Bush's Budget Director Treated for Smoke Inhalation
(2004-02-03) -- White House budget director Joshua B. Bolton was briefly hospitalized today and treated for smoke inhalation and lacerations after a freak accident involving the Bush administration's $2.4 trillion budget proposal for 2005.
"Mr. Bolton was preparing to do a presentation about the budget when he was overcome by the smoke, fainted and actually shattered one of the mirrors which cut him in several places," said an unnamed senior administration official. "We're still working to confirm rumors that Mr. Bolton may have been juggling chainsaws at the time."
Mr. Bolton had been preparing to explain to Republican lawmakers how President Bush's budget adheres to the conservative values of smaller government and fiscal restraint.
The 2005 budget proposal projects a $521 billion deficit, with spending increases for the departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, the Veterans Administration and the IRS. The expenses of war in Afghanistan and Iraq are not included in the $2.4 trillion total, and neither is the Homeland Security department's $2.5 billion Project BioShield.
Monday, February 02, 2004
Jude Wanniski's Take: Trent Lott Promised a Smoking Gun
He also cites a July 2002 Washington Post story that lays out what everyone who was paying attention at the time knew: Iraq was no immediate threat to anybody:
Despite President Bush's repeated bellicose statements about Iraq, many senior U.S. military officers contend that President Saddam Hussein poses no immediate threat and that the United States should continue its policy of containment rather than invade Iraq to force a change of leadership in Baghdad.
The conclusion, which is based in part on intelligence assessments of the state of Hussein's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and his missile delivery capabilities, is increasing tensions in the administration over Iraqi policy.
The cautious approach -- held by some top generals and admirals in the military establishment, including members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- is shaping the administration's consideration of war plans for Iraq, which are being drafted at the direction of Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The senior officers' position -- that the risks of dropping a successful containment policy for a more aggressive military campaign are so great that it would be unwise to do so -- was made clear in the course of several interviews with officials inside and outside the Pentagon.
High-level civilians in the White House and Pentagon vehemently disagree. They contend that Hussein is still acting aggressively, is intimidating his neighbors and is eager to pursue weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them.
These officials say time is not on the side of the United States. "The whole question is, how long do you wait with Saddam Hussein in possession of the capabilities he has and would like to have?" said Richard N. Perle, head of the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon advisory group.
He also cites a July 2002 Washington Post story that lays out what everyone who was paying attention at the time knew: Iraq was no immediate threat to anybody:
Despite President Bush's repeated bellicose statements about Iraq, many senior U.S. military officers contend that President Saddam Hussein poses no immediate threat and that the United States should continue its policy of containment rather than invade Iraq to force a change of leadership in Baghdad.
The conclusion, which is based in part on intelligence assessments of the state of Hussein's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and his missile delivery capabilities, is increasing tensions in the administration over Iraqi policy.
The cautious approach -- held by some top generals and admirals in the military establishment, including members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- is shaping the administration's consideration of war plans for Iraq, which are being drafted at the direction of Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The senior officers' position -- that the risks of dropping a successful containment policy for a more aggressive military campaign are so great that it would be unwise to do so -- was made clear in the course of several interviews with officials inside and outside the Pentagon.
High-level civilians in the White House and Pentagon vehemently disagree. They contend that Hussein is still acting aggressively, is intimidating his neighbors and is eager to pursue weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them.
These officials say time is not on the side of the United States. "The whole question is, how long do you wait with Saddam Hussein in possession of the capabilities he has and would like to have?" said Richard N. Perle, head of the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon advisory group.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Monday, January 26, 2004
New York Times: Education Is No Protection
Bob Herbert has discovered "offshore outsourcing." Amazing. What has Paul Craig Roberts wrought?
Bob Herbert has discovered "offshore outsourcing." Amazing. What has Paul Craig Roberts wrought?
Saturday, January 24, 2004
City Journal Winter 2004 | The ADA Shakedown Racket by Walter K. Olson
An unconstitutional federal statute wreeks much havoc.
An unconstitutional federal statute wreeks much havoc.
Friday, January 23, 2004
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Monday, January 19, 2004
Star Parker: Reflections on Martin Luther King
"Civil rights movement" trumped by the Welfare State? Actually, the original civil rights movement was ended by the Supreme Court's refusal to enforce the "privileges or immunities" clause of the 14th amendment. "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." Supposedly made a part of the Constitution in 1868, this clause was shamelessly declared a dead letter by the Supreme Court (in a 5-4 decision) in the Slaughter-House Cases rendered in 1870. Suffice it to state that the "police powers" of the States have been enormously expanded since that date -- in spite of an explicit bar to their expansion.
"Civil rights movement" trumped by the Welfare State? Actually, the original civil rights movement was ended by the Supreme Court's refusal to enforce the "privileges or immunities" clause of the 14th amendment. "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." Supposedly made a part of the Constitution in 1868, this clause was shamelessly declared a dead letter by the Supreme Court (in a 5-4 decision) in the Slaughter-House Cases rendered in 1870. Suffice it to state that the "police powers" of the States have been enormously expanded since that date -- in spite of an explicit bar to their expansion.
Sunday, January 18, 2004
The Demonized Seed
As a Recreational Drug, Industrial Hemp Packs the Same Wallop as Zucchini. So Why Does the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Continue to Deny America This Potent Resource? Call It Reefer Madness.
Call it Crazy. Call it typical statist behavior.
As a Recreational Drug, Industrial Hemp Packs the Same Wallop as Zucchini. So Why Does the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Continue to Deny America This Potent Resource? Call It Reefer Madness.
Call it Crazy. Call it typical statist behavior.
Monday, January 12, 2004
APP.COM - High time to change strategy in drug war
As a child growing up in a period when the Jim Crow South was under increasing pressure from Northern moralists and the Eastern media, I was always curious why the moral leadership of the South -- such as local ministers and business leaders -- did not step up to the plate and offer the black population its due: voting rights, desegregation of truly public places such as the government schools, and peace from the tyranny of the local police powers.
Similar moral issues are involved in the "war on drugs." Why is it that local religious leaders, the press -- which is normally so willing to being "progressive", and others in position to have influence -- and the obligation -- are unwilling to point out the corrupt, insidious, and ugly nature of this program? It is an obvious fact that the feds are corrupting the local police authorities with their federal grants and so forth; the effect is to turn the local police into a subsidiary of the federal authorities. Where is the opposition from the local leadership? Is it not clearly wrong to lock up non-rights-violating persons? Why is moral blindness such that otherwise reasonable people claim to think to the contrary?
As a child growing up in a period when the Jim Crow South was under increasing pressure from Northern moralists and the Eastern media, I was always curious why the moral leadership of the South -- such as local ministers and business leaders -- did not step up to the plate and offer the black population its due: voting rights, desegregation of truly public places such as the government schools, and peace from the tyranny of the local police powers.
Similar moral issues are involved in the "war on drugs." Why is it that local religious leaders, the press -- which is normally so willing to being "progressive", and others in position to have influence -- and the obligation -- are unwilling to point out the corrupt, insidious, and ugly nature of this program? It is an obvious fact that the feds are corrupting the local police authorities with their federal grants and so forth; the effect is to turn the local police into a subsidiary of the federal authorities. Where is the opposition from the local leadership? Is it not clearly wrong to lock up non-rights-violating persons? Why is moral blindness such that otherwise reasonable people claim to think to the contrary?
Thursday, January 08, 2004
MSNBC - No proof links Iraq, al-Qaida, Powell says
No proof; but who cares? Once one has grabbed a tiger by the tail, second guessing by others is not appreciated.
No proof; but who cares? Once one has grabbed a tiger by the tail, second guessing by others is not appreciated.
Arms Search: U.S. Withdraws a Team of Weapons Hunters From Iraq
What? Can this be true? Why is it that the phrase "pretext for war" is a pretty standard part of the language?
What? Can this be true? Why is it that the phrase "pretext for war" is a pretty standard part of the language?
Thursday, January 01, 2004
The Ditches of Wonderland
Another great piece by James Jackson Kilpatrick, this one on the refusal of Federal courts to reign in the Corps of Engineers and its nonsensical -- and unconstitutional -- interpretation of its wetlands regulatory authority.
Another great piece by James Jackson Kilpatrick, this one on the refusal of Federal courts to reign in the Corps of Engineers and its nonsensical -- and unconstitutional -- interpretation of its wetlands regulatory authority.
Happy New Year
She [America] has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... [America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty.
John Quincy Adams, 1821
She [America] has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... [America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty.
John Quincy Adams, 1821
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Blair 'Knew Iraq Had No WMD'
Of course, Blair -- and Bush -- knew they were making a phony case. And one is hard pressed to find a war that was not similarly contrived.
Of course, Blair -- and Bush -- knew they were making a phony case. And one is hard pressed to find a war that was not similarly contrived.
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
QUANDOQUE BONUS DORMITAT HOMERUS! YOU BET
If you are not keeping up with the continued writings of James Jackson Kilpatrick, you are missing out on a real treat. Jackson, of course, is the author of The Sovereign States, Notes of a Citizen of Virginia, a classic of your editor's youth.
If you are not keeping up with the continued writings of James Jackson Kilpatrick, you are missing out on a real treat. Jackson, of course, is the author of The Sovereign States, Notes of a Citizen of Virginia, a classic of your editor's youth.
Jim Bradley, knowledgeable on the Austrian theory of Business Cycles, predicts Inflation Now, Deflation Later
I don't think he means deflation in any literal sense, just a credit contraction. Check out the prudentbear.com website.
I don't think he means deflation in any literal sense, just a credit contraction. Check out the prudentbear.com website.
Friday, December 26, 2003
To Your Health--Tax-free Health Savings Accounts
John Goodman finds a silver lining in the Medicare legislative debacle. I will look into this further and get back.
John Goodman finds a silver lining in the Medicare legislative debacle. I will look into this further and get back.
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