Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/phyllisschlafly/2011/03/15/bachmann_exposes_$105_billion_secret/page/full/
March 15, 2011
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has again demonstrated her extraordinary leadership in the U.S. House. She discovered $105 billion of taxpayers' money that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi had hidden in ObamaCare.
Now, Bachmann wants her colleagues to refuse to pass must-pass bills, such as the Continuing Resolution or raising the debt limit, unless they include recapturing that secret money. What a great idea!
After all, the new Congress was elected last November to cut spending and put the federal government back within the bounds of the Constitution. The new members of Congress promised not only to cut overall spending but specifically to repeal and defund ObamaCare, so thank you, Michele, for showing the new Congress where to start.
When ObamaCare was passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve of 2009, senators had less than 72 hours to compare a 383-page package of amendments to the 2,074-page bill. Public outrage over backroom deals (such as the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase) led to the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts.
Democrats then cooked up a plan to link the now-2,409-page Senate-passed ObamaCare bill to dozens of amendments contained in a separate 150-page Budget Reconciliation bill that could pass both houses by a simple majority. That's when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously told the then-Democratic majority, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."
When President Obama signed ObamaCare into law, that set in motion a series of funding triggers and money transfers that add up to $105,464,000,000 in pre-authorized appropriations that are scheduled to be paid up through FY2019. In laymen's language, that means writing postdated checks that are guaranteed to be paid out over the next eight years.
This money was divided into dozens of smaller amounts so the big total would not be apparent. For example, Section 2953 of ObamaCare included a pre-funded appropriation of $75 million a year for five years to "educate adolescents" in "adult preparation subjects" such as "stress management" and "the development of healthy attitudes and values about adolescent growth and development, body image, racial and ethnic diversity, and other related subjects."
Section 4101(a) of ObamaCare prefunded $200 million a year over four years for the construction of school-based health centers. In Section 4002, a total of $17,750,000,000 will be deposited over 10 years to a discretionary account controlled by the HHS secretary (currently Kathleen Sebelius), who may spend that money "to provide for expanded and sustained national investment in prevention" and to "help restrain the rate of growth in private and public sector health care costs."
At a hearing last week before the House Health Subcommittee, former Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., likened ObamaCare to a 2,700-page haystack in which a lot of needles are still being discovered. He urged Congress to place a stop-payment order on the massive postdated checks hidden in ObamaCare.
The Pelosi bunch's strategy was devious and highhanded. They bypassed the customary appropriations process and prefunded ObamaCare on passage, knowing that House Rules would restrict a future Congress from defunding an already enacted law.
This makes it more difficult for Congress to deal with, but not impossible. Congress will both have to include the defunding language in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution and also pass a rule that makes this defunding language OK under House Rules.
There is not only adequate precedent for this procedure, but it also is common sense. Congress, in its constitutional role, can completely stop this secret funding of discretionary funds.
What Pelosi did was like setting up online a way to pay your monthly utility bills out of your bank checking account. Each new date triggers the bank to pay the bill out of your bank account.
ObamaCare is very similar. The law Congress passed without reading it lists the dates up to 2019 on which payments totaling $105 billion are to be paid out of the U.S. Treasury.
Bachmann and Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. are asking their colleagues to join them in signing a letter to the House leadership stating that the $105 billion in postdated checks drawn on the U.S. Treasury must be stopped, and stopped now, by including the necessary language in the continuing resolution.
It is an insult to the U.S. Constitution, which gives the House the power to originate all revenue bills, and to current and future Congresses, for ObamaCare to try to handcuff Congress in regard to future appropriations up through 2019.
We are fortunate that Bachmann is smart enough to figure out the cost of the secret money in ObamaCare. One of the smartest members of Congess, she was a tax attorney before being elected to Congress.
Phyllis Schlafly is a national leader of the pro-family movement, a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Feminist Fantasies.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Bachmann Exposes $105 Billion Secret By Phyllis Schlafly
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Why I'm Fighting in Wisconsin: We can avoid mass teacher layoffs and reward our best performers. But we have to act now. By Scott Walker
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576190260787805984.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion
MARCH 10, 2011
In 2010, Megan Sampson was named an Outstanding First Year Teacher in Wisconsin. A week later, she got a layoff notice from the Milwaukee Public Schools. Why would one of the best new teachers in the state be one of the first let go? Because her collective-bargaining contract requires staffing decisions to be made based on seniority.
Ms. Sampson got a layoff notice because the union leadership would not accept reasonable changes to their contract. Instead, they hid behind a collective-bargaining agreement that costs the taxpayers $101,091 per year for each teacher, protects a 0% contribution for health-insurance premiums, and forces schools to hire and fire based on seniority and union rules.
My state's budget-repair bill, which passed the Assembly on Feb. 25 and awaits a vote in the Senate, reforms this union-controlled hiring and firing process by allowing school districts to assign staff based on merit and performance. That keeps great teachers like Ms. Sampson in the classroom.
Most states in the country are facing a major budget deficit. Many are cutting billions of dollars of aid to schools and local governments. These cuts lead to massive layoffs or increases in property taxes—or both.
In Wisconsin, we have a better approach to tackling our $3.6 billion deficit. We are reforming the way government works, as well as balancing our budget. Our reform plan gives state and local governments the tools to balance the budget through reasonable benefit contributions. In total, our budget-repair bill saves local governments almost $1.5 billion, outweighing the reductions in state aid in our budget.
While it might be a bold political move, the changes are modest. We ask government workers to make a 5.8% contribution to their pensions and a 12.6% contribution to their health-insurance premium, both of which are well below what other workers pay for benefits. Our plan calls for Wisconsin state workers to contribute half of what federal employees pay for their health-insurance premiums. (It's also worth noting that most federal workers don't have collective bargaining for wages and benefits.)
For example, my brother works as a banquet manager at a hotel and occasionally works as a bartender. My sister-in-law works at a department store. They have two beautiful kids. They are a typical middle-class Wisconsin family. At the start of this debate, David reminded me that he pays nearly $800 per month for his family's health-insurance premium and a modest 401(k) contribution. He said most workers in Wisconsin would love a deal like the one we are proposing.
The unions say they are ready to accept concessions, yet their actions speak louder than words. Over the past three weeks, local unions across the state have pursued contracts without new pension or health-insurance contributions. Their rhetoric does not match their record on this issue.
Local governments can't pass budgets on a hope and a prayer. Beyond balancing budgets, our reforms give schools—as well as state and local governments—the tools to reward productive workers and improve their operations. Most crucially, our reforms confront the barriers of collective bargaining that currently block innovation and reform.
When Gov. Mitch Daniels repealed collective bargaining in Indiana six years ago, it helped government become more efficient and responsive. The average pay for Indiana state employees has actually increased, and high-performing employees are rewarded with pay increases or bonuses when they do something exceptional.
Passing our budget-repair bill will help put similar reforms into place in Wisconsin. This will be good for the Badger State's hard-working taxpayers. It will also be good for state and local government employees who overwhelmingly want to do their jobs well.
In Wisconsin, we can avoid the massive teacher layoffs that schools are facing across America. Our budget-repair bill is a commitment to the future so our children won't face even more dire consequences than we face today, and teachers like Ms. Sampson are rewarded—not laid off.
Taking on the status quo is no easy task. Each day, there are protesters in and around our state Capitol. They have every right to be heard. But their voices cannot drown out the voices of the countless taxpayers who want us to balance our budgets and, more importantly, to make government work for each of them.
Mr. Walker, a Republican, is the governor of Wisconsin.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Democrats In The Pocket Of Big Labor
Source: http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2011/03/democrats-in-pocket-of-big-labor.html
There is nothing like using their own words to condemn them.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Coolidge-Reagan-Walker? By Cal Thomas
Source: http://www.calthomas.com/index.php?news=3183
February 22, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Colon cancer before 50 By Christina Mitchell
Source: http://blogs.courierpostonline.com/middleground/2010/02/26/colon-cancer-before-50/
February 26, 2010
Jamie Romano’s death from colon cancer at the age of 31 was a tragedy and an anomaly. But such “anomalies” have become more frequent, according to Dr. Brian Kann, an assistant professor of colorectal surgery at Cooper Hospital, who treated Jamie during her three-and-a-half-year battle with Stage 4 cancer. Kann says he sees increasing numbers of people in their 20s and 30s developing the disease.
“The majority of cases I see are still people in their early 60s,” he adds. “But I’ve had at least a dozen patients in their late 20s with colon cancer. And a lot of times it’s diagnosed at an advanced stage in young people, because systems get attributed to other things … and by the time it gets looked into a little further, it’s pretty advanced.”
Jamie Romano was scanned for kidney stones shortly after the premature birth of her youngest son, Hayden. He still was in the hospital when his mother began treatment for her cancer, which had spread to her liver.
Colorectal cancer (of the colon or rectum) is the third most common cancer in the U.S. in men and women, according to the American Cancer Society. Overall, rates of colorectal cancer have declined in the U.S. for more than a decade, with the majority of cases in people 50 and up. But the June, 2009, issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention showed that based on data from 1992 to 2005, rates of colorectal cancer per 100,000 people ages 20 to 49 increased 1.5 percent per year in men and 1.6 percent per year in women.
Dr. Kann says the main risk factor for colorectal cancer is a family history. If, for instance, an immediate family member developed colon cancer at 40, you should begin getting screened 10 years earlier, at 30. Any symptoms such as blood in the stool or a change in bowel habits should be investigated further. It may mean the dreaded colonoscopy; it may also mean catching the cancer early, when it is highly treatable. Colonoscopy still is the gold standard of tests, Kann says.
Of Jamie Romano, the doctor adds, ”She was one of a growing number of patients we’re seeing without family history (of the disease). And she was one tough cookie.”
That “tough cookie” would want you to know colon cancer is no longer an old person’s disease.
March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. The Colon Cancer Alliance recognizes March 5 as National Dress in Blue Day to bring attention to the disease. Find out more at www.ccalliance.org or www.coloncancerfoundation.org
The Jamie Romano Beef and Beer for Colon Cancer, begun by Jamie herself in 2007, is March 6 at Columbus Manor in Williamstown. For information, call (856) 498-2992 or e-mail cpearce@comcast.net.
Image from Cooper University Hospital 2008 Annual Report PDF (Page 20)
Love and Concern inspire ill mom's cancer benefit
February 27, 2008
Courier Post
Source: http://sambikarto.blogspot.com/2008/02/concern-inspire-ill-moms-cancer-benefit.html
"I want to help find a cure someday, or at least something better than chemotherapy to treat colon cancer," said Jamie Romano, 29, the event organizer.
A 1997 graduate of Williamstown High School, Romano has been fighting colon cancer and stage four liver cancer -- the most severe form -- since February 2006.
Proceeds from her beef and beer benefit will support CCI's research of colon and gastrointestinal cancers.
Last year's event generated $5,000 for research. Romano hopes the March 8 beef and beer will double that figure. A few tickets remain available for the event, to be held in Gibbstown.
Romano said she is motivated to support cancer research out of love for her children and concern for their future. She is the mother of three children, sons Avery and Hayden, and stepdaughter Desiree. Her husband is Len Romano.
"I'm scared to death for them. I wouldn't want to see anyone else go through this," said Romano, who discovered her cancer two weeks after giving birth to Hayden, now 2.
During a CT scan for kidney stones, doctors detected a cancerous mass on Romano's colon and lesions on her liver. Twelve inches of her colon were removed.
"My liver is not in too great a shape. They told me that I would be on chemo forever, so I go to chemo every other week. Afterward, I'm sick for five days -- and I'm badly sick, like throwing up," she said.
Her physicians include oncologist Alex Hageboutros of the Cooper Cancer Institute and colorectal surgeon Brian Kann.
The fundraiser gives Romano a positive outlet.
Last week, Romano took a breather from chemotherapy to prepare for the big party. The event will include a DJ, 50/50 drawings, T-shirt sales and a Chinese auction.
"Last year, we danced, so it was a lot of fun," she said.
"I have a lot of people helping me -- my mom, my aunts and the girls in Dr. Kann's office."
She said she is grateful to businesses supporting the event: the Italian Kitchen, Bringhurst Brothers, Berlin Borough; Bellone's Nursery, Vineland; RMJ Mechanical of Atco; Superior Mortgage, Hammonton; Wawa, Frito-Lay and Tastykake.
People like Romano help to make ongoing cancer research at Cooper possible, said Beth Ann Rachkis, director of marketing and communications at CCI.
In addition, "Jamie's a great spokesperson for young people with cancer," she said.
CCI cares for thousands of New Jersey residents battling cancer each year.
"Thanks to the support of our community, we have been able to expand services and provide access to world-class medical care," Rachkis said.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Obituary - Smith
Alice H. Smith
February 4, 2011
Burlington County Times
Alice H. Smith of Cinnaminson departed this life at home surrounded by her family on Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011. She was 84.
She was the beloved mother of former Senator Bradford S. Smith (Janet) and Susan James (Stephen); grandmother of Kristin Puzak (David), Bradford Scott Jr. (Jackie), Vanessa and Juliet Smith and Stephen and Luke James; great-grandmother of Leilani Smith, and mother-in-law of Juliet Headley Smith.
She was preceded in death by her husband and former Senator, Walter L. Smith Jr. and her son, Walter L. Smith III.
Alice was a pillar of strength, knowledge and experience for over 60 years at the family law firm of Smith & Smith where she worked as secretary, paralegal and office manager with a 'get it done' attitude which she practiced daily. She was a talented artist and craft person having presented her family and friends with numerous paintings, handmade gifts, and other artwork, which will be appreciated and treasured for many years to come. Above all, Alice cared for her family.
Her mother, her brothers and sister, her husband, her children and their spouses, her grandchildren and great-grandchild were foremost in her thoughts throughout her life. No task was too great, no challenge was too difficult in bringing happiness to those she loved. She always found time to do the wonderful things that made her the person that all who knew her should hope to emulate and will fondly remember.
Visitation with Alice's family will be at Christ Church, Main and 4th Streets, Riverton, on Saturday, Feb. 5, 2011 from 12:30 to 2 p.m., followed by a service at the Church and interment at Lakeview Cemetery in Cinnaminson.
In lieu of flowers, donations in her name may be made to Christ Church, 305 Main St., Riverton, NJ 08077.
Weber Funeral Home, 112 Broad Street, Riverton
Source: http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/obits_detail/article/151/2011/february/04/alice-h-smith.html
Walter L. Smith Jr., Former N.j. Legislator
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20150919014005/http://articles.philly.com/1994-07-14/news/25845398_1_income-tax-sales-tax-state-scholarshipsBy S. Joseph Hagenmayer, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT
Posted: July 14, 1994Walter L. Smith Jr., 76, an anti-tax conservative and a maverick Burlington County Republican state assemblyman and senator in the 1960s and early 1970s, died Sunday at his Cinnaminson home.
Mr. Smith was elected to the state Assembly in 1963. He served until 1971, when he won a special election to the state Senate, but he then lost an election battle for the seat when the district was reapportioned. He also served as a commissioner on the Delaware River Port Authority from 1984 to 1990.
"He was an honest man, and what he believed in, he believed in," said Burlington County Surrogate Elton Conda, who had known Mr. Smith since the 1950s. "He fought unnecessary taxes and spending throughout his career. He was a watchdog for taxpayers."
Mr. Smith first opposed broad-based state taxes proposed by then-Gov. Richard J. Hughes, a Democrat, and he later took on the leaders of his own party and opposed then-Gov. William T. Cahill's taxation proposals in 1969. Cahill eventually got his sales tax, but another proposal, the state income tax, didn't come about until 1976.
When Cahill sought the Republican nomination for the govenorship, Mr. Smith supported another candidate, although he supported Cahill in the fall election.
A member of the Assembly's Appropriations Committee, Mr. Smith was the powerful committee's vice chairman. But his opposition to Cahill's taxes caused party leaders to pass over him when naming a new chairman. The slight did little to change his position.
A 1970 Inquirer story quoted then-Assemblyman Smith as saying, "I have enough votes in the lower house to block any income tax until the end of my term, and I intend to vote against the proposed 2 percent increase in the sales tax."
He once proposed an amendment to the state constitution banning an income tax in New Jersey.
Mr. Smith led the fight to prevent 18-year-olds in the state from gaining the right to vote. And he proposed and found considerable support for legislation to take state scholarships away from college students who were found to be engaging in illegal demonstrations and otherwise disrupting college activities during the tumultuous '60s.
In 1976, when a governor finally got an income tax adopted, Mr. Smith held fast to his positions and ran once again - this time unsuccessfully - for an Assembly seat on the single issue of opposing the new income tax.
His son, Bradford S. Smith, also a former state senator, said his father ''always chose the honest and straightforward way to go. He always asked himself the question: Is it good for the people? And it was a good question to ask."
Mr. Smith was born in the East Riverton section of Cinnaminson and lived in Riverton for most of his life. He was a 1935 graduate of Palmyra High School, and attended the American Institute of Banking and Drexel Institute of Technology before enrolling in Rutgers Law School's night division. He worked his way through school and received his law degree in 1949. He was an Army veteran of World War II.
Mr. Smith was a member of Christ Episcopal Church in Riverton, where he once served as a church school superintendent and was a vestryman.
In addition to his son Bradford, Mr. Smith is survived by his wife, Alice Hinchman Smith; a daughter, Susan Smith James of Maple Shade, and five grandchildren.
Friends may call from 7 to 9 p.m. today at Weber Funeral Home, 112 Broad St., Riverton. Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow in Christ Episcopal Church, Fourth and Main Streets, Riverton. Burial will be in Lakeview Memorial Park in Cinnaminson.
The family requests that memorial donations in his memory be made to Christ Episcopal Church, 305 Main St., Riverton, N.J. 08077.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Dems Now Try Quiet Defiance Via Regulation By Charles Krauthammer
Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/558258/201012301905/Dems-Now-Try-Quiet-Defiance-Via-Regulation.aspx
12/30/2010
Most people don't remember Obama-Care's notorious Section 1233, mandating government payments for end-of-life counseling. It aroused so much anxiety as a possible first slippery step on the road to state-mandated late-life rationing that the Senate never included it in the final health care law.
Well, it's back — by administrative fiat. A month ago, Medicare issued a regulation providing for end-of-life counseling during annual "wellness" visits. It was all nicely buried amid the simultaneous release of hundreds of new Medicare rules.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., author of Section 1233, was delighted. "Mr. Blumenauer's office celebrated 'a quiet victory,' but urged supporters not to crow about it," reports the New York Times. Deathly quiet.
In early November, his office sent an e-mail plea to supporters: "We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists ... e-mails can too easily be forwarded." They had been lucky that "thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it. ... The longer this (regulation) goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it."
So much for Democratic transparency — and for their repeated claim that the more people learn what is in the health care law, the more they will like it. Turns out ignorance is the Democrats' best hope. And regulation is their perfect vehicle — so much quieter than legislation.
Consider two other regulatory usurpations in just the last few days:
On Dec. 23, the Interior Department issued Secretarial Order 3310 reversing a 2003 decision and giving itself the authority to designate public lands as "Wild Lands." A clever twofer: (1) a bureaucratic power grab — for seven years up through Dec. 22, wilderness designation had been the exclusive province of Congress, and (2) a leftward lurch — more land to be "protected" from such nefarious uses as domestic oil exploration in a country disastrously dependent on foreign sources.
The very same day, the president's Environmental Protection Agency declared that in 2011 it would begin drawing up anti-carbon regulations on oil refineries and power plants, another power grab effectively enacting what Congress had firmly rejected when presented as cap-and-trade legislation.
For an Obama bureaucrat, however, the will of Congress is a mere speed bump. Hence this regulatory trifecta, each one moving smartly left — and nicely clarifying what the spirit of bipartisan compromise that President Obama heralded in his post-lame-duck Dec. 22 news conference was really about: a shift to the center for public consumption and political appearance only.
On that day, Obama finally embraced the tax-cut compromise he had initially excoriated, but only to avoid forfeiting its obvious political benefit — its appeal to independent voters who demand bipartisanship and are the key to Obama's re-election.
But make no mistake: Obama's initial excoriation in his angry Dec. 7 news conference was the authentic Obama. He hated the deal.
Now as always, Obama's heart lies left. For those fooled into thinking otherwise by the new Obama of Dec. 22, his administration's defiantly liberal regulatory moves — on the environment, energy and health care — should disabuse even the most beguiled.
These regulatory power plays make political sense. Because Obama needs to appear to reclaim the center, he will stage his more ideological fights in yawn-inducing regulatory hearings rather than in the dramatic spotlight of congressional debate. How better to impose a liberal agenda on a center-right nation than regulatory stealth?
It's Obama's only way forward during the next two years. He will never get past the half-Republican 112th what he could not get past the overwhelmingly Democratic 111th. He doesn't have the votes and he surely doesn't want the publicity. Hence the quiet resurrection, as it were, of end-of-life counseling.
Obama knows he has only so many years to change the country. In his first two, he achieved much: the first stimulus, Obama-Care and financial regulation. For the next two, however, the Republican House will prevent any repetition of that. Obama's agenda will therefore have to be advanced by the more subterranean means of rule-by-regulation.
But this must simultaneously be mixed with ostentatious displays of legislative bipartisanship (e.g., the lame-duck tax-cut deal) in order to pull off the (apparent) centrist repositioning required for re-election. This, in turn, would grant Obama four more years when, freed from the need for pretense, he can reassert himself ideologically and complete the social-democratic transformation — begun Jan. 20, 2009; derailed Nov. 2, 2010 — that is the mission of his presidency.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Philly's Wanamaker organ is a holiday tradition: Visitors flock to Macy's to hear largest operational pipe organ in the world
Organist Peter Richard Conte sits at the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ console. The largest operational pipe organ in the world, the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ is a symphonic organ that embodies the sounds of not one orchestra, but three. Associated Press
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40701342/ns/travel-seasonal_travel/
12/16/2010
By JOANN LOVIGLIO
PHILADELPHIA — Music lovers from around the world have always made pilgrimages to hear the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, which resides not in a church, but in a Philadelphia department store. It's the largest operational pipe organ in the world — some say the world's largest playable instrument. And on the eve of its 100th year of serenading shoppers, it's never sounded better.
But at Christmastime, the organ, a National Historic Landmark, belongs not to tourists so much as to Philadelphians. Its holiday organ concert and sweetly old-fashioned light show has for generations been as much of a local tradition as trimming the tree or sitting on Santa's lap.
Located in a Macy's that was originally John Wanamaker chain's flagship store, the organ's polished mahogany console is tucked behind racks of sweaters and skirts. This time of year, crowds laden with bags and bundles overflow the soaring atrium, squeezing amid the women's shoes and pressing against glass jewelry cases for the hourly show. With narration by Julie Andrews, animated bears, snowflakes, nutcrackers and reindeer take visitors through a series of prerecorded Christmas songs with a live organ concert as the finale.
"It's magical," said Margie Fitzpatrick, a native Philadelphian who fondly recalled organ concerts with her parents, then her children, and was at a recent show with her 2-year-old granddaughter. "Hearing it just makes you feel blessed."
Superlatives are unavoidable when describing the symphonic, 287-ton organ. With 28,543 pipes, it embodies the sounds of not one orchestra, but three. In contrast, the organ at Notre Dame in Paris has about 8,000 pipes. St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City tallies about 9,000.
The Wanamaker pipes range from 1/4 inch to 32 feet in length, are made of wood or metal, and span five stories. The console boasts six ivory keyboards and 729 color-coded stops representing the sounds of every string, woodwind, brass and percussion instrument imaginable.
But numbers can't explain the lusciousness of the music, which can simultaneously feel warm as a blanket and light as air. Extensive repairs over the past few years and vigilant upkeep now have the instrument — valued in excess of $57 million — performing at its peak.
"The organ has never sounded better," said staff curator L. Curt Mangel III, who has breathed new life into pipes that were silent for decades. He strides through the labyrinth of pipes and narrow passageways — which can also be toured by the public — with purpose, pride and unabashed devotion.
"Everyone involved with this instrument is passionate about it," he said. "It'll be around long after you and I are gone ... maintaining it is a joy and a responsibility."
Organ's history
The organ was built for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and was purchased by retail magnate John Wanamaker in 1909 as the crown jewel of his eponymous store in downtown Philadelphia. The store, an elegant marble and granite showpiece, itself a National Historic Landmark, was created for both commerce and concerts by Daniel Burnham, architect of Manhattan's iconic Flatiron Building and, as readers of "The Devil in the White City" know, director of works for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.
The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ made its debut in Philly on June 22, 1911, to coincide with the coronation of George V as King of England. It started with 10,000 pipes, but 18,000 more were added over the next two decades, with Wanamaker's son Rodman Wanamaker sacrificing precious selling floor space to accommodate the expansion.
Wanamaker changed hands — and names — several times in the 1980s and 1990s, as regional department stores nationwide were bought by larger companies. By 1995, only about a fifth of the organ's pipes worked.
"It was really falling apart," said organist Peter Richard Conte. "As things would break down, they would just turn off a section ... there came a point where there was very little left to play."
But even in humbled times and under a series of owners, the organ was played, every business day.
The soul of Philly
Its descent into disrepair reversed upon Macy's arrival in 2006. The new owner joined forces with a private nonprofit called Friends of the Wanamaker Organ, founded in 1991 to help maintain the mind-bendingly complex instrument.
Several hundred thousand dollars later, there is now a large onsite workshop and two full-time paid curators. The high-maintenance musical colossus is 97 percent operational and even got an additional set of tuba pipes this summer in celebration of the coming centennial.
"Macy's just got it. They got the history of this instrument, of what it means to Philadelphia and to the international community," Conte said. "They embraced this tradition the same way they embrace the traditions of the Thanksgiving parade and the Fourth of July fireworks in New York."
The late virtuoso organists Virgil Fox and Marcel Dupre have been among its countless guest players, but only four people have ever held the coveted job of resident organist.
"It's a great gig," said Conte, Wanamaker Grand Court organist since 1989, who gives two 45-minute concerts six days a week. "This is not a job you leave. It's every organist's dream."
The Philadelphia Orchestra joined Conte at Macy's in 2008 to perform Joseph Jongen's epic "Symphonie Concertante," a piece composed for the Wanamaker Organ in 1926 but never previously performed on it. The packed house and glowing reviews marked the start of what Conte calls "the best time for the instrument since John Wanamaker."
He added: "If the Liberty Bell is Philadelphia's heart, the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ is its soul."
If you go...
WANAMAKER GRAND COURT ORGAN: At Macy's, 1300 Market St., Philadelphia; http://wanamakerorgan.com. Free daily 45-minute recitals, Monday-Saturday at noon; Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 5:30 p.m.; and Wednesdays and Fridays, 7 p.m. Visitors may tour the console area on the second floor and meet the staff following daily concerts. Through New Year's Eve, the noon organ concerts begin right after the 10-minute light show.
Monday, January 03, 2011
Reclaiming the right to oversight: GOP-led House to revoke Team Obama's free pass By Reps. Darrell Issa and Fred Upton
Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/27/reclaiming-the-right-to-oversight/
November 27, 2010
In his January 1989 farewell address to the nation, President Reagan warned, "Man is not free unless government is limited. ... There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts." Earlier this month, we saw countless Americans heed Mr. Reagan's warning, turning out in droves to cast their vote in defense of liberty.
The new majority in Congress certainly has its work cut out to undo the big-government havoc that was wrought during the Democrats' one-party reign over the past two years. Unemployment hovers just below 10 percent. The role of government in the economy has exploded, and rampant spending has ballooned the debt to nearly $14 trillion, putting our nation on the brink of financial disaster.
Americans now live under laws that force people to buy health insurance under fear of harsh penalty; a litany of regulations pursued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies have given businesses incentives to move jobs overseas; and an army of "czars" have been appointed by the administration who have broad, sweeping powers and none of the accountability of traditional Cabinet members. This drastic expansion of government and contraction of liberty has occurred without any real oversight from Democrats in either chamber of Congress.
Americans demand accountability, and the House Oversight and Government Reform and Energy and Commerce committees must work cooperatively together in a new Congress to deliver the oversight that is necessary. During the final two years of the George W. Bush administration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Oversight Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman eagerly exerted Congress' oversight authority. These oversight inquiries included requests for reams of documents and demands for Cabinet secretaries and agency heads to testify under oath. Programs and executive actions were subjected to close and often openly hostile scrutiny.
We have not seen the same enthusiasm for oversight since the Obama administration has taken the helm. Not surprisingly, the job economy has worsened, government spending is at an all-time high, and federal agencies are rampantly codifying more regulations that further penalize and discourage private investment and the hiring of new employees. Congress' constitutional role as a check on the power of the administration has been lost in the sprint to increase the role of government.
Our Founding Fathers were explicit in demanding that the House of Representatives provide a check on the power of the executive branch. Over the past two years, the Pelosi-controlled Congress has been derelict in this duty, defying the will and expectation of our Founders.
Now that Republicans have recaptured the House, we think it is time for a fundamentally different approach in the defense of liberty. Committees with significant oversight duties must work together to block agencies from freely passing regulations that have no regard or concern for the potential damage to job growth and the economy. As we work to repeal and replace legislation passed by the outgoing Democratic Congress, we will not allow the administration to make broad interpretations that make poorly designed laws that much worse. Committees in the new Republican Congress must use their hearing rooms as forums to let citizens know how broken big government kills jobs and affects their lives. After two years of operating in the shadows, it is time for officials to answer questions - we cannot allow them to hide behind their desks and obfuscate any longer.
Administration officials who negotiated the health overhaul behind closed doors with special interests and are now responsible for its implementation will no longer be able to conspicuously avoid Capitol Hill. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will soon have to return to reality and explain how the administration plans to uphold its promise that those who liked their health plans could keep them under this law. It should make for interesting testimony, considering the cold facts that insurance providers are dropping child-only plans, Medicare Advantage plans are being reworked drastically or eliminated, and the administration's own chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is reporting that as many as 14 million Americans could lose their employer-provided health care by 2019. Truth-telling sessions about the real cost of this deeply flawed government intervention will increase pressure for repeal.
This administration's rampant regulations are also inflicting real harm on our economy. Americans have a right to know how flawed government regulations can kill job-creation efforts. EPA's circumvention of Congress in enacting costly new rules may devastate our economy and send us into a prolonged recession. Its revised ozone standard alone could cause up to 7 million jobs to be lost and cost businesses upward of $1 trillion annually. Congress must work aggressively to ensure that the EPA does not implement a backdoor energy tax.
Americans rightly expect that the 112th Congress will usher in a new era of oversight as well as an end to the freewheeling days of an unchecked Obama administration. We expect our economy to be better for it. As senior members on our committees, we commit ourselves to ensuring that the Oversight Committee and Energy and Commerce Committee work cooperatively with each other and other House committees to conduct oversight and rein in the explosive expansion of government that we have endured over the past two years. Together, we pledge to work to restore and defend the individual liberty President Reagan so eloquently linked to the principle of limited government.
Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican, is ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Rep. Fred Upton, Michigan Republican, is a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and is the front-runner to be the committee's next chairman.
