Monthly Archives: January 2009

Media Alert: Jim Babka will be on “Free Talk Live” this evening (Saturday), at 7 PM Eastern. This show is now bigger than ever — 46 stations nationwide. The hosts, Ian and Mark, are devoted DC Downsizers. Jim will discuss the Mexican Drug War, End the FED, and other issues. Find out how to listen at FreeTalkLive.com.

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Quote of the Day: “Personnel is policy.” — Morton Blackwell, “Laws of the Public Policy Process” (Rule 26)

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Subject: A special message from the Downsize DC FOUNDATION about a matter of public education . . .

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Before and after the election there was a run on guns and ammo. Suppliers couldn’t keep their shelves stocked. What provoked this?

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The winning candidate promised “common sense gun reform” — coincidentally, a mantra of the leading gun control lobby. Those of us who treasure the entire Bill of Rights wondered, what would be . . . 

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* restricted?
:::* taxed?
:::* banned?

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President Obama has signaled his policy intentions through the person he’s chosen as Attorney General, Eric Holder. What does “common sense gun reform” mean to Mr. Holder? As Clinton’s Deputy Attorney General, Holder advocated . . . 

Media Alert: Jim Babka is scheduled to appear on Straight Talk w/ Jerry Hughes at 3:06 PM Eastern. Details are available at the blog.  

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Quote of the Day: “Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?” — Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist

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Subject: What is it going to take to Downsize DC?

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We must gain the size and strength to stop the politicians from doing bad things. Because DownsizeDC.org constantly has new members its important to repeat our view of what it will take to do this.

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* We must recruit an army so large that it can . . .
:::* Apply relentless, overwhelming, resistence numbing pressure on Congress, and . . .
:::* Make our ideas seen and heard by everyone, everywhere, every day

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We’re making steady progress toward this goal. Our goal is $6,000 per month, plus 20 new monthly pledgers. Because of snow storms at our operations office, I don’t have precise numbers to share with you, but we’re roughly halfway towards reaching each of these numbers. And . . .

Quote of the Day: “I think this is a case where Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are fundamentally sound. They’re not in danger of going under. I think they are in good shape going forward.” — Barney Frank (D-Mass.), House Financial Services Committee chairman, July 14, 2008

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Subject: The Scam Bill

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The House passed an $819 billion “stimulus” bill yesterday, 244 to 188. All 177 Republicans, plus 11 Democrats, opposed the bill. This doesn’t mean the battle is over. The Senate is considering a different variation of the bill and both chambers will have to vote again on a unified version. We must continue to fight.

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We cannot make this point often enough. The new Democratic majority is doing exactly what the Republicans did before them, exploiting a crisis to perpetrate a scam.

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We must repeat this constantly, to ourselves and to everyone we meet . . .

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* President Bush exploited the 9-11 tragedy to try to re-engineer the world
:::* Now the Democrats are exploiting the financial crisis to re-engineer America

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The evidence is piling high. The so-called stimulus bill is really a grab-bag of corporate welfare and social engineering projects.

:::Perhaps you’ve heard about
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If you’re suddenly having trouble logging-in to the site, and it was working for you as recently as Thursday, January 22, please read this message.
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:::An urgent message from Jim Babka…
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:::Yesterday, our Chief Programmer suddenly resigned. Today, Murphy came to visit. We are getting reports that suddenly people cannot login.
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:::Our number one tech support problem had been login issues, and a good percentage of that class of problem came from individuals who were typing in their login information without regard to capitalization and lower case. Our system was “case sensitive.”
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:::The final act of our new departed programmer was to fix that problem. But…

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…the result is that many who are presently logged-in are not recognized until they clear their old login, and re-login. I’m not a technician, and don’t know why this is the case. But the solution is relatively simple. It’s 4 (FOUR) direct steps.

Media Alert! Jim Babka will appear on Straight Talk w/ Gary Nolan this evening. See the Postscript for details.

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Quotes of the Day: “Is it too much to ask that someone criticizing (John Maynard) Keynes actually, you know, read Keynes…?” — Paul Krugman

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Okay Mr. Krugman, let’s read what Keynes wrote in 1942 . . .

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“Organized public works, at home and abroad, may be the right cure for a chronic tendency to a deficiency of effective demand. But they are not capable of sufficiently rapid organisation (and above all cannot be reversed or undone at a later date), to be the most serviceable instrument for the prevention of the trade cycle.” — Keynes, Collected Works, vol. XXVII, p.122

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Subject: Can public works stimulate the economy?

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John Maynard Keynes originated the idea that government spending could reverse an economic downturn, but even he was skeptical of using government construction projects for this purpose.

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Nevertheless, Congress, and people like Paul Krugman, want to spend hundreds of billions on public works.

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Sheldon Richman, of the Foundation for Economic Education, gives us more reasons to be skeptical. He draws attention to a major investigation of public works projects by David Leonhardt of the “New York Times.” Three points stand out . . .

Media Alert! Jim Babka will appear on the Liberty Roundtable tomorrow morning. See the Postscript for details.

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Quote of the Day: “The USDA claims it needs to be able to move fast in case of an outbreak of disease. At first blush it sure sounds fine and good, until you consider that people are in the middle of a major epidemic on US dairy farms, and the USDA hasn’t moved at all to stop it.” – Jerri Cook

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Subject: From “Voluntary” to Mandatory

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Johne’s disease is a contagious infection of the small intestine of hoofed animals.

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• There’s a strong possibility that Johne’s disease in cattle causes Crohn’s disease in humans.

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• According to a 2007 government study, 68% of America’s dairy herds may be infected.

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• Yet the USDA’s page on Johne’s disease still cites a 22% figure from 1996

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Moreover, the USDA’s 2009 budget . . .

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• Slashes the already miniscule funding for Johne’s disease eradication 

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•  While increasing funding for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS)

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Quote of the Day: “The Greeks…labored under the delusion that their democracy was a guarantee of peace and plenty, not realizing that unrestrained majority rule always destroys freedom, puts the minority at the mercy of the mob, and works at cross-purposes to the effective use of human energy and individual initiative.” — Henry Grady Weaver, “The Mainspring of Human Progress”

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Subject: Using the taxes you pay to bribe members of Congress

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It’s a crime for citizens to bribe members of Congress. But it’s perfectly legal for members of Congress to use your tax money to bribe each other. It’s called logrolling. One Congressperson says to another, “I’ll vote for your spending bill if you’ll vote for mine.”

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What else could this be called, but an attempt to use tax money to buy a legislative outcome? In a word, a bribe.

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Could we have a law to make this kind of bribery illegal, to be punished by jail-time, fines, and expulsion from office?

Quote of the Day: “Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Source: The Soul of a Man Under Socialism, 1891

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Subject: Passing the “Read the Bills Act” and the “One Subject at a Time Act”

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Here’s how we plan to do it. Step One . . .

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•  Write a simple letter introducing people to RTBA and OSTA (you’ll see this letter soon)

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• Get a good volume discount by printing a large quantity of these letters

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• Mail these letters to people likely to love RTBA and OSTA

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Why letters? Because they allow us to target the most likely responders. Direct mail provides higher recruitment rates than any other form of advertising, including the Downsizer-Dispatch. These letters will ask people to . . .

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• Join DownsizeDC.org for free

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• Receive the Downsizer-Dispatch for free

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•  Use our quick and easy Educate the Powerful System to pester Congress to pass RTBA and OSTA

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Quote of the Day: “The holier-than-thou activists who blame the population for not spending more money on their personal crusades are worse than aggravating. They encourage the repudiation of personal responsibility by spreading the lie that support of a government program fulfills individual moral duty.” — Patrick Cox

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Subject: The evidence is in — the stimulus package won’t work

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Congress wants to stimulate the economy by spending $30 billion on road repair and construction, but the Congressional Budget Office reports that . . .

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* Less than $4 billion would enter the economy before 2010
:::* And less than $15 billion would be spent before 2013

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If past recessions are any guide an economic recovery could begin, naturally, by the end of this year. This means that most of the spending proposed in the so-called stimulus package will come too late to serve its supposed purpose.

Downsize DC has joined 24 other organizations in the Campaign For A New Policy On Iran, calling on President Obama to open a dialog with Iran and reverse the failed policies of the past 30 years. A statement has been issued which you can read here.

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More background on U.S. relations with Iran can be found in the Joint Experts’ Statement On Iran, which can be read here.

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