The Right Lane update

The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, freedom and individual liberty

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

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Federal Employees Paid to Work for Unions

More than 250 employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs are being paid to work for government employee unions rather than veterans — even though the VA has a backlog of nearly 1 million unprocessed benefit claims. These employees are on "official time," defined as "paid time off from assigned Government duties to represent a union or its bargaining unit employees," according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).  Their salaries range from $26,420 to the $131,849 being paid to a nurse in San Francisco who represents the Nation Federation of Federal Employees.  Government workers on "official time" have office space at the agency that employs them, are paid for full-time work, and receive medical insurance and other fringe benefits, even though many are not required to show up at the agency, reports Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. The VA spent $42.5 million on official time in 2011, including salaries and benefits. Republican Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Rob Portman of Ohio sent a letter to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki saying: "Documents show that your department recently employed at least 85 nurses, some with six-figure salaries, who were in 100 percent official time status. At the same time, the department is recruiting more people to fill open nursing positions."  But official time is not limited to the VA. The OPM reported that the federal government paid more than $156 million to workers on official time in 2011, up from $139 million in 2010.  Sen. Coburn told Furchtgott-Roth: "It is unacceptable for employees to spend 100 percent of their time away from the job taxpayers pay them to do."  The vast majority of campaign contributions from government worker unions go to Democrats, Furchtgott-Roth observed in an article for Real Clear Markets.  Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia has introduced a bill to limit official time, and in the Senate, Kentucky's Rand Paul has a bill that would completely eliminate it.

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Clare Daly, Irish Politician, Slams Obama As ‘War Criminal’ In Parliament

“Is this person going for the hypocrite of the century award? Because we have to call things by their right names, and the reality is that by any serious examination, this man is a war criminal.” “This is the man who has facilitated a 200 percent increase in the use of drones, which have killed thousands of people including hundreds of children,” “There isn’t much peace in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, and there certainly isn’t much peace in Syria”

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Turning the tables on the spies

Lawsuits seeks to expose NSA secrets to the public by Garth Kant

Attorney Larry Klayman has filed the first lawsuits in the NSA spying case and they are receiving a lot of attention. In this exclusive interview, Klayman tells WND how the lawsuits could affect every American.

Klayman is a WND columnist, the founder of both Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, a prosecutor in the Reagan administration Justice Department and a member of the trial team that broke up the AT&T monopoly. He is suing President Obama, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the director of the NSA, the NSA, the CEO of Verizon, the U.S. Department of Justice and Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court.  Klayman alleges the NSA’s massive telephone surveillance program violates the “reasonable expectation of privacy, free speech and association, right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures and due process rights.” [Fourth Amendment]  The suits are class-actions on behalf of everyone in the country but also on behalf of Charles Strange, the father of a Navy SEAL who tragically died on August 6, 2011, in an attack in Afghanistan. In this exclusive interview, Klayman and Strange tell WND in detail what led them to file suit. Klayman told WND he believed the outrage over the NSA spying scandal could help unite the country. WND asked him how the left and right could come together. Strange and other parents of the SEALS who were killed believe their sons were targeted for retaliation and ambushed by the Taliban after Vice President Joe Biden revealed, and the administration then confirmed, that it was a SEAL Team VI unit that had killed Osama bin Laden just three months earlier. Strange says his phone has been tapped ever since he began criticizing the administration.  WND mentioned the president assured us no one from the government is listening to the content of our phone calls unless a court has given permission. However, WND reported a Democratic congressman who came out of a closed briefing last week said that’s not true, any number of analysts at the NSA can obtain the content from any phone call or email if they choose to do so, without a court authorization. WND asked Klayman if he believes that has happened in this case. Strange told WND he strongly believes there is a cover up of his son’s death that goes all the way to the top.

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Unasked and Unanswered Questions  by Walter Williams

Grutter v. Bollinger was the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s racial admissions policy. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the majority, said the U.S. Constitution "does not prohibit the Law School's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body." But what are the educational benefits of a diverse student body?  Intellectuals argue that diversity is necessary for academic excellence, but what’s the evidence? For example, Japan is a nation bereft of diversity in any activity. Close to 99 percent of its population is of one race. Whose students do you think have higher academic achievement -- theirs or ours? According to the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment, the academic performance of U.S. high-school students in reading, math and science pales in comparison with their diversity-starved counterparts in Japan.

Should companies be treated equally? According to a Wall Street Journal op-ed (9/7/2009) by Manhattan Institute’s energy expert Robert Bryce, Exxon Mobil pleaded guilty in federal court to killing 85 birds that had come into contact with its pollutants. The company paid $600,000 in fines and fees. A recent Associated Press story (5/14/2013) reported that “more than 573,000 birds are killed by the country's wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles, according to an estimate published in March in the peer-reviewed Wildlife Society Bulletin.” The Obama administration has never fined or prosecuted windmill farms, sometimes called bird Cuisinarts, for killing eagles and other protected bird species. In fact, AP reports that the Obama administration has shielded the industry from liability and has helped keep the scope of the deaths secret. It’s interesting that The Associated Press chose to report the story only after the news about its reporters being secretly investigated. That caused the Obama administration to fall a bit out of favor with them. But what the heck, the 14th Amendment's requirement of "equal protection" before the law for everybody can be cast aside in the name of diversity, so why can’t it be cast aside in the name of saving the planet? There are politically favored industries just as there are politically favored groups.

What’s the difference between a progressive, a liberal and a racist? In some cases, not much. President Woodrow Wilson was a leading progressive who believed in notions of racial superiority and inferiority. He was so enthralled with D.W. Griffith’s "Birth of a Nation" movie, glorifying the Ku Klux Klan, that he invited various dignitaries to the White House to view it with him. During one private screening, President Wilson exclaimed: "It's like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." When President Wilson introduced racial segregation to the civil service, the NAACP and the National Independent Political League protested. Wilson vigorously defended it, arguing that segregation was in the interest of Negroes.

Dr. Thomas Sowell, in “Intellectuals and Race,” documents other progressives who were advocates of theories of racial inferiority. They included former presidents of Stanford University and MIT, among others. Eventually, the views of progressives fell out of favor. They changed their name to liberals, but in the latter part of the 20th century, the name liberals fell into disrepute. Now they are back to calling themselves progressives.

I’m not arguing that today’s progressives are racists like their predecessors, but they share a contempt for liberty, just as President Wilson did. According to Hillsdale College history professor Paul A. Rahe -- author of "Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift" -- in his National Review Online (4/11/13) article “Progressive Racism,” Wilson wanted to persuade his compatriots to get “beyond the Declaration of Independence.” President Wilson said the document “did not mention the questions" of his day, adding, “It is of no consequence to us.” My question is: Why haven’t today’s progressives disavowed their racist predecessors?

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NSA Surveillance of Politicians: Be ‘Compliant’ or Be Exposed (Think Petraeus)

You ever wonder why politicians never follow through with their campaign promises? A lot of it does have to do with the irresistible bribes they are enticed with once they get into office, the back-room deals and that fact that these politicians don’t have backbones. But there might be another reason. They’re being snooped on by the NSA too. It’s a way to ensure these politicians keep playing the game and are compliant with their “handlers,” lest they be exposed, humiliated, and forced to resign.  Russ Tice is a former intelligence analyst and whistleblower during the George W. days. He said that the intelligence community kept surveillance over all sorts of politicians, ranging from military officials to judges to congressmen and senators. Here are some of the things he pointed out:

 “They went after–and I know this because I had my hands literally on the paperwork for these sort of things–they went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the–and judicial… But they went after other ones, too. They went after lawyers and law firms. All kinds of–heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after State Department officials. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House–their own people… Here’s the big one… [T]his was in summer of 2004, one of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of numbers associated with a 40-something-year-old wannabe senator for Illinois. You wouldn’t happen to know where that guy lives right now would you? It’s a big white house in Washington, D.C. That’s who they went after, and that’s the president of the United States now.”

Are you afraid or outraged yet?

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Hilliary Clinton: Female President Would Send Right Signal

Hillary Rodham Clinton mused aloud about the significance of America electing its first female president. Left unsaid: whether she might try again to be the one. In a video of a private Clinton speech posted to YouTube on Friday, Clinton told a Canadian audience that she hoped the U.S. would elect a woman to the White House because it would send “exactly the right historical signal” to men, women and children. She said women in politics need to “dare to compete” and the nation needs to “take that leap of faith.” “Let me say this, hypothetically speaking, I really do hope that we have a woman president in my lifetime,” Clinton said at a women’s conference in Toronto on Thursday night. “And whether it’s next time or the next time after that, it really depends on women stepping up and subjecting themselves to the political process, which is very difficult.” The former secretary of state told the cheering audience that she would “certainly vote for the right woman to be president.”

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Study Casts Doubt On Whether Health Insurance Improves Health

Does having health insurance make people healthier? It’s widely assumed that it does. Obamacare advocates repeatedly said that its expansion of Medicaid would save thousands of lives a year. Obamacare critics seldom challenged the idea that increased insurance coverage would improve at least some people’s health. Now, out of Oregon, comes a study that casts doubt on the premise that insurance improves health.  In 2008, Oregon state government had enough Medicaid money to extend the program to 10,000 people but many more were eligible. So the state set up a lottery to determine who would get coverage. That created a randomized control trial (RCT), to compare the health outcomes of about 6,000 people who won the lottery with a similar number who lost. RCTs are the best way to test the effects of public policies, as Jim Manzi argues in his recent book “Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics and Society.” Other studies compare the effect of policies on populations that may differ in significant ways — apples and oranges. RCTs compare apples and apples. The only previous RCT on health care policies was conducted by the RAND Corporation between 1971 and 1982. It found no statistically significant difference in health outcomes from having more insurance. But health care has changed a lot since then. The Oregon Health Study, published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, found much the same thing. Comparing three important measures -- blood sugar levels, blood pressure and cholesterol levels -- It found no significant difference after two years between those on Medicaid and those who were uninsured.  It did find lower levels of reported depression among the group on Medicaid. And it found, unsurprisingly, that they did save significant money. Those findings may not be unrelated. The findings have serious implications for Obamacare. Half of its predicted increase in insurance coverage comes from expansion of Medicaid. Obamacare supporters have assumed that those eligible for Medicaid -- poorer, sicker and less steadier in habits than the general population -- would have great difficulty getting health care without insurance. The Oregon Health Study is evidence that at least in that state Medicaid-eligible people without insurance -- a "pretty sick" population, one state official said -- nevertheless managed somehow to get care that produced results about as good as those who won the lottery.

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Why We Need Nukes; And Why Obama Is Wrong by Frank Camp

It’s been said that one should never bring a knife to a gun fight. What that means is that if there is a fight about to go down, you want to be the one with the strongest, most sophisticated weapon. If your enemy has a better weapon than you, your elimination is certain. You want to go in with the best odds. This makes sense, even in an everyday context; you want to be the best; better than your competitors. Even more, this mentality means everything when it comes to national defense. Ever since the invention of nuclear weapons, there have been those who decry their use, and even their existence when inert. One could definitely argue the merits and the disadvantages of nuclear weapons having been created in the first place; but that’s not the point. The point is that they do exist. Now, what do we do? In the age of nuclear weapons, it is essential—specifically given the fact that we are in a constant war with terrorists; and several countries would just love to eliminate us—that we keep a high profile. We need to have the most nuclear weapons, and we need to have the most powerful nuclear weapons. This is basic defense strategy. Coming as a surprise to no one, the Liberals have a distorted understanding of this issue.

During his current “Sorry about America” world tour, President Obama gave a speech in Berlin, in which he discussed the elimination of nuclear weapons:

“We may no longer live in fear of global annihilation, but so long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe.  (Applause.)  We may strike blows against terrorist networks, but if we ignore the instability and intolerance that fuels extremism, our own freedom will eventually be endangered…Peace with justice means pursuing the security of a world without nuclear weapon…And so, as President, I’ve strengthened our efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and reduced the number and role of America’s nuclear weapons.  Because of the New START Treaty, we’re on track to cut American and Russian deployed nuclear warheads to their lowest levels since the 1950s…After a comprehensive review, I’ve determined that we can ensure the security of America and our allies, and maintain a strong and credible strategic deterrent, while reducing our deployed strategic nuclear weapons by up to one-third.  And I intend to seek negotiated cuts with Russia to move beyond Cold War nuclear postures.”

Were we living in a perfect world, full of love, humility, and free candy for all, this might be an understandably worthy goal: to eliminate nuclear weapons. However, that is certainly not the world in which we live. That being the case, can we afford to eliminate nuclear weapons; even by a third? The answer is a resounding NO.  We are surrounded by countries and organizations that would jump at the chance to wipe us out completely: North Korea, Iran, possibly Pakistan, Al Qaida; and despite what the President seems to believe, Russia. Russia has been leaning further and further towards Cold War era posturing, and I have absolutely no faith that they will follow any treaty. The President has an obligation to protect our nation, and it would not be wise to continue this hippie-fueled run at elimination of nuclear weapons. Because no matter how much we don’t want to have to use them, there will come a time when we have to. If we try to be PC, and achieve “peace through nuclear elimination,” we will fall.

As Margaret Thatcher said: “A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.” It may seem counterintuitive to think that nuclear weapons help keep us safe, but living in a post-nuclear world, that is exactly the case.

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Obama Administration Cuts Oil Development on Federal Land  By: Sandy Fitzgerald

The Obama administration is calling for cutting the amount of federal lands open for oil shale and tars sands development in the Western states, a plan that industry officials say may force companies to look overseas for opportunities. A new Bureau of Land Management plan calls for allowing 700,000 acres of land for development. This is a drastic cut from the Bush administration, which had set aside 1.3 million acres, and the oil industry is outraged by the change. "What they basically did was make it so that nobody is going to want to spend money going after oil shale on federal government lands," said Dan Kish, Senior Vice President of Institute for Energy Research.

Oil shale drilling is different from the hydraulic fracking process being used in places like the Bakken shale region in North Dakota or the Niobrara in Colorado. Fracking breaks through lwyers of shale rock and pumps out oil. But oil shale refers to the rock itself. When companies subject the rock to pressure or high temperatures, either by leaving it in place or removing it, oil develops. Colorado Wildlife Federation Spokesman Todd Malmsbury said the process raises a great deal of concerns about the impact on the region's water and land. "Water is the most important resource we have in the West," Malmsbury said. "If we pollute that water, if we deplete that water, it's going to hurt everyone out here."

The Bureau of Land Management said it is not against the oil shale and tar sands development, but is restricting the amount of public lands until the processes prove safe, and may release more federal lands in coming years if it is safe to do so. But Kish said the reduction will force the energy industry to look elsewhere, even in other countries, for development. "The Chinese are inviting companies in, companies that may have done business in the United States if we'd had a better approach," said Kish. "And we don't even know the total extent (of the potential for oil from shale in America) but it's basically around a trillion barrels...which would be as much as the world has used since the first oil well was drilled 150 years ago."  “The Colorado River has nothing left to give, and it’s not in the public interest to allow water-guzzling mining projects to mangle and pollute the productivity of this vital watershed any further,” said John Weisheit, Living Rivers’ conservation director.

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The Real Reason George F. Will Is Irritated With Obama By Anthony Wile

Big news, from my point of view. Late this week, conservative columnist George F. Will wrote an editorial that compiled a list of what we call dominant social themes, even though he didn't explain them as such. The list was required to buttress accusations he was making about US President Barack Obama's reportedly disappointing speech in Berlin. We've already commented on the speech in staff reports but I wanted to write this analysis as a follow-up. First, attendance at Obama's speech was minute compared to the number who had flocked to his appearance in Berlin during his presidential campaign in 2008 – around 4,000 reportedly versus the more than 200,000 estimated by Berlin police in 2008.  Second, the reviews of the speech were almost universally negative, and Obama is clearly losing his "mojo" with the mainstream Western media. Most simply described the speech as hesitant, unemotional, disengaged, etc. The best defense Chris Matthews could come up with was that the glare of the sun had rendered Obama's teleprompters unusable and therefore, he'd had to read the speech from the page, a skill that he lacks.  But the biggest surprise was that Obama was going to seek a further reduction in the respective nuclear arsenals of Russia and the US. This was an unusual statement not because of the large size of the reduction, up to one-third of stored weaponry, but because it was part of the larger performance that George Will rightly categorizes as "surreal."

If Obama had built his speech around, say, a new Marshall Plan for Europe (which has been mentioned from time to time), it might have sounded vaguely pertinent. Europe, or at least its southern part, is suffering a great deal of pain from its euro-imbalance with the north. Unemployment in Spain, Greece, Portugal and even France is reportedly approaching an intolerable level. But Obama didn't choose to focus on current woes. Instead, the big news was about how he was going to negotiate an arms reduction with Russia. It was as if being in Berlin had confused Obama and his speechwriters about the era in which they were functioning. It sounded as if he'd been temporarily transported back in time to the 1980s. The Cold War was a big deal in the 1980s. The USSR looked as implacable and nasty as ever. It had invaded Afghanistan and its leaders showed no signs of reducing their hostility to the West.

Berlin has been the site of many triumphs for US presidents. Ronald Reagan's speech was widely regarded as a historical triumph and so was John F. Kennedy's and for the same reason. Speaking "truth to power" in the USSR's own backyard was a peculiarly courageous act. Or at least seemed so. Not this time. By building the big news of his speech around a promise to seek a further arms reduction with a reduced Russia, Obama merely contributed to a sense of what Will rightly calls "detachment." The USSR is no longer a big bully in Europe because the USSR doesn't exist any longer. Sure, there are good reasons to want a further arms reduction with Russia, but is that currently a main preoccupation on the global stage? It's not even something that the Obama administration itself has set up as a central diplomatic issue. If you're going to make a big announcement aimed at solving a critical problem, shouldn't you define it in advance? How can you propose a solution to an issue you haven't even been raising? That wasn't the only problem with the speech. Here's how Will put it:

Obama hits a wall in Berlin ... The question of whether Barack Obama's second term will be a failure was answered in the affirmative before his Berlin debacle, which has recast the question, which now is: Will this term be silly, even scary in its detachment from reality?

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65% Think Government Should Cut Spending to Help Economy

Concern that the government will do too much to help the economy is at its highest level since last fall.  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 43% of Likely U.S. Voters are more worried that the federal government will do too much rather than not enough in reacting to the nation’s economic problems. That's up from 39% in March and the highest level of concern since September.  Slightly more  (48%) still fear that the government won’t do enough to help the economy. 

56% Think Government Agencies Cut Popular Programs First

Last week’s airport delays prompted complaints that the federal government was targeting areas that hurt the public the most to increase opposition to government spending cuts. Most Americans agree and also think Congress’ quick response to the delays highlights how the legislators look out for themselves first.  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% of American Adults think that when government agencies are forced to cut their budgets, they generally cut popular programs first to make the cuts seem more significant. Just 17% disagree, but 27% are not sure.

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