Motto: The surest way to get a reputation for being a trouble maker these days is to go about repeating the very phrases that the Founders used in the struggle for independence.
-- C.A. Beard
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On last month's Fix;
the answer to last month's Fix,
"Iraq. Is it time to cut and run?"
is
Just some facts: the US is approaching 2000 dead in Iraq, is
spending about $90 B/yr, and has been at war since late 2002.
Bush has defined a new policy of preemptive engagement to protect the
homeland, and has also stated that it is the duty of the US to expand
liberty and democracy.
With respect, he is not being consistent here. The US is not
engaging in N. Korea, nor overthrowing S. American dictators, nor
should we.
This editor has never been convinced of the case to invade Iraq, but
the dice have been cast, and now the game needs to be finished. To
leave Iraq until it is able to defend itself as a strong democracy will
create civil and regional war, and let us not forget; when the US
entered Germany and Japan as conquerors it set up peace keepers that
remain there to this day.
Though it may sound strange, we owe it to the conquered to finish
what we started. And to our progeny to develop energy indepedence to
wean this nation off of strategic reliance on resources in unstable
regions.
On Katrina;
You've all seen the coverage from CNN (the Catastrophe News Network)
and other outlets. Dawn to dusk disaster coverage about how the Federal
govt, and GW Bush in particular left New Orleans to die. Well, I'd like
to ask some questions:
a. Why is there so little coverage coming from Mississippi? IS it
because a Rep. Gov. there handled things better and its not "news?
b. Why did the Dem. Govnr of LA and the Dem Mayor of New Orleans leave
over 200 busses to drown under water when they could have been used to
evacuate people?
c. WHy did a New Orleans Congressmen get to use Natl. Guard resources
to rescue his belongings, and also take out of his houes boxes of
papers when he was under investigation for corruption?
d. Why did the elected officials of LA not heed 20 years of warnings
and build stronger and thicker levees?
e. Why did police in N.O. abandon their jobs or turn looter when the
same did not happen elsewhere?
f. Why is there now a sense of entitlement that the US must bail out
the area regardless of cost and without requiring Federal approval of
how that money is used?
Other then health care, what industry can fail to deliver what the customer is paying for, yet continue to extract payments under the moniker of “research memorial”?
-SGL
Last month the state legislature buried the Democratic Governor's top legislative priority, a grandiose proposal to raise taxes on insurance companies, banks and thousands of small businesses that private studies said would have cost up to 20,000 jobs. Ms. Granholm's plan was widely criticized, including in these columns in March and in an op-ed article on the opposite page last Thursday by state legislator Rick Baxter, a Republican, and Hillsdale College Professor Gary Wolfram.
Ms. Granholm was not pleased, going so far as to denounce the op-ed as "treasonous for the state of Michigan." The authors' high crime? Exposing Michigan as a high tax state and criticizing Ms. Granholm for wanting to raise taxes. Her choice of words was no inadvertent slip of the tongue, by the way--a Howard Dean-like temporary loss of sanity. The Governor has used the "t" word repeatedly and has even suggested that Mr. Baxter "should be removed from office."
Sorry to say, the facts laid out in Messrs. Baxter and Wolfram's column and in our previous editorial are well-established. When it comes to high taxes, the Wolverine State ranks fifth both in per-capita terms and as a share of personal income. Michigan also has the nation's highest unemployment rate. There is no shortage of studies that have linked these two phenomena.<>1.
July 3: A controversial bill that would prohibit excessive pricing of
prescription drugs by their manufacturers comes before the D.C.
Council July 6. In early May, the 13-member council gave its
initial approval to the
legislation, introduced by Councilman David Catania, I-at large, who
chairs the council's health committee. A final reading and vote on the
bill, the Prescription Drug Compulsory Manufacture License Act of 2005,
is scheduled for this coming Wednesday.
Catania has told Washington Business Journal that he expects and
welcomes legal recourse from the pharmaceutical industry. The bottom
line for him is that drug companies record huge profits and continue to
raise their prices, while many consumers have to decide whether to get
the prescription drugs they need or buy food and pay rent.
Catania introduced his legislation in February and amended it a
month later. At first he wanted to use the city's power of eminent
domain to force drug makers to lower their prices. His new version of
the bill says that if drugs are found to be excessively priced, the
mayor may request a compulsory license that would, in essence, allow
the city to take patents from brand-name drug makers and reissue them
to generic manufacturers that could produce cheaper drugs for the
District.
[Ed: If this passes and is upheld,
expect some individuals to sieze homes of the supreme Court justices in
the name of eminent domain and relabel them the "Lost Liberty Hotel"
and the "Just Desserts Cafe".]