Surprise: Emergency Sandy legislation full of millions in non-Sandy spending
The request from the White House is for a $60 billion package. That’d be fully three quarters of the amount the Democratic tax hike on those over $250,000 would bring in. ABC on its contents:
The request, which still needs the approval of Congress, includes billions in urgently needed aide. But it also features some surprising items: $23 million for tree plantings to “help reduce flood effects, protect water sources, decrease soil erosion and improve wildlife habitat” in forested areas touched by Sandy; $2 million to repair roof damage at Smithsonian buildings in Washington that pre-dates the storm; $4 million to repair sand berms and dunes at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; and $41 million for clean-up and repairs at eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Politico tallies some of the millions, too:
The FBI is seeking $4 million to replace “vehicles, laboratory and office equipment and furniture,” while Customs and Border Protection wants $2.4 million to replace “destroyed or damaged vehicles, including mobile X-Ray machines.”
The Small Business Administration is seeking a $50 million slice of the pie for its post-storm response efforts, including “Small Business Development Centers and Women’s Business Development Centers.”
Among the spending: $482 million to NOAA for severe weather forecasting, marine debris cleanup, repair of facilities and equipment and coastal ecosystem protection; $810 million to EPA for clean water and drinking water state revolving funds to upgrade water infrastructure; $5 million for EPA’s leaking underground storage tank cleanup program; $2 million for Superfund sites; $3 million to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to repair a New Jersey oil spill response testing facility; $78 million to the Fish and Wildlife Service for national wildlife refuges; and $4.4 million for Forest Service recovery efforts.Republicans argue that FEMA still has $5 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, according to ABC, so examining the bill shouldn’t endanger recovery. The Congressional Budget Office reveals just how much of the Senate Democratic bill, written from Obama’s request, is urgent:
While the bill calls for $60.4 billion, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that only about $9 billion would be spent over the next nine months. An additional $12 billion would be spent the following year.Sen. Tom Coburn and Rep. Brett Guthrie suggest scrutinizing such bills—imagine this—can prevent fraud and abuse:
The bill is laden with big infrastructure projects that often require years to complete.
Some Republicans said they want to see more detailed evidence to insure the money is needed to cover storm damages.Another loopy Republican wants to pass a smaller relief bill—Suggestion: the $9 billion to be spent this year or that plus the $12 billion for next year?— and then use data to determine where more money should go:
“We need to look and see what the real numbers are,” said Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., a member of the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative Republicans. “We have had a tragic storm and we need to figure out how to help, but I don’t know yet what the actual number should be.”
Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a frequent critic of spending he considers wasteful, said Sandy aid should be paid for with spending cuts elsewhere.
Coburn said there was significant waste, fraud and abuse in federal spending related to Hurricane Katrina recovery and he doesn’t want the same thing to happen if Sandy aid is rushed through Congress.
“They’re throwing things to see what will stick to the wall,” Coburn said. “Instead, we ought to be asking hard questions.”
House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky has said Congress may want to begin with a smaller aid package for immediate recovery needs and wait until more data can be collected about storm damages before approving additional money next year.In a charity, such suggestions would be seen as sensible, imperative, even the moral obligation of those seeking to use resources to best help others. Not here. My thoughts and prayers and support are with the people still recovering from Hurricane Sandy. This account of slow progress in Rockaway thanks to a combination of neighbors helping neighbors, city workers, and outside volunteers is characteristic. A joint op-ed by the governors of the three most affected states reinforces the sheer amount of damage. I’m not arguing against a federal role in disaster recovery, though I think blind reliance on it in the immediate wake of a disaster lacks vital flexibility, but I do want to evaluate its efforts with at least the same rigor we bring to the Red Cross.
“We do have concerns about the fact that it’s so massive and that its individual branches are not separate corporations that we can analyze independently,” Berger told The Daily Beast. “When an organization is this large, I think it becomes harder to manage all of its moving parts. The potential for risk is enormous.”We must get past the idea that a mere allocation of large amounts of money or passage of a bill is by itself the solution to a problem. This is something liberals understand perfectly well in other contexts. If spending more were always the answer, Mitt Romney would have won the TV ad war. See? Obama knew how to make critical decisions about where to best spend a finite amount of money in an election, and it worked for him. We should try the same thing in the federal government, even (especially!) in times of crisis.
Charity Navigator has a list of highly rated charities working in the area. Please consider a donation. If you’re among our readers in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut and have worked with smaller charities doing demonstrably good work on the ground, there, please let me know.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/12/13/surprise-emergency-sandy-legislation-full-of-millions-in-non-sandy-spending/
NBC Medical Editor Denounces 'Religion Part' of Christmas That 'Mucks the Whole Thing Up'
During a panel discussion on Tuesday's NBC Today about hiring people to do Christmas chores like decorating the tree or buying gifts, the network's chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman suddenly broke into an anti-religious rant: "I don't like the religion part. I think religion is what mucks the whole thing up....I think that's what makes the holidays so stressful."Snyderman's take-the-Christ-out-of-Christmas commentary was prompted by fellow panelist Star Jones explaining: "I focus on, honestly, the religion part of it. I really and truly do. So I can't out-source that part of it. I can send you to get my tree, but I can't help – you can't help me pray." When Snyderman launched into her attack on faith, Jones countered: "That's the only reason for me to have the holiday....We wouldn't have the holiday if it wasn't for the religion part."
Moments later, Jones was still giving Snyderman a quizzical look, causing Snyderman to react: "Look at you." Jones replied: "I'm sitting here, in my head going, 'Jesus is the reason for the season and you don't like the religious part.' Okay."
Here is a transcript of the December 11 exchange:
8:12AM ET
MATT LAUER: Is it okay to out-source your chores during the holiday season? We're all stressed. Holidays are supposed to be a fun time, but they also can cause stress. You can go to Craigslist and other places and you can hire someone to do just about anything, fill out your Christmas cards, buy your Christmas tree, pick out your gifts for your friends and family members. Does this cross some kind of sacred holiday line?
STAR JONES: I focus on, honestly, the religion part of it. I really and truly do. So I can't out-source that part of it. I can send you to get my tree, but I can't help – you can't help me pray.
NANCY SNYDERMAN: I don't like the religion part. I think religion is what mucks the whole thing up.[LAUGHTER]
DONNY DEUTSCH: There you go, no more religion!
LAUER: Wow.
DEUTSCH: Wow.
JONES: That's the only reason why – that's the only reason for me to have the holiday, quite frankly.
SNYDERMAN: No, I don't like the religion part. I think that's what makes the holidays so stressful and – I don't.
JONES: We wouldn't have the holiday if it wasn't for the religion part.
SNYDERMAN: No, I want the green trees and it smells good and everyone's happy.
LAUER: Okay, I didn't see that coming. I did not see that coming.
DEUTSCH: Yeah, no more religion. I'll tell you one thing that I have a problem with, is that people judging how you're supposed to spend your holiday.
SNYDERMAN [POINTING TO JONES]: Look at you.
JONES: I'm sitting here, in my head going, "Jesus is the reason for the season and you don't like the religious part." Okay.
(...)
SNYDERMAN: I think you have to decorate your own tree, I think you should make your own dinner, I think you should buy your own presents.
DEUTSCH: Says who?
SNYDERMAN: I do, the non-religious one.
News the media manipulators don't want you to see
In
case you haven't noticed, the propaganda masters of the progressive
media have a demoralization campaign underway, targeting conservatives
in general and the GOP House majority in particular. The goal is to
convince us that resistance is futile, that all is lost, and we might as
well let Obama have his way.
In accord with this campaign, rays of hope, harbingers of a halt to Obama's momentum must be kept below the radar of most voters. If the media regard something as a non-event, then so will the masses (as leftists love to describe the populace).
Andrew Malcolm of Investor's Business Daily is not fooled, and describes for us a remarkable event that seems to have escaped the attention of the New York Times and the rest of the media progs who use the Gray Lady as their pilot fish:
This is big, big story, involving the largest religious body in the United States, the Roman Church, in legal combat with the United States government, and it is winning. At issue is the biggest new governmental program in decades.
The performance of the national media in ignoring this story is a disgrace. It is imperative the conservatives understand that the media are manipulating the national mood, and playing mind games with us.
Update: No coverage of union thug violence in Lansing is another excellent example of the corruption of the propaganda media. Open public scorn toward the media is the appropriate response.
In accord with this campaign, rays of hope, harbingers of a halt to Obama's momentum must be kept below the radar of most voters. If the media regard something as a non-event, then so will the masses (as leftists love to describe the populace).
Andrew Malcolm of Investor's Business Daily is not fooled, and describes for us a remarkable event that seems to have escaped the attention of the New York Times and the rest of the media progs who use the Gray Lady as their pilot fish:
This story is a week old, actually. Strangely, you haven't seen any real coverage of this development in mainstream media, perhaps because it concerns a crucial legal setback for Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius in a New York federal court. (snip)
The Obama administration had sought to have the case by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York thrown out because of its so-called "temporary safe harbor" provision.
That was a statement last winter by Health and Human Services that it would not seek to enforce or prosecute religious institutions for failing to provide such controversial coverage until later next year while steps to address their concerns were developed.
There have been no concrete attempts made to provide such steps. And privately, now skeptical church officials confide the president had previously assured them even before his February news conference that their worries were already addressed, which they were not.
Judge Cogan completely rejected Obama's argument, calling the administration's punitive steps against the religious institutions an "actual and well-founded fear" that is "looming and certain" much like "a speeding train that is coming towards plaintiffs."
He chided the administration as having had ample time to address the institutions' concerns already. And then Judge Cogan let forth with this:
"The First Amendment does not require citizens to accept assurances from the government that, if the government later determines it has made a misstep, it will take ameliorative action.There is much more, wittily described by Malcolm.
"There is no, 'Trust us, changes are coming' clause in the Constitution.
This is big, big story, involving the largest religious body in the United States, the Roman Church, in legal combat with the United States government, and it is winning. At issue is the biggest new governmental program in decades.
The performance of the national media in ignoring this story is a disgrace. It is imperative the conservatives understand that the media are manipulating the national mood, and playing mind games with us.
Update: No coverage of union thug violence in Lansing is another excellent example of the corruption of the propaganda media. Open public scorn toward the media is the appropriate response.
Disgrace: Lansing Hot Dog Vendor Attacked, Called Racial Slurs at Union Anti-Right to Work Protest
During Tuesday's mass demonstrations that attracted an estimated 10,000 to the Capitol lawn, protesters of the right-to-work law the Legislature was passing and voting on tore down a tent rented by the Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity. Witnesses and Internet videos show protesters, some wearing union clothes, using knives or box cutters to cut the tent's ropes.Clint Tarver, owner of Clint's Hot Dog Cart, said he was trapped inside as the tent came down and damaged about $400 in catering equipment. Tarver's hot dog cart, which is usually parked outside Lansing City Hall along Capitol Avenue, was not on the Capitol grounds during the incident. [...]
Tarver, who had to crawl out of the collapsed tent on his knees, was overwhelmed Wednesday by the outpouring of support.
"I had no idea so many people cared about 'the hot dog guy,'" Tarver said.Tarver, who is black, said the protesters called him an "Uncle Tom" and the n-word for working for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group supporting the right-to-work law.
Someone present at the protest took a photo that has since gone viral, depicting Tarver picking up his equipment while the protesters look on:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katehicks/2012/12/12/disgrace-lansing-hot-dog-vendor-attacked-called-racial-slurs-at-union-antiright-to-work-protest-n1465512
The rest of the story on Lansing union thugs
You've
probably seen the video of the union thugs knocking down the tent in
front of Michigan's capital the other day. You know about the folks
trapped inside. Now, to quote Paul Harvey, here's "the rest of the story."
Across the street from the tent was Clint Tarver, known to everyone in our area as "The Hot Dog Guy." He sells from a street cart. He crossed the street to help those in need...then found that the union thugs had destroyed his hot dog cart because the tent was sponsored by a Right to Work group. Thanks now goes to Lorilea Susanne who put together a web page to raise money for a new hot dog cart for Mr. Lee. The original goal was $2,000....got it. New goal $5,000. Got it...still going. Here's a link to the site.
There's a lot to be said for free association and individual initiative. And, perhaps, the true spirit of Christmas.
Across the street from the tent was Clint Tarver, known to everyone in our area as "The Hot Dog Guy." He sells from a street cart. He crossed the street to help those in need...then found that the union thugs had destroyed his hot dog cart because the tent was sponsored by a Right to Work group. Thanks now goes to Lorilea Susanne who put together a web page to raise money for a new hot dog cart for Mr. Lee. The original goal was $2,000....got it. New goal $5,000. Got it...still going. Here's a link to the site.
There's a lot to be said for free association and individual initiative. And, perhaps, the true spirit of Christmas.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/the_rest_of_the_story_on_lansing_union_thugs.html
Obama's America Will Become Detroit
President Barack Obama traveled to Michigan this week and made his case for class war in defense of the welfare state.We need to take more money from the rich, he said, or schools will not be able to afford books, students will not be able to afford college, and disabled children will not get health care.
"Our economic success has never come from the top down," said Obama. "It comes from the middle out. It comes from the bottom up."
Obama spoke these words a few miles from Detroit — the reductio ad absurdum of his argument.
If America continues down the road to Obama's America — a road that began when President Franklin Roosevelt started building a welfare state here — our entire nation will become Detroit.
Obama's economic and moral vision has played out in that city. What he seeks has been achieved there.
Last week, as reported by the Detroit Free Press, Michigan's state treasurer told Detroit's mayor and city council that the state may soon appoint an emergency financial manager for the city. Under Michigan law, the paper said, only such a manager can initiate the steps leading to a bankruptcy filing for the city.
By current calculations, Detroit faces obligations over the next six months that exceed its revenues by $47 million. The city, the Free Press reported, now pays $1.08 in benefits to municipal workers and retirees for every $1.00 it pays in salary.
What happened to Detroit? It is achieving socialism in one city.
Traditional two-parent families and the productive taxpaying citizens they produce have fled. In 1950, according the U.S. Census Bureau, Detroit had 1,849,568 people and was the fifth-largest city in the nation. By 2000, its population had dropped to 951,270; by 2010, to 713,777; and by 2011, to 706,585.
What has happened to the people who remain? The Census Bureau estimates there are 563,055 people age 16 or older in the city who could potentially work and be part of the labor force. But only 54.3 percent of these — or 305,479 individuals — actually do participate in the labor force, meaning they either have a job or are looking for one.
Another 257,576 of Detroit residents age 16 or older — 45.7 percent of that demographic — do not participate in the labor force. They do not have a job, and they are not looking for one.
In fact, these 257,576 people in Detroit who do not have a job and are not looking for one outnumber the 224,846 residents who do have jobs. But of the 224,846 residents who do have jobs, 34,500 — or 15.3 percent — have jobs with the government. Thus, this city that boasted 1,849,568 residents in 1950 has only 190,346 private-sector workers today.
There are 264,209 households in Detroit, and 91,204 of them — or 34.5 percent — get food stamps.
Very few of the people who are staying out of the labor force in Detroit are staying out because they are stay-at-home moms with working husbands. Of the 264,209 households in Detroit, only 24,275 — or 9.2 percent — are married couple families with children under 18. Another 78,438 households — or 29.7 percent of the total — are "families" headed by women with no husband present. Of these, 43,742 have children under 18.
There were 12,103 babies born in Detroit in the 12 months prior to the Census Bureau survey, and 9,124 of them — or 75.4 percent — were born to unmarried women.
Of the 363,281 housing units in Detroit, 99,072 are vacant. Indeed, vacant houses have become a powerful visual symbol of what advancing socialism has done to the city. Traditional family life is nearing extinction in this once vibrant corner of America.
Obama said in Michigan that if the federal government does not take more money away from people who have earned it, the public schools may not be able to buy school books. But the Department of Education says that in the Detroit public schools — which have books — only 7 percent of the eight graders are grade-level proficient in reading and only 4 percent are grade-level proficient in math.
School books are not lacking here. Self-reliance, the spirit of individualism, and the Judeo-Christian values that support marriage and family are. They have been driven out by a government that wants the people to depend on it rather than on themselves, their families and their faith.
http://cnsnews.com/blog/terence-p-jeffrey/obamas-america-will-become-detroit
Oregon Mall Shooter Used Stolen AR-15 Rifle
The man who opened fire in a mall in this Portland suburb Tuesday was a 22-year-old who used an AR-15 assault rifle he stole from an acquaintance, police said.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323981504578175223568494536.html?mod=us_news_newsree
Bill Ayers: Leftist Power is in Schools
Terrorist turned teacher Bill Ayers appeared at a recent Big Apple gathering of “Change the Stakes,” an anti-testing group comprised mostly of teachers and parents. At least two employees of the New York City Board of Education were there as well.EAGnews obtained exclusive video of the event and will be releasing more clips in the coming days.
But first we would like to present Ayers’ statement on the power of radical socialist educators in today’s public schools. It should send chills down every parent’s spine.
Ayers explained to his audience that leftists wrongly put their faith in Barack Obama as an agent of change. “Forget about it,” he said, “that’s not where change comes from.”
“When there’s movement on the ground, shit happens,” he said.
“If we want change to come, we would do well not to look at the sites of power we have no access to – the White House, even the Congress, the Pentagon – these are not the sites we have access to.
“But lo and behold, we have absolute access to the community, the school, the neighborhood, the street, the classroom, the workplace, the shop, the farm – why are we ignoring that and saying ‘I hope Obama makes peace.’ Forget about it. He’s not going to do anything if you don’t do something. Our job is movement building.”
Ayers’ call to action is precisely why we see bizarre things like the California Federation of Teachers’ “Tax the Rich” video or Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel – of all people – being labeled a “fat cat” by the Chicago Teachers Union.
Ayers’ acknowledgement that radical leftists are using classrooms and public spaces to influence children should be a wakeup call to every parent and taxpayer. Educators are paid to teach kids to read, write and think for themselves, not to brainwash them in revolutionary ideology.
Ayers is not an educator. He’s an unconvicted terrorist who wants to use our tax money to further his goal of destroying the greatest nation in the history of the world. And he’s calling on the people teaching your children to assist him.
If we are smart, we will use our leverage as taxpayers to stop this nonsense in its tracks, before it becomes an even bigger problem.
http://townhall.com/columnists/kyleolson/2012/12/13/bill-ayers-leftist-powers-is-in-schools-n1465267
We Have a Problem -- A Real Problem
I think that it is truly time for us – those of us capable of thinking clearly and, perhaps, just a bit outside the box – to consider the possibility that somehow we have found ourselves with a president who is not all there.Yes. I mean that. We have a president that was never vetted by the media. After all --- that would have been racist. This is a man with an admitted history of drug use. Those portions of his past that he has not chosen to write about are shrouded in dark mystery. And --- now think about this --- for perhaps the first time since they started issuing security clearances, we have a president who simply could not qualify for one. If Obama were being hired to work in the White House, instead of occupying it, the FBI would certainly have recommended against a security clearance and the job would go away. This man couldn’t get a job emptying the garbage cans in the situation room. Now he commands it. Isn’t it funny how a history with drug abuse and associations with known and convicted domestic terrorists and crime figures can screw up a good day?
The word, I think, that I’m looking for here to apply to our Dear Ruler is “psychosis.” In this case I believe we have a man – a president – with an obsession bordering on psychosis for punishing wealthy people for what he views as the crime of becoming wealthy.
I could go into detail here on the influences Obama’s father, his mother, and his communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis had on Obama during his formative years. I could then follow up with the influences of Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and those Marxist professors and student groups he wrote of hanging around in college.
What we should concern ourselves with, however, is where these influences led Obama, and the answer is clear. Obama has a deep, ingrained and very powerful psychotic hatred of the rich. He believes that people with wealth acquired their riches by exploiting and oppressing others. He makes exceptions, of course, for the fabulously rich athletes and entertainers, who surround him, fawn over him, worship him, and defend him. Bread and circuses have always been a part of the leftist methodology. The left will excuse any accumulation of wealth if it serves the end of distracting the public from matters that really might have an affect on their lives.
Back, though, to Obama’s obsession with punishing the wealthy; and that’s his primary goal – punishment. Raising revenues is only secondary in his mind, and reducing our deficit is simply not part of his plan.
I’ve gone through this before, but just start collecting some rhetorical gems from Dear Ruler over the years. It bears repeating …
1. Obama’s statement to Joe the Plumber that we need to spread the wealth around. He did not say we needed to raise taxes to fund government. The purpose was to take from those who had earned the excess wealth and then give it to those who had not.
2. Obama’s statement to Charlie Gibson that even though increasing capital gains taxes would not lead to more revenue, it needed to be done “out of fairness.” Again --- increased revenue to fund government or pay down the debt was not the issue.
3. Obama’s admonition to high-achievers that at some point they needed to admit that they’ve made enough money. Again – no drive for increased government revenues here.
Do you get the picture here? This is an obsession for punishing the rich, not an attempt to promote sound economic policy. To really track the path of Obama’s obsession with punishing just take a look at the changes in rhetoric as the arguments mounted against his beloved tax increase on the wealthy.
In the beginning Obama tells the people that the rich “need to pay their fair share.” The “fair share” line comes right out of Democrat focus groups. We’re taught from infancy that fairness is good … everyone and everything should be fair … and that includes what we pay in taxes. And if Obama is saying that the rich “need to” pay their fair share, well then that must mean that they’re not paying their fair share now and something should be done about it.
Then Obama and the Democrats gradually change the rhetoric. It goes from the rich “need” or “should” pay their fair share to the rich “aren’t” paying their fair share and their taxes must be increased.
The Republicans respond with an offer to revise the tax code by eliminating some deductions. Now even though we have a spending problem, not a tax revenue problem, this offer made much better sense than just raising the tax rates. Why? Because Obama’s tax increase would hit the job creation machine of small business. Now Obama was right when he said that over 95% of small businesses would not be hit with the tax increase. What he didn’t say is that the three percent or so of the businesses that WOULD be nailed are the businesses that employ 70% of all Americans and are right now are providing over 50% of all new private sector jobs. The changes in tax deductions the Republicans were proposing would not affect these businesses and their tax burdens would not increase.
Obama knew that if the people actually started paying attention they would realize that the GOP proposal to modify tax deductions would produce the revenue increases Dear Ruler says he wants while protecting small businesses. His goal being punishment of the evil rich, Obama had to change his rhetoric again. So now we have Obama largely abandoning his “raise taxes on the rich” rhetoric to “raise tax RATES on the rich.” Referencing tax RATES suppresses GOP arguments for other ways to raise revenues through the deduction modification process.
All of this shows that Obama’s concern is not so much with increasing tax revenues as it is with punishing high-achievers whom Obama feels obtained their wealth through dishonesty, exploitation and oppression. If you follow the news closely you will see that many low-information Americans out there will echo this sentiment. Obama is probably aware that increases in tax rates seldom result in the revenues wished for. He cares not. It’s about retribution and punishment, not dealing with our deficit and spending problem.
http://townhall.com/columnists/nealboortz/2012/12/13/we-have-a-problem--a-real-problem-n1465920/page/full/
Belafonte’s Advice to Obama: Imprison Opposition “Like a Third World Dictator” (Video)
Enlightened Marxist Harry Belafonte was on with pal Al Sharpton this week. His advice for Obama was to imprison opposition like a “third world dictator.”
U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens
Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime.Not everyone was on board. "This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public," Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, argued in the meeting, according to people familiar with the discussions.
A week later, the attorney general signed the changes into effect.
Through Freedom of Information Act requests and interviews with officials at numerous agencies, The Wall Street Journal has reconstructed the clash over the counterterrorism program within the administration of President Barack Obama. The debate was a confrontation between some who viewed it as a matter of efficiency—how long to keep data, for instance, or where it should be stored—and others who saw it as granting authority for unprecedented government surveillance of U.S. citizens.
The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. That is a departure from past practice, which barred the agency from storing information about ordinary Americans unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an investigation.
Now, NCTC can copy entire government databases—flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited. Data about Americans "reasonably believed to constitute terrorism information" may be permanently retained.
The changes also allow databases of U.S. civilian information to be given to foreign governments for analysis of their own. In effect, U.S. and foreign governments would be using the information to look for clues that people might commit future crimes.
"It's breathtaking" in its scope, said a former senior administration official familiar with the White House debate.
Counterterrorism officials say they will be circumspect with the data. "The guidelines provide rigorous oversight to protect the information that we have, for authorized and narrow purposes," said Alexander Joel, Civil Liberties Protection Officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the parent agency for the National Counterterrorism Center.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution says that searches of "persons, houses, papers and effects" shouldn't be conducted without "probable cause" that a crime has been committed. But that doesn't cover records the government creates in the normal course of business with citizens.
Congress specifically sought to prevent government agents from rifling through government files indiscriminately when it passed the Federal Privacy Act in 1974. The act prohibits government agencies from sharing data with each other for purposes that aren't "compatible" with the reason the data were originally collected.
But the Federal Privacy Act allows agencies to exempt themselves from many requirements by placing notices in the Federal Register, the government's daily publication of proposed rules. In practice, these privacy-act notices are rarely contested by government watchdogs or members of the public. "All you have to do is publish a notice in the Federal Register and you can do whatever you want," says Robert Gellman, a privacy consultant who advises agencies on how to comply with the Privacy Act.
As a result, the National Counterterrorism Center program's opponents within the administration—led by Ms. Callahan of Homeland Security—couldn't argue that the program would violate the law. Instead, they were left to question whether the rules were good policy.
Under the new rules issued in March, the National Counterterrorism Center, known as NCTC, can obtain almost any database the government collects that it says is "reasonably believed" to contain "terrorism information." The list could potentially include almost any government database, from financial forms submitted by people seeking federally backed mortgages to the health records of people who sought treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324478304578171623040640006-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwMjExNDIyWj.html?mod=wsj_valetbottom_email
Ramping Up Government Control of the Energy Sector
If insanity consists of "doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to come out different," President Obama is surely mad. He has spent four years funding green energy start-ups that have failed, one after another. Now he wants to spend the next four years funding green energy firms that are again likely to fail.To understand the president's thinking, or what passes for thought, all that's necessary is to grasp one simple fact: that for the left, profits are evil, and therefore businesses that make a profit and succeed are evil. Only businesses that fail are virtuous.
A corollary of this is, of course, that all businesses must be made to fail. The function of government, as the left sees it, is to transfer control of the economy from the private sector to government. The funding of successful businesses will not accomplish this. But the transfer of profits from successful businesses to companies that are bound to fail will. That, in a nutshell, has been Obama's approach to the energy sector.
One would think that the job description of the secretary of energy would involve promoting the development of cheap and reliable energy for the American people. As I see it, Secretary Chu has spent four years doing just the opposite. His policy of subsidizing failure is one reason the economy is growing at an annual rate of 1.7%, why 23 million are still without jobs, and why 550,000 continue to drop out of the labor force each month. A vigorous energy policy would encourage the development of fossil fuels and contribute to a growing economy.
But the ultimate objective of the left is to destroy the private sector, and since fossil fuels are profitable, while alternatives are not, the policy of this administration is to block fossil fuels while subsidizing and mandating alternatives.
Biofuels are a case in point. In August, the USDA extended a $99-million loan to fund a biofuel plant in North Carolina -- one of eight new bio-refineries funded by USDA. Perversely, it seems that there is nothing in the mandate of the USDA's Bio-refinery Assistance Program to suggest that it fund businesses that make a profit. Its mandate includes creating jobs and "promoting "resource conservation," whatever that means.
According to the latest report from the International Energy Agency, the U.S. controls what will soon be the world's largest recoverable reserves of oil and gas (to say nothing of coal). Conservation is not what the nation needs -- it is exploration and development.
In any case, does the USDA believe that subsidy of a biofuel plant with limited output and 65 in-house workers will have a measurable impact on resource-conservation? If government is to involve itself in energy at all -- which it should not -- why not promote, fund, and subsidize companies that actually do create energy in large quantities? A $99-million interest-free loan to Exxon-Mobil would create a great deal of energy, and, as an added bonus, it would almost certainly be repaid, since Exxon's credit rating is one notch higher than that of the federal government itself. As for the standing of those companies funded by the USDA and the Department of Energy, that is another matter. Some are not even rated.
God forbid that any of the green energy schemes subsidized by the Obama administration should ever post a profit. That would defeat the whole purpose of government: to shift control of the means of production from the private sector to the political elite. Almost by definition, federally subsidized enterprises must be hemorrhaging money. Otherwise, they would be evil capitalists who don't need government funding to begin with.
The purpose of government, as the left sees it, is to continue sucking the lifeblood out of the private sector until the entire economy is controlled by the state. One way to do so is to distort the energy market to the point where otherwise viable fossil fuel companies are driven out of business while alternative energy-producers, those who are incapable of producing profits, continue to operate with the help of perpetual subsidies and mandates. Once the private market has collapsed, government can dole out whatever meager energy supplies remain, and the public can be grateful for what they get. The rationing of energy, like that of health care, food, and other necessities, is an integral part of the left's economic thinking.
Rationing and the suppression of the private sector can be brought about only by force, for the simple reason that the desire to overcome scarcity and to live well is hardwired into human nature. In order to impose their economic model, liberals always resort to some form of coercion. A prime example is FDR's National Recovery Administration (NRA), which attempted to dictate wage and price controls across the nation. Obama's appointment of aggressively pro-labor members to the National Labor Relations Board (created by the Wagner Act after the Supreme Court ruled the NRA's actions unconstitutional) is evidence that Obama is every bit as dictatorial as his liberal predecessor.
Liberals share with Karl Marx the assumption that a "vanguard of the proletariat" (i.e., liberals themselves) should be allowed to rule by dictatorial means, purportedly for the benefit of the masses. A direct line of thought leads from Marx's antidemocratic radicalism to leaders such as Benito Mussolini -- a European fascist who in his time was lauded by Franklin Roosevelt, who wrote in 1933 that he was "impressed by what [Mussolini] has accomplished."
FDR was not the only American liberal to praise Mussolini; adoration was widespread. Liberals at the New York Times compared il Duce to America's Founders. Richard Washburn Child, who founded the forerunner of the Progressive Party, was the American ambassador to Italy and a close friend of Mussolini. After 1928, Washburn was employed by Mussolini as the latter's chief American propagandist. Another misguided liberal was Thomas W. Lamont, who influenced the foreign policy of Wilson, Hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt.
With the rise of the New Left, progressive self-righteousness hardened into liberal fascism. The high point of this movement was the election of Barack Obama, who brought the antidemocratic assumptions of the New Left to the White House. Obama has not been at all averse to the idea of governing without the consent of the governed and in defiance of Congress and the courts. Like many in the liberal tradition, he considers himself "a majority of one."
Obama and his ilk truly believe that Americans wish to be governed by a cadre of "choice advisers," as Cass Sunstein has called them. (Hitler, who relied on a similar core of policy czars, called them "reichsministers.") This dictatorial view of the country is not only alien; it is insane in its extremism and conceit. Again, Obama's energy policy is proof enough. Pumping endless subsidies into failing green energy companies while increasing regulation of fossil fuels will increase government control of the energy sector, but it is not what the American people want.
Unfortunately, Obama has always been ensconced in fantasy. Despite the bankruptcies of more than one government-subsidized firm, Obama proposes to ramp up funding even further in his second term. What Obama is promoting is not just the suppression of fossil fuels -- it is the suppression of capitalism altogether. Despite the president's claims that he received a mandate for larger government spending, socialism is not what the American people voted for.
Eventually, the public will realize what this administration is up to. At that point, it won't be just energy policy that is reversed. It will be everything Obama has done to our nation.
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