The New American articles from May 2004

The New American archives from May 2004

Two views on Martha.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2004... "The Last Word" commentary is normally on target with orthodox conservative thought, but "Straining at Gnats, Swallowing Camels" (March 8 issue) by Mr. William Norman Grigg was an exception. Going libertarian and wobbly on Martha Stewart is...

Robeson and Bunche.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2004... Your "Last Word" column about the Paul Robeson postage stamp in the February 23 issue is reminiscent of the Ralph Bunche stamp issued about 20 years ago, which was strongly decried by the John Birch Society. Perhaps the Young Communists of...

Dissent and responsibility.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2004... The response of Chinese immigrant Liu Baifang to the limitation of dissent in America ("USA or PRC?" December 15, 2003, page 7) is significant. We have been warned many times by immigrants of dangerous decisions by our federal government. Here...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
May 3, 2004... In "Stealth Invasion" in our April 5 issue, we misstated the name of the Houston newspaper we quoted (the quotes were correct); and, in a photo caption in the same article, we mistated Congressman Cannon's first name. The paper's name is the...

Powell backtracks on Iraqi mobile biological labs.(Insider Report)
May 3, 2004... Secretary of State Colin Powell recently conceded that the evidence that Saddam Hussein had mobile biological labs may have been wrong. Powell had presented the evidence as solid during a dramatic presentation to the UN Security Council on...

Massive alien ID fraud ring in Oregon.(Insider Report)
May 3, 2004... "Thousands of illegal immigrants have crossed into Oregon to fraudulently obtain driver's licenses, key documents for gaining credit cards, opening bank accounts and boarding airplanes," reported the March 28 Portland Oregonian. Traveling by...

World Court orders changes in U.S. death penalty.(Insider Report)
May 3, 2004... On March 31, the International Court of Justice, more commonly known as the World Court, ruled that the United States "should provide by means of its own choosing meaningful review of the conviction and sentence" of 47 Mexican citizens...

Georgia withdraws con-con applications.(Insider Report)
May 3, 2004... The Georgia state legislature rescinded its extant applications for a constitutional convention on April 1, on the heels of similar action in Virginia less than a month earlier (see "Virginia Withdraws Con-Con Application" in our April 5...

Building on the bubble.(Insider Report)
May 3, 2004... In late February, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan--to the befuddlement of many financial analysts--floated the suggestion that homeowners should consider switching from fixed-rate mortgages to adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). This...

Punishing hate crimes: the next phase.(Insider Report)
May 3, 2004... Canada pioneered the prosecution of "hate crimes," introducing enhanced penalties for crimes against protected victim groups years before our nation began to adopt the same misbegotten policy. Subjects of the socialist regime in the Great White...

CFR: UN resolutions "legally" binding.(Stranger Than Fiction)
May 3, 2004... "When the UN Security Council passes a resolution, it is seen as speaking for (and in the interests of) humanity as a whole, and in so doing it confers a legitimacy that is respected by the world's governments, and usually by their publics....

Is Paul Johnson catching on?(Stranger Than Fiction)
May 3, 2004... "Personally, I fear the UN is a lost cause, incorrigibly frivolous and corrupt and beyond reform." --British historian Paul Johnson Forbes, February 2, 2004

Just tongue-in-cheek?(Stranger Than Fiction)
May 3, 2004... "I probably won't run for anything again, so I can tell the truth now." --Former Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole Time, January 26, 2004

Aborted voter blowback.(Stranger Than Fiction)
May 3, 2004... "George Davey, an Iowa precinct captain for Dean's campaign, explained Dean's loss, 'I think if we could blame it on anyone, blame it on the 18- to 25-year-olds, because they were nonexistent.'... Dean was a victim of the 'Roe...

Does Cronkite's wife know?(Stranger Than Fiction)
May 3, 2004... "I do think one of the factors was we were of different sexes. That doesn't mean I wouldn't have been happy to be married to several friends I had of the same sex. It just never came up in our particular relations. [Christian opposition to...

He said what about the death penalty?(Stranger Than Fiction)
May 3, 2004... "I don't believe that, in the end, you advance the, sort of, level of your justice and the system of your civility as a nation--and many other nations in the world, most of the other nations in the world, have adopted that idea, that the state...

Liberal academic: conservatives are "stupid".(Stranger Than Fiction)
May 3, 2004... "We try to hire the best, smartest people available.... If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire.... Mill's analysis may go some way towards explaining the...

A "clarification and reflection": still "stupid".(Stranger Than Fiction)
May 3, 2004... "If one looks carefully at what quoted as saying in The Chronicle, I did not say that all conservatives are stupid, nor even that most conservatives are stupid. I will go on the records as saying that some conservatives are stupid, but so are...

Why are gas prices climbing? It is primarily Washington--not OPEC or domestic oil companies--that bears the blame for inflated gasoline prices.(Energy)(Cover Story)
May 3, 2004... A mid soaring gasoline prices, the incumbent administration came under heavy rhetorical fire from its challenger during the presidential campaign. The candidate, speaking in a community that had been hit particularly hard by the price spike,...

New world order strategist: thirty years ago Richard N. Gardner proposed a "piecemeal" approach to world government. The internationalist insiders have followed his blueprint ever since.(World Government)
May 3, 2004... There have always been individuals who prefer to exercise the substance, rather than enjoy the pageantry, of power. Richard N. Gardner, professor of law and international organization at Columbia University, is one of them. Almost unknown to...

The unfolding FTAA battle: understanding the dynamics involved in previous congressional votes on NAFTA and other so-called trade pacts is key to stopping the dangerous erosion of our sovereignty.(FTAA)
May 3, 2004... In December 1994, President Bill Clinton hosted the Summit of the Americas in Miami. Together with the leaders of the nations of North and South America and the Caribbean, he committed to completing an agreement for a Western Hemispheric trade...

How they voted: key votes on sovereignty-eroding trade pacts.(Congress)
May 3, 2004... This index shows how every current member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate voted on several trade-related measures over the past decade, beginning with the 1993 NAFTA vote. We have assigned pluses to votes against...

Against some enemies: Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies doesn't live up to its title. President Bush and his administration are sharply criticized, but other guilty parties are strangely ignored.(Book Review)
May 3, 2004... Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, by Richard A. Clarke, New York: Free Press (a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.), 304 pages, hardcover. Richard Clarke wasn't "out of the loop," as claimed offhandedly by Vice President...

Free at last.(The Goodness Of America)
May 3, 2004... Hebron Morris, 72, lives with sister Dean Alexander and her son in the same home where, until last year, six generations of his family had resided virtually crime-free. But last June a burglar began targeting the Jackson, Mississippi, house,...

Life saver.(The Goodness Of America)
May 3, 2004... Alan Burns of Inverness, Florida, operates the Just Stumps lawn service and stump grinding firm in Citrus County. In March, he took a weekend off to relax at the Dorsan Suites resort in Kissimmee with some friends from his Moose Lodge. At...

Teen saves child.(The Goodness Of America)
May 3, 2004... On January 29, 2003, 13-year-old Kerilyn Belle Crawford of Navasota, Texas, was visiting a neighbor's home when she heard a dog growling and a child screaming. Six-year-old Caleb Orlando had somehow circumvented a fence surrounding the yard and...

Fearless firefighter.(The Goodness Of America)
May 3, 2004... On April 4, 2003, fire broke out in the kitchen of a home in Garden City South, New York, and quickly filled the house with dense smoke. Homeowner Biggio Ferrara, 80, became trapped in a bathroom adjoining the kitchen and began yelling for...

The fire that backfired: the British torching of Danbury, Connecticut, did not produce the desired effect--thanks in part to the midnight ride of 16-year-old Sybil Ludington.(History--Struggle For Freedom)
May 3, 2004... From the deck of the H.M.S. Senegal, Major General William Tryon surveyed the peaceful beach outside Fairfield, Connecticut, at sunset, on April 25, 1777. In the dying rays of the sun, the pastoral scene at the mouth of the Saugatuck River...

Putin's re-Sovietized Russia.(Ahead Of The Curve)
May 3, 2004... ITEM: "Vladimir Putin is on course to complete Russia's transition into an authoritarian state--and it will have happened while the West not only stood by, but nodded its benign approval," wrote Gary Kasparov in a March 12 Wall Street Journal...

Four strikes and out.(Exercising The Right)
May 3, 2004... Virgil Kindig of Memphis, Tennessee, has had numerous harrowing experiences during his 96-plus years. On one occasion, he was flying a cotton duster in Arkansas when the aircraft's engine failed and the wings sheared off. The plane plunged into...

Tables turned.(Exercising The Right)
May 3, 2004... After work, at around 10:30 p.m. on March 9, Bryan Rutherford of De Soto, Missouri, set off to visit a girlfriend in Lemay. As he pulled his truck into the parking lot of the apartment complex where she lived, a van began following him. ...

And not a shot was fired.(Exercising The Right)
May 3, 2004... The January 31 Reno (Nevada) Gazette-Journal reported that a Reno man suspected of trying to break into a Ford truck the day before "was held at gunpoint by the owner until police arrived." According to the paper, the truck owner (who was not...

Security for whom & against what?(The Last Word)
May 3, 2004... Anyone who has flown on commercial airlines since 9-11 knows that America has changed dramatically. Invasive and humiliating searches have become routine procedure. Long lines, delays, metal detectors, explosive residue detectors, partial...

Is America anti-semitic?(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 17, 2004... Regarding the humorous Newsweek "Surgeon General's warning" displayed on the New Testament in your article "Orchestrated Outrage" (April 5 issue), I am just wondering about something. Considering the billions of dollars sent to Israel from the...

Who's stupid?(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 17, 2004... Dr. Robert Brandon of Duke University with his attitude that "conservatives are stupid" (see "Stranger than Fiction," May 3 issue) is, unfortunately, typical of the majority of liberals who spend all of their adult lives in universities or on...

Fighting back.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 17, 2004... Your article "'Massachusetts: Land of the Pretenders" (April 19 issue) says it all. As a lifelong resident of the Bay State the land of Teddy and Barney, et al.--I am totally outraged by the actions of what passes for government here. And I am...

Non-Christian proverb.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 17, 2004... I hold TNA to a higher standard of editorial and writing excellence than I do other magazines, and I was surprised that "God helps those who help themselves" was incorporated into a Christian context in the article "Miracle at Sea," April 5...

Forests: "lock 'em up, burn 'em down".(Insider Report)
May 17, 2004... During the last two weeks of April, California experienced a statewide, record-breaking heat wave that threatens to start the wildfire season early this summer. Dozens of cities sweltered under temperatures hovering around 100 degrees. Deadly...

Amnesty rush escalates.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 17, 2004... President Bush's proposed amnesty for illegal aliens has precipitated a huge--and entirely predictable--influx of border-jumpers from Mexico. According to the April 16 Washington Times: "The number of illegal aliens being apprehended on the...

WTO rules against U.S. in cotton case.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 17, 2004... A World Trade Organization panel ruled on April 26 that U.S. cotton subsidies are in violation of the WTO's global trade rules. Brazil had brought the case to the WTO, claiming that U.S. subsidies had harmed Brazil's cotton industry by driving...

NORAD drills foreshadowed 9-11 attacks.(Insider Report)
May 17, 2004... In her April 8 testimony to the 9-11 investigative commission, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice publicly testified that the Bush administration's intelligence assessments prior to 9-11 did not anticipate the use of hijacked airliners...

Global warming propaganda coming to movie screens.(Insider Report)
May 17, 2004... According to The Day After Tomorrow, a $125 million disaster movie opening on May 28, man-made pollution is causing nature to strike back with catastrophic retribution. The new enviro-apocalyptic film starring Dennis Quaid depicts a helpless...

Hillary plans global education push.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 17, 2004... "U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton today announced a planned legislative effort designed to provide universal education to children around the world," reported the UN Wire on April 21. "We recognize that no country can do this alone and we...

World government advocates come out of the closet.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 17, 2004... The world government intelligentsia at the Council on Foreign Relations are all abuzz over a new book by communitarian guru (and CFR member) Amitai Etzioni, entitled From Empire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations. St....

CFR curses monetary sovereignty.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 17, 2004... "Only by eliminating the deadly germ of monetary sovereignty will currency crises become yesterday's disease, and will globalization live up to its economic and political promise." So wrote Benn Steil, a Senior Fellow in international economics...

Bush welcomes NATO expansion.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 17, 2004... In a March 29 ceremony on the White House's South Lawn, President George Bush welcomed the seven newest members of NATO, all former members of the Soviet Bloc. "Fifty-five years ago, the representatives of 12 nations gathered here in...

This is "liberation"?(Insider Report)
May 17, 2004... "The nation of Iraq is moving toward self-rule," insisted President Bush in his April 13 news conference. Referring to the June 30 deadline for an Iraqi transitional government to be granted "sovereignty"--albeit more in name than in...

Iraq debacle a boon to the UN.(Insider Report)
May 17, 2004... "[One] dreadful consequence of the open-ended Baghdad mission will be a steady and worsening hemorrhage of national power, wealth, and prestige.... Ultimately, those costs will prove too much for our nation to bear alone. In such fashion does...

Ba'athists back in Iraq.(Insider Report)
May 17, 2004... Nationally syndicated talk radio host Michael Savage, an outspoken supporter of the Iraq War until recently, posed a fascinating question to his audience on April 22: Should the U.S. and its coalition allies restore Saddam Hussein to power in...

Spreading freedom through force and socialism?(Snapshots)
May 17, 2004... "And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom. We have an obligation to help feed the hungry. I think the American people find it interesting that we're providing food for the North...

Who's the ultimate decision-maker?(Snapshots)
May 17, 2004... "As the ultimate decision-maker for this country, I expect information that comes to my desk to be real and valid.... I can't make good decisions unless I get valid information." --President George W. Bush Nationally televised press...

Does "compassionate conservatism" benefit terrorists?(Snapshots)
May 17, 2004... "You know, I mentioned to you that--I checked with Colin, I think this is true--that we're the biggest food donor to the North Korean people. That's a fact I don't think a lot of people know. I just hope the food goes to the people and not to...

No mistakes made?(Snapshots)
May 17, 2004... "I hope I--I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes, I'm confident I have, I just haven't--you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." --President George W. Bush...

John Kerry: radical internationalist: though John Kerry would like his early 1970s radicalism to be forgotten, he is still promoting essentially the same subversive positions as a presidential candidate.(Profile)(Cover Story)
May 17, 2004... "I'm an internationalist," Kerry told the Harvard Crimson during an ill-fated campaign for U.S. Congress in 1970. "I d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations." Explaining his 1970...

Bush and the UN.(The Right Perspective)
May 17, 2004... According to public perception, President George W. Bush is a unilateralist who will not allow the United Nations to compromise our national sovereignty. If he determines that we must go to war to defend our best interests, then we will go to...

Will the housing bubble burst? Our socialist mortgage system and easy money policy have created a dangerously inflated housing bubble that, if pricked, could take the economy down with it.(Economy)
May 17, 2004... Wise men, we are informed by the most authoritative Source of wisdom, build their homes on a rock; the foolish build theirs on sand. For decades, millions of Americans have been building their homes on a financial bubble created by the Federal...

The war on sovereignty: when the New World Order architects at the Council on Foreign Relations prattle about sovereignty, they mean something entirely different from independent nation-states.(Sovereignty)
May 17, 2004... I will merely repeat that we are at present working, discreetly but with all our might, to wrest this mysterious political force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local national states of our world. And all the time we are denying...

CAFTA: stepping stone to the FTAA: the Central American Free Trade Agreement would extend NAFTA-style regulations to Central America on the road to an FTAA-based supranational government of the Americas.(Regional Government)
May 17, 2004... On February 20, President Bush officially notified Congress that he intends to sign the recently negotiated Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). That letter of notification started the clock ticking on the president's so-called fast...

Samaritans in blue.(The Goodness Of America)
May 17, 2004... Lieutenant Kelly Rushton and Officers Darrell Dain and Sean McCarthy work graveyard shifts for the West Valley City Police Department in Utah. For many weeks, they had been keeping track of a homeless man, whom Officer Dain had first noticed...

Above and beyond the call.(The Goodness Of America)
May 17, 2004... At about 12:40 p.m. on June 6, 2003, a 400,000-pound locomotive somehow became detached from the rest of an Idaho Northern & Pacific Railroad train near Boise, Idaho. It began rolling downhill toward Nampa, some 25 miles to the west, reportedly...

Mailman delivers.(The Goodness Of America)
May 17, 2004... On the afternoon of February 5 in Stratford, Connecticut, police officer Michael VanGrowski was dispatched on what he assumed would be a routine call: Someone had allegedly tried to have a phony prescription filled at a local drugstore. ...

Rice won't admit 9/11-style attacks were predictable.(Ahead Of The Curve)
May 17, 2004... ITEM: During her press briefing on May 16, 2002, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice stated, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would... try to use an airplane as a missile...." She repeated this contention...

Mbeki's communist past.(Ahead Of The Curve)
May 17, 2004... ITEM: After describing South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki as "an ardent disciple of globalization" in the April 14, 2004 edition of the Christian Science Monitor, staff writer Abraham McLaughlin wrote, "But now the man who was trained as a...

Clerk foils robbery.(Exercising The Right)
May 17, 2004... Shortly before 8 p.m. on March 24 in the Queens, New York, town of Jamaica, Ramon Food Market clerk Edwin Marte was watching television during a lull in business. Just then a man, later identified as Devin Keitt, entered the bodega, donned a...

Walking into trouble.(Exercising The Right)
May 17, 2004... At Montana's Cascade County regional jail, inmates designated "outside workers" are allowed to do paid, lightly supervised maintenance and yard work (such as washing windows, mowing lawns and shoveling snow). At around 9:00 p.m. on April 4, two...

Armed woman outflanks home invader.(Exercising The Right)
May 17, 2004... On January 27, sheriff's office dispatchers in Unicoi County, Tennessee, received a phone call from an Erwin woman who said she was holding a man at gunpoint outside her home. The 56-year-old homeowner, whose name was withheld by...

Revolving doors at border.(Between The Lines)(Brief Article)
May 17, 2004... ITEM: The March 29 New York Times reported: "In recent months, there has been an eruption of illegal immigration and related violence in Arizona, and with it has come a realization by federal officials: no matter how many hundreds of thousands...

Blinding justice.(Between The Lines)(Brief Article)
May 17, 2004... ITEM: "There has been a lot of talk about whether there was urgency or lack of urgency. We really don't care about the names, we care about what actions were taken," September 11 commission member Jamie Gorelick, a former Justice Department...

Hazards of the FDA.(Between The Lines)(Brief Article)
May 17, 2004... ITEM: Over-the-counter drugs aren't risk-free, the April 13 HealthDay reported. Too much acetaminophen, the active ingredient in many medicines, "can lead to liver damage, and even death, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns. So the...

Broken soldiers.(The Last Word)
May 17, 2004... "See all that dark stuff?" asked Lt. Col. Robert Carroll, an Army field surgeon, displaying a digital photograph of the inside of a wounded soldier's head to a Washington Post reporter. "That's dead brain. That ain't gonna regenerate. And...

Scrap the FTAA: now!(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 31, 2004... Regarding William F. Jasper's article "The Unfolding FTAA Battle" (May 3, 2004 issue): The U.S. House recently passed an amendment to extend unemployment benefits for an estimated two million Americans who have lost their jobs. Not only have...

More reasons why.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 31, 2004... In "Why Are Gas Prices Climbing?" (May 3 issue), you describe how government regulation and taxes drive up the price of gasoline. This is far from the only way that the government increases the cost of driving. Government mandates and...

Firsthand knowledge.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 31, 2004... Your article "The Kosovo Catastrophe" (April 19 issue) is the exemplar of knowledge, honesty and courage to tell the hidden truth. Being myself originally from this unfortunate country, I can confirm your writing as trustworthy: you did not...

Abu Ghraib abuses fuel campaign for International Criminal Court.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 31, 2004... The International Criminal Court (ICC), which had receded into the shadows over the past few years, may soon be back in the limelight, propelled by sensational stories and photos indicating that some U.S. military personnel and civilian...

Momentum builds for drafting women.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 31, 2004... As predicted in these pages (see "Reviving the Draft" in our January 26 issue), the Selective Service System (SSS) "has proposed registering women for the military draft and requiring that young Americans regularly inform the government about...

Bush preps global "peacekeeping" force.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 31, 2004... "The Bush administration is planning a new drive to boost the supply of foreign troops available for peacekeeping missions worldwide," reported an April 19 Pentagon press release. "If successful, the initiative could ease the pressure on U.S....

George Will and the ruling class imperialists.(Insider Report)
May 31, 2004... It is obvious why, for the past three decades, George Will has occupied a top niche in the liberal-left Establishment media's stable of pseudo-conservatives: He is very adept at looking and sounding conservative while promoting liberal-left,...

Who watches the watchmen?(Insider Report)
May 31, 2004... Lost amid the shocking news emanating from Iraq was an incident involving the death of three American prison guards in Kosovo. Kim Bigley, 47, of Paducah, Kentucky, and Lynn Williams, 48, of Elmont, New York, were serving as UN police officers...

Beholden to Beijing.(Insider Report)
May 31, 2004... "As the U.S. has grown ever reliant on foreign central banks to finance its trade and budget deficits, the question arises: Could foreign governments, like China's, one day use this clout to influence U.S. foreign policy?" Greg Ip of the Wall...

Newborns as involuntary donors.(Insider Report)
May 31, 2004... The evil logic of embryonic stem cell experimentation dictates that some human beings can be created for the sole purpose of serving as involuntary test subjects or tissue donors. A research team at Chicago's Reproductive Genetics Institute has...

Cracker Barrel and civil rights lawsuits.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 31, 2004... America in the post-Civil Rights era is sinking swiftly into a cultural quagmire that has been called "soft totalitarianism," a regime in which the state relentlessly expands its power to regiment private affairs by regarding practically every...

EU enlargement--more rounds to come.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
May 31, 2004... The May 1, 2004 admittance of 10 new member states has brought membership in the European Union to 25 and taken the EU a huge step eastward (see page 18). But the expansion process is in non-stop mode; membership could soon hit 27, then 33,...

The truth about Social Security: the truth behind the popular myths and outright lies of Social Security proves that this form of socialism must be rejected in favor of private enterprise.(Social Security)(Cover Story)
May 31, 2004... When Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified on February 25, 2004 to the House Budget Committee, he avoided his customary obfuscation and discussed Social Security and Medicare in foreboding terms. Calling the ballooning indebtedness...

Social Security's solution: America's greatness lies in limited government and free enterprise. The alternative to Social Security--and the key to a new era of prosperity--is to return to these roots.(Social Security)(Cover Story)
May 31, 2004... Just as Otto von Bismarck advised for Germany, our own Social Security program has fostered a widespread dependence on government. The program has also added an increasingly severe burden on taxpayers and walked roughshod over the U.S....