William Bennettâs âMourning in Americaâ
Probably not a âracistâ but Brainlessness and Arrogance marks his instant demise
Yesterday on his radio show, Mr. Bennett said: âI do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you cold abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down...that would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible.â The key word here is ââŠâ as it shows the split second it took for Bennett to realize his career was over and he desperately attempted to redeem himself. It did not work - and he and his sidekick made it worse this morning. to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.
Special to the New York Times
By Jeff Koopersmith
(Jeff Koopersmith is the editor emeritus of American Politics Journal)
Every morning I spend from 6 AM to 9 AM listening to Bill Bennett - Americaâs moralist gambleholic on his new radio show - produced by the neofacist Salem Radio Network. Bennett is one of the most dangerous overeducated men in America and more than most, has constructed the foundation for neonazism among âconservativeâ Americans.
ABC summed up Bennettâs nitwit remarks truthfully:
âOn the Wednesday edition of his radio show, "Bill Bennett's Morning in America," syndicated by Salem Radio Network, a caller raised the theory that Social Security is in danger of becoming insolvent because legalized abortion has reduced the number of tax-paying citizens. Bennett said economic arguments should never be employed in discussions of moral issues.
âIf it were your sole purpose to reduce crime,â Bennett said, "You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.â⊠"That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down," he added.â
The key word here is ââŠâ as is the absolute evidence of the split second it took for Bennett to realize his career was over and his too-late and very desperate attempt to recover and redeem himself by adding the âmorally reprehensibleâ portion of his remarks.
I actually heard him stammer slightly as he added the excusing codicil most likely knowing it would not save his sorry ass.
Of course, it did not work and every liberal in America began a non-stop attack on him, his producers, network, and stations that carry his drivel almost immediately.
I donât believe Bill Bennett is a racist - however as I pointed out in my book about him - âCorrobillusion,â Bennett although Harvard educated, is just plain donkey stupid.
To illustrate his idiocy, largely based in arrogance, he and his high-pitched radio sidekick made things worse for Bennett this morning - going on the offense rather than simply apologizing for being stupid - not for being a racist. He did neither - and instead his phone screeners produced a non-stop call-in from ridiculous sycophants who embarrassed even Bennett with their shallow defense of his unfortunate statements.
Liberal leaders in the House and Senate have begun to lash out at Bennett and will soon be joined by Leno, The Daily Show and Americaâs favorite laugh makers. Bennett hasnât even begun to feel the sting which has driven so many careers into the garbage pail.
Bennett revealed his fear obliquely this morning as he discussed âa walkâ he took with his wife and dog yesterday, parenthetically pathetic in that the walk was certainly a personal acknowledgment that Bennett has again threatened his familyâs wellbeing and has humiliated them with his arrogant stupidity demonstrated in Las Vegas with his purported millions in gaming losses and the women he reportedly frequented while pretending total loyalty to his âlovely wifeâ who he oddly refers to as Mrs. Bennett more often than not. During his nonstop pillory of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinskyâs unfortunate relationship from which Bennett grew wealthy pandering to the dumbest minds in America, most thinking people were not impressed by the his face which appeared - it seemed - 24 hours a day on cable news.
I phoned Donna Wynner this morning and offered to speak to Bennett on the air and to defend him as a racist, but was honest enough to tell his people that I would attack him for being stupid enough to use âaborting Black babiesâ as one method to decrease the crime rate.
She wrote to Bennett at 6:15 a.m. and, of course, received no reply.
Then I followed with my own email to him warning him that he was digging his grave further and should apologize for being so stupid and naïve while continuing to try and save his neck as an accused racist.
I also cautioned him not to bring on Ann Coulter who was scheduled to defend him - which I think he agreed with since Coulter did not raise her ugly crack head this morning on Bennettâs radio show - at least that I heard. Whether Coulter was smart enough to avoid this sandstorm could be an alternative explanation for her disappearing act, I must say.
Bennett stupidly did appear last night on, of all shows, âHannity & Colmesâ where he attempted to counter Ted Kennedyâs remarks about him by pitifully bringing up the death of Mary Jo Kopechne decades ago at Cape Cod as a reason that Bennett would not listen to Kennedy re morals.
[Let me tell you a hush-hush Mr. Bennett. Ted Kennedy, to my knowledge, was not driving the car that Ms. Kopechne drowned in that night - but thatâs another inside story - an aside Bennett might think about.]
To appear on Hannity & Colmes was evidence of Bennettâs understandable and undeniable panic - a terrible mistake as he was playing - again - only to his base of ignorant Americans who worship the high-school drop out Hannity and not to the people who could do him the most harm - Liberals bent on labeling him a racist.
Mr. Bennett pretends to defend himself on moral grounds and to pretend this morning that his (and his wifeâs) entire life has been devoted to helping the unfortunate and especially Black Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, claiming his career has been spent attacking Black Americans is just as false. Bennett - most likely because he is such a poor second to his super-lawyer brother - has spent his career as a gold digging professional moralizer - writing books no one reads which bases are intellectually indefensible. He dislikes everyone - White, Black, Brown or red. He is simply a hater.
In fact Bennett, to his buddies, is probably a purse of good laughs - not the intellectual in an ivory tower he would like you to believe. He loves music of all kinds. He loves betting tens of thousands in gaming halls across the world even though he knows he cannot, over the long term, win. He loves the ladies. He loves the booze. And he loves a good joke. Like all Jack-Catholics - Bennett is probably as much fun to spend a lost weekend with as is George W. Bush.
However to suggest that Bennett is a leader - in any sense of the word is absurd. Heâs a man echoing the same future outlined in âDeath of a Salesman.â - Used up and over-ready to retire.
Mr. Bennett - I have two suggestions for you should you be able to hang onto your radio show even by your fingernails:
1. Get rid of you staff.
2. Get some advice from professionals who know how to build your failing career - not destroy it.
I sincerely doubt you will be able to keep your radio program. Perhaps you should simply retire - although I assume that you took a show - requiring you, at your age, to stumble out of bed at 4 AM, because you needed the money.
#1
The poster provides no link. I searched the writer's name at the NYT site, and found nothing, going back to 1981. I Googled the writer's name, and discovered him described as, "JEFF KOOPERSMITH is a political consultant, opinion research authority, policy analyst, and self-described 'renegade lobbyist.' " who is fond of "lambasting of Ann Coulter and her ilk," and thinks Michael Jackson was lynched.
I'm afraid I can't give much weight to his opinion, even though the New York Times made Bennett's remark a front page story -- mit picture, yet!
#2
Appearing with Roy Innis or Allan Keyes would have been a better choice for rehab ... Bennett is no racist, but he did suffer a brain fart not too dissimilar to the over-effusive praising of Strom Thurmond at his birthday party.
#3
damn facts and statistics.... call him a racist and he's toast. Of course, the NY Times, and (retired) ace reporter Fox Butterfield have pondered for over a decade now why the crime rate keeps dropping but the prison population is going up....
Blacks overwhelmingly commit more crimes per capita, that's all he was saying. The facts back that up
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/30/2005 19:25 Comments ||
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#4
btw - this pap isn't WOT by any means - page 3 at best
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/30/2005 19:25 Comments ||
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#5
Yawn, Page 3 maybe.
Bennet is not freedom frendly, screw him. I don't need the likes of him telling me what I can and can not do as an adult.
#6
Ah, a lynching party. The left sure does love to string people up for thought crimes, don't they?
Go read proteinwisdom.com; Jeff's been on a roll about the frightening tendency in modern times to let the lowest nincompoop decide what someone meant, regardless of what the original speaker actually meant.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/30/2005 19:30 Comments ||
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#7
If you read what Bennett said in full context, you will see that this is a smear campaign. But it's the NYT, so you knew that anyway.
Personally I don't agree with Bennett's social conservatism but he is one of our nation's most intelligent and articulate public spokespersons for the political right. It's no wonder the libs are on the warpath and will do absolutely anything to kill his show (which I recommend as the best political talk radio program bar none).
#14
There's a ton of stuff on the Internet about Bennet's foot-in-mouth problem, at Townhall, NewsMax, NRO (and more on the Corner), and half a dozen other places. Several blogs have also entered the fray (too many to list). Basically, Bennett got in trouble for telling the truth, and the politically correct witch hunt is on. Many, many people should be toast, but most of them are the ones attacking Bennett. (Disclaimer: I'm not a friend of Bennett's, I never listen to his show, and I didn't think much of him any time he was in government. He's earned any trouble he's in.)
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/30/2005 19:49 Comments ||
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#15
Intelligent? This is his second big strike.
Intelligent + articular + conservative has always equalled three strikes in the eyes of the left.
he made himself a target of opportunity back when he was preaching virtue and was found to be supping the vice of gambling to the tune of big $. Didn't matter to his attackers that it was his money and he obviously could afford it. Same thing here. He's a target of convenience. WSJ's Best Of The Web has a long take on this today. Good quotes and notes. Bill's right on the money, and no racist
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/30/2005 19:56 Comments ||
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#19
All politics is a coalition - compared to the DemoLefies, however, the GOP-Right as a class are practically virgins, or at least young Ron Howard or the Beaver. As someone whom listens to Bennett many times, and whom was listening on the episode in question, this article is sheer Fifth Column/LeftMedia emotionalist anti-Conservative
hype.
#20
Bennett IMO is not racist. I periodically catch and enjoy his radio program. But there are two problems:
1. Bennett espouses traditional values and thus is in the spotlight by those who are opposed to traditional values.
2. Bennett failed to realize how poisonous the MSM is in stripping out words (from context) in order to fit their own interests. The gambling hubbub should have been a lesson for him about the MSM's interest in damming traditional valued people, particularly Bennett.
3. Bennett and his persona will survive this onslaught by the MSM. He realizes he can't win with the MSM (and he can't), so he is playing to his listening audience and admirers.
4. The fact is, the MSM is at war with conservative, traditional valued people and public figures who espouse them. Bennett, Armstrong, et al, must select their words more carefully because anything they say publicly will and is amplified.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/30/2005 21:41 Comments ||
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#21
oops, four problems
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/30/2005 21:42 Comments ||
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#22
This is going to be what we call a 'shitstorm'....
What do modern war protesters want? In the Vietnam War era, they clearly favored the Communist way of life to our own -- not for themselves, mind you, but for the millions we'd have freed had they and their media accomplices not forced a political end to what would have been a military victory.
Recently I wrote of the left's hypocritical claim of supporting the troops while decrying both their method and their mission. As if we needed further proof of the real aim of those using dead soldiers to protest our actions in the War on Terror, the Commies have officially checked in. Their goal, as always, is to work for the defeat of American interests.
Lenin's term, "useful idiots," was used during the Cold War to describe unwitting dupes of the Soviet Union and its Communist Party. During '60s, the American "peace movement," in its desire to aid the Party, prolonged the war by giving hope to the bedraggled North Vietnamese Army, causing further deaths of U.S. soldiers. Said former NVA Colonel Bui Tin:
Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.
Today, the political and economic theories of Lenin and Marx lie crushed beneath the ashes of millions of souls who perished under their tender ministration. Yet their American wing continues to thrive, promoting an ideology banished to the ash heap of history. Just as the NVA could not have defeated us on the battlefield, they know also that we will eventually crush al Qaeda and friends. And so comes another "peace movement."
As it did during Vietnam War, the far left couches its anti-Americanism in a raft of crocodile tears. It is now campaigning to discourage Hispanics from speaking to military recruiters so they won't end up as "cannon fodder." Even though the statistics show that the percentage of Hispanic military recruits is under-representative of Hispanic population of the country, this doesn't stop the radical left as it targets minorities for "help" to keep them despondent, dependent, and Democrats.
Of course it would never occur to these "military-supporting" leftists that Hispanics love this country just as much as other Americans and would lay down their lives to protect her. So while the left still cries that minorities are under-represented in nearly all walks of life, it thinks there are too many in the most crucial job of all; protecting the American people.
The leading organization behind this latest campaign is called Latinos for Peace, a gang of -- surprise, surprise -- '60s radicals. Chief among them is Rosalio Munoz, a member of the Communist Party USA and a contributor to its house organ, People's Weekly World.
CPUSA was funded by the Soviets from its founding in 1919 until the collapse of the USSR in the early '90s. One of its linked affiliates is United for Peace and Justice, a group headed by Fidel Castro aficionado and longtime Commie Leslie Cagan. UFPJ's member groups include all your favorite current "peace activists," including Cindy Sheehan's Code Pink pals and Moveon.org, who claim to "own" the Democratic Party.
So once again the circle is complete. Today's peace movement is a pathetic rehash of the same anti-Americanism that led to the deaths of millions after our ignoble abandonment of the people of Southeast Asia. And once again they are tied inexorably to the left wing of the Democratic Party.
The difference this time is that although these groups continue to wave the banner of a failed ideology, they are giving aid and comfort to a more insidious den of vipers; one that will not hesitate to slaughter even those who agree that the United States is indeed the great Satan.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/30/2005 11:39 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
Tastes like chicken
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
09/30/2005 12:26 Comments ||
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#2
Try some of this chicken. It tastes like alligator.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2005 12:35 Comments ||
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#3
I wonder if that BITCH sheehan read this???(if she can)
and then when can we freekin DEPORT all these jerkoffs who think the US is the great Satan. I think a simple question of is thier any situation were you would not support your nation against a foriegn nation. If any one answers yes then deportation period.
#5
Everyday people are risking their lives on rubber rafts, and other less that seaworthy objects to get into Cuban Paradise. And don't you remember all those West Germans scaling The Wall to enter East Germany with the risk of being shot. And who can forget the people trying to tunnel under and enter.
#6
If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, well it must be a ....................
One thing most of these people never seem to grasp is it takes both sides to have real and lasting peace. If one side wants to start a war or continue one the other side has very little choice but to defend itself or surrender. I think you know which one they would willingly choose.
#7
You know the Failed Left - ala Cindy Sheehan, America is not worth dying for, but is simul NOT worth leaving from to live in Commie Fascist = Fascist Communit Russia-China, or even Western DemoSOcie Europe, etal. The Leftperts and Leftprofs engage in scientific or scholarly analyses, ergo successful America must copy/adopt failed and failing Leftism-Socialism - yessirree, the 90%+ must copy the 10%, ala AL BUNDY's "I'M AN AMERICAN, I'M SORRY". The Lefties don't wanna move, ergo they want America to be ruled from nations they themselves don't wanna move/live in.
#8
Is it just me, or is it that since KATRINA/GUMBO-GATE, the mainstream or Top 40 radio stations seem to have stopped playing perennial songs such as "AMERICAN PIE", "GOOD MORNING, AMERICA", "MARGARITAVILLE" and many many others -
TEMPORARY?, or collusory INFORMATION/PERCEPTIONS CONTROL?
EFL, believe it or not: One Moonbats Big Day in DC. Al-Jizz on the case. Must be seen to be believed...
By Jason Miller The White House and the Pentagon look so innocuous, yet behind their innocent facades lurk sinister forces which have unleashed much misery and suffering upon the world,â I thought as I scrutinized each of them armed with an insight gleaned from many hours of study.
I arrived home on Sunday from the peace and social justice rally in Washington DC and began reflecting. As my mind sifted through the barrage of information which came at me over the course of the weekend, and the information I absorbed while reading on the plane, I began to reach some conclusions and to connect some dots.
My first conclusion was that their weak coverage of an event of this magnitude deepened my belief that the mainstream media is merely an instrument of its corporate masters and of the obscenely corrupt US government. I was there for the march on 9/24. Based on what I observed and experienced, the Washington DC police chief's estimate of 150,000 people was extremely low. My wife and I marched at the end of the procession, which followed a 1.4 mile course, including a pass in front of the White House. We carried our mock coffin draped with an American flag. (Ours was one of about 150 other mock coffins which enabled the American public to finally see at least see a representation of the Americans who have died in Iraq).
A diverse crowd, which included the elderly, the disabled, minorities, military veterans, families of military personnel in Iraq, social activists, Methodists, Quakers, Buddhists, people of Middle Eastern descent, and many other groups comprised the multitude on Saturday. Joan Baez, Cindy Sheehan, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and two Congresswomen spoke and marched. A broad spectrum of Americans want peace and social justice, and are eager to see Bush and the corrupt who dominate the US government out of office.
One of the articles I read in the mainstream media stated that there were no police wearing riot gear at the demonstration. I beg to differ. I counted at least seven men wearing black pants, white, generic-looking shirts with what appeared to be cloth gold badges stitched to them, and military boots. They each had riot helmets with visors, riot shields which were marked "Police" (yet their uniforms bore virtually no resemblance to those of the DC police), and they were equipped with truncheons. As I marched by them, I wondered if they were some of the Blackwater security people, hired mercenaries whom the Bush administration has used in Iraq and now in New Orleans. Despite his absence, Bush's fortress was heavily defended by police on the street and by snipers on the roof of the White House and surrounding buildings. Bush exhibited his usual spinelessness. He spent part of the day in Colorado, where he would not have to face the hundreds of thousands of his constituency who were calling for peace, social justice and his impeachment. He was also well out of potential harm from Hurricane Rita. Later in the day he did find the nerve to travel to San Antonio, but even there he was still well out of harm's way.
As we passed the US Treasury a man riding a bicycle was using a portable PA system. What was his message? âPay no attention to this building. It is the treasury. It is empty. It has been looted.â With the volume of money flowing into the coffers of corporations with incestuous ties to the Bush regime and a $7.5 trillion deficit, it would be difficult to dispute his contention.
Frequently throughout the march, I heard and read the slogan "power of the people". The unfortunate reality is that for now, the ultimate power in the US rests in the hands of a select few aristocrats, and has in varying degrees since our nation's founding. I saw ample evidence of that fact as my wife and I toured the Smithsonianâs American History Museum the day before the march. The decadence in which many of the presidents and first ladies engaged was truly disgusting to see. I saw the outrageously expensive clothing, china, jewelry, art, and White House furnishings and realized that I was witnessing evidence that the US is as much an aristocracy as the monarchy from which our founding fathers severed themselves. Further fueling my nausea, I saw that Barbara and Laura Bush were enshrined in the section of First Ladies who have made significant contributions to social justice in the United States. The Bush wives honored alongside Eleanor Roosevelt, a giant in the pantheon of those who have advanced social justice? The Smithsonian curators have a very sick sense of humor.
Mr. Bush, good luck selling your fairy tale of democracy and equality to the victims of Katrina, to many others in America, and to the rest of the world. Your criminal neglect of New Orleans and the poor in general, your lies, your theft of the 2000 election, your numerous violations of the public trust, your cronyism leading to incompetents like Michael Brown causing thousands to suffer or die, and your war profiteering combine to make you the biggest felon to serve as President of the United States (Note to Bush: as an "elected" official, you are merely a public servant, not a monarch. You belong in one of the many penitentiaries which are a part of the prison industrial complex). In skimming my 120 emails I received while I was away for the weekend, I discovered that ANSWER, one of the demonstrationâs organizers, has apparently been accused of being Maoist Communists who are virulently anti-US and who advocate supporting any group which opposes the US government (i.e. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Khmer Rouge). My response to that is that I do not care. United for Peace also sponsored the event, and to my knowledge, they have not been targeted as âanti-Americanâ. I am not a member of either group and regardless of how extreme their positions may be, this event served a valuable purpose. It demonstrated the strength of the movement in the United States for peace and social justice, and the depth of the desire amongst Americans to remove the avaricious, tyrannical, and criminal Bush regime from power.
Going out on a limb (as I usually do), I am going to state that while I do not condone terrorism (which I am defining as the act of killing innocent civilians to achieve a political purpose), I understand the viewpoint of some of the groups whom the US mainstream media and the Bush regime have labeled as terrorists. Bush and his ilk, and many of their predecessors (including Clinton via Kosovo, Bush I via Iraq, Reagan via Central America, and Nixon and Johnson via Vietnam.) have engaged in the most lethal state terrorism imaginable, killing millions they label (and labeled) as "collateral damage".
The US is attempting to implement "democracy-at gun-pointâ in a nation embroiled with ethnic and religious tensions. The Iraqi people know why the US government is killing their people and destroying their cities, which makes their resistance quite logical. They realize that a cruel and greedy imperialist government needed to assert its military might on what they anticipated would be a weak target so it could begin implementing the Bush Doctrine and the Project for the New American Century. Halliburton, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, and many other cogs in the military industrial complex were itching to see their profits skyrocket, and Iraq appeared to be a ripe plum for the picking.
The disguise is slipping as the US government has slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. Hurricane Katrina revealed the hypocrisy behind their ânoble causeâ of spreading freedom and liberty. Those abstract concepts exist in the US on a very limited basis. The US government has been, and is increasingly dominated by a select few plutocrats and aristocrats who are groomed for public office from birth. The elites of America place their carefully prepared candidates before an American voting public rendered apathetic by the mainstream media and years of government corruption. The Democratic/Republican Duopoly ensures that only two candidates have a real chance of winning public office in virtually every election, and each candidate is beholden to corporations and the US aristocracy. Sometimes decent people sneak into Congress and the Judiciary, but there are few real choices for middle and working class Americans, particularly when one factors in the stolen Presidential election of 2000. Jimmy Carter, one of the few former Presidents known for his honesty, recently publicly stated his certainty that Gore won the 2000 election.
The flood-waters of Katrina unmasked the depraved engineers of the runaway train called the United States. Bush, Rove, Rumsfeld and Cheney have been exposed to the world as malevolent profit seekers who regard humanity simply as a means to enhance their wealth and power. I need only look at the T-shirt I bought at the march on Saturday as a reminder. My shirt is emblazoned with a picture of a suffering, elderly Black American woman in New Orleans who has bundled herself in the American flag for warmth. Bush and his war-mongers have perverted the meaning of a once sacred symbol of the ideals of a true republic to one of hatred, criminality, brutality, and imperialism. I hope it served her well as a blanket. Some members of Congress want a Constitutional amendment to prevent flag desecration. Too late! The criminal acts of the Bush administration have already grossly defiled the American flag. Ooooooooh. He's got " a plan"!
What Are Some Potential Aspects of a Velvet Revolution in the US?
1. If enough Americans become conscious to the inhumanity of our leaders and join a non-violent movement comprised of the poor, the working class, the middle class, minorities, intellectuals, those in the government who are not a part of the corruption, and artists, sheer numbers of people demanding change could overwhelm the ruling plutocracy, who are clearly a numerical minority.
2. We the People need to form a third political party of the people which will have the support of enough Americans that it can rival the corporate-controlled Democrats and Republicans. This party will need to base its principles on the needs and desires of the common people rather than on those of corporations and the elite.
3. Unions need to fight to regain the strength they enjoyed during the Twentieth Century. This will unite workers and restore their power in negotiating with giant corporations. Despite what they would have America's citizens believe, corporations are not "kinder and gentler" entities with the interests of their workers and customers at heart. They are merely wolves who have donned sheepâs clothing to make it appear so. They are motivated by profit and the fear of lawsuits. The will of the people imposed through organized labor needs to motivate corporations to take a deeper interest in the welfare of employees and customers.
4. We the People need to push for passage of the ERA and an equal rights amendment for gays.
5. We need to work for permanent implementation of the Voting Rights Act.
6. Writers with a social conscience need to continue to publish books and essays advocating social justice, spreading truth, and dissenting against our corrupt oligarchy by any means we can find.
7. Christian Churches need to spend less time and money squabbling over seemingly eternal and irresolvable issues like abortion and focus their efforts on demanding the social justice Jesus Christ would have insisted upon.
8. Educators need to stop teaching the white-washed history of the United States, which virtually ignores the genocide of Native Americans, barely scratches the surface of the depth of the cruelty and immorality of slavery, maintains silence on the topic of the American apartheid system which Katrina brought into the spot-light, and which glorifies an imperialistic, war-mongering government. It is incumbent upon educators to teach their students the truth about America, past and present.
9. We the People need to boycott major corporations like Wal-mart and McDonalds as frequently as possible by shopping at local businesses owned by individual entrepreneurs. Hit the insatiably greedy corporatacracy where it hurts them the most: in their wallets. My wife and I have not spent a penny at Wal-Mart or McDonaldâs for over a year.
10. Progressive taxes on the rich and on corporations need to be increased while regressive taxes on the poor and working class need to be decreased to move the US toward a society with a more equitable distribution of wealth.
11. The US government spends $600 billion per year on defense, including funding for the Iraqi Occupation and money for ancillary functions. It is time to truly bring the troops home from Iraq (over a period of time to allow stabilization to occur) and from the 700 military bases in over 56 countries around the world. We will save $64 billion over twenty years by closing 33 domestic bases under Donald Rumsfeld's plan. Imagine the money we would save (besides the $5 billion per month from ending the occupation of Iraq) in closing 700 bases. To my knowledge, there are no foreign military bases on US soil. If We the People are intent upon retooling the US into a nation focused on the needs of its people with enough military simply to defend our nation rather than enough to dominate the world, it is time to remove the US military from foreign soil. Removing US military bases from their nations is one of the legitimate demands of those the US government has labeled as âterroristsâ.
12. The US needs to relegate the notion of repealing the estate taxed to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. Eliminating the estate tax would further ensure the perpetuation of the American Aristocracy and virtually eradicate the already extremely slim chance that a poor American can realize the Horatio Alger dream.
13. We "Commoners" need to demand a system of national health care (or implement it once our third political party has become a power capable of rivaling the existing Duopoly). The US holds the shameful distinction of being the only industrialized nation without a guarantee of healthcare to each of its citizens. What a dubious distinction for the wealthiest nation in the world! With money derived from cuts in defense spending and increased taxes on the wealthy and corporations, the US could readily implement a national health care system comprised of a synthesis of the best features of the systems of other nations. To make the system affordable, those Americans whose income exceeded a particular thresh-hold would pay premiums based on a percentage of their income.
14. We need to demand that the US government cut Israelâs umbilical cord. Israelis have received more than enough money and weapons from the US to stand on their own. US support of Israel, which, like its benefactor, often engages in state terrorism and has committed acts of genocide against the Palestinians, continues to infuriate Arabs throughout the Middle East. The US has a moral obligation to let Israel fend for itself and to see to the establishment of a legitimate homeland for the Palestinians. There is also the pragmatic consideration that as long as the US supports Israelâs abuse of the Palestinians, it will continue to feed the rage of many Arabs.
15. We the People need to find and elect a populist leader like Hugo Chavez, who will place the needs of the poor over the desires of the wealthy elite.
16. The US government needs to respect international law, treaties, human rights, and the autonomy of sovereign nations, and to participate fairly in the UN.
17. The public education system needs to be restructured in such a way that students across the nation attend schools with comparable facilities, teachers, and textbooks.
18. Americans with a social conscience need to insist the US pass and enforce restrictions on corporations to protect the environment. Ending the charade that global warming is a hoax and signing the Kyoto Treaty would be a tremendous start.
19. Besides the creation of a powerful political party, boycotts, labor strikes, marches, providing better education to all American children, dissident writing, staying informed, demanding accountability of public officials through the avenues which are still available, joining groups advocating civil rights and humanity, We the People have another non-violent weapon at our disposal. When it is warranted, civil disobedience is a powerful tool to evoke change. For example, while conscription is not yet a reality, if I am confronted with a call from the US government to participate in one of their imperialist conquests, I will follow the fine example of Kevin Benderman and refuse, even if it means prison. If enough people engage in civil disobedience, the plutocracy will not have the capacity to punish all of us, and will lack the manpower to grease the wheels of their money-making machines. Jason Miller is a 38 year old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. He works in the transportation industry, and is a husband and a father to three boys. His affiliations include Amnesty International, the ACLU and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
#9
"The White House and the Pentagon look so innocuous, yet behind their innocent facades lurk sinister forces which have unleashed much misery and suffering upon..."
Ugh. Couldn't read any more of it. I guess I'm too non-enlightenmented sub-multi-culturally anti-nonagressively unpro-anti-capitalist, or something.
#12
2. We the People need to form a third political party of the people which will have the support of enough Americans that it can rival the corporate-controlled Democrats and Republicans.
I just love this. Go ahead, Mr. Miller, found your own political party. Put your ideas before the American people. Let's see how many votes you get.
#13
Oh come on you have to be nice to the LLLs they are a dying out and they canât understand why. This poor guy probably never reads, listens, or talks with anything outside his mindset. They actually believe that a majority of Americans agree with them, despite the fact that less people are attending their rallies. They also fancy themselves as some sort of revolutionary like Ghandi. They havenât a clue anymore and they deny that the vast majority of Democrats wouldnât be caught dead at one of these rallies. I love that he has a Liberal Arts Degree and Works in transportation. Iâll hazard a guess that he either drives a bus, cleans them, or handles the "Slow/Stop" sign at a construction site. Life lesson here: Get a degree thatâs worth something.
#15
Jason Miller is a 38 year old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. He works in the transportation industry, and is a husband and a father to three boys. His affiliations include Amnesty International, the ACLU and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
This guy sounds like me at 38 before I finally heard that popping sound, my head popping out of my ass. I pray he gets to experience that too.
#16
I just love this. Go ahead, Mr. Miller, found your own political party. Put your ideas before the American people. Let's see how many votes you get.
The lack of votes will tell Mr. Miller that change can't occur within the democratic process. Your vote will have to be taken away for the common good.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/30/2005 22:04 Comments ||
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By Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu Costumed antiwar demonstrators armed with hand-painted signs; banal antiwar slogans; diatribes against the president: To those of us old enough to remember the anti-Vietnam War hysteria of the late 1960s, it all sounds eerily familiar.
But this isnât a repeat of that Sixties show. No, todayâs antiwar fervor is merely the latest vocal outburst of frustrated, Blame-America-First leftists. They are trying desperately to regain their power from those days when they pushed the country into abandoning an ally â admittedly a less than perfect one â to merciless communist invaders. Thanks to a strange, convoluted ideological union of Nixonian realpolitique and pro-communist appeasement, America shamefully withdrew support for South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese immediately overran the country with massive military forces. They instituted the classic communist political control that resulted in hundreds of thousands of executions, and in the imprisonment and oppression of the surviving population. It is a measure of the communistsâ cruelty that the so-called âboat peopleâ braved rape, robbery, torture, and murder to sail the hostile waters of the South China Sea and flee their oppressors.
Today, the American war effort is once again imperiled by a bizarre marriage of ideologies. On the right, these include an element of the surviving realpolitique wing (the âpaleoconservativesâ), who still resist American intervention in Iraq and the Middle East. They are joined but overshadowed by the more vocal and considerably nastier hard left antiwar leaders, as well as the useful idiots who make up the sign-carrying crowds of antiwar marchers. As has been extensively documented by David Horowitzâs DiscoverTheNetworks.org, a large percentage of the people screaming for immediate U.S withdrawal from Iraq and condemning American intervention of any kind, even for self-defense, burnished their political credentials during the antiwar days of the Sixties.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2005 07:28 ||
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Prices might be falling at the gasoline pump, but demands for investigation into oil company price gouging are still on the rise. Last week, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., accused "big oil" of profiteering after Hurricane Katrina. Eight Democratic governors want an investigation. So do attorneys general in 45 states. For all the good these investigations will do, it would be far better to spend that money shoring up New Orleans' levees. After all, we've been down this road many, many times before.
Back in 1996, for example, price spikes in California prompted the Clinton administration to order a Justice Department investigation. It concluded that an unfortunate combination of state fuel regulations and temporary supply disruptions pushed up prices in the state. Nothing nefarious there. And when prices shot up in the Midwest in the summer of 2000, lawmakers ordered more investigations, only to fail once again to find an industry plot to gouge consumers.
In 2003, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., called for still another federal investigation when California's price spiked again. Don't bother looking for any findings of big oil conspiracy that year. Again and again, investigations into past price spikes have turned up the same finding. The oil industry is highly competitive.
And as any first-year economics student knows, competition basically makes it impossible to price gouge - for the simple reason that if one station jacks up prices artificially, others will steal business by holding prices at true market rates. Oh, but what about collusion, eh? Secret meetings in smoke-filled rooms? Price fixing?
Yes, prices spiked across the country in the wake of Katrina. That's exactly how a free market reacts to sudden supply disruptions. Prices jump, causing people to use less and suppliers to supply more. Then prices start to fall as markets adjust. The only real crime here is that lawmakers don't seem to understand this basic economic reality. Or don't care to.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/30/2005 10:23 ||
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#1
BIG OIL = millions of Americans with mutual funds, millions of Americans who receive the core of their retirement income from pension funds, colleges and university with institutional stock portfolios, and state and local government trust funds with stock investments. THEM!
#2
Right, my mutual fund shares buy me a BIG say in how Exxon runs their company.
Schumer's an idiot, of course - there's a 20 cent spread in gas prices in my neighborhood, and some people choose to pay extra to avoid the lines at the cheap place. What the market will bear, and not a penny more.
#3
This is the Schumer who's been running a dirty tricks operation out of his office, right?
Why doesn't that come up in the story?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/30/2005 12:53 Comments ||
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#4
Amazing that Boxer called for (yet another) federal investigation. California already does yeoman's work tracking and breaking down the cost of gasoline. For a ridiculously lefty state, there's also a bit of fairly reasonable discussion there as well.
#7
..if one station jacks up prices artificially, others will steal business by holding prices at true market rates.
I dunno, out here the stations with the best prices are usually ARCO stations, and the worst are Shell, Union 76, and Chevron. But people still gas up their cars at Shells, Onion 76s, and Chevrons. And the lines at the ARCOs are typically unremarkable.
#8
BAR - That's because people believe the sales pitch that this-or-that brand is better than the others because of some additive-or-other.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/30/2005 17:54 Comments ||
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#9
Here's a few thought's:
1) Allow the industry to build some more frickin oil refineries. Preferably not ALL co-located in hurricane prone areas. Waive a few environmental regulations to do so.
1a) Waive the goevernment rules requiring production of different blends of gas permanently.
2) Approve exploration and drilling off the east and west coasts, in ANWR, and off the coast of Florida (sorry Jeb). Take the money from auctioning off drilling and exploration rights and use it for Hurricane relief.
3) Offer tax breaks for production of oil from US oil shale.
4) Standardize a design for nuclear plants. Offer an accelerated approval process for utilities that want to build a plant using the design. Waive environmental impact statements.
5) Enroll all Democratic congress critters in a first year Intro. to Economics course. Though, NOT one taught by a Marxist college professor.
by Jonah Goldberg DC Examiner page 16 (.pdf)
Republicans have been caught playing to their stereotype lately. House Majority leader Tom DeLay has been indicted by a Texas grand jury for a criminal conspiracy to circumvent campaign finance laws and Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist is under investigation by the SEC and the Department of Justice on allegations of insider-trading. If I had to bet, the indictment against DeLay wonât stick, not because he is any sort of angel, but because the indictment is flimsy on its face. Similarly, I doubt that Frist is in any serious legal trouble for his alleged insider-trading. Political trouble is another matter entirely, for the tin-eared heart surgeon seeking the Oval Office.
Combine this with the campaign to vilify Dick Cheney and George Bush as shady oilmen, Halliburton as the World Headquarters of Evil and the GOP-controlled Congress as an ATM machine for oleaginous K-street flimflammers like Jack Abramoff and one could argue without fear of excessive contradiction that youâve got the makings of an image problem. With the exception of Abramoff â who really appears to be a brigand who swims with a knife in his teeth â I think most of these charges are lacking in seriousness. But that doesnât change the political reality. Democrats will tell you that Republicans are merely living up to their principles. This is simply who Republicans are. If you donât want Congress to be run by lickspittles to corporate paymasters, donât vote Republican. Democrats donât rollover for corporations, they bring them to heel.
But itâs not that simple. The problem is that liberals and others wearing the âreformerâ label consistently offer the wrong remedy for the right diagnosis. They want more regulation, more oversight, more government. If you think someone is hugging you too hard, what do you do? You push him away. You donât hug him back. Yet, it is considered the height of enlightened policymaking to say the answer to corporate Americaâs bear hug with Washington is for Washington to hug back twice as hard.
If you want to know why business takes such an interest in Washington, the answer can be found in your low-flow toilet, your warning-label adorned cars, your eight-zillion page tax returns. It can be found while waiting on hold trying to get a human to answer your questions about your health insurance. And the answer is most certainly somewhere at the bottom of your cereal box made with grains subsidized by Uncle Sam and coated in sugar that has no business being grown in the United States of America.
Corporations meddle in Washington because Washington meddles with them. It is simply naïve to believe that a businessman will have no interest in politics when politicians have taken a great interest in him. And it is grotesquely unfair to assume businesspeople are corrupt simply because they want to support politicians less inclined to hurt them. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates used to brag that he barely spent a dime on lobbying â âI live in the other Washington,â he liked to say. He abandoned his view that the New Economy could ignore the Old Politics the moment governments â Federal and State â tried to tear apart his company. Now D.C. is awash in Microsoft lobbyists. Wal-Mart is only now learning the same lesson. If you donât get in the game, you might be regulated out of it.
Of course, not all businesses who support politicians of either party are doing it out of self-protection. Sugar growers, for example, have ripped-off taxpayers and consumers to the tune of billions. If government stopped protecting the industry from competition, it would mostly disappear and stop gouging us at the same time. Liberals think Republicans are living up to their principles when they get cozy with fatcats. The reality is that Republicans betray their principles when they give fatcats a reason to come to
Washington Examiner columnist Jonah Goldberg is the editor at large at the National Review Online
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/30/2005 10:33 ||
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What's the difference between the Republican Party then and the Republican Party now ? Here's an illustration: Richard Nixon was the president who established the Environmental Protection Agency. Tom "The Hammer" DeLay is the congressman who called the EPA a latter-day "Gestapo."
So pardon me for going way beyond schadenfreude to outright giddiness at the prospect that the Hammer will finally get nailed.
It may be too much to hope that the former House majority leader -- and how good it feels to write "former" -- will actually be convicted and do jail time. The indictment for criminal conspiracy returned by a Texas grand jury on Wednesday is for alleged campaign finance violations that are the rough equivalent of money laundering, which is not the easiest crime to prove in court.
But DeLay's problems are bigger than Texas. His golf-buddy relationship with Jack Abramoff, a fat-cat lobbyist under federal indictment, will face months of scrutiny. DeLay's resignation from the House leadership is supposed to be temporary, but Republicans ignored his wishes and picked a strong successor who could serve out the rest of this Congress if necessary. Clearly they believe their former leader will be distracted for some time.
Which makes me feel like it's morning again in America.
DeLay, because he's such a ruthlessly effective bully, has been as responsible as anyone for pushing his party to the end of the political spectrum previously reserved for the anti-everything, loony-bin far right. His comeuppance is an occasion to remind ourselves just what a long, strange trip it's been.
There was a time when the conservative movement in this country was the preserve of principled eccentrics such as Barry Goldwater. These days Goldwater would be thought of as a libertarian more than anything else, a firm believer that what people really needed was a good leaving-alone. In his prime, he occupied fringe territory that was light-years from the mainstream.
Ronald Reagan changed everything, shifting the nation's center of gravity to the right. In retrospect, whatever you thought of Reagan's policies -- and I didn't like them -- the man at least had a certain generosity of spirit. His idea of the black experience in America may have been Sammy Davis Jr.'s career, his views of women may have been antediluvian and his impression of gay people may have come exclusively from dining with Nancy's friends, but at least he had some experience of people unlike himself and an appreciation of their humanity.
The crowd now in control of Washington, thanks in part to DeLay's undeniable skills, could best be described as Reagan's illegitimate heirs.
Theirs is a greedy, small-minded conservatism. In their policies, they seek not to improve government, and certainly not to shrink it, but to ruin it -- to starve the regulatory agencies with tax cuts, then spend so wildly on pork that there's nothing left to pay for actual government work such as, say, preparing for a hurricane.
The Republican Party's "small government" rhetoric is hilarious, but while you're laughing, keep a grip on your wallet. Since 2000, the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled, to an astonishing 34,750. That's a lot of mouths at the trough.
DeLay and Co. don't just want to bankrupt the government, they want to force the whole country to conform to their "moral" prescriptions. On private matters such as abortion, homosexuality, religion, even end-of-life decisions, they demand that all of us do as they say. When it comes to the millions who lack health insurance, though, or to persistent poverty in the inner cities -- well, those problems are for individuals and "faith-based" institutions to grapple with as best they can.
DeLay was clever enough to see that if a few more safe GOP seats could be engineered in Texas, Democrats would need a tidal wave of votes to regain control. The political action committee he formed to get these seats redistricted into existence, Texans for a Republican Majority, came under the scrutiny of the Travis County district attorney, Ronnie Earle, and that scrutiny led to DeLay's indictment.
I like the irony that DeLay may end up a victim of hubris -- that his downfall may result from his efforts to perpetuate his awful legacy. But if it comes from the Abramoff probe or somewhere else, I won't complain. He doesn't even have to go to jail; he can just go back to killing bugs in Houston. Just as long as he goes. This will be a better country when that "former" in front of his title is permanent. That Texas voted overwhelmingly Republican seems to be a factoid lost on this harpy partisan student of Texas legislative districting.
#2
Yo, NULL - The "headline" is spot-on regards intent - and we have some "license" to indicate such in the article title here at RB, in case you're unaware. WaPo published it. "Agnostic"? Heh. WaPo peddles agenda pieces. There's nothing agnostic about em' - they worship at the BDS Tranzi shrine. BTW, nice nym. Got that minimalist thing going. HAND.
#4
"... alleged campaign finance violations that are the rough equivalent of money laundering, which is not the easiest crime to prove in court."
I doubt this dope even took the time to read the indictment. I'm suprised he didn't find a way to use the ole "turn back the clock" cliche. Must be too giddy and forgot to use all the talking points.
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2005 8:15 Comments ||
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#2
on a side issue, how did the ACLU learn of any photos from Abu Graibe? Leaks? Can't a higher court hold off the decision to allow these photos to be viewed.
Posted by: Jan ||
09/30/2005 11:09 Comments ||
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#3
The photos were (likely still are) on the web. Just need to know where to look. Somebody must have showed them.
#5
UNIVERSAL EQUALISM = National Cantonization/Enclavization = SEPARATE BUT EQUAL where Big Govt. $$$ supps everyone and every canton of special = NOT partisan/niche interest. First the cantons, then later the amount of $$$ going to each canton - can anyone say SOVIET GOSPLAN, COMPLAN, and COSPLAN, the type of Commie super-deficit spending, write-offs and Socialist market/state planning that saved the USSR from imploding back in 1989, where as of July 2005 -lists/ysts have determined that Russia-China's economies are barely 10% of America's. The MSM and Leftperts argue that Russia-China's combined 10% is EQUAL OR SUPERIOR TO AMERICA'S 90%!?
The president's confidante has been on a "listening tour" to "start a conversation with the rest of the world" â namely, the Muslim world, beginning with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey â but there were too many times when she just didn't know what to say.
The poor gal appears to be in way over her head. Is there another Bolton on the bench?
A Washington Post anecdote from day one captures the disconnect. Asked in Egypt whether she was going to meet with the Muslim Brotherhood, the opposition party banned by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak with deep roots in terrorism and a catchy motto ("Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope"), Hughes "turned to an aide and indicated she was not sure of the answer. The aide whispered back, and Hughes replied, 'We are respectful of Egypt's laws.'"
I guess that means no, but the non-denial denial is open to interpretation. Maybe she wanted to meet with the Muslim Brotherhood, but couldn't. Or maybe she didn't want to say something as harshly non-conversational as "no" because the popular MB might be elected one of these days. Or maybe she just didn't know.
But worse than not knowing what to say is saying too much. Or saying the wrong thing. Or even saying anything at all. Hughes committed all of the above, a faux-pas trifecta, after meeting with Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, the academic center of Sunni Islam. It was a "wonderful meeting," she explained, because the two of them were able to talk "about the common language of the heart."
Oh, brother. Is this an Under Secretary of State or a sorority sister? Hughes burbled on about the leadership of Al-Azhar "in speaking out against extremism, against terrorism, (which) is not in keeping with the tenets of Islam" â natch. The sheikh "made the point that all divine religions are built on a spirit of love," she said, "and (that) it is important that all of us work together to fight extremism, to fight terrorism."
What a guy. Hearing Hughes talk about Sheikh Tantawi, you could almost forget what he said in 2002, as translated from a report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), when he called on Palestinian Muslims to "intensify the martyrdom operations against the Zionist enemy" â men, women and children â and described the barbarous slaughter as "the highest form of Jihad operations" and "a legitimate act according to (Islamic) law." Maybe that's the "spirit of love" Hughes was gushing about.
Then there was what Sheikh Tantawi said in 2003, also reported by MEMRI, when he called for jihad against U.S. forces in Iraq. "Jihad is an obligation for every Muslim when Muslim countries are subject to aggression," he explained. "The gates of Jihad are open until the Day of Judgment, and he who denies this is an infidel or one who abandons his religion." This he said during a sermon at â where else? â Al-Azhar.
I juxtapose Hughes' hearts-and-flowers assessment with the hate-and-fanaticism reality for a reason. Obviously, the resources available to me â the invaluable MEMRI Web site â are available to the State Department. I find it difficult to believe that Hughes or her advisors were unaware of the jihadist incitement Sheikh Tantawi is prone to, even though he's also on record with contradictory statements. Why did the Bush administration determine that this meeting was in the best interests of our nation? If the war on terror â always a PC punch-pulling moniker â is turning into the accommodation of terror, maybe it makes sense to make nice. There is, actually, a long tradition of such accommodation between the non-Muslim world and the Muslim world, and it is contained within the blighted history of "dhimmitude." This is the term coined by historian Bat Ye'or to describe the institutionalized inferiority of non-Muslims (dhimmi) under Muslim rule. Hughes' paying tribute to the likes of Sheikh Tantawi is dhimmi behavior. As is, frankly, the whole "listening tour" â an ill-conceived campaign to improve Uncle Sam's "image" with a Muslim world whose opposition to a viable Israel and a free Iraq is hardly skin deep.
Personally, I'd like to see a "like it or lump it tour." But that, of course, would mean keeping up the fight.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/30/2005 21:24 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
What do modern war protesters want? In the Vietnam War era, they clearly favored the Communist way of life to our own -- not for themselves, mind you, but for the millions we'd have freed had they and their media accomplices not forced a political end to what would have been a military victory. 
The White House and the Pentagon look so innocuous, yet behind their innocent facades lurk sinister forces which have unleashed much misery and suffering upon the world,â I thought as I scrutinized each of them armed with an insight gleaned from many hours of study.
Costumed antiwar demonstrators armed with hand-painted signs; banal antiwar slogans; diatribes against the president: To those of us old enough to remember the anti-Vietnam War hysteria of the late 1960s, it all sounds eerily familiar.
Prices might be falling at the gasoline pump, but demands for investigation into oil company price gouging are still on the rise. Last week, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., accused "big oil" of profiteering after Hurricane Katrina. Eight Democratic governors want an investigation. So do attorneys general in 45 states. For all the good these investigations will do, it would be far better to spend that money shoring up New Orleans' levees. After all, we've been down this road many, many times before.
What's the difference between the Republican Party then and the Republican Party now ? Here's an illustration: Richard Nixon was the president who established the Environmental Protection Agency. Tom "The Hammer" DeLay is the congressman who called the EPA a latter-day "Gestapo."
