Inveighing Against Coercive Busybodyism, Socialism, Greenism, and
Big Government Tyranny & Injustice Generally

Professional Bush-Hater Michael Moore, who is tied with Ted Kennedy as The Most Revolting Man in America, received a twenty-minute standing ovation from the glitterati attending the Cannes Film Festival. Yet even they thought it was terribly gauche for Moore to show up for the festival wearing the very same outfit as John Kerry’s daughter Alexandra. It was the festival-goers' consensus opinion that it could not be objectively determined which of the two was the least attractive. Judge for yourself, courtesy of StrangeCosmos:

May 21, 2004

GREEDY CWA UNIONISTS STRIKE
AGAINST SBC CUSTOMERS

THANK THE DEMOCRATS FOR HIGH FUEL PRICES

The following is from the New Conservative Revolution newsletter & website:

    Just to set the record straight, the high price of gasoline is due in large part to Democrat policies, not the current Administration. Liberal environmental laws or "standards" force oil companies to refine and produce "cleaner" burning fuel to appease Environmentalists that believe we are destroying our environment with automobile exhaust. These new refining requirements are costly, and as with any company, these costs are passed on to the consumer. Also, because of these environmental laws, there has not been a new oil refinery built in this country since 1976. Current law disallows building any new oil refineries, and on top of that, 19 U.S. refineries have closed down in the last 10 years alone! The older existing refineries are costly to maintain and to keep up to "standards."
   Democrats are also opposed to drilling for oil here in America. Remember the hell they gave our President when he proposed drilling in Alaska? Because of this kind of foolish left-wing ideology, we are now almost completely dependent on the Middle East for oil.
   If President Bush was "in" with "Big Oil" as they say, wouldn't it be logical for him, in an election year, to somehow lower the price of fuel?  He can't do that, nor should he. Government should not interfere with business or engage in price control, that would be on a par with Socialism. That is not how our government is supposed to operate. Look at the areas of our business sector where government has experimented with that (i.e., farming) and look where those industries are today.
    Prices are essentially set by the consumer, supply and demand. If we feel like prices are out of control, then we can make a statement by limiting our purchase of certain products, but in the case of fuel, that should also include limiting the kind of automobiles that we purchase, which would force automobile companies to consider making cars and trucks that are not as reliant on gasoline. As long as we're buying, why would auto companies change these vehicles on their own?
   The truth is, there is nothing the President can do to lower fuel prices unless he could drill for more oil here in the states and repeal the environmental standards that have been set primarily by Democrat politicians. It is not the President's job to control prices, and oil companies are not solely to blame for the problem. At the end of the day it is Democrats that have, in a roundabout way, picked our pockets (once again) by appeasing to the Environmentalists that contribute big buck'$ to the DNC. I am just thankful to the President that he has afforded me tax cuts (which were also opposed by Democrats) that will help me to pay for my gas.

P.S. I guess the war in Iraq was not a "war for oil" after all, as Democrats have claimed. If that were the case, surely the President could control the price of fuel to ensure his reelection. Unless, of course, he's just been too busy with that whole 'ridding the world of terrorism' thing and he just forgot.

                                                           --from the New Conservative Revolution

Although this certainly does not excuse any of those involved in the inappropriate treatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib, the following news article does begin to shed some light on the importance of context and the circumstances that helped lead up to this spate of scandalous abuses -- a mini-scandal which pales in comparison to the Food-for-Oil United Nations corruption megascandal; yet, the partisan Democrat news media establishment is trying to keep alive the former miniscandal to help Kerry defeat Bush in the coming elections, while all but burrying the Food-for-Oil UN fiasco.

WASHINGTON - Many of the worst abuses that have come to light from the Abu Ghraib prison happened on a single November day amid a flare of insurgent violence in Iraq (news - web sites), the deaths of many U.S. soldiers and a breakdown of the American guards' command structure.

    Nov. 8 was the day U.S. guards took most of the infamous photographs: soldiers mugging in front of a pile of naked, hooded Iraqis, prisoners forced to perform or simulate sex acts, a hooded prisoner in a scarecrow-like pose with wires attached to him.

     It was unclear Friday whether most or all of the new pictures and video published by The Washington Post depicted events on Nov. 8. At least one photo, showing Spc. Charles Graner Jr. with his arm cocked as if to punch a prisoner, is described in military court documents as having been taken that day.

     When Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits tearfully pleaded guilty Wednesday to abusing prisoners, he described fellow soldiers committing an escalating series of abuses on eight prisoners that included stamping on their toes and fingers and punching one man hard enough to knock him out.

     Sivits is likely to testify about the events of Nov. 8 at courts-martial for other soldiers charged with abuse. Three of them declined to enter pleas at hearings Wednesday: Sgt. Javal Davis, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick II and Graner.

      The abuse came during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and reflection. The abused Iraqis, Sivits said, had been suspected of taking part in a prison riot that day. They were held at Abu Ghraib on suspicion of common crimes, not attacks on U.S. forces, said Col. Marc Warren, the top legal adviser to Iraqi commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.

The day of abuse — a Saturday — capped what had been the worst week for U.S. troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. Nearly three dozen had been killed in a surge of attacks that left some other soldiers frustrated and frightened. Insurgents had attacked the Abu Ghraib prison and other U.S. bases in the area with mortars several times in previous weeks.

The day before, insurgents had downed a Black Hawk helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade near Saddam Hussein (news web sites)'s hometown of Tikrit, killing six. Sixteen soldiers had died five days earlier when a shoulder-fired missile destroyed a Chinook transport helicopter near the flashpoint city of Fallujah.

The International Red Cross temporarily pulled out of Iraq on Nov. 8 because of the violence, which also had included a deadly car
bomb outside the aid group's Baghdad headquarters on Oct. 27.

Three Iraqi prisoners escaped in the four days before Nov. 8 — and an additional half-dozen detainees escaped on that day, according to the military's internal report prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.

The pressure was on to get information from prisoners to help stop the attacks.

"We've been working very hard to increase our intelligence capacity here," Sanchez told reporters in Iraq on Nov. 11. "We are not where we want to be yet."

Several accused soldiers have told investigators that military and civilian intelligence officers asked them to scare and humiliate the prisoners before they were questioned.

"The orders came directly from the intelligence community, to soften up the detainees so that intelligence information could be gathered to save the lives of soldiers in the field," said Paul Bergrin, a lawyer for Davis.

Using guards to help interrogators "set the conditions" for questioning had been one tactic recommended by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller in September. Miller, then the commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terrorism suspects, toured U.S. prisons in Iraq and recommended several changes in tactics to Sanchez.

Troops in Iraq adopted many of Miller's suggested approaches, military officials have said, after toning them down because some would have violated the Geneva Conventions, which apply to prisoners in Iraq. U.S. officials have said those rules did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo.

Sanchez told a Senate panel Wednesday that he never approved any tactics harsher than keeping prisoners in isolation. And Miller testified that he never meant for military guards to abuse detainees, only to tell interrogators their observations of the prisoners.

Miller now oversees the military detention facilities in Iraq. Sanchez announced last week that he would no longer even consider
requests for harsh treatment of detainees other than isolation or segregation.

After Miller's visit in September, the military brought in Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder in October to survey prison camps and make more suggestions. Ryder issued his report and left Iraq just three days before Nov. 8.

Ryder opposed Miller's recommendation that military police be used to help set the stage for interrogations. He also urged officers to give more training to prison guards, which was never done.

Lack of training was one of many leadership problems with the Army Reserve unit that provided the guards at Abu Ghraib, according to the report by Gen. Taguba. He described a unit in which discipline had broken down to the point that soldiers were writing poems on their helmets and wandering around in civilian clothes carrying weapons.

Two days after the Nov. 8 spasm of abuse, the general in charge of the MPs gave written reprimands to two of the unit's leaders for failing to correct security lapses at Abu Ghraib. Taguba recommended further disciplinary action against the two officers — Lt. Col. Jerry Phillabaum and Maj. David DiNenna. It is unclear if that has happened; they have not been criminally charged.

* * *
The Curious Lack of Curiosity About WMDs
by Libertarian-Republican Larry Elder

"Week after week after week after week," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., about President Bush's rationale for going to war with Iraq, "we were told lie after lie after lie after lie." Were we?

Jordan recently seized 20 tons of chemicals trucked in by confessed al Qaeda members who brought the stuff in from Syria. The chemicals included VX, Sarin and 70 others. But the media seems curiously incurious about whether one could reasonably trace this stuff back to Iraq. Had the terrorists released a "toxic cloud," Jordanian officials say 80,000 would have died!

So, I interviewed terrorism expert John Loftus, who once held some of the highest security clearances in the world. Loftus, a former Army officer, served as a Justice Department prosecutor. He investigated CIA cases of Nazi war criminals for the U.S. attorney general. Author of several books, Loftus once received a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

John Loftus: There's a lot of reason to think (the source of the chemicals) might be Iraq. We captured Iraqi members of al Qaeda, who've been trained in Iraq, planned for the mission in Iraq, and now they're in Jordan with nerve gas. That's not the kind of thing you buy in a grocery store. You have to have obtained it from someplace.

Larry Elder: They couldn't have obtained it from Syria?

Loftus: Syria does have the ability to produce certain kinds of nerve gasses, but in small quantities. The large stockpiles were known to be in Iraq. The best U.S. and allied intelligence say that in the 10 weeks before the Iraq war, Saddam's Russian adviser told him to get rid of all the nerve gas. It would be useless against U.S. troops; the rubber suits were immune to it. So they shipped it across the border to Syria and Lebanon and buried it. Now, in the last few weeks, there's a controversy that Syria has been trying to get rid of this stuff.

They're selling it to al Qaeda is one supposition. We know the Sudanese government demanded that the Syrian government empty its warehouse in Khartoum where they've been hiding illegal missiles along with components of weapons of mass destruction. But there's no doubt these guys confessed on Jordanian television that they received the training for this mission in Iraq. . . . And from the description it appears this is the form of nerve gas known as VX. It's very rare, and very tough to manufacture . . . one of the most destructive chemical mass-production weapons that you can use. . . . They wanted to build three clouds, a mile across, of toxic gas. A whole witch's brew of nasty chemicals that were going to go into this poison cloud, and this would have gone over shopping malls, hospitals . . .

Elder: You said that the Russians told Saddam, "There is going to be an invasion. Get rid of your chemical and biological weapons."

Loftus: Sure. It would only bring the United Nations down on their heads if they were shown to really have weapons of mass destruction. It's not generally known, but the CIA has found 41 different material breaches where Saddam did have a weapons of mass destruction program of various types. It was completely illegal. But no one could find the stockpiles. And the liberal press seems to be focusing on that.

Elder: It seems to me that this is a huge, huge story.

Loftus: It's embarrassing to the (press). They've staked their reputations that this stuff wasn't there. And now all of a sudden we have al Qaeda agents from Iraq showing up with weapons of mass destruction.

Elder: David Kay said, in an interim report, that there was a possibility that WMD components were shipped to Syria.

Loftus: A possibility? We had a Syrian journalist who defected to Paris in January. The guy is dying of cancer, and he said, "Look, my friends in Syrian intelligence told me exactly where the stuff is buried." He named three sites in Syria, and the Israelis have confirmed the three sites. They know where the stuff is, but the problem is that the United States can't just go around invading Arab countries. . . . We know from Israeli and defectors' intelligence that the son of the Syrian defense minister was paid 50 million bucks to bring the stuff across the border and bury it.

Elder: Why would al Qaeda attack Jordan?

Loftus: Jordan is an ally of the United States. It's at peace with Israel. And Jordan has a long history of trying to prosecute terrorists. . . . There are a lot of reasons. . . . They want to make an example of them. They want to terrorize as many of the Arab states as possible. This is sort of a political dream for the president. The worst nightmare is al Qaeda gets weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. And it looks like it's coming true.

A Syria/Iraq/al Qaeda/WMD connection? Why, this calls for a congressional investigation.
                                           -- excerpted from Larry's May 6th column

* * *

Lindea Chavez on the Establishment Media's Playing Down of Evidence of WMDs

Proof Positive...That mindless Left-mantra, "Saddam didn't have WMD," has, again, been thoroughly discredited.
by Mark Alexander (5/21)

Libertarian Bush Supporter Denounces  Bush for Caving to Democrats . . . Again

The News Media and Nick Berg -- the Dropped Story / Double Standard

Thomas Sowell on The Hyena Press -- Part II

Tony Blankley confronts those in denial with reality

David Limbaugh on why we are in Iraq

As usual, video of this act was of suspiciously poor quality, and the sound appeared too loud relative to the distances from the camera -- as if the audio track was added later.  As Joel Skousen reports, "A close examination of the video shows that the voice of Berg, introducing himself, may have been dubbed over as well. The words do not synchronize with the face and mouth of the victim. Berg is alive when thrown to the side as the execution begins, but strangely many voices present start shouting and screaming so that one cannot tell if Berg is screaming or not. The film is cut and then starts up again so close and blurry that one cannot even tell if the body is writhing in pain as the supposed beheading is happening. No blood is shown coming from the arteries as they are cut. These aspects of the film have led at least one doctor to conclude that Berg was killed in some other way while the video was stopped, and then the beheading (close up) was shot afterward on the dead corpse. This would indicate that the entire beheading thing was only done to specifically produce a horror effect on the target audience (Americans). . . ."

Some experts are saying that  the screams of pain from Berg are actually that of a woman's voice dubbed into the presentation.

Nick Berg was investigated by the FBI two years ago because he gave his password for his computer account at his university to terrorist mastermind Zacharias Moussaoui.  What are the chances of that?  The FBI at the time decided he was not working with Al Qeada or was implicated in the 9/11/01 attacks but he was just not very careful with his password.  Not long before his body was found in Iraq, Berg was reportedly offered free passage out of Iraq and back to America; he turned that offer down and continued traveling in Iraq without guards to protect him, contrary to the advice given him.  Was Berg innnocent but naive -- or was he over in Iraq helping the terrorists and wound up getting killed by them?

 Was Berg Decapitation Video Partially Faked?  When was Berg actually killed -- how long before the video was made public?  We don't know.

In any case, there seem to be some unanswered questions about this whole gruesome affair.  Needless to say, these apparent anomalies are stimulating a whole raft of conspiratorial speculations in and off the Internet.

Bizarre 9/11 Connection With Berg Murder?

New Military Interrogation Rules; 300 Detainees Released as Planned

Are Iraqis Capable of Self-Government?

More Fallout from Phony GI Rape Photos Published by Boston Globe

BBC:  Daily Mirror Editor is Sacked over Fake Rape Photos
Will the Boston Globe's editor do the right thing and resign?

Fourth U.S. Soldier Faces Court Martial for Detainee Abuse

Blaming America First by Linda Chavez

The Iraqi Prison Scandal -- time for some perspective by Larry Elder

World Net Daily Report: Muslims slaughter 600 Christians
'Bodies of pregnant women were ripped open and . . . burned'

Where Are Media When Jihadists Torture and Murder Americans?

Jobless Rates Fall in 11 key States as Economic Recovery Accelerates

UPDATE ON ANTI-GUN LEGISLATION

from the California NRA alert system:
CAL-ERT  05/14/04 -- 2:15 P. M.
http://www.calnra.com/calerts/calert051404.shtml

Legislation Pending:

SB1152 (Scott) - AMMUNITION SALES REGISTRATION - Would require any person engaged in the retail sale of ammunition to record the date, the name, address, and date of birth of the transferee, a thumbprint, and to make the information available to peace officers. This bill would also outlaw the sale of ammunition to a person under 18 years of age.   On the Senate Floor  vote could come at any time.

SB1733 (Speier) - FIREARMS & AMMO SALES BAN AT THE COW PALACE FAIRGROUNDS - Would prohibit the sale of firearms and ammunition at the Cow Palace Fairgrounds.  Gun Show promoter’s Alert and Discussion Points are available at http://www.calnra.com/legs.shtml#sb1733 .  On the Senate Floor  vote could come at any time.

Action requested:
KEEP UP THE PRESSURE!!!   Your voice is being heard in the Capitol.  Please continue to CALL, FAX, and EMAIL the legislators.  All three methods of communication are effective and we must keep up the broad-based effort.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATIVE UPDATE - Ammo tax dies

This information is accurate at the time this CAL-ERT was written and originally distributed.  The scheduled times and dates for hearings are subject to change, by the legislature, with little or no advance notice.  The NRA Members' Councils of California will keep you informed as the legislative situation changes in Sacramento.

Legislation Defeated:  Thank you for your efforts.  :-)

AB2858 (Ridley-Thomas) - AMMO AND HANDGUN TAX - Would have imposed a 10% Tax on Ammunition and a 5% Tax on handguns; the revenue would have been deposited into a “Firearm Victims' Reimbursement Fund.”  DEFEATED  The author amended this bill.  The previous language (relating to firearms) has been removed and replaced with language pertaining to another subject.

Contact Information:
State Senate:  (SB1152 & SB1733) A complete listing of all of the State Senators including phone/fax/email information can be found at: http://www.nramemberscouncils.com/legs/sen.shtml .   Also, you can send a single email to each of the State Senators  by using the special "ONE CLICK" email address that you can find at: http://www.nramemberscouncils.com/legs.shtml .  By sending one email to the special "ONE CLICK" address, each one of the State Senators will receive a copy of your message (so it is probably a good idea to address your messages with: Dear Senator,).

Continue to monitor the latest legislative updates at: http://NRAMembersCouncils.com/legs.shtml

A printable version (flyer) of this CAL-ERT is available at: http://www.calnra.com/calerts/pdf/calert051404.pdf

This CAL-ERT can be found on the Internet at: http://www.nramemberscouncils.com/calerts/calert051404.shtml

Archived CAL-ERTs can be found at:
http://www.nramemberscouncils.com/calerts/archives/index.shtml

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CAL-ERTs are provided as a free service to all gun owners and Pro-2nd Amendment organizations by the NRA Members’ Councils of California
Please work together with the NRA and help defeat this legislation by cross-posting this CAL-ERT via the Internet, newsletters/publications and hand-outs.  The CALifornia-alERT system is operated by NRA staff and volunteers operating within the NRA Members' Councils Program.

If America was beginning to forget who our true enemy is in the War on Terror, the enemy has now reminded us.

On Tuesday, this enemy made a gruesome posting on the Internet: It was a graphic videotape purporting to show al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist ringleader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, or one of his lieutenants, beheading a young American civilian who had gone to Iraq to repair communications antennas.

The murdered American, Nick Berg, had been missing since April 9. His body, the Associated Press reported, was found in Baghdad on Saturday. By Monday, the State Department had informed his family of his death.

Then on Tuesday, Zarqawi posted his cruel videotape of the cold-blooded murder. It bore the title: "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American." On the tape, a hooded killer, flanked by hooded accomplices, tries to portray this abominable crime as an act of revenge for the recently revealed incidents of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. "So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls," says the hooded killer.

This is a lie. The murder of Nick Berg was not an ad hoc act of revenge for Abu Ghraib, it was part of the ongoing terror war that al Qaeda has been waging against America for years, and that Zarqawi personally has been plotting from inside Iraq since before the U.S. invasion.

These are the two all-important points about Zarqawi and his al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group that must not be ignored in the ongoing debate about U.S. policy in Iraq: 1) These killers were part of a terrorist network waging war against the United States long before the United States invaded Iraq, and 2) they were operating in Iraq, at the invitation of Saddam Hussein's regime, before the U.S. invasion.

As I reported in this space last week, information emerging from a foiled terrorist plot in Jordan last month has tended to confirm the assertions made by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his Feb. 5, 2003, presentation to the U.N. Security Council that Zarqawi and his terror network migrated to Iraq, eventually setting up operations in Baghdad, after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan chased them out of that country. (State Department spokesman Adam Ereli confirmed to me last week that the department still stands behind everything Powell said about Zarqawi in his 2003 U.N. presentation.)

As Powell said then, Saddam's regime rebuffed overtures from the United States to surrender this Osama bin Laden associate. "We asked a friendly security service to approach Baghdad about extraditing Zarqawi and providing information about him and his close associates," said Powell. "This service contacted Iraqi officials twice, and we passed details that should have made it easy to find Zarqawi. The network remains in Baghdad. Zarqawi still remains at large, to come and go."

In a videotaped confession broadcast on Jordanian TV last month, Zarqawi lieutenant Azmi al-Jayyusi said he first joined Zarqawi's group and trained with it in Afghanistan before the United States ousted the Taliban. "After the fall of Afghanistan," said Jayyusi, "I met al-Zarqawi once again in Iraq."

Here they began to hatch a plot that -- if not foiled -- would have resulted in the bombing of the Jordanian intelligence headquarters and prime ministry, and the U.S. embassy in Amman.

Obviously, Zarqawi would have attempted this act of mass-murder -- targeting a U.S. diplomatic facility -- even if the only-later-reported abuses at Abu Ghraib had never occurred. It is also reasonable to assume he would have gone ahead with this attempted mass murder had the United States never invaded Iraq.

Reasonable people can debate the wisest tactics for pursuing committed killers such as Zarqawi and his terror network, but it is these terrorists themselves who have forced us to grapple with an inescapable strategic reality: Until we destroy them, they will seek to destroy us.

  Bruce Herschensohn teaches foreign policy at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy and is the author of "Passport" (Simon & Schuster, 2003 ).  The following was published in the May 12 L.A. Times:

It may seem to be a radical idea, but why not use every means possible — without politically correct detours — to win the war against terrorism?

Our victory in World War II was not achieved by trying to win the hearts and minds of Germans and Japanese. We did not dominate the newsreels with pictures of those things a few American troops did to captured enemies. We did not call for an end to domestic profiling. We did not demonstrate against our military involvement. There was not the outrageous political complaint that "I support the troops but oppose the war."

Instead of all that, we bombed our enemies to submission with all the power and weaponry we had available. After our costly invasion of Europe, with immense U.S. casualties, the atomic bomb was ready — and to prevent another invasion we used it on Japan. Today, we justifiably call those Americans of the 1940s "the Greatest Generation." During those years of war there was one issue: winning the war by demanding absolute and unconditional surrender of our enemies. Other issues were put aside as luxuries that would be reserved for a later time; there was not a simultaneous cry for saving the environment and a demand for creating more jobs and an insistence on government-provided healthcare and lower costs for prescription drugs.

But in the 1960s came the Vietnam War, along with its battles televised to American living rooms. Since that war, too many Americans have insisted only on fast wars with few casualties. They all had to be something like the invasion of Grenada or the liberation of Kuwait.

But if we want to win the war against terrorism we must accept a lengthy war with many casualties, because the consequences of defeat will mean our future generations will be left to lifetimes of fear. If we lose this war, we will be on the road back to the Middle Ages.

The devil with winning the hearts and minds of enemies who believe in primitive and uncivilized governments while being taught to hate the United States. The devil with allowing privileged sanctuaries for the enemy as we did during much of the Vietnam War. Now privileged sanctuaries provide safety not for the North Vietnamese army in Laos and Cambodia but for terrorists and their headquarters and safe houses and training centers in Syria and Lebanon and Iran and Yemen and the West Bank and Gaza. And the devil with congressional commissions that do little more than bring aid and comfort to our enemies.

After the defeat in Southeast Asia, the peace achieved by the enemy cost more lives than the war. This seems lost in history and intentionally lost in the memory of many Americans who rallied against the war in Vietnam. More than a million "boat people" escaped the horrors of re-education camps in Vietnam, but it's estimated that half of them drowned in the South China Sea. More than 2 million people lost their lives in the genocide of Cambodia's peace. If we should lose this war on terror, Americans could march to re-education camps, others will become boat people and the U.S. will become a Western mirror of Cambodia's genocide.

In fairness, there is an alternative to our involvement in the war against terrorism, and that is to leave our fate to the international community under the United Nations. Yes, the U.N. can bring about peace: the peace of the palace for the few in authority, the peace of subjugation for the many and the peace of mass graves for the courageous.

The only subject worthy of our national attention and the only pursuit that should be acceptable is total victory — no matter if others are offended or even destroyed. I know this kind of thinking is not considered acceptable in 2004. But we better accept it — and quickly. And if we make it our only cause and unconditional victory is achieved, our leadership and our troops and our home-front supporters of their mission will be known as another "Greatest Generation."

STOP APOLOGIZING ALREADY!
by Libertarian Talk Show Personality
Neal Boortz

For what feels like umpteen days now, the administration, the President, and just about everybody associated with the United States military has apologized for the prison abuse photos at Abu Ghraib. The time has come for us to stop apologizing. Take the necessary corrective action, promise not to do it again (or at least not while a camera is around) and get on with finding and killing Islamic terrorists.

Just look at the Nick Berg murder video. By the way, it's hard to call it a beheading when his head was slowly cut off with what looked like a dull butter knife. Anyway, all the whining candy-ass liberals want to make the moral equivalence argument that the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison somehow justify what happened to Nick Berg. Hardly. Not even close. Let's look at the facts from a couple different angles here.

By all media accounts of the photos so far, along with the descriptions given by the members of Congress that have seen all of them, the pictures show prisoners being humiliated and in compromising positions. Not a single picture of someone being murdered. Not a single picture of someone's head being chopped off, or even of someone being killed in some other manner. It's not there. It's not the same thing. What happened at Abu Ghraib was out of line, but in no way comes close to what the bloodthirsty savages in that video did to Mr. Berg. That's like comparing a fraternity prank to a slaughter. Once again, the liberals never let the facts get in the way of one of their flimsy, worthless, emotion-based arguments.

The media is going to try to put the Berg story on the back burner. It's a story that can help Bush, not hurt him, and that makes it a story the media doesn't care to pursue.

Then there's Teddy Kennedy's assertion that somehow we're back to running Abu Ghraib the way Saddam did. He said on the Senate floor that the same prison was now "under new management." Let's look at the facts here. Is the United States Army running rape rooms? No. Was the military torturing people? Nope. Murdering prisoners? No. Cutting out people's tongues (a favorite of Saddam's goons?) No again. But is Ted Kennedy giving aid and comfort to the enemy? You betcha.

There is no comparison between what a few soldiers did at that prison and what Saddam Hussein did for decades and what Al-Qaeda is doing right now. Will we get an apology for the hundreds of Coalition soldiers that have died in Iraq? For the 3,000 Americans murdered on 9/11? Of course not...but the media and the liberals sure do think we should keep apologizing for those darn photos. They need to stick a sock in it now. Whatever 'it' is.

The News Media Blows It On The Nick Berg Story
Date Wednesday, May 12, 2004
by Libertarian Talk Host John Ziegler

Like millions of other Americans, over the past few years I have become increasing cynical about the nature of this country's news media. However, up until yesterday, I never thought that our fourth estate was actively (though I still believe, perhaps naively, unconsciously) working on behalf of our enemies.

That all changed with the disgraceful coverage (or lack thereof) of the slaughter of Nick Berg, the American civilian whose horrific murder was carried out by elements of Al Qaeda and videotaped for dissemination on a website.

When I first heard the news of how the same forces that killed 3,000 of our citizens on 9/11 had brutally butchered an innocent American on tape in Iraq as retaliation for the alleged abuses of Iraqi prisoners, I was sure that this was a story that would spark universal outrage against our enemy. I fully expected this story to dominate the news cycle and the Iraqi prisoner scandal to finally be put into its proper perspective. I was not only wrong, I wasn't even close.

While the Berg story was certainly treated as the top news item (though several news websites, including those of the LA Times and CNN, did not have it as their most prominent story by the end of the day), it was treated by most outlets as just another factoid. In fact, not only was the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal coverage not diminished by the revelations of Berg's murder, but instead it seemed to actually augment it.

In a media era in which everything gets reported in some fashion, it is what gets REPEATED that has become important. While the TV networks all led with the murder of Nick Berg, they provided only extremely abbreviated "hit and run" coverage that ignored several vital elements to the story and provided almost no context or even the remotely appropriate sense of outrage. It appeared that they viewed the Berg story only through the dangerously distorted prism of how a man died a horrible death because our enemies were justifiably upset about the naked pictures they had seen of Iraqi prisoners.

ABC was the only network that even briefly touched on the concept that maybe Berg's death showed that the abuse scandal was not being seen by the media elites in its proper context, and their mention of that aspect of the story was insulting at best. After their reporter characterized (and marginalized) those who felt this way as "conservatives" on "talk radio," Peter Jennings, with the kind of condescension only he can muster, dismissed this school of thought as being politically motivated. As if the only reason an American might think that the brutal beheading of one of our civilians is worse than an American reservist mocking an Iraqi prisoner's small genitalia, was because they are a mindless supporter of President Bush!!

The most astonishing moment that I saw on TV "news" came from Paula Zahn on CNN. Zahn actually had the gall to speak on behalf of the American people when stated (without any factual foundation) that many of us must be looking at these photos and thinking that enough is enough, this isn't worth it any more and we should withdraw from Iraq. What???!!!!!

Of course, the vast majority of the American people had not seen the video in question because the TV networks made the outrageous decision to not show ANY of Berg's execution. While I realize we live in a world where everything we do and say is predicated on the concept that some child might be scarred for life if they were inadvertently exposed to it, I do not believe that there is ANY justification for this decision that treated all of us as if we are children ourselves.

I have seen the video and, while it is unquestionably horrible to look at, because of the grainy and fairly distant nature of it I strongly believe that, with proper warning, the entire clip could have and should have been shown on television. At the very least, after being bombarded with stills of naked Iraqi prisoners for over a week, the American people should have been given enough credit to able to endure still photos of Berg's severed head being shown off to the camera.

Would this have made for pleasant viewing? Obviously not. However, who ever said that democracy would always be pleasant? I fervently believe that it was an insult to Berg's sacrifice to not at least allow the American people to fully understand the evil against which we are fighting in a manner that they would not soon (if ever) forget. To not allow the majority of our citizens that option was a HUGE favor to Al Qaeda.

TV not only didn't trust you to see ANY of the relevant parts of the video, they didn't even play the chilling audio either. That was left to talk radio. What was the possible justification of that inexplicable decision? It is not as if Americans have never before been exposed to the SOUND of someone screaming in agony! Why did the TV networks seemingly go out of their way to shield the enemy from the wrath of our people? I honestly have no idea.

Not only did the news media blow it by "protecting" us from the truth, they completely ignored several other important elements of the story as well. For instance, how often was it reported that it is believed that the murder took place in Fallujah, where four other American civilians also had their murders and mutilations edited for our comfort by the media? Why did no one question whether our soft response to that event (for which Berg's murders claimed victory before they sawed his head off) might have led to the killing?

What about the simple fact that, like magic, we suddenly have Osama bin Laden offering rewards in "support" of the Iraqi people and major Al Qaeda actions taking place there? Why no examination of what this says about, the very least, the potential alliance between Saddam and Al Qaeda at which the mainstream media has always scoffed?

Why was there hardly any examination of the incredibly weak response of the Arab world to this event? Why no hard look at what it is about the Arab mind that makes an act this despicable seemingly acceptable to so many? Why so little mention that Berg, like Daniel Pearl before him, just happened to be a Jew?

These are just some of the questions that should have provided the news media with numerous angles of the Berg story to pursue, should they have had the desire to do so. I have no doubt that had they been able to captivate the soccer moms with Berg's plight while he was a hostage and BEFORE he was slaughtered, that commercial considerations (especially during a sweeps month) would have dictated a far more vigorous pursuit of this story. The fact that he was already dead before we got to know him evidently rendered his tale of little long-term economic value. This sad reality speaks volumes about the pathetic state of our news media and our culture.

After watching how the world has largely failed to react to the murder of Nick Berg, it is difficult for me to envision how we can possible win this war on terror. After all, those who control the information we receive seem to be rooting for the enemy.

MORE NEWS ON FAKE GI RAPE VIDEOS & PHOTOS

Globe publishes apology for fake 'GI rape' photos
But Boston paper doesn't inform readers
it knew images came from porn website
From WorldNetDaily.com

Wall Street Journal raps Globe over photos
Blacks who pushed fake pix dubbed 'racist crackpots'
--Wall Street Journal

Paper 'caught with pants down'
Globe runs bogus photos alleging abuse by troops
--Boston Herald

Globe apology doesn't address porn-site issue
Ombudsman says she 'failed' to find source of pix despite WND report
--Agence France-Presse

UK paper's abuse photos 'fake'
Blair government says pix made to 'vilify' British forces
--London Evening Standard

VIDEO SHOWS AMERICAN CIVILIAN BEING BEHEADEED

http://www.websky.cz/archiv/2004/5/12/128-nick-berg-video.html

This is the website where I found the Nick Berg video. It took me the whole week to find the damn thing at a Czech website. Who says we have freedom of press and believe me it isn't Bush that doesn't want you to see this video. I warn everyone, unless you have seen a beheading before and I don't mean in the movies, it is gruesome. You need to see this and understand who and what it is we are against. If we don't take care of this, our children will have to deal with it. -- Mark Shoemaker, radio journalist & commentator

CIA: Al-Zarqawi Beheaded Berg

The News Media Blows It On the Nick Berg Story by John Ziegler

The Pugnacious "Anti-War" Left  by David Limbaugh

In general, the more effective someone is in thwarting the Establishment Left and Democrats politically, the more they can be expected to be smeared, villified, and attacked in the left-wing press and in other venues.  Conservative/libertarian talk radio -- being independent of the Democrat-controlled TV networks and major newspapers --  has done more to wake more people up about the anti-American, anti-freedom agenda of the political Left than any thing else over the last fifteen years -- and Rush Limbaugh has been in the forefront of this minienlightenment.  It is no wonder that leftists in general and the party-over-country Democrats -- from Al Franken to Mortimer Zuckerman -- have singled Rush out for special treatment; they know he's been effective in exposing their biased left-liberal game and giving voice to the millions of Americans who don't go along with the "politically correct" authoritarian liberal thought police.  When the powers that be turn on their spigots of personal attack, it can get nasty.  This is especially true when the attack chorus gets picked up by hysterical "anti-war" fanatics.  As in the past, Rush has been called "cowardly" because the fifty-three-year-old radio maven is not enlisted in the Army and fighting in Iraq even though he supports President Bush's efforts to bring more peace, stability, and freedom there. These are generally the same people who are themselves afraid to acknowledge the continuing threat to American security -- to the lives, liberties, and properties of the American people, including themselves and their families -- and who would prefer to hide their heads in the sand and pretend that there is no danger or that the attacks on 9/11/01 never happened.  It is easier to attack Rush's alleged lack of courage than face to the truth themselves.  This is the Democrat Party's "politics of personal destruction" in the air, and is unfortunately being picked up by many naive peaceniks who believe, like Neville Chamberlain at Munich or the pacifist Eloi in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, that peace and security in the long run can be bought with appeasement and paassivity.  They are unwittingly being swept up into the political propaganda war which is constantly being waged in the Establishment Liberal media.

But the attacks on Rush are not limited to the media and kooky left-wing rags or websites.  Legal harassment by the Florida Democrat political establishment has been part of the "piling on" recently.  The following from the May 9th Washington Times summarizes the recent sordid drama:

Democrat Partisan Witchhunt Aiming for Rush

   There can be little doubt that legal actions against Rush Limbaugh are politically motivated. The radio commentator with 20 million listeners is one of the most able communicators of conservative political ideas in America. It is hard to imagine that the historic Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 would have happened without Mr. Limbaugh articulating the virtues of smaller government day in and day out over the airwaves. It is no surprise that liberals would sink to any level to try to silence such an important conservative voice. But the evidence against Mr. Limbaugh's accusers is not merely circumstantial. The case they have made and how they have made it exposes the whole prosecution as a partisan witchhunt.
    Item of evidence No. 1 against the prosecution is the fact that West Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer had a policy against prosecuting those with addictions and in the past had always focused on dealers and providers who fed the habits of others. As Sam Dealey explains in the cover story of the May issue of the American Spectator, Mr. Krischer repeatedly assured Mr. Limbaugh's attorney that the broadcaster was not a target for prosecution. The prosecutor had all the details on Mr. Limbaugh's case and didn't move on it.
    That all changed after Mr. Limbaugh's housekeeper sold a story about her boss's pill problem to the tabloids. Once the private pains of the famous conservative were public, liberals mobilized and bombarded the prosecutor's office with demands that he take down their political enemy. Mr. Krischer, a Democrat up for re-election this year, obviously sees sinking Mr. Limbaugh as a stepping stone to higher places in the state and national Democratic establishment.
    The legal case is also shaky. As Mr. Dealey explains, Mr. Limbaugh was never caught doing anything illegal. He was never busted with illegally obtained prescription drugs in his possession or caught in a dragnet during any alleged illegal purchase of prescription drugs. The only original witnesses to back a legal case against him were his housekeeper, who has made a lot of money peddling the tale around the media, and her husband, who has a previous conviction for cocaine trafficking and other drug-related convictions that put him in prison for six-and-a-half years. These two witnesses, it is important to add, also tried unsuccessfully to blackmail Mr. Limbaugh for $4 million.
    Mr. Krischer's opportunistic binge hasn't let a lack of facts and a wealth of compromised witnesses get in the way of his pursuit of a high-profile target. He even resorted to legally dubious means to try to dig up evidence. Specifically, he got search warrants for Mr. Limbaugh's medical records from his doctors without notifying Mr. Limbaugh — a serious breach of the privacy of the suspect. When this didn't work, the prosecutor's office leaked that Mr. Limbaugh's attorney was scrambling to cut a plea bargain, an allegation that wasn't true but that nonetheless gave the impression to the public that the celebrity was in trouble and needed a deal to try to avoid serious criminal penalties. The Florida Attorney General, the Florida State Bar Association and the ACLU have criticized the prosecution's handling of the case.
   It is important to note that, to this day, no charges have been filed against Mr. Limbaugh. A humbled man, he went on air and explained his addiction to his millions of fans. Then he checked into a rehabilitation clinic to address his problem. He never blamed anyone else for his predicament and is rebuilding his life and career. That is what society is supposed to want from people who confront drug problems. If there weren't political motivations to this case, it would have been dropped a long time ago.

May 10, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: May 9, 2004
10:12 p.m. Eastern

By Sherrie Gossett
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

The effects of the international scandal over Iraqi prisoner abuse continue to be compounded in the Arab and Muslim worlds by fake images of rape, torture and sadomasochism taken from pornography sites and distributed on pro-Islamist websites – including even news sites – as first revealed in WorldNetDaily.

Though many of the pornographic images are being presented to Middle East news media and websites as actual photos of U.S. war crimes, at least one of the porn sites that propagated the images has already shut down after being exposed by WND.

Well-known Iraqi novelist Buthaina Al-Nasiri told WND the pornographic photos are still circulating widely through the Arab world – causing confusion between genuine abuse and fantasy.

Al-Nasiri's comments came as fallout from the WND investigative report continues, with one of the Arabic sites dropping the photos, and two other sites launching convoluted conspiracy theories, one of which targets "nefarious Jews" as instigators of rape in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Adam Livingstone, senior producer for BBC NewsNight asked WND for the photos as they originally appeared on one Arabic site, as part of the BBC's further investigation into "the fake rape pictures [WND] has already exposed."

Al-Nasiri was born in Iraq in 1947, graduated from the College of Arts of the University of Baghdad and has lived in Cairo since 1979, where she runs a publishing house that specializes in the works of Iraqi writers. Five collections of her own short stories have been published in Arabic. "Final Night," a collection of short stories, has been translated into English. Although Al-Nasiri has lived in Cairo for more than two decades, a longing for Iraq permeates her writing.

A heated debate followed when the novelist refused to publish the bogus rape photos on her websites Iraq Patrol and Iraq Tunnel.

"I firmly refused to publish them ...not just because I doubted them, but because, it is not our policy to publish rape graphics," Al-Nasiri said, adding that the photos could "eventually turn to be a source for sexual thrill or kick for some morons. I doubted the authenticity of the photos because it was clear that these girls were performing sexual acts. The positions were of willing sex, not of rape and especially by your enemies," she said.

She added: "These photos were on the net a long time ago, but there was not much rage over them. Perhaps [the] audience had not believed them either, or they were not taken seriously for one reason or another." The photos are now evoking a visceral reaction ever since genuine photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison have surfaced.

"You cannot imagine the kind of angry messages I receive every day from young Arab men vowing to avenge the Iraqi girls," Al-Nasiri told WND. "It is no use to argue with them that these are fake pictures, because we know, every one knows what is going on, or at least we have been expecting these kinds of crimes. Now the Arabs say: if they did this to the men, imagine what they should have done to the women detainees. They are right of course: there were reports about rapes going on there. So, in reality, these fake photos support the doubts."

The novelist also underlined the cultural mores, which, she said, explain the particular type of impact that the genuine photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib are producing in the Arab world.

"Finally, I would like you to know that to Arabs, raping men is more, much more vile than raping girls," Al-Nasiri said, "In our social awareness, if a boy is raped his whole future is blackened. He is as good as dead, so you can imagine what this will do to grown-up men."

Linda MacNew, the American owner of one of the porn sites that generated the fake photos, Iraq Babes, shut down the site, in response to the WND article. Albasrah.net has also removed the photos from its site, and the BBC has asked WND for a copy of original Albasrah posting in order to investigate further "the fake rape pictures [WND] has already exposed."

The photos were first produced and advertised by the website Extreme Traffic, which is registered to Megazoo Inc. of New York City. Then Hungarian website Sex in War was then built around the content. Iraq Babes carried select photos as did the site Hard Rape. WND reported that almost all of the photos came from these sites, and now can verify that all of the photos originated with the Extreme Traffic pornographers.

The photos were given to WND on April 30 by an Iraqi man who believed they were real. Two Iraqi sources, both of whom strongly oppose the war, led WND to the real source of the photos.

The websites Jihad Unspun and Aztlan had also published the pictures, and the JUS report was picked up as "world news" on other sites around the globe, including the GSMPRO site, owned by the Al Otaiba Group of Companies in Dubai. Following WND's expose, both sites are floating a conspiracy theory that the pictures were of actual rapes in Iraq, taken by pornographic filmmakers who planned all along to later post them on "American sites" for sexual titillation. Meanwhile JUS now admits some are from a porn website, but refuses to conclude the issue, as writer Bruce Kennedy asks readers for more information so the "perpetrators" can be brought to justice.

Aztlan adds a convoluted twist to the conspiracy theory, by claiming "nefarious Jews" were part of the pornography conspiracy, and that after Aztlan revealed the plot, the American porn site Iraq Babes was shut down. As previously reported by WND, the website was shut down due only to WND's reportThe owner of the site, Linda MacNew, actually shut the site down while she was on a phone call with WND Tuesday evening between 6 and 6:30 p.m., and the shutdown was witnessed in real time by WND.

Ernesto Cienfuegos, editor-in-chief of Aztlan, twisting WND's scoop around, claimed, "La Voz de Aztlan received information today that many of the rape and sodomization pictures of Iraqis are now being made available to perverts by Jewish-owned pornographic websites based in the United States. La Voz de Aztlan believes that 'film crews' run mostly by mercenaries actually instigated the rapes and sodomy of the Iraqi POW's inside the Abu Ghraib prison."

Said Aztlan, "Most of these 'security services' are cronies of both Bush and Chenney [sic] and are owned by nefarious Jews who also have ties to the Burbank, California pornography industry."

MacNew Enterprises, is based in the small town of Hop Bottom, Pennsylvania, where MacNew said she attends church regularly. Extreme Traffic, producer of the photos, is based in New York City, and Sex in War is based in Budapest, Hungary.

At the time of the publication of this report, Aztlan had not responded to WND's request to furnish proof and the basis of their extravagant claims.

Other references to rape photographs surfaced in an Associated Press report from Iraq, which said during a sermon in Basra, Sheik Abdul-Sattar al-Bahadli displayed documents and photos he said showed three Iraqi women being raped at British-run prisons in Iraq. The sheik called for jihad, or holy war, against British troops in the southern city.

Sheik al-Bahadli said $350 would be given to anyone who captures a British soldier and offered $150 for killing one. "Any Iraqi who takes a female soldier can keep her as a slave or gift to himself," he said. He also offered 25,000 dinars for killing a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, the AP reported.

Arab resistance fighters have called for Americans, British and Israelis to be castrated on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The issue of the faked rape photos will soon become moot, since the US government has indicated they have genuine photos of troops involved in rape.

An Army report authored by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba states there is at least one instance of a guard "having sex" with a female detainee, and video footage in military possession is said to include film shot by American personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping boys. Secretary of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, testifying at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, said there were many more photos and videotapes that had not been published. "... It's going to get a good deal more terrible, I'm afraid," he said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham,R-S.C., told reporters, "The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience."

Regarding the photos that have already surfaced, novelist AL-Nasiri said, "For the friends of America that was a big blow. Now they cannot defend it, being Arabs themselves, they know how vile these acts are."

For Al-Nasiri and others in her intellectual circle, apologies from American officials ring hollow.

"We, Arabs, do not believe Bush or other USA officials when they say that these acts are un-American. We cannot believe that officials who wear US uniforms and are in charge of a prison for instance, do not represent America, if they are such, why are they in charge of such missions?"

Dr. Akbar Ahmed of the American University told media that the genuine photos "will become the recruiting poster of radicals trying to attack the West. If Osama bin Laden had come to Madison Avenue and asked for an advertising image to help him recruit, this would be it."

Related stories:

U.S. calls for Arab retractions

Porn site depicting 'GI rapes' shut down

Bogus GI rape photos used as Arab propaganda
 

Leading Democrats, desperately trying to use the Iraqi detainee abuse miniscandal as a political issue to use against Bush in this year's presidential election, are stamping their feet and petulently demanding that President Bush fire Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.  Trying to score political points during a time of war, Senators Kennedy and Kerry of the Marxist State of Massachusetts are rhetorically calling for Rumsfeld to be repalced by Colin Powell in an effort to divide the administration.

Will the American people see through the Democrats' hate-Bush propaganda campaign?  Given the control over the major media which Democrats still enjoy (and have enjoyed for many decades), this is an open question, one which presumably will be answered on election day, since the war in Irtaq will be the major issue on which that campaign will turn.  In the meantime, maybe Bush should call for Senator Kennedy to resign in shame and disgrace from his Senate seat -- considering all the help Teddy has given America's enemies, foreign and domestic, over the decades he has been in office.

Bush Stands by Rumsfeld

*********************************************************************

Abu Ghraib

SOME NEEDED PERSPECTIVE

Rich Galen, who recently returned from Iraq, posted the following today on his "Mullings" blogsite, and this was brought to our attention by El Rushbo who read excerpts from it this morning:

Monday, May 10, 2004

I am now officially sick-and-tired of the self-serving and largely uninformed hand-wringing about the goings on at Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. As someone who has actually been on the grounds of Abu Ghraib prison, let me explain a few things.

First of all, there is no excuse for what a few soldiers did; but there is also no reason to make this into the moral equivalent of the Black Plague.

It should be pointed out that the prisoners at Abu Ghraib are not Boy Scouts rounded up for jaywalking. These are bad guys who either blew up or shot a coalition member; or were caught assembling an explosive device; or were caught in a place where the makings of explosive devices were found; or were caught with a cache of weapons. See the pattern here?

In short they were trying to kill me and others like me. And if they succeeded in doing that, they were going to come over here and try to kill you.

Ugly thought? You bet. But that is the kind of prisoner being held in the terrorist section at Abu Ghraib.

The Roar du Jour from those who want to get into this story by beating their chests over how terrible it all is, keep telling us that this has damaged American credibility in the Middle East.

Let's look at that.

First, lots of Arabs don't like us in the first place. Those Arabs will not like us any less for this incident.

That dislike has nothing to do with our cultural insensitivities. It has to do with America's refusal to allow those same Arabs, many of whom have been bankrolling the Palestinian terrorists for decades, to wipe the State of Israel off the face of the Earth the way they have wiped it off the face of their maps.

Second, those who claim that the Abu Ghraib situation will poison the well of American goodwill for decades, are really the ones who are under rating Arabs. They have to believe that all Arabs will assign the actions of perhaps a couple of dozen soldiers to the 280 million Americans who have pledged to help the Iraqis attain security, independence, and prosperity.

Those making that claim must, therefore, believe that all Arabs have the intellectual capacity of a frog (a real frog, not a French person) and the emotional development of a three-year-old (a real three-year-old, not a French person).

Finally, our friends on the Left are so very, very concerned about how foreigners (read, Europeans) will see us.

I don't care what the French, the Germans, or the Spaniards think about us. The French and the Germans are up to their elbows in the fraud and theft of billions of dollars in what is called the Oil-for-Food Program but which was really the Oil-for-Palaces Program.

It will be interesting to see if the intellectual elites on the Upper West Side of Manhattan are as upset with their vacation buddies in the Paris 16th as they are with Secretary Rumsfeld when it becomes clear that their pals were fully engaged in the systematic depravation of the people of Iraq.

Very often doing the right thing is also the hard thing. The easy thing is to close your eyes to evil; or to make a bargain with the devil.

You cannot stop doing the right thing because it is hard, or because of what those who would make a deal with the enemy in an attempt to rent their own safety, might think about what you.

The actions of a few soldiers in Abu Ghraib were wrong. But we cannot allow the spotlight currently shining on them to cast a shadow over the other 135,000 soldiers who are in Iraq doing their jobs professionally, properly, and with honor.

--END --
Copyright © 2004 Richard A. Galen

Rush's comments on Galen's observations

DEMOCRATS SEEK TO  USE IRAQI DETAINEE ABUSE SCANDAL AGAINST BUSH & RUMSFELD

Recent photographs, displayed by CBS on its "Sixty Minutes" TV show, which show Iraqi prisoners being abused by U.S. military personnel, are being seized upon by presidential hopeful John Kerry and leading Democrat Bush ankle biters for political advantage during this year's all-important presidential campaign.

Clearly, there are questions of propriety and morality concerning the treatment of Iraqi detainees, and no one is excusing the tiny number of people who committed these abuses.  Court marshall hearings are already being scheduled for those involved and justice will be done. But while leading a naked iraqi terrorist around in womens' underwear may be a humiliating experience for him, it is a bit of a stretch to claim that it rises to the level of  "torture' as many partisan Democrats are now screaming.  And, in the pictures that have been released so far, except for the fact that these Iraqi terrorists are captive detainees, the activities could be taken for a college fraternity hazing or (as Rush Limbaugh put it) a Skull and Bones initiation ceremony.  Torture and mutilation -- which was committed against Americans by their Iraqi captors -- have yet to be demonstrated.  The actions of half a dozen or so individuals does not reflect American values, and should not be used to denigrate the relative overall success which the Bush Administration has achieved (so far) in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Let us not turn America's virtue of reasonable self-criticism into the irrational vice of self-hatred (as the anti-American Left wants us to do).  We must find out who was responsible, punish those who were truly guilty, correct any systemic training problems, and move on with renewed resolve to finish the job of creating greater security for ourselves at home by helping others achieve more stable and free countries in which to live and removing threats of weapons of mass destruction.

May 8, 2004

DAVE’S MARCH FOR JUSTICE

On April 29th 2002, during a routine traffic stop, Deputy David March was gunned down by Armando Garcia, an illegal Mexican national and convicted drug dealer who was also wanted on 2 counts of attempted murder.  Garcia fled to Mexico, where he remains, escaping justice. Mexico will not extradite his Garcia because he will face the death penalty.

But David's story isn't the only one.  More than 300 violent criminals have fled to Mexico in recent years, and the families of their victims have had no closure.  Help us force our lawmakers to fight for justice and draw national attention to this issue!  Join ‘Dave’s March for Justice’ on May 8th in Santa Clarita.  Visit these websites for more information or to find out how you can help.

http://www.pe.com/ap_news/California2/CA_Fugitive_Extradition_139903CA.shtml

 http://www.santa-clarita.com/news/davemarch.asp

  http://www.deputydavidmarch.com/

THE BUSH FAILURE ON BORDER CONTROL
Shut down Mexico's sanctuary for murderers
by Terence Jeffrey

"We'll get him back."

That's what President Bush told the family of slain Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy David March when they told him in May that the deputy's suspected killer had fled to Mexico.

Teri March says her husband was "sucker punched."

On April 29, 2002, March made a traffic stop. The alleged driver was convicted drug dealer and illegal alien Armando Garcia. "During an attempt to pat down the driver, Dave was shot at close range in the chest, in a gap where the vest did not provide protection," Teri March testified last month in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee. "Before leaving the scene, Armando Garcia (allegedly) turned and shot Dave point-blank in the head."

San Mateo County District Attorney Jim Fox, vice president of the National District Attorneys Association, also testified. "The suspect," said Fox, "had been deported three times, was a convicted methamphetamine dealer and weapons offender and at the time of the murder was wanted on two unrelated counts of attempted murder.

"He fled to Mexico within hours of the murder," said Fox.

Garcia was home free. The U.S.-Mexican extradition treaty allows Mexico not to return suspected murderers unless U.S. prosecutors waive the death penalty. In 2001, the Mexican Supreme Court expanded the treaty, forbidding return of suspects who faced possible life sentences.

To extradite March's suspected killer, Fox testified, prosecutors would have "to reduce the charges to an assault with a deadly weapon or manslaughter or some other charge that carries a determinate sentence with a guarantee of parole. To do so would violate notions of equal protection and send a message that if you kill a police officer and can flee the jurisdiction, you will get more favorable treatment.

"Los Angeles has not submitted an extradition request," said Fox, "nor do they plan to until the 'life assurances' issue has been resolved."

Teri and Barbara and John March, the slain deputy's mother and father, want to shut down Mexico's sanctuary for murderers. "We have to stop this from happening to anybody else," Barbara March told me.

In April, says Teri March, she wrote President Bush and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. In May, she and her husband's family visited D.C. for the Peace Officers Memorial, commemorating slain law enforcement officers. When she learned President Bush was speaking, she wrote him another letter that she gave to Linda Hintergardt-Soubirous, president of Concerns of Police Survivors. "I was seated on the dais and handed it personally to the president," said Hintergardt-Soubirous. The president had mentioned Deputy March in his speech. After the president took Teri's letter, Hintergardt-Soubirous pointed her out for him. As he worked the crowd, the president spoke to the family. Teri and Barbara and John March, all Republicans who support the president, described the scene for me.

They gave him a bracelet with March's name on it and a button with his picture. "Sir," Teri said, pointing to the button, "this killer took his life and fled to Mexico and has gone unpunished."

The president said, "We need to get him back."

She said: "They will not extradite. You're the only one that can help us. And he said, 'We'll get him back.' Then he gave me a hug."

John March said, "He walked away, and you could tell he was thinking about something, and he turned around and came back and said, 'We have to get this guy.'"

"He spent so much more time than anyone expected, and that's just the kind of guy he is," said Barbara.

"We finally thought we had made it to the mind and the heart of the person who could really make the difference," said Teri.

On July 29, she wrote Bush again, citing their May meeting.

The Marches also met with Feinstein. She came out of the meeting, they believed, with real passion for solving the problem. "During that meeting," Feinstein spokesman Howard Gantman said, "my boss made a commitment that she would do everything she could to try to bring back Mrs. March's husband's killer."

In August, Feinstein wrote Mexican President Vicente Fox asking him to change Mexico's extradition policy. Last week, she introduced a resolution, co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, calling on President Bush to renegotiate the extradition treaty. Her statement said "at least 350 people have committed murder and other major offenses in California, fled to Mexico to escape prosecution, and have either not been extradited or have been effectively rendered non-extraditable."

I gave the White House the above description of the president's May meeting with the Marches, asking if there was anything inaccurate about it, and asked what the president has done to help get Deputy March's killer back from Mexico. The White House did not contest the accuracy of the story.

Presidential spokesman Allen Abney said the White House has no record of receiving Teri March's letters. But, he said, "Mail addressed to the White House undergoes screening procedures that could introduce substantial delays to the delivery process."

"The administration," said Abney, "is determined to work with the Mexican government to ensure that individuals who commit crimes in the United States will be prosecuted here and cannot avoid justice by fleeing across the border. The issue of extradition is raised on a regular basis by administration officials with their Mexican counterparts."

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/terencejeffrey/printtj20031113.shtml

May 7, 2004

CONSERVATIVES ANGRY AT BUSH SUPPORT OF LEFT-WING CANDIDATES AND POLICIES
Smith Didn't Get Specter Treatment

by John Gizzi
Posted May 7, 2004 in Human Events online

"The President typically campaigns for senators who support his policies," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told me two days after Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) staved off a stiff primary challenge from conservative Rep. Pat Toomey (R.-Pa.).

The President made two campaign appearances with Specter and was featured in a Specter ad. Asked if Bush had applied the same standard two years ago in supporting conservative Sen. Bob Smith (R.-N.H.) in his losing primary battle with then-Rep. John Sununu (R.-N.H.), McClellan said he would "get back" to me. The following day, McClellan assistant Trent Duffy called. "The President did support Sen. Smith in his re-election," said Duffy. "[White House Political Director Karl] Rove did an event for him, as well as we helped arrange for some tapings by [former New York Mayor Rudy] Giuliani. It wasn't until after the primary was over that he supported Congressman Sununu in his run.

"The President supports incumbent senators," Duffy concluded. "He wants to build on the Republican majority in the Senate and the first step toward doing that is to protect your incumbents."

Smith has a somewhat different recollection. In a call from Longboat Key, Fla., where he now lives, he said of Duffy's account: "You'd have to have a real good sense of humor to take that seriously. I did not get the support of President Bush in the primary, nor from the Vice President or any of the Cabinet--not in any way, shape or form."

Smith said he told Rove at a luncheon of the Senate Republican Policy Committee in 2001 "that I need the President to campaign for me." "He said 'Yes' but that the President would appear only after the filing deadline. Karl said the President did not want to appear as though he was chasing Sununu out of the primary. Well, Sununu did file and the White House never delivered on its promise of a Bush campaign appearance," Smith said, noting that Bush never signed a letter or issued a statement supporting him in the primary.

But, Smith said, "Karl did appear at a fund-raising event for me at the home of a friend. But that same day, he appeared at another function where my primary opponent was." As for Duffy's claim the White House helped secure Giuliani for a Smith television spot, Smith said, "They had nothing to do with it. We had close connections on our own with people in New York who knew Rudy."

Was the administration less than enthusiastic about Smith in 2002 because in 2000 he had briefly left the Republican Party? "There could be something to that," said Smith. "But I came back to the party and my colleagues accepted me and elected me chairman of one of 13 standing committees in the Senate [the Environment Committee]. There were no bad feelings about my returning to the party." Smith had a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 91%; Specter's is 43%.

Despite support by President Bush of left-leaning incumbent Senator Arlen Specter -- in betrayal of Pennsylvania conservative Republicans --  Patrick J. Toomey lost in the Republican senatorial primary by only 15,000 votes, a tiny margin in a State as large as Pennsylvania.   Considering the great advantage of incumbency, and the fact that Specter outspent Toomey by four times as much, it is highly indicative of how weak the liberal senator had become that he needed Bush to come campaign for him in order to barely defeat Toomey.

Bush's support of Specter against conservative Pat Toomey came despite the fact that Specter was largely responsible for reducing the President's tax cut package in 2001, something which conservatives and libertarians will not forget or forgive.

In some ways, administration allies view Specter's presence on the ticket as an aid to Bush's chances of carrying a state that he lost by five percentage points four years ago. Specter's record angers conservatives, but his support among moderates and liberals, particularly in southeastern Pennsylvania, is viewed as a potential plus for the entire Republican ticket in the fall.  This example of Bush pragmatism over principle, however, may have missed the mark as conservatives continue to gain ground in the Quaker State against the old liberal-left establishment.  Conservative Republicans will be eyeing that Senate seat again in six years when they will be even stronger.

Maxine Waters and other corrupt politicians reportedly received big money from the Aristide regime.  What a surprise -- not! But, will the "mainstream media" give this scandalous story the publicity it deserves?  Of course not.  These sleezebags are Democrats, after all.

Black Community Group Calls for Investigation of Links Between Congressional Black Caucus and Aristide

Hot on the heels of receiving it's FAA license, Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne team had a rocket-powered flight today, April 8, reaching an altitude of 105,000 ft.

Behind the controls of SpaceShipOne's second successful powered flight was pilot and future astronaut, Peter Siebold.

The engine burned for 40 seconds and reached a speed of approximately Mach 1.6, making it the first privately built space vehicle to accomplish this feat.

"105,000 feet down, 223,000 feet to go!" exclaimed an excited onlooker, as he watched the ship fly overhead

FAA Approves First Private Manned Spaceship

Private Sector Space Race Fueled by $10-million Prize

Pentagon Considering Wild Space Projects for 21st Century Defenses

Anarchy Grips Haitian Capital

Bloody Anarchy Reigns in the Wake of the Flight of Aristide and his Regime from Haiti:  A Lesson for Libertarians?

This weekend the Clinton-installed Marxist tyrant of Haiti was run out of
the country by a popular rebellion.  In at least parts of the beleaguered
country, regular government functions broke down completely.  Anarchy
ensued.

Was this real-world anarchy conducive to liberty and secure private property rights?  No.  Here's what tends to happen in the real world when government breaks down and police stations are abandoned, contrary to the predictions of Murray Rothbard and others..

Police stations and prisons were abandoned by government employees. Armed gangs and criminal thugs roamed the streets looting stores and the abandoned police stations. When the various aspects of government broke down in the wake of the flight of Aristide and his lieutenants, did we see the non-violent "competition" among "market" retaliation agencies, or the neat and peaceful settlement of turf jurisdictional disputes among the warring gangs promised by the Tannahills, the Rothbards, the Konkins, and other self-styled "anarchists" who fantasized about anarchic utopias (but who lived in relatively safe neighborhoods with at least a modicum of police protection and in the United States, a country with a strong military national defense to deter invasion)? No, quite the contrary. As we have seen in other ituations in which the normal functions of either the government or the olitical state broke down or became weak or non-existent -- from Somalia to astern Europe and now to Haiti -- the chaos and violence that took place in Port au Prince over the weekend is what one can rationally expect to occur under the reign of real anarchy in the real world -- as contrasted to the utopian fantasies of those who hated government more than they loved freedom, and who theorized about floating abstractions of what life might be like without any political government at all. None of the arguments in favor of no-government anarchism put forth by the Tannahills, Murray Rothbard, Sam Konkin, or anyone else have been supported in the real world when real-world anarchy arose. Neither private property rights nor the lives of peaceful people were secure, and, instead of the emergence of peacfeful free markets, looting and bloody gang violence became the hallmark of the day.

For any intellectually honest individual, this is once again a clear refutation by reality of the notions of the so-called "anarcho-capitalists" or "left-libertarians" who opposed constitutional republics as well as (or even more than) statist tyrannies run by leftist dictators.

In order for free markets -- markets free of coercive interference of peaceful people to produce and trade -- to exist, there must first be a fairly consistent recognition of and protection for the rights of person and property provided by some semblance at least of the rule of law and government courts courts with the police power  to enforce their decisions) and police with the power to arrest criminals. As we hsve seen over and over again, these functions, which inevitably involve the use of violent force, are not services provided by market agencies (which do not involve the use of coercive force of any kind, either initiatory or retaliatory). Free markets do not exist under anarchy. To the extent that they can and do exist, they exist or have existed only under some form of limited government.   And the closer such constitutionally restricted governments came to maintaining a consistent policy of laissez faire -- the general policy of using the power of government to combat crime and deter foreign aggression while avoiding interfering with the private affairs and non-violent (market) relations of peaceful people -- the better the environment became for free markets to arise and thrive. Such a government policy of laissez faire is a prerequisite for individual freedom and free markets to have a chance to emerge in the first place. This is how the relative freedom enjoyed by Americans did  develop historically -- not in a non-existent anarchy, but rather within the framework of the widespread respect for and fairly consistent rule of law under the constitutionalist traditions inherited from English history going back to the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Petition of Right of 1628 etc. Although often imperfectly applied or only partially understood, the strategy of using law and constitution and bills of rights to limit the scope of government in a rational way has succeeded far better in the real world in approaching true freedom for far more people than any left-wing commune or anarchistic fantasy has ever done or will ever do.

The False Alternative of Anarchism

Sen. Santorum Wants Senate to Investigate Democratic Nominations Memoranda
Human Events reports that Sen. Rick Santorum says he wants an investigation of the content of controversial memos produced by the Democratic staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee to determine whether the Democrats committed any wrongdoing in their efforts to block President Bush's judicial nominees. Meanwhile, Majority Leader Bill Frist and Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch appear content to let Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle investigate only how the memos came into the hands of Republican staffers--a probe that was inspired by the Democrats, serves the interests of the Democrats, and turns attention away from the far more serious question of whether the Democrats did anything improper in their efforts to thwart conservative nominees. Why aren't more GOP senators like Santorum?

LEAKED MEMOS EXCERPTS

Here are three telling excerpts from leaked memos produced by the Democratic staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. One explains why the Democrats thought Miguel Estrada was "dangerous," another why the nomination of Julia Gibbons for the 6th Circuit was delayed, a third why Dennis Shedd was confirmed to the 4th Circuit, but only after the 2002 election: http://www.HumanEventsOnline.com/article.php?id=3089

BRUCE BARTLETT ON ECONOMIC FREEDOM
AND HOW IT SEEMS TO HURT SOME
WHILE BENEFITING ECONOMY AS A WHOLE

Free Market Doesn't Mean Pro-Business 2/10/04

Traveling Tech Jobs 2/3/04

The Reality of Outsourving 2/17/04

The Politics of Trade 2/21/04

MORE POLITICAL NEWS & ANALYSIS

"Gun Control: A Current Example of Media Bias Against Guns" by Howard Nemerov -- A recent series of articles at the Fox News website highlights how pervasive the bias against the civil liberties of gun owners and Second Amendment supporters has become.

Nader Announces He Will Run for President Again in 2004

President Finally Begins Appointing Judges Blocked by Democrat Fillibusters

Max Cleland, liberal victim?  Rich Lowry cuts through the liberal Democrat propaganda fog to reveal cries of "foul play" to be dishonest.

Gary Aldrich on harsh political rhetoric this election year -- and gives advice to his "polite conservative friends" to quit pulling their punches.

Middle East Expert Says America Has Changed the World for the Better  Let's hope he's right and that it lasts.

What is John Kerry's connection to "Hanoi Jane" Fonda?

Richard Dreyfus and Hollywood's Hateful Left

The Fanatic Intolerance and Hatred by the Democrat Left Against Conservatives and America

Jesse Jackson and Hollywood Sickoes want Hatchet Murderer Freed

GOP Slams Bush Policies at High-Level Philadelphia Retreat

The Growing Grass-Roots Republican Revolt Against Bush Liberalism

The Coming Conservative Insurrection Against Bush

President Dubya's Wild Joyride in the Left Lane by Rachel Marsden

Reason Foundation's Jacob Sullum Searches in Vain for Signs of Fiscal Seriousness from the Bush Administration

A staunch conservative urges Principle Before Party!  In this passionate speech about the ongoing struggle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party, Republican Tom Deweese refutes the left-wing myth that the GOP is dominated -- at the national leadership level -- by Christian conservatives and free-market libertarians.  He urges principled Republicans to take back their party from the liberal Democrats in GOP clothing now running it at the top.

Rush Warns White House on Caving To Dems:  "It's Not Working"!

U.S. Government Betrayal  Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily.com is completely fed up with both major political parties for ignoring the American people concerning the explosive issue of illegal immigration.  Mr. Farah says it's time for a grass-roots revolution!  Perhaps he's right.

GOP Firing Draws Conservatives' Wrath Against Senate Leadership

Steve Forbes:  Arlen Specter 'Not Just a Liberal,' but a 'Dangerous Liberal'

Burt Rutan in the Lead as U.S. on the Verge of Private Space Travel

February 5, 2004

PRESIDENTIAL ALTERNATIVES
AND LIBERTARIAN STRATEGIES;
SOME PITFALLS TO AVOID

Dr. John Hospers is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles) and author of widely read university textbooks in the field of philosophy and esthetics.  As a key co-founder of the national Libertarian Party and as the author of the exceptionally readable book  Libertarianism (Nash, 1971) and numerous articles on the freedom philosophy, he is not only one of libertarianism's leading theoreticians and popularizers, but also a living, breathing part of the history of that modern movement in America which he helped pioneer.  In fact, Dr. Hospers was the Libertarian Party's very first candidate for President of the United States in 1972, garnering an electoral vote in that election (which no subsequent LP candidate has achieved, or is likely to).   He recently published a short article for Liberty Reflections, edited by R. W. Bradford, in which he cautioned Libertarians against trying to pull votes away from the GOP's Bush/Cheney presidential ticket for re-election for fear that in a close election it might allow a Democrat to become President, leading to (more) disastrous foreign policy consequences which would result in more statism (and less freedom) in the world.

Although I tend to view George W. Bush as a liberal Democrat in Republican drag (at least in his domestic policies),  I strongly support Hospers' words of warning to Libertarians about the consequences of unwittingly helping the ultra-statist Democrats defeat the Republicans in this year's elections.  I for one would be very uncomfortable with either a Howard Dean or a John Kerry as Commander in Chief of America's armed forces.  It is a very scary thought. From a libertarian perspective, it never made any sense to me for a Libertarian candidate to deliberately try to take votes away from one candidate when it was likely to help elect another even-more-statist candidate; fortunately the LP seldom if ever gets enough votes to account for the crucial difference in such races. So far.

The key concern of Professor Hospers behind his caution to his fellow Libertarians and libertarians in this presidential election year has to do with the developing situation in world geopolitics and the crucial importance of U.S. foreign policy during the next several decades (at least).  It is on this front that he sees a definite choice between the major parties at this time.

As for myself, while I see somewhat less of a difference between the two major parties, even in the area of foreign policy, I must say that I do believe there is enough of a difference between Bush/Cheney on the one hand and any of the Democrat candidates on the other to warrant our serious and sober consideration of political tactics and strategy.   I disagree with some libertarians -- and especially those on the fringes of the libertarian movement (and even now inside some parts of the Libertarian Party) who call themselves "anarchists" -- who insist that there is not enough of a difference between the two major parties to bother voting or to be concerned about the possible impact of a third-party (LP) candidacy in a closely contested election.  I for one think there is a huge difference between a libertarian Republican Ron Paul (for example) and liberal/fascist Democrat Teddy Kennedy.  Likewise, there is a mammoth difference between libertarian Republicans like Larry Elder or Neal Boortz and such ultra-statist left-wing Democrats as Bill Press or Al Franken.  I see a major difference between conservative Republicans such as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Reagan, Gordon Liddy, Bob Barr, and Tom McClintock on the one hand and such liberal Democrats as Howard Dean, John Kerry, Barbra Streisand, Barbara Boxer, and Cruz Bustamante on the other.  Those who say all Republicans are just as bad as Democrats would have us believe otherwise.  But if one is intellectually honest, one must acknowledge that -- whatever differences that many libertarians may have with many conservative Republicans on some issues --  the former group is far less statist overall than the latter.  Bob Barr's voting record in Congress was second only to fellow Republican Ron Paul's in terms of both "economic freedom" and "civil liberties."  And there was a big difference between Al Gore and Bush/Cheney -- although less of one than I'd like to have seen.

As bad as Republican administrations have been in foreign policy in appeasing America's enemies, the Democrats, especially during the Clinton/Gore years, were far worse. It was the Clinton Administration's lax security policies, intelligence failures, and horrible foreign policy positions -- and the failure of the new Bush Administration to reverse those bad policies in time --  that led to the bloody  terrorism on 9/11/01.  Since then, Bush has begun to make at least some changes in the way the U.S. deals with terrorists -- changes that Al Gore almost certainly would not have made.

Unlike the Raimondos, the Rockwells, and the Shaffers, I don't believe the U.S. as a nation can hide its head in the sand and naively pretend that we have no enemies, or that the only enemies we might have are the result only of U.S. foreign and military aid to the State of Israel (although I share misgivings about that).  The world is too small today for that form of "isolationism" to work.  I consider the Raimondo/Rockwell/Shaffer position to amount to a Neville Chamberlain approach to an obvious external threat, or what I call the "pacifist surrendercrat" position.  This does not mean that I embrace the so-called global military imperialism supposedly called for by a few "neo-conservatives" (as Rockwell and Raimondo & Co. like to depict that view by deliberately polarizing it in contrast to their own as if these were the only two alternatives in foreign policy).  The U.S. does not have either the will or the resources to rule over the entire planet, and any attempt to do so would cripple our economy and destroy our remaining freedoms; it is simply impracticable.

Neither the pacifist surrendercrat position of the antiwar.com / lewrockwell.com clique nor the overly ambitious vision of a global U.S. Empire by a few "neoconservative" zealots is the proper moral or practical policy for the United States in today's world.  These positions are false alternatives, and I am concerned that some conservatives and libertarians are getting sucked into this phony polarization offered up by Rockwell & Co., buttressed with lurid claims of vast "neocon" (Jewish?) conspiracies borrowed from left-wing propaganda mills.  Those of a "populist" (soft left) mindset seem especially vulnerable to this sort of misdirection and divisiveness.  There seems to be a blind spot on the part of some libertarians as well as sincere populists when it comes to detecting left-wing agendas cloaked in imaginative "War Party" conspiracy theories.

Too many libertarians and even Libertarians have allowed themselves to become drawn into vociferous and heated discussions on issues on which they have virtually no influence or possibility in changing (such as the war in Iraq) or have been drawn into causes so closely associated with the pro-statist agenda of the Far Left that almost no one -- least of all the liberal-Democrat-dominated network news media -- will make any clear  distinction between their principled libertarian reasons behind their positions on those issues and the motivations of the left-wing activists also demonstrating on those issues.  This does not benefit the libertarian cause.

I note that at least a few activists within the Libertarian Party got suckered into getting involved with and into even promoting ultra-statist outfits posing as either "libertarian" or "non-partisan" groups.  I am referring to such websites as TomPaine.com which is obviously a highly Marxist, pro-Democrat site which the great author of Common Sense would bitterly denounce if he were alive today.   And then there is the so-called "RockTheVote.com" scam which seems to be trying to appeal to the "youth culture" -- or at least that part that watches MTV and is enamored with rock video performers.  While claiming to be concerned with freedom of expression, it clearly supports statist causes in its "Issues" section,  and the groups it recommends in its links page tend to be pro-Democrat.  In 2000 when their man Al Gore lost to Bush, Rock The Vote suddenly called off its much pre-publicized election victory party.

There are other such traps and pitfalls that many of the newer libertarians seem to be falling into -- in the same way that many populists and even some conservatives back in the 80's got conned into contributing to various patriotic-sounding front groups of Trotskyite leftist Lyndon Larouche (now in prison, I believe) and his highly disciplined cult followers.

Granted:  we have very imperfect choices in presidential politics today.  But, as Dr. Hospers warns, constitutional conservatives and libertarians must take care that our actions do not result in more statism in the long run -- the opposite of what we really want -- by cutting off our noses to spite our faces because of our deep misgivings about the pro-Big Government policies of President Bush and some other Republicans.  Instead of opposing all Republicans across the board, we must help those libertarians and real conservatives in the Republican Party to make their voices heard and take back their party from the big-spending liberals currently in control at the top.  There must be a way to send a stern message to the White House that Bush can't get away with taking the Right for granted while he's spending the taxpayers' money like a drunken Senate Democrat.

A FEW RECOMMENDED LINKS TO NEWS & VIEWS

Thomas Sowell's observations on "Weapons of Political Destruction"

On Iraq & WMD:  Did the President Lie? by libertarian talk host Larry Elder

Libertarian Columnist Jacob Sullum Searches in Vain for Signs of Fiscal Seriousness from the Bush Administration

Alan Reynolds exposes Musty Old Lies About Income Inequality made by socialists and Democrat presidential wannabes.

Housing Hurdles Part 2 Thomas Sowell answers the question, "What is YOUR solution?"

Californians Petitioning to Put New & Improved Prop 187 on November Ballot to Ban Social Services from Illegals

Save Our State Initiative Web Page

Dissident Shareholder Roy Disney Assails "Emperor" Eisner

 

U.S. SENATE BUILDING HIT WITH DEADLY TOXIN
-- OR, HOW ANARCHISTS PROVIDE ANOTHER EXCUSE FOR EXPANDED GOVERNMENT POWER

White Powder Sent to Senate Tests Positive for Ricin

"Terrorist Activity" Seen As Motivating Cause Behind Ricin Scare

MORE LINKS TO TODAY'S BEST COLUMNISTS

Housing Hurdles  Dr.Thomas Sowell examines one of the hardships caused by environmental zealots in California.  Instead of being laughed off the stage (as they should be), the eco-nazis have been getting their anti-private ownership agenda enforced by the coercive power of the political state.

The True Victims of the Anti-FreeTrade Interests by Prof. Walter Williams

A Clear Choice  Although greatly disappointed by President Bush's Big Government liberalism and out-of-control federal spending, Gary Aldrich still sees a crucial difference between Bush and the Democrat presidential wannabes barking at his heels.

February 2, 2004

MILITARY AND GEOPOLITICAL TOPICS IN THE NEWS

Russia Planning Maneuvers of Its Nuclear Weapons Forces Next Month; Still Think the Cold War is All Over?

Russian Military Plans to Simulate an All-Out Nuclear War With the U.S.

Father of Pakistan's Nuclear Bomb Program Confesses to Transferring Nuclear Technology to Iran, Libya, & North Korea

New Chinese DF-31 Missile Could Threaten U.S.

Chirac Pushing for France to Sell Weapons to Beijing: Aiding the Enemy

The War for Military Superiority in Space

Bush Administration Rushes Partial Missile Defense Deployment in Alaska

Edwin Feulner Says Americans Are Safer Today Because of President Bush's War Against Terrorism; we hope he's right

U.S. Government Betrayal  Joseph Farah is completely fed up with both major political parties for ignoring the American people concerning the explosive issue of illegal immigration.  Mr. Farah says it's time for a grass-roots revolution!  Perhaps he's right.

WHAT DAVID KAY REALLY SAID ABOUT THE WMDs
VS.
THE DEMOCRAT / NEWS MEDIA SPIN

David Kay reports that, contrary to what Democrats want you believe during this election year,  President Bush did not lie to the American people about the WMDs in Iraq, but that he was given bad, outdated intelligence by the CIA which was apparently not aware that the WMDs had been moved to Syria.  Kay makes it clear that Bush was relying on what the intelligence agencies were telling him, which contradicts the reckless Democrat political charge that Bush made it all up.  When asked in an interview with National Public Radio if he thought the President owed an apology to the American people, he said "no" adding, "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people.  It is not a political gotcha issue. . . . ."

OK, but that still places at least some of the blame on President Bush since he should have replaced CIA Director George Tenet with someone more qualified as soon as he moved into the Oval Office.  Tenet was a Clinton appointee, after all, and there was no good reason to keep him on after Bush became President.  There is even the suspicion among some that the CIA and Tenet may have deliberately set the President up so that he would look silly or foolish when no WMDs were found in Iraq so as to help the Democrats politically.  Who knows?

I don't know, but at least people should be able to see through the partisan propaganda smear from the Democrats for what it is.  Their vociferous insistence that Bush actually knowingly lied about the existence of WMDs as one of the several reasons for sending in troops to overthrow Saddam's regime now lacks credibility. After all, if Bush and his subordinates were corrupt enough to lie about the existence of WMDs, would they not also be corrupt enough to see to it that WMDs were planted in Iraq to make sure they would be found?

Again, we see that the Democrats will seize desperately on any negative claim against Bush and his advisors to smear the Republicans for their own partisan purposes during this election year.  Whatever Bush's bad points -- and they are many -- we should keep in mind that America today lives in a tempest of swirling propaganda spins and claims, and this is especially true in 2004 as the presidential general election approaches in the Fall.  So, if you want to oppose Bush, do so on solid grounds, and don't get suckered in by Democrat propaganda in support of their ultra-statist agenda or purely partisan ploys.

In terms of his policies and practices, George W. Bush seems to me to be  a liberal Democrat in Republican drag.  The problem, politically, is:  what can we on the pro-freedom Right (real conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, and patriots) do to punish Bush for his leftward plunges while at the same time avoid strengthening or helping the Democrats (who will use anything as an ad hoc range-of-the-moment brackbat against him for their own partisan purposes)?  We don't want to get lumped into the liberal-left agenda, after all, or be perceived as part of that agenda by the public (thanks to the news media slant which would almost surely ignore the distinction that such protests are from the Right and not at all for the same reasons which motivate the Left).  We at least have talk radio.  There is an outcry there by conservative and libertarian talk show hosts.  But we need something really dramatic that will get peoples' attention and especially the President's attention.  He must not be allowed to  assume we have no alternative but to support him no matter what he does.  We need to send a message that he can't get away with taking the Right for granted while he's spending the taxpayers' money like a drunken Senate Democrat.

Bush Seeks Intelligence Failure Investigation

Lack of Data on the Ground

What Should Bush Do Now?

January 30, 2004

NEW DAMNING EVIDENCE OF FRENCH & RUSSIAN COLLUSION WITH IRAQ'S FASCIST REGIME:
RUSSIAN AND FRENCH INTERESTS RECEIVED OIL CONTRACTS AS BRIBES BY SADDAM HUSSEIN;
-- AND WHY SO MANY OTHER GOVERNMENTS DID NOT JOIN WITH U.S.-LED COALITION AGAINST SADDAM

Peaceniks Took Oil Bribes from Saddam:  the Real Motive for Many To Be "Anti-War" When It Came to Saddam Hussein

Newly Discovered List Includes Big Names of Prominent People and Companies Who Supported Saddam's Regime And Got Sweetheart Bribes Through the United Nations "Oil For Food" Scam

The List of Recipients

MEANWHILE,
AS FEDERAL DEFICITS MOUNT TO RECORD LEVELS,
BUSH ASKS FOR HUGE INCREASE IN THE BUDGET
FOR THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS;
AGAIN, CONSERVATIVES ARE STUNNED, ANGRY
AT BUSH'S LIMOUSINE LEFT-LIBERALISM

The Bloated NEA from the Washington Times

Rush Limbaugh to White House:  "It's Not Working!"

Who Needs the NEA?  It Ought to be Abolished, Not Expanded!

MORE LINKS

Jeff Jacoby on Lies, Intelligence Failures, and the War in Iraq to Overthrow Saddam Hussein

What David Kay Really Said by Charles Krauthammer

The Other America by Rich Lowry

January 24, 2004

HOWARD DEAN AS PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.?

Some conservatives and libertarians are seriously wishing not merely that Howard Dean gets the Democrat nomination, but that he actually become President.  Why?  The reasoning is that with someone as far left and as nutty as Dean in the White House, the Republicans would finally get a backbone and mobilize to block his legislative proposals in the Senate as well as the House just because he is a Democrat and not a Republican like Bush supposedly is.  After all, President Bush has put forth many budget-busting schemes to expand Big Government just as any "liberal" Democrat would if in office -- and Republicans in the House and Senate are pressured to go along with and rubber-stamp such programs as Ted Kennedy's No Child Left Behind boondoggle and Bush's federal prescription drug subsidy program for senior citizens (even though the Constitution does not grant any authority for the federal government to be involved in either of those areas of life) because, well, the President is one of them in terms of political party affiliation.

I do not share this view.  First, I see no evidence that the Republicans -- especially the Senate Republicans -- would stand sufficiently firm against a Democrat President and his legislative agenda. Judging from past performances, Republicans legislators usually wind up compromising by giving the Democrat President most of what he wants but not all.  It is true that the Republicans were able to block some of President Clinton's monstrous proposals, such as Hillary Health Care, but they also let through a great deal of spending and went along with far too many bureaucratic schemes of the Clintonistas.  Also, there is the big concern about the federal judiciary, which the Democrats have fought to pack with reactionary left-wing appointees while blocking many of the Bush nominees.  In my judgement, the Republicans in the Senate do not have the integrity to stand firm enough to block the damaging appointments that a President Dean would make.  Finally, and perhaps most important of all, I would hate to see the men and women of the U.S. armed forces under the command of someone as emotionally unstable as Howard Dean.  That would be too dangerous to contemplate.

Of course, don't get me wrong:  I would love to see Howard Dean get the Democrat nomination as I feel confident that he would not only lose the election, but would also help discredit the Democrat Party as it deserves to be.  I think he is too weird for most people.  Unfortunately, Dean has already revealed himself, a bit too soon, so that even the Democrats may not want to pick him as their standard bearer.  His campaign seems to be imploding at this point.   If he fails to get the Democrat nomination, as now seems likely, maybe he can run on the Socialist Party banner instead.

RECOMMENDED ITEMS

Mark Alexander on the President's State of the Union Speech

Conservative Think Tank Challenges Bush Administration's Big-Government Liberalism and Out-of-Control Spending,
Calls for Urgent Cuts in Government Spending

The House That Hate Built Mark Alexander on how the Democrats use the left-wing strategy of turning Americans against each other.

Starting a week ago, John Ziegler now fills the 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM program slot at KFI Monday through Friday evenings.  We welcome John to Los Angeles and wish him and his program well.

The Witless Challenge the Wits by Suzanne Fields

OTHER RECOMMENDED ITEMS

The Appearance of Corruption  Columnist Paul Jacob has found out how the political game is played in the District of Corruption -- and wants to tell you about it, and why McCain-Feingold (or any other such campaign finance "reform" law) does not worry corrupt politicians.

A staunch conservative urges Principle Before Party!  In this passionate speech about the ongoing struggle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party, Republican Tom Deweese refutes the left-wing myth that the GOP is dominated -- at the national leadership level -- by Christian conservatives and constitutionalist libertarians.  He urges principled Republicans to take back their party from the liberal Democrats in GOP clothing now controlling it at the top.

Bruce Bartlett on Why Manufacturing Subsidies Are a Bad Idea

Liberal big spender of the taxpayers' money that he is, President Bush has announced yet another very expensive government program, this time a series of space programs and missions with the goal of putting humans on the planet Mars.  Playing down the costs of this obviously expensive plan, the President emphasized the many possible technological benefits which we can expect to be spun off from this massive new space effort.

In all the excitement over the prospect of sending a manned space mission to Mars, is anyone concerned that this is going to be done by a political bureaucracy, NASA, at the forced expense of the American taxpayers and the U.S. economy as a whole, instead of left up to private enterprise efforts and funded by private capital?  NASA has done much over the decades to discourage private space ventures.  If it were necessary for national security, that might be one thing, but this smacks of a major artificial "make-work scheme" for rocket scientists and engineers at the expense of the rest of the economy. As Bastiat would put it, what is seen (or only imagined) are all the purported benefits (and there will certainly be some) of this new governmental space adventure -- but what is not seen are all the good things that would have taken place if people had been left free to keep more of what they earn and spend or save it as they choose instead of having all that wealth siphoned out of our economy over the next several years by this series of political space projects.

Of course, the way the program is planned, George Bush will be long out of the Oval Office when most of the bills for all this come due.

What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen  by Frederic Bastiat

How to Recognize "Legal Plunder"

Costly Image Making by John Leo

BUSH AND MAINLAND CHINA

The U.S. Needs To Stop Arming and Training Red China's Military -- Forcing American taxpayers to finance the military-industrial complex of powerful dictators who have declared themselves to be our adversaries is not "free trade" and is not smart -- and it will cause us to have to spend even more on our own military defenses in the future.  Libertarians as well as conservatives should make this an important issue if they can -- instead of sweeping it under the rug.

Bush Should Stop Appeasing Red China by Jeff Jacoby

According to the latest rankings, the most economically free countries are still Hong Kong, Singapore, and New Zealand, while the U.S. has sunk down to 10th place.  Luxembourg, Ireland, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Switzerland all outrank the U.S. these days.  Find out why.

International Comparisons of Economic Freedom  Rebecca Hagelin reports on the latest national rankings by the "Index of Economic Freedom" as measured by the pro-free-market Heritage Foundation.

A Nation of "Hamburger Flippers"?  libertarian economist Walter Williams

"Save Manufacturing Jobs"  by economic mythbuster Thomas Sowell

Confronting Left-Wing Prejudice on College Campuses by Phyllis Schlafly
The "politically correct" leftists who control the colleges and universities insist on compulsory "diversity"; well, why not a little ideological diversity -- why not a few conservative and libertarian speakers, teachers, and courses to help balance out the Marxists, Keynesians, greenists, and others of left-wing views on campus?

Good Advice from Tom McClintock to California's New Governator

January 12, 2004

MORE REACTIONS TO BUSH'S PLAN FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Immigration Part 2:  American Culture by David Limbaugh

Border Council Calls Bush Plan 'Slap in the Face'

Diana West Says Congress Should Burst Bush's Immigration Inflation

Phyllis Schlafly asks, Will Americans Support Another Amnesty?

President Bush's speech in which he unveiled his plan for handling illegal immigrants was a stroke of sheer foolish stupidity -- and further convinces me that he is not part of any vast Conspiracy of careful planners and globalist schemers.  Conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, and American patriots should pressure Congress to stop this half-baked proposal in its tracks.  This is a slap in the face of those who chose to come to this country through legal channels.

David Limbaugh Warns: Bush's Immigration Proposal is a Bad Idea

Americans Oppose Increase in Immigration

Bush's Plan:  An Empty Pinata

OTHER GOOD ARTICLES THIS WEEK

Worrying About Deficits Libertarian economist Bruce Bartlett spotlights the hypocrisy of those big-spending Democrats who are now crying crocodile tears over the federal deficit -- only so they can use it as a partisan political weapon against Bush in the upcoming elections.

Fleeing Freedom of Trade  Jeff Jacoby reminds us why Howard Dean and other Democrat presidential hopefuls are so hypocritical when it comes to demagoguing NAFTA.

Charles Krauthammer Explains Why He Feels Safer These Days

Gun control does work . . .  for criminals and tyrants.

January 7, 2004

AMERICA'S SPIRIT INVADES MARS!
ROVER SENDING COLOR PICTURES!

While the European "Beagle" spacecraft is lost in space, America's "Spirit" mission to Mars achieves wonderful success, with a flawless landing of its "rover" on the Martian surface.  JPL is receiving clear color pictures of the Martian landscape -- the most detailed ever seen.  JPL scientists and engineers are elated.  This tremendous accomplishment of Western technology and space science is an an exciting step in man's exploration of the mysterious red planet.

 "Spirit has told us that it is healthy," Jennifer Trosper of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said today. Trosper is Spirit mission manager for operations on Mars' surface. The rover remains
perched on its lander platform, and the next nine days or more will be spent preparing for egress, or rolling off, onto the Martian surface.

The NASA administrator explained that with only two degrees of tilt, with the deck toward the front an average of only about 37 centimeters (15 inches) off the ground, and with apparently no large rocks blocking the way, the lander is in good position for egress. "The egress path we're working toward is straight ahead," Trosper said.

The rover's initial images excited scientists about the prospects of exploring  the region after the roll-off.

  "My hat is off to the navigation team because they did a fantastic job of getting  us right where we wanted to be," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science payload. By correlating images taken by Spirit with earlier images from spacecraft orbiting Mars, the mission team has determined that the rover appears to be in a region marked with numerous swaths where dust devils have removed brighter dust and left darker gravel behind.  The terrain looks different from any of the sites examined by NASA's three  previous successful landers -- the two Vikings in 1976 and Mars Pathfinder in 1997.

Spirit arrived at Mars Jan. 3 (EST and PST; Jan. 4 Universal Time) after a seven month journey. Its task is to spend the next three months exploring for clues in rocks and soil about whether the past environment at this part of Mars was ever watery and suitable for sustaining life.

Spirit's twin Mars exploration rover, Opportunity, should reach its landing site on the opposite side of Mars on Jan. 25 (EST and Universal Time; Jan. 24 PST) to begin a similar examination of a site on the other side of the planet.

Color Pictures from the Planet Mars 105 Million Miles Away

First Color Image from Rover Spirit

Overhead View of Spirit on Mars from Navigation Camera

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission Web Site

Matt Drudge Finds More Left-Liberal Hate Speech

The Left's Hitler Attack Ads by Oliver North

A Conservative Republican Cries Out for Principle Before Party

Mealy-Mouthed News Media  Thomas Sowell on confusing neutrality with objectivity in our Pro-Democrat, Left-Leaning Broadcasters

The Choice:  To Accommodate or Defeat Evil

MoveOn Ads Compare Bush to Hitler; RNC, Jewish Leaders Urge Democrats to Denounce Liberal 'Hate Speech'

Get G. Gordon Liddy's Latest Politically Incorrect "Stacked & Packed" Calendar of Gorgeous Girls and Great guns

THE GREATNESS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION  by Edwin Locke
The greatness of the West is not an 'ethnocentric' prejudice; it is an objective fact.

Clifford D. May Enumerates Some Important Lessons People Should Have Learned By Now

Allied Forces Uncover a Hub of Info On Saddamite Conspirators

Student Bake Sale Protests Affirmative Action; Liberal Democrats Seek to Shut It Down

How Many Poor People Have Reactionary "Progressives" Starved?
 

'Twas the Night Before Kwaanza

'Twas the night before Kwanza
And all through the 'hood,
Maulana Karenga was up to no good.

He'd tortured a woman and spent time in jail.
He needed a new scam that just wouldn't fail.
("So what if I stuck some chick's toe in a vice?
Nobody said revolution was nice!")

The Sixties were over. Now what would he do?
Why, he went back to school -- so that's "Dr." to you!
He once ordered shootouts at UCLA
Now he teaches Black Studies just miles away.

Then to top it all off, the good Doctor's new plan
Was to get rid of Christmas and piss off The Man.

Karenga invented a fake holiday.
He called the thing Kwanza. "Hey, what's that you say?

"You don't get what's 'black' about Maoist baloney?
You say that my festival's totally phony?

"Who cares if corn isn't an African crop?
Who cares if our harvest's a month or two off?
Who cares if Swahili's not our mother tongue?
A lie for The Cause never hurt anyone!

"Umoja! Ujima! Kujichagulia, too!
Collectivist crap never sounded so cool!
Those guilty white liberals -- easy to fool.
Your kids will now celebrate Kwanzaa in school!"

And we heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight:
"Happy Kwanzaa to all, except if you're white!"
                                                          -- posted by South40 on FreeRepublic.com

News and Columns

Black Economist Considers the Pros and Cons of Secession As One Possible Way of Returning to Limited Constitutional Government

Thomas Sowell Rebuts Unthinking Prejudices Against Striving for Profits in the Marketplace and Explains why the Non-Profit Approach is More Costly

Rush Limbaugh's Statement on "Florida Fishing Expedition"

Has France Shot Itself in the Foot?  Amir Taheri on why Chirac's vociferous opposition to the liberation of Iraq was a geopolitically stupid mistake for France.

December 23, 2003

The Road to Wealth by libertarian economist Walter Williams

Lawyer Accuses Housekeeper of Blackmailing Rush Limbaugh

Libertarian Republican Larry Elder Takes Another Look at Rush and Drugs

Secretary of State Powell Defends His Diplomatic Role

Kim Wants To Rule All Korea, Defector Warns

South Korea Gets Advanced Patriots from U.S.

U.S. Lacks Direction, Cohesion in the War of Ideas by Bill Gertz

John Fund Faults Tom DeLay and Texas Republicans for Gerrymandering

David Limbaugh on ABC's Hypocrisy and the Hateful Rage of Democrats

Why Forcing Taxpayers to Finance Presidential Campaigns is Very Bad

December 21, 2003

Kurds Say They Caught and Held Saddam for U.S. Troops

Saddam Was Held and Drugged by Kurds, then Left for U.S. Forces

Libyan Dictator Promises to Surrender WMDs and Cease WMD Programs

Spy Chief Says Saddamites Moved WMDs

President Bush's Betrayal of Our Allies on Taiwan

Chairman of Commission Investigating 9/11 Says Attacks Were Preventable

Thomas Sowell on Democrat Reactions to the Capture of Saddam

Libertarian Republican Talk Show Host Larry Elder on Saddam's Capture

The Global Warming Hoax

The Twisting of History

Much to the joy of 95 percent of the Iraqi people -- and much to the chagrin of Bush's nine ankle-biting Democrat opponents -- U.S. military forces have captured former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the Ace of Spades.  The statist tyrant whose name once sent shivers of fear throughout the region begged the Americans not to shoot him as he was taken from his hiding place.  No shots were fired by anyone during the capture.

Saddam was found at the bottom of a six-foot hole with guns and a suitcase containing $750,000 in hundred-dollar bills, U.S. money.  The former "ally" of the U.S. (during the war against Iranian ultrastatist tyrant Ayatollah Khomeini) now had a long dirty beard, lousy hair, and the look of a completely defeated man, which he was.

This is a great day for the people of Iraq and the Bush Administration -- and a bad day for anti-American dictators and the Democrat Party.   Eight months after U.S. troops liberated Iraq from Saddam's bloody regime -- and after many brave Americans have been wounded or have lost their lives during the difficult occupation phase -- one of the main symbols giving hope to anti-American terrorists and anti-freedom partisans around the world (but especially in the Middle East) has been caught and incarcerated.  The Democrats can no longer taunt Bush with the question, "Where is Saddam Hussein?" Al Gore has much egg on his face, and Howard Dean's presidential hopes have sunk even farther.  The power-mad dictator  who once plotted to kill the current president's father (Bush 41) will now be put on trial for his own life. (And who will come to the defense of this loathsome mass murderer?  Johnny "Cockroach" Cochran -- or Gloria AllRed?)

Hopefully, bin Laden will soon follow Saddam's fate -- if he is indeed still alive.

In his domestic policies, President Bush has certainly betrayed his conservative base supporters by caving in to the Democrats by supporting more Big Government budget-busting schemes.  But he seems to be doing much better when it comes to foreign policy.  "Churchill stood up to the Nazis."  "Reagan stood up to the Communists."  And Bush can be portrayed as standing up to America-hating terrorists and at least some of the regimes that support them.  Clinton didn't.  Gore would not have.  Dean obviously is not the man to turn to after 9/11.  Bush took action and responsibility (at least outside our borders).  His very costly and politically risky military action in Iraq is beginning to pay off with success, and the world is better off as a result.  Whatever mistakes the Bush Administration makes in post-liberation Iraq, there will will be less statism and more individual freedom for the people there, and the chances for the achievement of more freedom in other places around the world will be increased -- and that should make for a more peaceful world as well.

Iraqi Journalist Cries for Joy at Saddam's Capture

Shrillary from Hillary: Mrs. Clinton Accuses Bush of Undoing the New Deal by Larry Elder.  Would that it were true!  But is not, unfortunately.

How Environmentalists Killed "Free Willy"

America Has Grounded the Wright Brothers by Heike Berthold:  Has America abandoned the cultural values that made the Wright brothers' great achievement possible?  Read this provocative analysis and decide for yourself.

Thomas Sowell's Christmas Book Recommendations - Dr. Sowell writes, "What these new books all have in common is that they subject fashionable notions -- about the police, about the role of the New Deal during the Great Depression and about the education of minority children today -- to hard facts and cold logic."  More left-liberal myths demolished by one of my most favorite columnists/authors..

Gov. Schwarzenegger has signed a budget compromise proposal which will have to be approved (or not) by voters in March. The new governor caved in to the Democrats on his earlier request for a spending cap, settling instead for a "balanced budget" provision, which some suggest is already required by law.  Critics point out that this does not fix the State's budget problems, but will make them worse in the long run by pushing the debt onto future  generations at high rates of interest.  If passed in March, this huge bonded indebtedness will have to be paid for by higher taxes, so this is like a tax increase.  Regular readers of this blog will recall that I was very doubtful that the new movie-star governor would have the stomach to demand and get real spending cuts and my concern that he would turn out not to be as "fiscally conservative" as he claimed to be during the election campaign.  Conservatives and libertarians certainly appreciate Schwarzenegger and his popularity among the voters for getting Davis out and keeping Bustamante from becoming governor, but we should have no illusions that the Tinsel town Governor will act as a conservative, fiscal or otherwise, much less a libertarian.  But we tell ourselves he is at least better than Davis, and that's true.

The 13 Percent Solution:  State Senator McClintock briefly explains the California government's budget crisis and what he would do about it.

How to Solve the Budget Crisis in Three Easy Steps

Conservatism Triumphant:  A true conservative Republican, State Senator Tom McClintock, expresses a more optimistic assessment of the results of California's Recall Election in a speech to the Young America's Foundation.

Meanwhile, in Europe . . .

The New World Disorder:  EU Summit Falls Apart.

EU in Crisis as Constitution Summit Collapses

COP-9: Another United Nations Conference for Sustaining World Poverty

The U.N.'s Distortion of Rights

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold most of the highly controversial 2002 campaign finance bill signed into law by President Bush was a narrow defeat for conservatives who bitterly opposed the ruling as undermining the Constitution's First Amendment  freedom of speech provision.  Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was the deciding vote that broke the tie on this critical ruling.

O'Connor Swings Campaign Finance Ruling

Mona Charen Explains Why Dec. 10, 2003 Was a Bad Day for Freedom

John Fund on Justice O'Connor's Judicial Activism

Rush Limbaugh Blasts Supreme Court's Anti-Freedom Ruling

Bizarro GOP, Ridge Offer Pass to Illegal Aliens:  Will the U.S. Send SS Checks South of the Border?

The Party of Big Spenders Jeff Jacoby contrasts Candidate Bush with President Bush.

Limousine Leftists Contribute to Democrats by Paul Crespo

Bruce Bartlett on How to Make U.S. Manufacturing More Competitive in the World and How Trial Lawyers Are Hurting the Economy  Bartlett focuses on four key areas in which American manufacturing firms are significantly burdened compared to our principal foreign competitors.  Reducing or abolishing these domestic burdens would do far more for American industrial competitiveness than imposing more expensive tariffs on American consumers.

December 7 is worldwide CAPITALISM DAY.  Although many American Objectivists, libertarians, conservatives, and constitutionalists honor the ideas and institutions of individualism, private property, rational self-interest, and market capitalism on American Thanksgiving Day (the fourth Thursday every November), this centers around circumstances which are peculiar to American history.  There was a need for people all around the world to designate a day to make special observances, celebrations, and to express grateful appreciation for the system which -- even though never fully realized in its pure, uncompromised robustness -- to the extent it has been permitted to operate, has done more than any other to alleviate misery and elevate living conditions of humankind.  Please make sure you celebrate it!

The  purpose of Celebrate Capitalism Day is to express a BIG THANKS to the creative, productive people of the world. -- and to the only social system which respects and defends the individual rights of peaceful adults in their persons and properties, and the only system which truly honors and encourages the creative individual human mind: Market Capitalism and the political system which would make its full realization a possibility: the Laissez-Faire Republic, a constitutional republic restricted to a policy of laissez faire in the private affairs and market (voluntary) transactions of peaceful people.

Celebrate Capitalism website

A Pro-Capitalist Declaration

Bad Medicine by Bruce Bartlett - The liberal Republicans think they're so clever, having rammed through a massive expansion of the welfare state by giving drug benefits to the elderly.  President Bush should read -- and heed -- Bruce Bartlett's latest article. This is a much bigger mistake than even the steel tariff hike was.  If Bush thinks he can out-Democrat the Democrats by buying seniors' votes with taxpayer s' money, he will find this strategy backfiring on him and his Party in the long run.

Why "Big Government Conservative" is a Contradiction in Terms  by W. James Antle III

Hollywood vs. the More "Reasonable" Democrats - Brent Bozell believes the hateful Hollywood Left is not just nutty, but also unreasonable!

There's no hate like "liberal" Democrat hate.  It is extreme, poisonous, and irrational.  And some of the most hateful left wingers around are persons involved in producing TV and movie entertainment.  They will be meeting this week, starting tomorrow evening, to work on their anti-Bush propaganda campaigns for the coming year -- as if the TV networks and movie makers were not already spewing out enough biased material..

Reminiscent of the three-minute hate sessions depicted in George Orwell's novel 1984 (in which socialist party members stand in front of large TV screens and scream hate-filled slogans at a picture of the designated enemy of the state -- until the reassuring face of Big Brother appears on the screen, ending the cathartic experience), the Democrat hate fest of the  Hollywood Left will last much longer and will take place at the posh Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

Matt Drudge was able to obtain a copy of the memo/invitation sent out about the Democrat hate meeting by organizer Laurie David, wife of Seinfeld creator Larry David.

The hateful gathering will be chaired by Harold Ickes, former Deputy White House Chief of Staff and Campaign Manager for the ¹96 Clinton/Gore re-election effort, and Ms. Ellen Malcolm, founder of Emily¹s List, a political lobby that tries to elect pro-choice Democrat women to public office,

The message states, ". . . Do not miss this meeting. This will be a high-level briefing to discuss the strategies... to affect what happens next November."

Names included on the "HATE BUSH" invite, obtained by DRUDGE, include:

  Julie Bergman: producer ("G.I. Jane," "The Fabulous Baker Boys,"
"Washington Square"), daughter of lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Came up with the anti-Iraq war "silent protest" idea for Oscars where celebrities wore blue-and-green quarter-sized peace sign pins.

  Scott Burns: "Got Milk?" campaign creator and producer of Arianna
Huffington ad campaign which linked SUVs with terrorism.

  Steve Byrnes & Jamie Mandelbaum: Jamie is an entertainment attorney at
Armstrong, Hirsch -- represents Hillary Duff, Tori Spelling, among
others.

  Ariel "Ari" Emanuel: Emanuel is a founding partner of Endeavor Talent
agency. Brother of White House Rahm and agent to West Wing Sorkin.

  Naomi Foner: Screenwriter of RUNNING ON EMPTY, LOSING ISAIAH; executive
producer of HOMEGROWN a comedy thriller set in northern California about
inept but lovable pot farmers.

  Cami Gordon: Children's book author lives in Pacific Palisades, Calif.
Member of Mothers for Natural Law. Husband Howard, producer ("X-Files",
"Strange World").

  Robert Greenwald: Executive producer of the 2002 documentary,
UNPRECEDENTED: THE 2000 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, about the "stealing" of the
2000 presidential election in Florida. Also produced CROOKED E: THE
UNSHREDDED TRUTH ABOUT ENRON. He and Mike Farrell started "Artists
United," a group of actors and other stars opposed to war in Iraq.

  Sally Hardwicke: [no data].

  Ruth Hunter: [no data].

  Lyn Lear: Wife of Norman Lear.

  Michelle Kydd Lee: Executive Director, Creative Artists Agency (CAA)
Foundation.

  Julia Louis-Dreyfus: 'FRIDAYS', 'Seinfeld' alum. Married to fellow SNL
alum and sitcom producer Brad Hall.

  Darcy Pollack: [no data].

  Nancy Stephens: Actress (RUSSKIES), environmentalist.

  Laure & Daniel Stern: Daniel is actor (CITY SLICKERS, HOME ALONE).

  Anne & Jay Sures: Jay Sures is an agent at United Talent Agency. Hosted
fund-raiser for Democratic presidential candidate General Wesley Clark at
his Brentwood home.

  Marge Tabankin & Earl Katz: Tabankin is Barbra Streisand's philanthropic
and political guru. Ran the Hollywood Women's Political Committee.

  Katz is the executive producer of UNPRECEDENTED: THE 2000 PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTION.

  Heather Thomas: Actress ("The Fall Guy"), 80s pin-up model. Married to
Skip Brittenham, top Hollywood lawyer.

  Elizabeth Wiatt: Wife of William Morris heavyweight Jim Wiatt.

Their avowed goal is to defeat George Bush "by any means possible"  This could presumably include violence against the President, possibly even going as far as assassination attempts by the more extreme crackpots on the Far Left.  Certainly, we can expect Democrat attempts at massive vote tampering in 2004 that will make their antics in Florida and Missouri in the 2000 elections look like penny-ante stuff by comparison.  But this meeting will focus on the media war and funding strategies for replacing Bush with Democrat presidential ankle biter Howard Dean.

Hollywood Dems Gather for "Hate Bush" Meeting At the Hilton

OTHER ITEMS IN THE NEWS

Mainland China now has 496 ballistic missiles "aimed at Taiwan"

Roy Disney and Stanley Gold Resign from Walt Disney Company's Board of Directors in Protest Against Michael Eisner's Management

The New York Times, the leading house organ of the Democrat Party and Eastern "liberal" (i.e., neofascist/socialist) establishment, has finally come out with a story confirming that there were intense dealings between Iraq and North Korea on procuring weapons of mass destruction.  Saddam's sons were trying to get a nuclear missile factory built as well as attempting to buy the weapons themselves.

Saddam Had Secret Deal with North Korea To Build Missile Factory

Saddam Sought Rodong Missiles from North Korea

Friday night, Kent Snyder of the Liberty Committee reported the following situation on the House floor:  "It's an ugly night in our nation's capital.  The handful of true Republican conservatives who are opposing the Medicare
prescription drug bill are being hammered mercilessly to change their votes.

"Do you remember how the Patriot Act was rammed down the throats
of House members giving them only a matter of hours to read a 300-page bill?  It's happening again tonight with the Medicare drug bill -- all 1,100 pages of it!  The bill itself stinks, but the process stinks even more.  It's 9:52 p.m. ET on Friday night.  The House will vote around 1:00 a.m. Saturday morning on what will undoubtedly become the largest entitlement federal program in our nation's history. This is your last chance to tell your U.S. representative to vote "NO" on this bill."

But by dawn the House did (narrowly) pass the bill, despite efforts by Republican Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) and other conservative Republicans to withhold enough votes for it to pass.  The final version of the bill, a compromise worked out by House and Senate negotiators, was adopted in the House by a vote of 220 to 215   The New York Times online reported it this way:

"[A] roll-call vote, which rarely exceeds 20 minutes, began at 3 a.m. and was held open for nearly three hours, as Republican leaders and Bush administration officials scrambled to quell a conservative rebellion.  As the voting drew on, a few lawmakers fell asleep, but still it was not gaveled to an end. Eventually, just before dawn, after a series of small dramas played out in the milling crowd on the House floor, a few lawmakers switched their votes and put the bill over the top."

Kent Snyder reported by an email broadcast that at first it looked as if conservatives would be able to block passage -- until some of the weaker congressmen broke down under the arm-twisting from Bush Administration officials:

"Late into the three-hour vote, one member of Congress commented
to Congressman Ron Paul that his Liberty Caucus had 'saved the
Republicans...' and had pulled it off.  Congressman Paul also heard from several other House colleagues that they were getting a lot of E-mails, faxes and phone calls from Liberty Committee people.  We're extremely pleased that 11 of the 25 "no" votes are members of [Rep. Ron Paul's] Liberty Caucus.  We are, however, especially disappointed with two of our caucus members, Butch Otter (Idaho) and Trent Franks (Arizona).  They were the two members who caved into pressure and changed their vote, thus ushering in what will become the largest federal entitlement program in U.S. history.  We are also disappointed in the other caucus members who voted in favor of this entitlement monster."

So, even in the House of Representatives, there were not enough staunch conservatives or Constitutionalists to stop a bill which could add another $8 trillion to America's already huge level of unfunded future spending commitments which the government will be saddling on the backs of present and future taxpayers.

It now goes to the U.S. Senate for a vote, possibly as early as Monday (tomorrow).

Will it pass the Senate?  At this point it looks all too likely.  President Bush has been pushing for it hard, and the liberal Republicans (and most Republicans in the U.S. Senate are liberal or "moderate" and not conservative or libertarian) will vote for the measure.  Far Left Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has announced she will vote for the monstrosity, despite objections from Sen. Teddy Kennedy and other Senate Democrats who oppose the bill for not going far enough or because they are afraid that if Bush and the Republicans get credit for its passage that it will undercut them politically in next year's elections by taking away one of their key issues.  President Bush, big spender of the taxpayers' money that he is, will not hesitate to sign the bill into law.

If this legislation is to be stopped, it will have to be done now -- tonight and tomorrow (Monday) morning -- by an outpouring of popular protest from the citizens via telephone calls, emails, and  FAX messages to their senators.  Unfortunately, the much more statist U.S. Senate is less sensitive to popular pressure than the more ideologically balanced House of Representatives.

Analysis of Republican Medicare Expansion Bill by Stephen Moore

The Medicare Frame-Up: Republican Medicare Bill is Closet Socialism by Robert Garmong

Other Items of Interest

Pork-Filled Energy Bill Blocked in U.S. Senate

Anti-Terrorism Funds Buy Wide Array of Pet Projects

Thanksgiving:  An American Celebration of the Creation of Wealth by Gary Hull

Suspicious Circumstances in the Strange Case of Terri Schiavo by Jennifer King

Conservative Patriot Gary Aldrich Warns Against Big Government Republicans in Charge #NorthOnJFKMurder

It's that time again -- for assassination writers to weave their webs of conspiratorial speculations, facts, suppositions, half truths, and outright fabrications about what happened on this date in 1963 in Dallas.  George Noory, the talk show host who has taken over Art Bell's Coast to Coast late night/early morning radio program, will be interviewing some of the more outspoken and articulate of these conspiracy mongers.  Are they sincere individuals trying to discover the truth -- or are they just trying to make a buck on an issue which still fascinates people around the world to this day?  Or is there an ideological/political agenda here?

The Left -- both the pro-American (but nevertheless wrong-headed) populist Left and the usual anti-American Marxist/Greenist Left -- have trotted out at least three bogus scenarios / motives for the JFK assassination including the view  that Texas oil tycoons (H L Hunt et al) had the President of the United States killed because they were afraid of losing their oil depletion allowance; or that the Military-Industrial Complex murdered him because he was allegedly planning to stop the War in Vietnam; or that the banksters had him assassinated because JFK wanted to reform the Federal Reserve and go back to using United States Government silver certificates instead of Federal Reserve notes!   For the record, I don't buy any of these claims, theories, or speculations, and instead I believe that the Left has been desperately trying to queer the pitch so that people will be so confused that they will forget about Marxist ideologue Lee Oswald, his extreme left-wingism, and his hatred of Kennedy, whom Oswald and the Left saw back then as an anti-Communist reactionary trying to overthrow socialist hero Fidel Castro.  It is an on-going (and partially successful) campaign of attempted distraction from the real facts, and an attempt to obliterate the truth by rewriting history.  Behind all the purported and concocted "facts" advanced by the current generation of assassination writers (almost all of whom with a left-wing political agenda), the bottom line of all the theorizing is that Oswald is the little guy the American Left wants everyone to just forget about.  What horrible PR it would be (for the political Left) for people to think that JFK (whose image has been built up by the "liberal" Establishment to be a "liberal" Democrat hero even though he was in reality closer to being a conservative Republican by today's standards) and the myth of "Camelot" were brought to a tragic end by a Marxist nut who avidly read The Militant and who loved communists in general and Castro in particular!  Could the Left recover from such a widespread realization?

Although I certainly have not always agreed with everything Gary North has written -- such as, for example, his dire predictions about January 1, 2000 --  I hold him in very high esteem as he is one of the most well-read and interesting writers on the pro-freedom Right today.  He is one of the few newsletter writers who has actually read and understood Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, and there are very few economists who have a sounder grasp of money and credit than Dr. North (See his fascinating book with the sarcastic title Salvation Through Inflation in which he thoroughly refutes the economic claims of Social Credit quackery (the economics of populism) as well as other widespread monetary fallacies).  Because I find his recent remarks about the assassination of President Kennedy forty years ago so refreshing in cutting through the usual murky conspiratorial speculations surrounding that event, I have excerpted those observations from his Reality Check email to share them here.  Enjoy!

Gary North on the JFK Assassination

Gertrude Coogan and the Myths of Social Credit  You will have to scroll down the left frame column ("Pages") and double click on Page 135 (even though the actual page number will be something else.)

 In what was undoubtedly the single largest audience in radio history, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh returned to the airwaves somewhat jittery and with "butterflies" in his stomach on Monday after a month-long stint in an Arizona drug rehabilitation center.

"I cannot tell you how excited I am, how happy I am to be back," El Rushbo exclaimed in his first words on the radio in five weeks. "It is one of the biggest thrills of my life to be here and once again sharing and discussing and talking things over with you."

 "I spent five intense weeks -- probably the most educational and informative five weeks on myself and about me that I ever have spent," Limbaugh revealed.

Speaking without notes, Limbaugh said his time in rehab affected his life in many ways, and he will be sharing some of the lessons he learned in the coming weeks.

"I thought I was going to be treated for addiction to painkillers," he said. "But it was so much more than that."

Not a single one of the nearly 600 radio stations or national advertisers abandoned the program during Rush's absence.

"I came to realize a number of things while I was away and right at the top of the list is how much I love all of you, how much I appreciate all of you and how much this and other aspects of my life mean to me," he said, thanking the tens of thousands of listeners who wrote him letters of support during his absence.

Addressing the issue of whether his drug addiction has made him change his conservative positions on certain issues, Limbaugh assured his listeners that he has not become "a linguine-spined liberal."

"I am who I am," Limbaugh said matter-of-factly. "Nobody made any attempt to change me in terms of my core and this sort of thing -- other than as it relates to the problem I have -- the addiction."

Making no excuses for himself, Limbaugh said he is personally committed to overcoming his addiction to pain killers and cannot rely on others to do it for him.

"It's something that is now a priority for me," Rush revealed. "I cannot turn it over to anybody else. Nobody can do it for me."

Aware that many "liberal" (left-wing) Democrats and socialists had been joyful at Rush's predicament, the talk show leader taunted his liberal detractors with this parting shot:  "The party's over.  I'm back!"

Republicans Lose 39-Hour Talkathon from WorldNetDaily.com

Black Woman Getting "Borked" by Senate Democrats

Rush Limbaugh Denounces Bush's "New Tone" as Not Working

RUSH TO RETURN ON MONDAY!

It's official! Rush will return to the air on Monday, November 17th. Rush's brother, syndicated columnist David Limbaugh, made the announcement earlier this week, reporting that Rush is in good spirits:   "He's very realistic about the long road ahead of him and he's committed to staying the course, just as he is and has always been committed to this broadcast and to his family of listeners. He's expressed so often over the course of these last few weeks how deeply moved he is by the love and loyalty of you, his audience, and is especially overwhelmed by the prayers and support he's received."

  You have a cow and an effeminate bull.

  The bull is depressed.

  It has spent its life living a lie.

  It goes away for two weeks.

  It comes back after a taxpayer-paid sex-change
  operation.

  You now have two cows.

  One makes milk; the other doesn't.

  You try to sell the transgender cow.

  Its lawyer sues you for discrimination.

  You lose in court.

  You sell the milk-generating cow to pay the damages.

  You now have one rich, transgender,
  non-milk-producing cow.

  You change your business to beef.

  PETA pickets your farm.

  Jesse Jackson makes a speech in your driveway.

  Cruz Bustamante calls for higher farm taxes to help
  "working cows".

  Barbara Boxer calls for the nationalization of 1/7
  of your farm "for the children".

  Gray Davis had already signed a law giving your farm
  to Mexico.

  The L.A. Times quotes five anonymous cows claiming
  you groped their teats.

  You declare bankruptcy and shut down all operations.

  The cow starves to death.

  A detailed L.A. Times' analysis shows your business
  failure is George W. Bush's fault.

November 8, 2003

PATRIOT ACT ALREADY BEING MISUSED

Americans reluctantly accepted the dangerous provisions of the so-called Patriot Act as a temporary measure to facilitate the war against terrorism in order to prevent , if possible, any more horrendous attacks against the lives and properties of Americans as those which occurred on 9/11/01.  We were assured by the Attorney General that the unusual powers would not jeopardize the constitutional rights of peaceful American citizens.  We were led to believe the provisions of the Act would be used only in the "War on Terrorism" -- against Al Qaeda and its anti-American allies which seek to harm us.    The FBI now admits it is using the Patriot Act in busting local corruption in Las Vegas!  Now, few of us are in favor of corruption -- but what does this have to do with fighting terrorism?  Absolutely nothing!

FBI says Patriot Act used in Vegas Strip Club Corruption Probe

November 7, 2003

SENATE INTEL SCANDAL:
SENATE DEMS PLAYING POLITICS WITH
AMERICAN SECURITY

Leaked Democrat Memo Details Conspiracy to Undermine Bush & GOP in 2004 Elections Regardless of Investigation's Findings

Democrat Intel Memo Scandal Rocks U.S. Senate

Democrat Zell Miller Denounces Memo Written by Partisan Democrats

PARTISAN DEMS SABOTAGING CALIFORNIA ECONOMY
TO MAKE GOV. ARNOLD LOOK BAD

Plagued by a state economy weakened by major strikes and massive damage from wild fires, the new California Governor is also being sandbagged politically by sore-loser Democrats in Sacramento.  Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger has announced that he will appoint limousine liberal Richard Riordan (former L.A. Mayor) to head the important post of Public Instruction.  The new governor elect has picked a transition team of advisors heavily tilted toward the "liberal' and Democrat special interests and personalities.  Libertarians and conservative Republicans are not happy.  At the end of the Schwarzenegger road, will a phony "fiscal conservatism" get the blame for liberal policies as usual?

November 5, 2003

ENVIRONMENTAL CRACKPOTS HELPED SET CALIFORNIANS UP FOR WILD FIRES.
WILL BARBARA BOXER'S CAREER GO UP IN SMOKE?

Whether last week's devastating fires in California began by accident or by deliberate arson, the crackpot environmentalists who have opposed periodic clear cutting to thin out the forests and brush must share in the responsibility and guilt for this monumental tragedy. Senator Barbara Boxer, who has consistently opposed responsible tree-thinning and brush-clearing for woodsy areas, bears special guilt for last week's horrible fires and their destruction.  I hope voters will remember her role in this disaster when she is up for re-election next November.  She should be overwhelmingly defeated in a rational world -- but this is California, so you never know.  Boxer should never have made it inside the U.S. Senate in the first place, but California voters chose her instead of conservative Republican Bruce Hershensohn (who is about a thousand times more qualified than Boxer to be in the Senate).

Fanning the Flames of Hell by Ben Shapiro

Brush with Disaster by John Fund

Up In Smoke by Hugh Hewitt  -- A decade and a half of species protection planning helps bring on a species disaster in the fires of California.

                                       "If I was a burned out homeowner, or the family of a victim, I would be
                                       beyond outrage not only with the desperate hypocrisy of the left, but
                                       also with the media's willingness to allow the Senate Democrats to
                                      slip away without explaining why their opposition to forest thinning
                                       has evaporated this week.

                                       "The new bill addresses only part of the problem, and House
                                       Republicans should demand that the original bill be kept free of the
                                       wishful thinking and ideological posturing of the environmental
                                       lobby.  How many disasters does it take, after all, to expose these
                                       people and their fraudulent theories?

                                       "The Endangered Species Act should be next up for thorough
                                       amendment --it is a disastrous and ineffective exercise in granting
                                       enormous power to incompetent federal bureaucrats that brings
                                       ever increasing hardships and little in the way of genuine
                                       conservation benefits.  The GOP has got to realize that the public
                                       long ago woke up to the facts about the environmental movement's
                                       extremism on the issue of species protection.

                                       "The party of TR can recover the legacy of genuine conservation, but
                                       not by refusing to expose lousy science as lousy science, and
                                       bureaucratic ineptitude as just that.  The Party fears getting labeled
                                       as anti-environmental, but the disasters of the past few years are
                                       the backdrop against which serious reforms can be demanded and
                                       explained.

                                       "Many in elite media will of course distort every attempt to recover a
                                       genuine conservation ethic that is now hostage to wild extremism of
                                       the left.  Look at Howard Fineman's silly "Echoes of Vietnam Grow
                                       Louder" for a perfect example of the sort of anti-Bush agenda
                                       journalism that spews out from "journalists" grinding their axes as
                                       2004 approaches.  Or read the bald little attempt by Dana Milbank
                                       in the Washington Post to start a Boykin-like attack on Bush for the
                                       President speaking beneath "banners of the cross over each
                                       shoulder, one saying 'King of Kings' and the other 'Lord of Lords.'"
                                       Day after day the elites within media which are frozen into Howard
                                       Dean-like mindsets throw whatever they can at the President and
                                      the Administration, but the country has fundamentally changed.

                                       "The elections of 2004 are setting up to be the most dramatic
                                       choice that the American electorate has faced since 1972, and not
                                       just on the war on terrorism, but on issues as diverse as the role of
                                       judges, environmental extremism, and the role of faith in public life.

                                       On every single issue I think the President has a healthy majority on
                                       his side, and on every issue he should push the disagreements into
                                       the open so that the voters get a clear understanding of the vast
                                       chasm between the parties.  The 97 to 1 vote in the Senate to move
                                       the Healthy Forests bill forward is an admission that the Democrats
                                     know what such clarity means and fear it greatly.  Republicans
                                       ought to pursue it at every turn, and especially in the aftermath of
                                       disasters like that in Southern California that are laid quite properly
                                       at the feet of the left." -- from Hugh Hewitt

November 3, 2003

U.S. ECONOMY ENJOYS AMAZING
7.2% QUARTERLY GROWTH!
JOBLESS CLAIMS AT A THREE-YEAR LOW!
BUSH REPUBLICANS ARE JOVIAL.
DEMOCRATS ARE DESOLATE.

 LINKS TO NEWS & ANALYSES

Economic Barnburner by Larry Kudlow

The Price of Being Wrong Mona Charen explains what should be clear to everyone, but isn't.

Winning the War with the Car Bomb by Krauthammer.  An armchair strategist considers the use of car bombing as the "nuclear weapon" of guerrilla warfare by terrorists in Iraq.

What DID Happen to Those WMDs?

Larry Elder, the Sage from South Central, examines media bias over the past two weeks.

The Left Has No Alternative for Iraq says R. Emmett Tyrrell

Who's Guarding Our Military Equipment? Michelle Malkin looks at what can happen without sufficient border control.

Gray Davis' Cop-Killing Gun Law by Richard Poe

Environmentalists Fan the Flames of Hell by Ben Shapiro

NEW BOOKS TO CHECK OUT

Christmas is coming and it is a good time to consider ordering a few refreshing best-selling books which are sure to amuse and inform  those of your friends and relatives who read books.  Just double click on the image.

October 12, 2003

POST-RECALL ANALYSIS

The numbers are out and can be mulled over and analyzed by anyone and everyone.  Gov. Davis was ousted by a solid 11-point margin -- 55% to 44% -- with only the most leftist counties (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the coastal counties from Monterey up through Humboldt) voting to retain the corrupt Governor. San Francisco County voted a whopping 80% against the recall (in support of Davis), showing us where the hard-core socialist core constituency of California resides.

Those who voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger beat Democratic front runner Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante 48.7% to 31.7%.  Support for Schwarzenegger exceeded 60% in nearly a third of California counties, making it a major  landslide, especially considering the large number of candidates on the ballot. If you add the vote totals of the two main Republican candidates, Schwarzenegger and McClintock, you see that at least 62 percent of voters voted against Bustamante, who is seen as even worse than Davis himself.

So, Davis lost and Bustamante lost, big time!  That's great!

Another bit of good news is that even in the most Democrat counties, ballot results and exit polls showed that the socialist constituency is not as numerous as previously thought.  Exit polls also reveal that an unexpectedly high 46 percent of Latinos supported the recall and that their support for Bustamante was not at all solid or united.  This indicates that Latinos in California are not necessarily lock-step with the Democrat Party and are much more independent in their ideological thinking and voting than, say, Blacks, 73 percent of whom voted against the Recall.

But was this election really a victory for conservative / libertarian principles and values against the corrupt machinations of the tax-and-spend coercionism of liberal Democrats?  Well, no.

After all, we mustn't forget that Proposition 54 (which would have ended the State's practice of collecting racial and ethnic data on its citizens) lost big time.  Liberals, while licking their wounds in the aftermath of the Recall, are claiming the defeat of Prop. 54 as a consolation victory -- as it is for them.  That defeat is just another indication that too many Californians still need their "consciousness raised" through more conservative educational groundwork.

Joseph Farah, head of WorldNetDaily.com, made this astute observation about the California recall election: "The smashing victory at the polls Tuesday by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the California recall election tells us the Politics of Personal Celebrity are upon us. That's not a victory for ideas. That's not a victory for principles. That's not a victory for values. That's not a victory for smaller government. That's not a victory for virtue. It's a victory for merchandising - for promotion and marketing. It's a victory for fame. It's a victory for name recognition. It's a victory for positioning and timing."

He's right, of course. By no means does Schwarzenegger's triumph mean that California is a bastion of conservatism.  Far from it.

If conservatives and libertarians want to make California a more conservative state, they need to lay a lot more persuasive educational groundwork for that to be  possible in the future. (Talk radio and the Internet, as well as local cable television programs, can get the truth out.)

And maybe one of these days someone -- a celebrity perhaps from sports or entertainment --  who is a hard-core conservative or even a libertarian, and who also happens to have charisma and money, will lead the forces of laissez faire to political victory.  Schwarzenegger is not that man, and even if he were, he would not be able to succeed today with a genuine conservative agenda because of the domination by the left-wing obstructionist Democrats in the legislative and judicial branches and the lack of sufficient support among the people of California for the kind of real cuts in government spending and shutdown of cherished government programs that are really needed.

So, in the meantime, perhaps the best we can do in California as conservatives and libertarians is to try to keep the pressure on the new Governor and his staff to cut as much as he can get away with given the political obstacles which the reactionary partisan Democrats will put up against his efforts.  We cannot afford to just sit back and assume everything is going to be OK now that Davis is out.

This recall was just the beginning of the battle to save California.  Now more than ever -- especially with a "liberal" Republican like Schwarzenegger in Sacramento -- is the time for those who favor less government in the form of real cuts in state spending in California's bloated public sector (especially in such areas as education which should be left to the private sector) to make their sentiments known in no uncertain terms.  Gov. Schwarzenegger should be encouraged to use his veto power liberally to halt further ruinous boondoggles like those that a vengeful Governor Davis has already signed into law.

Given his popularity, the Governator can go to the districts of those obstructionist Democrat politicians and campaign directly to the people to put pressure on their assemblymen and senators to pass the needed cuts and reforms.  Will he do it?  We shall have to wait and see.

PERSONALITY OVER PRINCIPLE (ARNOLD OVER TOM)?

The overall meaning of the recall? Personality and Celebrityhood over Principle and Substance?  Yes, for now.  But the election also gives us on the pro-freedom Right some grounds for hope.  After all, although California voters may not now support a conservative in large enough numbers, they also do not support Far Left Democrats or obviously corrupt politicians either.

All things considered, McClintock did not do so badly -- placing 3rd with 13.4% of the vote.  Many conservatives and libertarians who otherwise would have voted for McClintock only voted for Schwarzenegger instead of McClintock because of their fear that Bustamante might win the plurality as a result of the splitting of votes between McClintock and Schwarzenegger.  I would estimate that without the loss of conservative and libertarian votes to Schwarzenegger and other candidates, McClintock might have received as much as 25% to 30% of the overall vote - reflecting the true size of the real right-wing constituency in California. .

Of course, it turned out in retrospect that such fears (of the vote split between Schwarzenegger and McClintock)  were somewhat overblown because the polls by the L.A. Times and other Democrat strongholds claiming the race was "too close to call" were woefully inaccurate (i.e., deliberately manipulated to make Bustamante look stronger) by a margin of some 20 percent.  The further loss of credibility of the L.A. Times (with many people canceling their subscriptions in disgust at how biased its coverage was) and the liberal media in general is another fortunate consequence of the Recall campaign.

If McClintock or someone like him were a celebrity (outside of California politics) with a more out-going personality and plenty of money, then who knows what would happen?  (Of course I realize that one of McClintock's most attractive strengths came about precisely because he had been so active in California politics in the State Senate for so many years and therefore had the experience and detailed knowledge which Arnold the outsider does not have; McClintock would not have to rely on a battery of advisors in the way Schwarzenegger will.)

The point is, conservatives and libertarians need not consider the State of California as a whole a politically lost cause doomed forever to be a socialist Democrat stronghold.  Maybe the San Francisco / Oakland area is lost to the loony left, but there are many rational people in the rest of the state.  And even if California as a whole never embraces the politics of less government meddling and more individual freedom / responsibility, there are enough conservatives, libertarians, and  constitutionalists in the State to be a big thorn in the side of the Liberal Establishment (if they work together).

Furthermore, even if the election cannot be considered a big win for the Right, it was definitely a big loss for the Left and the Democrat Party political machine -- and that loss will pay positive dividends for the Right in the next few years.  As political strategist David Horowitz gleefully points out, "Governor Schwarzenegger would change the political equation for the next presidential contest in 2004. A Bush 2004 campaign with Arnold as the President's point man in the state would unquestionably turn it into a ompetitive affair. This means that even if Bush does not ultimately win the state, the Democrats will have to pour big dollars into the state to contest the election. The drain of money and resources will impact close races across the country."

In short, the California Recall has been a major blow against the liberal Democrat Establishment.  It is a big setback not only for Davis and those who backed him, but for the Clintons and Terrie McAuliffe of the DNC.  Any time that the forces of tyranny and corruption are routed and broken, even if only temporarily, It is good news.

AN ESTIMATE OF THE IDEOLOGICAL COMPOSITION
OF THE CALIFORNIA ELECTORATE

Joel Skousen in his World Affairs Brief (http://www.JoelSkousen.com). for October 10, 2003, makes the following interesting estimations based on the recall results:

"In general, here are some conclusions we can draw about the true political makeup of California voters:

"1. A slight majority of voters have well defined, well thought out beliefs, based upon a consistent ideology or simply hardened unthinking tradition, and cannot be manipulated to any significant degree by the press. My estimates are as follows: Hard core conservatives 25%, hard core Democrats 30%, hard core environmentalists (who always vote for the Democrats) 5%, and libertarians (who sometimes vote for conservative Republicans) 4%.

"2. About 30-40% of the voters have only ill-defined feelings about issues and candidates. They are swayed by innate proclivities, gut feelings, and emotional responses to advertising. This large group is highly susceptible to manipulation. These provide the body of swing votes which the establishment press concentrates on influencing."

Mr. Skousen, who is the brother of economist Mark Skousen, goes on with the following cogent conclusions:

"Herein lies the key point to understand about the democratic process. This large group of non-ideological know-nothings - present to a greater or lesser degree in all political elections - is more influenced by easy-to-digest liberal generalities than specific contradictions and arguments brought forth by conservatives and libertarians (which takes a lot of thought and effort to assimilate and understand). That is why the sheep in the center often vote for liberals -- especially when the contest is dominated by media advertising which of necessity focuses on short sound bites and broad generalities (putting detailed conservative arguments at a marked disadvantage). . . . .

"The other disadvantage for constitutional conservatives in political advertising is that the effects of government-limiting conservative policies are immediately obvious to the benefit-corrupted TV viewers (who are conditioned to fight against loss of benefits). In contrast, the victims of liberal and socialist policy are not aroused in great numbers because they are all future victims - nameless people who have not yet lost their jobs or taxpayers who haven’t yet got an increased tax bill because the government is using debt, squirrelly accounting, or fiat money to finance spending programs. So insidious is this hidden victim advantage for the Democrats that even after many lose their jobs, or experience a recession, they blame the free market rather than the increased debt, foreign aid, labor regulations or social spending inherent to liberal Democratic policy that caused the downturn."

In other words, it is the old "what is seen, and what is not seen" aspect of government measures and programs -- as economists from Frederic Bastiat to Milton Friedman have so clearly explained -- that the Democrats use to their advantage, and which we must expose to more people so that it can be more widely recognized as the short-sighted ploy it is.

For other analyses of the California Recall of Gray Davis, click here for a list of links.

Well, not quite.  But there is an official investigation going on over Rush's use of pain killers to relieve aches in his back and neck from herniated disks.  It seemed he procured them without getting a doctor's prescription.  Is it a big deal? No, not as far as I'm concerned, although I think he should have known better than to have got addicted to such prescription drugs anyway since the dangers are well-known.  But, knowing how much his enemies wish to discredit him, you'd think Rush, as intelligent as he is, would take care to avoid any hint of any appearance of lllegality lest they use it against him (which they will).  I wish the whole affair would make him re-think his position in favor of drug prohibitionism, but that is unlikely.

Here is Rush's own public statement given in a press release today:

Press Release Source: Premiere Radio

Rush Limbaugh Statement on Prescription Pain Medication Stories
Friday October 10, 2:55 pm ET

"You know I have always tried to be honest with you and open about my life. So I need to tell you today that part of what you have heard and read is correct. I am addicted to prescription pain medication.

"I first started taking prescription painkillers some years ago when my doctor prescribed them to treat post surgical pain following spinal surgery. Unfortunately, the surgery was unsuccessful and I continued to have severe pain in my lower back and also in my neck due to herniated discs. I am still experiencing that pain. Rather than opt for additional surgery for these conditions, I chose to treat the pain with prescribed medication. This medication turned out to be highly addictive.

"Over the past several years I have tried to break my dependence on pain pills and, in fact, twice checked myself into medical facilities in an attempt to do so. I have recently agreed with my physician about the next steps.

"Immediately following this broadcast, I am checking myself into a treatment center for the next 30 days to once and for all break the hold this highly addictive medication has on me. The show will continue during this time, of course, with an array of guest hosts you have come to know and respect.

"I am not making any excuses. You know, over the years athletes and celebrities have emerged from treatment centers to great fanfare and praise for conquering great demons. They are said to be great role models and examples for others. Well, I am no role model. I refuse to let anyone think I am doing something great here, when there are people you never hear about, who face long odds and never resort to such escapes. They are the role models. I am no victim and do not portray myself as such. I take full responsibility for my problem.

"At the present time, the authorities are conducting an investigation, and I have been asked to limit my public comments until this investigation is complete. So I will only say that the stories you have read and heard contain inaccuracies and distortions, which I will clear up when I am free to speak about them.

"I deeply appreciate all your support over this last tumultuous week. It has sustained me. I ask now for your prayers. I look forward to resuming our excursion into broadcast excellence together."

http://RushLimbaugh.com

Total Recall: It's Arnold in a landslide! reports World Net Daily

Is California Crazy?  Thomas Sowell Says No

Gray Davis' Cop-Killing Gun Law by Richard Poe

"Winners and Losers" (the Orange County Register) by Shawn Steel, former State Chairman of the California Republican Party

The Recall Map (Red Areas Supported Davis)

The Liberal-Left Establishment Media Got Recalled Too!

Other Items

Al Franken says that Ann Coulter's book "Treason" is full of lies.  Coulter responds by exposing Franken's disengenuous and misleading smear tactics!

The Star Spangled Ice Cream Company, the conservative alternative to Ben and Jerry's, is hooking up with rocker and 2nd Amendment enthusiast Ted Nugent to create a new flavor, "Gun Nut." Take that, Cherry Garcia!

Is voting in elections inherently evil as some anarcho-pacifists claim?   Is any kind of participation in the existing political system an implicit endorsement of the legal plunder of statism?

Recently, the California recall election has come under much ridicule and even shrill opposition by columnists as apparently disparate as "neoconservative" Jonah Goldberg and anarchist professor Butler Shaffer.  Goldberg seems to suggest that people don't have the right to change their mind once they see they've made a mistake by electing or re-electing a scoundrel who lied to them.  Because Goldberg's arguments, along with his hypocritical contradictions, have been suitably pointed out elsewhere (see Paul Jacob for October 5, 2003), I shall examine the standard anarcho-pacifist arguments against voting which have been reheated by Butler Shaffer and others in recent essays.  Although I respect Professor Shaffer in his support for true free-market and libertarian themes, I must disagree with his position against political participation as not only mistaken but dangerous.

Let us first consider the pacifist assumptions on which the opposition to voting is based.

If you are trapped in a locked room with a known homicidal maniac and there is a pistol on the floor between you and him, would you not be a fool not to try to get to that pistol first so that the maniac could not use it to shoot or threaten you with it?  To hang back and let the maniac get the gun so he can shoot you with it or threaten to shoot you does not make things better for you or anyone else -- but only helps to empower the evil.  You may dislike guns and bullets, and you may hate violence -- but does that mean you should give up your right of self-defense and meekly let yourself be killed?  Of course not!

If somebody is about to punch you in your face with his fist, don't you at least have the right to put your arm up to try to deflect the blow?  Only an anarcho-pacifist would contend that you don't.

Where do the pacifists go wrong in their reasoning?  It is from their misunderstanding of the principle of natural individual rights.  The reason that it is moral and just for you to defend your rights and even to fight back against aggression is because the aggressor forfeits his right to be left alone.  Once he initiates the use of violent force, the aggressor loses the right not to be coerced.  Contrary to the de facto implications of the pacifist notion, there is no such thing as the "right" to initiate violence against others.  This Lockean principle, which America's founding fathers understood and supported, is inherent in the very concept of natural individual rights -- and is something the anarcho-pacifists never clearly understood or accepted.

Taking the pledge not to initiate violence or fraud against others is one thing, but foregoing the right of self defense is from strange pacifist thinking -- not part of the classical liberal or libertarian or American conservative tradition.

Voting, in those societies which have it, is a mechanism by which those who are permitted to vote may choose among alternative candidates for public office or proposed policies as part of the political system.  It is considered superior to civil war and gang fighting as a means for making certain decisions in some political systems.  (I should point out that "voting" and "democracy" are not the same thing, although voting is a mechanism used in the majority-rule system of democracy.  Discussion of the crucial difference between voting in a constitutional laissez-faire republic and actual majority rule in a democracy has been taken up elsewhere.)

If one votes to increase the amount of legal plunder -- for government to use its coercive powers to take from some to give to others -- in violation of the rights of peaceful adults, I would have to say that would be an immoral act (no matter how legal).  Those who vote for Democrats or Socialists or "Greens" or "liberal" Republicans or any candidate who is clearly more statist than his opponent are clearly guilty of initiating the use of force on innocent people.  But is that the only way one can vote?  No.

Voting is not evil unless it is used to violate the rights of peaceful people.

Voting is a tool -- a weapon if you will.  If you do not seize and use that available weapon to defend yourself from those statists who would seize it and use it to violate your rights by imposing their wills on you in the form of higher taxes, more regulations, and more parasitic government programs, you will sanction by default the further loss of your freedom through the imposition of more legal plunder on you and other innocent people.

Voting in the defense of liberty is no vice, but a form of legitimate self-defense of one's rights to person and property from those who would violate them.  And pacifism in the face of initiatory coercion is no virtue, but merely encourages more statism and violence in society.

If I hold my arm up in front of my face to deflect blows from a mugger, I am in no way violating his rights. That seems absurdly clear to me, if not to writers like Butler Shaffer.  I agree with the great French libertarian statesman Frederic Bastiat that the right of individual self-defense is fundamental and that a proper government is nothing more than the collective organization of the individual's right of self-defense.

I do not violate anybody's rights if I use my vote to try to counteract those who would impose their wills on me by force.  In such context, voting is an extension of my right of self defense.  I have every right to use any and all means that may be available to me legally to defend my rights of life, liberty, and property as long as I don't seek to violate the rights of others by supporting more legal plunder in society.  No matter how silly or distasteful the practice may seem to me, I have every right to use whatever legal recourse may be available to me in the society in which I live, and that includes voting, to try to stop, reduce, slow down, roll back, or hold back the growth and level of legal plunder.  As long as I do not use my vote to support more government intervention -- higher taxes, more regulations, expanded subsidy programs, etc. -- I am not contributing to the social problem of legal plunder.

One is not endorsing or sanctioning the existing process of voting or political system if one is forced to use it -- as any one of several legal recourses or venues that happen to be available in the society in which one finds oneself.  If someone is attacking me, I'll reach for a rock if there is nothing else at hand. Only if one rejects the morality of self defense -- as pacifists do -- can one find any consistency to the anarchist rejection of voting against legal plunder.

Staying away from the voting booth on election day on the excuse that the pacifist ethic is somehow more moral or more conducive of liberty is not only fallacious in principle but also tactically foolish if there is any kind of alternative to choose from (either among the candidates running or the propositions to be considered).  Some observers must inevitably wonder if some libertarians or "anarchists" who refrain from voting do so more from laziness (the real reason) than any real commitment to a self-defeating pacifism.

Have I myself always voted?  No.  Political elections are far from my favorite activity.  They often seem silly and boring.  But they can greatly affect my life by their results.  So, I should not ignore them.  If I do -- and stay home on election day even when there are clear choices to be made between candidates or propositions to vote either for or against -- it is because of laziness on my part or perhaps inconvenience if I am out of town.  But I don't try to excuse it by claiming to eschew the political process "on principle"!

Voting is a means, not an end in itself.  All too often an unenlightened electorate has used voting to elect corrupt politicians and to have government use its power to redistribute the earnings of the people and regulate their lives and businesses.  Properly used, voting is a means for controlling government officials and helping to restrain government to its proper function of defending individual rights against criminals and foreign threats.  Allowing legal force to go beyond that proper function involves government itself violating the very rights it is supposed to protect.  That's what has happened.

Life is seldom if ever perfect.  We have to do the best we can and make the most reasonable decisions under the "imperfect" circumstances in which we find ourselves.  That is the human condition.

No matter how imperfect the process is or how imperfect the alternatives may be, the mechanism of voting is not inherently interventionist or immoral.  Voting against further plunder in no way sanctions or endorses the votes by others in support of more statist interventionism.

Tomorrow is October 7, election day. If you live in California and are registered to vote, you might consider this analogy:  you are locked in a room with two (let us say) persons -- one of whom you know to be a gung-ho statist maniac in the advance stages of Acton's Syndrome and the other one is someone who has at least promised to cut taxes and undo some elements of statism.  And there is a loaded gun on the floor.  And the struggle for the gun ensues.   You should ask yourself what you will do.  Will you stand back from the struggle and not get involved -- even though you know Bustamante (or Davis) will certainly use the gun on you if he gets his hands on it?  Or, will you help one of the other contenders to keep the gun out of Davis's or Bustamante's greedy hands and take your chances with someone who at least won't aim the gun at you and pull the trigger?

If, like Butler Shaffer, you don't believe there should be any struggle at all -- that people should not even have a chance to try to keep the gun out of the hands of the most statist candidates or power-mad incumbents -- then you would condemn the people of California to be stuck with a corrupt Governor who has shown himself to be as desperate to have and abuse power as the character Golem in Lord of the Rings.  That means Shaffer implicitly supports more statism, not less, since not having the recall at all would be the same as keeping Davis and his ruthless Democrat Party machine in power (at least until the next regularly scheduled election, giving him and his cronies much more time to do much more damage while in office).

Unlike in Tolkien's trilogy, real life does not give us the option of destroying the gun of government as Frodo destroyed the Ring of power.  There will always be coercion as long as there are human beings with free will to choose it.  The choice is not between government and "no government" but rather in what kind of government -- either an unlimited state controlled by whim (whether the whim of one man as in monarchy, the whim of a few as in oligarchy, or the whim of the majority of the moment as in democracy), or a constitutional republic limited in scope by laws and rules based on the fundamental principle of individual right.  (See "The False Alternative of Anarchism")

The American founding fathers were on the right track in seeking to use law, constitution, and a bill of rights to place limitations on government power with respect to peaceful citizens.  That approach, however imperfect, has been by far the most successful route to achieving liberty on a wide scale.

By turning his back on that tradition, and ridiculing the California recall effort by endorsing Angelyne for Governor, Shaffer does nothing to help bring us any more freedom through less government intervention.  It just unnecessarily concedes a weapon to our enemies by waiving one form of our right of self defense.  If enough peaceful people chose to abstain from owning and carrying firearms for their own protection, that would give the bad guys -- violent criminals --  a big advantage since they would not have to worry about the risk of getting shot when they try to rob individuals or liquor stores.  In the same way, abstaining from voting by good people only gives bad people an exclusive weapon by default -- a legal weapon they are sure to use to plunder peaceful people.

Peaceful people need all the tools and venues we can get to limit government to using its coercive powers only in defensive and retaliatory ways to combat crime rather than as an instrument of positive intervention in violation of the rights of peaceful people.

And one of those tools for limiting government is the "veto power" which voters have over their elected officials in the form of recall elections.  To disparage that recourse, or any other means of self defense, is to play into the hands of the worst statist enemies of liberty and justice by giving them what they want:  no competition in the political arena.  It is obvious that Bustamante, who would be even worse than Davis,  would like nothing better than to have everyone else drop out of the race for Governor and let him have it unimpeded.  If all libertarians, constitutionalists, patriots, and hard-core conservatives followed Shaffer's advice of not participating in politics, the ultra-statist Democrats would have a political monopoly of power and there would be no organized opposition to their ultra-statist agenda.  The result would be far more statist coercion in society, not less.  I don't think that is what the anarcho-pacifists really want -- they are not wittingly conspiring to support more statism.  They have convinced themselves with their own rhetoric that voting is inherently coercive.  They should check their premises, as Ayn Rand would say.  Their fallacy, as I've pointed out, is in not being consistent to the principle of individual rights, the core of freedom under law.

Just as laws against the ownership of handguns by peaceful citizens gives an unfair advantage to violent criminals against innocent people, so too Prof. Shaffer's admonition to peaceful pro-freedom citizens to refrain from voting would benefit the most statist interests in society at the expense of those peaceful, productive people who just want to be left alone.

Is there any libertarian or conservative who is so naive that he or she doubts that if Albert Gore or Dick Gephardt or Hillary Clinton or Cruz Bustamante got their hands on the "loaded pistol" of political power, that they would not use that power against the American people -- indeed, that they would be every bit as bad, and most likely much worse, than what we have already?

Would society really be better off if Ron Paul (for example) had not run and got elected to Congress -- if he stepped aside and allowed a hard-core statist to take his seat in the House?  No, that would result in more coercion in society, not less.  Even if Dr. Paul's voting record may not be "perfect" by anarchist standards (and never will be of course), if he does nothing else he will have kept a far more statist individual from having that seat and using its power wrongly by voting for more legal plunder.

In any case, retreating from the field of the political arena by those who favor less government intervention in our peaceful affairs and more individual freedom only leaves the coast clear for the most statist politicians of all, giving the enemies of freedom an easy victory and resulting in more statist plunder in society rather than less.

The pacifist strategy always backfires because it rests on a fallacious view of the nature of rights.  When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that rights are unalienable, he did not mean that a man always retains all his full rights of person and property unconditionally no matter what he does.  Like Locke and others in the natural rights tradition, Jefferson held that a person implicitly forfeits -- loses -- the right to be left alone by other people as soon as he initiates the use of violence or fraud against the person, liberty, or property of others.  As long as a person remains peaceful and does not violate the same rights of others, his rights should be recognized, respected, and protected.

Jefferson meant that rights could not be arbitrarily taken away from peaceful men by the whims of a king or any legislative body.  In this respect he was solidly in the constitutionalist tradition of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the English Bill of Rights which the American constitutional system built upon.  In no way does Jefferson imply that rights are "unalienable" in the sense that they are not conditional on respecting the equal rights of other peaceful men.  Criminals who violate the rights of others should be imprisoned or even executed.  The founders opposed "cruel and unusual punishment" -- but they certainly did not oppose legal penalties of any kind or punishments as such for people convicted of criminal behavior.  And while they eschewed majority-rule democracy as just as much of a threat to individual rights as unrestrained monarchy, they certainly did not oppose voting in elections -- at least by White male property owners (the net tax payers in society at the time) as one constitutional mechanism against usurpation and tyranny.

Voting in elections can be either good or bad, depending on whether the voter uses it to defend liberty and private ownership from government encroachments, or to maintain and expand the legal plunder, as Bastiat called it, committed by government in the name of the people.  The mechanism of voting is neither inherently good or inherently evil.

September 29, 2003

After receiving the endorsements of key California Republican leaders within the past few days, and in the wake of Wednesday's TV debate in which he did well (or at least avoided making a fool of himself like Huffington), gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger is now the acknowledged front runner by a wide margin, according to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released on Sunday.

When asked how they they would vote on recalling Davis, 63 percent of probable voters said they would vote YES to remove the Democrat incumbent, compared with only 35 percent who would vote no.

In a separate vote to choose a replacement for Davis, Schwarzenegger was the overwhelming choice -- receiving 40 percent of respondents' support, giving him a comfortable 15-point lead over Democrat Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante who got the nod from barely 25 percent of voters polled.  Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock received the endorsement of 18 percent of those surveyed, which indicates that support for him is at least holding firm but not increasing at the rate he had hoped it would by this time.

The poll showed Green Party candidate Trotskyite Peter Camejo with 5 percent and "independent" candidate Arianna Huffington with a mere 2 percent of the respondents' support.

If the results of this new poll are an accurate reflection of how people will really vote on October 7, it means that Davis will be out and Bustamante will lose to Schwarzenegger even with McClintock staying in the race.  With the movie star so far ahead of Bustamante even with McClintock still getting at least 18 percent support, the pressure should be eased on McClintock to bow out and endorse Arnold for Governor.  It also seems to suggest that, for now at least, California is NOT necessarily doomed to be controlled by the Democrats or that it has to be abandoned by Republicans as some kind of lost cause.  To be sure, Schwarzenegger is not a conservative Republican, much less a libertarian, but he will at least not be as bad as either Davis or Bustamante. Maybe with enough pressure from California conservatives and libertarians to be truly fiscally conservative and not dodge the illegal immigration issue, Governor Schwarzenegger will do a pretty good job after all.  Let's hope I won't have to eat my words on that.

September 27, 2003

I don't pretend to know what will happen on October 7.  I do know that of the candidates running for Governor, McClintock would be the best man.  Probably most Republicans agree on that.  But movie star celebrity Arnold Schwarzenegger has the wider name recognition going for him and much more money with which to campaign.  But I don't believe Arnold is even a fiscal conservative.  True, he says he won't raise taxes, but he is very unclear about how he will manage to cut government spending while maintaining or expanding the budgets of those social programs he says he supports.  He is surrounded by liberal advisors such as Warren Buffett, Pete Wilson, Dick Riordan, and even Rob Lowe.  I am not convinced he would call for the realistic cuts and reforms that California desperately needs to save it from degenerating into a Third World hellhole over the next couple of decades.  McClintock is clear and specific about what he plans to do, and it is obvious he has done a lot more serious thinking about what needs to be done than the Terminator has.

But can he win?  Well, unlike both Schwarzenegger and Bustamante, who have both stagnated in the polls, McClintock's voter support continues to increase as more people get to know him and hear him present his case.  The latest surveys indicate that he is catching up to the two current leaders of the pack.  Will he catch up and surpass both Bustamante and Schwarzenegger by October 7, only a few days away?  That's another question.  I can't help wondering:  if Schwarzenegger (not McClintock) were (somehow) to bow out of the running and endorse McClintock, would McClintock then get enough votes to beat Bustamante. You know, I bet he would.  If you add the polling percentages for McClintock and Schwarzenegger together, you get 45 to 50 percent of the vote (depending on which poll numbers you use) -- which means together they beat Bustamante by a landslide 20-25 points!  The voting on election day is the final poll, the one that really counts.  But, if Bustamante gets in with a plurality because of the vote being divided between Tom and Arnold, it will accelerate the rate of departure of businesses and families from the State and usher in a new low level in corruption in Sacramento. And that's saying something.

California Recall:  Does One Man Hold the Key?  Daniel B. Wood of the Christian Science Monitor spotlights the man that is the clear choice of conservative Republicans and even libertarians -- and the man that southern California talk radio listeners knew about months or even years before the California Recall campaign thrust him into the national news.

Recall Endgame  Conservative Republican Dr. James Hirsen explains why many conservatives are going to hold their noses and vote for Arnold even though they know Tom McClintock is the right man for the job.

Candidate Wesley Clark  Left-wing hate monger Michael Moore
 may be excited by Wesley Clark's decision to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, but Carol Devine-Molin is less than impressed by the former Army general now being used by the Clintons to stop Howard Dean's momentum (so Hillary will have a shot at Bush in '08).

Well, folks, the California recall election of corrupt Gov. Gray Davis is back on track and will take place on October 7th as planned. By a unanimous vote of an 11-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the California recall election delay was overturned on Tuesday,  The decision to postpone the election had come from a three-member panel of the same circuit court the week before.  Tuesday's judicial panel weighed several factors in its decision to allow the recall election to proceed, including the nearly 700,000 absentee ballots that had already been cast as of Tuesday as well as the $50 million that has been spent by the state of California preparing for the election.  No court had ever meddled in an election process either prior to the official close of an election before and they didn't want to start that now.

"Interference with impending elections is extraordinary ... and interference with an election after voting has begun is unprecedented," the court stated.

The ACLU had argued unsuccessfully in favor of postponing the recall until March on the incredible grounds that minorities (mainly Blacks and Latinos) were being "disenfranchised" by not knowing how to correctly use the traditional punch-card voting system!  The ACLU attorney claimed that the machines had a higher error rate when used by minority voters because those voters supposedly did not know how to punch the holes completely through instead of leaving "hanging" chads.  But Republicans disputed these bogus claims, pointing out that other electoral districts, those not dominated by minorities, had just as high or even higher error rates. And, of course, these are the same voting machines and the same punch-card system that was used in previous elections in which Gray Davis won the office of Governor -- but the ACLU never protested those elections, did they?  No.  Why?  Davis is a Democrat!

Obviously, this attempt by the ACLU and some partisan Democrats to block the recall election was merely a last-minute ad hoc act of desperation and had nothing to do with any concern about any voter's disenfranchisement. The Dems are clearly up to their old tricks they've used before (remember Florida in 2000?).  When they don't get their way through the regular popular electoral process, they resort to getting their buddies in the courts to try to force things their way.  In 2000, it backfired on them.  But in California, where the court system is full of Democrat judges appointed by Democrat governors, you never know what will happen.  This is especially true of the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals.  But even the Democrats on that bench feared to go so far as to interfere with an election in which votes had already been cast.  Hanging chads or not, the show must go on!  This puts the responsibility for voting properly back on the individual voter, where it belongs.

Minorities in general, and Blacks in particular, have been targeted by the Left and the Democrats with anti-Republican propaganda to instill fear and loathing against anyone who suggests they try freedom and responsibility rather than dependency on government programs as a way of life.  Has that strategy worked?  Although there is a growing number of Black Republicans and Libertarians, exit polls indicate that Blacks vote Democrat about 80-90 percent of the time.  This group is one of the most "kept" constituencies of the Democrat Party's motley coalition of active supporters. The members of that 80-90 percent have been led by the nose by the Clintons and the Democrats to continue to sell their souls and votes in exchange for a mess of welfare pottage.

But as the system begins to groan under the increasing burdens, and as taxpayers become restless, Black people -- and Americans in general -- should ask themselves if the promises of cradle-to-grave security by the Democrats (and "liberal' Republicans) are something they can believe in and count on as the system of welfare-state programs begins to collapse gradually around them.  Who's gonna pull the wagon when everyone wants to ride?  Democrat voters in general, and Blacks in particular, need to wake up and acknowledge how they've been manipulated and used by the DNC to sell out their personal freedom, self-respect, and independence for the sake of political serfdom to a Party which offers them (at most) government dependency.

This latest lame claim by the ACLU (an unofficial branch of the Democrat Party) that minorities cannot negotiate a punch-card ballot system of voting is just another example of the way the Democrats cynically use Blacks and other minorities to promote their statist agenda -- and more Blacks should be outraged at this and demonstrate their disgust with such racism by boycotting the Democrat Party and its political candidates.

Too many people are too gullible -- like those fools who blindly followed socialist preacher Jim Jones of the infamous Peoples' Temple.  The same types of gullible mentalities are attracted to the rhetoric of such political con artists as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Sharpton, and Jessie Jackson.   It is time for them to open their eyes and see clearly where they are being led.

It's been only two years since the devastating attacks against the United States by America-hating terrorists -- and the leading Democrats are already out trying desperately to make a partisan political issue out of it.  The other day most of the Democrat presidential hopefuls got together to present their Bush-bashing rhetoric, hoping that enough Americans will buy into blaming all the ills of the world on George Bush so that one of them can replace him in the Oval Office.  Kooky Howard Dean and Dennis the Menace Kucinich showed up, of course.  Dick Gephardt was there denouncing Bush's foreign policy and ignoring the fact that he (and most of his fellow Democrats) helped set America up for the 9/11/01 attacks by voting against strengthening America's military defenses, voting for weakening our national intelligence capabilities, undermining America's national security preparedness in general, and consistently under-estimating the threats to American security posed by America's enemies.  Racist "Reverend" Al Sharpton was there for comic relief.  What a pathetic bunch of desperate political golems!

Other than the usual Democrat agenda of hooking more Americans onto Big Government dependency in exchange for their votes, their only real issue is to denounce the current occupant of the Oval Office because he is not a Democrat -- because he is not one of their own tribe.  They rant against President Bush not on the basis of any moral principle, but only as pragmatic political campaigning so they can hopefully replace him in office.  Like the corrupt little character Golem in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, they will do or say almost anything to get their hands on power.  This is clear by the ever-changing ad hoc nature of their attacks.  Figuring that Americans have a very short attention span (from watching so much television), the desperate Democrats hope some of their mud-throwing at Bush will pay off in terms of enough people believing some of it and taking them seriously as presidential candidates.  Many of these power-mad golems want the American people to believe that they have more to fear from President Dubya than from Osama bin Laden! (Of course if the chief golem, Hillary Rodham Clinton, gets the idea that Dubya is politically vulnerable as the 2004 elections approach, she may jump into the pool of Democrat presidential hopefuls herself and splash the rest of them out of the water.)

The sad thing about it is that some good Americans -- perhaps without even realizing it -- tend to pick up on this anti-Bush partisan propaganda, given wide coverage by the "liberal"-left-wing Democrat-controlled TV networks and big newspapers, and some folks take this political rhetoric seriously and try to integrate it into their own anti-Big Government worldviews or peculiar defeatist conspiracy theories.  Yes.  Some elements of left-wing anti-capitalist conspiratorial propaganda have unfortunately made their way into the minds of some good conservatives and libertarians on the American Right -- people who should know better but have nevertheless been taken in, on one level or another, by this deliberate tactic designed to promote division and suspicion among the anti-Left forces within the pro-freedom coalition of American conservatives, patriots, constitutionalists, Objectivists, and libertarians who might otherwise be much more united and co-operative in opposing the ultra-statist agenda of the reactionary Left and the Democrat Party (which was captured some time ago by extremists of the Far Left).

How can one spot this propaganda ploy?  Be wary of any column or story or line of reasoning -- whether it be on a web page or in a magazine or in a newspaper or in an email message --  which has the effect (if not obvious purpose) of stirring up suspicion or enmity among those groups and factions which are generally for less government, more freedom, and a strong and independent America (such as conservatives, libertarians, Objectivists, patriots, and constitutionalists) who generally would be allies, not enemies, with each other against the dangers of Big Government, the political agenda of the national Democrat Party, the anti-American anti-capitalist Marxist Left, the socialist academics, the fascist "environmentalists" and also even the limousine "liberal" Democrats who try to disguise themselves as "moderate" Republicans (such as Dick Riordan, Michael Bloomberg, and Pete Wilson).

If there is a consistent pattern on certain websites or newspapers or newsletters of trying to provoke suspicion or even hatred against any of these groups and factions, then use your own good judgement in deciding whether the result, if not the deliberate aim, of these articles tends to divide the pro-Americanist forces or make them less united or less co-operative against their common enemy of the reactionary ultrastatist Left.   If they do, then I urge you not to support those organs of partial disinformation and counter-productive propaganda.

Sure, we often have disagreements among ourselves and, yes, there are those within the American freedom coalition that we believe are not as right-wing (pro-freedom, pro-American independence) as we'd like them to be, at least on certain issues and battle fronts, according to our own understandings.  But that should not obscure the fact that all these (generally) pro-freedom factions within the American conservative cause have a common enemy on the Left -- whether in the form of Castroite Communists, Fabian socialists, green fascists, Islamo-terrorists, land-use encroachers, or the typical power-hungry "liberal"-left Democrats and the Clinton-directed DNC.  I realize that the "enemy of my enemy" is not always necessarily my friend -- but neither is he necessarily my enemy.  The urgent task before us today is to impede the efforts of and if possible vanquish the organized Left, which is the primary source of the push for Big Government statism in its most extreme forms (communism, fascism, anti-American terrorism, and NWO socialism).  We can always thrash out the disagreements we have among ourselves after accomplishing the retreat or defeat of the ultra-coercionists of the anti-American Left.

Both the reactionary Far Left and the mandarins of the "Liberal" (neo-fascist) Establishment would love nothing more than for those on the pro-freedom American Right to waste their limited energies and resources squabbling among themselves while leaving the militant Left and its "liberal" Establishment brothers alone to pursue their ultra-statist anti-American agendas of more intrusive government at home and making the world safe for socialism, communism, terrorism, and anti-U.S. dictators around the globe.

For example, how many people let their disagreements with one another over the war against Saddam Hussein (which was going to happen) distract them from working together on those fronts and issues on which they do agree such as helping the Republicans pressure Congress (especially the Senate) to pass tax relief or to abolish regulations which currently prevent drilling for oil in ANWR?  We have seen that if those on the pro-freedom Right act in concert on a legislative issue -- either to stop a bad bill or to encourage passage of a good bill -- we can make all the difference in the world in thwarting the advance of statism and in some cases in rolling back pernicious aspects of Big Government.

Try to avoid watching too much TV.  Most of the regular networks are completely dominated by partisan Democrats of the liberal-left slant.  About the only good guy that I know of on non-cable television these days is John Stossel (on ABC's 20/20 program).  Beyond the political bias, television as a medium tends to ruin peoples' ability to track things logically long-term, to follow events as meaningful chains of cause and effect.  The MTV generation seems to have exceptionally short attention spans and very limited patience.  This is one reason why so many people fail to correctly "connect the dots" when it comes to national and international events and political power plays.

If more Americans would listen to talk radio (Rush, Larry Elder, Neal Boortz, Rusty Humphries, Mike Reagan, Gordon Liddy, George Putnam, Marlin Maddoux, Roger Fredinburg, Mike Gallagher, Ken Hamblin, Dr. James Hirsen, Rollye James, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, and many others), they would be much better informed -- and have more of a chance of getting an alternative perspective on the news they would not get watching TV -- and the United States would be a stronger and freer country.  Don't worry if you do not always agree with every single thing a radio talk show host says -- and try not to confuse what a caller says with what the host himself actually said or believes; the important thing is to get a wider variety of inputs and information.   Ideologically, my own favorites are Larry Elder and Neal Boortz -- but I can almost always find useful information from any of those listed here.  Don't waste your time with reactionary leftists like Bernie Ward, Jim Hightower, Bill Press, Tom Leykis, Johnny Windull, Larry King,

9/11 and the “Anti-War” Left - Just in case some of you haven't seen it yet, here is the latest column (September 11) by former communist David Horowitz.  He provides exceptionally good insight into the anti-Americanism behind the Bush bashing by the Far Left (who posture as peaceniks but who would make the world safe for Communism, socialism, Islamic terrorism and anti-U.S. dictators around the world.)

 How Nations Perish by Pat Buchanan - While I can't always agree with Pat on his post-1992 economic positions, I still consider him to be a valuable and genuine American patriot, and this article is just one reason why.

Rusty's WackoMeter! - Take the short quiz yourself and have fun!

September 8, 2003

WHAT'S DRUDGE'S GRUDGE?

By interviewing that body builder who charges that several years back Arnold Schwarzenegger made some racist (anti-Black) remarks, is Matt Drudge allowing himself to be used by partisan Democrat interests who want to rouse Black voters in California to vote for Bustamante as a way of voting against (nominal Republican) Schwarzenegger?  Or is this something he is really taking seriously as a legit news item worthy of giving it so much coverage on his website and radio program?

After all, could this Black body builder who is making these claims now after all these years possibly be someone who just has a personal grudge against Schwarzenegger from past body building competitions?  Some may even speculate, not too unreasonably, not only about the motives but the truth of these claims and ask whether or not the person making these accusations now, in the middle of an election campaign for Governor, has received any money or other "consideration" from either the anti-Recall Davis political war chest or from Bustamante partisans.  In other words, how credible is this guy?  Is Matt asking these questions about him -- or just taking his word?  I don't know, but Matt Drudge is astute enough to realize that this story, whether it is true or made up entirely, can only help the corrupt Democrats Davis and Bustamante by stirring up more people who would be motivated to go vote against Schwarzenegger by voting against the Recall and/or voting for Bustamante.

Matt Drudge is generally a good source of news and gossip, especially the kind of news you won't get from the liberal-Democrat Establishment media.  In reference to the nation of South Africa, Schwarzenegger is alleged to have said something to the effect that "if these Blacks ever get control of a country, they would run it into the ground."  Does this story really have "legs"?  Or is this just something a particular individual with his own personal feud with Arnold S. is throwing out because of the upcoming election?

Drudge has put his reputation on the line with this controversial stink bomb. Maybe he thinks this will put pressure on "Ahnold" to bow out of the race so that many of the votes that would have gone to him will be gained by Tom McClintock.  McClintock is the conservative Republican who is obviously the most qualified and the best man for the job (by far) of all those running for Governor of California.  And McClintock has come up in the polls in the last few weeks.  But there is no guarantee that those who would have voted for Arnold (should he leave the race) would actually cast their votes for McClintock in numbers large enough for him to defeat Bustamante.

It is clear that if you add those who would vote for McClintock to the votes Arnold S. is expected to receive, the total would be far greater, by a whopping margin, than anything Bustamante is likely to get; otherwise, if both McClintock and Schwarzenegger stay in the race, they could easily divide the anti-Bustamante vote between them and Bustamante could win by a plurality.  For that reason, many Republicans -- even though they know that McClintock is by far the better man for the job -- are hoping McClintock will take himself out of the running (as did Peter Uberoth several days ago) to give Schwarzenegger (who has the greater name recognition because of his acting career) a better chance to win.

August 16, 2003

Ann Coulter's Treason zoomed to the best-seller list and, despite the expected criticism from establishment left-wing reviewers, is now one of the most exciting and controversial conservative books in publishing history.  Overall, I think it is very good, as far as it goes - and it goes far enough to be excellent, as far as I'm concerned.  It is obviously written for the average "Joe" rather than the pseudo-intellectual left-wing elitists of academentia.  And that's good.

There is much that could have been included that isn't -- there's no mention of Major George Racey Jordan's discoveries or Anatoly Golitsyn's testimony (I believe she is simply unaware of these) or discussion of how other important anti-communists have been smeared, such as Robert Welch and Ayn Rand, both of whom having been long-time targets of the left-liberal propaganda machine.  But, then, the book would have been much longer, I suppose.

I am far from certain that I can agree with Miss Coulter in her belief that the huge sums of foreign aid from U.S. taxpayers, in the form of the Marshall Plan, helped keep Western Europe from going Communist.  Germany's great economic success after the war had much to do with it, and that was the result of the relatively pro-free-market policies of Ludwig Erhard -- not anything done by Allied Command after the war.  I would say that to the extent Europe did not go completely communist, it was more in spite of rather than because of the Marshall Plan.  Government-to-government foreign aid programs tend to support the existing socialistic bureaucracies and help existing dictators retain their powers over the people.

The only other criticism -- and I don't want to "nit pick" Ann Coulter's excellent book -- is that she seems to go relatively easy on the Republicans in her righteous and correct denunciations of the "liberal" establishment's shameful enabling of and covering for communist treachery.  She does acknowledge that even though Richard Nixon was, early on, involved in nailing Alger Hiss for the Stalinist spy that he was, he later became the kind of political President that "liberals" usually like:

"Anti-Communism was Nixon's original sin.  Nothing he did could exonerate or excuse it [from the Left's point of view].  Except for his proud red-baiting days in the fifties, Nixon was the sort of politician normally cited admiringly in the New York Times as a 'moderate Republican.'  Nixon imposed wage and price controls, established relations with Communist China, engaged in detente with the Soviet Union, created the Environmental Protection Agency, expanded the federal Food Stamp program, hired Henry Kissinger, and put Harry Blackman on the Supreme Court. . . . "

But, she does not mention the Nixon-Kissinger engineering of the infamous Kama River truck factory -- the largest vehicle manufacturing facility in the world -- built by Western (mostly American) firms for the Soviets, and which (of course) was turned to military use..  Nor does she mention other aid and government-fostered (taxpayer-underwritten)  "trade" projects (such as the Centalign-B ball bearing machine transfer which helped make the guidance systems of Soviet ICBM warheads far more accurate and therefore a far more deadly threat to Americans) which empowered the Kremlin's military-industrial complex by permitting it to continue to advance technologically and to function for decades longer as a threat to the lives and properties of Americans and to world peace -- decades longer than it would have otherwise and during which American taxpayers had to pay for the costly but necessary military preparedness because of this high-tech aid of our avowed enemies.  This assistance to Soviet Communism took place under Republican as well as Democrat administrations.  So, even though the Democrats under Clinton went far beyond what any Republican administration had done to help the Communists, to the extent that there was Republican involvement, Coulter should acknowledge that the treason has been bipartisan.

My impression is that much of the source material for her book comes from the son of Medford Evans (book reviewer for American Opinion magazine).  It focuses mainly on Joe McCarthy and his critics, of course.  But McCarthy and Hoover were not the only prominent anti-Communists to receive the Big Smear treatment.  As I mentioned above, there was Robert Welch and Ayn Rand, as well as others.  Indeed, the smear of Welch and Rand, and those whom they inspired -- the Objectivists and the Birchers --  came not just from the Far Left and "Liberal" Establishment mavens, but also from at least one prominent leader of the "mainstream conservative" community -- viz., William F. Buckley Juniah, founder and former editor of National Review magazine. Although I certainly cannot say that I disagree with everything Buckley has written, I have always been somewhat suspicious of a man who claims to be a good American conservative and who inveighs against the "liberal"-left establishment -- but who also sought (unsuccessfully) to purge the American Right of the individualist influences of such hard-core anti-communists as Robert Welch and Ayn Rand, and has even tried to rewrite history to suggest that he should be congratulated for doing so.  I commend Bob Bidinoto's review of Buckley's attempt at self-serving revisionism.

However, I should point out that Wm. F. Buckley Jr. is, unfortunately, not the only one who is allegedly on our side who has attacked fellow right wingers or ideological allies.  I have watched for the past few years as Llewellen Rockwell and his small cadre of anarcho-leftists have attacked (most recently on such websites as antiwar.com and lewrockwell.com), and in some cases misrepresented, others in conservative and libertarian circles who should be regarded as anti-Big Government, anti-Communist allies, not enemies.  I have seen Lew and his cohorts attack such prominent allies of liberty and enemies of Big Government as:  Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, Thomas Sowell, David Horowitz, Bob Barr, Walter Williams, David Kelley, and even such classic pioneers of economic scholarship as Adam Smith and David Ricardo.  Lew has given voice on his websites to such kooky leftists as Alexander Cockburn and Gore Vidal in his adulteration of his more free-market message.  (I rather think that Ludwig von Mises is turning in his grave at the way his name is being used to promote ideas he never would have sanctioned.)

Lew's big kick has been to try to lump all those anti-communists he dislikes (or is jealous of) into one big package and label them "neocons" (short for "neo-conservative").  Neoconservatives originally were former left-liberals (mostly followers of Irving Kristol and other Jewish writers) who at least had the intellectual honesty to admit they had been wrong about Communism and were finally willing to admit that communism, socialism, and the organized Left were and are a real threat to America and a danger to the world.  Some of them moved to the right and became genuine conservatives or even libertarians.  Others retained some of their left-wing baggage, especially in domestic policy matters.  Instead of polarizing and demonizing against these partial converts,  we on the American Right should be welcoming them as allies in fighting the Left and the "liberal" Democrats, at least on those issues and fronts on which we can agree.  Instead, Lew's attempt to purge other anti-Communists and conservatives out of the movement against Big Government and communism is, like Buckley's attempt back in the sixties, only helping our common enemy.  I say we need all the help we can get to defeat the "liberal"-left agenda.   This tactic of his is distracting good people on the Right into fighting each other or against potential allies and possible converts rather than focusing on the common enemy.  It is vicious. (And, I hate to bring it up, but aren't these some of the same people who tried to stonewall and cover up the Nadia Hayes embezzlement scandal in 1988 in which money was diverted from the Ron Paul presidential campaign to his private coin business?)

I try to judge and deal with people as individuals if possible, instead of obscuring individual positions by lumping them all under one abstract label which may have little unambiguous meaning.  Many political labels have meanings which are either ambiguous or have shifted from their original usage.  The term "neoconservative" seems to have become such a term.  I try not to let a propagandistic label prejudice me in judging what someone may believe politically.

Surely it is a more productive strategy to try to work with those who have become disaffected and disillusioned -- to whatever extent -- from the anti-American Left and the Democrat Party, and try to persuade them to a more consistently free-market, limited government position than to demonize and alienate them away from our American freedom coalition.  In the war against the anti-American Left and the corrupt power lusters of the national Democrat Party Establishment we need all the allies and help we can get, it seems to me.

August 3, 2003

DAN SMOOT, A GREAT AMERICAN PATRIOT

We note with great sadness the passing on July 24 of a great American, Dan Smoot of Texas.  From his beginnings as a dirt-poor Missouri farm boy and even as a hobo who worked his way all over the country, Dan Smoot educated himself and worked hard to became, among many other things, a university instructor, an FBI agent, a key staff assistant to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a leading anti-communist watchdog, a successful newsletter writer and publisher, a very successful broadcast journalist (at a time when it was all but impossible for anti-Communist conservatives to get air time on the liberal-dominated television), and author of The Invisible Government, The Business End of Government, and People Along the Way.

As a great admirer of his writings since my high school days, I had the privilege of meeting him in the mid 1970s in Houston on which occasion he graciously autographed my copy of one of his books for me.  Even then his health was declining and he was in semi-retirement -- but he made the time and effort to make that rare book-signing appearance.

Best-selling author of None Dare Call It Conspiracy and ten other books, Gary Allen (with whom I was privileged to be associated for many years as his research assistant and colleague in the anti-Communist cause) once wrote that Smoot is "considered by many to be the most sound and penetrating researcher and reporter of our time...."

The Dan Smoot Report commentaries were blunt and uncompromising, but well-researched.  His reports covered a wide range of topics including communist subversion, the origins of the ACLU, the Left's attacks against Senator Joseph McCarthy, environmentalism, social security, espionage, the Institute for Pacific Relations and our betrayal of China to Communism, Martin Luther King and civil rights, the Hate Crime Act, government subsidies to agri-business, the proposed constitutional convention, the NEA and public schools, AIDS, the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. State Department and American foreign policy, and much more.

Many who thought Smoot's observations were a bit too "extreme" or "too controversial" at the time have come to see in retrospect (sadly) how right he was.  Those of us who continue the battle of trying to alert our fellow citizens to the threats to our constitutional liberties and American sovereignty from the Far Left follow in his pioneering footsteps and are inspired by his shining example of American patriotism.

SMOOT AT HARVARD

We can learn not only many facts about Communist activity and influence from the writings of Dan Smoot, but also interesting lessons from his life experiences.  For example, even sixty years ago the anti-American, anti-capitalist attitudes of the Left already permeated the Ivy League.   While studying for a doctorate in American Civilization, Smoot accepted a teaching fellowship at Harvard University in 1941.  In his autobiography, People Along the Way, Smoot recounted that the "Harvard faculty I had
occasion to visit with were puzzles to me — their attitude toward America was quite different from anything I had ever before encountered. I am talking about my peers in graduate school, some of them starting their second years as teaching fellows, though all of them were younger than I  was.... They were from affluent, prominent families. Yet, they seemed to be ashamed of America, or to hate her. At any rate they were contemptuous of my patriotism, which struck them as mawkish, anachronistic, flag-waving."

On December 7, 1941, Dan and his wife Betty heard the awful news about the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio.  Smoot recalls: "We did not say anything [until] she turned toward me saying ‘I suppose you will be joining the Army?’"

"Marines, I hope," was the immediate reply of this unusual (i.e., patriotic) Harvard teacher.

But minor medical issues, including flat feet, made him unacceptable to any branch of the military.  When his wife suggested the FBI as a way of serving his country during those critical years, he applied immediately to become a G-Man. Smoot was elated when he was accepted by the Bureau:  "I welcomed the job," he recalls, because it was "concerned with the security of the Country. I felt a patriotic obligation to find a civilian job wherein I could show my willingness to die heroically for my country."

Fortunately, instead of dying for his country, he showed us how a bright and competent scholar who was truly conscientious about America's national security devoted the rest of his life to the task of defending his beloved homeland from its enemies.  Had someone like Dan Smoot been in charge of U.S. intelligence for the past decade or so, the attacks of 9/11/01 might have been prevented.

DAN SMOOT VERSUS THE PACIFISTS, ANARCHISTS, AND  DEFEATISTS

Even in semi-retirement and with serious health problems, Smoot continued to write during the last years of his life.  In People Along the Way, Dan Smoot challenged American patriots and constitutionalists to focus their energies on getting principled men and women into Congress, giving the following advice to those naysayers who eschew political participation and those defeatists who believe nothing can be done to halt the juggernaut of socialism, out-of-control welfare statism, and one-world government:

 "Wouldn’t the job of putting constitutionalists in control of our federal government be like numbering sands or dipping oceans dry? No, it would be as easy as electing one constitutionalist to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Congressional District where you live. When people in two hundred and eighteen Congressional Districts do that … they could starve the international socialist programs of the federal government.... For awhile it would be a valiant holding effort in Washington; but if your elected constitutionalists hold firm, victory will be inevitable."

Online Biography of Dan Smoot

The Business End of Government by Dan Smoot

Dan Smoot -- The Original FBI "White Hat" -- Passes:  A Eulogy
 
 

FALSE ALTERNATIVES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

I reject as false alternatives both "neo-conservative imperialism" (to the extent it is even real enough to warrant a valid concern) on the one hand and "surrendercrat isolationist pacifism" on the other.  Neither is the appropriate, rational policy for the United States in today's world.  Surely, a truly American foreign policy lies somewhere between these two unrealistic extremes.  The first, if actually carried out in earnest, would bankrupt and destroy the American economy and alienate people around the world against the U.S. unnecessarily.  The second would encourage more statism in the world around us and invite more attacks against Americans and the U.S. by the international equivalents of street thugs who perceive us as targets because of our perceived weakness and lack of competent intelligence.

Again, neither the overly zealous schemes of some "neo-conservatives" for American political and military imperialism nor the anti-American surrendercrat ostrich posture of pacifist isolationism constitutes a rationally pro-American foreign policy in the world we live in the 21st Century. Using our military might to try to force our way of life on all the other nations of the world is not consistent with the idea of a constitutional republic and would destroy us in the attempt, and is essentially impossible anyway.  But hiding our heads in the sand and pretending that America does not have enemies who mean us harm is even more foolish and counter-productive.  it is naive in the extreme to believe that America can always avoid war or can even avoid having to send troops outside our national borders when our national security is at stake.  It is foolish to demand that we shut down our means of gathering and interpreting data that could affect the lives, liberties, and properties of the American people.  Pacifism and unilateral disarmament in the face of America's enemies can only encourage more real imperialism and aggression by hard-core socialist regimes and Islamo-socialist terrorists who hate America, capitalism, and freedom.

Sometimes conflict is inevitable and unavoidable.  But the best strategy for minimizing the likelihood of war and casualties is to prepare to fight and win.  Or, in the phrase of Barry Goldwater, Peace through Strength -- which today for America means Peace through Military Supremacy and Technological Superiority.  The U.S. does not have the numbers in soldiers of Red China. If we lose our technological edge or our will to prevail, our socialist enemies will take advantage of the opportunity to attack just as they did on 9/11/01 when our government's policies and intelligence failures led them to believe they could get away with it without retaliation.  The U.S. should disassociate itself completely from the corrupt United Nations and instead pursue its own rational policy of unilateral American independence -- avoiding complex, entangling treaty obligations when possible, but engaging its full resources, including military capabilities, when necessary to safeguard the nation's security.

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OTHER INFORMATIVE LINKS ON THE NEWS

Report on The War Against Al Qaeda and Its Allies in Terrorism

Rich Lowry on the Iraqi Museum Sacking That Wasn't

Political Terminology:  How to Properly Label the Far Left Today

Getting It Wrong:  Robert J. Bidinotto Exposes Buckley's Self-Serving Revisionism

Recommended Readings on Other Issues

Rush Limbaugh Blasts Lazy Senate Republicans for Wimping Out and Shirking Their Jobs

How Arabs Are Reacting to the Fall of Saddam Hussein to U.S. & Coalition Forces

Middle Ages Were Warmer than Today, Say Scientists

Right-Wing and Left-Wing Paranoia Compared

What A Libertarian Is -- and Is Not

Some Differences & Similarities Between Libertarians and American Conservatives

The False Alternative of Anarchism

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SOME RECOMMENDED LINKS

Getting It Wrong:  Robert J. Bidinotto Exposes Wm. F. Buckley's Most Recent Self-Serving Revisionism

Vice President Cheney Fires Back At "Anti-War" Critics

Paul Crespo on "Democracy and Free Markets versus Socialism and Pacifism"  Here is a guy who is finally beginning to "get it" -- to know the difference between his Left and his Right.  I may "nit pick" on his use of the term "democracy" instead of constitutional republic, but his observations in this piece are otherwise essentially correct and I am gratified that someone is saying in syndicated print what I have known and been saying for over thirty years. My only real criticism is that he seems to give the GOP a bit more credit for being truly conservative than some of its members deserve.

Neo-CONNED!  This controversial exposition warns against an alleged conspiracy by "neocons" to turn the U.S. into a fearsome force of global imperialism.  Though this speech was delivered in Congress on July 10 by Representative Ron Paul of Texas, some have speculated that perhaps it was written for him by Llewellen Rockwell or Justin Raimondo since the material closely parallels themes on Rockwell's website.  I generally concur with Congressman Paul, who is the most libertarian member of either house of Congress, but I do not share all of his concerns expressed here.

Congress Blasts Intelligence Failures Revealed in 9-11 Report

Krauthammer provides valuable perspective in the war against terrorism.

"Killing the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs" by Mona Charen Conservative Republicans blast Bush for Mediscare cave.

Calif. Democrats Caught Trying to Further Sabotage the Economy and Blame it On Others; Didn't Know Microphone Was On!

To make sure you get the latest in Eddie's Rants & Raves, use your "refresh" or "reload" button on your web browser.

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A Few Selected Links

Recommended Books & Tapes

Dr. Jack Wheeler's To the Point

stratfor.com (a digest of global intelligence)

The Gertz File

Jane's Flashpoints

SoftWar.net

Center for Security Policy (Frank Gaffney, Jr.)

Cliches of Politics

What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen  by Frederic Bastiat

How to Recognize "Legal Plunder"

Enter Stage Right

Townhall.com

World Net Daily

NewsMax.com

The Washington Times

Drudge Report

Front Page Magazine

Capitalism.net

Discover Ludwig von Mises

Celebrate Capitalism!

Libertarianz.org.nz -- Excellent libertarian site from New Zealand!

Right-Wing and Left-Wing Paranoia Compared

What A Libertarian Is -- and Is Not

An Interview with a Libertarian Conservative

Libertarian Press

Laissez Faire Books

Utopia Unmasked!

SocialismSucks.net

American Policy Center

FreeMarket.net

FredericBastiat.com

Bastiat.org

Rush Limbaugh

Larry Elder

Neal Boortz

Michael Reagan Information Interchange

The Paul Revere Society / Savage Nation

Ann Coulter's Website

Global Warming Information Page

Junk Science

Judicial Watch

Institute for Justice

ChronWatch.com

Sam's Politically Incorrect Website Against Coercive Busybodyism

Monopoly-Politics.com

Ask Doctor Ruwart

The False Alternative of Anarcho-Statism

Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism by Ludwig von Mises

Separation of School and State

The Dead Economists Society

Fort Freedom (a legacy of Prof. Petr Beckmann)

We the Living, the Objectivist Republic of Letters

The FBI Libertarian Certification Program

Scott Gaffney's Introductory Ayn Rand Page

The New Conservative Revolution

Wholesalers-direct; self-defense forum: non-lethal weapons, batons, pepper defense spray, taser equipment & stun gun & combat knife techniques.

Comics Directory - comics related news, books and web resources.

Nolo.com -- Do-it-yourself law for all!

Talk Radio Station Program Schedules -- Los Angeles Area

Eddie may be contacted at ewillers@Laissez-FaireRepublic.com

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