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Today’s Downsizer Dispatch . . .::::::Recruit more Downsizers. Share this message with others.::::::Quote of the Day:::::::“If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.” ::: – Frank Herbert, author of “Dune”::::::Subject: Intimidation and hypocrisy::::::President Bush gave a nice speech before the United Nations recently. In it he extolled human rights and democracy. Then, the President of Iran stood up and provided evidence of our own President’s violations of human rights and democracy. ::::::It’s a shame that the Iranian President, criminal that he is, was able to make a case against our President without lying.::::::Sadly, there is now even more evidence that the Iranian president could have used . . .::::::Additional memos have been found indicating that the Bush administration encourages the use of torture. And the Director of the C.I.A. is investigating the C.I.A.’s Inspector General because the Inspector General has been investigating misbehavior by the C.I.A.

Today’s Downsizer Dispatch . . .::::::Evangelize the Downsize DC message. Share this with others.::::::Quote of the Day:::::::“War is an evil inasmuch as it produces more wicked men than it takes away.”:::

— attributed to an unknown Greek writer by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher, Source: Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, 1795

::::::MEDIA NOTICE: Jim Babka is on the radio today. Look below the signature for listening information.::::::Subject: Backdoor key to victory::::::There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that we’re very unlikely to get everything we want from the fight to repeal or revise the so-called “Protect America Act” (PAA). ::::::The good news is that we may get a lot of what we want, and President Bush claims he will veto any bill that does not give him everything he wants.::::::If President Bush vetoes Congressional changes to the PAA then Congress could simply allow the PAA to sunset in six months, which is the same as repeal, and we would get everything we want while President Bush would get nothing that he wants.

I understand – not agree with, but understand – calls for a national health care plan. After all, the people get public education for “free,” and most parents would agree that their children’s health is more important than their education.::::::The flaw in this thinking, however, is that our “free” educational system doesn’t work. Over the decades, as formerly private and locally-controlled schools came under increased state direction and control, and then federal control, the quality of education suffered. Moreover, federal aid to higher education (to institutions directly, and aid and loans to students) has led to an explosion in tuition costs combined with a “dumbing down” of the curriculum.::::::The case of health care is slightly different, because with the progress of science and technology, treatment has improved. But in other industries with fewer regulations and subsidies, costs go down, not up.

Today’s Downsizer-Dispatch . . .::::::So many bills in so little time. Last week, the Senate passed  14 bills amounting to 1482 pages. The House passed 15 bills totaling 50 pages. How does this happen?
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:::Each member of Congress sits on a few committees, (where they are often susceptible to lobbyist influence.) Even if they develop some expertise in a few areas, they haven’t read, and know very little about, most of the bills their party leaders ask them to pass. Many of these bills delegate more money and authority to the President and administrative agencies. The process has its own inertia, and government grows and grows. It doesn’t matter what the people want, and the long-term consequences for the nation are rarely considered. This is why we need the Read the Bills Act.

Today’s Downsizer Dispatch . . .::::::Subject: Urgent Action Item!::::::There are several versions of bills designed to replace the hastily passed “Protect America Act,” which legalized warrantless spying on Americans. Congress is debating these replacement bills right now, and could vote on them in the next 24 to 48 hours. ::::::One of the proposed replacement bills is the RESTORE Act, and the other is the FISA Modernization bill. ::::::The latter bill does essentially what our current campaign on this issue asks Congress to do, which is to repeal the so-called “Protect America Act.” Please send a message to Congress right now and add the following to your personal comments . . .

Paul Jacob, of Term Limits fame, was my guest. ::::::This episode was primarily about his recent arrest for the crime of recruiting petitioners. But we also discussed Read the Bills. You can read the full preview from Sunday’s Downsizer-Dispatch. ::::::The Gun Owners update was derived from an article at their site titled, “An Open Letter To The Pro-gun Community.” ::::::An mp3 of this program is “attached” as a link at the end of this blog posting. Most of the commercials have been edited out for your listening pleasure. Happy Listening! :::

Amplify your voice. Forward this message to others.::::::Subject: Rob your health insurance company::::::We can make the health care industry perform like the computer industry, providing ever better quality at ever lower prices. We can . . .

• Make your health insurance belong to you, not your employer
• Make insurance premiums increasingly less expensive
• Eliminate insurance co-pays, fully fund your health insurance deductibles, and make insurance company denials of care almost completely disappear

We can even make affordable health care available to everyone, at all socio-economic levels. Better yet, the amount of money available to fund your health care could grow constantly. You could even be able to leave unspent health care funds to your children as an inheritance. ::::::But that’s not all. Our proposal would also save Medicare from its looming bankruptcy while making our economy vastly more productive!::::::All of these things can be done at once, with one simple change from Congress . . .::::::Congress must make it possible for you to rob your health insurance company.

Imagine collecting signatures for a petition being a crime. Welcome to Oklahoma!
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:::According to Richard Winger of Ballot Access News, Oklahoma has the worst ballot access laws in the country. Groups like the Libertarian Party and the Green Party are trying to change that — right now.
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:::But Oklahoma’s most powerful political figures, including state Attorney General Drew Edmondson, are, with Southern segregationist fervor, trying to make things worse for non-incumbent citizen activists.
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:::Paul Jacob is a long-time, prominent Term Limits Advocate. Now, he’s under indictment.
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:::His crime? Recruiting petitioners to collect signatures for a ballot initiative proposal called TABOR which limits how much the state government budget can grow from year to year.
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:::You might think I’m missing something — that I’m understating it? Surely that’s not a crime?
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:::Oh, but you haven’t heard the whole story!

Today’s Downsizer-Dispatch . . .::::::Quote of the Day:
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:::”Frankly, it is too easy to pass bills. Bills flow through this body like water.”
:::– Sen. Jeff Sessions
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:::In our system of government, Senators have longer terms than Representatives. In theory, this gives them freedom to be more far-sighted and more statesmanlike than Representatives, who are constantly seeking re-election. Sometimes, democratic passions cause the House to pass popular but seriously flawed bills, and the framers of the Constitution created the Senate so that cooler heads would prevail. It seemed to work: for generations the Senate was considered the “world’s greatest deliberative body.”
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:::But today, the Senate passes most bills unread and without any deliberation. In fact, bills are often rushed through without Senators even knowing about them. Their “consent” to a bill is assumed, and this leads  to bills being passed by “unanimous consent.” It is a process called “hotlining.”

Today’s Downsizer Dispatch . . .::::::Recruit more Downsizers. Forward this message to others.::::::Quote of the Day:::::::“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.”::: – Sam Adams::::::Subject: Join the FISA flood::::::More than 60 organizations are working together to flood Congress with messages and phone calls demanding that our representatives restore America’s 4th Amendment protections. DownsizeDC.org is one of those organizations.