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___________________________________ EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT... Whenever you see a politician or government raising or proposing to raise taxes on tobacco, take comfort in the fact that they are helping to fund terrorist organizations around the globe, including al Qaeda. Learn how...along with a surprising article on smokeless tobacco in, of all places, the Los Angeles Times...plus Sen. Collins� proposal to make Big Brother even bigger. All in today�s edition of �Smoke Screen,� posted on our News & Views EXTRA page at: http://www.chuckmuth.com/newsandviews/nv.cfm. _____________________________________ AMEN AND HALLELUJAH! �I think it's very important for people who are serving (in political office) to make sure there's a separation of church and state." - President George W. Bush, 6/15/04 SEPARATION ANXIETY �The First Amendment established what Thomas Jefferson termed a �wall of separation� between Church and State--a deliberate break with the then-standard European practice of establishing an official church by governmental edict and supporting it by taxes. . . . Government officials may make whatever religious pronouncements they wish, on their own--but they may not use the power of the government to promote their ideas.� - Prof. Robert Garmong of the Ayn Rand Institute LET THE EXODUS BEGIN �Now comes what could be the most radical and most successful education reform proposal ever made. The Southern Baptist Convention - the nation's largest Protestant denomination with about 17 million members - is meeting this week in Indianapolis, and among the resolutions it is considering is one calling upon parents to withdraw their children from public schools and either educate them at home, or enroll them in private Christian academies. �...If large numbers of Southern Baptist and other Christian parents begin exiting government schools, the education monopoly will be forced to consider returning to real education standards instead of embracing every new education and social �fad.� Like a business that is required to compete, government schools will either reclaim a once proud heritage, or go out of business; either way, the children will benefit... �So, Southern Baptists, show the way and perhaps many will follow. Stop waiting for the world's permission to fully exercise your faith and beliefs (which will never come) and start training up your children in the ways your God wants them to go. That can't be done in government schools, but it can in yours or in your homes. It's time to give the word �exodus� a new meaning.� - Columnist Cal Thomas FMA VOTE SCHEDULED FOR JULY �The Senate Republican leadership is aiming for a mid-July vote on a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, forcing Democrats to take a stand on the controversial topic just before the party heads to Boston for its presidential nominating convention,� reported Roll Call yesterday afternoon. �Some Republicans hope the decision to move the vote up to July would help inoculate the GOP from Democratic charges that the party is trying to play politics with an issue right before an election.� �We want to make sure we are as clear as possible that this is not a political exercise but an issue of substance,� an anonymous GOP aide told the paper. No report on whether the aide said this with a straight face...or if his nose grew an extra six inches after saying it. REAGAN HATRED UNLEASHED �...Jimmy Breslin, a columnist for Newsday, wrote that putting Reagan on a $3 bill would be a suitable tribute. �This man Reagan was 93 years old and out of it with Alzheimer's for many years and I don't see how anybody can summon grief,� Breslin said. �His whole weeklong funeral is cheap, utterly distasteful American publicity.� Breslin said that comparing Reagan to Lincoln and Hamilton was like �claiming that the maintenance man wrote the Bill of Rights.� �...Chris Elliot, not the comic, but the columnist for the Seacoast Newspapers of Portsmouth, New Hampshire...suggested, �Reagan can be personally credited with saving all eleven jobs at the Grecian Formula factory in White Plains, New York.� In comparing President John Kennedy to Reagan, Elliot wrote, �Both stood up to the Russians, both were photogenic, and while in Reagan's case there was no Zapruder film to document it, he too lost his brains while serving as president.� �Political cartoonist Ted Rall wrote of Reagan, �His clown-like dyed hair and rouged cheeks disgusted us. We hated him during the dark days he made so hideous, and, with all due respect, we hate him still.� � - Jeff Gannon, Talon News, 6/15/04 THE REAGAN LEGACY PROJECT Our friend Grover Norquist over at Americans for Tax Reform started the �The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project� many years ago. Its mission is �to honor and memorialize the historic achievements of President Ronald Reagan.� It aims to do so by naming at least one notable public landmark in each state and all 3067 counties after the 40th president.� If you�d like more information on the project, or have a suggestion for a memorial in your state or county, go to: http://reaganlegacy.org LIKE A BAD CASE OF HERPES...HE�S BACK �The man who seemed to take forever to leave the White House, even when his term was over, is getting ready to chase the limelight once again. . . . For the United States' first �rock star� president, the chance to travel the country hawking the massive memoir that contains his life story is a chance to recapture the glory days of his presidency, much like aging rockers do a least a few decades after their peak. . . . And Clinton's book tour, make no mistake about it, is being planned with the thoroughness of a modern presidential campaign.� - Peter Roff, �The Peter Principles,� 6/15/04 GIPPER MUST�VE HAD BUBBA IN MIND �Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.� - Ronald Reagan POURING SALT IN A WOUND �New Border Patrol uniforms, ordered in the wake of the agency�s transfer last year to the Department of Homeland Security, arrived this month and some agents are not very happy: The new uniforms were �Made in Mexico.�� - Washington Times, 6/15/04 TALK ABOUT JUDICIAL ACTIVISM! �Last week, a controversial state Supreme Court judge helped a convicted drug dealer who was wanted on a robbery charge escape her courtroom from a side door while a detective waited outside the front door to arrest him. Justice Laura Blackburne had been told the detective had come merely to �question� the man and was irked to learn he would be arrested for an assault and robbery that had occurred a few days earlier. Police later had to track down and arrest the suspect on the streets. �...Justice Blackburne had already gained notoriety two years ago by releasing a suspect awaiting trial for shooting a rookie cop. . . . As chief counsel of the local NAACP office, she once sued Rupert Murdoch on grounds that it wasn't fair to let a foreigner own a TV station when so few blacks owned TV stations. She also served as chairwoman of the city's housing authority under Mayor David Dinkins and was driven from office by the local tabloids after spending $341,000 to redecorate her office, including installing a $3,000 pink leather sofa.� - Holman W. Jenkins Jr., Political Diary, 6/15/04 THIS �RIGHT� AIN�T RIGHT �(John) Kerry is telling anyone who will listen that health care is a �right.� �OK...let's go through this again.� If you agree with The Souffl�; if you claim medical care as a right,� then you are claiming a right to someone's time or property.� In either case, you are making a claim to a portion of that person's life. You cannot obtain medical care without someone either spending time on you or supplying you with some sort of product, be it drugs or medical devices.� If you're claiming a right to a medical practitioner's time, then you are claiming a right to that portion of his life.� If you are claiming a right to some drug or medical equipment, then you are claiming a right to whatever portion of someone's life they spent acquiring or creating that product.� Any way you cut it, your claim of a right to health care is a message to someone else that you own a portion of their very existence. �So, where do we go from here?� Once we accept the idea that one American can claim a right to a portion of another American's life, what's next?� If you have a right to health care, why not a right to a home?� Why not a right to a warm coat in winter?� Why not a right to groceries?� Apparently health care should be a right because you might die without it.� If that's the case, then food should certainly be a right because you're flat-out going to die without it� �Actually, this is all quite academic.� Socialized medicine is absolutely inevitable in the United States.� Youngsters dreaming of becoming doctors are dreaming of becoming government employees.� The horror stories from socialized medicine countries...stories like four-month waits for surgery...will carry datelines like Cleveland or Houston.� - Talk show host Neal Boortz, 6/15/04 REAGAN ON HILLARY-CARE �Realize that the doctor�s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. You can�t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients.� - Ronald Reagan ON THE MOUTH-CLEANSING TEACHER �Boy does that story (of the Rochester, NY, teacher washing a student�s mouth out with soap) bring back memories. I started laughing as I was reading it because I lived through just such an incident some 40 years ago at St. Stanislaus Elementary School in Minersville Pa. That nun put a whole handful of Rinso soap (see I even remember the brand name) in a boy�s mouth and then brought him back into the classroom WITHOUT letting him wash it out. The look on that kids face was pitiful, and I never forgot it to this day. My oh my what an impression that nun made on us. Seldom was heard a discouraging word! Ever again. �One more thing. Nothing ever became of that incident, and nobody got put on paid leave either. She probably got a medal for it, and Jimmy probably became a better man because of it, as did we all in that class ! - Reader Michael A. Trusky �Chuck: You hit the nail on the head again, as usual.� I bust a seam laughing at the end - thinking about my own days growing up and attending a Catholic elementary school.� The nuns wrapped us with rulers all the time.� And if you were really bad, they could use a yardstick like a samurai warrior! � �...(My father�s) admonition to�my siblings and me�when we were growing up was simple.� �The teacher is always right - you are always wrong.� If you get in trouble at school, it will be 10 times worse when you get home.�� We knew he wasn't kidding, and having felt the paddle myself (though not nearly as much as I deserved), you better believe we behaved! � �If parents took this kind of attitude, and teachers were allowed to maintain order and teach, we could reclaim the asylum from the inmates.� � - Reader Jay Winters �Dear Ms. Thompson (Rochester school board president): If young Master Potty Mouth got a little soap in his mouth for uttering obscenities, he should consider himself lucky.� Especially if it leads to improved behavior.� Some of your colleagues would write him up for a �Hate Crime� and proceed to destroy his future while others would put him on drugs such as Ritalin and also manage to destroy the kid's future.� So, I would opine that the young punk lucked out this time, thanks to having a brave teacher. It's time to put her back to work in the classroom where she belongs.� - Reader Jerome Borden MUTH WINS! MUTH WINS! �Voters in the Bowdle, Langford and Warner school districts elected school board members on Tuesday,� reports the Aberdeen American News in South Dakota. �All seats decided are three-year terms. Here are the unofficial results: Britton-Hecla: Newcomers Chuck Muth and Cindy Olson will join the board in July. They were the only candidates for two positions. Incumbents June Rabenberg and Spencer Stearns did not seek re-election.� OK. It wasn�t me. And I don�t think the guy�s any relation. But it�s pretty cool anyway. There just aren�t that many �Chuck Muths� out there...fortunately for the world. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Chuck Muth�s News & Views is published by Citizen Outreach, a non-partisan, 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. 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