Have you ever felt that the political process was biased against everything you support? If you are a Constitutionalist or a conservative, there's a reason for that: It's true.

For those of you on heart or blood pressure medication, you might want to stop reading here because we are going to show how you have been supporting all those far-left groups that work against everything you want. This is distressing, so be forewarned.

In the early 1960s, the Democrats thought they needed a helping hand to stay in power. So, the Democratic National Committee joined together with a couple unions and formed the National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSC). The NCSC(1) charged dues to members, but that is but a drop in the bucket to the organization. It is primarily federally funded with your money, to the tune of about $70-million annually. The group received over $300-million in federal grants in its last five years of operation. Between 1964 and 1994, NCSC received more than one-billion bucks in tax money.

Why should we care? Generally speaking, NCSC is organized labor's lobbing arm and is used to mobilize retired union workers. The NCSC went out of business last year and handed off to the Alliance for Retired Americans, an AFL-CIO organization.

At least, they said they were disbanding. Then, they turned up with 170 other far-left organizations on the dole to form an activist group called the Fair Taxes For All Coalition, designed to fight against President Bush's proposed tax cuts. According to the Cato Institute(2), between 1996 and 2000 alone, these 170 far-left groups have collectively received $618-million of our tax money.

Which means, our taxes are financing the socialists so they may better institute socialism in this country. So, of course they don't want a tax cut.

The Fair Taxes For All Coalition is co-chaired by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) -- the nation's largest government employee's union -- and the People For the American Way. AFL-CIO is helping, too.

The Detroit AFSCME union hall, readers might remember, hosted the Democratic Socialists of America convention two years ago.(3)

AFSCME received $447,000 in federal grants from 1997 to 1999. The AFL-CIO collected $6-million in tax money from 1997 to 2000. United Auto Workers is also against the Bush tax cut. UAW received over $3-million in tax money from 1996 to 2000. The National Urban League is in on this, too. They ripped off a cool $123.9-million between 1996 and 2000.

Between 1996 and 2000, NAACP received over $1.5-million, NOW took $1.2-million, YWCA got $48.8-million, National Council of La Rasa got $9.5-million, League of Women Voters took $2.3-million, and so on. The list is like a who's who of the far left.

This is the Democratic Party in action. They all get much of their money from the U.S. Treasury. Some far-left groups actually get over 95% of their money through federal grants. Of course, they also give a lot of that money back to Democrats running for office. They all also mobilize as activist front groups for the Democratic Party's causes.

Looking at the amount of government grants dispersed to activist groups is interesting, too. The Department of Labor awarded $433-million, The Department of Health and Human Services gave $93.2-million, Housing and Urban Development gave out $28.2-million in grant money, etc.

This is all money going to advocacy groups, not identified federal programs. Which means, much of this money is used to fund socialist positions most of us would strongly disagree with.

We should note here that only the 170 groups making up the Fair Taxes For All Coalition are listed in the Cato report. Which means, this is just part of the story. For instance, the environmental whacko groups are not represented.

Clearly, we have a long-term major problem here. The Democrats are funding the socialist activists with our tax money. This must stop right away. There is absolutely no reason for the government to fund private organizations, and especially politically motivated organizations.

As Thomas Jefferson once wrote: "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical."(4)

That's a proper description for the Democrats: "Sinful and tyrannical." Because, if the Constitution is good, the Democrats must be bad since they refuse to obey it.

We have our work cut out for us, folks. Let's get Congress to stop funding these far left activist groups and instead fund organizations that will support the Constitution.

1. http://www.aoa.dhhs.gov/aoa/dir/149.html

2. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-407es.html

3. http://209.15.142.23/reports/headsup/hu191.htm

4. Bill for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers 2:545

Here's a new report that's about as proper as a couple wolves running lose at a Siamese cat show. The Odd Couple of ex presidents, Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter, teamed up to bless us with their wisdom once again.

Ford has an excuse. He has "old-timer's syndrome." Carter, on the other hand, is still a socialist meddler. It was a safe bet that these guys would propose just exactly the opposite of what the Constitution mandates of government, and so it happened with the National Commission on Federal Election.(1)

The commission proposes that the federal government coerce states into restoring voting rights to convicted felons who have served full sentences. As governor, Bush backed that. However, States run the election, not the federal government. Therefore, States may do as they wish on this matter. Some States allow felons to vote, others do not.

The commission proposed that Congress give States $1-billion to $2-billion to help update their election systems. To qualify, States would be expected to make a "few" changes in their voting law.

For instance, States would need to allow voters to correct ballot errors. Most already do, two or three times. The commission, apparently, would have the States allow a voter to stay in the booth however long it takes them to get it right. That's silly. That could cause huge lines to back up.

Now the fun stuff starts: The commission wants standards "that define what constitutes a vote." That makes us wonder if these people ever really voted in a polling place. Every polling place I have seen in five States had complete instructions out front (and, sometimes in the voting booth) that tells exactly how to vote, shows a sample ballot and demonstrates what errors will cause a ballot to be voided. So, it only stands to reason that when one follows the simple instructions one can be assured that the vote will count.

This means, when the sign says the chads must be punched out in order for the vote to count, the vote will not be counted if the chad is still intact. If a voter cannot read and follow simple instructions, that is usually a good indication they do not belong in the voting booth, anyway.

The commission also wanted unregistered voters to have the option of voting. The ballots would then be deposited in a "provisional ballot" box until after the election.

What a joke! Ballots are supposed to be secret. That's why the voter deposits the ballot in the ballot box and poll workers are not allowed to touch them. So, if there is a whole box of "provisional ballots" sitting around until "after the election," who would verify the voter and count the ballots?

No one, that's who. In many large cities, poll workers would just mix them in with the others. There's so much voter fraud going on anyway, this would just make it easier. Already, in the last election, a few major cities had larger vote counts than registered voters.

The commission also suggested censoring the press. That is, they want news organizations to refrain from projecting election winners until after polling places are closed in all 48 contiguous states. Fat chance!

There is a strong relationship between the media and the Democratic Party. The problem in the last election started with a company named Voter News Service. VNS is owned by the Associated Press and the television networks. They all share the same liberal bias.

Last November, many Americans noticed that quite often the vote results displayed at the bottom of the TV screen were greatly different than what the talking heads were announcing. Many times, Gore was projected the winner of a State when, in fact, the actual voter results at the bottom of the screen showed Bush with a decisive lead. When the results came in from east of the Rockies, the talking heads were calling Gore the winner when their displayed data actually favored Bush. This technique cost Bush a lot of votes in States voting late as well as in States west of the Rockies that all still had their polls open.

To think that all these "very experienced journalists" reporting the election did not know exactly what they were doing is silly. It was intentional. They can't blame Voter News Service when they were responsible. All they had to do was to read their own monitors.

We need a major overhaul to fight widespread voter fraud. Unfortunately, nothing useful came from this commission.

1. http://www.reformelections.org

or,

http://www.brook.edu/GS/Projects/ElectionReform.htm

Here's a quick flash for all working folks, especially those who still tend to trust the Democratic Party: Check out the amount of payroll (FICA) tax you are paying nowadays. That's you're "contribution" to the Social Security fund.

The federal government charges workers a lot more in payroll tax than paid out in Social Security benefits. Then, they tell the American people that, since 1980, the excess Social Security tax has been deposited in a Social Security Trust Fund because it will be needed when the "baby boomers" retire.

There should be over $4-trillion in that trust fund this year and the fund should be growing at a rate of nearly $100-billion per year. However, Democrats had a different idea about what to do with that money and Democrats were running Congress back in the 1980s.

Actually, two years after the Social Security fund was started (back in the 1930s) Congress noticed there was a lot of money available and started spending it. But, that's another story.

Anyway, today there are zero dollars in the Social Security trust fund. Instead, Congress "lent" the money to the general fund and spent it on programs that were never authorized to the federal government by the Constitution. The Social Security trust fund, therefore, contains nothing more than IOUs. And, the only way that $4-trillion will ever be replaced is by tax increases.

This, of course, is legally called gross misappropriation of funds and would get the leaders of Anybusiness USA some significant prison time if they did such a thing with retirement funds. However, Congress was controlled by the Democratic Party all those years and they are above any laws. Apparently, they are above common sense and fiscal responsibility, too.

According to Daniel J. Mitchell at The Heritage Foundation's Institute for Economic Policy Studies: "the best possible interpretation of the Trust Fund is that the IOUs are a measure of how much taxes will have to be raised in the future."(1)

That would be about $4-trillion above what they are now. Because, those useless, nonnegotiable bonds they say make up the Social Security trust fund are not real economic assets. Rather, they are claims on the Treasury that will have to be financed by either raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. They are exactly the same as someone borrowing from one credit card to pay off another.

As even the Clinton administration's fiscal 2000 budget admits: "The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the government's ability to pay benefits." That's because there are only IOUs in there. Congress spent all money in every trust fund, including the Social Security trust fund.

Meanwhile, we will replace the money through higher taxes. Or, our grandkids will. Which means, the American people are to be taxed twice for exactly the same fund.

Everyone in Washington knows this is true, too. The Democratic Party's Senate Majority leader even admitted it in a weak moment.

In a speech, Senator Tom Daschle gave his usual Washington double-talk about the trust fund: "Right now we are using Social Security trust funds to pay for other spending in the federal budget, and that to me ... isn't what we should be doing. That money should be held in trust."(2)

They have been doing it for over 50 years, though. It wasn't until the Republicans took over Congress that there was even a suggestion to stop stealing that money.

After the talk, Senator Tom Daschle actually admitted to columnist Robert Novak, "there is no such fund per se."

And so there is not. Much of the Social Security payroll tax workers and employers pay today goes to pay for other programs. That money will need to be replaced in a few years, which means there will be a significant tax increase somewhere along the line. Republicans are "looking into the problem." But, as long as the Social Security trust fund is available to Congress, it appears they will spend it.

When we look at the Democratic Party we see the sleaze of Clinton, Condid, Barney Frank, Kennedy, Dodd, and a couple dozen other sexual perverts in Washington. But, like they said, "it's only sex."

Perhaps we must accept their personal perversions and look into their clear abuse of power and the fact that we will, eventually, need to be taxed twice to fund the same amount of Social Security simply because they misappropriated the funds.

1. http://www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1256es.html

2. http://www.self-gov.org/good/a0039.html

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