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Archive of May 2005 -- July 10, 2005
JULY 10, 2005
A Libertarian Clarification and Affirmation of the Iraq War
Revised Versionby Wayne Lusvardi 1. Like the world, the Libertarian Party today is divided into ideological camps
about the Iraq War. The adherents of each tell us with great conviction who is
to blame and what we should do about it. We should not believe either of them.2. Underlying the major ideological camps about the Iraq War are two powerful
ideologies – the rogue terrorist ideology and the America interventionist
ideology. Both ideologies must be debunked.3. The debunking is not a moral high ground in and of itself. Rather, it opens up
new windows of understanding. It is especially important to gain objectivist
clarity first so as not to substitute ideological purity for responsibility.4. The ideology of rogue terrorists must be debunked.
5. It is not rogue terrorists who are angered at the U.S. for the propping up of dictatorial
regimes in the Mid East who are behind terrorist acts – rather it is Middle Eastern states
who support the terrorists. Without state support both terrorism and the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan would cease almost overnight. Terrorism is a false front for
statist autocracy. [1]6. 9/11 was carried out and funded mainly by Saudis, prior terrorist acts were
conducted clandestinely by the Saudis, and the insurgency in Iraq is mainly funded
and manned by Saudis, in consort with other Arab regimes [2].7. The Iraq War is mainly a war by the U.S. against the Saudis and others in retaliation for 9/11. But the U.S. can not risk a direct retaliation against the Saudis for fear of a world-wide economic depression due to the volatility of world oil prices controlled by the Saudis; and a wider war with all of Islam.
8. Saddam lost legitimate sovereignty for Iraq after he started a war with Iran, invaded and looted Kuwait, sheltered in Baghdad the worst terrorist in the world at that time in Abu Nidal, gave safe harbor to the men who pushed Leon Klinghoffer off a boat, sheltered the man who blew up the World Trade Center in 1993, massacred Iraqi Kurds and Shiias, and violated U.N. sanctions. Surely, foreign governments, private oil corporations, and banks have played a role in making Iraq into a despotic state; and contributing to the drift of Pakistan into extremism and Iran into revolution [3]. But Iraq’s aggressive and terror-sponsoring actions (above) cannot be attributed to such outsiders. “…all evils caused by statism…were blamed on capitalism…and so in foreign affairs, all the evils of statist policies were blamed on and ascribed to capitalism…” (Ayn Rand).
9. The “enemy of my enemy is my friend.” One of the geo-political strategies of the
Iraq War is to place the arch-enemy of the radical Saudi Wahhabists, the Shiias in
Iraq, against neighboring Saudi Arabia by deposing Saddam and the Baathists. [4]10. The rogue terrorist ideology operates to avoid having to tell the American public
who was behind 9/11 [5]. The Congressional 9/11 Report has 28 pages missing about Saudi involvement in 9/11. The American public has not been told the truth about who was behind 9/11 for fear of political destabilization affecting both major U.S. political parties.11. The libertarian party has a role to play as truth teller about the war. But to do so it must abandon ideology and act responsibly.
12. The avoidance of the truth about 9/11 and the geo-political strategy behind the
Iraq War by the U.S. government has led to a legitimacy crisis as many in the
public are suspicious about the false, weak, and belated rationales for the war.13. The rogue terrorist myth is embraced by many libertarian leaders who believe that
the only legitimate basis for interventionism was a police action against Osama bin
Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Many libertarian ideologues don’t want to
see that Middle Eastern states were behind 9/11and other terrorist acts.14. Islamic terrorists are like the Moslem pirates on the high seas in the early 1800’s.
The only way to fight them is through offensive measures, such as the U.S. War
against the Barbary pirates (e.g., Letters of Marque and Reprisal, Rewards and Bounties, treaties with neighboring nations to contain terror-sponsoring states, refusal to pay tribute or ransom, blockade, warfare, etc.). [6]15. The libertarian ideology of noninterventionism in Iraq must be equally debunked.
16. Libertarian noninterventionist ideology fails to deal with the reality of state-
sponsored terrorist fronts.17. Terrorism and war in the Middle East has much less to do with U.S.
interventionism and mostly has to do with what is going on internally in that region
of the world. The huge population boom, drastic decline in average family
incomes, over-dependency on oil money, and the rise of a technocratic middle
class educated in the West, all emanating from modernization, is putting pressure
on old autocratic rulers and their Wahhabi theocratic legitimizers [7].18. The millions who died in the Iraq-Iran War, the mass murders by Muslims in
Sudan, the wiping out of whole villages in Algeria by other Algerians, the invasion
of Kuwait by Saddam, Saddam’s butchering of his own Iraqi people, the senior
Assad’s wiping off the map the entire town of El Hamma in Syria for refusal to pay
taxes, etc., did not occur because of U.S., British or Israeli interventionism,
imperialism, or colonialism.19. The Iraq War is not about WMD’s, deposing the murderous dictator Saddam
Hussein, democracy building, American imperialism, Arab “blow-back,” grabbing
oil, or a co-conspiracy with Israel. If the U.S. wanted to grab oil it would have
invaded Sudan just as the Chinese-sponsored Arabs are doing in Sudan today. If
the U.S.wanted to depose murderous rulers it would intervene in Zimbabwe and
elsewhere. U.S. actions are not indicative of an imperialistic power in the mideast, but of a retaliator. It was provoked over decades of terrorist acts going back to the 1970’s before it slowly took action in Afghanistan and Iraq.20. American’s wonder why do those in the Middle East hate us? For decades higher national interests have compelled successive American administrations to support highly repressive regimes in many Muslim countries. A clear example is that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
21. The false front of state-sponsored terrorism functions to shift the popular
discontent of the Arab masses onto the infidel and keep autocratic rulers in power.
This is a very old Islamic tactic of creating the scapegoat to prop up dictators. This
is the genesis of much of anti-semitism and was the basis of fascist Nazism during
WWII. “Statism needs war” (Ayn Rand).22. The U.S. strategy of fighting terrorist insurgents in the mideast and dispersed
terrorist cells around the world is not likely to succeed without a long protracted
struggle. As with organized crime, it is important to take the battle to the top of the
crime pyramid. Terrorism can only be brought down by going after the heads of
the Islamic nation “mafia families.” Putting the Shiias into power in Iraq is one non-interventionist way of retaliating against the Saudis and Syria, Pakistan, and Iran.23. Libertarian anti-war ideology has bought into the massive disinformation campaign
of both the official U.S. rationales for the Iraq War; and that of the Islamic states
that project their failures onto the infidel U.S. and Israel and deny culpability for
state-sponsored terrorism.24. The Iraq War can be called into question as to whether it is moral, wise, or truthful,
but it is undeniably necessary for self-protection. The failed Arab states will
continue to provoke and scapegoat the U.S. and the West by terrorism to prop up
their failed regimes. Failure to go on the offensive will only invite more domestic
terrorism as Islamo-fascist leaders get more desperate to preserve their power.
The fundamental libertarian right of self defense must not be compromised by
those with antiwar ideological blinders on who only avoid responsible action.25. Libertarian objectivism and non-interventionism are not mutually exclusive. Interventionism or non-interventionism must be informed by objectivism. “Reality (of the war) exists as an objective absolute – facts are facts, independent of men’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.” (Ayn Rand)
____References:
[1] Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge University Press, 2005); Dore Gold, Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Support the New Global Terrorism (Regnery, 2003); Peter Hopkirk, Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire (Kodansha, 1994).
[2] Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and its role in Terrorism (Anchor, 2003).
[3] Edwin Black, Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq’s 7,000 Year History of War, Profit and Conflict (Wiley, 2004); Hassan Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America’s War on Terror (Sharpe, 2005); Saimak Khatami, Iran – A View From Within: Political Analysis (Janus, 2004).
[4] John R. Bradley, Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis (Palgrave, 2005).
[5] See: Christopher Preble, Existing Iraq: Why the U.S. Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War Against Al Qaeda (CATO, 2004).
[6] Joseph Wheelan, Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror 1801-1805 (Carol and Graf, 2003).
[7] Daryl Champion, The Paradoxical Kingdom: Saudi Arabia and the Momentum of Reform (Columbia, 2003).
Other Sources: Harry Binswanger, The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z (Meridian, 1986).
____Wayne Lusvardi of Pasadena is active in the Libertarian Party, has authored papers for the Reason Institute, USC Journal of Planning and Markets, many professional journals, and is frequent contributor to http://ChronWatch.com, http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/, and Mr. Lusvardi is a veteran and Bronze Star recipient of the Vietnam War and is a real estate valuation consultant.
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For an interesting slide show on the jihad click here * * *
Al-Qaida Nukes Already in U.S.?
Terrorists, bombs smuggled across Mexico border by MS-13 gangstersfrom JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
WASHINGTON – As London recovers from the latest deadly al-Qaida attack that killed at least 50, top U.S. government officials are contemplating what they consider to be an inevitable and much bigger assault on America – one likely to kill millions, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the course of history, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin .According to captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, the plan is called the "American Hiroshima" and involves the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border with the help of the MS-13 street gang and other organized crime groups.
Al-Qaida has obtained at least 40 nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union – including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads. In addition, documents captured in Afghanistan show al-Qaida had plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased on the black market.
In addition to detonating its own nuclear weapons already planted in the U.S., military sources also say there is evidence to suggest al-Qaida is paying former Russian special forces Spetznaz to assist the terrorist group in locating nuclear weapons formerly concealed inside the U.S. by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Osama bin Laden's group is also paying nuclear scientists from Russia and Pakistan to maintain its existing nuclear arsenal and assemble additional weapons with the materials it has invested hundreds of millions in procuring over a period of 10 years.
The plans for the devastating nuclear attack on the U.S. have been under development for more than a decade. It is designed as a final deadly blow of defeat to the U.S., which is seen by al-Qaida and its allies as "the Great Satan."
At least half the nuclear weapons in the al-Qaida arsenal were obtained for cash from the Chechen terrorist allies.
But the most disturbing news is that high level U.S. officials now believe at least some of those weapons have been smuggled into the U.S. for use in the near future in major cities as part of this "American Hiroshima" plan, according to an upcoming book, "The al-Qaida Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime and the Coming Apocalypse," by Paul L. Williams, a former FBI consultant.
According to Williams, former CIA Director George Tenet informed President Bush one month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that at least two suitcase nukes had reached al-Qaida operatives in the U.S.
"Each suitcase weighed between 50 and 80 kilograms (approximately 110 to 176 pounds) and contained enough fissionable plutonium and uranium to produce an explosive yield in excess of two kilotons," wrote Williams. "One suitcase bore the serial number 9999 and the Russian manufacturing date of 1988. The design of the weapons, Tenet told the president, is simple. The plutonium and uranium are kept in separate compartments that are linked to a triggering mechanism that can be activated by a clock or a call from the cell phone."
According to the author, the news sent Bush "through the roof," prompting him to order his national security team to give nuclear terrorism priority over every other threat to America.
However, it is worth noting that Bush failed to translate this policy into securing the U.S.-Mexico border through which the nuclear weapons and al-Qaida operatives are believed to have passed with the help of the MS-13 smugglers. He did, however, order the building of underground bunkers away from major metropolitan areas for use by federal government managers following an attack.
Bin Laden, according to Williams, has nearly unlimited funds to spend on his nuclear terrorism plan because he has remained in control of the Afghanistan-produced heroin industry. Poppy production has greatly increased even while U.S. troops are occupying the country, he writes. Al-Qaida has developed close relations with the Albanian Mafia, which assists in the smuggling and sale of heroin throughout Europe and the U.S.
Some of that money is used to pay off the notorious MS-13 street gang between $30,000 and $50,000 for each sleeper agent smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico. The sleepers are also provided with phony identification, most often bogus matricula consular ID cards indistinguishable from Mexico's official ID, now accepted in the U.S. to open bank accounts and obtain driver's licenses.
The Bush administration's unwillingness to secure the U.S.-Mexico border has puzzled and dismayed a growing number of activists and ordinary citizens who see it as the No. 1 security threat to the nation. The Minuteman organization is planning a major mobilization of thousands of Americans this fall designed to shut down the entire 2,000-mile border as it did in April with a 23-mile stretch in Arizona.
According to Williams' sources, thousands of al-Qaida sleeper agents have now been forward deployed into the U.S. to carry out their individual roles in the coming "American Hiroshima" plan.
Bin Laden's goal, according to the book, is to kill at least 4 million Americans, 2 million of whom must be children. Only then, bin Laden has said, would the crimes committed by America on the Arab and Muslim world be avenged.
There is virtually no doubt among intelligence analysts al-Qaida has obtained fully assembled nuclear weapons, according to Williams. The only question is how many. Estimates range between a dozen and 70. The breathtaking news is that an undetermined number of these weapons, including suitcase bombs, mines and crude tactical nuclear weapons, have already been smuggled into the U.S. – at least some across the U.S.-Mexico border.
The future plan, according to captured al-Qaida agents and documents, suggests the attacks will take place simultaneously in major cities throughout the country – including New York, Boston, Washington, Las Vegas, Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles.
In response to the G2 Bulletin revelations, Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a citizen action group demanding the U.S. government take control of its borders, said an immediate military presence on the borders is now imperative "to stop the overwhelming influx of unidentified, potentially hostile and seditious persons coming across at an alarming rate."
"Terrorists have carte blanche to carry practically anything they want across our national line at this time," he said. "As ordinary citizens have warned this government for years, the only surprising part about the new information reported here is that nothing apocalyptic from Mexican-border weapons trafficking has yet happened. Terrorism has reared its ugly head in London again these past few days, and as we know all too well we are not immune in this country. At this point, the next attempt to attack America at home is just a matter of 'when,' not 'if.' And our unsecured borders have surely contributed to this threat – yet our government officials continue to fiddle while our nation's margin of security and safety burns away. The president and Congress had better wake up before they have to answer for another devastating terrorist incursion on our own soil."
Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for almost 30 years. The subscription price for the premium newsletter has been slashed in half and is now available for only $9.95 per month.
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com * * *
Safer at Safari
Reassessing Things Post-7/7
from National Review. . . . Thursday’s event (the London bombings) is too small a "sample" to permit us to generalize on the terror universe. And I’m afraid that those who are doing it are looking too hard at a single event, and not hard enough at the overall situation. Policemen are being beheaded in Thailand, Christian missionaries are kidnapped in the Philippines, some of our finest fighting men are being killed in Afghanistan, and bombs are going off again in Turkey.
Indeed, it would be most surprising if the terror masters were cutting back on their jihad, at a time when rising oil prices are pumping vast sums of money into their war chests. The mullahs and the Assads are rotten with cash, and a lot of it is going into the war against us. The theory that our splendid military performance in Iraq has shrunken the pool of terrorists available for operations in the West doesn’t convince me, in large part because we know from their past performances that the terrorists set up these actions years in advance. I am quite certain that they have sleeper cells in every major Western country, and these cells wouldn’t be crippled by events in Iraq in the past several months. The timing doesn’t add up to me. For extras, I think most of the terrorists in Iraq came from the outside, and there’s still a very large pool of potential volunteers throughout the Persian Gulf and North Africa, not to mention the non-trivial number of Western citizens who find fulfillment through acts of terrorism.
Unfortunately, the overall situation remains very dicey, precisely because our focus is too narrow. By concentrating compulsively on Iraq, we are failing to take the battle to the enemy, who finds haven, money, weapons, training and intelligence in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran. Over and over again, you read articles about "the Sunni insurgency," with a passing reference to "foreign jihadis," even though Zarqawi himself is a Jordanian who is known to operate with Iranian support.
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July 10. 2005On Conspiracy Theories, "Neoconservatives"
and the War for Iraqby Sam Wells
The exaggerated role of some "neoconservatives" (who have boastfully exaggerated their own influence) in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy has been a central theme of certain populist and hard left conspiracy theories about the Bush Administration. The "neoconservatives" have been described over and over as "carrying the water for Israel's Likud Party" in conspiring to drag the U.S. into military involvement in the Middle East in general and in Iraq in particular. Some populist-left-wing conspiracy theories would even have us believe that the entire impetus for the Bush Administration's decision to send troops to Iraq to topple the corrupt Saddam Hussein regime was totally engineered by "neocon" plotters. Yet, the more I look at it, the more I am convinced that it is much more complex than that simplistic scenario. While it is true that some neoconservatives have been writing about just this sort of agenda for more than a decade, the assumption that U.S. military intervention in the Middle East would necessarily benefit Israel is questionable -- especially if the whole efforft backfires by Iraq becoming a shi-ite ally or client state of Iran and Red China.When I read the articles and books of the "neoconservatives" (Podhoretz, Kristol, Perle, et al), I discern an almost naive crusading optimism about both the possibilites for and salutary results of something they call "democracy" all over the world in general and in the Middle East in particular, despite the cultural and religious differences involved. This naive idealism about the spread of democracy in the Middle East -- and its consequences necessarily being supposedly in America's long-term national self interest -- is something apparently shared by President Bush after having read Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. (It was apparently this book rather than anything written by our domestic neoconservatives that moved Bush to such an optimistic scenario.) Sharansky.an outspoken dissident and prisoner in the Soviet gulag, currently serves as a top official of the State of Israel.
Now, of course, as libertarians, we champion freedom and capitalism rather than democracy if by "democracy" is meant majority rule across the board; however, as is often the case in political discussions, when Sharansky and others use the term "democracy" they seem to mean more than majoritarian tyranny. He apparently means some combination of freedom and some kind of "representative" government. Certainly the relative elements of freedom and capitalism imposed on or developed by Japan after its defeat in World War II have benefited greatly both the Japanese people and the rest of the world -- and made Americans safer from attack than before. But can such traditions as private property rights, the rule of law, constitutonalism, due process, etc. be successfully grafted onto a culture very different from that in which those values and institutions developed in 18th Century England, Holland, and the United States? Can Douglas MacArthur's feat be duplicated in Iraq? That remains to be seen, of course. Any rational American can at least hope that it can succeed to some extent or another.
So, is it conspiracy or unintended consequences? Or a combination of both? But wait -- it's even more complex than even that. The choice to invade and liberate Iraq is part of a wider geopolitical strategy to put pressure on other regimes which have been involved, directly or indirectly, in supporting or sanctioning terrorist activity -- such as the Saudi soft policy concerning the extremist terrorist Wahhabist cult. While it is not true that Saddam had anything directly to do with the attacks of 9/11/01 -- a connection which the Bush Administration never claimed -- there was definitely evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, as documented by Stephen F. Hayes (The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America) and others. But even without such connection, there were still more hidden geopolitical strategic reasons for American liberation of Iraq as part of this wider game plan of pressuring our "friends" in Saudi Arabia to do more in helping in the war against terrorism..
Given the immense complexities in the Middle East, it is clear to me that neither the neocons nor anyone else could know with any degree of certainty what would be the result of U.S. military intervention in Iraq. No one can know for sure whether Operation Iraqi Freedom, costing over $100 billion, will result in a more peaceful situation for either the Middle East in general or Israel in particular -- or even ultimately be in the interests of Americans. It was a gamble. We probably won't know whether the gamble paid off or not, in terms of a more peaceful and less terrorized world, for several more years, perhaps decades down the line. There is complex geopolitical strategy at work behind this operation as well as the more simplistic "neoconservative" zeal for spreading democracy into places heretofore thought by many "White folk" to be too primitive or culturally immature to support such institutions and values. But, just as Japan has turned out to be a resounding success story, so may be the case in the Middle East.
This complexity and uncertainty causes me to cast serious doubt on the left-wing / populist conspiracy theory that suggests that neoconservative crypto-zionists or Likud partisans manipulated U.S. foreign policy to get us into Iraq to somehow help out Israel strategically. If that was the original intention of some, it certainly has not panned out so far to be much of a boon to Israel, as far as I can see. It is far too easy for the anti-American Left and the pro-American populists to blame the Jews for everything that goes wrong in the world. That kind of thinking lacks credibility. Plus, it should be kept in mind that a true conspiracy exists as a secret operation, but those who have advocated liberation in the Middle East for over a decade have not made their views any kind of secret but have published them for any and all to see. Some "conspiracy"!
But as far as whether Bush or anyone else had a legitimate and moral justification for using force to drag Saddam Hussein off the back of the Iraqi people, there is no question in my mind that he did have such justification. Saddam had initiated coercion against others all over the place -- including his own fellow Iraqis as well as the people of Kuwait. According to libertarian principles going back to John Locke and America's founding fathers, he had thus lost -- totally forfeited -- his right to be left alone long ago. Contrary to what some libertarians seem to believe, it is not necessary for Saddam to have initiated forfce against the U.S. itself to make it a legitimate target for forceful overthrow -- any more than you have to be attacked if a mugger attacks your girlfriend (or a complete stranger for that matter), you still have a right to step in and use your own violent force to defend her from that attack even though the mugger never attacked you personally. If a big bully is beating up on a little kid on the school grounds, there is nothing in libertarian philosophy that says no one -- either a teacher or another big kid -- should intervene forcefully by dragging the bully off of his victim. Once coercion is initiated on anyone, the initiator forfeits (loses) his right to be left alone by the coercion of others. This is basic libertarian rights theory going all the way back to Locke's Second Treatise. (The only libertarian thinker I know of who disagreed with this was Robert LeFevre, who explicitly denied the idea that rights are ever forfeited no matter what acts a criminal may commit.)
Moreover, Saddam was in violation of the terms of the peace/cease fire following the first Gulf War. He was obviously playing a shell game with the international inspectors concerning development of weapons of mass destruction. There is no question that anyone had a moral and legal justification to taking out Saddam's regime. If the U.S. Government chose to do so for its own perceived strategic reasons, so be it!
And those who claim that Bush "lied" about the existence of WMDs in Iraq conveniently forget that the previous Clinton Administration, as well as the British and other European governments, shared in the same belief that Saddam possessed WMDs or was working on them. We had good reason to believe he at least had bio-chem weapons because the U.S. had sold some of those materials to Saddam back when he was at war with our enemy the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran -- with the stipulation that he only use them in that war and not against his own people or his peaceful neighbors, both terms of which he violated. So, whether the belief that Saddam had WMDs was based on faulty intelligence or global incompetence among intelligence agencies or even if anti-Bush Democrat partisans within the CIA were trying to set Bush up, the fact remains that there were reasons to believe Saddam had WMDs -- wherever they may be today. Whether they were buried in the sand or moved (with the help of the Russian military) elsewhere is not known by the West. But even if there were never any WMDs at all -- which is nonsense -- the Bush Administration still had moral and legal justification for its action there.
What about the "international community" you ask? Well, if by "international community" is meant the corrupt United Nations, then it should not be forgot that Saddam Hussein was in violation of several UN resolutions as well as the terms of the cease fire.
So, any way you want to look at it -- basic classical liberal or libertarian principles or international law -- the Bush Administration has as much right as anyone to overthrow Saddam and his regime. (For the Objectivists among us, it then only becomes a question of whether it is self-sacrificial or not, and that is something that is not always easy to judge. Whether it will be considered worth it or not in the long run -- or one of the biggest miscalculations in modern times -- is yet to be determined. But, again, given the complexities of the Middle East, no one now knows for sure what the outcome will be.)
The only other possible objection to Bush's sending of troops to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein is one of a constitutionalist nature -- that some have claimed that Bush should not have committed troops to what amounts to a war without an explicit and formal declaration of war -- using the word "war" -- by Congress. Yet, others disagree, citing the War Powers Act and amendments thereto as sufficient warrant from Congress. Certainly, at the time Bush committed troops, the vast majority of both houses of Congress supported him in that action.
It seems to me that since Libertarians are divided on the issue of the war in Iraq, that it is better that we should agree to disagree on that for now instead of pretending to the public that there is a party unity that does not exist on that issue. Passing a resolution or issuing a press release that makes it appear that the entire membership of the LP of California believes one way or the other seems to me less than honest.
* * * THE CORE OF THE TERRORIST ENEMY: THE CULT OF WAHHABISM AND ITS STATE BACKERS IT'S STILL THE SAUDIS
By STEPHEN SCHWARTZA GROUP calling itself "the Secret Group of al Qaeda's Jihad in Europe" has claimed "credit" for Thursday's deadly bombings in London. Some refer to the perpetrators of this latest horror as "an unknown group." But there is nothing mysterious about the background of the London atrocities.
First, and foremost, there is nothing secret, unknown or hidden about the prime source of financing for the terrorists: Saudi Arabia.
As the leading Saudi human-rights activist, Ali al-Ahmed, of the Washington-based Saudi Institute, puts it, "all the roads lead to Riyadh."
The Saudi kingdom continues to channel money and recruits to terror operations in Iraq and everywhere else that al Qaeda, its allies, its imitators and other supporters strike. Saudi clerics, devotees of the cult known to its critics as Wahhabism, continue to preach jihad against the world, targeting non-Wahhabi Muslims as well as non-Muslims.
Our own country has taken significant steps to curb the Saudi dedication to Wahhabi terrorism, but a great deal more remains to be done.
When she visited the desert kingdom not long ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice correctly protested against the repression imposed on democratic dissidents in that country. But she drew back from calling directly for major changes in Saudi Arabia, such as purging the educational system and state-run media of extremism and cutting off the Wahhabi clerics from state funding.
Paradoxically, Britain, although gallantly committed to the war against terrorism in Iraq, has fallen short of the United States in its investigative and judicial response to Islamist terrorism. The existence of a larger and more openly radical "Wahhabi lobby" in British Islam has led London to greater caution rather than vigilance and severity in dealing with the enemy. Not only is there no British Guantanamo, the Blair government actually intervened to get our military to release five of nine British subjects from the camp in Cuba.
Yet Britain has much greater problems with radical Islam inside its borders than the United States has. Only two weeks ago, British newspapers reported that dozens of Muslims from the United Kingdom had gone to Iraq to participate in the terrorist campaign there. (By the way, the majority of the murderers whose ranks they joined are Saudis.)
The bulk of British Muslims are Pakistanis and Arabs. While many members of both ethnic groups are peaceful, loyal residents of the country, their mosques have long been dominated by Saudi-funded radical rhetoric — and open recruiting for jihad and paramilitary activities. Although it is seldom noted in Western media, Pakistan remains the No. 1 frontline state after Iraq, in terms of bloodshed between Wahhabi-inspired extremists and other Muslims.
There is no puzzle in the dissimulation practiced by most European governments about Islamist extremism: Europe has a history of preferring peace to freedom.
Most European leaders — Britain's Tony Blair being the outstanding exception — would rather arrive at an accommodation with the terrorists than defend the freedoms under attack by violent fanatics. In this, they follow the pattern set during the 1930s, when Europeans preferred peace with and submission to Nazism in place of early and consequential resistance.
A devotion to peace over freedom is also reflected in the common cliché, heard on our shores as well as abroad, that fighting terrorism in Iraq simply breeds more terrorists. Well, opposition to Hitler led the Nazis to recruit more countries and peoples to their cause but only in the short term. Major conflicts always produce serious opposition; that is why they are called wars and not misunderstandings.
Nazism and Japanese imperialism vanished as threats once they were significantly defeated; fighting them did not strengthen them, once the real battle was joined. But inflicting an authentic defeat on the terrorist enemy means carrying the struggle to its heartland in the Middle East.
The answer to the crime of London will come in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other countries where Islamist extremism perverts the Muslim mind, and it will come through force no less than reason. There is no other path.
Stephen Schwartz is executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism (islamicpluralism.org) in Washington, D.C.
* * * British Mohammedans Urged to Take Up Jihad
The Left's Crimes of Silence by Ralph Peters
Our True Enemies (an encore article which seems appropirate)
July 8. 2005 LONDON'S CITY TRAVELLERS HIT WITH TERRORIST BOMBS
-- BUT THE BRITS ARE NOT SPANIARDSAl-Qaeda Claims Responsibilitgy for Deadly London BombingsPyrrhic Terror by Ralph Peters
July 5. 2005 Why Democrats Will Smear Any Conservative or Libertarian Court Nominee~ Dennis PragerJuly 4. 2005 $333-Million-Dollar Impact Probe Crashes into Comet As Planned
JPL scientists & engineers celebrate the awesome feat of hitting the target body 83 million miles away from Earth, a milestone accomplishment which they hope will provide some basic clues about the origins of our solar system.NASA Coverage of "Deep Impact" Event with JPL Photos etc.
Congress (especially the U.S. Senate) Betrays Founders' Vision, Constitution -- Geoff Metcalf
Why Conservatives Are Disappointed with Past GOP Supreme Court Appointees
* * * Libertarian Republican Congressman Ron Paul Speaks Out Against the Anti-Political Action Ostrich Anarchists
"The Kelo (v. New London) case also demonstrates that local government can be as tyrannical as centralized government. Decentralized power is always preferable, of course, since it's easier to fight city hall than Congress. But government power is ever and always dangerous, and must be zealously guarded against. Most people in New London, Connecticut, like most people in America, would rather not involve themselves in politics. The reality is that politics involves itself with us whether we like it or not. We can bury our heads in the sand and hope that things don't get too bad, or we can fight back when government treats us as its servant rather than its master."
- Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), Texas Straight Talk, 7/4/05* * *
Jefferson versus Nancy Pelosi
and Today's Corrupt Power-Hungry Democrats"(T)he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."
- Thomas Jefferson
"If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court...the people will have ceased to be their own rulers."- Abraham Lincoln
"(Kelo v. New London) is a decision of the Supreme Court. So this is almost as if God has spoken."- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
San Fransicko DemocratJuly 1. 2005 SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR RETIRES
TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH AILING HUSBANDRush Limbaugh Suggests Anti-Statist Janice Rogers Brown to Replace O'ConnorPresident Bush should keep his campaign promise to nominate an individual in the mold of Justice Thomas or Justice Scalia. Justice Thomas is probably the only real conservative on the Supreme Court today. O'Connor was a mixed "centrist" at best, although she did come down squarely on the right side against the majority ruling in the Kelo case last week. The liberal Democrats in the U.S. Senate who have used unconstitutional filibusters to block an up-or-down floor vote on judicial nominees should put country above party and stop the endless bad-faith debates and unprecedented obstructionist tactics on presidential nominees and allow the Senate to get on with its constitutonal duty. But I won't hold my breath waiting for Barbara Boxer, Teddy Kennedy, and the other Senate Dem hot air balloons to stop acting like spoiled brats and instead begin behaving like responsible adults. They will fight with everything they've got, kicking and screaming all the way. It's time for Frist to use the Constitutional Option of an up-or-down vote on nominations -- the way things were done for 200 plus years before Tom Daschle changed the requirement to make it more difficult for GOP presidents to get their nominees through the confirmation process.
I very much fear that Frist is too weak a leader to handle this situation and I'm afraid that IF Bush does nominate Janice Rogers Brown or somebody decent to replace O'Connor, that the Senate Repubs, under its weak-Fristed leadership, will let the Democrat minority block whoever it is if he or she is any good. But this vacancy gives President Bush the rare golden opportunity to pick someone who will finally balance the Far Left extremism of Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the high court. If he picks a liberal or unprincipled "moderate" pragmatist, he is liable to face conservative rebellion within his own party if he fails to do the right thing. ~Eddie
Man Calls Neal Boortz Talk Program to Confess to Having Committed Murder * * *
June 30. 2005 BUSH SAYS KYOTO TREATY
WOULD HAVE HURT ECONOMYPresident Bush Opposes Dangerous Anti-U.S. Agreement
There is no doubt that a President Kerry or Gore would have signed this awful treaty, plunging the U.S. economy into a downward spiral from which there would have been no recovery.Will the Real Liars Please Stand Up?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THOMAS SOWELL
Happy Birthday, Thomas Sowell!
Three-Quarters of a Century Old! by Thomas Sowell
Foreign Law is Not Law by Dr. Sowell
Property Rites by Thomas Sowell
Sowell on the Supreme Court's Decision in Kelo vs. New London and its Implications.SENATE APPROVES CAFTA
On Thursday the Senate approved CAFTA by a vote of 54 to 45. Next, the House is expected to vote on CAFTA in mid- to late-July. A razor close vote is also anticipated.Celebrate the Fourth by helping to preserve U.S. sovereign independence by helping to STOP CAFTA!
JUNE 29, 2005 204th Anniversary of Bastiat's Birth
I will be away from the computer today for, among other reasons, to celebrate with friends the 204th anniversary of the birth of French economist, writer, and statesman Claude Frederic Bastiat who was one of the most eloquent defenders of the cause of invidual liberty and limited government, and one of the most persuasive and entertaining writers in his refutation of the various fallacies of mercantilism and socialism.See also: http://FredericBastiat.com, a new and still developing website on the ideas and influence of Frederic Bastiat.
Supreme Court Justice Souter Faces Boot from Home?
Developer wants 'Lost Liberty Hotel' built upon property of David Souter
(Sounds like Poetic Justice to me! ~Eddie)JUNE 28, 2005 Democrats Report No Abuse at Gitmo
Their Observations Contradict the Partisan Claims
of Democrat Party Leadership
by Stephen Dinan
Washington TimesTwo Democratic senators just back from reviewing U.S. detention facilities and interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said they saw no signs of abuse and said it would actually be worse to close the facility and transfer the detainees elsewhere.Read entire news article
* * *
JUNE 26, 2005Beijing Rapidly Building Deep-Sea Naval Might
Bill Gertz
China soon will receive a new Kilo submarine from Russia, part of a naval buildup of modern warships and submarines that has triggered new fears for U.S. military planners. (...Full story)JUNE 23, 2005 Liberal Supreme Court Rules that Your Property Can Be Taken for "Development" Purposes in Kelo v. City of New London
In its 5-to-4 decision, the liberal majority (Stevens, Souter, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Kennedy) prevailed over the moderate and conservative dissenters (O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas). "The government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more," Justice O'Connor said. "The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result." The American Founding Fathers would weep in anguish at this betrayal of freedom and constitutional government. This is the coup de grace against private property rights after a long list of incremental attacks, including the Court's upholding of Hawaii's infamous Land Use Act of 1967 and many other dilutions of and assaults on property rights.Statement of Calif. State Senator Tom McClintock
on SCOTUS Decision in Kelo
To introduce Constitutional AmendmentOklahoma City -- A Decade Later by William F. Jasper
Don't Be Taken In by TomPaine.com & Other Phonies * * *
We live in a world of partisan political propaganda -- the vast bulk of it coming from the Left-Liberal Establishment. And some of our friends and allies sometimes forget this context and uncritically accept as true one or more of the current left-wing lines. I have noticed that at least a few activists within the Libertarian Party got suckered into getting involved with and even promoting ultra-statist leftist outfits posing as either "libertarian" or "non-partisan" groups. I am referring to such websites as TomPaine.com which is obviously a Marxist, pro-Democrat Party site which the great author of Common Sense would bitterly denounce if he were alive today. And then there was the so-called "RockTheVote.com" scam which seemed 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 and a non-partisan stance, it clearly supported statist causes in its "Issues" section, and the groups it recommended in its links page tended to be pro-Democrat. The people running the show at Rock the Vote were clearly pro-Democrat. In 2000 when their man Albert Gore lost to Bush, Rock The Vote suddenly called off its much pre-publicized election victory party. It was shilling for the Dems all along, just as tompaine.com does.
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, for fraud and tampering with the mails) and his disciplined leftist cult followers.
Too many libertarians and 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 ultra-statist or purely partisan motivations of the left-wing activists (NION, ANSWER, etc.) also demonstrating on those issues. This does not benefit the libertarian cause. I prefer to use my limited resources working on issues (eliminating the death tax, deregulating energy, abolishing Section 8 housing subsidies, keeping taxes as low as possible, etc.) on which we have a reasonable chance of succeeding at the present time or near future -- instead of wasting my time trying to find common ground with the Far Left which opposes and denounces private ownership and respect for law, the foundations of a free society, at the outset and whose overall agenda is the most statist of all: a world socialist dictatorship.
Some prominent websites seem to be deliberately ignoring certain positions by steering their readers only to false extremes to choose from. For instance, neither the pacifist surrendercrat position of the ultra-isolationist "anti-war" clique nor the overly ambitious vision of a global U.S. Empire supposedly held 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 for our uncritical consumption and 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. But 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 blame-America-first conspiracy theories.
Some of our libertarian compatriots seem to look at the world through rose-colored glasses -- with naive wishful thinking about such regimes as Pyongyang and Beijing and Tehran instead of examining the geopolitical situation with sober realism. Based on that kind of outlook (which may be a crude rationalization in order to deny any need for supporting a strong military defense made possible by a national government) some would push for unilateral disarmament or chronic acts of appeasement of hostile regimes on the belief that such a policy will mellow our opponents in the world. This is precisely the attitude which invites attacks based on miscalculaiton by our enemies and makes war unavoidable. It is not the way to avoid war or attack.
The international reactionary left-wing cults of communism and islamofascism and sham environmentalism ("eco-fascism") remain powerful enemies of America, capitalism, and individual fredom. To pretend not to see the growing threat of Red Chinese imperialism on the grounds that trade with the Chinese people will mellow their political regime ignores the lessons of history. We have less tyranny (and relatively more freedom) on net in the world today because of the existence of a strong U.S. military capability, even though it is a pall on our society (though nowhere near the cost imposed by our welfare-state programs). Those who join the Democrat chorus of constantly condemning and demeaning the American military are helping to encourage our enemies in the world and make attack on us and war more likely, not less likely. Freedom is not free -- not in a world of envious, rutthless regimes supported by socialist and other anti-individualist ideologies. We must do what we can to make our own country much less statist, but we must also not ignore the even more statist forces of tyrannical regimes and terrorist gangs in the world.
~Eddie* * *
The Partisan Double Standards of the Disdainful Elitist Democratsby Ed Lasky
(from AmericanThinker.com)Senator Robert Byrd's previous occupation as a butcher never seems to come up when the press describes his history. It seems that mundane occupational histories of politicians matter only when they are Republicans. This is a method employed by the liberal media to demean Republicans, implicitly characterizing them as being made of "lesser stuff" and to disparage their intellectual abilities.
For example, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's career as a wrestling coach is routinely brought up, since jocks are probably a lesser caste in the Washington D.C. pecking order. That his well-honed talent for inspiring his troops and creating a sense of teamwork are skills undoubtedly enhanced by his teaching history matters not at all. The media similarly depicts Majority Leader Tom DeLay as a former exterminator. His nickname, the Hammer, subtly implies a view of him as a destroyer, and this merits frequent mention.
In ways both subtle and overt, the Democrats and their press allies hold up as objects of derision those Republicans who have actually worked with their hands, or even those who plied their skills in professions which do not require a graduate degree. The American dream of self-starters rising to prominence is part of the legendary appeal of America. But the media refuse to celebrate these stories as worthy of emulation when they are accomplished by Republicans.
To read this excellent article in its entirety
* * *
Durbin and the Democrats:
A Shameful Embarrassment for Americans"This Durbin thing is not inconsequential. Durbin didn't just insult Republicans. He insulted the military. He insulted the whole country, and I don't think he should apologize, and I'm not in a contest here to see, you know, who does it better, who does it right, who plays hardball the best. I'm just showing people. It's all I'm trying to do here. I'm not suggesting that people don't accept his apology. I could care less if people do or don't. I don't, because I don't think he means the apology. I think he means what he said so his apology to me is irrelevant. " ~Rush Limbaugh
U.S. Soldier Basic Training is Much Worse than Prisoner Treatment at Club Gitmo! by George H. Witman
JUNE 22, 2005
LOTT WAS FORCED TO STEP DOWN; WHY NOT DURBIN?
"When Sen. Trent Lott made a far less damaging, but still deplorable, statement two and a half years ago, his fellow Republicans insisted he step down as their leader. Shouldn't Democrats insist that Sen. Durbin [who last week compared the actions of U.S. service personnel to Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot] step down as their whip, the number two man in their leadership? Shouldn't conservatives (and liberals) legitimately ask Democrats to hold their leader to account, especially given the precedent of Lott?"
- Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard.
Time For Unanimous Outrage At Durbin By: David LimbaughFormer Attorney-General Bill Barr Slams Anti-Gitmo Charges
Streaming Audio from a Recent Interview with Talk Show Mistress Laura Ingraham* * *
Debunking Another Gitmo MythBy: Michelle Malkin
Newsweek. Amnesty International. Jimmy Carter. Dick Durbin. The Guantanamo Bay-bashing continues.
In a rant published Tuesday, the Minnesota Star Tribune actually castigated Durbin for "caving in" on his slanderous remarks comparing U.S. treatment of detainees at Gitmo to torture and genocide by Nazis, Soviets and Pol Pot. The paper wrote that Durbin shouldn't have apologized and decried the entire operation as a "hellhole."
Continue reading "Debunking Another Gitmo Myth"
* * *
JUNE 20, 2005Downing Street Memogate is Bogus
Another Fraudulent Anti-Bush Conspiracy Theory
Bites the Dustbin of History"Bloggers" (independent news investigators) again expose another anti-Bush memo scandal to be bogus!
Downing Street "Originals" Conveniently Destroyed by Carl Limbacher
OTHER ITEMS
CIA's Goss: We Can't Get to Bin Laden
Sounds as if he knows that bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan, but we can't send in our guys to get him because we want to get cooperation from the Pakistani regime on other fronts so we are trying to avoid invading Pakistan's territory. . . . but one wonders how much real cooperation we are getting from Pakistan if its government is knowingly harboring bin Laden.Stepping Up the Propaganda Pressure on the Global Warming "Crisis"
The Chicken Little lobby is making a big fuss with an all-out, last-ditch effort by global warming alarmists to find any excuse to compel the US Government to take action. Just what we don't need!Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media by Dr. Patrick J. Michaels
Rebuts the global warming hysteria.Julian Simon Would Be Proud By Jack Rafuse
A review of the new myth-busting book on energy by Peter W. Huber and Mark P. Mills!Media Blackout as Cheney Blasts Durbin
House Passes Bill to Slash American Taxpayer Funds to U.N.
Well, it is a step in the right direction, I guess. Better yet: get U.S. out of U.N. altogether!Leading Brain Doctor Challenges Schiavo Autopsy Conclusions As Flawed I doubt the mainstream media will carry this story.
China's Space Espionage against the U.S. byCharles R. Smith
Are the Democrats the Party of Anti-Semitism? by John L. Perry
SENATE DEMS AGAIN BLOCK
UP-OR-DOWN VOTE
ON BOLTON NOMINATIONBush Faces Decision on Bolton UN Nomination
JUNE 17, 2005
House Panel Cuts Public Broadcasting Subsidy
Hooray for the House of Reps -- but PBS should not get even a single cent of taxpayer money!The Myth of "Neocon" Supremacy and U.S. Global Imperialism
China Closing Military Gap with U.S.
Classified Report Reveals Analysts Missed Chinese Military Buildup by Bill Gertz
More U.S. Intelligence failures coming to light .Two PETA Employees Arrested on Animal Cruelty Charges
JUNE 16, 2005
DEMOCRAT LEADER COMPARES GITMO
TO THE DEATH CAMPS OF HITLER & STALIN!
SEEN AS OVER-THE-TOP ANTI-BUSH PARTISAN RHETORICThe Democrats want to make the United States the bad guy as long as George Bush or any other non-Democrat is in the White House. Politics as usual. The Democrat National Committee and other Far Left groups tend to blame all the evils in the world, real or alleged, on American capitalism and White middle-class greed as a general rule, but as long as the current non-Democrat is in the White House, Bush also becomes their main scapegoat. In the meantime, two of the very best things that ever happened to the world have been American capitalism and its traditionally thrifty and productive Middle Class, a segment of the population that has come under increasing attacks by leftists who sneer at such "bourgeois" values as respecting the property rights of others, respect for law and constitution, productivity, saving and careful investment, the peaceful pursuit of one's rational self-interest, punctuality, the "work ethic," general civility, and the honoring of study and learning. "White Man's Values"? Maybe so, but they apply to anyone of whatever race or ethnicity who wants a prosperous and peaceful community. These are the virtues and values which are under attack by domestic leftists, such as those leading Durbin's party, environmental extremists, and the Islamo-fascist terrorists who, like the international Left and the eco-fascists, are part of that same reactionary "anti-industrial revolution" which Ayn Rand warned Americans about many deacdes ago. ~Eddie
Durbin, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Calls Guantanamo Bay Prison for Terrorists a "Death Camp"!
White House Castigates Durbin for Remarks as "Reprehensible"
Losing Their Heads Over GITMO by Ann Coulter
The Man Behind the Attacks on "Gitmo" by Rocco DiPippo
Coddling the Enemy by David Limbaugh
HOW TO GET A TERRORIST TO SING LIKE A CANARY WITHOUT TORTURE by Dr. Jack Wheeler
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
SCHIAVO AUTOPSY REPORT
SHOWS BRAIN SEVERELY WITHERED
Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner
Jon Thogmartin at news conference
yesterday (Photo: David Nee)"This [brain] damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons," said Jon Thogmartin at a news conference yesterday. Those who took Miachael Schiavo's side in the controversy are almost gleefully seizing on the autopsy conclusions as proof that they were right all along. But the autopsy report still left some important questions unanswered. For example, while the report indicated that the brain atrophy was consistent with a possible "persistent vegetative state" it admitted the results could not prove that Terri Schindler Schiavo had been in such a state before being starved and dehydrated. There are after all limitations in what a medical examination can determine. The report also indicated the autopsy could not find evidence of trauma before Terri's fall -- a conclusion that the family is challenging. For those who suspect there may be something strange about this autopsy report, check out the article from The Empire Jouranl on the link below.
At any rate, those who believe that the autopsy report will put an end to the controversy are just kidding themselves. Later this month, former LAPD homicide detective Mark Fuhrman will publish his book Silent Witness: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death -- the result of a great deal of detailed research of original documents and personal interviews with forensics experts and crucial witnesses, including friends, family members, and caregivers -- and it will reveal important background facts about the state of the Schiavo marriage, what happened the day Terri collapsed, what medical records show when she was first admitted to the hospital, and what an autopsy can and cannot determine. But the grim disagreement will continue.
"Autopsy on the Schiavo Tragedy" New York Times Editorial
Autopsy Report Does Not Sway Terri's Parents
Autopsy Findings Don't Justify "Cruel Death" say Religious Leaders
Schiavo Autopsy Based on Medical Records From Husband's Attorney --The Empire Journal
See also my article on the Schiavo case
* * * * * * * * * *
TO THE HORROR OF LEFT-LIBERALS,
LIBERTARIAN JANICE ROGERS BROWN
UNDERSTANDS THE TYRANNY
OF THE WELFARE STATE!Janice Rogers Brown Nails the Marxists
by Phil BrennanGoodness gracious, she dared say it and the New York Times – the voice of collectivism in the U.S. – and all its Marxist allies are aghast. An appointee to the federal judiciary, no less, dared to describe the New Deal for what it was: a socialist revolution.
For this egregious offense she must be pilloried and cast into the outer darkness inhabited by those who offend the mighty Times, whose omniscience must never be questioned and before whom all right-thinking Americans must cower in humble obeisance.
In retribution for her lese majeste, Justice Janice Rogers Brown – now, by the grace of God, President Bush and a small majority of United States senators, a member of the Federal Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia – has been subjected to a campaign of slander and misrepresentation by the Times and a motley crew of Marxist groups fearful that Justice Brown and her like-minded colleagues will work to undo decades of judicial misrule they aided and abetted.
In October 2003, when Justice Brown was first nominated by President Bush, the Times went berserk, writing that "of the many unworthy judicial nominees President Bush has put forward, Janice Rogers Brown is among the very worst."
The daughter of a black sharecropper in the deep South is, in the Times' view, "an archconservative justice on the California Supreme Court, [who] "has declared war on the mainstream [read Marxist] legal values" the Blue State Times in its deep understanding of our Red State values tells us "most Americans hold dear."
Shockingly, Janice Rogers Brown lets "ideology be her guide in deciding cases and has "made it clear in her public pronouncements how extreme her views are." To wit: She "attacked the New Deal, which gave us Social Security and other programs now central to American life, as 'the triumph of our socialist revolution.'"
Writing in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, columnist Colin McNickle took a look at a recent Times story by one David D. Kirkpatrick about Justice Brown mockingly headlined "Seeing slavery in liberalism."
McNickle noted that the Times quoted Brown as remarking:
"In the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery."
"We no longer find slavery abhorrent. We embrace it."
"If we can invoke no ultimate limits on the power of government, a democracy is inevitably transformed into a kleptocracy – a license to steal, a warrant for oppression."
Wrote McNickle, "In the first two quotes, Rogers Brown obviously is talking about how liberal social policies foster not independence but dependence and how they usually have the exact opposite effect of their promoter's 'beneficent' purposes.
"In the third quote, she's obviously talking about government as a maniacal Leviathan, and a leviathan with no constitutional warrant for most of what it does.
"Yet, Kirkpatrick quickly notes, these are precepts that liberals cited as examples of Rogers Brown's 'extremism.'
"How instructive. How sad. How frightening. Some of the fundamental building blocks of our constitutional republic are considered 'extreme' by Democrats and their liberal moneybags."
McNickle goes on to provide more extensive quotes, supplied by one William Anderson, "that had turned apoplectic the 'progressives' (i.e., socialists) at People for the American Way."
Said Brown:
"I have argued that collectivism was (and is) fundamentally incompatible with the vision that undergirded this country's founding. The New Deal, however, inoculated the federal Constitution with a kind of underground collectivist mentality. The Constitution itself was transmuted into a significantly different document."
"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit."
"Where government advances – and it advances relentlessly – freedom is imperiled; community impoverished; religion marginalized and civilization itself jeopardized. ... When did government cease to be a necessary evil and become a goody bag to solve our private problems?"
"Government acts as a giant siphon, extracting wealth, creating privilege and power, and redistributing it."
And, finally, the complete second slavery quote that was truncated by The Times:
"[W]e no longer find slavery abhorrent. We embrace it. We demand more. Big government is not just the opiate of the masses. It is the opiate. The drug of choice for multinational corporations and single moms; for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers and militant senior citizens."
Were James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and George Washington present to hear such words, they would have given Janice Rogers Brown a standing ovation. They would have been proud of what amounted to a ringing defense of the principles embedded in the Constitution they gave us – the document the Marxists realize that, as originally written, stands between them and the socialist government they want to impose on us.
Make no mistake about it, the issue of Janice Rogers Brown and her fellow constitutionalist jurists is the issue that America faces at this crucial moment in our history. It is not one of Republicans vs. Democrats, or so-called liberals vs. conservatives.
It is instead a matter of constitutional freedom vs. Marxist oppression. There is no longer a national Democratic Party dedicated to the preservation of the liberties guaranteed to all Americans by the Constitution as written by our Founding Fathers. In its place is the National Democrat Socialist Abortion Party (NSDAP) – a party now dominated by the modern-day disciples of Karl Marx and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (aka Nicolai Lenin) and devotees of some of the methods of Joseph Vissarionovitch Djugashvili (aka Josef Stalin), such as lying about and slandering opponents and distorting their programs and issues.
(Stalin would have roared approval of the NSDAP's slanderous attacks on John Bolton.)
The whole agenda of the NSDAP is a socialist agenda, one to which Karl Marx and his allies would give a standing ovation were they to attend a gathering of the near-manic Deaniacs who today dominate the party.
Americans need to be alarmed about this. Over the past couple of centuries tens of millions of our fellow humans have been murdered in the name of socialism. In the Soviet Union, National Socialist (Nazi) Germany, Cuba and China, the firing squads were kept busy building workers' paradises. Socialism by its very nature is coercive – people don't willingly surrender their God-given liberties to dictatorial states. In the name of "social justice" they must be forced to obey Big Brother.
As the old joke told by the inmates of the Soviet workers' paradise went, "Under Socialism you will all eat strawberries and cream." To those who protested that they did not want to eat strawberries and cream, the response was "You will eat strawberries and cream and like it. Or else."
Janice Rogers Brown recognizes the deadly toxicity of socialism's diet of strawberries and cream and its caterers, such as the New York Times, who despise and fear her for her faithfulness to the magnificent vision of the Founding Fathers and the liberties they bequeathed us.
* * * * * *
Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He can be reached at phil@newsmax.com* * * * * * * * * *
"POSTAL REFORM"WHAT EVERY CONSERVATIVE NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT "POSTAL REFORM" (H.R. 22)
by Representatives Mike Pence, Jeb Hensarling, and Jeff Flake"All Carrot, No Stick"
The number one problem facing the United States Postal Service (USPS) is a complete inability to control costs. Labor costs consume 80% of USPS' revenue whereas UPS and FedEx spend only 56% and 42% of their revenues on labor. USPS is currently providing its workers roughly $870 million more in benefits than federal workers receive as a result of lucrative health and life insurance benefits. And a postal worker in Anchorage, Alaska receives the same salary as his counterpart in New York City despite different cost-of-living expenses.
* H.R. 22 contains none of the main collective bargaining proposals offered by the President's Commission to reduce USPS' long-term unfunded pension and healthcare liabilities or to bring USPS salaries in line with the private sector.
* H.R. 22 contains none of the reforms offered by the Commission to establish a BRAC-style process to consolidate and shut-down facilities that lose money. Half of all such facilities lose money.
* H.R. 22 includes a cap on postage rate increases that will not work. CBO states that USPS will "increase rates...more frequently than under current law, but by smaller increments." In addition, the cap could be blown if such an increase were "reasonable and equitable and necessary" for the continuation of services. Such a cap hardly equips USPS with the tools to control costs and renegotiate its labor contracts.
* H.R. 22 does include some modest financial transparency reforms, requested by the Administration. These "sunshine" provisions improve current law and begin to give lawmakers the proper tools to appraise USPS' assets.
"The Bailout"
In 1970, the fundamental principle of postal reform was that USPS would become a self-financed entity, taking on both the system's assets and its liabilities. In short, USPS was supposed to pay its way. In 2003, Congress decided that USPS had "overpaid" its Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) costs, meaning that it would overpay its pension obligations at its current contribution rate at a later date. Rather than let USPS spend the money retained from reduced contributions, an escrow account within the U.S. Treasury was established until a further assessment could be made of USPS long-term responsibilities.
* H.R. 22 releases the escrow account for the USPS to pre-fund its substantial health care liabilities that otherwise U.S. taxpayers must pay. This is a sound use of the escrow account funds, but it is not complete. Only 2/3rds of the escrow funds contributes to the health care liabilities, letting the rest flow to USPS.
* H.R. 22 then shifts responsibility for paying the military service credits of USPS employees to the U.S. Treasury at a cost of nearly $12 billion. While taxpayers typically pick up such costs for federal agencies, USPS is supposed to pay such costs so as to not benefit from an unfair labor subsidy. The issue is not the merits of this subsidy, but rather who should bear its cost. For example, as a self-financed entity, the Patent and Trademark Office now pays for these credits for its employees.
* This burden transforms H.R. 22 from a bill that takes a sound first step toward addressing USPS' long-term liabilities, with few other real reforms, into a bailout of the Postal Service.
* H.R. 22 represents the second bailout in the span of four years. When Congress established the escrow account two years ago, the legislation enacted (P.L. 108-18) cost taxpayers $7.1 billion in the name of reforms and reducing future rate increases.
* Proponents of H.R. 22 argue that a significant increase in postage costs, through a so-called "stamp tax," will cause a death spiral with more mailers leaving the system, forcing higher postage rates, and a larger bailout. According to Treasury Department testimony: "The reality is that any additional financial requirements of the Postal Service can be directly attributed to its inability to sufficiently reduce its costs since 2002, which is the date of the last rate increase." A bailout to stop a bailout is hardly a sound strategy.
"Bottom Line"
In its present form, H.R. 22 constitutes yet another bailout of the Postal Service without enough reform to represent a good deal for American taxpayers. Conservatives can do far better by embracing real postal reform.
JUNE 15, 2005 VICTORY AGAINST U.N. GLOBALIST TAX!
Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul's amendment to prevent the U.N. from placing a direct tax on U.S. citizens in order to fund its corrupt socialist agenda was endorsed by the U.S. House of Representatives today -- signaling a victory for those who oppose political globalism and who support American sovereign independence. The Founding Fathers are smiling tonight."Blocking the U.N. push for a global tax is a crippling blow to the world-government agenda," says Kent Snyder, spokesman for the Liberty Committee. "More battles lie immediately ahead, perhaps only hours away. The Ron Paul amendment to withdraw from the U.N. is coming up next. Momentum is with us. Send your message urging your U.S. representative to support the Paul amendment that would get the U.S. out of the U.N."
Again, as I've pointed out before, this is another indication that the House of Representatives is leaning much more in the right direction from a libertarian perspective than the liberal elitist U.S. Senate.
The game is not fixed at the top, as some copouts have alleged. If enough good Americans make their positions known to their representatives, evil can be thwarted and good things can happen.
To send your message of support for Rep. Paul's bill to safeguard U.S. sovereignty, go to
http://capwiz.com/liberty/issues/alert/?alertid=7719766&type=CO* * * Italians Having Second Thoughts about Euro, May Return to Lira
More bad news for socialist One Worlders!JUNE 14, 2005 Get the U.S. Out of the UN and the UN Out of the U.S.! by Kent Snyder
The Liberty Committee"I think the United Nations is dangerous to our republic and therefore we ought not to participate." -- Congressman Ron Paul
"I see the United Nations as having very little value to us for our interests." -- Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey
"What I don't like about the United Nations is that while the average taxpayer is out there working hard, the U.N. people are out there enjoying American tax dollars and just nibbling away at American freedom." -- Congressman Jack Kingston
Agreed! It's time for the U.S. to get out of the U.N.!
Tonight or tomorrow morning, Congressman Ron Paul will offer his H.R. 1146 – The American Sovereignty Restoration Act as an amendment to the Science, State, Justice, Commerce Appropriations Act of 2006. H.R. 1146 ends membership of the United States in the United Nations.
Our opportunity is at hand. We say "no" to a global tax. We must say "no" to the United Nations itself! Urge your U.S. representative to vote in favor of the Paul amendment that would get the U.S. out of the U.N. There's not much time to act.
Send an e-mail message:
http://capwiz.com/liberty/issues/alert/?alertid=7719766&type=COCapitol switchboard: 202-224-3121.
Please ask others to help with this effort.
UN Corruption: Don't mend it. End it! say Libertarians * * *
* * *
Conservatives, ACLU Oppose Extending Patriot Act
"Conservative groups have found common ground with the liberal American Civil Liberties Union in their opposition to the USA Patriot Act and pledge to wage a high-profile fight against it, claiming even its renewal is shrouded in secrecy." -- Washington Times
Most Americans acquiesced to the passage of the "U.S.A. Patriot Act" following the attacks of 9/11/01 as a necessary but temporary measure for the government to combat terrorism in order to protect the lives and properties of Americans. Some of the more controversial provisions are set to expire automatically unless renewed by Congress. But it is very reasonable for patriotic American citizens to question and challenge the alleged continued need. Filled with all sorts of "pork" in the name of fighting terrorism (in order to get Congress to pass it in the first place), the "Patriot Act" is at least potentially very dangerous to the rights of peaceful Americans who have nothing to do with terrorism -- especially if Hillary Clinton or some other draconian ultrastatist ever manages to get into power. (Hillary Clinton is believed by many to have used classified FBI files during her time in the White House to blackmail some members of Congress. Some even suggest that she continues to do so, especially certain U.S. Senators. One can only imagine what she could do to her political enemies if she became President with the Patriot Act still in full force.)
President Bush says he still needs the Patriot Act to continue to fight terrorism. Perhaps, but if the administration is really concerned about protecting the nation's security, then why isn't more being done seriously to control entry into the U.S. at the nation's borders? We know that some terrorists have already sneaked into this country by illegally crossing the border. Securing the borders is a proper, valid function of the national government -- and one that has been neglected for some time. It can be done. The private group known as the Minutemen has proved that guarding the border is practicable. With enough border guards and sufficient auxiliary resources, the border can be secured from illegal entry until a non-porous fence can be completed. In view of the President's lack of credibility on the border issue, many Americans question the need to continue giving to government controversial powers which can always be abused by careless or corrupt officials. We must always remember Lord Acton's warning, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
JUNE 12, 2005 Analyzing Recent Judicial News in Terms of
The Implications for Limited Government and
Strict Constructionism
by Paul JacobWant a depressing read, hot for summer? Try Justice John Paul Stevens's decision in Gonzales v. Raich. In that long document, the majority of the Supreme Court ruled against voter-enacted, state-defended medical marijuana and came down four-square for the dangerous, twisted, modern reading of our Constitution's Commerce Clause.Want a more upbeat read, instead? Try any newspaper account of Wednesday's Senate confirmation of judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. After fended-off threats of filibuster — and the "nuclear option" to get around the filibuster — the deed is finally done.
The two stories are connected, and not just because they deal with the judiciary. The connecting issue is limited government and the strict construction of the Constitution. Though the majority court came down against both notions, the minority did not. And Ms. Brown, now closer to a spot on the nation's highest court, would almost certainly side with the minority and against the federal government. Which brings me to my question:
Upon which side will conservatives and Republicans ultimately weigh in? Unlimited federal regulatory power, or state prerogatives and a federal government of enumerated (and thus limited) power?
Commerce Claws
At issue in Gonzales v. Raich was whether the state of California could, in effect, nullify federal law regarding a few citizens' use of a once commonly grown plant, hemp (cannabis, marijuana) according to criteria put into law by a voter-enacted initiative, Proposition 215, and later codified as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. The idea was simple: enable seriously ill people to use the drug for medical purposes. To do this, doctors were exempted from criminal prosecution for prescribing the drug, and patients and primary caregivers were exempted from prosecution for cultivating and possessing the drug. The Supreme Court held that the Constitution's Commerce Clause did indeed grant Congress the authority to prohibit any cultivation and use of marijuana, even so far as to trump California law.
In his majority decision, Justice Stevens restates the worst elements of modern jurisprudence. Even if an activity is local and may not be regarded as commerce, "it may still," says the Court, "whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce." Of course, "substantial" does not mean what an economist might expect it to mean — that is, that if producing the good in question would then change the general price level for that good in some other state. Nope. Nothing as common-sensical as that. Any conceivable effect counts as "substantial." And, with this hyper-loose interpretation of the Commerce Clause, Congress may do pretty much anything.
There's nothing new here, of course. Ever since the court backed FDR's insane agricultural policy on the grounds of the Commerce Clause, our federal government has operated without much of a limit.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor — along with fellow-Republican appointees William H. Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas — dissented from the decision. She wrote that though the effect of California's law on interstate commerce in marijuana was "plausible," she did not think the case had been substantiated. Stevens dismisses her argument. The fact that "the national and international narcotics trade has thrived in the face of vigorous criminal enforcement efforts suggests that no small number of unscrupulous people will make use of the California exemptions to serve their commercial ends whenever it is feasible to do so." In other words, the majority court presumes that some marijuana users who by law cultivate marijuana will disobey the law and grow more than legal, and that the mere existence of guilty persons nullifies the rights of innocent persons.
Bye-bye, innocent until proven guilty.
Unsurprisingly, the majority Court was not particularly interested in the medical details. "We have never required Congress to legislate with scientific exactitude. When Congress decides that the 'total incidence' of a practice poses a threat to a national market, it may regulate the entire class." Down to the last dying cancer patient, apparently.
Reasonable Dissent
If manna were to fall from the heavens, and were it to possess an intense psychoactive effect, our government would still try to prohibit it under the rubric of "the war on drugs." This war is not in essence about commerce. It's not truck and barter and price levels that concerns drug warriors. It's the fact that some people are getting hedonistic pleasure and doing themselves varying degrees of harm in the process. If manna were the source of such dangerous pleasures, the government would make it illegal to pluck if off the ground.
You know it, I know it, and our judges know it. But, because the "Commerce Clause" of the Constitution gives the federal government its slimmest of excuses to regulate drug use, that's how it's done. We live in a strange world. It's as if our leaders were on drugs.
Not everyone agrees with the status quo excuses, of course. Sandra Day O'Connor still holds to something like the original view of the Constitution:
Relying on Congress' abstract assertions, the Court has endorsed making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use. This overreaching stifles an express choice by some States, concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to regulate medical marijuana differently. If I were a California citizen, I would not have voted for the medical marijuana ballot initiative; if I were a California legislator I would not have supported the Compassionate Use Act. But whatever the wisdom of California's experiment with medical marijuana, the federalism principles that have driven our Commerce Clause cases require that room for experiment be protected in this case.
Justice Thomas, in his separate dissent, goes further:Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything — and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.
Thomas continues in this vein, referencing his own past concurring decisions, "founding-era dictionaries, Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention, The Federalist Papers, and the ratification debates" . . . as well as a scholarly article entitled "The Original Meaning of the Commerce Clause." He clearly explains that California's medical marijuana law created a separate class of users and growers — none commercial, by the founders' own language. And then he gets to a killer argument: "We normally presume that States enforce their own laws . . . and there is no reason to depart from that presumption here: Nothing suggests that California's controls are ineffective." And in light of this, state's law should, by good federalist principles, trump the federal government's apparent "interest" in prosecuting every marijuana user and grower, no matter what.
Though commerce really isn't the issue, power and rights are, as Thomas suggests: "Congress presented no evidence in support of its conclusions, which are not so much findings of fact as assertions of power."
Justice Stevens worries about the "sweeping implications" of Thomas's argument. Why, by Thomas's rationale, "any federal regulation (including quality, prescription, or quantity controls) of any locally cultivated and possessed controlled substance for any purpose" might be rendered null and void. How shocking. And how unsurprising to note that Stevens worries not at all about the sweeping implications of an unlimited federal government. (As I often remark in my Common Sense e-letter, America's traditional ideal of limited government has been all but forgotten by those in power.)
At Odds
It's one thing to talk a good game about federalism and limited government, but another to stick to principles. George W. Bush, when first running for national office, came out for states' rights to regulate medical marijuana separate from the federal government. But as president he turned his back on this position, unleashing John Ashcroft not only to fight the war on drugs, but also extending the war to trample state prerogatives.
And yet, he did nominate Judge Brown to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
There is a tension here. On the one hand, Judge Brown supports a decentralist, limited-government view of the Constitution; on the other, the war on drugs, particularly in its trumping of state medical marijuana law, abandons any notion of limited powers, and in no ways supports state rights.
Monday's decision on medical marijuana shows a split among conservatives on the court — and outside the court — allowing federal power to continue without any meaningful limit. Yet, the confirmation of Judge Brown, to a traditional jumping-off point to the Supreme Court, gives hope that the federal government can someday be brought back under constitutional limits.
Paul Jacob is Senior Fellow at Americans for Limited Government. His daily Common Sense commentary appears on the Web, and on radio stations across America.
JUNE 10, 2005 LIBERTARIAN WALTER E. WILLIAMS
TAKES OVER RUSH LIMBAUGH TALK SHOWAs he has done on several occasions over the past few years, free-market economist Walter E. Williams of George Mason University took over the Golden EIB microphone and guest hosted Rush Limbaugh's radio talk program for the full three hours on Friday. He started off using facts and logic to dissect some of the fallacies in a recent column by liberal New York Times pundit Paul Krugman. Exposing tens of millions of listeners to the pure oxygen perspective of laissez-faire constitutional republicanism, the folksy, plain-spoken economics professor and syndicated columnist clearly explained in uncompromising terms the pro-freedom answer to many issues and topics, including outsourcing and insourcing, the enormous debt of unfunded Social Security liabilities, the ideas of self-ownership and self-responsibility of peaceful adult citizens as opposed to government-mandated seat-belt use, aspects of air travel safety, elder care, welfare-state dependency, the immorality of the legal thievery involved in taxation and government transfer programs, how coercive government assistance to the needy tends to drive out voluntary private charity, private property rights and anti-smoking laws, how to avoid poverty, the true history of slavery, and the rise of illegitimacy rates among Black Americans with the onset and growth of liberalism's Great Society programs.
"Black by popular demand," Williams handled questions and comments from many callers while making the case for the moral superiority of individual liberty for peaceful adult citizens and limited constitutional republics in which government is restricted in scope to policing criminals (violence and fraud) and securing the nation from external threats while not meddling in the private affairs and voluntary (market) relationships of peaceful adult citizens.
Dr. Williams topped off the show by devoting the third hour of his program to interviewing free-market economist and multidisciplinary scholar Thomas Sowell about his new book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, another myth-busting work which defies and refutes many of the "politically correct" dogma of the Establishment Liberal thought police.
Professor Williams is one of the most favorite guest hosts among Rush Limbaugh's receptive and respectful audience of over 20 million listeners. Could any other event expose more people to libertarian ideas in a single three-hour period?
* * *
AIRHEAD AMERICA -- A SOPORIFIC?
Guest EditorialThe following was submitted by a conservative friend of mine in the entertainment industry (i.e., "Hollywood"). Yes, it's true: thespians aren't all liberal left-wing air heads!
At last, a cure for insomnia that will put you to sleep really quick! I tuned in to the first Al Franken show on Sundance channel. Yes, I apparently do have masochistic tendencies. What else could possibly explain why I would waste my time watching this total bore of a show?
They actually videotape Franken's radio show. This way we get to watch an actual radio show replayed.
Franken has an extreme case of personality deprivation. I do have to give him credit though for having a lot of courage to actually think that people are going to find his material entertaining. Fortunately, I tevo'd the show so I would only waste forty minutes instead of sixty on the show.
I confess that curiosity got the better of me and I had to tune in to this train wreck of a program. This type of thing can only exist via the subsidy method of broadcasting. It's on twice a day no less! If you miss the first show, you can always go back for a second try at your insomnia. Ha, ha! Once was enough for me to last a lifetime.
I do confess that I even watched Bill Moyers on PBS, just to hear what he had to say. I think I get inspired by listening to the Left and then having to figure out the best response to their nonsense.
Curmudgeon Corner
The CurmudgeJUNE 9, 2005 PRYOR'S NOMINATION IS CONFIRMED
Senate Approves Pryor for Federal Appeals CourtJUNE 8, 2005 JANICE ROGERS BROWN CONFIRMED!
FIRST "LIBERTARIAN" ON FEDERAL APPEALS COURT
(IT'S ABOUT TIME!)The Senate on Wednesday confirmed California judge Janice Rogers Brown for the federal appeals court, ending a two-year battle.Conservatives and libertarians should keep in mind that this would never have happened if Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, or any other Democrat were President today. "Not a dime's worth of difference"???
The Senate voted 56-43 to confirm Brown to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and 67-32 to end the filibuster of Pryor's nomination to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — the last of the three nominees Democrats agreed to clear in exchange for Republicans not banning judicial filibusters. Senate Leader Frist says he never supported the "agreement" made among seven Democrats and seven weak Republicans so it is hoped he will not feel bound by it and will use the constitutional option (called by Dems the "nuclear option" as a scare tactic) if Democrats again try to filibuster judicial nominees, a practice begun when Tom Daschle was Majority Leader early in Bush's first term.
The Senate quickly followed by ending another long-term filibuster, clearing the way for a vote Thursday on former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor as outlined in an agreement last month that averted a showdown that some claim could have brought Senate action to a halt.
President Bush commended the Senate for voting to confirm Brown. "During her tenure on the California Supreme Court and California Court of Appeal, Justice Brown has distinguished herself as a brilliant and fair-minded jurist who is committed to the rule of law," Bush said in a statement.
Brown's Far-Left Democrat critics, such as Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, and Ted Kennedy, have blocked Brown's nomination for over two years, desperate to keep a conservative black woman from getting a seat of power inside the federal judiciary. Brown becomes only the second black woman on the D.C. court, which decides important government cases involving separation of powers and the authority of federal agencies.
JUNE 7, 2005 HIGH COURT RULES AGAINST
INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND STATES RIGHTS"The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on medical marijuana gives new meaning to the term 'high court.' The decision was as loopy as the crowd at a Grateful Dead show. One does not have to be in favor of legalizing marijuana to lament the decision. Marijuana was not really the issue. States' rights were."- New Hampshire Union-Leader editorialABANDONING ANY PRETENSE OF MODERATION,
HILLARY LASHES OUT AT PRES. BUSH
AT HER SENATE RE-ELECTION FUND RAISER
Meanwhile, turn-the-other-cheek
Dubya invites Clintons to Kennebunkport!
See storyNew "Son of Star Wars" Missile Detection System Now Ready for Final Testing by Air Force
JUNE 6, 2005The Killing of Terri Schiavo, the Liberal News Networks,
Judicial Arrogance, and the Soul of Americaby Sam Wells
The Schiavo controversy divided America -- and divided the Right. It divided many within the Republican Party against each other, while most Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton, sat back in silence waiting to see which way the public opinion polls would go.
The Schiavo case brought to the forefront two mammoth concerns in our society: 1) the lack of credibility or reliability of the biased and highly partisan mainstream news media, and 2) the relative power of the federal judiciary within our political system today. These must be addressed and dealt with in a major way sooner or later. But these two major social issues should not obscure the specific details of the case which are in dispute -- and what the real controversy was about. As Mark Fuhrman and others have announced they are coming out with books on the Schiavo case, my hope is that the truth of the details involved will be made clear to the public -- facts and testimony which were not disclosed by the mainstream media. The controversy is not going away. The Terri Schiavo story is far from over.
I want to make it very clear that this disagreement about the very nature of the Schiavo case and even over the very facts involved is not one necessarily of ideology or religion. One can be -- as I am -- in favor of a person's right to commit suicide or even have assistance in that act (with appropriate legal safeguards to insure the actual will of the person is being followed and to avoid homicidal abuses), and yet still suspect foul play and judicial malpractice in this case.
My position is, and has been for some time, that a peaceful adult citizen owns himself -- he is not the property of society or the government -- and has a right, therefore, even to dispose of his own life if he so chooses. I can easily see this choice might be made by a person with a terminal illness and suffering great pain that, for him, would make his life no longer worth continuing. One may disagree with his choice, and even try to persuade him against it, but his right to make that choice should not be denied by the coercive interference of others. I have not changed my position.
There is a difference, however, between suicide and murder. And, as a libertarian, I maintain that one of the proper functions of political government is to try to prevent people from murdering other people if there is reason to believe that is happening, and -- after a murder has been determined to have taken place -- to investigate, arrest, prosecute, and punish those suspected of murder or other forms of initiatory coercion (broadly, violent crime or fraud). If a person is killed by another person without his or her consent, that is not suicide. It is very important, therefore, to ascertain the actual will of the person to avoid the "slippery slope" of homicide.
Many commentators, who had based their opinions on what was reported by the mainstream media only a few weeks or even days before Terri Schindler Schiavo died from court-ordered dehydration and starvation, apparently believed what was at issue in the situation was the philosophical or religious disagreement between those who are in favor of the right to die with dignity versus those who supposedly oppose that view, or between those who believe in euthanasia ("mercy killing") versus those who oppose euthanasia.
Others, including many who had followed this case for several months (or even years), and who did not accept the way the story was superficially reported by the news media when it finally "surfaced" into the general public's awareness in early 2005, saw the issue rather as one of strongly suspected spousal abuse and government-assisted homicide -- and dereliction of government officials to take necessary steps to insure that wrong doing was not taking place with the connivance of a probate judge.
Let me admit that there were certainly some "pro-life" and anti-euthanasia activists with their own agenda who sided with the Schindlers agaisnt Felos and Greer in this matter -- and the Democrat-controlled mainstream media has made much of that. But this should not cloud the issue of the disagreement over the facts of the case -- facts never re-examined after the first time with Judge Greer -- which Congress and the President requested the courts to do (and which they were in their constitutional authority to do as provided for in Article III of the U.S. Constitution).
The Schiavo case should not be seized upon as an illustration of a war between contrasting philosophies or between religion and secularism or between pro-life and anti-life partisans or even between those favoring euthanasia and those opposing it. Before anything else, the Schiavo controversy was a disagreement about the facts of the case and the care or lack thereof in determining them -- what was the actual state of the patient and was the decision of her husband and the courts a true reflection of her will -- and what were the circumstances leading up to all this? Is there evidence to suspect foul play?
The real argument, it seems to me, was between those who wanted to raise these valid questions and suspicions -- and those who wanted to sweep them under the rug and just go along with the establishment story of what was happening. I will try to illustrate what I mean by the disputed facts further down in this article.
But even more fundamental was the tacit conflict between those who accept uncritically as "fact" whatever the L.A. Times or the New York Times or CBS News or the major wire services report as news versus those of us who retain a cautious, if not skeptical, attitude toward anything and almost everything served up by the mainstream news media. There are those of us who, after many decades of careful observation of the biased reporting, distortions, omissions, and partisan spin of the establishment news media, do not accept at face value what is reported as "news" to be necessarily factual or truthfully accurate.
Often the mainstream "news" that is reported in a case is actually only one side's set of claims or biased view in a controversy in which other points of view, claims, and contrary evidence is covered up or simply ignored by journalists who either have an ideological ax to grind or who are simply too lazy to ferret out the truth or at least other versions of the story being covered. This has been going on for at least five decades. But, for the most part, the major media -- dominated by left-leaning "liberal" Democrats and outright socialists with Marxist agendas -- have in the past got away with its biased reporting and retained some level of credibility among the general public (especially among those who get their news primarily from watching TV) because alternative points of view were seldom considered, much less followed up on, investigated, and reported.
Many people knew or at least suspected that the news they got from TV networks and the NY Times was highly cooked and massaged to fit Liberal Establishment ideological tastes, and some of this was confirmed over the years by such books as The Left Leaning Antenna by Joseph Keeley, The News Twisters by Edith Efron and How CBS Tried to Kill a Book by Edith Efron, All the News That Fits by Herman Dinsmore, Journalistic Fraud by Bob Kohn, Weapons of Mass Distortion by L. Brent Bozell, and the more recent works by Bernard Goldberg, Ann Coulter and others. The depths of liberal dishonesty, vindictiveness and hate-mongering against conservatives and libertarians that have been uncovered in the media shock even the most experienced and jaded political observers. So there has been abundant proof and detailed documentation of pro-Democrat and even reactionary left-wing bias in the mainstream news business for decades.
But it was not until the growth of national talk radio and the Internet's World Wide Web that we saw not only the editorial opinions but even the alleged "facts" reported to us by establishment media sources come under serious scrutiny and challenge. If it had not been for astute "bloggers" -- and talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh -- we might never have known about the Dan Rather / Sixty Minutes scandal of using fake documents and falsehoods by partisan Democrats from Texas in an attempt to discredit George W. Bush's military record in the Texas Air National Guard.
During the height of a presidential election campaign, Rather and his team of news story creators tried to show that Bush had been AWOL (away without leave) during his hitch -- but, it turned out that this media charge (instigated by partisan Democrats) was not true and that Bush always had the knowing permission of his superiors for the times he spent away from base. Had it not been for the bloggers, talk radio, and Fox News (more fair and balanced at least than the other TV networks), CBS and Dan Rather might never have been caught doing this. They would have got away with it -- and the election results might have been different as a result. That was the obvious intent, after all.
The establishment media's failure to seriously investigate or even question John Kerry's claims about his post-Vietnam anti-war activities and his claims about having been in Cambodia was another example of partisan bias which alternative media such as the Internet and talk radio uncovered and exposed. If it had not been for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and popular talk radio personalities and Internet reporters and columnists, the Democrat media would have been able to get away with covering up for their man Kerry during his campaign for the Oval Office.
Likewise, if it were not for independent news gathering and reporting venues, including such websites as captainsquartersblog.com, newsmax.com, theempirejournal.com, and worldnetdaily.com, it is unlikely that contrarian views and suspicions about what happened in the Schiavo case would be known at all outside a small circle of people directly involved.
The Schiavo case is a complex one and I do not intend to try to unpack it in any detail here. Books will be written and published about it by those who have done much more detailed investigation into the whole matter. It will probably be an issue in the 2006 congressional elections and probably also in the 2008 presidential campaign. The controversies involved won't go away with the death of Terri Schindler Schiavo. The story is far from over.
But let me hone in on only two points which were in dispute -- but which the establishment media did not report as being in any dispute at all: the constantly repeated claim that Terri was and had been for years in a "persistent vegetative state" and was on life support, and that she had told her husband that if she were ever in such a situation that she would prefer to die. The impression given was that the woman was totally unconscious and had no will of her own -- except the statement she had supposedly given her husband years before.
Given these superficial "facts" as a premise, many commentators, and even many libertarians and Objectivists, apparently jumped to the conclusion that the case was all about the right to choose to die with dignity rather than "live" only in a technical sense as a "vegetable" by highly artificial means. But was it?
There was testimony in sworn affidavits by nurses and other health professionals that Michael Schiavo's wife was not in a "persistive vegetative state" but could understand what was going on around her and sometimes even tried to speak. Some distinguished physicians even indicated she likely could have been rehabilitated to a great extent. She was reportedly able to swallow liquids and some soft foods. Independent observers and health care givers as well as family members have pointed out that Terri was responsive and communicative -- and certainly never comatose. These reports were ignored or played down in the mainstream press.
But even if all these folks were wrong, what about Terri's alleged expression of intent to die with dignity -- rather than be kept alive by "artificial" means? Does anyone really think she would have meant a feeding tube by such means or that she truly would have wanted to die by slow starvation and dehydration? Should we not be concerned about the fact that the judge in the case has relied on the sole word of an estranged husband who had two kids by a girlfriend who wished to marry him (something he could not do as long as his wife Terri remained alive)? Doesn't this constitute something of a conflict of interest for him to divine his wife's intent? Isn't it rather a bit strange that he only announced that she had communicated her alleged wishes seven years after the incident (allegedly a freak fall on the floor in which she hit her head) that caused her condition?
Terri's family long suspected her condition was the result of a violent act inflicted from her husband and not an accidental fall. Scans of Terri's head indicated physical trauma to the skull. Police never probed the case for evidence of assault because by the time the bone scan became public in 2002, the statute of limitations had supposedly elapsed.
Shouldn't it bother reasonable persons that some of Terri's nurses stated under oath that Michael had forbade any actions by them to rehabilitate Terri during a period when she was most thought to be amenable to improvement? What motive would these people have to lie about that?
Those talk show hosts, commentators, and journalists who only had the most superficial acquaintance with the case, mostly having followed it only in the last few days or (at most) final few weeks of Terri's life, did not "get it" when others, who had followed the situation closely for months or even years called "foul" and voiced suspicions of abuse and judicial malpractice. The Schiavo case and the circumstances surrounding it were too complex to be summed up in a simple sound bite with any accuracy or degree of certainty.
For some people, I strongly suspect there was a definite willingness and positive inclination to ignore the suspicious evidence and contrary opinions because they wanted to believe the situation was as it was portrayed in the media. There was an actual glee expressed by many at the death of Terri Schindler Schiavo. As I am not a psychologist, I will not try to analyze the mentality behind this attitude toward death and suffering.
Neither the wire services nor other organs of the mainstream media reported evidence of significant conflicts of interest involved in the suspicious Schiavo-Felos-Greer relationship. Basically, only the Michael Schiavo side of the story was reported.
There are so many differing indications and disputes over the facts (even concerning the actual state of the patient) in this case that raise valid suspicions -- or should raise suspicions in any thinking Americans who is less naive than Baby Snooks. With Felos on the board of the hospice and he and Schiavo and the former sheriff and Judge Greer all buddy-buddy with one another, and given Felos's murky background, there seems to be some potential conflicts of interest that should be investigated.
But the biased media were so busy trying to find something negative to report on the Schindlers -- with the connection that developed between the Schindlers and the Bible-thumpin' pro-life anti-euthanasia partisans -- that they ignored the odd connections on the Schiavo-Felos side which practically beg to be followed up on. I suspect some insurance fraud with Felos's hospice -- carrying Terri Schiavo officially on the books as a "terminal" patient even though she was not terminal and not even in a "persistent vegetative state" as the biased news media kept repeating. As several health care professionals have testified over the past ten years, Terri was able, albeit slowly, to swallow nutritious liquids and even soft foods such as Jell-O by mouth.
These and other points of testimony were left out of the questionnaires of the liberal media's public opinion polls which instead set poll questions up with the claim that Schiavo was in a "persistent vegetative state" and on "life support" -- conjuring up an image of someone technically dead already but kept alive by extraordinary machinery. Of course, this was not the case.
If nothing else, this case demonstrates that "slippery slope" which Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives have warned us about for years, and the importance of having sufficient legal safeguards surrounding euthanasia and assisted suicide -- neither of which I oppose as such or think should be against the law -- to avoid possible cases of spousal abuse or government-assisted homicide.
There are unscrupulous people out there and conflicts of interests can and do exist with corrupt lawyers and judges. I imagine the living will attorneys will benefit as their business increases. Here is one document which (I think) would have legal standing in most states and does not require lawyers to set up.
But because it was so highly politicized, especially in the last days of the patient's life, the Terri Schiavo "family dispute" became a national quarrel. Democrats seized on it as an opportunity to bash Republicans as being too much in bed with the "religious right" and those concerned with issues of right and wrong.
One of the few heroes in the Schiavo case is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. As a conservative Republican, he was a prime target for the DNC and its media allies. After trying to do the right thing in getting the facts reinvestigated and reviewed (despite public opinion polls indicating his action was unpopular) in the Schiavo controversy, Congressman Tom DeLay -- now facing more smears from the DNC and the media than ever before -- declared that the national legislators will turn their attention to long-needed judicial reform. I say hooray for Tom DeLay! It's about time. I hope he does not back down on that statement. I also wish the U.S. Senate had the kind of leadership DeLay represents in the House instead of the limp-Fristed lack-luster leadership the Senate currently has.
DeLay told reporters that Congress "will look at an arrogant and out-of-control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the President."
The Constitution does give Congress the power to assign and withdraw areas of jurisdiction and to rein in the judiciary when judges overstep their proper role. It's time for Senator Frist to join DeLay in restoring constitutional checks and balances against a runamok court system stacked with left-leaning judges.
I believe DeLay was actually trying to do the right thing (although politically unpopular) -- but the courts arrogantly ignored his fully Constitutional effort. I think DeLay should supported by libertarians and conservatives for taking the politically risky action while scheming politicians like Hillary Clinton sat back in silence and waited to see which way the public opinion wind would blow.
Many judges are pretty high-handed and substitute their personal opinions in the place of observance of the laws and the Constitution. Perhaps the ideal of the "rule of law" has degenerated into being ruled by corrupt lawyers. When that happens to a great extent, and enough people lose confidence in the courts altogether, then the stage is set for a social breakdown in law and order in which both liberty and justice are lost completely. For without a widespread respect for law, and people take the "law" into their own hands, the "rule of law" is replaced by the arbitrary whims of those in power. If that happens in the U.S., our country will degenerate into the same mess as any tin-horn Third World dictatorship.
So I applaud DeLay's announced attempt to reform the corrupt judiciary and rein it in after many decades of usurpation. Meanwhile, the establishment Democrat-controlled media mouthpieces are echoing the claims of the DNC that it was the Republicans who were trying to politicize the Schiavo case when actually just the reverse is true. I have heard newsreaders play -- as part of their newscasts -- audio clips of reactionary left-wing Senator Ted Kennedy attacking Congressman DeLay in what can only be described as a partisan political (pro-Democrat, anti-Republican) speech. This amounts to providing a free commercial to help the Democrats smear the Republicans in general and DeLay in particular -- with no contrary point of view included at all as part of the news story. Unfortunately, this is not unusual at all. The wire services have long been dominated by liberal Democrat partisans who write the news stories with the usual anti-GOP, pro-Dem spin.
Aside from the actual facts and suspicions in the case of the death of Terri Schiavo, which will come out in due time despite the mainstream media's superficial reporting, the whole affair calls attention to the bias and superficiality of the mainstream news media and the arrogance and lopsided power of America's judiciary. Whether the public ever learns the final truth about the killing of Terri Schiavo or not, the two major issues of media bias and a corrupt, out-of-control judiciary remain as key battles in the war to save the soul of America and rescue Western civilization from the anti-human, anti-life, anti-American Left.
* * *
The Empire Journal Articles on the Schiavo Case
The Right To Die -- or the "Right" to Murder? WorldNetDaily.com
Was the Terri Schiavo case only the tip of the iceberg?Michael Schiavo's Lawyer Gave Money to Judge's Campaign
George Felos made contribution to Greer day after key ruling by court in Terri's caseAffidavit of Carla Iyer, nurse who cared for Terri Schiavo from April 1995 to July 1996
Media Distoritons about the Schiavo Case by Michelle Malkin
Medicare Reimbursement Key In Schiavo Hospice Stay
MEANWHILE . . .
Illegals Creating Health Care Crisis
Hospitals are being crippled by the costs of treating illegal migrants, while diseases such as TB are increasing. It is the proper function of government to control the nation's borders and to protect the lives, liberties, and properties of peaceful citizens; yet, neither major political party seems willing to address the issue head-on.MAY 29, 2005
FRENCH VOTERS SAY "NON!"
TO EU CONSTITUTIONFrench voters shook the European political establishment yesterday by issuing a resounding "non" to a proposed constitution for the continent, throwing into question plans for further integration. The Euro goes into big downward slide. This constitutes a serious blow to political globalists. The New World Order is too unstable to become any long-term reality.
French Voters Reject EU Charter -- Washington Times
EU Faces Crisis -- Reuters
SENATE DEMS AGAIN BLOCK FLOOR VOTE
ON BOLTON NOMINATION
WHERE IS FRIST'S "NUCLEAR OPTION"?Counting the Votes by Michael Barone
Sometimes 51 percent does not rule. That is one of the lessons of the 14-senator compromise over judicial nominations reached last week.Still Brutish Senate by Robert Novak
The lavishly acclaimed new era of good feelings in the Senate lasted less than four days.Judicial Nominations by Armstrong Williams
For 200 years the Senate carefully considered the professional track record of any judge nominated for the federal bench.Why Voinovich Hates John Bolton * * *
NewsMax.comWe were not shocked when Ohio's Republican Senator, George Voinovich refused to recommend John Bolton to the full Senate as America's next U.N. ambassador. We were surprised, however, by the Senator's performance on the floor of the Senate when, as the Cleveland Plain Dealer put it, he "choked back tears on the Senate floor as he pleaded with colleagues to vote against John Bolton's nomination for United Nations ambassador. "
Crying over John Bolton's appointment? Perhaps they were crocodile tears.
"This appointment is very, very important to our country," Voinovich concluded after a 45-minute speech denouncing Bolton. "At a strategic time when we need friends all over the world, we need somebody up there that's going to be able to get the job done."
Voinovich's stated reason for opposing Bolton: "I know, some of my friends say, 'Let it go, George. It's going to work out,' " said Voinovich, the only Republican opposing the appointment. "I don't want to take the risk. I came back here and ran for a second term because I'm worried about my kids and my grandchildren. And I just hope my colleagues will take the time and...do some serious thinking about whether or not we should send John Bolton to the United Nations."
His kids and grandkids? Had the Senator been so worried about his children and Bolton's nomination, he might have shown up for most of the Foreign Relations Committee hearings about Bolton. But the Senator missed almost all the meetings.
The real reason Voinovich is angry was a series of TV ads played by a conservative group in Ohio criticizing the Senator for not backing Bolton early. Bolton and the White House had nothing to do with the ads. But insiders say Voinovich was so ticked off by the local pressure he vowed to get Bolton.
* * *
MAY 26, 2005PRISCILLA OWEN FINALLY CONFIRMED
The good news is that Priscilla Owen was finally, after four years of Dem obstructionism, confirmed. That's good news even though it should have been business as usual. And a case can be made that Janice Rogers Brown is even a conservative libertarian! And it looks like she will be confirmed! But the "compromise" of 14 "moderate" Senators still allows the minority to use the filibuster to block nominees in the future if they so choose. Even so, Majority Leader Frist rejects that deal and says the "nuclear option" -- ending filibusters on judicial nominees so the Senate can exercise its duty to either confirm or reject judicial appointments by the President -- is still on the table and being held sort of in reserve if the Democrats again resort to mindless obstructionism on judicial appointments.
The most partisan Far Left Democrat Party members in the Senate seem to be the tail which wags the dog. As Majority Leader, Frist is supposed to have the power to act, but he and other GOP leaders have let themselves get bamboozled and out-PR'd by the worst of the Dems so that the best of Bush's judicial nominees to the federal circuit have been blocked by only the threat of a procedural filibluster. Contrary to what the wailing Democrats and their media allies would have you believe, there is no long time precedent for that. The filibuster was never used as a tactic against judicial nominees except by Southern Democrats against Abe Fartass for the Supreme Court. -- and I for one will grant that exception.
What the media is not telling the American people is that the so-called "nuclear option" (sounds scary, huh?) would not end the use of the filibuster on anything except judicial appointments, calling for a simple up or down vote. That's the way it always was until the Dems began to use the filibuster during Bush's first term to block floor votes on judicial appointees. But most Americans are not familiar the arcane rules of the Senate and how the requirements for cloture have changed many times over the decades. There is nothing in the Constitution that even hints of filibustering, and it is not allowed in the House at all.
Even the conservative Gun Owners of America, which I generally support, got it wrong when they opposed Frist using the "nuclear option" (the Constitutional Option) of changing the rule back to what it used to be: no filibustering on judicial nominees -- just as there has long been a Senate rule against using the filibuster to either block or delay budget bills. The GOA sent out a call for its members to support retention of the judicial filibuster because its leaders falsely believed that the so-called "nuclear option" would eliminate all filibustering altogether, which it wouldn't, and they wanted to keep it to use against potential anti-gun legislation.. The Constitutional Option proposed by Frist, which he should have adopted already, only applies to the use of the filibuster against judicial nominees and not legislation. You could still filibuster against gun control bills. But the Republicans have not done a good job explaining that to people, and the Democrat-controlled media has told everybody that the "nuclear option" would end the practice of filibustering altogether on everything. Not true.
By using the filibuster to actually block consideration of or floor voting on presidential appointments to the bench, its use by the Democrat minority in that context actually conflicts with the duty of the Senate as set forth in the U.S. Constitution's "advice and consent" clause. The nominees therefore deserve a simple up or down vote of a majority of those senators present and voting. Let us hope Frist does use the "nuclear option" to restore the Senate's duty to OK or reject judicial appointees. In view of the Senate Democrats' childish behavior to maintain left-liberal control over the federal judiciary and the use of unprecedented and outlandish tactics to keep the Senate from discharging its constitutional duty, it seems to me that Frist should have exercised the Constitutional Option long ago.
I agree with Chuck Muth that Frist has not demonstrated strong enough leadership in this whole affair. As usual, the Republicans seem to under-estimate the nastiness and viciousness and ruthlessness of their Democrat opponents, and they tend to come to the battle with fingernail files and BB guns while the Dems show up with Ak-47s and grenades. ~Editor Eddie
http://www.chuckmuth.com/muthstruths/
SPIN CITY & THE FILI-BLUSTER from Muth's Truths
by Chuck MuthThanks to Republican "moderates," a "deal" has now been struck where the Democrats will be allowed to continue obstructing judicial nominees when they see fit and Republicans get...well, pretty much squat. They had the carpet pulled out from under them and woke up this morning with a big ol' egg covering their face, thanks to what the mainstream media considers to be the Magnificent Seven. Here's the roster:
Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island
Mike DeWine of Ohio
Susan Collins of Maine
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
John McCain of Arizona
John W. Warner of Virginia
Olympia J. Snowe of MaineDid I mention Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island? More on him later.
As is to be expected, Republican leaders are in full "spin" mode, trying to tell conservatives that this huge loss on a matter of principle is actually a win; that this sow's ear is actually a silk purse. I can't remember the last time I had this much Suzy Sunshine blown up my skirt.
In the defenders estimation, Bill Frist has been a mensch. He stayed the course. He's a rock. Blah, blah, blah. He just couldn't get his whole team to row in the same direction. I'm not buying it.
I wonder what Steinbrenner would do with such a manager?
Here's the bottom line: For their part, the Democrats "agreed" to allow three previously-blocked nominees, but not all ten, to come to the floor for an up-or-down vote. Hello? Those three were already coming to the floor for a vote once the "nuclear option" had been deployed anyway. Some "concession" on the D's part, huh? For our part, we agreed to allow the Democrats to continue filibustering judges in the future. Lovely.
After hearing how the Democrats distorted the judicial and personal records of Owen and Brown over the last five days, you just know it will be a walk in the park for them to come up with "extraordinary circumstances" to block a future nominee. And by retaining the right to filibuster judges, you can pretty much kiss any hope that the president will risk nominating Justice Scalia to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist when he retires.
The Democrats bought time...and time is on their side. The longer this thing drags out, the less likely Republicans are to enforce the principle of every nominee getting an up-or-down vote. And the less likely that President Bush will appoint any more "Scalias." Get ready for a rash "Souters" coming down the pike.
I'm not excusing what the McCainiacs did here; but Bill Frist is the leader and he's been misplaying this issue from Day One. He should have used the power of his office to stop these filibusters two years ago. If he didn't have the 51 Republican votes, he should have told us who the weak-kneed Republicans were BACK THEN so we could have had a chance to deal with them directly from the grassroots level and at the ballot box. But Frist covered for these upstarts. And now they've cut his legs off from under him.
Frist was also in a position to stop Arlen Specter from gaining the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee last year and put someone there who actually AGREED with his plan to use the nuclear option to bust the filibusters. Instead, he "cut a deal" with Specter and handed him the gavel. In return, Specter helped hand Republicans a major and embarrassing defeat by encouraging and enabling this "compromise."
Bill Frist wants to be president. Bill Frist can kiss that dream good-bye. If he can't even handle running the Senate, what business does he have running the COUNTRY? "Trying" isn't good enough. There is no substitute for victory. Second place is like not even being there. Bill Frist needs to step down from his "leadership" position and turn running the Senate over to someone else, someone not afraid to crack the whip on his own troops from time to time.
This was a big one folks. This was important. And we were embarrassed by this "deal"...big time. Someone needs to answer for that.
One last question: Do those of you who say having RINO (Republican In Name Only) Lincoln Chafee on our team is better than having a Democrat in his seat still believe that? If so, you're hopeless. Boy, do I wish the Libertarians would put somebody half-credible up against him next year. That's one Republican race I'd LOVE to see "spoiled." Hey, hey, ho, ho...Lincoln Chafee's gotta go.
Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a non-profit public policy advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Citizen Outreach. He may be reached at chuck@citizenoutreach.com.
A Compromised Party by Thomas Sowell
The Flinch Heard 'Round the World by Charles Krauthammer
On Monday, Republicans were within hours of passing a procedural rule that would have eliminated the Democrats' unprecedented use of the judicial filibuster.A betrayal of historic proportions by David Limbaugh
Though even some conservatives disagree, no matter how you spin it, this compromise agreement among the 14 self-anointed Senators is a big loser for Republicans and for the country.MAY 24, 2005 GUTLESS SENATE REPUBLICANS CONCEDE
TO "COMPROMISE" WITH DEMOCRATS
ON JUDICIAL NOMINEESWeak leadership from Frist combined with a desire by McCain and Graham to suck up to the liberal media made for a "compromise" deal that allows Democrats to continue to use fillibuster tactic to block judicial choices from Bush, even though the filibuster was not used in that way traditionally, contrary to what Democrat media would have people believe.7 Republicans Abandon GOP on Dem Filibuster -- Washington Times
Here's the Deal: Judge for Yourself
What Do You Think? -- WND Survey
MAJORITY LEADER FRIST REJECTS DEAL
AS UNFAIR TO ALL JUDICIAL NOMINEESThe following is a statement issued by Senator Frist to the public about the "compromise" agreement made by the seven squishy Republicans and seven Democrats yesterday:
Last night, an arrangement was reached by fourteen of my colleagues. I was not a party to it, and here's why...I do not agree with it because it does not get the job done of ensuring fair, up or down votes on all judicial nominees sent to the Senate by the President.
It is my firm belief that--on principle--all judicial nominees deserve an up or down vote on the floor of the United States Senate.
The new understanding, if followed in good faith, affirms my principle to some extent. It marks some break in the partisan obstruction of the past two years, and ensures that seven outstanding jurists-including Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor--will get the fair up or down votes they have long deserved.
But it does not grant fairness to all other jurists. It still allows mindless filibusters to be triggered at the whim of a minority more interested in obstruction than progress.
And that is a shame.
So make no mistake, the Constitutional Option remains on the table. If the minority again acts in bad faith--if they resume their campaign of mindless judicial obstruction--I will NOT hesitate to call it to a vote.
Not for a second.
For too long on judicial nominees, the filibuster was abused to facilitate partisanship, and subvert principle.
We have exposed the injustice of judicial obstruction in the last Congress, and advanced the core Constitutional principle that all judicial nominees deserve a fair up or down vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
So the Senate will begin to execute this arrangement, with a vote up or down on Priscilla Owen. Giving up their minority-party-led obstructionism, the Senate invoked cloture on her today by a vote of 81-18. Priscilla Owen--after four years, two weeks and two days--will finally receive the fair, up or down vote she deserves.
And, mark my words, more judges like her will follow in the days ahead. I hope the minority will respect the will of the majority, and give judges the courtesy, the respect, of a fair, up or down vote.
Bill Frist
* * * OTHER ITEMS Lockyer's Criminalizing of Energy Firms Under California’s 'Alice in Wonderland' Antitrust Laws by Wayne Lusvardi
Lies? Only When Republicans Tell Them, Right? by Evan Sayet
"Stricter Guidelines" to be Instituted at Magazine on Use of Unnamed Sources In the Wake of Newspeak''s Discredited Story about Koran Abuse (but the left-wing bias and BS continues)
MAY 22, 2005
THE BATTLE FOR THE JUDICIARY
GOP Just Cannot Act Like the Majority
by Rush LimbaughThe Senate Judiciary Committee on a 10-8 party-line vote gave its approval to judge Priscilla Owen, who was nominated by Bush for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The committee was scheduled to do the same for California judge Janice Rogers Brown, who is seeking a lifetime slot on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia. Owen and Brown were blocked from confirmation by Democratic filibuster threats during Bush's first term, but were renominated by the president after he won a second term in November. Democrats consider the nominees too conservative."
This is an Associated Press story, by the way, they consider them too conservative and too activist, uh, uh, ladies and gentlemen. "Republicans said Democratic complaints were unfounded and that Owen should be confirmed since the Senate's GOP majority has the 51 votes necessary. 'She deserves to be confirmed and she deserves the professional courtesy of an up or down vote,' said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who served on the Texas Supreme Court with Owen. But Democrats made clear they would attempt to filibuster Owen again. 'Since we last considered this nomination, nothing has changed to make us think she should be confirmed,' said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Owen's nomination is not worth the confrontation it will cause, said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's no. 2 Democrat. 'This nomination is going to be precipitate a confrontation that we do not need,' Durbin said."
Okay, so getting ever closer to this, where are we on all of this? Where are we on the filibuster business? Well, sit tight, folks. I hate to start the program off here with depressing news. I hate to start the program with news that's going to make you angry, but from The Hill newspaper today: "Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a leading advocate of the 'nuclear option' to end the Democrats’ filibuster of judicial nominees, is privately arguing for a delay in the face of adverse internal party polls. Details of the polling numbers remain under wraps, but Santorum and other Senate sources concede that, while a majority of Americans oppose the filibuster, the figures show that most also accept the Democratic message that Republicans are trying to destroy the tradition of debate in the Senate. The Republicans are keeping the 'nuclear' poll numbers secret, whereas they have often in the past been keen to release internal survey results that favor the party. David Winston, head of the Winston Group, which conducts Senate GOP polls, did return phone calls seeking comment. Confirming public disquiet over the 'nuclear' or 'constitutional' option, Santorum said, 'Our polling shows that.' But, he added, public thinking had been muddied by what he called false Democratic arguments that checks and balances were being eroded. 'People see checks and balances as Democrats checking Republicans, not the legislative checking the executive or the judiciary checking the legislative,' Santorum said."
You know, I don't know what to say. This is utter incompetence. This has been a PR battle all along. What this internal poll seemingly indicates is that the public totally misunderstands this, that they think there's a tradition of filibustering judicial nominees and the Republicans are going to throw Senate tradition out the window, when the fact is that this has never been done before. In 200 plus years, judicial nominees were never filibustered.
I'm getting blue in the face. I'm getting blue in the face talking about it. I'm getting blue in the face repeating myself over and over and over, and yet how many Americans care about the precious traditions of the Senate anyway and these stupid polls? How many people walk around on a day-to-day basis worrying about the precious traditions of the Senate?
You know, I think this is all just a crock. It's disheartening, and it all boils down to the fact that our side just simply cannot act like it's in the majority, they just for some reason do not have that psychological ability to act like they are in the majority. And to now be, you know, we had a story earlier this week that the Republicans have just now realized they're losing the PR battle. That must have been a story that's related to this polling data that they just got. Now, the Senate Democrats are planning a press event at Georgetown University today to try to defend their unprecedented use of supermajority requirements for judicial nominees, and at this press event they're going to attack Republican efforts to restore Senate tradition. That's what's happening here. Senate tradition will be restored if the nuclear or constitutional option is triggered. What has been destroyed, if anybody cares about it, is this precious Senate tradition. The tradition has always been all you need is 51 votes to confirm judges, pure and simple. It now requires 60 because of this asinine filibuster. And so if anybody is worried about the tradition of the Senate, it is being restored, or it would be restored if the Republicans were successful in implementing the nuclear option. Anyway, we have some quotes here, uh, ladies and gentlemen, from some actual Georgetown law professors which might provide some useful input because the Democrats are having their press event at Georgetown University today to try to continue to defend their unprecedented use of the supermajority requirements. It's not clear whether these law professors will be invited to attend based on what they said. Liberal Georgetown law professor Susan Low Bloch wrote on March 14th of this year, barely a month ago, "Everyone agrees, senate confirmation requires simple majority. No one in the Senate or elsewhere disputes that." These remarks were made in a letter to Senator John Cornyn, in a memo or a letter or whatever. Cornyn responded to her by pointing out that unfortunately several Democrats do disagree. But everyone agrees Senate confirmation requires a simple majority. No one in the Senate or elsewhere disputes that. Liberal law professor Georgetown Susan Low Bloch.
Professor Bloch has also condemned supermajority voting requirements for confirmation arguing that they would allow the Senate to, "upset the carefully crafted rules concerning appointment of both executive officials and judges and to unilaterally limit the power the Constitution gives to the president in the appointment process. 'This I believe would allow the Senate to aggrandize its own role and would unconstitutionally distort the balance of powers established by the Constitution.'" Liberal law professor Susan Low Bloch, I don't mind quoting her. She's right. I don't mind giving her credit. She's right. I hope I'm not destroying her career or her reputation by citing her on my program, but nevertheless when somebody says the right thing about whatever we're discussing, you pass it on, and she certainly has. And that's exactly right. This goes beyond check and balance, this goes beyond advise and consent, this takes the power of the president to make appointments -- and he's duly elected by the people -- a little bit out of his hand. There's another liberal law professor at Georgetown, Mark Tushnet, and he has written, "The Democrats' filibuster is a repudiation of a settled preconstitutional understanding." He has also written, "There's a difference between the use of the filibuster to derail a nomination and the use of other Senate rules, on scheduling, on not having a floor vote without prior committee action, et cetera, to do so. All of those other rules can be overridden by a majority vote of the Senate whereas the filibuster can't be overridden in that way. A majority of the Senate could ride herd on the rogue judiciary committee chair who refused to hold a hearing on some nominee. It can't do so with respect to a filibuster." So I mention this to you just to illustrate that even with some ammo being provided by liberal law professors, the Republicans in the Senate just can't seem to figure out a way to get their message out here, beyond this program and Mark Levin, or whoever else is talking about it. Now we read that they got internal polling data that shows a little fear out there because the public is concerned about destroying precious Senate tradition. So that's the latest, two more judges have been sent up there, and this is getting us ever closer to the moment of truth on this. I'm going to make no predictions. I have absolutely no clue what the final action here will be. The indications are that if this is triggered, it will not be in this term, it will not be in this session, rather. But I don't want to say any more than that. This could all be a big feint, too. Who knows? We'll just have to wait and see.
Read the Articles...
NYT: For Republicans, 2 Women Are Exhibits A and
B in Battle on Judicial AppointmentsSan Jose Mercury News: Senate tempest over judges drawing closer
* * *
It's Not Just Newsweek observes Michelle MalkinNewsweek and Rathergate By Brent Bozell
You Might be a Political "Liberal" if . . . .
MAY 17, 2005
Bush Warns Beijing: Stop Selling Weapons or Else -- Charles R. Smith
On the Bush Apology for FDR's Betrayal at Yalta by Phyllis Schlafly
Something that Albert Gore or John Kerry or any other leading Democrat would never do.“Dancing with the Devil: FDR, Stalin, and the Lasting Legacy of the Yalta Conference” (Audio) by Richard Ebeling, President, FEE
Know Thy Enemy by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Silence That Kills by Mike S. Adams
A-Bombs Over Korea: The Failure of Clinton's Policy of Appeasement with Kim Jong Il -- NewxMax.com
Madeleine Albright is now desperately trying to blame Bush for what she and Carter did.China's Weapons - Bought and Sold - Are a Threat -- Charles R. Smith
NEWSWEEK LIES -- AND PEOPLE DIE
False Newsweek Story Sparks anti-American Rioting by Muslims Around the WorldThe Newsweek Riots: Magazine Admits Koran Story Is Wrong
In an on-going attempt by liberal-Democrat journalists to make American military forces and the current Commander In Chief look bad (because he is a Republican), Newsweek magazine has demonstrated unusually irresponsible reporting by putting out a story that claims as a "confirmed" fact -- later retracted by Newsweek and strongly denied by the Pentagon -- that the Koran was defiled by U.S. military interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. Like CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, PBS, CNN, the L A Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, Newsweek's lack of credibility in reporting news and providing editorial analysis should remind us why the once monolithic Evil Empire of Liberal-Left journalism is cracking up and losing readership, viewership, and listenership. Again, as I've pointed out here before, the mainstream liberal media used to get away with such biased reporting all the time, but with the growing popularity of talk radio and media watchdog websites on the Internet, that is becoming more and more difficult for Michael Isikoff, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Harold Raines, and the rest of the corrupt media elitists to retain credibility as news sources much less as news analysts. Thank goodness for sites like WorldNetDaily.com, FreeRepublic.com, NewsMax.com, ChronWatch.com, PasadenaPundit.com, and others for helping to expose the anti-freedom bias and anti-U.S. bigory in the liberal news media.
The following article was published yesterday by the Editor of the Pasadena Pundit, a media watchdog observer of growing influence:
The Theatre of the world is packed with Muslims, and Newsweek has shouted "FIRE!"
Written by Wayne Lusvardi
Saturday May 14, 2005"The theatre of the world is packed with Muslims, and Newsweek has shouted "FIRE!"
~Lightman - "blogger" at FreeRepublic.com (5/14/2005)In the May 9 issue of Newsweek reporters Michael Isikoff and John Barry write that they "had found that interrogators had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7693889/site/newsweek/. This unconfirmed report has spread like wildfire across the Muslim world resulting in protests and deaths. (see Protests across Muslim world over 'Koran desecration', 16 dead by Reuters http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=46740 The article insinuates that a prison guard provocatively flushed pages of the Koran down a toilet as a method of psychological torture similar to those reported at abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. However, it is more likely the U.S. military may merely have left copies of the Koran near toilets and the prisoners flushed pages down the toilets to stop up the drains, a frequent protest tactic used by those in prisons.This unconfirmed report would be more credible if it had not come from Newsweek, whose online webpage is loaded with negative reports about the two war fronts in the Mid East. Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker has apologized for the error contained in the story. Unfortunately, this is too late now as the story has a life of its own.
Lee Harris has discerned the significance of this act of irresponsible misreportage in his column at TechCentralStation.com (On not getting the Koran - Lee Harris. Harris warns of the danger of fabricated cliches:
"Meanwhile all we can do is to watch and wait helplessly as the rumor of the Great Insult spreads through the Muslim world, and hope that it is not the harbinger of that vicious form of People Power called mob fanaticism. Pundits and schoolmarms may work hard to try to vanquish clichés -- but clichés have a surprising life to them, often because, I suspect, they are the most convenient method of referring to a persistent and nagging reality that, like the cliché itself, simply won't go away, no matter how many times we tell it to depart from us. It sometimes seems as if reality never learns."
As a Vietnam Veteran, this writer remembers the cliche "we had to destroy the village to save it," which apparently was created by journalist Peter Arnett from an unconfirmed source. Arnett was later apparently duped by the Iraqi government in Gulf War I in his infamous report of the "Baby Milk Plant" in Iraq that was later found to be a chemical weapons factory defended by surface-to-air missiles, painted with camouflage paint, cordoned off with a security fence and guards. Sociologist W.I. Thomas's apt phrase that "if a situation is perceived as real, it is real in its consequences" seems to apply to journalistic created rumors. Such widespread rumors are why in the Jewish religion it is a violation of religious law to spread a rumor. For the viscious consequences of historical rumors one only has to read "A Rumor About the Jews: Antisemitism, Conspiracy, and the Protocols of Zion" by Stephen Eric Bronner. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a crude pamphlet meant to convince that Judaism is a worldwide conspiracy dedicated to the destruction of Christian, and Islamic, civilizations. The Protocols are considered as historical fact in many parts of the world; just as the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was a joint conspiracy of Israel and the United States is widely believed in not only the Mid East but Greece, Turkey, and elsewhere.
In her new book Don't Believe It! How Lies Become News, journalist Alexandra Kitty provides a list of questions on how to detect journalistic war propaganda:
1. "Is this story reported from a war zone?
2. Is the reporter likely to have been censored by government or military officials?
3. Does the reporter rely on interpreters from one of the warring sides?
4. Does the story demonize one warring side while supporting its enemy?
5. Does the story rely on prejudice and stereotyping?
6. Are eyewitness accounts too similar, even in phrasing?
7. Does a story of atrocities spark immediate anger?
8. Do the reporter or eyewitnesses rely on overkill to tell the story?
9. Is one side portrayed as a faceless enemy?
10. Is one side protrayed as ruthless killing machines that all behave in the same way?
11. Do the stories have chronological or logical holes?
12. Is there any forensice evidence to support the claims?
13. Does one side rely on a conspiracy theory to explain the lack of evidence?***
14. Does one side get credited with having superhuman strength?
15. Do the cultural or ethnic idiosyncracies seem plausible?
16. Does the story encourage reaction over reflection?
17. Do the stories appeal to survival fears, such as fear of cold, hunger, torture or death?
18. Is one side seen as reproducing and expanding at the detriment of the opposing side?
19. Are women used to both sexually arouse and invoke pity on the part of the audience?
20. Is the enemy of a small nation portrayed as someone who is bent on world domination?
21. Does one of the warring sides seem to have media training or have hired a public relations firm?"But radical terrorists need not hire a public relations firm if they have the mainstream media continually feeding propaganda to the public. George Orwell's novel 1984 was evidently partly wrong. We find more incendiary propaganda coming from so-called liberal mainstream media than we do from Big Brother government, at least at this moment in time. U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson is often quoted during WWI as saying that "the first casualty of war is truth." Ironically, whether Johnson ever said this is not known for certain due to the obscurity of journalistic reporting. Today it might be added that the first casualty of war is journalistic truth.
About the Writer: Wayne Lusvardi worked for 20 years for the Metro Water District of So. Cal. and lives in Pasadena. The views expressed are his own. Wayne receives e-mail at wlusvardi@yahoo.com.
* * *
New Study Finds Growing Gap Between Journalists and the Public -- Editor & Publsiher
The UN Attacks Your Freedom to Use Vitamin Supplements Warns Health Journalist and Consumer Advocate Bill Sardi
Welcome to the New World Order?
MAY 10, 2005
Rush to Senate Republicans:
"Your voters want action
- and we will demand it"
Rush Limbaugh Issues New Stern Warning to Limp-Fristed Senate Republicans, Condemns Proposed Compromise Deal
" It seems to me that the Senate Republicans are allowing themselves to be defined by their adversaries, the Democrats, the media. They are allowing themselves to be defined as the aggressors here, as the transgressors of Senate practice and the Constitution. What they ought to be doing is loudly and proudly making their case. There's no reason to make any deal that weakens the Constitution and strengthens and emboldens the left."
NORTH KOREA CELEBRATES COMMUNIST HOLIDAY BY LAUNCHING MISSILE INTO THE SEA OF JAPAN: A SHOT ACROSS THE BOW BY A WOULD-BE BULLY SEEKING TO INTIMIDATE JAPAN & SOUTH KOREA?
The policies of Clinton, Carter, and Albright are coming to fruition, as easily predicted they would. This is one of many time bombs inherited by Bush 43.
Kim Jong Il and Madeline Albright
when Clinton Administration Agreed to Help
Develop North Korea's Nuclear Capability
President Bush Defends Private Accounts as Essential Part of Social Security Reform Package
I support the President's courage in his stand for private voluntary accounts. I wish he could go further and privatize the whole thing, but that does not have a chance of passing given today's political climate and with liberals still in control of the Senate (even with a Republican majority). Too many Americans still fall for the anti-choice propaganda from the Left and the DNC. Given the political realities at the present time, Bush should be congratulated for at least trying to get a foot in the door that is a step in the right direction. The Democrats have no plan except to hike taxes while doing nothing to avert the collapse of the multigenerational pyramid scheme and the resulting lpainful oss for those who have become dependent on those payments. Bush has made it very clear that his proposal for private investment accounts is purely voluntary and does not even affect people born after 1955, but the pro-Democrat media is doing its best to obfuscate the truth about the details. The DNC, AARP, NPR, PBS, and other Democrat Party mouth pieces have escallated their misrepresentations and lies about market alternatives in general and the Bush plan in particular. Many Americans are beginning to "get it" despite all the Democrat flim-flammery. The question remains: how many Americans will fall for this anti-choice Democrat propaganda? ~EddieThe CATO Institute's Tanner Reform Plan Would Restore Social Security's Solvency
Obstructionist Democrats Continue to Oppose Privatization & Freedom of Choice in Retirement Planning for Americans (Even While Government Employees Enjoy the Benefits of Personal Investment Accounts)To make sure you get the latest in Eddie's Rants & Raves, use your "refresh" or "reload" button on your web browser.As Oil Price Soars, Democrats Continue to Block GOP-led Free-Market Energy Reforms
While Syrian Troops Withdraw from Lebanon, Syrian Spies Stay Behind points out Peter Brookes************************
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