BLACK DAY: August 20 marked the 40th anniversary of one of the major turning points in American social history: It was the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating his "War on Poverty" program in 1964. Said columnist and economist Thomas Sowell last week: "The War on Poverty represented the crowning triumph of the liberal vision of society-and of government programs as the solution to social problems. The disastrous consequences that followed have made the word 'liberal' so much of a political liability that today even candidates with long left-wing track records have evaded or denied that designation."
INFORMATION, PLEASE: John Kerry has made a big deal out of the flawed intelligence received by President Bush before the Iraq war, but how conscientious was this former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee? "Republicans continue to press Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry to release his attendance records from his tenure on the Senate Intelligence Committee," reported Talon News on August 18. "Television ads that began airing Monday call into question the Massachusetts Democrat's commitment to reforming America's intelligence community. Kerry served on the panel from 1993 to 2000 and according to official records, missed 76% of the public committee hearings during that time....Among the most notable of those he missed is the June 8, 2000, hearing on the report of the National Commission on Terrorism, which warned about the terrorist threat faced by the United States and recommended numerous steps to address that threat. In 1994, the year following the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Kerry missed every committee hearing, including a hearing on the report of the Joint Security Commission."
ANTI-CHRISTIAN GOOGLE: According to WorldNetDaily, the huge search engine site Google rejected a Christian group's ad because of its "hate" content. The ad spread Stand to Reason's message against homosexuality. "Melinda Penner, director of operations for Stand to Reason, says the organization placed four ads on Google," said WorldNetDaily on August 17. "Three of the ads remain on the system, but one leading Net surfers to a Q&A about same-sex marriage was taken down after running for two or three weeks. 'Google's objections had to do with other articles on our website pertaining to homosexuality,' Penner told WND. 'They claimed that their specialist had deemed us a hate site and that their policies didn't allow people to have ads that discriminated against certain groups, which include sexual orientation.'"
FREEDOM SUCCESS: The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals decided August 12 that an Ohio school did not establish religion by distributing flyers from local religious organizations to student mailboxes as it was distributing flyers from other groups such as the Red Cross and the 4-H Club. "The speech may be printed on flyers, but it is still speech that is free," said Alliance Defense Fund Chief Counsel Benjamin Bull. "Other organizations created the flyers, not the school. The court ruled that placing such flyers in student mailboxes along with other community flyers does not constitute an endorsement by the school. Restricting such speech simply because it is religious is not constitutional." The ACLU instigated the case, Steve Rusk v. Crestview Local School District.
BAD FOR BUSH: The left continues its huge effort to defeat President Bush this fall. Prominent entertainment industry figure Sean Combs has a new group called Citizen Change, which is working with MTV's "Choose or Lose" and Rock the Vote to convince more of America's youth to vote in the November election. Citizen Change will work with Meetup.com to organize meetings around the country. "Through a multi-layered, grassroots campaign, Citizen Change, MTV's 'Choose or Lose' and Rock The Vote plan to increase the young vote, from 18 million in the last presidential election, to over 20 million this year...," says Meetup. "20 Million Loud is a national campaign of organizations mobilizing more than 20 million young adults age 18-30 to vote and be a deciding factor in the 2004 presidential election."
