Yearly Archives: 2006

Downsize DC Conference Call – October 8, 2006

The President signs the kangaroo court, pro-torture, gut the Bill-of-Rights, Torture/Tribunal bill tomorrow (Tuesday, October 17). It’s election season, and he wants the world to know, so he’s going to make a show of it.

That’s why we begin the campaign to repeal it today. We call our initiative, “Truth must count. Innocence must matter.”

Repeal is difficult, some would say impossible. Congress certainly expects us to forget.   

We don’t forget. We can’t quit. We won’t get distracted. We never surrender. This is part of the DC Downsizer ethos.

Why should you fight to repeal this law?

As DownsizeDC.org campaigned against the torture bill and the warrantless surveillance bill two weeks ago, we received some complaints. We were told that we were wrongheaded, that foreigners aren’t entitled to Constitutional rights (although the bills applied to American citizens as well), that terrorists deserve whatever is coming to them. ::::::But the issue isn’t really about Constitutional rights and punishing the guilty. It is rather about human rights and protecting the innocent. A government callous enough to violate the human rights and dignity of innocent foreigners, would do the same to domestic politcal opponents.::::::The film Road to Guantanamo illustrates what it is we are opposing. Innocent people have been swept up and incarcerated in the War on Terror. Hundreds have been detained in Guantanamo alone, without being charged.::::::The Road to Guantanamo is a powerful, true story in documentary style, although the scenes were re-enacted. It is now available for viewing and downloading here.::::::

Spinach, carrots, and lettuce… oh my! Yes, we’re all supposed to be scared of our food supply.

Hysterical journalists complain, despite the fact the spinach problem was caught relatively quickly, contained, and sourced down to one distribution center. We need . . . More bureaucrats. More money. Tougher regulations. Heck, one network said we need a new, streamlined agency to oversee all the affairs of farms — too many alphabet soup agencies are involved and that’s just not tidy and efficient.

Essentially, they’re saying, “Upsize DC” or “Centralize DC.” Obviously, we don’t agree. In fact, we think a compelling argument could be made for Downsizing DC’s role in monitoring our food supply. Such an argument goes like this . . .

Today’s Downsizer-Dispatch . . .::::::Here’s Jim Babka’s agenda for today’s episode of the Downsize DC radio show::::

“Suspend the rules and pass.” That means, let’s vote on a bill without debate. In the House of Representatives, a two-thirds vote is required for the bill to pass without debate. If the motion fails, that means the bill must be considered with time for debate.::::::To suspend the rules and pass isn’t always a bad thing. Some bills are so uncontroversial that debating them would just waste everyone’s time. But this should not be used to rush through bills that Congress wants to get passed before adjournment.

I’m supposed to review and post these blog entries in a timely manner, but sometimes my brain wanders off somewhere and it doesn’t get done. My apologies to you, our readers, and to the esteemed James Wilson, author of the report that follows. I’ll try to do better. Honest. — Perry Willis (Defective Blog Editor)::::::Welcome to the Sept 18-24 edition of Last Week in Congress.::::::Members of Congress don’t want to be in Washington right now. They want to go home to prepare for the November elections. That’s why Congress had a 3-day work week, spending Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday ramming bills through so they could a) boast that they “accomplished a lot” and b) spend Friday campaigning.

MEDIA ANNOUNCEMENTS
 
Date: Thursday, October 5, 2006

Time: 2:00 PM Eastern, 1:00 PM Central
1:00 PM Mountain, Noon Pacific

Guest: Jim Babka, President, DownsizeDC.org
Length: 1 hour
Host: Jerry Hughes
Show: The Jerry Hughes Show
Topic: Warrantless spying and Tribunals/Torture
Internet: www.cilamerica.com
Click on the CIL|On Demand button, right side of page. You’ll need Winamp or Windows Media Player.

On 15 Stations:
KXCL 1140 AM Liberty, MO,
KLIO 1340 AM Poplar Bluff, MO,
KNAK 540 AM Delta, UT,
KOHI 1600 AM St. Helens, OR,
WARL 1320 AM Providence, RI,
WASG 550 AM Pensacola, FL,
WHBS 1400 AM Moultrie, GA,
WIJD 1270 AM Mobile, AL,
WITA 1490 AM Knoxville, TN,
WKHB 620 AM Pittsburgh, PA,
WLBE 790 AM Leesburg, FL,
WSGF 1340 AMAugusta, GA,
WTHV 810 AM Valdosta, GA,
WWAB 1330 AM Lakeland, FL,
WZNO 1230 AM Pensacola, FL

—————

In addition, we’ve been contacted to appear on the The John McMullen Show on Sirius Satellite Radio at 10:15 PM Eastern (9:15 PM Central, 8:15 PM Mountain, and 7:15 PM Pacific) to discuss the Read the Bills Act. The show’s niche is the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, and Transgender community. The request came in over night and has not yet been confirmed so we have no further details as of the time of this message. Here’s the show link. As far as we know this show is not available on the web.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer,

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

Congress passed a lot of legislation at the last minute before adjourning. We highly doubt they read any of it.

There was no waiting period to give them time to read the bills, even if they had wanted to know what they were passing.

Bad stuff was inserted and combined with completely unrelated material. Most in Congress had no idea what they were voting for, and we are only just now learning the details of much of it. Here’s one example . . .

As promised, here’s a report on what we accomplished in September. It was one of our best months ever!

First, we won two battles with Congress . . .

* We passed the Transparency Act
* We stopped Congress from passing a “Spying on Americans Act” (our more accurate name for the bill)

Both of these achievements were significant for