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“Deep in debt and short on cash, California on Thursday churned out its first batch of IOUs in nearly two decades amid grumbles from bankers, growing public outrage and scant progress in negotiations to resolve the state’s widening budget deficit. The state controller’s office fired up a pair of printing presses and began rolling out nearly 29,000 IOUs totaling more than $53 million, most of them destined for residents around the state still awaiting income tax refunds. Recipients also include some businesses, pensioners, health clinics, college students and many others who get checks from the state.” (07/03/09) http://tinyurl.com/m82u97 | | Report Bad Link |
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“North Korea fired a barrage of short-range missiles off its east coast in a possible prelude to the launch of a long-range missile toward Hawaii over the U.S. Independence Day holiday. Firing a ballistic missile on the July Fourth celebration would be a challenge to Washington, which has been rallying international support for enforcement of U.N. sanctions imposed against Pyongyang following a May 25 nuclear test. North Korea is banned from testing ballistic missiles under U.N. resolutions.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/nq3s2c | | Report Bad Link |
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“In Baghdad, a bomb planted at a bridge leading to the Green Zone from Karrada killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded 10 others. A bomb in Yusufiya killed two people and wounded 15 others. … In Mosul, gunmen killed a man in the Sabatash Tammuz neighborhood. … One person was killed and six others were wounded in a bomb blast in Fallujah. A bomb was planted on a vehicle carrying Captain Khaled al-Dulaimi. He survived, but his driver was killed. An army major was killed when gunmen opened fire on him in Kirkuk. A car bomb in Taza killed one person and wounded six others.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/nxrwvt | | Report Bad Link |
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“A U.S. soldier serving in Afghanistan has been captured and is believed to be in militant custody, according to U.S. officials in Kabul. The soldier was apparently captured by Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday, though none of the militant groups operating in the area have claimed responsibility for the capture. Officials also tell ABC News that all available assets are being used to find and locate the soldier, whose family has been notified of his situation.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/kqcr2n | | Report Bad Link |
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“Former U.S. lawmaker and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and several other human rights activists remained in an Israeli prison Thursday after refusing to sign a deportation form that they claim is self-incriminating. In a press release from the Green Party, McKinney said the form states that the Spirit of Humanity, a Greek-flagged relief boat carrying 21 activists, medical supplies, cement, olive trees and children’s toys en route to Gaza, was violating the Israeli blockade and trespassing the country’s territorial waters.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/nx7l3o | | Report Bad Link |
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“Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth yesterday canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000. … The fliers, circulated by the paper’s parent company, offering an ‘intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and publisher Katharine Weymouth.’ The fliers, which said participants would be charged $25,000 to sponsor a single salon and $250,000 to underwrite an annual series of 11 sessions, were reported yesterday by Politico.” (07/03/09) http://tinyurl.com/mo54pe | | Report Bad Link |
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“Lori Drew, the woman convicted of using a hoax MySpace profile to harass a teenage girl to the point of suicide, was acquitted by a Los Angeles judge on Thursday, Wired reported. Judge George Wu overturned Drew’s guilty verdict, which was issued in November, saying that if Drew had been convicted of a felony in the case, she would already have been sentenced. But because she was convicted of three misdemeanors — a significantly lighter offense than prosecutors originally sought — the constitutionality of the guilty verdict was less clear. … Drew’s lawyers had argued that the law being used against the defendant was vague and flawed, which the judge upheld Thursday when he threw out the guilty verdict. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is typically used against malicious hackers.” (07/02/09) http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10278483-36.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Arizona Senate has given final approval to a bill that would allow people with concealed weapons permits to carry a gun into a business that serves alcohol. The 19-to-8 vote completes legislative action on the bill and sends it to Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican. She has not said whether she will sign it, but she has long been a supporter of gun rights. The measure has pitted powerful groups representing gun and bar owners against each other, sparking a debate about whether guns and alcohol can coexist without bloodshed. Critics of the measure say guns and alcohol are a dangerous combination. … Supporters say they should be able to protect themselves even if they happen to be inside a business serving alcohol.” [editor’s note: Tennessee just passed a similar measure; law-abiding citizens (who are required to refrain from drinking while carrying) protecting themselves (and others?) from aggressors - SAT] (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/kqracv | | Report Bad Link |
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“An array of government-created insurance agencies — which have long charged bargain-rate premiums to banks, credit unions, and brokerages — are seeking to make up for massive shortfalls in their insurance funds by raising fees and premiums, many of which are likely to be passed on to consumers. The billions of dollars in new fees are the result of decisions by Congress and the agencies to allow the insurance funds and premiums to be capped at levels that proved far too low, according to Jeffrey R. Brown, a finance professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has studied the issue. ‘This is what happens when you put the government in charge of an insurance program,’ Brown said. ‘Politically, they don’t run them the way the need to be run.’” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/lu9u5v | | Report Bad Link |
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“It sounds like the beginning of a joke: what do you get when you put a Muslim imam, a Greek Orthodox priest, a rabbi, a Buddhist monk and 10 atheists in the same room? Viewers of Turkish television will soon get the punchline when a new gameshow begins that offers a prize arguably greater than that offered by Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Contestants will ponder whether to believe or not to believe … Those persuaded will be rewarded with a pilgrimage to the spiritual home of their newly chosen creed — Mecca for Muslims, Jerusalem for Christians and Jews, and Tibet for Buddhists.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/ndk5nq | | Report Bad Link |
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“This could become the third time in a row that Americans struggle out of recession only to find themselves in a so-called ‘jobless recovery.’ The phrase became popular back in the early 1990s, when a frigid post-recession job market paved the way for Bill Clinton to defeat incumbent George H. W. Bush in the 1992 presidential election. Then the pattern was repeated after the 2001 recession, in a more pronounced way. Despite a disappointing monthly jobs report Thursday, the good news is that economists generally expect the US economy to start growing again later this year. But the report, showing 9.5 percent unemployment in June, served as a reminder that the current environment for US workers is unusually tough.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/n4l5zn | | Report Bad Link |
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“Facebook is revising its privacy settings to give the more than 200 million users of the social network the ability to share as much or as little about themselves online as they want. Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer at the Palo Alto, California-based company, outlined the changes in a post on the Facebook blog. Kelly said Facebook would now offer a tiered level of privacy options for its users including ‘all of your friends, your friends and people in your school or work networks, and friends of friends.’ There is also an option to publicly share with everyone on the Web in what is being seen as an effort by Facebook to compete with the hot micro-blogging service Twitter.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/mr6gz5 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Amid signs that the bonus culture blamed for excessive risk-taking is creeping back in the City of London, the Chancellor declared in an interview with The Independent: ‘There are people who are too complacent in my view. They need to be brought back to earth.’ Mr Darling disclosed that he will try to end a damaging turf war between the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) by giving them both more powers in a White Paper on banking unveiled next week. He assured the Bank it will play a central role in preventing future booms turning into bubbles and in assessing risks to the entire system as well as individual banks.” (07/03/09) http://tinyurl.com/l52wr7 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Strathclyde Police have warned that they will not tolerate ’sectarian behaviour’ at the annual Orange Order parade in Glasgow this weekend. About 8,000 marchers from 182 lodges across the city are expected to take part in Saturday’s parade. … Police said their warning over possible sectarian behaviour had the backing of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland. Assistant Chief Constable John Neilson said: ‘Whilst the parade will have a major impact on traffic in the city centre, the main issue for the force and members of the public is the excessive drinking and public nuisance caused by those who follow the parade.’” [editor’s note: Orange walks are a series of parades held annually by members of the Orange Order during the summer in Northern Ireland, to a lesser extent in Scotland, and occasionally in England, the Republic of Ireland, and throughout the Commonwealth. These typically build up to the 12th of July celebrations which mark Prince William of Orange’s victory over King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 (Wikipedia) - MLS] (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/moy7x8 | | Report Bad Link |
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“A British business consultant said he was able to improve a firm’s productivity by convincing office staff to work for one day in the nude. David Taylor, a self-proclaimed ‘business psychologist,’ said he was called in to help onebestway, a design and marketing company in Newcastle, England, after the company began losing money and had to fire six workers this spring, The Sun reported Thursday. ‘Inviting an organization to go naked is the most extreme technique I’ve used,’ Taylor said. ‘It may seem weird but it works. It’s the ultimate expression of trust in yourself and each other.’” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/kl5ylq | | Report Bad Link |
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“Education Secretary Arne Duncan is releasing $2.7 billion in stimulus dollars earlier than planned to help states confront increasingly tighter budgets. Duncan said Wednesday he is distributing $2.7 billion to states that he had planned to distribute in October or November. The money comes from a fund for state government priorities that has very few strings attached. It doesn’t have to be spent on education, although the administration hopes it will be.” [editor’s note: In other words, this is a California bailout - TLK] (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/msvn33 | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Obama administration on Thursday authorized the seizure of assets belonging to an extremist organization in Iraq and an Iranian backer of insurgents, saying both are responsible for deadly attacks in Iraq. The Treasury Department is targeting Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and the Iraq-based group Kata’ib Hizballah for committing, directing or supporting acts of violence in Iraq against U.S. and Iraqi forces.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/ns5fcr | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site, according to three current and former government officials. President Obama said in May that government efforts to protect computer systems from attack would not involve ‘monitoring private-sector networks or Internet traffic,’ and Homeland Security Department officials say the new program will scrutinize only data going to or from government systems.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/mn5zxa | | Report Bad Link |
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“Vice President Dick Cheney talked with top White House officials about how to respond to reporters’ inquiries into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative, according to a court filing. Cheney told the FBI about his recollection of discussions with his former top aide, I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, and other White House officials on the media’s questions. But the Obama administration is fighting in court to keep the substance of what Cheney revealed to the FBI from the public.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/myaezt | | Report Bad Link |
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“After a months-long deadlock and half a dozen inconclusive votes, the world’s atomic energy watchdog on Thursday elected as its leader a Japanese diplomat described as colorless by foes and competent by allies. Yukiya Amano, formerly Japan’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, will serve as director-general of the United Nations agency when Mohamed ElBaradei, an outspoken Egyptian diplomat, retires from the post this year.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/laxgey | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Florida Supreme Court says Gov. Charlie Crist can’t reject an all-white list of appeals court nominees, even though he wants to appoint someone who will make the judiciary more diverse. The justices unanimously ruled Thursday that the Florida Constitution leaves Crist no choice but to pick one of the six white candidates submitted by a judicial nominating commission.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/ldeer5 | | Report Bad Link |
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“The jury began deliberations Tuesday in the second-degree murder trial of David Boglioli. After closing statements by Deputy State’s Attorney David Gartenstein and defense attorney Matthew Harnett, the jury must decide whether to find Boglioli guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of his neighbor, George Riccitelli, or if he was defending himself from being beaten with an ax handle. If convicted of second-degree murder, Boglioli will face a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.” (07/01/09) http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_12729116 | | Report Bad Link |
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“A state appeals court on Tuesday ordered a new trial for a 62-year-old retired teacher convicted of murder in the shooting death of a hiker in northern Arizona five years ago. Harold Fish claimed he shot Grant Kuenzli in self-defense during their encounter in the Coconino National Forest, but a jury convicted him and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. The case galvanized gun-rights supporters, who said Fish’s conviction represented a threat to their right to protect themselves, and prompted the Arizona Legislature to change the law to shift the burden of proof in self-defense claim cases from the defendant to the prosecutor.” (06/30/09) http://tinyurl.com/luep2z | | Report Bad Link |
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“Police say a grandfather shot and killed his own grandson, after the 20-year-old broke into his grandparents’ house. … Metro Police say the grandson came in through a back window wearing a ski mask around 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday. His grandfather woke up and saw the figure with a mask and opened fire. The shots killed his grandson, James Michael Keen, 20, who has a record of repeated drug charges. We’re also told had stolen from his grandfather in the past. Investigators say Keen also fired at his grandfather, but they’re not sure who shot first. We’re told the gun Keen had on him at the time was his grandfather’s gun, previously stolen from his grandfather’s car. … Keen’s grandfather first figured out it was his grandson just before police arrived, when he pulled the ski mask off Keen.” (07/01/09) http://tinyurl.com/llvo49 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Residents are on alert tonight after a man tries to break into a Sugar Land home. The man was shot after trying to break into an apartment on Long Reach Drive near Lexington in Sugar Land. Going by his first name only, James, a computer technician, who works the graveyard shift was sleeping in his apartment when he was awaken by his barking dog around noon. ‘That alarmed me so I picked up my gun just to have it with me in case someone was there,’ said James. And there was; an unidentified intruder who apparently entered through a kitchen window. ‘I opened my bedroom door and saw the guy,’ said James. ‘It looked like he was running towards me with a weapon like a screwdriver and I was scared.’ The 33 year-old pulled the trigger striking the suspect in the upper body. James was dialing 911, when he says the suspect ran out through the front door.” (07/01/09) http://tinyurl.com/lbbv8s | | Report Bad Link |
Commentary
News | Audio and Video | Events and Movement News
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“As we celebrate our own Independence Day, we would be wise to realize the concept doesn’t only apply to us: every nation on earth makes a very big deal out of one day in the year, set aside for touting the virtues of their particular land, its history, its heroes, and its subtle beauties. Each time Washington announces this or that nation has violated ‘international norms,’ and threatens to exercise its imperial prerogatives, the world’s hackles rise. Every presumption of our own superior ability to decide what is best for the world at large — no matter how ‘enlightened’ and representative of ‘modernity’ — is deeply resented by the targets of our self-righteousness. That’s why every declaration of support for the Iranian protesters has a boomerang effect, one amplified skillfully by the hard-line regime in order to generate enough support to stay in power — in spite of their brutality and incompetence.” (07/03/09) http://tinyurl.com/nfgzqs | | Report Bad Link |
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“It doesn’t matter whether you think [the Founders’] action was a good, bad, or indifferent thing — they had no business doing it for anyone other than themselves. It was entirely outside the realm of legitimacy for them to make such a decision on everyone’s behalf.” (07/02/09) http://www.strike-the-root.com/92/knight/knight1.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Life, liberty, and property were the central, inalienable rights that formed the foundation of the great experiment in self government called the United States of America. The founders of our country never broke apart this sacred triumvirate, because each one of these rights is inextricably bound to the other. No one of these three can exist without the other. Moreover, when all three are secured, it is almost impossible for injustice to exist. Wherever one does find injustice, one invariably finds a violation of one of these three basic rights at its root.” (07/02/09) http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=127 | | Report Bad Link |
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“What a difference a year can make. On July 6, 1775, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, issued the Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms. It had been drafted by a radical in Congress, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, but revised — ‘toned down,’ it is said, — by the leading conservative and advocate of reconciliation with the Crown, John Dickinson, the Philadelphia merchant. The timing of the Declaration is significant. The Battles of Lexington and Concord had taken place in April 1775, Bunker Hill in June 1775.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/l2ywou | | Report Bad Link |
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“Bernie Madoff stole billions from the customers of his phony investment funds, running a racket rather than a financial service. People who aren’t even his victims are furious, and nearly everyone enjoyed a 10-minute sense of vengeance when the judge threw him behind bars for 150 years. Let me weigh in with a contrary view. Free Bernie Madoff, I say.” (07/02/09) http://mises.org/story/3546 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Some years ago, I wrote a piece in praise of the Amish view of fighting in wars and how they conduct their affairs, mostly apart from the State. They don’t work for the government, and try to live their lives as far removed from the tangle of the state as one can do in this modern world. Now, this alone hardly makes them virtuous. I don’t believe that having electricity or an automobile makes me a lesser person or less virtuous than someone who uses kerosene lanterns and rides in horse-drawn buggies. Nonetheless, I do think there is something compelling about the Old-Order Amish, and I will say that they are not the people who are encouraging rapacious behavior abroad by U.S. armed forces. Nonetheless, it was not electricity or cars that corrupted the Amish; it was the easy-credit regime produced by Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, who are quite removed from the horse-and-buggy world of that corner of the mountains of Pennsylvania.” (07/03/09) http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson253.html | | Report Bad Link |
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Communist Party considers President Obama a success
Birmingham Libertarian Examiner by Stephen Gordon “Generally, the Communist Party spends a lot of time criticizing Democrats running for and holding public office for not being socialistic enough. This appears to have changed since President Obama was elected. ‘In this legislative session, we can envision winning a Medicare-like public option and then going further in the years ahead,’ writes Sam Webb, Chair of the Communist Party USA. … ‘The new conditions of struggle are possible only – and I want to emphasize only – because we elected President Obama and a Congress with pronounced progressive and center currents,’ adds Webb.” (07/01/09) http://tinyurl.com/m6p2rs | | Report Bad Link |
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“A year ago, the idea of setting national education standards was a lot like the idea of legalizing marijuana: Despite all common sense, it just wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t matter that No Child Left Behind proved that when states are allowed to define their own standards, most dumb them down. … Yet on June 1, the National Governors’ Association announced that 49 states and territories have signed on to an agreement, called the Common Core Standards Initiative, to develop national standards in math and English. For education reformers across the political spectrum who have long urged that the United States join its developed world peers in articulating national standards, the news is a major victory.” (07/02/09) http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=testing_testing | | Report Bad Link |
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“This is probably not the best week to air any reservations about the American passion for independence. After all, we don’t have fireworks for Dependence Day. We don’t hold parades to celebrate Interdependence Day. Our allegiance to independence as a nation is Yankee doodle dandy. But I’m wondering whether our ode to independence as a people is a bit over the top. We foster an unrealistic view of the way we live, not just in the designated years of caring for our children but in the undesignated years when we care for our elders. Maybe independence is too crisply defined as ‘exemption from reliance on, or control by, others; direction of one’s own affairs without interference.’” (07/03/09) http://tinyurl.com/n7zr3g | | Report Bad Link |
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“Sometimes, the whole world prefers a lie to the truth. The White House, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and much of the media have condemned the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya this past weekend as a coup d’etat. That is nonsense. In fact, what happened here is nothing short of the triumph of the rule of law. To understand recent events, you have to know a bit about Honduras’s constitutional history. … It has endured because it responds and adapts to changing political conditions: Of its original 379 articles, seven have been completely or partially repealed, 18 have been interpreted, and 121 have been reformed.” (07/02/09) http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0702/p09s03-coop.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Prescription drug manufacturers, represented by their trade and lobbying group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), have one of the most powerful and successful lobbies in Congress. Seeing them willing to give away $80 billion over the next ten years shows just how strong the push for health care reform is now and how much more savings could be had from prescription drug costs. Otherwise, PhRMA would just keep up its pressure on Congress to forestall any legislation that affected its members’ bottom line, as it has in the past. One of the drug lobby’s most significant victories came when the 2003 Medicare law, which added a long-awaited drug benefit to the program (Part D), was passed.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/l58qld | | Report Bad Link |
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“Just before midnight on a Friday evening a week before Iran’s much-disputed June 12 election, the initial tremors of the earthquake that has shaken the country to its core were palpable deep in south Tehran, a gritty, working-class section of the city with a reputation for being a stronghold of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Past shuttered shops and empty, debris-strewn sidewalks, a late-night stream of cars, trucks and motorcycles, engines revving, horns honking, roared along the wide boulevard.” (07/01/09) http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090720/dreyfuss | | Report Bad Link |
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“Apple’s iPhone looks good enough to eat. I’ve yet to take a bite of this ’smart’ phone, but know that once I do, there will be no going back; I’ll be reaching for it before I get out of bed and updating my Facebook status from yoga class. … The temptation to join the growing legions of iPhone admirers is strong. So what’s stopping me from signing up? Purchasing an iPhone means I have to become an AT&T subscriber. The company has an exclusive deal with Apple to provide wireless service to iPhoners — I’m backed into a corner. If I don’t like AT&T, or it’s not available in my area, I’m facing a digital impasse: no service, no phone.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/ox55ok | | Report Bad Link |
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“Last year in Ideas, Joanna Weiss wrote that the George Mason economist Peter T. Leeson was at work on a book that would demonstrate that ‘the democratic tenets we hold so dear were used to great effect on pirate ships. Checks and balances. Social insurance. Freedom of expression.’ Leeson’s book is finally here, ‘The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates.’ And, true enough, the economist gives democratic aspects of pirate life their due. (Pirates elected their captains, for example, and could depose them by a vote.) But what most stands out is just how eager Leeson is to rescue pirates from the clutches of left-wing historians and social theorists, and to claim them as avatars of right-wing economic theory. Pirates, Leeson suggests, were avid Hayekians a full two centuries before the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek was born.” (0630/09) http://tinyurl.com/lsejfd | | Report Bad Link |
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“On 13 June the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner of Iran’s presidential election, with a reported 64% of the national vote. His nearest rival, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, won (according to official figures) just under 34%. Mousavi and his followers immediately disputed the results; and widespread protests mushroomed throughout Iran, of a size and nature not seen since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. As the protests grew in strength, the Iranian authorities cracked down on foreign media reporting in the country, disrupted cell phone use and text-messaging, and restricted internet access, making it hard to get information out of Iran. Enter Twitter and Facebook, which rapidly became vital tools to relay news and information on anti-government protests to people inside and outside Iran. Although the authorities had banned access to Facebook during the run-up to the elections, users found ways around the restrictions and, during the demonstrations, Mousavi himself used Facebook to contact supporters and the outside world.” (07/02/09) http://counterpunch.org/christensen07022009.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Wall Street Journal explains Wal-Mart’s motivation in benign-sounding terms: ‘Wal-Mart — which provides insurance to employees’ — ‘wants to level the playing field with companies that don’t.’ This is a sugary way of saying that Wal-Mart wishes to use the aggressive controls of the state to force firms smaller than it to provide what they may or may not have the resources to provide. Those firms that are unable to continue operating under the state’s new regulations will, of course, be forced to go out of business (unless they’re able to procure bailouts — this is also problematic), thus leaving less firms with whom Wal-Mart will need to compete. This is bad not only for workers but also for consumers. We shouldn’t really be surprised by Wal-Mart’s recent move. As Mr. Lew Rockwell reported in 2005, Wal-Mart called for an increase to the minimum wage so as to impose a higher cost on smaller competitors.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/le9x2x | | Report Bad Link |
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“First of all, let’s compare the current situation with employment with what the Obama Administration told us would happen if we didn’t pass the stimulus package. As has been obvious for some time now the stimulus is not — as we repeatedly predicted — substantially impacting the employment situation. Instead, employment has risen by more than 3%.” (07/02/09) http://www.qando.net/?p=3372 | | Report Bad Link |
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“The horrific public borrowing forecast for this year of £175 billion — and the consequential £220 billion of projected gilts issuance — are certainly concentrating minds, especially those of credit rating agencies. The reality is that, irrespective of whichever party wins the next General Election, major public expenditure cuts will be obligatory; various percentages are currently being bandied about. The key figure is the projected £671 billion of Total Managed Expenditure (TME) for 2009/10 — prior to interest payments. Future public finance policies should be based on implementing real cuts to that number.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/mrbx2g | | Report Bad Link |
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“The House passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act Friday was billed as a narrow victory for President Obama and the green lobby. But was it a victory for real environmentalism? Sadly, no. The legislation’s many loopholes that had to be added to secure its passage will make it far less effective — to be charitable. The “cap and trade” regime that the bill would create promises to ratchet down carbon emissions over time but creates a dangerous precedent for the environment. Cap and trade essentially creates a property right out of polluting.” (07/02/09) http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/02/cap-and-pollute | | Report Bad Link |
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“It wasn’t surprising when, after seven months of legal wrangling, the Minnesota Supreme Court declared that Al Franken had won the 2008 Senate race against incumbent Norm Coleman. Still less surprising (although vastly more entertaining) was the simultaneous breakdown of nearly all of Franken’s adversaries on the right, whose regurgitated insults, whining complaints and exploding noggins revealed nothing about him or his victory — and everything about them.” (07/03/09) http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/07/03/al_franken/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“It is true that genuine scarcity can exist in some regions afflicted by drought or other natural disaster. Scarcity can affect individuals through random crime, disease, or accident. For the most part, however, scarcity is created by governments. That is true of the United States government. Government policy created and prolonged the Great Depression. It caused stagflation in the 1970’s. It is behind the current depression. Nevertheless, I feel fortunate to be an American. For it is the American experience which proves that scarcity need not exist.” (07/02/09) http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=3276 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Late last year, Joel Kotkin a fellow at Chapman University, warned about a political and economic sundown in California. With a failed vote on the state’s budget, sunset seems to be quickly approaching. The state passed a budget in February but has been battered by the economic crisis and has lost about 20 percent of expected tax revenue since, in large part because much of the state’s employment was in the real estate sector. Today, California will begin issuing IOUs to creditors. California is both the largest state economy, accounting for almost 13 percent of US GDP, and one of the most financially mismanaged.” (07/02/09) http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=070209A | | Report Bad Link |
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“Many people view federalism as the great triumph of the American system — as one of the foundations for the economic growth, freedom and prosperity that citizens of the United States enjoy. And, this might well have been true — between 1776 and 1861. But after the Civil War, federalism has lived on in name only, because the Civil War functionally abolished the right of secession. And in the absence of secession, the relationship between state governments and the federal government is no different than the relationship between city governments and state governments — not a symbiotic relationship, but a subservient one.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/m9ynpu | | Report Bad Link |
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“The stimulus bill was the legislative equivalent of the famous cantina scene from Star Wars, an eye-popping collection of the freakish and exotic, gathered for dubious purposes. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, known as ACES (the American Clean Energy and Security Act), is more like the third panel in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — a hellscape that disturbs the sleep of anybody who contemplates it carefully. Two main things to understand about Waxman-Markey: First, it will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least not at any point in the near future. … Second, it represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/kvh73w | | Report Bad Link |
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“This Monday, in the New Haven, Conn., firefighters case Ricci v. DeStefano, the Supreme Court held that it’s unlawful race discrimination for an employer to refuse to act on the results of a promotion exam because the test eliminated a disproportionate number of minority candidates (in the New Haven case, all the black firefighters up for promotion). I’ve written before that this argument threatens to burn down civil rights law. Now that the fuse has been lit, I’m writing to explain just how far the fire could spread.” [editor’s note: What’s “disproportionate?” Is there never any case in which a particular group of members of “race A” might perform better or worse than a particular group of members of “race B” at some particular task for some reason OTHER than the “races” involved? - TLK] (07/02/09) http://www.slate.com/id/2222092/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“At the very least, if an employee brings one of these ‘Governator Owes You’ notes to work, the employer should cease state income tax withholding for that employee, cut a full paycheck until the amount is covered, and send Sacramento the IOU in lieu of withholding receipts. Another option would be for those owed tax refunds to get together, pool their IOUs, and sell them for a portion of face value to, say, Peter Milano or Frank ‘Skinny’ Velotta. A few broken legs (’I fell down the stairs — really, I did!’) in the Senate and an unexplained disappearance or two in the Assembly would probably clear the matter right up.” (07/02/09) http://knappster.blogspot.com/2009/07/whats-good-for-goose.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Last week was the first anniversary of the District of Columbia v. Heller, where the Supreme Court for the first time declared that the Second Amendment indeed protects an individual right to own guns in the home for self-defense. It was a great victory for individual rights, but by no means a final one. The lawyer who successfully argued that case, Alan Gura, has remained a dedicated opponent of all sorts of gun regulations that still stand post-Heller. Senior Editor Brian Doherty talked to Gura by phone earlier this week about the various legal challenges Gura is fighting against state and local gun laws.” (07/02/09) http://reason.com/news/show/134542.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Anytime a bunch of soldiers break into a presidential palace, pick up the president and put him on a flight to exile, as happened in Honduras last Sunday, you have a ‘coup.’ But, unlike most coups in Latin America’s tortuous republican history, Honduras’ deposed President Manuel Zelaya bears the biggest responsibility for his overthrow.” (07/01/09) http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2537 | | Report Bad Link |
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“To say that people in Latin America are sensitive about military coups would be an understatement. Due to the often tumultuous and bloody histories of their respective countries, they have a strong aversion to anything that looks like military interference in civilian politics. Recent events in Honduras have struck many Latin Americans as a return to the bad old days when power-hungry generals routinely dislodged elected officials and stomped on democracy. Yet upon closer examination, the removal of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya bears very little resemblance to traditional Latin American military coups. Indeed, it was not really a ‘coup.’ Rather, it was a response to a leader who had trampled the law and attempted to hold an illegal referendum on constitutional reform. Zelaya’s ouster was approved by Honduras’s Congress, Supreme Court, Electoral Tribunal, attorney general, and national prosecutor. Zelaya started this whole imbroglio when he ignored a Supreme Court ruling and tried to use thuggish mob tactics to impose his will on the Honduran political system.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/nryp8q | | Report Bad Link |
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“Over the past couple of weeks there’s been a lot of blogospheric chatter surrounding a cost-benefit analysis of Waxman-Markey done by Jim Manzi. I’m not going to link to the dozens of posts going back and forth about it, but suffice it to say that Manzi concludes that W-M isn’t a good deal. Over the next century, it’s going to cost us more in lost economic growth than it will benefit us in reduced global warming. I didn’t get involved in this conversation for a simple reason: I’ve been on both the producing and receiving end of too many cost benefit analyses to trust them. If you’re being relatively honest and if you’re dealing with fairly concrete, short-term issues, they’re useful tools, but even then it’s still the case that you can manufacture strikingly divergent conclusions by manipulating your assumptions and inputs by surprisingly small amounts.” (07/01/09) http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/07/waxman-markey-worth-it | | Report Bad Link |
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“How many times have you stood outside a house you’ve never entered and proceeded to describe its interior? Yeah, you can predictably get the basics right about rooms and walls and floors and bathroom fixtures. But you can’t possibly know the details. You can’t really describe what you’ve never seen. But for some unaccountable reason, that doesn’t stop non-libertarians from telling libertarians what they think libertarians think.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/l8naqm | | Report Bad Link |
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“At the core of proper government theory is the principle of the Rule of Law: that everyone is subject to the same law, that everyone can know that law, and that therefore everyone can always act knowing whether his actions are legal or not. Without the Rule of Law, there is no possibility of a law that it would be rational to consent to: it is not rational to consent to anyone else’s use of force against one, without knowing when or where that force will be used against one. At first blush, the anarchist vision looks like an extension, or even a fulfillment, of the Rule of Law principle. However, some thought shows that it is not only no such thing, but that it in fact jettisons that principle completely.” (07/01/09) http://www.nolanchart.com/article6583.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“In sum, serious people understand the [Waxman-Markey “cap and trade”] legislation will hurt the U.S. economy, reduce the standard of living and yet not accomplish its claimed intent; therefore, why were so many members of Congress willing to vote for it? Are they idiots, or do they have another agenda? Yes, a few are not that bright, but many more see this as an opportunity to extract wealth from one group of Americans, give it to other groups of Americans they favor, and to their political cronies who will reward them in campaign contributions and in other ways — both seen and unseen. They are willing to engage in more tax oppression in exchange for more political power to themselves.” (07/02/09) http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10327 | | Report Bad Link |
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“President Obama is either misinformed or lying about health care. He said the ‘free market has not worked perfectly.’ There’s a market, but it’s not free. It’s infested with harmful political meddling. One example is government’s favoring employer-provided insurance, a poison to affordable medical care and insurance. But unions and Congressional Democrats want to intensify the dose with a ‘pay or play’ employer mandate. This would penalize employers for not buying medical insurance for their employees.” (07/02/09) http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=2792 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Who would have thought that Dick Cheney was a follower of French fashion? When he defends the routine use of torture as a means of warfare, however, theirs is the most recent example. The French, in the Algerian War, were the last Western army to systematize the use of torture on detainees. Alistair Horne describes the methods and consequences wonderfully well in his history A Savage War of Peace. They don’t encourage imitation. In fact, the lesson of the Algerian War, and of the Bush government’s experiment with the same sort of policies, is one that should be obvious and gratifying to any conservative: the traditional absolute ban on judicial torture is wiser than we can know. Of course, in the hubris of the Bush and Cheney years, the U.S. was free of all the bonds of history.” (for publication 08/01/09) http://amconmag.com/article/2009/aug/01/00012/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“It hardly seems worth mentioning that the search for role models of sexual rectitude has gone pretty badly lately. That famous poster of Farrah Fawcett — her golden locks tumbling around her shoulders and her gleaming smile offering a girl-next-door counterpoint to the suggestiveness of her red swimsuit — sure makes it look as though, by comparison, the 1970s were an era of wholesomeness. They weren’t. It was about then that social conservatives — fed up with sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, divorce, Roe v. Wade, women surging into the work force and who knows what else — began organizing politically to stamp out all this threatening change. They failed. But eventually they did succeed in imposing their prescription — abstinence-only sex education that studies have repeatedly shown doesn’t work — on the one group of sexually active people most in need of hard information and least likely to respond to harangues: teenagers.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/m3bdk9 | | Report Bad Link |
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“With so much coverage of the current debate on Barack Obama’s attempt to impose nationalized healthcare on America, it may seem that little else can be said on the subject. Yet it needs to be discussed, and its manifold dangers explained to the American people. It is impossible to overstate the significance of this battle. If successful in establishing this pinnacle of his socialist agenda, Obama will unleash a ‘change’ on the country from which it may never recover. Clearly, he is aware of the governmental power he has the potential to accrue with the passage of this single atrocious new entitlement. His lust for that power is evident in the ferocity with which he is striving to ramrod his plan through the congress and onto America.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/krrboy | | Report Bad Link |
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“One of the aspects of the Iraq War that has fascinated me the most is how CIA agents and U.S. soldiers could actually bring themselves to kill, torture, and sexually abuse Iraqis. After all, don’t forget that neither the Iraqi people nor their government participated in the 9/11 attacks. The worst ‘crime’ that any Iraqi committed against any American was resisting an unlawful invasion of his country. Nonetheless, even though the Iraqi people were innocent of any attacks on the United States, many CIA agents and most U.S. soldiers have been able to bring themselves to kill and maim hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in an invasion and occupation of a country that never attacked the United States, and murder, torture, and sexually abuse dozens of Iraqis detainees and prisoners.” (07/02/09) http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-07-02.asp | | Report Bad Link |
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Unions and free market activists find common cause on health care, for now
FreedomWorks by josh.eboch “President Obama has stepped up his rhetoric against the health care system, but fiscal deficiencies in his plan for a government take over have become increasingly apparent in recent weeks. Now, some on Capitol Hill are toying with the idea of taxing employee health benefits to subsidize the cost of government-provided care. But, as Americans learned during the collapse of GM, many union labor agreements provide extremely generous benefit packages to workers who are unlikely to support any proposal that might put their compensation at risk. To voice their growing concern, 30 different groups, from the Air Line Pilots Association to the United Transportation Union, have signed an open letter urging Congress to consider alternative sources of funding.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/n7z5af | | Report Bad Link |
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“The sole reason for the census is to determine the correct distribution of representation to the federal Congress. Nothing more. However, if you have ever filled out a census form, you understand the source of my consternation. There is some good news, sort of, this time. When the census rolls around April 1, there only will be 10 questions. Of course, the government never gives you good news without corresponding bad news.” (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/llt7am | | Report Bad Link |
Audio and Video
jump to News | jump to Commentary | jump to Events and Movement News
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Dan Proft discusses his 2010 campaign for governor of Illinois with host Kenneth John. 9-10am Central on WRMN 1410 AM, Elgin, IL or live on the web. [live radio or stream] (07/06/09) http://freedomrings.net/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“In June, Reason.tv’s Ted Balaker sat down with O’Rourke at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Topics include: bailouts, who ruined the U.S. auto industry, politicians’ love affair with trains, how easy women made O’Rourke a youthful socialist and how getting a paycheck turned him into a libertarian.” [Flash video] (07/02/09) http://reason.tv/video/show/823.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Cybersecurity: A meaningless term,” featuring Jim Harper. [MP3] (07/02/09) http://tinyurl.com/cato0702 | | Report Bad Link |
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“While he never lent his support for gay marriage, Obama said he was against the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy in the military and that he would sign legislation repealing the Defense of Marriage Act. So, many gay people were enthusiastic supporters of Barack Obama’s campaign, and when he became president they waited for him to make good on his promises. They are still waiting. And while they wait, some in the LGBT community are boycotting Democratic fundraising events and writing about re-examining their political affiliations. It is in this atmosphere that a third political party sees an opportunity. Can the Libertarian Party, with its support of same-sex marriage, become a comfortable place for disappointed gay voters?” [Flash audio or MP3] (07/01/09) http://tinyurl.com/l899yu | | Report Bad Link |
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“While making our way up I-95 as part of our Eastern Excursion leg we stopped for a couple of days just outside of Wilmington, DE. Though none of us knew many people in the area I hit up Michael Parag, a principled freedom fighter whom I had met at the 2008 Porcupine Freedom Festival.” [Flash video] (07/01/09) http://tinyurl.com/llx8vt | | Report Bad Link |
Movement News & Events
News | Commentary |Audio and Video
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Check our sidebar calendar for this week’s freedom movement events. Don’t see your event? Drop us a line at info@rationalreview.com … or see: www.rationalreview.com/add-your-event-to-our-calendar … for instructions on adding your events directly! http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/4042/ | | Report Bad Link |
