Politics

Election Nonsense

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2001

NO ONE WHO SPENT HOURS watching the coverage of the presidential election could have failed to notice the constant, almost desperate, invocation of two ideas: “Every vote counts” and “The will of the people must be respected.” It was almost as if the speakers were trying to convince themselves. I followed the presidential election ...

Don’t Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain

by Sheldon Richman January 2, 2001

There has been something disconcerting in most of the commentary throughout the postelection controversy. This became palpable after the U.S. Supreme Court essentially ruled that George W. Bush had won the presidency. I heard desperation in the voices of those who took to the airwaves to counsel Bush and Al Gore ...

Some Real Reaching Out

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2001

With President George W. Bush having now taken office, theres a lot of talk about his reaching out to the opposition. The logic is this: the presidential race was so close that Bush owes some consideration to the people who voted for Al Gore. Naturally, that means embracing major parts ...

The Marc Rich Pardon

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2001

"Everybody's upset with former President Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich, the financier who had been indicted by a New York grand jury under former U.S. Attorney Rudy Guliani for buying and selling oil at the wrong price and with the wrong country and for not paying taxes on the profits. Okay, ...

Your Vote Doesn’t Count

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2000

I have followed the presidential election returns pretty closely, and for the life of me, I cannot find a single state where George W. Bush and Al Gore were tied or where the margin victory was one vote. This is important because everyone from President Clinton to the most obscure news anchorperson has repeated incessantly that this election proves once ...

No One Is Qualified

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2000

WHEN YOU CLEAR away all of the obfuscation from presidential campaigns, the entire process comes down to each candidates accusing the others of not being qualified for the office. This was certainly true in the 2000 presidential campaign. And every candidate who said or implied that about his opponents was absolutely right. No one is qualified to be president. No ...

Laptops to the Rescue

by James Bovard December 1, 2000

ONE OF of President Clintons favorite boasts is that he put 100,000 new cops on the streets. He claimed in 1994 that putting the new cops on the street would make Americans freer from fear and that there is simply no better crime-fighting tool to be found than multiplying the number of government employees packing heat. Vice President Al ...

Do the Rich Help the Poor?

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2000

PRESIDENT CLINTON justified his veto of Congress’s recent repeal of the estate tax by suggesting that most of the benefits of the repeal would go to the wealthy. “Of the $750 billion the repeal costs , one-half — nearly $400 billion — goes to the top one-tenth of one percent ...

Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century: A Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 5

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 Insight Magazine: During the last eight years, the American people have witnessed some of the worst political scandals and episodes of presidential misconduct and immorality in our nation’s history. What will be the moral character and tone of your administration, if you ...

How the State Became Immaculate, Part 3

by James Bovard October 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 During the 1920sand early 1930s, the U.S. government provided huge loans to foreign nations whose exports were subsequently blocked by high U.S. tariffs, artificially held down interest rates and flooded the nation with cheap credit, and championed cartel operations by private businesses. Economic historian Robert Skidelsky recently attributed the start of ...

What Al Gore Really Said

by Sheldon Richman September 2, 2000

My fellow Americans-well not all of you. Especially not the powerful interests out there. You know who you are. I'm talking just to working families. My party used to call you folks "workingmen." But then feminism came along, so we don't do that anymore. Then we said "workingmen and working women." But the polls ...

Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century: A Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 4

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 The Washington Times: In your 10-point vision for America (See “Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century, Part 2,” Freedom Daily, July 2000), you called for ending all political, military, and economic intervention by the U.S. government around the world. Even in ...