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___________________________________ EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT... "There is a group of people who don't care one way or the other (about the federal marriage amendment),” Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform tells the New York Times, “but if they hear you talking too much about either side of certain issues - guns, abortion, same-sex marriage - they think you are a little obsessive. The first person to say 'gay' in the debate loses. Because you brought it up." Well, religious conservative leaders continue to bring the gay marriage issue up and are certainly obsessive about it. They’ve succeeded in forcing a vote on FMA in the United States Senate next week. Get a complete update on this political football and its chances for passage in the latest edition of “Lawfully Wedded” posted on today’s News & Views EXTRA page at: http://www.chuckmuth.com/newsandviews/nv.cfm. _____________________________________ SLAM! "Dick Cheney can be president. Next?" - President Bush on Wednesday in response to a reporter's question asking the difference between Vice President Dick Cheney and Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards WHAT CHANNEL WAS THAT ON AGAIN? “In January the New York Times described this great moment in personal-injury law: *** QUOTE *** In 1985, a 31-year-old North Carolina lawyer named John Edwards stood before a jury and channeled the words of an unborn baby girl. Referring to an hour-by-hour record of a fetal heartbeat monitor, Mr. Edwards told the jury: "She said at 3, 'I'm fine.' She said at 4, 'I'm having a little trouble, but I'm doing O.K.' Five, she said, 'I'm having problems.' At 5:30, she said, 'I need out.' " But the obstetrician, he argued in an artful blend of science and passion, failed to heed the call. By waiting 90 more minutes to perform a breech delivery, rather than immediately performing a Caesarean section, Mr. Edwards said, the doctor permanently damaged the girl's brain. *** END QUOTE *** “At the vice-presidential debate this fall, someone should ask Sen. Edwards to demonstrate this technique by channeling the words of an unborn baby about to undergo a partial-birth abortion.” - James Taranto, Best of the Web, 7/8/04 SUGAR-COATED EVALUATION “(John) Edwards makes himself loathsome not because he's a trial lawyer or because he's ambitious or inexperienced -- but because of his shameless, idiotic, mendacious demagoguery.” - Holman W. Jenkins Jr., Political Diary, 7/8/04 EDWARDS’ LIFE STORY: BIG DEAL “What is so amazing about Edwards' father being a millworker? That's at least an honorable occupation -- as opposed to being a trial lawyer. True, Edwards made more money than his father did. I assume strippers make more money than their alcoholic fathers who abandoned them did, too.” - Columnist Ann Coulter SURVEY SAYS! Was the selection of John Edwards as John Kerry’s running mate President Bush’s worst nightmare...or an early Christmas present? * Aarrghhh!!! * Ho, ho, ho! * Who is John Edwards? Cast your vote by clicking the “Survey Says!” tab at www.citizenoutreach.com TRADING FREEDOM FOR SECURITY “From Baltimore City to the Bay Bridge, cameras are being mounted by the hundreds, ostensibly to watch over and keep you and all of us safe from the bad guys. Ever dwindling ‘civil liberties’ (like personal privacy) aside, the much ballyhoo'd effort and multi-million dollar price tag is another empty promise from government designed to get you to buy into the silly and dangerous fallacy that trading a little freedom for security actually works. Let the record show: it doesn't, it hasn't and it never will.” - Talk show host Brian Wilson UNESCO VOTE A minor victory...but a victory just the same. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) introduced a bill that would stop U.S. funding for UNESCO...one of many United Nations boondoggles. Our friend Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) was a key leader in the floor fight. Amazingly, the bill actually passed on a voice vote. Unamazingly (is that a word?) and unfortunately, the Kerry-type internationalists immediately demanded for a recorded vote and twisted enough arms to kill the bill. But this minor victory...as short-lived as it was…is still an indication that the tide is turning against the notion of the U.S.’s continued support for the U.N. under the current terms. We just need to keep the pressure on. WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT We thought David Boies III was bad enough when we read that he was a personal injury ambulance chaser suing deep-pocketed alcoholic beverage companies for deaths in drunk-driving accidents. But we’ve since learned that Boies isn’t waiting for car wrecks to attempt to cash in big in the lawsuit lottery. This guy is actually suing beer and liquor companies simply for...advertising. Yup. According to Boies, when it’s Miller Time on the tube, some 19– or 20-year-old is taking his or her allowance from mom and pop and using it to illegally purchase a six-pack of the high life. Boies isn’t concerned with the underaged adult (isn’t that a contradiction in terms?) breaking the law by purchasing the product or the local merchant for selling it. No, Boies is going after the manufacturer for advertising its product. Why? Not because of any real (or even imagined liability), but solely in the hope of cashing in through this brand of legal extortion. Boies doesn’t expect to win in court. Heck, he doesn’t even want the cases to GO to court. He wants the alcohol companies to “settle” with him. Big payoff...no risk...no effort. Let’s hope the alcohol industry just says, “No way.” FRIST BLOCKS McCAIN/LIEBERMAN “An attempt by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) to attach climate change legislation to a measure dealing with class-action lawsuits hit a major snag yesterday when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) blocked floor debate on non-germane amendments.” - Environment and Energy Daily, 7/8/04 REAL DEAL REAGAN REPUBLICAN “Whereas the GOP majority in Washington has presided over an increase in domestic discretionary spending of eight percent per year, Mark Sanford of South Carolina has kept his state's increase to a mere one percent. In recent history, only one politician has done better. Ronald Reagan actually cut spending by an average of 1.3 percent per year over his two terms. “Gov. Sanford likes the Reagan comparison and, indeed, has set him as his model. Like President Reagan, he made control of spending, the bureaucracy, and waste his top goals from the first. He spent half of what his predecessor did on his official transition to office, disbanded his security detail and scrapped the traditional black tie fancy ball for a Bar-B-Q picnic open to all. But his actions once in office were hardly just symbolic. He adopted the first executive branch budget in the state's history, which identified millions of dollars in possible savings, rather than leaving decisions solely to the legislature as had all earlier governors.” - Donald Devine, ACU’s “Battleline,” 7/8/04 COLORADO GUV GOIN’ WOBBLY? “In Colorado, Governor Bill Owens is riding high after having been selected as co-chair of the Republican platform committee at the New York convention. But back home, he is avoiding serious budget restraints and instead pursuing a deal to weaken the state's Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or Tabor. Adopted by voters in 1992, Tabor holds state spending to the annual growth in inflation and population. Surplus revenues must be returned to taxpayers, and taxes can't be raised without voter approval. Its provisions are one reason Colorado has emerged from the recession in much better shape than other states. “Now some state legislators worry that the governor is getting ready to exempt all education spending from the restraints of Tabor. The deal would be pushed through the legislature and then placed before the voters with ‘bipartisan’ support against which it would be difficult to mount an effective attack. “Colorado's Tabor is the model that conservatives around the country use when promoting legal restraints on government spending. If Governor Owens becomes an accomplice in watering down Tabor, his stock with conservatives -- and perhaps the White House -- will plummet.” - John Fund, Political Diary, 7/8/04 BOTTOM LINE ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION “What's to talk about? It's illegal." - Late Rep. Sonny Bono, California Republican, when asked to talk about illegal immigration KERRY GUARANTEES AMNESTY IN 100 DAYS “On June 30, John Kerry went to Phoenix and spoke before the national conference of the race identity group La Raza. . . . Kerry said to his audience, ‘It is time to fulfill the promise of America, so that those who work hard and take responsibility and build a better life for them and their families, and live by the rules, and pay their taxes and raise their families have a right to share in America and its citizenship in the fullest.’ Kerry then went on to promise that the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. would be given a ‘path to citizenship’ in his first 100 days in office. “...On closer inspection, it’s clear that Kerry’s pronouncement could have come right out of Orwell. Not a single individual who could benefit from Kerry’s amnesty plan has by any definition ‘played by the rules.’ Eligibility for the Kerry amnesty plan requires an individual to not just be present in the United States without a current visa (which is a crime under Title 8 of the U.S. Code) but also working, which is a crime under the Immigration Reform and Control Act signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1986. Both activities are capable of treatment as felonies. “...Why are our elected officials, including our Republican president, competing against one another to legitimize and reward lawbreaking on a scale more massive than anything our country has seen? How can Kerry, who has chosen a populist as his running mate, make election promises that effectively pit low-income Americans against illegal immigrants?” - Immigration lawyer and author Matt Hayes, FoxNews.com, 7/8/04 MORE ON THE IMMIGRATION FIASCO “At a soccer match between Mexico and the United States a few years ago, the stands were full of Mexican flags. The fans booed when ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ was played and those few fans who raised American flags were pelted with debris, as were the American soccer players. This would have been rotten behavior if it had taken place in Mexico City. But it took place in Los Angeles. So it's scary. We already have enough homegrown America-haters in this country without importing any more, whether from Mexico or the Middle East. “But neither political party has the guts to put a stop to it. Politicians will not even enforce our existing immigration laws, much less pass new ones. . . . To (the media and intelligentsia) elites, immigration is just one more issue on which to engage in moral preening and attribute nasty motives to ordinary Americans who disagree with them. From the way many discussions of immigration are conducted, you might never dream that we are talking about the permanent alteration of the American people and the American culture. “...Most of the people who come here, legally or illegally, undoubtedly do so just to better themselves, as immigrants have done for centuries. But people who crossed an ocean to get here came here to become Americans, not to remain foreigners, much less to become America haters. The difference today is that organized activists and a multicultural ideology that has become dogma among educators and the media combine to keep foreigners foreign in language, culture and allegiance. “...American citizenship is no longer prized as it once was. Indeed, it is no longer necessary for living permanently in the United States. In California, illegal immigrants not only go to the state universities, they pay lower tuition than American students who are from other states. Both legal and illegal immigrants who don't feel like bothering to learn the language used by the American people will have government agencies and private institutions alike provide them with information in their own languages.” - Columnist Thomas Sowell * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Chuck Muth’s News & Views is published by Citizen Outreach, a non-partisan, 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. 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