Long before the storm struck, liberals—and conservatives sampling urban outreach—sent a generously funded message to the black community: years of oppression had left them too incapacitated to care for themselves. Because they can’t be expected to play by society’s rules, government would fund their housing and feed their children, but to keep the spigot open, they would need to remain alternatively listless and enraged. The thousands crowding the Convention Center brought that history with them. The mayor himself—who retreated to Baton Rouge at first opportunity—whined over the airwaves about the absence of federal aid instead of wondering whether he might have some responsibility to clear bloated bodies from his city’s streets.

The New Orleans aftermath showed that most Democratic politicians are more comfortable with their golden oldies—accusing the Republicans of racism, for instance, after the black looting—than they are with raising any serious questions about imperial overstretch. Jesse Jackson might notice a link between troops in Iraq and a lack of sufficient troops in New Orleans, but not Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi.

Many conservatives disenchanted with the Bush administration’s acquiescence to big government and invade-invite the world policies voted to re-elect the president solely because of the Supreme Court. Gonzales—with his support for preferences, fealty to Roe, and apologetics for illegal immigration —is exactly the kind of justice they hoped to avoid.

Man is capable of great good; creativity, curiosity and compassion. But, that is only half the story. He is also capable of incalculable evil; torture, war and devastation. This evil-seed in the soul of man does not emerge from a blighted childhood or some remote psychological disturbance; it is an integral part of his human make-up; a faculty for annihilation that is every bit as real as the gnawing hunger of a starving man. Evil and nihilism are a central part of man's incomprehensible complexity; they cannot be dismissed as mere character flaws or aberrations.

Mired in interminable conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration is moving toward initiating two more wars, one with Iran and one with North Korea. With no US troops available, the Bush administration is revamping US war doctrine to allow for "preventative nuclear attack." In short, the Bush administration is planning to make the US the first country in history to initiate war with nuclear weapons. The Pentagon document, "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," calls for the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear adversaries in order "to ensure success of US and multinational operations."

The GOP began to sell out its principles shortly after seizing control of Congress in 1994, but the abuses continue to grow. Today, as a few courageous House fiscal conservatives press for offsets against the virtually unlimited spending proposed in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Speaker and his coterie have acted like a woman scorned. Preaching unity, they have trashed any Republican suggesting that free-spending bail-outs are not the conservative way.

The river is moving away from the city. The city is sinking because of its weight, because no upbuilding by new muck for many decades, because of being cut off from the fresh water, because it is sliding off a cliff (the Continental Shelf), and because the Oil and Gas Industry is extracting oil out from under it. It is a city that for all intents and purposes is now Sea domain. Spend the money on developing alternative energy solutions instead.

The plea bargain struck by former Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin – charged with five counts of handing over classified information to officials of a pro-Israel lobbying group, who passed it on to Israeli diplomatic personnel – has delivered a body blow to the defense of the two remaining accused spies. Steve Rosen, who for 20 years was the chief lobbyist over at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's top foreign policy analyst, befriended Franklin and pumped him for top-secret information – including sensitive data about al-Qaeda, the Khobar Towers terrorist attack, Iran's weapons program, and attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Now they face the likely prospect of Franklin testifying to their treason in court.

Some time ago, I suggested that sensible and sane Democrats needed to form a new Political Party; one that represents moderate and conservative Democrats. But, it now appears it’s equally important for conservative Republicans to do the same thing. We need to place the term “courage” firmly back into our Party. And this time we need to mean it.

The bipartisan timidity was heartily encouraged by President Bush, who promised to veto any bill with amendments that impeded his war policy, including - apparently - the freedom to abuse enemy prisoners. It seems that the senators of both parties believe a toothless bill enacted into law is a better signal to voters that Congress is doing its work than a controversial bill that embodies what they claim are their convictions.

This Iraq War – based on lies and manipulations – is a defining issue of our times, it has undermined the noble purpose of this great country, it has destroyed our moral compass and it has embarrassed us before the world. The simple truth is staying in Iraq does not make things better it makes things worse. Staying in Iraq does not make us more secure it increases the strength, skills and anger of those who resort to terror tactics to harm Americans. Every day we stay in Iraq we increase the instability of the Middle East. We are bleeding our country of our most precious resource -- our youth -- and squandering a kings ransom from our treasury at time when critical needs are going unmet at home. It is time to get out – rapidly, responsibly, and to begin doing so immediately. We need to bring our troops home now.

The current practice of automatically recognizing as a citizen anyone who happened to be born on American soil comports with neither the text nor the history of the Citizenship clause, nor with the most basic political theory which it was meant to restore. It is time to again recognize the significance of jurisdiction and of consent, and with these the full meaning of American citizenship and our social compact.

It seems that Barnes and some other Republicans in Washington, D.C., have forgotten the “Contract With America,” which gained them control of the House in the 1994 elections. It promised “the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money.” It even vowed to “cut spending on welfare programs.”

The circumstances of the Long Emergency will require us to downscale and re-scale virtually everything we do and how we do it, from the kind of communities we physically inhabit to the way we grow our food to the way we work and trade the products of our work. Our lives will become profoundly and intensely local. Daily life will be far less about mobility and much more about staying where you are. Anything organized on the large scale, whether it is government or a corporate business enterprise such as Wal-Mart, will wither as the cheap energy props that support bigness fall away. The turbulence of the Long Emergency will produce a lot of economic losers, and many of these will be members of an angry and aggrieved former middle class.

When The United States of America become Oceania their goal is complete. As the masses sleepwalk into this scenario the few that are still awake are becoming more active and waking up more people. We have to move on this now, there is no more time for procrastination. Everyone should be writing reports like this one, everyone should be waking up their families and friends. We are in an Information War.

As for competence, why would anyone think that politicians and bureaucrats know what should happen with New Orleans and the other areas now? This would be a good question even if we weren’t talking about one of the most corrupt states in the country. New Orleans became what it was largely because government, spending other people’s money, underwrote flood control. That socialization of costs distorted people’s decisions and set the stage for Katrina’s death and destruction. A new disaster will be in the making if the government repeats that mistake. The city and other areas should be left to private self-interested development in which people face the true costs of their choices. Only then will sensible decisions be made. The last people we should want determining New Orleans’s future are politicians. Central planning is a bad idea whether it is done by Soviets or Americans.

Both parties bear moral responsibility for the mess we are in. The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld Republicans for beating the drums for war on a country that did not threaten us. The Clinton-Kerry-Biden-Edwards Democrats for giving Bush a blank check to take us to war to remove the issue from the 2002 election. Indeed, Democrats are the more indictable. At least Bush-Cheney believed in the war.

If you think the government's initial response to Hurricane Katrina was incompetent, at all levels, wait till you see the tidal wave of ineptitude, cronyism, irrationality, waste and thievery that's guaranteed to be involved in the clean-up and rebuilding.

Overall, FEMA has become little more than a mismanaged and costly joke. "In disasters reviewed by the Sun-Sentinel," reports The Press, "FEMA officials never consulted meteorologists or local officials most familiar with damage in their communities before approving claims." Bottom line, it’s worse than drunken sailors. At least they’re spending their own money.

In the wake of the recent natural disasters on American soil, dangerous precedents have been set. We have been forced to watch how in times of crisis we must submit and follow the orders of Federal Commanders, no matter whether they deny us basic human rights or not.

Whether it be a state attack, a terrorist attack, an accident or a natural disaster matters not anymore, the outcome will be the same. We are just one event, ANY event away from Martial Law.

Julie Myers, 36, is the White House nominee to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but when she appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, it quickly became clear that there's virtually nothing on her résumé that qualifies her - no significant experience in customs, immigration or hands-on law-enforcement work. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, was so disturbed that he called on the administration and Ms. Myers to explain themselves. Her answer was that she would "seek to work with those who are knowledgeable in this area, who know more than I do." That list would include about everyone in the agency.

Democrats, wipe the smirk off your faces, because you fled Washington like rats, too. We won't forget that, either, so you better go shopping for votes among the Busheviks or take early retirement.

Like all criminal psychopaths—and this psychopath in the White House happens to be a serial killer and war criminal—he's afraid of getting caught. He knows the day of reckoning is coming and he is trying to relieve his anxiety with alcohol and pills.

The huge discrepancy between the Texas and Louisiana responses should call into question the assumptions that have been trumpeted since Katrina. Foremost, we need to reconsider the central focus on the role of the federal government. Historically, the first responders in a crisis have been local officials, the province being more one of mayors and governors than presidents.

History shows that the key determinant of success is the competence of local government.

Why do intellectuals get things so wrong, so often? . . . Is all this worth bothering about? Probably, yes. We are living at the beginning of an epoch whose essential character still awaits definition. At present, several competing herds of independent minds are careering around, noisily insisting that their preferred label – American hegemony, borderless world, rise of the Asian giants, postmodern world, ecological catastrophe, war on terrorism, etc – does the trick. As we listen to them, it will do no harm, and it might do some good, to bear in mind what an appalling record of prediction intellectuals have had in the past century.

Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson wrote a column titled "Bush's Hacks" which was a bitter denunciation of the practice he saw in the Bush Administration of hiring friends and friends of friends for positions. He clearly seems to believe that merit should be the only guide towards hiring people - not whom you know or who you are. If this is the case, how does he feel about affirmative action which is based on the principle of who you are and not how well-qualified you are?

For many years, one of the left's slogans has been, "Think Globally, Act Locally." I think the next conservatism needs to answer this with a new slogan of our own: Think Locally, Act Locally.

Think Globally, Act Locally reflects the left's centuries-old belief in "one world." Just as the Jacobins of the French Revolution wanted, everyone in the world should be forced to abandon their old traditions and fit one "globalist" model, based on some ideology. Today, we even see some people who call themselves conservatives (neo or otherwise) promoting globalism. Sorry, but that is not what the word "conservative" has meant.

I’ve had enough, stop the war on ourselves. The idea that we live in a conscious, thoughtful paradigm can only be expressed through action. Proof is in the pudding, that means somebody has to manage the trash. The trash is actually the most basic example of whether an operation went off successfully or not. I am sure there will be other complaints levied against the day of Sept. 24th, but being a military veteran, I tend to keep it simple. Simply put, if you cannot manage your trash, and you cannot pack your trash, than do not throw a party.

One lesson is to use the natural resources God gave America to meet our own needs and to stop relying on the fuel shipped from abroad, especially from developing nations where it is being ripped from lands and seas with little heed for the environment.

It was, finally, a protest that, not just in its staggering turnout but in its makeup, reflected the changing opinion-polling figures in this country. This was a majority demonstration, and the commonest statement I heard in the six hours I spent talking to as many protesters as I could was: "This is my first demonstration."

I was invited to speak at a peace march and rally in Birmingham, Alabama, sponsored by the Alabama Peace and Justice Coalition, and gladly accepted the offer to speak against the war in Iraq.

Yes, as you might guess, the program was dominated by leftists who rightly oppose the war but want big government to run the economy. I accepted for the same reason I would accept an engagement to speak against taxes even if sponsored by a right-wing group that also favored the war and militarism.

Today, the corporate media defensively plays its pathetic games, ignoring and misrepresenting what happened yesterday in Washington, D.C. But those who participated and bore witness, know that this growing movement against the U.S. led, corporate global empire will never be turned back and will never be defeated.

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We in the peace movement need to agree on one thing: yes we need an exit plan, but it is not a strategy, it is a command. The command should be: have all of our military personnel and paid killer mercenaries out of Iraq within 6 months, and the generals carry out the command. Simple, it's not brain surgery, and I think it is so easy even George Bush can sign the order. We can't give the homicidal maniacs any wiggle room or long-term strategy sessions. For one thing, when our leaders strategize, we are put in even more jeopardy - they have proven that they are not too bright or even a little compassionate.

Some signs are less than hopeful. The Washington organizers might have asked for a speaker from Pat Buchanan's American Conservative magazine, which has opposed the war steadfastly from the beginning. But the speakers we saw listed on the United for Peace and Justice Web site were all from the left side of the spectrum.

When the anti-war movement, to borrow a phrase, starts to look like America, the politicians will start to pay attention.

Last year was the tenth anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and nearly all evaluations of the agreement conceded that the period showed negligible or negative results for Mexico. As the developing country partner of the agreement, Mexico's experience under NAFTA has major implications for other developing nations negotiating FTA's, particularly with the United States.

“The President all too often is out of control,” a White House source tells me. “People are afraid to risk his anger by telling him things he does not want to hear. Newsweek magazine reported the same thing last week in their story: “How Bush Blew It.”

On the other hand, do you want to know why all these people so desperately want a police state? Because it would mean that they don’t have to do anything. They have an easy excuse to sit at home and complain about how bad things are instead of actually doing something about it. In other words, they don’t have to take responsibility for the world around them. What they remind me of are End-Time Christians who possess such fatalistic attitudes that they've literally given up all fight and are simply waiting for the apocalypse.

It worries me that we are producing a generation of slothful, dumbed-down, irresponsible, unaccountable future leaders who have been raised with too much materialism and virtually no structure or limitations. And whose fault is that? Who should take the blame for them? The schools? The parents? The textbooks? The students themselves? So, what do we do? Maybe the answer lies in slapping our kids silly while praying that someone doesn’t report us for child abuse lest the all too intrusive government steps in and tells us how to raise our own flesh and blood.

The Taft-Goldwater-Reagan-Helms Republicans were prepared to pay the political price for saying "No." But just as the Democrats of the 1930s found the formula for permanent power in "tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect," as Harold Ickes Sr. put it, the Bush Republicans and Big Government Conservatives of the 1990s believe they have found an even surer formula for permanent power: "Cut taxes, spend and spend, elect and elect."

Whether they have or not we will discover in the fall of 2006, but already the battle is being joined inside the GOP, and it will be fought out in the primaries of 2008: deficit hawks vs. Big Government conservatives.

One day, not far off, Americans must choose: Either we keep the empire -- or our munificent welfare state. Either we raise taxes and pay as we go -- or we run deficits until foreigners cease to lend us the money and the dollar goes the way of the peso.

Newsweek uses gross misinformation to paint grim, untrue picture of New Orleans and U.S. poverty.

Alter didn’t do his homework on Louisiana’s poverty, either. Even though the nation has seen its poverty rate increase from 2000 to 2004, Louisiana is one of the few states where poverty decreased in the past four years. In fact, a 17.2 percent rate of poverty in 2000 declined to 16.7 percent in 2004.

The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday began a campaign to urge officials in 18 states to reject abstinence-only sex-education programs.
The states targeted by the ACLU are Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Wyoming.

One of Bush's more dedicated supporters, In Touch broadcaster Charles Stanley, wrote a controversial sermon citing Romans 13 in support of the Iraq war. The Old Testament, he asserted, contains "examples of God using warfare to carry out His plans, to punish the wicked and preserve His people." Government, he maintained, "is ordained by God with the right to promote good and restrain evil. This includes wickedness that exists within the nation, as well as any wicked persons or countries that threaten foreign nations."

A sharply worded rebuke to Stanley's sermon at PreachingPeace.org by Jeff Krantz and Michael Hardin stated: "There is no conceivable way to connect this war with the will of God." Stanley, they contended, "does not preach the Word of God, but rather 'the traditions of men' . . . This admixture of popular civil religion and Christianity is idolatry worthy of the ancients . . . Dr. Stanley does not appear to reflect any knowledge of church history, for if he had, he would know that the early church rejected warfare for almost 300 years."

Fully 30% of all US refining capacity is in the target zone. Perhaps most importantly, almost every refinery capable of producing diesel fuel is in immediate danger. This promises (especially in the wake of Katrina) a devastating and irreplaceable shortage of the diesel fuel needed to power America’s harvest of grain and food crops this month and next. Without diesel fuel to power the harvesters and combines, crops may be left to rot in the ground presenting a double whammy: food shortages (with prices that may treble or quadruple) and export defaults negatively impacting the financial markets and trade deficit.

Zogby polled Americans in June as to whether they would support impeaching President Bush if it were proved he had misled the nation about his reasons for going to war in Iraq. Forty-two percent said they would support impeaching the president under that condition.

The day the poll was released, Zogby went on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann. When asked whether he would raise the question again, he said: “We'll test it periodically, probably in a month from now. Again, no-one is really talking about it, but it is a good barometric reading.”

Zogby did not poll on impeachment again.

According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle in Montana, CITIZENS of both political parties have petitioned the local city council to give back the $4 million “earmarked” for a new parking garage, with one resident telling the Wall Street Journal, “We figure New Orleans needs the money right now a lot more than we need extra downtown parking spaces.”

Which got the Wall Street Journal thinking.

“Why not cancel all of the special-project pork in the highway bill and dedicate the $25 billion in savings to emergency relief on the Gulf Coast?” it mused in an editorial. “Is it asking too much for Richmond, Indiana, to give up $3 million for its hiking trail, or Newark, New Jersey, to put a hold on its $2 million bike path?”

Just as disaster victims will not receive "relief" from this government, the rest of the American people will not get relief—of any kind—from a US political system that is, by function, criminalized. Those who fail to grasp this reality—all of it—are as guilty for the decline of this nation as the destroyers themselves.

In the 1830’s, Alexis de Toqueville, coined an immortal phrase, “tyranny of the majority.” While touring our young country, the French journalist and aristocrat became an enthusiast for the American experiment, yet he presciently warned that, like republics of antiquity, universal suffrage leads to the “public treasury being exhausted.” Modern translation: If enough Americans find a way to vote themselves a paycheck, the Republic is doomed.

Reagan posed a very good question: "Can it really be true that the First Amendment can permit Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen to march on public property, advocate the extermination of people of the Jewish faith and the subjugation of blacks, while the same amendment forbids our children from saying a prayer in school?"

Amazingly enough, according to the ACLU, the answer to that question is yes.

Acknowledging that we are a nation under God means that we possess unalienable rights derived not from some benevolent government but from an Almighty Creator.

As mainstream support for the Iraq war dissolves, antiwar activists find themselves in a very different position from their Vietnam War counterparts. Can this momentum be sustained, and focused into concrete demands on when and how to pull out from Iraq? One rallying point may be a resolution, introduced in the House by two Republicans and two Democrats, calling for troop withdrawal to begin no later than Oct. 1, 2006. Called the Homeward Bound Act, the resolution is seen as a major step toward an exit strategy.

A new, antiwar "silent majority" is finding its voice. Even the cries of radicals among marchers this weekend may not drown it out.

Last week, President Bush promised the nation that the federal government will pay for most of the costs of repairing hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, adding, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again." There's no question that New Orleans and her sister Gulf Coast cities have been struck with a major disaster, but should our Constitution become a part of the disaster? You say, "What do you mean, Williams?" Let's look at it.

If the government was taking our property for a road or firehouse, I would be prepared to sell without a fight. But the government should not be able to force me to sell my home so someone else can enjoy my view. NLDC wants my land to market to a developer for projects to "complement" our area's new Pfizer facility. This is for private profit, not public use.

Nearly all my neighbors' homes have been bulldozed -- all but those seven families who stayed and fought not only for our rights, but for the rights of homeowners nationwide.

For decades, federal officials have ignored the pleas of American citizens to secure our borders against an immense, ongoing migration invasion that includes not only millions of “common variety” illegal aliens, but also drug traffickers, terrorists, and other violent criminals. Now, under the pretense of providing security, the Bush administration is adopting an outrageous policy that, in effect, does away with our borders with Mexico and Canada altogether. Regular readers of THE NEW AMERICAN know that this magazine has been warning that this direct assault on our nationhood was coming, that it is part and parcel of the NAFTA-CAFTA-FTAA process.

Police arrested organizer Paul Zulkowitz, who was charged with disorderly conduct as well as for using an unauthorized sound device. For anybody who has been through Union Square in the past few weeks, you've probably seen Zulkowitz (AKA Zool), who heads up "Camp Casey NYC," a small group of local activists who set up an encampment over a month ago to show their solidarity with Sheehan's quest to end the Iraq war. Zool's arrest was most likely a coordinated effort meant to disrupt the ongoing antiwar vigil.

Whereas his first five years had previously been a strange combination of strategic Wilsonian foreign policy and tactical Keynesian domestic policy, the president managed to make it abundantly clear that in domestic terms, his presidential guiding light is Lyndon Baines Johnson, not Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Real conservatives now understand they have been betrayed – badly – by this fraudulent man. Compassionate conservatism, as it turns out, is simply another name for Great Society liberalism, and not even the Texas swagger is original. Genuinely conservative Republicans are dismayed by the president's unveiling of his core liberalism and rightly fear for the future of a party which has likely seen its high-water mark already.

Very possibly, the Supreme Court (or the slippery justices) may have outsmarted themselves, because their hopelessly inconsistent and, in some cases, plainly wrong decisions only clarify the need for a serious course correction. One or two more “moderate” appointments like Kennedy, O’Connor, or Breyer, and we can kiss the chance of the kind of jurisprudence ostensibly embraced by the President goodbye—at least for the next few decades.

God bless the Minutemen!

The bottom line: summary deportation, not federal litigation is the key to actually physically removing foreign nationals who have no legal immigration status in this country. It’s the Holy Grail of immigration law enforcement.

Unfortunately even Section 235(b) has its own built-in loophole to allow illegal aliens to remain in the country and gain all of the benefits of the EOIR Immigration Court system anyhow.

On September 8, 2005, Wall Street Journal columnist David Wessel announced that "the era of small government is over. Sept. 11 challenged it. Katrina killed it." Wessel's declaration comes nearly a decade after President Clinton declared that "the era of big government is over."

What could the US have possibly done to give America a worse name than to invade Iraq and murder its citizens?

According to the September 1 Manufacturing & Technology News, the Government Accounting Office has reported that over the course of the cakewalk war, the US military’s use of small caliber ammunition has risen to 1.8 billion rounds. Think about that number. If there are 20,000 insurgents, it means US troops have fired 90,000 rounds at each insurgent.

Here’s Theodore Dalrymple, in a recent interview:

"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."

Tell it, Preacher! That’s us, that’s the United States of America in this year of Our Lord 2005: a society of emasculated liars.

There is a rough consensus or, as I should like to say, a convergence of Christian, pagan, and natural ethics on what our basic responsibilities are. One could cite Confucianist and Hindu texts to the same effect. Christianity goes further, though probably not as far as the Stoics, in its demands. One can do harm to no one (apart from cases of self-defense) and should do good to strangers when it is possible. The odd man out, however, is the liberal tradition, which today is represented at the extremes by universalist Marxism and universalist libertarianism, both of which are leftist extensions of 19th century liberalism. For Marxists, the state is everything, the community nothing; for libertarians the individual is everything, the community is nothing. Both versions of left-liberalism are incompatible with Christianity; both are inconsistent with human nature.

The blenders (you may call them one worlders or multiculturalists or multiracialists) want to handle this fact by blending all people together so we all share the same genes. Part of their reason for wanting this blending is their belief that by mixing Whites and Blacks, the resulting mixed offspring will be less violent than their Black parent. No doubt, those who think this way are inspired by the blending that scientists are now doing to get rid of Killer Bees by mating them with ordinary bees. Of course, this is a simplistic version of what the blenders are really all about. In our everyday reality, the blenders are also throwing other races into the gene pool so that the mixing is more than just Black and White and so it will, in their perverse dreams, mix all distinct races away in favor of a one-size-fits-all Tan Everyman.

By contrast, many other people believe that this blending amounts to genocide and will, if it continues, eventually kill off all White people -- who are a minority on this planet and who will be swamped with so many genes that are alien to them that they will become extinct. These people believe that Whites should separate out from Blacks and Yellows and Browns and Reds, in order to survive as a distinct people. Some of these people also argue that this separation is required in order for evolution to work.

Reading the president's speech to the United Nations last week, the question came to mind: Is George Bush a conservative at all?

At the United Nations, writes the Washington Post's Colum Lynch, Bush "linked his campaign against terrorism to the anti-poverty agenda advanced by other nations, although he shied away from adopting some of the specific commitments sought by allies."

The Pledge’s words also smacked of nationalism, which Americans of that period considered, well, un-American. Their objection to nationalism seems strange today, but to Americans of 1892 it was a dangerous concept.

Although they saw themselves as separate and distinct from foreign peoples and powers, internally they considered themselves a collection of independent states united by a compact called the Constitution of the United States. “One nation” implied that the states were merely subdivisions of a national government, which Americans of that era knew was not the case. Pledging allegiance to one nation, they knew, would undermine the concept of federalism and threaten constitutional government.

We face a coming financial crisis. Our current account deficit is more than $600 billion annually. Our foreign debt is more than $3 trillion. Foreigners now own over $1.4 trillion of our Treasury and mortgage debt. We must borrow $3 billion from foreigners every business day to maintain our extravagant spending. Our national debt now is increasing $600 billion per year, and guess what, we print over $600 billion per year to keep the charade going. But there is a limit and I’m fearful we’re fast approaching it.

The $15.3 billion in OMB proposed cuts is just the beginning of the Coburn "sacrifices." He would cut into $27 billion of spending earmarked by individual senators and House members in this year alone. As chairman of the Senate subcommittee on federal financial management, he has found $41.5 billion in government overpayments because of poor accounting practices, $1.2 billion in an "over-priced" renovation of United Nations headquarters, $18 billion in General Services Administration (GSA) middle-man fees and $46 million in cost overruns at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Tom Coburn contends any government worker could find room to cut back spending in his own department before the federal leviathan demands more funds from any individual taxpayers. Ultimately, it is up to the government to sacrifice. As Coburn asserts, "It is inexcusable for the White House and Congress to not even make the effort to find any offsets."

Perhaps I need to get my vision checked, but President Bush certainly bore a close resemblance to LBJ tonight. This is not good, and conservatives won’t stand for his appetite for Great Society programs and big-government Republicanism.

How would things be better if the South had won the war?

Well for starters, we would not be engaged in “foreign wars”. The Confederacy had a very strict policy of armed vigilant neutrality. They believed in the same principals that our founding fathers (many of whom were Southern) believed in.

The states would retain the majority of their treasuries, and their citizens would not be sending their money to Washington D.C. and the State of Louisiana would have not been dependent on the federal government to fund the improvements of their levees.

Louisiana and Mississippi would have had state militias in their respective states to deal with any STATE crisis that might arise. The members of those state militias would not be in Iraq and would be allowed to take care of their families and communities. There would be no foreign troops on our soil, and there certainly would not be mercenaries hired to take their place by ever increasing government bureaucracies like the Department of Homeland Security.

Repeal the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Why? Because time and consequence has proven that some women are not capable of handling the awesome responsibility of voting.

The ugly truth is that both parties serve the same masters and they aren't the American people or even the best interests of America—at least not since the Federal Reserve, Inc (a private entity owned by bankers) was created by the Rockefellers for the Rockefellers and their International Banker friends in the City of London. Having had our money system (and wealth) hijacked for almost 100 years (following the Federal Reserve Act of 1913) has allowed the Ruling Class to create and manipulate debt, interest rates, recessions, and depressions and involve Americans in wars for their economic profits and our human losses, and to continue to do so in Iraq and the soon coming wars with Iran, Syria, Russia and probably China.

"It was a scene like something out of a Fellini movie," 365gay.com remarked perfectly. Hurricane Katrina was originally expected to delay, if not completely rule out, the annual Southern Decadence gay (meaning homosexual) festival in New Orleans. But the indomitable gay (meaning spritely) spirit of New Orleans refused to desist as about two dozen intrepid souls paraded down Bourbon St. regardless of what death and destruction lay a few feet away.

A true American hero is carrying our party's standard in the October 4th Special Election in California and he needs your immediate help. Jim Gilchrist is the founder of the well known Minuteman Project along the Mexican border.

If you're like me and are bored to tears watching the insipid questioning and clever parsing of words at the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings on the nomination of Judge John Roberts to lead the Supreme Court, you may have wondered what the hearings would be like if everybody told the truth -- I mean really told the truth.

It is time that quantitative, science-based risk assessment became a cornerstone of urban and coastal land-use planning to prevent such disasters from happening again. Politicians and others must not make hollow promises for a future, safe New Orleans. Ten feet below sea level and sinking is not safe. It is time to constructively deconstruct, not destructively reconstruct.

In 1816 Thomas Jefferson wrote: "I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

You will hear about Judge Roberts from several perspectives, but it is safe to assume that questions and testimony about Judge Roberts' views on corporate power and the rule of law will be inadequate given the broad and profound impact giant corporations have on our democracy.

The real disaster of Katrina was that society broke down. An entire community could not cope. Liberalism, the idea that good intentions and government programs can build a Great Society, was exposed as fraud. After trillions of tax dollars for welfare, food stamps, public housing, job training and education have poured out since 1965, poverty remains pandemic. But today, when the police vanish, the community disappears and men take to the streets to prey on women and the weak.

New Orleans provides us with a reliable template for judging what the Bush administration will do in the event of a massive "casualty-producing" terrorist attack. However depressing, this is useful information.

New Orleans is no longer part of America. It is a brave new world devised by FEMA and the Ministry of Homeland Security. In the new New Orleans, there are no constitutional rights. Not only are soldiers allowed to break down doors (as they do in Iraq) in violation of the Fourth Amendment and even “shoot to kill” if they believe they are threatened (as soldiers in Iraq “shoot to kill” grandmothers and kids at Israeli-styled checkpoints), now the Second Amendment no longer exists.

The emptiness and arrogance of the Senate's demagogic buffoons can't be overstated. Arlen Specter's phrase "super duper" precedent illustrated what a collection of lightweights the Senate has become. John Roberts patiently explained the rudiments of the law to them, but the Senators were too busy shuffling through their papers in search of the ACLU's latest talking points to listen. Or in the case of Specter, looking around for an oversized Roe v. Wade prop to underscore his argument about "super duper" precedent, that cogent legal concept which somehow eluded the authors of the Federalist Papers and drafters of the Constitution.

The survey, commissioned by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), found that 70 percent of the respondents believe border control is more important, while only 23 percent favor more gun control. Seven percent of the respondents were undecided. The survey was conducted Sept. 6-7, by randomly contacting more than 1,150 households around the country. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percent, Zogby said.

I mentioned the word impeachment on the House Floor Thursday late afternoon, but I don’t see it in the official Congressional Record transcript. I was chided by the Speaker that it was out of order to question the President’s motives. I didn’t question motives, I questioned actions: from lack of actions on Katrina to cutting the budget of safety net programs, to rewarding the rich to the detriment of all the rest of us. This transcript directly from the Congressional Record is mangled and omits that word!!!! I can’t believe this.

Religion has been blamed for most of the ills of the world and deserves much of the blame, but any good thing can be misused, and the best thing most of all. If religion is dangerous, however, it is most dangerous, not when it thrives, but when it dies. The rotten carcass of a religion is far more pestilential than the religion was when it was alive. Putrid hunks of doctrine infect the minds of those who have forgotten the doctrine when it was still vital. Political correctness is one result of the decay of Judaism and Christianity in the United States. Without their renewal, we will have to continue to endure the godless religion of political correctness.

The Internet forced a CNN news chief to resign. The Internet revealed the lies coming out of Dan Rather’s newscasts and forced him to “retire.” The Internet revealed the lies of a Democratic presidential candidate about his service in war. And now the Internet is instrumental in funding and advertising a relief effort for a natural disaster the likes of which the United States hasn’t seen in decades, if ever.

The Internet is where it is happening and it is where I want to be.

We are told the "war on terror" must be waged to destroy the enemies of our freedoms - those same freedoms the state is determined to obliterate in order to fight the war. Tell me, what will be the justification for fighting the "enemies of freedom" when we no longer have any freedoms left to defend?

Instead of addressing any of the salient issues, however, the only thing that anyone seems to come up with is, "We need more involvement from the federal government." But before we go to seed on giving the federal government carte blanche to solve our domestic problems, we need to consider carefully what we would be getting.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Aaron F. Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish in the New Orleans suburbs, told host Tim Russert that if "the American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis." He's not the only one who glimpsed what might have been if there were no such thing as FEMA in the first place.

The hurricane approaching, as Joel K. Bourne, Jr., wrote in his "Gone with the Water," presciently nine months before Katrina, in the October 2004 National Geographic:

It is amazing what the human mind, especially Mr. Bourne's, was able to imagine before it occurred—and with such detail. If one were overly suspicious, one might imagine the National Geographic Society—called by some an organization that the CIA hangs its hat on—has some strange foreknowledge of the event. But how could one predict a natural catastrophe with such accuracy?

1. Government is inherently incompetent, and no matter what task it is assigned, it will do it in the most expensive and inefficient way possible.

2. The American government is corrupt from top to bottom.

3. If you rely on the mass media to inform you about your community, state and nation, you will, with rare exceptions, be woefully ignorant of what is really going on.

4. The universal franchise is a bad idea. The notion that the destiny of the nation should be put in the hands of ignoramuses, parasites, boobs, party hacks and idiots is absurd on its face.

5. Public education in America is a failure and is so flawed it cannot be reformed.

6. Not much has changed in the past 5,000 years of human history.

Perhaps, though, our country could make good use of a Disaster Relief Corps, one with the discipline of the military but somewhat less rigorous IQ requirements, accepting young men down to, say, the 10th percentile (80 IQ, which is the legal minimum for soldiers). Many young men want the chance to be heroes, which is why small towns get by with volunteer fire departments. Those ambitions should be encouraged.

For elites and their minions in media and academia, the notion that the United States federal government could collapse is similarly inconceivable. But their inability or unwillingness to imagine such an event does not mean that it is unpredictable. Like their predecessors who missed the harbingers of the Soviet collapse during the 1980s, they are so invested in the status quo that they are blind to the forces that imperil it. If anything, their collective myopia is yet another sign of the federal government’s vulnerability.

I had to sit down when I heard the Padilla case had been settled. I literally felt sick to my stomach, like I was gasping for air. The case of Jose Padilla is quite simply the most important case in the history of the American judicial system. Hanging in the balance are all the fundamental principles of American jurisprudence including habeas corpus, due process and "the presumption of innocence". All of those basic concepts were summarily revoked by the 3 judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court. The Court ruled in favor of the Bush administration which claimed that it had the right to indefinitely imprison an American citizen without charging him with a crime. The resulting verdict confers absolute authority on the President to incarcerate American citizens without charge and without any legal means for the accused to challenge the terms of his detention. It is the end of "inalienable rights", the end of The Bill of Rights, and the end of any meaningful notion of personal liberty.

How does one reconcile the fact that we are being led into slavery (and to slaughter) by a group of pathological liars who, ironically, have been appointed to "protect us?" How does one come to grips with the fact there are still millions of Americans who believe there is a "good half" of the government and a "bad half?" ...An intellectual twilight zone where "good" has nothing to do with the ACTIONS of elected officials and everything to do with whether or not they've dressed themselves in "blue" or "red.")

Unless someone is willing to risk a loss by breaking the rules, no system functions well in an emergency. FEMA is like any other government bureaucracy: no one is willing to take a risk. No one is able to respond fast to new circumstances. The bureaucratization of emergency response is a contradiction in terms.

No devotee of exactitude, W has never been one to auction his noble birthright to a hideous mess of facts. We’ve got the Skull and Bones fraternity and Poppy’s tutelage to thank for that. Unlike dreary politicians who never soar above the level of misrepresentation (and actually condescend to argue, prove, and discuss), W flaunts the temper of a true liar, with his frank, fearless statements, his superb irresponsibility, his healthy, natural disdain for proof of any kind…Weapons of Mass Destruction? Who cares! Osama Bin Laden? Not my concern, anymore! Budget Deficits? No big deal! New York Times Report? Don’t read newspapers! Protect the Borders? Manana, Manana!

How damn refreshing! Only artistic genius like W could have realized how unhealthy a thing like thinking is to the average “red” blooded American, who eschews prickly thoughts as the bulwark of their happiness.

This is perhaps the most devilish characteristic of the state: politicians causing problems and then calling for people’s support so that they can be corrected through new policies, more authority, and even bigger government. “There are so many needs that need to be fulfilled that there simply cannot be enough government.”

In other words, liberals seem to feel that the rights and responsibilities of state and local governments can and should be taken away by the federal government in emergency situations. But that’s exactly what the Constitution was designed to prevent.

More than anything else, the founders feared an all-powerful central government dictating to the states and citizens. The United States is supposed to be a federal republic, not a centralized totalitarian government. The president has no authority to command state militia (or the modern substitute, National Guard units) without permission of the state governor to whom they report. He cannot order the evacuation of a city. He cannot simply assume command over the local and state governments. He certainly cannot send the U.S. military to take control of a city or state except in case of insurrection. And the last thing the looters in New Orleans were doing was setting up their own secessionist government.

Every person who complains because the federal government did not take control of the New Orleans situation--despite the governor’s refusal to give permission--is advocating a far more powerful federal government than we should ever want. The burden of response to local disasters rests on local elected officials while they choose to retain their authority. The federal government cannot intervene unless specifically requested to do so. To suggest otherwise is to invite a military dictatorship.

FEMA has therefore intentionally created the climate for the justification of foreign troops entering the US.

Regarding the convoys, the Associated Press article stated,

"Army press office employee Francisco Aguilar said he did not have details of the convoy's precise location. It originally was scheduled to arrive in Houston to provide food for evacuees, but apparently had been rerouted to Dallas."

If the army does not know the location of the convoys or why they are heading for Dallas, beside the fact that they are armed, isn't that an issue of national security?

We have come to the point in America when the real domestic issue has frighteningly become not one of whether government should grow a little or shrink a little in one area or another: although it might not yet be out in the open, the issue before us is the wholesale abolition of civil liberty and whether such totalitarianism is ever justified, even in times of crisis.

The conservatives and "liberals" who say yes, who endorse martial law as sometimes necessary and proper and massive state violence as the cure to calamity, natural or manmade, are on the wrong side of the most important domestic issue of the day.

When all is said and done, here is the bottom line in regard to Hurricane Katrina and the debacle which ensued. What happened was that FEMA deliberately delayed their ‘emergency’ response efforts until Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco signed over the city of New Orleans to our federal government. It’s that simple.

The mass media made an abrupt turn, adapting and shaping the images of the Administration’s catastrophe. In seven days the magic of the media transformed the Bush team from incompetent and ignorant leaders to decisive and caring officials. At the same time the desperate, dying and furious were converted into an unruly, crime-ridden, ungrateful and chaotic mob. The political message was clear: Repression and militarization were priority conditions for survival and humanitarian aid. The city had to be under de facto martial law before it could be saved. Viet Nam and Falluja come to mind. After all, counter-insurgency is what we do best.

Pick your poison: from bungled investigations to billion-dollar rip-offs, ‘government’ in our country is more often than not more a problem than a problem-solver.

Liberals - and this is why they have lost power nationally - still cling to the notion of using the government to ‘do good.’ But, even when well-intentioned, government efforts to solve a problem rarely work; and often they actually make that problem worse.

These are the elite members of the corporatocracy, the equivalents of the Kings and Emperors of times past. They are all benefiting from the oil price hikes and – dare I say it! – from the tragedy of Katrina. That storm will serve as another excuse for the oil kings to whine and moan – and profiteer. As will their brethren who receive the lush billion-dollar reconstruction contracts.

Leftists are now saying that the New Orleans disaster shows that federal-government assistance to the poor and needy is more necessary than ever.

What in the world could leftists be thinking? It is leftist economic ideology – reinforced unfortunately by modern-day conservative “reform” philosophy – that is responsible for the horrible economic plight in which the New Orleans poor find themselves.

What this country needs is a good political revolution, one in which the poor people of this nation demand – yes, demand – the abolition of all welfare-state programs and the taxes that fund them.

Command and control is their motivation. Everything government does is for pure command and control over increasingly minute details of your life. Water filters are a "self-sufficiency" tool. Can't have that! Government would rather you be as dependent on them (day to day, hour to hour) as possible for handouts of food, water and other supplies, they want you making your daily pilgrimage to their FEMA and other command and control distribution centers to grovel for your sustenance at the feet of your benevolent central planners. (Wal-Mart is involved nation-wide with FEMA to become just such centers in any regional disaster) It's that simple: government wants you totally dependent on them any way they can calculate it, there is no other justification for a bottled water plan over providing filters. Dependence versus self sufficiency.

Thousands of people in New Orleans will be saved because millions of other people they don't even know are moved by moral obligations to come to their rescue from all corners of this country. The things our clever sophisticates sneer at are ultimately all that stand between any of us and utter devastation.

Let's ask a few smell-test questions about these claims of beneficial aspects of hurricane destruction. Would there have been even greater economic growth and job creation for our nation had Hurricane Katrina not only destroyed New Orleans, Mobile and Gulfport, but other major metropolitan areas along its path, like Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, as well? Would we consider it a godsend, in terms of jobs and economic growth, if a few more category 4 hurricanes hit our shores? Only a lunatic would answer these questions in the affirmative.

Before Bush went off on his five-week vacation, he signed a $286 billion highway bill containing $24 billion in pork – 6,300 earmarked projects, among which was a quarter-billion-dollar bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska, population 8,000, to Gravina Island, population 50. Had half that sum been spent fortifying the levees of Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans would not be underwater today.

With a federal deficit, because of Katrina, rising toward $400 billion, a trade deficit of $700 billion to $800 billion and Americans saving only 1 percent of their income, we can no longer afford such nonsense. And it is not just tax-and-spend liberals who are culpable, but conservatives who believe they have patented a formula for the permanent retention of power: guns, butter and tax cuts, too!

Roberts agreed that FEMA has deliberately withheld aid, and cut emergency communication lines, and automatically made the crisis look worse in order to empower the image of a police state emerging to "save the day". He even insinuated that the shoot to kill policy was part of the overall operation in order get an awful precedence set to aid the military industrial complex takeover of America.

Roberts went on to stress that this event is WORSE than 9/11 because it was announced days ahead of the event and contingency plans were intentionally ignored. The officials on the scene have said there was a complete stand down of the government and intentional incompetence. Furthermore they did nothing ON PURPOSE in order to provoke the resulting chaos and anarchy so they could say "look how out of control everyth