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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (679308)	4/13/2005 10:26:36 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769670

Wasn't he the guy that bombed the Atlanta thing? Didn't some folks get killed? What is the law of the land in Ga. If they have the death penalty there, then he should get the punishment he deserves for his actions.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (679308)	4/13/2005 11:52:19 PM
From: Mr. Palau	Respond to of 769670

He would have gotten the death penalty if hadn't bombed the women's clinic.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (679308)	4/14/2005 2:02:31 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 769670

no - only liar kennyboy

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (679308)	4/14/2005 2:02:46 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Loudly, With a Big Stick By DAVID BROOKS Published: April 14, 2005 ARTICLE TOOLS Printer-Friendly Format Most E-Mailed Articles MORE COLUMNS David Brooks READERS' OPINIONS Forum: Join a Discussion on David Brooks 1. Op-Ed Columnist: Recline Yourself, Resign Yourself, You're Through 2. Op-Ed Columnist: The Calm Before the Storm? 3. The Man Date 4. The Hard Stuff Now Includes Wine 5. Frugal Traveler: Seeing Paris on $250 a Day Go to Complete List don't like John Bolton's management style. Nor am I a big fan of his foreign policy views. He doesn't really believe in using U.S. power to end genocide or promote democracy. But it is ridiculous to say he doesn't believe in the United Nations. This is a canard spread by journalists who haven't bothered to read his stuff and by crafty politicians who aren't willing to say what the Bolton debate is really about. The Bolton controversy isn't about whether we believe in the U.N. mission. It's about which U.N. mission we believe in. From the start, the U.N. has had two rival missions. Some people saw it as a place where sovereign nations could work together to solve problems. But other people saw it as the beginnings of a world government. This world government dream crashed on the rocks of reality, but as Jeremy Rabkin of Cornell has observed, the federalist idea has been replaced by a squishier but equally pervasive concept: the dream of "global governance." The people who talk about global governance begin with the same premises as the world government types: the belief that a world of separate nations, living by the law of the jungle, will inevitably be a violent world. Instead, these people believe, some supranational authority should be set up to settle international disputes by rule of law. They know we're not close to a global version of the European superstate. So they are content to champion creeping institutions like the International Criminal Court. They treat U.N. General Assembly resolutions as an emerging body of international law. They seek to foment a social atmosphere in which positions taken by multilateral organizations are deemed to have more "legitimacy" than positions taken by democratic nations. John Bolton is just the guy to explain why this vaporous global-governance notion is a dangerous illusion, and that we Americans, like most other peoples, will never accept it. We'll never accept it, first, because it is undemocratic. It is impossible to set up legitimate global authorities because there is no global democracy, no sense of common peoplehood and trust. So multilateral organizations can never look like legislatures, with open debate, up or down votes and the losers accepting majority decisions. Instead, they look like meetings of unelected elites, of technocrats who make decisions in secret and who rely upon intentionally impenetrable language, who settle differences through arcane fudges. Americans, like most peoples, will never surrender even a bit of their national democracy for the sake of multilateral technocracy. Second, we will never accept global governance because it inevitably devolves into corruption. The panoply of U.N. scandals flows from a single source: the lack of democratic accountability. These supranational organizations exist in their own insular, self-indulgent aerie. We will never accept global governance, third, because we love our Constitution and will never grant any other law supremacy over it. Like most peoples (Europeans are the exception), we will never allow transnational organizations to overrule our own laws, regulations and precedents. We think our Constitution is superior to the sloppy authority granted to, say, the International Criminal Court. Fourth, we understand that these mushy international organizations liberate the barbaric and handcuff the civilized. Bodies like the U.N. can toss hapless resolutions at the Milosevics, the Saddams or the butchers of Darfur, but they can do nothing to restrain them. Meanwhile, the forces of decency can be paralyzed as they wait for "the international community." Fifth, we know that when push comes to shove, all the grand talk about international norms is often just a cover for opposing the global elite's bêtes noires of the moment - usually the U.S. or Israel. We will never grant legitimacy to forums that are so often manipulated for partisan ends. John Bolton is in a good position to make these and other points. He helped reverse the U.N.'s Zionism-is-racism resolution. He led the U.S. rejection of the International Criminal Court. Time and time again, he has pointed out that the U.N. can be an effective forum where nations can go to work together, but it can never be a legitimate supranational authority in its own right. Sometimes it takes sharp elbows to assert independence. But this is certain: We will never be so seduced by vapid pieties about global cooperation that we'll join a system that is both unworkable and undemocratic. E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (679308)	4/14/2005 2:03:21 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

first casualty: UNamerican spirit

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (679308)	4/14/2005 12:07:47 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 769670

Ethics Panel Reprimands Fla. State Senator By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 11:51 a.m. ET TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- A legislator serving on the state Senate's ethics committee was formally reprimanded Thursday for soliciting money from lobbyists to help pay for an overseas trip for her and a friend. Sen. Mandy Dawson apologized to her colleagues after the Senate approved a rare resolution to reprimand the Fort Lauderdale Democrat and remove her from the Ethics and Elections Committee. It was only the third time in 30 years the Senate has disciplined one of its members for an ethics violation. Dawson, 46, sent a letter on Senate letterhead to lobbyists in January, asking for money to help pay for a 10-day trip to South Africa sponsored by the state's economic development agency. Earlier this week, an in-house report found that Dawson ignored warnings from a legislative aide, who sent the letter to nine people, including several lobbyists. ''Due to ethics regulations, the check should be made out to the FL Caucus of Black State Legislators,'' Dawson wrote, adding that ''time is of the essence.'' Dawson raised between $10,000 and $12,000. The report also found that Dawson asked for money on an official letterhead in December from a lobbyist for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. It's the latest in a string of troubles for Dawson. In 2002, she misrepresented her educational background in an official biography. Dawson also underwent a rehabilitation program two years ago to avoid prosecution on a charge she altered a prescription for a painkiller. ------ On the Net: Florida Legislature: leg.state.fl.us