POLITICS

While Washington buzzes over President Bush’s homeland security plan to secure America’s borders, untold numbers of foreigners continue to pour into our country illegally through limitless unsecured cracks and crevices. Joining the ranks of the estimated 9...

Newsflash: Hauling CEOs Away in Manacles Makes Markets Soar! This is not a headline from The Onion, the satirical weekly newspaper that prints fake news stories. No, it is the story that was repeated last week by most of the nation’s supposedly serious financial...

Are American corporations being run by crooks in pinstripe suits? According to Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, “infectious greed” is to blame for the scandals engulfing firms like Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing. On this view, which virtually...

You will often hear experts in the media — particularly psychologists and the like — use the phrase, “Society tells us …” For example: “Society tells us that women should look perfect all the time.” Or: “Society tells us...

The recently passed amendment to the Senate’s Sarbanes bill preventing corporations from making loans to their officers is just another step in the socialization of private property in America — and must be fought on that basis. The concept of property...

As both Democratic and Republican proposals to provide prescription drug benefits for the elderly failed in the Senate, members of both parties vowed to try to reach a compromise and get a bill passed as early as next week. Any such bill, if approved, would be a...

There’s an old maxim in moral philosophy that says, “the ends never justify the means.” Of course, lots of utilitarians think that is so much moral posturing and nonsense. They proffer hypothetical arguments to debunk that maxim, such as: “If...

The American Civil Liberties Union recently released a white paper admitting that it is not particularly concerned with defending free speech. But not to worry, this does not make the ACLU purposeless: according to the paper, the leaders in the ACLU derive just as...

Following the horrific events of September 11, President George W. Bush bravely asserted his administration’s policy toward terrorism. The United States, from here out, was to hold not only terrorist organizations, but also state sponsors of terrorism,...

Did you hear the one about the 87-year-old grandmother who had her knitting needles taken away by airport security? They were afraid she was going to knit an Afghan. That is just one of many jibes at the fraudulent airport security measures adopted since September 11....

George W. Bush gave a pretty good speech back in September, and also at the time of the State of the Union in January. In those speeches, he outlined a principled defense against terrorism. The question, of course, was always: Does he mean it? It’s not looking...

Congress has no problem shelling out $6.5 billion for mass-transit systems that fewer and fewer Americans use each year. It manages to fully fund Medicare, despite $23 billion in waste and fraud each year. It pays farmers — mostly mega-corporations, actually...

We have no less than unadulterated idiots in charge of airport security. You say, “What is it this time, Williams?” Last month, while boarding a Midwest Express flight to Milwaukee, former Vice President Al Gore was pulled aside at the boarding gate. He...

It has been about seven months since the Marin County Taliban (John Walker Lindh) was apprehended in Mazar-i-Sharif, sporting an AKM rifle in support of the Taliban regime. Having made a plea bargain for a maximum of 20 years without parole, Walker avoided what would...