Reason Saves Cleveland With Drew Carey is an original Reason.tv documentary series airing the week of March 15-19, 2010.
Reason Saves Cleveland With Drew Carey is an original Reason.tv documentary series airing the week of March 15-19, 2010.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Healthcare Reform Passes
by Ron Paul
Following months of heated public debate and aggressive closed-door negotiations, Congress finally cast a historic vote on healthcare late Sunday evening. It was truly a sad weekend on the House floor as we witnessed further dismantling of the Constitution, disregard of the will of the people, explosive expansion of the reach of government, unprecedented corporate favoritism, and the impending end of quality healthcare as we know it.
Those in favor of this bill touted their good intentions of ensuring quality healthcare for all Americans, as if those of us against the bill are against good medical care. They cite fanciful statistics of deficit reduction, while simultaneously planning to expand the already struggling medical welfare programs we currently have.
They somehow think that healthcare in this country will be improved by swelling our welfare rolls and cutting reimbursement payments to doctors who are already losing money. It is estimated that thousands of doctors will be economically forced out of the profession should this government fuzzy math actually try to become healthcare reality. No one has thought to ask what good mandatory health insurance will be if people can’t find a doctor.
Legislative hopes and dreams don’t always stand up well against economic realities.
Frustratingly, this legislation does not deal at all with the real reasons access to healthcare is a struggle for so many – the astronomical costs. If tort reform was seriously discussed, if the massive regulatory burden on healthcare was reduced and reformed, if the free market was allowed to function and apply downward pressure on healthcare costs as it does with everything else, perhaps people wouldn’t be so beholden to insurance companies in the first place.
If costs were lowered, more people could simply pay for what they need out of pocket, as they were able to do before government got so involved. Instead, in the name of going after greedy insurance companies, the federal government is going to make people even more beholden to them by mandating that everyone buy their product!
Hefty fines are due from anyone found to have committed the heinous crime of not being a customer of a health insurance company. We will need to hire some 16,500 new IRS agents to police compliance with all these new mandates and administer various fines. So in government terms, this is also a jobs bill. Never mind that this program is also likely to cost the private sector some 5 million jobs.
Of course, the most troubling aspect of this bill is that it is so blatantly unconstitutional and contrary to the ideals of liberty. Nowhere in the constitution is there anything approaching authority for the Federal government to do any of this.
The founders would have been horrified at the idea of government forcing citizens to become consumers of a particular product from certain government approved companies. 38 states are said to already be preparing legal and constitutional challenges to this legislation, and if the courts stand by their oaths, they will win. Protecting the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, should be the court’s responsibility.
Citizens have a responsibility over their own life, but they also have the liberty to choose how they will live and protect their lives. Healthcare choices are a part of liberty, another part that is being stripped away. Government interference in healthcare has already infringed on choices available to people, but rather than getting out of the way, it is entrenching itself, and its corporatist cronies, even more deeply.
Another Senseless Drug War Death
Stunning developments in the 2009 police shooting of Georgia pastor Jonathan Ayers
Ayers then pulled into a nearby gas station to withdraw money from an ATM. Shortly after he got back into his car, a black Escalade tore into the parking lot. Three officers, all undercover, got out of the vehicle and pointed their guns at Ayers. The pastor, understandably, attempted to escape. As he pulled out of the station, Ayers grazed Officer Oxner with his car. Officer Billy Shane Harrison then opened fire, shooting Ayers in the stomach. (You can watch surveillance video of the altercationhere.) Ayers continued to drive, fleeing the parking lot for about a thousand yards before eventually crashing his car. He died at the hospital.
Ayers’ last words to his family and medical staff were that he thought he was being robbed. The police found no illicit drugs in his car, and there was no trace of any illegal substance in his body.
If the story ended there, it would merely be enough to boil your blood. These officers jumped from an SUV waving their guns commando-style over a possible $50 drug transaction. Worse, the man they pounced upon wasn't the target of their investigation.
The police claimed they announced themselves, but it isn't difficult to see how Ayers—or anyone else—might have been confused in the commotion. It was a hot, late summer Georgia afternoon. Ayers likely had his windows up and his air conditioning on. The officers were undercover, dressed in shabby clothes and ski-mask caps. The badges they had hanging from their necks, seen in this photo, were far from conspicuous.
Let’s say that you (which would include 99 percent of the people reading this) aren't a drug dealer, or a mobster, or some other sort of career criminal. You've just returned to your car after getting cash from an ATM. An unmarked Escalade pulls up and three men jump out in masks and guns. Confusion and self-preservation is not only understandable, it ought to be predictable, even expected.
This would have been a grossly disproportionate way for these cops to have approached Barrett, their arctual suspect, much less a guy they sought to question only about the 10 minutes he'd just spent in the car with her.
The Stephens County, Georgia Sheriff's Department initially said Ayers was a drug suspect, but later had to retract. In her September interview with the North Georgian, Barrett told the paper that Ayers had been trying to help kick her drug habit, but later, while facing charges related to both the Ayers case and another incident, she told investigators that Ayers had in previous years paid her for sex. This testimony persuaded the grand jury not to indict the officers who killed Ayers. The pastor may have fled the police, the grand jury concluded, because he feared his reputation would be ruined if his relationship with Barrett were exposed.
District Attorney Brian Rickman praised the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for going to "very extraordinary lengths" to insure the investigation into the shooting was fair. But Abigail Ayers' civil suit (PDF) calls that assessment into question. The complaint alleges that Officer Harrison, the cop who shot Ayers, wasn't even authorized to arrest him. On the day Ayers was killed, Harrison had yet to take a series of firearms training classes required for his certification as a police officer. More astonishing, Harrison apparently had no training at all in the use of lethal force.
These allegations have since been confirmed by local TV station WSBTV and, after the fact, by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Despite the fact that Harrison had killed a man suspected of no crime months earlier without having undergone lethal-force training and certification, the officer was still carrying his badge and gun up until the time of the WSBTV report. Once the publicity hit, Harrison was suspended. Abigail Ayers' civil suit also alleges prior disciplinary problems with both officers Oxner and Harrison, including alleged drug use.
The wasteful use of public resources to pursue a petty drug offender and the aggressive and short-sighted apprehension of Jonathan Ayers that led to his death are bad enough. That a police officer untrained in the use of lethal force and unqualified to be holding a badge and gun was put on a narcotics task force, and then placed in a position where he was able to shoot and kill a non-suspect is worse. But the kicker has to be that the subsequent police-led investigations of this high-profile casefailed to turn up such a critical piece of information. It ought to cast more doubt on the already dubious notion that police shootings should only be investigated by other police officers.
At the heart of this outrage, though, once again, is our increasingly demented, hysterical, all-too-literal drug war. Until we're ready to dispense with the notion that gun-toting cops in ski masks going commando at a public gas station is an appropriate response to an alleged $50 drug transaction, we're going to see a lot more Jonathan Ayerses.
Radley Balko is a senior editor at Reason magazine.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Biggest Obstacle to the Liberty Movement is .....
.... the Republican Party. It is the continuos promises that the Republican Party makes, such as Limited Government, Lower Taxes, Fiscal Responsibility, Family Values, Privacy, Focusing on Our Hemisphere, Property Rights, etc., etc., etc.
Yet, when the Republican Party actually gained control of both the Presidency and both houses of Congress, their actions were completely opposite of their platform and avowed principles.
The Republican Party is poised to present itself as the only alternative to Barack Obama and a Democratic Party that is bent on turning America into a socialistic, government depending nation. The problem with this thought process is the fact is the Republican Party runs a government just as bad if not worse than the Democrats. The traditional Tax and Spend policy of the Democratic Party is just as bad the Republican's traditional of Deficit Spending policy.
Many voters are just as dissatisfied with the Republicans as they are the Democrats. A bad taste from the Bush years seems to linger and not go away as Obama, Pelosi, and their goons run roughshod on America. Let's hope that voters do not develop another case of amnesia.
Yet, when the Republican Party actually gained control of both the Presidency and both houses of Congress, their actions were completely opposite of their platform and avowed principles.
Here is there list accomplishments:
- The Largest Expansion of Government Power since, well, Richard Nixon
- Passage of the Patriot Act
- Historic Increases in Deficit Spending
- 2 Invasions and Occupation Sovereign Nations
- Failure to Pass Their Family Values through Legislation
- Subsidized Tax Refunds to People Who Do Not Pay Taxes
- Failure to Make Tax Cuts Permanent
The Republican Party is poised to present itself as the only alternative to Barack Obama and a Democratic Party that is bent on turning America into a socialistic, government depending nation. The problem with this thought process is the fact is the Republican Party runs a government just as bad if not worse than the Democrats. The traditional Tax and Spend policy of the Democratic Party is just as bad the Republican's traditional of Deficit Spending policy.
Many voters are just as dissatisfied with the Republicans as they are the Democrats. A bad taste from the Bush years seems to linger and not go away as Obama, Pelosi, and their goons run roughshod on America. Let's hope that voters do not develop another case of amnesia.
Muir Boda
Is Health-Care Reform Constitutional?
by Randy Barnett
This article appeared in the Washington Post on March 21, 2010.
ith the House set to vote on health-care legislation, the congressional debate on the issue seems to be nearing its conclusion. But if the bill does become law, the battle over federal control of health care will inevitably shift to the courts. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II, has said he will file a legal challenge to the bill, arguing in a column this month that reform legislation "violate[s] the plain text of both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments." On Friday, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced that they will file a federal lawsuit if health-care reform legislation passes.
Will these cases get anywhere? Here is a guide to the possible legal challenges to a comprehensive health-care bill.
The individual mandate.
Can Congress really require that every person purchase health insurance from a private company or face a penalty? The answer lies in the commerce clause of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power "to regulate commerce . . . among the several states." Historically, insurance contracts were not considered commerce, which referred to trade and carriage of merchandise. That's why insurance has traditionally been regulated by states. But the Supreme Court has long allowed Congress to regulate and prohibit all sorts of "economic" activities that are not, strictly speaking, commerce. The key is that those activities substantially affect interstate commerce, and that's how the court would probably view the regulation of health insurance.
But the individual mandate extends the commerce clause's power beyond economic activity, to economic inactivity. That is unprecedented. While Congress has used its taxing power to fund Social Security and Medicare, never before has it used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engage in an economic transaction with a private company. Regulating the auto industry or paying "cash for clunkers" is one thing; making everyone buy a Chevy is quite another. Even during World War II, the federal government did not mandate that individual citizens purchase war bonds.
If you choose to drive a car, then maybe you can be made to buy insurance against the possibility of inflicting harm on others. But making you buy insurance merely because you are alive is a claim of power from which many Americans instinctively shrink. Senate Republicans made this objection, and it was defeated on a party-line vote, but it will return.
The Lunatic Left Is Getting Desperate
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
The Huffington Post recently (March 18) sunk to a new low by publishing an attack on“Ron Paul and the Tea Parties: States’ Rights and the 17th Amendment” by one Leonard Zeskind, a “former” Stalinist rabble-rouser. According to Laird Wilcox, author of The Watchdogs, a book about contemporary political movements, Zeskind began his communistic career of agitprop in the ’70s as a “front man” for the “Sojourner Truth Organization” whose stated objective was “to motivate the working classes to make a revolution.” The Organization quoted its role model, Josef Stalin, who insisted on the need for “iron discipline” in agitating for a communist revolution in America.
According to Wilcox, Zeskind has written favorably about “the value of a grass roots school of communism” that would teach people how to “destroy the marketplace.” He wrote this in a journal called “Urgent Tasks,” a phrase popularized by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The Kansas City City Magazine once called Zeskind “elusive, paranoid, near hysterical.” His forte, according to the Wilcox Collection, appears to be “ritual defamation” of his perceived political opponents, i.e., “to call people names in the hope of defaming, discrediting, stigmatizing or neutralizing them.”
An example of the Zeskind/Huffington “ritual defamation” strategy is his statements in The Huffington Post that: 1) Someone writing for an obscure publication called “The American Free Press” noted recently that “the Tea Parties were actually born during the presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul of Texas”; 2) Several decades ago, someone who wrote in “The American Free Press” was revealed to be a Holocaust Denier; 3) Therefore, the Tea Parties (and Ron Paul’s supporters) must be hotbeds of Holocaust Denial.
Zeskind works himself into a hysterical frenzy over the fact that the “Tea Party Movement” has been talking about repealing the Seventeenth Amendment, which he says would be the equivalent of denying women the right to vote, or abolishing the constitutional principle of equal justice under the law. I’m not making this up. He really is that hysterical. And he calls Ron Paul an “extremist”! Apparently, Ariana Huffington believes Zeskind is a qualified expert on constitutionalism.
Why are the Huffingtonians upset about mere talk of repealing the Seventeenth Amendment? Because the Amendment, which mandated the popular election of U.S. Senators (as opposed to the original system of appointment by state legislators) allows a small cabal of wealthy and influential people to dominate governmental decision-making. Getting elected to the U.S. Senate requires the raising of millions of dollars for television advertising and other elements of modern campaigning, so that senators have long been in the pockets of their major donors from all over the country, and the world, as opposed to the folks back home. Zeskind says this system is “democratic,” but in reality it is the opposite. Reverting back to the original system that was created by the founders would allow the “riff-raff” known as the citizens of the sovereign states to exert more influence over their own government. Historically, this system was an important brake on the growth of the central government. This is why the Lunatic Left is increasingly hysterical over the talk about repealing the Seventeenth Amendment as well as nullification, and especially secession.
The Rationale for State Legislators To Appoint U.S. Senators
Professor Ralph Rossum of Claremont McKenna College explains the rationale for the original system of appointing U.S. Senators in his book, Federalism, the Supreme Court, and the Seventeenth Amendment. The founding fathers intended that state legislatures would appoint senators and then instruct them on how to vote in Congress. This was to safeguard against the corruption of senators by special interests. “The ability of state legislatures to instruct senators was mentioned frequently during the Constitutional Convention and the state ratifying conventions and was always assumed to exist,” writes Rossum.
At the New York ratifying convention John Jay, co-author of The Federalist Papers, said “The Senate is to be composed of men appointed by the state legislatures…. I presume they will also instruct them, that there will be a constant correspondence between the senators and the state executives.” At the Massachusetts ratifying convention Fisher Ames referred to U.S. senators as “ambassadors of the states.” James Madison wrote in Federalist #45 that because of this system the U.S. Senate “would be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the prerogatives of their governments.” This was an important element of the whole system of states’ rights or federalism that was created by the founders (not by John C. Calhoun, as Zeskind and myriad neocons falsely claim). As Madison wrote in Federalist #62, the system gave “to state governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government as must secure the authority of the former.” It helped establish the fact that the citizens of the states were sovereign and the masters, not the servants, of their own government.
The legislative appointment of U.S. senators was responsible for the most famous declarations of the states’ rights philosophy of the founders, the nullification philosophy as expressed in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves of 1798, authored by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison respectively (not by Calhoun, as Zeskind and others falsely claim). These Resolves were used as part of the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures’ instructions to their senators to vote to repeal the odious Sedition Act, which effectively prohibited free political speech. The origins of nullification do not lie in attempts to protect slavery or Jim Crow laws, as Zeskind once again falsely claims. Jim Crow laws existed throughout the Northern states for many decades before they were imposed on the South by the Republican Party’s military occupation authorities during Reconstruction.
John Quincy Adams resigned from the Senate in 1809 because he disagreed with the Massachusetts state legislature’s instructions to him to oppose President James Madison’s trade embargo. Senator David Stone of North Carolina resigned in 1814 after his state legislature disapproved of his collaboration with the New England Federalists on several legislative issues. Senator Peleg Sprague of Maine resigned in 1835 after opposing his state legislatures’instructions to oppose the rechartering of the Second Bank of the United States. When the U.S. Senate censured President Andrew Jackson for having vetoed the rechartering of the Bank, seven U.S. Senators resigned rather than carry out their state legislatures’ instructions to vote to have Jackson’s censure expunged. One of them was Senator John Tyler of Virginia, who would become President of the United States in 1841.
In other words, the original system of state legislative appointment of U.S. Senators did exactly what it was designed to do: limit the tyrannical proclivities of the central government. As Professor Todd Zywicki of George Mason University Law School has written, “the Senate played an active role in preserving the sovereignty and independent sphere of action of state governments” in the pre-Seventeenth Amendment era prior to 1913. “Rather than delegating lawmaking authority to Washington, state legislators insisted on keeping authority close to home…. As a result, the long-term size of the federal government remained fairly stable and relatively small during the pre-Seventeenth-Amendment era”(emphasis added). (See Todd J. Zywicki, “Beyond the Shell and Husk of History: The History of the Seventeenth Amendment and its Implications for Current Reform Proposals,” Cleveland State Law Review, vol. 45, 1997).
You know the Lunatic Left is whistling past the graveyard when they resort to the “might-makes-right” argument against nullification and repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. Echoing the views expressed by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia several weeks ago, Zeskind concludes his paranoid tirade by saying that the “vision of state sovereignty and secession were settled by the Civil War….” But nothing is ever “settled” permanently in politics, no matter how many citizens the U.S. government might murder (some 350,000 in the case of the “Civil War”) in order to prove itself “right.”
The Huffington Post recently (March 18) sunk to a new low by publishing an attack on“Ron Paul and the Tea Parties: States’ Rights and the 17th Amendment” by one Leonard Zeskind, a “former” Stalinist rabble-rouser. According to Laird Wilcox, author of The Watchdogs, a book about contemporary political movements, Zeskind began his communistic career of agitprop in the ’70s as a “front man” for the “Sojourner Truth Organization” whose stated objective was “to motivate the working classes to make a revolution.” The Organization quoted its role model, Josef Stalin, who insisted on the need for “iron discipline” in agitating for a communist revolution in America.
According to Wilcox, Zeskind has written favorably about “the value of a grass roots school of communism” that would teach people how to “destroy the marketplace.” He wrote this in a journal called “Urgent Tasks,” a phrase popularized by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The Kansas City City Magazine once called Zeskind “elusive, paranoid, near hysterical.” His forte, according to the Wilcox Collection, appears to be “ritual defamation” of his perceived political opponents, i.e., “to call people names in the hope of defaming, discrediting, stigmatizing or neutralizing them.”
An example of the Zeskind/Huffington “ritual defamation” strategy is his statements in The Huffington Post that: 1) Someone writing for an obscure publication called “The American Free Press” noted recently that “the Tea Parties were actually born during the presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul of Texas”; 2) Several decades ago, someone who wrote in “The American Free Press” was revealed to be a Holocaust Denier; 3) Therefore, the Tea Parties (and Ron Paul’s supporters) must be hotbeds of Holocaust Denial.
Zeskind works himself into a hysterical frenzy over the fact that the “Tea Party Movement” has been talking about repealing the Seventeenth Amendment, which he says would be the equivalent of denying women the right to vote, or abolishing the constitutional principle of equal justice under the law. I’m not making this up. He really is that hysterical. And he calls Ron Paul an “extremist”! Apparently, Ariana Huffington believes Zeskind is a qualified expert on constitutionalism.
Why are the Huffingtonians upset about mere talk of repealing the Seventeenth Amendment? Because the Amendment, which mandated the popular election of U.S. Senators (as opposed to the original system of appointment by state legislators) allows a small cabal of wealthy and influential people to dominate governmental decision-making. Getting elected to the U.S. Senate requires the raising of millions of dollars for television advertising and other elements of modern campaigning, so that senators have long been in the pockets of their major donors from all over the country, and the world, as opposed to the folks back home. Zeskind says this system is “democratic,” but in reality it is the opposite. Reverting back to the original system that was created by the founders would allow the “riff-raff” known as the citizens of the sovereign states to exert more influence over their own government. Historically, this system was an important brake on the growth of the central government. This is why the Lunatic Left is increasingly hysterical over the talk about repealing the Seventeenth Amendment as well as nullification, and especially secession.
The Rationale for State Legislators To Appoint U.S. Senators
Professor Ralph Rossum of Claremont McKenna College explains the rationale for the original system of appointing U.S. Senators in his book, Federalism, the Supreme Court, and the Seventeenth Amendment. The founding fathers intended that state legislatures would appoint senators and then instruct them on how to vote in Congress. This was to safeguard against the corruption of senators by special interests. “The ability of state legislatures to instruct senators was mentioned frequently during the Constitutional Convention and the state ratifying conventions and was always assumed to exist,” writes Rossum.
At the New York ratifying convention John Jay, co-author of The Federalist Papers, said “The Senate is to be composed of men appointed by the state legislatures…. I presume they will also instruct them, that there will be a constant correspondence between the senators and the state executives.” At the Massachusetts ratifying convention Fisher Ames referred to U.S. senators as “ambassadors of the states.” James Madison wrote in Federalist #45 that because of this system the U.S. Senate “would be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the prerogatives of their governments.” This was an important element of the whole system of states’ rights or federalism that was created by the founders (not by John C. Calhoun, as Zeskind and myriad neocons falsely claim). As Madison wrote in Federalist #62, the system gave “to state governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government as must secure the authority of the former.” It helped establish the fact that the citizens of the states were sovereign and the masters, not the servants, of their own government.
The legislative appointment of U.S. senators was responsible for the most famous declarations of the states’ rights philosophy of the founders, the nullification philosophy as expressed in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves of 1798, authored by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison respectively (not by Calhoun, as Zeskind and others falsely claim). These Resolves were used as part of the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures’ instructions to their senators to vote to repeal the odious Sedition Act, which effectively prohibited free political speech. The origins of nullification do not lie in attempts to protect slavery or Jim Crow laws, as Zeskind once again falsely claims. Jim Crow laws existed throughout the Northern states for many decades before they were imposed on the South by the Republican Party’s military occupation authorities during Reconstruction.
John Quincy Adams resigned from the Senate in 1809 because he disagreed with the Massachusetts state legislature’s instructions to him to oppose President James Madison’s trade embargo. Senator David Stone of North Carolina resigned in 1814 after his state legislature disapproved of his collaboration with the New England Federalists on several legislative issues. Senator Peleg Sprague of Maine resigned in 1835 after opposing his state legislatures’instructions to oppose the rechartering of the Second Bank of the United States. When the U.S. Senate censured President Andrew Jackson for having vetoed the rechartering of the Bank, seven U.S. Senators resigned rather than carry out their state legislatures’ instructions to vote to have Jackson’s censure expunged. One of them was Senator John Tyler of Virginia, who would become President of the United States in 1841.
In other words, the original system of state legislative appointment of U.S. Senators did exactly what it was designed to do: limit the tyrannical proclivities of the central government. As Professor Todd Zywicki of George Mason University Law School has written, “the Senate played an active role in preserving the sovereignty and independent sphere of action of state governments” in the pre-Seventeenth Amendment era prior to 1913. “Rather than delegating lawmaking authority to Washington, state legislators insisted on keeping authority close to home…. As a result, the long-term size of the federal government remained fairly stable and relatively small during the pre-Seventeenth-Amendment era”(emphasis added). (See Todd J. Zywicki, “Beyond the Shell and Husk of History: The History of the Seventeenth Amendment and its Implications for Current Reform Proposals,” Cleveland State Law Review, vol. 45, 1997).
You know the Lunatic Left is whistling past the graveyard when they resort to the “might-makes-right” argument against nullification and repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. Echoing the views expressed by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia several weeks ago, Zeskind concludes his paranoid tirade by saying that the “vision of state sovereignty and secession were settled by the Civil War….” But nothing is ever “settled” permanently in politics, no matter how many citizens the U.S. government might murder (some 350,000 in the case of the “Civil War”) in order to prove itself “right.”
Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and the author of The Real Lincoln;Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe and How Capitalism Saved America. His latest book isHamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution – And What It Means for America Today.
Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
Education Lessons Are Lost on Obama
Not every failure occurs in the classroom
Steve Chapman | March 22, 2010
I can't pinpoint the moment when the Obama administration went wrong on the subject of education. But I can pinpoint the moment when it demonstrated that it can't be taken seriously.
It happened on Monday, March 15, when Education Secretary Arne Duncan was expounding to reporters about revising the No Child Left Behind law. The new policy, he asserted, "is going to revolutionize education in our country."
No, it's not. We have been at the task of education for a long time, and one thing we have learned is that you cannot revolutionize it. The American system of schooling is vast, complicated, self-protective, slow to change, and even slower to improve.
On these points, No Child Left Behind leaves no doubt. It was inaugurated with grand promises eight years ago. "As of this hour, America's schools will be on a new path of reform, and a new path of results," exulted President George W. Bush upon signing it.
For the first time, the federal government demanded that states create and enforce standards, hold educators accountable, and make prescribed changes. It seemed to hold great potential.
But the potential has gone unfulfilled. In the first five years, there were small gains in reading proficiency among 4th-graders, but the gains were larger in the five years before that. Likewise with math.
Among 8th-graders, there was no change in reading performance. Math scores rose a little, but less rapidly than they had been rising. Nor have minority students improved more than before.
High school students also have nothing to brag about. A 2008 report from the National Center for Education Statistics found that among 17-year-olds, performance in math and reading is worse now than it was in the 1990s and no better than in 1973.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Star Democrat Article on Dr. Davis
Below is an article on 1st congressional candidate Dr. Richard Davis, that was published in the Sunday print-only edition of the Easton Star-Democrat:
Story courtesy of The (Easton) Star Democrat
Got a campaign contribution? Dr. Davis says give it to charityBy STEVE NERY
News Editor
HURLOCK -- Dr. Davis doesn't desire contributions.
That's Dr. Richard Davis, the Libertarian candidate to represent the 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he thinks people can spend their money on more useful things than political campaigns.
Despite declining contributions since he first ran for Congress two years ago, Davis, a dentist from Hurlock, still occasionally receives monetary offers.
His response: Make a donation to a charity instead, in honor of his campaign or the Maryland Libertarian Party.
"Rather than expend money on ads, yard signs or bumper stickers, I want to see that publicity benefit local communities regardless of the outcome of the campaign," Davis wrote in an e-mail. "My campaign is largely about returning maximum control to local communities, and anything that strengthens those communities from within is as valuable as what I hope to accomplish in running for Congress."
Davis said he just recently came up with the idea of directing donations to charities, after people kept offering him contributions despite his public stance that he would not accept them.
"I figured maybe I can do some good with this," he said. "If they really want to give money, let's put it to something useful rather than to yard signs and bumper stickers."
Davis wonders what the 1st District might look like if all the campaign contributions from the 2008 election went to local communities instead of the candidates.
U.S. Rep. Frank Kratovil, D-Md.-1st, spent nearly $2 million on his successful campaign, general election opponent State Sen. Andy Harris, R-7-Baltimore and Harford counties, spent more than $3 million, and state Sen. E.J. Pipkin, R-36-Upper Shore, and the former incumbent, Wayne Gilchrest, each spent more than $1 million leading up to the Republican primary, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
"With the economy on the Shore like it is ... think of what you could have done," Davis said. "I think there's too much money going in and too much money coming out of the process."
Davis said he agreed to run again when asked by the Maryland Libertarian Party.
"For a totally unknown, I thought I did reasonably well last time, plus I'm still thoroughly unhappy with what the two major parties are doing," he said.
He may spend a little of his own money on travel expenses and the like, but it again won't be anywhere near the $5,000 minimum required for filing an FEC report, Davis said.
"I'm not looking to buy votes. I would rather have people voting for me because they want what I believe in and not because they happened to see an ad," he said.
Davis received 8,873 votes last time, compared to 177,065 for Kratovil and 174,213 for Harris. He didn't win the election, but he won the title of most cost-effective candidate [-] Harris' campaign spent $17.36 for each vote received and Kratovil's campaign spent $11.26 per, while Davis spent only his time.
While he's not willing to spend money on signs and stickers, Davis is willing to meet with any group interested in hearing his views. He said he's especially open to any organization that wants him to speak on a specific topic or answer questions. He can be reached at 410-943-8314 or at rjdavislp@gmail.com.
Davis believes in lower taxes and government spending (including shifting taxation on income to consumption), Congressional term limits and gradually doing away with Social Security. For more information on his views, visit davis4congress.com.
Got a campaign contribution? Dr. Davis says give it to charityBy STEVE NERY
News Editor
HURLOCK -- Dr. Davis doesn't desire contributions.
That's Dr. Richard Davis, the Libertarian candidate to represent the 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he thinks people can spend their money on more useful things than political campaigns.
Despite declining contributions since he first ran for Congress two years ago, Davis, a dentist from Hurlock, still occasionally receives monetary offers.
His response: Make a donation to a charity instead, in honor of his campaign or the Maryland Libertarian Party.
"Rather than expend money on ads, yard signs or bumper stickers, I want to see that publicity benefit local communities regardless of the outcome of the campaign," Davis wrote in an e-mail. "My campaign is largely about returning maximum control to local communities, and anything that strengthens those communities from within is as valuable as what I hope to accomplish in running for Congress."
Davis said he just recently came up with the idea of directing donations to charities, after people kept offering him contributions despite his public stance that he would not accept them.
"I figured maybe I can do some good with this," he said. "If they really want to give money, let's put it to something useful rather than to yard signs and bumper stickers."
Davis wonders what the 1st District might look like if all the campaign contributions from the 2008 election went to local communities instead of the candidates.
U.S. Rep. Frank Kratovil, D-Md.-1st, spent nearly $2 million on his successful campaign, general election opponent State Sen. Andy Harris, R-7-Baltimore and Harford counties, spent more than $3 million, and state Sen. E.J. Pipkin, R-36-Upper Shore, and the former incumbent, Wayne Gilchrest, each spent more than $1 million leading up to the Republican primary, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
"With the economy on the Shore like it is ... think of what you could have done," Davis said. "I think there's too much money going in and too much money coming out of the process."
Davis said he agreed to run again when asked by the Maryland Libertarian Party.
"For a totally unknown, I thought I did reasonably well last time, plus I'm still thoroughly unhappy with what the two major parties are doing," he said.
He may spend a little of his own money on travel expenses and the like, but it again won't be anywhere near the $5,000 minimum required for filing an FEC report, Davis said.
"I'm not looking to buy votes. I would rather have people voting for me because they want what I believe in and not because they happened to see an ad," he said.
Davis received 8,873 votes last time, compared to 177,065 for Kratovil and 174,213 for Harris. He didn't win the election, but he won the title of most cost-effective candidate [-] Harris' campaign spent $17.36 for each vote received and Kratovil's campaign spent $11.26 per, while Davis spent only his time.
While he's not willing to spend money on signs and stickers, Davis is willing to meet with any group interested in hearing his views. He said he's especially open to any organization that wants him to speak on a specific topic or answer questions. He can be reached at 410-943-8314 or at rjdavislp@gmail.com.
Davis believes in lower taxes and government spending (including shifting taxation on income to consumption), Congressional term limits and gradually doing away with Social Security. For more information on his views, visit davis4congress.com.
Libertarians oppose census questions
WASHINGTON - Libertarian Party (LP) Chairman William Redpath released the following statement today regarding the 2010 census:
"The Libertarian Party believes that the federal government's current census procedures are unconstitutional, unnecessary, and too expensive. We believe that the census is constitutionally limited to collecting only one piece of information about each residence: the number of persons living in it. We urge Congress to change the census laws to comply with this constitutional limitation.
"The U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to provide for a census in order to apportion Representatives correctly. The Constitution does not empower Congress to use a census for any other purpose. There is no need for Congress to collect additional information such as names, races, ages, sexes, or home ownership status. Unfortunately, the federal government wants to use the additional information to fine tune its control over the lives and money of the American people.
"The 2010 census is expected to cost over $14 billion. A recent report from the Inspector General of the Department of Commerce indicates that preparations for the 2010 census have already been filled with waste and bloat. A proper census, limited to just a headcount, would be far less expensive.
"Many Americans fear that the Census Bureau will not keep their information secret, and might turn personal details over to other government agencies. The Census Bureau promises that they will keep everything confidential, but they have broken that promise in the past. As David Kopel of the libertarian Cato Institute has pointed out, during World War I the Census Bureau handed over lists of names and addresses so the federal government could search for draft resisters. And, shockingly, during World War II, the Census Bureau told the Justice Department which neighborhoods had high concentrations of Japanese-Americans. The federal government then used that information to find Japanese-Americans and imprison them in concentration camps.
"As Congressman Ron Paul, 1988 Libertarian candidate for President, recently said, 'If the federal government really wants to increase compliance with the census, it should abide by the Constitution and limit its inquiry to one simple question: How many people live here?'"
For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.
The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets and civil liberties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website.
"The Libertarian Party believes that the federal government's current census procedures are unconstitutional, unnecessary, and too expensive. We believe that the census is constitutionally limited to collecting only one piece of information about each residence: the number of persons living in it. We urge Congress to change the census laws to comply with this constitutional limitation.
"The U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to provide for a census in order to apportion Representatives correctly. The Constitution does not empower Congress to use a census for any other purpose. There is no need for Congress to collect additional information such as names, races, ages, sexes, or home ownership status. Unfortunately, the federal government wants to use the additional information to fine tune its control over the lives and money of the American people.
"The 2010 census is expected to cost over $14 billion. A recent report from the Inspector General of the Department of Commerce indicates that preparations for the 2010 census have already been filled with waste and bloat. A proper census, limited to just a headcount, would be far less expensive.
"Many Americans fear that the Census Bureau will not keep their information secret, and might turn personal details over to other government agencies. The Census Bureau promises that they will keep everything confidential, but they have broken that promise in the past. As David Kopel of the libertarian Cato Institute has pointed out, during World War I the Census Bureau handed over lists of names and addresses so the federal government could search for draft resisters. And, shockingly, during World War II, the Census Bureau told the Justice Department which neighborhoods had high concentrations of Japanese-Americans. The federal government then used that information to find Japanese-Americans and imprison them in concentration camps.
"As Congressman Ron Paul, 1988 Libertarian candidate for President, recently said, 'If the federal government really wants to increase compliance with the census, it should abide by the Constitution and limit its inquiry to one simple question: How many people live here?'"
For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.
The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets and civil liberties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Easton Star Democrat Feature's MDLP, Susan Gaztanaga
Easton, MD: The Star Democrat featured the MdLP's Gubernatorial Candidate Susan Gaztanaga's message of "Zero to Six in Eight." Our message is getting out and giving Marylanders a serious alternative.
Dr. Davis in Easton's Star Democrat
Here is a link to a short online article in the Star Democrat about Dr. Davis.
Libertarian Party opposes health care plan
WASHINGTON - The Libertarian Party adamantly opposes the health care bill passed on Christmas Eve by the US Senate that is currently being considered in the US House of Representatives. The Libertarian Party calls on the US House to vote down this disastrous plan, and instead to pass laws reducing federal involvement in health care.
Libertarian Party Chairman William Redpath commented, "We oppose this horrible federal government expansion into health care, just as we have consistently opposed all the increased government intrusion into health care proposed by Republicans and Democrats over the years. For example, we vocally opposed the huge Medicare expansion pushed through Congress by Republicans in 2003."
Redpath continued, "It is a virtual certainty that the cost estimates of this legislation are drastically understated. When Medicare Part A started in 1965, the projected cost for 1990 was $9 billion. It turned out to be $67 billion. Should this bill become law, when the debt of the United States government is downgraded by ratings agencies shortly thereafter, it will not be a coincidence. That will increase interest rates, and the entire economy will suffer."
The Libertarian Party Platform says the following about health care: "We favor restoring and reviving a free market health care system. We recognize the freedom of individuals to determine the level of health insurance they want, the level of health care they want, the care providers they want, the medicines and treatments they will use and all other aspects of their medical care, including end-of-life decisions."
The words "health care" and "medicine" are not found anywhere in the Constitution. Accordingly, the Libertarian Party asserts that Congress has no authority to regulate or appropriate money for health care. (The Libertarian Party has consistently argued for decades that the "general welfare" and "interstate commerce" clauses are not generic authorizations for spending and regulation.)
Redpath concluded, "This is a top-down, Washington-mandated control of health insurance and health care in this nation. It is the antithesis of consumer-driven health care, which is what will ultimately be necessary to control health care costs and to provide the best health care for the greatest number of people."
For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.
The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets and civil liberties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website.
Libertarian Party Chairman William Redpath commented, "We oppose this horrible federal government expansion into health care, just as we have consistently opposed all the increased government intrusion into health care proposed by Republicans and Democrats over the years. For example, we vocally opposed the huge Medicare expansion pushed through Congress by Republicans in 2003."
Redpath continued, "It is a virtual certainty that the cost estimates of this legislation are drastically understated. When Medicare Part A started in 1965, the projected cost for 1990 was $9 billion. It turned out to be $67 billion. Should this bill become law, when the debt of the United States government is downgraded by ratings agencies shortly thereafter, it will not be a coincidence. That will increase interest rates, and the entire economy will suffer."
The Libertarian Party Platform says the following about health care: "We favor restoring and reviving a free market health care system. We recognize the freedom of individuals to determine the level of health insurance they want, the level of health care they want, the care providers they want, the medicines and treatments they will use and all other aspects of their medical care, including end-of-life decisions."
The words "health care" and "medicine" are not found anywhere in the Constitution. Accordingly, the Libertarian Party asserts that Congress has no authority to regulate or appropriate money for health care. (The Libertarian Party has consistently argued for decades that the "general welfare" and "interstate commerce" clauses are not generic authorizations for spending and regulation.)
Redpath concluded, "This is a top-down, Washington-mandated control of health insurance and health care in this nation. It is the antithesis of consumer-driven health care, which is what will ultimately be necessary to control health care costs and to provide the best health care for the greatest number of people."
For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.
The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets and civil liberties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website.
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