PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Once each quarter, The Federalist is published as a combined edition. We will suspend publication next week to provide our editorial and technical staff the opportunity to set the next quarter’s topical and technical priorities. You will receive an important message next Tuesday concerning new features, and our Easter edition will be published next Thursday. Federalist paper #02-14 Brief will be in circulation on Monday, 01 April. As always, on behalf of our entire Editorial Board and staff, I thank you, our patriot readers, for the opportunity to serve you. Mark Alexander, Publisher.

Quote of the week…

“We are not going to tolerate these attacks from outlaw states, run by the strangest collection of misfits, looney tunes, and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich.” –Ronald Reagan (speaking after terrorist attacks by Shi'ite Muslims, July 1985)

On cross-examination…

“The bottom line is that if politicians weren’t in the business of granting favors and exacting tribute, every single issue surrounding campaign finance reform would be irrelevant. After all, why would anyone spend money for influence, access, favors and tribute if the only thing that politicians do is to live up to their oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution? But, I’m afraid, most Americans want congressmen to do something else – to violate the Constitution in order to make it possible for them to live at the expense of others.” –Walter E. Williams

Open Query…

“Am I the only one who remembers the debate over airport security? ONLY by making the screeners Federal employees would the system ever be deemed safe. The INS, when last we checked, is staffed by Federal employees.” –Rich Galen

The BIG lie…

“This great center of democracy is truly tainted by money. Particularly after September 11, all of us in this chamber hope the public will look to the Capitol and to the Senate with reverence and pride, not with derision. Our task here today is to restore some of that pride.” –Sen. Russell Feingold, one of the chief advocates of the “Incumbent Protection Act” (AKA campaign finance reform), which passed Wednesday.

News from the Swamp…

In the Executive Branch, Mr. Bush took off Thursday on a tour consulting our southern neighbors, saying, “There are people in our neighborhood who hurt.” Original plans for the trip centered on economic betterment throughout the Southern Hemisphere, as Mr. Bush emphasized his belief the U.S. has a proper role in doling out financial aid to poor nations that root out corruption: “I think it makes no sense to give aid … to countries that are corrupt, because you know what happens? The money doesn’t help the people. It helps an elite group of leaders. And that’s not fair to the people of a particular country, nor is it fair to the taxpayers of the United States.” Current administration proposals call for more new foreign-aid to developing nations, mainly as grants rather than loans, including about an extra $1.7 billion next year, about $3.3 billion in the following year, and $5 billion in the third and subsequent years.

Team Bush has requested much-needed additional national defense funding the efforts against global-reach terrorism – to the tune of $20-25 billion. The House Republicans and Senate Democrats hammered out competing budgets this week, with the House generally giving Mr. Bush the budget he wants, and the Senate writing up proposals the Demos believe will look good in upcoming political ads! Stay tuned – as the budget battles will get hotter before they are over!

In the House of Lords, Sen. Robert Byrd has decided to hold up Mr. Bush’s urgent request for legislation amnestying immigrants currently in illegal status, terming it “sheer lunacy” as an addition to border security legislation. President Bush had asked the law be passed before he went south.

Elsewhere in the Lords’ chamber, the “Incumbent Protection Act” passed Wednesday, 60-40, seven years in the making. Stated Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Frist, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, “It will protect incumbents and career politicians. Money in politics flows like water, and if you block it off in one direction, it just finds another way around. The total ban on soft money will simply drive more money into the hands of unregulated, unreported special interest groups.” Sen. Phil Gramm added: “I am profoundly opposed to this bill, because it is clearly unconstitutional. I think that you would have a concentration of power in the media, in these special-interest groups that use the media. …It’s going to be harder and harder for people to get their view out if their view differs with the established power structure.”

We concur, and we note that our publishing namesake from Revolutionary America, Publius, would have been a criminal under this law!

The measure bans “soft money” donations to both the Republican and Democrat parties and imposes restrictions on how state parties may use soft money for federal elections, while doubling “hard money” named donations to candidates. On its face, some Republicans are justifying setting the Constitutional question aside (normally a tactic reserved for Leftists), noting that Republican political committees always raise more hard money donations than their opponents – $131 Million to the Sociocrats $60 Million thus far in the 2002 election cycle. And, of the top five soft money donors this cycle, four are Unions, and Unions have given $15.5 Million to Sociocrats and a mere $30 Thousand to Republicans.

What Republicans are leaving off the account is that all of this “soft dough” will now flow to the Leftmedia, and that opinion-shaping multiple is worth billions!

More than fifty conservative groups, gathered under the aegis of the American Conservative Union, have petitioned Mr. Bush to veto incumbent protection, arguing, “It is a travesty that so many Members of Congress – on both sides of the aisle – seem to have either forgotten about or chose to intentionally ignore their oaths to ‘support and defend the Constitution’ when they cast their votes on this legislation. It is, frankly, sad that such an affront to freedom has actually made it to the desk of the President of the United States.” But as we have lamented previously, President Bush intends to sign this unconstitutional bill, as he said Wednesday, “The reforms…while flawed in some areas, still improve the current system overall, and I will sign them into law [even though it] presents some legitimate constitutional questions.”

Of course, Mr. Bush is calculating that the High Court will ultimately veto this unconstitutional travesty. He should not hold his breath.

And about last week’s “borking” of Judge Charles W. Pickering, moderate Demo Zell Miller noted: “A good and brave man has been hurt, and that is what is most tragic here. He should have been approved on his merit alone. [Pickering’s defeat] is just another example of the Terry McAuliffe-tail wagging the Democratic donkey.” But Senate Judiciary Leftist-in-Chief Patrick Leahy informed his colleagues across the aisle that controversial judicial nominees are bound for the back of the line. Following the five-month Pickering debate, the committee (dominated by Leahy and nine other Demo unconstitutional reconstructionists) has decided to make moderate candidates a priority.

Memo to Leahy & his Contra-Constitutional Cadre: Because the Judiciary committee voted against sending appellate nominee Pickering’s nomination to the Senate floor for a vote, his nomination is still in effect; only a vote by the full Senate can defeat a presidential nomination. Some historical notes: “And as there would be a necessity for submitting each nomination to the judgement of an entire branch of the legislature.” –Federalist, No. 77. “The President proposes such a man for such an office. The Senate has to consider upon it.” –Iredell, North Carolina Ratifying Convention, 28 July 1788. “The whole Senate must now deliberate on every appointment,” –John Adams, July 1789. “The President is to nominate, … but his nomination cannot confer office, unless approved by a majority of the Senate.” –Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution.

Judicial Benchmarks…

In the halls of justice on the right, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled 6-1 Wednesday that gun maker Sturm, Ruger & Company could not be held accountable for the 1999 death of Jordan Garris, who died after discovering his father’s gun and shooting himself. The court sided with common sense, that the manufacturer had nothing to do with the father’s decision about storage of the firearm. Lawrence G. Keane, vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc., noted, “As Maryland’s high court found, this tragic accident was caused by the failure of a firearm’s owner to act in a safe and responsible manner by following the most basic firearms safety messages and warnings provided to him by the manufacturer and the retailer that sold him the firearm.”

From the Left…

From the “Content of Their Character” Files: Black leaders in Cincinnati have extended their boycott of the city to include skipping out on Rev. Billy Graham’s appearance this summer. The boycotters’ actions followed the three days of riots after police shot a 19-year-old black man last April. The city is already struggling economically, yet the boycotters are demanding (AKA “extorting”) from the city more “economic inclusion” (AKA “welfare”) and a “living wage requirement” (AKA even more “welfare”).

In more Clintonista effluent this week, Independent Counsel Robert Ray issued his final Whitewater report, concluding that while the shenanigans were cloaked in criminal transactions, “Insufficient evidence exists to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that either Governor or Mrs. Clinton knowingly participated in the criminal financial transactions.” In other words, like so many of their criminal ventures prior to and while tenants in the White House, they were masters at using “cutouts” to shield them from any direct finding of wrongdoing.

Former chief House impeachment prosecutor David Schippers objected to last week’s whitewash of Clinton’s misdeeds in re Monica Lewinsky: “This is nonsense. …This is absolute garbage. …The guy gave up his license for five years because the alternative was to lose it altogether. To say he’s already been punished – when Judge Wright found that he lied under oath in a deposition and only fined him $90,000…. [Clinton] should have been put in jail right there.” Schippers further noted in a written rebuttal, “It is obvious that, for one reason or another, the OIC [Office of Independent Counsel] has elected to forego indicting William Jefferson Clinton for perjury, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. That is a decision peculiarly in the discretion of the prosecutor.”

The Commissars…

About that “property rights” thing…. “The Good Neighbor Act,” sponsored by Pennsylvania Republican Rep. John Peterson, would halt some central government land grabs in counties where over half the land is already owned by the National Park Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management or Fish and Wildlife Service. If enacted, the bill would require the government to sell a piece of land worth at least 97 percent of the fair market value of any new land to be acquired. Rep. Peterson notes, “With Washington already owning one-third of America, we cannot afford to wait any longer to reform the federal government’s runaway land acquisition process. A good neighbor doesn’t move into your house and take over, especially when they’re not invited. But somehow the federal government has no problem moving into a region and taking over without the slightest regard for the people who live there.”

Regarding the redistribution of your income…

Income tax time is less than a month away, and have you also noticed that “The IRS” also spells out “theirs”? Well, as The Federalist has alerted you before, the IRS still wants to help you lighten your pocketbooks even more – by offering online tax preparation services! Let’s see…. The IRS collects tax payments, audits returns, enforces noncompliance, and now wants to sit on the other side of the ledger and assist “government tax customers” in figuring out their tax returns. No cause for worry about conflict of interest there! Nah, why not just out-source government tax preparation services to Arthur Andersen!

From the department of military readiness…

First, the good news… Last Friday about 140 miles above the Pacific Ocean, the sixth test of ballistic missile defenses was conducted – this time incorporating not just a single decoy balloon as a countermeasure but three such false targets (a large balloon, a small red balloon, and a small white balloon) launched with the mock warhead. A “kill vehicle” projectile from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Site in the Kwajalein Atoll successfully targeted, intercepted and destroyed a modified Minuteman II booster rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, about 4,800 miles away. (Previous testing had been successful in three of five intercepts.) “It’s becoming ever more clear that missile defense will be a part of our future, if only we sustain the political will to deploy it,” commented John J. Miller.

And inducing a “state of concern”… CINCs of the U.S. Pacific and European commands Wednesday told Congress the war on terrorism has stretched our forces and equipment quite thin. Navy Admiral Dennis C. Blair, commander in chief of the Pacific Command, testified to the House Armed Services Committee, “We do not have adequate forces to carry out our missions for the Pacific if the operations in the Central Command continue at their recent past and current pace.” David McIntyre, former dean of the National War College, added: “Today, we are conducting combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, enforcing the peace in Bosnia and Kosovo, keeping the peace in the Sinai, fulfilling promises and treaty commitments with troops for Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Europe, and supporting the drug war in Colombia and off our own coasts. … And the terrorist threat may soon demand major combat action somewhere else….The world is too big. Our numbers are too small. We are cutting it too close.”

From the department of military correctness…

We could not make this stuff up if we tried! The Army recently released a comic book entitled “Dignity and Respect: A Training Guide on Homosexual Conduct Policy,” which incorrectly presents as military law the Clinton administration’s original “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (AKA “wink and nod”) policy that was rejected and replaced by Congress in 1993. The Center for Military Readiness observes, “Conspicuously missing from the dumbed-down document is the brief text of the law in question. Nor is there anything resembling the clear logic and thinking of Congress when it voted with overwhelming, veto-proof bipartisan majorities to reaffirm the principle that homosexuality is incompatible with military service.”

The “Non Compos Mentis” Department…

“Our concern about these [ballistic missile defense] tests is that the American people are getting unrealistic expectations,” solemnly intoned Chris Madison of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. But the purpose of testing is to get realistic expectations! And the worst unrealistic expectation, we suppose, is that the arms controllers will ever go away, even once effective defenses render the anti-nuke freezeniks themselves obsolete!

From the states…

From the Peoples’ Republic of Maryland, Baltimore City Council on Monday considered prohibiting “the possession of air rifles, air guns, and BB guns, as well as their sale or transfer or their discharge” – then took their best shot, introducing further legislation prohibiting the “possession, sale or transfer, or discharge of paintball guns and similar devices.” We guess next the councilors will ban finger pointing! A joint delegation from the NRA and Fisher-Price announced plans to appeal. Hey, low-caliber officeholders are almost always more dangerous than high-caliber weapons!

The Winter Olympics did not feature a cross-country running event, but head U.S. Olympic organizer Mitt Romney vaulted into the lead this week as Republican contender to hold on to the governorship of the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts, when acting Gov. Jane Swift dropped out the of race, claiming family priority of caring for her young twins. “Massachusetts acting governor Jane Swift has decided not to run for a full term. It’s just as well. She may not be too swift but apparently she understands that the battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the Swift,” summed up friend of The Federalist Lyn Nofziger. And definitely not to the swift race Left she was running!

Culture comment…

After the raid of one the nation’s largest child porn rings this week, serious questions are being raised as to the pervasiveness of the problem. Among the individuals busted for collaboration in the ring were a police officer, a nurse, a school bus driver, and several clergymen. Kenneth Lanning, a 30-year FBI veteran lamented, “What’s discouraging is that in spite of all the years of doing this kind of work there seems to be almost an unending reservoir of these offenders.”

Faith Matters…

Conservative commentator and culture analyst William J. Bennett this week addressed the burgeoning scandal of homosexual pedophilia in the Catholic priesthood: “Recent highly publicized events in the Roman Catholic Church are very sad and deeply troubling, particularly for those of us who have been Catholics all our lives. And unless there are significant changes in the way the Catholic Church deals with allegations of sexual abuse, this will quickly move from being a crisis in individual dioceses to being one for the church around the world, at a time when the church’s message is much needed.” Exactly so, as the church’s message is about properly dealing with sin for all sinners….

On the frontiers of junk science…

As The Federalist has already alerted you, early reports are not good for advocates of using fetal stem cells in medical treatments – as such interventions violate the Hippocratic Oath’s first principle, “first of all, do no harm.” This week’s New England Journal of Medicine contains a study evaluating outcomes for Parkinson’s disease patients given brain implants of cells from aborted infants. None of the sufferers improved; some experienced worsened conditions, as the implanted cells multiplied rapidly, producing irreversible side effects including uncontrollable muscular twitching and jerking. Despite the experimental treatment’s failure, these research physicians intend to press on with similar studies.

Around the world…

Vice President Dick Cheney was just back from his Middle East trek as Mr. Bush departed southward. But Mr. Cheney found himself spending public comments on the ongoing low-grade warfare between Israel and the Palestinians rather than making a public case against Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein.

And about that possible POW held by Iraq for over 10 years: “Our conclusion is that we don’t know for sure what happened to him, but the Iraqis do know, and we certainly do not exclude the possibility that he could be alive and still be held captive. …We simply do not know for sure, but continue to pursue with vigor to try to resolve this case,” said Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson, the DIA director, of the possibility that Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher, lost after his F-18 jet was shot down over Iraq on the first night of the 1991 Persian Gulf war and at first classified KIA, is still alive and a prisoner of Saddam Hussein.

Memo to Saddam: The Pentagon is conducting research on weak nuclear bomb designed to penetrate underground bunkers….

And speaking of nukes, Britain’s Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon noted that “rogue nations (Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Libya – that’s the Axis of Evil + 1) can be confident that in the right conditions, we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons,” in response to an attack on Britain or her troops with any weapon of mass destruction.

At the economic development summit, the International Conference on Financing for Development, in Monterrey, Mexico, just before Mr. Bush’s arrival, those tiresome periodic calls for global taxation came up again. Mexican President Vicente Fox articulated support for a “carbon-based tax” to connect global elite business central planners with global greens, saying the world tax would combine" money for development and also a more efficient use of scarce resources.“ So far, Team Bush remains opposed to such global taxation without representation, and successfully removed language endorsing the plan from the summit’s final draft report.

And last…

A closing thought for couch potatoes who plan to vegetate through an entire evening watching Hollyland’s largest televised self-affirmation-pat-yourself-on-the-back-it-takes-a-village event honoring the self-appointed-czars-of-pop-culture-and-randomly-imposed-moral-conscience-providers-of-western-society this Sunday evening, here is an observation from friend of The Federalist Jonah Goldberg: "At the Oscars, it seems, the only documentaries that ever make it to the finals are about lesbians or Holocaust survivors or lesbian daughters of Holocaust survivors.”