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Communist Dictators in Africa |
March 29, 2007
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COMMUNIST DESPOTS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER
The most wretched Marxist tyrannies in Africa, indeed the
entire world, are Zimbabwe and Angola which have now joined together to
defend their brutual dictatorships against outside influence.
According to the Financial Times (3/23/07), "Zimbabwe
and Angola have signed a security co-operation agreement dramatically
raising the political temperature in southern Africa as the region flounders
in its response to President Robert Mugabe’s repressive rule.
"The deal, which could led to the supply of paramilitary
forces to Zimbabwe, sends a powerful message that Mr. Mugabe has backers in
the region prepared to defend his regime.
"The Angolan government, an old ally of Harare, denied
yesterday reports that the accord would lead to the despatch [sic] of
several thousand of its paramilitary police to Zimbabwe as early as the
beginning of next month. …
"Then General Roberto Leal Ramos Monteiro, Angola’s minister
of interior, delivered a clear signal of defiance to the west, which has
urged the region to confront Mr. Mugabe over the political and economic
crisis in his country.
" ‘Angola will do everything in its power to help the
Zimbabwe police force and will not allow western imperialism to take over
Zimbabwe,’ President Robert Mugabe and I have agreed on a law and order
maintenance agreement that will see Angolan police helping with the
situation in the country.’
"Regional analysts warned that the dispatch of Angolan
paramilitaries would hugely complicate attempts to solve Zimbabwe’s crisis.
‘If Angola is acting in such a unilateral way it would undermine the
attempts to reach a multilateral response,’ said Chris Maroleng, a
Zimbabwean expert at the Institute of Security Studies in Johannesburg.
"An assault by police on Zimbabwe’s opposition earlier this
month led to renewed calls from the west for regional leaders to abandon
their policy of ‘quiet diplomacy’. …
"In the past decade Angola has been assertive in Africa as
it recovers from its civil war. Buoyed by its oil revenues, it has
despatched troops or police to at least four other countries, including the
Democratic Republic of Congo. This, however, would be the first time it has
flexed its muscles in the traditional backyard of South Africa, with whom it
has strained relations.
"Responding to reports that 2,500 ‘Ninja’ paramilitaries
were to be sent, with the first 1,000 arriving on April 1, the Angolan
embassy in Harare said in a statement: ‘It is not the custom of the Angolan
government to interfere in the internal matters of other governments.’
"Bringing in Angolans would be a high-risk strategy for Mr.
Mugabe. The arrival of forces would be unpopular at home and would risk
alienating many of his supporters, who are critical of the government’s
crackdown on the opposition. It is also unclear why he would need them given
Zimbabwe has a huge military force, unless he is uncertain of their
loyalties."
Lest we forget, it was then-British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher who turned Ian Smith’s Rhodesia into Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.
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Restoring 2nd Amendment Rights |
March 28, 2007
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JUDGE LAURENCE SILBERMAN DEFENDS 2nd AMENDMENT AGAINST
LEFT-WING D.C. POLITICOS
Judge Laurence Silberman deserves high praise for his service as judge of
the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
"Interpreting the Second Amendment broadly, a federal appeals court in
Washington yesterday struck down a gun control law in the District of
Columbia that bars residents from keeping handguns in their homes."
"The decision was the first from a federal appeals court to hold a gun
control law unconstitutional on the ground that the Second Amendment
protects the rights of individuals, as opposed to the collective rights of
state militias. Nine other federal appeals courts around the nation have
rejected that interpretation. …
"By contrast, advocates of gun rights praised the decision by the United
States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, saying it
raised the prospect of a national re-evaluation of the meaning of the Second
Amendment and the rights of gun owners. They said the District of Columbia
would have to begin procedures to allow handgun possession in private homes
unless yesterday’s decision was stayed."
"Lawyers on both sides of the case said it had created a conflict among
the federal courts of appeal on a significant constitutional issue, making
review by the Supreme Court likely. The Supreme Court last considered the
issue in 1939, and there are only scattered hints about how the current
justices might rule.
"The majority in yesterday’s decision pointed to a 1998 dissent in which
‘at least three current members (and one former member) of the Supreme Court
have read "bear arms" in the Second Amendment to have meaning beyond mere
soldiering.’ They were former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died
in 2005, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia and David H.
Souter.
"In a 1996 dissent while serving on the federal appeals court in
Philadelphia, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., now a justice of the Supreme Court,
wrote that he would have struck down a federal law regulating the possession
of machine guns under the commerce clause of the Constitution."
"If the Supreme Court were to adopt the District of Columbia Circuit’s
interpretation of the Second Amendment, gun control laws and gun
prosecutions around the country could be endangered. …
"Robert A. Levy, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute … said that ‘D.C.
will have to implement a process for enabling people to keep handguns in
their houses.’ …
"Judge Laurence H. Silberman, writing for the majority in the decision,
United States v. Miller, said "It is presumably reasonable to prohibit
drunks from carrying weapons and to ban guns in churches and polling places.
Thomas B. Griffith joined the majority decision. …
"The majority rejected the district’s argument that the Second Amendment
should apply only to the kinds of guns in use at the end of the 18th
century. …"
"For many decades and under both Democratic and Republican
administrations, the Justice Department said the Second Amendment protected
only collective rights." Source: Adam Liptak, The New York Times,
3/10/07, pp. 1, A9
KEN STARR PLAYS FOR THE OTHER TEAM
There is an old saying that, if you have a reputation for
being an early riser, you can sleep until Noon.
Kenneth W. Starr, who served in the Justice Department under
Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush, has a totally undeserved reputation
as a Constitutional conservative.
It was Starr who recommended the appointment of Sandra Day
O’Connor to the Supreme Court, failing to disclose to President Reagan her
consistent pro-abortion record as a state senator and feminist activist in
Arizona.
It was Starr who misdirected the investigation of Bill
Clinton during Congressional consideration of impeachment and conviction.
Clinton owes his exoneration from conviction as much to Starr as to anyone
else.
There are other examples of Starr’s role as an establishment
conservative, always available to sell out our cause to the powers that be.
The latest example of this is the unconstitutional proposal
to grant voting representation to the District of Columbia in the U.S. House
of Representatives.
Starr, who is a former Federal appellate judge and former
independent counsel, says he has analyzed the D.C. vote bill and believes it
to be Constitutional.
Personally I prefer the plain language of the Constitution
to the slanted opinions of Kenneth W. Starr.
Here is what the Constitution has to say:
Article I. Section Two. "The House of
Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the
People of the several States".
Article I. Section Eight. "The Congress shall have
Power…To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such
District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular
States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of
the United States".
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TCC Members: Stop North American Union |
March 26, 2007
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TCC MEMBERS LIST OPPOSITION TO BUSH’S NORTH AMERICAN UNION
SCHEME AS THEIR NUMBER ONE ACTION PRIORITY
The results are in from the latest TCC membership survey concerning the
action agenda for The Conservative Caucus during 2007.
Here are the top priorities spelled out by our members:
Block implementation of President Bush’s scheme to merge the USA
in a North American Union with Mexico and Canada.
Restore U.S. military bases to Panama to protect the Panama Canal
from terrorist attack and to counter growing Red Chinese.
End U.S. subsidies to the United Nations.
Pass the Constitution Restoration Act (CRA).
Defeat amnesty for illegal aliens.
Repeal all taxes on Social Security benefits.
Oppose the payment of Social Security benefits to illegal aliens
who have returned to Mexico.
JOHN SCHROTE WAS A COURAGEOUS AMERICAN PATRIOT
I lament the passing of my beloved friend, John E. Schrote,
who served as my principal assistant when I was Director of the United
States Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) in 1973, and in the previous two
years when I functioned as Special Assistant to the Director and Associate
Director of OEO for Policy Review.
John was a principled and courageous conservative who made a
difference wherever he worked.
Some of the highlights of his career are set forth in the
enclosed excerpts from an obituary in The Washington Post of March
18:
"John Ellis Schrote, 70, an assistant secretary of the
Interior for policy, management and budget during President George H.W.
Bush’s administration, died of complications of pulmonary fibrosis March 14
at the Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. He lived in Norfolk.
"Mr. Schrote worked in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and elder
Bush administration and unsuccessfully sought public office in North
Carolina after leaving the federal government. …
"On his last day of work in January 1993, The Washington
Post reported, Mr. Schrote revoked a policy in effect for the previous four
years in the western region of the National Park Service that prohibited
discrimination against gay employees.
"In a memo to the head of the Park Service, Mr. Schrote said
the policy ‘must be revoked,’ in part because, he said, the regional office
was trying to force private organizations, such as the Boy Scouts, that
perform volunteer duties for the agency ‘to adhere to its sexual orientation
policy.’ …
"A native of Findlay, Ohio, Mr. Schrote graduated from Ohio
State University and received a master’s degree in business administration
from Xavier University in Cincinnati in 1964. He moved to the Washington
area in 1966 and by 1973 was principal assistant to the director of the
Office of Economic Opportunity.
"He became a special assistant to Secretary of Agriculture
Earl Butz from 1977 to 1981, then worked on the congressional staff of
Wisconsin Republican F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. During President Ronald
Reagan’s first term, Mr. Schrote was deputy White House personnel director.
He left government work in the latter half of the 1980s to be executive vice
president for Bishop, Bryant & Associates, then returned to Sensenbrenner’s
employ in 1987. Two years later, he joined the Interior Department.
"Survivors include his wife of 50 years, Rachel Schrote of
Corolla, N.C.; two children, Jim Schrote of Alexandria and Gretchen Schrote
of Richmond; two sisters, Jill Pfeifer of Alexandria and Jane Ragazino of
Middletown, Ohio; a brother, Joseph Schrote of Middletown, Ohio; and four
grandchildren."
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General Pace is Correct |
March 21, 2007
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GENERAL PACE IS CORRECT: HOMOSEXUAL CONDUCT IS IMMORAL
Congratulations to General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, for his courage in stating frankly that, in his opinion, homosexual
conduct is immoral.
It is a tragedy that this statement of the truth has put General Pace in
the eye of another storm with criticism being directed against him by
homosexuals and homosexual sympathizers in politics, in the media, in the
arts and entertainment world, and elsewhere.
It is hard for the Vice President of the United States to defend General
Pace, given Cheney’s approval of the homosexual lifestyle of one of his
children.
Every one of us should drop a note to General Pace thanking him for his
courageous statement based on God’s truth.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, General Pace said that
his upbringing taught him "certain types of conduct are immoral" citing
adultery, as well as homosexuality.
According to The Washington Times (3/14/07), more than 100 lawyers
have signed on to a bill that would allow homosexuals to serve openly in the
military, but according to General Pace "Saying that gays should serve
openly in the military, to me, says that we, by policy, would be condoning
what I believe is immoral activity".
"I do not believe", Pace continued, that "the United States is well
served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way".
Virginia Senator John Warner who himself has led an immoral lifestyle in
certain respects rebuked General Pace saying "I respectfully but strongly
disagree with the Chairman’s view that homosexuality is immoral".
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates rebuked Pace by saying "personal
opinion really doesn’t have a place here".
Senator John McCain, in a wimpish observation, told reporters in
California that the General "should be given a chance to explain himself".
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Arthur Schlesinger |
March 9, 2007
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JFK’S SYCOPHANT IS DEAD
One of my professors at Harvard was Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Schlesinger died recently at the age of 89. Here are some excerpts from
The New York Times (March 2, 2007) obituary:
"Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the historian whose more than 20 books
shaped discussions for two generations about America’s past and who himself
was a provocative, unabashedly liberal partisan, most notably while serving
in the Kennedy White House, died Wednesday night in Manhattan. He was 89. …
"Twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mr.
Schlesinger exhaustively examined the administrations of two prominent
presidents, Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt, against a vast background
of regional and economic rivalries. He argued that strong individuals like
Jackson and Roosevelt could bend history.
"The notes he took for President John F. Kennedy, for the president’s use
in writing his history, became after Mr. Kennedy’s assassination, grist for
Mr. Schlesinger’s own account, ‘A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the
White House." It won both the Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 1966. …
"Mr. Schlesinger worked on both brothers’ presidential campaigns, and
some critics suggested he had trouble separating history from sentiment.
Gore Vidal called ‘A Thousand Days’ a political novel, and many noted that
the book ignored the president’s sexual wanderings. Others were unhappy that
he told so much, particularly in asserting that the president had been
unhappy with his secretary of state, Dean Rusk. …
"History and its telling, quite literally, ran in Mr. Schlesinger’s
blood. One of his reputed ancestors was George Bancroft, who over 40 years
starting in 1834 wrote the monumental 12-volume ‘History of the United
Stated from the Discovery of the Continent.’ His father, Arthur M.
Schlesinger, was an immensely influential historian who led the way in
making social history a genuine discipline.
"In his early teens, the son changed his middle name from Bancroft to
Meier, his father’s middle name, and began calling himself junior. He would
later adopt and develop many of his father’s ideas about history, including
the theory that history moves in cycles from liberal to conservative
periods. His father gave him the idea for his Harvard honors thesis. …
"His multivolume history of the New Deal, ‘The Age of Roosevelt,’ began
in 1957 with ‘The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933,’ continued in 1959
with ‘The Coming of the New Deal’ and culminated in 1960 with ‘The Politics
of Upheaval.’ …
"Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger was born in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 15,
1917, the elder of the two sons of Arthur Meier Schlesinger and the former
Elizabeth Bancroft. The younger Mr. Schlesinger wrote approvingly that
Bancroft the historian, who may have been a distant cousin, was a
presidential ghostwriter and bon vivant in addition to being called the
father of American history.
"It was his father whom ‘young Arthur,’ as he was known, idolized. His
argument that urban labor was behind much of the upheaval in Jackson’s time
was taken up and brilliantly expanded by his son. ….
"The family moved to Cambridge, Mass., in 1924, when his father was
appointed to the Harvard faculty. Arthur Sr. later became chairman of the
Harvard history department.
"Young Arthur first attended public schools in Cambridge, but his parents
lost faith in public education in his sophomore year after a civics teacher
informed Arthur’s class that inhabitants of Albania were called Albinos and
had white hair and pink eyes. He was shipped to the Phillips Exeter Academy
in New Hampshire.
"He graduated at 15, but the family felt he was too young to go to
Harvard. So, while his father was on sabbatical, the whole family took a
long trip around the world. Mr. Schlesinger then went on to Harvard and
graduated summa cum laude in 1938.
"Beginning in boyhood he socialized with his father’s intellectually
powerful friends, from the humorist James Thurber to the novelist John Dos
Passos. When he was 14, he met H. L. Mencken, and later corresponded with
him. At Harvard, he knew such leading intellectual lights as the historian
Samuel Eliot Morrison. …
"Mr. Schlesinger later became part of the powerful circle surrounding the
journalist Joseph Alsop, a group that included Philip Graham, publisher of
The Washington Post, W. Averell Harriman, former governor of New York, and
the lawyer Clark Clifford. Mr. Schlesinger met Mr. Kennedy, then a senator,
at an Alsop soriee. His impression: ‘Kennedy seemed very sincere and not
unintelligent, but kind of on the conservative side.’ …
"While a fellow, Mr. Schlesinger married Marian Cannon, whom he had met
during his junior year at Harvard. Her sister was married to John King
Fairbank, the eminent sinologist. The Schlesingers had twins, Stephen and
Katharine, and two more children, Christina and Andrew. They were divorced
in 1970. Katharine died in 2004.
"Mr. Schlesinger married Alexandra Emmet in 1971. They had a boy, Robert,
named for Robert F. Kennedy. She had a son from a previous marriage, Peter
Allan. Mr. Schlesinger is survived by all three, in addition to his former
wife and their three surviving children. Stephen and Andrew Schlesinger are
editing their father’s journals from 1952 to 1998, and plan to publish them
in the fall, through Penguin Press.
"As a Harvard fellow, Mr. Schlesinger managed to pound out 4,000 to 5,000
words a day on the Jackson work as his year-old twins frolicked around his
desk. His work on the book was interrupted by World War II. Bad eyesight
precluded his serving in the military, so he got a job as a writer for the
Office of War Information. One assignment was writing a message from
President Roosevelt to the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mr.
Schlesinger doubted that the president saw such masterpieces.
"He next served in the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the
Central Intelligence Agency, in Washington, London and Paris. Immediately
after the war, Mr. Schlesinger went to Washington as a freelance journalist
for Fortune and other magazines. After 15 months, in 1946, he accepted an
associate professorship at Harvard. He said he was so nervous teaching that
he vomited before each class; eventually, his presentation became so deft
that his History 169 course was the department’s most popular offering. …
"On Jan. 9, 1961, a gray, chilly, afternoon, President-elect Kennedy
dropped by Mr. Schlesinger’s house on Irving Street in Cambridge. He asked
the professor to be a special assistant in the white House. Mr. Schlesinger
answered, ‘If you think I can help, I would like to come.’ …
"Time later described Mr. Schlesinger’s role in the Kennedy
administration as a bridge to the intelligentsia as well as to the Adlai
Stevenson-Eleanor Roosevelt wing of the Democratic Party. If the president
wanted to meet the intellectual Isaiah Berlin or the composer Gian Carlo
Menotti, Mr. Schlesinger arranged it. The president was said to enjoy Mr.
Schlesinger’s gossip during weekly lunches, although he rarely attended the
brainy seminars Robert Kennedy asked Mr. Schlesinger to organize at Robert’s
home in Hickory Hill, Va. …
"Mr. Schlesinger, who resigned from Harvard when his leave of absence
expired in 1962, worked on his Kennedy book and for the first few months of
1966 was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. He then
joined the faculty of the City University of New York as Albert Schweitzer
professor of the humanities."
MAX HUGEL WAS A CONSERVATIVE PATRIOT
During the 1980s, I worked closely with Max Hugel, a
businessman who helped guide Ronald Reagan’s 1980 Presidential campaign in
New Hampshire and then briefly served as Deputy Director of the CIA in 1981.
Max died February 19 of complications from cancer at this
home in Ocala, Florida.
"In 1980, then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan recruited
Mr. Hugel to work on his New Hampshire primary effort. Mr. Hugel later
chaired the Reagan/Bush national voters group division of the general
election campaign, organizing farmers, minorities, small businessmen, women
and others by issue interest rather than political affiliation.
"After Reagan’s election to president, Mr. Hugel moved to
Washington and served as head of the Small Business Administration during
the transition. Later, newly appointed CIA Director William J. Casey tapped
Mr. Hugel, a close friend, to be deputy director for administration and then
as deputy director for operations. …
"Mr. Hugel was born in the Bronx, N.Y., and grew up in an
orphanage. At 18, he enlisted in the Army and attended the Military
Intelligence School at the University of Michigan, where he became fluent in
Japanese.
"In 1954, Mr. Hugel was chief executive of Brother
International Corp., the U.S. arm of the then-small Japanese exporter of
sewing machines. Later, he was chief operating officer of Centronics Data
Computer Corp. in New Hampshire, until taking a leave to join the Reagan
campaign.
"In 1983, Mr. Hugel and three partners purchased Rockingham
Park, New England’s oldest and largest thoroughbred race track, after a fire
destroyed the facility. He then led the revival of Rockingham Park into one
of New Hampshire’s largest tourist attractions.
"Mr. Hugel also became one of the earliest investors in the
cellular phone industry, owning several communications companies. …
"Survivors include his wife, Diane Hugel of Ocala; four
children, Susan Hugel of Parkland, Fla., Christine Robey of Goshen, Ky.,
David Hugel of Springfield and Richard Hugel of Oakton; and 10 grandchildren."
[Source: The Washington Post, 2/23/07, p. B7]
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