CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “$1 Billion to Columbia” by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2000 "Amidst much fanfare, the U.S. government is committing more than $1 billion to the drug war in Colombia. Wow -- that should finally bring victory in the decades-long drug war! Why didn't somebody think of this before? But weren't we told the same thing several years ago when the goal was ...
CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “Abolish the INS” by Andy Falkof June 1, 2000 "Presidential candidate George W. Bush recently spoke at the League of United Latin American Citizens' 71st national convention, where he said, if elected, he would split the Immigration and Nationalization Service into two departments. This would somehow facilitate Bush's intention to "reform the INS to make it more welcoming to ...
CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “Fat Taxes” by Andy Falkof June 1, 2000 "Last week, the USDA and Department of Health and Human Services sponsored a National Nutrition Summit in Washington, DC to address the 'obesity epidemic' threatening our nation. These government departments and several powerful interest groups, such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, discussed the merits of ...
CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “Immigration Laws Kill 58” by Andy Falkof June 1, 2000 "Yesterday morning, British customs officers stumbled upon a Dutch truck that contained the bodies of 58 Asian immigrants that tried to enter England illegally. Their deaths were probably due to suffocation from the over-heated, poorly ventilated cargo bay. British politicians from both the Labor and the Conservative parties have ...
CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “Microsoft Ordered Broken Up” by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2000 "Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has issued his long-awaited judgment, ordering the breakup of Microsoft into two companies. Jackson wrote, "Microsoft as it is presently organized and led is unwilling to accept the notion that it broke the law or accede to an order amending its conduct. There is ...
CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “North Korean Embargo Lifted” by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2000 "President Clinton has unilaterally lifted a 50-year embargo on North Korea, permitting Americans to import goods from North Korea and export goods and send money there. Now, let me see if I have this correct. The reason that Americans have been unable to trade with a nation whose people have ...
CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “U.S. Repatriates Cuban Baseball Star” by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2000 Another proud day in the history of the United States. The U.S. government forcibly repatriated Cuban baseball star Andy Morales into Cuban communist tyranny after he and 30 other Cubans who had fled Cuba were captured at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard before they could set foot on American shores. ...
Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century: A Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 1 by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2000 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 The threshold of the 21st century, the American people are once again faced with having to choose a president of the United States. A hundred years ago, when the 20th century began, the issue of who was ...
Public Schooling: Education or Indoctrination? by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2000 In her critique of libertarian opposition to government (public) schooling, public-schoolteacher Angela Harding fails to answer some important questions. ("Libertarians Are Forever Exposing Their Radicalism," June 16) If public schooling is the tremendous success she claims it is, and if the system enjoys such widespread support among the citizenry, ...
Education and the Presidential Race by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000 THE REPUBLICANS, as the old saying goes, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Gov. George W. Bush demonstrated that truism when he clinched the presidential nomination and told the nation that education would be at the center of his campaign. Over and over he has said that a Bush presidency would “reform education” and make sure every ...
Of, By, and For the People? by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000 We live by myths. For example, most of us believe we live in a representative, constitutional republic (sometimes erroneously called a democracy). Everyone learned this at school, and the belief follows most people throughout life. If things are not exactly to their liking, they fall back on the ...
Bush’s Social Security Sham by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000 GOP presidential hopeful George W. Bush wants to let working people invest some of the money now taken by the Social Security payroll tax. The principle is sound. Money taken by the tax is not invested, but consumed. It pays benefits to current retirees, with anything left over ...