LIE OF THE WEEK: 06-27-2008

President Bush on lifting some sanctions against North Korea:

"If North Korea continues to make the right choices, it can repair its relationship with the international community, much as Libya has done over the past few years. If North Korea makes the wrong choices, the United States and our partners in the six-party talks will respond accordingly."

THE TRUTH: Which right choices are these exactly? North Korea has significantly increased it's stockpile of nuclear weapons during the Bush Administration and has only taken superficial steps (such as this week's destruction of a famous nuclear facility) to appease the world's demand that it dismantle its arsenal. Libya is cited by the president as an example, but they are the most proven state sponsor of terrorism and have never truly repented. They did shutdown their nuclear program after being caught red-handed, but that was only because they hadn't reach any critical stage yet where they could wield their nuclear arms as a stick to mitigate international pressure (as North Korea did for many years) and the threat of a neoconservative-led attack on their country. President Bush has shown North Korea that there were no negative consequences for their years of deception and is trying to salvage his record as one of the worst presidents through last minute accomplishments such as this and we can only hope that he does not appease these dictators to any extent that will make it harder for his successor to stand up to them next year.

Special Column on the Supreme Court

Yesterday's column was about the bad things that courts can do. Today was a good day in this area as the US Supreme Court finally established that the 2nd Amendment is the same as the rest of the Bill of Rights in that it is the establishment of an individual right to bear arms. Despite the objections of liberals who favor gun control under the ridiculous illusion that all people will somehow be protected by the police at all times from the illegal guns held by criminals, the majority of the court has struck a blow for the individual freedoms and liberties enshrined in our constitution and a blow against the socialist leanings of a small minority of Americans. If only the justices had lived up to their responsibilities to the American people equally well on all of their decisions during this year.

COLUMN: 06-25-2008

There have been so many bad court decisions recently that reflect a sickening perversion of the role of the judiciary in our system of governmental checks and balances. First, the State Supreme Court of California made a decision that flies directly in the face of a law passed by popular referendum just a few years ago. Despite the public expressing their moral view of marriage by overwhelmingly passing a law in that regard, the liberal judges decided they knew better and reversed the will of the citizens of that state. They also refused to stay their decision for a few months while the people are given an opportunity to overturn their decision again with a referendum on an amendment to the state constitution. This is the ultimate arrogance for those who believe in an autocratic view that they know better than the people they are supposed to serve. There was a similar situation in the US Supreme Court's unfortunate decision that they knew better than the majority of Americans and decided that the rapists of children don't deserve to be put to death. The liberal judges in the majority decided that their view of the "evolving standards of decency" meant that they could go against the will of the American people and decide that this most heinous of crimes that destroys the innocent childhood of its young victim isn't worthy of the death penalty. It's yet another example of the arrogance of liberals who believe themselves to be the ultimate judges of morality based only on their personal views. The unfortunate truth is that the US Supreme Court is not in the least moderate and either passes judgments from the extreme left or the extreme right depending on a few swing votes. (This is despite the fact that conservatives have dominated the electoral choices of Americans for the past 40+ years except for a few minor instances where the corruption of Republicans led to them being ousted from office). We can only hope that the moderate conservative views of the American people will be reflected in the highest court in the land in their future decisions as opposed to the continuation of this disgusting trend.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 06-20-2008

President Bush on the rights of Guantanamo Detainees:

"With this decision, hardened terrorists, hardened foreign terrorists, now enjoy certain legal rights previously reserved for American citizens. This is precisely the kind of judicial activism that frustrates the American people and the best way to change it is to put Republicans in charge in the Senate and John McCain in the White House."

THE TRUTH: Judicial activism is when judges rule on issues based on their own values against the wishes of the majority of Americans (such as abortion or same sex marriage). The only time this has ever been justified is during the civil rights era when the majority of Americans held biased racial views and the courts rightly overrode that. In this case, the judges are right to protect the civil rights of those detained by America, lest we turn into a despotic country that does not respect anyone's rights at all. The Bush Administration has been playing loosely with the law ever since 9/11 and using security as an excuse for that abuse. Guantanamo Bay is non-American territory that also does not fall under any other country's laws, which is exactly why they chose it to house the prison for those captured in the war on terror. If they were held in America, they would be subject to our laws and if they were held elsewhere, they would be subject to that locality's laws. The US Supreme Court was absolutely right in this case when they put Guantanamo under US Court jurisdiction because that is the only way around the corrupt activities promoted by this corrupt administration.

COLUMN: 06-18-2008

Tim Russert was truly an American hero and it's unfortunate that it took his death to highlight this fact. He was an institution in Washington who was a model of the needed role of journalists in a free society. He held politicians to task for their word and deeds and did not let them get away with dishonest excuses for misbehavior. Though he began his career in the political world working for major Democratic politicians, he was truly unbiased when he moved to the world of television journalism. This is in stark contrast to his competitors: ABC's Sunday morning host was a former Clinton administration insider and that is still very clear in terms of the bias he demonstrates in his interviews. Fox News does not even qualify as a journalistic organization due to the blatant bias it demonstrates in every single aspect of its shows. It's hard to think of anyone who can fill Russert's shoes and that itself is a tribute to his legacy. Hopefully, someone of equal integrity will be given an opportunity to step in and play that role that our democracy so desperately needs.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 06-13-2008

Vice President Cheney on NAFTA:

"Some politicians seem determined to unravel the bipartisan consensus on free trade -- a consensus epitomized by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In a time when even NAFTA is being called into doubt -- when candidates can draw cheers by denouncing trade deals with our next-door neighbors -- then we're at risk of going down a very destructive path."

THE TRUTH: We are already on a very destructive path, thanks to the policies of President Clinton, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. America is on the precipice of becoming a third-world country as middle class jobs are uncompetitively outsourced to non-democratic countries without any worker rights (or even civil or human rights). The middle class is left working at service jobs that can hardly pay for today's gas prices, let alone a living wage. No one is complaining about our trade with Canada other than one simple problem of taxypayer-provided healthcare being non-competitive with our obscenely high healthcare costs (thanks to the abuses of the insurance and drug companies) which can be easily fixed with enough political will. The problems are really on the Mexican side in terms of the flow of illegal labor causing an overall lowering of American wages, the lack of worker rights in Mexico leading to massive abuse in sweatshops, smuggling, and the lack of a proper civil society that is needed for appropriate trade protections. Vice President Cheney has been the single most influential vice president in American history and he has also been the worst vice president in American as he has driven this administration towards corporate-lobby corrupted policies that benefit his contributors and not the American people.

COLUMN: 06-11-2008

President Bush's comments this week that he regrets some parts of his current historical legacy is still a showcase of the unfortunate arrogance that has dominated and ruined his entire tenure in office. His stubborn views of the past seven years of running the government demonstrate that he does not question his terrible policy decisions at all. Instead, all of his regrets are related to his belief that he did not "sell" his policies properly to America and it's allies. What he does not seem to understand is that the American people are against his bad policies themselves and would not have sold on them even if he and his top officials had done a better job in marketing. President Bush's main legacy will always be that of an arrogant leader who thought he was above dealing with the details of policymaking and who left those details to people in his administration who used unethical means to promote their corrupt agenda in the world. Even if the ultimate net result in Iraq and Afghanistan and the lousy American economy and every other major policy failure somehow turn around in the near future as President Bush desperately hopes, this will never salvage his reputation. He will always be remembered as one of the worst presidents ever, period.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 06-06-2008

Senator Hillary Clinton on her continuing in the primary race until the very end:

"What does Hillary want - what I have always fought for. I want to end the war in Iraq, I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want every child to live up to his or her God-given potential, and I want for the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected and heard and to no longer be invisible."

THE TRUTH: Even after it was mathematically impossible for her to win, Senator Clinton stayed in the race for one reason: selfishness. She expressed this in her hopes for a catastrophe to hit Senator Obama's life or career when she mentioned the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy in June of 1968. By staying in the race till the very end, Senator Clinton showed her disdain for her party and for her country. What she wants and has always fought for is money, power, and influence for herself. She probably does actually care about healthcare and American children having every possible opportunity, but those are obviously far below her own selfish interests in terms of priority as evidenced by her actions. Her last argument is the most ridiculous: why would the people who voted for her be invisible if she is not the president? Many of those people voted for her because of either gender bias (feminists who vote for any woman regardless of qualifications or ethics) or racial bias (white voters who would never vote for any minority). Their views have been a known component of the American electorate for many years and both of these positions need to be repudiated in order for America to become a more just and fair country, not encouraged through the politics of demagoguery. It's ironic that the Democratic Party which always talks about being in favor of women's rights and minority rights is the one where the most gender and racial bias is openly demonstrated.

COLUMN: 06-04-2008

Now that Senator Obama has finally won the actual number of delegates in order to guarantee himself his party's presidential nomination, one would think that Senator Clinton would do the honorable thing and concede and congratulate him and endorse him for winning the nomination. Unfortunately, that is too much to expect from the dishonorable self-interested politics of the Clintons. The announcement late today that they would be making a major announcement on Saturday (in order to buy time to try to extract some more money from their foolish supporters to pay off their debts and also to try to gain influence over their party's convention and platform) is yet another indication that the Clintons are always working for their selfish needs and not for those of their party, let alone their country. We can only hope that Senator Obama does not make the foolish mistake of picking Senator Clinton as his running mate (or for any major role in his administration if he wins the presidency) because that will delay the much needed, long overdue final exit of the Clintons from the national political scene.