Beyond the News: Weekend Journal  
Salem Radio Network
Weekend Journal looks at the John Roberts nomination in detail with Mike Gallagher, Senator Lindsay Graham, Washington Times reporter Charles Hurt, Newsweek's Howard Fineman and Hugh Hewitt; Bill Bennett and Lt. Col Fred Chiaventone discuss the West's war on terror; a Beyond the News report by Keith Peters on the nuclear and humanitarian crises over North Korea; Frank Pastore and Congressman Gary Miler examine illegal immigration legislation; Scott Thomas and Senator Rick Santorum look at the traditional family; Dennis Prager explores why fairness and justice are not synonymous and Richard Land is pleased by Presdent Bush's choice for the Supreme Court.

Family Gives Special Farewell to Marine Headed to Iraq  
KUSA-TV News
..."I don't know the motivation, but I do know that it was mind-blowing," said Mark. While Mark fully supports his son's decision to join the Marines and support the war effort in Iraq, he admits to being disturbed by those who say the fight isn't worth it. The gesture at The Fort reminded him of the many Americans that support young men like his son. "It helped us feel more convinced of what our son is doing, Matt's doing the right thing and people do appreciate it," he said. While they understand and respect the benefactor's desire for anonymity, they'd like the opportunity to thank him.

Frist's Stem Cell Capitulation
by Eric Cohen & William Kristol
...In fact, for all the complaints of scientists that the American government is standing in the way of their pioneering efforts, the striking fact about the present situation is that there are virtually no legal prohibitions on many radical areas of biotechnology. There are no limits on human cloning, no limits on fetal farming, no limits on the creation of man-animal hybrids, and no limits on the creation of human embryos solely for research and destruction. It is in this rather permissive moral and legal climate that Frist seeks to remove one of the few public boundaries that still exist...
More: Family Research Council Statement

Terror's Global Ambition
by Amir Taheri
...They have a clear, coldly calculated strategy aimed at changing the regional balance of power in their own favor, by driving the Western "infidels" out, so that they could seize control of several Muslim countries — some with immense oil resources. And that would be the first step toward putting Islam back on the path of world conquest for the first time since the Ottomans abandoned their siege of Vienna in the 16th century. Any show of weakness by the West in meeting that challenge would only help clinch the current debate within the Islamist circles in favor of those who advocate the most radical terrorist options.
Related: Our Prisons are Fertile Ground for Cultivating Suicide Bombers

The Worst Tyrant in Recent History  
by David Aikman
A recent conference in Washington D.C. highlighted the appalling tyranny of North Korea. The people there are prisoners of probably the worst dictator in recent human history--and that includes Saddam Hussein--a man called Kim Chong-il. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans languish in brutal slave labor camps, thousands more who escape to China are cruelly sent back by the Chinese, and hundreds of thousands in recent years have died from starvation...
More: Mendacity in Beijing

Canada, the Compatible
by Hal Lindsey
Only weeks after becoming only the third nation on earth to legalize same-sex marriage, the government of Canada is sponsoring calls for the imposition of state controls on religion in the True North, Strong and Free. Canada's state-owned CBC radio broadcast a commentary from retired Royal Military College professor Bob Ferguson in which he argued for state control over religion, and in particular, over the Catholic religion...

Robin Hood and Air America
The Washington Times
Did Al Franken's liberal radio network Air America divert city money for the elderly and inner-city children to itself? That's the question people should be asking this week after the revelation that the New York Department of Investigation is looking into whether hundreds of thousands of dollars were illegally transferred from a Bronx community center to Air America...

Can the Fed Achieve a Goldilocks Tightening?
By John H. Makin
...the notion that world growth is sustainable with oil at $60 per barrel because the United States can shrug off the implied energy drag depends almost entirely on a continued housing boom. But the Fed is raising interest rates, a central-bank policy move that has already quelled a housing boom in the United Kingdom, not to mention Australia and New Zealand. We need a Goldilocks Tightening” that sets the temperature in the real estate sector just right: not too hot and not too cold.

Fool Me Eight Times, Shame on Me
By Ann Coulter
...Republicans are desperately trying to convince themselves that Roberts will be different because they want to believe Bush wouldn't let us down on the Supreme Court. Somewhere in America a woman is desperately trying to convince herself that her husband won't hit her again because he told her "things are going to be different this time." (And yes, that woman's name is Whitney Houston.) Bush said "Trust me," and Republicans trust him. It shouldn't be difficult for conservatives to convince themselves that Roberts is our man. They've had practice convincing themselves of the same thing with Warren, Brennan, Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter.

The Muslim Mind Is On Fire
by Youssef M. Ibrahim
...In this new cold and hot war, car bombs and suicide bombers here and there will be no match for the arsenal that those Westerners are putting together - an arsenal of laws, intelligence pooling, surveillance by satellites, armies of special forces and indeed, allies inside the Arab world who are tired of having their lives disrupted by demented so-called jihadis or those bearded preachers who, under the guise of preaching, do little to teach and much to ignite the fire, those who know little about Islam and nothing about humanity.
Related: The Last Days of 'Londonistan'     When the Profile Fits the Crime     Beware of Strange Men with Rocket Launchers

The Jihadists' War on Tourism
by Austin Bay
...Attacks on foreign visitors guarantee instant international headlines, especially in the visitors' home nations. All terrorist attacks are designed to sow doubt in the local government's ability to protect lives, property and businesses, but the tourist industry is a very international industry and attacking it is an easy way to discourage international investment...The jihadists are at war with Muslims and with Muslim countries. Their war, with Muslim pilgrims as pawns, began before the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan and long before the United States invaded Iraq...
Related: Muslim Nations Throttle U.N. Terror Resolution     What a WMD Attack on America Would Look Like

Dubya's School Reform Pays Off
by Debra Saunders
...And so the educrats are left with weak criticisms. They complain that No Child Left Behind is underfunded -- even as Bush budgets money for the Department of Education. They argue that students have no motivation to apply themselves when they take tests -- and still the NAEP numbers are up. They note that NAEP high-school scores are flat without acknowledging that they opposed reforms that are helping more of today's 9-year-olds read.

Schumer Confesses to Not Understanding Constitution
by Henry Mark Holzer
...All of them, and for that matter most of the media, have been demanding that judicial nominee Roberts “answer questions”...in effect, he make known the platform on which he is running for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States...Until the Republicans extricate themselves from the judges-as-legislators mindset the Democrats have engineered—and in the process educate the American people about Separation of Powers, as the doctrine applies to John Roberts—they are playing the Democrats’ game, and perhaps holding a losing hand.

Hollywood's Disconnect
by Michael Medved
The standard entertainment industry reaction to Hollywood's box office slump reveals the same shallow, materialistic mindset that helped create the problem in the first place. The left-leaning thinking that dominates the movie business follows a common liberal instinct to deny the spiritual dimension to every problem, thereby profoundly compounding the difficulties...

Illegal Entry by Non-Mexicans Rises
by Kris Axtman
...Non-Mexicans are spilling over the border in record numbers - some from countries with terrorist ties - and most are set free soon after being captured..."We should be greatly concerned because OTMs do not register, their travel documents are suspect, and they have no biometric records that can be checked to verify identity," remarked the appropriations subcommittee's chairman, Harold Rogers (R) of Kentucky...
Related: Speak up, Mr. President

Our Extreme Makeover
by Max Boot
Favorable impressions of the U.S. are being detected around the world, including inside Muslim countries...If that comes as a surprise, it's because of the old adage that good news is no news. While the increase of anti-Americanism around the world and especially in Muslim countries has been exhaustively covered since 2001, not enough attention has been paid to an important survey released in the last month that found global opinion shifting in a more positive direction...

Think Again, Karen Hughes
by Anne Applebaum
...In plain English, her job is to fight anti-Americanism, promote American culture and above all to do intellectual battle with the ideology of radical Islam, a set of beliefs so powerful that they can persuade middle-class, second-generation British Muslims to blow themselves up on buses and trains...Like Jesse Jackson, she deployed alliteration, alluding to the four "E's": "engagement, exchanges, education and empowerment." Unfortunately, Hughes's most important constituents aren't going to respond to engagement and empowerment, let alone exchange and education, unless the latter involves those flight schools where they don't teach you how to take off or land...
Related: What The World Owes Palestinians and The Left

With Deft Roberts Choice, Bush Plays Judicial Jujitsu
by Dick Morris
Who says President Bush isn’t brilliant? His maneuver in appointing Judge John Roberts has completely throttled the Democrats in the highest-stakes game of his second term...Simply put, by choosing a judge whom the Democrats confirmed unanimously when he was nominated for the D.C. Circuit Court — and whom they did not filibuster — Bush has made the Democrats impotent...

Mugged by Reality?
by Mark Steyn
With hindsight, the defining encounter of the age was not between Mohammed Atta's jet and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but that between Mohammed Atta and Johnelle Bryant a year earlier. Bryant is an official with the US Department of Agriculture in Florida, and the late Atta had gone to see her about getting a $650,000 government loan to convert a plane into the world's largest crop-duster. A novel idea...

War from Within
by Colleen Gilbert
...Those who read Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed’s chilling remarks wherein he referred to Osama bin Laden as "a sincere man who fights against evil forces," and called for the flag of Islam to fly over the entire free world were likely shocked and horrified. But those who have been following the penetration of Wahhabism into western society, however, have come to expect these comments, and already know what the rest of the world is reluctantly coming around to understand: that the roots of Islamo-fascism in western societies were planted decades ago, and are now beginning to bare fruit...
Related: What the Terrorists Want

Foreign Language Driver’s Tests Threaten Public Safety
by K.C. McAlpin
...Four Newton, Mass. teenagers were killed when their bus crashed during a school band trip. Parents of the victims blamed the accident on the bus driver’s inability to understand traffic signs in English. In Pennsylvania a truck driver who could not read English ran into and killed an entire North Carolina family of five. The driver had failed to heed warning signs, including one banning trucks over 10 tons from using the road he was traveling. His truck weighed 40 tons. In Alabama, a federal official attributed a big jump in work-related traffic fatalities to the fact that a growing numbers of drivers are unable to read or understand warning signs in English...

This Court is Headed to the Left
by Quentin Langley
...My prediction is this: however Roberts (if confirmed) lines up, majorities in the next session of the Supreme Court will be made and broken by Anthony Kennedy. He will continue to disappoint conservatives over all the issues on which he has disappointed them in conjunction with O'Connor. But freed from her influence he will also tend to vote with the liberals on federalism and property rights. The liberals will win all the key decisions next year, with at least five votes, with Rehnquist, Thomas, Scalia, and perhaps Roberts dissenting...

Rich Capitalists or Dishonest Slackers?
by Meg Kreikemeier
...These results seem to refute the historical idea that Republicans are the party of the rich and the recent comments by Dean and O'Donnell that they also are freeloaders. Dean and O'Donnell would be wise to visit people from both parties in the heartland. They could visit farmers who wake at daybreak and work until sunset because they love the land and are proud of their heritage...

Restoring Respect for the Rule of Immigration Law
by Jon Kyl
...In preparing this bill, we conducted a thorough review of the nation's immigration laws, and held seven separate hearings on various aspects of the issue. We found a desperate need to reduce backlogs for legitimate visa applications, improve the tracking of visitors who overstay their visas, and streamline the overall deportation process so no one who should be removed is allowed to slip into the general population. We also found, to our astonishment, that large numbers of non-Mexicans apprehended at the border are released into our society, even if their identities cannot be established, simply for lack of space to detain them. All of these issues and more are addressed in our bill...
More: No Preferences to Those Who Cheat     Related: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools Into the Red

The Terror Epidemic
The Jerusalem Post
...Yes, the terror epidemic seems to have returned. But in reality, it never left. And it is not spillover from "conflicts in the region" but from the refusal to systematically address a particularly potent epidemic: of the symbiotic/parasitic relationship between militant Islam and the dictatorships of the Muslim world...

Beyond the News: Weekend Journal  
Salem Radio Network
More attacks in London; Bill Bennett and National Review's Andrew McCarthy plus Hugh Hewitt and Washington insider Dan Poneman discuss the qualifications and character of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts; Dennis Prager and syndicated columnist Joel Mowbray hash out the Karl Rove-Valerie Plame controversy; BTN's Keith Peters examines one public school battle over sex ed that parents won; Janet Parshall and David Rubinstein review the catastrophe in Darfur; Michael Medved spars with two atheist camp participants and Richard Land turns a critical eye towards the United Church of Christ.

And Then They Came After Us  
by Victor Davis Hanson
...Islamicists are selective in their attacks and hatred. So far global jihad avoids two billion Indians and Chinese, despite the fact that their countries are far tougher on Muslims than is the United States or Europe. In other words, the Islamicists target those whom they think they can intimidate and blackmail...
Related: Blame Blair or Bush, Not the Bombers

Symposium: Russia’s Darkness at Noon
by Jamie Glazov
A new resurgence of nostalgia for Joseph Stalin is reverberating throughout Russia. As recently reported by the Telegraph, new monuments in several Russian communities are being erected to honor the genocidal Soviet dictator who liquidated millions of Soviet citizens. What is the significance here? Is Russia returning to the dark ages of Soviet totalitarianism? Is this phenomenon connected to Vladimir Putin trying to make himself an absolute ruler? Or will it be impossible for the genie of Russian democracy to be put back in the bottle?...

Debunking the Siren Song of 'Safe ***'
by Rebecca Hagelin
When it comes to drug abuse, underage drinking and smoking, recent years have seen the arrival of much-needed media campaigns and school programs designed to let kids know flat out: Do not engage. Of course, we still have much to do to curb the use of illicit drugs, but at least most adults are committed to telling kids the behavior is unacceptable. So why should this rule not apply when it comes to teen sex? Suddenly, the adults who were so quick, so adamant about condemning drugs, drinking and smoking begin to stammer and look at the floor...

A Child Does Not Fail, But Defers Success
by David Ward and Matthew Taylor
...Failure, says Liz Beattie, a retired primary school teacher, is a word that should be deleted from the classroom dictionary, because it can put children off learning. Mrs. Beattie and a colleague will propose abolishing the f-word in a motion to be debated next week in Buxton, Derbyshire, at the conference of the Professional Association of Teachers. The motion reads: "Conference believes it is time to delete the word 'fail' from the educational vocabulary, to be replaced with the concept of 'deferred success'"...

Mexican Standoff?
by Dimitri Vassilaros
...Opponents of illegal immigration are incensed because Castaneda said the United States cannot secure its southern border without Mexico's blessing. And that it will not have Mexico's blessing until America agrees to a series of almost non-negotiable demands...
More: Former Mexican Foreign Minister Demands Open Border

Looking the Wrong Way
by Heather Mac Donald
Time to get real: Only Muslims commit Islamic terrorism. By definition. Ask Osama bin Laden, who called on Muslims, and Muslims only, to kill Americans wherever they can find us. Yet the New York Police Department has promised that its new policy of subway bag checks will be scrupulously random. This senseless sacrifice to political correctness will waste precious police resources with little improvement in public safety. The British police have just released photos of the suspects in the Thursday subway bomb attempts. Did the police look for freckled-face Irish lassies on the subway videotapes? Unlikely...

Enough is Enough
by Victor Davis Hanson
...Civilization has only two choices. It can continue appeasing these murderers, looking in vain for "root causes" of the mayhem. Maybe Mohammed Bouyeri did not have equal opportunity in the Netherlands? Maybe $50 billion in past American aid to Mohamed Atta's Egypt was too little? Maybe Britain was too insensitive to its Muslim minorities? Maybe the price paid for Middle East oil really is too low? Or the United States and its allies can deny suspect Middle Eastern males entry into the West while distancing themselves from all Middle East dictatorships, which neither punish nor even shame thousands of their citizens whose money and psychological support fuel murderers across the globe...
Related: It's About Iraq - So What?

A Risky Bet on Silence
by Craig Crawford
Social conservatives face an unknown danger in John G. Roberts Jr. He is missing in action on their hot-button issues...The coming hearings will be the only chance for conservatives to get Roberts fully on the record, which might make him think twice about going a different direction once on the bench. If they think it’s cute and clever for him to stay off the record and befuddle liberals, where is the guarantee that liberals won’t get the last laugh?

No More Cheating for a Good Cause
by David Gelernter
...Affirmative action has turned the United States into an aristocracy. British aristocrats have enjoyed their own kind of "reverse discrimination" for a thousand years. America's affirmative-action aristocrats were only created a generation ago; until then, they were targets of bigotry themselves. So what? No aristocracy is acceptable in the U.S. O'Connor wrote in the University of Michigan ruling that affirmative action must end some day. George W. might be just the man to end it.

No Evidence Of Moral Equivalence  
by John Avlon
If there is a better story of forgiveness and grace under fire in this war, I have yet to hear it. This little-known incident, first reported by the Army Times, is fresh evidence of the fact that there is no moral equivalence between the sides in the war on terror...In the long history of humanity, a far more normal thing to do would have been to blow your attacker's head off with extreme prejudice. The stark contrast of this Hippocratic oath in action was not just a matter of personal kindness, but also American military training...there is no moral equivalence between terrorists who target innocent human life, and the soldiers of the civilized world who try to bind the wounds of those who have just tried to kill them in combat...

How to Offend 'A Fantastic Ally'
by Jeff Jacoby
Tears well in Maria Buczyk’s eyes as she talks about her 83-year-old mother. “She lives in Chicago and she’s quite sick,” Buczyk says in a voice tense with emotion. Eugeniusz, her husband, pats her shoulder comfortingly. “I really need to see her.” We are standing in a courtyard of the American embassy in Poland. The Buczyks are waiting in line to apply for visas so they can travel to the United States. This is their third time going through the process; they were turned down twice before, they say, after being interviewed by consular officers who barely glanced at their documents...

The Dark Side of Republicans in Robes
by Mike Thompson
...Consider these acts (and facts): •Seven of the nine current Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican presidents, and three of the black-robed, non-litmus-tested, GOP-appointed judges (including Sandra Day "Just Call Me Ms. Weathervane" O'Connor) in 2000 jumped the invisible partisan fence to join two Democrat-appointed judges in order to overturn Nebraska's ban on horrific "partial birth" abortions (i.e., plunging a pair of scissors into the back of a baby's skull). •The majority opinion in Roe was written by Republican President Richard Nixon's appointee Harry Blackmun (ironically, the dissenting opinion was written by Democrat President John Kennedy's appointee Byron White)...

Punishing Pain
by John Tierney
...The odd thing, he said, is that he's actually getting better medication than he did at the time of his arrest because the State of Florida is now supplying him with a morphine pump, which gives him more pain relief than the pills that triggered so much suspicion. The illogic struck him as utterly normal. "We've become mad in our pursuit of drug-law violations," he said. "Generations to come will look back and scarcely believe what we've done to sick people."

Illegal Immigration Tuberculosis Crisis
by Frosty Wooldridge
...According to Dr. Lee Reichman in his book “Timebomb: Global Epidemic of Multi Drug Resistant Diseases,” each infected person may infect 10 to 50 other persons depending on his/her presence in public. Where do illegal aliens find work? Take a guess! It means any healthy American could eat at a fast food restaurant, go to a movie, stand in line at a grocery store or attend school—and contract tuberculosis. You’re a cough or sneeze away from infection by someone standing in line with you...
Illegal Immigration Related: Bill Gives Illegals Temporary Status     Border Chief Reaches Out to Volunteers

A New Taliban in the Making?
by Olivier Guitta
As the world focuses on the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, what’s really happening in Gaza does not get much press...Hamas is trying to control every aspect of the life of the people of Gaza. As an example, in the past eight months, Hamas' religious police is behind the burning of tens of cyber cafes, which are viewed as “vice outlets.” And that’s why, were Hamas to seize power in Gaza, a Taliban-style regime could easily come to power...
Meanwhile, from Egypt: Atta's Father Praises London Bombs

Unborn Babies Soaked in Chemicals, Survey Finds
by Maggie Fox
...The report by the Environmental Working Group is based on tests of 10 samples of umbilical cord blood taken by the American Red Cross. They found an average of 287 contaminants in the blood, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA...

CAFTA and Dietary Supplements
by Ron Paul
The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement in the next two weeks, and one little-known provision of the agreement desperately needs to be exposed to public view. CAFTA, like the World Trade Organization, may serve as a forum for restricting or even banning dietary supplements in the U.S....So the question is this: Does CAFTA, with its link to Codex, make it more likely or less likely that someday you will need a doctor’s prescription to buy even simple supplements like Vitamin C? The answer is clear. CAFTA means less freedom for you, and more control for bureaucrats who do not answer to American voters...
Related: An Activist's Guide to Stopping CAFTA

A Victory for Multiculti Over Common Sense
by Mark Steyn
...the real suicide bomb is "multiculturalism"...So, if Islamist extremism is the genie you're trying to put back in the bottle, it doesn't help to have smashed the bottle...One of the striking features of the post-9/11 world is the minimal degree of separation between the so-called "extremists" and the establishment: Princess Haifa, wife of the Saudi ambassador to Washington, gives $130,000 to accomplices of the 9/11 terrorists; the head of the group that certifies Muslim chaplains for the US military turns out to be a bagman for terrorists; one of the London bombers gets given a tour of the House of Commons by a Labour MP...

Creative Destruction . . . is Sweeping the American Economic Landscape
by Irwin M. Stelzer
It is important not to become so absorbed in studying the blips in interest rates, exchange rates, inflation rates and other economic indicators that we forget these are merely thermometers. They can tell us something about the temperature of an economy, but, taken alone, not much about the major changes that underlie these familiar figures. Start with the energy sector...

'Their Own Fourth of July'
by Arthur Chrenkoff
A roundup of the past three weeks' good news from Iraq...Most of the Iraqis he met were proud to have the Americans there, he said, and watching them go through their daily lives made him appreciate the historic significance of our Independence Day. "Being there really opens your eyes to what our forefathers went through to get the freedom we have today," he said.

Murderers Must Die: Judeo-Christian Values: Part XVIII
by Dennis Prager
...When all murderers are allowed to keep their lives, murder is rendered less serious and human life is therefore cheapened. That is not only the Judeo-Christian biblical view. It is common sense. The punishment for a crime is what informs society how bad that crime is. A society that allows all murderers to live deems murder less awful than one that takes away the life of a murderer...

We Were Soldiers Once, and Broke
by Ben Stein
...This is not leading up to a specific policy prescription beyond what my father and I have been saying for decades: that upper-income people like me (and I am a welfare mother by Wall Street standards) should pay more tax, and people in uniform should get more pay. Mainly, what I want to say is that we should have in our hearts - far ahead of a desire for a rising stock market, a soft landing in real estate and a return to a more normal yield curve - extreme gratitude for those who make our business and finance world, and indeed our whole world, possible...
Related: Congress Tosses Terror War Into its Pork Barrel

Volcanic Politics
...the Senate is preparing to take up legislation that would create an independent, race-based government for Native Hawaiians. If this bill becomes law an entrenched racial spoils system will hand benefits to as many as one-fifth of the state's population and could inspire mainland groups such as Hispanic separatists to seek similar spoils, should they ever gain enough political leverage...
More: Akaka Bill a Recipe for Racial Conflict

Rooting for the Martians
by John Leo
...Hollywood is still reluctant to irritate terrorists, but a few movies about 9/11 heroes are on the way. And whom did Paramount pick for the highest-profile one? Oliver Stone, the unhinged director/screenwriter who refers to 9/11 as a justified "revolt" against the established order and the six companies he thinks control the world...What can be done about the Hollywood brain? And where are those Martian attackers when you really need them?

Destroying Domestic Islamist Enemies
by J. Atticus
British citizens, who happen to be Muslim, murdered over 50 people, including themselves. Or, was it Islamists, who happen to be British, killed innocent people? It makes a difference. Brits today, Americans tomorrow, must know who their domestic enemies are and what kind of war they are fighting to win. Assuming Brits or Americans have the will to win. This World War is between a totalitarian ideology, born of a relatively barbaric culture, against all humankind. Domestic Islamists, acting as terrorists in the country of their birth, can be defeated...

How Serious Are We on Fighting the Terror War?
Interview with Victor Davis Hanson
...I think what's going on in Europe has confused Americans, because they thought, you know, here's a very liberal Holland, and now they've not only stepped up to the plate, but they're going further to the right than we are, if you read what they're doing to a lot...in their immigration laws. France just cancelled the EU utopian borderless entry controls. And England is going that way...

U.S. Tech Firms Help Governments Censor Internet
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
Free speech advocates are frustrated with a host of American companies they say have been collaborating with oppressive regimes in countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, to help them filter and monitor the Internet activity of their citizens. Big technology names like Microsoft, Yahoo! and Cisco Systems have been criticized roundly in recent years for providing foreign governments with the tools they need to crack down on Internet use, but critics say they have not been able to do much more than complain...

Mission Implausible
by Ann Coulter
Karl Rove was right. The real story about Joseph C. Wilson IV was not that Bush lied about Saddam seeking uranium in Africa; the story was Clown Wilson and his paper-pusher wife, Valerie Plame. By foisting their fantasies of themselves on the country, these two have instigated a massive criminal investigation, the result of which is: The only person who has demonstrably lied and possibly broken the law is Joseph Wilson. So the obvious solution is to fire Karl Rove...

Deficit is Shrinking, Thanks to Tax Cuts
Opinion Journal
Let's see if we can get this straight: When tax revenues fall and budget deficits go up, it's bad news. But when tax revenues rise and deficits decline, it's still bad news. At least that seems to be the way a sizable chunk of Washington is reacting to this week's report from the White House budget office that the federal deficit is down by nearly $100 billion this fiscal year, that the deficit as a share of GDP is down to 2.7% (very near its historical average), and that this is all happening because tax receipts are surging by more than 14%. Uncle Sam is having a better year so far than even Paris Hilton, but half of the Beltway is depressed...

Our Wars Over the War  
by Victor Davis Hanson
...Why does this false narrative, then, persist — other than that it had a certain political utility in the 2002 and 2004 elections? In a word, this version of events brings spiritual calm for millions of troubled though affluent and blessed Westerners. There are three sacraments to their postmodern thinking, besides the primordial fear that so often leads to appeasement...

Senate Shuns Attempt to Add Agents
by Stephen Dinan
The Senate voted yesterday against fulfilling its pledge from last year to hire 2,000 more Border Patrol agents and fund 8,000 new detention beds for illegal aliens in fiscal 2006, as some potential presidential candidates weighed in on border security and illegal immigration...
Roll Call: Here's how your senator voted     Related: Mexico Won't Help with Terrorists Unless U.S. Grants Amnesty to Illegal Aliens

The Robber Baron
by Duane D. Freese
How much should drivers be forced to pony up at the pump to pay off trial lawyers? A penny a gallon? Two cents? How about $66 million? Most motorists would vote for nothing, and by a pretty wide margin. But unfortunately, motorists aren't organized politically to influence election campaigns. Toxic tort law firms are, and do...

Oil-for-Food Paper Shredder Still Shredding
Fox News
The man who abruptly retired as Kofi Annan's cabinet chief after shredding papers related to the Oil-for-Food (search) program has been shredding still more documents at the United Nations, an eyewitness told FOX News...

Plame Wars
The National Review
There is a lot that we still don’t know about the case of Valerie Plame, so it would be premature to proclaim that Karl Rove has either been vindicated or discredited. Definitive judgments are going to have to wait for more information. What we know so far is far from damning...
More-- Byron York: There's a lot We Don't Know     Debra Saunders: The New "Gotcha" Journalism

Breeding Stupidity
by Hugh Hewitt
Where does the insistence that the war in Iraq is creating terrorists come from?...The realization of the price of inaction through the '90s has a huge political cost attached to it, one that the Democrats will bear if a full accounting is ever compiled. Thus the "breeding ground" rhetoric--empty and absurd as it is--is a convenient and even necessary bit of smoke. There's no fire underneath that smoke. Just a desperate hope that noise will drown out voices pointing to the real history of the rise of the Islamist threat...

Make No Mistake: It's a War of Civilizations
by Ed Koch
...Every head of state has expressed outrage [at the bombings]...What world leaders should have said is, “An attack upon any one of us is an attack upon all of us and each of us now pledges to send 10,000 troops to Iraq. We will not be intimidated by terrorism.” Instead, they engaged in platitudes...

Short Memories, Politically Correct Lies
by Tony Blankley
...If government officials, the media and increasing elements of the public actually begin to believe that there is no relationship between Islam as currently practiced by some percentage of the Moslem population and the mortal threat of terrorism -- then it will be hard if not impossible to mount an effective defense...

UK Multiculturalism Under Spotlight
by Roger Hardy
The radicalisation of some younger members of Britain's 1.5 million-strong Muslim community has led to often heated debate. Now questions are being asked about whether British-style multiculturalism is succeeding or failing...
Related: Double Life of Teacher/Bomber     British Bombers Likely Recruited at Govt-funded Center     Evil Always Wants More: History Teaches the Dire Consequences of Appeasement

All the News That's Fit to Tint?
by Neil Cavuto
...We can't win, I think, because many in the media don't want us to win. I know that sounds extreme. But consider this: Tell me when you've ever heard good news reported for being, well, good news? No, the day after a strong jobs report, The New York Times was bemoaning it would most likely keep interest rates ratcheting upward. I'm not saying that isn't true. But would it kill us in the media to turn it around? That interest rates are going higher, precisely because the economy's going higher? Would it kill us to report that while gas prices are at a record this week of $2.29 a gallon, they'd have to get up to more than 3 bucks to match the inflation-adjusted Carter years? And would it kill us to add that folks in Europe pay up to three times our level right now?...
Related: With Friends Like These...
Here's some good news: Bush's Budget Update May Show Deficit Goal Being Reached Early

The Export of Democracy
by Christopher Hitchens
...The most successful "export" was Jefferson's determined use of naval and military force to reduce the Barbary States of the Ottoman Empire, which had set up a slave-taking system of piracy and blackmail along the western coast of North Africa. Our third president was not in a position to enforce regime change in Algiers or Tripoli, but he was able to insist on regime behavior-modification (and thus to put an end to at least one slave system). Ever since then, every major system of tyranny in the world has had to run at least the risk of a confrontation with the United States, and one hopes that the Jeffersonians among us will continue to ensure that this remains true.

Can We Learn From Britain's Mistake?
by James P. Pinkerton
...Here's a safe bet: Most, if not all, al-Qaida-related terrorists will be of either Arab or Muslim descent. Yes, America has produced many home-grown terrorists from other ethnic groups - Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph - but in the wake of 9/11, 3/11 and now 7/7, it's clear the main terror threat to the United States and the West can be traced to one region. Which means we must get serious about homeland security, which means getting serious about immigration, especially from certain countries. Let's not let New York become "New Yorkistan"...
More on Immigration: Tancredo for President?
London Related: London a Haven of Terrorist Organizations     Islam Incubates Terrorism
Van Gogh's confessed murderer: "If I ever get free, I would do it again"

Enough Handouts for Africa
by Nicky Oppenheimer
...Africa deserves more than the West's charity. Africa needs a hand up, not a never-ending series of handouts that do little more than play to Africa's weaknesses and provide the donors with a false sense of gratification.

The Left Doesn't Support the Troops and Should Admit It  
by Dennis Prager
...the oft-repeated line, found on liberal bumper stickers, "War is not the answer." Aside from the idiocy of this claim -- war has solved slavery, ended the Holocaust, destroyed Japanese Fascism, preserved half the Korean peninsula from near-genocide, and saved Israel from extinction, among other noble achievements -- the claim offers no support to those who do engage in war. How could one believe that "war is not the answer" and also claim to "support the troops," the very people waging what is "not the answer"? The answer is, by being dishonest...
Related: The Left's War Against the Military At Home

Deadly Tolerance
by Jed Babbin
...On the [congressional] floor, we should be hearing one speech after another critical of the irresponsible rhetoric of the left. Why don't we? Because they want comity, to pass laws we don't need, spend money we should save, and give themselves pay raises without voting for them. What they should be doing, instead, is taking on the tough problems they were elected to tackle. Like what do we do about the terrorists who are within our borders, and those who preach violence and hatred to young Muslims here...
Terror War Related: It's Really an Attack on Our Civility     Terrorism Lessons From 1870     Impact of Patriot Act by the Numbers     Shortage of Arabic Translators in Jails     BBC Edits Out the Word 'Terrorist'

Property Rights Are Civil Rights
by John Fund
...No one argues that struggling cities or states don't have a right to improve themselves through redevelopment. But the new civil-rights coalition forming in reaction to the Kelo decision says that need can't justify land seizures from which politically connected players stand to gain at the expense of individual civil rights. If the half-century since Brown v. Board of Education has taught us anything, it is that some rights are and must remain nonnegotiable.

GOP: The Price of Being Right
by Robert Novak
...Being right can hurt in Washington. It drove Smith out of the House Veterans Affairs Committee chairmanship, and now it may cost him becoming International Relations chairman. Nicholson represents an administration that operates on the principle that being in power means never having to admit being wrong...

Al Qaeda Answers CIA's Hiring Call
by Michael Sulick
...As many as 40 possible terrorists may have attempted to infiltrate U.S. intelligence agencies in recent months, CIA expert Barry Royden reported at a national counterintelligence conference in March. If that news isn't sufficiently terrifying, consider this chilling paradox: Though the agencies caught the potential spies at the job application stage, post-Sept. 11 pressures to quickly boost staffing make it increasingly likely that a terrorist could sneak into the intelligence community's ranks...

Here's a Challenge: Link the al-Qaeda Bombs to Poverty and Global Warming
by Niall Ferguson
...As we consume oil...we simultaneously add to global warming, line the pockets of the sponsors of terror and worsen Africa's chronic political instability. And even if the entire G8 switched to bikes and windmills tomorrow, we could not stop China sucking up the oil we ceased to consume...

The Trial Lawyers' Enron
Opinion Journal
...Something like this indictment has long seemed inevitable as trial bar practices have grown ever more outrageous. Sham "screenings" to round up asbestos plaintiffs, forum shopping for friendly juries, "coupon" settlements that enrich only lawyers, and frivolous lawsuits have all become staples of today's tort system. Yet they have received almost no media, much less legal, scrutiny...

Trade deficit Shows U.S. Economic Strength
by Thomas Bray
...The trade deficit mainly exists because most of the rest of the world finds safety in the dollar. They ship us goods; we ship them scraps of paper called dollars. Who's the loser here?...

The Case for Cable Choice
by Clark Bowers
...While cable franchises offer an easy means for politicians to collect cash without directly taxing constituents, the costs is still passed on to the consumer in the end. When faced with poor service and consistently rising prices, consumers have few viable alternatives to the local provider. With their market share assured, cable providers have less incentive to cut prices and innovate for our benefit...

The Supreme Court: From Bench to Throne  
by Amy White
...Alexander Hamilton, defending the Constitution in the "Federalist Papers," assured his compatriots that laws would be judged only according to the actual words ratified by the states. "There is not a syllable in the plan which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution," he wrote, acknowledging that "if courts interpreted laws according to the spirit rather than the letter, it would enable the court to mold them [laws] into whatever shape it may think proper. With this power, the judiciary could become more powerful than the expressed will of the people"...

Who Are the Reactionaries?
by Victor Davis Hanson
...Apparently, the liberal opposition thinks sarcasm and negativism can reverse the larger political tide of the last three decades. Good luck.

The Live 8 Dead End
by Paul Jacob
...beyond the wall of electric amplifiers, a quiet truth rarely got much notice. You see, a cure for poverty has already been found. Yes, a cure! Freedom...Unfortunately, freedom is too rarely prescribed. In the cruel history of our species, those wielding political power commonly doctor up the laws to favor themselves at the expense of the people. Africa is such a place, sadly...

London: It's Still the Saudis
by Stephen Schwartz
...A devotion to peace over freedom is also reflected in the common cliché, heard on our shores as well as abroad, that fighting terrorism in Iraq simply breeds more terrorists. Well, opposition to Hitler led the Nazis to recruit more countries and peoples to their cause but only in the short term. Major conflicts always produce serious opposition; that is why they are called wars and not misunderstandings. Nazism and Japanese imperialism vanished as threats once they were significantly defeated; fighting them did not strengthen them, once the real battle was joined. But inflicting an authentic defeat on the terrorist enemy means carrying the struggle to its heartland in the Middle East...
Related: I Resent Your Success. I Hate You and Your Kind. So I Bomb You     Where is the Gandhi of Islam?     Leaked Dossier Reveals Al-Qaeda’s British Recruits

Major Changes Needed to Combat Global Terror, Analysts Say
by Julie Stahl
The Western world has no "recipe" for dealing with international terrorism; it is "reacting, not initiating," reserve Israeli Army Maj.-Gen Jacob Amidror said here on Friday. Drastic changes are needed from both the Muslim and non-Muslim communities if the Western world hopes to wage an effective war against the global threat, other analysts agreed...the solution for winning the war on terrorism requires three elements...
More: Intel Analyst: Attack on U.S. Imminent     Related: England--Our Ally, Our Problem

An Anatomy of the London Bombing
by Victor Davis Hanson
...Failed states in the Middle East — autocratic, statist, unfree, intolerant of women and other religions — blame the West for their self-inflicted miseries. Sometimes they are theocratic, like the late Taliban or the current Iranian mullahs. But more often they are dictatorial like the Syrians, Pakistanis, Saudis, or Egyptians, who all, in varying degrees and in lieu of reform, have come to accommodations with the terrorists to shift popular anguish onto the West and the Jews...
More: War in Pieces: The Blood Feud     And This is Why They Did It     And Yet: Victory in Spite of Terror

Evil Strikes the Heart of Britain
by Tom Bevan
America feels for Britain today. Out of a sense of sadness and grief, yes, but also out of a sense of rage. More than any terrorist attack abroad so far, this one is intensely personal. As I read news accounts of the attacks I found myself reacting with almost the same emotion as if they had happened here in The States. I caught myself thinking of London not as an English city but as my city as well. And when Tony Blair spoke I felt immensely proud of him, much like I felt about George W. Bush on September 11...In fact, over the course of the last century there have been only a tiny handful of countries who have shown a consistent willingness to do the heavy lifting for the rest of the world to fight evil; to spend the blood and the treasure other countries were either unwilling or unable to spend to defeat the evils of Nazism, Communism and now radical Islamism. Along with America, Britain has always been one of those countries - and she always will be.
Related:Hitchens: Don't Blame Iraq     Steyn: "where a guy is trying to kill you, you don't really care what his motivations are"     Attack in London Stark Reminder of What We Must Do To Prevail    Britain's Breeding Ground for Suicide Bombers

Dependency on Government
by Walter E. Williams
Between 1962 and today, American dependence on government has more than doubled and shows little sign of abatement...Benjamin Franklin had it right when he wrote, "[T]he best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." Government dependency makes poverty easy.

The Muslim Hate Crime that Wasn't
by Michelle Malkin
...According to the AP, a Muslim Virginia Tech student took responsibility saying he dropped off the burned Koran and other singed materials at the mosque, hoping "it could be given a respectful disposal"...The grievance-mongers' continued failure to act responsibly and with due skepticism when these cases arise is expected. But the mainstream media's failure to put its America-bashing instincts in check is intolerable...
In Related Mongering News: N.Y. Imam Blames Zionists

In G-8, U.S. is a Voice of Reason
Rocky Mountain News
...In fact, there is mounting evidence foreign aid is actually counterproductive because it crowds out private sector investment, keeps corrupt governments in power and perpetuates poverty. A study published last month by the International Policy Network in London shows that, despite $400 billion in aid expenditures in Africa from 1970 to 2000, when foreign aid increased, economic growth fell. No, President Bush can be forgiven for saying openly what few of his G-8 counterparts appear willing to: that without the rule of law, property rights, freer trade and better governance, all the aid in the world won't help the poor nations of Africa.
Related: U.S. Leads World in Aid to Africa     Befuddled by the Fog of Kyoto

Reconsidering Life Tenure on the Supreme Court
by Bruce Bartlett
...I believe that elimination of life tenure, through this scheme or another, would greatly reduce the intensity of Supreme Court appointment battles because the stakes would not be so high. Both sides would know that if they failed this time around, they would probably have another chance within two years...

"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"
Der Spiegel
The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem...
Related: The G8's African Challenge     Steyn on Live 8: What Rocks is Capitalism... yeah, yeah, yeah

Reporter's Notebook: Inside Gitmo  
by Steve Harrigan
Before going inside the wire at Guantanamo Bay I paused to shake a soldier's hand, but the name on his uniform was covered by a piece of duct tape. I was told to remove my ID badge and to use no names. The guards also wore blue surgical gloves. I thought this was out of fear of AIDS, but I was wrong. "They don't want us to touch them," the guard said, making a shrugging motion away, in imitation of a detainee. They think unbelievers are unclean, I thought to myself...

Afghan Girls Go to School — Slowly, Surely
by Marcel Reynolds
...“Because education for girls was forbidden by the Taliban, it has come to symbolize freedom and prestige in Afghanistan," she said...Gouttierre emphasized that the changes in Afghanistan are slow but steadfast. “What is going on in Afghanistan is irreversible and women are indomitable...

Why Democrats Will Smear Any Conservative Court Nominee   
by Dennis Prager
...Therefore, nearly all the Left's eggs are in the judicial basket. It knows: no liberal courts, no liberal agenda. When combined with moral contempt for conservatives and an inability to persuade the public, the Left must retain the Supreme Court at any price. And that price is the good name of good people. As you will see.
Related: Court Nominee Fight Reflects How Politics Trumps the Law     A Higher Authority

Who Else Should Pay Reparations?
by William Tucker
...I stand before you today to offer you my congratulations for your diligent efforts in ferreting out the past support of slavery by the Wachovia Corporation, the Aetna Insurance Company, and other financial institutions...I would like to direct your attention, however, to an institution with far greater financial resources whose historical role in abetting slavery and resisting its abolition is manifestly clear, yet which, even today, continues to reap benefits from this nefarious record. I speak, of course, of the Democratic Party...

Bush Encouraged Illegal Aliens, 'Tried to Cover It Up,' Lawmaker Says
by Jeff Johnson
...According to a Judicial Watch analysis of the surveys released by the Department of Homeland Security, 63 percent "received Mexican government or media information supporting the notion of a Bush administration amnesty program"...Fitton said three weeks after the scheduled six month survey was initiated, the Bush administration "abruptly shut it down." Tancredo believes the White House knew the survey results would undermine their claims about the Temporary Worker Program...

The Meaning of Independence Day
SARTRE Commentary
...The Fourth of July is not a government anniversary. It is a time to remember that independence is the spirit and the soul of the nation. The fireworks are for as John Adams rightly affirms - a Day of Deliverance. That liberation from captivity is what we honor and so often forget. If you are incapable of understanding the distinction between the goal of liberty and the reality of tyranny, you should study your heritage on this solemn day...
Background: The Philosophy of Liberty -- (Español) -- (Français) -- (Portuguêse)

Hamilton Saved America from the Founding Fathers' Economic Ignorance
by Richard Brookhiser
...Hamilton's system was one of the founding's great achievements, along with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Continental Army. Parts of it fell by the wayside. The Bank of the United States' charter was not renewed in 1811. Protectionists matched, and greatly exceeded, Hamilton's modest plans. But the right man had been in the right job at the right time. Enough of Hamilton's peers acquiesced in his handiwork so that the country got off on the right foot...

Freedom Breeds Generosity
by Star Parker
...A study just published by the International Policy Network in London reports that, despite $400 billion in aid expenditures in Africa from 1970 to 2000, the correlation between the aid and economic growth was negative. Increases in aid resulted in worse economic performance. The general explanations for this negative correlation between aid and economic performance are that aid discourages the very activities that produce economic growth and vitality--savings, investment, and incentives for government policies that encourage and sustain positive economic activity...

Ultrasound Expert Upset by UK Abortion Vote
World Net Daily
When the British Medical Association met last week, Prof. Stuart Campbell had reason to be optimistic doctors would vote to change the upper limit for abortions due to social reasons from 24 to 20 weeks – after all, stunning 4-D ultrasound images created from a technique he pioneered, showing fetuses stretching, kicking and leaping at 12 weeks, had spawned that debate. But 77 percent of BMA members voted to continue aborting babies at 24 weeks, a position Campbell believes goes "against British public opinion"...

When War Theories Collide
by Victor Davis Hanson
...There are lessons here. When the United States has stayed on after fighting dictatorial enemies--admittedly for decades in Italy, Germany, Japan, Korea and the Balkans--progress toward democracy and prosperity ensued. Disengagement from unresolved messy problems--whether from Europe after World War I, Vietnam in 1973, Beirut after the Marine barracks bombings, Afghanistan after the Soviet defeat, or Iraq in 1991--only left murderous chaos or the "peace" of authoritarian dictators...

Let's Not Let the Art World Politicize Sept. 11 at Ground Zero
by James Lileks
Given the ugliness of the proposed replacement for the World Trade Center, it's no surprise that the Ground Zero museum is also marred with the usual modern moral chancres. Early reports on the planned International Freedom Center noted that some exhibits would hammer America for its historical sins, and include art from institutions that produced the usual tendentious agitprop...

Theft by Government
by Terence P. Jeffrey
...The value of a private home, in Fort Trumbull--or any American town--cannot be counted in dollars and cents. It is the sovereign territory, where law-abiding people sit free and independent, beyond the reach of a constitutionally limited government. Or so it used to be.
Related: Congress' Disapproval of Supremes: How Did Yours Vote?     'Mainstream' Judges     Black Activists Ask Bush to Consider Constructionist Jurists

Thou Shalt Not Commit Religion
by Ann Coulter
To put the Supreme Court's recent ban on the Ten Commandments display in perspective, here is a small sampling of other speech that has been funded in whole or in part by taxpayers...That's the America you live in! A country founded on a compact with God, forged from the idea that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights is now a country where taxpayers can be forced to subsidize "artistic" exhibits of aborted fetuses. But don't start thinking about putting up a Ten Commandments display. That's offensive!...

From Gospel to Government
by Joseph Loconte
...Their Web sites are awash with this kind of talk. In all of it, there is little room for political philosophy, or civil society, or even an appreciation of the different roles of church and state. Whatever the argument--whether it's a big government approach to poverty or a pacifist stance on terrorism--Bible verses are at the ready. Call it fundamentalism from the left. If religious progressives help the Democratic Party to "find religion," we're going to see a lot more of it. Heaven help us.

The Danger of the Kennedy Quagmire
by David Gelernter
...Soldiers are human beings. Why should they risk their necks if they are stuck in a quagmire and their leaders are out to lunch? But Kennedy isn't really talking about President Bush and Iraq at all. When he says "quagmire," he is pushing the Vietnam button — using a code word for our supposed mistakes in defending non-communist South Vietnam against the communist North and a homegrown terrorist insurgency. Many liberal old-timers are positive they did humanity a gigantic favor by getting the U.S. out of Vietnam. But let's look at some facts...

The Worst of Intentions
by Daniel McKivergan
...In the coming weeks, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Reform will be releasing another report related to its investigation of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program. It should shed much more light on Saddam's efforts to undermine the sanctions regime and on what role governments played in "eroding" the very same sanctions they voted to enforce in numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions.

2 Iraqis Held Trying to Cross Mexico Border
by Jerry Seper
...Mr. Tancredo recently said government reports show a 50 percent increase in the foreign nationals identified as other than Mexican crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. He said some illegals from nations identified as state sponsors of terrorism were paying as much as $50,000 to be smuggled into the United States."They're not paying that kind of money simply to work at a 7-11"...

The Movement for Religious Rights
by Michael McConnell
...The First Amendment has been turned on its head today: from a guarantee of freedom for religion, to an excuse for official hostility to religion. It is time that the equal rights of religious citizens to speak and participate in public life be clearly recognized and protected in the law...

We're Not Raising Kids to be War Heroes
by James P. Pinkerton
'Americans have always held firm." So said President George W. Bush in his Iraq-war speech on Tuesday night. But in point of fact, Americans haven't been holding firm in recent decades. And there's an underlying demographic logic to that softening, which Bush, as well as future presidents prosecuting future wars, will have to take into account.

Stupid Lawyer Tricks
by Mona Charen
The Heartland Institute (Chicago) does its bit for the gross national blood pressure by tracking the outrages of the world's trial lawyers. The May newsletter offers the following examples...