PUBLIC MARKS from jasontromm with tag government

A public-school handout urging young children in Virginia to attend a "Pagan ritual" tomorrow to "celebrate Yule" is sparking objections from concerned parents. "Amazing -- government schools ban orthodox Christianity, but allow an openly pagan organization to proselytize six-year-olds!" one observer who asked for anonymity told WND.

The disaster in New Orleans was caused, not by too little welfare spending, but by too much. Four decades of dependence on government left people without the resources -- economic, intellectual, or moral -- to plan ahead and provide for themselves in an emergency

After much speculation, a staffer to Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, admitted to Cox Newspapers today that the senator is the lawmaker who placed a “secret hold” on legislation that would open up the obscure world of government contracting to public scrutiny. Until now, it was a political whodunnit as to who quietly blocked legislation introduced by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., that would create a searchable database of government contracts, grants, insurance, loans and financial assistance, worth $2.5 trillion last year.

Advertising works – some better than other, but advertising works. So, why has the government’s $1.4 billion advertising campaign to get young people to stay away from drugs been such a dismal failure? According to the Government Accountability Office, a $1.4 billion anti-drug advertising campaign conducted by the U.S. government since 1998 does not appear to have helped reduce drug use and instead might have convinced some youths that taking illegal drugs is normal. So, it’s possible that not only did the campaign fail; it may have had the exact opposite effect. ()() I think the answer is simple. We give kids mixed messages about drugs. Alcohol and cigarettes are arguably more dangerous than marijuana, but both are completely legal. Unlike cigarettes, marijuana has been shown to have some medical benefits like curing nausea in cancer patients.

Recently, the White House announced that this year’s federal budget deficit would be $296 billion. Believe it or not, that was taken as good news: Earlier projections had pegged the deficit as high as $425 billion. Next year, the deficit is predicted to rise to $339 billion. If we continue this way, we will be guilty of, in George Washington’s words, “ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden of which we ourselves ought to bear.”

A judge ruled today a Virginia teen who has refused chemotherapy for his cancer does not have to report to a hospital as previously ordered by a court. Sixteen-year-old Abraham Cherrix, who suffers from Hodgkin's disease, has been seeking an alternative treatment amid threats the government will take him away from his family.

Since 1989, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) has examined Congressional roll-call votes to determine which members of Congress are voting in the interest of taxpayers. Our goal is to applaud the members who want to protect our tax dollars and cut spending. At the same time, CAGW wants to alert the taxpaying public to those who prefer big government and using public funds for pet programs and pork-barrel spending. As a result of lobbying, ethics scandals, and increased scrutiny of pork-barrel projects that were slipped into authorization and appropriations bills, it would make sense that the 2005 Congressional Ratings would have shown significant improvement over 2004. Unfortunately for taxpayers, there was minimal progress. Congress, particularly the Senate, turned a tin ear to taxpayers and voted for more wasteful spending. Editor's Note: All three of my representatives got "Taxpayer Hero" ratings although I'm not sure Inglis and Graham deserved it.

One of the things the President and his evacuation team must do is follow the law -- or at least people say the President is not above the law, so it’s better that he obeys it. A law especially pertinent to this situation is the 2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which -- in part -- requires the government to charge evacuees commercial fare plus a dollar for government evacuation. Obeying the law, the State Department had planned to make the evacuating Americans sign a note pledging to reimburse the U.S. government before they got on board. They were charging the price of a single commercial flight from Beirut to Cyprus -- usually $150-$200. When House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi heard about this, she quickly asked her staff to find the nearest microphone. They found CNN, to which Pelosi declared, “A nation that can provide more than $300 billion for a war in Iraq can provide the money to get its people out of Lebanon.” ()() Incidentally, Nancy voted for the law which requires the state department to charge evacuees. Didn't she read the bill before voting for it?

A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer. At one audiotaped meeting, Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company's deal for work in Africa. ()() But if you believe the MSM the Democrats are pure as the driven snow. Only Republicans are supposed to be acting like this.

Now that the federal government is really serious about high oil prices we can expect a heightened effort to waste your tax dollars on dubious projects designed to distract the public’s attention. The government is hoping that you will not remember previous grand government-financed efforts to outperform what markets do better, more efficiently and without your tax dollars to grease the skids.

With the federal government having a perceived do-nothing attitude to stop the ongoing invasion of illegal aliens into the U.S., fed-up Americans are logging on to the Internet to fight their own battle. A number of websites have popped up in recent days to not only help authorities identify and locate the unlawful workers, but also expose the employers who provide them jobs and help consumers patronize businesses that hire only legal citizens.

Each judge was asked to nominate a few programs for the 2006 list of the 10 Most Harmful Government Programs. We then sent them ballots listing the nominated programs. They ranked their choices 1 through 10, with No. 1 being the program they believed to be "most harmful." A program earned 10 points for each No. 1 vote it received, 9 points for each No. 2 vote, and so on. ()()One program that didn't make the list was the "War on Drugs." I think that belongs at No. 1.

Upstate leaders call Clemson University's automotive research center critical to the nation, but a fiscal watchdog group said Wednesday federal money for the center is nothing more than "pork." In its annual "Pig Book," Citizens Against Government Waste dismissed the $100,000 for the International Center for Automotive Research Park Innovation (ICAR) with nine words: "Yes, they are racing away with our tax dollars."

It seems that Medicare and Medicaid consider it fraud if a physician charges any patient less than the government must pay for a medical service. If a doctor feels compassion for some poor soul and offers a discount, he must grant that “discount” for every billing for every patient in the government programs. If he forgives one indigent from paying at all, the government never has to pay for any such procedure. ()() Is this insane or what? Doctors want to do good works, but Medicare/Medicaid rules prevent them from giving out free services. Crazy!

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has been stopped at least twice in the past four months for speeding -- once for going 101 mph in a 70 mph zone on a wet highway -- but was let off without a ticket. Video taken by a camera mounted in the patrol car shows that when the trooper asked the driver for his name, Bauer identified himself as "SC Two" -- code for lieutenant governor. The trooper then says, "You have a good night, sir," and the video ends.

A new study shows a direct relationship between mercury in children's vaccines and autism, contradicting government claims there is no proven relationship between the two. Published in the March 10 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, the data show since mercury was removed from childhood vaccines, the increase in reported rates of autism and other neurological disorders in children not only stopped, but actually dropped sharply – by as much as 35 percent.

The government council in the heavily Mormon town of Kanab, Utah, is under attack for a resolution it passed in January that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman, "ordained of God." The attack comes from more than two thousand miles away. Dan Walter, the Maryland founder of an Internet site called "What's up With Kanab?" ()() It's none of your business Dan. Sit down! Shut up! Stay. You're a good lapdog for the homosexual lobby.

A poll released today shows 70 percent of American evangelical Christians see global warming as a "serious threat" to the future of the planet. Conducted by Ellison Research, the survey indicates a majority of evangelicals agree with 85 Christian leaders who signed an Evangelical Climate Initiative unveiled Feb. 8 that calls for government action to deal with so-called global warming. The initiative includes a campaign of newspaper, TV and radio ads.

[T]he legislation is intended to stop wealthy seniors from transferring assets so they can qualify for the coverage by Medicaid, which was started in 1965 to assist poor families. It's the only government program that provides assistance for long-term care.

The White House has been dropping hints that the president will make health-care reform the centerpiece of his State of the Union address. The Bush administration's health care record is, to put it delicately, inconsistent. It has supported efforts to remove government influence over the health care sector, such as health savings accounts (HSAs). On the other hand, the president signed into law the largest expansion of federal power over health care in generations the ill-fated Medicare drug program.

Last week Ron Paul mailed each of his congressional colleagues a copy of a speech outlining his views on the lobbying and ethics scandals engulfing Washington. "I'm afraid many of them won’t like my conclusion: to reduce corruption in government, we must make government less powerful-- and hence less interesting to lobbyists."

But reporters still ignore free market advocates who predicted it. Media coverage of problems facing the new Medicare prescription drug plan focused on elderly patients left in the lurch by bureaucracy, producing what CBS’s Bill Plante called a “political headache” for the Bush administration. But in the Jan. 16 reports on the “Evening News” and “World News Tonight,” both networks ignored conservative critics who had argued the plan was doomed to fail because it was a typical big government solution that ignored the free market.

Government is not your friend. It is the enemy of freedom. Government is not Santa Claus. It is the Grinch. It is Scrooge. Government is not your servant. It tends, all too often, to be our master. Government seldom helps people. It often enslaves them.

Government should not be in the health insurance business We advocate a complete separation of medicine from the state. We oppose any government restriction or funding of medical or scientific research, including cloning. We support an end to government-provided health insurance and health care. Government’s role in any kind of insurance should only be to enforce contracts when necessary, not to dictate to insurance companies and consumers which kinds of insurance contracts they may voluntarily agree upon.

A leader at Auburn University is calling on her student government to reclaim a recently dubbed "Holiday tree" as a Christmas tree.