Corporate Congress Critters Kill Net Neutrality by Kurt Nimmo

“Broadband providers now have the same authority as cable providers to act as gatekeepers: the network owner can choose which services and equipment consumers may use,” explains John Windhausen, Jr. “Network operators can adopt conflicting and proprietary standards for the attachment of consumer equipment, can steer consumers to certain web sites over others, can block whatever Internet services or applications they like, and make their preferred applications perform better than others…. open broadband networks are vitally important to our society, our future economic growth, our high-tech manufacturing sector, and our First Amendment rights to information free of censorship or control. Even if an openness policy imposes some slight burden on network operators, these microeconomic concerns pale in comparison to the macroeconomic benefits to the society and economy at large of maintaining an open Internet.”

The 'Academic Bill of Rights' by Ron Paul

Instead of fostering open dialogue and wide-raging intellectual inquiry, the main effect of the "Academic Bill of Rights" will be to further stifle debate about controversial topics. This is because many administrators will order their professors not to discuss contentious and divisive subjects, in order to avoid a possible confrontation with the federal government. Those who doubt this should remember that many TV and radio stations minimized political programming in the 1960s and 1970s in order to avoid running afoul of the federal "fairness doctrine."

I am convinced some promoters of the "Academic Bill of Rights" would be perfectly happy if, instead of fostering greater debate, this bill silences discussion of certain topics. Scan the websites of some of the organizations promoting the "Academic Bill of Rights" and you will find calls for silencing critics of the Iraq war and other aspects of American foreign policy.

House passes draconian intelligence bill by Bev Conover

The latest nightmare is buried in the HR 5020, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, which the House of Representatives passed, 327-96, yesterday. Among its provisions are giving National Security Director John Negroponte authority to devise a plan for revoking the pensions of retired intelligence agency employees "who commit unauthorized disclosures of classified information." That takes care of any retired whistleblowers.

If that weren't bad enough, the Baltimore Sun is reporting "It also would permit security forces at the National Security Agency and the CIA to make warrantless arrests outside the gates of their top-secret campuses."

A Democratic Dictatorship by Jacob G. Hornberger

“Well, then, where are the mass round-ups, and where are the concentration camps?”

Again, people who ask that type of question are missing the point. The point is not whether Bush is exercising his omnipotent, dictatorial power to the maximum extent. It’s whether he now possesses omnipotent, dictatorial power, power that can be exercised whenever circumstances dictate it – for example, during another major terrorist attack on American soil, when Americans become overly frightened again.

Unless the American people figure out a way to reverse what has happened to their country – and have the will to do something about it – they will earn the mark of shame reserved for those people in history who voluntarily relinquished their freedom in exchange for the aura of security. Like all others in history who have chosen such a course, they will ultimately learn that they have lost both their freedom and their security.

Forget impeachment, concentrate on the 25th Amendment to the Constitution by Wayne Madsen

It is clear that George W. Bush is not mentally capable of carrying out his presidential duties. It is also clear that the Congress and vice president are unwilling to invoke the above constitutional requirements. In the case of a private citizen who is mentally disabled, two next of kin can have the individual institutionalized. In the absence of family members, that responsibility would fall to someone with power of attorney. Lacking power of attorney, law enforcement or another government agency, acting with a judicial warrant, could have the person institutionalized.

Attack Iran, destroy the US constitution by Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith

During the 2004 election, President George W Bush famously proclaimed that he didn't have to ask anyone's permission to defend the United States of America. Does that mean he can attack Iran without having to ask Congress? A new resolution being drafted by Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio may be a vehicle to remind Bush that he can't.

America's Carrhae by Eric Margolis

Once the “who lost Iraq?” cry goes up, the White House will try to blame the military – just as it sought to lay blame on the CIA for so-called “intelligence failures” over Iraq’s non-existent WMDs. America’s soldiers are not going to be framed for a war many opposed.

America's Gulag by JOHN CHUCKMAN

Ordinarily, the fact that some CIA agent has broken his or her oath of secrecy would not cause much disturbance outside the unhinged James Angleton types who make up some portion of any intelligence community. Surely, out of tens of thousands of employees, this is something that happens with regularity.

Politics of the schoolyard by Linda S. Heard

Whatever happened to good old fashioned diplomacy? If you listen to the rhetoric of some world leaders today, you can almost imagine them in short trousers exchanging insults over the ownership of a lollipop. Except in this not so brave New World Order there are people's lives and livelihoods at stake.

There are none more juvenile than that of the self-appointed leader of the free world with his "wanted dead or alive," "we'll smoke him out of his cave," "mission accomplished" and his proud labelling of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil."

The Hell Where Youth and Laughter Go by Taki

Hollywood types don’t understand what bombs can do to humans, so they show children cheering and adults lifting their glasses to their unseen benefactors, but the truth is somewhat different. The earth trembles, men and women lose their bowels, the noise scares the living daylights out of one, the screams of the wounded remain in the psyche. Even worse is the weeping of the survivors over lost loved ones after the sirens have screeched the all-clear. One thing is for sure: no one looks up to the sky and thanks Ike or Winnie. To the contrary.

These are the facts. The rest is Hollywood and neocon propaganda. Those doing the fighting, of course, have it much worse. As General Sherman said, war is hell, but successive generations with abundant evidence before them still persist in fighting.

How Big Is Bush's Big Government? by Mark Brandly

This $2.7 trillion in federal spending breaks down to $9,000 per capita or more than $36,000 for the average family of four. If we add in all state and local spending, then total government depredations (a term Murray Rothbard used to describe the greater of government spending and government receipts) are currently over $4.4 trillion or about $14,700 per person annually. Since 1959, government depredations, in real terms, have increased at an average annual rate of 4%. That kind of spending will buy a lot of votes.

The Last Will and Testament of Benjamin Franklin

The death of Benjamin Franklin -- whose 300th birthday was celebrated in January of 2006 -- marked the end of an era for the early American Republic. Benjamin Franklin, one of the most popular of America's great Founding Fathers, was an author, humanist, humorist, philosopher, scientist and all-around Renaissance Man, epitomizing all that was good about America when it was healthy and free. He would probably be labelled as a "domestic terrorist" were he alive today.

Blood on Our Hands by Craig Winters

On the other side of this equation is an American population that resembles spoiled rich children. They are lazy, feel entitled to whatever they want, and have no sense of responsibility to the world community. They are not evil by their own design, but are willfully blind to evil so long as it does not interfere with their comfortable existence. They do not seek out truth, but accept as truth the corporate propaganda stream because it is easy and because it tells them what they want to hear which is that they are the victims, the righteous victims of a terrible outside evil. If they will just surrender their individual rights, their money, their children, their freedom, then the government will make them safe to go on with their empty lives of mass consumption.

An Untenable Oath

The issue is much larger then a lack of agreement with going to war, and the right to express that. It is even beyond the issue of our current Administration and Congress, who has written executive orders and created legislation that attacks the Constitution. Under this government, there has been repeated attempts to dismantle our bill of rights. Taking an oath to support such a government would prevent a person from acting to remove that government where the majority of officials have violated their own oaths of office.

Constitutional Illiteracy and Attention Deficit Democracy by James Bovard

Another poll has confirmed that most Americans are constitutionally without a clue. Americans’ political illiteracy is good news for Washington politicians hungry to seize more power. But this ignorance is one of the most perilous elements of attention deficit democracy.

The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum poll, released last month, found that barely a quarter of Americans could name more than one of the fundamental freedoms recognized in the First Amendment. Far more Americans could name the characters on The Simpsons than could recall the provisions of the First Amendment. Three-fourths of Americans recognized two of the product brands connected to five popular ad slogans, while only 28 percent could name two or more freedoms cited in the First Amendment.

"Painwashing" the Moussaoui jury and us by Jerry Mazza

Painwashing is brainwashing: repeating the same painful stories over and over again to individuals (in this case a jury) till their resistance to questioning gives in. The hurtful repetition induces a kind of trance. And in the flood of emotionally-charged 9/11 recollections, rational logical questioning of who was responsible for what is disappeared. Repeating the effects of the tragedy becomes a false proof of guilt for the patsy Zacarias Moussaoui. It also attempts to hypnotize the country into the 9/11 trance once again.

Starting WWIII To Prevent It? The Ultimate Hypocrisy by Ted Twietmeyer

The illogic of the current administration to label a sovereign country's leader as another "Hitler" and start yet another war it cannot finish staggers the imagination. It's just plain wrong on so many levels. In fact, it is stating that America is the world's "thought police." We have already seen just how desperate the troops in Iraq are, as they sell government property which also includes "Secret" classified material. Crossing the line will surely result in courts martials, but the soldiers no longer care.

By declaring war on the American people, the government has effectively declared war on itself, since it is too, is composed of the Americans. Do the people working in the Pentagon ever think about this?

Bill to restrict grass-roots activism?

The Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006, S.2349, passed the Senate 90-8, and a House version of the bill could come up for a vote in two weeks, Douglas Johnson, legislative director of National Right to Life, told LifeSiteNews.

The bill "would regulate for the first time grass-roots activism," Johnson told the newssite. The legislation defines "grass-roots lobbying" as "the voluntary efforts of members of the general public to communicate their own views on an issue to federal officials or to encourage other members of the general public to do the same."

Abolishing Congress on the Installment Plan by William Norman Grigg

“When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month,” reported the March 24 Boston Globe, “he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act’s expanded police powers.”

“The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers,” continued the Globe. “The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.” That provision helped placate some critics of the measure, thereby ensuring its passage. And now, in a gesture that is equal parts dictatorial arrogance and corrupt bait-and-switch, Mr. Bush has withdrawn that concession after the fact through a “signing statement.”

The ACLU's anti-Religious Hypocrisy by Hillel Stavis

Nor is the ACLU shy about broadcasting its role in eliminating “intelligent design” courses in Pennsylvania public schools. In hundreds of cases, the ACLU neither slumbers nor sleeps when it comes to pursuing miscreants who would subvert our Constitution. Thanks to their efforts, perhaps next year our currency will bear the inscription, “In Litigation We Trust.”

FED COVERS UP DECLINING DOLLAR by John Tiffany

The Fed changing its reporting of M3 deserved headline treatment and didn’t get it. As the Federal Reserve had promised last November, the U.S. central bank will no longer collect or publish this most-inclusive measure of the growth of the U.S. money supply, although it will continue to publish narrower measures such as M1 and M2.

Bush's Bogus Theory of Absolute Power by James Bovard

The Bush administration has a theory to explain why the Founding Fathers secretly intended for the president to have boundless power. Even though the new “unitary executive theory” is nowhere in the Constitution, White House officials continually invoke it to justify scorning federal law. The fact that the administration is getting away with this charade symbolizes how docile much of the American media and political opposition have become.

Gonzales suggests that Bush has the authority to order warantless wiretapping of calls, emails

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggested for the first time on Thursday that the president might have the legal authority to order wiretapping without a warrant on communications between Americans that occur exclusively within the United States, the NEW YORK TIMES reports Friday. Excerpts:

Why Do We Fear Our Minds? by Butler Shaffer

Why are we so in fear of our minds that we want the state – or other institutions – to define the parameters of our thinking for us? It is to deny our own rational capacities to suggest that others should take care of our thinking. The horrors of the Inquisition ought to have taught us that people should not be burned at the stake – or imprisoned – for disputing established opinions, no matter how outrageous or offensive we find their words to be. The practice of fastening chains upon the bodies of men and women was only made possible by the creation and enforcement of chains upon their minds.

Is Capitalism Why We Fight? by Gregory Bresiger

Taft also warned, in a sentiment that all liberty-loving people should remember, that "a man who is against war when everyone else is for war becomes very unpopular indeed."

Taft, surveying the unprecedented military alliances entered into by the Truman administration and signed off by Eisenhower, warned that Americans would have their "fingers in every pie" around the globe. Taft, like Ron Paul, is never mentioned in "Why We Fight."

Unfortunately, Taft lost the 1952 GOP nomination and died soon after.

The American Empire by Alan Caruba

The American Empire exists only because nations around the world continue to buy our treasury bills. Our debt. Awash in our dollars, they purchase our assets even though we tend not to notice or care unless it is Dubai and we get scared about “port security.” Never mind that communist China runs the largest U.S. port on the West Coast or that 80% of U.S. ports are foreign owned, primarily by shipping lines.

When Did Dissent Become a Bad Thing? by Marc M. Harrold

If America is a democratic experiment, ideas are the variables that must test any constants set forth by the Constitution and our political processes and traditions.

Where in the World Are We Going? by Claes G. Ryn

In domestic affairs, American conservatives have always feared unlimited power, partly because of their belief in original sin. Fallen creatures must be restrained by law. Government must be limited and decentralized, hence the separation of powers and federalism. The sprit of constitutionalism forms the core of the American political tradition. Unchecked power is an invitation to tyranny. The framers even wanted the U.S. Congress, which was to be the preeminent body of the national government, to have divided powers. Needless to say they disdained democracy.

Haven't They Dumped On Our Constitution Enough? by Carol Christen

We, the People of the United States, do hereby order the recall of the following: the Congress of the United States; and, the President with the cabinet, including the heads of each department in the Executive Branch. In order to:

Guests or gate crashers by Thomas Sowell

If you mean stopping every single illegal immigrant from getting in or expelling every single illegal immigrant who is already here, that may well be true. But does the fact that we cannot prevent every single murder cause us to stop enforcing the laws against murder?

Since existing immigration laws are not being enforced, how can anyone say that it would not do any good to try? People who get caught illegally crossing the border into the United States pay no penalty whatever. They are sent back home and can try again.

The emerging 'uncivil' society by Henry Lamb

Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets last week to oppose legislation designed to stop or reduce illegal immigration. Pundits and politicians, alike, were shocked to see the massive show of support for the 11 million illegal aliens already in this country.

Their illegal trek across the southern border is littered with crime, and their demand for health, legal and education services is taxing state and local budgets across the West, and beyond. These demonstrations, and their impact on Congress, signal a softening of America's immigration policy, and a widening division between traditional American values of national sovereignty, and the politically correct values of a borderless "global village."

America's war on the web

While the US remains committed to hunting down al-Qaeda operatives, it is now taking the battle to new fronts. Deep within the Pentagon, technologies are being deployed to wage the war on terror on the internet, in newspapers and even through mobile phones. Investigations editor Neil Mackay reports