I came across an article with a disturbing title, “Cheney: Execute Terrorists If Cuba Prison Must Close”, published by the conservative-leaning online publication Newsmax.
Yesterday, Arlen Specter (?-PA) made big news by announcing that he will run as a Democrat in his bid for re-election to the Senate in 2010. I consider this to be pretty big news - we don’t see politicians switching parties that frequently. This is likely to give the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (assuming Al Franken is seated as Senator of Minnesota). I would not be terribly surprised to see Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and/or Susan Collins (R-ME) switch affiliations at some point either.
An interesting commentary entitled “And now for a world government” appears on Gideon Rachman’s blog on the web site of the Financial Times in London. He begins by saying:
“I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the U.S. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.”
In last week’s article titled “Problems of the Republican Party”, I discussed some key policy mistakes the modern day Republican Party has made over the last quarter of a century. The problems are deep and quite fundamental, as I mentioned before, but with some significant reform and a bit of policial realignment it is possible for the Republican Party to regain the prestige it once had. For the voices within the party that stand for reason and liberty, this battle will be very slow and may never be won, but finding and implementing solutions to fix the myriad of problems the party faces is a worthy cause.
The Los Angeles Times ran a stunning piece in this Sunday’s paper detailing the resignation of Lt. Col. Darrel J. Vandeveld, the man who was prosecuting nearly 1/3rd of the pending trials for suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay. Vandeveld, a self described conformist, became disenchanted with “the system” set up in Cuba over issues relating to fairness and lack of due process for the very prisoners he was suppose to prosecute. He lays out accusations of intentional withholding of exculpatory evidence from defense attorneys by military officials, and even goes so far as to say he reached out to a defense attorney to ask “how do I get myself out of this office?”.
The OLC torture memos are causing ceaseless amounts of distress across the blogosphere. For those who have trouble imagining the efficiency of bureaucracy in carrying out evil, the memos prove an exquisite reminder.
Current Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement for the Obama administration claiming that ‘It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department.’
“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.” - Thomas Jefferson
David Boaz has written a great post explaining why selective taxation, like we saw yesterday as the House passed a 90% tax on AIG bonuses, is a form of tyranny:
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is a voice of reason on the latest bailout:
I am worried for our country — not so much because of the tumult in the financial markets but because of the federal government’s response and its implications.
While reading this article at the Washington Times, I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. If you don’t feel like clicking over to read the article, the jist is that the RNC has put together a squad of heavies, wearing black hats, for the purpose of keeping the Ron Paulies in order on the convention floor.
Now, in all fairness, there have been online rumors of plans to disrupt the proceedings, but so far, nothing has come of it, and probably, nothing will. Ron has asked his supporters to work within the party to make changes; disruptive demonstrations accomplish little to nothing, but garner lots of bad press.
jason [at] unitedliberty [dot] org
brett [at] unitedliberty [dot] org
United Liberty
