Monthly Archives: April 2003

W: The Friend of Capitalism

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Leonard at Unruled quotes a report from Donald Luskin on an meeting Luskin had with W. Luskin tells us that W is ‘…the best friend…’ capitalism ‘… is likely to get nowadays.’

Leonard finds this sad and so do I. Now I don’t know what definition of capitalism these folks are using but I’m pretty sure W does not use the same one I do and I’m a little surprised that Donald Luskin is taken in by this. W ‘built’ most of his wealth on the backs of the local taxpayers who will be paying for the Texas Ranger’s stadium for many years to come. And there is nothing about this that is anywhere close to the free market capitalism I think Luskin would espouse.

If the elimination of the double taxation of dividends (see the Luskin quote above) were part of a cohesive, well documented, long term plan to move us toward a truly capitalist society I might accept his argument. But this is not the case and there is little else, if anything, that W has initiated that suggests tht this is his goal. Nope, I don’t think W is anywhere close to being a friend of capitalism.

The Day the Music Stopped

This entry was posted in Constitution Law on by

This evening Political Parrhesia led me over to TalkLeft who urges us to speak up against an effort by Sen Joseph Biden (D-Del) to do some Ashcroftian dirty work. If you think you are not going to be affected you are wrong:

Whoever, for a commercial purpose, knowingly promotes any rave, dance, music, or other entertainment event, that takes place under circumstances where the promoter knows or reasonably ought to know that a controlled substance will be used or distributed in violation of Federal law or the law of the place where the event is held, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned for not more than 9 years, or both.

If language like this gets written into the law of the land you may have just gone to your last concert for a while.

A Happy Bush

This entry was posted in US Foreign Policy on by

W must be very happy! First David Sanger reports the following in yesterday’s NY Times:

Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any “hostile acts” they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush’s closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation.
Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld’s brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word – “Good” – and went back to work.

Since this seemed like a good thing to him then this, from today’s UK Observer must be like icing on the cake:

War in North Korea is now almost inevitable because of the country’s diplomatic stalemate with America, a senior UN official claims.

Thanks to Barry Briggs for the latter reference.