Jun 26, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Skip Oliva, a contributing writer to Capitalism Magazine, and president of Citizens for Voluntary Trade, has filed a motion to intervene in the federal antitrust case against Village Voice Media and NT Media, two publishing companies that allegedly engaged in "market allocation" in violation of U.S. antitrust laws. Oliva's 15-page brief to the U.S. District Court in Cleveland, Ohio, details numerous allegations of misconduct and unconstitutional abuse of prosecutorial power by the Justice Department. Writes Oliva:"Last Thursday, a U.S. district judge in Cleveland approved an antitrust settlement in the case of United States v. Village Voice Media, LLC and NT Media, LLC. In this settlement, the defendant companies--successful newspaper publishers--were forced to divest assets of two newspapers previously closed by the companies for financial reasons. The United States acted to override the business judgment of both companies because Justice Department lawyers believe there is a market for ‘alternative newsweekly' publications which was being monopolized in Cleveland and Los Angeles by the companies actions.
"Despite the fact the government presented no evidence which demonstrated the existence of an independent market for ‘alternative newsweeklies," the district judge presiding over this case approved the settlement without comment. In doing so, the judge abused his discretion by ignoring the comments offered by CVT and two amicus briefs filed by me outlining numerous objections to the settlement on constitutional and statutory grounds.
"As a result of the judge's decision, today I have filed a motion for leave to intervene in this case for the sole purpose of appealing last Thursday's final judgment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over district courts in Ohio. My intent is to seek appellate review of both the government's conduct in this case as well as the unprecedented legal theory they've sought to advance here--namely that the government can violate the First Amendment rights of Americans in order to ensure ‘competition' and ‘diversity' in the so-called ‘alternative newsweekly' market.
"The government's misconduct in this case is also an issue for appeal. Under the law governing antitrust settlements, the United States must wait at least 60 days from the date the public is officially notified of a settlement before a final judgment is entered. Congress designed this requirement to ensure the public would have a meaningful opportunity to review and analyze a settlement as part of the court's function of ensuring all settlements were in the ‘public interest.' In this case, the Justice Department ignored the 60 day rule, and proceeded to complete the divestiture of assets more than one month before the comment period expired. This violated the statutory requirements of the Tunney Act, and to date the government has offered no justification for its actions.
"I look forward to presenting my case to the Sixth Circuit, and I fully expect the district court to grant me the opportunity to do so."
Way to go Skip!
Jun 26, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Andrew Bernstein argues for the full privatization of education in America on the Thom Hartmann Radio Program. Link.Jun 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes CM reader S. Irizarry:General Wesley Clark (a potential presidential candidate) was interviewed on Meet the Press earlier this month. Responding to the interviewer's question as to whether the General supported the Bush tax cut, he had this to say:
Secondly, the tax cuts weren't fair. I mean, the people that need the money and deserve the money are the people who are paying less, not the people who are paying more. I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation. [MSNBC, June 15, 2003]
The US didn't have a progressive tax initially because it was deemed unconstitutional. That didn't change until 1913. Point 2 of the Communist Manifesto is: "A heavy progressive or graduated income tax."
Jun 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes Edwin A. Locke at the Ayn Rand Institute:Monday's Supreme Court pro-affirmative-action decision represents one of the lowest points in American judicial history.
Although the Court's rulings were somewhat convoluted--basically they said race can be used but not too flagrantly--the bottom line is that they affirmed the legitimacy of making race a factor in admission to public universities and by implication to other institutions. This decision represents an enormous betrayal of America's founding principles. We are a nation founded on the concept of individualism, the doctrine that each person is a sovereign entity, an end in himself, possessing the same rights as every other citizen.
The affirmative action ruling undermines the principle of individualism. It asserts that people have special rights because they are members of a racial minority, thus elevating primitive tribalism over individualism. The claim that racial "diversity" is a proper goal of an institution is wrong. The principle should be that the most qualified individuals--without regard to race, ethnicity or any other non-essential characteristic--are selected, whether the institution involved is in the field of education, business or the military. Selecting for diversity means endorsing racism--an ugly doctrine no matter what its purpose. Racism in any form should be abhorred by every American.
Jun 24, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Related Articles: Martha and the Tall Poppies.
Jun 24, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes David Holcberg at the Ayn Rand Institute:According to the Nation's Report Card released on June 20, average reading scores dropped "in virtually every level of expertise among 12th graders since the last exam in 1998 and in 1992." The report also revealed that "among fourth graders, 25 percent of whites, 56 percent of Latinos and 60 percent of blacks lack a rudimentary mastery of skills."
The dismal results are a direct consequence of government attempts to improve elementary and secondary education in America. Such attempts have failed and will continue to fail for a simple reason: the way to improve education is not more government involvement but less--much less.
In fact, education in America will substantially improve only when the government's virtual monopoly on education is replaced by a free market, where bad schools go out of business, incompetent teachers are fired, and worthless curriculums are dumped.
As long as schools and teachers are not accountable to parents but to the government, students will be trapped in our current educational system, with little hope of getting the knowledge and thinking skills they need to succeed in life.
Jun 24, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
As only Mark Steyn can put it:The former Soviet republic of Georgia has had its scientists beavering away on Iraq's nuclear program for several months. Yes, folks, it's WMD all over again! And maybe they don't exist any more than the Iraqi ones do, according to the Dems and the Europeans. But I'm happy to take Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani at his word. He's Iran's former president and now head of the Expediency Council, which sounds like an EU foreign policy agency or a State Department think-tank but is, in fact, Iran's highest religious body. Rafsanjani said last year that on the day the Muslim world gets nuclear weapons the Israeli question will be settled forever ''since a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel, while an Israeli counter-strike can only cause partial damage to the Islamic world.''
Oh, my. But what about the Palestinian right of return? [Chicago Times, "May the Ayatollah go the way of Saddam", June 22, 2003]
Jun 23, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From yesterday's Sun:For six weeks as a delegate to the 59th session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, I experienced evil and intolerance face to face every day. I am now more convinced than ever that the United Nations and its related entities are fatally damaged and cannot be reformed in the traditional sense. Most organizations go through a restructuring and re-evaluation in order to become more effective and efficient. This will and cannot happen at the United Nations, whether it be the General Assembly, the Security Council, or the Human Rights Commission. Reform at the United Nations is neither workable nor possible because of the principle of sovereign equality that prevails throughout the U.N. structure. Put simply, the current dictatorships that are members are not going to agree to reforms that might exclude their countries from membership in U.N. bodies. [NY Sun, Jun 20, 2003]
Jun 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Actor Kelsey Grammer, star of NBC's Frasier, is "a pro-Bush guy," he declared on June 18 edition of Fox & Friends on FNC:Steve Doocey: "You know, Kelsey our country has been through so much over the last year, in particular the war in Iraq. A lot of Hollywood celebrities anti-war, anti-Bush, but where do you come down?"
Grammer: "I'm a supporter. I've been a pro-Bush guy for some time now. I think he's got a clear message; I think he's got a conscientious message, and I think he has some real courage. So it's just nice to see in a President and I'm actually a fan."
Doocey: "What about, you know the hearings up on Capitol Hill right now looking into whether or not the CIA shaded the intelligence or if the Bush Administration ginned up the crowd just to go to war. What do you think of that?"
Grammer: "I think it's a nice political ploy actually at this point. I mean I think everybody else saw the same information; they all said 'Yeah, we gotta take this guy out.' And frankly I think it was important to deal with him now so that whoever is the next president doesn't have this guy to deal with as well. It's been what, three administrations now? You know." [Hat Tip: MRC]
Jun 20, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The ever clever Mark Steyn, makes an astute observation on Hillary Clinton's new book:...Hillary's constituency doesn't want soul-baring--that's playing on Ken Starr terms. They want dullness--the dullness that reassures them that Hillary, once you dig her out from the cigars and Gap dresses of posterity, is still the serious thinker and feminist icon they told us she was in 1992.
...Hillary's fans will buy the book, open Chapter One, and read, ''I wasn't born a first lady or a senator. I wasn't born a Democrat. I wasn't born a lawyer or an advocate for women's rights and human rights. I wasn't born a wife or mother . . . '' and think, well, that's just like the early bits of the Old Testament, all the begetting, or in this case all the things she wasn't begot as, so I'll just skip ahead to Chapter Two, and I'll bet it's really crackling along by now.
And Chapter Two begins: ''What you don't learn from your mother, you learn from the world' is a saying I once heard from the Masai tribe in Kenya.'' And you think, well, isn't that just wonderfully diverse, and she heard it from an actual tribe in Kenya! Any tribesman in particular? Or did they all yell it out in unison as her motorcade passed by? Either way, it's the sort of soothing multicultural sentiment that separates an enlightened progressive from rabid knuckle-dragging redneck Clinton-haters, and that's all you need to know. So you put the book up on the shelf and never open it ever again. [Mark Steyn, Sun Times, "Hillary yawner never gets to the good part", June 15, 2003]
Jun 19, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From the UK's Telegraph:
Iran is recruiting top Iraqi weapons scientists to join a dangerous brain drain from Baghdad as international concern grows about Teheran's clandestine arms programme. The pro-Iranian Badr Brigade, an Iraqi Islamic militia, is helping scientists to travel through tribal areas north east of Baghdad and across the border for meetings with senior military and regime figures in Teheran, The Telegraph has learnt....Iran wants to switch from liquid to solid fuels to improve the performance of its long-range Shahab missiles, which may soon be able to reach Europe.
Last week Iran barred United Nations inspectors from taking samples from a suspect nuclear plant, heightening fears that the regime is secretly preparing to make enriched uranium, the crucial raw material for nuclear weapons. Donald Rumsfeld, the American defence secretary, issued a warning that Iran was actively working to develop a bomb... [The Telegraph, "Iran recruits Saddam's scientists to build long-range missile", June 15, 2003]
Jun 17, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
William F. Hammond in the Sun on Medicaid in NYC:Many--maybe even most--of the elderly patients using [Medicaid] benefits are not poor in the usual sense. They typically have comfortable houses and late-model cars. They might own profitable businesses. And they may be preparing to leave hundreds of thousands or even million of dollars to their children when they die. But if their long-term expenses exceed their cash flow--which is not uncommon, even for the well off--they can be considered "medically needy" and qualify for Medicaid coverage. And some very wealthy people, with the help of lawyers who specialize in "estate planning," are able to shift their money into trust funds controlled by their heirs, minimizing what they have to contribute toward their own care....
As a result, fully 78% of nursing home residents are Medicaid recipients, even though the elderly, as a group, are much wealthier than average. Many experts on long-term care, including operators of nursing homes, consider the situation a scandal. [2003/06/16]
Jun 16, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Check out this open letter from Sen. Schumer to the President:As you know, despite the fact that we are in different political parties, I have been a strong and outspoken supporter of your Mideast policies. You have understood three tenets that previous administrations, both Democrat and Republican, have failed to grasp: first, that Yasir Arafat is a barrier to peace because of his duplicitous ways; second, that Israeli settlements, whatever one's view of them, are not the causus belli for the conflict; and third, that an end to Palestinian suicide bombings and violence must be the first step in any peace process....
Recent history clearly disproves the proposition that settlements are the root cause of this conflict. At the 2000 summit in Taba, Egypt, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak courageously agreed to an American plan to give back virtually all of the West Bank to the Palestinians including the settlements in return for peace. This offer was summarily rejected by the Palestinian Authority with the backing of the majority of the Palestinian people....
I believe recent changes in approach taken by your administration threatens all that has been gained over the past two years. Equating, as the Roadmap does, the removal of settlements with ending Palestinian violence accepts a strategy that history has proven a failure....
And on the House side:
Thirty-four Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, including the two senior Democrats, complained to President Bush on Friday about his criticism of an Israeli assassination attempt....
"We were deeply dismayed to hear your criticism of Israel for fighting acts of terror. The attack on Hamas leader Abdel Rantissi was clearly justified as an application of Israel's right to self-defense," they said in a letter....
"Just as the United States has the right to prosecute the war on terrorism, Israel has the same right to fight terrorism in its own neighborhood and its own capital," they added. [Yahoo News]
Jun 15, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From James Taranto Friday:As this March CNN/Money report notes, opponents of Iraq's liberation had much higher estimates of the cost of war....This wasn't the only thing war opponents told us during the prewar debate that turned out not to be true. They said the U.S. would suffer thousands of casualties. They said ordinary Iraqis would resent American "invaders" rather than welcome them as liberators. They said the "Arab street" would rise up in outrage. They said Iraq's liberation would set off a new wave of terrorism. They said the war would be a "quagmire"...
Some war foes even said--get this!--that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and would use them on American troops. Well pardon us for asking, but if Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, *where are they?*
It's possible that this was all just a massive failure of intelligence, but we can't help suspecting that war opponents knew better and deliberately misled the public in an effort to establish a pretext for keeping a mass-murdering dictator in power. In either case, they now face a yawning credibility gap. The American people deserve nothing less than a full congressional investigation into the false claims of antiwar politicians, scholars, journalists and activists. If they lied to us about Iraq, how can we ever trust them to talk us out of future wars?
Jun 14, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Yahoo News:Former U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton says she feels sorry for everyone who was caught up in the scandal of her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky -- including Lewinsky herself. ... "That is a point I tried to make in the book is that this very personal, painful experience for us as a couple and a family was brought to public light not by people who cared about my husband's soul or our marriage," she added. "You know, they were motivated by political malice." [Mrs.] Clinton denied having presidential ambitions herself. "I have no intention of running for President," she said. "No intention, and no planning under way." [Yahoo News, "Mrs. Clinton: I Feel Sorry for Lewinsky"]
