THE STROKE OF A PEN ELIMINATES 200 YEARS OF FREEDOM

The Stroke of a Pen Eliminates 200 Years of Freedom
By Arthur M Sachs
President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 800 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Some laws President Bush said he can ignore are military rules, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress know about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research, as well as altering base laws for FISA, torture, withholding information, suspend Habeas Corpus, regulate Science and by omissions rewrite history.
Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on Presidential power.
In July 2006, a task force of the American Bar Association found such Signing Statements as "contrary to the Rule of Law and our Constitutional System of separation of powers.” When the President signs a Bill into law and says he is not going to enforce parts of that Bill that he deems unconstitutional, it is in effect an absolute veto, because the Congress has no power to override him. This is considered a “Line Item Veto” and was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Bush is using signing statements like Line Item Vetoes.
A Signing Statement is a written comment issued by the President at the time of signing legislation. Often Signing Statements merely comment on the Bills signed saying that it is good or meets some pressing needs. In George Bush’s case, the vast majority of Signing Statements is of the Constitutional type that refers to the Presidential interpretation of the Constitution.
Many instances the President compromises with Congress on a Bill. They meet for a public bill-signing ceremony. Afterwards he has been known to take back those compromises through non-funding of the Bill or using Signing Statements without knowledge of Congress, Press, or the Public rather than veto the Bill.
The Constitution grants Congress the power to create armies, declare war, make rules for captured enemies, and to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces. But President Bush says he can ignore any act of Congress that seeks to regulate the military citing his role as Commander in Chief. A President who ignores the Court backed by a Congress that is unwilling to challenge him can make the Constitution simply ''disappear."
Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton used the Presidential Veto instead of the Signing Statement if they had a serious problem with a Bill, giving Congress a chance to override their decisions. President George W. Bush has quietly been using these Signing Statements to bolster presidential powers. It is a calculated, systematic scheme that has gone largely unnoticed.
The President's Signing Statements are, in some instances, effectively rewriting the laws by reinterpreting how the law will be implemented. Bush's use of Signing Statements thus potentially brings him into conflict with his own Justice Department. The Justice Department is responsible for defending the constitutionality of laws enacted by Congress.
It is remarkable that Bush believes he can ignore a law, and protect himself, through a Signing Statement. By his abuse of Signing Statements, President Bush is bypassing the laws of the Land, the Constitution, and the will of the people. He thus has transferred his interpretations of laws to those who are questioned by Congressional Committees such as Condoleezza Rice, Roberto Gonzalez, and Vice President Chaney. Nowhere in the Constitution does it state the President can avoid laws of the land, and therefore ASSUME dictatorial powers upon the people.

WHAT WAS GEORGE ORWELL TRYING TO TELL US?

WHAT WAS GEORGE ORWELL TRYING TO TELL US?
By ARTHUR SACHS

The term “Orwellian” comes from the writings of George Orwell in the early 1900’s. Two of his more famous books were “1984” and “ANIMAL FARM”.

George Orwell based many aspects of his book on the Stalin-era Soviet Union, as well as Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany which were part of the life and times in which he grew up. These books were reminiscent of the Totalitarian society and were seen as politically dangerous. They were banned by many libraries in various countries, not to mention Totalitarian regimes.

We see the life and times of this fictional depiction through the eyes of the main character in “1984”, Winston Smith. He works for the Ministry of Truth and his job is to change history to fit the propaganda of the day. He shreds old history and rewrites new history. He meets a woman, Julia, at a street rally. Together they go through a love affair and betrayal by their government. They are caught together and are imprisoned by the Ministry of Love where they betray each other in order to become free of torture and fear.

The characters Winston and Julia, as well as the population were watched by a “one-eyed” TV called Big Brother. Big Brother is the Dictator who controls their lives. By using the name Ministry of Truth to depict the changing of history and facts, and the Ministry of Love to teach hate and fear is what George Orwell did very well. Life is not what it seems.

ANIMAL FARM is a story of animals being starved by the Farmers who own them. They rebel against the Farmer and his wife and throw them off the farm. They decide to create a utopian society where they will share the food, work and profits among themselves. They will all work together to be successful together. The farmer is a symbolic depiction of Stalin as Dictator. The Utopian society is the new perfect Communist Society of sharing. They create a Constitution of equality with seven commandments which says “All Animals Are Equal”. But there is dissention among the animals. The stronger animals take over the weaker animals and form a hierarchy. The Constitution is reduced to a single phrase “All Animals Are Equal, But Some Animals are More Equal Than Others”. The breakdown of the animals is the breakdown of society into Government, Wealthy Class and Working Class.

Again and again, Orwell writes of life not being what it seems. The animals are still starving and the stronger animals take over the weaker animals.

George Orwell grew up in the age of Adolph Hitler and Third Reich. The Third Reich was known for their mass brain-washing. “The broad mass of the nation…will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.” – Adolph Hitler said this in his 1925 book Mein Kampf. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” – Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

The use of “Orwellian” has been used during this administration and their use of the information coming from the CIA and FBI, and other Ministries of our Federal Government. The Iraq War was predicated on the “truths” of the CIA. The changing of the Constitution and its Amendments were changed through the Patriot Act on the predication that we have to give up our freedom in order to retain our freedom. Lies and wire tapping are good for us in order to protect us. Privacy is bad. Big Brother needs to watch us so we won’t do anything against our Country. Geneva Convention is bad and Torture is good. Some slogans or “buzz words” in the book “1984” were: WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. 2 + 2 = 5.

Our Government also uses “buzz words” or “doublespeak” which is a power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

One essential consequence of doublespeak is that the Party can rewrite history with impunity, for “The Administration is never wrong”. The ultimate aim of the Administration is to gain and retain full power overall the American people.

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

HOW ORWELLIAN!

Mental Health Screening for CHILDREN

As a retired retail pharmacist and pharmaceutical consultant over the last 35 years, I have been very concerned about the excessive use of drugs to control our children’s behavior. I saw abuses when I was in practice. I have become very concerned after talking with several parents and educators in the area, that Governmental mental health testing is being brought into Wisconsin. I hope that this essay will open some eyes to the dangers of testing and the prescribing of drugs without the proper regiment of therapy.

The Texas Medication Algorithm Project from Columbia University is called Teen Screen. Teen Screen is now a national mental health and suicide risk screening program for students and adolescence. The screening for mental illness is probably one of the most controversial topics concerning mental health today. Screening adults is controversial, and screening children is even more so. In 2002, President George W. Bush established the New Freedom Commission on mental health and charged it with the mission of reviewing mental health care in the United States. The following year, the National Freedom Commission released its findings and recommendations. The report called for the establishment of an ambiguous Orwellian plan to screen every American for mental illness from prenatal to the elderly. Teen Screen was developed by several psychologists. Most of them were employed by drug manufacturers.

The screening itself generally consists of a short 10-30 question survey. The questionnaire is very generic and ambiguous. Because of that, it is not really a valid screening device. It is conducted in the public and private schools, doctors' offices, clinics, youth groups, shelters and other youth serving organizations. As of October 2005, Teen Screen has had over 460 active screening sites in 42 states. One of these states is Wisconsin.

I am sure that many of you are now thinking our children cannot be tested and/or given drugs without our permission. The New Freedom Initiative passed by Congress in 2003, allowed American children between ages of 3-18 to be evaluated at school by State sponsored advocates to see if they are potential mental cases. If the screening is part of the school’s curriculum, it will longer require active parental consent. Passive consent can be applicable. This passive consent could allow the administration of Ritalin (amphetamines) barbiturates, tranquilizers, and mind altering drugs to innocent children.

Teen Screen is a test that is administered to children and/or their parents. However, after much testing, it was found that 84% were false negatives. In other words, 84% of the children testing positive for mental illness had no real mental illness. These children were singled out by the testing facility as needing some kind of therapy. Eight of ten children were recommended to receive psychotropic drugs upon the recommendations of technicians who sometimes only had 2 days training on these types of drugs. Doctors associated with Teen Screen wrote the prescriptions for these drugs based on the findings of these technicians.

In order to properly address the issue of Teen Screen, I feel I have to discuss a little bit about the drugs being used. These drugs have been prescribed since the late 1950’s for ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) with great success when ADD had been diagnosed by a Psychiatrist. However, in the past 50 years the administration of drugs like Ritalin has been abused. Many doctors have prescribed Ritalin along with anti-depressants, anti-convulsants, sleeping pills and other types of tranquilizers to counteract some of the side-effects of drugs like Ritalin. These drugs such as Ritalin have also found their way into the drug culture as they are abused in the same manner as cocaine, methadrine, and Ecstasy.

Pharmaceutical companies are positioned to gain millions of dollars in profits from this Teen Scene program. The Teen Screen program has been funded by these Pharmaceutical companies because the psychotropic drugs given to these children are very expensive. The children may be hooked on them for years to come and into their adulthood. This would be a classic definition of “pill pushing” for profit.

Mental health screening of teenagers is something the Government should stay far, far away from. Allowing families to look after their children instead of government corrupted by drug companies concerned only with profit is dangerous to all of our children. Government sponsored and controlled mental health screening, no matter how sweetly wrapped, should never ever be implemented. It is never the proper role of government to set norms and assess or interfere in the thoughts and emotions of free citizens, much less innocent, vulnerable and still developing children. It is our thoughts and emotions that make each of us a unique individual and we use these thoughts and emotions to understand the world and maintain our inalienable rights of liberty.

In conclusion, as American parents, we have to do everything we can to remain responsible for our children’s well being. If we allow the Government to become intimately involved with our children’s minds and bodies, we will have lost the final vestiges of parental authority. Strong families are the last line of defense against our over-reaching bureaucratic state.

Checks and Balances Reborn

Checks and Balances Reborn
Arthur M. Sachs

New Years 2007 has arrived and we all wonder what the future will have in store for us. In a time of chaos in the world we, as Americans, watch the events unfold throughout the world and try to respond in a meaningful, intelligent and thoughtful manner for the sake of mankind and the continued existence of the world.

In the November Elections of 2006, the United States voters let their voices be heard. They elected to change the majority of the House and Senate because they we not happy with the direction or the policies. The Government under George W. Bush and his Administration are no longer the choice of the majority of the American People.

With the two branches of government being controlled by the Democrats, the two-party system of government, which our Founding Fathers always wanted, is again intact. The one-party system we have lived under the last 6 years is now gone and the American government can function again as it was designed.
The CHECKS AND BALANCES have been restored.

After observing the single governmental powers these past 6 years, no one should have any illusions about President Bush’s character. In my opinion he is an insecure bully who believes that by owning up to a mistake, any mistake, would undermine his manhood. He lives in a dream world. Just a few weeks ago President Bush declared he was pleased with progress he was making in Iraq even though his Generals and Iraqi people now stated that Iraq was a lost cause and it was time to get out. We have now reached 3,000 American soldiers killed and 25,000 wounded, as well as hundreds of thousands innocent Iraqi citizens killed. It’s time to stop.

We are now spending $2 billion a week on the war and this upcoming year, the total could top $170 billion dollars. Before the bloodshed is over, US taxpayers may drop $1 trillion dollars into Bush’s war. Last week, Condoleezza Rice, our Secretary of State, stated: “The deaths and money we are spending on the Iraqi war are worth it.” I ask: “To whom is it worth?” How many more lives and more tax dollars is this government going to invest in this debacle? How much more are we to sacrifice in the desperation of this Administration to save face and salvage their reputations? They are willing to see more Americans die to save their investment.

George W. Bush should never have been put in a position of authority, let alone been given the kind of unquestioned power, free from the normal checks and balances that he gained in the Presidency. It’s too late to vote George Bush out of office, but most Americans seem prepared to punish his party for his personal failings, especially for criticizing the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with his or their policies. The function of criticism and questioning are the foundation that the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration if Independence were based.

The Democrats having obtained the majority in the House and Senate doesn’t guarantee a change in policy. Even when the Republicans had the majority controlling Congress, George Bush has been in the habit of declaring the he had the right to disobey the laws he signed into power by the use of Signing Statements. He had signed well over 700 since he took office, which was more than all the Presidents combined in our history. If George W. Bush is faced with demands for information from the Congressional Democrats while investigating war profiteering, the Bush administration plans a “cataclysmic fight to the death “as per a Time magazine article written by a White House strategist on the issuance of subpoena.

George W. Bush’s unchecked mistakes has rested in part on the G.O.P. control of Congress. As of January 3, 2007, the Democrats hope to see the United States back on the right track as a democracy with the will of the people taking precedence over that of a single man or administration.

In conclusion I would like to repeat a statement I have used before and now seem to be coming true. “The biggest fear that George W. Bush and his Administration has is the education of the American People.” After the November elections it seems that the American People have received their diplomas.

Music makes children think better.

Music makes children think
Children who take music lessons score better
on IQ and scholastic tests.
A new Canadian study shows young children who take music lessons have better memories than their nonmusical peers. The study showed that after one year of musical training, children performed better in a memory test than those who did not take music classes.
If you take music lessons your brain is getting wired up differently than if you don’t take music lessons,” Laurel Trainor, professor of psychology, neuroscience and behavior at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, told Reuters.
“This is the first study to show that brain responses in young, musically trained and untrained children change differently over the course of a year,” said Trainor who led the study.
The children who take music lessons were asked to discriminate between harmonies, rhythms and melodies, and a memory test in which they had to listen to a series of numbers, remember them and repeat them back.
Trainor said while previous studies have shown that older children given music lessons had greater improvements in IQ scores than children given drama lessons, this is the first study to identify these effects in brain-based measurements in young children.
She said it was not that surprising that children studying music improved in musical listening skills more than children not studying music. It is also true that children, who take music, train their minds to think at a more concentrated rate than those who do not. Thinking is a function which is usually automatic, when one learns music; the mind is trained to concentrate at a much higher level. This phenomenon promotes creative electricity and therefore causes more complex thinking.
“On the other hand, it is very interesting that the children taking music lessons improved more over the year on general memory skills that are correlated with nonmusical abilities such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics and IQ,” she said.

The doughnut hole is not sweet cake

If members of Congress had seized the opportunity to create an affordable and comprehensive Medicare drug benefit, today senior citizens and persons with disabilities would not be paying premiums for non-existent coverage. Instead, too many members of Congress sided with the drug industry and insurance companies who stood to make (and are making) huge profits from Part D. That's how we ended up with the doughnut hole, a phenomenon that does not exist in any other public or private policy and has no place in Medicare.
The doughnut-hole gap in coverage results from the bill’s authors’ desire to cap the overall price of the program. After they made it way too expensive by allowing their drug company friends to charge high prices, they had to cut a gaping hole in the seniors’ coverage in order to save money. Economist Dean Baker has calculated that if the Part D program had been structured to get the best, lowest prices from the drug companies—as the Veterans Administration does today—we could have saved enough money to eliminate the donut hole without raising the cost of the Part D program.
The Bush administration pushed through this sham of a Medicare prescription drug benefit saying that it would help seniors and people with disabilities. But what we got was a plan that shifts costs to seniors and people with disabilities while padding the profit margins of drug and insurance companies.

After their first $2,250 in drug expenditures are covered, seniors must pay all their drug costs completely out of pocket for the next $2,850, even while still paying a monthly premium for a program that gives them no benefit at all.

Over the last few weeks the pharmaceutical industry, through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has been spending millions of dollars on an ad campaign in 10 districts or states praising incumbents who voted for the controversial Part D prescription drug plan.
Below are the top 10 Drug Company contributors and top 10 recipients of pharmaceutical money in the United States. As your can see the majority of money donated and received was to the Republicans who wrote and voted in the Medicare D prescription Drug plan, after illegally holding the vote open for over 6 hours until the lobbyists bribed and twisted the Republicans arms to vote for the Bill.
September 22 was “doughnut hole day”—the day the average senior who endured the aggravation of enrolling in the program fell into the coverage gap. When they recover from the shock of being charged hundreds of dollars for the same prescription that cost them only dollars on their last trip to the pharmacy, seniors (and their younger family members) want to know why this happened. Why would politicians design a program with this kind of potentially life-threatening gap in coverage?
Here’s the answer that most seniors are starting to understand: The Republican majority wanted to win support from older Americans, but they also wanted to do something for their very powerful political donors in the drug and insurance companies. Seniors got some subsidy, but they also got a confusing array of plans run by private insurance companies. And the pharmaceutical industry got the biggest gift of all: the law creating the Part D program prohibited the government from requiring the drug companies to compete to offer the lowest price on drugs. This provision in the Bush program said to the drug companies: “Charge whatever you want, and we’ll make sure you get paid.”
So, as seniors fall into the doughnut hole—and as they and their families get wise as to why this happened to them—the drug industry-Chamber of Commerce TV spots are a great guide to who they should hold accountable. And all over country, activist citizen groups, led by the Americans United coalition, are publicly pointing to drug company contributions to specific incumbent senators and representatives as an explanation for why seniors are falling into the doughnut hole— with potentially life-threatening consequences. And they point to the TV spots as just another way the industry helps their servants in Congress.
Republicans, anxious to cut popular public programs like Medicare, viewed their Part D plan as a means of shifting the burden of paying for expensive prescription drugs to private individuals while benefiting the pharmaceuticals who have paid literally tens of millions of dollars hand over fist into their campaign funds. For the GOP, programs like Part D are a first step toward gutting Medicare benefits and privatizing the program in the guise providing more benefits.
In exchange for this kind of financial support, the pharmaceutical lobby has gotten several important legislative maneuvers from the Republicans to protect their profit-making plan. Since the Part D prescription drug plan was passed in 2003, there have been three amendments introduced in the House of Representatives and one introduced in the Senate authorizing Medicare to use its bulk purchasing power to negotiate the price of drugs, thereby reducing the cost of the program and providing Congress with the funds to fill in the coverage gap. Republicans blocked all four amendments.
Although it would be "smart" for beneficiaries with high drug expenses to buy "supplemental insurance that would cover the doughnut hole," the 2003 Medicare law "specifically prohibits you from buying insurance to cover the gap. Congressional leaders "weren't actually trying to protect retired Americans against the risk of high drug expenses"; instead, "[t]heir purpose was purely political: to be able to say that President Bush had honored his 2000 campaign promise to provide prescription drug coverage by passing a drug bill, any drug bill."
Arthur M. Sachs

What does it mean to Suspend Habeas Corpus?

What does it mean to Suspend Habeas Corpus?
By Arthur M Sachs

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 was passes by the House and the Senate and has been sent to the President for signing into law. This Bill is known as the Torture Bill. It is one of the most outrageous and unconstitutional bills ever to be processed through Congress in the entire history of the United States. It has shattered a number of bedrock legal protections for suspects, prisoners, and pretty much anyone else the Bush Administration deems to be an enemy.
In Article 1, Section Nine of the Constitution the Writ of Habeas Corpus is a proceeding in which the court inquires as to the legitimacy of a prisoner's custody. Typically, habeas corpus proceedings investigate whether a criminal trial was conducted fairly and constitutionally after the criminal appellate process has been exhausted.
Habeas Corpus, which is the right of the accused to confront his accusers in court, has been revoked. The Congress regards this as a job well done. The suspension of Habeas just one component of a far-reaching 'anti-terrorism' bill that has more to do with protecting the government from ordinary citizens of America and other nations than it does with combating terrorism
In this new Bill, Habeas Corpus has been suspended for detainees suspected of terrorism or of aiding terrorism. The Magna Charta era rule that a person can face his accusers is now gone. Once a suspect has been thrown into prison, he does not have the right to a trial by his peers. Suspects cannot even stand in representation of themselves, another ancient protection, but must accept a military lawyer as their defender. Illegally-obtained evidence can be used against suspects, whether that illegal evidence was gathered abroad or right here at home. This eradicates our security in persons, houses, papers, and effects, as stated in the Fourth Amendment, against illegal searches and seizures.
This Bill gives George W. Bush the final word on what constitutes torture. US officials who use cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment to extract information from detainees are now shielded from prosecution.
The Hamdi decision held that a prisoner has the right of Habeas Corpus, and can challenge his detention before an impartial judge. The Hamdan decision also held that the military commission set up to try detainees violates both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions. In short, the Supreme Court wiped out virtually every legal argument the Bush Administration put forth to defend its extraordinary and dangerous behavior.
The Republicans in Congress have managed, at the behest of President Bush, to draft a Bill that all but erases the Judicial Branch of the Government. Underneath all this is the definition of "enemy combatant" that has been established by this Legislation. An "enemy combatant" is now no longer just someone captured "during an armed conflict" against our forces, but an "enemy combatant" is anyone who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States."
The broad powers given to President Bush by this legislation allow him to capture, indefinitely detain, and refuse a hearing to any American citizen who speaks out against Iraq or any other part of the so-called "War on Terror." Just writing a letter to the Editor attacking the Bush Administration could be deemed as “purposefully and materially supporting hostilities against the United States”. If you organize or join a public demonstration against Iraq or against the Administration, the same designation could befall you.
This lawmaking is intended to give the President absolute power and this has been the Neoconservative mandate all along. The President can now designate who is an Enemy of the State and who is abetting terrorists.
We have been heading this way for some time. Now that legal precedents have been shattered, overwritten, and ignored by this legislation so blatantly against what America stands for, the next milestones will involve how this legislation is deployed in the real world. Will Americans start disappearing because they speak out or will it simply mean that the already-disappeared disappear forever? If torture is now legal in a military context, will it become legal in domestic situations that can somehow be tentatively connected to terrorism? Are kids in gangs terrorists? How about drug dealers? Pot smokers?
The legal framework that made America a safe place to be a citizen and safe country from the standpoint of the rest of the world is disintegrating. Once the laws have been rewritten to circumvent those principles, it's too late.
Prisoners taken in the dead of night to Lubyanka were systematically beaten for days with rubber hoses and clubs. There were special cold rooms where prisoners could be nearly frozen to death and sleep deprivation was a favorite and most effective Cheka technique as well as near-drowning in water fouled with urine and feces.
We have seen America's President and Vice President sworn to uphold the Constitution, but advocating some of the same interrogation techniques the KGB used at the Lubyanka. They apparently believe beating, freezing, sleep deprivation and near-drowning are necessary to prevent terrorist attacks. So did Stalin.
I never thought I'd see the United States, champion of human rights and rule of law, legislating torture and Soviet-style kangaroo tribunals. I never thought I'd see Congress and a majority of Americans supporting such police state measures. Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln must be turning in their graves.
This bill is not a national security issue—this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies. The bill simply removes a suspect’s right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Charta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open. This bill throws out legal and moral restraints as the President deems it necessary and these are fundamental principles of basic decency, as well as law.
I’d like those supporting this evil bill to spare me one affliction: Do not, please, pretend to be shocked by the consequences of this legislation. And do not pretend to be shocked when the world begins comparing us to the Nazis.