04/04 -- Fedgoons free blogger after 226 days; US linked to "outsourced Guantanamo"
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Thomas Knapp
Apr 4, 2007, 10:45:00 AM4/4/07
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* RATIONAL REVIEW NEWS DIGEST
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* Volume V, Issue #1,122
* Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
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In The News:
1) Fedgoons free blogger after 226 days
2) US linked to "outsourced Guantanamo"
3) Romney tops GOP in race for funds
4) Iraq: Fighting, killing continues
5) Prius powers Toyota to top; US automakers slide
6) TX: AG sues Radio Shack over ID theft law
7) Iraqi government shortens Baghdad curfew
8) Iraqi-American goes on trial in Chicago
9) FCC: "No" to cell phones on planes
10) Britain calls for direct talks with Iran
11) Bush calls kettle black
12) Tax prep offices engage in fraud, lawsuit says
13) Clinton urges Dems to press Bush on Iraq
14) Venezuela: Liquor banned, so order cola with a wink
15) IN: Green light or red, consultants paid
16) £500,000 raised to find Litvinenko killer
17) WA: No murder charge in death
18) WV: Man killed near Princeton in self-defense
19) Californians working past 65 for fun, money
20) Mexico embracing liberal agenda
21) Arrest warrants issued for Billy Joe Shaver
22) TN: Resolution to elect officers clears judiciary panel
23) Keith Richards snorted Dad's ashes mixed with cocaine
24) Is US Army bent to the breaking point?
25) Victory for freedom of association at CMU
Everybody Has An Opinion:
26) Lollipop lickers
27) The man versus the ideas
28) We're all terrorists
29) Pink Pistols: The gay group that's getting armed
30) First they came for the spies
31) Blinking red light
32) May I be Frank?
33) The NRA vs the Second Amendment
34) Should Congress or courts decide DC gun ban's fate?
35) Hang up on war
36) Ah, Alberto Gonzales
37) Stop the presses
38) McCain's flip-flop on military withdrawal goes by the book
39) April 15: day of the dread
40) Auctioning off power in Washington
41) Partisan "justice"
42) Severed heads: A case for Dr. Watson
43) I quit
44) Coming up short on Habeas Corpus for Gitmo detainees
45) When is enough, enough?
46) Economics versus politics
47) Why won't Al Gore debate?
48) Ethanol: Time to steer away
49) Why governments can't handle risk
50) NY to Wal-Mart: We prefer unions, high prices, snobbery
51) SAF hails Virginia AG for proposed "gun sting" legislation
52) Fuel economy at all costs
53) When cops turn into thugs
54) Global warming, global stifling
55) Giuliani: More extraordinary anti-democracy comments
56) Rudy Bumpo
57) Defending economic growth against green bigotry
58) The bear will get you
59) The political right's separation anxiety
60) It takes a global village
61) Public servants or masters?
62) It takes a Hillage
63) iWaste
64) Jeff Flake's libertarian views on illegal immigration
65) Kudos for Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria
See No Evil, Hear No Evil:
66) Doug Bandow on The Sloan Ranger Show, 04/09/07
67) Rock The Debates on The Liberated Space, 04/05/07
68) Sami Rasouli on Antiwar Radio
69) The reality of REAL ID
70) Free Talk Live, 04/03/07
Weekly Symposium:
71) Cage match: Cato v. the Rothbardians
What's Up In The Freedom Movement:
72) Today's events
WaYbAcK:
73) A shooting at the Lorraine Hotel
***************
* In The News
***************
1) Fedgoons free blogger after 226 days
ABC News
"Video blogger Joshua Wolf, who spent a record-setting stint behind bars for refusing to turn over his footage of a chaotic 2005 street protest, walked out of prison after cutting a deal with prosecutors. Wolf, 24, said Tuesday he was looking forward to 'pizza and a beer' after having spent 226 days in prison more than any journalist who's refused to testify. Under the deal with prosecutors, Wolf agreed to turn over the uncut video, which he also posted on his Web site Tuesday. But he refused to testify before the grand jury about the events at the protest or the identities of participants." (04/04/07)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3006206
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2) US linked to "outsourced Guantanamo"
Connecticut Post
"CIA and FBI agents hunting for al-Qaida militants in the Horn of Africa have been interrogating terrorism suspects from 19 countries held at secret prisons in Ethiopia, which is notorious for torture and abuse, according to an investigation by the Associated Press. Human rights groups, lawyers and several Western diplomats assert hundreds of prisoners, who include women and children, have been transferred secretly and illegally in recent months from Kenya and Somalia to Ethiopia, where they are kept without charge or access to lawyers and families." [editor's note: Looks like the US has bought Ethiopia lock, stock and barrel -- they're also the main US proxy in the Busheviks' obsessive attempts to impose a state on Somalia - TLK] (04/03/07)
http://www.connpost.com/localnews/ci_5587436
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3) Romney tops GOP in race for funds
Boston Globe
"Mitt Romney yesterday reported raising nearly $21 million in the first quarter of 2007 for the Republican presidential primary, a formidable sum that makes him the top GOP fund-raiser so far and rivals the amount that Senator Hillary Clinton has netted this year for her Democratic primary battle. Romney, who has built a broad network of supporters, friends, and former business contacts, had been expected to put up a strong first-quarter showing, but his dominance over fellow Republicans -- and the possibility that he could match or even beat Clinton in fund-raising for the primaries -- immediately branded him a rising force in the 2008 presidential race. 'I think it is remarkable,' said Stuart Rothenberg, who publishes the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. 'It's surely getting everyone's attention.'" (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/347vy6
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4) Iraq: Fighting, killing continues
Casper Star-Tribune
"Gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying power plant workers in a predominantly Sunni area west of Kirkuk on Wednesday, killing six men, officials said. Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber and a mortar attack also hit a police station in the Shiite Sadr City enclave in Baghdad, wounding two policemen and two civilians .... Gunmen also attacked a police patrol about 6 a.m. near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing four officers .... Two mortar rounds also slammed into a house in the predominantly Shiite town of Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, just after midnight, killing a woman and wounding two other women and a 4-year-old boy ..." (04/04/07)
http://www.casperstartribune.net/ap/headlines/d8o9oh7g0.txt
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5) Prius powers Toyota to top; US automakers slide
Chicago Tribune
"New-vehicle sales fell in March at the three domestic automakers, but Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. continued to outperform the industry and posted its best month ever in the U.S. Toyota sold 242,675 vehicles, 12 percent more than a year ago, and showed strength on both the car and truck side of the business. Passenger-car sales jumped 19 percent as the Prius hybrid more than doubled, to 19,156, and the Camry, the industry's best-selling car, rose 8 percent as gasoline prices climbed during March. Prius sales have soared 80 percent this year after Toyota boosted production capacity for the car in Japan." (04/04/07)
http://tinyurl.com/ynk7fz
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6) TX: AG sues Radio Shack over ID theft law
USA Today
"RadioShack was sued Monday by the Texas Attorney General's office, which charged that the electronics retailer exposed consumers to potential identity theft by dumping data such as addresses and credit-card numbers in a trash bin behind one of its stores. The civil suit, filed in San Patricio County, Texas, accuses the company of violating the state's 2005 Identity Theft Enforcement and Protection Act, which requires businesses to protect consumer records that contain sensitive information." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2fftsr
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7) Iraqi government shortens Baghdad curfew
MSNBC
"The Iraqi government announced plans Tuesday to shorten the curfew in the capital by two hours, saying security had improved enough to let residents stay on the streets until 10 p.m. Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the spokesman for the Baghdad security operation, said the curfew had been shortened 'because the security situation has improved and people needed more time to go shopping.'" (04/03/07)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17932428/
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8) Iraqi-American goes on trial in Chicago
MSNBC
"The trial of an alleged 'sleeper agent' for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service began Tuesday with a federal prosecutor accusing him of spying on Iraqi dissidents in the United States. Sami Latchin, a 59-year-old Iraqi-born U.S. citizen, is accused of spying on U.S.-based critics of the deposed Iraqi dictator, who was hanged Dec. 30." (04/03/07)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17938527/
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9) FCC: "No" to cell phones on planes
MSNBC
"Striking a blow for cell phone haters everywhere, a government agency on Tuesday said it will keep a rule in place that requires the divisive devices to be turned off during airline flights. The reasoning behind the decision was technical. But the avalanche of comments the Federal Communications Commission has logged from airline travelers have been nothing short of visceral." (04/03/07)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17935297/
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10) Britain calls for direct talks with Iran
Imperial Valley Press
"Britain called for direct talks with Iran to resolve a dispute over 15 captive Britons Tuesday after its first contact with the chief Iranian negotiator. The announcement followed the sudden release of an Iranian diplomat in Iraq that raised new hope for resolving the standoff. In a statement late Tuesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said there had been 'further contacts' between the two countries, including with chief international negotiator Ali Larijani." (04/04/07)
http://tinyurl.com/24btlh
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11) Bush calls kettle black
Helena Independent Record
"President Bush denounced 'irresponsible' Democrats on Tuesday for going on spring break without approving money for the Iraq war with no strings. He condemned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria, too, accusing her of encouraging a terrorism sponsor." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/3xxmgb
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12) Tax prep offices engage in fraud, lawsuit says
CNN
"The government said Tuesday it is trying to shut down more than 125 Jackson Hewitt tax-preparation stores in four states for systematic 'tax-fraud schemes.' The Justice Department accuses the franchises of bilking the government out of more than $70 million through fraudulent practices such as using phony W-2 forms, bogus deductions and fuel tax credits and false claims regarding the earned income tax credit." [editor's note: The government sure does hate competition, doesn't it? - TLK] (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2tlwkc
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13) Clinton urges Dems to press Bush on Iraq
Coeur d'Alene Press
"Democrats should pressure President Bush to agree to a withdrawal of troops from Iraq rather than concede that he will veto such a plan, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday. Bush has promised to veto House and Senate versions of a war spending bill that includes timetables for drawing down troops, but Democrats shouldn't give up, said Clinton, the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination." (04/04/07)
http://tinyurl.com/34axel
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14) Venezuela: Liquor banned, so order cola with a wink
Yahoo! News
"President Hugo Chavez's government may have banned liquor in the days leading up to Easter Sunday to cut road deaths, but 'Blondie' the barman still pours a bracing 'Coca Cola' for hard-drinking Venezuelans. 'Long live the dry law,' he said with a grin as he handed out another round of Cokes with rum. Sales of booze after 5 p.m. are now officially prohibited until April 9. Yet despite the ban, it is almost as easy as ever to get a drink in Caracas, although bartenders have to be careful. In restaurants, beer or whisky bottles are removed from tables, and some even serve wine in coffee cups." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/32b3dk
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15) IN: Green light or red, consultants paid
Indianapolis Star
"Whether they've moved forward or not, Gov. Mitch Daniels' road plans certainly have been good for the private consultants hired along the way. The Daniels administration made use of a stable of companies during its efforts to lease the Indiana Toll Road to an overseas consortium. Global investment bank Goldman Sachs collected about $20 million for helping cinch the $3.8 billion Toll Road deal. Ice Miller, an Indianapolis law firm, received at least $1 million for its work on the deal. Other companies receiving payment included RQAW, an Indianapolis engineering firm, and Wilbur Smith Associates, transportation and engineering consultants based in Columbia, S.C. ... Daniels abandoned the bypass idea a week ago because of staunch public opposition." (04/01/07)
http://tinyurl.com/ystfxb
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16) £500,000 raised to find Litvinenko killer
Independent [UK]
"The grieving widow of Alexander Litvinenko and friends of the murdered former Russian security agent have stepped up efforts to secure the prosecution of his killers, amid fears that Russia has succeeded in blocking investigations. Marina Litvinenko held back tears yesterday as she announced the creation of a foundation, backed by £500,000 from the exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, to step up political pressure for the extradition of suspects." (04/03/07)
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2418433.ece
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17) WA: No murder charge in death
Herald Net
"A Mexican national with alleged ties to drug trafficking won't face murder charges for his part in a gunbattle that ended with an Everett man's death. Snohomish County prosecutors believe Hector Francisco Diaz, 28, was protecting himself when he opened fire and repeatedly shot Raymond O'Gorman in a south Everett apartment in November. During an apparent robbery attempt, O'Gorman came to the apartment, pointed a pistol at people inside and ordered them to lie on the floor. A short time later, Diaz, armed with a .357 handgun, shot O'Gorman five times, according to court records. O'Gorman also fired a round, from a .45-caliber pistol, prosecutors wrote. 'It appears that it was a justifiable homicide and Diaz was acting in self-defense when he shot O'Gorman,' Snohomish County deputy prosecutor John Adcock said." (04/03/07)
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/04/03/100loc_b1drug001.cfm
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18) WV: Man killed near Princeton in self-defense
Charleston Gazette
"A Virginia man was shot and killed in Mercer County after he apparently approached his ex-girlfriend's friend with a knife, police said. About 2:36 a.m. Sunday, police were called to Kirby Addition Road near Princeton where Luther Vane Byrd, 37, of Bluefield, Va., was found dead with a knife in his possession, Mercer County Sheriff's Detective L.B. Murphy said. Milton Justice, 57, of Princeton had left a home where Byrd's ex-girlfriend stayed since they parted and she moved out, he said. When Byrd approached him in the driveway, Justice fired a .38 special at least once from inside the vehicle, striking Byrd in the head and killing him, Murphy said." (04/03/07)
http://wvgazette.com/section/Breaking/000000378
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19) Californians working past 65 for fun, money
San Francisco Chronicle
"Fewer Californians are retiring early, and more older workers are staying in the labor pool after they reach 65, according to a report released Monday by the California Budget Project. Some wish they could retire but lack savings or a pension, while others decide to keep working because it is rewarding and they want to stay active. 'I think this is really a glass-half-empty, glass-half-full story,' said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, which is an advocate for low- and middle-income Californians." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/35war7
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20) Mexico embracing liberal agenda
Arizona Republic
"Whatever happened to macho, conservative, religious Mexico? From gay marriage to abortion, Mexicans are taking some dramatic steps to the left of the political spectrum lately, infuriating the Roman Catholic Church and challenging old stereotypes about their country. Part of the change is due to Mexico's burgeoning democracy, as leftist lawmakers revel in their new freedom to defy conservative President Felipe Calderon. Part of it is due to the rapid growth of Mexican cities and the fading of rural traditions. 'We are seeing a new readiness to challenge old customs in this country,' said Carlos Lugo Galera, a social-sciences professor at Iberoamerican University in Mexico City. 'The simple fact that we're examining these issues is important.' Sociologists are divided over how widespread the changes are, because much of the action is concentrated in Mexico City, the most cosmopolitan place in the country." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2ko68o
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21) Arrest warrants issued for Billy Joe Shaver
Tennessean
"Two warrants have been issued for the arrest of country singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver in connection of a weekend shooting in a Texas bar. On Monday, he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawfully carrying a handgun on the premises of a business with a license to sell alcohol for on-premises consumption. The warrants were issued two days after a man was shot in the face on Saturday night on the back porch of Papa Joe's Texas Saloon in Lorena, a suburb of Waco. The man was hospitalized after the incident and was listed in stable condition. On Saturday, Shaver, 67, hired Austin attorney Joseph Turner, who has represented Willie Nelson and Matthew McConaughey. On Sunday, Turner said they had been cooperating with the investigation and Shaver would turn himself in if a warrant were issued for his arrest." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/3asn9b
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22) TN: Resolution to elect officers clears judiciary panel
Nashville City Paper
"On a party-line vote, a Senate panel approved a proposed constitutional amendment today to have state constitutional officers like the attorney general popularly elected. Sen. Rosalind Kurita (D-Clarksville) has long sought the popular election of the state's constitutional officers, but she has never achieved a passing vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Today, the Republican-led judiciary committee voted 5-4 to approve the proposed constitutional amendment to popularly elect the comptroller, secretary of state, attorney general and treasurer as well as the lieutenant governor. If the resolution to elect the constitutional officers passes the Legislature this year and then by a two-thirds majority in the next General Assembly, it would go before the voters in a statewide referendum. Kurita said the voters should have the right to decide whether or not the positions should be popularly elected." (04/03/07)
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?news_id=55474
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23) Keith Richards snorted Dad's ashes mixed with cocaine
Fox News
"Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all. In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine. 'The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father,' Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME. 'He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared,' he said. 'It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive.' Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84." (04/03/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,263721,00.html
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24) Is US Army bent to the breaking point?
Christian Science Monitor
"When some 4,500 soldiers heard over the weekend that they'd be deploying to Iraq earlier than expected, many saw it as yet another inconvenience that military personnel must endure. But to some in Washington, the announcement is a glaring sign that the Army really is straining and that its well of rested, trained, and equipped soldiers is running dry. The Pentagon's announcement Monday that it is sending two units back to Iraq early means it will renege on its objective to give soldiers at least 12 months at home between deployments. While the Defense Department has extended the deployment of troops in combat, this is only the second time it has had to deprive soldiers from a major unit of a year-long rest. The fact that the Pentagon felt compelled to make the call-up seems to validate what many retired generals and former Pentagon officials have warned: that repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are wearing out military personnel and equipment to a worrisome point." (04/04/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0404/p01s01-usmi.html
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25) Victory for freedom of association at CMU
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
"In an important victory for free association, Central Michigan University (CMU) has revised a policy that banned ideological and political groups from 'discriminating' on the basis of 'political persuasion.' The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) urged CMU to change this policy after students who disagreed with the mission of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) student organization attempted to become members of the group in order to destroy it from the inside." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/yqahl9
*******************************************************************
* HEALTH-OF-THE-STATE-O-METER, 04/04/07
*
* Reported Civilian Deaths in Iraq: Min - 60,470 ... Max - 66,373
* (source: www.iraqbodycount.org)
*
* American Military Deaths in Iraq: 3,257
* (source: www.antiwar.com/casualties/ )
*******************************************************************
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* Everybody Has An Opinion
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26) Lollipop lickers
Reason
by Jacob Sullum
"According to George Crawford, coordinator of the Atlanta-based Coalition Against Chronic Candy, 'Marijuana-flavored products are a threat to our youth because they give the false impression that marijuana is fun and safe.' Yet marijuana is fun and safe, if safe is understood to mean acceptably risky, as opposed to completely risk-free. In terms of acute poisoning, driving impairment, and long-term health damage, marijuana compares quite favorably with alcohol. Which does not mean children should be smoking pot, any more than children should be drinking. But is that the likely effect of lollipops that taste like marijuana? The president of a New Jersey company that stopped making pot-flavored lollipops under government pressure once noted that Jelly Belly sells 'pina colada' and 'strawberry daiquiri' jelly beans. 'Is that creating an environment for kids to become alcoholics?' he asked. Tom Murphy of Vote Hemp, which promotes the hemp industry, notes that a company based in Atlanta, currently the center of agitation against cannabis-flavored candy, makes a highly popular 'coca-flavored soft drink' that's 'marketed to children.'" (04/04/07)
http://www.reason.com/news/show/119442.html
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27) The man versus the ideas
The Logician
by David M. Brown
"We rarely face happily clear-cut alternatives when it comes to politicians. But in making our tough choices, as responsible citizens we must necessarily consider content both of character and of ideas. Seems pretty obvious. So why are we even discussing this ridiculous dichotomy? Well, it keeps coming up. During the Clinton I scandals, we often heard about how Bill Clinton's character was not so important as his policies (which could have been even worse, granted). Now we're hearing how policies are not so important as character." (04/02/07)
http://tinyurl.com/ywaqb4
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28) We're all terrorists
Strike the Root
by Per Bylund
"We're all terrorists and enjoy what's left of our liberties only as far as we don't speak up, speak out, or start asking questions. The state, we will learn, sooner or later, is protecting itself -- as well as its privileged class and its vast powers -- from its citizenry." (04/03/07)
http://www.strike-the-root.com/71/bylund/bylund3.html
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29) Pink Pistols: The gay group that's getting armed
AlterNet
by Sarah Klein
"On a crisp Sunday morning, Nicki Stallard closes one mascara-coated eye and focuses intently on her target. Her long fingers are wrapped around the handle of a Colt .45; black go-go boots hug her muscular legs, which are firmly set in shooting stance. As she rapidly fires off rounds of ammunition, shells fall to the ground, rolling under her stacked platform heels. Nicki Stallard isn't your average lady. She was born a man. Stallard, who has been living as a woman for the past year and a half, is the coordinator of the San Jose chapter of the Pink Pistols -- a national organization that encourages gay, lesbian and transgender people to arm themselves to prevent hate crimes. Part social gun club, part political platform, the group's slogans are, 'Armed gays don't get bashed' and 'Pick on someone your own caliber.'" (04/03/07)
http://www.alternet.org/rights/50039/
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30) First they came for the spies
AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo
"The title of Dorothy Rabinowitz's Wall Street Journal screed defending two accused spies, 'First They Came for the Jews,' telegraphs the strategy apologists for Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman will be using when the two AIPAC officials' trial on charges of espionage, scheduled for June 4, finally begins. It is also a smear so outrageous it almost defies belief. What that headline communicates is the warped conception that the U.S. government, in prosecuting two prominent lobbyists on behalf of Israel for handing over sensitive classified information to Israeli officials, is the equivalent of the Nazi regime. ... The charge of anti-Semitism is the first and last resort of the Lobby whenever its role as an agent of a foreign power is questioned, or even raised." (04/04/07)
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10764
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31) Blinking red light
LewRockwell.Com
by William S. Lind
"On March 23, Iran seized 15 British sailors and Marines in the Shatt-al-Arab, accusing them of operating in Iranian waters. Normally, this sort of minor border incident would not be worth much thought. But given the strength of the war parties both in Washington and in Tehran, any incident is the equivalent of smoking in the powder magazine. So what is really going on here? We probably will not know the answer to that question until British, American and Iranian archives are opened many years from now. But some careful thought may at least point us in the right direction." (04/04/07)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lind/lind125.html
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32) May I be Frank?
Guns Magazine
by David Codrea
"'I do not carry guns on planes, I carry two guns,' Jackson, Miss., Mayor Frank Melton told WLBT Channel 3 reporters, according to the Jackson Free Press, which related the mayor 'admitting that he had carried a weapon on almost every commercial flight for years.' ... Unauthorized carrying of firearms aboard commercial airliners is a federal felony. Would you or I be 'asked?' ... And then there's this little matter of the Second Amendment. It's not like Frank is asserting his right to keep and bear arms as a matter of Constitutional principle. He just wants his guns, and the hell with everybody else. You see, Frank is not only a member of Michael Bloomberg's cabal of anti-gun mayors stumping for more citizen disarmament laws, but he also wrote an executive order to ban gun shows in Jackson, Miss., along with closing down gunshops. Which brings me back to my original question. May I be Frank? Or at least enjoy all the privileges and immunities that have been afforded him? If the answer is 'no,' then there's only one word for such inequity, and it's something no American should ever tolerate: Tyranny." (04/03/07)
http://gunsmagazine.com/Rights04.html
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33) The NRA vs the Second Amendment
Liberty Papers
by staff
"In today's Washington Examiner Robert Levy, one of the lead attorneys in the Parker v. District of Columbia case which recently resulted in a clear victory for an individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, wonders why the National Rifle Association is pursuing a strategy that would prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on the case. The problem, Levy contends, is the D.C. Personal Protection Act which would make Parker a moot case and result in the end of the appeals process:" (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2ea7d6
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34) Should Congress or courts decide DC gun ban's fate?
Examiner
by Robert A. Levy
"Could the National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress be undermining the best pro-gun case ever likely to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court? More than four years ago, three attorneys and I filed Parker v. District of Columbia, a Second Amendment case on behalf of six local residents who want to defend themselves in their own homes. For reasons that remain unclear, we faced repeated attempts by the NRA to derail the litigation. Happily, the case survived. On March 9, in a blockbuster opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned the city's gun ban -- holding that 'the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms.'" (04/03/07)R
http://tinyurl.com/3bx2kg
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35) Hang up on war
Truthdig
by Amy Goodman
"If you are upset that Congress won't defund the war in Iraq, there's something you can do: Stop paying taxes. Legally. The Internal Revenue Service is giving a rebate this year on a telephone war tax. This is one of those line items at the bottom of your phone bill. The tax was instituted in 1898 to help the United States pay for the Spanish-American War. Individuals and businesses have one chance to obtain a refund on this telephone war tax, by asking for it in their 2006 income tax returns. ... Court losses convinced the IRS to dump the telephone war tax in 2006 and to offer the retroactive rebate for phone taxes paid between March 1, 2003, and July 31, 2006." (04/03/07)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hang_up_on_war/
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36) Ah, Alberto Gonzales
Common Dreams
by Larry Beinhart
"The attorney general takes an oath to uphold the constitution and execute the law. When controversial matters come up his role, traditionally, is often to be the guy who says, we can't do that, it's against the law. Gonzales took a different approach. He brought the ethics of a corporate lawyer to his office. He took it to be his job to find, or invent, a theory that would allow the administration to go forward. If the theory wouldn't hold up in court, or made little sense, that didn't matter. They could still maintain, with straight faces, that they believed that what they were doing, on the advise of the attorney general, was legal and constitutional. If worst came to worst, they'd back off and move on, so long as the profit outweighed the penalty. The most flagrant example is when Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld decided they wanted to torture people." (04/03/07)
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/03/271/
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37) Stop the presses
The American Prospect
by Matthew Yglesias
"In case Rudy Giuliani's penchant for cross-dressing had you doubting his conservative bona fides, doubt no more. 'I regard myself as a supply-sider for sure,' he told Larry Kudlow on March 27. And just in case you weren't clear that by 'supply-sider' Giuliani meant 'know-nothing fool and liar,' he clarified: '[I] watched Ronald Reagan do it and learned it, saw it work. Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in.' Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in. That, to Giuliani, is what it means to be a supply-sider. And a supply-sider is what he proclaims himself to be. Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in. It's a nice idea. Nice, but not true. What's more, it's known to be untrue. Reagan did try it, but it didn't work." (04/03/07)
http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=12614
-----
38) McCain's flip-flop on military withdrawal goes by the book
Arizona Republic
by E.J. Montini
"The senator wanted American troops out of the war zone and offered a controversial amendment on the Senate floor that would have restricted funds for U.S. forces except for those needed to pay for a 'prompt and orderly withdrawal.' The president called it a breach of executive authority, but the senator was adamant. He argued that to remain as an occupying force would needlessly endanger American lives. Later, he wrote, 'And I ended by fairly shouting, 'Whose responsibility is that? Whose responsibility is that?' -- implying that the blood of future casualties would be on our hands.' This wasn't an anti-war Democrat speaking about Iraq in 2007. It was our own Sen. John McCain in 1993, speaking about Somalia." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2ntfmp
-----
39) April 15: day of the dread
Nashville City Paper
by Rep. Marsha Blackburn
"Reforming the way we collect taxes is only part of the puzzle. We must devote equal effort to reforming the way those dollars are spent. It is time to link Federal spending to the growth of the American family budget. While families and businesses routinely make the hard choices necessary to live within their means, our government spends much of its time avoiding them. ... I am more convinced than ever that our government doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. Despite the rhetoric and good intentions, Federal programs are rarely cut and money 'saved' is inevitably spent." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/28c8ly
-----
40) Auctioning off power in Washington
Fox News
by Radley Balko
"Between the two party primaries and the general election, spending on the 2008 presidential race likely will exceed $1.5 billion (it topped $1 billion for the first time in 2004). Toss in congressional elections, and it's likely that total spending for control of the federal government in 2008 will top $5 billion (it was just under $4 billion in 2004). That doesn't include state and local races, nor does it include the money spent on lobbying, which topped $2 billion in 2004, a 35 percent jump from 2001. I tend to agree with many of the editorial boards and campaign reformers troubled by the escalation in the money we spend on federal elections. Unfortunately, campaign finance reformers (and lobbying reformers) seem to be troubled for all the wrong reasons. The problem with increasing amounts of money spent on lobbying and politics isn't that Americans are spending more and more money to buy some influence in Washington; the problem is that we're giving Washington more and more influence to sell." (04/03/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,263320,00.html
-----
41) Partisan "justice"
Christian Science Monitor
by Joseph D. Rich
"The scandal unfolding around the firing of eight US attorneys compels the conclusion that the Bush administration has rewarded loyalty over all else. A destructive pattern of partisan political actions at the Justice Department started long before this incident, however, as those of us who worked in its civil rights division can attest. I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws -- particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies -- from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants. Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. During the past six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections." (04/04/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0404/p09s01-coop.html
-----
42) Severed heads: A case for Dr. Watson
Boston Globe
by H.D.S. Greenway
"Dr. Watson, late of Baker Street, and having himself served in Afghanistan, would have appreciated what he undoubtedly would have called: The Curious Case of the Severed Afghan Head. When the green metal box first arrived in Washington from Kabul, allegedly bearing the skull of Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant, President Bush is said to have said, only half in jest: 'So if it turns out to be Zawahiri's head, I hope you will bring it here.' Afghan tribal chiefs had sent what they believed to be the skull of Ayman al-Zawahiri in hope of collecting a $25 million reward. The Americans, needing proof, asked Egypt for a DNA sample from Zawahiri's brother, whom the Egyptians were holding." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2egyul
-----
43) I quit
CounterPunch
by Dave Lindorff
"Now we have another wretched war-monger, George W. Bush, who like Nixon before him is also doing his best to undermine the Constitution, but the party I have always been registered as a member of is letting him get away with it. Oh sure, they're having hearings to embarrass him, and they're playing games to make it look like they're opposed to his war-mongering, but they are clearly not doing anything concrete to stop him, the way Democrats did in 1974 with Nixon. In fact, the leadership of my party is doing worse than nothing. They are actively blocking efforts to bring President Bush to ground." (04/03/07)
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff04032007.html
-----
44) Coming up short on Habeas Corpus for Gitmo detainees
Strike the Root
by Marjorie Cohn
"The Bush administration has stopped the Supreme Court from giving the Guantanamo detainees their day in court -- at least for now. In Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, forty-five men challenged the constitutionality of the habeas corpus-stripping provision of the Military Commissions Act that Congress passed last year. On Monday Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell one vote short of the four needed to grant review of the lower court decision which went against the detainees." (04/03/07)
http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn04032007.html
-----
45) When is enough, enough?
Liberty For All
by Jessi Winchester
"Feds spend billions on a country that kills our troops and who want us to leave, while U.S. citizens at home go without proper medical care and more and more people are becoming homeless because of our floundering economy. Bush is failing us here at home while he obliviously goes about conquering the globe. Even though this occupation is more deadly for our troops than the war was, Bush still vows not to back off or withdraw." (written 11/03; posdted 04/03/07)
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=593
-----
46) Economics versus politics
Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Frank Chodorov
"It may be that wary beasts of the forest come around to accepting the hunter's trap as a necessary concomitant of foraging for food. At any rate, the presumably rational human animal has become so inured to political interventions that he cannot think of the making of a living without them; in all his economic calculations his first consideration is, what is the law in the matter? Or, more likely, how can I make use of the law to improve my lot in life?" (04/03/07)
http://www.mises.org/story/2505
-----
47) Why won't Al Gore debate?
Heartland Institute
by Joseph L. Bast
"In recent months, former vice president Al Gore has become the world's most recognized advocate of the theory that human greenhouse gas emissions are altering the world's climate and could cause catastrophic damage if not arrested and reduced. He is getting hundreds of millions of dollars in free publicity from the press and from environmental groups that echo his warning. But Al Gore refuses to debate those who say global warming is not a crisis." (04/02/07)
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20873
-----
48) Ethanol: Time to steer away
Hawaii Reporter
by Rebecca Hagelin
"Good news: President Bush and Congress have found an energy policy they can agree on. Bad news: They both want to expand the use of ethanol. ... This mutual enthusiasm for the corn-based fuel may be good for the political environment, but not for the physical one. A new paper by The Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman road-tests the latest boondogglefrom Washington and finds that its earth-friendly claims are seriously overblown." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/36lmwx
-----
49) Why governments can't handle risk
Foundation for Economic Education
by Randy T. Simmons
"Public opinion surveys indicate that mainstream America is worried about environmental risks. In 1990, for the first time since pollsters began asking the questions, a plurality (46 percent) of American voters believed that the quality of life where they live was worse than it was five years previous, and the number who were pessimistic about the future of the environment (46 percent) exceeded the number who were optimistic (32 percent)." (written 03/95; posted 04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/ylrsoj
-----
50) NY to Wal-Mart: We prefer unions, high prices, snobbery
Center For Individual Freedom
by staff
"New York City citizens (Manhattanites), who have cried themselves to sleep at night hoping to have nearby Wal-Marts like most of the rest of us, can now, in the words of The New York Times, 'fuhgeddaboudit.' Actually, the way the paper words it in a subhead is: 'Wal-Mart to New York: fuhgeddaboudit,' implying that the world's largest retailer is thumbing its bent nose at the city. The facts, as outlined in the article, tell a different story." (03/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/27qr8e
-----
51) SAF hails Virginia AG for proposed "gun sting" legislation
Liberty For All
by SAF staff
"The Second Amendment Foundation today applauded Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell for requesting legislation that would outlaw 'simulated straw purchases,' thus prohibiting the kind of vigilante gun sting operation mounted last year by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In a letter to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, McDonnell noted that 'The recent activities by the City of New York in Virginia brought this issue to my attention. New York's actions were met with much concern by law enforcement and this office, and have resulted in much civil litigation against Virginia businesses.'" (04/03/07)
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=592
-----
52) Fuel economy at all costs
The American Spectator
by Eric Peters
"Rep. Ed Markey thinks your next new car should get 35 mpg, which is a very nice idea -- provided you aren't concerned about the functional compromises and costs that might involve. Along with Republican co-sponsor Todd Platts, Markey has authored legislation that would push federal fuel economy standards for both passenger cars and pick-ups and SUVs to 35 mpg. Up to now, trucks and SUVs have always been considered separately -- and subject to a less onerous 21.5 mpg 'fleet average' (vs. the current 27.5 for passenger cars) on the entirely reasonable notion that it's unreasonable to demand close to 30 mpg from a vehicle that needs to be powerful enough to pull a 9,000-lb. trailer, etc. Sometimes, a Camry just won't cut it." (04/03/07)
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11237
-----
53) When cops turn into thugs
Disloyal Opposition
by J.D. Tuccille
"From rather humble beginnings, the police in the United States have been elevated to a stature above that of the people they are supposed to protect. Obedience to police is expected for even the most preposterous commands, police are themselves considered exempt from many of the laws they enforce, and crimes committed against police officers often carry greater penalties than those committed against average citizens. All of this stands in stark contrast to the principles established by Sir Robert Peel, the father of modern policing, as the necessary basis for ethical law enforcement." (04/03/07)
http://www.tuccille.com/blog/2007/04/when-cops-turn-into-thugs.html
-----
54) Global warming, global stifling
Liberty Unbound
by Gary Jason
"The debate about global warming has reached a crescendo, and has acquired a deeply unsettling tone. We are witnessing a veritable rush to judgment -- a rush that has now been accelerated by a United Nations report that accepts and supports the global warming theory. If there was ever a time for skepticism, it is now. The time has come for people who have reasonable doubts to speak up and offer the reasons for their doubts. In this article I will try to clarify what parts of global warming science give cause for doubt. I will also state the features of the global warming debate that are troublesome to me -- and should be troublesome to you." (for publication 05/07)
http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2007_05/jason-warming.html
-----
55) Giuliani: More extraordinary anti-democracy comments
Salon
by Glenn Greenwald
"Rudy Giuliani -- the leading Republican candidate for President -- has made two of the most extraordinary statements of any major presidential candidate in a long time. In a rational world, this would be a major scandal and Democratic (and the other Republican) candidates would be rushing to make their views clear on these matters. But the revelation that Giuliani believes in process-less imprisonment (and that Romney can only decide once his lawyers are done debating it) provoked virtually no attention (but hey, those first-quarter fundraising numbers sure were interesting!). Despite the fact that the media is only recently acknowledging it, we have had a serious Constitutional crisis in this country for the last six years as a result of a President who literally embraces a theory that vests him with the power to ignore the law." (04/03/07)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/03/giuliani/
-----
56) Rudy Bumpo
National Review
by Geoffrey Norman
"Rudolph Giuliani has a problem with guns. Seems that when he was cleaning up New York, Sheriff Giuliani took a hard line on hoglegs. His constituents didn't have a problem with this, or just about anything else Giuliani did to fight crime, since New York, in those days, resembled Deadwood on a slow night. As part of his campaign to make the streets safe, Giuliani's administration sued 30 American arms manufacturers, and his police commissioner proposed a nationwide system of registration under which citizens would be required to demonstrate good moral character and a reason for owning a gun. (Interesting to imagine how the same government that can lose track of 600,000 people under deportation orders would handle that one.) Now that Giuliani is among the frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination, the question is: Will his antigun record be a deal-breaker, especially with the kind of people who tend to vote in primaries." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/23jjds
-----
57) Defending economic growth against green bigotry
Free Market News Network
by Gerard Jackson
"A curious thing has happened during the last 30-odd years: economic growth, the source of our affluence and the scourge of poverty, has come under increasing attack by more and more so-called intellectuals, especially in universities and the media. According to these 'deep thinkers' the 'costs of growth are too high.' These critics accuse growth of being responsible for pollution, congestion, environmental degradation, resource depletion, stress, etc. None of these accusations are true. (I consider the last accusation that growth has caused more stress than ever is so stupid that it does not warrant further comment). To successfully deal with the charges that greens level against economic growth it is vitally important to define growth, the reason for this will be made clear at a later stage. Growth is the increasing accumulation of capital per head of the population. Therefore economies are growing when capital accumulation proceeds faster than population growth." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2dbrdz
-----
58) The bear will get you
The Free Liberal
by Fred E. Foldvary
"The Federal Reserve system, America's central bank, faces difficult choices. Past increases in the money supply are now pulling prices up, as monetary inflation creates price inflation. The mission of the Federal Reserve board is price stability, so they would like to prevent high inflation by decreasing the growth of the money supply. But with real estate topping out, with sales and construction falling, and housing prices level or falling, the economy is vulnerable to a recession. If banks have less money to loan out, interest rates will rise, investment will drop, and the economy will plunge into a recession. The problem is that the Fed's policy tool is blunt and clumsy." (04/03/07)
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/002690.html
-----
59) The political right's separation anxiety
TCS Daily
by Matthew Sinclair
"The libertarian-conservative alliance is undergoing significant strain of late. Some libertarians and American liberals are arguing for attempts to forge a new coalition. 'Liberaltarian' is the clunky title of the proposed new coalition. In Britain such libertarian discontent is muted by the relatively socially liberal attitudes of most conservatives in a country where religious expression is more muted. Despite this, the increasingly moderate and incremental change proposed by the Conservative Party frustrates many libertarians. At the fringes this is causing movement to minor parties which could become significant in the years to come. In this piece I will argue that the classical liberal-conservative alliance is essential to overcoming the paradoxes in each individual movement and should be renewed." (04/03/07)
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=040307C
-----
60) It takes a global village
The Weekly Standard
by Irwin M. Stelzer
"Until now, America has been the locomotive pulling a good part of the world economy along. Question: Will the world's economies now return the favor and prevent a growth slowdown from morphing into a recession? In answering that question it is important to keep in mind the enormous distance between the American economy and the others in the top ten. The American economy is almost three times as large as that of second place Japan, and twelve times the size of the tenth largest, Canada. So it will take a lot of little engines that could to make up for a slowing, never mind a slumping, U.S. economy." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/248tmj
-----
61) Public servants or masters?
Reason
by Steve Chapman
"In feudal times, the people were at the mercy of their rulers. But the American Revolution upended that presumption. Our democracy rests on the proposition that all legitimate power derives from the people, and that anything the government has the authority to do, it enjoys only because the people have voluntarily granted that authority. When presidential aides or municipal employees exercise their prerogatives, they're using tools that are merely on loan. But that's not how Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, acted when they decided to fire a slate of U.S. attorneys. They reverted to the medieval mindset that rulers answer to no one." (04/03/07)
http://www.reason.com/news/show/119445.html
-----
62) It takes a Hillage
Cato Institute
by David Boaz
"In any free society, millions of people will have different ideas about how to form families, how to rear children, and how to associate voluntarily with others. Those differences are not just a result of a lack of understanding each other; no matter how many Harvard seminars and National Conversations we have, we will never come to a national consensus on such intimate moral matters. Clinton implicitly recognizes that when she insists that there will be times when 'the village itself [she means the federal government] must act in place of parents' and accept 'those responsibilities in all our names through the authority we vest in government.' She fundamentally rejects the American tradition of liberty. She says that government must make the decisions about how we raise our children." (04/03/07)
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8156
-----
63) iWaste
Mother Jones
by Giles Slade
"December's iPod looks a little duller since the introduction of the iPhone, doesn't it? The screen is probably already scratched. Time, then, to let you know about the three models of next-generation iPods that, scuttlebutt says, will be available this year. As Steve Jobs said, 'If you ... want the latest and greatest ... you have to buy a new iPod at least once a year.' Yes, this is from the same man who wants you to know that 'Apple has a really strong environmental policy.' The fact that Apple's cofounder and CEO seems positively gleeful about the amount of waste his product generates is alarming, since the iPod is designed to be all too easy to throw away. Of course, if you live near an Apple store, you can recycle your obsolete iPod for free. But then, the iPod is only one small aspect of an avalanche of electronic waste that will soon overwhelm America." (04/07)
http://tinyurl.com/ynlyy5
-----
64) Jeff Flake's libertarian views on illegal immigration
Intellectual Conservative
by Rachel Alexander
"Libertarians want both open borders and the dismantling of the welfare state. The welfare state shows no sign of shrinking. Although the federal government imposed time limits on welfare payments ten years ago, other welfare programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, and disability benefits are increasing. According to the most recent U.S. census poll from 2003, 44 million people in the U.S., or one out of every six, receive government services for the poor. In 1996, there were only 39 million. Many Republican politicians are too afraid to vote to cut social welfare programs like Medicaid. Should libertarians forego their efforts to open the borders because the welfare state is increasing, or should they incrementally begin to open the borders, hoping that the welfare state will eventually begin to shrink? Some elected libertarian conservatives, like Representative Ron Paul of Texas, choose the former. Flake is gambling on the latter." [editor's note: See "dilemma, false" - TLK] (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2xo9uj
-----
65) Kudos for Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria
Independent Institute
by Ivan Eland
"President Bush has scolded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria. In the president's opinion, shared by others, the U.S. government should speak with just one voice overseas. Yet that view flies in the face of both the text and the spirit of the Constitution. Before the rise of the post-World War II imperial presidency, the powers among the branches of the U.S. government were much more balanced -- as the Constitution originally intended. In fact, suspicious of European monarchs' propensity to wage war with the blood and treasure of their citizens, the Constitution's framers actually gave more powers in foreign affairs to the Congress than the president." (04/02/07)
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1952
*******************************************************************
* RRND MEDIA SHELF -- Tchotchkes from today's edition
*
* Foreign Follies, by Doug Bandow
* http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1597819883/rationalrev08-20
*
* Radicals for Capitalism, by Brian Doherty
* http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1586483501/rationalrev08-20
*
* Amazon Gift Certificates -- The perfect gift for readers!
* http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00067L6TQ/rationalrev08-20
*
* Note: Affiliate links generate commissions for RRND's editors.
*******************************************************************
*****************************
* See No Evil, Hear No Evil
*****************************
66) Doug Bandow on The Sloan Ranger Show, 04/09/07
The Sloan Ranger Show
Doug Bandow, author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire, joins host Lloyd Sloan. 5:35pm Central on WGNU 920 AM, St. Louis, MO, or live on the web. [live radio or stream] (04/09/07)
http://www.sloanrangershow.com/
-----
67) Rock The Debates on The Liberated Space, 04/05/07
The Liberated Space
RockTheDebates.Org -- the latest effort to open up presidential election debates to the full range of candidates. With host Angela Keaton. 4:30pm Pacific Time on Blog Talk Radio. [various formats] (04/05/07)
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=17639
-----
68) Sami Rasouli on Antiwar Radio
AntiWar.Com
"Iraqi-American human rights activist Sami Rasouli discusses his time back in Iraq, his belief that the American presence is causing the civil war rather than helping reduce it, the daily hell that has caused 4 million people to become refugees, Iraqi widows being taken as sex slaves in neighboring states, the threat to U.S. forces in Iraq if Bush bombs Iran and many other terrible things." [Flash audio or MP3] (04/03/07)
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/04/03/sami-rasouli/
-----
69) The reality of REAL ID
Cato Institute
Cato daily podcast, featuring Jim Harper. [MP3] (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/386wpa
-----
70) Free Talk Live, 04/03/07
Free Talk Live
"CO Discharge / Bill Maher and Ron Paul / Rights and Government / Roads / Police Attack Mr. Universe / LAPD's New Less-Violent Flashlight / The Pledge at a Christian School / Jesus Camp and the Evangelicals / Biodiesel / Medical Marijuana / Falwell's Mistake / Property Rights." [MP3] (04/03/07)
http://media.libsyn.com/media/ftl/FTL2007-04-03.mp3
********************
* Weekly Symposium
********************
71) Cage match: Cato v. the Rothbardians
There have always been two possibilities: The breach between traditionalist (and usually "Rothbardian") libertarians and those who believe the feedom movement can be "mainstreamed" through compromise would heal, or it would widen ... and the period since 2001 has proven full of opportunities for either of those things to happen.
We seem to be moving toward a decision here, as evidenced by the shots the two groups are firing across each others' bows. The battle didn't start with these shots, but the tempo of fire certainly increased with a recent Cato Unbound symposium on Brian Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism, most particularly an article by Virginia Postrel; replies from the Mises Institute's Karen DeCoster, AntiWar.Com's Justin Raimondo, and Susan Hogarth of the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus have escalated yet another minor duel into what may be a decisive engagement.
Let's not sit this one out: Everyone from the most strident Nockian Remnantist to the most softcore "mainstreamer" has a dog in this fight. Unleash yours into the pit and tell us what you think:
Should the freedom movement resign itself to finally and forever fragmenting along these lines, or should it keep trying to heal itself and build a "bigger tent" together, even at the expense of accepting "libertarians for bigger government" into that tent?
http://www.rationalreview.com/content/27101
*************************************
* What's Up In The Freedom Movement
*************************************
72) Today's events
Check our sidebar calendar for this week's freedom movement events. Don't see your event? Drop us a line at in...@rationalreview.com .
http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=info%40rationalreview.com
***********
* WaYbAcK
***********
73) A shooting at the Lorraine Hotel
Details, and the "quote of the day," from Leon's Political Almanac at:
http://perspicuity.net/cgi/hypercal.cgi
* RATIONAL REVIEW NEWS DIGEST
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* Volume V, Issue #1,122
* Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
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In The News:
1) Fedgoons free blogger after 226 days
2) US linked to "outsourced Guantanamo"
3) Romney tops GOP in race for funds
4) Iraq: Fighting, killing continues
5) Prius powers Toyota to top; US automakers slide
6) TX: AG sues Radio Shack over ID theft law
7) Iraqi government shortens Baghdad curfew
8) Iraqi-American goes on trial in Chicago
9) FCC: "No" to cell phones on planes
10) Britain calls for direct talks with Iran
11) Bush calls kettle black
12) Tax prep offices engage in fraud, lawsuit says
13) Clinton urges Dems to press Bush on Iraq
14) Venezuela: Liquor banned, so order cola with a wink
15) IN: Green light or red, consultants paid
16) £500,000 raised to find Litvinenko killer
17) WA: No murder charge in death
18) WV: Man killed near Princeton in self-defense
19) Californians working past 65 for fun, money
20) Mexico embracing liberal agenda
21) Arrest warrants issued for Billy Joe Shaver
22) TN: Resolution to elect officers clears judiciary panel
23) Keith Richards snorted Dad's ashes mixed with cocaine
24) Is US Army bent to the breaking point?
25) Victory for freedom of association at CMU
Everybody Has An Opinion:
26) Lollipop lickers
27) The man versus the ideas
28) We're all terrorists
29) Pink Pistols: The gay group that's getting armed
30) First they came for the spies
31) Blinking red light
32) May I be Frank?
33) The NRA vs the Second Amendment
34) Should Congress or courts decide DC gun ban's fate?
35) Hang up on war
36) Ah, Alberto Gonzales
37) Stop the presses
38) McCain's flip-flop on military withdrawal goes by the book
39) April 15: day of the dread
40) Auctioning off power in Washington
41) Partisan "justice"
42) Severed heads: A case for Dr. Watson
43) I quit
44) Coming up short on Habeas Corpus for Gitmo detainees
45) When is enough, enough?
46) Economics versus politics
47) Why won't Al Gore debate?
48) Ethanol: Time to steer away
49) Why governments can't handle risk
50) NY to Wal-Mart: We prefer unions, high prices, snobbery
51) SAF hails Virginia AG for proposed "gun sting" legislation
52) Fuel economy at all costs
53) When cops turn into thugs
54) Global warming, global stifling
55) Giuliani: More extraordinary anti-democracy comments
56) Rudy Bumpo
57) Defending economic growth against green bigotry
58) The bear will get you
59) The political right's separation anxiety
60) It takes a global village
61) Public servants or masters?
62) It takes a Hillage
63) iWaste
64) Jeff Flake's libertarian views on illegal immigration
65) Kudos for Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria
See No Evil, Hear No Evil:
66) Doug Bandow on The Sloan Ranger Show, 04/09/07
67) Rock The Debates on The Liberated Space, 04/05/07
68) Sami Rasouli on Antiwar Radio
69) The reality of REAL ID
70) Free Talk Live, 04/03/07
Weekly Symposium:
71) Cage match: Cato v. the Rothbardians
What's Up In The Freedom Movement:
72) Today's events
WaYbAcK:
73) A shooting at the Lorraine Hotel
***************
* In The News
***************
1) Fedgoons free blogger after 226 days
ABC News
"Video blogger Joshua Wolf, who spent a record-setting stint behind bars for refusing to turn over his footage of a chaotic 2005 street protest, walked out of prison after cutting a deal with prosecutors. Wolf, 24, said Tuesday he was looking forward to 'pizza and a beer' after having spent 226 days in prison more than any journalist who's refused to testify. Under the deal with prosecutors, Wolf agreed to turn over the uncut video, which he also posted on his Web site Tuesday. But he refused to testify before the grand jury about the events at the protest or the identities of participants." (04/04/07)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3006206
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2) US linked to "outsourced Guantanamo"
Connecticut Post
"CIA and FBI agents hunting for al-Qaida militants in the Horn of Africa have been interrogating terrorism suspects from 19 countries held at secret prisons in Ethiopia, which is notorious for torture and abuse, according to an investigation by the Associated Press. Human rights groups, lawyers and several Western diplomats assert hundreds of prisoners, who include women and children, have been transferred secretly and illegally in recent months from Kenya and Somalia to Ethiopia, where they are kept without charge or access to lawyers and families." [editor's note: Looks like the US has bought Ethiopia lock, stock and barrel -- they're also the main US proxy in the Busheviks' obsessive attempts to impose a state on Somalia - TLK] (04/03/07)
http://www.connpost.com/localnews/ci_5587436
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3) Romney tops GOP in race for funds
Boston Globe
"Mitt Romney yesterday reported raising nearly $21 million in the first quarter of 2007 for the Republican presidential primary, a formidable sum that makes him the top GOP fund-raiser so far and rivals the amount that Senator Hillary Clinton has netted this year for her Democratic primary battle. Romney, who has built a broad network of supporters, friends, and former business contacts, had been expected to put up a strong first-quarter showing, but his dominance over fellow Republicans -- and the possibility that he could match or even beat Clinton in fund-raising for the primaries -- immediately branded him a rising force in the 2008 presidential race. 'I think it is remarkable,' said Stuart Rothenberg, who publishes the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. 'It's surely getting everyone's attention.'" (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/347vy6
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4) Iraq: Fighting, killing continues
Casper Star-Tribune
"Gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying power plant workers in a predominantly Sunni area west of Kirkuk on Wednesday, killing six men, officials said. Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber and a mortar attack also hit a police station in the Shiite Sadr City enclave in Baghdad, wounding two policemen and two civilians .... Gunmen also attacked a police patrol about 6 a.m. near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing four officers .... Two mortar rounds also slammed into a house in the predominantly Shiite town of Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, just after midnight, killing a woman and wounding two other women and a 4-year-old boy ..." (04/04/07)
http://www.casperstartribune.net/ap/headlines/d8o9oh7g0.txt
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5) Prius powers Toyota to top; US automakers slide
Chicago Tribune
"New-vehicle sales fell in March at the three domestic automakers, but Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. continued to outperform the industry and posted its best month ever in the U.S. Toyota sold 242,675 vehicles, 12 percent more than a year ago, and showed strength on both the car and truck side of the business. Passenger-car sales jumped 19 percent as the Prius hybrid more than doubled, to 19,156, and the Camry, the industry's best-selling car, rose 8 percent as gasoline prices climbed during March. Prius sales have soared 80 percent this year after Toyota boosted production capacity for the car in Japan." (04/04/07)
http://tinyurl.com/ynk7fz
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6) TX: AG sues Radio Shack over ID theft law
USA Today
"RadioShack was sued Monday by the Texas Attorney General's office, which charged that the electronics retailer exposed consumers to potential identity theft by dumping data such as addresses and credit-card numbers in a trash bin behind one of its stores. The civil suit, filed in San Patricio County, Texas, accuses the company of violating the state's 2005 Identity Theft Enforcement and Protection Act, which requires businesses to protect consumer records that contain sensitive information." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2fftsr
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7) Iraqi government shortens Baghdad curfew
MSNBC
"The Iraqi government announced plans Tuesday to shorten the curfew in the capital by two hours, saying security had improved enough to let residents stay on the streets until 10 p.m. Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the spokesman for the Baghdad security operation, said the curfew had been shortened 'because the security situation has improved and people needed more time to go shopping.'" (04/03/07)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17932428/
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8) Iraqi-American goes on trial in Chicago
MSNBC
"The trial of an alleged 'sleeper agent' for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service began Tuesday with a federal prosecutor accusing him of spying on Iraqi dissidents in the United States. Sami Latchin, a 59-year-old Iraqi-born U.S. citizen, is accused of spying on U.S.-based critics of the deposed Iraqi dictator, who was hanged Dec. 30." (04/03/07)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17938527/
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9) FCC: "No" to cell phones on planes
MSNBC
"Striking a blow for cell phone haters everywhere, a government agency on Tuesday said it will keep a rule in place that requires the divisive devices to be turned off during airline flights. The reasoning behind the decision was technical. But the avalanche of comments the Federal Communications Commission has logged from airline travelers have been nothing short of visceral." (04/03/07)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17935297/
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10) Britain calls for direct talks with Iran
Imperial Valley Press
"Britain called for direct talks with Iran to resolve a dispute over 15 captive Britons Tuesday after its first contact with the chief Iranian negotiator. The announcement followed the sudden release of an Iranian diplomat in Iraq that raised new hope for resolving the standoff. In a statement late Tuesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said there had been 'further contacts' between the two countries, including with chief international negotiator Ali Larijani." (04/04/07)
http://tinyurl.com/24btlh
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11) Bush calls kettle black
Helena Independent Record
"President Bush denounced 'irresponsible' Democrats on Tuesday for going on spring break without approving money for the Iraq war with no strings. He condemned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria, too, accusing her of encouraging a terrorism sponsor." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/3xxmgb
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12) Tax prep offices engage in fraud, lawsuit says
CNN
"The government said Tuesday it is trying to shut down more than 125 Jackson Hewitt tax-preparation stores in four states for systematic 'tax-fraud schemes.' The Justice Department accuses the franchises of bilking the government out of more than $70 million through fraudulent practices such as using phony W-2 forms, bogus deductions and fuel tax credits and false claims regarding the earned income tax credit." [editor's note: The government sure does hate competition, doesn't it? - TLK] (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2tlwkc
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13) Clinton urges Dems to press Bush on Iraq
Coeur d'Alene Press
"Democrats should pressure President Bush to agree to a withdrawal of troops from Iraq rather than concede that he will veto such a plan, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday. Bush has promised to veto House and Senate versions of a war spending bill that includes timetables for drawing down troops, but Democrats shouldn't give up, said Clinton, the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination." (04/04/07)
http://tinyurl.com/34axel
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14) Venezuela: Liquor banned, so order cola with a wink
Yahoo! News
"President Hugo Chavez's government may have banned liquor in the days leading up to Easter Sunday to cut road deaths, but 'Blondie' the barman still pours a bracing 'Coca Cola' for hard-drinking Venezuelans. 'Long live the dry law,' he said with a grin as he handed out another round of Cokes with rum. Sales of booze after 5 p.m. are now officially prohibited until April 9. Yet despite the ban, it is almost as easy as ever to get a drink in Caracas, although bartenders have to be careful. In restaurants, beer or whisky bottles are removed from tables, and some even serve wine in coffee cups." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/32b3dk
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15) IN: Green light or red, consultants paid
Indianapolis Star
"Whether they've moved forward or not, Gov. Mitch Daniels' road plans certainly have been good for the private consultants hired along the way. The Daniels administration made use of a stable of companies during its efforts to lease the Indiana Toll Road to an overseas consortium. Global investment bank Goldman Sachs collected about $20 million for helping cinch the $3.8 billion Toll Road deal. Ice Miller, an Indianapolis law firm, received at least $1 million for its work on the deal. Other companies receiving payment included RQAW, an Indianapolis engineering firm, and Wilbur Smith Associates, transportation and engineering consultants based in Columbia, S.C. ... Daniels abandoned the bypass idea a week ago because of staunch public opposition." (04/01/07)
http://tinyurl.com/ystfxb
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16) £500,000 raised to find Litvinenko killer
Independent [UK]
"The grieving widow of Alexander Litvinenko and friends of the murdered former Russian security agent have stepped up efforts to secure the prosecution of his killers, amid fears that Russia has succeeded in blocking investigations. Marina Litvinenko held back tears yesterday as she announced the creation of a foundation, backed by £500,000 from the exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, to step up political pressure for the extradition of suspects." (04/03/07)
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2418433.ece
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17) WA: No murder charge in death
Herald Net
"A Mexican national with alleged ties to drug trafficking won't face murder charges for his part in a gunbattle that ended with an Everett man's death. Snohomish County prosecutors believe Hector Francisco Diaz, 28, was protecting himself when he opened fire and repeatedly shot Raymond O'Gorman in a south Everett apartment in November. During an apparent robbery attempt, O'Gorman came to the apartment, pointed a pistol at people inside and ordered them to lie on the floor. A short time later, Diaz, armed with a .357 handgun, shot O'Gorman five times, according to court records. O'Gorman also fired a round, from a .45-caliber pistol, prosecutors wrote. 'It appears that it was a justifiable homicide and Diaz was acting in self-defense when he shot O'Gorman,' Snohomish County deputy prosecutor John Adcock said." (04/03/07)
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/04/03/100loc_b1drug001.cfm
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18) WV: Man killed near Princeton in self-defense
Charleston Gazette
"A Virginia man was shot and killed in Mercer County after he apparently approached his ex-girlfriend's friend with a knife, police said. About 2:36 a.m. Sunday, police were called to Kirby Addition Road near Princeton where Luther Vane Byrd, 37, of Bluefield, Va., was found dead with a knife in his possession, Mercer County Sheriff's Detective L.B. Murphy said. Milton Justice, 57, of Princeton had left a home where Byrd's ex-girlfriend stayed since they parted and she moved out, he said. When Byrd approached him in the driveway, Justice fired a .38 special at least once from inside the vehicle, striking Byrd in the head and killing him, Murphy said." (04/03/07)
http://wvgazette.com/section/Breaking/000000378
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19) Californians working past 65 for fun, money
San Francisco Chronicle
"Fewer Californians are retiring early, and more older workers are staying in the labor pool after they reach 65, according to a report released Monday by the California Budget Project. Some wish they could retire but lack savings or a pension, while others decide to keep working because it is rewarding and they want to stay active. 'I think this is really a glass-half-empty, glass-half-full story,' said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, which is an advocate for low- and middle-income Californians." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/35war7
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20) Mexico embracing liberal agenda
Arizona Republic
"Whatever happened to macho, conservative, religious Mexico? From gay marriage to abortion, Mexicans are taking some dramatic steps to the left of the political spectrum lately, infuriating the Roman Catholic Church and challenging old stereotypes about their country. Part of the change is due to Mexico's burgeoning democracy, as leftist lawmakers revel in their new freedom to defy conservative President Felipe Calderon. Part of it is due to the rapid growth of Mexican cities and the fading of rural traditions. 'We are seeing a new readiness to challenge old customs in this country,' said Carlos Lugo Galera, a social-sciences professor at Iberoamerican University in Mexico City. 'The simple fact that we're examining these issues is important.' Sociologists are divided over how widespread the changes are, because much of the action is concentrated in Mexico City, the most cosmopolitan place in the country." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2ko68o
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21) Arrest warrants issued for Billy Joe Shaver
Tennessean
"Two warrants have been issued for the arrest of country singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver in connection of a weekend shooting in a Texas bar. On Monday, he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawfully carrying a handgun on the premises of a business with a license to sell alcohol for on-premises consumption. The warrants were issued two days after a man was shot in the face on Saturday night on the back porch of Papa Joe's Texas Saloon in Lorena, a suburb of Waco. The man was hospitalized after the incident and was listed in stable condition. On Saturday, Shaver, 67, hired Austin attorney Joseph Turner, who has represented Willie Nelson and Matthew McConaughey. On Sunday, Turner said they had been cooperating with the investigation and Shaver would turn himself in if a warrant were issued for his arrest." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/3asn9b
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22) TN: Resolution to elect officers clears judiciary panel
Nashville City Paper
"On a party-line vote, a Senate panel approved a proposed constitutional amendment today to have state constitutional officers like the attorney general popularly elected. Sen. Rosalind Kurita (D-Clarksville) has long sought the popular election of the state's constitutional officers, but she has never achieved a passing vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Today, the Republican-led judiciary committee voted 5-4 to approve the proposed constitutional amendment to popularly elect the comptroller, secretary of state, attorney general and treasurer as well as the lieutenant governor. If the resolution to elect the constitutional officers passes the Legislature this year and then by a two-thirds majority in the next General Assembly, it would go before the voters in a statewide referendum. Kurita said the voters should have the right to decide whether or not the positions should be popularly elected." (04/03/07)
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?news_id=55474
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23) Keith Richards snorted Dad's ashes mixed with cocaine
Fox News
"Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all. In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine. 'The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father,' Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME. 'He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared,' he said. 'It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive.' Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84." (04/03/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,263721,00.html
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24) Is US Army bent to the breaking point?
Christian Science Monitor
"When some 4,500 soldiers heard over the weekend that they'd be deploying to Iraq earlier than expected, many saw it as yet another inconvenience that military personnel must endure. But to some in Washington, the announcement is a glaring sign that the Army really is straining and that its well of rested, trained, and equipped soldiers is running dry. The Pentagon's announcement Monday that it is sending two units back to Iraq early means it will renege on its objective to give soldiers at least 12 months at home between deployments. While the Defense Department has extended the deployment of troops in combat, this is only the second time it has had to deprive soldiers from a major unit of a year-long rest. The fact that the Pentagon felt compelled to make the call-up seems to validate what many retired generals and former Pentagon officials have warned: that repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are wearing out military personnel and equipment to a worrisome point." (04/04/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0404/p01s01-usmi.html
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25) Victory for freedom of association at CMU
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
"In an important victory for free association, Central Michigan University (CMU) has revised a policy that banned ideological and political groups from 'discriminating' on the basis of 'political persuasion.' The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) urged CMU to change this policy after students who disagreed with the mission of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) student organization attempted to become members of the group in order to destroy it from the inside." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/yqahl9
*******************************************************************
* HEALTH-OF-THE-STATE-O-METER, 04/04/07
*
* Reported Civilian Deaths in Iraq: Min - 60,470 ... Max - 66,373
* (source: www.iraqbodycount.org)
*
* American Military Deaths in Iraq: 3,257
* (source: www.antiwar.com/casualties/ )
*******************************************************************
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* Everybody Has An Opinion
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26) Lollipop lickers
Reason
by Jacob Sullum
"According to George Crawford, coordinator of the Atlanta-based Coalition Against Chronic Candy, 'Marijuana-flavored products are a threat to our youth because they give the false impression that marijuana is fun and safe.' Yet marijuana is fun and safe, if safe is understood to mean acceptably risky, as opposed to completely risk-free. In terms of acute poisoning, driving impairment, and long-term health damage, marijuana compares quite favorably with alcohol. Which does not mean children should be smoking pot, any more than children should be drinking. But is that the likely effect of lollipops that taste like marijuana? The president of a New Jersey company that stopped making pot-flavored lollipops under government pressure once noted that Jelly Belly sells 'pina colada' and 'strawberry daiquiri' jelly beans. 'Is that creating an environment for kids to become alcoholics?' he asked. Tom Murphy of Vote Hemp, which promotes the hemp industry, notes that a company based in Atlanta, currently the center of agitation against cannabis-flavored candy, makes a highly popular 'coca-flavored soft drink' that's 'marketed to children.'" (04/04/07)
http://www.reason.com/news/show/119442.html
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27) The man versus the ideas
The Logician
by David M. Brown
"We rarely face happily clear-cut alternatives when it comes to politicians. But in making our tough choices, as responsible citizens we must necessarily consider content both of character and of ideas. Seems pretty obvious. So why are we even discussing this ridiculous dichotomy? Well, it keeps coming up. During the Clinton I scandals, we often heard about how Bill Clinton's character was not so important as his policies (which could have been even worse, granted). Now we're hearing how policies are not so important as character." (04/02/07)
http://tinyurl.com/ywaqb4
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28) We're all terrorists
Strike the Root
by Per Bylund
"We're all terrorists and enjoy what's left of our liberties only as far as we don't speak up, speak out, or start asking questions. The state, we will learn, sooner or later, is protecting itself -- as well as its privileged class and its vast powers -- from its citizenry." (04/03/07)
http://www.strike-the-root.com/71/bylund/bylund3.html
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29) Pink Pistols: The gay group that's getting armed
AlterNet
by Sarah Klein
"On a crisp Sunday morning, Nicki Stallard closes one mascara-coated eye and focuses intently on her target. Her long fingers are wrapped around the handle of a Colt .45; black go-go boots hug her muscular legs, which are firmly set in shooting stance. As she rapidly fires off rounds of ammunition, shells fall to the ground, rolling under her stacked platform heels. Nicki Stallard isn't your average lady. She was born a man. Stallard, who has been living as a woman for the past year and a half, is the coordinator of the San Jose chapter of the Pink Pistols -- a national organization that encourages gay, lesbian and transgender people to arm themselves to prevent hate crimes. Part social gun club, part political platform, the group's slogans are, 'Armed gays don't get bashed' and 'Pick on someone your own caliber.'" (04/03/07)
http://www.alternet.org/rights/50039/
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30) First they came for the spies
AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo
"The title of Dorothy Rabinowitz's Wall Street Journal screed defending two accused spies, 'First They Came for the Jews,' telegraphs the strategy apologists for Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman will be using when the two AIPAC officials' trial on charges of espionage, scheduled for June 4, finally begins. It is also a smear so outrageous it almost defies belief. What that headline communicates is the warped conception that the U.S. government, in prosecuting two prominent lobbyists on behalf of Israel for handing over sensitive classified information to Israeli officials, is the equivalent of the Nazi regime. ... The charge of anti-Semitism is the first and last resort of the Lobby whenever its role as an agent of a foreign power is questioned, or even raised." (04/04/07)
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10764
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31) Blinking red light
LewRockwell.Com
by William S. Lind
"On March 23, Iran seized 15 British sailors and Marines in the Shatt-al-Arab, accusing them of operating in Iranian waters. Normally, this sort of minor border incident would not be worth much thought. But given the strength of the war parties both in Washington and in Tehran, any incident is the equivalent of smoking in the powder magazine. So what is really going on here? We probably will not know the answer to that question until British, American and Iranian archives are opened many years from now. But some careful thought may at least point us in the right direction." (04/04/07)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lind/lind125.html
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32) May I be Frank?
Guns Magazine
by David Codrea
"'I do not carry guns on planes, I carry two guns,' Jackson, Miss., Mayor Frank Melton told WLBT Channel 3 reporters, according to the Jackson Free Press, which related the mayor 'admitting that he had carried a weapon on almost every commercial flight for years.' ... Unauthorized carrying of firearms aboard commercial airliners is a federal felony. Would you or I be 'asked?' ... And then there's this little matter of the Second Amendment. It's not like Frank is asserting his right to keep and bear arms as a matter of Constitutional principle. He just wants his guns, and the hell with everybody else. You see, Frank is not only a member of Michael Bloomberg's cabal of anti-gun mayors stumping for more citizen disarmament laws, but he also wrote an executive order to ban gun shows in Jackson, Miss., along with closing down gunshops. Which brings me back to my original question. May I be Frank? Or at least enjoy all the privileges and immunities that have been afforded him? If the answer is 'no,' then there's only one word for such inequity, and it's something no American should ever tolerate: Tyranny." (04/03/07)
http://gunsmagazine.com/Rights04.html
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33) The NRA vs the Second Amendment
Liberty Papers
by staff
"In today's Washington Examiner Robert Levy, one of the lead attorneys in the Parker v. District of Columbia case which recently resulted in a clear victory for an individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, wonders why the National Rifle Association is pursuing a strategy that would prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on the case. The problem, Levy contends, is the D.C. Personal Protection Act which would make Parker a moot case and result in the end of the appeals process:" (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2ea7d6
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34) Should Congress or courts decide DC gun ban's fate?
Examiner
by Robert A. Levy
"Could the National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress be undermining the best pro-gun case ever likely to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court? More than four years ago, three attorneys and I filed Parker v. District of Columbia, a Second Amendment case on behalf of six local residents who want to defend themselves in their own homes. For reasons that remain unclear, we faced repeated attempts by the NRA to derail the litigation. Happily, the case survived. On March 9, in a blockbuster opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned the city's gun ban -- holding that 'the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms.'" (04/03/07)R
http://tinyurl.com/3bx2kg
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35) Hang up on war
Truthdig
by Amy Goodman
"If you are upset that Congress won't defund the war in Iraq, there's something you can do: Stop paying taxes. Legally. The Internal Revenue Service is giving a rebate this year on a telephone war tax. This is one of those line items at the bottom of your phone bill. The tax was instituted in 1898 to help the United States pay for the Spanish-American War. Individuals and businesses have one chance to obtain a refund on this telephone war tax, by asking for it in their 2006 income tax returns. ... Court losses convinced the IRS to dump the telephone war tax in 2006 and to offer the retroactive rebate for phone taxes paid between March 1, 2003, and July 31, 2006." (04/03/07)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hang_up_on_war/
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36) Ah, Alberto Gonzales
Common Dreams
by Larry Beinhart
"The attorney general takes an oath to uphold the constitution and execute the law. When controversial matters come up his role, traditionally, is often to be the guy who says, we can't do that, it's against the law. Gonzales took a different approach. He brought the ethics of a corporate lawyer to his office. He took it to be his job to find, or invent, a theory that would allow the administration to go forward. If the theory wouldn't hold up in court, or made little sense, that didn't matter. They could still maintain, with straight faces, that they believed that what they were doing, on the advise of the attorney general, was legal and constitutional. If worst came to worst, they'd back off and move on, so long as the profit outweighed the penalty. The most flagrant example is when Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld decided they wanted to torture people." (04/03/07)
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/03/271/
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37) Stop the presses
The American Prospect
by Matthew Yglesias
"In case Rudy Giuliani's penchant for cross-dressing had you doubting his conservative bona fides, doubt no more. 'I regard myself as a supply-sider for sure,' he told Larry Kudlow on March 27. And just in case you weren't clear that by 'supply-sider' Giuliani meant 'know-nothing fool and liar,' he clarified: '[I] watched Ronald Reagan do it and learned it, saw it work. Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in.' Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in. That, to Giuliani, is what it means to be a supply-sider. And a supply-sider is what he proclaims himself to be. Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in. It's a nice idea. Nice, but not true. What's more, it's known to be untrue. Reagan did try it, but it didn't work." (04/03/07)
http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=12614
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38) McCain's flip-flop on military withdrawal goes by the book
Arizona Republic
by E.J. Montini
"The senator wanted American troops out of the war zone and offered a controversial amendment on the Senate floor that would have restricted funds for U.S. forces except for those needed to pay for a 'prompt and orderly withdrawal.' The president called it a breach of executive authority, but the senator was adamant. He argued that to remain as an occupying force would needlessly endanger American lives. Later, he wrote, 'And I ended by fairly shouting, 'Whose responsibility is that? Whose responsibility is that?' -- implying that the blood of future casualties would be on our hands.' This wasn't an anti-war Democrat speaking about Iraq in 2007. It was our own Sen. John McCain in 1993, speaking about Somalia." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2ntfmp
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39) April 15: day of the dread
Nashville City Paper
by Rep. Marsha Blackburn
"Reforming the way we collect taxes is only part of the puzzle. We must devote equal effort to reforming the way those dollars are spent. It is time to link Federal spending to the growth of the American family budget. While families and businesses routinely make the hard choices necessary to live within their means, our government spends much of its time avoiding them. ... I am more convinced than ever that our government doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. Despite the rhetoric and good intentions, Federal programs are rarely cut and money 'saved' is inevitably spent." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/28c8ly
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40) Auctioning off power in Washington
Fox News
by Radley Balko
"Between the two party primaries and the general election, spending on the 2008 presidential race likely will exceed $1.5 billion (it topped $1 billion for the first time in 2004). Toss in congressional elections, and it's likely that total spending for control of the federal government in 2008 will top $5 billion (it was just under $4 billion in 2004). That doesn't include state and local races, nor does it include the money spent on lobbying, which topped $2 billion in 2004, a 35 percent jump from 2001. I tend to agree with many of the editorial boards and campaign reformers troubled by the escalation in the money we spend on federal elections. Unfortunately, campaign finance reformers (and lobbying reformers) seem to be troubled for all the wrong reasons. The problem with increasing amounts of money spent on lobbying and politics isn't that Americans are spending more and more money to buy some influence in Washington; the problem is that we're giving Washington more and more influence to sell." (04/03/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,263320,00.html
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41) Partisan "justice"
Christian Science Monitor
by Joseph D. Rich
"The scandal unfolding around the firing of eight US attorneys compels the conclusion that the Bush administration has rewarded loyalty over all else. A destructive pattern of partisan political actions at the Justice Department started long before this incident, however, as those of us who worked in its civil rights division can attest. I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws -- particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies -- from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants. Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. During the past six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections." (04/04/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0404/p09s01-coop.html
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42) Severed heads: A case for Dr. Watson
Boston Globe
by H.D.S. Greenway
"Dr. Watson, late of Baker Street, and having himself served in Afghanistan, would have appreciated what he undoubtedly would have called: The Curious Case of the Severed Afghan Head. When the green metal box first arrived in Washington from Kabul, allegedly bearing the skull of Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant, President Bush is said to have said, only half in jest: 'So if it turns out to be Zawahiri's head, I hope you will bring it here.' Afghan tribal chiefs had sent what they believed to be the skull of Ayman al-Zawahiri in hope of collecting a $25 million reward. The Americans, needing proof, asked Egypt for a DNA sample from Zawahiri's brother, whom the Egyptians were holding." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2egyul
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43) I quit
CounterPunch
by Dave Lindorff
"Now we have another wretched war-monger, George W. Bush, who like Nixon before him is also doing his best to undermine the Constitution, but the party I have always been registered as a member of is letting him get away with it. Oh sure, they're having hearings to embarrass him, and they're playing games to make it look like they're opposed to his war-mongering, but they are clearly not doing anything concrete to stop him, the way Democrats did in 1974 with Nixon. In fact, the leadership of my party is doing worse than nothing. They are actively blocking efforts to bring President Bush to ground." (04/03/07)
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff04032007.html
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44) Coming up short on Habeas Corpus for Gitmo detainees
Strike the Root
by Marjorie Cohn
"The Bush administration has stopped the Supreme Court from giving the Guantanamo detainees their day in court -- at least for now. In Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, forty-five men challenged the constitutionality of the habeas corpus-stripping provision of the Military Commissions Act that Congress passed last year. On Monday Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell one vote short of the four needed to grant review of the lower court decision which went against the detainees." (04/03/07)
http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn04032007.html
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45) When is enough, enough?
Liberty For All
by Jessi Winchester
"Feds spend billions on a country that kills our troops and who want us to leave, while U.S. citizens at home go without proper medical care and more and more people are becoming homeless because of our floundering economy. Bush is failing us here at home while he obliviously goes about conquering the globe. Even though this occupation is more deadly for our troops than the war was, Bush still vows not to back off or withdraw." (written 11/03; posdted 04/03/07)
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=593
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46) Economics versus politics
Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Frank Chodorov
"It may be that wary beasts of the forest come around to accepting the hunter's trap as a necessary concomitant of foraging for food. At any rate, the presumably rational human animal has become so inured to political interventions that he cannot think of the making of a living without them; in all his economic calculations his first consideration is, what is the law in the matter? Or, more likely, how can I make use of the law to improve my lot in life?" (04/03/07)
http://www.mises.org/story/2505
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47) Why won't Al Gore debate?
Heartland Institute
by Joseph L. Bast
"In recent months, former vice president Al Gore has become the world's most recognized advocate of the theory that human greenhouse gas emissions are altering the world's climate and could cause catastrophic damage if not arrested and reduced. He is getting hundreds of millions of dollars in free publicity from the press and from environmental groups that echo his warning. But Al Gore refuses to debate those who say global warming is not a crisis." (04/02/07)
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20873
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48) Ethanol: Time to steer away
Hawaii Reporter
by Rebecca Hagelin
"Good news: President Bush and Congress have found an energy policy they can agree on. Bad news: They both want to expand the use of ethanol. ... This mutual enthusiasm for the corn-based fuel may be good for the political environment, but not for the physical one. A new paper by The Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman road-tests the latest boondogglefrom Washington and finds that its earth-friendly claims are seriously overblown." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/36lmwx
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49) Why governments can't handle risk
Foundation for Economic Education
by Randy T. Simmons
"Public opinion surveys indicate that mainstream America is worried about environmental risks. In 1990, for the first time since pollsters began asking the questions, a plurality (46 percent) of American voters believed that the quality of life where they live was worse than it was five years previous, and the number who were pessimistic about the future of the environment (46 percent) exceeded the number who were optimistic (32 percent)." (written 03/95; posted 04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/ylrsoj
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50) NY to Wal-Mart: We prefer unions, high prices, snobbery
Center For Individual Freedom
by staff
"New York City citizens (Manhattanites), who have cried themselves to sleep at night hoping to have nearby Wal-Marts like most of the rest of us, can now, in the words of The New York Times, 'fuhgeddaboudit.' Actually, the way the paper words it in a subhead is: 'Wal-Mart to New York: fuhgeddaboudit,' implying that the world's largest retailer is thumbing its bent nose at the city. The facts, as outlined in the article, tell a different story." (03/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/27qr8e
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51) SAF hails Virginia AG for proposed "gun sting" legislation
Liberty For All
by SAF staff
"The Second Amendment Foundation today applauded Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell for requesting legislation that would outlaw 'simulated straw purchases,' thus prohibiting the kind of vigilante gun sting operation mounted last year by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In a letter to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, McDonnell noted that 'The recent activities by the City of New York in Virginia brought this issue to my attention. New York's actions were met with much concern by law enforcement and this office, and have resulted in much civil litigation against Virginia businesses.'" (04/03/07)
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=592
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52) Fuel economy at all costs
The American Spectator
by Eric Peters
"Rep. Ed Markey thinks your next new car should get 35 mpg, which is a very nice idea -- provided you aren't concerned about the functional compromises and costs that might involve. Along with Republican co-sponsor Todd Platts, Markey has authored legislation that would push federal fuel economy standards for both passenger cars and pick-ups and SUVs to 35 mpg. Up to now, trucks and SUVs have always been considered separately -- and subject to a less onerous 21.5 mpg 'fleet average' (vs. the current 27.5 for passenger cars) on the entirely reasonable notion that it's unreasonable to demand close to 30 mpg from a vehicle that needs to be powerful enough to pull a 9,000-lb. trailer, etc. Sometimes, a Camry just won't cut it." (04/03/07)
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11237
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53) When cops turn into thugs
Disloyal Opposition
by J.D. Tuccille
"From rather humble beginnings, the police in the United States have been elevated to a stature above that of the people they are supposed to protect. Obedience to police is expected for even the most preposterous commands, police are themselves considered exempt from many of the laws they enforce, and crimes committed against police officers often carry greater penalties than those committed against average citizens. All of this stands in stark contrast to the principles established by Sir Robert Peel, the father of modern policing, as the necessary basis for ethical law enforcement." (04/03/07)
http://www.tuccille.com/blog/2007/04/when-cops-turn-into-thugs.html
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54) Global warming, global stifling
Liberty Unbound
by Gary Jason
"The debate about global warming has reached a crescendo, and has acquired a deeply unsettling tone. We are witnessing a veritable rush to judgment -- a rush that has now been accelerated by a United Nations report that accepts and supports the global warming theory. If there was ever a time for skepticism, it is now. The time has come for people who have reasonable doubts to speak up and offer the reasons for their doubts. In this article I will try to clarify what parts of global warming science give cause for doubt. I will also state the features of the global warming debate that are troublesome to me -- and should be troublesome to you." (for publication 05/07)
http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2007_05/jason-warming.html
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55) Giuliani: More extraordinary anti-democracy comments
Salon
by Glenn Greenwald
"Rudy Giuliani -- the leading Republican candidate for President -- has made two of the most extraordinary statements of any major presidential candidate in a long time. In a rational world, this would be a major scandal and Democratic (and the other Republican) candidates would be rushing to make their views clear on these matters. But the revelation that Giuliani believes in process-less imprisonment (and that Romney can only decide once his lawyers are done debating it) provoked virtually no attention (but hey, those first-quarter fundraising numbers sure were interesting!). Despite the fact that the media is only recently acknowledging it, we have had a serious Constitutional crisis in this country for the last six years as a result of a President who literally embraces a theory that vests him with the power to ignore the law." (04/03/07)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/03/giuliani/
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56) Rudy Bumpo
National Review
by Geoffrey Norman
"Rudolph Giuliani has a problem with guns. Seems that when he was cleaning up New York, Sheriff Giuliani took a hard line on hoglegs. His constituents didn't have a problem with this, or just about anything else Giuliani did to fight crime, since New York, in those days, resembled Deadwood on a slow night. As part of his campaign to make the streets safe, Giuliani's administration sued 30 American arms manufacturers, and his police commissioner proposed a nationwide system of registration under which citizens would be required to demonstrate good moral character and a reason for owning a gun. (Interesting to imagine how the same government that can lose track of 600,000 people under deportation orders would handle that one.) Now that Giuliani is among the frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination, the question is: Will his antigun record be a deal-breaker, especially with the kind of people who tend to vote in primaries." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/23jjds
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57) Defending economic growth against green bigotry
Free Market News Network
by Gerard Jackson
"A curious thing has happened during the last 30-odd years: economic growth, the source of our affluence and the scourge of poverty, has come under increasing attack by more and more so-called intellectuals, especially in universities and the media. According to these 'deep thinkers' the 'costs of growth are too high.' These critics accuse growth of being responsible for pollution, congestion, environmental degradation, resource depletion, stress, etc. None of these accusations are true. (I consider the last accusation that growth has caused more stress than ever is so stupid that it does not warrant further comment). To successfully deal with the charges that greens level against economic growth it is vitally important to define growth, the reason for this will be made clear at a later stage. Growth is the increasing accumulation of capital per head of the population. Therefore economies are growing when capital accumulation proceeds faster than population growth." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2dbrdz
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58) The bear will get you
The Free Liberal
by Fred E. Foldvary
"The Federal Reserve system, America's central bank, faces difficult choices. Past increases in the money supply are now pulling prices up, as monetary inflation creates price inflation. The mission of the Federal Reserve board is price stability, so they would like to prevent high inflation by decreasing the growth of the money supply. But with real estate topping out, with sales and construction falling, and housing prices level or falling, the economy is vulnerable to a recession. If banks have less money to loan out, interest rates will rise, investment will drop, and the economy will plunge into a recession. The problem is that the Fed's policy tool is blunt and clumsy." (04/03/07)
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/002690.html
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59) The political right's separation anxiety
TCS Daily
by Matthew Sinclair
"The libertarian-conservative alliance is undergoing significant strain of late. Some libertarians and American liberals are arguing for attempts to forge a new coalition. 'Liberaltarian' is the clunky title of the proposed new coalition. In Britain such libertarian discontent is muted by the relatively socially liberal attitudes of most conservatives in a country where religious expression is more muted. Despite this, the increasingly moderate and incremental change proposed by the Conservative Party frustrates many libertarians. At the fringes this is causing movement to minor parties which could become significant in the years to come. In this piece I will argue that the classical liberal-conservative alliance is essential to overcoming the paradoxes in each individual movement and should be renewed." (04/03/07)
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=040307C
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60) It takes a global village
The Weekly Standard
by Irwin M. Stelzer
"Until now, America has been the locomotive pulling a good part of the world economy along. Question: Will the world's economies now return the favor and prevent a growth slowdown from morphing into a recession? In answering that question it is important to keep in mind the enormous distance between the American economy and the others in the top ten. The American economy is almost three times as large as that of second place Japan, and twelve times the size of the tenth largest, Canada. So it will take a lot of little engines that could to make up for a slowing, never mind a slumping, U.S. economy." (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/248tmj
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61) Public servants or masters?
Reason
by Steve Chapman
"In feudal times, the people were at the mercy of their rulers. But the American Revolution upended that presumption. Our democracy rests on the proposition that all legitimate power derives from the people, and that anything the government has the authority to do, it enjoys only because the people have voluntarily granted that authority. When presidential aides or municipal employees exercise their prerogatives, they're using tools that are merely on loan. But that's not how Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, acted when they decided to fire a slate of U.S. attorneys. They reverted to the medieval mindset that rulers answer to no one." (04/03/07)
http://www.reason.com/news/show/119445.html
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62) It takes a Hillage
Cato Institute
by David Boaz
"In any free society, millions of people will have different ideas about how to form families, how to rear children, and how to associate voluntarily with others. Those differences are not just a result of a lack of understanding each other; no matter how many Harvard seminars and National Conversations we have, we will never come to a national consensus on such intimate moral matters. Clinton implicitly recognizes that when she insists that there will be times when 'the village itself [she means the federal government] must act in place of parents' and accept 'those responsibilities in all our names through the authority we vest in government.' She fundamentally rejects the American tradition of liberty. She says that government must make the decisions about how we raise our children." (04/03/07)
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8156
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63) iWaste
Mother Jones
by Giles Slade
"December's iPod looks a little duller since the introduction of the iPhone, doesn't it? The screen is probably already scratched. Time, then, to let you know about the three models of next-generation iPods that, scuttlebutt says, will be available this year. As Steve Jobs said, 'If you ... want the latest and greatest ... you have to buy a new iPod at least once a year.' Yes, this is from the same man who wants you to know that 'Apple has a really strong environmental policy.' The fact that Apple's cofounder and CEO seems positively gleeful about the amount of waste his product generates is alarming, since the iPod is designed to be all too easy to throw away. Of course, if you live near an Apple store, you can recycle your obsolete iPod for free. But then, the iPod is only one small aspect of an avalanche of electronic waste that will soon overwhelm America." (04/07)
http://tinyurl.com/ynlyy5
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64) Jeff Flake's libertarian views on illegal immigration
Intellectual Conservative
by Rachel Alexander
"Libertarians want both open borders and the dismantling of the welfare state. The welfare state shows no sign of shrinking. Although the federal government imposed time limits on welfare payments ten years ago, other welfare programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, and disability benefits are increasing. According to the most recent U.S. census poll from 2003, 44 million people in the U.S., or one out of every six, receive government services for the poor. In 1996, there were only 39 million. Many Republican politicians are too afraid to vote to cut social welfare programs like Medicaid. Should libertarians forego their efforts to open the borders because the welfare state is increasing, or should they incrementally begin to open the borders, hoping that the welfare state will eventually begin to shrink? Some elected libertarian conservatives, like Representative Ron Paul of Texas, choose the former. Flake is gambling on the latter." [editor's note: See "dilemma, false" - TLK] (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/2xo9uj
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65) Kudos for Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria
Independent Institute
by Ivan Eland
"President Bush has scolded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria. In the president's opinion, shared by others, the U.S. government should speak with just one voice overseas. Yet that view flies in the face of both the text and the spirit of the Constitution. Before the rise of the post-World War II imperial presidency, the powers among the branches of the U.S. government were much more balanced -- as the Constitution originally intended. In fact, suspicious of European monarchs' propensity to wage war with the blood and treasure of their citizens, the Constitution's framers actually gave more powers in foreign affairs to the Congress than the president." (04/02/07)
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1952
*******************************************************************
* RRND MEDIA SHELF -- Tchotchkes from today's edition
*
* Foreign Follies, by Doug Bandow
* http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1597819883/rationalrev08-20
*
* Radicals for Capitalism, by Brian Doherty
* http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1586483501/rationalrev08-20
*
* Amazon Gift Certificates -- The perfect gift for readers!
* http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00067L6TQ/rationalrev08-20
*
* Note: Affiliate links generate commissions for RRND's editors.
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* See No Evil, Hear No Evil
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66) Doug Bandow on The Sloan Ranger Show, 04/09/07
The Sloan Ranger Show
Doug Bandow, author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire, joins host Lloyd Sloan. 5:35pm Central on WGNU 920 AM, St. Louis, MO, or live on the web. [live radio or stream] (04/09/07)
http://www.sloanrangershow.com/
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67) Rock The Debates on The Liberated Space, 04/05/07
The Liberated Space
RockTheDebates.Org -- the latest effort to open up presidential election debates to the full range of candidates. With host Angela Keaton. 4:30pm Pacific Time on Blog Talk Radio. [various formats] (04/05/07)
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=17639
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68) Sami Rasouli on Antiwar Radio
AntiWar.Com
"Iraqi-American human rights activist Sami Rasouli discusses his time back in Iraq, his belief that the American presence is causing the civil war rather than helping reduce it, the daily hell that has caused 4 million people to become refugees, Iraqi widows being taken as sex slaves in neighboring states, the threat to U.S. forces in Iraq if Bush bombs Iran and many other terrible things." [Flash audio or MP3] (04/03/07)
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/04/03/sami-rasouli/
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69) The reality of REAL ID
Cato Institute
Cato daily podcast, featuring Jim Harper. [MP3] (04/03/07)
http://tinyurl.com/386wpa
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70) Free Talk Live, 04/03/07
Free Talk Live
"CO Discharge / Bill Maher and Ron Paul / Rights and Government / Roads / Police Attack Mr. Universe / LAPD's New Less-Violent Flashlight / The Pledge at a Christian School / Jesus Camp and the Evangelicals / Biodiesel / Medical Marijuana / Falwell's Mistake / Property Rights." [MP3] (04/03/07)
http://media.libsyn.com/media/ftl/FTL2007-04-03.mp3
********************
* Weekly Symposium
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71) Cage match: Cato v. the Rothbardians
There have always been two possibilities: The breach between traditionalist (and usually "Rothbardian") libertarians and those who believe the feedom movement can be "mainstreamed" through compromise would heal, or it would widen ... and the period since 2001 has proven full of opportunities for either of those things to happen.
We seem to be moving toward a decision here, as evidenced by the shots the two groups are firing across each others' bows. The battle didn't start with these shots, but the tempo of fire certainly increased with a recent Cato Unbound symposium on Brian Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism, most particularly an article by Virginia Postrel; replies from the Mises Institute's Karen DeCoster, AntiWar.Com's Justin Raimondo, and Susan Hogarth of the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus have escalated yet another minor duel into what may be a decisive engagement.
Let's not sit this one out: Everyone from the most strident Nockian Remnantist to the most softcore "mainstreamer" has a dog in this fight. Unleash yours into the pit and tell us what you think:
Should the freedom movement resign itself to finally and forever fragmenting along these lines, or should it keep trying to heal itself and build a "bigger tent" together, even at the expense of accepting "libertarians for bigger government" into that tent?
http://www.rationalreview.com/content/27101
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* What's Up In The Freedom Movement
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72) Today's events
Check our sidebar calendar for this week's freedom movement events. Don't see your event? Drop us a line at in...@rationalreview.com .
http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=info%40rationalreview.com
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* WaYbAcK
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73) A shooting at the Lorraine Hotel
Details, and the "quote of the day," from Leon's Political Almanac at:
http://perspicuity.net/cgi/hypercal.cgi
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