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___________________________________ EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT... We’ve got a new “Smoke Screen” today which features an update on the world-wide spread of smoking bans in bars and restaurants, an interesting ban effort which pits some school kids against the all-powerful teacher’s union (that ought to be a brawl), a rare victory against such bans out on the Left Coast, more hysteria by the health nannies over smokeless tobacco marketing efforts to college-age ADULTS...and an absolutely BRUTAL and brilliant Wall Street Journal column by former Reagan speech-writer Peggy Noonan ripping the banners a new you-know-what. It’s a thing of beauty. Read it all today on the News & Views EXTRA page at: http://www.chuckmuth.com/newsandviews/nv.cfm _____________________________________ FAIR IS FAIR...BUT STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES “Cheaper drinks for women at New Jersey bars could soon be a thing of the past,” reports the Associated Press on Thursday. “The director of the state Division on Civil Rights ruled Tuesday that Ladies' Night at a Cherry Hill bar and restaurant was unlawful.” The bonehead who came up with this decision, J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, says his ruling “makes it pretty clear that this bodes trouble for bars that have ladies' night and similar programs in New Jersey.” He defended his decision based on the “important social policy objectives of eradicating discrimination.” What next? Banning discounts to senior citizens and children? It should go without saying that the government should have NO RIGHT to dictate whether or not a privately-owned bar or restaurant can extend special prices or treatment to selected customers at their own discretion. Unfortunately, in this day and age it DOES need to be said...LOUDLY. Maybe now some of you who see nothing wrong with the government imposing smoking bans on privately-owned bars and restaurants will see where that slippery slope will inevitably lead. SURVEY SAYS! Will the new Medicare prescription drug discount cards be of significant benefit to senior citizens once they learn about and start using them? * Yes * No * Not Sure Cast your vote by clicking the “Survey Says!” tab at www.citizenoutreach.com YES, IT WAS “LIBERATION” “I would like to thank the coalition, led by the United States, for the sacrifices they have provided in the process of the liberation of Iraq." - Iraq's new Prime Minister Allawi FRENCH ISSUE WARNING “France is saying that it will shoot down any private pilots who fly into airspace that is restricted for this weekend's ceremonies celebrating the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landing at Normandy. . . . Your best hope is that the French Air Force launches a Mirage 2000 fighter after you. Just turn your Cessna toward the French jet fighter, act aggressively, and watch him run!” - Talk show host Neal Boortz THE AL GORE KISS OF DEATH “The good news is: Liberals' anti-war hysteria seems to have run its course. I base this conclusion on Al Gore's lunatic anti-war speech last week. Gore always comes out swinging just as an issue is about to go south. He's the stereotypical white guy always clapping on the wrong beat. “Gore switched from being a pro-defense Democrat to a lefty peacenik – just before the 9-11 attack. He grew a beard – just in time for an attack on the nation by fundamentalist Muslims. He endorsed Howard Dean – just as the orange-capped Deaniacs were punching themselves out. Gore even went out and got really fat – just before America officially gave up carbs. This guy is always leaping into the mosh pit at the precise moment the crowd parts. Mark my words: Now that good old Al has come lunging in, the anti-war movement is dead.” - Columnist Ann Coulter FLAT-LINING IN FLORIDA “The American Spectator reports that Mr. Kerry seemed alarmed by the complete absence of applause, or other signs of life from his audience, as he spoke at a rally in Tampa yesterday. . . . At several points, Mr. Kerry paused and then only reluctantly went on after the expected applause failed to materialize. The audience was so subdued that at one point Mr. Kerry told them, ‘I know you don't want to be here anymore.’ "‘That line actually generated more real cheers,’ said a Florida Democratic Party official. ‘If this is the kind of response our campaign is getting elsewhere, we're dead. This was awful. He was awful.’ “ - John Fund, Political Diary, 6/3/04 YOU RANG? You know you’re in trouble when the Bush-hating former editor of the New York Times, Harold Raines, writes the following about you in Britain’s “The Guardian:” “The TV camera is an X-ray for picking up attitudinal truths, and Kerry's lantern jaw and 'Addams Family' face somehow reinforce the message that this guy has passed from ponderous to pompous and is so accustomed to privilege that he doesn't have to worry about looking goofy. It's as if Lurch had gone to Choate. . . . Kerry radiates the feeling that he is entitled to his sense of entitlement. Probably that comes from spending too much time with Teddy Kennedy, but it's a problem." DO AS WE SAY...NOT AS WE DO Did anyone else happen to catch that Associate Press photo of John Kerry taking a ride on a police motorcycle in West Palm Beach, FL, yesterday? No helmet. Wonder if he was cited. The “for your own good” laws enacted by Democrat elected officials never actually apply to Democrat elected officials, do they? Also, there’s a confab of the vast left-wing conspiracy taking place in Washington this weekend. Julian Bond, the wingnut now running the NAACP, declared on Wednesday, “We are going to offer Americans an alternative to the failed policies of the right.” Problem is, all the “failed” policies enacted under President Bush and the Republican Congress are actually DEMOCRAT policies - such as expanding the federal role in education, government-employee baggage inspectors, import tariffs, that new prescription drug entitlement, restrictions on political speech, government spending through the roof, amnesty for illegal aliens, no Social Security reform, no conservative judges confirmed, etc., etc., etc. What in the heck does the left have to complain about? It’s the RIGHT that should be kvetching. NAILING THE TSA “The major problem we have is that TSA (Transportation Security Agency) is a Soviet-style centralized bureaucracy serving 440 airports. . . . I know TSA intimately. TSA has had problems because it is a centralized system. It will never get it right. Until there is reform, they will not be able to address security needs or schedule the requirements of 440 airports across the country.” - House Aviation Subcommittee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.), The Hill, 6/2/04 DOWNSIZING THE SUPER-SIZED GOVERNMENT “The federal government is headed toward a financial crisis as a result of chronic overspending, large deficits, and huge future cost increases in Social Security and Medicare,” reports Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute. “Social Security and Medicare would be big fiscal challenges even if the rest of the government were lean and efficient, but the budget is littered with wasteful and unnecessary programs.” However, rather than simply complain about the weather, Edwards puts forward $300 billion worth of cuts to federal programs which could be phased in over five years without touching President Bush’s tax cuts. Wanna blueprint for downsizing government instead of further supersizing it? Go to: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-515es.html MEDIA SHRUGGED If you think I’ve been tough on the Libertarian Party since its selection of Michael Badnarik as their 2004 presidential candidate, at least I’m not alone...or the most harsh. Here’s how Eric Dondero, a former Libertarian Party leader and columnist, describes the nominee: “A non-college graduate, so-called ‘scholar’ who is a semi-employed computer programmer (who) has never held elective office.” Ouch. “I guess it was predictable,” writes Jerome Tuccille on LewRockwell.com. “The Libertarian Party, faced with the opportunity to select a candidate for president who had millions to spend on his own campaign, who had achieved a measure of fame in Hollywood as a producer of films and a consort of celebrities on the order of Bette Midler, and someone else with no money and zero name recognition, chose…well you know the answer; I said it was predictable, didn’t I?” And I thought it was only Republicans who never blew an opportunity to blow an opportunity. You can read the rest of Tuccille’s column at: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/tuccille6.html VOLTAIRE ANYONE? Whatever happened to, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It seems so quintessentially American - certainly embraced by our Founders - yet our present-day government schools (and society in general) seem to have lost the concept completely. Speech today, it seems, is only permissible if it is “politically correct.” We take you now to the Poway Unified School District in California. During what was billed as a national “Day of Silence” back on April 21, “high school and college students were urged to remain silent to show support for homosexuals, bisexuals and trans-gender students.” OK, fine. But one student opted NOT to remain silent, and expressed a countering view by wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the message: “Homosexuality is Shameful.” You know, it really doesn’t matter whether you agree with him or not. The fact remains, in this country exercising one’s freedom of speech rights should be ENCOURAGED among our youth - even speech which some might find offensive - not penalized. Which makes it so distressing that the Poway pooh-bahs SUSPENDED the student wearing the t-shirt. Fortunately, an organization has sued the school district on the student’s behalf, maintaining the district violated the student’s civil rights by kicking him out of school. We hope they are successful. And we hope they include in their case proceedings generous references to Voltaire’s admonition. It might be the only place the kids AND the adults in Poway learn about this important principle (unless, of course, they subscribe to News & Views!). THERE GOES THE JUDGE Wanna do something about judicial activism? Well, maybe it’s time for Congress to take the Washington Times’ editorial advice (http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040602-085820-2727r.htm) and really fire a shot across the judiciary’s bow by impeaching U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton. As the Times notes, last December Judge Hamilton “declared as constitutional the role-playing of Islam forced on a class of seventh-graders at a California middle school. The students were required to take a Muslim name, give up candy for a day to demonstrate the daytime fast of Ramadan and even recite a Muslim prayer. In ruling on the subsequent lawsuit, Judge Hamilton breezily asserted that the students ‘cannot be considered to have performed any actual religious activities.’ Any teacher caught trying to do the same with Christianity would be crucified.” And this week, Judge Hamilton single-handedly ruled that the OVERWHELMINGLY-passed Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was unconstitutional. Many folks in Congress point to the Massachusetts gay marriage decision as an example of “judicial activism.” But those were STATE justices, not federal ones. In any event, the effort to get Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is a waste of time because...it ain’t gonna happen. And even if it did, it wouldn’t prevent the kind of judicial activism on other non-gay marriage issues by the likes of Judge Hamilton. However...impeaching a ultra-liberal justice who has stepped on Congress’s toes and gotten too big for her britches is certainly doable and addresses the much wider issue of judicial activism as a whole. And all it would take is just a little bit of courage by the Republican members of Congress. Never mind. STICK A FORK IN HIM...HE’S DONE Any Nevada Republican who still harbors hope that Sen. Harry Reid, the Minority Whip and #2 leader in the Democrat caucus, can be defeated in November by anti-gay marriage activist Richard Ziser probably also thinks the Libertarian Party candidate for president has a shot at winning the White House. But if you DO have such illusions, this story in Thursday’s The Hill should bring you back to reality. Republican leaders are signing up to back Democrat Reid in droves... http://thehill.com/news/060304/reid.aspx Republican donors hoping to knock out a top Democrat in the Senate this year should instead send their money to former Republican Rep. John Thune out in South Dakota, who has a DARN good shot at taking out Tommy Daschle in November. In fact, ALL those Reid supporters in Nevada, including Democrats, ought to send some dough to Thune. If Thune DOES knock off Daschle, Reid would be next in line for the Democrats’ top job. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Chuck Muth’s News & Views is published by Citizen Outreach, a non-partisan, 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. The opinions and views expressed in Chuck Muth's News & Views reflect those of the writers, editors and columnists therein and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Citizen Outreach, its officers, directors or employees. Published by: Citizen Outreach Chuck Muth Editor/Publisher 611 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, #439 Washington, DC 20003-4303 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, just go to: http://www.chuckmuth.com/newsletter/ To be REMOVED, go to: http://www.chuckmuth.com/remove/default.cfm Or send your request to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To make a secure online contribution to Citizen Outreach, go to the “Donate” page at www.citizenoutreach.com.
