Entries in politics (4)
Intelligent Discourse?
November 19, 2008 in Society After listening to the left criticize President Bush for eight years, we move into the era of a new party in the White House, and the party out of power becomes the vocal critics. Unfortunately, I’m already hearing some sink to the same low arguments I was hearing from the left. So I’d like to know, where can I hear the intelligent discourse?
Thompson on Intelligence
April 13, 2007 in Intelligence Fred Thompson on Intelligence and the President
Fred Thompson lets loose on how Presidents use intelligence…
It’s absurd. Presidents in the future, as always, have to make a determination based on a lot of things, and intelligence is one of them. And the president not only has the right to evaluate the intelligence that he’s receiving, he has a duty to do that. He listens to the British. I mean, if history was any judge, I don’t know about now, but if the Brits tell me that there’s an [Iraqi] deal with Niger and our guys don’t know whether there was or not, I tend to rely on the Brits. I mean, those are the calls the president’s got to make, and the question is really: Which way do you want the president to lean? Caution—that it’s probably not so? When bad news is delivered, he gets mixed messages, he gets various intelligence reports of various kinds. Did you want him all balled up in all of that, you know, trying to apply some kind of a scientific equation to it for fear that somebody in an intelligence committee is going to wave it around at a hearing later on or something like that? Is that what it’s come to? If so, the world is going to be a lot more dangerous than it otherwise already is. You’ve got to exercise the authority and the responsibilities that you’ve been given.
Continue Reading: From the Courthouse to the White House, Weekly Standard
An End to Forced Dues for Politics?
April 4, 2007 in Society This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether unions must obtain the consent of their workers before spending their dues for political purposes. While some members may want their dues going to Democrats (where union dues usually go), clearly others do not…
The high court has often said workers have the right not to have their earnings taken for political activities with which they disagree, but that right is usually more theoretical than real. These unions often take great pains to conceal how much money they spend so workers won’t know how much they are owed. Twenty years ago, the Supreme Court held this unconstitutional but unions keep doing it. And since neither Congress nor the president is willing to challenge the unions’ enormous political influence, those decisions have gone largely un-enforced.
Continue Reading: Union dues and free speech, Timothy Sandefur, Washington Times
Pearls Before Swine
Day By Day
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