Could This Happen At Your College or University?

Our thanks to Rich Carroll for sending us this unbeliavable article.  It is still difficult that such a deprivation of human rights and freedom of speech can happen in an American University.  One need not be physically tortured to claim violation of human rights.  In this particular case there is a deliberate attempt on the part of school and political bureacrats to destroy students' life work and potential careers.  In the words of Mr. Carroll, "A truly horrendous story of politically motivated persecution at a state university. Absolutely unbelieveable. And more than enough that it should bring down a total storm, a force 10 hurricane, on the school and its administrators."
Two Sisters



Political Payback – Oregon Style

By Paul Driessen
4/23/2011



http://www.oregonstateoutrage.com/

 Confused visitors will be forgiven for thinking Oregon State University is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Congressman Pete DeFazio and the “progressive-socialist” wing of the Democratic Party. Or for likening what’s going on there to political retribution as practiced in Third World thugocracies.

The idea that three outstanding students – PhD candidates at OSU – could face dismissal, and worse, shortly before receiving their degrees, is simply shocking. That this could be happening because their father had the temerity to challenge an entrenched 12-term Democratic congressman (and OSU earmark purveyor) could make people think the university is in Zimbabwe, not America. Dr. Art Robinson is president of the nonprofit Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, located on the family farm in southwestern Oregon, 180 miles from Corvallis. OISM focuses on biochemistry, diagnostic medicine, nutrition, preventive medicine and aging – and improving emergency preparedness and basic education.

After his wife died in 1988, Robinson raised and home-schooled his six children – all of whom became remarkable scholars, collaborating on research and a popular DVD series on math and science for home-schooled students and their parents. Five of the children have BS degrees in chemistry; one a degree in mathematics. Two earned doctorates in veterinary medicine; one a PhD in chemistry.

The three youngest are all at OSU, working on PhDs in nuclear engineering. They entered the field at a young age, helping their father write and publish the “pro-science, pro-technology, pro-free enterprise” newsletter, Access to Energy, which explains and advocates nuclear energy. Dr. Robinson is perhaps best known for the Oregon Petition Project, which states that “there is no convincing scientific evidence” that humans are causing “catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere” or disruption of its climate. It urges Congress to reject the 1997 Kyoto global warming agreement – and has been signed by more than 32,000 Americans with university degrees in physical sciences (including yours truly and over 9,000 PhDs).

The petition, and Robinson’s support for DDT in combating the malaria pandemic, drew anger and outrage from the political Left, climate chaos industry and “mainstream media,” giving him his first brush with the politics of personal destruction. But it did not prepare him for the lengths and depths his opponents would go to “discourage” his political activities.

With our nation drowning in debt, energy prices skyrocketing, and unaccountable pseudo-scientific agencies like EPA and Interior hobbling business and economic growth in endless delays and red tape, Dr. Robinson decided to run for Congress. He was a scientist, with proven math and budgetary skills, a thoughtful, conservative, Christian family man – who could bring much needed skills and perspectives to the House of Representatives.

He challenged DeFazio, who initially figured he would have a cakewalk against this political neophyte. But Robinson raised $1.3 million from over 5,000 individual donors (against DeFazio’s $1.5 million from special interests, MoveOn.org and other contributors), gave numerous speeches and ran a highly effective campaign. With polls showing his lead narrowing, an increasingly desperate DeFazio struck back.

Bristling with a sense of entitlement, the congressman ran print, television and radio ads, painting Robinson as a nutcase who would promote racism, put radioactive wastes in drinking water, end Social Security and Medicare, close schools, repeal taxation of oil companies and destroy Oregon jobs. With help from Rachel Madow and MSNBC, DeFazio claimed Robinson lived off Social Security in a survivalist compound and was funding his campaign with cash from money launderers and drug dealers.

Despite the libelous attacks, Robinson garnered a very respectable 44% of the vote – and promptly announced that he would run for DeFazio’s seat again in 2012. If the soft-spoken family man thought DeFazio’s campaign had been in the sewers, what happened next beggared belief. Now the targets became Robinson’s three youngest children.

During the election campaign, OSU President Edward Ray and other faculty and administrators illegally used the campus to campaign for DeFazio and against Robinson. Almost immediately after the 2010 election, they launched a series of despicable and unprincipled actions designed to ensure that Joshua, Bethany, and Matthew never receive their degrees – regardless of their outstanding academics, examinations and research, or the thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars they had invested.

Even though they have been working on their PhDs for almost five years at OSU, and have about a year to go, Joshua has been forbidden access to the equipment he built for his PhD work, and Bethany has been told she will be dismissed from school. Matthew, who turned down a nearly “full ride” from MIT to go to OSU, has been there for two years – but now is waiting for the ax to fall on his work and his thesis professor, Dr. Jack Higginbotham, who came to the students’ defense.

Nuclear engineering professor Higginbotham has been at OSU 24 years and is president of the OSU Faculty Senate and director of a large NASA program on the campus. His inside knowledge of what the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health Physics deans and certain faculty were doing to railroad the Robinson children made him Public Enemy Number One to the department Torquemadas who are trying to destroy his career and get him fired for his impertinence. Right now, Higginbotham’s salary and career hang by a thread, preserved only by attorneys he has hired to protect himself from OSU attacks. The Robinsons’ studies have been severely disrupted. Meanwhile, however, public outcry in favor of Higginbotham and the students has grown in intensity, especially in Oregon, and a group of prominent alumni donors has offered to pay for the student’s remaining PhD work and legal costs to settle the dispute.

Rather than being chastened, though, President Ray and his staff have refused even to speak with the alumni group. University administrators have become incensed that their actions are now public knowledge, and that alumni and other donors are vocally supporting Higginbotham and the children.

Ray and his entourage have circled the academic wagons and stonewalled public inquiries. They appear to think they “own” the university, and “academic freedom” means they are entitled to deny academic degrees to children of parents whose politics differ from their own. As more alumni join this effort, however, and the university’s reputation becomes increasingly radioactive, OSU appears to be wavering. Perhaps a dose of sanity may yet take center stage. Oregon State is a prime example of what happens when educational institutions fall under progressive-socialist control, and dependency on taxpayer handouts from political overseers in Washington. DeFazio and his fellow congressional Democrats gave OSU a reported $27 million in earmark funding during the last legislative cycle alone. That’s $9 million per Robinson student denied a PhD.

No wonder President Ray and the Nuclear Engineering deans have given new meaning to “payback,” while DeFazio smirks in silence in the congressional office that he seems convinced should be his for life.

In depressing testimony to how far America has strayed from its Constitution and founding principles, we have reached the point where congressmen can lavish key supporters with tax dollars – and in return get votes, campaign contributions, rallies and volunteers on our campuses … and be assured of vicious retribution against the families of anyone rash enough to run against them.

If you want to read all the gory details in this sordid case, visit www.OregonStateOutrage.com.  If you thought the last Robinson-DeFazio bout was a humdinger, stick around. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Paul Driessen
Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which is sponsoring the All Pain No Gain petition against global-warming hype. He also is a senior policy adviser to the Congress of Racial Equality and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death.

Copyright © Townhall.com
 
To learn more about the Robinson Family, please click on the link:
http://oregonstateoutrage.squarespace.com/storage/robinsonfamily.pdf
 
 

Medicare and Taxes, Obama's Bargaining Chips



As he embarks on his bid for reelection, Barack Obama is cranking up the same tune  for fixing the economy -- Raise taxes on the rich, cut back on Medicare benefits.   Rich, to Barack Obama, is any one who makes more than $250,000.00 per year.   Why does he not mention the overpaid, often under talented celebrities who make outrageous amounts of money and contribute to his political campaigns.  Those people are rich!  Obama knows that  if he goes along with the Republicans' plan to cut the budget in order to bring the national debt under control, he will risk losing the support of his liberal base.

After Obama gave up $38.5 billion to the Republicans last week in order to avoid a budget shut down, liberal activists have threatened to withhold their support if he doesn't fight against any more cuts.  The Republicans on the other hand, are talking the need to slice trillions, not billions of dollars in programs in order to save the nation from impending bankruptcy.  The compromise between the parties was short lived.  On Wednesday, Obama will once again have to face the nation and deliver a speech about the looming battle over raising the debt ceiling. 

Senator Barack Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling during the Bush administration, yet now his staffers claim that the president regrets his vote and admits that it was a mistake.  This admission means only one thing:  Obama will push for raising the debt ceiling.

Obama has also promised his supporters that if he must make any  reductions in government entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid, they will be accompanied by tax increases on the rich and cuts in defense spending.  Now that he has authorized a surge in Afghanistan and  involved our country in a very costly third war in Libya, he plans to cut defense spending? Obama's feelings for the military were made quite clear last week when he threatened to withhold military pay if the government were to be shutdown.

Obama's liberal base wants him to appear as a job creator and not one who cuts the deficit budget, but the man has been in office for two years, and the only jobs that have been created are federal jobs, while the unemployment rate in the private sector remains basically unchanged.  There is no way that Obama can sell himself to the American electorate as a "job creator," while progressives believe that the fundamental problem in our country right now is unemployment and a job crisis, not a deficit crisis.

Last year when Obama agreed to extend the Bush cuts and not to penalize those who made $200,000 - $250,000 a year by taxing them, we agreed with the decision.  We feel that to penalize those who have studied hard to receive an education, and who have worked and sacrificed to eventually make a comfortable salary is unfair.  Those are the people who provide for themselves and their families without turning to the government for help and assistance.  Such taxes kill initiative and stifle the individuals' drive to succeed.  It is those  persons who make the  seemingly high salaries, who pay the high taxes to keep those entitlement programs going. They pay the exorbitant property taxes to keep the schools districts going.  Those are the folks who pay the high income taxes to the IRS.   Now the government wants to tax them again?  They are the people who pay for college tuition for their children without asking for assistance.   They are the ones who pay their debts, who spend the money that keeps small businesses afloat.  They are America's middle class. They are not the "rich." 

The White House has hinted that Obama's speech will announce deep cuts in the Medicare and Medicaid benefits.  In speaking with doctors and other health care professionals, we know that cutting benefits will be more difficult on the elderly than to consider Congressman Paul Ryan's plan to restructure the Medicare system.  If implemented now, the Ryan Plan would not affect anyone over the age of 55, but it would give those under 54 ample opportunity to successfully adapt to the changes before the full plan is implemented.  Those now receiving Medicare would not experience any drastic changes at all. 

The Medicare system has been subject to fraud and abuse for years, which has in large part been responsible for the system being broke and broken.  According to the Center For Public Integrity, "Every year as much as $60 billion in taxpayer money is stolen from Medicare, which pays for the health care of seniors and the disabled. This massive rip-off is done through various schemes, but largely by fraudulently billing for services or medical equipment they do not provide. “The legitimate Medicare recipient is hurt, the legitimate business that’s dispensing this and serving patients is hurt, every taxpayer is hurt, and we need to come down on this with both feet." But no serious crackdown has taken place, despite calls by legislators from both parties. We urge them to address the issue ASAP.

There are many reasons why Medicare has become unsustainable.  One is that people are living longer than previously expected, another is the fraud that increases yearly and goes unpunished.  Rather than to continue to frighten the voters, particularly the elderly with cuts to the system that they have by law been forced to accept as their health care provider, the Obama administration should seek to work with Republicans to find a lasting solution to the problem.  In the year 2000, then Texas Governor George W. Bush said:  "Medicare should not be a political issue."   We agree, it should not.  Medicare is dealing with peoples' lives.  Raising taxes is dealing in peoples' living.  Politicians don't have the right to mishandle either one.
 
 

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government. "

Thomas Jefferson

SUNDAY REFLECTIONS

As the newly elected Senators and Representatives prepare to be seated and sworn in, everyone is speculating on what the mixture of a GOP dominated House, a Democrat Senate and President. will do for the country.  How will it affect the economic crisis?  For weeks now commentators and pundits have been making predictions.  The GOP has announced that the first order of business will be to repeal Obamacare.  Some liberals take offense to the term Obamacare and try to push through the more palatable "health care reform" terminology.  Conservatives warn the Congress not to "roll over" for Obama.  Democrats admonish that Obama won't go begging to the GOP.  In the meantime the president enjoys his  $1.5 million Hawaiian Christmas while signing bill and making objectionable appointments without consulting the Senate as is his wont. 

Others such as Rep. Issa indicate that they are going after the corruption in the Obama Administration.  The new Speaker of the House to be, John Boehmer plans an Obamacare repeal vote before the State of the Union address.  All of us know that the GOP House must still contend with a Democrat held Senate and Obama's veto power.  It's going to be an interesting beginning to the new year.

As we scoured the news reports for facts, and researched for information to write our blog, we did so with the idea of what advice we'd give the GOP.  Sister Two has a new Republican Senator in Mark Kirk.  Sister One unfortunately lives in a Democratic stronghold, but within the Corpus Christi metropolitan area, and they made history on November 2, and defeated Representative Solomon Ortiz and replaced him with Republican Blake Farenholdt.  We are anxious to see what the GOP will do.  Can they succeed?

Armed with several ideas, and even more false starts,  we came across Sunday Reflections in the Washington Examiner, and by golly, here was Professor Reynolds, eloquently expressing what we would have said, except he said it much better.  So with gratitude to him and the Washington Examiner, we bring you an article  that we hope all the GOP in Congress will read.   
Sunday Reflections
Modest proposals to help the new Congress survive and America to thrive


By: Glenn Harlan Reynolds
OpEd Contributor
Washington Examiner


With the new Congress being sworn in this week, everyone is full of advice. 


Well, I'm no exception.


The first advice comes from Han Solo in the debut "Star Wars" film: "Don't get cocky." Republicans won big in the last election, but, if they think that constitutes an excuse to slip back into their old ways, circa 2004 to 2006, then they are doomed -- not just as individual politicians, but quite possibly as a party. The public's patience is quite limited, and is likely to stay so for the foreseeable future.


Second, remember that fortune favors the bold. It's true that ordinarily in politics, most progress occurs at the margins. But it's also true that these are not ordinary times. Big money-saving and government-shrinking proposals in the House, even if they're shot down by the Democrat-controlled Senate, will nonetheless establish a tone.

 They're trying to hide it, but the Inside-the-Beltway permanent-government political class is currently scared. Keep them that way, while showing the public at large that you're serious.


Third, look beyond Congress. There's a simmering mood in favor of constitutional reform across the country. Proposals such as Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett's "Repeal Amendment" -- in which overweening federal laws can be repealed by a supermajority of state legislatures -- are already floating around and generating sufficient support to require pushback from the New York Times.


Nineties-era ideas like the Balanced Budget Amendment and federal term limits for Congress are also popular again. And there's even interest in calling a federal Constitutional Convention. No doubt other ideas will appear. Give them a fair hearing in Congress. Not only is this worth doing on its own, but it will help keep the Washington-insider crowd off-balance.


Fourth, ignore the press. The establishment media still have their power, but they've never been weaker, and they're perceived by an ever-greater percentage of Americans as simply an arm of the political-class Democratic Party. If you pay attention, they have power over you. If you do what you think is right, they don't.


Fifth, go after the infrastructure of the government-backed Left. Back in 2002, I wrote that Republicans should be repealing the awful Digital Millennium Copyright Act: By doing so, they'd not only build up goodwill among college-age downloaders and libertarian tech-types, but they'd also harm the entertainment-industrial complex that is a huge source of money and media power for Democrats.


Seldom are politicians presented with the opportunity to do something simultaneously so inherently right, politically popular and strategically advantageous. Naturally, the congressional Republicans of that era blew it.


They just couldn't bring themselves to go after Big Business, even if it was hostile Big Business. That opportunity is still there. And don't pass up similar opportunities, either. There are a lot of them out there.


Sixth -- and this may be the hardest of all -- lead by example. Democrats have been hurt by, for instance, campaigning against Americans' big carbon footprints while living in enormous mansions and flying in private jets. Don't follow in their footsteps.


Saying no to the perks of office is hard, but Americans, who might tolerate hypocrisy when things are going well, are pretty sick of it now. Act like public servants, not members of an entitled aristocracy, no matter how great the temptations are to act otherwise. And they are great indeed.


Finally, and most importantly, don't forget that these are serious times. In the 1990s, America was able to fool itself into believing that we had reached the end of history, that the tough decisions were mostly behind us, and that progress and prosperity were mostly inevitable.


We know better now. The country is on the verge of bankruptcy, the federal government is at a low point in terms of popular legitimacy, and not just Congress, but the entire political class, is on probation.


"Don't blow it" is fairly unspecific advice, but it's important here. Don't be distracted by the many, many things that seem important in Washington but that don't really matter.


This last advice is probably the most important. We live in perilous times, and they demand a self-discipline and seriousness of purpose that has been missing from those who have governed us in recent years.


Rise to the occasion on the big things, and the little ones will take care of themselves. Drop the ball on the big things, and it won't matter how tactically clever your political position is.


So, yeah, don't blow it.

Examiner Sunday Reflections contributor Glenn Harlan Reynolds is founder and editor of Instapundit.com, and a University of Tennessee law professor.