The New American articles from June 2008

The New American archives from June 2008

Germane information.(Letter to the editor)
June 9, 2008... The May 12 article "The Story of the Pueblo" should have provided more information about the events leading up to the capture of the ship. For example, before leaving port, the Naval commander asked Pueblo's Commanding Officer Bucher if...

Family of spies.(Letter to the editor)
June 9, 2008... It was with great interest I read the Pueblo story again. I served my country in the Korean Conflict, 1950-1954, aboard the Heavy Cruiser USS Los Angeles, with Task Force 77, mainly off the east coast of North Korea. As mentioned in the...

Cementing a "Bad Deal".(Letter to the editor)
June 9, 2008... Great article about Alaska in the March 31 issue! How we came to acquire that land is a fascinating and little-known story. According to A. Ralph Epperson in The Unseen Hand, Czar Alexander II of Russia sent significant contingents of his naval...

Mexican police fleeing drug cartel assassins.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... The escalating violence by Mexico's various drug cartels has taken a heavy toll on Mexico's police forces in recent months, with the month of May proving especially brutal. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down in May,...

Bush plan rewards corruption, shorts border protection.(Inside Track)(President George W. Bush)
June 9, 2008... In March 2007, President Bush joined Mexico's President Calderon in Merida, Mexico, for a three-day visit aimed at advancing the economic and political convergence agenda of the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). In...

President Bush targets Iran and Syria at Mideast Summit.(Inside Track)(President George W. Bush)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... Is President Bush planning a military strike against Iran (and perhaps Syria too) before leaving office? The administration's internationalist neoconservative advisers continue to push for it, as does the neocon talk-radio chorus. The president...

Economic forum pushes Mideast Aid and free-trade agreements.(Inside Track)(World Economic Forum)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... President Bush joined over 1,100 participants at the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Middle East conference at Sharm el-Sheihk, Egypt, May 18-20. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict was one of the center-stage items, and the conference provided added...

Ethics complaint filed against U.S. Attorney in Ramos-Compean case.(Inside Track)(Johnny Sutton)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... Christian Pastor Don Swarthout has filed an ethics complaint with the Texas Bar Association seeking an investigation of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's performance during the prosecution of U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose...

Obama's bill would commit the United States to UN poverty goals.(Inside Track)(Senator Barack Obama)
June 9, 2008... Thanks to the alternative news media, many conservatives are familiar by now with some aspects of Senator Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) Global Poverty Act of 2007 (S. 2433). Although this bill should definitely be opposed, some misunderstandings have...

California Supreme Court overturns same-sex marriage ban.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... On May 15, in a 4-3 ruling, the California Supreme Court struck down two state laws limiting marriage to unions between a man and a woman, claiming that the state constitution protects a fundamental "right to marry" extending to same-sex...

Polar bears thrive but Interior Dept. calls them "threatened".(Inside Track)(Dirk Kempthome, Secretary of the Interior Department)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthome announced at a May 14 press conference that he is accepting the recommendation of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered...

Five years later, "Mission Accomplished" announcement still reverberates.(QuickQuotes)(on President George W. Bush and the Iraq War)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every year." White House spokeswoman Dana Perino responded to a question about President Bush's May 2003 appearance on an aircraft...

Controversial civilian security firm gets new Iraq contract.(QuickQuotes)(Blackwater Worldwide)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... "We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq. If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq." Under Secretary of State Patrick E Kennedy commented after the Blackwater Worldwide firm received a new contract to...

CNN apologizes for commentator's remarks about Chinese leaders.(QuickQuotes)(Cable News Network's Jack Cafferty)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... "China's leaders are basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years." Responding to the Chinese government's April crackdown on dissent in occupied Tibet, CNN's Jack Cafferty said what was on his mind. CNN...

Declining readership threatens newspaper industry.(QuickQuotes)(Christian Science Monitor)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... "Like most newspapers, we are actively investigating a range of formats and frequency in response to our readers' needs, rising operating costs, and changing technology." With circulation down dramatically from 230,000 in the 1970s to...

Drug lords suspected in slaying of top Mexican police official.(QuickQuotes)(Edgar Millan Gomez)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... "It was in response to his role in the arrest. It's the worst casualty we have suffered so far." For his role in the arrest of drug lord Alfredo Beltran Leyva, acting chief of police Edgar Millan Gomez died in a hail of bullets as he...

Former Pelosi aide heads planned parenthood.(QuickQuotes)(Cecile Richards)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... "To keep our doors open, it's clear that we need to step into the electoral arena." Now leading our nation's most prominent abortion provider, Cecile Richards, the daughter of former Texas governor Ann Richards, announced plans to use millions...

Former congressman seeks Libertarian nomination for president.(QuickQuotes)(Bob Barr)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... "The American voters deserve better than simply the lesser of two evils." After serving six terms as a Georgia congressman, Bob Barr joined the Libertarian Party in 2006 and is seeking the party's presidential nomination at its convention. ...

Pat Buchanan excoriates McCain for extolling NAFTA.(QuickQuotes)(John McCain on North American Free Trade Agreement)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... "The losers are those guys in Youngstown McCain was lecturing on the beauty of NAFTA. And the winners are the CEOs who pull down seven-, eight-, even nine-figure annual packages selling out their country for the corporation." Among...

Rising food costs: many different events play a part in creating the current food crisis, but it is the inflationary policies of governments that must bear the lion's share of the blame.(FOOD)(Cover story)
June 9, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] From Nouakchott in northwest Africa to Port-au-Prince in the Caribbean, the situation is becoming grimmer by the day. The specter of world hunger, unseen in generations, even in the world's poorest nations, is once...

Coal in your car's tank: American-dug coal could be altered to produce clean-burning fuels for our vehicles. Here's how we could do it, and what might stop it from happening.(ENERGY)
June 9, 2008... In 1943, when Germany had virtually no sources of petroleum to fuel its Luftwaffe, U-boats, and Tiger tanks, its scientists (arguably among the best in the world at that time) didn't turn to solar and wind power. Evil does not equate to...

Building a DNA database: the federal government has just enacted two bills related to DNA. The first would drive the collection of DNA from all infants. The second would attempt to prevent the DNA that is collected from being misused.(PRIVACY)
June 9, 2008... The passage of two bills in the Senate and the House, and the recent signing of those bills into law by President Bush, provides an object lesson in the type of logic that governs the coercive state. Simply put, the actions of an intrusive...

Top-level torture: the Bush administration admits to condoning acts that most people would deem torture. Now we know that the administration determined how the tortures were to be carried out.(TERRORISM)(President George W. Bush)
June 9, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A hidden bomb will detonate in an hour, killing hundreds of people and injuring thousands. You have the bomber in your power. Do you torture him to discover the device's location? The Principals Committee...

Back to Narnia with Prince Caspian: fans of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia will likely find Prince Caspian to be a visually and technically magnificent family-friendly film that misses the mark in a few areas.
June 9, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Epic fantasy is the one genre of storytelling that Hollywood has never been able to master. Before Lord of the Rings, there was a scant handful--Willow, The Princess Bride, and Ladyhawke nearly exhaust the list for...

Missouri boy saves grandmother.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Tyler Witt)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... Nine-year-old Tyler Witt, a student at Ozark South Elementary School in Ozark, Missouri, was with his grandmother last February when she suddenly suffered an apparent seizure. "She was dying. She's about 50," Tyler told OzarksFirst.com...

Uncle makes heroic rescue in Georgia.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Matthew Sutherland)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... Early on the morning of April 19, Heather Obarr was home in Nicholson, Georgia. She was sleeping with two of her children, her eight-year-old daughter, and a six-month-old infant. In another room were her son, Seth, and her nephew, Garrett...

North Carolina teen saves toddler.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Laura McDaniel)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... Mobile-home residents have had a bad time of it lately, but, fortunately, heroes abound. On the night of April 16, Blair Hawkins left her home in Cleveland County, North Carolina, to take her six-year-old child to the hospital. She left...

Hitler and Christianity: Nazism was not one of the fruits of Christianity, but of its rejection. Adolf Hitler and his minions sought not to serve Christ, but to replace Christ.(HISTORY--PAST AND PERSPECTIVE)
June 9, 2008... Long ago, during the darkest chapter of the 20th century, a movie was released entitled Hitler's Children. While the film is virtually forgotten, I cannot forget a certain scene involving some words a Nazi official uttered to a dissident, a...

Taking pucker out of a relationship.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... A Scottsdale, Arizona, woman may have had a lemon for a boyfriend, but she knew how to remedy a sour disposition. Around midnight on March 20, 52-year-old Hugh Turner poured gasoline on personal effects in the garage of his 74-year-old...

D.A. jeers, public cheers.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(District Attorney)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... Michael Thurman of Augusta, Georgia, may face charges for shooting 19-year-old Jeffrey Whitt after Whitt had broken into Thurman's truck on January 27 outside his house. The local D.A.'s office is investigating to determine whether to pursue...

April fools: three of them.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Daniel Sizemore, Philip Chappell, and Andrea Bachleda)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... Three individuals from South Bend, Indiana--Daniel Sizemore, Philip Chappell, and Andrea Bachleda--apparently stole from homes as a livelihood. Their modus operandi seems to have had Bachleda knocking on house doors to see if anyone was home....

Boy gets bitten.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Paul Schalow)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... According to the Arizona Republic, on March 9, 10-year-old Paul Schalow and his family were taking a lunch break after riding ATVs in Arizona's Tonto National Forest when a family member noticed a lion that was about to pounce on Paul. ...

At home.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
June 9, 2008... A woman who for safety's sake was kept anonymous and dubbed "Michelle" by KRGV Channel 5 TV in Texas chased off two men who were fighting her husband. On March 11, Michelle's husband went to close the gate in front of their Hidalgo County...

Playing Pyongyang's patsy.(Correction, Please!)(United State's nuclear inspection on North Korea)
June 9, 2008... ITEM: "North Korea handed over more than 18,000 pages of nuclear weapons documents to a U.S. diplomat visiting Pyongyang on Thursday that will help verify its plutonium holdings, senior U.S. officials said," Reuters reported on May 8. "The...

Learning a lesson from the EU.(THE LAST WORD)(European Union)
June 9, 2008... Americans can't be warned too often that the path toward cancellation of sovereignty for Europe's 27 nations is the same route being carved out here. Europeans are discovering that they have been duped into accepting what they thought was only...

Passing it on.(Letter to the editor)
June 23, 2008... Excellent summary piece by William F. Jasper on climate change ("2008 Climate Debate," March 31). I've taken the liberty of forwarding it to a large list which includes many of the scientists referenced in the essay, including Marc Morano at...

Climate-change believer.(Letter to the editor)
June 23, 2008... I lived and worked in Antarctica 10 years ago when top scientists explained global warming to people at McMurdo. Let me give you a jolt of reality. We burn 80 million barrels of oil every 24 hours, seven days a week, and 52 weeks a year around...

Talk about immigration and the fair tax.(Letter to the editor)
June 23, 2008... I am troubled by two recent articles in THE NEW AMERICAN. First is the March 3, 2008 Warren Mass piece "Immigration as a Win-win Affair." Do we really need another lecture on the benefits of immigration to America over the centuries? I don't....

Minnesota and Alaska legislatures reject Real ID.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... In May Minnesota and Alaska became the eighth and ninth states whose legislatures have rejected Real ID, joining Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Washington. A dozen more states have approved resolutions calling for...

Bob Barr gains Libertarian Party nod.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... It took six ballots before Bob Barr, a former four-term Republican Congressman from Georgia, won the nomination of the Libertarian Party at its Denver Convention on the Memorial Day weekend. An energetic throng gave him a 324-276 victory over...

China loosens one-child policy due to earthquake toll.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... Chinese officials announced on May 26 that owing to the massive devastation caused by the May 12 earthquake, the communist regime's harsh family planning policy of only one child per family would allow exemptions for those parents whose only...

Economic survival--not "stimulus"!(Inside Track)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... The plan, according to our government's economic gums, was to stimulate our economy by sending tax rebates to U.S. taxpayers to spur spending and invigorate our troubled economy. In theory, recipients of the checks would use their rebate checks...

Bringing the KGB's top Afghani "Islamist" back to power.(Inside Track)(Committee for State Security's Gulbadin Hekmatyar)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... U.S. troops in Afghanistan may soon find themselves squeezed in a new political power play in Kabul. Gulbadin Hekmatyar, leader of the radical Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), is being invited by President Hamid Karzai (almost certainly under...

Is former speaker Hastert's new lobbyist job a Turkish payoff?(Inside Track)(Dennis Hastert of the lobbying law firm Dickstein Shapiro)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... The Washington, D.C., lobbying law firm Dickstein Shapiro announced on May 31 that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) is joining the firm as a senior adviser. According to a spokesman for Dickstein Shapiro, Hastert "will be...

Russian "Merchant of Death" still held in Thailand.(Inside Track)(Viktor Bout)
June 23, 2008... For more than a decade and a half, Viktor Bout has been fueling the most savage wars and terrorist operations in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East with guns, bombs, tanks, missiles, and munitions. Notorious as the "Merchant of Death," his...

Underground C[O.sub.2].(Inside Track)(carbon dioxide)
June 23, 2008... The high price of oil has caused those responsible for energy generation to think increasingly about coal as a fuel source, mainly because our nation's coal reserves are much more abundant than our supplies of petroleum. However, fears of the...

U.S. diplomat angered by Burmese Junta's refusal to allow aid shipments.(Quick Quotes)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... "It is very frustrating if you look at the people's suffering. You have the tools at your fingertips to alleviate that suffering, and they are just not picking them up." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] From his post in Bangkok, U.S. Ambassador...

Zimbabwe military personnel ordered to support Mugabe.(Quick Quotes)(Robert Mugabe)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... "We have signed up and agreed to fight and protect the ruling party's principles of defending the revolution. If you have other thoughts, then you should remove that uniform." As Zimbabwe continues to suffer from runaway inflation and...

Attorneys want all mention of Second Amendment barred in trial of gun dealers.(Quick Quotes)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... "Any references by counsel to the Second Amendment or analogous state constitutional provisions are likewise irrelevant." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A legal brief filed by attorneys for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg seeks to bar...

New York governor's order to recognize California homosexual marriages challenged.(Quick Quotes)(Governor David Paterson)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... "Just as the state cannot declare a man to be a 'mother' or a woman to be a 'father,' it cannot declare a same-sex union to be a 'marriage.'" Responding to Governor David Patterson's directive to New York agencies to recognize California's...

British Commander claimed presence of his forces in Iraq counterproductive.(Quick Quotes)(Lt. Col. Patrick Sanders)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... "As long as we are here, the Iraqi security forces are far less inclined to confront the militias. There's no doubt that for some parts of the community, we are as much a part of the problem as the solution." The British pulled their...

Europe turning to nuclear for power generation.(Quick Quotes)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... "Italy has had the most dramatic, the most public turnaround, but the sentiments against nuclear are reversing very quickly all across Europe--Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, and more." Speaking for the London-based Worm Nuclear...

Political analyst sees little difference between McCain and Obama.(Quick Quotes)(attorney Patrick Krey's opinion on John McCain and Barack Obama)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... "What is important to note is that Republican John McCain had Zbigniew Brzezinski as his foreign policy advisor for his 1999-2000 Presidential campaign. Now Barack Obama has Brzezinski as one of his principal advisors." [ILLUSTRATION...

Economic bubbles: the Fed's financial control creates housing and other bubbles that burst with disastrous effect. The solution is to end central control and embrace free-market principles.(ECONOMY)(Cover story)
June 23, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Many Americans today are understandably concerned about the state of the economy. The current recession is likely to be one of the worst in recent memory, and comes at a particularly difficult time for many...

Dangers of an underreported CPI: changes over the past 40 years to the Consumer Price Index have not only provided a poorer reflection of true consumer costs but have actually harmed our economy.(ECONOMY)
June 23, 2008... The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the average price of consumer goods and services purchased by households. The government uses the CPI to "calculate inflation." Changes over the past 40 years to the CPI "to better reflect the actual...

Whose children are they, anyway? After illegally taking 468 children from their parents at an FLDS ranch, Texas child grabbers have yet to produce any evidence of abuse and were ordered to return the children.(THE LAW)(Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)
June 23, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] How does a state child protective services agency even begin to take nearly 500 children from families living in a peaceful religious community in West Texas? Answer: a night-time raid with tanks, riot police, SWAT...

Government is not the problem: although we elect individuals to public office, it is "We the People" who are the government. We have the responsibility to make our government work properly.(CONSTITUTION CORNER)
June 23, 2008... That "the government is denying us our rights and even, that "the government is oppressing us are complaints all too commonly heard among patriots today. Yet, although instances of public officials' misbehavior are both numerous and serious,...

A global population Ice Age: Demographic Winter shows that Earth's population is poised not for an explosion but for an implosion, as birthrates around the globe plummet to all-time lows.
June 23, 2008... If you're like most alive today, you grew up with Paul R. Ehrlich's Malthusian idea of a "population bomb." It just seems like common sense that man will increase his numbers inexorably until, one day, we find ourselves living a real-life...

Finders, keepers not the rule.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)
June 23, 2008... Back in 1973, Sandy Baumberger was working as a student secretary at the former Shurtleff College campus in Upper Alton, Illinois, while the Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine was being constructed. "I had left my desk...

Respect for old glory.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... When Jeffrey Sahli started eighth grade at Evergreen Middle School in Colorado last fall, he was somewhat disenchanted about the lack of respect shown to the U.S. flag, which was faded and worn. "I thought the flag wasn't being treated with...

Cab driver returns stradivarius violin.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Mohammed Khalil)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... Shortly after midnight on the morning of April 21, Philippe Quint, a Grammy-nominated classical violinist, and a companion arrived from Dallas at Newark Liberty International Airport. The pair boarded a minivan taxi owned and operated by...

The Great Depression: contrary to conventional wisdom, the historical record shows that interventionist policies during the Hoover and FDR administrations caused and prolonged the Great Depression.(HISTORY--PAST AND PERSPECTIVE)(Franklin Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover)
June 23, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On October 29, 1929, the world turned upside down. For more than a month, stock prices, which had risen to giddy new levels throughout the decade now known as "the Roaring Twenties," had been faltering. Since early...

Punching bag no longer.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Don Johnson)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... Don Johnson, not the actor but a 75-year-old dentist from Kelseyville, California, obtained a restraining order against his 56-year-old wife on May 2. He claimed that she had physically abused him for 19 years--sporadically at first, but as her...

Rash of robberies.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... After a robber was wounded in a shooting at a liquor store, CBS5.com reported that over a 24-hour period in Oakland, California, beginning on Wednesday, April 17, "there were also 14 strong-arm robberies in the city." The robberies typify what...

Crime and court together.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... In Illinois, as in many other states, if someone is killed committing a crime (usually during the commission of a felony), any co-conspirators in the crime may be charged with murder for the death, even if they did not kill the person...

Last resort.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
June 23, 2008... An unidentified 55-year-old clerk was working on May 4 at a Mesa Mart in Mesa, Arizona, when a 30-year-old man tried to rob the store. At about 8 a.m., the robber entered the store and began beating the clerk with a pipe and demanding...

AP smears the JBS.(Correction, Please!)(Associated Press on the John Birch Society)
June 23, 2008... ITEM: On May 22. Associated Press reporter Sheila Byrd had an article published, entitled "Pulpit and the Pews." on "how America's racial landscape is navigated daily." She included interviews from across the country, including San Marino,...

Inside McClellan's new expose.(THE LAST WORD)(Scott McClellan)
June 23, 2008... Scott McClellan followed George W. Bush from Texas to Washington where he rose to become White House press secretary. Positioned to know the president well, he has issued some unflattering criticism of the man he still reveres. His...