When the Government Owns the Environment, Part 2 by Scott McPherson March 26, 2003 Part 1 | Part 2 On December 19, 2002, I wrote about the Army Corps of Engineers’ practice of dumping toxic sludge into the Potomac River, in violation of the Endangered Species and Clean Water Act. I pointed out that this practice had been going on for decades before the Environmental Protection Agency decided to review the terms ...
Freedom Is the Answer for Us, Too by Scott McPherson March 19, 2003 “ systems are the ones that are producing the most for their people and dictatorships and despotism don’t,” said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, commenting on the economic plight of North Korea under communist rule. Echoing this sentiment two days later, Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the left-wing ...
Response from Bill Frist by U.S. Senator Bill Frist March 19, 2003 This letter from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is in response to Howard Baetjer’s open letter of March 17. Thank you for sharing your open letter with me. For reasons of timing and policy, I cannot in good conscience agree to follow the course you propose in your letter. Your ...
Howard Baetjer’s Rejoinder by Howard Baetjer Jr. March 19, 2003 This is Howard Baetjer’s rejoinder to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s response to his open letter of March 17. Bill, Thanks for your response. I’m surprised and gratified to receive a response. I had underestimated you. You take five paragraphs to establish the legality of Congress’s abdication of its Article I ...
Breaking Iraqi Windows Won’t Help the Economy by Sheldon Richman March 19, 2003 The record-shattering bombardment of Iraq hasn’t begun yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s too soon to think about which American companies will get contracts to rebuild the soon-to-be devastated Arab country. According to the Washington Post, the Bush administration is “preparing what would constitute the most ambitious U.S. ...
An Open Letter to Bill Frist by Howard Baetjer Jr. March 17, 2003 Dear Bill: Working the only way I know for sanity and prudence against the president’s mad rush to war, I offer a complaint and a suggestion to you, both as a Princeton classmate and as U.S. Senate Majority Leader. Background: The framers of the Constitution sought to deny the power to declare war ...
War Logic by Scott McPherson March 17, 2003 The rhetorical case favoring an invasion of Iraq has gone on for so long that no one is really thinking about the reasons any more. We’ve moved on to more important things, like when the tanks will start rolling. Though it might be far too late, it couldn’t hurt to do ...
Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Saddam? by Jacob G. Hornberger March 17, 2003 I have a confession to make: I’m not afraid of Saddam Hussein. Not a bit. I have absolutely no fear that the man is going to come and get me or that he is going to spray biological or chemical weapons on me or that he will send someone to do the ...
The Misunderstood Link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq by Ahmad Faruqui March 17, 2003 A majority of the American population believe that Iraq was behind the terrorist acts of September 11, even though no credible evidence has surfaced for this alleged link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. In his speech to the American Enterprise Institute, President Bush used this link to justify invading Iraq as a necessary act of self-defense. There ...
Bomb Them! by Scott McPherson March 14, 2003 We feel like Greeks, we feel like Romans Centaurs and monkeys just cluster round us We drink elixirs that we refine From the juices of the dying We are no monsters, we’re moral people And yet we have the strength to do this This is the splendour of our achievement Call in the airstrike with a poison kiss — Shriekback, “Nemesis” “North Korean fighter jets threatened an ...
Piling it on the Second Amendment by Scott McPherson March 10, 2003 Just as this year’s historic winter storm piled up snow faster than transportation officials could clear it away, so does D.C. Million Mom March president Ladd Everett aspire to pile on the nonsense regarding the Second Amendment in a February 19 Letter to the Editor of the Washington ...
The Draft Is Un-American by Sheldon Richman March 10, 2003 Rep. Charles Rangel’s logic for reinstating military conscription is hard to follow. As near as I can make out, he wants to bring back the draft for two reasons: first, to slow the policymakers’ rush to war against Iraq by putting their sons at risk, and, failing that, to spread the ...