Before Entitlement, Government Dependence and Abused General Welfare there was .....

... friendliness and charity of countrymen, self-responsibility and accountability, and the pride of hard work and opposition to 'handouts'. Then again, when it comes to New Orleans, how about the sense of responsibility NOT to rebuild a city under sea level?!


Is It Permissible?
By Walter Williams

Last week, President Bush promised the nation that the federal government will pay for most of the costs of repairing hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, adding, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again." There's no question that New Orleans and her sister Gulf Coast cities have been struck with a major disaster, but should our constitution become a part of the disaster? You say, "What do you mean, Williams?" Let's look at it.

In February 1887, President Grover Cleveland, upon vetoing a bill appropriating money to aid drought-stricken farmers in Texas, said, "I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit."

President Cleveland added, "The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood."

President Cleveland vetoed hundreds of congressional spending measures during his two-term presidency, often saying, "I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution." But Cleveland wasn't the only president who failed to see charity as a function of the federal government. In 1854, after vetoing a popular appropriation to assist the mentally ill, President Franklin Pierce said, "I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity." To approve such spending, argued Pierce, "would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."

In 1796, Rep. William Giles of Virginia condemned a relief measure for fire victims, saying that Congress didn't have a right to "attend to what generosity and humanity require, but to what the Constitution and their duty require." A couple of years earlier, James Madison, the father of our constitution, irate over a $15,000 congressional appropriation to assist some French refugees, said, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

Here's my question: Were the nation's founders, and some of their successors, callous and indifferent to human tragedy? Or, were they stupid and couldn't find the passages in the Constitution that authorized spending "on the objects of benevolence"?

Some people might say, "Aha! They forgot about the Constitution's general welfare clause!" Here's what James Madison said: "With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

Thomas Jefferson explained, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." In 1828, South Carolina Sen. William Drayton said, "If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money?"

Don't get me wrong about this. I'm not being too critical of President Bush or any other politician. There's such a broad ignorance or contempt for constitutional principles among the American people that any politician who bore truth faith and allegiance to the Constitution would commit political suicide.

Posted by redguy on September 21, 2005 12:00 AM to redstatesusa

French Whine a Favorite in Louisiana

Whining is un-American
by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Senior Fellow in Economics

It is bad enough that the Angry Left is blaming George Bush for the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. But it is really unseemly for the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans to be blaming the Federal government. After all, the state and local governments in America are supposed to have the authority and the responsibility to be the first responders to natural disasters in their jurisdictions.

When I heard Mayor Nagin whining, I thought to myself, this sounds positively French. Maybe this lame attitude is part of the French heritage of Louisiana and New Orleans and all that. And then I’m chiding myself for tasteless ethnic stereotyping. And it occurs to me, I think I can recall a certain famous Frenchman who made essentially the same point.

So I go to my shelf and pick up my old friend Alexis de Tocqueville. This French aristocrat wrote his famous book, Democracy in America, after his visit to America in 1831, but his descriptions of the contrasting types of American and European attitudes still ring true. He believes that the participating in the institutions of local self-government have shaped the American character, and created a type of person unlike any that Europeans have ever seen before.

He sets up this contrast by starting with a description of the European attitude toward self-government. In Chapter 5 of Part I of the first volume, he reminds his (mostly French) readers how they view themselves in relationship to their government:

There are European nations where the inhabitant sees himself as a kind of settler, indifferent to the fate of the place he inhabits. Major changes happen there without his cooperation, he is even unaware of what precisely has happened; he is suspicious; he hears about events by chance. Worse still, the condition of his village, the policing of the roads, the fate of the churches and presbyteries scarcely bothers him; he thinks that everything is outside his concern and belongs to a powerful stranger called the government.

Honestly, doesn’t that sound like the entitlement mentality? Down to and including the superstitious attitude toward anything they don’t see for themselves. But it gets better: Tocqueville identifies the righteous indignation of the victim:

This detachment from his own fate becomes so extreme that, if his own safety or that of his children is threatened, instead of trying to ward off the danger, he folds his arms and waits for the entire nation to come to his rescue.

Had Tocqueville time-travelled to meet the current Senator and Governor of Louisiana?

The Americans Tocqueville observed in the nineteenth century were a different kettle of crawfish stew. Tocqueville saw that Americans get up and DO something. We made things happen, even back in the nineteenth century. Tocqueville is quick to defend the American character, against the European charge that we had a certain hubris about us. Yes, they evidently thought that about us, even before we were a world “hyperpower”, strong enough to bail them out of two world wars.

Thus, if he (an American) has an often exalted opinion of himself, it is at least salutary. He fearlessly trusts in his own powers, which appear to be sufficient for every eventuality. Suppose an individual thinks of some enterprise which might have some direct connection with the welfare of society. It does not occur to him to seek support from public authority. He publishes a plan, offers to carry it out, summons the help of other individuals and struggles personally against all obstacles. Doubtless, he often has less success than the state would have enjoyed in his stead, but in the longer term, the combined result of all these individual enterprises exceeds greatly what government could achieve.

And isn’t this exactly what we saw on display in the last few weeks? The Red Cross, initially turned away from New Orleans by governmental officials, has been paying the hotel bills of evacuees. Children all across America are contributing their pennies to help the Red Cross. Internet services large and small, have set up bulletin boards to coordinate volunteer efforts and housing searches. One site is calling for guys with trailers to go down and rescue animals that are trapped in kennels. Another site is calling for tradesmen, carpenters and electricians. And Americans are responding to those calls. Anne Applebaum reported that a group of citizens organized a convoy of 92 relief boats to rescue people trapped on rooftops. It did not occur to them to seek public support. Or permission. These volunteers were ultimately turned away by FEMA, because they didn’t have life jackets.

Prison Fellowship Ministries have brought help for the displaced prison population of New Orleans, temporarily housed near Baton Rouge. Volunteers are bringing toiletry items, socks and blankets from North Carolina to these prisoners. And Angel Tree is already planning ahead for how they will locate the children of prisoners in time to get them their Christmas presents. After all, the volunteers who have spent years developing these ministries to help the children of prisoners aren’t about to let a little thing like Hurricane Katrina disappoint the kids at Christmas.

Meanwhile, our French friends, I mean our Louisiana politicians, are still standing there with their arms folded, tapping their feet and waiting for federal funds to rebuild the city. Whining: it’s un-American. Tocqueville would not have been surprised.

This article originally appeared on www.townhall.com and is reprinted with permission.

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse is a Senior Fellow in Economics at the Acton Institute and the author of Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love in a Hook-up World.

John Kerry: As Relevant as a Comb to a Bald Man

Does Kerry just not get it? His election-losing, politically-driven banter --- albeit ALWAYS to a liberal think-tank type of crowd such as leftwing universities or activist movements --- is not only irrelevant to the reality of mainstream American politics and the growth of the nation, but is consistently ripping holes through any sense of political capital he could ever hope to maintain. For goodness' sake, get over yourself!

Kerry Accuses Bush of Leading 'Katrina Administration'
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
September 20, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - In a speech reminiscent of the 2004 presidential campaign, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) Monday charged that President Bush is heading a "Katrina administration," an accusation a GOP spokesman called "unsavory at best."

Kerry -- who unsuccessfully opposed Bush in last year's election -- said Hurricane Katrina was a "horrifying disaster" that has shown "Americans at their best and their government at its worst," but "the bottom line is simple: The 'we'll do whatever it takes' administration doesn't have what it takes to get the job done. This is the Katrina administration."

Addressing an audience at Brown University in Providence, R.I., Kerry stated: "Katrina stripped away any image of competence and exposed to all the true heart and nature of this administration.

"The truth is that for four and a half years, real life choices have been replaced by ideological agenda, substance replaced by spin, governance second place always to politics," the senator added.

"Yes, they can run a good campaign -- I can attest to that -- but America needs more than a campaign," Kerry said.

While charging that Bush administration policies have "taken us into a wilderness of lost opportunities," the senator acknowledged that the president last week had accepted responsibility for what Kerry called "Washington's poor response" to Katrina.

However, "there's every reason to believe the president finally acted on Katrina and admitted a mistake only because he was held accountable by the press, cornered by events and compelled by the outrage of the American people, who with their own eyes could see a failure of leadership and its consequences," Kerry said.

"Katrina is a symbol of all this administration does and doesn't do," he added. "Michael Brown -- or Brownie as the president so famously thanked him for 'doing a heck of a job' -- Brownie is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq; what George Tenet is to slam-dunk intelligence; what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad; what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy; what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning; what Tom Delay is to ethics; and what George Bush is to 'Mission Accomplished' and 'Wanted Dead or Alive.'

Kerry said Americans would "compensate for government's incompetence" through individual charity, and he said the hurricane's aftermath has created "a rare accountability moment, not just for the Bush administration, but for all of us to take stock of the direction of our country and do what we can to reverse it.

"This is the real test of Katrina," he said. "Will we be satisfied to only do the immediate: care for the victims and rebuild the city? Or will we be inspired to tackle the incompetence that left us so unprepared and the societal injustice that left so many of the least fortunate waiting and praying on those rooftops?"

Kerry told the university audience that it's the government's job to prepare for the future, not ignore it - to solve problems, not create them.

"This administration and the Republicans who control Congress give in to special interests and rob future generations," the senator added. "And the fact is we do face serious challenges as a nation, and if we don't address them now, we handicap your future."

Kerry said he plans to address some of those challenges in detail over the next few weeks. And he said students must "speak out so loudly that Washington has no choice but to make choices worthy of this great country."

Republican National Committee Press Secretary Tracey Schmitt was not impressed with the senator's address.

"John Kerry's attacks on President Bush's efforts to assist the victims and rebuild the Gulf Coast don't come as a surprise -- armchair quarterbacking on tough issues has never been a problem for Sen. Kerry," Schmitt said.

"Such tactics haven't served him well in the past, and today is no exception," he added. "The American people have pulled together during a difficult time, and Democrats' efforts to politicize this tragedy are unsavory at best."

Kerry wasn't the only Democrat from last year's presidential campaign to criticize the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina on Monday.

Speaking before the Center for American Progress -- a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C. -- was former Sen. John Edwards, who was Kerry's vice-presidential candidate in 2004 and often spoke of "two Americas," one for the rich, another for the poor.

During his speech, Edwards claimed the president is wrong to believe Americans seek a "wealth society," but instead want a "working society."

"Stand with me today and pledge to work for an America that doesn't ignore those in need and lifts up those who wish to succeed," Edwards said. "Pledge to hold your government accountable for ignoring the suffering of so many for far too long.

"And pledge to do your part to build the America that we have dreamed of -- where the bright light of opportunity shines on every person," Edwards added.

Chalk One Up for the Good Guys: The ACLU goes down in Nebraska!

Nebraska News - Government

ACLU Says No mas! on Ten Commandments Case

September 19, 2005 So far as the Nebraska Civil Liberties Union is concerned the fight over the Ten Commandments monument in a Plattsmouth public park is over. After years of legal wrangling, the U.S. Supreme Court recently said the monument was a “passive” sort of religious thing that referenced a legitimate element of the nation’s history. ACLU spokesman Tim Butz said the organization’s board recently decided it would not try to continue the courtroom wrangling. It could have asked the nation’s highest court to reconsider its recent decision. Full article on the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals and Supreme Court decisions below:

Federal Court Says Ten Commandments Are Okay In Plattsmouth Park

by Ed Howard, August 19, 2005

The City of Plattsmouth can keep a Ten Commandments monument in a city park, the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday.

The 11-2 decision reversed an earlier divided ruling by a panel of the appellate court.

The Plattsmouth monument falls under a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that said a similar replication of the Ten Commandments on the grounds at the Texas Capitol was permissible, the appellate court concluded.

Judges Kermit Bye and Morris Arnold dissented. Saying the majority decision took the Texas case out of context, they argued that the Plattsmouth monument was not allowable under the Supreme Court’s guidelines.

The Supreme Court issued two ‘Ten Commandment decisions’ this year; one involving a case from Kentucky and the other the Texas case.

The 8th Circuit majority said:

“Like the Ten Commandments monument at issue in [the Texas case] the Plattsmouth monument makes passive – and permissible – use of the text of the Ten Commandments to acknowledge the role of religion in our Nation's heritage.

“Similar references to and representations of the Ten Commandments on government property are replete throughout our country ….”

A spokesman for the ACLU said Friday it was too soon to say whether the Plattsmouth case would be filed.

Such an appeal would effectively be asking the nation’s highest court to revisit a question it only recently decided.

Officials in Plattsmouth said they were delighted with Friday’s ruling.

The ACLU brought suit on behalf of a citizen of Plattsmouth who objected to the monument, arguing it violated the constitutional ban on government recognizing any particular form of religion.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf of Lincoln ruled in favor of the plaintiff. The panel of the 8th Circuit upheld Kopf’s ruling.

The full appellate courted cited the Supreme Court’s conclusion in the Texas case – that such monuments are permissible insofar as they also represent a secular purpose.

The 11-member majority noted Friday that the Supreme Court approved what it called the “passive use” of the Ten Commandments monument at the Texas Capitol.

In the companion case, the Supreme Court said the State of Kentucky violated the doctrine of separation of church and state “where copies of the text hung in public-school classrooms and "confronted elementary school students every day."

The Supreme Court said more than religion must be considered in any similar cases.

For example, one justice said the fact that the Texas monument had stood for 40 years without significant objections and "those 40 years suggest more strongly than can any set of formulaic tests that few individuals . . . are likely to have understood the monument as amounting, in any significantly detrimental way, to a government effort" to promote, endorse, or favor religion.

The Plattsmouth monument was erected 35 years ago.

The appellate court dissent, written by Judge Bye, said:

“At most [the Texas case] holds a Ten Commandments display, incorporated into a larger display of thirty-eight monuments and historical markers, will survive constitutional attack because it reflects a broad range of secular and religious ideals. [It] did not extend constitutional protection to Ten Commandments displays with no secular or historical message …. It is not enough that Plattsmouth's monument has stood for more than thirty-five years in Memorial Park. Without the contextualizing presence of other messages or some indicia of historical significance, there is nothing to free the display from its singular purpose of advancing its religious message.

“Because no such broader application is apparent – or for that matter offered – the monument violates the Establishment Clause,” the dissent said.

Bye said the monument did not meet the U.S. Supreme Court test for several reasons.

“The monument does much more than acknowledge religion; it is a command from the Judeo-Christian God on how he requires his followers to live. To say a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments and various religious and patriotic symbols is nothing more than an acknowledgment of the role of religion’ diminishes their sanctity to believers and belies the words themselves.”

To read the full decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals For the 8^th Circuit, click here.

Previous analysis: click here.

_____

Following is background of the Plattsmouth case cited by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals preceding its opinion:

In 1965, the Fraternal Order of Eagles (Eagles) donated to the City of Plattsmouth an approximately five-foot-tall and three-foot-wide granite monument inscribed with a nonsectarian version of the Ten Commandments. Above the text of the Commandments appear two small tablets surrounded by a floral design; an eye within a pyramid—an all-seeing eye similar to that appearing on the back of a dollar bill; and an eagle clutching the American flag. Below the text are two Stars of David; the intertwined Greek letters "chi" and "rho"; and a scroll reading, "PRESENTED TO THE CITY OF PLATTSMOUTH, NEBRASKA BY FRATERNAL ORDER OF EAGLES PLATTSMOUTH AERIE NO. 365 1965." …. The Plattsmouth monument is one of many other Ten Commandments monuments given by the Eagles to towns, cities, and even states in the 1950s and 1960s. The Eagles is a national social, civic, and patriotic organization. Its local chapter has been responsible for many philanthropic and community-enhancing contributions to the City of Plattsmouth.

The monument was erected in a corner of Plattsmouth's forty-five-acre

Memorial Park, ten blocks distant from Plattsmouth City Hall. Then Street

Commissioner Art Hellwig, an Eagles officer at the time, and other City employees helped erect the monument, although it is not known whether these City employees were acting in their personal or official capacities. The monument is located two hundred yards away from the park's public parking lot, and there are no roads or walkways from the parking lot to the monument. The words of the monument face away from the park, away from any recreational equipment, picnic tables, benches, or shelters. Although the inscribed side of the monument faces the road, it is too far away to be read by passing motorists. The City of Plattsmouth performs no regular maintenance on the monument, but if repairs are required, City employees perform those duties. In addition to the monument, the park contains, among other items, recreational equipment, picnic tables and shelters, and a baseball diamond. Certain individual items located in the park, such as grills, benches, and picnic shelters, bear plaques identifying their donors. In addition, a large plaque inscribed with the names of all donors to Memorial Park is located near the park's entrance. Because no

contemporaneous City records exist, there is little evidence in the record regarding the process by which the monument was accepted and installed.

In 2001, more than thirty-five years after the monument was installed, Doe and the ACLU sued the City of Plattsmouth, claiming that the Ten Commandments monument interfered with Doe's use of Memorial Park and caused him to modify his travel routes and other behavior to avoid unwanted contact with the monument.

According to Doe and the ACLU, the City's display of the monument in Memorial Park is a violation of the Establishment Clause. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, finding that both Doe and the ACLU have standing to bring suit and that the City's display of the monument violates the Establishment Clause.

Is John Kerry Still in Politics?

From USNewsWire.com, September 16, 2005:

John Kerry Responds to President Bush's Speech to the Nation

9/15/2005 9:54:00 PM

---

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Below is a statement from Senator John Kerry on President Bush's address tonight on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina:

"Leadership isn't a speech or a toll-free number. Leadership is getting the job done. No American doubts that New Orleans will rise again, they doubt the competence and commitment of this Administration. Weeks after Katrina, Americans want an end to politics-as-usual that leaves them dangerously and unforgivably unprepared. Americans want to know that their government will be there when it counts with leadership that keeps them safe, not speeches in the aftermath to explain away the inexcusable."

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Uhhh, this is why you're not President there, John. Let's see, you state that "Americans want an end to politics-as-usual that leaves them dangerously and unforgivably unprepared." How 'bout the blame-game, race-baiting, and finger-pointing ALL coming from the left side of the aisle (last I checked, those were, uhmm, Democrats) in the past two weeks --- while Bill Frist and other Republicans were on the ground, feet wet, hands dirty, arms extended, to help those suffering in LA, MS, and AL??? Smells of politics-as-usual to anyone with a brain and without a liberal hell-bent agenda. What about a "government who will be there when it counts with leadership that keeps them safe" --- where does voting against nearly every missile defense system strategy and needed military supplies over the course of your 20-year role as Senator fall in as to keeping us safe??? Finally, how do you justify your attack on the President as missing it on leadership while only giving "speeches in the aftermath to explain away the inexcusable" --- by voting for $87 billion before voting against it??? Hmm. Where are you and where is your 'party of the people' now, John? Exactly. Mainly nestled away comfortly in D.C., running their mouths instead of putting words to action for the American people. This should be great for Dems in election year '06. Nice try --- you're no more relevant to American politics as you were in 1971 when you shamed the U.S. Military or at the end of the day on Nov 3 2004. Oh, did you know that you served in Vietnam and were awarded three purple hearts? Don't think we heard enough of THAT in the last three years. Too bad it did no good in your losing the election to an "AWOL" former air national guardsman. Dang it, I forgot --- it's the economy, stupid. Right.

Kanye's 2005 Workout Plan: Race-baiting

Kanye West's Hurricane Hype
by Brent Bozell

If Kanye West meant to goose sales of his new album with his emotional ranting on NBC's hurricane-relief concert, saying the president doesn't care about blacks and lawmen have been given "permission to go down and shoot us," he clearly succeeded. West's new release, "Late Registration," another play on his college-dropout persona, burst out of the stores and sold 850,000 copies in its first week, double the first-week sales of his previous effort.

Charges of racism and wacky conspiracy theories are not the right message for national unity after the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, but it's the right message for Kanye West. Hip-hop in recent years has thrived on its ghetto-gangsta image, and West had been slow to be accepted by his fellow rappers because he was too "bourgeois." Translation: He hadn't bubbled up from the streets selling drugs. There's no quicker way to avoid black complaints about your preppie clothes than to insist on racial paranoia: The Man is out to kill us.

Jaws may have dropped across America when West sold this baloney on national television, but it's there in the grooves of the new CD as well. West charges in one song that "I know the government administered AIDS" and "they want us all behind bars." In another, he asked, "How we stop the Black Panthers? Ronald Reagan cooked up an answer." The song's title is "Crack Music." Reagan apparently cooked up crack to keep the black man down.

West can mouth all kinds of tripe, and people will be there to make excuses for him. On NBC, Matt Lauer said West's outbursts were "part of the American way of life." On a later hurricane-relief effort on Black Entertainment Television, hosts Steve Harvey and Queen Latifah cheered West for speaking his mind. "You have a lot of people's support despite the ridicule you're receiving, man," said Harvey. Actors Matt Damon and Susan Sarandon said West was speaking the truth, and Damon even acknowledged he "let out a cheer." Time magazine wasn't at all ashamed they had published a cover story the week before calling West "Hip-Hop's Class Act" and "the smartest man in pop music."

If West is the smartest man in pop music, Western civilization is doomed.

Our media culture scorns the image of the Angry White Male but glorifies the Angry Black Male as a righteous figure. It encourages rappers to boast ridiculously of their greatness. After a listening session of his new CD with a reporter, West practiced the patter: "I'm the closest that hip-hop is getting to God. In some situations I'm like a ghetto Pope." Not even West believes his own trash -- but no one dares tell him to shut up. He gets A-list booking on a Hurricane Katrina fundraiser.

And here's the ultimate irony. If racial paranoia isn't unbalanced, if a majority of Americans keep electing allegedly vicious racists to the White House and their government conspires to poison the inner cities with drugs and AIDS, then how is it that 70 percent of hip-hop's buying audience is young white people? Is it just a case of curiosity for the cool, seeing how the gangsta lives on the other side of town? Or is this country a lot more tolerant than rappers pretend? It's a sad reality: the rap-buying white majority is too tolerant, too addicted to the beat and the rhymes of gangsta rap to disavow the preposterous contention that blacks can succeed only through the thug life -- or pretending to be one in the recording studio.

Nobody seemed to notice that it's incredibly strange for the leading lights of hip-hop to go passing a hat for hurricane victims, when everything in their music worships at the temple of greed. One of the strangest turns of Hurricane Katrina was how it forced a rapper named The Game to donate to hurricane relief. When his CD hit No. 1 on the charts in January, he made one of those obligatory sneaker deals, but now that the $90-sneakers are ready, its moniker isn't so hip. They called it "The Hurricane." Now he's donating part of the proceeds to the victims in New Orleans. He's auctioning off the $300,000 Bentley the shoemakers gave him for charity. That's doing a lot more for New Orleans than Kanye West did. His national TV outbursts probably cost the Red Cross some donations.

As Katrina victims seek to rebuild their homes and their lives, it would be nice if the hip-hop community could do more to rebuild some sense of decency in our cultural discourse -- not just the kind that would have rappers drop the cascades of obscenity out of their music, but the kind that doesn't make millions by baselessly asserting that white people want all their black brothers dead, addicted, or in jail.

Posted by tom scerbo on September 16, 2005 12:00 AM to redstatesusa

Redefining "Judicial Activism" (as if it weren't already) - huh?

ACTUALLY, 'JUDICIAL ACTIVISM' MEANS 'E=mc2'
by Ann Coulter
September 14, 2005

Democrats are so excited about Hurricane Katrina, they're thinking of moving "Camp Casey" to an area outside the National Weather Service. What they haven't figured out yet is how Richard Perle and the "neocons" cooked up a hurricane that targeted only black people. Meanwhile, rescuers in New Orleans have discovered a lower-than-expected 424 dead bodies or, as they're known to liberals, "registered Democratic voters."

In liberals' defense, they've got a better shot at convincing Americans that Bush is responsible for a hurricane than convincing them that John Kerry was fit to be commander in chief. Compared to Kerry, Katrina is a blowhard they can work with.

Liberals think Hurricane Katrina means they get to pick the next Supreme Court justice. And as of today the smart money is on Cindy Sheehan — something about her moral authority being absolute.

It would be a lot of fun to watch liberals going through their "Howard Dean phase" right now, except liberal hysteria always frightens Bush. Instead of poking them through the iron bars of their cages with a stick like a normal person would, Bush soothes them with food pellets and reassuring words. What fun is that?

If Americans loved judicial activism, liberals wouldn't be lying about what it is. Judicial activism means making up constitutional rights in order to strike down laws the justices don't like based on their personal preferences. It's not judicial activism to strike down laws because they violate the Constitution.

But liberals have recently taken to pretending judicial activism is — as The New York Times has said repeatedly — voting "to invalidate laws passed by Congress." Invalidating laws has absolutely nothing to do with "judicial activism." It depends on whether the law is unconstitutional or not. That's really the key point.

That's why we have a judicial branch, Mr. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times. It's not a make-work program for the black robe industry. It's a third branch of our government.

If Congress passed a law prohibiting speech criticizing Bush, or banning blacks from owning property, or giving foreigners the right to run for president — all those laws could be properly struck down by the Supreme Court. That's not "judicial activism," it's "judicial."

Invalidating a law that prohibits killing unborn children on the preposterous grounds that the Constitution contains an extra-double-secret right to abortion no one had noticed for 200 years — that's judicial activism. When conservative judges strike down laws, it's because of what's in the Constitution. When liberal judges strike down laws (or impose new laws, such as tax increases), it's because of what's in The New York Times.

The left's redefinition of judicial activism to mean something it's not allows liberals to claim they oppose judicial activism and to launch spirited denunciations of conservative judges as the real "judicial activists." This is the Democrats' new approach to winning arguments: Change the definition of words in mid-argument without telling the guy you're arguing with. Chairman Mao would approve.

Thus, The New York Times prissily informed its readers: "There is a misconception that so-called activist judges who 'legislate from the bench' are invariably liberal. In fact, conservative judges can be even more eager to overrule decisions made by elected officials."

That statement has as much intellectual content as saying: "There is a misconception that so-called activist judges who 'legislate from the bench' are invariably liberal. In fact, conservative judges can be even more eager to play tennis."

The very act of redefining "judicial activism" to mean invalidating any law passed by elected officials is precisely the sort of Alice-in-Wonderland nonsense we're talking about. Liberal judges redefine the Constitution's silence on abortion to mean "abortion is a precious constitutional right." Liberal flacks in the media redefine judicial activism to mean "striking down laws."

The Times' definition isn't even coherent. If it were "judicial activism" to strike down laws — any laws, ever — there would be no point to having a Supreme Court. We could just have some idiot functionary, like Joe Wilson, rubber-stamping whatever the other parts of government do.

Liberals can't win on abortion, gay "marriage" and bans on the Pledge of Allegiance by allowing Americans to vote. That's why they need the courts to keep inventing, and re-inventing, rights to abortion, gay marriage and bans on the Pledge of Allegiance.

Normal liberals know that, which is why they duck honest argument. But the crazy liberals don't. That's why Bush needs to concentrate on luring them out of their cages. It takes so little to provoke them! Just let us know before Bush nominates Janice Rogers Brown to the Supreme Court so we can arrange for live TV coverage of George Soros' head exploding, OK?

COPYRIGHT 2005 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

Hurricane Katrina: "It's All My Fault" by Rich Galen

This column is absolutely priceless.

I wonder..... Is it possible, is it within the realm of reason and common sense, that liberal politicians and their brainwashed followers could tone down, or better yet altogether cease with their shallow, baseless, and hateful rhetoric over 'who is responsible' concerning the questionable post-natural disaster relief efforts -- which we now know from the increasing data comes down more to man-made disaster not only in response but in lack of local and state pre-hurricane planning -- and do something for the common good of man, rather than b*tch and moan and finger-point and blame with annoying wailing from high on their soapbox pedestals of idiocy? Can we simply ask that they STFU and lend a hand? To be seen and not heard ... such a foreign concept to the nutcases on the blame-America left.

At least we now know exactly who is responsible for this f*cking mess ..........

Mullings.com

An American Cyber-Column

It’s All My Fault

by Rich Galen

Friday September 02, 2005

· Let me make this clear: Everything which has happened as the result of Hurricane Katrina is my fault. Mine. Alone. No one else’s. Stop wasting energy pointing fingers and put your hands to work helping out. It was me. Got it?

· I was a United States Senator from Louisiana in 2001 when the levee at Lake Pontchartrain was declared unsafe and I didn’t have enough clout with my Senatorial brethren to get sufficient money appropriated to fix it. It was my fault.

· Notwithstanding my failure on that front, according to wire services:

“In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that … the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way … were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.

“However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and couldn't handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made based on a cost-benefit analysis in the 1960s. “

· Oh. I almost forgot. I was the Commander-in-Chief of all United States Armed Forces in the 1960s which includes the Corps of Engineers. The cost-benefit analysis? My fault.

· It is my fault that, as the Governor of Louisiana, I didn’t foresee the need to have enough Louisiana National Guard troops – the vast majority of whom are NOT currently in Iraq, or Afghanistan or, for that matter, Indiana – pre-positioned and ready to preserve order.

· I, frankly, forgot that there is a portion of the population which will steal anything from anyone given any opportunity and then will blame it on me because I didn’t – in spite of ample warnings by sociologists from large Eastern Universities - foresee the need to have 27” flat-screen television sets available to every family in the New Orleans city limits as soon as the electricity went out. That one WAS my bad.

· It is my fault that, as Mayor of New Orleans, I was boogying down Bourbon Street the night before the hurricane hit rather than being where I should have been – on the roof of the Superdome putting in extra roofing nails to hold the roof on.

· As the architect of the Superdome it was my fault for claiming that the Dome could survive 200 mile-per-hour winds. It couldn’t even handle a relatively gentle160 mile-per-hour zephyr. Strap me to my drafting table and set me adrift.

· Global warming? My fault. Despite the fact that nearly every serious climatologist in America has stated over and over again that there is no clear evidence tying human-generated greenhouse gasses to global warming - and even if there were, there is absolutely no evidence tying global warming to hurricanes in the Atlantic basin - I was opposed to the Kyoto treaty and so it is my fault.

· It is also my fault that during the administration of Bill Clinton the US Senate rejected the terms of the Kyoto protocols by a vote of 95-0. That would be zero, zilch, nada, nil, bupkis.

· As the Grand Poohbah in Charge of all TV Coverage, it is my fault that there is constant video of looters and almost none of humanitarian activities. I am the person who issued the statement: “No more rescue footage UNLESS the person rescued complains about how long they had to wait or, if he shoots at the rescuers.”

· And, finally, as Chairman of the National Association of Gasoline Producers it is my fault that I had the bad judgment to put so much of my drilling, refining and transportation assets in a hurricane-prone area like the Caribbean basin. What…was…I…thinking?

· If I could re-do that whole thing, I would have put all that equipment in Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. There may not be any oil there, but hurricanes are very rare.

· So. There you have it. Everything that has happened is my fault.

· Now shut up and help.

-- END –