Team Watch 22 Exposes Congressman Hinchey's Extremism

TeamWatch NY 22   has produced this video (h/t Mike Marnell).  TeamWatch NY describes its mission:

We believe one  reason the recent protest movement may not have been as effective as it possibly could have been is that most citizens engaged the process of political  activism as disgruntled Americans.  Many elected officials were more unsettled by the presence of  angry constituents than willing to listen to their many concerns.  With disdain  congressman and senators asked, “Where have you been until now?”

Congressman Hinchey "serves" the 22nd Congressional District in New York.  TeamWatch 22 is a group of fine citizens who have done their homework and taken the time to confront a congressman whose fringe positions have become an embarrassment to his district.

I doubt that Representative Hinchey will respond to TeamWatch NY 22's call for a town meeting.  Simply put, Hinchey lacks the character.  As well, it would be an acid test as to whether he is deteriorating mentally, and he likely does not want to take that test. 

Agenda 21: Ignorance Is Not a State of Grace

Agenda 21 is a UN statement that, in 1992, was signed by the United States under the George H. Bush administration.  It advocates globalization, extreme environmentalism, and increasing the United Nation’s control over local governance. It is consistent with Congressman Maurice Hinchey’s proposal to turn Ulster County  into a federal park and with increasing Wall Street’s control of water rights, farm land, and local governance.  It can be read at http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/.

Coprolite: A Good Vocabulary Word to Describe Congressman Maurice Hinchey

I found a good vocabulary word to describe Congressman Maurice Hinchey.

cop·ro·lite

   [kop-ruh-lahyt] 

–noun

a stony mass consisting of fossilized fecal matter of animals.

Review of Ron Paul's "End the Fed"

 I just submitted this piece to Mike Marnell's Lincoln Eagle. It may appear in the June or July issue.

Review: Ron Paul's End the Fed

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.*

Ron Paul, End The Fed.  New York: Grand Central Publishing. 2009. 212 pages.

"There was no food, however, in the whole region because the famine was severe; both Egypt and Canaan wasted away…They came to (Joseph)…and said, 'We cannot hide from our lord the fact that since our money is gone and our livestock belongs to you, there is nothing left for our lord except our bodies and or land. Why should we perish before your eyes…Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh…and Joseph reduced the people to servitude, from one end of Egypt to the other." --Genesis 47: 13-22

            I have just finished Representative Ron Paul's End the Fed.  I consider it must reading for all Americans, but especially for Congressman Maurice Hinchey and most other local politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike. For a century American citizens have chosen, ostrich-like, to avoid discussion about the Federal Reserve Bank. Their head-in-the-sand attitude is encouraged by the legacy media, all of which is owned by interests beholden to Wall Street, which, along with commercial banks, government employees and big businesses benefit from the Federal Reserve Bank's redistribution of wealth from you to them.  The Fed does this by printing dollars, making yours worth less and soon, according to Representative Paul, worthless. 

            The fact is that the richer you are the more you benefit from the current Federal Reserve Bank system, and the media is indebted to the super-rich. George Soros, for instance, just gave funding to National Public Radio. Warren Buffett owns stakes in The Washington Post and Capital Cities ABC.  General Electric and Bill Gates own MS-NBC.  Sumner Redstone owns CBS. As far back as 1912, The New York Times silenced presidential candidate Robert M. La Follette when he publicly stated that the magazine industry, like the newspaper industry of the day, had fallen under Wall Street's editorial domination.  To this day the Ochs Sulzbergers, the inheritors of The Times who oppose inheritance for everyone else but have never opposed family trusts for the super-rich, are key apologists for the Federal Reserve Bank.

            In his book, Representative Paul makes clear why you should pay no attention whatsoever to the legacy media-- NPR, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, or Newsmax.  The Federal Reserve Bank is the single most important story of today, yet none of the legacy media chooses to explain what it is doing to you financially.

            In a nutshell, the Federal Reserve prints money, uses it to buy bonds from commercial banks, which then expand the amount of money up to ten-fold and lend much of it to Wall Street, hedge funds, sub-prime real estate interests, big companies, and government. The last, in turn, subsidizes special interest lobbies like government employees, the Association of Trial Lawyers (now called the American Association for Justice), and the National Lawyers' Guild.   The economics profession gains considerable prestige and power from this arrangement, and has become a vested interest just like any other. Any economist who defends the Fed, and virtually all do, is part of the economic chicanery that is bringing America down.   

            The Fed has been badly managed, and in his book Representative Paul shows why.  Big, money center banks in New York City lend the Fed's counterfeit printed money to incompetently run Wall Street firms which invest it in bubble investments that make money in the short run but crash in the longer run. Then, rather than allow the badly run Wall Street firms to collapse, economists and the legacy media clamor for even bigger investments to the badly run firms in part at taxpayers' expense and in part through more counterfeit.  Although manipulative politicians like Representative Hinchey postured about the first bailout, they know that their interests coincide with Wall Street's, hedge fund managers' the super rich's and the National Lawyers' Guild's. The success of Representative Hinchey's favorite programs depends on Federal Reserve Bank credit expansion. Representative Hinchey would likely be poorer without the Fed.

            Where does the wealth come from which is allocated to Wall Street and Hinchey-style government mismanagement? It comes from you. The Congressman whom you have been electing has benefited from the Federal Reserve Bank's fraud for his entire career, most recently by voting against an audit Representative Paul proposed that would have required the Fed to show how much wealth it is diverting from your pocket via rising prices to firms like Mitsubishi Bank, Deutsche Bank, Citibank and other trans-national banks.  Americans' real (inflation-adjusted) hourly wage hasn't risen since 1970, but lots of money has been diverted to foreign banks and corporations.   You can see why Hinchey voted against an audit of the Fed. People who have nothing to hide hide nothing.

            So, Representative Paul concludes, the dollar is going to collapse, and that will make you worse off. It might throw you out of work, or it might cause a gradual or perhaps a rapid hyper-inflation that will reduce your standard of living.  The fault clearly rests with Congress, including your representative, Maurice Hinchey.  But how do you prepare for the coming economic decline for which Americans have voted?

            For me, there are three kinds of investments that make sense. I hope to eventually retire, not to make big money through speculation.  I don't recommend this for you; rather, you need to think for yourself.  In my case I am first gradually putting a large share of my savings in gold (GLD) and silver (SLV), 20 or 30 percent.  Second, I am taking a stake in other commodities, especially agriculture (DBA) and oil (DBO).  Third, for cash income I am buying high dividend yielding stocks such as Verizon (VZ) and Philip Morris (MO and PM).  If the dollar collapses, Philip Morris will still sell cigarettes.

            Congressman Ron Paul is pessimistic about the end result of the Federal Reserve Bank's policies. If you want to pretend that what we face today is business as usual, I will buy you a ticket to an ostrich farm I know of in Big Indian, and you can plan to retire there. Meanwhile, read Ron Paul's End the Fed and face the facts-- both parties have been complicit in wrecking the American way of life. Monetary debasement has accelerated and will eventually harm you. Currency collapses end freedom, what you know as the American way of life.  We are in the endgame now. There is nothing left for Soros, Buffett, Goldman Sachs, Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and the American Association for Justice (what a laugh) to steal.  If you believe the legacy media you will get hurt.

 

*Mitchell Langbert is associate professor of business at Brooklyn College. He blogs at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com

How Government Causes Your Gasoline Prices to Be High

The subject of high gasoline prices is on everyone's mind (h/t Mike Marnell).  The Department of Energy produces well known statistics  (also here) that break down the national average cost of gasoline:

Taxes: 14%

Distribution and Marketing: 10%

Refining: 5%

Crude Oil: 71%.

Of the 86% other than taxes, the percentage due to profit varies.  Sunoco is less profitable than Exxon, for instance.    Exxon makes 8.2% post-tax profit on sales, so when you go to Exxon you pay 8.2% x 86% = 7.1% in profit to Exxon and 14% in government taxes.  If you go to Sunoco you pay 1.2% x 86% or 1%.  At Exxon, taxes are twice profit, at Sunoco they are 14 times profit.   Note that these numbers are not risk-adjusted. In 2009 Sunoco lost money.  To be fair, returns should be adjusted for legitimate risk of loss.

If you parcel out the federal and state average tax and look at New York State the picture is worse. The Tax Foundation reports that as of January 1, 2011 New York had the second highest tax on gasoline in the country: 47 cents per gallon.   The federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. The total is 65.4 cents per gallon.  The AAA's Daily Fueld Gauge Report indicates that on May 30, the average price per gallon in New York was $4.03.  That means that taxes are closer to 16.23% rather than 14%.  Thus, in New York the breakdown looks like:

Taxes: 16.23%
Distribution and Marketing: 9.7%
Refining: 4.9%
Crude Oil: 69.2%

Thus, in New York Exxon shareholders do worse than nationally but because of low profits, Sunoco's shareholders do about the same as nationally.  Exxon makes 8.2% x 83.77% or 6.9% profit compared to government's 16.23% share. That is, Exxon's shareholders make 42.6% of what is taken in gasoline taxes (not counting sales and income taxes).  Sunoco's shareholders make 1.2% x 83.77%  or 1%. Sunoco shareholders get one sixteenth of what government takes.

Even more importantly, the explanation for Exxon’s profits is not higher prices. If it were, Exxon would lose business to Sunoco because of the higher prices. But Exxon's prices are not appreciably higher than Sunoco's, and Exxon has been more profitable than Sunoco for a long time. Rather, Exxon’s higher profits are due to better efficiencies, economies of scale, better reserves and the like.   

Recently my local congressman, Maurice Hinchey, proposed to tax oil companies' profits because of rising gasoline prices. But 14% of the price is due to Hinchey and his fellow congressmen, while only 8.2% in the case of Exxon or 1.2% in the case of Sunoco benefits shareholders.  By taxing profits Hinchey would aim to penalize efficiency. This could make Exxon less eager to minimize price. If it is the low cost producer, then its raising price will enable Sunoco and other producers to raise their prices. Hence, Hinchey's economic illiteracy, his eagerness to raise taxes, could make gasoline more expensive across the board. By penalizing efficient producers Hinchey would make them less efficient, causing them to aim to raise prices.


This would be much like what Hinchey has done with respect to government.  During his tenure in Congress, Ulster County's economy has been a disaster area.  The reason is the economically illiterate policies that Hinchey advocates: his penchant for an environmental extremism that trumps economic welfare, and his pandering to wealthy trust fund babies and elite professionals in Woodstock and New Paltz, who are all too eager to grind the average working person's economic welfare under the heels of their Birkenstock sandals.

Does Maurice Hinchey Suffer from Alzheimer's?

Last winter there were rumors circulating that Congressman Hinchey's mental capacities were flagging due to old age.  My grandfather sadly suffered from this disease prior to his death in 1971 and I am very empathetic to those who suffer from it, as I am to Mr. Hinchey.  In an e-mail back in March '10 one of the editors of the Hudson Valley Business Journal denied that Hinchey is suffering from Alzheimers:

> "Where on earth did you hear that Mr. Hinchey has Alzheimers? I'm not saying it can't be so (I honestly do not know), but it would definitely surprise me and, no, I have not heard such, even in rumors, from anybody....although anything is possible, I suppose. He is slowing down a bit - but I also know he's still running for re-election, officially anyway."

However, there is now additional evidence, specifically Hinchey's responses in Thursday night's debate with George Phillips.  Reporting for the Kingston Freeman William J. Kemble notes that Hinchey:

"...several times needed questions repeated for him and at one point responded when the moderator asked, 'Please detail your deficit reduction priorities?' by saying, 'I’m not sure what you mean by that. What deficit? My deficit personally?'

For a member of the House Appropriations Committee not to know what a reporter means by "deficit reduction" is not a sign of mental acuity.  I doubt that acai berry pills will help, incidentally.

Hinchey Batters Reporter as His Campaign Spins

Several people from the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party have commented on Congressman Hinchey's assault and battery of Kingston Freeman reporter Bill Kemble. 

One notes:

>Mo needs a "Time Out". We make our kids sit on the first step when they misbehave. Mo has been misbehaving for a long time.


He is too powerful and too arrogant. It's time for Mo to Go.

Let's put him on the first step This November.

Another provides some additional evidence about the assault:

>And they were right next to me when it happened. Kemble was showing Hinchey a paper from Tivoli about a plan to bring ferry service to the "Hinchey Hotel" and Hinchey got all flustered." He had a glare in his eye that could kill. I looked away for a moment and then from the corner of my eye saw Hinchey shoving Kemble. While one of Hinchey's staff was trying to get Hinchey to back off I yelled, "let me get my camara" and Hinchey took off. Hinchey actually shoved Kemble into someone who was headed into the bathroom. A friend of mine who was in the lobby saw it as well.

>I recall it was only about two years ago that Hinchey had a similar encounter with someone at a gun show in Rosendale where he grabed a guy by the neck. I understand from people who knew him as a teenager that this is the same type of behavior that as a teenager led a judge to give him a choice between going to jail or enlisting in the military."

>YNN television (h/t Robin Yess) describes the spin that Hinchey's campaign is putting on his violent behavior here.  It is ironic that the Democratic Party condones violence among its elected officials but criticizes anyone whose lifestyle choices are politically incorrect.

Congressman Hinchey Violently Attacks Kingston Freeman Reporter

H/t Robin Yess and hotair.com



George Phillips has questioned Congressman Maurice Hinchey's involvement in a real estate project in Saugerties called the Partition Street project.  Hinchey has long claimed that he has brought "pork" to the Ulster County economy.  The problem with this claim is that the Ulster County economy's growth has been zero since Hinchey was elected.  While the rest of the nation has gained 20% in employment, Ulster County's employment number has not grown at all; it has been two percent over Hinchey's eighteen year tenure.  The stagnant economy is directly related to the regulation and high taxes, and specifically the environmental regulation that Hinchey has put into place.  In other words, Hinchey has directly cost Ulster County 17,000 jobs.  Stupidly, he has been advertising that he has brought 1,000 "green" jobs into the county.  Given that the county's job growth has been nearly zero, Hinchey appears to be unable to figure out that a gain of 1,000 jobs compared to a loss of 18,000 jobs yields the result of his 18 years in office: a loss of 17,000 jobs. Moreover, and even more disgustingly, Hinchey and his cronies appear to have benefited financially from many of the "pork" projects that he paradoxically claims have helped the Ulster County economy.  Paradoxically because the Ulster County economy has underperformed the national economy by 20% over Hinchey's 18 year tenure.

Hinchey started out life as a Saugerties "tough guy" with a pack of cigarettes tucked in his rolled up shirt sleeve.  In the video above, Hinchey's aggressive, authoritarian nature shines through.  Authoritarianism is linked to antisemitism, of which Ed Koch has recently accused Hinchey.  It is not surprising, then, that Hinchey actually became violent following the above video clip and physically attacked left-wing Kingston Freeman reporter Bill Kemble.  According to hotair.com:

After the shooters turned off their cameras and started to break down, Hinchey made a beeline for Kemble and got in his face, according to a YNN videographer who was on the scene. The congressman poked Kemble in the chest aggressively, according to the YNN staffer.
I spoke with Kemble briefly this afternoon, and he told me Hinchey “put his hand on my throat” and then “realized what he had done and walked away.” The YNN shooter told me he did not witness this part of the altercation.

It is amazing and disappointing to my opinion of the electoral process that an individual as ugly as Maurice Hinchey has been given access to the reins of power in Washington.  From the likes of Hinchey totalitarianism is born.

Phillips Trounces Hinchey in Saugerties Debate

George Phillips debated anti-Semitic Congressman Maurice Hinchey in a debate Thursday night.  Phillips must have bolted over there after his dynamic opening speech at the Ulster County Republican Committee dinner.  According to the left-wing Kingston Freeman Hinchey's performance was dismal.  As a member of the House Appropriations Committee Hinchey was unaware that there is a federal deficit and expressed ignorance as to what the implications of increasing deficits might be. 

Hinchey's Anti-Semitism May Cost Him His Seat

Ed Koch's recent endorsement of George Phillips has underscored Congressman Maurice Hinchey's longstanding anti-Israel and anti-Semitic pattern.   Glenda McGee just forwarded a Politico article that mentions Hinchey as one of an unusually large number of threatened Democratic congressional seats this year.  I was just down in Broward County, Florida visiting my dad and noticed a huge number of signs for Allen West, the wonderful Afro-American conservative running down there. Given the atmosphere of disdain for liberal Democrats, Hinchey's anti-Semitism may put the kibosh on his election.  

 

Maurice Hinchey's Anti-Semitism

Ed Morrissey blogged yesterday about Ed Koch's endorsement of George Phillips in the New York 22nd congressional race.  I hope Mr. Morrissey doesn't mind if I quote him at length:

"Why is Koch opposing the Democratic incumbent? Koch is apparently unhappy with Hinchey over the nine-term Congressman’s hostility towards Israel. In his speech, Koch will hit Hinchey over his 2002 meeting with Yasser Arafat at the PLO leader’s headquarters, one of only three members of the House that met with Arafat there. Hinchey also “voted against the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism act, designed to promote the development of democratic institutions in areas under the administrative control of the Palestinian Authority,” and refused to sign either the Poe-Peters or Hoyer-Cantor letters which supported Israel’s right to control access to Gaza to prevent armaments to flow into the Hamas-controlled territory.


"It’s not just Israel, either. Hinchey voted against tougher sanctions on Iran as well, which Koch will mention in his announcement. Koch will also hail Phillips for his work while on the staff of Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) on foreign policy, especially on legislative efforts to force UN reform by purging support for terrorism and antisemitism at Turtle Bay."

My friend, Lincoln Eagle publisher Mike Marnell, was at the Ed Koch announcement.  Ron Lauder, head of the American Jewish Congress, also announced that he will support Phillips, according to Marnell. Hinchey's distaste for Israel goes beyond the usual left-wing support for terrorism.  I have heard a rumor that there will be a demonstration to protest Hinchey's anti-Semitism in the coming weeks.

Salve on Heller's Attack

This week the Olive Press, our local penny saver, carried a story  about the newsletter I mailed concerning the Town of Olive Republican Committee's meeting at the Shokan American Legion Hall on September 23 at 7:00.  Also, there were two letters about me again, one defending me from Gus Murphy's (I assume humorous) threat to punch me in the nose (or something like that) and another from a guy named Murray Heller calling me a simpleton.  I wrote a response to Mr. Heller's letter. Hopefully this will stir up the pot a little more.  Also, note the reference to Leo Strauss at the end.

Dear Editor:

In 2007 The Business Council rated economic growth in the New York counties.  Growth that matched the nation's average growth in five categories: jobs, average wages, total personal income, per-capita personal income and population received an A+. Those that lagged the nation's average in all five areas received an F.   About half of New York's county's, including Ulster and Warren, received an F.  There are many people satisfied with poverty. They vote for Democrats. Others are Democratic activists eager to accrue benefits to themselves but to impoverish others.  Congressman Maurice Hinchey is in this latter category.  He has produced "pork" for himself and his political cronies but given trichinosis to Ulster County's economy. Nationally, employment growth has been about 20 percent since Hinchey's election.  Here in trichinosis-, or should I write Hincheynosis-, afflicted Ulster County, job growth since 1990 has been about zero.  The same is true of Warrensburg, Murray Heller's Hinchitopia where on any winter morning the unemployed congregate in the local diner.    

I appreciate Murray Heller's candor.  Congressman Hinchey has generally attempted to paint himself as a moderate. Heller makes clear that he would like to see Hinchey do here what he has done to the Adirondacks.  Heller also seems to imply that regulations on your eating habits are fair game for the Democratic Party's "moderates."  Here in Ulster County Hinchey has broken up extended families because children cannot find jobs.  Heller, writing from one of his two residences, makes clear that Hincheynosis has been good to him because he can enjoy beautiful views, free of pesky, lower class peasants who disagree with his progressive, Democratic Party religion and might run power saws that disturb him. As well, Heller considers me a simplistic "true believer" because I disagree.  For Hinchey and Heller, politics is a religion and all who disagree must be damned.  

In Natural Right and History (p. 184) Leo Strauss adumbrates the origin of the left's religious commitment to the state.  It arises from the foundation of liberalism. Hobbes built on Machiavelli and converted the biblical notion of a state of pure nature and the fall with a possibility of grace to the Enlightenment notion of a state of nature characterized by natural right and the liberal equivalent of grace, a natural rights-based civil society.  Building on Strauss's interpretation of Hobbes, the left's religious faith in the state travels through Hegel's providential laws of history to Marx's teleological messianism. The Bismarckian welfare state that was based on the socialization of Christianity and preceded Nazism by 40 years came to America through institutionalists (today called progressives) like Richard T. Ely and John R. Commons.  Progressivism integrated the social Gospel with German historicism and American Populism, and when combined with Marx's atheism produced a new religion of state worship. This religion that Mr. Heller advocates suggests that any human activity is immoral and that nature must be preserved for the elite, of which he considers himself a member. Heller adduces proof of his elite status: his friendship with the publisher of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.

The eviction of the average person from his home in order to provide aesthetically pleasing environments for the affluent and the super-rich has been part of the left's catechsim ever since the residents of Olive were evicted from the Ashokan and then the New York Times supported Robert Moses's eviction of one sixteenth of New York City residents. Today New York City reflects the flowering of this value system.  Only the super rich, of whom Mr. Heller approves because they agree with him about Hinchey, can afford to live in Manhattan after eleven decades of taking advice from the Ochs Sulzbergers, who undoubtedly would also call my views simplistic. 

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

Maurice Hinchey Is So 14th Century

About two years ago Congressman Maurice Hinchey proposed to affix price controls to gasoline.  This recent example of economic illiteracy is hardly surprising. Polls have consistently found that social democrats have virtually no understanding of economics, which is probably why they are social democrats in the first place.  Sadly, this level of ignorance is shared by both parties, both of which supported the "bailout".

The popular image of the Middle Ages is that there was little knowledge about markets and that all of society lived happily on a feudal estate where there was no money and no economy in the modern sense. This claim has been turned into Tönnies's sociological constructs of "gemeinschaft" and "geselleschaft".  The gemeinschaft economy supposedly characteristic of the Middle Ages was one governed by organic unity, common beliefs and the like, whereas the geselleschaft economy is more or less the market economy.

It turns out that the vision of the Medieval economy on which Tönnies's constructs were based is wrong.  Also, it appears that by the 14th century European monarchs already had better economic understanding than today's Democrats.  In other words, there was a practical but likely not a theoretical understanding of how markets work.  Fourteenth century monks knew more about economics than my economically illiterate congressman, Maurice Hinchey.

Allow me to quote a passage concerning English history from Joel Kaye's essay "Monetary and Market Consciousness in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Europe" which appears on pages 379-80 of Lowry and Gordon's "Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice":

 "The clearest witness to this perception among English chroniclers is the author of the Via Edwardi Secundi. Though this chronicle was intended to record the reign of Edward II and his struggles, thoughts about money and prices continually crop up, as if they, in themselves, had historical significance to the writer and his audience.


"In 1315 after the military disaster at Bannockburn and in reaction to a terrible harvest and steeply rising prices, the chronicler records that Parliament, 'looking to the welfare of the state, appointed a remedy for this malady'. Prices on common foodstuffs such as oxen, pigs, sheep and chickens were fixed by law. The next year, 1316, Parliament was forced to reverse itself and cancel the maximum price edicts it had imposed even though the country was still in the grip of a disastrous harvest and rising prices.  Here is how the chronicler explains it:

"'The regulations formerly made about food were completely abolished...For as a result of that statute little or nothing was exposed for sale in the markets, whereas formerly there had been an abundant market in goods, though they seemed dear to travelers.  But it is better to buy dear than to find in the case of need that there is nothing to be had.  For although scarcity of corn raises the price, subsequent plenty will improve the situation.'

"Not only does the author choose to include this particular act of Parliament in his chronicle (when up to this point he mentioned Parliament only briefly and then only when it concerned King Edward), but he sees fit to add his own thoughts on the subject.  He notes that goods disappear as the result of price fixing and that high price is preferable to scarcity....

"There is no doubt that  a systematic conception of the market as a dynamic, self-regulating system constructed around the instrument of money had long been held among traders and those whose livelihood centered on trade. A glance at the journals of fourteenth-century merchants reveals how sophisticated their understanding of the market had become, and how central this understanding was to every aspect of their activity."

In fact, fourteenth century merchants had greater economic sophistication than social democratic congressmen of 21st century America.

Bureau of Land Management and US Forestry Service Racketeering Organizations--Sheriff Defends Wayne Hage, Threatens Force

 Congressman Maurice Hinchey recently proposed to turn the Hudson Valley into a federal park.  The legal ramifications of this proposal have been ignored by the area's woefully uninformed media. Mike Marnell forwarded this series of videos, which illustrates how federal regulation can easily escalate into ugly violence against landowners. This video appears on Daily Paul.com.

In the video Sheriff Tony DeMeo describes that the Bureau of Land Management and the Forestry Service attempted to steal Wayne Hage's, a rancher's, water rights in order to stop him from ranching.  This resulted in a law suit.  During the course of the law suit Hage was surrounded by armed federal agents who violently stole his cattle. In 2006 Hage died but the law suit continues.  Special Agent Matthews tried to seize Hage's cattle again following Hage's death.  Demeo describes Matthews as ignorant of basic concepts of the US Constitution.

In response to repeated threats of violence from the two federal agencies, Sheriff Demeo told them that  he would enforce the Constitution.  He told the a US Forestry Service official that he would arrest their agents if they illegally harassed Hage.  A US attorney threatened DeMeo with arrest.  DeMeo told his deputy that if the US government used armed agents he would employ his swat team against them and arrest them.  DeMeo had to explain basics about civics, specifically about the Bill of Rights, to ignorant federal employees. DeMeo told them that they could not seize cattle without a court order. BLM attempted to serve Hage with a bogus summons for leaving garbage in a dumpster on his own property.

Surprisingly, a federal court gave the land rights to Hage (the spirit of racketeering has not reached the lower level federal courts...yet) and awarded him $4 million.  The federal government continues to issue trespassing summonses against Hage's son and heir, the rightful owner of the land.  DeMeo asserts that the case is related to an attempt by the federal government to monopolize control of food production.

In 2004 BLM petitioned Nevada counties to give them law enforcement authority.  Sheriff DeMeo opposed this proposal to breach the Tenth Amendment.  This is the kind of affront to expect in the wake of a federalized Hudson Valley Park. 

Phillips: Hinchey’s Federal Park Proposal Will Do Harm

I just submitted this piece to Mike Marnell's Lincoln Eagle.

Kingston, August 2. In a press conference held on the courthouse steps on Wall Street, congressional candidate George Phillips outlined problems with incumbent Congressman Maurice Hinchey’s federal park proposal for the Hudson Valley. “Turning the Hudson Valley into a federal park would cause further economic decline here,” Phillips said. Phillips noted that the region’s economy is suffering and that the additional regulation and bureaucracy that the United States Parks Service would impose would cost even more jobs than have been lost during Mr. Hinchey’s tenure in office since 1992. Since then, employment in Ulster County has grown at one fifth of the national rate. Perhaps the best part of the economic picture in Ulster County is the inaccurate one that the Democratic media has painted concerning the “pork” that Mr. Hinchey has won. Although Hinchey has obtained pork, he has harmed the economy more generally, with a net economic loss to the region because of his incumbency. “Saying that Mr. Hinchey has been helpful to the economy here when employment growth in Ulster County has been a small fraction of the national average is silly,” Phillips noted in an extended interview at Dunkin’ Donuts after his press conference.

Even the Democratic Party media’s misleading depiction of the effects of Mr. Hinchey’s activities has been faltering. Phillips pointed out that on July 4 the New York Times reported on ethical malfeasance on Hinchey’s part. To avoid a congressional ban on earmarks to for-profit firms, Mr. Hinchey and his associates set up a shell corporation called the Solar Energy Consortium that received $30 million and is now improperly funneling the money to for-profit firms.

“But don’t believe for a minute that despite Mr. Hinchey’s ethical problems there is enough pork to undo the damage that he has done to the local economy,” Phillips noted. The county’s economy has declined since Mr. Hinchey assumed office in the early 1990s. The reason is a set of environmental regulations that Mr. Hinchey advocated called the “greenway.” Mr. Hinchey supports limiting economic growth in Ulster County, except for grants to his political supporters, and the outcome has been slower employment growth than elsewhere in the country. Now that the banking crisis has further limited growth, population is likely to exit the region. “Only wealthy summer residents from New York City can afford to live here because of Mr. Hinchey’s incumbency,” congressional candidate Phillips observed.

Mr. Phillips adds that almost every single pork project that Mr. Hinchey has obtained has involved “money being put into the Congressman’s own pockets or those of his cronies and donors.” Moreover, “Pork cannot compensate for the economically depressing regulation and high taxes that Mr. Hinchey has consistently supported.”

Phillips offers an alternative vision for the region: “less government, lower taxes and a new focus on ethics.”

Hinchey's Land Grab

Paul Smart, editor of the Olive Press, our local penny saver, printed my letter this month attacking Progressivism.  I have had a multi-month debate in the letters section with Gus Murphy of Brooklyn (why a guy from Brooklyn reads the Olive Press I'm still trying to grasp) but this month I wrote on a different topic, Congressman Hinchey's insane federal parks proposal. Have the people of Ulster County lost their minds to elect someone like Hinchey?

Dear Mr. Smart:

Congressman Maurice Hinchey has proposed to turn the Hudson Valley into a federal park. Mr. Hinchey has a long history of advocating extremist environmental policies that bestow dictatorial powers on government administrators. Repeatedly, he has painted such proposals as moderate. He did this with respect to a 1990s bill that he proposed when he was chair of the State Assembly's Environmental Conservation Committee. The bill that would have set up Soviet-style planning boards that would have limited if not ended construction. He managed to convince the previously skeptical Adirondack Daily Enterprise that this idea was moderate.
Around the same time Hinchey said that he would like to restrain economic growth in the Hudson Valley. His plan involved setting up environmental regulations known as the "greenway". He and his fellow Democrats succeeded in their goal of deliberately restricting economic growth. Employment in Ulster County has grown at one fifth the national rate since 1992 when Mr. Hinchey assumed his Congressional seat (and by under two percent since 1990, less than one ninth the national rate of employment growth). Now, Mr. Hinchey aims to further destroy Ulster County's economy by eliminating the rule of law through a federal park that would serve as a Trojan Horse to introduce federal control of the region.

The notion of the rule of law is apparently unfamiliar to Mr. Hinchey's supporters in the Democratic media, which serves as a Hinchey-for-Congress publicity service. To refresh your memory, please allow me to explain how a federal park will eliminate the rule of law.

The concept of the rule of law is that law must be predictable and subject to change only through the gradual process of judicial decision making called stare decisis (judges' use of precedents to maintain a stable set of legal rules) or legislation. In America, the founders established a Constitution to establish but limit federal power. The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791 to clarify the limits. This was also done through the separation of powers across the branches of the federal government and federalism, the division of power between the states and the federal government.  Under the Tenth Amendment, rights not delegated to the federal government are retained by the states and the people.

Establishing a federal park would hand dictatorial powers to a park adminsitrator and abolish the division of power between federal and local control. It might also eliminate the separation of powers between the legislative and the executive branch in the sense that a parks administrator potentially would have unlimited power to make rules. Although the law might initially restrain such arbitrary power, the US Congress, in which Ulster County residents have scant voice, could change the law at will.  

More importantly, a park would eliminate state level rule of law, handing all decisions to a federal bureaucracy, in crucial areas like construction, land ownership, well digging, septic construction, fishing, hunting, wood burning, driving, smoking, eating, agriculture, establishing a business, building a camp, and virtually any other activity with any imaginable environmental impact. The park administrator could arbitrarily change the law. Even if that is not true in the beginning, Congress could endow the park administrator with new powers  over residents' protests.   That is precisely what Congressman Hinchey has repeatedly tried to do with respect to the hapless residents of the Adirondacks and Utah (he has repeatedly proposed a bill that would end development in 20% of the state of Utah) . Now he aims to do it to Ulster County.  Take a drive up to the Adirondacks and notice the poverty of the local residents there, courtesy of Congressman Hinchey, the Democratic Party and Mr. Hinchey's boosters in the Democratic Party media. 

Given Mr. Hinchey's recidivism in advocating radical environmental restrictions elsewhere there is no reason to believe that he has become an enviornmental moderate now. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that the parks proposal is a Trojan Horse.  During Mr. Hinchey's 18 years in Congress employment in Ulster County has grown at one fifth the national rate. You might ask yourself whether your economic welfare is of concern to him or to the radical environmentalists who motivate the parks proposal. 

But even if Mr. Hinchey is sincere that the legal effects would be minimal (which seems to be a contradiction in terms, for why else would he go through the trouble of establishing a park? To make up for the 15% of employment that he has destroyed since 1992?), the bill would effectively abolish the Constitution, federalism, stare decisis and local control of the land. Should Mr. Hinchey retire and environmental radicals lobby for strict restrictions on parks, the Hudson Valley Park could become a footnote to a major national environmental debate. Park regulations, laws, rules and dictatorial authority could be imposed without regard for Constitutional protections to which most Olive residents are so used that they cannot imagine life without them.

I have students who grew up in the Soviet Union and Communist China. If you want to learn about life where there is no rule of law, you can ask them. Or ask Mr. Hinchey's radical supporters in the environmental movement who likely have quite a few ideas about how to wreck your property's economic value and turn you into a serf. Just ask the long time residents in the Adirondacks (as opposed to the environmental radicals who have moved there in recent decades) about how wonderful Mr. Hinchey's parks proposals are.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert

New York City Looks at 440,672 More Acres in Catskills

The Times Herald Record ran an article today describing a major New York City initiative to purchase nearly 100,000 acres  (looking at 440,672 acres but actually planning to buy about one fifth of that amount). But is it a coincidence that Congressman Maurice Hinchey aims to turn the entire Hudson Valley into a federal park just as New York City buys ever more land in the Catskills?  I wrote this letter to the editor of the Times Herald Record:

Adam Bosch (July 15, "NY City Wants Control Over Another 440,672 Acres in Area's Watershed") raises several useful points but neglects to ask the $64,000 question: Is there a connection between Congressman Maurice Hinchey's proposal for a federal park in the Hudson Valley and the City's aggressive land grab in the Catskills? In 1992 then-Assemblyman Hinchey proposed a bill that would have established socialist-style zoning boards in the Adirondack Park. Mr. Hinchey has repeatedly proposed aggressive land-use controls for 20% of Utah. Now, he claims that his federal park proposal for the Hudson Valley cannot possibly lead to radical restrictions on property rights. Maybe not today. But acceding power to a parks administrator eliminates the rule of law. And such restrictions can be implemented down the road without public debate once a park administration is in power.


Is the NYC land purchase a coincidence? Might the intention be to turn the Catskills into an Adirondack-style park and squeeze Hudson Valley residents out via a gradually tightening pincers (City owned watershed land on one side, a federal park on the other), forcing the Hudson Valley's population south to New Jersey and New York City? This is very much the gist of UN Agenda 21, and UNESCO has already been given administrataive control of more than a dozen parcels of land within the borders of the United States. Is depopulation the long term plan for this region? Or is it just a coincidence that the City is grabbing land just as Mr. Hinchey offers the Trojan horse of a federal park?

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.
Town of Olive Republican Commitee

Five Louts Extend Invitation to Destructive Oaf

Mike Marnell, crusading publisher of the Lincoln Eagle of Kingston, NY, just sent me this press release.  Congressman Maurice Hinchey has a long history of camouflaging extremist environmentalism in moderate rhetoric.  For instance, he proposed to turn the Adirondacks into a socialist dictatorship run by Soviet-like planning boards, and was able to convince the Adirondack Enterprise that this was a "moderate" proposal. Likewise, he was able to convince stock trading maniac Jim Cramer that he really does intend to permit drilling of the Marcellus oil field.

***NEWS RELEASE***

For Immediate Release July 2, 2010	Contact: Mike Morosi  202-225-6335 (Hinchey)

Reps. Hinchey, Murphy, Tonko, Lowey and Hall Invite

U.S. Interior Secretary Salazar to Visit Hudson Valley

                Washington, D.C. -- Five members of Congress for New York's Hudson Valley have invited U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to visit the region as part of his America's Great Outdoors initiative.  U.S. Representatives Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Scott Murphy, Paul Tonko, Nita Lowey and John Hall asked that the secretary make the trip in order to learn about innovative strategies being used to conserve lands and waters for public benefit in the Hudson Valley.

                Salazar recently announced that he is touring several regions of interests in order to develop the America's Great Outdoors program, which aims to reconnect Americans to the outdoors.  The full text of the letter inviting the secretary to the Hudson Valley is below. More details about the America's Great Outdoors program can be found at: http://www.doi.gov/americasgreatoutdoors/ .

July 1, 2010

The Honorable Ken Salazar

Secretary

U.S. Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240

Dear Mr. Secretary,

As you continue to plan and develop America’s Great Outdoors program, we hope you will consider visiting the Hudson Valley region to conduct a listening session and learn about innovative strategies at work to conserve our lands and waters for public benefit now and for future generations. 

The Hudson River Valley is one of the most significant river corridors in the country. The historical, natural, cultural, commercial, scenic, and recreational resources spread throughout the region are unparalleled. Our region is home to a wealth of history and beautiful landscapes that inspired a school of art and fostered innovation that drove our nation's early economy. Today, the region is a model for the green job movement, with an emerging solar energy industry and a $4.7 billion tourism economy that is closely linked with conservation and outdoor recreation industries.

Currently, the Hudson River Valley is designated as a National Heritage Area, National Estuarine Research Reserve and a New York State Greenway. In addition, the House of Representatives recently passed legislation authorizing a National Park Service special resource study of the Hudson River Valley.

We applaud your effort to promote and support innovative community-level efforts to conserve outdoor spaces and to reconnect Americans to the outdoors. Stakeholders from across our region have been involved in exactly these types of efforts for many years. Whether it is connecting residents of the New York City metropolitan area to one of our country's greatest landscapes or working on a regional-level through the Greenway to conserve our historic, cultural and natural resources in the face of persistent population growth, the Hudson River Valley has been at the forefront of promoting innovative and cooperative solutions to our challenges.

We are confident that you will find many projects and partnerships that exemplify the America’s Great Outdoors agenda in the Hudson Valley and we hope that you will be able to include our region in your upcoming tour of the country.

Sincerely,

Maurice D. Hinchey

Scott Murphy

Paul Tonko

Nita Lowey

John J. Hall

##

Rethinking Congressman Hinchey

I just submitted the following article to the Lincoln Eagle in Kingston, NY.

The past year's political developments are frustrating. Many in Ulster County supported Barack Obama for president, expecting him to be an effective moderate, and instead found that he is an ineffective spendthrift whose policies mirror those of President George W. Bush. In 2009, President Obama and the Democratic Party increased federal spending as a percentage of gross domestic product by ten percent.

At the same time, many remain loyal to Democratic Congressman Maurice D. Hinchey, who served as a State Assemblyman for 18 years and has served in Congress for 17 years since then. Many feel loyalty to "Moe", for he grew up in Saugerties, worked his way through SUNY New Paltz as a toll collector and has represented Ulster County for 35 years.

But there are times when loyalty causes bad judgment. At the local watering holes I visit I hear people complain about taxes; government waste; government's increasing intrusion into their lives; and corrupt special interests that benefit from congressional earmarks. The same people say that they have voted for Mr. Hinchey because "You have to vote for Moe." But many of the problems about which they complain are directly due to Mr. Hinchey. In voting for him, voters are condemning Ulster County to a depressed economy; continued slow growth; and an impoverished future for their children and grandchildren.

Economic Performance

Ulster County's economic performance during Mr. Hinchey's tenure in office has been dismal. From 1993, the year of his election to Congress, until 2009 the number of people employed nationally has grown 18%, from 111 million to 131 million. In contrast, the number of people employed in Ulster County has grown by 8.5%, less than half the national increase. If 1990 is used as the base year, the growth in employment in Ulster County has been a mere 2.5% over 19 years. The stagnation in Ulster County's economy is matched by the stagnation in the County's population growth. As the national population increased about 23% from 1990 to 2009, Ulster County's population has grown by less than 15%. The reason is lack of jobs and a depressed business sector directly due to policies that Mr. Hinchey advocates.

If he has his way Mr. Hinchey will accelerate economic decline. This is so not only because of Democratic Party policies, such as Cap and Trade, that Mr. Hinchey supports but, as well, because of his proposal to turn the Hudson Valley into a federal park.

Mr. Hinchey's federal park proposal hearkens back to his pivotal role as chair of the State Assembly's Environmental Conservation Committee in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Governor Mario Cuomo announced the formation of a Commission on the Adirondacks in the 21st century. The commission proposed limiting development in the Adirondacks to 10 percent of the Park through zoning restrictions, according to the New York Times. Mr. Hinchey did not oppose this proposal, but after Republicans in the State Senate stopped it, Mr. Hinchey proposed re-establishing government review boards that would govern economic decisions and home development as well as limiting land use to a few primary uses such as farming, forestry and housing. Mr. Hinchey also proposed to limit transfer of land. In other words, he aimed to create a socialist dictatorship in the Adirondacks.

Mr. Hinchey’s bill did not pass, but it reveals much about his economic world view. At the time, the New York Times claimed that if the 245 points in Governor Cuomo's Commission were not implemented there would be environmental disaster. In fact, the proposals did not become law and there has been no disaster. Now, Mr. Hinchey proposes to turn the Hudson Valley into a federal park. In selling his proposal, he claims that his proposal will do no harm to the region’s economy. The meaning of the word “harm” is revealed in his proposal concerning the Adirondacks, which precisely parallels his more recent proposal for Utah. According to Rob Bishop in Deseret News.com Mr. Hinchey has proposed to “lock up 20 percent of the state (of Utah) from economic activity.” This would not be economically harmful to Utah in Mr. Hinchey’s view.

Congressman Hinchey and American Economic Decline

When Mr. Hinchey took office in 1993, the American national debt was $4.7 trillion. In nominal (not inflation adjusted) terms the national debt increased nearly threefold during Mr. Hinchey's years in Congress. Every Ulster County voter is now responsible for $43,000 in national debt (based on dividing the nation's debt by its population) because of policies that Mr. Hinchey has mostly supported. Last year the national debt was $11.9 trillion and this year it will likely be about $13 trillion. In voting for Maurice Hinchey for Congress you are voting to increase the national debt.

For instance, on its Website the National Taxpayers' Union (NTU) shows the fiscal impact of bills that each of 441 Congressional members has proposed. They compute a spending index by subtracting proposed bills that decrease spending from proposed bills that increase spending. According to the NTU Mr. Hinchey comes in 24th of 441, in the top 5.4%, in increasing spending. Mr. Hinchey proposed bills that increased spending by nearly $1.4 trillion last year, and he also proposed bills that decreased spending by $155 million. A large portion of the $1.4 trillion was attributable to his proposal for a single payer national health care system.

With the exception of the Bush-Obama bailout of Wall Street, Mr. Hinchey has supported a wide range of spending boondoggles which tend to benefit business, especially agribusiness and big labor, at public expense.

Mr. Hinchey voted against the lowering of medical costs through tort reform, a sop to the Trial Lawyers’ Association worth $54 billion to taxpayers over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. He voted against the balanced budget amendment. He supported the $14 billion bailout of the auto industry. He supported the 2009 Stimulus Bill that cost $787 billion. He voted for Omnibus HR 1105, which included 9,000 earmarks and expanded spending on the following government bureaucracies: Agriculture; Commerce; Justice; Science; Energy; Financial Services; Interior; Environment; Labor; Health and Human Services; Education; Legislative Branch; State; Transportation; Housing and Urban Development.

One of the most economically damaging bills to be debated in Congress is Cap and Trade. The Obama administration has predicted that the financial effect of its cap and trade proposal would be as though income taxes were increased by 15 percent. Put another way, the Congressional Budget Office found that Cap and Trade will cost the average homeowner $1,600 (with Republicans saying the cost may be twice that) while Martin Feldstein points out in the Washington Post that the reduction in carbon dioxide gas will be only 15 percent. Cap and Trade sounds like good economics to Mr. Hinchey. Being loyal to him may cost you as much as $3,000 per year due to Cap and Trade alone.

Earmarks and Corruption

WBNG News in Binghamton recently reported that Rockwell Collins, which had already received $4 million in earmarks from Mr. Hinchey after contributing $1,000 to his campaign fund, had received a $63 million US Navy award to open a defense plant in Binghamton.

Open Secrets.org reports that the following corporate interests have received donations from Mr. Hinchey via earmarks: : Endicott Interconnect Technologies; BAE Systems; Center for Grape Genetics; Solar Energy Consortium; C9 Corp; Precision Flow Technologies; Rockwell Collins; and Armor Dynamics. The earmarks range from $2.4 million to $4.8 million.

According to the Federal Election Commission, Mr. Hinchey received $347,499 in contributions in 2009-10. His corporate contributors include Agri-Mark; American Crystal Sugar Company; Applied Materials; BAE Systems (which also received earmarks from him); Boeing; Brown and Company; Northrop Grumman; General Dynamics; Honeywell International; L-3 Communications; and Lockheed Martin.

In the coming months the Lincoln Eagle will pursue Mr. Hinchey’s involvement with the Adirondack Park; his links to agribusiness; and the connections among a United Nations initiative called UN Agenda 21 and his proposed Hudson Valley Park.

Mitchell Langbert is associate professor of business, management and finance at Brooklyn College (CUNY) and is a member of the Town of Olive Republican Committee.

US ParksService's Alma Ripps on Maurice Hinchey's Hudson Valley Federal Park Proposal

Alma Ripps of the US Parks Service has responded to my inquiry concerning the implications of Congressman Maurice Hinchey's HR 4003, which would begin a process of federalizing the Hudson Valley, as follows:

Mr. Langbert,

Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding legislation introduced by Representative Maurice Hinchey, H.R. 4003, which would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study of resources in the Hudson River Valley in the State of New York. I apologize for the tardiness in responding to your inquiry. As you can imagine, it is sometimes difficult to reach people during the holiday season to provide information.

The bill does not propose to establish a park in the Hudson River Valley, rather, it would (if enacted) initiate a study to determine whether any resources in the region meet the criteria for potential congressional designation. Such studies determine whether resources are nationally significant, suitable for inclusion into the National Park System, feasible to administer, and require management by the National Park Service versus being able to be managed by others. At the conclusion of a study (which normally takes two or more years), if resources in the region are found to meet these criteria, separate legislation would need to be enacted by Congress to establish a unit of the National Park System.

The Department of the Interior does not take an official position on pending legislation until a hearing by a congressional committee is conducted. To date, no hearing has been scheduled on this bill.

Since a study of the Hudson River Valley has not even been authorized, much less concluded, it would be premature to offer any conjecture on what the implications of establishing a unit of the National Park System in the region might entail. The first question, of course, is whether one or more resources would meet the criteria indicated above. Even when a study does determine that resources qualify for congressional consideration for establishment of a unit (although most do not), alternatives to National Park Service management must be explored and detailed in the study report.

Today, there are various models of units of the National Park System ranging from the traditional model where the National Park Service owns and manages a resource to those where we have limited or no ownership interest and work with partners for the continued protection of natural or cultural resources and to promote public understanding of their importance to the nation through education and interpretation. An example of the latter model is the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area where we partner with state and nonprofit organizations and provide financial, technical and interpretive assistance. We also have affiliated areas of the National Park System which we do not manage, but provide financial and technical
assistance to those organizations that protect the resource. A study permits us to tailor the appropriate model to the resource(s), assuming that the criteria for potential designation have first been met.

Should a study of the Hudson River Valley be authorized by Congress, an extensive public involvement process would accompany the study since public support for any potential designation is a key aspect of the feasibility analysis. A study must also provide an analysis of environmental, cultural and socio-economic impacts of a unit of the National Park System should one be determined eligible for establishment.

Since you mentioned the Catskills and the Adirondacks, we assume you understand that the regulatory policies affecting those two regions were enacted by the New York State Legislature and are administered by agencies of the State, not the federal government. Currently, we have a cooperative relationship with the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area which was established by Congress in 1996. No unique federal regulations apply to this area because of that designation, although the National Park Service provides financial and technical assistance to the heritage area.

We hope the above information has been helpful and that you will understand that we are not in a position to provide detailed answers to your questions since we have not commenced a study of the region to determine if a unit of the National Park System could be established in the Hudson River Valley.

Thank you for your interest in the National Park Service. Please contact me if you have further questions.

Alma