index -- Price of Liberty

12/03/08

More Than Words
By Lady Liberty

Recently, I took a brief vacation to Washington, DC. I've been to the capital before, but I try to make a point of seeing different things every time I'm there—there's so much to see, and never enough time to visit more than a fraction of the many sites and attractions. I admit that I did duplicate a couple of stops from previous visits this time around. But despite that, I saw something different anyway. Actually, it might be better put to say I saw something differently. Let me explain.

The first time I went to Washington was some years ago. At the time, I prioritized a list of things I wanted to see from the substantial possibilities. A few sites were more important than others as far as I was concerned. Among those things at the top of the list was the National Archives where the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights are displayed. Seeing what the Archives calls the Charters of Freedom was an incredibly moving experience for me. I remember other things from that trip of course, including my disgust at walking past the building housing the Internal Revenue Service just a couple of blocks away, but the visit to the Archives stands out in my memory to this day. (Read the rest here)

TSA: A Continuing Government Disaster! - Controlling Congress
By Ted Lang © 2004

In a week marked by no less than three separate official challenges to President George Bush's reasons for taking the United States to war with Iraq, including the posture offered by former Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer by saying that the invading force was grossly undermanned as had been suggested before the invasion by then-Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinsecki, the Bush administration and Congress continue to be bullied by an "armchair bureaucrat" who ignores reality, and both the will and the safety of the American people.

It is hard to find a more astonishing and comparable bureaucratic incident of domination of both the White House and the Congress on an issue so vital as regards the safety and security of the American people. Perhaps a close runner-up is the bureaucratic dictatorship of William Ruckleshaus, the former EPA administrator who summarily banned the use of DDT without any real meaningful debate or real fact-finding inquiry and analysis. (Read the rest here)

Protecting America or the President’s Reelection Chances?
By Ivan Eland

Pretending to fulfill a 2000 campaign pledge, the Bush administration will soon declare the “activation” of the nation’s second national missile defense (NMD) system. Intended to look good for the election, the new system is likely to repeat the fate of the first one—abject failure.

In the early 1970s, President Nixon activated the Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system, which was supposed to protect the United States from incoming communist nuclear weapons, only to deactivate it a short time later after the U.S. government discovered that it didn’t work. Today, the Bush administration is traveling the same road.

(Read the rest here)

The No-Fault No-Fly List:
Washington's Most Irresponsible Agency Strikes Again
by James Bovard

The Transportation Security Administration got another black eye recently when Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) revealed that he had been blocked from flying five times because his name triggered an alarm on the feds’ No-Fly list. Kennedy’s staff had to make multiple calls to high-ranking federal officials before the attempted travel ban was lifted on the Senator-for-Life. One senior Bush administration official explained that the senator’s name was on the list because a suspected terrorist had used “T. Kennedy” as an alias.

And the embarrassment was compounded when the feds ordered a United Airlines flight from London to land in Bangor, Maine, because of the presence aboard of rock singer Cat Stevens, known as Yusuf Islam since his religious conversion. His name apparently triggered an alert because the U.S. terrorist watch list contains the name “Youssouf Islam.” The former singer is now a highly respected peace activist; his efforts to spread a moderate form of Islam have been praised by Jewish leaders in London. The British government denounced the U.S. Government action.

(Read the rest here)

We are now down to just 21 DAYS to get rid of all this electioneering stuff! Whew! Liberty demands information, but I think a more appropriate term to remember is "GIGO" - garbage in, garbage out. With the garbage filling voters minds, is it any wonder that they do a lousy job of choosing people to work for them? Well, I don't think these news items, or my review and comments are GIGO-enabling, but they are MY views, not necessarily those of anyone else, including TPoL or RRND!

1) Woman drives home rather than submit to airport search (Thanks to Sunni!)
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A woman said she drove home from Denver rather than submit to what she viewed as an intrusive search by airport security screeners.

An act that would, in today's PC world, normally result in felony charges as being second only to actual rape, is now considered standard practice at Denver International Airport and hundreds of other places: the groping of a woman's breasts - even worse, of a mother with her child. Together with requiring diapers be removed from children, and other actions, this is common practice in the United States today, and yet millions of us still pretend that we don't live in a police state. Please, PLEASE, share this article with your friends, especially anyone who, like 36-year-old Ava Kingsford, might be a "soccer mom" or a "security mom" and would normally vote for Kerry or Bush. Ask them how they will feel, when they are asked to allow their breasts to be fondled by a strange woman (or man), or to bare themselves and their children in public to "prove" that they aren't carrying explosives, or plastic knives, or illicit drugs, or whatever the 'crats come up with next. (Read the rest here)

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