January 4th, 2011
“The conservative case against war is as old as our memory of George Washington and as recent as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex) and his “Texas straight talk.”(1) In the roughly 200 years between Washington and Paul, many other conservatives were like them in opposing war unless it involved direct defense of the United States. They were against interventionism and empire-building abroad. They opposed U.S. conquest of overseas territories, such as Hawaii and the Philippines.(2)
“A substantial number of conservatives hold these views today. They oppose interventionism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. They include many “Paulistas” who were activated by Rep. Paul’s 2007-08 presidential campaign. They also include the fiery Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com; columnist Patrick Buchanan; Prof. Andrew Bacevich, a retired army colonel and author; and others.”
“Many antiwar conservatives, including Paul and Raimondo, have a libertarian orientation. Bacevich is a fiscal and social conservative. So is Buchanan, who argues against war and empire on grounds of U.S. self-interest…”
Complete commentary by Mary Meehan @ http://www.meehanreports.com/antiwarconservatives.html
Posted in Antiwar, Conservatism | No Comments »
December 15th, 2010
“Recently released transcripts from the Nixon White House tapes show President Richard Nixon had a penchant for racist, anti-Semitic, and other prejudicial remarks. Recorded between February and March 1973 and recently released along with thousands of pages of previously classified materials from the Nixon administration, the tapes show a President who harbored pronounced stereotypes about blacks, Jews, and other ethnic minorities.”
“Speaking with advisor Charles Colson on February 13, 1973, Nixon said that he had recently recognized that “all people have certain traits. The Jews have certain traits,” he pointed out, adding later that Jewish people “are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality.” ”
“Speaking at another time to his longtime secretary Rose Mary Woods, the President said that Jews were, by and large, insecure people: “Basically, Rose, most of our Jewish friends … are all basically people who have a sense of inferiority and have got to compensate.” ”
Full column by Dave Bohon @ http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/5518-latest-released-nixon-tapes-reveal-wide-ranging-bigotry
Posted in American Politics | No Comments »
December 3rd, 2010
“Why do nations have central banks? Countries have developed without one, and sophisticated financial systems have evolved in their absence. Some countries with a central bank have suffered for having one. Zimbabwe comes to mind.”
“The Federal Reserve System was created by an act of Congress only in 1913. It then presided over a great wartime inflation followed by a major depression in 1920-21. The 1920s were an era of prosperity, due as much to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon’s wise fiscal policies as anything the Fed did. The Fed’s performance in the Great Depression was disastrous, a judgment shared by its current chairman, Ben Bernanke.”
“The Canadian banking system weathered the Great Depression without a central bank. Instead of the thousands of small, undiversified banks that the United States had, Canada had a small number of banks (with many branches across the country) that were able withstand localized downturns. Even in the Great Depression, banking failures in the U.S. were concentrated in specific regions. Canada’s central bank, the Bank of Canada, was created in 1935 in part because of pressure from the rest of the world. Canada had survived without it quite well.”
“In short, central banking has been neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of a modern economy and financial system.”
Full column by Cato Senior Fellow Gerald O’Driscoll @ http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12613
Posted in Economic & Financial | No Comments »
November 30th, 2010
“No matter how many times I go through an airport, which is almost daily, I am outraged each and every time. Whether it is the disgusting thought of a “full-body scan,” being touched in ways nobody should be touched, or having a guy in a uniform confiscate my one ounce of toothpaste because it’s in a six-ounce tube, I ask myself what has brought us to the point where we let the government do the kind of stuff to us that we wouldn’t let anyone else do?”
“My friend Congressman Ron Paul has introduced legislation to make it clear that TSA officers are not immune from basic laws regarding unwanted physical contact. I commend him for doing so, but cannot help but point out how unbelievable it is that such a law might even be necessary. How is it that we line up like sheep at the airport and let the government grope us in ways that would get anybody else in the country fired or arrested? I say enough is enough. Let’s stop being sheep.”
“Instead of trying to fix or adjust or moderate TSA airport screening procedures to make them less abusive or slightly more tolerable, I say it is time to turn airport screening and security over to those who should be doing it in the first place: the airlines.”
Full column by former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson @ http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/19/why-do-we-have-a-tsa/#ixzz16otQa1Or
Posted in Civil Liberties | No Comments »
November 29th, 2010
Over the weekend, The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel posted something that sort of resembled an apology for the whiff at investigative journalism Mark Ames and Yasha Levine attempted at the magazine’s website last week. Ames and Levine, remember, wrote a meandering, conspiracy-mongering, wholly unsubstantiated article trying to link the anti-TSA backlash to the Koch family.* All the piece was missing was Glenn Beck’s blackboard.
True contrition would have included apologizing to the The Nation’s readers for the article’s inexcusably shoddy journalism, to the many legitimately outraged activists and TSA victims that the article maligned as hired guns, and to the general public for providing a forum to an “everyone should spit on libertarians”, “lets murder the people we disagree with” nut like Ames. Instead, vanden Heuvel delivered a heavily conditioned apology only to John Tyner, aka The Don’t Touch My Junk Guy, while standing by the broader theme of the Ames/Levine smear. That theme, basically, is mindless D.C. tribalism.
The priorities on display here tell all. Both vanden Heuvel and Ames/Levine concede that the TSA’s new policies are worrisome. But civil liberties violations and the encroaching security state take a backseat to a more important task: Smearing the people they’re programmed to hate
Full post by Radley Balko @ http://reason.com/blog/2010/11/29/the-nation-posts-a-narrow-apol
Posted in Civil Liberties | No Comments »
November 24th, 2010
The Nation magazine ran a tasteless piece attacking John Tyner and others who opposed the intrusive searches that the Transportation Safety Administration has implemented at America’s airports. The piece @ www.thenation.com sees a sinister conspiracy funded by libertarian billionaires to embarrass the President or something.
I have submitted a letter to the editor at The Nation, but if they don’t run it you can read it here:
Just read the column on “Astroturf protests against the TSA” and find I can no longer take your publication seriously.
When George W Bush was President, The Nation courageously oppsed the Patriot Act and other attacks on our freedoms in the name of the War on Terror. But now you attack people who do not wish to expose their bodies to dangerous radiation, and don’t wish to be physically groped, as somehow lackeys of billionaire funders of supposed right-wing groups.
If getting financial backing from rich people indicates your project is Astroturf, what about The Nation magazine itself? The Nation in modern times has never attracted enough subscribers to pay its bills, and has dependend on a succession of wealthy backers – Hamilton Fish IV among many others. Does that bring into question the integrity and commitment o principles of The Nation magazine? Perhaps not, but attacking people who want to defend their own privacy clearly shows a lack of integrity at The Nation, which now has put loyalty to The Democratic Party and its President above the civil libertarian principles it championed when the President was a Republican.
Perhaps The Nation should revise its editorial practices. Or it should honestly close down and save its sugar daddies the millions it takes to make people think there is any support for the worn out leftism it continues to promote.
Posted in Police State | No Comments »
November 15th, 2010
“When I was growing up, China’s Communist leaders would attack the United States as “capitalist running dogs.” How the world has changed: Chinese leaders now publicly fret about America’s reliance on “outmoded central planning.” ”
“Talk about being called ugly by a frog.”
“The Chinese official specifically was referring to the Federal Reserve’s decision to pump $600 billion of extra liquidity into the economy. But instead of being called “QE2,” this new bout of quantitative easing should be called the “Titanic.” ”
Daniel Mitchell looks at how President Obama policy of tax, borrow and spend @ http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12554
Posted in Economic & Financial | No Comments »
November 5th, 2010
“I hate to rain on the Republicans’ parade, but a brief look at Republican political history shows that we have no reason to be optimistic about a Republican majority in the House or anywhere else.”
“A Republican majority in the House will not mean any more than it did when the Republicans controlled both the Congress and the presidency under Dwight Eisenhower. With a Republican in the White House and a Republican majority in the Congress, one would think that the entire New Deal could have been repealed and the government restored to at least its pre-New Deal levels. Yet, we are still stuck with New Deal programs today, including the largest entitlement program in the federal budget — Social Security.”
“A Republican majority in the House will also not mean any more than it did when the Republicans controlled both the Congress and the presidency under George W. Bush. The damage done by Republicans when they were in total control of the government is incalculable: the arcane Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, federal bailouts, free-speech zones and other infringements on civil liberties, the draconian PATRIOT ACT, the repulsive TSA, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, skyrocketing congressional spending, doubling of the national debt, assassinations, torture, and illegal surveillance. And then there is the No Child Left Behind Act, which further federalized local public schools; and the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, the largest expansion of the welfare state since Lyndon Johnson; and the Department of Homeland Security, precursor of the police state.”
Full commenty on the Republican victory by Laurence Vance @ http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/5086-what-a-republican-majority-will-not-mean-for-liberty-the-constitution-and-limited-government
Posted in Big Government | No Comments »
October 29th, 2010
WASHINGTON, D.C. — “While California’s marijuana ballot initiative is garnering a lot of attention this election cycle, Gallup finds that nationally, a new high of 46% of Americans are in favor of legalizing use of the drug, and a new low of 50% are opposed. The increase in support this year from 44% in 2009 is not statistically significant, but is a continuation of the upward trend seen since 2000.”
Full details of Gallup Poll, including demographic divides @ http://www.gallup.com/poll/144086/New-High-Americans-Support-Legalizing-Marijuana.aspx
Posted in New Prohibition | No Comments »
October 29th, 2010
“During the 1976 vice presidential debate between Senators Robert Dole, Republican of Kansas, and Democrat Walter Mondale of Minnesota, Dole outraged Democrats when he said: “All the wars of the 20th century have been Democrat (sic) wars.” That remark came barely 18 months after the fall of Saigon and may have reminded the nation that the Vietnam War, like Korea and both world wars, began with Democrats in the White House and in the majority in Congress. Dole, born in 1923, began his congressional career in 1961, when Republicans were still boasting of their ability to keep America out of wars, rather than their readiness to start one.”
Jack Kenny looks at how the Democrats & Republicans have come to see war and interventionism as the measure of America’s greatness @ http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/history/american/5028-bipartisan-warfare-state
Posted in Antiwar | No Comments »