Sibby Online

1st & 2nd Amendments attacked

A government school in Oregon violated the First Amendment because of its anti-Second Amendment policy:

A high school barred a student from posting a photograph of her Marine brother because it prominently showed rifles, breaking the school's zero-tolerance policy on weapons.

Officials at McKay High School in Salem, Ore., however, have reached a compromise, allowing student Shea Riecke to post another photo in the classroom. This time, guns are not the focal point, reported KATU-TV in Portland, Ore.

"It may be that the picture has a gun in it, but it is not the most prominent piece of that picture," said Kay Baker, superintendent for the Salem-Keizer School District.

The classroom display is part of a project in which students were encouraged to post photographs that show the current activities of school graduates.

The student's mother, Connie Riecke, said she believes the publicity the story originally generated resulted in the school backing down.

"I think it was the people in our community who responded," she said.

Riecke said the decision surprised her: "I thought they were going to hold to their decision, but they didn't, so I'm happy."

In KATU's original story about the controversy, Principal Cynthia Richardson worried about the impact of the gun photo.

"What message am I sending to my students if I post that picture?" she asked.

Richardson was flooded with e-mails over the issue, many of them attacking her, and was mentioned on the Rush Limbaugh radio show, KATU said.

Democrats say they are tolerant, but the zero tolerance policy against guns demonstrates by definition otherwise. It also demonstrates the anti-freedom positions too many of us are tolerating. Thankfully there are those like Rush Limbaugh who will take a stand and defend the freedoms as guaranteed by the constitution.

Marine Corps Moms has more.

We The People vs Judges Part Two

Earlier I posted Rush Limbaugh’s comments regarding the Shiavo issue. He points out the struggle between a representative government of the people versus the tyranny of today’s judiciary. WorldNetDaily reports on another person who also articulates this battle:

No longer functioning as a nation of, by and for the people, the U.S., in the aftermath of the Terri Schiavo case, is now a "krytocracy," ruled by judges, asserts geopolitical expert Jack Wheeler.

In a column on his intelligence website, To the Point, Wheeler mentions many disturbing news stories he read upon returning from a trip to Egypt for 10 days – including the Schiavo saga.

"The Bush brothers' refusal to prevent Terri's killing will do lasting political damage to them both," writes Wheeler. "As John Fund of the Wall Street Journal points out, if Janet Reno could override a court order and have Elian Gonzalez kidnapped at gunpoint to be returned to Communist Cuba, either Jeb or George Bush could have overridden Greer to save Terri's life. Her death will be an ineradicable stain on GW's presidency and Jeb's chances for the White House.

Wheeler then mentions a possible silver lining to the story.

"If any good is to come of this tragedy it would be to catalyze the recognition among Americans that America is no longer a democracy," Wheeler explains. "It has become a krytocracy, a government of judges. We no longer have a government of, by and for the people. America today is ruled not by elected representatives, but unelected judges, governed not by law but by the arbitrary – and in the case of George Greer, homicidal – whims of people in black robes."

Concludes Wheeler: "The struggle for freedom and against lunacy is never over. Any respite is very brief. The anti-Communist RENAMO guerrillas in Mozambique, fighting to liberate their country from Soviet colonial tyranny and with whom I spent a lot of time in the 1980s, had a motto: A Luta Continua, Portuguese for The Struggle Continues. No matter what tragedies befall us and insanities beset us, we must never give up fighting for life and freedom, and against the forces of death and oppression."

This is why Mark Levin's book, "Men in Black" is a must read.

Washington Post busted on memogate

John Hinderaker at Power Line has found some very interesting stuff on the role the Washington Post played in the unfounded accusation that Republicans used the Schiavo issue for [political purposes. First he repoted on the Post’s defense that they made the false accusation:

We simply reported that the sheet of paper was distributed to Republican senators and told our readers explicitly that the document was unsigned, making clear it was unofficial. We stuck to what we knew to be true and did not call them talking points or a Republican memo.

Then he provides us with the truth:

Earlier today, we noted that Michelle Malkin has identified a number of newspapers that ran the Washington Post's story on the memo, but in a version that (unlike the one that appeared in the Post itself) explicitly attributed the document to the party's leadership. The key line from these stories was, "The one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, called the debate over Schiavo legislation 'a great political issue' that would appeal to the party's base..." If you run a Google search on "memo distributed to Republican senators by party leaders," this is what you get: dozens of news sources, including Reuters, have reported, falsely, that the "talking points memo" was distributed by Republican party leaders. Each of these news outlets attributed the story to "Mike Allen and Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post." Michelle concluded that in all likelihood, the Post had published this version of the story on its wire service, but then revised the story to eliminate the claim that the memo was distributed by Republican leaders before the story ran in the Post the next morning (March 20).

This hypothesis seems pretty obviously correct. And it was apparently comfirmed when blogger Jack Risko found this archived version of the Post's article by Mike Allen and Manuel Roig-Franzia, dated 10 p.m. on Saturday, March 19. It includes the discredited language: "A one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters."

So it seems clear what happened. The Post originally wrote a story that explicitly claimed that the "talking points memo" was drafted and distributed by the Republican leadership. That version of the story went out over the Post's wire service and was picked up by dozens of news outlets. Before the paper went to press, however, someone at the Post apparently realized that the paper had no basis for attributing the memo to the Republicans, and the key language was deleted from the story that actually appeared in print. That story said: "An unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters." And ever since, reporter Mike Allen and others at the Post have said that they never meant to imply that the memo was created or distributed by Republicans.

I have heard several on the left making the unfounded accusation. Hinderaker states that the MSM is not willing to correct the record:

Both the Post and ABC now claim that they never meant to accuse the Republicans of authoring or distributing the notorious memo. But neither has printed a retraction, clarification or correction. The Post has done nothing to correct or retract the version of its story that apparently went out on the evening of March 19. And to our knowledge, not a single one of the dozens of newspapers and other news outlets that printed the false claim that the memo was circulated by the Republican leadership has retracted or corrected that defamatory claim.

AIM has issued this press release:

The Washington Post damaged its reputation today by printing a story defending the paper’s use of a dubious memo of unknown authorship and origin. "The evidence indicates that The Post was part of a dirty tricks campaign against Republicans and that Howard Kurtz is now covering for his embarrassed colleagues," declared Cliff Kincaid, editor of Accuracy in Media (AIM).

As reported by AIM last week, the unsigned memo, which had no letterhead, was used by Democrats and their media allies at The Post, ABC News, CBS News and other outlets to charge that Republicans really didn't care about Terri Schiavo but only wanted to fire up their conservative pro-life base. However, The New York Times reported the memo had been "passed out" by Democrats to make Republicans look bad.

In a case that is coming to resemble the CBS "Memogate" scandal, Kurtz mounts a defense by quoting Post reporter Mike Allen and various anonymous sources as now saying that the document was "unofficial" and "a sheet of paper" and that a Democratic Party Senate official even refused to "publicly" discuss its origin. "It looks more and more like the memo originated from the Democratic side of the aisle," said Kincaid. "The Post has been caught in a new ‘Memogate’ scandal and it refuses to admit or recognize it."

The Washington Post and other media outlets who reported on this bogus memo need to admit their error.

Taxes versus economic activity

The AP is reporting a robust American economy:

Americans' incomes, bolstered by strong gains in hiring, rose by 0.3 percent in February while consumer spending climbed at an even faster pace of 0.5 percent, the government reported Thursday.

The Commerce Department said the gain in spending followed a much smaller 0.1 percent increase in January and reflected the fact that auto sales rebounded last month after having fallen in January.

The 0.3 percent rise in incomes was attributed to a surge of 262,000 new jobs in February, the biggest increase in four months. Further solid gains in both incomes and consumer spending are expected in the months ahead as the consumer continues to be a driving force in the economy.

Analysts said the February gains in incomes and spending showed that the economy was being propelled this year by continued strength in employment growth and consumer spending - which accounts for two-thirds of total economic activity.

As an ‘A’ student in economics during my college years, common sense tells me why we are experiencing such strong economic gains:

Starting with the recession in 2001, the country suffered through two years of outright declines in employment and then weak job growth in 2003. However, job gains accelerated last year, pushing employment up by more than 2 million workers, an increase that analysts expect to be matched this year.

The economic rebound was fueled by four rounds of tax cuts promoted by President Bush and easy credit from the Federal Reserve. With the impact of the tax cuts waning and the Fed now raising interest rates to make sure that the reviving economy does not fuel unwanted inflation, analysts believe that economic growth will moderate somewhat this year.

Of course, tax decreases are stimuli to the economy. Conversely, tax increases while reduce economic activity. So what are the Democrats, in conjunction with AARP, advocating as the fix to the Social Security problem…higher taxes. Yes, higher taxes meaning less jobs, meaning less payroll taxes, meaning more problems for the Social Security system. Higher taxes, meaning less economic freedom, meaning bigger government and more reasons for special interests groups like AARP to use misinformation as they pursue more and more of the Federal pie.

A Sibby Online reader reminded me about what Charles Krauthammer said last night on Fox News about AARP:

He said they exist solely to transfer wealth form working people to retired people. That is their ONLY goal.

Yes, and on Tuesday night I witnessed first hand how Tim Johnson and the AARP had joined forces, but then to say they were for more jobs. Those are lies. Higher taxes means less jobs. Johnson whined about jobs going overseas, but refused to mention that higher taxes is an incentive to drive business to such actions. AARP's idea of raising the Social Security tax ceiling from $90,000 to $140,000 will also have to be matched by the employer. Johnson didn't address that tax increase when whining about jobs going over seas. They also were not very kind to more jobs for stockbrokers and financial planners, as they made it sound like personal accounts were only going to be good for Wall Street.

AARP’s conflict of interest

Senator Tim Johnson’s propaganda program in Mitchell Tuesday night on Social Security accounts included a ranking member of the AARP:

Tuesday’s other meeting participant, Sarah Jennings, executive director of the South Dakota AARP, agreed that private accounts are not the right fix. Instead, the AARP supports raising the income cap on those subjected to payroll taxes from $90,000 to $140,000. The organization also supports taxing the 33 percent of state and local government workers who are currently exempt, and investing a small portion of the trust fund more aggressively.

Like Johnson, Jennings said Social Security problems are less severe than the president has claimed. She said minor adjustments are needed, but she cautioned against drastic alterations to the makeup of the 70-year-old program.

The Washington Post discloses AARP’s status as the top lobbying organization:

Over this week and last, AARP, the nation's largest lobby, will have spent more than $5 million on ads attacking the president's Social Security plan - nearly three times as much as all the supporters of his proposal put together. That's just for starters.

Every state that has a swing-vote senator will have AARP forums, which have been drawing about 300 people each. And every time a member of Congress holds a town meeting, AARP volunteers are dispatched there to protest the president's plan for individual accounts.

Perhaps AARP’s dislike for private accounts is due to the fear of competition that threatens their financial services income:

That kind of work is expensive but AARP can afford it. The association took in $350 million last year from a variety of royalty-producing enterprises, including insurance, prescription drugs and mutual funds.

AARP is facing criticism of its mutual fund business because that kind of investment would probably be a feature of the accounts the president is pushing. Scudder Investments Inc., a unit of Deutsche Bank AG, handles 600,000 mutual fund accounts of AARP members, with $10.5 billion in assets. AARP helped develop those accounts and earns a small percentage of the management fee that Scudder charges. Last year, the association earned about $7 million from those fees and is working with Scudder to develop more funds, AARP officials said.

"It is ironic that they would make such a fuss about risky investments in Social Security when they actually promote investments in mutual funds," McCrery said. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., an AARP sympathizer, agreed: "AARP needs to take care that when it's in the policy realm, it declares any conflicts of interest."

This puts into question AARP’s agenda, its own financial viability or its members financial viability.

We The People vs Judges

From Rush Limbaugh:

All right, here we go, legal elitists, folks, hostile to representative government are beginning to circle the wagons now. It is a common theme: We are threatening the courts and the judges. I have here in the formerly nicotine-stained fingers a story by Bert Brandenburg at Slate.com, Judge Dread: The judiciary may end up the big losers in the Schiavo mess.

"The Schiavo episode spells trouble ahead for the courts that protect our rights. The judiciary is fast becoming enemy No. 1 in the culture wars—and the side wearing the black robes is losing. The anguish over Mrs. Schiavo's nightmare is boosting a rising common culture of attacks on the independence and legitimacy of our courts. In Washington and far beyond the Beltway, this new war on the courts is being waged through legislation and political intimidation, fueled by special interest campaigns of rage. 'Federal courts have no army or navy,' warned Rep. John Hostettler late last year. 'At the end of the day, we're saying the court cannot enforce its opinions.'" That's what he's saying we're saying. We're saying the court can't enforce its opinions. Did you catch this here? "This new war on the courts being waged through legislation." See what I mean? They think that's not possible. That the Congress has no say-so over the courts. So once again here, these legal elitists are getting scared. They're hostile to representative government and they're starting to circle the wagons.

Listen to this line. "These efforts [at damaging our courts] often come straight off the talk-radio dial. Last year, for example, even as the federal courts mulled litigation involving the Pledge of Allegiance, the House was passing a measure to forbid courts from ever hearing such a case in the first place. As the debate raged over a courthouse display of the Ten Commandments, a measure was written to deny federal courts the power to hear any suit involving a governmental official's "acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government." And the recent California marriage decision reignited efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution in order to--" See, that's how it's supposed to be done! They're trying to portray this as a hostile coup d'etat takeover. These people are complaining and moaning about legitimate constitutional remedies to a branch or two or three that are out of control. These people cannot deal with the fact that we, the people, have been given the means to deal with an overarching government. And they're just frosted because so much of what they believe in finds its way into our society via the courts. They're on the run, folks. We have them on the run.

Herseth thinks we are stupid

The Rapid City Journal is reporting on Stephanie Herseth joining Tim Johnson in spreading Democrat propaganda on the idea of private accounts for Social Security contributors:

"Can I just get a sense of how many of you here today have been following the national debate on Social Security and find some of the information you've been hearing a tad bit confusing?" Herseth asked the audience in Surbeck Center at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.

Many hands shot up among the nearly 100 people in attendance.

So a few admit they are confused. Its amazing how the partisan supporters of Democrats believe that we are too stupid to understand retirement issues. They ought to lay off the Kool-Aid. I guess this is how people think it is OK to give up freedom and become dependent on government.

Tim Johnson made a similar remark last night in Mitchell. That attitude probably explains why only a few people show up for their dog and pony shows.

More Oil-For–Food

From Rush Limbaugh:

RUSH: Oil-for-food program. I have a Bloomberg News story here that just (laughs). I mean, sometimes you just have to laugh. This program is so corrupt, the whole organization is so corrupt, the UN, I mean. This is the most over-the-top, corrupt scandal probably in the history of the civilized personhood world -- and now the Volcker report is out, at least one stage of it. "UN Secretary General Kofi Annan did not improperly influence the bidding or the selection process for contracts awarded to Cotecna Inspection S.A., a Swiss company hired to monitor humanitarian goods for Iraq. The Volcker report said that while procurement rules were not followed in the awarding of UN contracts, Annan didn't know the company was seeking the work during his son's employment by the..." Come on! You just have to laugh. How stupid do they think the world is?

The Volcker report said, "there is no evidence" that the selection of Cotecna -- or Cotecna, however they pronounce it -- in 1998 "was subject to any affirmative or improper influence of the secretary-general in the bidding or selection process." Well, the fact that his son's there and walked off with at least -- I mean, what is the latest number that Kojo scammed, $300,000-some? You know, that's just the pocket change. "The oil-for-food program," as many of you persons know, "was an exemption to UN sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. It was created by the UN Security Council and administered by a UN agency. It allowed Iraq to sell $64 billion worth of oil from 1996 until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that ousted Hussein in 2003," and a lot of that oil was distributed to members of parliament, journalists, companies and so forth. They were given vouchers for contracts in exchange for not reporting that the fraud and corruption was taking place.

The bottom line is that all the money raised by the sale of this oil was supposed to go to feed and clothe the needy, the starving, the thirsty, the hungry, and the illegal aliens in Iraq, and, what? Ten, 12% went to those groups of people. The rest of it went to Saddam and whatever everybody else he had bribed. There truly was a coalition of the bribed, but it was nothing to do with the United States. Everybody's name is on this list except Halliburton, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush and Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice. But get this. This is the end of the story: "Today's report notes that Annan's chief of staff, Iqbal Riza authorized an aide to shred three years' worth of files related to the oil-for-food program. Iqbal Riza gave his authorization April 22nd." Authorization to shred three years' worth of files on April 22, the day after the security counsel passed a resolution welcoming Volcker's investigation! So the Security Council authorizes the investigation, Annan's chief of staff, Iqbal Riza then proceeds to start shredding three years worth of documents.

"The shredding continued from April 22nd through December, seven months after Annan ordered documents related to the program be preserved. The records from Iqbal Riza's office covered the period from 1997 to 1999. Iqbal Riza, the chief of staff to Kofi Annan, told investigators that he was just trying to create more office space by shredding the documents. He was unaware that the shredding had continued through December and that copies were available in the UN central files. Pressed on the last point, Riza told Volcker's committee he knew some copies of his shredded documents would not be available. Therefore the committee does not find persuasive Mr. Riza's suggestion that his files were only duplicates of files maintained elsewhere in the UN." That's from the report. What are they going to do? What are they going to do? What are they going to do? Three years of files shredded the day the UN Security Council authorizes the investigation into the oil-for-food program, and the guy says, "Yeah, yeah, just needed some office space," and Kofi didn't know, folks. The UN secretary-general, and a person, did not know.

Tim Johnson in Mitchell

Senator Tim Johnson was in Mitchell tonight to provide a one sided view on the Social Security debate. Upon entering, I was handed an eight page handout that included a page with a heading that stated, " Bush Privatizaion Plan slashes Guaranteed Benefits…". We were allowed to submit questions via cards, so I paraphrased a question based on the following (via Social Security Choice):

The fact remains that benefits under Social Security are not guaranteed. In 1960, the Supreme Court ruled that Americans have no ownership claim to their Social Security benefits (Flemming v. Nestor). Not only does this ruling clearly establish that Social Security benefits are not guaranteed, it also reminds us that Congress can cut benefits or even eliminate them altogether at any time. Moreover, as the Social Security Board of Trustee’s report clearly demonstrated this week, doing nothing is a benefit cut. If no changes are made this year, future retirees could face benefit cuts as steep as 27%.

Johnson handled the question by stating that there is not a stated Constitutional right to Social Security. He then argued that it is created through constitutional legislation. Then he reluctantly agreed that the benefits are not guaranteed. Perhaps Johnson should have his handouts updated.

George McGovern was also there offering a softball question.

The LaRouche folks were also there handing out this:

Tim Johnson will be presenting the Democrat talking points at:

YANKTON: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Avera Sacred Heart Majestic Bluffs 11:00 am to 12:30 pm CST

SIOUX FALLS: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Ramkota Hotel (Exhibit Hall) 3:30 to 5:00 pm CST

WATERTOWN: Thursday, March 31, 2005 Watertown Senior Citizens Center 10:00 to 11:30 am CST

ABERDEEN: Thursday, March 31, 2005 Strode Activity Center --Presentation College 3:30 to 5:00 pm CST

RAPID CITY: Friday, April 1, 2005 American Legion Post Home 1:00 to 2:30 pm MST

Oil-For-Food Scandal report

From NewsMax:

Investigators probing the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq will criticize U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, his son, and the Swiss company that employed him but will not accuse the U.N. chief of corruption, officials said.

The report to be released Tuesday will fault Annan for failing to take aggressive action to deal with possible conflict of interest in the awarding of a U.N. oil-for-food contract to Cotecna Inspection S.A., which employed his son, Kojo, in Africa, the officials said.

[UPDATE: Looks like Michelle Malkin is staying on top of the report.]