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Sunday, September 20, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
In The Light of Day
A major element of Obama’s “civilian security force” in the light of day” after review. Keep in mind this review was conducted by a Democratically controlled House of Representatives. Where is main street media?
House Government and Oversight Committee summary
The report includes significant new information about wrongdoing brought to the attention of committee investigators by ACORN whistleblowers.
* ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in self dealing, and aided and abetted a cover-up of the $948.607.50 embezzlement by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.
* ACORN has committed investment fraud, deprived the public of its right to honest services, and engaged in a racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce.
* ACORN has committed a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using taxpayer funds for partisan political activities.
* ACORN has submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor, in addition to violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
* ACORN falsified and concealed facts concerning an illegal transaction between related parties in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
“It is outrageous that ACORN will be rewarded for its criminal acts by taxpayer money in the stimulus and is being asked to help with the U.S. census,” said Rep. Issa. “This report shines a light on clear criminal conduct and it is abundantly clear that they cannot and should not be trusted with taxpayer dollars.”
The report is 88 pages and does an excellent job of providing background on the Rathke embezzlement scandal, Acorn’s tax evasion, and violation of ERISA laws. Those who have followed whistleblower Anita MonCrief’s work will be familiar with many of the sections on the political coordination between ACORN, Project Vote, and its tax-exempt affiliates — particularly CCI and CSI. Still, there is only passing mention of the intimate relationship between ACORN and Team Obama – and only one line about the Obama campaign’s misreported $800,000+plus expenditure to CSI/ACORN, which was reported on back in August 2008.
Where is the Justice Department? Oh yeah, I forgot, the Justice Department is too busy investigating the CIA, how silly of me.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I know I sleep better at night secure in the knowledge that such an honorable organization is part of our first line of defense in Obama’s “civilian security force”.
Can any sane American give me a rational explanation why the Obama stimulus bill awarded Eight Billion(8,000,000,000,000) taxpayer dollars to Acorn and it’s 230+ affiliate arms?
Wally Pieper
366 Paradise Island Dr
DeFuniak Springs, Fla 32433
623 695 4654
gypsy639@gmail.com
House Government and Oversight Committee summary
The report includes significant new information about wrongdoing brought to the attention of committee investigators by ACORN whistleblowers.
* ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in self dealing, and aided and abetted a cover-up of the $948.607.50 embezzlement by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.
* ACORN has committed investment fraud, deprived the public of its right to honest services, and engaged in a racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce.
* ACORN has committed a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using taxpayer funds for partisan political activities.
* ACORN has submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor, in addition to violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
* ACORN falsified and concealed facts concerning an illegal transaction between related parties in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
“It is outrageous that ACORN will be rewarded for its criminal acts by taxpayer money in the stimulus and is being asked to help with the U.S. census,” said Rep. Issa. “This report shines a light on clear criminal conduct and it is abundantly clear that they cannot and should not be trusted with taxpayer dollars.”
The report is 88 pages and does an excellent job of providing background on the Rathke embezzlement scandal, Acorn’s tax evasion, and violation of ERISA laws. Those who have followed whistleblower Anita MonCrief’s work will be familiar with many of the sections on the political coordination between ACORN, Project Vote, and its tax-exempt affiliates — particularly CCI and CSI. Still, there is only passing mention of the intimate relationship between ACORN and Team Obama – and only one line about the Obama campaign’s misreported $800,000+plus expenditure to CSI/ACORN, which was reported on back in August 2008.
Where is the Justice Department? Oh yeah, I forgot, the Justice Department is too busy investigating the CIA, how silly of me.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I know I sleep better at night secure in the knowledge that such an honorable organization is part of our first line of defense in Obama’s “civilian security force”.
Can any sane American give me a rational explanation why the Obama stimulus bill awarded Eight Billion(8,000,000,000,000) taxpayer dollars to Acorn and it’s 230+ affiliate arms?
Wally Pieper
366 Paradise Island Dr
DeFuniak Springs, Fla 32433
623 695 4654
gypsy639@gmail.com
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
An Open Letter
I recently received a letter from a woman in Arizona. She writes an open letter to our nation's leadership: I have read this letter many times, and nothing I could add would or could say any more.
I did send it to both senators and representative from my state. I also sent it to the White House. I hope that I made the “fishy” list.
Please read this letter carefully and feel the depth of passion the lady feels and so eloquently expresses.
I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?
Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:
One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.
Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded comittments repealed. Freeze, repeal.
Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.
Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.
Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!
Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.
Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.
Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why -- what do you have against shareholders making a profit?
Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.
Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.
Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try -- please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.
Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.
Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.
I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.
From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.
We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be thousands more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have canceled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.
Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Whom do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.
Wally Pieper
366 Paradise Island Dr
DeFuniak Springs, Fla 32433
623 695 4654
gypsy638@gmail.com
I did send it to both senators and representative from my state. I also sent it to the White House. I hope that I made the “fishy” list.
Please read this letter carefully and feel the depth of passion the lady feels and so eloquently expresses.
I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?
Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:
One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.
Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded comittments repealed. Freeze, repeal.
Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.
Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.
Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!
Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.
Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.
Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why -- what do you have against shareholders making a profit?
Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.
Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.
Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try -- please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.
Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.
Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.
I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.
From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.
We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be thousands more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have canceled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.
Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Whom do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.
Wally Pieper
366 Paradise Island Dr
DeFuniak Springs, Fla 32433
623 695 4654
gypsy638@gmail.com
Friday, September 4, 2009
In His Own Words
You can’t make this “stuff” up. In the words of Will Rogers,”Who needs script writers as long as Congress and White House are talking”. Here is another sample of Obama’s regulatory Czar. Is this an example of the change Obama was talking about?
Cass Sunstein speaking at Harvard Law School. (Photo: Matthew W. Hutchins, Harvard Law Record.)
(CNSNews.com) – Cass Sunstein, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), has advocated a policy under which the government would “presume” someone has consented to having his or her organs removed for transplantation into someone else when they die unless that person has explicitly indicated that his or her organs should not be taken.
Under such a policy, hospitals would harvest organs from people who never gave permission for this to be done.
Outlined in the 2008 book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness,” Sunstein and co-author Richard H. Thaler argued that the main reason that more people do not donate their organs is because they are required to choose donation.
Sunstein and Thaler pointed out that doctors often must ask the deceased’s family members whether or not their dead relative would have wanted to donate his organs. These family members usually err on the side of caution and refuse to donate their loved one’s organs.
“The major obstacle to increasing [organ] donations is the need to get the consent of surviving family members,” said Sunstein and Thaler.
This problem could be remedied if governments changed the laws for organ donation, they said. Currently, unless a patient has explicitly chosen to be an organ donor, either on his driver’s license or with a donor card, the doctors assume that the person did not want to donate and therefore do not harvest his organs. Thaler and Sunstein called this “explicit consent.”
They argued that this could be remedied if government turned the law around and assumed that, unless people explicitly choose not to, then they want to donate their organs – a doctrine they call “presumed consent.”
“Presumed consent preserves freedom of choice, but it is different from explicit consent because it shifts the default rule. Under this policy, all citizens would be presumed to be consenting donors, but they would have the opportunity to register their unwillingness to donate,” they explained.
The difference between explicit and presumed consent is that under presumed consent, many more people “choose” to be organ donors. Sunstein and Thaler noted that in a 2003 study only 42 percent of people actively chose to be organ donors, while only 18 percent actively opted out when their consent was presumed.
In cases where the deceased’s wishes are unclear, Sunstein and Thaler argued that a “presumed consent” system would make it easier for doctors to convince families to donate their loved one’s organs.
Citing a 2006 study, Thaler and Sunstein wrote: “The next of kin can be approached quite differently when the decedent’s silence is presumed to indicate a decision to donate rather than when it is presumed to indicate a decision not to donate. This shift may make it easier for the family to accept organ donation.”
The problem of the deceased’s family is only one issue, Sunstein and Thaler said, admitting that turning the idea of choice on its head will invariably run into major political problems, but these are problems they say the government can solve through a system of “mandated choice.”
“Another [problem] is that it is a hard sell politically,” wrote Sunstein and Thaler. “More than a few people object to the idea of ‘presuming’ anything when it comes to such a sensitive matter. For these reasons we think that the best choice architecture for organ donations is mandated choice.”
Mandated choice is a process where government forces you to make a decision – in this case, whether to opt out of being an organ donor to get something you need, such as a driver’s license.
“With mandated choice, renewal of your driver’s license would be accompanied by a requirement that you check a box stating your organ donation preferences,” the authors stated. “Your application would not be accepted unless you had checked one of the boxes.”
To ensure that people’s decisions align with the government policy of more organ donors, Sunstein and Thaler counseled that governments should follow the state of Illinois’ example and try to influence people by making organ donation seem popular.
“First, the state stresses the importance of the overall problem (97,000 people [in Illinois] on the waiting list and then brings the problem home, literally (4,700 in Illinois),” they wrote.
“Second, social norms are directly brought into play in a way that build on the power of social influences [peer pressure]: ‘87 percent of adults in Illinois feel that registering as an organ donor is the right thing to do’ and ’60 percent of adults in Illinois are registered,’” they added.
Sunstein and Thaler reminded policymakers that people will generally do what they think others are doing and what they believe others think is right. These presumptions, which almost everyone has, act as powerful factors as policymakers seek to design choices.
“Recall that people like to do what most people think is right to do; recall too that people like to do what most people actually do,” they wrote. “The state is enlisting existing norms in the direction of lifestyle choices.”
Thaler and Sunstein believed that this and other policies are necessary because people don’t really make the best decisions.
“The false assumption is that almost all people, almost all of the time, make choices that are in their best interest or at the very least are better than the choices that would be made [for them] by someone else,” they said.
This means that government “incentives and nudges” should replace “requirements and bans,” they argued.
Neither Sunstein nor Thaler currently are commenting on their book, a spokesman for the publisher, Penguin Group, told CNSNews.com.
In a question-and-answer section on the Amazon.com Web site, Thaler and Sunstein answered a few questions about their book.
When asked what the title “Nudge” means and why people need to be nudged, the authors stated: “By a nudge we mean anything that influences our choices. A school cafeteria might try to nudge kids toward good diets by putting the healthiest foods at front.
“We think that it's time for institutions, including government, to become much more user-friendly by enlisting the science of choice to make life easier for people and by gently nudging them in directions that will make their lives better,” they wrote.
“…The human brain is amazing, but it evolved for specific purposes, such as avoiding predators and finding food,” said Thaler and Sunstein. “Those purposes do not include choosing good credit card plans, reducing harmful pollution, avoiding fatty foods, and planning for a decade or so from now. Fortunately, a few nudges can help a lot. …”
Cass Sunstein speaking at Harvard Law School. (Photo: Matthew W. Hutchins, Harvard Law Record.)
(CNSNews.com) – Cass Sunstein, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), has advocated a policy under which the government would “presume” someone has consented to having his or her organs removed for transplantation into someone else when they die unless that person has explicitly indicated that his or her organs should not be taken.
Under such a policy, hospitals would harvest organs from people who never gave permission for this to be done.
Outlined in the 2008 book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness,” Sunstein and co-author Richard H. Thaler argued that the main reason that more people do not donate their organs is because they are required to choose donation.
Sunstein and Thaler pointed out that doctors often must ask the deceased’s family members whether or not their dead relative would have wanted to donate his organs. These family members usually err on the side of caution and refuse to donate their loved one’s organs.
“The major obstacle to increasing [organ] donations is the need to get the consent of surviving family members,” said Sunstein and Thaler.
This problem could be remedied if governments changed the laws for organ donation, they said. Currently, unless a patient has explicitly chosen to be an organ donor, either on his driver’s license or with a donor card, the doctors assume that the person did not want to donate and therefore do not harvest his organs. Thaler and Sunstein called this “explicit consent.”
They argued that this could be remedied if government turned the law around and assumed that, unless people explicitly choose not to, then they want to donate their organs – a doctrine they call “presumed consent.”
“Presumed consent preserves freedom of choice, but it is different from explicit consent because it shifts the default rule. Under this policy, all citizens would be presumed to be consenting donors, but they would have the opportunity to register their unwillingness to donate,” they explained.
The difference between explicit and presumed consent is that under presumed consent, many more people “choose” to be organ donors. Sunstein and Thaler noted that in a 2003 study only 42 percent of people actively chose to be organ donors, while only 18 percent actively opted out when their consent was presumed.
In cases where the deceased’s wishes are unclear, Sunstein and Thaler argued that a “presumed consent” system would make it easier for doctors to convince families to donate their loved one’s organs.
Citing a 2006 study, Thaler and Sunstein wrote: “The next of kin can be approached quite differently when the decedent’s silence is presumed to indicate a decision to donate rather than when it is presumed to indicate a decision not to donate. This shift may make it easier for the family to accept organ donation.”
The problem of the deceased’s family is only one issue, Sunstein and Thaler said, admitting that turning the idea of choice on its head will invariably run into major political problems, but these are problems they say the government can solve through a system of “mandated choice.”
“Another [problem] is that it is a hard sell politically,” wrote Sunstein and Thaler. “More than a few people object to the idea of ‘presuming’ anything when it comes to such a sensitive matter. For these reasons we think that the best choice architecture for organ donations is mandated choice.”
Mandated choice is a process where government forces you to make a decision – in this case, whether to opt out of being an organ donor to get something you need, such as a driver’s license.
“With mandated choice, renewal of your driver’s license would be accompanied by a requirement that you check a box stating your organ donation preferences,” the authors stated. “Your application would not be accepted unless you had checked one of the boxes.”
To ensure that people’s decisions align with the government policy of more organ donors, Sunstein and Thaler counseled that governments should follow the state of Illinois’ example and try to influence people by making organ donation seem popular.
“First, the state stresses the importance of the overall problem (97,000 people [in Illinois] on the waiting list and then brings the problem home, literally (4,700 in Illinois),” they wrote.
“Second, social norms are directly brought into play in a way that build on the power of social influences [peer pressure]: ‘87 percent of adults in Illinois feel that registering as an organ donor is the right thing to do’ and ’60 percent of adults in Illinois are registered,’” they added.
Sunstein and Thaler reminded policymakers that people will generally do what they think others are doing and what they believe others think is right. These presumptions, which almost everyone has, act as powerful factors as policymakers seek to design choices.
“Recall that people like to do what most people think is right to do; recall too that people like to do what most people actually do,” they wrote. “The state is enlisting existing norms in the direction of lifestyle choices.”
Thaler and Sunstein believed that this and other policies are necessary because people don’t really make the best decisions.
“The false assumption is that almost all people, almost all of the time, make choices that are in their best interest or at the very least are better than the choices that would be made [for them] by someone else,” they said.
This means that government “incentives and nudges” should replace “requirements and bans,” they argued.
Neither Sunstein nor Thaler currently are commenting on their book, a spokesman for the publisher, Penguin Group, told CNSNews.com.
In a question-and-answer section on the Amazon.com Web site, Thaler and Sunstein answered a few questions about their book.
When asked what the title “Nudge” means and why people need to be nudged, the authors stated: “By a nudge we mean anything that influences our choices. A school cafeteria might try to nudge kids toward good diets by putting the healthiest foods at front.
“We think that it's time for institutions, including government, to become much more user-friendly by enlisting the science of choice to make life easier for people and by gently nudging them in directions that will make their lives better,” they wrote.
“…The human brain is amazing, but it evolved for specific purposes, such as avoiding predators and finding food,” said Thaler and Sunstein. “Those purposes do not include choosing good credit card plans, reducing harmful pollution, avoiding fatty foods, and planning for a decade or so from now. Fortunately, a few nudges can help a lot. …”
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The Oath Dishonored
In 1956 and 1960, I raised my right hand, standing before the American flag and swore to defend the United States Constitution against ALL enemies both foreign and domestic.On January 20 of 2009, I watched as Barak Obama took that very same oath. At the time of my oath, the widely accepted enemy was the communist regime of the USSR and China. When the Berlin wall fell, the Communist empire was crumbling as well. What did not fall was the communist philosophy, which today is alive and well only operating in a more refined manner. That philosophy of anticapitalism and sharing the wealth is the foundation that Marx and Lenin espoused in the Communist manifesto and has just as devoted a following today in a group of radicals who openly brag about their Communist beliefs and connection to that outrageous philosophy.
What is the most troubling to me and every other American I know is that many of the aforementioned group who openly support and believe in that crap are Advisors (Czars)to Barak Obama.
The following names represent a few of the Czars who serve the President totally immune from Congressional review or oversight, answerable only to Mr Obama. Cass Susstein, John Holdren, Van Jones, Carol Browner, Mark Lloyd et el. Confirmation of their Communist affiliation and/or beliefs in their own words, either written or spoken, is available by merely doing a basic Google search.
Mr Obama stated many times during the campaign in speeches and debates.”If you want to know who I am, look to the people who I surround myself with”. Well Mr Obama, that is exactly what I’m doing, and the conclusion, the only conclusion, I can draw is at best he is a very far left liberal, or at worse, a Communist masquerading as a Democratic President of the United States.
Mr Obama has dishonored millions upon millions of men and women, living and deceased, who honorably served this country since the Revolution, by trampling on the oath we all took, by surrounding himself with avowed Communists.
Never before in the history of this country has a President behaved with such complete and utter contempt and disdain for the Constitution he and I swore to defend.
Wally Pieper
355 Paradise Island Dr
DeFuniak Springs, Fla 32433
623 695 4654
gypsy639@gmail.com
What is the most troubling to me and every other American I know is that many of the aforementioned group who openly support and believe in that crap are Advisors (Czars)to Barak Obama.
The following names represent a few of the Czars who serve the President totally immune from Congressional review or oversight, answerable only to Mr Obama. Cass Susstein, John Holdren, Van Jones, Carol Browner, Mark Lloyd et el. Confirmation of their Communist affiliation and/or beliefs in their own words, either written or spoken, is available by merely doing a basic Google search.
Mr Obama stated many times during the campaign in speeches and debates.”If you want to know who I am, look to the people who I surround myself with”. Well Mr Obama, that is exactly what I’m doing, and the conclusion, the only conclusion, I can draw is at best he is a very far left liberal, or at worse, a Communist masquerading as a Democratic President of the United States.
Mr Obama has dishonored millions upon millions of men and women, living and deceased, who honorably served this country since the Revolution, by trampling on the oath we all took, by surrounding himself with avowed Communists.
Never before in the history of this country has a President behaved with such complete and utter contempt and disdain for the Constitution he and I swore to defend.
Wally Pieper
355 Paradise Island Dr
DeFuniak Springs, Fla 32433
623 695 4654
gypsy639@gmail.com
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Czars Civilian Security Force and More
Since my posts have drawn responses questioning the content of my posts, I have posted some material which I hope will address some critics challenges to me and my motives. I have available a much more complete library of material that is taken not from any third party source, but directly from the written or spoken words of the Czars and Obama. I wish for all of us there was not so much material available because that would mean the issues of governance and liberty would not be in question.
Information source http://conservativethoughts.us/2009/08/23/obamas-czars/
John Holdren ; Science Czar
Viewing capitalism as an economic system that is inherently harmful to the natural environment, Holdren and Ehrlich in 1973 called for “a massive campaign … to de-develop the United States” and other Western nations in order to conserve energy and facilitate growth in underdeveloped countries. “De-development,” they said, “means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” “By de-development,” they elaborated, “we mean lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets, and the abolition of planned obsolescence.”
In 1977 Holdren and Ehrlich quantified their anti-capitalist philosophy in a mathematical equation, I=PAT, where a negative environmental impact (I) was the product of such undesirable factors as population growth (P), increasing affluence (A), and improving technology (T). In an effort to minimize environmental damage, they prescribed “organized evasive action: population control, limitation of material consumption, redistribution of wealth, transitions to technologies that are environmentally and socially less disruptive than today’s, and movement toward some kind of world government.”
Van Jones ; Green Czar
Published New York Times best-seller The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems, in October 2008
Started career as a prison-reform advocate in Oakland, Calif., lobbying for reform of the juvenile justice system and youth-violence prevention programs
Has law degree from Yale
2007: worked on the Green Jobs Act with then-Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), who co-sponsored the bill in the House
1993: was arrested at the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of cops in the Rodney King beating. “I was arrested simply for being a police observer,” says Jones, who had just graduated from Yale Law School and was working with the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco.
1999: was arrested in the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization
Excerpt from a Nov. 2005 interview in the East Bay Express:
Jones had planned to move to Washington, DC, and had already landed a job and an apartment there. But in jail, he said, “I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’” Although he already had a plane ticket, he decided to stay in San Francisco. “I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.” In the months that followed, he let go of any lingering thoughts that he might fit in with the status quo. “I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,” he said. “By August, I was a communist.” In 1994, the young activists formed a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia. They protested police brutality and got arrested for crashing through police barricades. In 1996, Jones decided to launch his own operation, which he named the Ella Baker Center after an unsung hero of the civil-rights movement.
After earning his Juris Doctorate from Yale in 1993, Jones relocated to San Francisco, where he helped establish Bay Area PoliceWatch, a hotline and lawyer-referral service that began as a project of LCCR. In 1996 he founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which, claiming that the American criminal-justice system is infested with racism, seeks to promote alternatives to incarceration. According to the Baker Center:
“Decades of disinvestment in our cities have led to despair and hopelessness. For poor communities and communities of color it’s even worse, as excessive, racist policing and over-incarceration have left people even further behind.”
By the late 1990s, Jones was a committed Marxist-Leninist-Maoist who viewed police officers as the arch-enemies of black people, and who loathed capitalism for allegedly exploiting nonwhite minorities worldwide. He became a leading member of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), a Bay Area Marxist-Maoist collective that was staffed by members of various local nonprofits, a number of whom had ties to the Ella Baker Center.
A small but influential radical organization, STORM was founded in 1994 by a group of black anti-war activists who had demonstrated together against the Gulf War three years earlier. STORM became the guiding force behind several notable front groups, one of which was an anti-police collective called Bay Area Police Watch. Another STORM front was the School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL), which was a Marxist training organization; yet another was People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), which agitated on behalf of the jobless. STORM would grow in influence until 2002, when it disbanded due to internal squabbles.
In the early 2000s, Jones and STORM were active in the anti-Iraq War demonstrations organized by International ANSWER, a front group for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party. STORM also had ties to the South African Communist Party and it revered Amilcar Cabral, the late Marxist revolutionary leader (of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands) who lauded Lenin as “the greatest champion of the national liberation of the peoples.” (In 2006 Van Jones would name his own newborn son “Cabral” — in Amilcar Cabral’s honor.)
During his tenure with STORM, Jones collaborated on numerous projects (including antiwar demonstrations) with local activist Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez, who served as a “mentor” for members of the Ella Baker Center. Martinez was a longtime Maoist who went on to join the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), a Communist Party USA splinter group, in the early 1990s. To this day, Martinez continues to sit on the CCDS advisory board alongside such luminaries as Angela Davis, Timuel Black (who served on Barack Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign committee), and musician Pete Seeger. Martinez is also a board member of the Movement for a Democratic Society, the parent organization of Progressives for Obama. Martinez and Van Jones together attended a “Challenging White Supremacy” workshop which advanced the theme that “all too often, the unconscious racism of white activists stands in the way of any effective, worthwhile collaboration” with blacks.
In 2005 Jones and the Ella Baker Center produced the “Social Equity Track” for the United Nations’ World Environment Day celebration, a project that eventually would evolve into the Baker Center’s Green-Collar Jobs Campaign — “a job-training and employment pipeline providing ‘green pathways out of poverty’ for low-income adults in Oakland.”
Cass Susstein ; Title: Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Office of Management and Budget head Peter Orszag
Appointed: January 2009
Nomination was sent to Senate on April 20, 2009 - no action yet taken
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB
• Will be responsible for reviewing draft regulations and assessing their costs and benefits
• Is a Harvard Law School professor; prior to that, was a professor at the Univ. of Chicago Law School (1981-2008)
• Academic specialties: constitutional law, administrative law, and regulatory policy
• Obama: "Cass is not only a valued advisor, he is a dear friend"
• Known for advancing a field called "law and behavioral economics" that seeks to shape law and policy around the way research shows people actually behave; though embraced by conservatives, critics say it fails to account for the sometimes less-than-rational aspects of human behavior.
• In his 2002 book, Republic.com, discussed the drawbacks of limitless choices on the Internet that allow people to seek out only like-minded people and opinions that merely fortify their own views; he talked about the idea of the government requiring sites to link to opposing views. He later came to realize it was a "bad idea."
• In his 2004 book, Animal Rights, suggested that animals ought to be able to bring suit, with private citizens acting as their representatives, to ensure that animals are not treated in a way that violates current law.
• In a 2007 speech at Harvard he called for banning hunting in the U.S.
• The American Conservative Union started a website, Stop Sunstein, in an effort to keep him out of the White House.
In talking about his plans to double the size of the Peace Corps and nearly quadruple the size of AmeriCorps and the size of the nation's military services, he made this rather shocking (and chilling) pledge: "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
Now, since I've never heard anyone inside or out of government
use the phrase "civilian national security force" before, I was more than a little curious about what he has in mind.
Is it possible I am the only journalist in America who sought clarification on this campaign promise?
What does it mean?
If we're going to create some kind of national police force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, isn't this rather a big deal?
I thought Democrats generally believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together?
Now, maybe he was misquoted by the Congressional Quarterly and the Chicago Tribune. I guess it's possible. If so, you would think he would want to set the record straight. Maybe he misspoke. That has certainly happened before. Again, why wouldn't the rest of my colleagues show some curiosity about such a major and, frankly, bone-chilling proposition?
Are we talking about creating a police state here?
The U.S. Army alone has nearly 500,000 troops. That doesn't count reserves or National Guard. In 2007, the U.S. Defense budget was $439 billion.
Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that?
House Government and Oversight Committee summary
The report includes significant new information about wrongdoing brought to the attention of committee investigators by ACORN whistleblowers.
* ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in self dealing, and aided and abetted a cover-up of the $948.607.50 embezzlement by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.
* ACORN has committed investment fraud, deprived the public of its right to honest services, and engaged in a racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce.
* ACORN has committed a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using taxpayer funds for partisan political activities.
* ACORN has submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor, in addition to violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
* ACORN falsified and concealed facts concerning an illegal transaction between related parties in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
“It is outrageous that ACORN will be rewarded for its criminal acts by taxpayer money in the stimulus and is being asked to help with the U.S. census,” said Rep. Issa. “This report shines a light on clear criminal conduct and it is abundantly clear that they cannot and should not be trusted with taxpayer dollars.”
The report is 88 pages and does an excellent job of providing background on the Rathke embezzlement scandal, ACORN’s tax evasion, and violation of ERISA laws. Those who have followed whistleblower Anita MonCrief’s work will be familiar with many of the sections on the political coordination between ACORN, Project Vote, and its tax-exempt affiliates — particularly CCI and CSI. Still, there is only passing mention of the intimate relationship between ACORN and Team Obama – and only one line about the Obama campaign’s misreported $800,000+plus expenditure to CSI/ACORN, which was reported on back in August 2008.
I haven't mentioned Apollo Alliance and a plethora of additional information, but that's for another time.
Information source http://conservativethoughts.us/2009/08/23/obamas-czars/
John Holdren ; Science Czar
Viewing capitalism as an economic system that is inherently harmful to the natural environment, Holdren and Ehrlich in 1973 called for “a massive campaign … to de-develop the United States” and other Western nations in order to conserve energy and facilitate growth in underdeveloped countries. “De-development,” they said, “means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” “By de-development,” they elaborated, “we mean lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets, and the abolition of planned obsolescence.”
In 1977 Holdren and Ehrlich quantified their anti-capitalist philosophy in a mathematical equation, I=PAT, where a negative environmental impact (I) was the product of such undesirable factors as population growth (P), increasing affluence (A), and improving technology (T). In an effort to minimize environmental damage, they prescribed “organized evasive action: population control, limitation of material consumption, redistribution of wealth, transitions to technologies that are environmentally and socially less disruptive than today’s, and movement toward some kind of world government.”
Van Jones ; Green Czar
Published New York Times best-seller The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems, in October 2008
Started career as a prison-reform advocate in Oakland, Calif., lobbying for reform of the juvenile justice system and youth-violence prevention programs
Has law degree from Yale
2007: worked on the Green Jobs Act with then-Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), who co-sponsored the bill in the House
1993: was arrested at the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of cops in the Rodney King beating. “I was arrested simply for being a police observer,” says Jones, who had just graduated from Yale Law School and was working with the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco.
1999: was arrested in the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization
Excerpt from a Nov. 2005 interview in the East Bay Express:
Jones had planned to move to Washington, DC, and had already landed a job and an apartment there. But in jail, he said, “I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’” Although he already had a plane ticket, he decided to stay in San Francisco. “I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.” In the months that followed, he let go of any lingering thoughts that he might fit in with the status quo. “I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,” he said. “By August, I was a communist.” In 1994, the young activists formed a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia. They protested police brutality and got arrested for crashing through police barricades. In 1996, Jones decided to launch his own operation, which he named the Ella Baker Center after an unsung hero of the civil-rights movement.
After earning his Juris Doctorate from Yale in 1993, Jones relocated to San Francisco, where he helped establish Bay Area PoliceWatch, a hotline and lawyer-referral service that began as a project of LCCR. In 1996 he founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which, claiming that the American criminal-justice system is infested with racism, seeks to promote alternatives to incarceration. According to the Baker Center:
“Decades of disinvestment in our cities have led to despair and hopelessness. For poor communities and communities of color it’s even worse, as excessive, racist policing and over-incarceration have left people even further behind.”
By the late 1990s, Jones was a committed Marxist-Leninist-Maoist who viewed police officers as the arch-enemies of black people, and who loathed capitalism for allegedly exploiting nonwhite minorities worldwide. He became a leading member of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), a Bay Area Marxist-Maoist collective that was staffed by members of various local nonprofits, a number of whom had ties to the Ella Baker Center.
A small but influential radical organization, STORM was founded in 1994 by a group of black anti-war activists who had demonstrated together against the Gulf War three years earlier. STORM became the guiding force behind several notable front groups, one of which was an anti-police collective called Bay Area Police Watch. Another STORM front was the School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL), which was a Marxist training organization; yet another was People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), which agitated on behalf of the jobless. STORM would grow in influence until 2002, when it disbanded due to internal squabbles.
In the early 2000s, Jones and STORM were active in the anti-Iraq War demonstrations organized by International ANSWER, a front group for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party. STORM also had ties to the South African Communist Party and it revered Amilcar Cabral, the late Marxist revolutionary leader (of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands) who lauded Lenin as “the greatest champion of the national liberation of the peoples.” (In 2006 Van Jones would name his own newborn son “Cabral” — in Amilcar Cabral’s honor.)
During his tenure with STORM, Jones collaborated on numerous projects (including antiwar demonstrations) with local activist Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez, who served as a “mentor” for members of the Ella Baker Center. Martinez was a longtime Maoist who went on to join the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), a Communist Party USA splinter group, in the early 1990s. To this day, Martinez continues to sit on the CCDS advisory board alongside such luminaries as Angela Davis, Timuel Black (who served on Barack Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign committee), and musician Pete Seeger. Martinez is also a board member of the Movement for a Democratic Society, the parent organization of Progressives for Obama. Martinez and Van Jones together attended a “Challenging White Supremacy” workshop which advanced the theme that “all too often, the unconscious racism of white activists stands in the way of any effective, worthwhile collaboration” with blacks.
In 2005 Jones and the Ella Baker Center produced the “Social Equity Track” for the United Nations’ World Environment Day celebration, a project that eventually would evolve into the Baker Center’s Green-Collar Jobs Campaign — “a job-training and employment pipeline providing ‘green pathways out of poverty’ for low-income adults in Oakland.”
Cass Susstein ; Title: Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Office of Management and Budget head Peter Orszag
Appointed: January 2009
Nomination was sent to Senate on April 20, 2009 - no action yet taken
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB
• Will be responsible for reviewing draft regulations and assessing their costs and benefits
• Is a Harvard Law School professor; prior to that, was a professor at the Univ. of Chicago Law School (1981-2008)
• Academic specialties: constitutional law, administrative law, and regulatory policy
• Obama: "Cass is not only a valued advisor, he is a dear friend"
• Known for advancing a field called "law and behavioral economics" that seeks to shape law and policy around the way research shows people actually behave; though embraced by conservatives, critics say it fails to account for the sometimes less-than-rational aspects of human behavior.
• In his 2002 book, Republic.com, discussed the drawbacks of limitless choices on the Internet that allow people to seek out only like-minded people and opinions that merely fortify their own views; he talked about the idea of the government requiring sites to link to opposing views. He later came to realize it was a "bad idea."
• In his 2004 book, Animal Rights, suggested that animals ought to be able to bring suit, with private citizens acting as their representatives, to ensure that animals are not treated in a way that violates current law.
• In a 2007 speech at Harvard he called for banning hunting in the U.S.
• The American Conservative Union started a website, Stop Sunstein, in an effort to keep him out of the White House.
In talking about his plans to double the size of the Peace Corps and nearly quadruple the size of AmeriCorps and the size of the nation's military services, he made this rather shocking (and chilling) pledge: "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
Now, since I've never heard anyone inside or out of government
use the phrase "civilian national security force" before, I was more than a little curious about what he has in mind.
Is it possible I am the only journalist in America who sought clarification on this campaign promise?
What does it mean?
If we're going to create some kind of national police force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, isn't this rather a big deal?
I thought Democrats generally believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together?
Now, maybe he was misquoted by the Congressional Quarterly and the Chicago Tribune. I guess it's possible. If so, you would think he would want to set the record straight. Maybe he misspoke. That has certainly happened before. Again, why wouldn't the rest of my colleagues show some curiosity about such a major and, frankly, bone-chilling proposition?
Are we talking about creating a police state here?
The U.S. Army alone has nearly 500,000 troops. That doesn't count reserves or National Guard. In 2007, the U.S. Defense budget was $439 billion.
Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that?
House Government and Oversight Committee summary
The report includes significant new information about wrongdoing brought to the attention of committee investigators by ACORN whistleblowers.
* ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in self dealing, and aided and abetted a cover-up of the $948.607.50 embezzlement by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.
* ACORN has committed investment fraud, deprived the public of its right to honest services, and engaged in a racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce.
* ACORN has committed a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using taxpayer funds for partisan political activities.
* ACORN has submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor, in addition to violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
* ACORN falsified and concealed facts concerning an illegal transaction between related parties in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
“It is outrageous that ACORN will be rewarded for its criminal acts by taxpayer money in the stimulus and is being asked to help with the U.S. census,” said Rep. Issa. “This report shines a light on clear criminal conduct and it is abundantly clear that they cannot and should not be trusted with taxpayer dollars.”
The report is 88 pages and does an excellent job of providing background on the Rathke embezzlement scandal, ACORN’s tax evasion, and violation of ERISA laws. Those who have followed whistleblower Anita MonCrief’s work will be familiar with many of the sections on the political coordination between ACORN, Project Vote, and its tax-exempt affiliates — particularly CCI and CSI. Still, there is only passing mention of the intimate relationship between ACORN and Team Obama – and only one line about the Obama campaign’s misreported $800,000+plus expenditure to CSI/ACORN, which was reported on back in August 2008.
I haven't mentioned Apollo Alliance and a plethora of additional information, but that's for another time.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Speak up Be American!!
I’m sure this message will land me on some kind of enemies list and I will be branded racist, kook, right wing extremist, but I just don’t give a D…., any more. This country has been too good to me and my loved ones to stand by and watch it turned into a dictatorship without letting my voice be heard. I’m going to be communicating to all I can reach via internet while it is still available. How many of you know legislation is quietly sliding through the senate(Jay Rockefeller) that will give the chosen one complete authority to control the internet in the US of A. Where does your internet business go when He decides an “emergency” warrants shutting down the internet for “security” reasons? If you think I am some senile old fool sitting in his rocker holding a drool cup, do so at your peril, you and your loved one freedoms are at risk.
The current President of The United States is the biggest threat this country has ever been faced with. I've been on this earth for 73+ years, served eight years in the Air Force and love what this country has always stood for, a place where hard word, education, loyalty, kindness, love and determination will reward you unbelievably well. I'm so sad to see how our newest generations are so simple minded as to believe in this Pied Piper, that he will somehow take care of you in all ways. I am amazed at the speed and ease with which he is being allowed to do this.
The unbelievable debt being generated for future generations will soon come due, but then it will be too late. I'm happy to see there are others like me who understand what is happening, but I fear "He" is already working on ways to shut our mouths permanently. The internet takeover being one of them. Please, Americans, wake up and look at what is happening...not a shot is being fired but our wonderful country is close to surrender, being destroyed silently and quickly from within. There has never been a country as great as ours and if this "change" is allowed to happen, there will never be another like it, ever again.
Why do you think so many people from all over the world want to come here? They're smarter than we are...they know what the alternatives are, have lived it and want to get away from it. Please, please don't let this man destroy the American way of life. Write your congress reps. and senators and tell them to oppose this man and his radical ideas.
Many of you aren't old enough to know the recent past, but there are those who think Jimmy Carter was a good president. He may have been a "good man" but he was without doubt the most ineffectual, uninspiring, unpatriotic president in my lifetime. (I almost voted for him because I was angry at President Ford for letting Nixon off) Thank God I didn’t, it would have been one of the more stupid choices of my life. The country suffered greatly. But I'd trade 'Bama for Carter in an instant. What Carter did was due to being incompetent and even though he was a screaming liberal, he never held malice towards this country. 'Bama wants revenge for deeds done long before most of us were born and he wants to be the Ultimate Ruler over this great land. He's on his way with all the liberal media outlets in his back pocket, figuring ways to stifle talk radio, shut down the internet, cap and trade to increase the cost of energy to where we won't be able to afford travel, I know I'm leaving alot out, but the best of all will be his "Civilian Army" with "a strength as great as our present miltary".(His words, not mine) Do you know why he needs this? Who is this unseen threat, we citizens? We have a volunteer military. Some are there because they needed a job, but most are patriots and passionately believe in America and it's principles, as was my decision “back when” in 1956. If it ultimately came to a total take over of our country because this administration had crippled us so badly we had to capitulate to his rule for just our existence, for food and water, I don't believe our military would go along with him. He will of course try to ruin the military by holding back funding, which he is already doing.
Ever heard of (Americorps) Let’s not forget Acorn, Apollo Group, the Black Panthers to name a few of “HIS chosen troops for his army. The "civilian army" would be there to finish off the job, taking over the role of our present military. His own personal army. How do you spell "dictator"? This scenario has happened many times before in history, even recently(Hugo Chavez). Wake up before it’s too late. Don't let him get away with this. Vote him out in 2012. Resist him now. Speak up Be American!!
The current President of The United States is the biggest threat this country has ever been faced with. I've been on this earth for 73+ years, served eight years in the Air Force and love what this country has always stood for, a place where hard word, education, loyalty, kindness, love and determination will reward you unbelievably well. I'm so sad to see how our newest generations are so simple minded as to believe in this Pied Piper, that he will somehow take care of you in all ways. I am amazed at the speed and ease with which he is being allowed to do this.
The unbelievable debt being generated for future generations will soon come due, but then it will be too late. I'm happy to see there are others like me who understand what is happening, but I fear "He" is already working on ways to shut our mouths permanently. The internet takeover being one of them. Please, Americans, wake up and look at what is happening...not a shot is being fired but our wonderful country is close to surrender, being destroyed silently and quickly from within. There has never been a country as great as ours and if this "change" is allowed to happen, there will never be another like it, ever again.
Why do you think so many people from all over the world want to come here? They're smarter than we are...they know what the alternatives are, have lived it and want to get away from it. Please, please don't let this man destroy the American way of life. Write your congress reps. and senators and tell them to oppose this man and his radical ideas.
Many of you aren't old enough to know the recent past, but there are those who think Jimmy Carter was a good president. He may have been a "good man" but he was without doubt the most ineffectual, uninspiring, unpatriotic president in my lifetime. (I almost voted for him because I was angry at President Ford for letting Nixon off) Thank God I didn’t, it would have been one of the more stupid choices of my life. The country suffered greatly. But I'd trade 'Bama for Carter in an instant. What Carter did was due to being incompetent and even though he was a screaming liberal, he never held malice towards this country. 'Bama wants revenge for deeds done long before most of us were born and he wants to be the Ultimate Ruler over this great land. He's on his way with all the liberal media outlets in his back pocket, figuring ways to stifle talk radio, shut down the internet, cap and trade to increase the cost of energy to where we won't be able to afford travel, I know I'm leaving alot out, but the best of all will be his "Civilian Army" with "a strength as great as our present miltary".(His words, not mine) Do you know why he needs this? Who is this unseen threat, we citizens? We have a volunteer military. Some are there because they needed a job, but most are patriots and passionately believe in America and it's principles, as was my decision “back when” in 1956. If it ultimately came to a total take over of our country because this administration had crippled us so badly we had to capitulate to his rule for just our existence, for food and water, I don't believe our military would go along with him. He will of course try to ruin the military by holding back funding, which he is already doing.
Ever heard of (Americorps) Let’s not forget Acorn, Apollo Group, the Black Panthers to name a few of “HIS chosen troops for his army. The "civilian army" would be there to finish off the job, taking over the role of our present military. His own personal army. How do you spell "dictator"? This scenario has happened many times before in history, even recently(Hugo Chavez). Wake up before it’s too late. Don't let him get away with this. Vote him out in 2012. Resist him now. Speak up Be American!!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
DAMN THE TORPEDOES!
bailout,stimulus
I have been debating with myself whether or not to post this message. But my decision to proceed is motivated by a concern that all the freedoms to pursue whatever path to success we choose to follow is being threatened. Therefore in the words of Admiral David Farragut “Damn the Torpedoes” I’m charging ahead.
To set the stage, my credentials which I will use as a backdrop for my opinions are as follows:
Eight years USAF
Ten years Commercial Banker
Twenty-five Mortgage Banker
Thirty years part time Network Marketer
My entire civilian working career was in a competitive market. That career ended in two thousand with my well deserved retirement. So with the exception of my small (by design) network marketing business, I have enjoyed the roll of observer to all business and political matters. I no longer can be a mere passenger on a train headed for what I see as a complete train-wreck of our long cherished free enterprise based society. I watched with utter amazement as the majority (52%) of Americans and virtually the entire print and electronic media completely, without question, adopt the philosophy of a candidate for President of the United States whose Ideas and ideals were shaped by radicals and Marxists. Those aren’t my words, those words were spoken by the man now occupying the White House for the next four years.
History can’t be re-written, the election is over, and time marches on. The only thing we can alter is the future, and my concern is what that future is going to look like for our children, grandchildren and beyond. I submit to you that unless a dramatic change of course is not made, which is caused by citizens like you and I DEMANDING our lawmakers and president quickly steer our Ship of State in a different direction or the House of Representatives, Senate and White House will have a sea of new fresh faces come next election (2010 and 2012).
I will list only a few of my concerns and I leave you with the challenge of researching further on your own. Don’t take my challenge lightly as you will regret the day you chose to stand idle and neglect your civic duties.
A few of the issues concerning to me:
1 Bailouts ( nearly 1 TRILLION dollars we don’t have)
2 Stimulus (797 BILLION dollars we don’t have)
Budget FY 2010 (500 BILLION dollars we don’t have)
TARP (700 BILLION dollars we don’t have)
Nationalizing banks, insurance companies, and automakers
National Healthcare
Acorn ( 7 BILLION dollars of taxpayers funding money we don’t have)
A mountain of debt impossible to repay.
SEIU and Apollo writing stimulus, cap and trade and healthcare legislation.(Publicly stated by Sen. Harry Reid when he thanked those organizations for their “help” writing those bills.)
Advisors to the President (CZARS) who are avowed Communists, Socialists, Marxists and radicals by their own words.
The list is a lot longer and much more detailed, but I hope you get the idea that we as a nation cannot sit on the sidelines any longer and watch.
If you have in any way benefited from our Constitutional Rights and the market (Free Enterprise) system that has made the United States of American the greatest nation on the face of the earth, then you have an obligation to become informed and take a position, either way, on the future direction of this great nation.
I have been debating with myself whether or not to post this message. But my decision to proceed is motivated by a concern that all the freedoms to pursue whatever path to success we choose to follow is being threatened. Therefore in the words of Admiral David Farragut “Damn the Torpedoes” I’m charging ahead.
To set the stage, my credentials which I will use as a backdrop for my opinions are as follows:
Eight years USAF
Ten years Commercial Banker
Twenty-five Mortgage Banker
Thirty years part time Network Marketer
My entire civilian working career was in a competitive market. That career ended in two thousand with my well deserved retirement. So with the exception of my small (by design) network marketing business, I have enjoyed the roll of observer to all business and political matters. I no longer can be a mere passenger on a train headed for what I see as a complete train-wreck of our long cherished free enterprise based society. I watched with utter amazement as the majority (52%) of Americans and virtually the entire print and electronic media completely, without question, adopt the philosophy of a candidate for President of the United States whose Ideas and ideals were shaped by radicals and Marxists. Those aren’t my words, those words were spoken by the man now occupying the White House for the next four years.
History can’t be re-written, the election is over, and time marches on. The only thing we can alter is the future, and my concern is what that future is going to look like for our children, grandchildren and beyond. I submit to you that unless a dramatic change of course is not made, which is caused by citizens like you and I DEMANDING our lawmakers and president quickly steer our Ship of State in a different direction or the House of Representatives, Senate and White House will have a sea of new fresh faces come next election (2010 and 2012).
I will list only a few of my concerns and I leave you with the challenge of researching further on your own. Don’t take my challenge lightly as you will regret the day you chose to stand idle and neglect your civic duties.
A few of the issues concerning to me:
1 Bailouts ( nearly 1 TRILLION dollars we don’t have)
2 Stimulus (797 BILLION dollars we don’t have)
Budget FY 2010 (500 BILLION dollars we don’t have)
TARP (700 BILLION dollars we don’t have)
Nationalizing banks, insurance companies, and automakers
National Healthcare
Acorn ( 7 BILLION dollars of taxpayers funding money we don’t have)
A mountain of debt impossible to repay.
SEIU and Apollo writing stimulus, cap and trade and healthcare legislation.(Publicly stated by Sen. Harry Reid when he thanked those organizations for their “help” writing those bills.)
Advisors to the President (CZARS) who are avowed Communists, Socialists, Marxists and radicals by their own words.
The list is a lot longer and much more detailed, but I hope you get the idea that we as a nation cannot sit on the sidelines any longer and watch.
If you have in any way benefited from our Constitutional Rights and the market (Free Enterprise) system that has made the United States of American the greatest nation on the face of the earth, then you have an obligation to become informed and take a position, either way, on the future direction of this great nation.
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