-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! CONGRESS ACTION: June 24, 2001 ================= LEFT-WING WAR ON THE POOR: In 1995, when the republican-led Congress increased federal funding for the school lunch program, democrats launched one of their most despicable attack campaigns in recent memory (and given their rhetorical record, that's saying a lot), claiming that republicans were "slashing" funding in order to starve poor school children. That the amount of total funding was actually increased, not "slashed", mattered not in the least to the democrats. This left-wing attack campaign received great prominence in the media, most of which simply regurgitated the democrat line without question. Far less reported by the media, however, is the left's own ongoing war on children and the poor which, although it has the benefit of actually being true, doesn't fit the media's left-wing bias. When telling the truth means criticizing leftists, in elite media circles the truth loses out every time. One example of this stealth war on the poor is Senator Jim Jeffords' pet project, the Northeast Dairy Compact. This price-fixing cartel, established in 1996 allegedly to save family dairy farms, has the practical effect, just like any other price-fixing cartel, of raising the price of milk to consumers. The Compact is scheduled to expire this fall and the Congress is considering whether to extend its life. Senator Hillary "It-Takes-A-Village" Clinton is reported to be in favor of continuing to gouge children and the poor with higher milk prices (watch how she votes on S.109, the "Dairy Farmer Viability Act", co-sponsored by Jeffords in the Senate). Another example of this left-wing war on the poor is the rising cost of housing. The latest census revealed a growing lack of affordable housing, particularly in California. The Sacramento Bee reports that "Coastal California slipped out of reach of all but the well-to-do in the '90s.". That would be during the Bill "I-feel-your-pain" Clinton Decade of Greed, when the rich got richer and the poor suffered. According to the report, prices on the coast are skyrocketing, driving middle and lower income families inland, while the coast is becoming the exclusive haunt of multi-millionaires. The reason prices have soared is that the construction of new housing hasn't kept pace with the growing population, just as the construction of new power generating facilities has not kept pace with population growth and increasing energy demands in California, and for the same reason -- extreme environmental restrictions. But of course the ever-so-sensitive environmentalists -- and indeed most Californians -- simply don't see the connection. Economist Thomas Sowell perfectly summarized the left-wing mind-set: ".in California, there seems to be no connection in most people's minds between 'open space' laws and housing so scarce that it is outrageously expensive. Often the very same people are passionately in favor of both 'open space' and 'affordable housing' -- and see no conflict between these goals. . The missing link in many Californians' thinking is the link between what they do and the consequences that follow. In California, you show what a good person you are by being in favor of all sorts of politically correct goals -- and blithely disregarding the costs these goals will impose on others of the consequences for the whole society." Left-wing extremists lecture the rest of us and adopt their politically correct poses, leaving other people pay the price. Is this multi-faceted left-wing war on the poor simply a manifestation of the law of unintended consequences? After all, the left really means well, don't they? Hardly. An impoverished future for everyone is precisely what left-wing radicals intend. Here's what one of them recently wrote to the New York Times: "Only by shrinking our population and retrenching our expectations for better tomorrows can we avoid poisoning the environment." (New York Times, May 29, 2001, Letter to the Editor) The enemy, according to the left, is the traditional human dream of making a better life for your children. Indeed, for all their blather about "the children", leftists see children themselves as the problem. FANTASY LAND: California Governor Gray Davis has apparently been able to overcome the blame initially leveled at him by Californians for his role in exacerbating California's energy crisis. He has done that by successfully shifting the blame to President Bush, for failing to bail Californians out of their own short-sighted policies; and by blaming utility companies for price gouging (in the world of liberalism, any failure of their own policies is always someone else's fault). Davis engineered the turnaround in his popularity with the help of two former Clinton-Gore media flaks who specialize in slash-and-burn attack politics, Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani. Those two don't work cheap. There is currently an uproar in California over the $30,000 per month fee those two are to be paid (more than double what the Governor himself gets paid). California Comptroller Kathleen Connell, a democrat, has said that she will freeze payments to those spin-meisters. A lawsuit has been filed by an anti-tax activist to block those payments. A republican state lawmaker said he will vote against budgetary items to pay those fees, but republicans are in the minority. Now it is true that, in the scheme of overall government spending, $30,000 a month is peanuts. And in California, where fantasy trumps reality every time, Californians are apparently getting at least that much entertainment value out of watching Davis spend more effort spinning to shift the blame, rather than focusing on actually fixing the problem. EUROPEAN TOTALITARIANS: Anyone enamored of the proposed International Criminal Court (ICC) should pay close heed to the fate of the proposed business merger between two American corporations: General Electric and Honeywell. The merger was examined by American and Canadian anti-trust regulators, and approved by both. The European Commission Merger Task Force, however, is in the process of killing the deal. So why the different results when different regulators reviewed the proposed merger? American regulators examine mergers to see whether the resulting combination would harm consumers by eliminating competition. European regulators examine mergers to see whether the combination will impose a burden on competitors. Any deal that might force competitors to adopt to increased competition (such as by improving their product) is opposed. Forcing competitors to adopt to changing and increased competition, thus presenting customers with improved products or services, however, is the whole point of competition. But competition with European companies that might be forced to improve by the combined General Electric / Honeywell is apparently something to be avoided like the plague by Euro-regulators. There is another difference between American and European regulators that should be of particular interest to ICC supporters. If they block a merger, U.S. regulators must ultimately prove their case to a judge in a trial that provides the affected companies their day in court and an opportunity to present evidence. There is no such judicial review when European bureaucrats block a merger. They are not accountable to anyone. According to a Wall Street Journal report, "process-oriented technocrats, answerable to no one, made law and changed the rules as they saw fit." There is one avenue to appeal a European decision blocking a merger -- to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Some companies in fact have taken that route. One such appeal to the European Court of Justice was filed in 1999, and the parties are still waiting for a hearing. The economic climate today is far different than it was in 1999, and the business rationale for a merger that might have made sense at that time may no longer make any sense years later. In the case of International Criminal Court verdicts, the situation is even worse. There is no avenue for outside appeal at all. The only appeal of the verdicts of the ICC judges (there is no provision for jury trials in the ICC) is to the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court itself. NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE: "I cannot cope with looking at people and knowing that they are in pain and that I am just too busy to care for them properly." "Nobody should be forced to lie on a trolley for hours when they ought to be getting proper treatment. People's expectations in developing countries would be higher than that, and would be met. It is awful and unacceptable." Is this some Angel of Mercy complaining about an evil corporate American HMO? Is it Ted Kennedy or John McCain, pushing their "Patient's Bill of Rights" as a step toward the ultimate government takeover of health care in America? No, those are comments from nurses working under a health care system that has already been taken over by the government. In the United Kingdom. That health care system is usually held up as a model of compassion and efficiency -- remember Hillary Clinton's laudatory comments about that very system when she tried to nationalize American health care? Third World levels is how the health care system in the U.K. is described by medical professionals actually working in that system. And it was recently announced that the British government was abandoning attempts to reduce the number of people now on waiting lists for hospital care -- there are currently 1.15 million Britons waiting for hospital care -- and will focus instead in reducing the length of time those people have to wait for care. The target is to reduce waiting times for hospital care down to a maximum of six months by the year 2005, from a current waiting time of a year and a half. And the amount of time spent waiting for emergency care is promised to fall to 75 minutes by 2004. Understand that -- the National Health Service in Great Britain will consider it a major achievement if people have to wait only an hour and a quarter for emergency service. Remember all that as Kennedy and McCain continue to push their leftist expansion of big government into the health care arena. RECALLING JOHN McCAIN: Arizona's "Recall John McCain" movement is apparently gaining steam. Disparate groups are joining forces, and their website states that the following grounds will appear on the recall petitions: "John McCain has become increasingly obsessed with advancing his own personal agenda contrary to President Bush, party leaders and rank and file Republicans. In his insatiable desire for massive national media attention, he has all but forgotten the people of Arizona who elected him. .John McCain's legislative judgment is no longer acceptable. He is continually sponsoring or cosponsoring legislation that will weaken the civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution." The website continues, "His vote against the recent tax cut, the campaign finance reform bill (which would probably make a site like this illegal) and unconstitutional gun control legislation are examples of his dereliction of duty as our senior Senator and violation of his oath of office." Under the so-called "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001" (S.27), the cost of that website and related expenses could be an "independent expenditure", and "a person.that makes. independent expenditures aggregating $1,000 or more after the 20th day, but more than 24 hours, before the date of an election shall file a report." with the Federal Election Commission. Failure to report, or errors in reporting, could result in a prison term. Thus we see how 59 members of the United States Senate, including John McCain, define freedom of speech -- expanding the power of federal bureaucrats to regulate what you say. THIS JUST IN.: Even since George W. Bush began his campaign for president, the elite media has deluged the public with claims that he is a mean, evil buffoon who wants to destroy the planet. Then the New York Times conducts a poll and, lo and behold, a large number of respondents think that President Bush is a mean, evil buffoon who wants to destroy the planet. This is then reported as "news". More accurately, it showcases the effectiveness of media propaganda in creating -- not reporting -- public opinion. McCain-Feingold "campaign reform" will only increase the power of the most pervasive special interest there is, the elite media, to do more of the same, by stifling the ability of anyone who is not part of that special interest to put forth a contrary opinion. Is it any wonder why the elite media, the Times included, loves McCain-Feingold? Have the American people really become so brain-dead that they actually think giving even more power to the elite media special interest is a good idea? FOR MORE INFORMATION. ======================== Legislative Text: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/c107query.html Thomas Sowell editorial ("Shocked by the obvious" -- June 4): http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell.html Recall John McCain Committee: http://www.recallmccain.org/ Senate Roll Call votes: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/legis_act_rollcall.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mr. Kim Weissman [EMAIL PROTECTED] *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? 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