-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! * Veritas Vos Liberabit * THE FEDERALIST(r) DIGEST The Conservative e-Journal of Record 01 June 2001 Federalist #01-22.dgst Retrieve today's Digest as HTML printer-friendly text or PDF -- it's much easier reading than e-mail text! Link to: http://www.Federalist.com/current2001.asp Support and sponsor The Federalist! Link to: http://www.Federalist.com/support.asp CONTENTS: The Founders Federalist Perspective Insight Upright Editorial Exegesis Second Opinion Dezinformatsia Leftovers Village Idiots Short Cuts ______--------********O********--------______ THE FOUNDERS "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports." --George Washington ______--------********O********--------______ FEDERALIST PERSPECTIVE In the news this week, President George Bush's $1.35 trillion (down from $1.7 trillion) tax bill passed the House by a margin of 240-154, 28 Democrats and one Independent joining 211 Republicans voting yes. The Senate vote was 58-33, 12 Democrats and that "independent" joining 45 Republicans voting yes. Two Republicans voting "no" were Rhode Island RINO Lincoln Chafee (soon to follow Jeffords abroad), and Arizona's John McCain -- for reasons known only to John McCain. The strong "bipartisan" support for the measure means that Sociocrats have an end run planned in the coming decade to ensure the majority of this tax cut will never be realized. After getting credit for the passage of what was left of Mr. Bush's meager tax cut after the Senate butchered it, Chester Lott will retain "leadership" of the Senate minority. Lamenting his demotion to "minority leader," Lott said, "The American people, and the people of Vermont for that matter, did not vote to put the Democrats in control of the Senate. The decision of one man...has, however else you describe it, trumped the will of the American people." Chester, of course, could not articulate "the will of the American people" to save his life. Lott added, "There's something liberating about being in the minority." Well, now, isn't that special! Memo to the new Senate minority: LIBERATE CHESTER! Get Nickles to the podium! In other news, in the Peoples' Republic of California, Gov. Gray Davis asked Mr. Bush to implement energy price controls to help bail the state (and Gray's political future) out of its self-fulfilled energy crisis. Mr. Bush responded (finger gesture censored by The Federalist Editor for Standards and Practices), prompting Davis to say he will sue the central government for not implementing price controls. "We are entitled to relief," Davis concluded, invoking the ultimate Leftist solution -- "entitlement." Mr. Bush retorted, "Blame shifting is not action. It is distraction." (Has he been taking lessons from Je$$e Ja¢k$on?) "At first blush," Mr. Bush continued, "for those struggling to pay high energy bills, price caps may sound appealing. But the result will ultimately be more serious shortages and, therefore, higher prices." Summing up his solution, Mr. Bush said: "All our efforts are guided by a simple test: Will any action increase supply at fair and reasonable prices? Will it decrease demand in equitable ways? Anything that meets that test will alleviate the shortage, and we will act swiftly to adopt it. Anything that fails that test will make the shortage worse. We will not take any action that makes California's problem worse." Shoring up his solution, Gov. Davis has hired Gore2000 henchmen Chris Lahane and Mark Fabiani (at a cost to Cal. taxpayers of $180,000) as public opinion shapers to convince Californians and the rest of the nation that the time has come to socialize energy production. Quote of the week... "Republicans must not capitulate to the left-wing base of the party, which seems to stand for, well, nothing really. Alas, there's a very real danger that this is precisely what the GOP 'leadership' intends to do [after Jeffords's defection.] ... The GOP, from the local level up through the governors' mansions and the White House, is stronger now than it's been at anytime in fifty years. That is because the GOP has been almost thoroughly transformed from the party of northeastern Rockefellers to the party of southern and western Reaganites. Jeffords was a political dinosaur: a throwback to an era long gone. His defection is indeed a short-term setback. It will only be a long-run set back if the GOP learns all the wrong lessons." --Club for Growth's Stephen Moore On cross-examination... "...[A] crucial issue in the culture war is the courts' usurpation of the democratic process. Instead of letting the American people, through their representatives, settle these contentious issues, the courts increasingly impose their own answers." --Charles Colson Open query... "Will America go down in history as the country which defeated collectivism in the 20th century and then became collectivist itself in the 21st century?" --Opinionist Doug Bandow News from the Swamp... In the Executive Branch, on Memorial Day this week, Mr. Bush signed legislation to start construction on a $160 million World War II memorial to be built on a 7.4-acre area of the National Mall. "I will make sure the monument gets built," said Mr. Bush, who noted a sense of urgency because 1,100 WWII veterans, most now in their 80s, die every day. In other EB news, keeping tabs on Mr. Bush's senior executive service appointments, four full months after his inauguration, only 56 of the 490 senior government administrators have been confirmed by the Senate. Who is in charge? On the Hill, Senate Opposition Leader Tom Daschle is looking for additional recruits. "We've made it clear that Republicans and Independents are welcome in our caucus," he said, adding, "I've made it clear to Senator McCain and to Senator Chafee...if you are interested, we are more than happy to talk with you. There has always been an open invitation." Sen. Joseph LIE-berman noted that, "Bush has governed much more from the right of the mainstream and has been very partisan" in his nominees for cabinet positions. LIE-berman concluded, "Unless he comes back to the mainstream and stops punishing dissent they may lose more members and the support of the American people." Memo to Joe: Jeffords represents about 600,000 people in Vermont, and Chafee about 900,000 people in Rhode Island. There are 285,000,000 people in the U.S. Assuming everyone in Vermont and Rhode Island supported Jeffords and Chafee (which they most decidedly did not) that would constitute a combined one-half of one percent of the American people -- and would not constitute "the support of America." Don't count on McCain defecting. In the House, Dick Armey, never one to cower, said of things over in the Senate, "We should do business with the Senate as we always have: accept its good bills, improve its flawed ones, kill its bad ones. We should keep moving the Republican reform agenda through the House without apology." We second that! A bipartisan group of representatives introduced the English Language Unity Act of 2001, which, if enacted, would require "nearly all federal official government business to be conducted in English, and all documents to be printed in English, while protecting individual constitutional rights. Exceptions would include documents to protect public health and safety, law enforcement, court translations and tourism." The ACLU claims that making English the nation's official language is "contrary to the spirit of tolerance and diversity embodied in our Constitution." We checked our concordance, and the words "tolerance" and "diversity" appear nowhere in the Constitution. In other news, Reps. Heather Wilson and Gene Green are after e-mail spammers. Some Libertarians insist that their efforts to curb spam, junk faxes and phone solicitations during family time constitute an abridgement of the First Amendment. WRONG -- if hucksters want to dress up in fairy costumes and prance about on furniture in the privacy of their own home, that is their business. But the Constitution assigns Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, so they may prohibit spammers from invading computers, faxes and telephones in our homes and offices. Libertines who defend such invasions are flat wrong. We applaud Wilson and Green for their efforts. Judicial Benchmarks... >From the Supremes, U.S. Constitution be damned! A divided Supreme Court declined to hear a case concerning the public display of the Ten Commandments -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissenting. Effectively ruling, "thou shalt not display the Ten Commandments on any government property," the court let stand a lower court ruling in a suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State against the city of Elkhart, Indiana. Elkhart, it seems, made the grievous mistake of allowing a monument engraved with the Ten Commandments to rest on its city hall lawn since 1958. Next up on the ACLU and AUSCS shortlist: Remove "one nation under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, then go after "In God we trust" on U.S. currency and coins. Memo to the apostles of the Kingdom of State: Only the most nescient legal and history "experts" assert that the "wall of separation" mentioned by Jefferson in his 1801 letter to the Danbury Baptist association has any bearing on the "separation" doctrine you Leftists embrace today. Memo to the High Court: Look up! The very same commandments are engraved into the marble on the wall above your heads. Next, look up the First Amendment to our Constitution -- that venerable old document you are sworn to uphold. Please note that amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." It says nothing -- NOTHING -- about what the town of Elkhart wants to display. We are reminded of Sen. Sam Ervin's observation about judicial activism decades ago: "A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it." Indeed, the greatest threat to our liberty has proven to be judicial activism. Jefferson feared it and explicitly denied any right of judges to "interpret" the Constitution. But tyranny of the few has prevailed and now that the only chance for a unified Republican government in fifty years has evaporated, Mr. Bush will have a very difficult time getting judges who attend to the letter of the Constitution, through Senate confirmation. In other "justice" news, from the "Politically Challenged" files, Bush(41)'s 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which has already cost consumers and taxpayers countless billions and created all manner of mischief, has done it again. Golfer Casey Martin insisted that the PGA, a private organization, should allow him to cart around the tournament fairways rather than walk, because he has a circulation problem in one of his legs. He took his case to the Supreme Court, which ruled 7-2 in Martin's favor that the ADA regulations were applicable. What's next, if you're in the NBA and vertically challenged, sue to have them lower the basket to 8 feet? Pitching with the American League and got a rotator-cuff injury, have them move that mound forward 15 feet. Bad knees after years with the NFL, time for a four-wheeler! And from the "Department of Justice Served," it appears that the rightful execution of Timothy McVeigh, rescheduled for June 11, will again be pushed back now that he has asked for a stay. (Apparently his lawyers have found some provision of the ADA's regulations on the "rationally challenged" they can use for his defense.) For more on the state's exercise of the death penalty, see this week's Second Opinion, "Deadly Serious." The Commissars... >From the "Commissars of Education" files, 18-year-old Lindsay Brown, a senior at Estero High School in Florida -- and a National Merit Scholar -- was arrested and jailed after being charged with felony possession of a deadly weapon on campus. It seems the school constable found a kitchen knife in her car. According to the Fort Myers News-Press, "The knife, which has a 5-inch blade, was wedged under the front passenger seat, a remnant of moving over the weekend." Miss Brown missed her graduation. As a result of the 1995 Gun-Free Schools Act, more than 14,000 school districts adopted zero-tolerance weapon policies under threat of losing federal education dollars -- another fine example of how commissars regulate by extortion. >From the department of military readiness... A homosexual psychiatrist (oxymoron) has been ordered to repay the Air Force $71,000 for his education at Northwestern University's medical school under a program that required four years of active duty military service in exchange for education funding. Dr. John Hensala violated the "don't ask, don't tell" policy when he announced he was homosexual to avoid his active duty military obligation. (Surely some provision of the ADA covers sexual orientation!) >From the states... >From the Great State of Tennessee (home of Albert Gore -- 11 electoral votes to George Bush), Republican Governor Don "RINO" Sundquist and the legislature's Democrats are expected to fail in their efforts to enact a state income tax again this year. Tennessee is one of only nine states without an income tax. Speaking of Tennessee (home of Albert Gore -- 11 electoral votes to George Bush), Mr. Gore returns to Tennessee June 12 to receive the Anti-Defamation League Southeast region's highest honor -- the 2001 Johnny Cash Americanism Award. In related news, Gore will be going to Peking later in the year to receive the Peoples' Liberation Army's Johnny Yuan Communism award. In Arkansas, Mr. Eugene Pfeifer is at the bar of the Arkansas Court of Appeals, asking that the court overturn a lower court ruling allowing the city of Little Rock to seize 2.9 acres of his land for Clinton's Presidential LIEbrary. Perhaps he can convince them to abandon plans for the Lewinsky Wing, which must be at least 3 acres! On the Left... This week's "Donkey-Derrière" Award recipient is the Rotund Rev., Al Sharpton. As we noted last week, Sharpton, in jail serving 26 days for a protest/trespass charge on a military base, announced he will run for president in 2001. Taking a cue from Albert Gore, Sharpton announced he was going on a hunger strike in order to buff up prior to hitting the campaign trail: "I am not going to eat until we are released." Lamenting his imprisonment, Sharpton says there is a silver lining, noting, "Nelson Mandela went from prison to president." Sharpton's stint in the hoosegow also provided some political staging for Ms. Rodham-Clinton, who came to visit Sharpton, saying, "I was concerned about you." Now you know why their party mascot is a jackass! In fact, we suggest Clinton host Sharpton's first campaign stop on MTV's hot new show, "Jackass," a program dedicated to Dumbocrats and their progeny. Effluent from "Most Ethical Administration"... Who was it that convinced Leftist Jim Jeffords to actually join the Left? Maximum Leftist, Bill Clinton. In economic news... "The economics establishment has been challenged three times in the post-World War II era: first by monetarists, then by rational expectations and lastly by supply siders. Each time the Keynesian establishment lost the debate. Keynesians continue to peddle their snake oil, because the real function of their 'economics' is to justify big government and the redistribution of income." --Paul Craig Roberts The "Dumb and Dumber" Department... "If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear is really very good." --Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, "defending" the President's energy plan proposal to expand nuclear power Memo to Bush twins Barbara and Jenna: Keep it up and someday your alcohol antics will make the "Dumb and Dumber" Department -- or perhaps they just did! Court Jesters... >From the "Kleptocracy" Files, Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch recently announced winners of its 2000 "Wacky Warning Label Contest." Honorable Mention (on a carpenters' electric wood router): "This product not intended for use as a dental drill." 3rd Place (on a jet ski): "Warning! Riders of personal watercraft may suffer injury due to the forceful injection of water into body cavities either by falling into the water or while mounting the craft." 2nd Place (on an Ann Arbor, Michigan, public sports facility toilet): "Recycled flush water unsafe for drinking." 1st Prize (on a pair of bicyclists' shin guards): "Shin pads cannot protect any part of the body they do not cover." For those who may have forgotten, 1997's Grand Prize Winner was on a hair dryer: "Never use hair dryer while sleeping" ; 1998's was on a baby stroller: "Remove child before folding"; and 1999's was on a household iron: "Never iron clothes while they are being worn." Culture comment... The unexpected crowning of a lesbian student, Ms. Krystal Bennett, as "prom king" has prompted the small town of Ferndale, Washington, to rewrite its school policy on the event. From now on, kings must be male and queens must be female. Faith Matters... In news from the "Village Church" bulletin, Southern California's ranking Evangelical Lutheran Church in America bishop, Paul Egertson, has been asked to resign for participating in the ordination of a lesbian in defiance of church law. Quick, someone nominate Egertson for the Miss Southern California prom queen contest! On the frontiers of science... AIDS is making a comeback according to a study released by the National Centers for Disease Control to mark the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the disease. Almost 4.5% of homosexual and bisexual men ages 23 to 29 are newly diagnosed with AIDS annually -- an alarming rate similar to that of the mid-80s before it was understood that unmitigated sexual promiscuity, primarily among homosexuals, was responsible for AIDS proliferation. Among blacks in that age group, the annual rate of new infections is 14.7%. "The numbers we're publishing right now are more like the findings you see in the '80s than the findings you see in the '90s," said CDC's Linda Valleroy, who led the survey. Surgeon General David Satcher noted, "Twenty years into the AIDS epidemic, as a nation and as individuals, we may need a stark reminder that the best way to stop AIDS is to prevent HIV infection in the first place." *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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