It had been a close election, so close it wasn’t settled until 10 weeks after Election Day. And it was so bitter the opponents didn’t speak for 11 years afterward. But when it was over, and Thomas Jefferson prevailed (on the 36th ballot in the House of...
POLITICS
Bill’s And Larry’s Continued Political Misadventures
Oral arguments in the federal government’s antitrust case against Microsoft began last Monday. Anyone reading the two new books about the battle would have to conclude that the case never would have been brought without the political intervention of some...
Mom Takes On FED Chairman Alan Greenspan
From an article on CNNfn last Friday: Alan Greenspan Chairman Alan Greenspan on Friday defended the central bank’s monetary policy, rejecting suggestions that the Fed helped trigger the economic slowdown because it waited too long to reduce interest rates....
Lockerbie Verdict Vindicates Continued Sanctions Against Libya
The outcome of the Lockerbie bombing trial underscores the need for a firm U.S. policy toward Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi. The January 31 verdict, which found one of the two indicted Libyan intelligence officials guilty of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103...
The Dangers of Egalitarianism
Any smell more subtle than ammonia or a sewage treatment plant is usually hard for me to detect. However, I happen to be able to smell gas escaping better than most people. On more than one occasion I have walked by someone’s home, smelled gas and left a note on...
Is Genetically Engineered Food Good Or Bad For You?
The shelves of our supermarkets are full of Genetically Engineered foods. From popcorn and tomatoes to beans and berries, they are all around us. Multinational corporations are investing billions of dollars on research and development of GE foods, and farmers are...
Our Inverted Budget Priorities
Five years ago, then-President Clinton stated before Congress the essence of his contradictory agenda: “The era of big government is over,” he intoned, to great applause. Then he continued, “But we cannot go back to the era when people were left to...
Thomas Sowell’s Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality
Buy Civil Rights : Rhetoric or Reality from Amazon.com In his work, Civil Rights : Rhetoric or Reality , Professor Thomas Sowell confronts the “rhetoric” of the civil rights establishment and contrasts it with the “reality” of the facts...
“Gun Control” Advocates Make Britain Safe–for Thieves, Rapists, and Muggers
The last vestige of civilized Britain has fallen away — the unarmed British “Bobbie.” For 170 years, British police functioned without guns. Since their founding by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, Bobbies walked their beats armed only with their...
Merit, Money, and the Death Tax
Some people may have found it an inspiring example of social conscience when various super-rich people, such as the Rockefellers, came out publicly against repealing the taxes that the federal government levies against the property left by people who have died. But it...
Masking Education Fraud with Racist Propaganda in California
Last week, I reported that 73 percent of California State University’s black college freshmen required remedial math and 66 percent required remedial English. In last week’s speech to the American Council on Education, Richard C. Atkinson, president of the...
Backstreet Boy’s Off-Key Junk Science Crusade
If you thought the musical offerings of the Backstreet Boys were hard on the ears, wait’ll you hear them croon about their political pet causes. One member of the famous pop singing group, Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson, has established an environmental...
Chips on the Dips?
You may have heard of the “chips on the dips” investment strategy. The idea is to buy stock in the major semiconductor firms whenever their shares fall more than 50 percent below their previous highs. While the computer-chip business is famously volatile,...
Taxing the Living and the Dead
The all-out attempt in the media to scare us away from tax cuts was epitomized by a Newsweek cover with the caption: “Bush’s $1.6 trillion gamble.” In other words, it is a gamble to let people keep their own money, but apparently it is safe to put...
Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg Pokes a Cheap Shot at Justice
While giving a talk in far-off Australia on February 1st, U. S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have thought it was safe to take a cheap shot at a fellow American back home. Nor was she restrained by the fact that what she said was a lie. Back in 1997,...
Tax Cuts, Lock Boxes, and Other Magic Words of Politics
In this modern scientific age, we no longer believe in magic words that can transform a prince into a frog, or vice versa. But there are still magic words that can cause incredible transformations. For example, there are words that can transform the most big-spending...
The Debt for Slavery–and for Freedom
The demand for slavery reparations got a good airing last weekend at a National Reparations Convention held in Chicago. A formal plan for compensating the descendants of American slaves has yet to be drafted, the Chicago Tribune reported, but among the proposals...
The Compelling Case for Tax Cuts Now: Growing Surplus, Shrinking Debt
On January 16, President Bill Clinton transmitted to Congress his final budget blueprint for fiscal year (FY) 2002, arguing in the cover letter and commentary against reducing taxes for working Americans. According to the former President, “The favorable...
In Defense of the Wealthiest One Percent
On Thursday, President Bush sent his tax-cut plan to Congress, and it was met with an immediate chorus of class-warfare yelping from the Democrats. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt led the pack, complaining that Bush’s tax cuts will go to “just the top...
Equal Rights and Good Economics Demand That Bush Should Reduce Taxes Across The Board
The Federal Reserve Board’s recent decision to put downward pressure on interest rates has temporarily quieted those who claimed George W. Bush was exaggerating the possibility of an economic downturn solely to boost his tax cut plan. Many critics, however,...
Avoid a Trade War Over U.S. Antidumping Measures
Last October, when President Bill Clinton signed the fiscal year 2001 agricultural appropriations bill (P.L. 106-387) into law, the United States stepped closer to a trade war with some of its largest trading partners. Because of an amendment added in conference by...
Bush’s Tax Cut Plan is Both Moral and Practical
It time that we replaced guilt with the desire for justice.
Atlas is Shrugging in California
“The plane was above the peaks of the skyscrapers when suddenly, with the abruptness of a shudder, as if the ground had parted to engulf it, the city disappeared from the face of the earth. It took them a moment to realize that the panic had reached the power...
If You Pretend It’s Not a Dog, Will It Stop Barking?
A Libyan intelligence agent is convicted of murder in the bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 that killed 270 people. On the same day, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) reduced interest rates by 1/2 %–for the second time in a month–in order to...
In Search of Honorable Men
If you are looking for male role models, men with spines of steel, men of courage, and men of honor, don’t open a newspaper or turn on the TV. All you’ll find are louts: — Our former president figuratively trashes the White House for eight years...
Reparations for Slavery Arguments are Loaded with Contradictions
Johnny Cochran and a group of successful trial lawyers plan to bring class-action suits against the federal government and some private companies they say profited from slavery. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has already introduced HR 40, titled “Commission to...
Philosophy: The Frivolous Discipline?
The death of a distinguished scientist or a leading novelist usually attracts public attention. But the recent death of perhaps the most celebrated figure in academic philosophy–Harvard’s Willard Van Orman Quine–attracted virtually none. This lack of...
Bring Back Justice
In John Ashcroft’s confirmation hearings for attorney general, the United States missed a rare opportunity to remedy the disastrous decline in the truth-seeking and justice-dispensing functions of the criminal justice system. When the administration of justice...
Reagan May Not Have Been “Smart”, But He Was Very “Wise”
The 90th birthday of Ronald Reagan may be an appropriate time to reassess the role of his presidency in the history of the 20th century. Some presidents simply happen to be in office when historic events occur, but other presidents make history themselves — like...
Random Thoughts
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Merit is its own reward, but it’s also nice to get a pay raise. The first big Washington scandal of the 20th century was the Teapot Dome scandal of 1921, which led three members of the Harding administration to commit...
Beware of the Many Masks of Russia’s Putin
Russia is in the news: a crackdown on the media and the oligarchs; the Kursk submarine disaster; restructuring of the Federation, including the creation of seven federal superdistricts headed mostly by generals; and a change in the way members of the upper house of...
The Conservative Welfare State
In 1960, the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand pronounced conservatism dead. The conservatives’ refusal to challenge the fundamental ideas behind the welfare state, she argued, would doom them to a policy of appeasement and timidity. Sometimes it may seem as if...
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