Pharmacists File Suit Against Washington State Over Abortion Pill

Pharmacists are now suing the State of Washington over a new regulation that strong arms them into selling the abortion pill and other contraceptives to customers despite their moral and religious objections.

So much for freedom of association, economic freedom, and voluntary social cooperation.

Bush Takes Critical Potshots at Congressional Democrats

The Great Leader has decided to blast congressional Democrats for stonewalling on "defense spending" bills by accusing them of fiscal irresponsibility and delaying the passage of the bills.

The Washington Post noted:

Speaking before conservative state legislators meeting at a convention here, Bush called on Congress to approve a Pentagon spending bill before its August recess and to pass the 11 other appropriations bills in short order.

"They need to exercise their responsibility and get this defense bill passed," Bush said, adding that having troops in Iraq and Afghanistan adds urgency to the matter. "There's time to do it. I'll hang around if they want me to get the bill passed."

The Post further noted:

With his once-ambitious domestic agenda in tatters, his administration facing multiple congressional investigations and his approval ratings at near-historic lows, the president has targeted the one institution that polls show is less popular with the public than he is: Congress.

All this business about Republicans being the poster children for fiscal responsibility and champions of small government, free enterprise, and personal responsibility is what it is -- rhetoric designed to obfuscate their real agenda: to create a military welfare-warfare-loving empire that begets a blend of corporatism, mercantilism, and political and economic fascism.

And Republicans claim to embrace free market capitalism. Yeah, right. Uh huh.

Americans Distrust Politicians, Says New Survey

Americans are now viewing the political establishment -- and the 2008 election -- with an enormous amount of cynicism and skepticism, according to a new survey. In the overall scheme of things, many Americans are expressing a great deal of distrust of the government.

Should we really be surprised with this survey? Let's face it; in light of the Iraq quagmire, Americans need to wake up and realize that the state is the enemy of the people, not their ally. After all, aren't the American people the enemy of the state by now?

Bush to Sell Weapons to Saudi Regimes

The Washington Post reports today that the Bush administration is hawking WMDs to Saudi Arabia and its surrounding regions, including Israel and Egypt, for a price tag of $20 billion.

The arms deals, which include the sales of a variety of sophisticated weaponry, would be the largest negotiated by this administration. The military assistance agreements would provide $30 billion in new U.S. aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt over 10 years, the officials said. Both figures represent significant increases in military support.

U.S. officials said the arms sales to Saudi Arabia are expected to include air-to-air missiles as well as Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which turn standard bombs into "smart" precision-guided bombs. Most, but not all, of the arms sales to the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman -- will be defensive, the officials said.

The arrogance of our own regime is astonishing: it went to war with Iraq employing a laundry list of bogus claims in defense of its invasion and occupation of the region (finding WMDs that Saddam Hussein purportedly have being one of them). And now the administration, in a sanctimonious fashion, peddling chemical and biological weapons to Israel, Egypt, and a few other nation-states, all in the name of making allies with the Middle East while getting tough with Iran.

In a nutshell, it wasn't okay for Saddam to have WMDs in his own backyard, even if he were to going to sell them to his own allies in the region (which he had done), but it's fine and dandy for Bush and his collectivistic thugs in Israel and Egypt to do the same.

This is pure hypocrisy at its worst. And for good measure, this is a fine epitome of the old adage, "The enemy of my enemy is my ally."

Pathetic yet predictable.

Photo of the New Joker Out

I found this photo of the new Joker, who's being played by Heath Ledger in the upcoming Dark Knight film, which is due out in 2008. As a longtime fan of Batman and the world of comic books, the Dark Knight himself has always struck me as a libertarian.

After all, Bruce Wayne is a capitalist and an entrepreneur. Moreover, he has always opposed the state. The Joker, on the other hand, is an evil statist who believes in the power of the state and looks to initiate force on those who don't see things his way.

Isn't that a fair assessment or no?

NASA's Space Station Computer Sabotaged

The socialist government agency is hit with another scandal. This time it involves its own space station's computer being sabotaged.

The interesting part about this latest story is the following:

Space officials announced that NASA had been alerted to the possible sabotage early last week by an unnamed subcontracting company. An employee of the company had apparently purposefully damaged two machines, one due to fly in space and one not.

When the company discovered the problem with the non-flying machine, it alerted NASA, which had already received the other computer: and this too was found to have been meddled with.

The Associated Press quotes Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA space operations head honcho, as saying that his people would have discovered the problem during pre-flight testing even had they not been informed.

"The damage is very obvious, easy to detect," he told reporters. "It's not a mystery to us."

And this is what we get with our tax dollars spent on a socialist money-draining government boondoogle without any real value in return?

(Thanks to Lew for his link to the story.)

The Cost of Higher "Government" Education Continue to Skyrocket

Tuition prices for higher "government" government are going through the roof. This comes in anticipation of Congress boosting government grants and rolling back the costs for college student loans.

Here's an excerpt of the report filed by USA Today:

Even as tuition increases at public universities are expected to slow, on average, this year, schools in several states are raising tuition by 10% to more than 15%, adding hundreds of dollars to students' costs.

Driving the increases are budget gaps that have cut the amount of money available for higher education in some states. The tuition increases come as Congress is close to adopting legislation to boost federal grants for low-income students and to lower the cost of student loans.

The collectivists in Congress, the higher "government" education establishment, and government college welfare-dependent college students are just fooling themselves, thinking that furthering and even increasing the government's role in public education (especially higher "government" learning) will make it easier for the government welfare-dependent college students to attend college. After all, this is all modeled on the delusion that every teenager and young adult who graduates from the public "government" schools should go to college. We are talking about a group of collectivists who labor under the delusion -- not to mention, mistakenly believe -- that subsidizing college students at the expense of taxpayers will beget a generation of well-educated college graduates who, once they receive that degree of their choice, are guaranteed to find that entry-level job or launch that successful business.

Have these ignoramuses asked themselves why college tuition costs are going up? This is occuring because too many students are GOING to college. When the Leviathan sets up shop to provide public "government" education and higher "government" learning, tuition costs in both areas are going to rise, because the more financial aid that students receive, the greater the influx of students in the system. Once that happens, tuition costs continue to rise. When was the last time tuition costs for any college -- public or private -- have gone down since the government has stuck its nose and remained in the higher "government" learning picture?

Moreover, college professors are forced to tailor their courses to placate their students who remain indifferent and lazy about their work habits and display an expected lack of work ethic, which they will carry with them for life, especially when they enter the workforce. These students feel that they deserve grades that hardly reflect the true quality of their work. Therefore, the professors find that, in order to better their student evaluations and keep their jobs, they must lower their academic standards to accept uninterested students who are just taking the courses to receive passing grades that they have not truly earned. This gives mediocre-performing students a free pass at the expense of serious students who are working hard and reading the materials covered in class. If the students are not pleased with the grades they have earned from professors who choose not to "grade on a bell curve" (which is a government-sanctioned method of distorting grading methods) because it requires a professor to give students grades in relation to how their peers are graded, they will take their complaints to the dean and the administrators who will, in return, see to it that punishment is meted out with the professors. This is because of universal education, and we must thank the state for this nonsense.

Not only that, when you factor in the fact that too many "customers" (the students, that is) are entering the government college system (all of which are part and parcel of the public sector), deterioriating student and academic standards are part of the norm and continue to rise, and lack of quantity and quality being churned out from the students and the instructors, a college student must ask himself or herself this question: are you really getting anything valuable out of your education? Are you REALLY learning anything in that environment? Are you truly getting your money's worth after all the time and effort you may or may not be putting into it?

More importantly, how much of what you've learned at your college or university -- whether public or private -- has been a paramount part of your success in life?

The only way we can solve this problem and all other problems that plague higher "government" education is to abolish the entire system and establish a free market system of education for students in all levels of education, including college. Imagine tuition costs going down for the first time rather than continuing to rise unabated. Such a radical change in the way we think will truly foster a real learning environment for students and instructors abroad.

For this reason, all levels of education are too important to be left in the hands of the state. If we really care about our educational system, it is incumbent upon us to dismantle the public "government" college system and, in its place, erect a true, laissez-faire college system that will work best for every college student's needs.

NASA Astronauts Drinking and Rocketing

A government aviation report found that a number of NASA astronauts were drinking and rocketing while on duty at least twice.

According to the Washington Post:

Agency spokesman David Mould said one of two reviews of the medical and psychological health of astronauts scheduled to be made public today will include secondhand accounts of astronauts drinking before flights. He said the review does not include the reports in its "findings of fact" but relays the information as something for the agency to investigate.

"We take this and other parts of the reports very seriously and will look into it," Mould said. "But we need to verify the facts before we can know what the appropriate action might be."

This is what we get for redistributing wealth from those who rightfully earned the fruits of their labor to those who didn't, even if it's for the "moral good" of society. And what's worse is that this federal agency, whose sole mission is "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research," neither engages in space exploration nor scientific discovery nor aeronautics research, even though that is its mission statement. After all, when was the last time NASA went back to the moon? Better yet, when was the last time NASA made a manned attempt to explore the other planets in our own solar system?

Of course, when you hear something like this, the first question that comes to mind is: "Where is Mothers Against Drunking Rocketing when you need them?"

Lying Controversial Leftist Professor Ward Churchill Fired for Plagarism in His Essay, Not Because of His 9/11-Eichmann Claim

Controversial University of Colorado professor (now ex-professor) Ward Churchill, who has amassed a great deal of attention for his infamous essay (which has long since expanded to become a book) titled "Some People Push Back:
On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" in which he compared the victims of the World Trade Center Tower on 9/11 to Adolph Eichmann by branding them "little Eichmanns," had just been fired yesterday by the UOC Board of Regents on a vote of 8 to 1 after a two-year investigation by the university into charges of plagarism and deliberately twisting and distorting research that he had committed while scribing his essay.

According to the New York Times, the board has this much to say on the firing:

“We wanted to do what was right for this university,” the board chairwoman, Patricia Hayes, said after the vote. “We did not address Professor Churchill’s freedom of speech as part of our discussion.”

The university president, Hank Brown, who recommended that the board fire Professor Churchill, said he deserved to lose his job because he had “falsified history” and “fabricated history.”

The interesting aspect of this entire ruckus is that Churchill not only stolen facts and information from other scholars to pass as his own while conducting his research (he postured as if his findings were his own when that simply wasn't the case), but he also deliberately and knowingly falsified facts to make his anti-imperalist points.

Moreover, Churchill and his sycophants have softpedaled the paramount importance of his plagarism, all the while contending that he is Native American (truth be told, he isn't) and a scholar (he isn't, considering he actually holds an MA in communications, not a Ph.D. in history). Worse, the former University of Colorado professor asserts that the U.S. Army was responsible for committing genocide on an Indian American tribe known as the Mandans by spreading a deadly strain of smallpox, thus wiping out the entire populace. This assertion, of course, is a bald-faced lie, which is even further substantiated by Native American history scholar Russell Thorton, who dismisses Churchill's claims by branding them a "just out-and-out fabrication."

Churchill, through his attorney, claims that he was canned because of his "little Eichmann" comments in his essay, as does Newsday in its report on his firing. However, Churchill, as Reason's Michael C. Monyihan accurately notes, was let go not because of his controversial "little Eichmann" remarks; he was terminated because of the established fact that he had committed academic fraud and wilfully and blatantly falsified historical facts to carry out his radical leftist/socialist agenda. That's what landed Churchill in hot water, not his pathetic statements on the 9/11 victims in the World Trade Center Towers.

For those who want to read the notorious "little Eichmanns" paragraph from Churchill's widely-debunked essay, here's the quote:

Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.

(Thanks goes to Reason's Michael C. Monyihan and Wikipedia for its useful information on this.)

U.S. Federal Farm Subsidies Now Immune to Congressional Reform

Collectivistic policymakers in the Beltway really have no idea how economics truly work: when you subsidize a business, you create more products and services than what the free market demands, thus undermining their value. When you eliminate subsidies to businesses and let the free market decide whether that business should continue, more than likely the net result will be that there will less of that business' products and services, thereby increasing their value. Although the initial downside to that is that prices will go up, that's only sustainable in the short term, not in the long term, because other unsubsidized businesses will compete and prices will go down due to supply and demand.

This simply isn't the case when it comes to U.S. farmers in the agricultural industry. According to the New York Times, congressional critics of past farm subsidies, including Democratic legislators, who have been opposed to such hand-outs and the new farm subsidies bill pending in Congress, are now supporting the bill because, as the Times reports, it "draws a veto threat" from Bush.

Here's more from the farm bill subsidy claptrap that the Times reports:

WASHINGTON, July 25 — For the many critics of farm subsidies, including President Bush and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, this seemed like the ideal year for Congress to tackle the federal payments long criticized as enriching big farm interests, violating trade agreements and neglecting small family farms.

Many crop prices are at or near record highs. Concern over the country’s dependence on foreign oil has sent demand for corn-based ethanol soaring. European wheat fields have been battered by too much rain. And market analysts are projecting continued boom years for American farmers into the foreseeable future.

But as the latest farm bill heads to the House floor on Thursday, farm-state lawmakers seem likely to prevail in keeping the old subsidies largely in place, drawing a veto threat on Wednesday from the White House.

“The bill put forth by the committee misses a major opportunity,” Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Wednesday. “The time really is right for reform in farm policy.”

Faced with fierce opposition from the House Agriculture Committee, Ms. Pelosi and other Democratic leaders lowered their sights and are now backing the committee’s bill, in part to protect freshman lawmakers from rural areas who may be vulnerable in the 2008 elections.

Instead, Ms. Pelosi helped to secure more modest changes, pushing the committee to provide $1.8 billion for programs that aid fruit and vegetable growers, generating support from lawmakers in states like Florida and California, Ms. Pelosi’s home, and deflating some traditional opposition to the farm bill.

All this talk about "protecting freshman lawmakers from rural areas" is just political speak for immunizing newly-elected lawmakers from political accountability, which is pretty much non-existent in the world of Congress. But Pelosi, a Democrat who has always voted for farm subsidies when they merely served her political interests, thinks by making a political trade-off with her lobbyists by going after the so-called "rich farmers" and allowing farmers to dry up their subsidy caps in the name of protecting corporate farms will somehow level the playing field.

This is what the Times wrote in part:

At the same time, she pronounced the bill a “good first step to reform” by ending subsidies for the richest farmers — those earning more than $1 million a year — and closing a loophole that let some farmers exceed subsidy limits by owning partnerships in multiple farms.

Both Pelosi, the Democrats, and the Republicans have no idea how destructive farm subsidies are, given that, for decades, they've only encouraged waste of crops and ensured a protectionistic safety net for long, established corporate farms while insulating them from new start-ups in the process. It's nothing more than a sick, corrupt protection racket for the corporate farm machine.

Democrats who say they are opposed to farm subsidies are only for them when they work to their advantage. The same goes for the Republicans. And they continue to misuse our tax monies and abuse their congressional power at the expense of their constituencies about whom they claim to care.

Money-Grubbing Lawyers Targeting Bars and Clubs Over "Ladies' Night"

Money-grubbing lawyers, on behalf of their male clients, are now filing lawsuits against bars and clubs over "Ladies' Nights" specials, claiming that they are discriminatory and unconstitutional, says ABC News.

Here's an excerpt of this nonsense:

Lawsuits could be putting "Ladies' Nights" at bars and clubs across the country on the rocks.

In about two dozen cases, plaintiffs contend these drink and admission deals for women constitute discrimination against men and should be banned.

Roy Den Hollander is a New York lawyer who says Ladies' Night drinks and admission specials are unconstitutional, and he says he's suffered personally. Hollander is also a graduate of Columbia Business School and seems like a guy who should be able to get into a decent bar and afford the drinks. So what irks him?

"I'm tired of having my rights violated and being treated as a second-class citizen," said Hollander, who is seeking class-action status for his suit in federal court.

Tim Gleason, general manager of the China Club in New York, calls Hollander's complaint "pathetic" and echoes other club owners who argue that the discounts actually help both sexes by balancing out the ratio between men and women. Nevermind that some men are more than happy to pay for inequality in the ratio department.

Over the last 30 years, lawsuits stemming from promotions involving Ladies' Night have enjoyed considerable success in courts across the country where judges have held that single-sex discounts violate state and federal statutes guaranteeing equal protection under the law.

George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf, whose students have brought a Ladies' Night suit, says that these promotions are part of a broader class of gender-based price discrimination tactics like those used by hairdressers and dry cleaners who charge men and women different prices for the same service.

In Washington, D.C., he hopes to pursue what he calls restroom equity or "squatter's rights" in which he will sue public venues whose restroom availability, though seemingly equal for both sexes, has a "disparate impact" on women who must deal with longer lines and wait times.

Nightclub spokespersons and activists express concern that a class-action victory in a Ladies' Night lawsuit based on federal law could open the floodgates to a host of other suits against private businesses.

Walter Reed Sycophants Urge "Fundamental Change" In Military Healthcare

The L.A. Times reports that the Beltway's insiders, in the form of a "commission" appointed by Bush and who are ever supportive of the putrid government-run, government-owned, and government-operated Walter Reed Hospital, Army Center, and Healthcare System, are urging "reforms" in the government's military healthcare system.

These ignoramuses will never accept the fact that the government healthcare system is shoddy and crappy while a true laissez-faire free market healthcare system is the cure-all for the wounded and maimed soldiers (who are dying more so in record numbers day after day after day in Iraq). What will it take for them to realize that they can't reform a system that will never work the way they want it to? What will it take for them to understand that Socialism is an inherent evil, is unworkable, and will collapse just like how Communism fell in the Soviet Union?

Congressional Republicans "Jihadists"?

National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez, who's normally a Big Government Neo-Con, must have been breathing fire when she blogged this tidbit on NR's server -- a report that was initially posted on the Congressional Quarterly's website:

Republicans are uttering a word that for 12 years has been utterly unspeakable.

Shutdown.

It’s a word that can send shudders through those who saw the last one — actually, two — play out after Republicans took control of Congress in 1995. The Newt Gingrich-Bill Clinton standoff was so traumatic that since then, neither party has ventured anywhere in that direction.

This year’s appropriations tug-of-war between a new majority in Congress and a president of the opposing party does not appear to be headed for a government shutdown, but a rhetorical taboo was lifted when the word became part of the partisan message of the moment.

“The obvious plan of the Democrats is to not do appropriations bills but put everything together in a giant omnibus appropriations bill in a kind of legislative blackmail with all of the policy and increased spending, to in effect threaten the president to either sign the bill or be accused of shutting down the government,” Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the chairman of the Republican Conference, said Wednesday.

President Bush has threatened to veto seven appropriations bills because together they would exceed his discretionary spending limit by more than $20 billion.

Congressional veterans are certain the two sides are headed for a whopper of a fight over a catchall, omnibus appropriations bill.

BusinessWeek: "Minimum Wage Increase Means Tax Breaks"

BusinessWeek's John Tozzi, on the subject of the federal minimum wage hike, writes that the bipartisan minimum wage increase was accomplished with the promise of tax breaks given to small businesses.

Here's an excerpt of what he wrote:

Workers earning the federal minimum wage enjoyed a boost from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour on July 24, the first of three annual hikes that will bring the rate to $7.25 in 2009. But along with the raise, Congress passed a package of $4.8 billion in tax breaks for small businesses that go into effect this year. While employers in 30 states and the District of Columbia won't be hit directly in the first year of the raise because state laws already mandate wages higher than the new federal rate, those businesses can still take advantage of the new tax breaks.

The biggest boon for most small-business owners is an expanded deduction for new purchases. Any firm making purchases of pretty much anything from livestock to software, real estate excluded, can take advantage of this so-called Section 179 deduction. The new law allows business owners to deduct $125,000 in purchases, up from $112,000. Only businesses that spend less than $500,000 on eligible equipment—a ceiling that was raised from $450,000—can qualify. Spend above $500,000 and the size of the deduction starts to shrink.

Teenage Butt-Grabbing Case Ignites National and International Furor

The Paddleton Middle School butt-grabbing incident, which I have been covering for the last several days here and here, has sparked a national and internatinal outcry from online readers and the public at large.

Here's an excerpt of the piece that appeared today on the Oregonian's website:

Two McMinnville middle-schoolers facing sex abuse charges for spanking girls in the hallway probably will not do jail time or be required to register as sex offenders, the Yamhill County district attorney said Monday as the case against the boys grew into a media sensation.

The comments from Bradley Berry outraged the parents of the two 13-year-olds, Ryan Cornelison and Cory Mashburn, who with their lawyers were deluged with calls from ABC, CNN, Fox, Court TV and radio stations across the country a day after a story about the prosecution appeared in The Sunday Oregonian.

Until now, Berry has declined to discuss specifics of the case or explain why it merits criminal charges. After spending most of Monday fielding complaints, however, he elaborated for the first time.

"From our perspective and the perspective of the victims, this was not just horseplay," Berry told The Oregonian. "People may disagree, and I understand that."

Based on his experience in similar cases, Berry said it's unlikely the boys, if convicted, would be sentenced for the maximum jail time for each of the counts. "That type of sentence has never been imposed in my county or in any county that I know of for these types of offenses," he said.

Berry said he, too, was inundated with calls and e-mails from readers who complained that charging the boys with 10 counts of sex abuse and harassment was an overreaction, as their parents maintain. Lawyers for the boys say each count could bring a year in confinement and mandatory registration as sex offenders.

Berry said a judge could lift the registration requirement after it was imposed. "These youths can petition the court relatively quickly for relief from that," he said.

The boys' families said they were furious at what appeared to be backpedaling on Berry's part.

"It makes us angry that they can overcharge . . . and make us think this could happen," said Tracie Mashburn, Cory's mother. "Why would they do that and threaten us with that if they're not going to do it?"

"He's just doing damage control," added Joe Cornelison, Ryan's father. "I want to ask Brad Berry, what kind of due process is this?"

(Thanks goes to Radley Balko who cross-posted this on his blog and his Reason blog.)