April 6th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement regarding the failure by Obama nominee to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Goodwin Liu to provide 117 items asked for by the Senate Judiciary Committee, including speeches, publications, and other background materials:

“Goodwin Liu’s lack of candor in filling out his application for employment as a Member of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals would disqualify him from consideration by any Human Resources office in America, and it should sink his confirmation to the federal court. This wanton disregard for the Constitutional process of Senate confirmation only confirms Professor Liu’s own writings that show he believes the U.S. Constitution is barely even a guideline for judicial rulings.”

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April 5th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government today launched two new websites, SEIUMonitor.com and UFCWMonitor.com to, according to ALG President Bill Wilson, “help union workers keep track of how their union dues are being wasted by labor bosses.”

“Since Barack Obama took office, he has, almost from day one, rolled back earlier efforts that increased transparency in labor unions. Those regulations were crafted in accordance with the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act,” said Wilson.

Wilson said that Obama’s repeal of those regulations left a “big gap in union disclosure,” adding, “SEIUMonitor.com and UFCWMonitor.com are designed to enable union workers to once again keep track of the strong arm tactics used against their own locals and political activities that their dues often pay for.”

Firm disclosure rules for unions were put into place by the Bush Administration. Unions had to disclose on their LM-2 forms annual reports reflecting finances and any recipients of $5,000 or more in union funds. The first filings of these forms would have been due in late 2009, but the Obama Administration delayed the filings and withdrew the most recent changes to the requirements in October 2009.

SEIUMonitor.com and UFCWMonitor.com will provide information to the public on union membership dues and what they are used for. Union workers can access information about their pensions, union management and any potential scandals that may affect their relationship with their union.

“One critical component of the websites is the ability of union workers to provide tips on union corruption, which our research department will look into,” said Don Todd, Director of ALG Research, former head of the Labor Department agency responsible for union oversight.

“The Department of Labor is cutting down on information available to union members,” Todd said, and encouraged union workers to use the websites “and provide us with any tips of misappropriation of funds.”

The websites are regularly updated with news and information helpful to a union member. Focusing on two of the largest and fastest growing union organizations, Wilson said the site would “shed light on shady union tactics by labor bosses to influence their members, media, and politicians into supporting their agenda.”

Wilson said that “rolling back the union transparency rules was a top priority of Big Labor in 2008, and it is therefore unsurprising that Barack Obama became their top advocate once elected.”

Wilson noted that the SEIU was particularly influential. SEIU President Andy Stern has been the most frequent visitor of the White House from January through July 2009, visiting 22 times according to the White House visitor log published by The Wall Street Journal.

Todd suggest that Stern’s reoccurring visits may have strengthened the Administration’s decision to lessen the requirements of union leaders.

“The Administration has been rolling reforms back and not showing where the money is going since Obama took office,” Todd says.

Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards has indicted more than a thousand union officials, winning 929 convictions for a wide range of criminal activities from 2001 to 2009, including fraud, misrepresentation and embezzlement.The office also won $93 million dollars in restitution of union funds.

The goal of the ALG effort is that union employees, the media and policymakers will utilize these websites for information they are not getting from the unions themselves.

Wilson concluded, “These websites should close the gap of rescinded union transparency left by the Obama Administration.”

For more information, please visit the websites at: http://seiumonitor.com and http://ufcwmonitor.com.

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April 1st, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Michael Yon continues to question why he was arrested upon arrival at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for his refusal to answer a question about how much money he makes.

Commenting yesterday on his Facebook page about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeal filed with the USCBP by the group Americans for Limited Government (ALG), Yon wrote, “Does the United States government have a right to arrest people for refusing to say who they work for, and how much money they earn? They arrested me. Why were Customs (CBP) people reading my private documents at the border? Is it possible to have words written on paper that are illegal? My arrest at Sea-Tac airport remains unexplained.”

ALG filed its original FOIA request to CBP one day following the arrest of the acclaimed Afghan war journalist the day following the January 5th, 2010 incident. It was denied on March 1st, and an appeal was mailed on March 31st.

The ALG FOIA request seeks to determine the circumstances around the incident including any policies or instructions that are provided to agents related to appropriate questions that should be asked of incoming citizens.

Ironically, the initial FOIA was denied just two weeks before the Obama Administration’s self-proclaimed “Sunshine Week”, where they applauded themselves for the work that has been done to increase transparency.

ALG President Bill Wilson said that the CBP denial of the FOIA request was “unwarranted,” concluding, “The American people have a right to know if citizens are going to be locked in handcuffs as a matter of national policy for not disclosing their income to Customs and Border Patrol when entering their homeland.”

Attachments:

Mr. Yon’s original Facebook feed:
http://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage?v=feed&story_fbid=273914137066

Mr. Yon’s March 31st Facebook feed:
http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=207730000664#!/posted.php?id=207730000664&share_id=109086185781174&comments=1#s109086185781174

Obama Admin. release on FOIA’s and “Sunshine Week”
http://www.justice.gov/oip/foiapost/2010foiapost8.htm

Original Yon FOIA request
http://washingtonalert.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/ALG-CBP-Michael-Yon-FOIA-01-06-09.pdf

CBP Denial of FOIA
www.getliberty.org/files/CBP FOIA Denial 03_01_10.pdf

Yon FOIA request appeal
www.getliberty.org/files/CBP FOIA Appeal 03_26_10.pdf

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FDA Scientific Advisory Panel Rife with Conflict

March 31st, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today released the following statement regarding what Wilson termed are “blatant conflicts of interest on one of the Food and Drug Administration’s key outside panels.”

“An important panel set up by the FDA has a near majority of its voting members getting paid by special interests who have billions of dollars riding on the outcome of the committee’s ultimate decision. This is ludicrous.

“The Obama administration continues its rhetoric about a balanced, objective approach to science – an approach that sets aside agendas and emphasizes science – but we keep finding that special interests trump scientific findings.

“On this advisory panel, ironically called the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee, the heavy influence of big pharmaceutical companies is overwhelming. Pharmaceutical companies stand to make huge profits if the committee takes certain actions like banning menthol.

“We strongly recommend that the Obama Administration reconsider the make up of this committee, dismiss the members or require them to abstain from issues affecting their own financial interests.”

• Jack Henningfeld a voting member of the committee is a consultant to GlaxoSmithKline the maker of Nicorette gum who would stand to benefit financially from further restrictions on tobacco products

• Neil L. Benowitz was Pfizer consultant which makes the drug Chantix that aids people who want to quit smoking. Benowitz has also worked for GlaxoSmithKline and Nabi Pharmaceuticals

• Dorothy Hatsukami received grant support <http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=100445&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1048442&highlight> from Nabi Pharmaceuticals to study their nicotine vaccine

• The head TPSAC, Jonathan Samet, also received grants from GlaxoSmithKline and the organization he headed was funded by two different pharmaceutical companies

The law establishing the committee specifically states that the “membership of the advisory committee to be fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee;” and that the committee “contain appropriate provisions to assure that the advice and recommendations of the advisory committee will not be inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority or by any special interest, but will instead be the result of the advisory committee’s independent judgment.”

ALG is not alone in having concerns about the financial conflicts of interest on the TPSAC panel. A recent report by the financial giant UBS cited unease by noted Professor Michael Siegel that the panel “is loaded with people who have a very strong pharmaceutical industry ties. Four of the panelists, actually, are either funded by pharmaceutical companies or actual consultants for pharmaceutical companies that manufacture smoking cessation products.”

Just today, two major anti-smoking researchers called for the head of the committee to step down due to conflicts.

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March 30th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today condemned members of Congress who he said “are attempting to discredit and marginalize the American people who vehemently opposed the government takeover of the nation’s health care system.”

Wilson said the attacks were “contrived” and designed to intimidate the political opposition. “The allegations members of Congress are using now are simply a part of a pre-conceived narrative to criminalize dissent against the expansion of government. Members of Congress will stop at nothing to politically marginalize the primary threat to them holding onto power, and that’s the American people.”

“This is right out of the Hugo Chavez-Fidel Castro playbook to take normal political dissent and to delegitimize it,” Wilson declared. “Congressional Democrats, having failed to persuade the American people to support the health care takeover, have dusted off that playbook and are once again attempting to portray their own constituents in the most extreme and provocative terms.”

“I really hope that the DNC will stop using these Marxist tactics, and accord individuals the right to legitimate dissent,” Wilson added.

Wilson pointed to Congressman James Clyburn’s claim that tea parties were a “kind of terrorism.” Others have alleged that activists shouted racial epithets at members of Congress on March 20th at a protest against the health care bill, as reported by the American Thinker. Others have attested that acts of vandalism were linked to the tea parties.

“This is not the first time they’ve done this,” Wilson added, pointing to portrayals of demonstrators at tea parties and town halls throughout 2009 by Congressional Democrats.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote an oped in USA Today calling opponents “un-American”. Congressman Steve Kagen called opponents “uncivilized,” and Congressman Baron Hill called them “political terrorists.”

Congressman Brian Baird called opponents of the legislation “Brown Shirts” and compared them to domestic terrorists, “Some of the rhetoric that we’re hearing is… eerily reminiscent of the kind of things that drove Tim McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma.”

Wilson said the allegations being made against the tea party movement as a whole were “absurd.”

“Members of tea parties are just regular Americans who are fed up with the unprecedented expansion of government they have witnessed over the past three years,” Wilson said. “They are concerned mothers and fathers, young people and the elderly, who simply do not want to see their nation bankrupted and don’t want government in charge of health care.”

Wilson pointed to the bailouts of delinquent borrowers, Bear Stearns, AIG, GM, and Chrysler; the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program; the Federal Reserve more than doubling the money supply; the $787 billion “stimulus”; and the $2.5 trillion health care bill all as “primary motivators for the movement that seeks to restore government to its primary, limited functions under the Constitution by eliminating the entitlement state.”

Wilson suggested that the political aim of Congressional Democrats “was to keep their political base in line,” and he said the allegations were designed “to deflect attention from their votes in favor of ObamaCare and to play the role of victim.”

“That will not prevent their constituents from holding them politically accountable for how they voted,” Wilson added. “The American people are not stupid. No matter how much Congressional Democrats play the role of a victim, if this is their reelection strategy, it’s shameless, and it won’t work.”

“What Congressional Democrats are doing now is executing a pre-conceived, contrived narrative against the tea parties. But this is no way to portray constituents who have legitimately opposed the position their Congressman have taken on the health care takeover,” Wilson said, concluding, “There will be a political price to pay for attempting to marginalize the American people for expressing their First Amendment rights to dissent against government policies.”

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March 24th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government’s TimesCheck.com has released an analysis of the coverage The New York Times has given to the healthcare legislation that has now been signed into law.

“White House spinsters have understandably focused on hard luck insurance cases that readers can empathize with as a way of selling an unpopular proposal,” said Kevin Mooney, editor of TimesCheck.com. “But, it is not the job of news media to simply repeat and parrot back emotional appeals that do not cut into the substance of ObamaCare.”

Mooney said recent articles have focused more on anecdotal stories that involve individual instances of financial hardship, while avoiding any discussion of the bill’s merits.

Although the reports call attention to insurance issues and financial challenges that are relevant to healthcare consumers, Mooney said “they omit key facts that would provide readers with greater perspective and context.”

Mooney continued, “For example, it is not accurate to suggest that without insurance there is no access to healthcare. In fact, it is already possible to offer direct payments, which doctors and hospitals gladly accept without the attending bureaucracy of insurance procedures. Moreover, existing law also makes it a requirement for anyone entering an emergency room to be treated regardless of their ability to pay.”

Mooney said that the Times “pretty much parroted the Democrat talking point equating health care access with civil rights.”

“Just one day after ObamaCare passed, The Times sought to equate the measure with the civil rights movement. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) figured prominently in this narrative given his prominent role as an advocate for equal rights in the past,” Mooney explained.

ALG President Bill Wilson called the Times comparison of the health care takeover to civil rights “disgraceful,” saying, “If editors want to make this argument, it belongs on the editorial page because it is highly debatable and questionable,” said Wilson. “The bill includes costly, coercive measures that in the eyes of many Americans actually subtract from individual liberty.”

Mooney also took a look at Times coverage of the court challenges now being filed against the individual mandate to purchase insurance imposed by the legislation. “The Gray Lady has fired an opening salvo against state officials who have announced that they will challenge the bill on a constitutional basis,” Mooney said.

Mooney added that “This is an important story worthy of coverage and its fine to quote scholars who are philosophically opposed to the state action. However, readers deserve greater exposure to legal arguments on the other side that show ObamaCare could in fact be derailed for violating accepted interpretations of the ‘Commerce Clause’ of the Constitution.”

Mooney concluded, “If the legal challenges lack merit, why is The New York Times so concerned?”

Attachments:

(http://timescheck.com/2010/03/16/anecdotes-replace-hard-facts-in-front-page-report-selling-obamacare/)

(http://timescheck.com/2010/03/22/government-takeover-of-healthcare-equated-with-civil-rights/)

(http://timescheck.com/2010/03/23/nyt-fires-opening-salvo-against-constitutional-challenges-to-obamacare/)

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March 24th, 2010

United States Senate
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20510

To the Members of the United States Senate:

As you are well aware, tonight begins an expected series of votes on reconciliation for the final step in President Barack Obama’s government takeover of the nation’s health care system. Americans for Limited Government would like to remind you of your duty as elected representatives of your states.

An overwhelming majority of Americans remain opposed to the government takeover of health care. They still oppose the unconstitutional individual mandate that will eventually force them on to government-run plans. They continue to be against the rationing of care away from seniors to pay for coverage for the unoccupied. They understand that the cost of premiums will rise even faster now that ObamaCare is the law of the land, and for the few who do not, they soon will witness it firsthand. Millions of Americans are rightly fearful of the implications of $2.5 trillion in insurance provisions costs from 2014 to 2023 once the program is fully implemented.

Reconciliation also remains an improper vehicle for enacting such far-reaching changes to the nation’s economy. The sole goal in utilizing the tactic is to block repeated attempts by the minority to work in a bipartisan fashion in crafting meaningful healthcare reform under the normal rules, and instead to ram the remaining “fixes” down the throats of an unwilling American public.

The problems with process notwithstanding, the troubles posed by the legislation itself are legion. For example, subsidizing premiums will not lower the cost of health care, as reported by the Congressional Budget Office. Instead, it will simply shift the burden of the price of health coverage increasingly to taxpayers. At the same time, the minimum requirements for insurance coverage are increased, and the price of premiums is artificially pushed up.

The CBO report states, “the average insurance policy in this market would cover a substantially larger share of enrollees’ costs for health care (on average) and a slightly wider range of benefits. Those expansions would reflect both the minimum level of coverage (and related requirements) specified in the proposal and people’s decisions to purchase more extensive coverage in response to the structure of subsidies.”

It is well understood that government subsidies have become a primary vehicle for artificially-inflated demand for goods and services, which leads to inflation. This has been the case with housing inflation, education inflation, and other asset bubbles.

Overall, such a tremendous escalation in spending by the federal government, when the nation’s Triple-A credit rating is already threatened and the costs of borrowing are about to go through the roof, will assuredly break the backs of taxpayers. Nonetheless, Mr. Obama has erroneously claimed that his bill would reduce the deficit when the entire entitlement will be operating in the red within less than 15 years, costing over $2.5 trillion from 2014 to 2023.

You know it’s false, the American people know it’s false, and even Congressional leadership acknowledges it to be false. In the lead-up to last Sunday’s vote, House Democrat leadership has internally acknowledged that ObamaCare is not deficit-neutral, as reported by Politico.

Finally, the corrupt process that you have undertaken pass this bill has been unprecedented. Following through on the use of reconciliation to make good on deals made with House Democrats who were reluctant to vote for your legislation is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Instead of upholding the will of the American people, you have instead chosen to abuse Senate rules to achieve the radical, ideological goal of taking over the nation’s health care system. I urge you to reject these shameless tactics, reverse course, and side with the American people by voting against the reconciliation bill.

Sincerely,

William Wilson
President
Americans for Limited Government