By Dr. Tim Ball Monday, February 23, 2009
“When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.” Mark Twain’s comment helps me understand the absolute contradictions presented as truth, sense and reality. Consider just a short list.
* Warming is causing global cooling.
* The sun has virtually nothing to do with global temperature change.
* Carbon dioxide, a harmless gas essential to life on Earth is labeled a toxic substance and a pollutant and must be reduced.
* Rewarding failures will reduce the number of failures.
* Punishing success will encourage more success.
* You can have more freedom by letting the government control more of your life.
* You get out of debt by going further into debt.
* The best people to get you out of trouble are the ones who got you there.
The list of absolute contradictions about environment and economies gets longer every day as we drift further from logic and reason.
The frustration and madness is that many of the contradictions only apply to government thinking and worse their actions. These are far removed from reality and all infused with the hypocrisy of, “Do as I say not as I do”. Consider the concept that you can get out of debt by going further in debt. How are ordinary people advised to resolve the problems of indebtedness caused by bad money management?
Reality TV shows are generally anything but reality. However, there is one that appears to be real because it is based on logic and common sense. It is a Canadian program called “Till Debt do us Part”.
The fundamental premise is that “Money is the number one cause of failed marriages.” As a result it uses real people and takes them through the steps necessary to balance their budget, get out of debt and secure their financial future. This is achieved by first sorting out the mess with draconian actions, then ensuring that expenditures do not exceed income. There is a reward for achieving the goals but only given for success.
All these are solid, sensible, ideas, but why do they only apply to ordinary people? Why can’t they go into more debt to get out of debt like the government? The closest they are allowed to come to this notion in the TV program is a debt consolidation loan. But this is only so they can get some breathing space. It allows a reduction of interest rates and though it may extend the repayment time it precludes default and prevents increase in the debt. The debt is not increased because there is no additional money advanced, but as with all personal debt collateral is required.
Why can’t we apply the same rules to the financial mess the corporations and the government have created? A major point that illustrates the difference is collateral. What is the collateral on government loans? I recall asking my students about a $2 billion loan Citibank made to Zaire. What was the collateral? Would Citibank repossess Zaire? Will China repossess the US if it defaults? Who wants to own a bankrupt General Motors? Canadian banks were given high ratings for their operations and ability to avoid some of the financial credit crisis. The joke about Canadian banks is that to get a loan you have to prove you don’t need one.
In the TV program, the credit and debit cards are confiscated. The couple has to detail their expenditures to determine how their profligacy created the debt. They are forced to live within their means. They are forced to live on cash. They must establish a schedule to reduce and eliminate the debt.
The recent massive US Stimulus package is not a debt consolidation. The only collateral is the indebtedness of future generations. (Environmentalists call this an inter-generational when talking about the environment; see the UN quote below.) The Stimulus is a massive loan that will require many years to repay; certainly beyond the tenure of a one-term President. Most of the programs don’t come into effect until the latter half of his first term. By that time the economy will have partially or fully recovered as the market recovers. They will claim it is due to the Stimulus package. Meanwhile government departments will expand and evolve to perpetuate themselves, the debt and the tax burden.
Some madness results in positive effects through unintended consequences. A recent poll of public concerns by The Pew Center shows the economy is the top concern. However, it also shows the environment way down the list as the 16th concern.
imageBetween January 2008 and January 2009 “environment” fell the most of any on the list.
It is reasonable to assume ‘environment’ includes climate change. If Obama continues his opportunistic populist approach, he will set aside any policy that does more harm to the economy. Attempts to limit carbon is unnecessary by any means whether it is a tax, punitive controls through the EPA, or a cap and trade scheme that will have negative economic impact. Shortly negotiations on the next phase of climate change will begin through the UN meeting in Copenhagen. Propaganda to prevent any use of the economy to ignore climate change has already appeared. As Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) says, With unemployment soaring, bankruptcies climbing, and stock markets in free-fall, it may at first glance seem sensible to ditch the fight against climate change and put environmental investments on hold. But this would be a devastating mistake of immediate, as well as inter-generational, proportions.
However, China among others has already given notice that reduction quotas proposed for the Copenhagen talks won’t work because of their stage of economic development.
Ignoring the environment, especially climate change, is not only sensible at first glance, it is completely sensible because CO2 is not a problem. Obama must know if he doesn’t fix the economy anything else he does becomes madness. So hopefully he will have sanity about climate change forced upon him.
Dr. Tim Ball Most recent columns
Copyright © 2009 CFP
“Dr. Tim Ball is a renowned environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. Dr. Ball employs his extensive background in climatology and other fields as an advisor to the International Climate Science Coalition, Friends of Science and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.”
Dr. Ball can be reached at: Letters@canadafreepress.com
Congress Donates Your Money To Themselves!
Monday, June 8, 2009 12:19 PM
By: Fredreka Schouten and Paul Overberg, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — On a mild evening last September, Citigroup lobbyists mingled with South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn at a rooftop reception — complete with miniature putting greens — as the company hosted a party to honor the third most powerful Democrat in the House and raise money for one of his favorite golf charities.
Health insurers and hospitals, meanwhile, are donating millions to help build an institute in Boston to celebrate the career of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who is attempting to overhaul the nation's health care system.
Despite a ban on gifts to lawmakers and limits on campaign contributions, lobbyists and groups that employ them can spend unlimited money to honor members of Congress or donate to non-profits connected to them or their relatives. The public — until now — had little insight into the scope of this largely hidden world of special-interest influence.
Under ethics rules passed in 2007, lobbyists for the first time last year had to report any payment made for an event or to a group connected to a lawmaker and other top federal officials.
USA TODAY undertook the first comprehensive analysis of the lobbying reports and found 2,759 payments, totaling $35.8 million, were made in 2008. The money went to honor 534 current and former lawmakers, almost 250 other federal officials and more than 100 groups, many of which count lawmakers among their members.
The total cost is roughly equivalent to what the U.S. government spends to operate Yellowstone National Park each year.
Most of the money — about $28 million — went to non-profit groups, some with direct ties to members of Congress. In two cases, USA TODAY found, the donations to non-profits associated with a member of Congress came in response to a personal appeal for funds from the lawmaker.
"It's another example of the many pockets of a politician's coat," says Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group. The spending amounts to an "end-run" around campaign-finance laws "that are designed to limit the appearance of undue influence," she says.
The money came from companies, trade associations and labor groups that lobby Congress and the government on a range of issues, from seeking a share of last year's $700 billion financial bailout package to trying to shape the debate on climate change.
The donations cover various activities — from a golf tournament that raises money for a lawmaker's non-profit to gifts to the alma mater of a powerful House committee chairman.
"You can still have a gala or something or the other for a charity and earn some favor with members of Congress, which is what the gift ban was put in place to avoid," says Dan Danner, CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business and a veteran Washington lobbyist.
The spending demonstrates the subtle ways that special-interest groups try to sway lawmakers, without making "something as crass as a payoff," says Kenneth Gross, a former Federal Election Commission official.
He credits Congress for mandating the disclosure of the gifts and giving the public another view of the relationships between lobbyists and lawmakers.
Invitation to access
The lobbying reports were required by Congress after former lobbyist Jack Abramoff admitted in 2006 that he provided gifts, including a luxury golf trip to Scotland, to then-representative Bob Ney and others in exchange for favors. It is illegal to provide gifts to federal authorities in exchange for official actions, and both Abramoff and Ney, an Ohio Republican, went to prison.
What is more common — and legal — are donations such as the $40,000 AT&T gave in December to the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute, which researches Alzheimer's. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., founded the non-profit, which is named for his late mother, and he is the honorary chairman of its board.
These are "not run-of-the-mill charities," says Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group. "These gifts are another way to gain influence with lawmakers."
Last year, the telecommunication industry gave more than $72,000 to non-profits and charities in honor of Rockefeller, who advocated legislation to provide legal immunity to phone companies that participated in the government's anti-terrorism eavesdropping program. The largest donation came from AT&T. At the time, Rockefeller chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee and helped broker a deal on the bill, which passed last year.
Rockefeller oversees the telecom industry as chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Claudia Jones, an AT&T spokeswoman, declined comment.
Interviews show the West Virginia Democrat made a direct appeal to another company for a donation to the institute. Consol Energy gave $25,000 to the institute in October after Rockefeller sent a fundraising letter to CEO J. Brett Harvey, says Thomas Hoffman, Consol's senior vice president. The company operates coal mines in West Virginia.
"It would be foolish to think we don't take note of the fact when a member of Congress says, 'Hey, I think this is something you ought to support,' " Hoffman says.
Rockefeller spokeswoman Jamie Smith declines to discuss the solicitation but says there is no connection between the gifts and the senator's official actions.
"If some in Washington think giving to a cause Jay Rockefeller cares about will affect his policy views, they surely don't know him," she said in an e-mail. "His policies are based on the merits of an issue and on what's good for West Virginia and the country — period."
Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House energy committee, asked an energy company to donate to a foundation that bears his name. His daughter-in-law, Amy Barton, is the unpaid director.
Utility giant Exelon gave $25,000 to the non-profit last June and $50,000 in 2006, according to federal records and interviews with company officials.
Barton wrote to Exelon CEO John Rowe, seeking the money, says David Brown, Exelon's top lobbyist. The company is one of the nation's largest producers of nuclear energy. Barton has long advocated on the industry's behalf, pushing for the opening of a nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain, outside Las Vegas.
Barton said he did nothing inappropriate. "There's no personal benefit," he said in an interview. "The money doesn't go to me."
He said he was "very proud" of the foundation's work. The foundation, which funds non-profit groups in his congressional district, donated $375,000 for a $1.2 million Boys & Girls Club in Corsicana, Texas, says Sylvia Waters, a club director. "The bottom line is that there wouldn't be a Boys & Girls Club in Corsicana today if it wasn't for the Joe Barton Family Foundation," Barton said.
Lobbyist ties remain
Despite a pledge by congressional leaders to sever ties between lawmakers and special interests, the reports show lobbyists often give to non-profits associated with the lawmakers who regulate their industries.
Health care groups, for instance, give millions to the planned Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Boston. Pharmaceutical giant Amgen wrote the biggest check — $5 million in December — to the institute, which will honor Kennedy's more than four decades in Congress and promote the study of the U.S. Senate.
Aetna insurance company donated $50,000.
Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, chairs the Senate's health and education committee and is at work on comprehensive health care legislation. Aetna has engaged in private talks with Kennedy aides on the bill, Aetna spokesman Mohit Ghose says.
Ghose says the donation was unrelated to those negotiations and instead "advances our goal of continuing to take a leadership role in public policy."
Kelley Davenport, a spokeswoman for Amgen, says the donation reflected the company's interest in lauding Kennedy's long career and in helping "young people to become engaged in public service and public policy."
Kennedy, the records show, was the most honored member of Congress, with a total of nearly $6 million. Most of the money went to the Kennedy institute.
Kennedy spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner and institute trustee Paul Kirk say the Democratic senator has steered clear of potential conflicts of interest with his official duties by not soliciting donations. In total, the organization has collected more than $20 million, according to a January institute news release.
"The principal reason fundraising is going so well is that there is an enormous outpouring of appreciation for Sen. Kennedy's public service," Kirk says.
Amgen spent the most in honor of members of Congress last year, the analysis found. It was among 20 corporations and unions responsible for $17.6 million — or nearly half — of the spending in honor of lawmakers and federal officials last year, the USA TODAY analysis shows. Those groups spent a total of $137.5 million to lobby Congress and federal agencies last year.
Amgen also donated to the Frontier Foundation in honor of Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., who is on the House panel that regulates the drug industry.
The foundation, which provides college scholarships and once was headed by Buyer's daughter, received $385,000 in donations from pharmaceutical companies from 2005 through 2007, according to its IRS filings.
Buyer, who has worked on health policy in Congress for years, helped kill a provision in 2007 opposed by drug companies and broadcasters that would have imposed a three-year ban on advertising new drugs, congressional records show. Consumer advocates, including the Consumers Union, pushed the measure, arguing that aggressive drug pitches unduly sway patients to seek treatment from drugs before their safety records have been established.
During debate by a Commerce subcommittee, Buyer co-sponsored an amendment that stripped the advertising ban from a larger bill overhauling the Food and Drug Administration.
In an interview, Buyer said "there is no connection" between his legislative actions and donations to the foundation. "I'm not an officer. I'm not a board director," he said of his role in the non-profit. "Do I help the foundation? Yes, I do. Do I help other charity groups? Yes, I do."
He referred other questions to foundation officials.
The charity's IRS filing covering the year 2007, the most recent available, listed Buyer's daughter, Colleen, as its unpaid president. Stephanie Mattix, listed as the group's paid secretary/treasurer, is executive director of Buyer's political action committee, Storm Chasers, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Mattix and Buyer told USA TODAY that Colleen Buyer had left the group and referred questions to its president, Brenda Olthoff. Olthoff did not respond to e-mails and calls. Colleen Buyer did not return telephone calls.
The National Association of Broadcasters contributed $25,000 in honor of Buyer to the foundation last year. Amgen donated $15,000.
"I don't think there is a link between a specific vote on drug legislation and contributing to kids going to college in Indiana," says Dennis Wharton, the broadcasters' executive vice president. "We look at where we think it's a worthy cause."
Davenport, Amgen's spokeswoman, says the gift matched the company's "philanthropic mission to improve education."
'Putting and politics'
The donations are a path for lobbyists and company executives to mingle in more intimate surroundings with lawmakers during weekend golf outings and invitation-only dinners.
Last year, lobbyists and the companies that employ them gave more than $802,000 to non-profit groups in honor of Rep. Clyburn, the USA TODAY analysis shows. Those non-profits included the James E. Clyburn Research and Scholarship Foundation and the First Tee of Washington, D.C., which introduces minority and low-income children to golf.
It was First Tee that benefited from a "Putting and Politics" reception for Clyburn and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., on the rooftop of Citigroup's Washington offices in September. The company has received $45 billion in federal bailout money.
Nick Calio, Citigroup's top lobbyist, attended the reception but declined to comment. Gretchen Hamm, the non-profit's executive director, says Citigroup has donated $75,000 over the past three years.
Clyburn, an avid golfer, is a longtime supporter of First Tee. Two years ago, he inserted $3 million into a spending bill to expand the national program at Defense Department facilities. "Why shouldn't children of military families have access to this program as well?" Clyburn spokeswoman Kristie Greco asks.
Each year, Clyburn presides over a golf tournament that raises money for the scholarship program that bears his name. The former schoolteacher created the charity more than 20 years ago to "help deserving students afford a college education" Greco says. It is managed by an independent board and "Congressman Clyburn does not solicit donations," she adds.
But top executives and lobbyists from companies that contribute to the charity can join Clyburn for two days of golfing in South Carolina. Participants have included executives from Duke Energy and Dell, which donated more than $115,000 worth of computer equipment to students in Clyburn's program last year.
"It's not unusual that our folks in government affairs would play golf with members of Congress and support these causes," says Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy, which gave $5,000 to Clyburn's foundation last year. "It's part of the political process, and it's well within the law."
Lawmakers' favorite causes
Some organizations closely associated with Congress members and how much they got last year in contributions from lobbyists and groups that hire them:
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Organization: Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate
Connection: Named for Kennedy, wife on board.
Received: $5,050,000
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.
Organization: James E. Clyburn Research and Scholarship Foundation
Connection: Foundation named for congressman.
Received: $326,224
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.
Organization: The Faith and Politics Institute
Connection: The congressman is co-chair emeritus of the institute.
Received: $206,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.
Organization: Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy
Connection: Center named for the senator.
Received: $140,000
Financial documents: Unavailable
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
Organization: Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute
Connection: Alzheimer's research institute named for senator's late mother.
Received: $65,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Sen. Susan CollinsR-Maine
Organization: Alliance for Health Reform
Connection: Senator is co-chair of Alliance for Health Reform, along with Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
Received: $45,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind.
Organization: Frontier Foundation
Connection: Rep. Buyer's daughter was president of the group, and its treasurer is the executive director of his PAC.
Received: $40,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas
Organization: Joe Barton Family Foundation
Connection: Foundation founded by Rep. Barton. His daughter-in-law, Amy Barton, is the executive director.
Received: $35,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va.
Organization: Robert H. Mollohan Family Charitable Foundation
Connection: Mollohan is on the executive committee; named for his father.
Received: $25,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif.
Organization: Joe Baca Foundation
Connection: Congressman is president of the foundation named for him.
Received: $19,163
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
© 2009 USA Today. All rights reserved. Reprinted Via Rightslink.
By: Fredreka Schouten and Paul Overberg, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — On a mild evening last September, Citigroup lobbyists mingled with South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn at a rooftop reception — complete with miniature putting greens — as the company hosted a party to honor the third most powerful Democrat in the House and raise money for one of his favorite golf charities.
Health insurers and hospitals, meanwhile, are donating millions to help build an institute in Boston to celebrate the career of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who is attempting to overhaul the nation's health care system.
Despite a ban on gifts to lawmakers and limits on campaign contributions, lobbyists and groups that employ them can spend unlimited money to honor members of Congress or donate to non-profits connected to them or their relatives. The public — until now — had little insight into the scope of this largely hidden world of special-interest influence.
Under ethics rules passed in 2007, lobbyists for the first time last year had to report any payment made for an event or to a group connected to a lawmaker and other top federal officials.
USA TODAY undertook the first comprehensive analysis of the lobbying reports and found 2,759 payments, totaling $35.8 million, were made in 2008. The money went to honor 534 current and former lawmakers, almost 250 other federal officials and more than 100 groups, many of which count lawmakers among their members.
The total cost is roughly equivalent to what the U.S. government spends to operate Yellowstone National Park each year.
Most of the money — about $28 million — went to non-profit groups, some with direct ties to members of Congress. In two cases, USA TODAY found, the donations to non-profits associated with a member of Congress came in response to a personal appeal for funds from the lawmaker.
"It's another example of the many pockets of a politician's coat," says Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group. The spending amounts to an "end-run" around campaign-finance laws "that are designed to limit the appearance of undue influence," she says.
The money came from companies, trade associations and labor groups that lobby Congress and the government on a range of issues, from seeking a share of last year's $700 billion financial bailout package to trying to shape the debate on climate change.
The donations cover various activities — from a golf tournament that raises money for a lawmaker's non-profit to gifts to the alma mater of a powerful House committee chairman.
"You can still have a gala or something or the other for a charity and earn some favor with members of Congress, which is what the gift ban was put in place to avoid," says Dan Danner, CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business and a veteran Washington lobbyist.
The spending demonstrates the subtle ways that special-interest groups try to sway lawmakers, without making "something as crass as a payoff," says Kenneth Gross, a former Federal Election Commission official.
He credits Congress for mandating the disclosure of the gifts and giving the public another view of the relationships between lobbyists and lawmakers.
Invitation to access
The lobbying reports were required by Congress after former lobbyist Jack Abramoff admitted in 2006 that he provided gifts, including a luxury golf trip to Scotland, to then-representative Bob Ney and others in exchange for favors. It is illegal to provide gifts to federal authorities in exchange for official actions, and both Abramoff and Ney, an Ohio Republican, went to prison.
What is more common — and legal — are donations such as the $40,000 AT&T gave in December to the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute, which researches Alzheimer's. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., founded the non-profit, which is named for his late mother, and he is the honorary chairman of its board.
These are "not run-of-the-mill charities," says Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group. "These gifts are another way to gain influence with lawmakers."
Last year, the telecommunication industry gave more than $72,000 to non-profits and charities in honor of Rockefeller, who advocated legislation to provide legal immunity to phone companies that participated in the government's anti-terrorism eavesdropping program. The largest donation came from AT&T. At the time, Rockefeller chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee and helped broker a deal on the bill, which passed last year.
Rockefeller oversees the telecom industry as chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Claudia Jones, an AT&T spokeswoman, declined comment.
Interviews show the West Virginia Democrat made a direct appeal to another company for a donation to the institute. Consol Energy gave $25,000 to the institute in October after Rockefeller sent a fundraising letter to CEO J. Brett Harvey, says Thomas Hoffman, Consol's senior vice president. The company operates coal mines in West Virginia.
"It would be foolish to think we don't take note of the fact when a member of Congress says, 'Hey, I think this is something you ought to support,' " Hoffman says.
Rockefeller spokeswoman Jamie Smith declines to discuss the solicitation but says there is no connection between the gifts and the senator's official actions.
"If some in Washington think giving to a cause Jay Rockefeller cares about will affect his policy views, they surely don't know him," she said in an e-mail. "His policies are based on the merits of an issue and on what's good for West Virginia and the country — period."
Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House energy committee, asked an energy company to donate to a foundation that bears his name. His daughter-in-law, Amy Barton, is the unpaid director.
Utility giant Exelon gave $25,000 to the non-profit last June and $50,000 in 2006, according to federal records and interviews with company officials.
Barton wrote to Exelon CEO John Rowe, seeking the money, says David Brown, Exelon's top lobbyist. The company is one of the nation's largest producers of nuclear energy. Barton has long advocated on the industry's behalf, pushing for the opening of a nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain, outside Las Vegas.
Barton said he did nothing inappropriate. "There's no personal benefit," he said in an interview. "The money doesn't go to me."
He said he was "very proud" of the foundation's work. The foundation, which funds non-profit groups in his congressional district, donated $375,000 for a $1.2 million Boys & Girls Club in Corsicana, Texas, says Sylvia Waters, a club director. "The bottom line is that there wouldn't be a Boys & Girls Club in Corsicana today if it wasn't for the Joe Barton Family Foundation," Barton said.
Lobbyist ties remain
Despite a pledge by congressional leaders to sever ties between lawmakers and special interests, the reports show lobbyists often give to non-profits associated with the lawmakers who regulate their industries.
Health care groups, for instance, give millions to the planned Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Boston. Pharmaceutical giant Amgen wrote the biggest check — $5 million in December — to the institute, which will honor Kennedy's more than four decades in Congress and promote the study of the U.S. Senate.
Aetna insurance company donated $50,000.
Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, chairs the Senate's health and education committee and is at work on comprehensive health care legislation. Aetna has engaged in private talks with Kennedy aides on the bill, Aetna spokesman Mohit Ghose says.
Ghose says the donation was unrelated to those negotiations and instead "advances our goal of continuing to take a leadership role in public policy."
Kelley Davenport, a spokeswoman for Amgen, says the donation reflected the company's interest in lauding Kennedy's long career and in helping "young people to become engaged in public service and public policy."
Kennedy, the records show, was the most honored member of Congress, with a total of nearly $6 million. Most of the money went to the Kennedy institute.
Kennedy spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner and institute trustee Paul Kirk say the Democratic senator has steered clear of potential conflicts of interest with his official duties by not soliciting donations. In total, the organization has collected more than $20 million, according to a January institute news release.
"The principal reason fundraising is going so well is that there is an enormous outpouring of appreciation for Sen. Kennedy's public service," Kirk says.
Amgen spent the most in honor of members of Congress last year, the analysis found. It was among 20 corporations and unions responsible for $17.6 million — or nearly half — of the spending in honor of lawmakers and federal officials last year, the USA TODAY analysis shows. Those groups spent a total of $137.5 million to lobby Congress and federal agencies last year.
Amgen also donated to the Frontier Foundation in honor of Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., who is on the House panel that regulates the drug industry.
The foundation, which provides college scholarships and once was headed by Buyer's daughter, received $385,000 in donations from pharmaceutical companies from 2005 through 2007, according to its IRS filings.
Buyer, who has worked on health policy in Congress for years, helped kill a provision in 2007 opposed by drug companies and broadcasters that would have imposed a three-year ban on advertising new drugs, congressional records show. Consumer advocates, including the Consumers Union, pushed the measure, arguing that aggressive drug pitches unduly sway patients to seek treatment from drugs before their safety records have been established.
During debate by a Commerce subcommittee, Buyer co-sponsored an amendment that stripped the advertising ban from a larger bill overhauling the Food and Drug Administration.
In an interview, Buyer said "there is no connection" between his legislative actions and donations to the foundation. "I'm not an officer. I'm not a board director," he said of his role in the non-profit. "Do I help the foundation? Yes, I do. Do I help other charity groups? Yes, I do."
He referred other questions to foundation officials.
The charity's IRS filing covering the year 2007, the most recent available, listed Buyer's daughter, Colleen, as its unpaid president. Stephanie Mattix, listed as the group's paid secretary/treasurer, is executive director of Buyer's political action committee, Storm Chasers, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Mattix and Buyer told USA TODAY that Colleen Buyer had left the group and referred questions to its president, Brenda Olthoff. Olthoff did not respond to e-mails and calls. Colleen Buyer did not return telephone calls.
The National Association of Broadcasters contributed $25,000 in honor of Buyer to the foundation last year. Amgen donated $15,000.
"I don't think there is a link between a specific vote on drug legislation and contributing to kids going to college in Indiana," says Dennis Wharton, the broadcasters' executive vice president. "We look at where we think it's a worthy cause."
Davenport, Amgen's spokeswoman, says the gift matched the company's "philanthropic mission to improve education."
'Putting and politics'
The donations are a path for lobbyists and company executives to mingle in more intimate surroundings with lawmakers during weekend golf outings and invitation-only dinners.
Last year, lobbyists and the companies that employ them gave more than $802,000 to non-profit groups in honor of Rep. Clyburn, the USA TODAY analysis shows. Those non-profits included the James E. Clyburn Research and Scholarship Foundation and the First Tee of Washington, D.C., which introduces minority and low-income children to golf.
It was First Tee that benefited from a "Putting and Politics" reception for Clyburn and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., on the rooftop of Citigroup's Washington offices in September. The company has received $45 billion in federal bailout money.
Nick Calio, Citigroup's top lobbyist, attended the reception but declined to comment. Gretchen Hamm, the non-profit's executive director, says Citigroup has donated $75,000 over the past three years.
Clyburn, an avid golfer, is a longtime supporter of First Tee. Two years ago, he inserted $3 million into a spending bill to expand the national program at Defense Department facilities. "Why shouldn't children of military families have access to this program as well?" Clyburn spokeswoman Kristie Greco asks.
Each year, Clyburn presides over a golf tournament that raises money for the scholarship program that bears his name. The former schoolteacher created the charity more than 20 years ago to "help deserving students afford a college education" Greco says. It is managed by an independent board and "Congressman Clyburn does not solicit donations," she adds.
But top executives and lobbyists from companies that contribute to the charity can join Clyburn for two days of golfing in South Carolina. Participants have included executives from Duke Energy and Dell, which donated more than $115,000 worth of computer equipment to students in Clyburn's program last year.
"It's not unusual that our folks in government affairs would play golf with members of Congress and support these causes," says Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy, which gave $5,000 to Clyburn's foundation last year. "It's part of the political process, and it's well within the law."
Lawmakers' favorite causes
Some organizations closely associated with Congress members and how much they got last year in contributions from lobbyists and groups that hire them:
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Organization: Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate
Connection: Named for Kennedy, wife on board.
Received: $5,050,000
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.
Organization: James E. Clyburn Research and Scholarship Foundation
Connection: Foundation named for congressman.
Received: $326,224
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.
Organization: The Faith and Politics Institute
Connection: The congressman is co-chair emeritus of the institute.
Received: $206,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.
Organization: Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy
Connection: Center named for the senator.
Received: $140,000
Financial documents: Unavailable
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
Organization: Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute
Connection: Alzheimer's research institute named for senator's late mother.
Received: $65,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Sen. Susan CollinsR-Maine
Organization: Alliance for Health Reform
Connection: Senator is co-chair of Alliance for Health Reform, along with Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
Received: $45,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind.
Organization: Frontier Foundation
Connection: Rep. Buyer's daughter was president of the group, and its treasurer is the executive director of his PAC.
Received: $40,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas
Organization: Joe Barton Family Foundation
Connection: Foundation founded by Rep. Barton. His daughter-in-law, Amy Barton, is the executive director.
Received: $35,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va.
Organization: Robert H. Mollohan Family Charitable Foundation
Connection: Mollohan is on the executive committee; named for his father.
Received: $25,000
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif.
Organization: Joe Baca Foundation
Connection: Congressman is president of the foundation named for him.
Received: $19,163
Financial documents: IRS Form 990
© 2009 USA Today. All rights reserved. Reprinted Via Rightslink.
Pravda blog
Yea, I saw that Pravda blog last week and Glenn Beck mentioned it in his show Thursday night (Common Sense Tour). Apparently the people of this nation want everything given to them without having to work for it. They will be sadly awoken to the rest of the country has left for another country and no one will be left to work to pay for their laziness. Only then to find out that 75% of their wages will go to taxes. Microsoft announced that they are considering moving the entire operation off shore to another country because it is too expensive to operate in this country.
AGAINST SCHOOL
Against School, How public education cripples our kids and why
John Taylor Gatto
Harper's Magazine, September 2003 [not available online]
We live in tumultous times. The citizenry is not in open revolt, and we don't have guillotines in the streets, but take it from me, there's a revolution going on.
Consider: Intellectual capital is now worth more than plant and equipment. Industrial-age management no longer works. Networks are replacing hierarchy. Cycles are more frequent and more volatile. Cooperation edges out competition. Innovation trumps efficiency. Flexibility beats might. Everything's global.
The past no longer illuminates the future. Yesterday's solutions won't solve tomorrow's problems. We need fresh thinking. Zero-based philosophy. A new page. And that's why it is sensible to listen to dissidents.
John Taylor Gatto is an award-winning school teacher who decided that compulsory schooling is what's wrong with our nation's educational system. Tom Jefferson and Abe Lincoln did okay without it, as do millions of home-schoolers today.
Gatto has a marvellous, rabble-rousing website. Read his five-page lead essay in Harper's. You won't be able to resist going to his site for more.
"Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren?t interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were."
"...the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers."
Woodrow Wilson, in 1909, said, "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."
- Cloister the children, strip them of responsibility and independence, and they will never grow up.
- Use this failed model as the blueprint for training adults, and they will never learn.
The Makers of Modern Schooling
The real makers of modern schooling weren't at all who we think.
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| Not Cotton Mather |
| or Horace Mann |
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| or John Dewey. |
The Makers of Modern Schooling
The real makers of modern schooling were leaders of the new American industrialist class, men like:
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| Andrew Carnegie, the steel baron... |
| John D. Rockefeller, the duke of oil... |
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| Henry Ford, master of the assembly line which compounded steel and oil into a vehicular dynasty... |
and J.P. Morgan, the king of capitalist finance...
The Makers of Modern Schooling
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| Men like these, and the brilliant efficiency expert Frederick W. Taylor, who inspired the entire "social efficiency" movement of the early twentieth century, along with providing the new Soviet Union its operating philosophy and doing the same job for Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany; men who dreamed bigger dreams than any had dreamed since Napoleon or Charlemagne, these were the makers of modern schooling. |
The Business of Schooling
| If modern schooling has a “Fourth Purpose,” there must be an earlier three. Traditional forms of instruction in America, even before the Revolution, had three specific purposes:
The new mass schooling which came about slowly but continuously after 1890, had a different purpose, a "fourth" purpose. |
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| The fourth purpose steadily squeezed the traditional three to the margins of schooling; in the fourth purpose, school in America became like school in Germany, a servant of corporate and political management. | |
| We should reveal the mechanism of mind control training, habits, and attitudes.
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| The secret of commerce, that kids drive purchases, meant that schools had to become psychological laboratories where training in consumerism was the central pursuit. |
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The Business of Schooling
Since bored people are the best consumers, school had to be a boring place, and since childish people are the easiest customers to convince, the manufacture of childishness, extended into adulthood, had to be the first priority of factory schools. Naturally, teachers and administrators weren't let in on this plan; they didn't need to be. If they didn't conform to instructions passed down from increasingly centralized school offices, they didn't last long.
In the new system, schools were gradually re-formed to meet the pressing need of big businesses to have standardized customers and employees, standardized because such people are predictable in certain crucial ways by mathematical formulae. Business (and government) can only be efficient if human beings are redesigned to meet simplified specifications. As the century wore on, school spaces themselves were opened bit by bit to commercialization.
These processes didn't advance evenly. Some localities resisted more than others, some decades were more propitious for the plan than others. Especially during and just after national emergencies like WWI, the Depression, WWII, and the Sputnik crisis, the scheme rocketed forward; in quieter moments it was becalmed or even forced to give up some ground.
But even in moments of greatest resistance, the institutions controlling the fourth purpose—great corporations, great universities, government bureaus with vast powers to reward or punish, and corporate journalism—increasingly centralized in fewer and fewer hands throughout the twentieth century, kept a steady hand on the tiller. They had ample resources to wear down and outwait the competition.
The prize was of inestimable value--control of the minds of the young.
School Becomes a Dangerous Place
After 1900 the new mass schooling arenas slowly became impersonal places where children were viewed as HUMAN RESOURCES. Whenever you hear this term, you are certain to be in the presence of employees of the fourth purpose, however unwitting. Human resource children are to be molded and shaped for something called "The Workplace," even though for most of American history American children were reared to expect to create their own workplaces.
In the new workplace, most Americans were slated to work for large corporations or large government agencies, if they worked at all.
This revolution in the composition of the American dream produced some unpleasant byproducts. Since systematic forms of employment demand that employees specialize their efforts in one or another function of systematic production, then clear thinking warns us that incomplete people make the best corporate and government employees.
Earlier Americans like Madison and Jefferson were well aware of this paradox, which our own time has forgotten. And if that is so, mutilation in the interests of later social efficiency has to be one of the biggest tasks assigned to forced schooling.
School Becomes a Dangerous Place
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| Not only was the new form of institution spiritually dangerous as a matter of course, but school became a physically dangerous place as well. |
| What better way to habituate kids to abandoning trust in their peers (and themselves) than to create an atmosphere of constant low-level stress and danger, relief from which is only available by appeal to authority? And many times not even then! |
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| . | Horace Mann had sold forced schooling to industrialists of the mid-nineteenth century as the best "police" to create moral children, but ironically, as it turned out in the twentieth century, big business and big government were best served by making schoolrooms antechambers to Hell. |
School Becomes An Arena of Meaningless Pressure
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| School became jail-time to escape if you could, arenas of meaningless pressure as with the omnipresent "standardized" exams, which study after study concluded were measuring nothing real. | |||
| For instance, take the case of Bill Bradley. . . |
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| and George W. Bush, | |||
| two of the four finalists in the 2000 presidential race. Bradley had a horrifying 480 on the verbal part of his own SATs, yet graduated from Princeton, won a Rhodes Scholarship, and became a senator; Bush graduated from Yale, became governor of Texas, and president of the United States—with a mediocre 550. If you can become governor, senator, and president with mediocre SAT scores, what exactly do the tests measure? |
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| Perhaps they sort out good scientists from bad? If so, how is it that both the scientists principally involved in the Human Genome Project have strange scholarly backgrounds to say the least! | ||||
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| Francis S. Collins, the head of the public portion, was homeschooled, never followed any type of formal curriculum, and is a born-again Christian. | |||
| Craig Venter was a very bad boy in high school, a surfing bum who nearly flunked out, and he didn't go to college after graduation, but into the U.S. Army as an enlisted man before being shipped off to Vietnam! |
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School As a Place of Bewilderment and Boredom
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| As you'll learn when you read The Underground History of American Education the new purpose of schooling—to serve business and government—could only be achieved efficiently by isolating children from the real world, with adults who themselves were isolated from the real world, and everyone in the confinement isolated from one another. |
| Only then could the necessary training in boredom and bewilderment begin. Such training is necessary to produce dependable consumers and dependent citizens who would always look for a teacher to tell them what to do in later life, even if that teacher was an ad man or television anchor. |
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| The rationale, history, and dynamics of Fourth Purpose school procedure are carefully examined in The Underground History of American Education. |
A free cassette recording ($8.00 value) of one of John Gatto's famous speeches attacking the sinister structure of modern forced government schooling and a free original autograph plate are yours when you order a copy of his new book, The Underground History of American Education! On this Web site only.
All profits from book sales go toward one of the three major projects of The Odysseus Group, a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization dedicated to school reform.
We call ourselves “Odysseus” because of the central lesson taught more than 2,700 years ago in Homer’s Odyssey, an epic poem and the first form of the novel in a European language. Odysseus was already strong, brilliant, and famous, and he had a chance to be rich, immortal, and adored by ladies and demigodesses. But he chucked it all to go home to his wife and kid!
Odysseus knew something our modern form of schooling has forgotten, he knew what really matters. The Odysseus Group hopes to return schooling to the service of what really matters. This Web site is a work in progress toward that end. Eventually it will include a newsletter of interesting school developments, but that will take some time; right now Odysseus is concentrating on three major projects: publishing and disseminating Underground History, raising money to make a film, The Fourth Purpose, based on the insights of the book, and building a library and retreat center in rural Chenango County (upstate New York) to which people who want to create their own kind of school reform plans can repair to talk to one another, read, and think.
American capitalism gone with a whimper | ||||||||||
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Source:
| Pages: 2 |
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| It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people. |
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.
Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.
So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.
Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.
So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.
The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.
The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
Stanislav Mishin
The article has been reprinted with the kind permission from the author and originally appears on his blog, Mat Rodina
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