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The
The INDEPENDENT, August 15, 2012
INDEPENDENT
Published on the first and third Wednesdays of each month
by The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St.,
Vernonia, OR 97064. Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410.
Deadline is noon the Friday before each issue.
Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net
Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net
Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based dyes
Opinion
Merkley bill protects rights
Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley announced recently
that he has introduced a bill to prevent warrantless sur-
veillance of Americans. The bill, Protect America’s Pri-
vacy Act, would close loopholes in the Foreign Intelli-
gence Surveillance Act (FISA) that could permit the in-
telligence community to knowingly or unknowingly col-
lect and store communications of Americans and oth-
ers living in the U.S. without a warrant. The right
against unreasonable searches is covered in the
Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights portion of the
Constitution.
Other rights that have disappeared in the last 11
years include;
• In December 2011, under the National Defense Au-
thorization Act, the president can (and has done so) or-
der the assassination of any citizen whom he consid-
ers allied with terrorists. That’s ignores the due
process rights guaranteed in the Sixth and Seventh
Amendments of the Bill of Rights.
• Also under the National Defense Authorization Act,
the president can indefinitely detain citizens accused
of terrorism. The president also decides whether a per-
son will get a trial in federal courts or in a military tribu-
nal.
• Congress passed and Obama signed a renewed
and amended FISA, which allows secret searches of
individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist
group. That means nobody has a guaranteed right to
privacy.
• It’s hard to believe, but the government also can
transfer citizens to another country (under extraordi-
nary rendition). Other countries have used this clause
to torture suspects. This one started under Bush. Oba-
ma says he won’t abuse this, as Bush did, but insists
on the unfettered right to order these transfers, includ-
ing those who may be U. S. citizens.
Merkley’s bill is an opportunity to rein in an act that
makes America less than the home of the free. “Keep-
ing America safe versus protecting American privacy is
a false choice. We have a moral and constitutional
duty to do both,” Merkley said. “We can ensure our
government has the tools to spy on our enemies with-
out giving it a license to intrude into the private lives of
American citizens.”
We support this bill and hope others will let their rep-
resentatives know they should also support this bill.
Out of My Mind…
by Noni Andersen
Mitt Romney has man-
aged to bring Americans
together: Both Republi-
cans and Democrats
wanted Paul Ryan to be
his vice-presidential pick.
If Romney thought that
picking Ryan would de-
flect questions about his
income taxes and bring
the debate back to the general economy, he was
wrong. The problem with that idea is Ryan’s
budget, which passed 228 to 191 in the House
of Representatives with no Democratic votes
and 10 Republican defections.
Under the Ryan plan, spending would be cut
$5.3 trillion below President Obama’s budget
through 2022. Medicare would be reduced by
$205 billion. Medicaid and other health pro-
grams would be cut $770 billion. Other entitle-
ment programs, including welfare, food stamps,
agriculture subsidies and transportation, would
be cut by nearly $2 trillion.
Medicare would be reduced by becoming a
subsidized set of private insurance plans, with
the option of buying into the existing fee-for-
service program. The annual growth of those
subsidies would be capped well below the cur-
rent health care inflation rate, putting the cost on
the backs of senior and disabled citizens.
It mandates the repeal of the Affordable Care
Act, which would eliminate coverage for pre-ex-
isting conditions, keeping young adults on their
parents’ health insurance, and the premium re-
bates which are now beginning to appear. It
would also eliminate the cost saving require-
ments of preventive health care. The additional
costs would go to those needing health care.
Ryan’s budget doesn’t ignore education. It
cuts funds for education from preschool to col-
lege – Head Start to Pell Grants – because, as
far as this Republican leadership is concerned,
education is another unfunded entitlement. No-
body deserves it except those who can afford it.
It also includes a sweeping overhaul of the
tax code. The six existing personal income tax
rates, topped at 35 percent, would be reduced to
two, set at 10 percent and 25 percent. The loss
of revenue is supposed to be offset by eliminat-
ing unspecified tax deductions and exemptions.
Under this budget, more than 33% of the
Ryan tax cuts would go to the top two percent,
while 62 percent of the spending cuts would
come from low income programs. It also in-
cludes magnanimous tax cuts for big business.
Ryan has been lauded for his “courage” in ad-
dressing the deficit, but what is courageous
about kicking those who are already down, and
assuring that more of us will join them?
Real courage would be taking on Wall Street
with regulations that would force them to pay for
the losses when they rip off people’s 401Ks, or
public and private pension funds.
Real courage would be taking on the oil, gas
and coal barons with regulations that would
force them to pay for the losses when they ig-
nore aging pipelines and blow up whole neigh-
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