Notes on spinoff pages:
All the material about judicial vacancies, filibusters in the Senate, and lawyers in general, has been moved here.
The John Kerry Section is now on a page of its own, since it became too large for a little corner of this page.
There is a special section here on this page about the late Jesse Helms.
Similarly, all the material about The Minimum Wage and Organized Labor Issues now appear on their own pages. (Splitting up these larger pages makes it easier for you to get to the information you want without having to wait for an enormous page to load.)
Also there is a page about the 2004 election, its aftermath, and the lessons to be learned, and (obviously) a newer one about the 2006 election.
Please note: A few days ago there was a bit of remodeling done at Town Hall dot com, and as a result, many of the links on this page go to a dead end that says, "You are not authorized to view this page." I hope the people at Town Hall are going to put in some kind of redirect system for old URLs, but if they don't, I'll have to remove dozens of opinion articles from this page. I'm waiting for a reply from Town Hall, but in the meantime, please be prepared to encounter broken links on this page.
Note: All the material about domestic spying, normally seen in this spot, has been moved here.
More Polls Show Voters Weary Of DC Control Freaks As Party Loyalty Tanks. A record number of Americans say most members of Congress do not deserve to be re-elected, according to the latest CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll. The survey shows voter disdain for those in power in both controlling parties has grown more widespread than ever before.
First They Came for the Toddlers... The FLDS raid in Texas looks more ludicrous every day. Writing in the Dallas Morning News, Scott Henson takes aim at Judge Barbara Walther: "Excuse me, Judge? You issued a sweeping, house-to-house search warrant based on a highly questionable anonymous call that turned out to be phony. You refused to allow individual hearings for children, grouping them together like cattle."
The Counterfeiters … and the Fed: Our own Federal Reserve System has for many years been inflating our currency, effectively accomplishing what the Nazis had hoped to accomplish, albeit more gradually. Thanks to the Fed, almost $12 would be needed today to equal the purchasing power of $1 in 1945.
GW's War: About one third of the citizenry thought GW's War needed to be waged, one third did not think the war was necessary and were in fact vehemently against it, the other third were indifferent to the whole concept. GW was a lousy speaker and had trouble rallying the citizenry. Few nations supported GW's War as allies. Some in Congress who had voted for the war, later changed their minds. As GW's War dragged on, they began to withhold funding.
Stalinism Was Just as Bad as Nazism. There is really no big difference between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. When World War II began in September 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were allies; indeed Stalin and Hitler launched the war together.
Hillary's Growing Shadow: Everyone is puzzled why the Democratic candidate isn't at least 10 points ahead. It seems the more Americans get used to Barack Obama, the less they want him as president — and the more Democrats will soon regret not nominating Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton Will Not Go Quietly, Again. Hillary Clinton is suggesting that her supporters be allowed to enter her name for nomination at the Democratic Convention. It would supposedly be cathartic for them, while also recognizing Hillary's historic role of being the first woman to blow an almost-certain shot at being the party's standard-bearer.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn feeds the darkest temptation. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning writer who died this week, spotted the danger back when it was called communism. Mind you, it took no great brains to see evil in an ideology that was trying to destroy him. After all, this Russian war hero had been arrested on wild charges of slandering Stalin and sent to the Gulag, where millions had died.
Fields of Water. If the terrible Midwest floods have a silver lining, it is the grit and self-reliance that residents have shown in coping with the disaster. Iowans in particular haven't blamed everyone else for their version of Katrina. They've been following orders on when to evacuate, volunteering to lay sandbags to protect still-dry areas, and are already planning how they'll clean up the mess when the floodwaters subside.
The Editor says...
Notice that in Iowa there was no looting, nobody blaming the White House for the rain, nobody permanently evacuated to another state, and there will probably be nobody from Cedar Rapids spending the next two years in a hotel at FEMA's expense.
A Constitutional President in 2008. Super Tuesday is behind us, and for many there were no surprises. The GOP presidential candidates who stood for the Constitution, individual liberty, and a sound economy, were marginalized by the national media and the party machine. But the machine no longer has a monopoly, and the countless millions who share our passion for liberty and limited government don't need to play by its rules and choose between supporting John McCain or staying home on Election Day.
Help Wanted: Evil Minions. The energy industry is almost universally criticized and hated. And for some reason the number of people wanting to work in it are in short supply.
The Sweet Illusion Of Socialism: Will America hold to the principles of capitalism and free enterprise or will it embrace elements of socialism, Marxism and communism? Those are our choices.
In-Game Advertising: Yet Another Insult. Call me silly or naïve, or maybe just old-fashioned, but I thought commercials were a way for us to get content for free, as in "free TV" and "free radio." I've always considered that to be an acceptable trade-off: if I don't want commercials I can opt for premium services such as pay TV or satellite radio and if I'm too cheap or "fiscally challenged" to shell out for such stuff then I should just shut up and go to the bathroom when the ads come on. That isn't enough anymore, apparently.
When You Fill Up the Tank Thank Congress for High Gas Prices. The unpleasant fact is that a poorer world will be dirtier and less healthy for human beings, and not so great for nature either. Unless we want to concede that the earth would be better off completely without human beings — and just who would judge it so anyway? — then it is time to recognize that both human beings and the earth will be better off the wealthier we become. And for the foreseeable future, that wealthier future will depend upon drilling for oil.
Broadcasting Obama: With Obama's nomination a lock, there's been increasing discussion of what his Presidency might produce. Time and again, conversation comes back to this question of a black president and America's image abroad. Yet, no one can name a single country that isn't ages behind the U.S. in terms of diversity and integration. The notion that there's a soft and cuddly world just waiting for America to catch up is not "global consciousness" but the very opposite: it is an American fantasy born of prosperity and isolation.
America's Most Miserable Cities: Imagine living in a city with the country's highest rate for violent crime and the second-highest unemployment rate. As an added kicker you need more Superfund dollars allocated to your city to clean up contaminated toxic waste sites than just about any other metro. Unfortunately, this nightmare is a reality for the residents of Detroit.
McCain's Costly Tax on Energy: What do John McCain, Environmental Defense, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Pew Center on Climate Change have in common? They have united to support a massive new tax increase on energy — which will raise costs throughout the economy and threaten the vitality of, among others, the oil and automobile industries.
FARC's 'Human Rights' Friends. It may have taken years for army intelligence to infiltrate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and it may have been tough to convincingly impersonate rebels. But what seems to have been a walk in the park was getting the FARC to believe that an NGO was providing resources to help it in the dirty work of ferrying captives to a new location.
A Myth Dies In Colombia Jungle. One of the most positive side effects of Colombia's rescue of 15 hostages from FARC communist terrorists was in dispelling the myth of revolutionary Che Guevara as a romantic hero. Che, after all, was with the bad guys last week. The Colombian soldiers who freed the hostages wore Che T-shirts to convince the FARC they were fellow terrorists, and it actually worked. Within minutes, the hostages were handed over.
Hell on Earth: "One day, I discovered three kernels of corn in a small pile of cow dung, picked them up and cleaned them with my sleeve before eating," says Shin In-kun at www.northkoreanrefugees.com. "As miserable as it may seem, that was my lucky day." You may be asking yourself in what twisted world could that revolting story be considered a lucky day? Welcome to North Korea.
When Will North Korea Collapse? An array of intelligence analysts, Asian and American scholars, specialists in think tanks, and workers in relief organizations have renewed speculation that the North Korean regime of Kim Jong Il is in danger of collapsing because that nation is on the brink of mass starvation and mounting isolation.
Has the US Run Amuck Constitutionally? The Ninth and 10th amendments specify that the federal government may not do anything that isn't spelled out in the Constitution. That is why, after citing 200 pages of constitutional abuses and violations by our government, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano concludes in his book "Constitutional Chaos" that the whole government has run amuck constitutionally, and we must question and be leery of its future motivations and decisions.
What do Yucca Mountain and Guantanamo Bay have in common? Neither is a great spot for a family vacation. And each is under the control of the federal government. … Yucca Mountain is where the government wants to keep incredibly dangerous substances — nuclear waste — until we figure out a better way to handle it. And Guantanamo Bay is where the federal government keeps incredibly dangerous people — jihadi enemy combatants — until we figure out a better way to handle them.
Some Thoughts On A Hypothetical Constitutional Crisis: Strategists for both John McCain and Barack Obama are chewing over a hypothetical scenario wherein Barack Obama recieves millions more votes than John McCain, but, because of the distribution of votes in the electoral college, McCain would become the president. … One Republican who has advised the McCain campaign thinks the country "can stand that sort of thing once every 100 years, but not twice in 8 years — especially with the Republicans winning every time."
Give Me Back My Party. At one time, the GOP was the party that fought for open government, term limits, reductions in spending and less government intrusion. When I was involved in the Republican Party, we wanted the IRS disbanded and the Department of Education either reduced, made useful, or abolished. We believed in the goodness of an individual and the greatness of individualism.
A Party Turned Upside-Down. Without a large body of workers at the local level, a political party would be like an army with only generals and no privates. This is just plain common sense, but it seems to have escaped the notice of the Republican Party, a vast organization with lots of generals and colonels and [very] few privates. Nobody has focused on building the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan took on the job.
If GOP Runs a RINO for President, The Party Will Crash and Burn. Republicans in Name Only, or RINOs, are a great asset to the Democrat Party and the news media. … Democrats believe Iraq is another Vietnam? Well, so does Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Democrats are fearful that a Justice Alito may overturn Roe v. Wade? Well, so does Republican Senators Arlen Specter, Olympia Snow and Lincoln Chaffee. The Democrats fear we might be "abusing" terrorists? Well so does Senator John McCain.
Phony Soldiers and Phony Senators: Recently, at least 41 Democratic Senators, joined by a howling mob including George Soros' Media Matters, sought to silence Rush Limbaugh because of his reference to "phony" anti war soldiers. Limbaugh's comments, taken in context, referred to Jesse Macbeth, a confessed and convicted phony, whose faked but graphic war crimes confessions received far wider media notice than his later confession. He had been discharged in boot camp after 40 days of service.
Where are the 'human shields' in Burma? As it becomes increasingly apparent that a blood bath against innocents is taking place in Burma, the disingenuous nature of the human shields who flew to Iraq to tie themselves to installations — civilain and military — in a vain effort to forestall the U.S. invasion and the eventual deposing of a ruthless dictator becomes even clearer. Not one of them is even speaking out against this outrage, let alone making any effort to prevent this butchery. Remember. They did not and will not stand with the civilians in any place where people are fighting for democracy.
James Dobson Interview: It's About Principle, not Pragmatism. "Here's why I cannot vote for Rudy Giuliani. He's pro-abortion. He's never repudiated gay marriage in New York City or at least the civil unions in New York City. He's called a champion of gay rights. Rudy is opposed to school choice. He's in favor of open borders. … He's been married three times. When his second wife got sick of it she threw him out and he went to live with two homosexuals."
The National Church of Socialism: The financially and demographically struggling National Council of Churches (NCC) is mulling over a new "Social Creed for the 21st Century" that will succinctly articulate its left-leaning political activism. Many of the NCC's heterodox officials and activist supporters could not affirm traditional Christian theological creeds. For them, political creeds are the desired alternative.
The Borking of American Politics: If you think American politics have gotten nastier, crueler and more symbolic over the last 20 years, blame Ted Kennedy. This month marks the 20th anniversary of the borking of Judge Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan's failed Supreme Court nominee. And it was Ted Kennedy's bilious bugle blast that brought the man down.
Veneration of evil. [Che Guevara] continues to be a symbol of freedom and revolutionary fervour and purity for people who can't read or think. Che was Fidel Castro's right-hand man. Despite the fact leftie morons from Pierre Trudeau to Michael Moore venerate the Cuban totalitarian state, it is just a prison masquerading as a nation. … Che was put in charge of turning Cuba into a modern industrial nation. He failed miserably, thus consigning Cuba to a future as a colony of the Soviet Union, exchanging sugar for fighter planes.
Columnist Ann Coulter Declares 'Jews Need to Be Perfected by Becoming Christians'. Slash-and-burn columnist Ann Coulter shocked a cable TV talk-show audience Monday when she declared that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians, and that America would be better off if everyone were Christian.
In Defense of Ann Coulter. Ann is promoting a book and in those circumstances she accepts all invitations, even into hostile territory. She came on Deutsch's CNBC show,The Big Idea, the interview appearing over a chiron (sic) reading: "Being Extreme Makes Millions." The host is a blow-dried pretty boy who wears half-glasses down on his nose to create a kind of Michael-Landon-meets-Erkel effect.
The Editor says...
Chyron is becoming a generic term for a superimposed television title, the kind that appears over every TV program to identify whoever's speaking. Practically every television station has a Chyron graphics system. Thirty years ago such a machine was called a "character generator" because it was just a typesetting machine for television. Now they also put up banners and backgrounds and all sorts of annoying "bugs" and logos all over the screen. You can't produce a competitive TV news show without one, and yet, graphics overload is one of TV's most annoying traits.
Why I Am A Conservative: I became a conservative because … I don't get upset that the federal government "doesn't care about me." In fact, I'd be pleased if it forgets that I exist. … Having a government that is too involved in our lives is far more of a threat than a government that isn't involved enough. … Life begins at the moment of conception and we have an obligation to speak up for the children that are being exterminated via abortion since they can't speak up for themselves.
LOST: The Law of the Sea Treaty
Now on a page of its own, located here.
Bush Amazes. At the trial, the prosecutor had conceded that there was no underlying crime and that Libby had not "outed" anyone. But then in the sentencing phase the prosecutor completely falsified himself and claimed Libby had done serious national security damage — by naming an employee of the CIA who was not covert and not overseas, contrary to his statements at trial. The judge, who must have been a real whiz in law school (yes, I know he was appointed by Bush), sentenced Libby, a first offender who will never be in court again, to two and a half years in prison. It was insane.
Nine Members of Congress Who Should Resign Right After Larry Craig. There has been a lot of talk about Larry Craig's on again/off again decision to resign from Congress. Like most Republicans, I'm of the opinion that Craig should resign, but wouldn't it be great if he could take a few people with him?
Genocide Nearly Forgotten by History. The past week saw the anniversary of one of the great tragedies of history overlooked by most of the US mainstream media. … We must remember what a "workers paradise" really means: The infliction of pain on the worker for the good of the government.
Smile: What all celebs can learn from O. J. Simpson. The mug shot is the ignominious I.D., captured at a moment when the subject is, all at once, shamed, humbled, frustrated, fearful, and usually at a record low of dishevelment. The mug shot is supposed to be just a bureaucratic record. In practice, however, it is punishment for being a suspect at all.
Hugo's 'utopia': Socialism's lie. Severe food shortages in Venezuela — milk, sugar, eggs and more — indicate supporters of Hugo Chavez, the country's slippery socialist strongman, are getting their just deserts. With Cuban dictator Fidel Castro as Mr. Chavez's role model, mentor and commie muse, no wonder so many suffer so much.
It's Time To Get Over Katrina Already. It's not as if hurricanes are a once a millennium event in the United States. ... People lose their homes in this country every day of the year. If it isn't a hurricane, it's an earthquake. If it isn't an earthquake, it's a tornado. If it isn't a tornado, it's a fire. If it isn't a fire, it's a flood. Yet nobody sits and frets about John Doe, age 58, who lost his house in a flash flood two years ago or Jane Doe, age 60, who had her house blown away by a twister back in 2005.
Did someone mention Hurricane Katrina?
You're Dead, I'm Healing. I believe that this early healing talk is both foolish and immoral. It is foolish because one does not speak about healing the same day (or week or perhaps even month) that one is traumatized — especially by evil. One must be allowed time for anger and grief. To speak of healing and "closure" before one goes through those other emotions is to speak not of healing but of suppression.
Read this.
Programmed to Kill: An interview with Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the Soviet bloc. ... Pacepa's newest book is Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination.
It's Called the Constitution. It is important to remember that President Clinton fired all 93 U.S. attorneys when he took office in 1993, and gave them only ten days to vacate their offices. This was certainly within his authority as Chief Executive and did not raise a firestorm of protest like the one that has been leveled at the current administration.
The Impending Food Fight. While we worry about gas prices, the costs of milk, meat and fresh produce silently skyrockets. So like the end of cheap energy, is the era of cheap food also finally over?
Did someone mention High Gas Prices?
General Pace latest victim of homosexual agenda, says military monitor. The president of a conservative military watchdog group says she's dismayed over the recent sudden removal of General Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Marine general created controversy in March when he likened homosexuality to adultery, and said the military should not condone it by allowing homosexuals to serve in the military.
General Pace and the PC Police: Marine Gen. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should not apologize for supporting the law excluding homosexuals from the military. That law, Section 654, Title 10, was passed with veto-proof bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress in 1993. Federal courts have declared it constitutional several times. Nor should Gen. Pace be intimidated by name-calling gay activists who are berating the general for expressing his personal opinions on immorality.
Failing To Keep The Pace: The pre-emptive announcement that General Peter Pace will not be nominated for another two-year term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is yet another recent example of Bush Administration backpedaling in the face of Congressional and media pressure.
Coulter's Inoffensive Remarks: The most recent offense took place on CNBC's Donnie Deutsch show. Interviewing Ann Coulter, Deutsch asked her what her ideal world would look like. Her response included a reference that everybody would be Christian, to which Deutsch, a practicing Jew, took offense. Probing further, he elicited from Coulter the remark that Christians believe Jews need to be "perfected." Deutsch claimed he was further offended, using the weapon of victimhood to near perfection.
Ann Coulter Wants Jews to Become Christian — So What? Those who label Ann Coulter an anti-Semite do damage to the battle against anti-Semitism. I say this as a committed Jew, a religious Jew, a Jewish writer and lecturer, a past college instructor in Jewish history, co-author of a widely read book on anti-Semitism, recipient of the American Jewish Press Association's Prize for Excellence in Jewish Commentary, instructor in Torah at the American Jewish University, and a man who has fought anti-Semitism all his life. There is nothing in what Ann Coulter said to a Jewish interviewer on CNBC that indicates she hates Jews or wishes them ill, or does damage to the Jewish people or the Jewish state.
Unnecessary Scandal. Alberto Gonzales has to go. I say this with no pleasure — he's a decent and honorable man — and without the slightest expectation that his departure will blunt the Democratic assault on the Bush administration over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. … Gonzales has allowed a scandal to be created where there was none. That is quite an achievement. He had a two-foot putt and he muffed it.
What's Wrong With Vocational School? The spread of wealth at the top of American society has created an explosive increase in the demand for craftsmen. Finding a good lawyer or physician is easy. Finding a good carpenter, painter, electrician, plumber, glazier, mason — the list goes on and on — is difficult, and it is a seller's market. Journeymen craftsmen routinely make incomes in the top half of the income distribution while master craftsmen can make six figures.
Why it's foolish to turn your back on tradition: In his brilliant essay "The Great Relearning," Tom Wolfe recounts a "curious footnote to the hippie movement." In 1968, at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, doctors found themselves treating diseases "no living doctor had ever encountered before, diseases that had disappeared so long ago they had never even picked up Latin names." These maladies had such names as the mange, the grunge, the itch, the twitch, the thrush, the rot.
The President's Prosecutors: [Attorney General] Gonzales yesterday said he regretted the way Congress had been informed of the personnel changes. In the meantime, let the Democrats who had Webster Hubbell and Robert F. Kennedy running the Justice Department criticize the Bush administration for politicizing the Justice Department.
Cafeteria Constitutionalism: Appointees to Madison's boards and commissions must take an oath of office to uphold the U.S. and Wisconsin constitutions. But last month the city council approved a measure allowing them to refuse to swear to uphold a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage if they disagree with it. ... It's one thing to disagree with the amendment, quite another to rewrite the constitution.
Searching for the Gipper. Is there another Ronald Reagan on the horizon for 2008, a leader who can rally the coalitions that gave Reagan an eight-year mandate? Let's examine (in alphabetical order) some of the most frequently mentioned Republican presidential candidates. Just for fun, let's create a 1-to-10 "Gipper meter." Ten would be a Republican leader of Reagan's experience, stature, vision and charisma. One would be Lincoln Chaffee.
The Next Reagan? Republicans need someone like Ronald Reagan, someone everyone knows, someone everyone likes, someone who is conservative and — most importantly — someone who would hold the presidency for eight years. What qualifications would such a candidate need? He would have to be someone who is very articulate and convincing in front of the camera, someone who exudes confidence, someone who naturally appeals to women voters, someone familiar with the news media, someone who has kept very much in the public eye and yet someone who has been away from the mess in Washington for awhile. Is there such a man? Yes, there is: Fred Thompson.
How FDR Destroyed the Dollar: Until 1933, the U. S. dollar was the among the strongest and most stable currencies in the world. With the stroke of a pen, President Franklin Roosevelt torpedoed it. We are still plagued with the resulting inflation.
Saddam's just deserts. In a final blasphemy, Saddam Hussein, who spent most of his life as a murdering secularist, went to his justified death holding a Koran and offering his soul to God, if God would accept it. If God does, He will have to commute the sentences of Saddam's mass murdering predecessors, including Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.
Only stupid, sadistic dictators hang — and Saddam was both. Only a minority of modern dictators have been executed for their crimes. The most bloodthirsty of all, Stalin and Mao, died in full possession of their powers, if not their faculties. Franco pulled off the same trick. Hitler cheated the hangman with a bullet in the bunker. Pol Pot lost power, but was never brought to justice and died in his bed, as did Idi Amin.
The Charlie Brown Democrats. Like Charlie Brown always believing Lucy will hold the football, Clinton and Carter raced to the kick-off of peace with a murderous dictator — only to find out that they had (surprise!) been lied to. The Clinton legacy, already shredding because of his inability to deal with al Qaeda and terrorism, has just been dealt yet another — perhaps mortal — blow by Clinton and Carter's foolish trust in the North Korean father and son dictators.
The easiest way to add two more Democratic Senators.
Statehood for D.C.? The District [of Columbia] was allotted a delegate in 1970 precisely because the Constitution doesn't permit it to be given a representative. In 1978, Congress passed a constitutional amendment to grant the District a representative and senators because a statute couldn't grant the representation. The amendment failed when only 16 states ratified it within seven years.
Baked Alaska for North Korea. Lil' Kim has finally gotten around to detonating his first atomic bomb, thanks to Jimmy Carter's brokering of a quick American surrender and the immediate gift of two reactors, back on the early Clinton legacy watch, which allowed the short shake-down artist with that inveterate propensity for khaki to enrich the plutonium necessary to construct his recent radioactive surprise.
Congress needs tutorial on the U.S. Constitution. Some federal employees are griping because a new law requires them to take a 25-minute tutorial on the U.S. Constitution. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., … deserves our thanks for this great idea because most Americans, including public officials, are abysmally ignorant of the text and the meaning of our Constitution. The only thing the matter with his law is that he should have required a constitutional tutorial to be taken by judges and members of Congress.
Chris Wallace, Card-Carrying Democrat? In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, reporter Deborah Solomon asked "Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace what political party he belonged to. His answer: "None of your business." Oh, please. Ever heard of a little thing called public records? After five minutes of exhaustive research, we found that Wallace is a registered Democrat and has been for more than two decades.
The era of big-government conservatism must come to an end. The single-best thing the lame-duck GOP Congress can do is vote in a spending-limitation bill with balanced-budget targets for the next couple of years. This would be a spending-cap pay-as-you-go, which means that any increased spending must be offset by lower spending in other parts of the budget. Not higher taxes. Reduced spending.
Why we love government. The founders of our nation were suspicious, if not contemptuous, of government. … Today's Americans hold a different vision of government. It's one that says Congress has the right to do just about anything upon which it can secure a majority vote. Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery.
Acts of God — or acts of reckless man? The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina last August will be documented once again in anniversary TV specials later this month. But it's still unclear whether the terrible storm cut into the what-me-worry attitude that has led many of us to build homes below sea level, on barrier islands, on hillsides with brush that annually burn, or over earthquake faults — and then be shocked when catastrophe comes.
Sweet land of liberty ... believe it or not. There is no doubt — and I would challenge you to prove otherwise — that we live in a place and time where individual liberties and civil liberties are more extensive and more valued than they have ever been before on the face of the earth. And yet a huge number of people take the time each day to complain about how dangerous the Bush administration is, or to worry about the "all-out assault" on our civil liberties.
Defending Ann Coulter From Jersey Girls. Defending Ann Coulter, who has come under attack by Senators Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) and Frank Lautenberg (D.-N.J.), seems to be an oxymoron. She is the last person who needs to be defended, given the fact that she is a lawyer who presumably can defend herself and possesses a positively frightening intellect and wit.
They Shot the Wrong Lincoln. Apart from Bush, the only person who hasn't figured out that Lincoln Chafee is a Democrat is Lincoln Chafee. … It's hard to figure why Bush would support a half-wit like Lincoln Chafee. … When the farrier business proved too taxing for Chafee's intellect, he went into the family business — politics. His father died in office, and Lincoln was appointed by the governor to serve out the remainder of Pop's term in the U.S. Senate. In terms of qualifications for the job, Chafee makes Michael Brown look like Donald Rumsfeld.
McCain Declares War on the Constitution (Again). McCain's comment reveals his willingness to impose his view of what constitutes "clean government" even though it means setting aside a fundamental right clearly and explicitly defined in the Constitution.
Revelations of Joseph Smith. After two columns on the subject of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), I am getting lots of requests from Mormons to stop writing about "their" religion. … After I was asked to read about (and consider converting to) Mormonism, I came across some rather disturbing accusations against Joseph Smith, Jr.
The General Is a Spook: Get Over It. For the sake of argument, let's assume that those worrying loudly just didn't know that six of the 19 previous Directors [of the CIA] have been military men, and more than that if you count some who served their country in numerous different capacities, including the military (George H.W. Bush, for example).
Misery from companies. Americans should be the happiest people in history. We've got a booming economy, with 4.8 percent growth in the first quarter. Unemployment is down to 4.7 percent even as the population grows. The Dow Jones is near a historic high. But we're not happy. In a recent AP poll, 73 percent said the country is on the wrong track. Only 23 percent say we're heading in the right direction.
Owning your ideas: An essential tool for freedom. Thinking about going into business? Have an idea that you think will change the world? What if you were told that there was no way you could prevent someone from stealing your idea [especially important if your idea is successful] and exploiting it to make a profit?
Congress Should Impose Trade Sanctions on the Google-China Deal. Last week America's second largest technology company, Google, announced a program that would assist communist China's ongoing attempt to control the minds of its over 1.3 billion people. Simply put, Google will help make sure that when anyone in China looks up Tiananmen Square on the Chinese version Google is creating of its top rated search engine, that person will never see the famous picture of a student facing a Chinese Army tank.
The Lincoln Legacy Revisited. The Founding Fathers established the Constitutional Union as a voluntary agreement among the several states, subordinate to The Declaration of Independence, which never mentions the nation as a singular entity, but instead repeatedly references the states as sovereign bodies, unanimously asserting their independence.
Al Gore and the next 9-11. When Al Gore ran for president in 2000, he said, "Our Constitution is a living and breathing document" that changes its meaning over time. This week, we learned that among the things changing in Gore's Constitution is the war power. It meant one thing when Bill Clinton was president, but means another thing now.
With friends like Jack... Political Reality No. 1: The party in power gets corrupted. Political Reality No. 2: Indicted incumbents don't get re-elected.
Dr. Coburn, I Presume. Why does Barbara Boxer want to stop him from delivering babies? Back to the Constitution. "The Heritage Guide to the Constitution" is an essential reference book for anyone interested in our nation or in democracy in general.
The French way implodes. Socialism is an insidious poison. The vast majority of French voters seem wedded to their government-supplied goodies — failing to recognize that their economic and therefore social lives are unraveling because of that dependence.
Is Anything Not Interstate Commerce? It is doubtful a single member of Congress — except Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican — truly wants a Supreme Court that is serious about the Constitution's limits on congressional power.
Tortured reasoning: After decades of ignoring the fact that rights and responsibilities go together, it was perhaps inevitable that an under-educated and easily confused generation should include some who do not understand that the rights granted to captured troops by the Geneva Convention apply to those who have accepted the terms of the Geneva Convention. It does not apply to people who are not troops and who have blatantly violated the whole framework of that convention.
Republicanism in decline. The Republican Party in Washington is in trouble not because it's overrun by crooks, but because it's packed with cowards — and has degenerated into a caricature of the party that swept to power 11 years ago promising to take on the federal bureaucracy and liberate the creative genius of American society.
The Duke of Earle. [Tom] DeLay, who says he will be vindicated in court, is being targeted for doing his political job exceedingly well. That job, in part, has been to get more Republicans elected to office and to keep them there. When Democrats did it effectively for four decades, it was considered good politics. When DeLay and the Republicans do it, they are Satan's servants. [Ronnie] Earle apparently believes he has been "called" to stop them before they sin again.
The World According to J.C.: "Tedious" doesn't begin to describe the new book by America's worst ex-president. Jimmy Carter's 20th book is a tedious meditation about the appropriate uses of moral values in political life — as wisely and humbly exemplified by Himself — and of their misuses under the current Bush administration.
Privatize Fannie and Freddie. Two centuries ago, Thomas Jefferson argued that private property was the touchstone of American democracy. If he were alive today I am sure he would still be making that argument, because the idea is just as valuable now as it was then. And so I don't hesitate to argue, in the spirit of Jefferson, that Congress today is jeopardizing the American Dream.
The role of prices: What about the house that you might have purchased for $50,000 in 1970 that you're selling today? If you charged me $250,000 for it, today's price for its replacement, as opposed to what you paid for it, are you guilty of price-gouging? … Politicians would serve us better by focusing their energies on tax-gouging.
Dems' lurch to the left will hurt them in 2006. In a bizarre tactic that has left many Democrat strategists and centrist Democratic groups puzzled and disturbed, the Democratic leadership has jumped even further to the left since their last election defeats.
Will the GOP be Katrina's Biggest Casualty? Neither Tip O'Neill nor Jim Wright — two powerful former Democratic Speakers of the House famous for their big spending ways — could have said it better than Delay. The worst thing about Delay's comment is not its factual unreality, bad as that is, but what the remark says about the GOP congressional leadership's attitude about spending our tax dollars. "We've already cut it to the bone" or "there isn't any more fat to cut" or variations thereof were typical responses from O'Neill and Wright to critics of excessive federal spending.
Time to confront reality. Thanks to a series of natural disasters, unspeakable acts of terrorism and the responses to them, this country is headed beyond a mere budget crisis. We're drifting toward to a five-alarm financial fiasco.
Situational libertarianism: Liberties should be as unlimited as possible — unless and until there arises a real threat to the open society. Neo-Nazis are pathetic losers. Why curtail civil liberties to stop them? But when a real threat — such as jihadism — arises, a liberal democratic society must deploy every resource, including the repressive powers of the state, to deter and defeat those who would abolish liberal democracy.
A living Constitution for a dying Republic: FDR's extra-constitutional exploits opened the door for the judiciary to … read into the Constitution what was necessary to make it conform to the demands of the prevailing political will.
Is it time for conservatives to dump the GOP? Thanks to the incredible expansion of federal entitlements, regulations and pork spending sanctioned by the GOP leadership in Congress since 2001, there is virtually no chance that Big Government is going to be shrunk even a little any time soon. And since there is no sign the folks running Congress are willing to change course, why shouldn't conservatives dump the GOP?
Judgment Day: President Bush should listen to his base, not his opponents. What's wrong with this picture? President Bush was quick to slap his conservative base, yet he has shown an inexhaustible supply of sensitivity to those who plot to derail his presidency. Early on, the president was solicitous of Senator Ted Kennedy, inviting him to the White House residence to watch a movie and share popcorn. He even named the main Department of Justice building after Robert Kennedy. In return, Kennedy has never missed an opportunity to stick a knife between the president's ribs.
What Happened at Chappaquiddick: In a sequence of events that instantly became famous, Senator Kennedy escaped from the submerged vehicle and swam to shore. By 2:30 a.m. he had made his way back to his hotel in Edgartown, where he was sighted in the lobby. He made 17 phone calls to family members and associates. But not until 10 hours after the accident did he call the police to tell them about the car crash — and the other person in the car, who had died.
See also Chappaquiddick: A Profile in Cowardice.
Congress and the Federal Reserve Erode Your Dollars. Texas Rep. Ron Paul does not blame the Chinese yuan for the drastic decline of the dollar. Rather, Dr. Paul attributes it to Congress – which spends more money than is brought in by taxes each year – and the Federal Reserve – which over the last 15 years has increased the money supply by trillions of dollars.
The Top 8 Reasons Not To Support Condi Rice For President In 2008: Among other things, she has never run for office before, she's pro-abortion, and she's pro-Affirmative Action. Most of her other domestic views are completely unknown.
The issue here isn't medical marijuana, it's the Tenth Amendment.
The high cost of nuances: The question before the Supreme Court was not whether allowing the medicinal use of marijuana was a good policy or a bad policy. The legal question was whether Congress had the authority under the Constitution to regulate something that happened entirely within the boundaries of a given state.
A Libertarian President? Don't Laugh! Libertarian ideas, such as expanding individual liberty, re-limiting government, and protecting private property rights, have become much more respectable during the past two decades. Less progress, however, appears to be taking place in politics. Nevertheless, I predict the President of the United States elected in 2016 will be the candidate of the Libertarian Party.
Making intelligent errors. Since intelligence is always less than perfect, we're forced to decide which error is least costly. Leading up to our war with Iraq, the potential errors confronting us were: Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we incorrectly assumed he didn't. Or, he didn't have weapons of mass destruction and we incorrectly assumed he did. Both errors are costly, but which is more costly? It's my guess that it would have been more costly for us to make the first error: Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we incorrectly assumed he didn't.
What's In a Name? The folks who brought you "compassionate conservatism" now offer "The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism." Perfect: A war that's not called a war for fear of making people think about war, which is waged against an enemy who is not identified for fear of offending mass-murderers and the people who coddle them, and which occurs everywhere on the planet so no one is left out, but nowhere specific so no one is put in.
Snuff out this silly suit. The ongoing federal lawsuit against tobacco companies is an outrage against the Rule of Law and against the very idea of limited federal government. This amount demanded in the suit, inherited by the Bush administration from the Clintonistas, was last week whittled down from its original $280 billion to a "mere" $10 billion. It is past time for the administration to administer the coup de grace to this lawsuit, for it makes a mockery of our tort system.
Memín pinguin: On the heels of Mexican President Vicente Fox insulting U.S. civil rights groups by opining that Mexican immigrants in the United States — legal or otherwise — are filling jobs "not even blacks" want to fill, along comes Memín Pinguin. And once again, the Mexicans don't know what all the fuss is about.
Watergate and the Weather Underground: It was Nixon, after all, who (in defiance of the Constitution) created the Environmental Protection Agency. He signed the law creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; enacted wage and price controls; expanded the size and reach of the "civil rights" enforcement bureaucracy; and in manifold other ways abetted the growth of the regulatory leviathan. Compared to the routine crimes against the Constitution committed by Nixon by way of official policy, Watergate was little more than a series of silly pranks.
Cloning for dollars: Lost in all the hand-wringing are some inconvenient facts for advocates of embryonic stem-cell research: "Any potential therapy [using embryonic stem cells] is years away from being tested in humans." That statement is not my assessment. It's the assessment of that bastion of a secular business worldview: Investor's Business Daily.
Municipal Broadband Is Not a Public Utility. Broadband, we are told, is too important a resource to be left to the "vagaries of the marketplace." It apparently doesn't matter that as a group, telephone, cable, satellite, and wireless companies have succeeded in getting broadband to more than 90 percent of the zip codes in the U.S. It doesn't matter that the U.S. leads the world with 34 million wireline broadband connections, accounting for more than 20 percent of the worldwide total of 150 million broadband lines at the end of 2004.
Sovereignty hangs on in Europe. The European Union, which has a flag no one salutes and an anthem no one knows, now seeks ratification of a constitution few have read. Surely only its authors have read its turgid earnestness without laughing, which is one reason why the European project is foundering.
The Federal Monopoly: Both sides in the actual Civil War were engaged in subjugation. The South was protecting chattel slavery; the North was denying the right of secession on which this country was founded. At the time the Constitution was adopted, several states, including Virginia and New York, ratified it on the express condition that they might withdraw from the Union at any time they deemed it in their interest to do so.
The Terri Schiavo Subsection
Protecting the lives of others is fundamental to civilization. Protecting family members and others who cannot defend themselves is fundamental to a civilized society. Terri Schiavo's family, and many others, tried to protect her because that is what wild animals and civilized humans do for their own kind. When a migrating goose is ill or injured, other geese stay with the downed goose until it can fly again or dies. They do not drown the disabled goose so they can conveniently resume their flight.
Schiavo case matters in symbol and substance. Terri Schiavo is a symbol in the battle over life-and-death issues that inconveniently, but necessarily, confront us.
There are No Excuses for Dehydrating the Disabled. "Terri Schiavo's autopsy results confirm what was feared — she was disabled, and her death was due to the deliberate denial of hydration," said Wendy Wright, CWA's senior policy director. "The autopsy report described Terri's medical history and condition in detail, but the cold reality of the truth is that her cause of death was 'dehydration.' Terri Schiavo died because the court ordered the removal of the instrument that provided her water.
Cruel and unusual: If the tragic case of Terri Schiavo shows nothing else, it shows how easily "the right to die" can become the right to kill. It is hard to believe that anyone, regardless of their position on euthanasia, would have chosen the agony of starvation and dehydration as the way to end someone's life.
Starved for justice. How about a Republican governor sending in the National Guard to stop an innocent American woman from being starved to death in Florida? Republicans like the military. Democrats get excited about the use of military force only when it's against Americans.
Orwell and Terri Schiavo: They say that Terri is being "allowed to die." No. She is being made to die. All across America, in hospitals, mental wards and institutions for the severely disabled, there are people who, if we withdrew our care for them, would die. We wouldn't call this "allowing" them to die. We would call it scandalous neglect.
Some final notes on the Terri Schiavo case: While conservative opinion was severely splintered, liberal opinion seemed monolithic: Let her die. Liberals usually rally to the side of vulnerable people, but not in this case. Democrats talked abstractly about procedures and rules, a reversal of familiar roles. I do not understand why liberal friends defined the issue almost solely in terms of government intruding into family matters. Liberals are famously willing to enter family affairs to defend individual rights, opposing parental-consent laws, for example. Why not here?
Thoughts of woman in 'waking coma' revealed. Neuroscientists have reignited the debate over whether patients in a vegetative state are conscious of their surroundings, by claiming that a woman in such a 'waking coma' can respond to verbal commands. … After years of studying the brains of vegetative patients, this is the first evidence, the researchers say, of awareness in such a patient.
Mother in coma laughs at her children's jokes. A mother of two who has spent two years in a coma has started chuckling at her children's jokes. It was the first sound Andrea Brushneen, 31, had made since suffering severe head injuries in a car crash.
Device wakes man with severe brain injuries. A man with severe brain injuries who spent six years in a near-vegetative state can now chew his food, watch a movie and talk with family thanks to a brain pacemaker that may change the way such patients are treated, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday [8/1/2007].
Implant boosts activity in injured brain. Brain function has been improved in a patient who was in a minimally conscious state, by electrically stimulating a specific brain region with implanted electrodes. The achievement raises questions about the treatment of other patients who have been in this condition for years, the researchers say.
Sleeping pill Zolpidem awakens girl from coma. A girl who has spent six years in a coma is showing signs of life after taking a sleeping pill. Amy Pickard, 23, had lain in her bed, unable to eat or breathe for herself since falling unconscious in 2001. … She is one of 360 people taking part in a worldwide trial of Zolpidem as a treatment for people in comas. Sixty per cent of patients taking part in the study have started showing signs of life.
Is "ethics" just another word for politics? If Tom DeLay was an incompetent and ineffective fool, Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would be doing all they could to keep him around. … What Reid and Pelosi hate is that DeLay is a highly effective conservative partisan and thanks in large part to his work, and sympathy from a large part of the American electorate for the values he represents, Democrats are the minority party today.
Boycott Proctor & Gamble. Procter & Gamble, makers of Crest toothpaste, Tide detergent, and Pampers diapers, has publicly thrown their support and money behind the homosexual political agenda. The company recently wrote to all their Cincinnati employees urging them to support the overturning of a city law which forbids giving special rights to homosexuals. Procter & Gamble is believed to be the first company to support the political agenda of the homosexual movement.
The Disappearing Dollar: Since the last links between the dollar and gold were severed in 1971, the dollar essentially has operated as an article of faith. Christopher Mayer, writing for the Ludwig von Mises Institute, states: "Faith that paper money itself was of any lasting value would have struck our forebears as patently absurd."
There's No Glass Floor. When Carly Fiorina was recently terminated as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, the world's second-largest computer company, it renewed charges that a glass ceiling and gender gap keep women down. That is a strange response to this case, and more evidence that gender nonsense still holds sway.
Not yours to give. What about President Bush's $350 million commitment for earthquake and tsunami relief — is that just as praiseworthy? Let's look at it. Charity is reaching into one's own pockets to assist his fellow man in need. Reaching into someone else's pocket to assist one's fellow man hardly qualifies as charity. When done privately, we deem it theft, and the individual risks jail time.
Note: The article above alludes to this much earlier one:
"Not Yours to Give", an excerpt from The Life of Colonel David Crockett, compiled by Edward S. Ellis (1884).
Congress is Wrong to Defund Strategic Programs. This is not an arms race; it is prudence. The issue at hand is nothing more complicated than having a nuclear arsenal of the right size, flexibility, and quality and studying how such an arsenal should be developed. For the sake of ensuring that this vital capability remains at the forefront of defense planning, Congress should reinstate funding for these programs.
Hysteria: Vioxx — when taken in very high dosages and for a long period of time — is suspected of causing cardiovascular problems for a small number of patients. Two others, Celebrex and Aleve, might when taken in huge doses and for a long time cause similar problems. The makers of Vioxx imprudently hauled it off the market — an invitation for the trial lawyers to pounce. The makers of Celebrex and Aleve have acted more prudently.
Painkiller panic: Nobody claims [Vioxx] is dangerous if the normal 25 mg dose is taken for only a couple of weeks … The hullabaloo about questionable risks from chronic overuse of such beneficent drugs as Celebrex and Alleve may yet result in truly serious health risks if it ends up contributing to the FDA's terrifying bureaucratic urge to deny doctors and their patients timely access to vital drugs.
Better answers: The case for Judeo-Christian values. There is an epic battle taking place in the world over what value system humanity will embrace. There are essentially three competitors: European secularism, American Judeo-Christianity and Islam.
Humor: U.N. Money-for-Peace Scam May Force Annan to Resign. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan today vigorously denied allegations that he has overseen a complex, fraudulent scheme to pilfer billions of dollars from 191 nations under the guise of providing "global peace services."
Ten years after the "Contract With America". When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, it was widely hailed as a revolution. Now, 10 years later, it is looking more and more like a coup d'etat that only changed the leadership while leaving everything else unchanged. … It looks more and more like the Republicans have become the Democrats they overthrew in 1994.
"Mega Fix": The dazzling political deceit that led to 9/11. In a stunning and surprisingly entertaining new 90-minute DVD video documentary – titled "Mega Fix" – Emmy-award-winning filmmaker Jack Cashill leads the viewer from Oklahoma City to Dubrovnik, where Ron Brown's plane crashed, to the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia to the destruction of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island to the Olympic Park bombing. As Cashill proves beyond dispute in this DVD, these are not multiple conspiracies, but all part of one major political fix.
The Facts on Halliburton: Why do leftists demonize Halliburton? What proof exists of their claims of corruption? What exactly has Halliburton done to profit from American military casualties? Indeed, have they profited from military casualties? Is there a special relationship between the Bush administration and Halliburton so that the company receives contracts without observing the normal bidding process? It is certainly true that during a two year period Halliburton's revenue from Defense Department contracts doubled. However, that increase in revenue occurred from 1998 to 2000 - during the Clinton administration.
The Editor says...Halliburton wins contracts for oil field work in the Middle East for the same reason that AT&T won the classified contract to operate the AUTOVON system.* They have the specialized equipment and the trained, experienced people to do the job, and they can get started today, if necessary. It is a waste of time and effort to shop around for small, minority-owned, or "disadvantaged" businesses when there are huge, urgent and highly specialized projects at hand.
Kerry-Edwards and Halliburton's fallen. It's too bad that Mr. Edwards confined himself to merely scoring points against Mr. Cheney and neglected to acknowledge the supreme sacrifices some Halliburton employees and members of their families have made in the war effort. Forty-eight Halliburton employees have died in Iraq since the start of the war last year.
But why Dubai? It's closer to the action. Texas is the can-do state. But there's no denying that Dubai has become the can-do sheikdom and a potent rival to Houston's supremacy as the center of the oil business. The move of Halliburton's corporate base from Houston to Dubai is a stark example of the industry's shift in power from North America. The company is moving closer to the oil fields of the Middle East and Africa and its big national oil firms that control financing, exploration and production.
A secular-to-English dictionary. Secular speak is a way of making nasty things sound nice, rather like applying lipstick to a pig. After the application, the pig is still ugly and smells bad. So it is with secular principles supporting immorality and the culture of death.
Women and Politics: Reconsidering the 19th Amendment. They sit home waiting for their husbands to bring home the money, or toil away at little jobs dreamed up to assuage the egos of bourgeois women living in the suburbs. Consequently, the typical liberal woman's political calculus is based on budgeting, not earning. They have no idea how the money materializes. But they have lots of opinions on how to spend it. They claim to be Republicans, but they are no more Republican than Bill Clinton. In fact, they adore Bill Clinton.
Why the 9/11 Fund was a mistake. In many cases, the government ended up paying a fortune to people who had already collected a fortune from private donors. USA Today reported in 2002 that relatives of New York police officers received an average of $929,000 in charitable funds. The families of firefighters and ambulance crews got $1,037,000.
The problems at Treasury: I was working at Treasury in 1989 during its 200th anniversary. President George H.W. Bush got a big laugh from the crowd when he noted that George Washington had nominated Alexander Hamilton to be secretary in the morning, he was confirmed by the Senate the same afternoon and sworn into office that evening.
The coming fiscal civil war: Unless politicians in Washington, D.C., start cutting government today, Social Security and Medicare will eventually drive the United States into fiscal civil war. It will not be a shooting war, pitting brother against brother. It will be a taxing-and-spending war, pitting grandparents against grandchildren.
"We the People": A Mandate or a Motto? Article V of the Constitution provides the process by which the Constitution may be amended. That process does not permit the judiciary to do so by issuing rulings that contradict the Constitution or by creating "constitutional" rights that do not exist in the Constitution. When that happens, as can be seen in some of this year's Supreme Court decisions, it is a government of men and not of laws. Consequently, "We the People" ceases to be a mandate and is reduced to a mere motto bereft of meaning.
How 9-11 happened: We don't need a "commission" to find out how
Bush had no advance warning of 9/11 attacks. So what has all this "damaging" testimony at the 9/11 Commission told us so far? Contrary to what the conspiracy fans would have you believe, we've learned that the administration had no advance warning of the attacks.
The Triumph Of the 9/11 Commission: Finally, an official body of the American government has come out and said what needs to be said: that the enemy is "Islamist terrorism… not just 'terrorism…' some generic evil." The 9/11 commission in its final report even declares that Islamist terrorism is the "catastrophic threat" facing America.
Fact and farce in the romance of states' rights: Simply stated, states' rights in this case really means full power to state courts, which are being allowed to create (rather than interpret) laws in defiance of the democratic process and in contempt of the clear preference of a majority of Americans, including both presidential candidates and most elected officials.
Love America or love to hate America? Tell me, when was the last time you saw a rickety boat leave this country for the shores of Cuba? Or throngs of wayward Americans seeking haven — in Mexico?
The dumbing down of America: I wish to make an observation that I dare say most of you are going to find both offensive and insensitive. I really don't expect to make any friends here, but I may just cause a few people to think for a few minutes.
The Civilian Conservation Corps and the roots of the USA's police state. It is ironic that the first "C" in the CCC refers to the "Civilian" Conservation Corps because the program was actually run by the Army. CCC enrollees were organized and transported by the War Department. Usually, they were shipped far from home to the socialist labor camps. … Most enlistees began with a five-day boot camp at a military base where they got physical training and orientation. Discipline at most camps was military too, with marching, formations, KP duty and "lights out" orders at night. Photographs show that officers at the camps wore military uniforms and used military titles.
Editorial Comment: President Reagan was everything that Bill Clinton and John Kerry are not. So many editorials have been written since Reagan died, I could probably make another page just about Reagan, but I won't. This one article is enough:
So Now They Think He Was Charming. Reagan was a bulldog, completely, implacably right-wing on every issue. He was the right-wing Energizer Bunny. He never quit and he kept beating liberals. He cut taxes 25 percent across the board his first year in office; he walked away from Gorbachev at Reykjavik; he fired all those air traffic controllers — and wouldn't let them come back even when they wanted to; he gave speeches about "welfare queens" and polluting trees; he nominated Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork to the Supreme Court...
Well... maybe just one more.
Reagan changed the world. Few Americans realize that President Reagan's economic policy won the Cold War by rejuvenating capitalism. Members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, with whom I spoke in Moscow during the Soviet Union's final months, agreed that it was President Reagan's confidence in capitalism, not his defense buildup, that caused Soviet leaders to lose their confidence.
Cut the Spending, Stupid. Too few in Washington recognize that a sizeable majority of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts benefited millions of working families across the country by lowering their income tax rates, lifting the so-called marriage penalty, and raising the value of the child credit to $1,000 from $500. Repealing the tax cuts won't lower the deficit much, and neither party seems to want a balanced budget enough to cut spending.
Shooting for the stars: The Bush proposal has less to do with a vision of man's destiny than with a totally dysfunctional government agency. NASA gave us the glory of Apollo, then spent the next three decades twirling around in space in low earth orbit studying zero-G nausea. It's crazy and it might have gone on forever had it not been for the Columbia tragedy. Columbia made painfully clear what some of us have been saying for years: It is not only pointless to continue orbiting endlessly around the earth; it is ridiculously expensive and indefensibly risky.
Getting rid of Saddam was U.S. policy long before Bush. One day Saddam is crawling out of a spider hole, and shortly thereafter Libya's Col. Gadhafi is inviting inspectors over for tea. For a complete list of ripple effects, read William Safire's Jan. 12 column in The New York Times.
Editor's Note: The following article was written February 7, 2003, and is still very timely.
Michael Jackson descends. Nearly everyone loves the idea of fame and fortune, but at what cost? As the news headlines tell us almost every day, some of the richest and most famous people turn out to be the unhappiest, most demented people in the world.
Turning Back The Clock: It's Not A Bad Thing. How many of us wouldn't long for a simpler time in which a single breadwinner could afford to not only pay the mortgage but also raise a family and put a kid or two through college? Housing was cheap back in the '50s and '60s relative to wages. Teachers, bakers and candlestick makers could afford a home in any city.
How Clinton Kept Bin Laden Free: This is the last installment of a four-part excerpt from Richard Miniter's new book, Losing Bin Laden.
Keep Iraqi POWs off American dole: An estimated 6,000 enemy Iraqi soldiers have resettled in the U.S. at public expense since 1993. Their welcome gifts included air travel, Medicaid, job and language-training assistance, health care, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), food stamps, Refugee Cash Assistance, and other welfare and housing benefits worth about $7,000 per person.
Term Limits: An Idea Built on Solid Ground: Career politicians don't like the idea of a periodic stimulus to electoral competition. Advantages of incumbency that result in mere token (or even zero) electoral opposition in a district are just fine with them.
If State Government Doesn't Do It, Who Will? Claiming that there would be no schools if the government didn't build them is as silly as claiming that there would be no homes or churches if the government didn't build them.
My name is Adolf: Among the patriotic lesson plans for 9-11 was one proposed by the National Council for Social Studies, which recommends a short story titled "My Name is Osama." Calculatedly inciting hatred toward white American boys, the story is about a nasty little boy, "Todd," who taunts an Iraqi immigrant named "Osama."
All the material about judicial vacancies, filibusters in the Senate, and lawyers in general, has been moved here.
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How Jesse Helms Made a Difference. Jesse Helms was an influential television commentator in North Carolina when he decided to leave the Democratic Party, winning a U.S. Senate seat as a Republican in 1972. He went on to win four more terms, with a reputation as the Senate's most principled warrior on behalf of social conservatism, anti-Communism, limits on union power, and an assertive foreign policy that rejected State Department caution. Like Reagan, many of his views appear to have been validated.
Jesse Helms: Republican Senator for North Carolina. A long-term member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later its chairman, at one time during Bill Clinton's administration he held up 400 promotions in the State Department, the passage of 12 foreign treaties and the approval of 30 ambassadors. Gaining worldwide notoriety for his extreme right-wing views, he voted against abortion, détente, labour unions, Medicare, social security and school desegregation, and for the return of the Panama Canal.
Jesse Helms: Helms was best known as the five-term North Carolina Senator who drove liberals crazy before his retirement in 2002. But his most important role in history arguably took place in 1976, when he and political ally Tom Ellis helped to resurrect Ronald Reagan's fading run for President.
Jesse Helms: American Hero. The institution of the United States Senate was not been quite the same without him and we in NC are proud of the role that this unique and special "Tarheel" played in the history of our country and on the world stage. He will be profoundly missed.
Died on the Fourth of July. It is easy to rattle off a long list of what Senator No opposed. First and foremost was Communism. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was an aggressive and outspoken critic of the Soviet Union. … He was against many other things as well: federal funding of obscene art, ineffective aid to foreign governments, and the continual encroachments of Big Government on everyday life.
Dancing on the grave of Jesse Helms. [Scroll down] More than 16 years ago, the scholar Charles Horner observed in Commentary* that for many people Helms had become a "symbol of the evil against which all enlightened people are automatically ranged." As with the poisonous rhetoric of today's pathological George W. Bush-haters, the point of the virulence expressed toward Helms was typically character-assassination, not contention — it was aimed at demonizing the man rather than debating or disproving his ideas.
He quit rather than lower flag for Helms. L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, defying a directive sent to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley. When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms.
A Lesson Even Liberals Can Learn from Jesse Helms: What a contrast Jesse Helms was to so many of the politicians today who work so hard for approval from the media. On a personal level, Helms was cordial to even his fiercest political opponents, but he did not care much about what others said about him.
Jesse Helms and Mangled Manners: When Helms announced his retirement from the Senate in 2001, the media elite made their own distaste very clear. "He was so wonderfully odious," declared top Newsweek editor Evan Thomas. "He was very comforting to the east coast media establishment to know that there was an evil guy out there that you could really fear."
War on Bloggers?
Apparently the FCC is attempting to strangle free speech on the internet using Campaign Finance Reform as leverage.
New: The coming crackdown on blogging. In just a few months, [FCC Commissioner Bradley Smith] warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.
Editorial Comment: FINES?? If I don't pay the fine, will the FCC suspend my Free Speech License? Let's clear this up right away — anything I say on this web site is an exercise of free speech, which is (supposed to be) protected by the Constitution. To prohibit the free exchange of information and opinion over the internet or in a newspaper is a clear violation of the First Amendment.
Update:
FEC Debates Blog Rules. The Federal Election Commission says Web logs just might be a threat to democracy and it's considering whether to police them. The issue, being discussed during FEC hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday, is whether some Web sites actually provide unregulated benefits to specific political campaigns. The famously free-spirited Web community is fighting back.
Free speech under siege: The case of Kirby Wilbur. It is not easy to build a national television network. Most major newspapers enjoy near monopolies in their towns. On the other hand anyone can start a blog, and very many can and do start and manage radio stations. Podcasting and internet broadcasting will soon make that as easy as blogging — if it is still legal to do so.
Much more information is available from The FEC vs. Blogs by Michelle Malkin.
The plan to silence Internet journalists: The McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 empowers federal judges and Federal Election Commissioners to determine who is allowed to say what about political candidates in all electronic media. On Sept. 18, 2004, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the FEC to extend its enforcement of McCain-Feingold to the Internet. In the face of a massive outcry from bloggers, the FEC backed down from fully implementing Judge Kollar-Kotelly's order. However, the order stands. Sooner or later, it will be enforced. Proposals are already on the table to require bloggers to register with the government and to report to the FEC any election-related blogging they undertake as "political contributions" subject to campaign finance law.
Update:
Who's afraid of the FEC? You can now blog to your heart's content on the Internet. The Federal Election Commission says so. Yippee! In a unanimous ruling, the FEC "gave" Internet bloggers the same "media exemption" from federal government regulation that newspapers enjoy. (You know, that "freedom of the press" loophole.) … Next thing you know, the Defense Department will announce, to much fanfare, that it won't be quartering soldiers in our homes.
The Barrett Report
The earliest report:
Frist to Press for Release of Clinton IRS Report. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Wednesday morning [4/27/2005] that he'll press for the release of findings by independent counsel David Barrett, whose probe into former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros reportedly concluded that Clinton officials at the Internal Revenue Service conducted politically motivated audits of White House enemies.
... and the latest:
Clinton cover-ups: Lost in the tumult over Islamic port deals and Katrina video capers is the recently released — and willfully ignored — Barrett Report. David Barrett, you'll recall, is the independent counsel appointed in 1995 to investigate allegations of impropriety against President Clinton's Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.
The Final Report is available here, but parts of it have been redacted due to a court order.
Clinton hypocrisy: Abuse of power in pursuing opponents. Return with me now to January, 2006, when the 684-page Barrett Report was published minus 120 pages which held, by all insider accounts, enough evidence not only to sink Mrs. Clinton's presidential ship but to put her and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, in the courtroom dock. The pages were redacted in a desperate rider attached to an unrelated bill by Sen. John Kerry and two Democratic colleagues and buried in a congressional vault.
Independent Counsel's Press Release Concerning Release of the Final Report. After a thorough reading of the Report it would not be unreasonable to conclude as I have that there was a coverup at high levels of our government and, it appears to have been substantial and coordinated. The question is why? And that question regrettably will go unanswered. Unlike some other coverups, this one succeeded.
The public needs to see the Barrett report. [Sen. Byron Dorgan], along with several crafty Democrats, has been attempting to deny the public the contents of an Independent Counsel's report that is believed to contain evidence of serious corruption and misuse of the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department back in the Clinton Administration. In this cover-up the Democrats have had assistance from a few dubious Republicans. It is time to let the public see this report.
Publish the Barrett report now. At issue was the publication of a report by David Barrett, an independent counsel who has spent the better part of a decade looking into some of the most hair-raising allegations of presidential malfeasance in American history.
Protecting the IRS: The political significance is that the Barrett report's shocking allegations of high-level corruption in the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department are likely to be concealed from the public and from Congress. A recently passed appropriations bill, intended to permit release of this report, was altered behind closed doors to ensure that its politically combustible elements never saw the light of day.
Hiding Barrett. In a very clever year-end column the venerable William Safire writing in the New York Times asks whether "special prosecutor David Barrett's 400-page expose of political influence within the Internal Revenue Service and the Clinton Justice Department" will be the government report "most likely to resist investigative reporting" this year. I certainly hope not.
Report implicating Clinton: Will it be hidden for good? Though it has had scant attention from the mainstream media, a bipartisan effort to squelch an independent counsel's final report on Clinton-era abuse of the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department has gotten the attention of Web activists and commentators, causing a growing call for the release of the document that is said to including damning evidence against the 42nd president and his administration.
Uh-oh...
Imminent Independent Counsel Report Gets Sliced Up. [Independent counsel David] Barrett and others say, thanks to an amendment to the November judiciary appropriations bill, key elements in the final report, which was completed in August 2004 and has been sitting with a three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. ever since, may be heavily redacted before its release.
The Barrett report: The long-awaited final report by Independent Counsel David Barrett, to be released today [Thursday 1/19/2006], was severely censored by court order but not enough to sufficiently obscure its importance. As long forecast, it alleges serious corruption in the Clinton administration's Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The question is what was contained in 120 pages removed by the judges.
If GOP Runs a RINO for President, The Party Will Crash and Burn. I know many fear the FBI, CIA, NSA and Homeland Security Department and they have concerns about surveillance and civil liberties. But I am more concerned about the Internal Revenue Service, an agency that can lock up an American for decades because he or she didn't fork over their hard earned money. If the President — any president — uses the IRS, which has more leeway than all the other agencies put together, to investigate, intimidate and perhaps incarcerate Americans, I for one want to know about it. But I'm not holding my breath for the Republicans to demand the full Barrett Report be released without redaction.
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