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 »
October 25th, 2010
Posted in New Prohibition | No Comments »
October 21st, 2010
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — “Cash-strapped California would get some relief by legalizing pot, but the biggest boost would be thanks to massive law enforcement cuts, not new tax revenue, experts say.”
“The state’s marijuana legalization initiative known as Proposition 19 goes to the polls on Nov. 2. And there’s been a lot of talk about taxing it to rescue the state from its budget woes….”
CNN Money looks at California’s bid to legalize & regulate Marijuana @ http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/21/news/economy/marijuana_california/index.htm
Posted in New Prohibition | No Comments »
October 14th, 2010
The Norwegian Nobel Committee recently awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese intellectual Liu Xiaobo. News reports have informed the world that Mr Liu is in prison for advocating freedom of speech in China. Bob Adelman @ The New American takes a detailed look at the manifesto of the Charter O8 group in China, and finds parallels to the founding principles of the American Republic: http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/asia-mainmenu-33/4896-chinese-qdissidentq-receives-nobel-peace-prize-for-supporting-us-constitutional-principles
Posted in International | No Comments »
October 11th, 2010
“Liu Xia, the wife of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, was allowed to visit her husband on Sunday but has now been placed under house arrest. In an interview with SPIEGEL before the prize was announced, she talked about his life in prison and said she wanted to collect the award in Oslo on his behalf.”
Full interview in English translation @ Spiegel
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,722392,00.html
Posted in International | No Comments »