MLK's vehement condemnations of US militarism are more relevant than ever | The Guardian

Yet, America's first black president has not heeded them, says Glenn Greenwald.

Jim Rogers: U.S. Presidential favorites clueless on economy | Reuters

Cornfield Socialism | The Freeman

Potential GOP presidential hopefuls' labeling President Obama as a socialist ring hollow in light of their support of ethanol subsidies says Stephen Horwitz.

Sarah Palin’s Cross Hairs – and Obama’s | Antiwar.com

Metaphorical ones are no comparison to real ones says John V. Walsh.

Woodward: Obama Wants Out of Afghanistan | The Nation

New Bob Woodward book details a war within The White House over war in Afghanistan.

Obama Admin Calls US Education Failure | The Daily Bell

The President is right, but for the wrong reasons, Swiss-based financial newsletter opines.

Emperor George W. Obama | LewRockwell.com

Femininst author Naomi Wolf breaks ranks with many of her progressive friends and says civil liberties abuses under President Barack Obama are just as bad, if not worse, than under George W. Bush.

Mission Accomplished! | LewRockwell.com

J.H. Huebert recalls candidate Barack Obama's pledge to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

America Under Barack Obama by John W. Whitehead | LewRockwell.com

Outspoken civil libertarian tells John W. Whitehead why Barack Obama "is possibly the most destructive and dangerous president we have ever had."

SNL writers moonlight as poly sci/econ professors

Opinion: U.S. is doing no good in Afghanistan - San Jose Mercury News

An Afghan woman offers her take on U.S. efforts to democratize her country

Harsanyi: What would Obama do? - The Denver Post

"'It's Yahweh or the highway'" in the health-care debate

Shared via AddThis

Charlie Sheen's message to Pres. Obama for true 9/11 investigation

FIRE's open letter to Pres Obama on speech codes

January 20, 2009

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Sent via U.S. Mail and Facsimile (202-456-2461)

Dear President Obama:

I write to you on this historic day to offer my heartfelt congratulations on your inauguration. Your achievement is a testament to the enduring promise of our great democracy and the constitutional ideals upon which our nation was founded.

As President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), I write also to request your assistance in ending abridgements of free speech on our nation's college campuses. Because you have taught constitutional law, you are particularly attuned to the importance of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. We therefore sincerely hope that you will help to eliminate censorship on college campuses and restore respect for robust expression in higher education.

Like most Americans, you likely would be surprised to learn how often the right to free expression is violated at our nation's colleges and universities, despite the fact that the vitality of these institutions relies upon the free and open exchange of ideas. In just the last year, FIRE has defended basic constitutional freedoms in some truly remarkable cases at both public and private schools.

To read the rest of this letter, go to FIRE's Web site

Lincoln may not have welcomed Obama's election

by Leonard Pitts

On Tuesday, Barack Obama will stand on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and take an oath making him the nation's first president of African heritage.

The statue of Abraham Lincoln, which sits facing the Capitol in a temple two miles away, will not give two thumbs up. Neither will it weep, commune with the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. or dance a Macarena of joy.

The point is obvious, yes, but also necessary given that when Obama was elected in November, every third political cartoonist seemed to use an image of a celebrating Lincoln to comment upon the milestone that had occurred. Lincoln, they told us, would have been overjoyed.

For more on this commentary, go to McClatchy Newspapers

Sweatshops offer world's poor hope, not despair

by Nicholas D. Kristof

Before Barack Obama and his team act on their talk about “labor standards,” I’d like to offer them a tour of the vast garbage dump here in Phnom Penh.

This is a Dante-like vision of hell. It’s a mountain of festering refuse, a half-hour hike across, emitting clouds of smoke from subterranean fires.

The miasma of toxic stink leaves you gasping, breezes batter you with filth, and even the rats look forlorn. Then the smoke parts and you come across a child ambling barefoot, searching for old plastic cups that recyclers will buy for five cents a pound. Many families actually live in shacks on this smoking garbage.

Mr. Obama and the Democrats who favor labor standards in trade agreements mean well, for they intend to fight back at oppressive sweatshops abroad. But while it shocks Americans to hear it, the central challenge in the poorest countries is not that sweatshops exploit too many people, but that they don’t exploit enough.

For more on this commentary, go to The New York Times

Is Chili Mac next on the list of bailouts?

By S.J. Masty

Tomorrow, After Lunch - The epic nationalization of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is expected to cost taxpayers "between $50 billion and $500 billion" or more, say economists abandoning pocket calculators for a dartboard.

Next, Lehman Brothers sold the cow for a handful of magic beans and were allowed to collapse. But it is an election year, government's heels are rounder than usual, so it may not be the end of the bailouts.

Both presidential candidates have responded dynamically by adopting a concerned, mature, "I've got gas" expression as though they are auditioning for Alka Seltzer ads, then saying that somebody needs to do, um, something.

Republican John McCain - standing for smaller government, paying debts and rugged individualism - won't admit that the supposed remedy for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is pure socialism, as found in those goofy little Third World countries whose legislatures vote to repeal the law of gravity, and earn most of their Gross National Product by selling postage stamps to collectors.

For Democrat Barack Obama, who has never seen a problem that cannot be solved by borrowing your Visa card, blowing a few hundred billion is probably, well, necessary. Change we need - because all the folding money is going to Washington.

Meanwhile, none of the candidates has dared to speak out on another crisis: Chili Mac.

For more on this commentary, go to The D.C. Examiner

Confusing wealth with income

by Richard W. Rahn

Which of the following families is "richer"? The first family consists of a wife who has recently become a medical doctor, and she makes $160,000 per year. Her husband is a small business entrepreneur who makes $110,000 per year, giving them a total family income of $270,000 per year. However, they are still paying off the loans the wife took out for medical school and the loans the husband took out to start his business, amounting to debts of $300,000. Their total assets are valued at $450,000; hence, their real net worth or wealth (the difference between gross assets and liabilities) is only $150,000.

The second family consists of a trial lawyer who took early retirement and his non-working wife. They have an annual income of $230,000, all of it derived from interest on tax-free municipal bonds they own. However, their net worth is $7 million, consisting of $5 million in bonds, a million-dollar home with no mortgage, and a million dollars in art work, home furnishings, automobiles and personal items.

The second family is clearly far better off financially than the first family, yet many in the U.S. Congress, including Sen. Barack Obama, want to increase taxes on the first (and poorer) family and not on the wealthier family. They have mis-defined "rich" by confusing a flow (income) with a stock (real net assets), and thus come to the wrong conclusion. They want to tax those (who make more than $250,000 a year) who are trying to become rich, while preserving the status for those who already have wealth.

For more on this commentary, go to CATO.org

Fighting back against junk mail

Did you know the average person gets only 1.5 personal letters each week, compared to 10.8 pieces of junk mail? Each person will receive almost 560 pieces of junk mail this year.

That’s 4.5 million tons of junk mail produced each year!

44 percent of all junk mail is thrown in the trash, unopened and unread. Approximately 40 percent of the solid mass that makes up our landfills is paper and paperboard waste.

Believe or not there are ways to fight this nuisance.

In addition to contacting the Direct Mail Association to opt-out of all unsolicited offers, the folks at the Office of Strategic Influence suggest attaching the postage-paid envelope that comes in the unsolicited letter to a box containing a brick. Since the company has to pay $.25 for each ounce, an eight pound package will set them back $25.

As a take off on this idea, Steven Kinsella on LewRockwell.com suggested a way to stick it to fundraising letters for political candidates, especially the McBama camp. With the right amount of diligence and patience, one can make 2009 a year hassle-free from junk mail.

McCain, Obama Equally Ignorant on Solving Gas Price Crisis

by Radley Balko

In an interview last week on National Public Radio, Barack Obama was asked about his proposal for a "windfall profits" profits tax on oil companies. To her credit, the interviewer prefaced her question by noting that nearly all economists from across the political spectrum oppose the idea. Taxing oil company profits won't make gas any cheaper — it'll likely make it more expensive in the long run by discouraging exploration — and it won't speed the development of alternative energy sources. Obama's answer was pure demagoguery, pitting senior citizens and working class families against oil companies, who he says are reaping profits "hand over fist."

Obama's opponent John McCain has smartly opposed a tax on oil company profits — and Obama has promptly attacked him for it.

But McCain isn't much better. McCain has proposed an equally ridiculous "gas tax holiday," which will also do almost nothing to provide relief at the pump. Obama has smartly opposed the idea — and McCain has promptly attacked him for it.

Economic ignorance is nothing new in politics. Neither is the idea that a candidate would perpetuate economic idiocy he knows to be false because it plays into the narrative he's pitching to the voters. But no issue seems to prompt more jaw-dropping sophistry and anti-capitalist demagoguery than gas prices.

For more on this commentary, go to FOX News.com