POOR GORE: Former Vice President Al Gore delivered an address January 15 in New York City blasting the Bush Administration over one of Gore's favorite fantasies, human-generated global warming. This non-existent phenomenon was especially non-existent that day, in the middle of a very cold snap in the Northeast, and New York City had of its coldest nights in decades. In conformity to environmentalists' established ideological pattern on global warming-which consists of blaming global warming for every deviation from the average in temperature, precipitation, wind speed, or anything else anywhere in the world at any time-Gore issued a doomsday denunciation of allowing American industry to continue to develop while waxing apoplectic about President Bush. "While President Bush likes to project an image of strength and courage, the truth is that in the presence of his large financial contributors he is a moral coward, so weak that he seldom if ever says no to them on anything, no matter what the public interest might mandate," said Gore.
NEXT ABORTION FIGHT: Last week, the House Judiciary Committee was expected to pass out to the full House the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (HR 1997), sponsored by Rep. Melissa Hart (R.-Pa.). The House passed similar bills in 1999 and 2001 only to be stymied in the Senate. The bill would make harming a pregnant woman's unborn child a separate crime under federal law-a move that feminists claim would undermine the fetus' lack of recognition under the law since Roe v. Wade. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) is expected before long to schedule a vote on the bill. In a letter to congressmen January 16, Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee wrote, "This bill poses the fundamental question: When a criminal attacks a pregnant woman, killing both her and her unborn child, has he claimed one victim, or two?"
BLOW TO FAMILY: Continuing America's abandonment of traditional morality, the New Jersey state legislature passed a domestic partnership law for homosexuals that was signed by Gov. James McGreevey on January 12. "The new law gives gay couples significant new rights, including financial benefits and hospital visiting privileges. . .," trumpeted the New York Times the next day. "While Massachusetts's recent court decision that gay people have a right to marry was grabbing all the headlines late last year, New Jersey legislators were quietly promoting a bill to extend many of the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. They succeeded last week when the bill, which had already been approved by the assembly, was passed by the senate, 23 to 9. It was striking how little opposition the bill generated: before the Senate voted, not a single senator spoke against the measure."
GEPHARDT'S PARTING SHOT: As the final days before Iowa's Democratic caucuses counted him down, Rep. Dick Gephardt (D.-Mo.) stepped up his already-strong attacks on Democratic presidential frontrunner Howard Dean-providing Republicans with plenty of negative material from one of the country's most respected Democrats to use if Dean wins the Democratic presidential nomination. Gephardt, who dropped out of the race after his risible fourth-place finish in Iowa, said of Dean on January 14, "There is no room for the cynical politics of manufactured anger and false conviction." He bashed Dean for flip-flopping on NAFTA, which the former Vermont governor used to support, and a host of other issues. "Howard Dean travels the country and yells and pounds the podium against NAFTA, against the secrecy of the Bush-Cheney White House, and against insider corporate deals," Gephardt said. "This is the same Howard Dean who has said he 'strongly supported' NAFTA, who won't release his records as governor, and who wanted Vermont to (overtake Bermuda) as a tax haven for companies like Enron. . . . I've come to realize that Howard Dean isn't shooting from the hip. That's just making excuses for him. Howard Dean knows exactly what he's saying when he says it. And if you think he's contradicting himself, well, as far as he's concerned, that's your problem and not his."
KILL SADDAM: Conservative Christian Americans and Shiite Iraqis might agree on at least one issue: the fate of Saddam Hussein. "Saddam is a war criminal, not a POW. Execute Saddam," chanted a Shiite crowd in Baghdad on January 20.
