Postal Pet Peeves

A frustrated NCPPR executive director, David Almasi, provides an example of the Law of Diminishing Returns in action:

When we moved into our current Capitol Hill office in 1998, The National Center's mail was picked up at 10 am, 3 pm and 5 pm. Somewhere along the line, the 10 am pick-up was eliminated. Now that's been consolidated into one afternoon pick-up at 4 pm. Two days ago, they didn't even take everything that was left out.



Also during that time, the price of postage rose twice.

My related personal pet peeve is that the USPS has changed The National Center's zip+4 code three times since 1998. We've since phased out using it on much of our materials in order to save funds and staff time on reprinting printed materials with new addresses when we did not even move. But somehow, I don't think that's the end goal the Postal Service had in mind.

Invest in USA

Sean over at the Everything I Know Is Wrong blog posted Project 21's press release of today on a logical and, for once, bi-partisan way to get more investment into the U.S. economy: reduce tax policies that encourage U.S. businesses to keep their foreign-made profits out of the U.S.



Unfortunately, we had a typo in the press release that made its argument seem less compelling than it truly is. We wrote: "According to a study by the financial services firm J.P Morgan, Chase and Company... the enactment of legislation reducing the tax rate could bring $300 million of that profit back into the U.S. economy..."



The actual figure is $300 BILLION, not million.

But Your Honor, They Made Me Fill Out That Tax Form

A note from husband David about lawsuits and personal responsibility:

The lawsuits against fast food companies, which blame the "enablers" rather than the fry-inhaling, super-sized coke slurping public responsible for their ever-expanding waistlines, raise some interesting questions.



If people are no longer responsible for their own actions, does this mean tax evaders can blame the IRS for their crime? The IRS does, after all, provide the tax forms.



Or, does it mean that if an individual runs over a trial lawyer, the trial lawyer is to blame for presenting an all too tempting target?

On that last point, he's just kidding, folks.

A Case of Putting the Cart Before the Horse?

In testimony before Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, NAACP Washington Bureau head Hilary Shelton said her group opposes a Federal Marriage Amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman.



It's perfectly fair for the NAACP to oppose such an amendment, but what about its opinion of the notion that led to its introduction In the first place: gay marriage? "The NAACP has not taken a position on that question," Shelton says.



Why? Maybe because, according to a recent CBS poll, 58 percent of surveyed blacks said they'd likely vote against a candidate who disagreed with them on the gay marriage issue. And most of that 58 percent opposed it.



Poll results from Wirthlin suggest the NAACP's apparent strategy of trying to keep both sides happy isn't going to work. Wirthlin found that 62 percent of black Americans support the Federal Marriage Amendment. And it's more popular among the lower income demographic that the population as a whole.



Here is Project 21 member Horace Cooper's take on the NAACP's maneuver:

Finally it's clear just how out of touch the NAACP is. Rather than focusing on issues of importance to improving the plight of blacks - education, housing and job training - they are wasting time pursing an elitist left-wing agenda. This position clearly does not reflect the sentiment of black America nor of the rank-and-file membership of the NAACP.



As Daniel Patrick Moynihan thoroughly documented, the breakdown of the family has led to poverty and crime in the inner city. It is inconceivable that a group which purports to exist to help blacks is placing its moral authority behind such an extremist counter-culture platform. This venerable organization has lost its moral roots. When the NAACP supports obstacles to marriage and family rather than protections, something sad has happened.

Benedict Arnold-Enablers

A note from husband David:

It seems to me that the liberals are Benedict Arnold-enablers. Or, to put it another way, they didn't fall -- they were pushed.



The reason manufacturing jobs are going overseas is more complicated than simply the cost of labor is cheaper there -- though, the trade unions' enormous power here is a big factor.



The costs of opening new plants in the current regulatory climate are enormous -- so enormous, in fact, that industry has an incentive to keep old and inefficient plants in operation as long as possible. At a certain point these plants can no longer compete with new, state of the art facilities built abroad. They then have to look overseas for their manufacturing needs.



Remember the experience of Shintech. They wanted to in-source jobs, but weren't allowed to.



Outsourcing is not a decision a company makes lightly. There are enormous costs associated with building new facilities, even when they are built abroad. There is also a lot more risk: Companies risk losing their investments to nationalization or damage due to political instability. Plus, there often are additional costs associated with getting finished products back to the U.S.



Even with all these costs and additional risk, many companies have concluded that their best interests are served by moving overseas. This should be a wake up call to everyone that something is wrong.



Liberals have backed virtually every item of the labor and environmental movements' big government agenda that put these perverse incentives in play.



Liberals wanted only clean industry -- they're getting it.



Liberals wanted only high paying jobs -- they're getting them too.



The trouble is that they're exporting all the remaining industries and jobs overseas in the process.

I agree with this, but would add another consideration: Our tort system. The big trial lawyers give liberal politicians and their allies cash, in exchange for which the left blocks legal reforms that would guarantee the rights of victims to receive fair treatment but reduce huge payouts to trial lawyers. Tort costs are definitely a consideration when businesses consider outsourcing.

Nice

The Washington Times has written a nice editorial today about Project 21 and the NAACP.

How Did Memogate Happen, Anyway?

An extremely interesting analysis of the technical aspects of "memogate" from the Three Years of Hell to Become the Devil blog.



The piece is worth reading on its merits, but note that the author received training in computer network systems administration at the U.S. Senate.

A Key Point

From husband David:

British PM Tony Blair recently gave a speech defending his position on Iraq and challenging the notion that he or anyone else suggested that the threat from Iraq was "imminent." He cited numerous quotes of his own that suggested just the opposite.



But perhaps most important, he said that they -- Blair and Bush -- never would have taken their case to the U.N., much less taken the time to gain approval of a resolution, if they had believed the threat was imminent. They would have been obligated to act immediately.



This is a key point, I think.

Black Conservatives Commend NAACP for Reversing Position on Image Awards

Project 21 is commending the NAACP for seeing the light about nominating persons who are under indictment for Image Awards.



Thanks to Mychal Massie of Project 21 for his January appearance on Fox's O'Reilly Factor, which got the ball rolling in the effort to change the NAACP's position.

Just for Fun: Our Critics Speak

Just for fun, we've posted a few samples of letters from some of our more emotional recent critics.



Don't read it if you don't like bad language, though!

Guilty?

Hubby David Ridenour has an observation about Martha Stewart's conviction for lying to government investigators: Based on the Clinton perjury case, wasn't it determined -- by the U.S. Senate no less -- that it is OK to lie?

Missing the Point

Sean has important observations on his Everything I Know Is Wrong blog today about the MSNBC story about the Bush Administration and Abu Musab Zarqawi, terrorist mastermind.



This is a story to read all the way through.

Lessons Learned?

An angry rant from NCPPR executive director David W. Almasi, and, he hopes, some lessons learned by the White House:

When it comes to getting conservative policies in place, going along to get along is never a winning strategy.



First, President Bush signed the McCain-Feingold campaign regulations into law against the warnings of conservatives. Relax, Bushies said with a wink, it won't stand up to the inevitable Supreme Court challenge. They were wrong.



Then came Ellen Weintraub. Who? She's now a commissioner of the Federal Elections Commission. When Tom Daschle submitted her name for consideration, conservatives warned Bush not to nominate her. Not only was she a lawyer for one of the most liberal law firms in D.C., but she is also the wife of Senator Feingold's legislative director. On potential conflict of interest concerns alone, she should have been passed over. However, after Senator McCain placed holds on all Bush Administration nominations to force action on Weintraub, Bush installed her by recess appointment in December of 2002.



That's when recess appointments were still OK. Actually, when they benefit liberals, they're always considered OK.



Now, the Weintraub appointment is coming back to haunt the White House. At stake is over $300 million in money amassed by liberal "527" political groups that desperately want to defeat Bush in November. The FEC is poised to enact regulations to make these groups adhere to the spirit of McCain-Feingold by only spending smaller "hard money" donations rather than the large Soros-sized donations that are the loophole to the "soft money" spending ban. Weintraub is shocked and appalled that the FEC is acting so close to an election, and is threatening to make her swing vote a potential death blow to the Bush campaign. If the FEC rules aren't enacted, Bush stands to be outspent three to one in the general election.



It's clear the liberals aren't pulling punches. Judicial nominees could be the most important legacy of President Bush, yet many of his best nominees sit stalled in the Senate as a liberal minority continues to sucker punch the Constitution with a series of obstructionist filibusters. An option has been outlined in which these nominees could receive up-or-down votes on the floor of the Senate, but fears of retribution are keeping Senate leaders from exercising this "nuclear option." Considering their past mistakes on McCain-Feingold and Ellen Weintraub and the increasingly formidable challenge to his re-election, perhaps Bush and his supporters in the Senate should consider bold action to ensure there even is a Bush policy legacy.

The Senate Chases Motes

The Straw Man Fallacy: When a person ignores another person's actual point-of-view and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that point-of-view for the purpose of rebutting a different, usually weaker, argument.



The Senate Judiciary Committee has posted the comments of Senator Patrick Leahy at last month's Judiciary Committee meeting.



The Senator blasts our organization and those who are working with us, as well as a huge number of conservative activists and others, inaccurately describing what we believe, have said and are calling for in the matter of the Judiciary Committee's "leaked" computer memos. Then he attacks his false description of us.



A straw man argument at work.



It is something else as well: A diversion for purposes of a cover-up. As long as the topic is about the way the Republican staffers learned what the Democrat Senators were doing, the Democrat Senators don't have to explain themselves.



Partisanship, however, isn't the only issue here. Maybe not even the biggest one.



Senators of both parties, when confronted with allegations of potential improprieties and illegalities in their midst, instead are focusing on the selfish issue of keeping their own correspondence private. Correspondence that had been drafted by government employees working on government computers in government offices, which, lacking any national security aspect, really should never have been private at all.



The Senators are saying we taxpayers don't have a right to expect the investigation of improprieties if the improprieties came to light in a manner that infringes upon their privacy in the workplace.



Never mind that we're paying them to do that work.



And it is our country they are steering in those memos.



Note the terminology when Patrick Leahy tosses invective at conservative organizations who call for an evenhanded investigation. We're not just "extreme, partisan, right-wing activists," but "extreme, partisan, right-wing activists from outside organizations."



The term "outside" is no coincidence.



They resent us not only because we're "extreme right," but because we're not in the Senate club, and what we are saying is inconvenient.



But I won't end this essay without addressing Leahy & Co.'s charge that we outside "extremists" don't care what GOP staffers do, even if it is illegal, as long as the staffers were "on our side."



Leahy is lying about this, unless he's too ignorant to know better.



Conservative activists are not calling for authorities to ignore any illegal acts by GOP staffers, in the event there were any. What we are requesting is an appropriate level of attention to equal or perhaps more serious charges against the Democrat Senators and their subordinates.



The charges against the GOP staffers essentially amounts to a charge of reading the mail on someone else's desk -- at least, as far as the public's been told after months of investigations, a reported half million taxpayer dollars spent and no charges filed. Maybe there's more. An investigation is underway.



The charges against the Democrat Senators and staffers amount to subverting the Constitution by packing the courts (clearly, it's still the party of FDR) and allegedly, according to one person who has seen the memos, other serious activities, such as bribery. No investigation of these allegations appears to be forthcoming.



In the Sermon on the Mount, a man who outranks even Senators asked: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"



The Senate chases motes.

Supposed Red Collar Worker Gets Me Hot Under Collar

My husband David has coined a new term: "red collar worker." It is to refer to those persons who want to be cared for cradle-to-grave without breaking much of a sweat, figuratively or otherwise, in the workplace.



It is perhaps appropriate that he coined the term after I told him I had gotten hot under the collar after receiving an e-mail complaining that my recent "What Conservatives Think" newsletter piece on overtime regulations did not adequately represent the point of view of the AFL-CIO.



The sender of the e-mail claimed to be a blue collar worker, but his e-mail contained one of those warnings ("The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential, proprietary, and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited...") one usually only sees on e-mails from lawyers and other professionals. Still, blue collar or not, I won't reprint his message here, since he went to the trouble of including the legalese guarding future generations from exposure to his opinions. But I think everyone can gather what points he made from my response:

Dear Madam:



You are correct that our newsletter is not an unbiased source of opinion representing the left-wing AFL-CIO, and I believe it would be difficult for us to be any more clear about the fact that we don't represent the left than by naming the publication "What Conservatives Think."



As to the issue at hand: The AFL-CIO doesn't have any problem with low income workers getting more money, as long as professionals making large sums also are treated as if they are blue collar workers. With the decline of the manufacturing sector, organized labor needs to recruit from among those it historically as derided as "management," or risk becoming an anachronism.



Or more of one.



Furthermore, the AFL-CIO is closely allied with trial lawyers who benefit financially from the fact that the current regulations are difficult to understand. Organized labor is involved with these lucrative lawsuits. In other words, they are in this for the money. I am not.



I quoted the first paragraph of the main page of the AFL-CIO's page of complaint about this legislation in my newsletter. I did not "quote shop" for something to make them look bad. Furthermore, I put a note at the bottom of the piece to permit interested persons to easily go to a government chart comparing the old rules with the new ones. Anyone who wants to decide for themselves if the AFL-CIO is more correct than conservatives are about this can easily draw their own conclusions.



As far as who would be hurt by opposing what the Department of Labor wants to do: How about children? The old laws actually prohibit flex-time in some circumstances and thereby prohibit employers from giving flex-time to parents who want to work more one week than the next in order to attend a kid's soccer game or nurse them through an illness. I ask you: what business is it of the federal government to stop an employer from giving flex-time to a Mom or Dad who wants it so they can be a better parent while still earning enough to provide for their families?



Short answer: It isn't their business.



And, finally, why not cover everyone with the overtime rule? Because if salaried employees aren't allowed to work long hours to create businesses that need workers, no one will hire the people who blame big business for all their woes.



Amy Ridenour



P.S. You no doubt suspect "big business" paid for our work on this. It didn't. Nor did small business. We believe what we write, and received no money on this issue from anyone.

(Note to blog readers: If the "Dear Madam" has thrown you off, that's just something I write when a man sends me, Amy, a letter beginning "Dear Sir.")

Is Bush Trying to Eliminate Overtime?

The AFL-CIO says yes here.



I say no here.

White Men Are Americans, Too

Earlier in February, I really appreciated an item in the Everything I Know Is Wrong blog about an apparent double standard for scandals: a leftist can say or do things a rightist can't. I meant to link to it but didn't get to it.



Now that same essay has been updated to cover Rep. Corrine Brown's comments in an official government meeting about all white men look alike (and how the Bush Adninistration's position on Haiti is racist). I agree with Sean's post. Brown should resign. She clearly cannot objectively represent those Americans who were not born with her favored hue.



However, as few Congressmen actually resign from their positions because of incompetence, especially those who ought to, she won't. She probably thinks it is racist of her critics to want a color-blind government.



I do not understand, however, why Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega said he "deeply resent[s]" being "branded a white man." Maybe I have seen the quote out of context. Maybe he resents being branded at all. But if he doesn't like white men, either, he, too, should go.

Greenspan's Warned Us Before on Social Security

Alan Greenspan's warnings on Social Security aren't new.



Here's part of what Greenspan said in 1996:

We owe it to those who will retire after the turn of the century to be given sufficient advance notice to make what alterations in retirement planning may be required. The longer we wait to make what are surely inevitable adjustments, the more difficult they will become. If we procrastinate too long, the adjustments could be truly wrenching. Our citizens deserve better.

Captain Renault's Return

A note from NCPPR executive director David Almasi:

Howard Stern is foul-mouthed and his show is intentionally titillating. I think we all understand that. The fact that Clear Channel suddenly found him to be indecent reminds me of Captain Renault in "Casablanca" (I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!). The same goes for all of the other "shock jocks" out there. They're like charted reefs at sea. You can be warned to steer clear, but you always run the risk of running into them.



While listening to the radio on the way into work Friday morning, I heard a real concern that so far seems to be flying under the radar. Tonight's "George Lopez" on ABC (a Disney-owned company) features a guest starring role by socialite/heiress/amatuer porn actress Paris Hilton as "a beautiful tutor for [George's son] Max." The clip they played in the radio commercial had Max learning algebra, with Paris's character telling him he needs to "find her X." Max responds that he felt a chill when she said that, and laughter ensues. Upon reaching the office and cracking open the paper, I saw a photo of the same scene -- and Max appears to be 10-12 years old.



"George Lopez" is marketed as a family show. It airs at 8pm. There's no doubt in my mind that Hilton got the job because she is provocative. Stern was booted from Clear Channel, by the way, for statements made while he was interviewing the man who is selling a video of himself and Hilton having sex. She is there to titillate. And her foil is a young boy. In their wisdom, Disney executives apparently didn't think it might be a good idea to delay airing this episode or pulling it entirely. Why? Lawmakers are going for the low-lying political fruit of "shock jocks."



While Congress should be appalled by what's allowed on the radio, they should be more shocked that ABC is using sex to sell their family shows. And they should be appalled that the FCC has not set a bright-line standard for what is acceptable and what is not.

Judicial Pass it On

Thoughts from hubby David, our VP:

Everyone remembers the childhood game "pass it on." A story is whispered in the ear of one child, who then passes it on by whisper to another child and so on. You know what happens when the child at the end of the line tells the story aloud. The resulting tale bears very little relation to the original story.



That, in a nutshell, is the problem with court decisions being based on precedents. Poor legal and constitutional judgements inevitably lead to progressively worse judgements.



That's how rights are lost and new ones created based neither in law or constitutional authority.



What a different world it might be if courts were forced to think for themselves on every single case.



Wouldn't it be nice to have judges who are actually judges instead of parrots?