry at a conference this summer in Washington D.C. with you
and I picking up the tab. As another slap in the face to pro-life
Americans, the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the
Center for Disease Control (CDC) are ‘platinum sponsors’ for
the ‘Youth and Health: Generation on the Edge’ conference,
featuring the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and MTV. …
"[T]he government is rolling out the red
carpet for these groups and MTV to hold sessions on: ‘working with
a faith-based organization to improve adolescents’ access to
sexual and reproductive health services,’ sexual and reproductive
health for pre-adolescent girls, and ‘young people creating
animated films on sex and sexuality for use in schools and the
community.’ I wonder if MTV will have Janet Jackson speak to the
young people about modesty." Source: Tony Perkins, Washington
Update, 4/15/04
BUSH WILL SEND MORE DUAL-USE HIGH TECH TO RED
CHINA’S PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY
On April 28, "Following a meeting in
Washington with Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi, U.S. Commerce Secretary
Donald Evans promised to ease curbs on exports of computers and
other technologies that could be used in Chinese weapons systems,
reports Charles Smith in NewsMax.com. Smith warns that the
curbs could jeopardize U.S. and East Asian security because, as
stated in a February 2004 U.S. General Accounting Office [GAO]
report, China does not adhere to treaties it has signed on ‘dual
use’ equipment. According to the GAO, Beijing continues to violate
provisions, such as permitting inspections to verify that exported
equipment is not being used for military purposes." Source: Al
Santoli, China Reform Monitor, 5/13/04
Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin
of December 31, 2003
IS IT TIME TO BRING BACK GRIDLOCK?
In an editorial page column for Investor’s Business Daily (11/26/03, p.
A14), Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis,
advocates the defeat of George Bush and the election of a Democrat to the White House in
2004 as a way of restoring fiscal soundness to the U.S. government’s policies.
"On Jan. 23, 1996, Bill Clinton told the nation, ‘The era of big government
is over.’ If so, it sure didn’t last very long. Today, the era of big
government is back with a vengeance, ushered in by a massive new prescription drug
entitlement, a pork-laden energy bill of grotesque proportions…."
GOP CONTROL OF WHITE HOUSE AND CONGRESS
HAS MOVED U.S. LEFT
"What few people, including myself, ever thought would happen was that this new
era of big government would be implemented by Republicans controlling both Congress and
the White House. It makes me long for the good old days of gridlock."
BILL CLINTON AND GOP CONGRESS LEFT A $200
BILLION BUDGET SURPLUS
"In his new book, ‘In an Uncertain World,’ former Treasury Secretary Bob
Rubin extols the Clinton administration’s fiscal record. He correctly notes that the
federal budget deficit was close to $300 billion when Clinton took office and had a
surplus of more than a $200 billion when he left. …
"[I]it was the combination of the two – a Democratic White House and a
Republican Congress – that was really responsible for the budgetary turnaround. Each
side was checked from enacting new spending programs. The result was that the budget was
virtually on automatic pilot for most of the Clinton administration.
"[A] number of economic conservatives suggested in 2000 that the best electoral
outcome for growth and the stock market would be Al Gore as president with the GOP
retaining control of Congress.
"As financial columnist Daniel Kadlec wrote: ‘The Dow has fared best when
one party has controlled the White House and the other has controlled Congress, the
optimum formula being a Democratic president and a Republican Congress. That combo has
produced Dow gains, excluding dividends, of 10.7% a year.’ …
"The only people who really oppose gridlock are political scientists and party
activists, who decry it as a barrier to ‘getting things done.’ A new book by
Brookings Institution scholar Sarah Binder, ‘Stalemate,’ lays out the case
against gridlock on these grounds.
"The problem is that getting things done is usually a bad thing. All of our
nation’s entitlement programs, for example, were enacted when one party controlled
all the elected bodies of the federal government. Social Security came under Franklin
Roosevelt and a Democratic Congress in the 1930s, Medicare under Lyndon Johnson and a
Democratic Congress in the 1960s, and now a prescription drug entitlement under George
Bush and a Republican Congress. Our grandchildren’s grandchildren will be paying
higher taxes for this latest elderly vote-buying scheme when everyone who supported it is
long dead.
"The simplest way of restoring gridlock would be to elect a Democrat as president
next year."
BUSH PROPOSES AND SIGNS INTO LAW A $500
BILLION ONE-YEAR DEFICIT
The Debt to the Penny
| 10/31/2003 |
$6,872,675,839,106.67 |
| 10/30/2003 |
$6,860,382,879,862.78 |
| 10/28/2003 |
$6,850,042,548,549.47 |
| 10/24/2003 |
$6,847,437,986,849.37 |
| 10/22/2003 |
$6,834,787,133,873.25 |
| 10/14/2003 |
$6,816,232,489,123.39 |
Source: Public Debt at Treasury
"A liberal is someone who feels a great
debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money." G. Gordon
Liddy
Source: NotableNewsNow@freecongress.org, 11/4/03 |
"The deficit, projected a few months ago to be around $475 billion for the
fiscal year that started on Oct. 1, now seems likely to hit $500 billion, up from $374
billion last year. The White House’s goal of cutting it at least in half within a few
years will be hard to achieve despite the economic rebound and the growth in tax revenue
it is expected to generate, budget analysts in the government and on Wall Street say.
"Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Bush administration official who is now director of
the Congressional Budget Office, said bringing the deficit down to some $250 billion in
the next five years ‘is going to be very hard to do’ even if the economic
recovery remains strong and unemployment falls sharply.
" ‘The thing I would caution is that the economic growth is not going to be
enough’ to solve the fiscal problem, Mr. Holtz-Eakin said in an interview. …
" ‘I would be in favor of the administration being much tougher, taking
the toughest possible stance on fiscal discipline,’ said the chairman of the House
Budget Committee, Representative Jim Nussle of Iowa."
UNCLE SAM SPENT $20,301 OF YOUR MONEY IN
FY 2003
"Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said
government spending per household in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 was $20,301
– the highest level since World War II, he said, even after adjustment for
inflation. (His analysis showed that the figure peaked in 1944 at $26,445, as measured
in current dollars.)"
MOST OF THE BUDGET-BUSTING EXPENDITURES
ARE NON-MILITARY
"Though the administration has said the spending increases are largely a result of
a need to strengthen the military and protect against terrorism at home, most of the new
spending since 2001, 55 percent, has gone to programs with no link to national security,
Mr. Riedl said."
TAX AND TAX, SPEND AND SPEND, ELECT
AND ELECT?
" ‘The Republican Party,’ he said, ‘has grown addicted to
federal spending as a means to re-election.’ …
"In the long run, the government faces rising interest costs from the increasing
level of debt it is amassing. (Debt held by the public, the portion of the total national
debt generated by year-to-year budget deficits, currently stands at around $4 trillion.)
Only a few years ago, when the nation was awash in budget surpluses, both parties pledged
to pay off the debt held by the public. Such a step would have made it easier for the
government to address a problem now just over the horizon: the prospect that Social
Security and Medicare will not be able to pay full benefits to the baby boomers as they
retire." Source: Richard Stevenson and Edmund Andrews, The New York Times,
11/29/03, p. A10
BIG GOVERNMENT BUSH PUSHES MASSIVE
EXPANSION OF FEDERAL LEVIATHAN
Table 1. Spending by
Department |
Percent Change in Real
Outlays in First Three Years |
Department |
Reagan |
Bush |
| Agriculture |
-13.2% |
8.5% |
| Commerce |
-29.0% |
9.6% |
| Defense |
18.6% |
27.6% |
| Education |
-21.8% |
60.8% |
| Energy |
-19.6% |
22.4% |
| Health & Human Services |
9.0% |
21.4% |
| Housing & Urban Dev. |
-3.7% |
6.1% |
| Interior |
-4/6% |
23.4% |
| Justice |
1.2% |
11.0% |
| Labor |
-29.4% |
56.0% |
| State |
9.5% |
32.5% |
| Transportation |
-13.0% |
-1.3% |
| Treasury |
31.1% |
-7.0% |
| Veteran Affairs |
-3.9% |
29.4% |
| Total Outlays |
6.8% |
15.6% |
Sources: Budget of the
U.S. Government and Mid-Session Review for FY2004 |
"The administration recently released its mid-session review of the federal
budget for fiscal 2004, The new data reveal that discretionary outlays will rise a
stunning 16.9 percent in FY2003, having risen 13.1 percent in FY2002.…
"[O]ne way to evaluate fiscal priorities is to compare budgets as originally
proposed by Reagan and Bush. In each of Bush’s three budgets, he has proposed
increases in total federal outlays above baseline levels. In his FY2002 budget, he
asked for $43 billion over 10 years to ‘reform’ education and $153 billion over
10 years to ‘reform’ Medicare. He got his big education increase, and his FY2004
budget pushed up his Medicare request to $400 billion. …"
REAGAN TWENTY-TWO, BUSH ZERO
"Bush has not vetoed a single spending bill during his tenure in office. Instead,
he has signed every bill crossing his desk including huge education and farm subsidy
bills. By contrast, President Reagan vetoed 22 bills during his first three years in
office.
"Bush has also benefited from a more favorable party arrangement in Congress
than Reagan. Although Republicans controlled the Senate during Reagan’s first
term, Democrats dominated the House. Bush has had a GOP-controlled House and Senate (with
the exception of the period from mid-2001 to the end of 2002). … Unfortunately, Bush
has thus far shown no leadership on spending reform even though he enjoys strong
support from the majority in Congress." Source: Veronique de Rugy and Tad DeHaven,
Cato Institute’s Tax & Budget Bulletin, August 2003
USAID’s PRO-SODOMY, PRO-PROMISCUITY
SUBSIDIES CONTINUED BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION
"For the past several years, USAID, run by the U.S. State Department, has
awarded multimillion dollar grants to promote homosexuality and promiscuity to teens
throughout Central and South America, and Africa.
"In USAID-funded programs throughout Central America, children and teens are
targeted with pamphlets and advertisements of colored and flavored condoms which depict
the faces of young boys and children as young as seven years of age (cf. Y, Como No
se Pasa, Fundacion Fomento en Salud, Honduras)."
AN ASSAULT ON CHRISTIAN MORALITY FUNDED
WITH YOUR TAXES
"USAID-funded condom billboards appear in newspapers and on billboards overseas,
in violation of local laws which require information about risks. In family planning
clinics throughout Central America and Africa, IUDs and Depo-Provera are promoted to teens
and women without adequate information about risks, in violation of informed consent
provisions of U.S. law. In Honduras, IUDs are provided to anemic women without
informed consent, and massive sterilization programs are promoted in government
hospitals."
WHY DOES BUSH FUND PRO-HOMO PROPAGANDA?
"In Honduras, a USAID manual titled, Speaking About Sexuality With Young People,
is aimed at getting ‘boys and girls’ to ‘acknowledge the existence of
homosexuality in the population.’
"According to this USAID manual, promoted in schools throughout Honduras,
homosexuality fulfills an important role in the sexual socialization of youngsters.
‘Youngsters today have to recognize the existence of male and female
homosexuality.’ "
TEN-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN ARE MENTALLY
SODOMIZED
"In a section of the manual titled ‘Talking About Sexuality With
Youngsters,’ teachers are encouraged to ask ten-year-old children: ‘If you have
never had sex with a person of the same sex, how do you know if you would prefer it?’
Homosexuals such as Oscar Wilde are promoted as heroes, and photos of transvestites are
provided to children."
A BIPARTISAN RAPE OF THE INNOCENT
"The manual is part of USAID’s AIDSCAP program, implemented in over 30
developing countries by highly funded population control groups including Family Health
International (FHI).
"FHI is one of USAID’s oldest and most highly funded population control
NGOs. According to USAID, FHI ‘improves reproductive health’ among people
ten to 24 years old (HIV/AIDS Partnerships, USAID, Global Health Bureau). FHI
also promotes programs designed to provide lubricants for men who have sex with other men
(‘HIV/AIDS Interventions With Men Who Have Sex With Men,’ Family Health
International, 2003)."
BUSH AND CONGRESS HAVE FUNDED FHI –
THEY CAN STOP IT
"Most people would agree that promoting homosexuality and distributing graphic
sexual material to children as young as ten years old is wrong. Most taxpayers would be
alarmed to know that U.S. funds are paying for these programs. But FHI has been
aggressively promoting sexual material, including material on homosexuality, to children
for years.
"In 2001, FHI received $85 million from USAID to promote sex education to
children and teens (‘USAID Award to FHI Promotes Youth Reproductive Health,’
Family Health International, October 2, 2001). FHI’s program, titled YouthNet,
provides IUDs, contraceptive pills, and Depo-Provera to children as young as ten years old
in developing nations. Post-abortion care (a euphemism for manual vacuum abortion) is also
available to children."
NEW WORLD ORDER AGENDA IS DERIVED FROM
KARL MARX’S HATRED OF WESTERN CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION
"USAID’s YouthNet program is designed to destroy genuine faith-based
abstinence initiatives, and integrate programs for teens and children into
already-existing adult HIV/AIDS/Sexual and Reproductive Health programs throughout the
world. Where genuine faith-based groups strive to promote abstinence to teens, FHI seeks
to ‘go beyond traditional children’s religious education to address sexual
behaviors explicitly’ (‘Faith-Based Programs for Youth,’ Family Health
International, 2003)." Source: Steven W. Mosher, The Wanderer, 8/14/03, p. 9
SPENDING, REGULATION, AND TAXES UP UNDER
BUSH
"With friends like conservative gadfly Grover G. Norquist, President Bush may not
need to worry so much about his enemies. Norquist’s anti-tax group, Americans for Tax
Reform, has declared today ‘Cost of Government 2003,’ that is, as of July 11,
average workers have earned enough money to pay off their share of state, local and
federal government spending, as well as the regulatory costs that governments impose on
the economy.
"Here’s the surprising catch: Last year, a worker’s freedom came 4½
days earlier. In fact, according to the group, each year that Bush has been in office,
government costs have risen sharply, after falling steadily during the eight years
President Clinton was in office. Since 2000, federal spending has shot up 12.4 percent,
while regulatory costs have climbed 8.4 percent." Source: Helen Dewar, Politics, The Washington Post, 7/11/03, p. A6
NIH MAKES 3 GRANTS FOR STEM CELL STUDIES
"Saying the research offers huge potential, the U.S. government announced three
small grants yesterday for researchers to examine human embryonic stem cells.
"Work using the cells is controversial because opponents say it is unethical to
work on human embryos, however tiny. President Bush agrees and has strictly limited
federal funding for the work to batches of cells that existed as of August 2001.
"The National Institutes of Health announced it was giving $6.3 million over three
years to three centers to work on their stem cells – the University of
Wisconsin’s WiCell Institute; the University of Washington at Seattle and the
associated Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; and the University of Michigan Medical
School." Source: The Washington Post’s Washington
in Brief, 9/30/03, p. A4
Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of
April 30, 2003
BUSH STEPS UP IRS ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS
"President Bush’s nominee to head the Internal Revenue
Service [Mark W. Everson] yesterday pledged, as have many IRS commissioners before him, to
step up enforcement of the nation’s tax laws and to continue modernizing the
agency’s computer systems. …
"Although the IRS has about 100,000 employees and an annual budget that will top
$10 billion if the administration’s current request is approved, [previous IRS
Commissioner Charles O.] Rossotti said late last year that 60 percent of identified tax
debts are not pursued, 75 percent of taxpayers who did not file a return are not pursued,
79 percent of those who used abusive devises such as offshore bank accounts to hide income
are not pursued. And the agency’s statistics show that the chances of being audited
have fallen to around 1 in 200 for individuals.
"Everson accused accountants and lawyers of contributing to the decline in tax
compliance, and he promised to put pressure on them." Source: Albert Crenshaw, Washington
Post, 3/19/03, p. A4
Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy
Bulletin of July 15, 2002
Action Item: Call/write/email
your Congressman and Senators, opposing Fast Track
FAST TRACK IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
"It is the Constitution that sets us apart from other nations,
not the fact that we have elections. If it is routinely violated, then we become no
different from any other country. Our lives and our liberty will then exist, in reality,
only by the leave of the government – not as the Founding Fathers believed and
intended, because we have God-given rights no government on Earth can legitimately take
away from us.
"A keystone of that Constitution, designed to ensure the liberty of the people,
was the principle of separation of powers. The Constitution denies the president the
power to set trade policy; it denies the president the power to commit this nation to
war; and it denies to all but Congress the power to coin money and set its value."
BUSH AND CONGRESS HAVE BETRAYED THE
CONSTITUTION
"But what is the reality? Despite the many wars this country has
fought, there hasn’t been a declaration of war by Congress since 1941. The power
to set trade policy is handed over to the president with fast-track legislation. The
power to coin money and set its value has been delegated to a private central bank,
deliberately mislabeled as the Federal Reserve System. The American people have, in
reality, been betrayed by the people they elected, who have in turn betrayed their oath of
office – which is to the Constitution, not to the party or the president."
FREE TRADE IS A FALSE FLAG
"What fast track does is authorize the executive branch to
negotiate a multi-thousand-page document of special-interest trade deals that Congress
must then vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on without alteration or amendment.
It parades under the false banner of free trade, which is a code name for corporate
colonialism."
THE REVENUE TARIFF KEPT AMERICA
FREE UNTIL 1913
"True free-trade legislation could be written on one page. It
would simply say that tariffs are designed to produce revenue and therefore the tariff on
all imports is such and such a percentage. What these 20,000-page so-called free-trade
documents contain are myriad special trade deals negotiated in secret for special-interest
groups, inevitably at the expense of those with less political and monetary clout. It is
managed trade, not free trade, and it has already destroyed hundreds of thousands of
American jobs. If this practice is allowed to continue, America will end up with a rich
aristocracy, a large class of urban peasants working for subsistence, and a middle class
so small as to be virtually invisible." Source: Northwest Arkansas Times,
5/31/02 Charley Reese, King Features Syndicate
BUSH INCLUDES PSYCHIATRIC
COUNSELING AND DRUG SUBSIDIES IN HIS SOCIALIZED MEDICINE AGENDA
Action Item: Call/write/email your
Congressman and Senators, opposing Mental Health Parity.
Joel Skousen writes (World Affairs Brief, 5/3/02) that "In
another move destined to vastly increase Americans’ use of psychotropic drugs
like Ritalin and Prozac, President George Bush has announced his support for the
concept of a mandated Mental Health Parity law. Currently, even with huge increases in the
use of these drugs, which supposedly suppress hyper, erratic or depressed behavior, there
is considerable resistance to their use – mainly because they are not covered by
insurance."
YOUR TAXES AND YOUR MEDICAL COSTS
WILL RISE
"This type of law would mandate that private insurers
accept claims for mental health as well as physical health. Broadly defined, as
mental health practitioners demand, mental health can encompass almost anything. It is
a Pandora’s box which will lead to huge increases in the cost of insurance, which
when passed on to company benefit plans, will undoubtedly leave less money available for
legitimate physical ailments. Proponents counter that costs have not risen in states
that have passed mental health parity insurance laws on their own – but they fail to
mention that this happens because states cut back on other benefit programs in
anticipation of the increases in costs due to mental health coverage. Like any other form
of broadly defined and distributed benefit, once people learn they can tap professional
services (at someone else’s expense) for every emotional and mental aberration they
experience, costs will exponentially increase – creating a demand for other
draconian legislative edicts later on. …"
A BRAVE NEW WORLD –
BUSH’S DRUG WAR ON AMERICA
"Of greater concern to those of [us] who recognize the existence
of conscience, is the knowledge that psychotropic drugs suppress that central portion of
the brain which picks up the subtle signals of conscience. As a result, people on
psychotropic drugs become desensitized to that key source of divine guidance and warning
which helps guard against actions and attitudes that lead to mental problems, and which
prompts people to do what is right. This desensitization is dangerous to a person’s
spiritual health, as spiritual evil can induce increased melancholy and resistance to
beneficial change. It is no wonder that there is a high correlation between
suicide and the long-term use, or sudden disuse, of these mind-altering drugs. If
you or your children are on these drugs, get off of them as soon as possible, being
careful to guard against their powerful after-effects. It seems that the only ones
fighting this battle on ideological grounds are those parents whose children have been
victims of the damaging effects of these drugs – a growing lobby. The rest of us need
to get on the bandwagon too."
Related Info: Psychiatry & Psychology are
Frauds Psychology + Rats = Nuts!
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ASHCROFT ENDORSES BRADY BILL
Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, asks "If
the Bush Administration is so gung-ho for gun rights, why are they going against an
overwhelming majority of the American people and the Airline Pilots Association by
opposing the right of pilots to have firearms and to serve as the last line of defense in
the battle against terrorism in the skies?
"And why is Attorney General Ashcroft backpedaling on the remarks he made that the
Second Amendment was intended to protect the right of individuals, not just militias, to
keep and bear arms?
"In a recent interview on Larry King, John Ashcroft said ‘Reasonable
regulations regarding the ownership of weapons are appropriate’ and [the Brady
restrictions] are reasonable regulations, and they’re to be defended [by the Bush
Administration].
"The Administration also stated that our individual gun rights are ‘subject
to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons
or to restrict possession of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse.
"So who are ‘unfit persons’? Airline Pilots? Teachers? Residents of
Washington, D.C.? Right now, all three groups of people are, apparently, unfit to carry
firearms for their self-defense. …
"I hate to say it but I am beginning to question the depth of support this
Administration really has for our gun rights." [Undated]
ARE TECH TRANSFERS TO RED CHINA
WORSE UNDER BUSH?
"The Bush administration has been ‘as bad, if not
worse’ than the Clinton administration when it comes to the transfer of sensitive
technologies to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), claims Tom Fitton,
president of Judicial Watch, a nonpartisan public-interest law firm. Fitton says the
Bush administration even has ‘relaxed the rules put in place during the Clinton
years.’ Specifically, he tells Insight, the administration has allowed the
transfer of ‘computer technology [whose] only practical purpose is for nuclear-weapon
design.’ Fitton says that from the beginning the administration went ‘full-speed
ahead’ with China trade and efforts to get the PRC into the World Trade Organization
(WTO), which Fitton tells Insight only gives China more opportunities to modernize
its military and ‘get cash’ with which to buy high-tech weapons elsewhere."
DUBYA BUSH OPENS WIDER BILL
CLINTON’S BARN DOOR
"While few have gone so far as Fitton with such complaints,
criticism of U.S. transfers of sensitive technology to China is growing. Accuracy in
Media, another Washington watchdog group, echoes Fitton on computer-technology
transfers: ‘President Bush seems to have no clearer vision of what constitutes a
strategically sensitive export than did Clinton. For example, Republicans harshly
condemned Clinton for exporting high-performance computers to China, but President Bush
has more than doubled the control threshold on these computers despite existing
intelligence estimates that demonstrate how China’s national security benefits from
such acquisitions.’
"Indeed, in his last days as lame-duck president Clinton made exports of U.S.
supercomputers easier by raising the export threshold from 28,000 millions of theoretical
operations per second (MTOPS) to 85,000 MTOPS. Bush raised that limit to 190,000 MTOPS.
A General Accounting Office (GAO) official tells Insight that the government
hadn’t done the necessary pre-export analysis and that an ‘interagency
process’ led by the Department of Defense should be in place for export
controls."
NATIONAL SECURITY IMPLICATIONS SET
ASIDE WITHOUT REVIEW
"An April 2002 report by the GAO on computer-chip technology
transfers to China claims that the government did not do an adequate analysis of the
cumulative national-security effects of chip exports to China either, and that most export
applications are simply approved. The policy is to approve applications unless it is
shown that the items in question ‘would make a direct and significant contribution to
electronic and antisubmarine warfare, intelligence gathering, power projection and air
superiority.’
"Never mind that, as a Pentagon official told the GAO, these chips can be used
to improve China’s capabilities for pre-emptive long-range precision strikes,
information dominance, command and control and integrated air defense. …"
TOP DOD OFFICIAL UNDER GWB LOBBIED
FOR LORAL UNDER CLINTON
"The administration is known to be full of Cold Warriors, and the
Pentagon is led by Donald Rumsfeld, the most hawkish secretary of defense since Caspar
Weinberger. Yet Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, in his former role as a
private-sector attorney, helped move technology transfers as a lawyer for Loral Space
& Communications Ltd., one of the two U.S. companies (the other one being Hughes
Electronics Corp.) that contributed to the dramatic improvement of Chinese space-launch
and satellite capabilities after large contributions to Clinton Democrats. When contacted
by Insight, Feith’s office would not address the technology-transfer
issue."
CLINTONISTAS BLOCKED ISRAELI TECH
AID TO BEIJING; GWB LOOKS THE OTHER WAY
"Fisher, who is editor of the Jamestown Foundation’s
fortnightly China Brief, also gives credit where one wouldn’t expect it.
‘For all of its actions that aided the transfer of dual-use technologies that helped
PLA [People’s Liberation Army] modernization, the Clinton administration did
endure a political storm to stop Israel’s sale of the advanced PHALCON aerial radar
to the PLA. The Bush administration has said little to nothing about Israel’s
more recent sale of communication satellites to the PRC, which definitely will be used by
the PLA, or about the much more serious threat of Russian weapons and military-technology
sales to the PRC.’ …"
RED CHINA MILITARY GETS HELP FROM
PUTIN AND BUSH
"A Republican national-security analyst with whom Insight
spoke insists the Chinese can get cutting-edge military technology, such as information
warfare and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons from Russia. This defense analyst
expresses concern that China could, using the best of Russian and U.S. technology, one day
surpass both the United States and Russia in high-tech weaponry." Source: Zoli Simon,
insightmag.com/news, posted 7/8/02
ESSENTIAL DEFENSE SPENDING IS CUT
WHILE PENTAGON BUDGET GROWS
James Dao and Thom Shanker write (New York Times, 2/5/02, p. A20)
that "If approved by Congress, Mr. Bush’s request would be the largest military
spending increase in 20 years, raising the Pentagon budget to $379 billion. But most of
that growth, the officials said, would go toward what they called must-pay bills,
including $14 billion for rising health-care costs and salaries, $6.7 billion for
inflation costs on existing programs and $19 billion for the war on terrorism.
‘We could not do all of the things we wanted to do in certain areas,’ the
Pentagon comptroller, Dov S. Zakheim, said. The financing mismatch is widely expected to
be a major theme of the testimony that Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, will present to Congress this week. According to a statement delivered to
Capitol Hill for review on Friday, General Myers contends that the armed services need
to spend $100 billion to $110 billion a year ‘for several years’ to replace
fighter jets, ships and other weapons that should be retired."
PROCUREMENT DEFERRED
" ‘We cannot continue to defer procurement as we did over the
last decade,’ General Myers plans to tell the Senate, according to a copy of his
prepared testimony. ‘We must accelerate the replacement of aging systems if we are
to sustain our capability to meet near-term challenges and all of our 21st-century
commitments.’…
"President Bush’s plan, which calls for spending more than $2 trillion
on the military in the next five years, would not reach the levels cited by General
Myers until near its end. Under Mr. Bush’s proposal, procurement spending –
weapons purchases – would grow to about $70 billion next year, from $61 billion, and
steadily climb to $99 billion by 2007. …
U.S. NAVY IS ANNUALLY DIMINISHED
"The budget would also not buy enough new ships, as was advocated
in last fall’s Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon’s budget and strategy
guide, which is issued every four years, officials said."
GWB’s "PROJECT SAFE
NEIGHBORHOODS" IS AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL ASSAULT ON THE 2d AMENDMENT
"As Project Safe Neighborhoods, the centerpiece of
President Bush’s crime fighting program, comes into effect, a new study from the Cato
Institute finds that it is unconstitutional, wreaks havoc on federal courts, allows
prosecutorial mischief affecting the racial composition of juries, and will likely lead to
a mindless ‘zero tolerance’ policy for technical infractions of gun laws.
The report also shows that Second Amendment rights groups, including the National Rifle
Association, are wrong to support the plan."
FEDERAL PROSECUTION OF STATE AND
LOCAL GUN POSSESSION CRIMES EXPANDS BUREAUCRATS’ POWER TO HARASS
"Like its prototype, Virginia’s Project Exile, Project Safe
Neighborhoods will channel gun-possession crimes that would ordinarily be prosecuted at
the state level into the federal system. In addition to federalizing gun crimes,
Project Safe Neighborhoods acts as a prosecution-stimulus package, funding the placement
of over 700 new prosecutors (113 federal, 600 state) who will do nothing but pursue gun
law violations full-time."
"In ‘There Goes the Neighborhood: The Bush-Ashcroft Plan to "Help"
Localities Fight Gun Crime,’ attorney Gene Healy explains that the federal
government has no authority to enact the type of criminal statutes used by the program.
Although the president has promised to make respect for federalism a priority in his
administration, Healy says Bush’s initiatives ‘suggest that, where it counts,
political expediency will trump respect for federalism.’
"By rewarding prosecutors for the number of gun convictions attained, Project
Safe Neighborhoods creates an incentive structure that will lead to a proliferation of
technical-violation indictments regardless of their merit, Healy writes. Such
convictions include the sentencing of a rehabilitated felon to 15 years for possession of
a single bullet."
LOCAL INFRACTIONS PROSECUTED IN
FOREIGN JURISIDICTIONS
"Safe Neighborhoods also threatens the constitutional guarantee of
equal protection by allowing prosecutors to select their preferred forum – federal or
state – on the basis of the racial composition of the respective jury pools, Healy
writes. ‘In Richmond, Virginia, where project exile was first implemented, the
jury pool for the state-level circuit court is approximately 75 percent
African-American,’ he writes. ‘In contrast, the jury pool for the Eastern
District of Virginia [is] only about 10 percent African-American.’ "
NRA GAVE $125,000 TO PROJECT EXILE
"While the desire to tackle the problem of violent crime without
adding to gun laws already on the books is laudable, Healy argues, gun rights groups
are misguided to support Projects Exile and Safe Neighborhoods – going as far as
contributing $125,000 to Exile in the NRA’s case.
" ‘NRA officials such as Wayne LaPierre and Charlton Heston repeatedly
assailed President Bill Clinton for failing to enforce federal firearms statutes, without
ever explaining why such cases should be brought in federal court,’ Healy writes.
‘The supporters of federalizing gun crime lack even a compelling policy rationale
– let alone constitutional grounds – for ignoring the distinction between local
and interstate matters.’ " Source: Cato News Release – Policy Analysis no.
440 ( www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-440es),
5/28/02, Gene Healy, attorney and senior editor
Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of
June 15, 2002
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT GROWS BIGGER
WHILE FREE AMERICA SHRINKS
"Government purchases are up by more than 9% this year, while the
rest of the economy grew at only half that pace.
"We’re now in the third straight year where government budgets have outpaced
private sector expansion. In 2001, for example, government at city, state and federal
levels grew by 6%. The private sector barely kept its head above water, growing by an
anemic 0.5%. From an economic recovery standpoint, there could hardly be worse news.
Real wealth creation is driven by private businesses, entrepreneurs and investors, not by
putting more government bureaucrats to work. …"
G.W. BUSH SIGNS INTO LAW BIG
GOVERNMENT’S BIGGEST BUILDUP
"This is a broad-based expansion of government. In the past 12
months, Congress has passed the most expensive education spending bill ever, the most
expensive farm welfare bill ever and it will soon enact the most expensive foreign aid
bill ever. It also wants to pass the costliest new entitlement program –
taxpayer-financed prescription drug benefits for seniors with a potential price tag of
$400 billion over 10 years – since LBJ created Medicare 35 years ago."
BUSH HAS NOT VETOED A SINGLE BILL
"All of this is happening on top the $100 billion in extra funds
that Congress has rightly devoted to the war on terrorism. But even here, Congress has
larded anti-terrorism spending bills that are crucial to our national security with
billions of dollars of pork spending for projects ranging from skating rinks to casino
industry bailouts. …
"The $2.2 trillion federal enterprise is an anchor on growth, not a sail.
Its burgeoning budget has arguably become the single greatest threat to a sustained
recovery, stock market revival and return to the virtuous free market-induced prosperity
of the 1980s and 1990s." Source: Stephen Moore, Investor’s Business Daily,
6/11/02, p. A16
DO BUSHIES FEAR THAT PROGRESS
AGAINST ABORTION COULD COST THEM VOTES?
" ‘Both sides (in the abortion debate) are engaged in a phony
war,’ says Marshall Wittman, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute…. The
last thing this administration wants to see is Roe vs. Wade overturned. They know
it would create a political firestorm’ for Republicans. …
" ‘Most of the Republicans who hold public office now just want the issue to
go away,’ says Mickey Edwards, a Republican and former U.S. House member from
Oklahoma who is a government professor at Harvard University."
MITT AND BILL (ROMNEY AND SIMON)
BOB AND WEAVE
"GOP gubernatorial candidates Bill Simon in California and Mitt
Romney in Massachusetts have played down their past anti-abortion remarks. …
"Bush now talks more about abstinence than getting rid of abortion rights."
Source: Joan Biskupic, USA Today, 6/4/02, p. 3A
ASHCROFT’S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
CELEBRATES "GAY PRIDE"
" ‘We’re Here! We’re Career!’ That’s
the slogan of this year’s annual gay pride celebration at … the Justice
Department. …"
Attorney General John "Ashcroft’s No. 2, Deputy Attorney General Larry D.
Thompson, will speak at the gay pride celebration June 19 in Justice’s Great Hall on
Pennsylvania Avenue. …"
POWELL’S STATE DEPARTMENT
SUPPORTS "GAYS AND LESBIANS IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS"
"Just yesterday, Rep. Jim Kolbe (Ariz.), the only openly gay
Republican in Congress, addressed employees in foreign affairs agencies, on the global
challenge of HIV and AIDS. Kolbe’s talk was sponsored by Gays and Lesbians in Foreign
Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA) and the State Department’s Office of Civil Rights.
" ‘I thought it was wonderful that the State Department gave such support
to this organization,’ Kolbe said. He said the group has come a long way since it was
founded in 1992 with fewer than a dozen members."
KAY COLE JAMES OK’S SPEECH BY
MOTHER OF ELLEN DeGENERES
"Later this month, Betty DeGeneres will speak at the Office of
Personnel Management’s gay pride celebration, with OPM support. Her daughter, actress
Ellen DeGeneres, came out as a lesbian in 1997. …"
GWB REPUBLICANS ARE HAVING A
"GAY OLD TIME"
"Bush has named to head his Office of National AIDS Policy Scott H.
Evertz, the first openly gay appointee of any GOP administration, according to Human
Rights Campaign, a national lesbian and gay group.
"Since Evertz, the administration has appointed at least five other openly gay
people, Smith said, including Ambassador to Romania David Guest. At Guest’s
swearing-in, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, an administration moderate, acknowledged
Guest’s partner, who was to accompany him to Bucharest."
BUSH CARRIES FORWARD BILL
CLINTON’S PRO-HOMO POLICIES
"David Smith, a Human Rights Campaign spokesman, said the Bush
administration has been ‘very careful not to take any significant steps
backward’’ in its treatment of gay citizens and federal workers. It has not
rescinded Clinton’s executive orders banning sexual orientation as a criterion in
establishing security clearances, and barring discrimination in the nonuniform federal
workforce on the basis of sexual orientation." Source: Ellen Nakashima, Washington
Post, 6/12/02, p. A29
Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of May
31, 2002
GWB GIVES RED CARPET TREATMENT TO
NEW CHICOM LEADER
Peter Slevin and John Pomfret write, concerning Red Chinese Vice
President Hu Jintao’s visit to the U.S., that "Doors opened to Hu, 59, at a pace
highly unusual for any nation’s second-ranking leader. In 24 hours, he saw the
president, the vice president and the secretaries of state, defense, treasury, commerce
and labor, as well as lawmakers on Capitol Hill and the president of the World Bank.
"Hu, a former hydrologist, is largely an unknown in China and the United States.
He is expected by China watchers to become the Communist Party general secretary at the 16th
Party Congress in the fall, and then to succeed Jiang Zemin as president in the spring.
…
"Chinese analysts said Hu’s U.S. visit is a step in his development of the
necessary credentials to become China’s next leader. He spent years in the
countryside during the Cultural Revolution, served as a provincial party leader and oversaw
a military crackdown as party boss in Tibet. He later rose with remarkable speed
through the party hierarchy in Beijing. …"
HU JINTAO REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE
HUMAN RIGHTS LETTERS
"Hu listened to U.S. concerns about human rights at each stop,
including his 30-minute meeting with Bush. At a meeting Tuesday with congressional
leaders, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), the second-ranking House Democrat, tried to give Hu
four letters regarding China’s treatment of dissidents and prisoners.
"One letter, signed by Pelosi and Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), asked Hu to
secure the release of 25 Tibetans imprisoned during China’s crackdown in the late
1980s and early 1990s when Hu was party secretary there. Another called for the release of
three prominent dissidents jailed for trying to start an opposition party."
COURTESY IS NOT COMMON TO OUR
COMMUNIST ENEMIES
"Pelosi put the letters on the table in front of Hu, but the
Chinese leader did not take them. She then tried to get Li Zhaoxing, the deputy foreign
minister, to take the letters, but he declined as well.
" ‘It’s just a common courtesy. I thought Hu at least would have taken
the letters,’ Wolf said." Source: Washington Post, 5/2/02, pp. 1, A10
MILITARY COORDINATION WITH BEIJING
WILL BE RESUMED
Hu "warned that American arms sales to Taiwan could jeopardize
relations."
BIG BUSINESS GLOBALISTS HAIL HU
"Earlier this week in New York, Mr. Hu was warmly embraced by
many titans of American business and finance who hope to increase investment and trade
with China.
"Mr. Hu has been a consummate insider in China’s Communist Party, avoiding
flamboyant actions or much contact with Western officials and scholars in the past. This
trip is widely seen as an important step in preparation for his ascension later this year
to the leadership of the Communist Party. …
"In the only concrete result announced today, Mr. Hu and Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld agreed to restore military cooperation and exchanges that have been on
ice since the dispute last year over a downed American spy plane, a Chinese spokeswoman
said tonight. …
"American officials were under orders not to discuss details of the visit. …
" ‘China’s leaders need good relations with the United States to achieve
their larger goals,’ " said Bates Gill, a China expert at the Brookings
Institution. Source: Erik Eckholm, The New York Times, 5/2/02, p. A13
| 2000 Bush Watch | 2001 Bush Watch | |
