Center For Individual Freedom
by staff

11/17/05

The newly released film 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' chronicles famed journalist Edward R. Murrow's running duel with Senator Joseph McCarthy during the early 1950s. It presents a compelling message that implores us all to be more engaged and vigilant in defending individual freedom and individual rights. But equally interesting, the film's unusual construction gives us a window into journalism in its golden years, and the contrast with today's all-empty-suit-all-the-time cable wind-bags couldn't be more apparent...

http://tinyurl.com/8g58k


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

San Francisco Chronicle
by Ben Rosenfield

11/14/05

I'm not an NRA member or gun enthusiast. I have never owned a gun and probably never will. But I voted against San Francisco's Proposition H. As a civil-rights attorney, I am alarmed by people's increasing willingness to give up other people's rights. This tendency is at the root of the country's post-Sept. 11 lurch toward fascism, epitomized in Patriot Act provisions that gut First, Fourth, Fifth and 14th Amendment rights, authorizing government intrusions into people's homes and private lives as never before, all in the name of security. Government officials assure us that they only use these awesome powers against the 'bad guys,' ignoring the fundamental principle that bad guys have rights, too, including not being presumed to be bad guys, until proven so in court...

http://tinyurl.com/aupdb


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Boston Globe
by Joan Vennochi

11/17/05

As go the polls, so go the pols. According to the most recent CNN/Gallup/ USA Today survey, 63 percent of Americans disapprove of the situation in Iraq. In essence, the question Cindy Sheehan tried to ask President Bush in Crawford, Texas, last August -- why did my son die in Iraq? -- is resonating across the country. And so, the time has come for America's politicians to line up bravely behind the public. John Edwards, the former US senator from North Carolina who hopes to run again for president, began a recent Washington Post opinion piece about his vote to authorize war with these words: 'I was wrong.' Also last week, the Republican-controlled Senate voted to press the White House to provide more public information about the course of the war in Iraq. Senator John Kerry spent much of the 2004 presidential campaign trying to rationalize his vote to authorize war with Iraq. Finally, last month Kerry called for troop withdrawal, echoing a demand made last January by Senator Edward M. Kennedy to harsh criticism...

http://tinyurl.com/7d4yw


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The American Prospect
by Julia Gronnevet

11/17/05

We can't challenge the fraud in the 2004 election -- but we can keep it from happening again. TAP talks to Mark Crispin Miller, author of Fooled Again: Q: [W]hat would you say the book is about? ... A: [T]he book is a plea for electoral reform based on careful demonstration of the many ways in which the Bush Republicans stole the last presidential election. My aim is not to challenge the outcome, [but] ... to get that scandal to reverberate, to provoke or inspire reform of our whole electoral system, which is a shambles. Q: Voter fraud existed yesterday and today. How do you see today's tactics as different from ones used in the past? A: I'm not arguing that election fraud is something new. ... [W]e've had this problem from the beginning and [from] both parties. The Democrats are hardly innocent. But there is something new that's happened here. This theft of votes was unprecedented in scale...

http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=10627



Fool me twice

The Libertarian Enterprise
by L. Neil Smith

01/15/06

Every time one of the 'major' parties comes to power, it passes new laws that violate our self-ownership, threaten us with injury or death if we won't comply, and shred the Bill of Rights. When the other 'major' party replaces the first -- usually by making a lot of noise about how evil and repressive their predecessors were -- they almost never repeal those laws. They simply pass more of their own on top of them. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. ... If you remember nothing else from this essay, remember this: the seemingly unavoidable tragedy of our times is that only those who are presently out of power place any value the Bill of Rights. To those who are in power, it's exactly what it was meant to be: a crippling obstruction to the ambitions of the current regime. Whatever regime that happens to be. Today, George W. Bush chafes in the straitjacket manufactured by the authors of the Bill of Rights, but it is vital never to forget that Bill and Hillary Clinton chafed in their time, as well...

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle350-20060115-02.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Institute for Liberal Values
by Jim Peron

11/18/05

The US was hit by several hurricanes that shut down a major portion of refining capacity. Now the fact remains that you could be sitting on a sea of oil but if you can only refine a small portion of it prices for the refined product will rise even if the price for the unrefined product is dropping. It's elementary economics thus beyond most politicians. So once again we have a dramatic disparity between the two products. Oil prices have dropped a bit but refined oil in the form of gasoline has dropped almost twice as fast. Not one Congressman or Senator has demanded an investigation to expose the cause. There is no political hay to be made from dropping prices so the politicians go mute...

http://tinyurl.com/794jz


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Cato Institute
by Timothy Lynch

11/18/05

Congress is now poised to renew the PATRIOT Act, which will dramatically expand the powers of the FBI. Have our lawmakers found the right 'balance' between liberty and security? Had the FBI's record of performance been outstanding, reasonable people could debate whether it is necessary to confer more power on this already powerful police agency. Alas, the FBI's record cannot even be regarded as satisfactory...

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5206


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp