“Despite the extensive revelations of Cass Sunstein’s extreme views on animal rights, hunting, and scientific testing of animals, the Senate has chosen to simply take Mr. Sunstein’s word for it that he will not issue regulations that match his own views,” Sunstein said.

“Meanwhile, there has been no confirmation from the Obama Administration that it will not direct Mr. Sunstein to issue regulations that would harm cattle production, hunting, and the safe testing of drugs and products,” Wilson added. “Senators are now going to have to explain to their constituents just why they are throwing hunters, cattlemen, and consumers in their home states under the bus.”

In April, Barack Obama nominated Cass Sunstein to be Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget. This post is also known as the “Regulatory Czar,” since all major regulatory actions by the federal government are subject to review by this office.

In August, Senate Republicans had blocked a unanimous consent resolution to approve Sunstein without any roll call that had been attempted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “Those who forced Reid to subject Sunstein to a roll call deserve recognition,” said Wilson, “because at least the American people know that Senators voting ‘yes’ had no problem with Sunstein’s radical views.”

Today, the Senate voted 63-35 to pave the way for a final vote on Sunstein later this week that Wilson called “a critical vote,” urging the Senate to reject the nomination.

In a speech at Harvard in 2007, Sunstein told an audience, “We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn’t a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It’s time now.”

Sunstein favors granting legal rights to animals. In 2002 he wrote in “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,” “We could even grant animals a right to bring suit without insisting that animals are persons, or that they are not property.”

Sunstein also supported “further regulation” against hunting, animal testing and farming. “We should focus attention not only on the ‘enforcement gap,’ but on the areas where current law offers little or no protection. In short, the law should impose further regulation on hunting, scientific experiments, entertainment, and (above all) farming to ensure against unnecessary animal suffering.”

In a letter to farm bureaus nationwide sent in August, Americans for Limited Government alerted farmers and cattlemen of Sunstein’s views on animal rights. Days later, the American Farm Bureau announced their endorsement of Sunstein.

“The regulatory czar is an extremely powerful position, and if his views become standing regulation, the cattle industry in America could be destroyed, unsafe products could on their way to markets, and forests overpopulated with animals that can no longer be hunted who will starve instead,” Wilson said.

“Every senator who voted to end the filibuster on Sunstein has necessarily associated him or herself with his extremist designs. This is now a radical Senate. Every American wants to have the right to choose what to eat and purchase at the grocery store or at the farm stand, and the vote in favor of Sunstein was a vote against that right,” Wilson concluded.

Attachments:
Bill Wilson Letter to Farm Bureaus Nationwide, August 27th, 2009

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

#  #  #

The poster, by award-winning cartoonist William Warren, is captioned “How Washington Politicians See the World.” It shows an overblown view of Washington, with the Capitol, the White House, and various government buildings dominating the foreground. In the far distance, only inches wide is the rest of the United States peopled by “Angry Mobs,” “Uninformed Masses,” and “Un-American Malcontents.”

“The poster is clearly a take-off on the old New Yorker cover ‘How New Yorkers See the World,’” said cartoonist Warren. “But in this case, its message is far more accurate, and ominous.”

Warren pointed out that each of the labels affixed to the American people is drawn from an actual description by members of Congress.

“The truth is,” Warren said, “I had to soften it some. ‘UnAmerican,’ of course, came from Pelosi and Hoyer, and ‘uninformed’ is how many of the politicians described those who have protested the Obama health care takeover. But, I purposely refrained from using Harry Reid’s depiction of Americans as ‘evilmongers,’ or Rep. Baird’s labeling them ‘brownshirts.’”

ALG president Bill Wilson wasn’t as sparing of the politicians’ feelings in his comments on the poster delivery.

“We’re shoving their own attitude right in their faces,” said Wilson. “In the long history of this country, we have never had a gang of career politicians so outrageously out of touch with the American people as we have in Washington today. They have decided they are a world unto themselves – and we’re telling them they’re not.”

Throughout the country, Americans for Limited Government has taken the lead in helping grassroots leaders organize protests against the Obama health care plan and other incidents of what it terms “Big Government power grabs.” The poster is being offered to the organization’s 400,000 members nationwide.

“The problem the politicians have is that the poster doesn’t merely reflect how they see the American people,” Wilson said, “it also reflects how the American people see the politicians.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Should any members of the media wish to accompany ALG staffers as they deliver the “Washington World View” posters to the members of Congress, they can meet the delivery team at:

When: September 10th, 1PM
Where: 300 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003

“What sets this tour apart is that we’ll be on the ground organizing the grassroots, engaging them in hands-on training, and raising the clarion call that now is the time to take back America,” said ALG New Media Coordinator and Director of NetRightNation.com Adam Bitely.

Bitely will be handling the tour’s new media outreach. “With Congress about to come back into session, now is a critical time for the grassroots to be organized. A lot of the work that was done in August has been in preparation for the upcoming legislative session, where the Obama health care takeover will be voted on in both houses and cap-and-tax in Senate,” said Bitely.

“Our message to middle America is: the time has come to take back our country—one community at a time. Here’s the message for Barack Obama: ‘We have just begun to fight,” Bitely added.

The American Liberty Tour is a collaborative project of the American Liberty Alliance, American Majority, Americans for Limited Government and the Sam Adams Alliance.

Bitely can also be followed during the tour. on Twitter.com under the tag line, www.twitter.com/adambitely or @adambitely.

“The American Liberty Tour will be providing daily updates to bloggers across the country about our stops, the message that is being delivered to the grassroots, and what they can begin doing to help take back America.”

“On the tour, we’ll be training and encouraging individuals to become active in their communities, in the streets, online, politically and in government, and to be communicating directly and constantly to their representatives. It’s now or never to build a viable political movement,” Bitely said.

Bitely said “change,” a common theme in the 2008 presidential election, “is antagonistic to Washington. It comes from without, is dependent on the genuine outrage of the American people, and is what sets the agenda in Washington. Without individual Americans becoming politically organized, however, the outrage is easily ignored by politicians.”

Americans for Limited Government renewed his call for Americans nationwide to join the tour, which will feature Adam Bitely (NetRight Nation), Ned Ryun (American Majority), Eric Odom (TaxDayTeaParty.com), Ken Marrero (American Liberty Alliance), Erick Erickson (RedState), “Joe the Plumber”, Lloyd Marcus (The Tea Party Song), and many others.

“Only if the American people pose a viable political threat to the establishment in Washington will they be fearful of losing their jobs. That’s the only time they’ll act in the interests of their constituents,” Bitely said.

“This is your country. That’s the message we’ll be taking to Sacramento, Tallahassee, Atlanta, and elsewhere. Change will come from individual Americans in their communities who are determined to save their nation from a government that is destroying the country,” Bitely concluded.

Media Availability:
For radio and television interviews, please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

For beat reporters, please contact Robert Romano at (239)207-4347 or at Robert@getliberty.org for more information on the tour or to set up an interview.

Editors and columnists, please contact Justin Williams at (703)383-0880 or at justin@getliberty.org for more information on the tour or to set up an interview.

###

Wilson called upon Americans nationwide to join the tour, and “to begin organizing to take back America from the Washington power elite through the establishment of a viable political movement in the defense of liberty, limited government, and free markets.”

“Change will not come from Washington. Change will come in Sacramento, Tallahassee, Atlanta, and elsewhere. Change will come from individual Americans in their communities who are determined to save their nation from an unsustainable, unaccountable Leviathan in Washington,” Wilson declared.

“Rallies are great for venting anger. But anger is not enough. The American people’s best defense is action in their local communities,” Wilson added. “So, the American Liberty Tour will be traveling across the country providing training to individuals. The hard left has been doing this kind of ‘community organizing’ for decades. Now, it’s time to give them a dose of their own medicine.”

The American Liberty Tour is a collaborative project of the American Liberty Alliance, American Majority, Americans for Limited Government and the Sam Adams Alliance, and will feature Adam Bitely (NetRight Nation), Ned Ryun (American Majority), Eric Odom (TaxDayTeaParty.com), Ken Marrero (American Liberty Alliance), Erick Erickson (RedState), “Joe the Plumber”, Lloyd Marcus (The Tea Party Song), and many others.

ALG New Media Coordinator and Director of NetRightNation.com, Adam Bitely, said that the American Liberty Tour “will provide a good venue for people to come out and learn how to become active in their communities, whether it be online, in their local political party organizations and governments, in the streets, and in direct communication with their representatives—all to organize against these government takeovers of every aspect of our lives. Citizen activism is now more critical than ever.”

Bitely said action was the only way the American people could preserve their liberty. “Concerned citizens nationwide must get involved, because right now we have an intrusive, oversized government. But now it’s on the defense, attempting to mask its actions as being representative of the will of the majority of Americans, when it is not,” Bitely added. “It is clear to us that the majority does not like the course and direction that the nation is headed in.”

According to Rasmussen Reports, 60 percent of voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction, with only 34 percent saying it is headed in the right direction.

Eric Odom, co-founder of TaxDayTeaParty.com and President of the American Liberty Alliance said that the tour was designed to bring like-minded citizens together “who are a sick and tired of Washington running the country into the ground, and who are looking for a way to fight back.”

President of American Majority Ned Ryun said, “It is the politicians and bureaucrats who have brought this nation to the brink of financial ruin, devastated our schools, eroded our liberty and property rights, and have rapidly nationalized more and more of the economy. And it is American people who solely have the power to stop this alarming trend.  What we want is to empower them to be effective in making those changes that need to be made.”

Wilson agreed, “No national group will save this country. Active citizens in their hometowns will save this country.”

Odom said the numbers were not surprising. “We’re talking about a government that through interventionism has wrecked the economy, and now in response has engaged in the most rapid increase of spending in human history. The American people are concerned that the nation is headed off a precipice.”

Ryun agreed, and said, “Washington thinks that it can centrally plan the economy, health care, education, our savings and spending habits, our retirements—in short, our lives. But it cannot, and the American people realize this, and they are wondering what they can do to stop an unsustainable, out-of-control government.”

Wilson said the tour would send a clear message to Washington, “that the politicians have lost the consent of the governed. That it is not the government that rules the people, but that it is the people who run the government.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

# # #

“This is the beginning of the end of the time-honored filibuster, and is Reid’s attempt to solidify one-party dictatorial rule in the U.S. Senate for the first time in American history,” Wilson said, adding, “And it’s all designed to stage a complete takeover of the nation’s entire health care system by the slimmest of margins.”

In recent weeks, Reid has threatened to use reconciliation, whereby only 51 votes would be needed to pass the government-run health care proposal.

Wilson credited protesters and concerned citizen efforts nationwide who have called, emailed, wrote letters to, and visited with Congressmen at their offices and town hall meetings for persuading elected officials to vote against the bill. He said public opposition to the bill “has created an insurmountable obstacle to passage as long as Reid doesn’t try to pervert the system.”

According to Rasmussen Reports, 53 percent of voters now oppose the bill. And Barack Obama’s public disapproval has hit the 50 percent mark for the first time in his term.

“Harry Reid doesn’t have the 60 votes needed in the Senate for cloture on the so-called ‘public option,’ and the American people deserve all of the credit,” Wilson said, adding, “And so now, in a desperate gamble, he plans on using the non-germane reconciliation process—which is supposed to be reserved for budget measures—to pass ObamaCare with a simple majority in spite of public backlash to the plan,” Wilson said.

On FOX News Sunday in August, Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) conceded, “The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for a public option. There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.”

Wilson called the plan “the single largest expansion of entitlement spending since the 1960’s,” pointing to a report by Kaiser Health News stating that the legislation would cost $1.5 trillion over ten years. “It will cost even more than that once private health options begin diminishing and the public is forced into the socialized system, and Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama know it,” Wilson said.

Wilson called it a “tossup” as to whether Reid will actually pursue what some analysts call the “nuclear option,” but said “it looks more likely than not,” pointing to recent statements by Reid’s office.

According to Reid spokesman Jim Manley, “The White House and the Senate Democratic leadership still prefer a bipartisan bill. However, patience is not unlimited, and we are determined to get something done this year by any legislative means necessary.”

“This is just one more dictatorial move by Harry Reid, and it shows just how much disdain Congress has for their own constituents,” Wilson said. “First congressional leadership calls opponents to the bill ‘un-American’ and compares them to Timothy McVeigh in order to intimidate opposition. And now, having failed to silence the American people, they are simply going to try to impose their tyrannical will upon them.”

In the pages of USA Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote, “These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.”

Congressman Steve Kagen (WI-CD8) said they were “uncivilized,” and Congressman Baron Hill (IN-CD9) called them “political terrorists.” Congressman Brian Baird (WA-CD3) 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 concluded, “Harry Reid’s consideration of eliminating the filibuster would change Congressional tactics from demonizing public opposition to shunning it altogether.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

# # #

“What concerns me and I am sure will concern you is Mr. Sunstein’s extreme positions on animal rights,” Wilson wrote in his letter to the agricultural sector. “If put into law or regulation, these radical stands will destroy agriculture and threaten America’s ability to feed itself much less do any exporting of agricultural products.”

“A vote for Sunstein is a vote against agriculture,” Wilson said in a statement. “If Cass Sunstein had his way, the entire cattle industry could be plunged into a litigation nightmare for years to come.”

On April 20, 2009, Barack Obama nominated Cass Sunstein to be Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget. This post is also known as the “Regulatory Czar,” since all major regulatory actions by the federal government are subject to review by this office.

Earlier this month, Senate Republicans blocked a unanimous consent resolution to approve Sunstein without any roll call that had been attempted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Now, it will require 60 votes to invoke cloture on the nominee.

Sunstein favors granting legal rights to animals. In 2002 he wrote in “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,” “We could even grant animals a right to bring suit without insisting that animals are persons, or that they are not property.”

Sunstein also supported “further regulation” against hunting, animal testing and farming. “We should focus attention not only on the ‘enforcement gap,’ but on the areas where current law offers little or no protection. In short, the law should impose further regulation on hunting, scientific experiments, entertainment, and (above all) farming to ensure against unnecessary animal suffering.”

“This is just the beginning,” Wilson said in a statement. “Cass Sunstein is a litigation menace, and putting him as the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs would give him a position to inflict patently absurd regulations through the entire federal bureaucracy.”

“That means his bizarre worldview would most certainly find its way into countless thousands of regulations,” Wilson added.

“Animal testing, which everyone knows is a critical practice to testing the safety—for humans—of everything from drugs to make up to space exploration has saved countless millions of human lives, but Sunstein would do away with it entirely,” Wilson said.

Wilson also called upon the U.S. Senate to block his nomination, “Every senator voting for Sunstein must necessarily associate him or herself with his extremist designs.”

“Every American who wants to have the right to choose what to eat and purchase at the grocery store or at the farm stand should be greatly alarmed by Barack Obama’s radical appointment of Cass Sunstein,” Wilson concluded.

Attachments:
Bill Wilson Letter to Farm Bureaus Nationwide, August 27th, 2009

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

# # #

On Monday, the Southern District Court of New York ordered that the Federal Reserve Board of Governors comply with Bloomberg News’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to produce the details of some $2 trillion in emergency loans that were made. This includes who received the $2 trillion of loans, the terms under which they were received, and what collateral was taken by the Reserve branches in exchange for the loans.

“The Senate must condition its support for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on compliance with this court ruling,” Wilson said in a statement, adding, “Without transparency in the Federal Reserve, there will be no assurance that any of the root causes of the financial crisis—which the Fed caused—will be addressed.”

District Judge Loretta Preska ordered that the Board must produce the 231 pages of documents within 5 business days. Also, the Board must search for records relevant to the request that constitute “Records of the Board” held by the New York Federal Reserve by September 14th.

Wilson said that Federal Reserve compliance with the court’s decision would “begin to shed some much-needed light on the Fed’s unprecedented moves that threaten to bankrupt the nation.”

Wilson wrote that “Since the financial crisis hit, the Federal Reserve has been engaged in an unprecedented response about which little is known but will most certainly lead to more asset bubbles and inflation,” including $7.76 trillion in bailouts. These efforts included the $2 trillion in undisclosed loans.

In his letter, Wilson wrote, the financial crisis was in large part caused by the Federal Reserve. “Fed policy directly caused the lethal combination of easy money accommodating the spike in housing that artificially inflated demand for housing, the expansion of the securities trade as led primarily by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that was able fuel on the fire, and which in turn led to the derivatives trade run by AIG.”

“None of the policies by the Fed that caused the crisis have been addressed. Unless the Federal Reserve is reined in and its activities made completely transparent, the sorts of financial calamity that plagued the nation in 2008 will most certainly happen again,” Wilson warned in conclusion.

Attachments:
Letter to the U.S. Senate from Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson, August 26th, 2009.

“Backgrounder on Bernanke Reappointment and Record,” Americans for Limited Government, August 2009.

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

# # #

According to the Wilson letter to Capus, in the MSNBC broadcast at 10:45AM on August 18th “your anchors hysterically raised the specter of impending racial violence — while carefully cropping the very video upon which they based their duplicitous charges. Leading audiences nationwide to believe that militant whites were mounting violence against a black President, they deliberately covered up the fact that the individual they were framing was himself African-American.”

The broadcast showed a video of a man with a machine gun at a protest against the government-run health care legislation in Arizona, a state where citizens are permitted to carry firearms openly.

“His face and hands were cropped out so that viewers could not see that the man was black as the broadcasters breathlessly reported that he was a rightwing white militant,” Wilson explained in a statement.

“This simply goes beyond the pale, and has never in my memory been seen in what is supposed to be a legitimate news broadcast,” Wilson said.

NewsBusters broke the story on MSNBC’s broadcast Tuesday, which Wilson in a statement said was “the most despicable piece of political propaganda ever seen on America’s airwaves.”

Wilson said that the three broadcasters on the air, Contessa Brewer, Dylan Ratigan, and Toure must be fired. “It’s not a question of if they should be fired, it’s a question of how quickly they are canned,” said adding, “The American people need responsible journalism to reach informed decisions, not cropped videos to create the imagery of racial tension.”

In his letter, Wilson wrote that the broadcast “purposely fanned racial tensions” and “endangered the life of the President of the United States.”

Wilson said that the action was “deliberate,” and that if Capus did not act immediately, “MSNBC would permanently be stained as nothing more than a propaganda machine for the hard left.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

# # #

“It’s a diversion,” Wilson said, adding, “It’s all talk. Barack Obama and a few senators are making some noise about these non-profit ‘cooperatives,’ a proposal that no legislative language exists for, is unacceptable to the Democrats’ base of members in the House, and actually has even less of a chance of passage than their true goal, a complete government takeover of the nation’s health care system,” said Wilson.

On Saturday, the Obama Administration publicly moved away from government-run health care. Speaking in Grand Junction, Colorado, Obama said, “I think that we can craft a system in which you’ve got a public option that has to operate independently, not subsidized by taxpayers—it would be nonprofit… they would have to go on the market and get a market price for capital.”

On FOX News Sunday, Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) said, “The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for a public option. There never have been.”

The comments have set off a firestorm of backlash from the liberal blogosphere and by core Democrats in the House and Senate.

Wilson said that the Obama Administration is cutting its losses, for the moment. “Politics is a turbulent sea. And Obama is moving his ship out of the storm of opposition to his plans to take over the health care system. He doesn’t want his ship to go down,” Wilson explained.

But, Wilson warned, the move is only temporary. “The idea behind talking about non-profit ‘co-ops’ is to deflate opposition to the actual bills that exist in the House, all of which contain the so-called public ‘option.’ He knows the Democrats in the House won’t go for the ‘co-ops,’ but then his goal is to take the heat off of them by distracting the American people from the actual threat,” Wilson said.

“And then, when the waters are calmer, the push for socialized medicine will begin again after the August recess, when members will not have their constituents to contend with,” Wilson predicted.

Wilson said that it was no mistake that the comments followed what he termed a “lackluster two weeks for Congressional Democrats, where they foolishly decided to attack their own constituents.”

In the pages of USA Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote, “These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.”

Congressman Steve Kagen (WI-CD8) said they were “uncivilized,” and Congressman Baron Hill (IN-CD9) called them “political terrorists.” Congressman Brian Baird (WA-CD3) 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.”

“These were absolutely rotten things to say about the American people, and now they’re paying the price politically,” Wilson said, adding that “Public support for this plan is receding rapidly.”

According to Rasmussen Reports, 54 percent of voters believe that no health care legislation this year would be a better option than the current bill, which only 35 percent support.

“If you’re Barack Obama, the last thing you want to be talking about politically is a government takeover of medicine that only a third of the electorate wants, and so he is trying to change the subject. But it won’t work,” Wilson concluded.

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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