The New American articles from May 2008

The New American archives from May 2008

FairTax fallacy.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
May 12, 2008... As a FairTax organizer in Oklahoma, I was disappointed in Mr. Rockwell's article called "The Great Tax Myth" (THE NEW AMERICAN, April 14, 2008). While I completely agree that a return to constitutional taxation is conceptually attractive, there...

More Roe v. Wade history.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
May 12, 2008... When I read the article "Before Roe v. Wade" (January 21 issue), I was disappointed by the history that was told. The author seemed to get most of his information from the historian Mohr, whose influential thesis is at best incomplete. I would...

Correction.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Correction notice)
May 12, 2008... The article "America's North Star" in the March 31 issue ascribes "Seward's Folly"--the purchase of Alaska from Russia--to the Lincoln administration, but in fact the deal was entirely negotiated and consummated during the Johnson...

SPP moves forward under different name.(Inside Track)(Security and Prosperity Partnership)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... The leaders of the United States, Canada, and Mexico met in New Orleans on April 21-22 for the fourth round of annual talks formerly known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership. However, the session carried the label North American...

Congress reverses Posse Comitatus act changes.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (H.R. 4986), which Congress passed on January 22 and President Bush signed into law on January 28, contained language that effectively repealed revisions to the Posse Comitatus Act...

Main concern doesn't sway voters.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... As part of the pulse-taking of the electorate to see what makes Americans' hearts beat faster as the United States heads toward another presidential election, an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll found that the worsening economy is Americans'...

Pope Benedict XVI's comments give pause.(Inside Track)
May 12, 2008... On April 20, Pope Benedict XVI, the spiritual leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics, concluded a six-day visit to the United States, home to 67.5 million of his flock. In between the pope's April 15 arrival and his farewell ceremony, the...

Global food prices on the rise.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... The recent precipitous climb in global food prices is nothing less than "mass murder," according to UN food envoy Jean Ziegler. In a recent interview with an Austrian newspaper, Ziegler, commenting on the climb in commodities prices that have...

Ongoing conflict in Tibet.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... On April 18, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi--who is in Japan as an advance man for Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit in May--that the unrest in Tibet has become an international issue....

"Funding Father of the Right" backs Hillary for President.(Inside Track)(Hillary Clinton)
May 12, 2008... Neoconservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife has had a change of heart concerning Hillary Clinton. Scaife, the partial heir of the Mellon family fortune, once was involved in the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign and helped to fund...

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans report psychological problems.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... A Rand Corporation report indicates that 18.5 percent of current and former U.S. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans recently surveyed reported symptoms of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. The survey polled 1,965 members of the armed...

Don't even try to suggest he's too old.(QuickQuotes)(Robert Byrd )(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Shut up!" When a reporter asked wheelchair-using Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who at 90 years of age is the longest-serving senator in that body's history, how he responds to anyone who wonders about his...

Martin Luther King's niece strongly opposes abortion.(QuickQuotes)(Dr. Alveda King)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... "There are people dying in this country every day. They are unborn children. The fight against abortion is a new frontier in the civil rights movement." Speaking on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of her uncle, Dr. Alveda King,...

Candidate thinks having an unwanted baby is punishment.(QuickQuotes)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." Speaking about his own daughters, Barack Obama shocked many with his comment,...

Another Obama comment draws sharp criticism.(Quick Quotes)(Barack Obama )(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... "It's not surprising they get bitter, then they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or antitrade sentiment, as a way to express their frustrations." Speaking about white...

NAFTA was one of Bill Clinton's "mistakes" says his wife.(Quick Quotes)(North American Free Trade Agreement, Hillary Clinton )(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... "As smart as my husband is, he does make mistakes." Referring to NAFTA, Hillary Clinton said she would fix the pact, not terminate U.S. membership in it.

Top U.S. General sees no end to Iraq war.(Quick Quotes)(David Petraeus)
May 12, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "We haven't turned any corners. We haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator." Testifying before Congress, Council on Foreign Relations...

Failing schools draw attention.(Quick Quotes)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... "When more than one million students a year drop out of high school, it's more than a problem. It's a catastrophe." Founding Chairman Colin Powell of America's Promise Alliance commented on his organization's finding that 17 of our...

Leading internationalists from the council on foreign relations are McCain's policy advisers.(Quick Quotes)(Henry Kissinger, John McCain)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "I am a strong supporter of the senator." It is hardly surprising that top Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member Henry Kissinger would be a leading adviser to Senator John McCain, another CFR member, as the...

Transatlantic two-step: a long-term effort seeking the transatlantic integration of America with the European Union is now underway. If it is successful, the effects on our country would be dramatic.(REGIONALISM)(Cover story)(Viewpoint essay)
May 12, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A few quick showers moved through the Washington, D.C., area on the morning of April 30, 2007, but they wouldn't stay long. By the time a smiling Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, joined President Bush and...

Partners across the pond: across the Atlantic, the United States and the EU are reaching for closer economic integration and more international regulations, but why are they doing it under the table?(REGIONALISM)(Viewpoint essay)
May 12, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Approximately 50 persons gathered in a plush conference room at the State Department on March 10. They were there for a meeting of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy (ACIEP), a fairly new group...

A climate of repression: living under communism, Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, saw how repressive political mechanisms can stifle opposition and control society. He sees the same pattern being repeated in today's global-warming debate.(Interview)
May 12, 2008... On March 2-4, more than 100 scientists, many of considerable renown, attended a conference in New York, sponsored by the Heartland Institute, called the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. Also in attendance were over 300 other...

Is making taxes "fair" the answer? Congressman John Linder's FairTax legislation would change the method used to collect taxes without changing the amount. Is this what the American taxpayer really needs?(TAXES)
May 12, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Although tax season has come and gone once again, the various proposals for tax reform are still with us. These tax-reform plans, even though they appear outwardly to be quite different, have one thing in common that...

Allow intelligence! Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed makes an intelligent case for pursuing the scientific evidence wherever it may lead--including even intelligent design.
May 12, 2008... Traditionally minded Americans don't often cheer Hollywood products. We gladly report an exception: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (rated PG). As many NEW AMERICAN readers know, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution transformed Western...

Helping the homeless to help themselves.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... Several months ago, Virginia Snyder of Lodi, California, began thinking of a way to help her city's homeless people. She began speaking to outreach groups, including many homeless people, to gather insight on how to help those who had taken a...

Atlanta woman donates kidney to girl.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Laura Bolan)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... Last September, Laura Bolan noticed a flier posted at the suburban Atlanta elementary school that two of her children attend. The flier told about a little girl named Sarah Dickman, a student at the school, who needed a kidney transplant....

New England Patriot helps community.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... Troy Brown is best known as number 80 on the New England Patriots and is the team's all-time leading receiver with 557 career receptions. But his hometown is Marshall, West Virginia--where he played football and majored in computer science at...

The story of the Pueblo: in January 1968, North Korea seized the USS Pueblo. The story of the ship's brave crew and how their vessel remains a tourist attraction in Pyongyang should not be forgotten.(HISTORY--PAST AND PERSPECTIVE)
May 12, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Several years ago, my youngest son and I were watching a program on the History Channel when the program's narrator mentioned the capture of a Naval vessel by Communist North Korea back in 1968. "That didn't...

More tax dollars to bail out the housing mess.(Correction, Please!)
May 12, 2008... ITEM: The Hill newspaper for April 1 reported: "It is unclear how many homeowners would be rescued from foreclosure through a plan proposed by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that is gathering steam in Washington." The Capitol Hill publication...

Good Samaritan attacked.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... Outside a supermarket in Pittsfield Township, Michigan, a man saw another man try to push a woman into a van. He assumed that the woman might be in trouble because she and the man who was pushing her were arguing loudly. He approached and asked...

Tapping the same well again and again.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... Tracey Ann McQueen of Fayetteville, West Virginia, was free on bond after burglarizing a Fayette County home on November 4 of last year. On January 16, she was caught burglarizing the same house. About 4:45 a.m., the female homeowner woke...

Whom shall we believe?(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)
May 12, 2008... Rob Pierce, Jr. claims he was walking to his fiancee's mother's Easton, Pennsylvania, residence, when two strangers, Tyrone Wright and Maurice Cook, tried to mug him. The Morning Call reported that Pierce "became suspicious when Cook, 22,...

Action hero.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief article)
May 12, 2008... Rod Wolff is one cool cowboy. While a robber was pointing a gun directly at him from a few feet away, Wolff grabbed his own pistol and began firing, squeezing off three shots at the robber. But being calm in a life-threatening situation is...

Has Bush gone green?(THE LAST WORD)
May 12, 2008... When President George W. Bush announced a new greenhouse gas reduction goal in his April 16 Rose Garden speech on climate change, environmentalists and politicians who have been warning for years about global warming were not impressed. German...

Bible battle over Dawkins' Delusion.(Letter to the editor)
May 26, 2008... I write this letter regarding a very lengthy letter to the editor that was published by TNA in your March 3, 2008 issue, by Ray Jensen of South Bend, Indiana, about a review of atheist Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion. What disturbs...

Imitating Hollywood.(Letter to the editor)
May 26, 2008... William F. Jasper's article on the awards show sponsored by the Christian Film & Television Commission in the March 17 issue of TNA was both helpful and unhelpful in trying to restore Hollywood to its better past. The important facts to...

Ron Paul fights on.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... Although Senator John McCain has been the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee since early March, Congressman Ron Paul has continued his campaign for president. "Victory in the conventional political sense is not available in the...

Did McCain really say the Iraq war is about oil?(Inside Track)(senator John McCain)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... Has the United States gone to war in the Middle East for oil? That allegation has generally emanated from opponents of our military interventions in the Middle East, and it has been dismissed by the neoconservatives who have supported those...

The DNA train has left the station.(Inside Track)(Deoxyribonucleic acid)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... The passage of two recent bills--by both the Senate and the House, and the signing of those bills into law by the president -provides an object lesson in the workings of the state, and full illustration of the type of logic that must...

A growing number of scientists is reconsidering climate change.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... The past couple of years have seen many prominent scientists, including former leading global-warming alarmists, converting to the climate "skeptic" or "realist" camp. However, most Americans are unaware of these defections, since the major...

Climate-change Bill would devastate families and industries.(Inside Track)(Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... Undeterred by record cold temperatures worldwide for the winter of 2007-2008 and recent admissions by the UN's World Meteorological Organization that global temperatures have been in decline for the past decade and will continue to drop through...

Administration pushes dangerous law of the sea treaty.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... President Bush startled conservatives in his own party in 2005 with his support for U.S. ratification of the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). The Republican rank-and-file has adamantly opposed this effort to give the UN regulatory...

Iran drops the dollar, begins selling its oil in euros.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... On the last day of April, according to a CNN report, Iran's government confirmed that it has begun selling its oil in euros and in yen, something it has long threatened to do. After a failed attempt during last year's summit of OPEC leaders to...

Arizona legislature on verge of nixing Real ID program.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... On March 19 the Arizona state House passed a bill (HB2677) that would prohibit the state from putting Real ID into effect without the legislature's approval by a vote of 51 to 8. On May 6, the state Senate passed their stronger version of the...

It is absolutely wonderful to be a Congressman.(QuickQuotes)(taxpayer-supported benefit allowing representatives to lease an automobile)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "It's one of the bigger Cadillacs. I've got a desk in it. It's like an airplane." Representative Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) takes advantage of a taxpayer-supported benefit allowing him to lease an automobile. While...

Government jobs soften the unemployment figures.(QuickQuotes)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... "Government jobs are an important cushion for the economy when the private sector fails." North Carolina State University economist Michael Walden seems to think that the government's role is to hire anyone who loses his job because of...

FDA official suspects Chinese imports are deliberately tainted.(QuickQuotes)(Food and Drug Administration)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... "FDA's working hypothesis is that this was intentional contamination, but this is not yet proven. [Yet] it does strain one's credulity to suggest that it might have been done accidentally." Director of the FDA's drug center, Dr. Janet Woodcock...

Pope Benedict XVI's U.S. visit prompts humorous response.(QuickQuotes)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... "It was a tremendous Mass at Yankee Stadium. People are saying it was a great Mass. As a matter of fact, afterward the Yankees retired Roman numeral XVI." Always ready with a quip after an event, late-night TV comedian David Letterman...

Conditions in Zimbabwe could hardly be worse.(QuickQuotes)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... "Why would rats stay here? There's no food. They've left the country the same as everyone else." Jailed in a filthy and crowded prison for being an unaccredited journalist, British freelancer Stephen Bevan commiserated with a fellow prisoner,...

Percentage of Americans who read is shrinking.(QuickQuotes)(National Endowment for the Arts report)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... "A recent report by the National Endowment for the Arts found that 53 percent of Americans surveyed hadn't read a book in the previous year." A writer and editor at Book Review, Rachel Donadio sees trouble ahead for the book industry.

Marine corps seeking female recruits.(QuickQuotes)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... "There are no female Marines, only Marines." Abandoning the well-known slogan claiming that it was looking for a "Few Good Men," the U.S. Marine Corps has shifted its emphasis and is now seeking to enlist women because of recurring recruiting...

Oklahoma's tough anti-immigration law reduces unemployment.(QuickQuotes)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... "Oklahoma is no longer OK for illegal aliens. The bottom line is illegal aliens will not come here if there are no jobs waiting for them. They will not stay here if there is no government subsidy." Oklahoma State Representative Randy...

Presidential front-runners.(ELECTIONS)(Editorial)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... In the three cover-story articles that follow, we profile the top three heavyweights for president. On the Democratic side, Barack Obama appears to be the probable nominee, but Hillary Clinton is still in the running and neither candidate is...

Hillary Clinton.(ELECTIONS)(Cover story)
May 26, 2008... Last December, prior to the start of the primary elections and caucuses, every poll showed Senator Hillary Clinton leading all other Democratic Party candidates who were running for president of the United States. There seemed to be a sense of...

John Mccain.(ELECTIONS)(Cover story)
May 26, 2008... During the primaries, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has variously been called a liberal, a bipartisan leader, a maverick, and even a conservative. The media has bashed and praised him. McCain, on the one hand, was an easy...

Barack Obama.(ELECTIONS)(Cover story)
May 26, 2008... Just four years ago, when Barack Obama was an obscure Illinois state senator running a long-shot campaign for the U.S. Senate, he quipped regarding his then-largely unfamiliar name, "Just call me Alabama." That same year he was invited to give...

No compromise against gun control: Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership speaks with authority about the dangers of making any compromise with gun control.(Interview)
May 26, 2008... Aaron Zelman is executive director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, a pro-Second Amendment group based in Milwaukee. THE NEW AMERICAN: What is your organization's main goal? Aaron Zelman: Our main goal is to destroy...

Revolutionary ideas: Congressman Ron Paul's new book The Revolution: A Manifesto is an elegant look at the limited government bequeathed to us by the Founders and how we can preserve it.(Book review)
May 26, 2008... The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul, New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2008, 173 pages, hardcover. (To order, see the ad on the inside back cover.) Every now and then a book changes the course of human history. Such were the...

Home-schooled basketball players score points.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships)
May 26, 2008... Many people not familiar with home schooling think that it means the students will miss out on the social activities and athletics that make for precious school memories. In reality, however, as more and more students are schooled at home,...

Coffee shop barista makes generous gift.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Starbucks employee Sandie Andersen)(Brief article)
May 26, 2008... In our last column, we reported about an Atlanta woman who donated a kidney to an elementary school girl who desperately needed one. Once again, another example of such selfless generosity has surfaced. Annamarie Ausnes, like many residents...

Young boy steers runaway school bus to safety.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Brief article)(Column)
May 26, 2008... On the morning of April 7, school bus driver Michael Weir was taking a load of 27 students to the Arts Academy school in Cleveland, Ohio, when he stopped at a service station, filled his bus with fuel, and went into the restroom--leaving the...

Spreading liberty with a bayonet: long before the occupation of Iraq, Americans tried to free another country from its tyrannical government only to find out how hard it is to spread liberty with a bayonet.(HISTORY--PAST AND PERSPECTIVE)
May 26, 2008... The United States has embroiled much of the world in its War on Terror, occupied Iraq since 2003, and bombed Afghanistan--all to "spread liberty." Karl Rove alleged in 2006 that George W. Bush "is committed to something no past president has...

Exercising the right.(Column)
May 26, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Robber's Regret--Part I In Huntsville, Alabama, on February 28, an alleged burglar hopped a six-foot fence, dodged past three guard dogs, including a pit bull, a Rottweiler, and a German shepherd, and broke into...

Fuelish food follies.(Correction, Please!)(rising food prices and the conversion of corn as fuel)
May 26, 2008... ITEM: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "said he would put together a special task force to help deal with the problem and called on the international community to help," reported the Associated Press on April 21. "He said the U.N....

Constitution Party chooses Baldwin.(THE LAST WORD)(Charles O. Baldwin)
May 26, 2008... At its April 24-27 national convention in Kansas City, the Constitution Party nominated Florida pastor/political activist Charles O. "Chuck" Baldwin as its candidate for president of the United States. Baldwin received 383.8 votes to 125.7...