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For two hours today, I attended a superb workshop sponsored by the Hudson Institute, focusing on an important new book, "China: The Gathering Threat" by the late Dr. Constantine Menges. Panelists included Bill Gertz (Defense and National Security reporter for The Washington Times), William Hawkins (Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the U.S. Business and Industry Council), Michael Pillsbury (Senior Fellow for Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University), and Al Santoli (President and Director of the Asia America Initiative). Al Santoli wisely observed that the Communist Chinese takeover of the port facilities at both ends of the Panama Canal sent a message to all Latin America that they had to deal with the emerging Red Chinese reality in the Western Hemisphere. Since then, Latin American governments have entered into military training relationships with the PRC’s "People’s Liberation Army". I urge you to buy "China: The Gathering Threat" published by Nelson Current owned by my friend, Sam Moore, Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Archduke Otto von Habsburg (now 92 years of age), the head of the former Austro-Hungarian imperial house, visited Washington recently. The reports of his time here reminded me of the opportunity I and my colleagues had on TCCF’s "Visit to the New World Order – Geostrategic/Cultural/ Financial Tour" in 1993 when we dined with the Archduke at a hotel restaurant in Munich. Von Habsburg and I disagreed about the value of the European Union. He said its purpose is "to keep Germany down and Russia out". As reported in The Washington Post (April 15, 2005, p. A21): "Otto von Habsburg, the eldest son of the last reigning monarch of the Austro-Hungarian empire, looks back at a life marked by setbacks with some satisfaction. … "Archduke Otto was 6 years old when his father was forced to abdicate in 1918 following the defeat of the Central Powers at the end of World War I. The Habsburgs lost everything: power, land, castles and extensive art collections. … "The family embarked on a life in exile. But soon after, when he was 9, his father died. As a young man, Habsburg attended college in Berlin and completed his studies there in 1933, ‘the year Hitler appeared in my life,’ he recalled. "As a student, Habsburg had read Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf." Hitler ‘was not dishonest about his intentions,’ Habsburg said. ‘The problem in Germany was that everybody purchased the book….What was tragic was that nobody had read it.’ "Late one night when he was in his early twenties, he said, a man who had worked for his father knocked at his grandmother’s door at her home in Munich. ‘He came to warn me: "For God’s sake, get out, they want to kill you."’ said Habsburg, who at the time maintained an immense following as a symbol of a former era and world order. ‘I believed him and left the next morning.’ "That night, the man who had warned him was severely beaten and died a few days later. "When he was 23 and living in Belgium, Habsburg received a similar visit from an assistant to one of Hitler’s confidants who said a plot was being hatched to ‘have me put away. It was a very useful tip. They never found me, and I was very careful,’ he said. "After completing his doctorate in Belgium, Habsburg began traveling abroad to warn leaders, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, about the dangers of Hitler’s National Socialism and the designs of the Soviet leaders Joseph Stalin. Habsburg was sometimes taken seriously, but his efforts failed to deflect the flow of events. His attempts to restore the Habsburg dynasty also failed. … "In 1967, Habsburg decided to return to Austria, but the government was paranoid about his popularity, he said, telling him it would return his property only if he promised to stay out of the country and politics. ‘If I accept your blackmail, then you can blackmail everybody else,’ he recalled saying. Seven years later, the courts ruled in his favor and he was given a passport. … "Habsburg represented Bavaria in the European Parliament from 1979 to 1999. In 1989, he helped persuade the Hungarian government to open its border to East Germans. An exodus of East Germans to the West via Hungary ensued --- the historic ‘Pan-European Picnic’ that helped bore a hole in the Iron Curtain. … "Today, Habsburg travels throughout Europe, helping former Soviet countries map their transitions to modern democracy. He resides in Poecking, Germany, with his wife, Regina, whom he met while she was working at a refugee camp. They married when he was 39 and had seven children." I wrote to Dr. von Habsburg on November, 1993: "This is to formally convey to you our profound appreciation for the brilliant tour de’horizon which you afforded us during our visit to Munich. It was an honor to be with you, and a privilege to benefit from your wisdom and experience."
As I arrived in Salt Lake City for a meeting of the Executive Committee and National Committee of the Constitution Party, I was reminded of my first trip to Utah, in 1967 when I was working as an assistant to Republican National Chairman Ray C. Bliss. Chairman Bliss sent me to reconnoiter the political situation in Utah, and I had a good meeting with Dick Richards, the Utah GOP Chairman, who subsequently became Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Following my time in Utah, I was privileged to take the Golden Zephyr, which traveled through over winding tracks from Utah through Colorado to California. It was a trip I will never forget and some of my children have, in later years, joined me on that beautiful train ride. On one occasion, my daughter, Alexandra, and I took the Zephyr from Chicago to Oakland. En route to Utah from Dulles Airport, I was able to say hello to Sonny Jurgenson, the former Redskin football great, and I had a good chat with John Clark who is very active in the movement to control illegal immigration.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States asserts that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Once again, President Bush has ignored, or set aside, his oath of office in which he is sworn to defend the Constitution of the United States. As reported in The Washington Post (p. 1, April 29, 2005), "President Bush called on Congress last night to curtail future Social Security benefits for all but low-income retirees in an urgent new effort to address the popular program’s shaky finances." Clearly, discrimination on the basis of economic status is unconstitutional, in that it cancels "equal protection of the laws".
According to The New York Times (4/22/05), "associates of Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state, said he had expressed reservations about Mr. Bolton (nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.) in conversations with at least two wavering Republican senators. "The associates said Mr. Powell, in private telephone conversations, had made clear his concerns about Mr. Bolton on several fronts, including his harsh treatment of subordinates. … "Mr. Powell has not spoken publicly about the Bolton nomination. But his associates said he had told two Republican senators, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, that he had been troubled by the way Mr. Bolton had treated an intelligence analyst and others at the State Department who had disagreed with him. … "Accounts were conflicting as to whether Mr. Powell or the senators had initiated the phone calls. A spokeswoman for Mr. Powell said he had only returned calls from others, but one person familiar with one conversation said it had been Mr. Powell who had reached out to Mr. Hagel. … "This month, five former Republican secretaries of state signed a letter to the Senate committee that endorsed Mr. Bolton’s nomination, but Mr. Powell was not among them. … "Told of the accounts provided by Mr. Powell’s associates, Peggy Cifrino, a spokeswoman for Mr. Powell, said in an e-mail message: ‘To be precise, General Powell has returned calls from senators who wanted to discuss specific questions that have been raised. He has not reached out to senators. The general considers the discussions private.’" I have never been an intimate of Colin Powell, but I did have the opportunity to engage in contentious discussions with him in the 1980’s when he was a junior member of President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council staff and I, as head of The Conservative Caucus, was permitted periodically to discuss Reagan policies with officials of his administration. Powell was always on the liberal side of U.S. policy, in my view advancing an agenda which undercut the anti-Communist Contras in Nicaragua and abetted both the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and the Marxist FMLN in El Salvador. There is a reason he is the "darling" of the establishment media. He has almost always been on their side and too seldom on ours.
"He who pays the piper calls the tune." The dangers of socialized medicine were no more evident than in a U.K. court ruling whereby a "judge yesterday upheld a court order allowing doctors to let a critically ill baby die if she stops breathing – a move doctors say is the only humane way to end the child’s suffering. "Eighteen-month-old Charlotte Wyatt can hardly see or hear and weighed about a pound when she was born prematurely. Her brain and other organs are so seriously damaged that she has ‘no feeling other than continuing pain,’ physicians say. "The baby’s parents, Darren and Debbie Wyatt, who believe in preserving life at any cost, sought to overturn a court order granted in October. "But Justice Mark Hedley was not persuaded by their pleas. "‘I am quite clear that it would not be in Charlotte’s best interests to die in the course of futile aggressive treatment,’ Justice Hedley ruled at London’s High Court yesterday. … "Charlotte was born in October 2003, six months into her mother’s pregnancy. The baby has had serious heart and lung problems, has never left the hospital, is fed through a tube and lives in an oxygen tent. "She has stopped breathing three times, and in October the High Court ruled that doctors at St. Mary’s Hospital in Portsmouth, southwest England, do not need to resuscitate her if she stops breathing again. "The Wyatts say Charlotte can see and hear to a limited extent and sometimes smiles. "The judge agreed that the baby now responds to loud noises and tracks the movement of a colorful toy – in contrast to October, when she was almost wholly unresponsive. Her life no longer could be described as intolerable, he said. "But Justice Hedley added that Charlotte’s chronic respiratory disease is still expected to be fatal and that her neurological condition is as bad as it could be." (The Washington Times, 4/22/05) If the British government had not been responsible for the cost of health care, the life of the child of Darren and Debbie Watt would be in their hands rather than in the hands of the government.
The April 19 Washington Times carries an article by Pedro SanJuan, former political affairs director in the United Nations Secretariat and author of the forthcoming book, ‘U.N. Gang", to be published by Doubleday. I have not seen Pedro in a number of years since I first met him while I was on the staff of the Republican National Committee (1966-1968). Pedro came up with the idea for a new organization to be called "Close Up", by means of which high school and college students from all over America would be brought to Washington, D.C. to learn more about the operations of government. Pedro assured me "Close Up" would be non-partisan and it seemed to me to be a good idea. Accordingly, I acceded his request that I line up prominent Republicans to be co-sponsors of the "Close Up" idea. This was to be an entirely private sector operation. Sometime later, however, Pedro got the idea that the program could reach many more people if it were subsidized by the Federal government. At that point, I could no longer endorse the work of "Close Up" which, by its acceptance of government money, was teaching participants to tolerate and, indeed, applaud unconstitutional "politics as usual". On various occasions, I have spoken to "Close Up" faculty members and students conveying that message, but, as a result of the stand I have taken, I am no longer a welcome participant.
Today, I forwarded to Congressman Jim McCrery, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means in the U.S. House of Representatives, 13,800 Petitions supporting Congressman Ron Paul’s bill, H.R. 858, the Social Security for Americans Only Act. This is in addition to 57,700 Petitions previously delivered on the same subject. The Petition reads:
When Congress voted this past December to approve George Bush’s request for a $1.2 billion loan to Kofi Annan to redecorate and refurbish the U.N. Headquarters on Turtle Bay in New York City, it did so in opposition to the wishes of the members of The Conservative Caucus (TCC) and others who considered this supposed loan to be unconstitutional, unwise, and excessive. On at least one score (the excessive cost), Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Donald Trump agree with us. According to New York Magazine (4/25/05, page 13), Mr. Trump is going "to try to save the U.N. some money on remodeling its headquarters. According to Trump, the project’s estimated price tag of $1.2 billion means ‘somebody is either very stupid or very crooked’…Kofi Annan’s ‘son is working on it,’ he cracks, referring to the one implicated in the Oil-for-Food scandal. In a show of goodwill, Trump offered to do the job for less than half that: ‘I met with Kofi. I told him I would do a better job.’ The U.N. hasn’t responded." Visit HowardPhillips.com every day for the latest commentary, news and action items in support of restoring our Constitutional Republic.
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