TEN COMMANDMENTS: As federal judges continue to work to impose their will and remove Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore's Ten Commandments monument, the Family Research Council (FRC) announced August 26 that it will restart its Ten Commandments book cover campaign. FRC Vice President for Communications Genevieve Wood said, "The student book covers are just one more way that the public can express their support for the role the Ten Commandments have played in the shaping of American constitutional law." FRC (www.frc.org) has distributed 750,000 of the book covers and also has covers with the Pledge of Allegiance on them. Said Wood, "Students, more often than others, see their freedom of expression rights diminishing in the public schools. There's widespread confusion over the separation of church and state, and in most cases, the courts' muddled 1st Amendment decisions are to blame. Americans should not be afraid about the acknowledgement of God in the public square. . . ."
BEHOLDEN: Despite the cautious modesty of the Bush Administration's attempts to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, free up our own energy resources for our use, and relax some of the most extreme environmental laws so that fewer businesses will move their operations overseas, even "moderate" Democratic presidential candidates such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D.-Conn.) feel a need to pander to the environmentalist wing of their party. Lieberman's website now has a special section on the environment. Among other things, it boasts of Lieberman's vote to keep a tiny section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) off-limits to oil drilling-a vote that placed empty frozen tundra above national security and made by a man who is considered one of the Democratic Party's chief national security hawks. Lieberman has also allied with Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) to propose capping so-called greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide-a sure-fire way to cripple the American economy for the foreseeable future. Despite his environmentalist extremism, Lieberman had the chutzpah to say at a campaign stop August 14, "The Bush Administration has been standing by and watching the loss of jobs and not presenting an effective alternative to it."
MORE UNIONS FOR GEPHARDT: Despite the perceived weakness of his presidential bid, former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D.-Mo.) has picked up the endorsement of 12 international unions so far, including the Teamsters, the Steelworkers, and now PACE, which represents "300,000 workers in the pulp, paper, oil, chemical, industrial, auto supply, atomic and mining sectors, and is headquartered in Nashville, Tenn.," according to Gephardt's campaign. Said PACE International Union President Boyd Young, "Dick Gephardt has a long track record of supporting workers' issues. Time and time again he has proven his support for the American worker, whether it was concerning unfair trade agreements or health care for all."
ASHCROFT DEFENDS PATRIOT: In an August 19 speech, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft began a month-long campaign to defend the Patriot Act from its critics. Despite the lack of major terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11, many civil libertarians complain that the Patriot Act has granted too much power to law enforcement to combat al Qaeda and like organizations. "We have used these tools to provide the security that ensures liberty," Ashcroft told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute. "To abandon our tools would senselessly imperil American lives and American liberty. . . . It is critical for everyone to understand what the Patriot Act means in our success in the war against terror." The Justice Department has launched www.lifeandliberty.gov to disseminate information about the Patriot Act.
SMART IMMIGRATION: For those concerned about "urban sprawl"-the tendency of metropolitan areas to spread further and further out from their center cities-there is a simple way to reduce it without infringing on Americans' property rights or ability to live where they please: Cutting immigration. "Most anti-sprawl efforts have focused on 'Smart Growth,' which emphasizes better planning to create more efficient land use. . .," reported the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) last week. "Based on data from the Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, the study shows that about half the loss of rural land in recent decades is attributable to increases in the U.S. population, while changes in land use account for the other half. New immigration and births to immigrants now account for nearly 90% of U.S. population growth."
