The New American articles from December 2008

The New American archives from December 2008

Then and now.(Letter to the editor)
December 8, 2008... I am writing in regard to the history article "From "Henny Penny' Morgenthau to Henry Paulson" by William F. Jasper in the November 10, 2008 issue. In the article Jasper stated, "FDR's New Deal is chilling to all who are even remotely familiar...

Slow and sure.(Letter to the editor)
December 8, 2008... These predictions for the United States were delivered, verbatim, in 1958: 1. "Greatly expanded government spending: for missiles for so-called defense generally, for foreign aid, for every conceivable means of getting rid of ever larger...

Looking beyond the global economic summit.(Inside Track)
December 8, 2008... According to news reports, the much-ballyhooed November 15 international economic summit in Washington accomplished little aside from agreement on various vague goals by the delegations from 21 nations and four international organizations....

Obama's coming executive orders.(Inside Track)(Barack Obama)
December 8, 2008... The media is anxiously speculating about what it hopes will be a rash of Obama executive orders overturning those issued during the past eight years by President George W. Bush. Obama's staff began as early as August assembling a list of...

Terrorist Bill Ayers misrepresents his past.(Inside Track)
December 8, 2008... During the 2008 presidential campaign, former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers kept a low profile and attempted to play down any connections between himself and candidate Barack Obama. On election day, however, Ayers began a series of...

Showdown looms over auto bailout plan.(Inside Track)
December 8, 2008... The pleading for a financial bailout of the U.S. auto industry is becoming more widespread and insistent, with supporters of the bailout claiming that Detroit's Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) are too big to fail. Supporters...

Spending the Social Security Taxes has a consequence.(QuickQuotes)(Phil deCarolis)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "If we don't cut entitlement spending, the entitlements are going to be worthless." In his Internet newsletter, Phil deCarolis points to the obvious result of currently spending the money supposedly saved by the...

Poland's Nobel Prize Winner slams Venezuela's tilt to communism.(QuickQuotes)(Lech Walesa)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... "I am the best proof that communism fell because it was a bad system. And introducing it there [in Venezuela] is the biggest mistake of the region." Still basking in adulation over being named as the reason for the fall of Soviet...

Wind-driven turbines causing problems for neighbors.(QuickQuotes)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... "I don't think anyone should have to put up with this." Headaches, nausea, and insomnia are some of the effects of the noise felt by Gerry Meyer and his family. They once welcomed the installation of five wind turbines near the Wisconsin...

They traveled 9,300 miles to cast their ballots.(QuickQuotes)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... "We had a long talk about it. We could go on a holiday to a beach somewhere. Or we could come back here and vote." After waiting a month for requested absentee ballots to arrive at their temporary home in India, new U.S. citizens (as of 2007)...

Homosexual leader targets Utah.(QuickQuotes)(John Aravosis)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... "At this point, honestly, we're going to destroy the Utah brand. It is a hate state." After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was credited for California's successful ban on homosexual marriage, influential blogger John...

The bailout gets labeled a power grab.(QuickQuotes)(Robert P. Murphy)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... "This wasn't an economic plan; it was a heist. It will go down as the Great Bank Robbery of 2008. The economics behind it were nonsense. This was a money and power grab pure and simple." Mises Institute adjunct scholar Robert P. Murphy...

A professor scorches the economics profession.(QuickQuotes)(James h. Galbraith)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... "There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless." Also claiming that the Bush administration replaced free markets with a "predator...

Being for both is impossible.(QuickQuotes)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... "An affirmative action/equal opportunity employer." The want ad placed by Columbia University for a position in its medical school claimed that it favored some yet didn't favor some--an impossibility that has frequently appeared in similar...

Looking ahead: Barack Obama's and Joe Biden's own records and agendas show the direction they have in mind for the nation.(PRESIDENCY)(Cover story)
December 8, 2008... Without doubt, the election of Barack Obama is historic because he is the first Black American selected by voters for the highest office in the land. Indeed, the election of an African-American to the presidency by a nation with a majority...

Behind the Obama agenda: the team Barack Obama has begun assembling suggests that, in terms of substance, the incoming administration may not be that different from the outgoing.(PRESIDENCY)
December 8, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In April 1992, Senator Joe Biden--now our vice president-elect--penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal entitled "How I Learned to Love the New World Order." Senator Biden was miffed that the Journal had cast him...

Making renewable energy practical: can we reliably, efficiently, and economically store energy to make solar and wind power viable options to replace fossil-fuel or nuclear plants?(ENERGY)
December 8, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Few things get our attention more quickly than a loss of electric power. Many of our activities cease the instant energy from a generator many miles away stops supplying the electricity to light our homes or...

Intelligent Design and evolution: believers in Intelligent Design have often been scorned as being opposed to science, but science itself is showing that it is the evolutionists who are opposed to rational inquiry.(FAITH AND SCIENCE)
December 8, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Though THE NEW AMERICAN has no official position on evolution, we have published a number of articles over the years pointing to flaws in the theory and arguing for academic freedom on the subject. We did this most...

Man prevents kidnapping.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... On the morning of September 25, 12-year-old Dorine Browder was walking to class at Fountain Square Academy in Indianapolis. Several blocks from her home, a man in a black pickup truck stopped, got out of his truck, and pointed a gun at Dorine....

Bus burns; students saved.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... A tractor-trailer crashed into a stopped school bus in Marion County, Florida, on September 25, and both vehicles caught fire. There were 21 middle-school students on the bus, and the situation looked ominous. However, motorists passing by...

Boy honored for 911 call.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Deven Billings)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... On October 16, eight-year-old Deven Billings was honored at an assembly at Joppa-towne Elementary School in Joppa, Maryland, for helping to save his aunt's life. On the morning of September 22, shortly before 6 a.m., Deven found his aunt,...

Honest girl returns $1,000.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Back in October, 11-year-old Mikela Mercier was shopping with her mother in a Salvation Army thrift store in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. As she was browsing through the used videotapes, Mikela made an astounding discovery. Inside a Richard Simmons...

Honesty also found in Utah.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... On Halloween day, Bill Vint, Jr. was riding his bicycle in Cedar City, Utah, when he saw what looked like a bank deposit bag lying on the ground. He said later that he almost didn't turn around, but his curiosity got the better of him and he...

Free-market thinkers: with bailouts and other unabashed socialist projects being embraced by both political parties to "save our economy," has free-market economics been proved faulty?(HISTORY--PAST AND PERSPECTIVE)
December 8, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the bailout-a-week political climate, it is all too easy to believe that free-market economics are as passe as powdered wigs. Everyone, it seems, is a socialist now, and the old gospel of laissez-faire and free...

Justice triumphs.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... On October 25, a Cape Girardeau, Missouri, woman was at the mercy of an attacker, Ronnie Preyer, 47. He invaded her home and raped her. Preyer, a registered sex offender, committed that crime and managed to escape and elude the police. Then six...

Bigger target.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... A South Sacramento homeowner discovered that two men had forced their way inside his home on November 8 in an apparent home invasion. According to Sacramento police reports, when the burglars were confronted by the homeowner, the two attempted...

Trailer trash.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Steven Rutter, 57, was alerted by the sound of a vehicle slowing down in front of his house in rural Shelby County, Tennessee. Since he lives in a quiet rural area near Rosemark, this sound sparked his curiosity, and he decided to investigate....

Balancing the equation.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Older people, so often victimized by younger, stronger criminals, are balancing the equation by exercising their right and arming themselves against potential criminal attacks. According to News Channel 5 in Nashville, Tennessee, late on...

Piling bailouts upon bailouts.(Correction, Please!)
December 8, 2008... ITEM: The New York Times for October 31 reported: "As the Treasury Department prepares a $40 billion program to help delinquent homeowners avoid foreclosure, it confronts a difficult challenge: not making the plan too tempting." ITEM: An...

Fed loaned nearly $2 trillion.(THE LAST WORD)
December 8, 2008... By now everyone knows that Congress and the White House approved an enormous $700-plus billion package a short time ago and that the Treasury Department is rapidly burning through that mountainous sum and asking for more. What wasn't known...

Government meddling.(Letter to the editor)
December 22, 2008... Our concern should not be about who is best qualified to run our economy, but that no one should interfere with the free market! The collapsing economy demonstrates the false promises of prosperity from NAFTA, CAFTA, and other "free-trade"...

The GOP's turn to lose.(Letter to the editor)
December 22, 2008... In regard to your article "How the Republicans Blew It" (November 24), if you really believe as I do that we really only have one political party in this country and that it is controlled by those sitting in seats of power on the boards of the...

Obama is not well-meaning.(Letter to the editor)
December 22, 2008... I'm writing to express my displeasure with the October 13, 2008, issue of THE NEW AMERICAN about Barack Obama. In the article "Obama: Messiah?" it says: "As David Freddoso says in his book..., 'It's not that Obama is a bad person.'" So, Obama...

Obama's foreign policy team: more of the same.(Inside Track)
December 22, 2008... President-elect Barack Obama announced at a December 1 news conference that HiUary Clinton, his main opponent in the Democratic primaries, is his choice for secretary of state. In making the announcement, Obama stated that "Hillary's...

Former Fed Chief Volcker to lead Obama Economic Recovery team.(Inside Track)
December 22, 2008... On November 26, President-elect Barack Obama named former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker to head what he calls his Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Volcker was appointed to the Federal Reserve in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter and...

20,000 troops to be deployed in United States.(Inside Track)
December 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to...

Sarah Palin: beyond "The Last Frontier".(Inside Track)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... Four months before John McCain surprised the nation with his choice of Sarah Palin for a running mate, Charles Scaliger wrote glowingly about the Alaska governor in THE NEW AMERICAN'S March 31, 2008 issue. He noted that she is "a typical...

China builds closer ties to Cuba.(QuickQuotes)
December 22, 2008... "Even though the physical distance that separates China and Cuba is great, friendship between both people goes back a long way." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Chinese President Hu Jintao signed dozens of trade and investment deals with...

Former house and Senate budget staffer Lambastes deficits.(QuickQuotes)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... "A trillion dollar deficit is not only something you wouldn't have seen in an economics textbook, it's something that even a science fiction writer wouldn't dare mention." When the projected deficit for the single month of September was...

Economist claims the United States has become a nation of thieves.(Quick Quotes)(Walter Williams)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... "Helping one's fellow man in need, by reaching into one's own pocket, is laudable and praiseworthy. Doing the same through coercion and reaching into another's pockets has no redeeming features and is worthy of condemnation." Labeling the...

Carter Aghast at conditions in Zimbabwe.(QuickQuotes)(Jimmy Carter)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "The entire basic structure in education, healthcare, feeding people, social services, and sanitation has broken down. The crisis in Zimbabwe is much greater, much worse than we had ever imagined." Though denied...

Spare parts dealer may be one beneficiary of economic troubles.(QuickQuotes)(Charles Ross)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... "If people aren't buying as many new cars, they'll have to fix the old ones. That's good for us." Small-businessman Charles Ross, whose company in Massachusetts repairs starters and alternators, expects his business to increase.

Nobody obeys traffic signals in the Big Apple.(QuickQuotes)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... "Red lights have become just a suggestion. Bicycling in New York is a constant dance with death." Blaming indifference on the part of police, New Yorker Carl Rosenstein worries about the many bicyclists who cycle to deliver messages and small...

Czech president scheduled to become president of the European Union he abhors.(QuickQuotes)(Vaclav Klaus)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... "Oh God, Vaclav Klaus will come next." So stated a headline in the Austrian newspaper Die Presse after it was learned that the outspoken critic of the European Union will soon assume its rotating presidency.

Congressman responds to governor over border fence.(QuickQuotes)(Congressman J.D. Hayworth and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... "I don't think very many illegal aliens would be running around with 51-foot ladders." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano has discounted the building of a fence with claims that erecting a 50-foot-high fence would...

Faith triumphs over persecution: the simple and enduring faith of Christians has proven unconquerable despite the persecutions from ancient Rome to modern-day Iraq.(FAITH)(Cover story)
December 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Every Christmas, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, an event recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Jesus was born in a stable, the Gospel writers tell us, because there was no room in the inn, and...

The hope of the world: no matter how difficult or challenging the times may become, there is great reason to be hopeful for a brighter future.(FAITH)(Cover story)
December 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As I see it, the beginning of the United States of America was the most dramatic and significant episode in a long pilgrimage--the pilgrimage of the Christian idea of law, liberty, and self-government. Christianity...

The war on Christmas: because "public life" now entails virtually every part of our lives, erasing references to God entirely from public life means virtually eliminating them from America.(CULTURE)
December 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Imagine, if you will, a gala birthday party given in your honor. The guests will sing, dance, give presents, eat, drink, and have the merriest of times. The hitch: your name will not be mentioned, the gifts will not...

The rhythm & blues of America: famed Blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan tells about his involvement in the movement to restore our constitutional republic.(Interview)
December 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Guitar Player magazine called Jimmie Vaughan "a living legend." He's one of the most respected guitarists in the world of popular music. He started playing guitar when he was 13, and his mother said of his immediate...

Finders keepers? No way!(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... The Gabriel Project was founded in 1990 by Mark Melamed, a sixth-grade teacher in New Jersey. After learning of dying children in Africa who were unable to get to the United States for needed heart surgery, Melamed and his class formed the...

Trained to do heroic deeds.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Marines)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... On Sunday morning, November 9, fire broke out in the Americas Best Value Inn in Lake Forest, California. Before firefighters even arrived on the scene to fight the six-alarm blaze, though, all the guests were safely out of the burning rooms,...

A life of helping.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)
December 22, 2008... On October 9, CNN announced their Top 10 Heroes of 2008. Tad Agoglia, one of those chosen, proves that heroism doesn't just involve doing a one-time deed, but oftentimes involves finding a need and fulfilling it on a long-term basis. ...

Bretton Woods: while WWII raged in 1944, 44 delegations met to create a world currency, bank, and trade organization. They fell short of that goal, but what will happen this time?(HISTORY--PAST AND PERSPECTIVE)
December 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Even by the rarefied standards of wealthy New Englanders, the Mount Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, is a luxurious retreat. Built in 1902 by 250 skilled artisans for the then-princely sum of $1.7...

Criminal learns lesson.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A young teen learned that burglarizing a neighbor's home can be painful, as well as illegal and morally wrong. A resident of Green Pond, near Charleston, South Carolina, discovered a burglar entering through a...

A hero in hero.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... An unidentified local man defending his home on November 24 was ultimately responsible for the apprehension of Eric Edson, 37, a career criminal in Hero, Vermont, a small suburb of Burlington. Sgt. Kirk Cooper of the Vermont state police...

Right to property upheld.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... Police spokesman Lt. Jeffery Scott indicated that no charges will be filed against a property owner in Jackson, Mississippi, who fatally shot a burglary suspect on November 22. According to the Jackson Clarion Ledger, a police investigation...

Robber singing the blues.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... Brayel Kelly of Calumet City, Illinois, a nephew of R&B singer R. Kelly, was singing his own version of the blues after he attempted a robbery. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, on November 6, Kelly was shot by the owner of the Marvelous Cuts...

Obama cap-and-trade plan uncaps federal power.(Correction, Please!)(Barack Obama)
December 22, 2008... ITEM: President-elect Barack Obama provided a pre-recorded video message to the nearly 800 attendees from the United States and foreign countries at the Governors' Global Climate Summit hosted by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on...

The Obama economic team.(THE LAST WORD)(Barack Obama)
December 22, 2008... As President-elect Obama continues to name the men and women who will fill his administration, I searched in vain for a newly anointed appointee who supplies even a glimmer of hope that the nation's economic meltdown will be properly addressed....