AmericaWantsToKnow.com

A blog by Susan Shelley, author of "The 37th Amendment: A Novel"

I’ll be the guest on Christopher Maider’s radio show “The Meat & Potatoes Show,” tonight. It’s conservative talk radio in Worcester, Massachusetts, at midnight Eastern time. Tune in to 91.3 FM if you’re in or near Worcester, or listen on the Internet at www.wcuw.org. That’s midnight Eastern time, 9:00 p.m. Pacific. Tune in, it will be fun!

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Susan Shelley is running for Congress in California’s 30th district, the west and south San Fernando Valley.

As you know if you read America Wants to Know regularly, the writer of this blog is running for Congress in California’s 30th District, the west and south San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. This is the district where longtime Democratic incumbents Brad Sherman and Howard Berman are running against each other, thanks to the redistricting by a citizens’ panel that was instructed to draw the lines without regard to the effects on incumbents.

Redistricting by a citizens’ panel is one of two reforms imposed on the political process in California by angry voters. The other one is the new “top-two” primary system. Instead of each political party having its own primary ballot on June 5, there will be one ballot for all voters, regardless of party registration. All candidates of all parties will be on the ballot, and voters of any party can vote for any one of them. The two candidates with the most votes go on to the November general election, which is effectively a run-off.

These reforms didn’t happen by accident. The ballot measures passed because California voters are upset with their incumbents. It’s fine to say, “People can always vote them out,” but when incumbents can draw safe districts for themselves and raise tons of money by selling access and favors to special interests, potential candidates don’t bother to run against them. No one in the same party can raise the resources for a primary challenge, and no one in the opposing party can raise the resources to run in a district that every political expert rates “safe” for the other side. So when voters go to the polls, there’s effectively (sometimes literally) only one name on the ballot.

This explains the apparent contradiction between the overwhelming re-election victories of longtime incumbents and the overwhelming disgust with longtime incumbents.

Keep that in mind, and let me tell you the story of how I came to be excluded from the upcoming candidate forum sponsored by the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles.

Beginning in late August or early September, the Jewish Journal began to report that I was a candidate in this congressional race. Columnist Bill Boyarsky and reporter/blogger Jonah Lowenfeld told their readers that I was a Jewish Republican. Mr. Boyarsky compared my longshot chances to the campaign in New York’s 9th District, an area with a large Jewish population that recently elected a Republican for the first time since the 1920s.

My e-mail correspondence with both reporters was very cordial.

Then on January 5, I participated in a town hall forum with Congressmen Sherman, Congressman Berman, and Republican candidate Mark Reed. You can see some clips on YouTube here and here, and they may hold clues to the reason for what happened next.

I received a call from Jewish Journal reporter Jonah Lowenfeld. He asked me, in a tone so frosty it could be served in a paper cup at Dairy Queen, if I had “registered” as a candidate.

The filing period for the race doesn’t open until February 13, which is the first date anyone can pull the papers necessary to get on the June ballot, and the Federal Election Commission doesn’t require or accept the forms for a registered political committee until a candidate has raised or spent $5,000. Since I’m doing my own website, video editing, artwork, writing and thinking, I haven’t yet had to raise or spend the kind of funds necessary to hire people to do those things for me, so I haven’t yet raised or spent $5,000.

“How much have you spent?” he asked me. I told him.

“That’s my only question,” he said.

I had heard that the Jewish Journal was planning to sponsor a candidate forum, and before I let him off the phone, I asked if I was invited to it.

“I’m not the one working on that,” Jonah Lowenfeld said, “but there are different criteria that are being considered for who will or won’t be included.”

That was the end of the phone call, and I didn’t hear another word about it until last Thursday afternoon, when someone alerted me that the Jewish Journal’s candidate forum for the 30th congressional district had been scheduled for February 21, and my name wasn’t on the list of those who would be participating.

So I sent an e-mail to the Jewish Journal’s publisher and editor-in-chief, Rob Eshman, asking if I was going to be invited. This is what I received in reply:

Subject: Re: Hello from Susan Shelley, GOP candidate in the 30th congressional district
From: Rob Eshman
Date: Thu, January 19, 2012 5:50 pm
To:

Hi Susan:

The criteria we established were based on fundraising, endorsements and political organization. The three invitees qualified by those criteria. We will have editorial space in the paper prior to the election to present all the candidates, but we chose to limit the debate due to logistics and time. Thank you for understanding.

Best

rob

Rob Eshman | Tribe Media Corp.
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
The Jewish Journal
TRIBE Magazine
jewishjournal.com
everyjew.com

t 213.368.1661 x 108
Robe@jewishjournal.com

I wrote back and said on the contrary, I did not understand why the Jewish Journal was excluding a Republican candidate who is Jewish. I laid out the case for my inclusion in the forum, and I heard nothing back.

On Friday, Gary Aminoff, first vice chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, sent an e-mail to Mr. Eshman and David Suissa, the editor of the Jewish Journal. “Dear Rob and David,” he wrote,

“I believe that you are making an egregious error in excluding Susan Shelley from the Congressional candidate forum on February 21st.

Susan Shelley is a viable candidate for the 30th Congressional District. She is well-funded and is supported by many Republicans in Los Angeles. She is going to pay the fee rather than pulling a “signatures-in-lieu” form. Filing for the seat doesn’t open until February 13th, so she will not be able to file her application until that time.

Susan will be a major force in that race and it would be a mistake to exclude her or ignore her. There are two Republicans in the race: Mark Reed and Susan Shelley. Both should be included in the candidate forum. Both are viable candidates. By the way, Susan Shelley is Jewish, and has the backing of a lot of the Republican Jewish community in the San Fernando Valley.

I urge you to reconsider your decision to exclude her. I have spoken with County Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Don Knabe, to Congressman Howard “Buck” McKeon and to other elected officials. All of whom are appalled that you have decided to exclude a viable, well-funded candidate from the forum.”

On Wednesday I was invited to participate in a 30th congressional district candidate forum to be held at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, tentatively scheduled for March 12, and I was invited to participate in a 30th congressional district candidate forum sponsored by the Granada Hills Chamber of Commerce and the north and south neighborhood councils, tentatively scheduled for April 12. But the Jewish Journal, as of this writing, has not responded to my most recent e-mail, and they have not answered the e-mail sent by Mr. Aminoff.

Why?

In fifteen minutes of Internet research, I had the answer.

On May 12, 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported that in 2009 it was uncertain if the Jewish Journal “would make it to its 25th anniversary next year” but thanks to an $800,000 donation by four philanthropists, the weekly publication “appears to have extended its life expectancy.”

“A group of leading Los Angeles Jewish philanthropists has announced a major financial commitment to The Jewish Journal, the flagship newspaper of the Los Angeles Jewish community,” reported the online publication ejewishphilanthropy.com two days later. “A philanthropic group led by The Journal’s Chairman of the Board, Irwin Field, committed a significant multi-year financial contribution to the undertaking. The group consists of Arthur H. Bilger, founding partner and managing member of Shelter Capital Partners, Peter Lowy, group managing director of the Westfield Group, and an anonymous donor. These philanthropists will join the Board and Executive Committee of Tribe Media Corp. along with Leon C. Janks, Managing Partner of Green, Hasson & Janks LLP.”

On September 12, 2011, Irwin Field made two campaign donations of $2,500 each to Howard Berman. Peter Lowy made two donations of $2,500 to Howard Berman on September 30, 2011. The legal maximum for an individual’s donation to a candidate’s campaign committee is $2,500 per election cycle, so that means they gave the maximum for the June primary and the maximum for the November general. Mrs. Janine Lowy also made two $2,500 donations to Howard Berman on September 30, 2011.

Donations to the three SuperPACs known to be raising “independent expenditure” money for Howard Berman are not public, at least not yet.

Peter Lowy donated $2,500 to Brad Sherman on June 29, 2011, but that was before the new district maps were final, and it was not yet certain that Mr. Berman and Mr. Sherman would be running against each other. The checks totaling $10,000 that went to Howard Berman on September 30 were written in full knowledge that Mr. Berman was running against another Democrat.

And two Republicans.

All four of us participated in a town hall forum sponsored by the Woodland Hills-Tarzana Chamber of Commerce on January 5, yet the Jewish Journal chose to exclude the female Jewish Republican from their own forum.

You can judge for yourself why the people who support Howard Berman would like the Republican alternative to be Mark Reed and not me, but there may be another problem with the Jewish Journal’s icy freeze-out of a GOP candidate described by Republican Party officials as viable and well-funded.

When the Jewish Journal was bailed out by an $800,000 donation from four philanthropists, it reorganized itself into Tribe Media Corp., a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, non-profit organization.

Its mission, reported eJewishPhilanthropy.com: “To strengthen the Jewish community through independent journalism and promote positive values across multiple media platforms.”

“To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code,” says the IRS website, “an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.”

The Jewish Journal is tax-exempt so it can engage in “independent journalism” that strengthens the Jewish community. It may not “participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.”

And it is excluding a viable Republican candidate who is Jewish from a candidate forum, while at least two of the four people who kept the newspaper in business make maximum donations to Howard Berman.

When the restructuring was announced in 2010, Tribe Media Corp.’s Executive Vice President for Advertising and Marketing, Steven Karash, said, “The new structure will allow us to help advertisers reach an influential, upscale and involved demographic.”

Won’t those advertisers be surprised when the demographic reaches back.

If you’d like to ask the Jewish Journal’s advertisers why they’re giving their ad dollars to a paper that’s excluding a Republican Jewish woman from a 30th congressional district candidate forum, call:

SAPAPA, Aminach mattresses
1-855-SAPAPA-5
(818) 980-8045

Museum of Jewish Heritage
(646) 437-4209
info@comingofagenow.org

Skirball Cultural Center
(310) 440-4500

UCLA Extension
(310) 825-9971

Los Angeles Jewish Chamber of Commerce
(866) 257-6117

Shiva Sisters
(310) 447-4123

Hear-X, HearUSA, Inc.
(800) 323-3277

LimmudLA Conference
(310) 499-1787
office@limmudla.org

For anyone who creates content, on a large scale or a small scale, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to get paid for it.

At one time, content creators — who used to be known as writers, actors, directors, songwriters, musicians and sometimes producers — would struggle and struggle until finally they sold something or were cast in something or created something that became wildly popular. Then they would make boatloads of money all at once and sometimes enjoy a continuing stream of payments for years to come.

Then, one day, the Internet happened.

That’s how non-technology people understand it.

On the day the Internet happened, content was converted into ones and zeros and it flew through the darkness in mysterious ways that no one with a tape vault could quite follow.

Let me explain that old reference for all you technology people. There used to be a thing called a lock, and it was on a door, and behind the door were long rows of shelves on which were the finished products of content creators. No one outside was allowed to go inside, and nothing inside was allowed to go outside, and that’s how Snow White sold her virtue over and over again to a new audience of seven-year-olds every seven years.

Then the Internet happened.

Suddenly content creators had a whole new world of opportunity to showcase their work and be seen by millions. No longer did a handful of gatekeepers decide who would glitter in front of the public and who would serve them club sandwiches at DuPar’s.

Alas, the money left next to the napkin dispenser on the table at DuPar’s is a Rockefeller’s fortune next to the money that comes in from the Internet.

Until you’ve actually seen a check for nine cents, you can’t quite experience the sensation. If you’ve ever had the stomach flu, it’s a little like that.

Hollywood studios have spent the last fifteen or twenty years developing one sophisticated copy protection system after another at a cost of considerably more than nine cents, and all they have to show for it is nine cents. Gleeful pirates cheerfully “crack” the files and post the content on servers all around the globe faster than a studio security guard can tell you you’re not on the list.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and its Senate companion, the Protect IP Act, are the culmination of years of anger and frustration in the entertainment industry, driven by rage and resentment at the tech community’s sense of entitlement to other people’s work. Does it seem that Hollywood is unconcerned about the threat SOPA and PIPA pose to the Internet? You bet Hollywood is unconcerned. The faster the Internet is shut down, the sooner everybody in Beverly Hills can get their houses out of foreclosure.

Just the same, SOPA and PIPA have to be stopped.

They have to be stopped because history suggests that they will gum up the works without solving the problem.

Remember when Congress decided to get tough on illegal immigration by requiring everyone in America to show a passport or Social Security card before they could be hired for a job? Did it stop the hiring of illegal immigrants? Or did it just create a massive hassle for employers and employees?

Remember when Congress decided to get tough on meth labs by requiring allergy medicine to be sold behind the pharmacy counter and only to people who showed a photo ID and signed the registry of federal allergy offenders?

Remember when Congress decided to take over airport security?

SOPA and PIPA would require companies like Google to take action to block allegedly copyright-infringing sites. Major technology companies say if the bills become law in anything like their current forms, the security and functioning of the Internet will be devastated. Based on past experience with government attempts to stop criminals by putting new requirements on law-abiding people, there is every reason to think they’re right.

© 2012
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Susan Shelley is running for Congress in California’s 30th District against Rep. Howard Berman and Rep. Brad Sherman, who are co-sponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act. She’s the author of the novel, The 37th Amendment and of a history of the Bill of Rights titled “How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing: A Citizen’s Guide to the Incorporation Doctrine.”

Just in case you’d like to see some clips of yours truly in last week’s 30th Congressional District Town Hall debate, sponsored by the Woodland Hills-Tarzana Chamber of Commerce and held at the Westfield Promenade Mall, here they are.

These clips show my opening statement and my answer to the first question of the evening. More clips will follow. You can subscribe to the SusanShelley2012 channel on YouTube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/SusanShelley2012 if you’d like to see them all.

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Susan Shelley is running for Congress in California’s 30th district, the west and south San Fernando Valley. She’s the author of the novel, “The 37th Amendment,” and of a history of the Bill of Rights titled, “How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing.”

At the 30th congressional district Town Hall forum in Woodland Hills on Thursday night, I was asked if I would support a pre-emptive strike by Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities.

I answered that I would support an Israeli pre-emptive strike.

One of my friends from the Republican Liberty Caucus sent a note asking me about that position.

Our full correspondence is copied below. I hope it will explain my views to all my friends who support Ron Paul and all my friends who support Israel.
___________

Susan Shelley: Great to see you at the debate! Thanks for coming.

Peggy Christensen: Hi Susan, thanks for being a voice for the individual. Only place you lost me was re Israel and pre-emptive strike. I would like to understand more about your reasoning and assessment.

Susan Shelley: What I was trying to say — and if they hadn’t directed that question to me first, I might have had my thoughts more organized before I started answering — was that Israel is a sovereign nation and has the right to defend itself against attacks, including planned or imminent attacks, by hostile entities. If Israel conducted an air strike against nuclear weapons facilities in Iran, I would not condemn Israel. I would support Israel’s right to take action against a nation that has called for its annihilation, if they determine that the nation is building a weapon to accomplish that goal. (I don’t agree with Ron Paul that Iran’s desire to wipe Israel off the map is a mistranslation. I didn’t hear anybody from Iran or any country clarify that they didn’t really desire to wipe Israel off the map.)

I don’t support the idea of the United States launching a pre-emptive strike or war on Iran. I don’t agree with Mark Reed. I agree with Admiral William J. Fallon, who was pushed out as commander of Centcom by President Bush in 2008 after telling Esquire magazine that the United States should not go to war with Iran. Admiral Fallon said what the United States needs for its own security is a combination of “strength and willingness to engage.” And I believe we should only send troops to fight when Congress authorizes it with a declaration of war. These wars with no mission and no end are destructive to freedom; the government claims “wartime” powers, but an undeclared war with no end cannot be a justification for an ever-increasing federal power grab.

In my opinion, most of the problems in the world are caused by collectivism. As those societies fail economically, they engage in all kinds of damaging actions — wars, insane debt, demands for climate reparations from western nations, and, in my view, scapegoating of the Jews. I believe that any country, with any religion or culture or history, can be a peaceful trading partner of the United States if it adopts a constitutional government of limited power that respects and protects individual rights. The tragedy of Iraq and Afghanistan is that we have left those countries in a state of permanent tribal warfare, with no protection for individual rights and no limits on the governments’ power. We assigned troops to “win hearts and minds” by building schools. Dictatorships have schools. Free countries have limited government and individual rights. We shouldn’t have gone into Iraq, and it just compounds the tragedy that our own government couldn’t understand that democracy alone is not freedom. (See “A Plan to Get Out of Iraq” at http://www.extremeink.com/susan/iraq.htm)

The point I wanted to make about supporting Israel with military aid is that the United States government, going back to President Eisenhower and maybe earlier than that, has asked Israel to compromise its own security on many occasions. One very visible example was during the first Gulf War, when Iraq fired Scud missiles into Israel. The U.S. asked Israel not to respond, for fear that Israeli military involvement in the Gulf War would fracture the coalition with the Arab nations that President Bush had put together. So Israeli parents taught their children how to put on a gas mask, and the United States had an obligation to guarantee Israel’s security.

That’s just one example. You can go back to the Sinai campaign in the 1950s and right up to the most recent elections in the Gaza Strip. Those elections, which were held at the urging of President George W. Bush, gave control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas, a terrorist organization that has vowed the destruction of Israel.

Ron Paul has made the point many times that Israel should have the right to defend itself without asking the United States for permission. I agree with him about that.

But I don’t agree that we should completely abandon our military or financial support of Israel. The U.S. has asked Israel to take many, many risks with its own security, because we thought it was necessary to protect some of these authoritarian Arab regimes for whatever reason — the Cold War, or oil, or terror, or something else. Because we asked Israel to take these risks, Israeli citizens are attacked by rockets and threatened with worse. I think we have to hold up our end of the bargain. In my view, many people make the mistake of looking at the Middle East as if the whole fight started a week ago. It started in the late 1940s, and the picture looks very different when you zoom out to that distance.

We may disagree on this one issue, but I hope I’ve clarified what I was trying to say at the debate.

On my campaign website, there are links to some things I’ve written about Israel and related issues. You can find them at http://www.ExtremeInk.com/congress/issues.htm#israel

Thanks for your patience with this long answer.

Best,
Susan

Peggy Christensen: Excellent and thorough response. I appreciate the fact that you have consistently well-thought out and reasoned responses and positions on all of the major issues. Moreover, what you say always makes sense and reflects values that I respect, which I cannot say about any of the other candidates. I am going to share your answer with some friends if that is okay with you ( I assume so, just confirming!)

Susan Shelley: Thanks, Peggy. Of course it’s okay with me to share the response. I should probably post it on my blog, too. I know a lot of the people who support Israel are suspicious of Ron Paul, and a lot of the people who support Ron Paul are suspicious of Israel. Maybe we can find some common ground and work together to win. We’re really all on the same side. We want peace and prosperity. And freedom.

Peggy Christensen: Agreed. I am against the idea of pre-emptive strike in general, because it is an act of aggression, or war. There would have to be compelling and urgent evidence of impending harm to justify it. I take it down to the level of the individual to clarify under what circumstances violence is justified. I would never attack my neighbor just because he made threats against me, but I certainly would be wary and if I really knew he was planning to attack/harm me, I would feel justified in disarming him, even killing him if it escalated to the point where my life was imminently threatened. Meanwhile, I don’t go lookin for fights by interfering with others!

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Editor’s note: You may be interested in the 2008 America Wants To Know post, “Vice President William J. Fallon.”
___________

Susan Shelley is the author of the novel, The 37th Amendment and of a history of the Bill of Rights titled, “How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing.” She’s running for Congress in California’s 30th district, the west and south San Fernando Valley.

My thanks to everyone who called or e-mailed with the same question after seeing the news coverage of the 30th congressional district Town Hall debate Thursday night at Westfield’s Promenade mall in Woodland Hills.

I am standing.

Now you all have the same question again.

Five feet even.

A long time ago I worked with a woman from Paris who was exactly my size. She had a stock answer when people exclaimed that she was only five feet tall. “Zat is all what it takes,” she’d tell them.

Click on the image above to read Jonah Lowenfeld’s account of the debate in the Jewish Journal. Here’s a link to the coverage in the L.A. Times and the L.A. Daily News.

Here’s a video still that shows all the candidates seated:

Maybe the next debate can be held on a plane over Washington D.C., just inside the radius where FAA regulations prohibit passengers from getting out of their seats.

Or maybe someone in Hollywood will locate one of those apple boxes that Lana Turner used for close-ups with Clark Gable. If you have one, put it on eBay and send me an e-mail!

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America Wants to Know author Susan Shelley is running for Congress in California’s 30th District, the west and south San Fernando Valley. Her campaign website can be found at www.SusanShelleyForCongress.com.

To everyone who thinks Google is succeeding because it is using some kind of illegal monopoly powers to crush its competition, here’s something that ought to change your mind.

A cousin sent me a text on New Year’s Eve, in Spanish. Even though I knew what it said, I decided to type the words into an online translator, just to see if they had improved any from the last time I tried one. (See the 2006 post, “Lost in translation.”)

Here’s the translation from Google’s online translator (Click the image to enlarge):

And here’s the translation from Yahoo’s online translator (Click the image to enlarge):

If you can’t quite read that, the message was “Feliz ano nuevo mis hermanos y hermanos. Karyn y yo te amamos mucho.” Google translated it as “Happy new year my brothers and sisters. Karyn and I love you very much.” Yahoo translated the same message as “Happy new anus my brothers and brothers. Karyn and I loved much to you.”

Any questions?

Here’s one. Will everyone in government please stop threatening Google with antitrust prosecutions? Leave them alone. They’re brilliant, they’re giving away free services, and they figured out a way to make money on the Internet. Game, set, match.

Fair and square.

© 2012

Editor’s note: You may be interested in the earlier America Wants To Know post, “How the antitrust laws help incumbents raise money.”
_______

Susan Shelley is running for Congress in California’s 30th District, the west and south San Fernando Valley. She’s the author of the novel, The 37th Amendment and of a history of the Bill of Rights titled How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing.

If you needed any more evidence of the institutional corruption of the United States Congress, we have today the remarks of Nancy Pelosi’s daughter that the former House Speaker “would retire right now, if the donors she has didn’t want her to stay so badly.”

Alexandra Pelosi told Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government that her mother wants to leave Congress and the donors know it. “She has very few days left,” Alexandra said. “She’s 71, she wants to have a life, she’s done. It’s obligation, that’s all I’m saying.”

Did you catch that?

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has an “obligation” to her donors.

She’s been traveling around raising money, and the people who donated that money have made it clear to her that she has an “obligation.”

To do what?

Nothing that can be written down on paper and handed off to Steny Hoyer, apparently. Mrs. Pelosi’s donors have an understanding of some sort with her, personally. And nothing is in writing.

All nice and legal. Or at least unprovable.

They’ve all got to go.

© 2011
_______

Susan Shelley is running for Congress in California’s 30th District, the west and south San Fernando Valley. She’s the author of the novel, The 37th Amendment and of a history of the Bill of Rights titled How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing.

“Two fourth-graders find a way to share school’s food,” reads a Los Angeles Times headline today, “Thanks to the 9-year-old girls, unwanted and leftover lunch items from a Cudahy school go to needy families.”

Heartwarming, isn’t it?

Especially if your heart is warmed by stories that illustrate why government should stop meddling in people’s lives.

You see, this is not a story about the generosity of fourth-graders. This is a story about the massive failure of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s new healthy menu.

“Many of the meals are being rejected en masse,” the L.A. Times reported on December 17. “Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands of students. Principals report massive waste, with unopened milk cartons and uneaten entrees being thrown away. Students are ditching lunch, and some say they’re suffering from headaches, stomach pains and even anemia. At many campuses, an underground market for chips, candy, fast-food burgers and other taboo fare is thriving.”

L.A. Unified’s food services director, Dennis Barrett, said this month the menu will be revised. They’re going to drop beef jambalaya, vegetable curry, pad Thai, lentil and brown rice cutlets, quinoa and black-eyed pea salads, and Caribbean meatballs.

But let’s get back to the two fourth-grade girls, who counted the unopened lunches in the garbage at Jaime Escalante Elementary School in Cudahy, California, and made a graph showing that 500 lunch items per week were going into the trash. So they wrote a letter to Dennis Barrett asking if the school lunches could be donated to needy families.

“At the end of September, Barrett wrote back,” the L.A. Times reported. “He explained that the Board of Education had passed a resolution in April that laid out a food donation policy allowing nonprofit agencies to collect and distribute unopened lunch items. He added that the girls might set up a ‘common table’ where students could leave school food they don’t eat for others who wanted seconds or who wanted to try something new.”

Barrett told the Times that, currently, “71 schools in the district donate unopened food to 21 agencies across the county.”

Isn’t that nice.

Everyone in the bureaucracy is so proud. They have a healthful menu that is culturally diverse and they are feeding needy families. Check, check and check.

Bureaucrats don’t care about outcomes, only process. To a bureaucrat, a problem solved is a job lost.

So taxpayers foot the bill for school lunches, and the kids go hungry. The district’s budget hemorrhages money for ivory-tower consultants who think children will eat lentil and brown rice cutlets. Elementary school students sit in class with headaches and stomach pain, and high school students learn how to run a black market for candy bars.

This is happening because the federal government takes too much money from the American people, leaving the states unable to collect enough revenue from those same taxpayers to meet the states’ responsibilities. Then the federal government magnanimously gives the states money to pay for things like education and school lunches. This puts local school officials in the position of always having to please federal authorities.

If Michelle Obama had decided to devote her First Lady-hood to the promotion of electric cars, children in the Los Angeles Unified School District might be happily eating corn dogs and pizza right now. “Get out of here with your lentils,” Dennis Barrett might have told the anti-obesity activists, “We’re serving lunch to fight hunger, not cause it.”

But he can’t say that. Everybody in the school district has to worry about losing federal funds, and that means they have to smile and like it, no matter what the federal government tries to shove down their throats.

That’s the difference between a school district official and a fourth-grader.

© 2011
_____

Susan Shelley is running for Congress in California’s 30th District, the west and south San Fernando Valley. She is writing a book titled “Uncle Sam’s Nickel” about revitalizing the economy by replacing the current federal tax code with a five-percent flat tax. Read more about it in “Restoring the Raise: How to Cause a Labor Shortage in America” at www.SusanShelley.com.

Does the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) allow the government to detain American citizens indefinitely without charges or trial?

Rep. Tim Griffin, a freshman Republican congressman from Arkansas and a 16-year member of the U.S. Army Reserve’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, says it doesn’t.

That would be a lot more credible if we didn’t have a president who sent the U.S. military to Libya without congressional authorization and okayed the death-by-drone of an American citizen in Yemen.

The New York Times just filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department for the legal memorandum detailing “the scope of the circumstances in which it is lawful for government officials to employ targeted killing as a policy tool.”

The Times’ complaint states, “Both before and after the death of [Anwar] al-Awlaki, NYT duly filed FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests seeking memoranda that detail the legal analysis behind the government’s use of targeted lethal force.”

The Justice Department won’t give them anything.

That’s not good.

Here’s the problem: everything in the war on terror is secret, and secrecy allows mistakes (and worse) to go undetected. Forever.

So if the U.S. government detains an American citizen in the belief that he’s a deep-cover, high-ranking, jihad-waging member of al-Qaeda, nobody will be able to check to see if it’s true. Nobody will be able to say, “Hey, that guy who phoned in the tip is a liar.”

We can be manipulated quite easily by rivals for power in faraway places.

Nobody wants to see a terrorist escape the clutches of justice and go on to kill hundreds or thousands of people, but the purpose of “due process of law” is not the protection of the guilty. It’s the protection of the innocent and wrongly accused.

It’s in the Constitution twice.

The ancient legal protection of habeas corpus, which prevents the government from locking people up forever without charges or trial, is not something Congress can scratch out of the law with an amendment to a defense bill in the year-end rush to get home for Christmas. The courts won’t stand for it. This is not a close call.

But it’s a disgrace that Congress even passed an amendment that civil libertarians believe may allow the federal government to detain American citizens indefinitely without due process of law.

Whatever the lawmakers’ intention, it’s an unacceptable risk to liberty.

© 2011

Editor’s note: You may be interested in the 2008 America Wants to Know post, “The innocent tomatoes,” and the 2007 post, “The trouble with waterboarding.”
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Susan Shelley is running for Congress in California’s 30th District. She’s the author of The 37th Amendment, a novel set in the year 2056, forty years after the guarantee of “due process of law” is removed from the U.S. Constitution.