The ACRU Blog

Horace Cooper is a Senior Fellow at the American Civil Rights Union, making regular appearance on radio and television discussing constitutional rights and the Supreme Court.

A writer and legal commentator, Horace previously was a visiting assistant professor of law at George Mason University. He also has been Counsel to the Honorable Richard K. Armey, Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives from 1994-2002. Horace Cooper is a Senior Fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research and the Centre for New Black Leadership. He has held senior appointed positions in the presidential administration of President George W. Bush. His interests include the law and American society, intellectual property rights policy, the changing makeup of the United States Supreme Court, and political forecasting.

Sheldon Kinsel is a political scientist and public policy consultant. He serves the American Civil Rights Union as a consultant and as editor of their Defend Scouting Newsletter.

Sheldon has worked in Washington, D.C. as a staffer to a United States senator and to two congressmen in a variety of positions, including serving of Chief of Staff to Utah Congressman Bill Orton for three years. He also has extensive political campaign experience in elections from the presidential level down to local races.

For eight years Sheldon was a lobbyist for the National Wildlife Federation in Washington, D.C and worked as an environmental policy analyst and congressional liaison for the Tennessee Valley Authority for four years.

In his consulting work, he has concentrated on natural resources issues and on a range of social issues, primarily related to the family and family values. Over the past ten years, he has been specializing on using the Internet to organize, educate and motivate citizen support for these policy initiatives.

Sheldon is the author of numerous articles and has been involved in the creation of more than two dozen Web sites.

Eric Langborgh is the former Director of Development for The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) and currently works for ClearWord Communications Group, Inc.

Eric worked for six-plus years at the Bill of Rights Institute, a national educational non-profit, where he served as the Institute's Director of Donor Relations. His early work at the Institute as Education Programs Coordinator included the development of a graduate level program for American History and Civics teachers and writing essays for use in high school classrooms on America's Founding Fathers and their influence on and views of the Bill of Rights.

From January 1999 to January 2001, Eric worked for Accuracy in Academia, a campus watchdog organization, coordinating numerous educational conferences at colleges and universities throughout the United States, and serving as managing editor of its monthly newspaper, Campus Report.

An alumnus of Pennsylvania State University, Eric's experience in the news industry has included an internship at the National Journalism Center as a reporter for the national conservative newsweekly, Human Events.

Eric has had more than 50 articles and essays published and has delivered a number of speeches on a variety of subjects dealing with the U.S. Constitution, American history, politics, education, and more -- most of which can be accessed through the Borg Blog, his personal weblog.

Bill Otis is the former director of legal affairs for The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU).

For nearly two decades Bill was a federal prosecutor under administrations of both parties, and personally argued over a hundred cases in the courts of appeals. He has also held posts as Counselor to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy, and Special Counsel to President George H.W. Bush.

Bill is an Adjunct Professor of Law at George Mason Law School in Arlington, Virginia, and has frequently debated legal issues at law schools around the country, in addition to having testified as a criminal law expert before both houses of Congress.

Bill is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and Stanford Law School.

John Armor is Legal Counsel to The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU).

A graduate of Yale University (1964) and Maryland Law School (1970), John has practiced law in the United States Supreme Court since 1974. He has also completed course work, but not yet the dissertation, for a Ph.D. in Public Policy at American University.

As the author of seven books and more than 650 articles in the print media, John has been a fixture on national radio and TV since 1976.

In the past few years, John has made his presence known in blogosphere, being published widely on leading blogs such as NewsBusters, ChronWatch, and Canyon News

His writing both in print and on the web have been picked up and used by other media outlets, as well, including Rush Limbaugh, the BBC International News, and "Inside Politics" in the Washington Times.

Peter Ferrara is Legal Director and serves as General Counsel for The American Civil Rights Union ACRU). He also is currently the Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation and is a Senior Fellow at the Free Enterprise Fund. In addition to various speaking engagements throughout the United States, he writes and produces studies and media presentations on a wide range of domestic policy issues, including tax reform, budget issues, government spending, health care, and a personal account option for Social Security.

From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Ferrara served as General Counsel and Chief Economist at Americans for Tax Reform. Prior to 1995, Mr. Ferrara served as a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Washington, D.C.. He was centrally involved in defeating Bill Clinton's proposed nationalization of health care and in developing free market alternatives. He produced studies, articles, and op-eds on these issues, and he participated in hundreds of radio and TV interviews, talk shows and other public forums.

Considered one of the foremost experts on a personal account option for Social Security, Mr. Ferrara has published numerous books and articles on the issue for the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, and the National Center for Policy Analysis, as well as a large number of journals and newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, Human Events, Washington Times, and National Review. He wrote Cato's first book on the subject, Social Security: The Inherent Contradiction (Wash. D.C.: Cato Institute, 1980). More recently he co-authored with Michael Tanner A New Deal for Social Security (Wash. DC: Cato Institute, 1998) and Common Cents, Common Dreams (Wash. DC: 1998), both presenting the case for a private option to Social Security.

From 1993 to 1994, Mr. Ferrara was a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., a leading conservative think tank. He specialized in health care, tax reform, labor law and other domestic policy issues. He wrote Issues '94, a book covering all major public policy issues for candidates in the 1994 campaign, which was published by Heritage.

As Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States from 1992 to 1993, Mr. Ferrara served as a policy advisor to the Attorney General, headed departmental working groups on various policy issues, and represented the Department in federal appellate litigation.

Mr. Ferrara served as counsel at Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge in Washington, D.C., from 1983 to 1992. From 1988 to 1991, he was a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Mr. Ferrara was an Associate Professor of Law at George Mason School of Law from 1987 to 1991 and 2000-2001.

Mr. Ferrara also served in the White House Office of Policy Development for President Reagan.

Mr. Ferrara received his Juris Doctor Cum Laude from Harvard Law School in 1979. Mr. Ferrara holds a B.A. in economics from Harvard University, where graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1976.

Welcome to the blog of the American Civil Rights Union. Here we will provide commentary to important news of the day concerning the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the civil rights of all Americans. We will also comment on the latest outrages perpetuated by the ACLU and other so-called civil liberties organizations that seek to undermine the Constitution and traditional American values. And we'll inform our readers and supporters of our work and successes.

The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) is dedicated to protecting our fundamental rights and liberties across the board. The ACRU focuses, in particular, on those areas of our civil rights which are ignored, or even actively undermined, by other supposed civil rights groups. To learn more about our work - and to join us in financial support of our cause - please visit the ACRU website.

Thank you for your interest. Please check back in often. Together, we can restore the foundations of our great nation, and protect our most hallowed institutions from those opposed to what America has long stood for.

Over at National Review Online, Jennifer Rubin has a great article in her Opening Shots column on the Parker v. District of Columbia case and the consequent prospects for the Second Amendment. Peter Ferrara, general counsel of the ACRU, is quoted extensively. Click here to read.

Be sure also to read Ferrara's excellent article, "Conservative Win: Second Amendment victory in D.C.," published at National Review Online right after our victory in the Parker case.

Much note has been taken, and understandably so, of the 5,000 mile trip by the Speaker of the House to visit and provide photo-ops for President Assad -- the dictator of a country that both the Bush and Clinton administrations have found to be a state sponsor of terror. But for whatever might be made of that journey, it seems ironic that the Speaker and her counterpart in the Senate are unwilling to travel a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue to meet with President Bush. This unwillingness shows itself, moreover, after the Speaker said only last week that the President should be willing to sit down with her to discuss legislation for funding our troops in Iraq while setting a date certain for their defeat (although this is not, of course, how the Speaker put it).

President Bush has been repeatedly admonished by the liberal-dominated press for his "arrogance" in refusing to meet with those with whom he "disagrees" -- as if mere "disagreement" were the basis for refusing to sit across the table from a literally piratic Iranian regime for which hostage taking has become the signature and nuclear blackmail the Holy Grail. Absent, however, is any trace in the media of misgivings about the Speaker's refusal even to talk with President Bush. On the other hand, perhaps the President is guilty of a sin worse than being a state sponsor of terror: He might, for example, be guilty of being a state sponsor of conservative judges.

Some things are beyond forgiveness.

The facts, but not the legal conclusions, for this post come from an article on 23 March in the Washington Examiner by Quin Hilyer. It recited that the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had just reversed a federal trial court in Contra Costa County in favor of a religious group that wanted to meet on occasion in a public library. (Keeping religion out of public libraries, and pornography in them have long been ACLU goals.)

Whether a public college is impermissilbly entangled with religion would appear to depend on the college -- and even more on the religion. In her column today in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Katherine Kersten discusses what gives every appearance of being a double standard when the Minneapolis Community and Technical College tackled the entanglement issue. Religious practices linked to Christmas were put on the Bad List, while, we now see, those linked to Islam were put on the Good List.

Ms. Kersten's entire column is worth reading, but a few paragraphs, quoted below, sketch out this disturbing case:

[Minneapolis Community and Technical] officials say the college, a public institution, has a strict policy of not promoting religion or favoring one religion over another. "The Constitution prevents us from doing this in any form," says Dianna Cusick, director of legal affairs.

But that seems to depend on your religion.

Where Christianity is concerned, the college goes to great lengths to avoid any hint of what the courts call "entanglement" or support of the church. Yet the college is planning to install facilities for Muslims to use in preparing for daily prayers, an apparent first at a public institution in Minnesota.

The Washington Times today features an editorial from the ACRU's Director of Legal Affairs, Bill Otis, on the controversy surrounding the Bush Administration's firing of eight U.S. attorneys, entitled, "The Gonzales Hunt."

Here is the full text of the article:

The Gonzales Hunt
By William Otis

No one doubts that Congress has the right, if not the obligation, to inquire into malfeasance by the executive branch. But the current campaign against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales reeks of the very political infection it purports to deplore.

OneNewsNow.com today features an article on the ACRU's opposition to the distrubing trend of American cities declaring themselves "sanctuary cities" for illegal aliens. The article - "American Civil Rights Union Blasts Sanctuary City Policy" - comes out of their recent radio interview with Bill Otis, director of legal affairs at the American Civil Rights Union.

As Bill is quoted in the article,

"As serious as the problems of illegal immigration may be even more serious is the problem of officials in this country turning their back on the law."

Reason No. 5: Because sanctuary cities facilitate and encourage illegal immigration, they are unfair to legal immigrants, who waited in line, followed the rules and showed respect for the law.

Reason No. 4: Sanctuary cities impose costs on their residents -- citizens and legal immigrants -- that they shouldn't have to bear. Tax dollars that ought properly to benefit the people who paid them go instead to underwrite hospital, police, prison and education services for those who are not entitled to be here in the first place.

Reason No. 3: Sanctuary cities promote crime and thus jeopardize our citizens. The Los Angeles Times recently reported on a mind-boggling 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office. The study examined the cases of over 55,000 illegal immigrants incarcerated in federal, state and local facilities. It found that they had been previously arrested an average of eight times each, that roughly half had been convicted of a felony, and a fifth had been arrested for a drug offense. Many had also been convicted of violent crimes.

Our citizens and legal immigrants deserve better than that -- a good deal better. The paramount civil right is the right to live in one's own neighborhood and community in peace and safety. Why do liberal organizations like the ACLU turn their back on that right to carry water for lawbreakers?

Reason No. 2: Sanctuary cites burden and endanger the police. In litigation being prepared to challenge the oldest of the sanctuary cities, Los Angeles, the attorney undertaking the case free of charge said that one of the reasons he offered his services was, as the L.A. Times reported, "'to help out police officers so they don't have to put their lives on the line repeatedly re-arrestingdrug offenders who should have been deported the first time.'" As the Times further noted, "One veteran LAPD officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of punishment, said....that he [and other officers] thought the suit was a good idea...."'We are having a revolving door out there in terms of people we arrest for drug offenses who are in this country illigally,'" he said.

Reason No. 1: Sanctuary cities breed disrespect for the rule of law. When the police, of all people, are told by politicians running the city to look the other way at illegal immigraton, what message does that send? If elected officials pretending to be leaders can turn their backs on laws they dislike, where does that "principle" stop? Are such leaders also free to disregard federal laws against heroin and LSD (for example), on the theory that drug penalties are too harsh and these drugs have "mind-expanding" qualities? And after the drug laws are tossed overboard, what next?

Democratic self-government presupposes fidelity to law, even when one disagrees with it. Were it otherwise, self-government would dissolve into anarchy. All are free to attempt to change the law by persuasion and argument -- in other words, by making their case to the electorate. But they are not free to thumb their nose at the law, much less to tell police officers that they must follow the same grossly irresponsible, and dangerous, path.

For those who may have been interested in yesterday's story of apparent state sponsorship of Islamic religious practices at a public college in Minneapolis, there is a follow-up today provided by http://www.powerlineblog.com. It is reprinted below. Powerline, incidentally, is one of the most informed, thoughtful and analytically sound blogs anywhere in cyberspace. I commend it to those interested in taking an aggressive stance against terrorism, winning instead of surrendering in Iraq, and preserving our freedoms at home, including freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

Today's Powerline story on the Minneapolis college is as follows:

SHARIA DESCENDS IN MINNEAPOLIS

In her Star Tribune column yesterday Katherine Kersten reported on plans at Minneapolis Community Technical to accommodate Islamic ritual through the expenditure of MCTC funds to buy foot washers. One wonders how it can be that Islamic organizations can't provide for the religious needs of local Muslims. One wonders if the point is not precisely to compel non-Muslims to submit. My post on Kathy's column -- "Welcoming Sharia in Minnesota" -- elicited a message from the relative of a current student at MCTC noting a "controversy over, yes, publication of a cartoon critical of the prophet Muhammad. The short version is that a local cartoonist's drawing was to be published and the Muslim student organization objected. Therefore, the cartoon was not published." ... Cartoonist Grant Goebel explains his thinking in a related column. Goebel writes:

The Prophet Muhammad is Fair Game

Is it bad that I still think this whole thing is funny? I mean, that's the only reason you draw a comic strip; because you think it's funny. If you were to ask me right now why I wanted to do a comic strip on the Prophet Muhammad, I would say, "Because I think it would be funny." You may say, "I don't think that it's funny." That's fine. I don't think 'Family Circus' is funny. People differ. You may then ask me "why do you think it's funny?" As with any joke the answer is complicated, but it was summed up best by Krusty the Klown: "You always pie the guy in the suit." You make jokes about people with dignity: The Principal, the President, the Pope, the Prophet. I mean, jokes about Jesus are hilarious. Another thing I've heard, even from people that like the joke, is "you're asking for trouble." Those of you who would prefer to not see this comic strip in print may take note; my friends were urging me to not even submit it. They were afraid. They may not admit it, but they see the reports of "Muslim Extremists" and they've watched that Chuck Norris movie with the plane-hijackers too many times and they think they should be afraid. To silence this debate with fear would only make them more secure in their belief that it is dangerous to say bad things about Muslims, because Muslims are dangerous. Obviously I do not feel the same way, but the fact that I'm not supposed to make jokes about the Prophet Muhammad is one of the main reasons that I think they're funny. Again, you may not agree. But this is America. We have the right to free speech. That means that I have the right to make jokes, you have the right to call me an insensitive asshole and the paper has the right to feature both in print. I think they plan to. ###

They may have planned to, but they didn't. For the moment we have to be thankful that Goebel can express such heterodox thoughts within the confines of Minneapolis Community Technical College.

The estimable Victor Davis Hanson has a dream. It starts thusly:

"I recently had a dream that British marines fought back, like their forefathers of old, against criminals and pirates. When taken captive, they proved defiant in their silence. When released, they talked to the tabloids with restraint and dignity, and accepted no recompense.

"I dreamed that a kindred German government, which best knew the wages of appeasement, cut-off all trade credits to the outlaw Iranian mullahs -- even as the European Union joined the Americans in refusing commerce with this Holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic, and thuggish regime.

"NATO countries would then warn Iran that their next unprovoked attack on a vessel of a member nation would incite the entire alliance against them in a response that truly would be of a 'disproportionate' nature...."

Read more of Hanson's brilliant yet tragic essay in the April 13, 2007 edition of National Review On-Line, "The Post-west: A civilization that has become just a dream."

Much has been said of the recent episode in which Don Imus, a radio "shock jock," made a racist insult against the Rutgers women's basketball team. I have never listened to Mr. Imus's program and don't plan to start. I did hear re-plays of the insult. My reaction is that a media personality who says something of that sort assumes the risk of whatever he gets. It's the 21st Century, and past time to be done with sliming people because of their race.

It is passing curious, however, that the mainstream media has turned to Reverend Al Sharpton as the Annointed National Spokesman about the Imus affair. Over these last few days, Rev. Sharpton has seldom (actually never, so far as I am able to discern) failed to unburden himself of opinions on whether and under what circumstances an Imus apology should be accepted and, more generally, what the Imus business says about the sorry, if usually concealed, state of white America's attitude toward African Americans.

To make Rev. Sharpton the arbiter of apology protocol is simply astonishing, given Sharpton's history of refusing to apologize for his own egregiously racist, and occasionally anti-Semitic, behavior -- behavior scarcely limited to one broadcast insult.

Fortunately, Jay Nordlinger, in his National Review article from March 20, 2000, takes us for a stroll down memory lane with the man now acting as America's National Scold. I excerpt from Nordlinger's article below:

[Sharpton's] greatest infamy came in 1987, with the Tawana Brawley hoax. As the journalist Nat Hentoff has put it, this is Sharpton's "Chappaquiddick." To recall the horrid affair: A girl named Tawana Brawley, after staying away from home for several days, smeared herself with dog feces, scrawled racial epithets on her body, and hopped into a garbage bag. Then she claimed that six white men, including a police officer, had raped and otherwise tormented her....Al Sharpton, of course, was on the spot. Acting as the Brawley family's adviser, he urged them not to cooperate with the authorities, including the state attorney general, Robert Abrams. To cooperate with Abrams, he said, would be "to sit down with Mr. Hitler." A Sharpton sidekick, Alton Maddox, added, "Robert Abrams, you are no longer going to masturbate looking at Tawana Brawley's picture."

One of those whom Sharpton and his partners accused was [a white] assistant district attorney, Steven Pagones, who was, needless to say, innocent (the crime never took place). After he was cleared, he held a press conference, which Sharpton, in his theatrical fashion, attempted to crash. "Your accuser has arrived!" he bellowed. Sharpton had said before, "We stated openly that Steven Pagones did it. If we're lying, sue us, so we can go into court with you and prove you did it. Sue us -- sue us right now." Oddly enough, Pagones did. He spent a decade of his life pursuing a defamation case against Sharpton and his accomplices, finally winning that case one glorious, cleansing day in July of 1998... Sharpton now owes Pagones $65,000 in damages, money that the victim will probably never see. [Some of Sharpton's cronies have now paid the judgment].

At the heart of any case against Sharpton-and against the notion of a New Sharpton-is his persecution of Steven Pagones. It has been, to use the word for which there is no substitute, evil. He has never apologized for his deeds, and nothing piques him more than to be reminded of them. "If I saved the Pope's life," he has sniped, "the media would ask me about Brawley." In soft moments, he has come close to apologizing ("I have regrets"). In harder ones, he is angrily defiant ("Never, ever!")... As Sharpton himself has said, to apologize would be "all about submission." White folk "are asking me to grovel. They want black children to say that they forced a black man coming out of the hardcore ghetto to his knees." Jesse Jackson gained nothing by apologizing for his "Hymietown" remark, so why should he? Only last year [1999], Sharpton said of his role in the Brawley case, "If I had to do it again, I'd do it in the same way."

This, again, is the man the mainstream media puts forward to opine at apparently unending length about Mr. Imus's behavior, and the ins-and-outs of Imus's apology, which at least has the virtue of existing.

The media's virtually uniform silence about Sharpton's history says a great deal about the intimidating position Rev. Sharpton has carved out for himself -- and even more about the position the media has come to occupy, a position of justifiably dwindling public trust.

Moves are afoot among liberals to revive the defunct "Fairness Doctrine." That was a regulation issued by the Federal Communications Commission which required broadcast licensees to present "both sides" of controversial issues, and present them in what the FCC deemed to be an honest, equal and balanced manner. It has since been repealed by the FCC, and aspects of it have been questioned by the courts. It should be left to rest in peace.

The Fairness Doctrine took root in what sounds, at least, like a benevolent principle: that in a democracy, the electorate should be able to hear all sides of an issue. The Doctrine got a boost -- indeed it hit its high water mark -- in a 1969 Supreme Court case called Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, in which the Court upheld it against a First Amendment challenge. The Court understood that a regulation like the Fairness Doctrine would be constitutionally problematic if applied to newspapers, but held that radio stations could be regulated in this way because of the scarcity of public broadcast spectrums.

In the 1980's, however, the FCC itself came to doubt both the need for and the constitutional viability of the Doctrine, and abolished in it 1987. Two attempts to reinstate it as a federal statutory requirement were vetoed, one by President Reagan and the last by President George H. W. Bush.

The FCC's decision to end the Doctrine was correct, both on constitutional and practical grounds. If the First Amendment means anything, surely it means that the government cannot set itself up as the arbiter of what counts as a "controversial issue," much less of when a private broadcaster is presenting that issue in an "honest, equal and balanced" manner. As First Amendment guardian Nat Hentoff has put it, "Imagine if Tom Paine had had to give equal time to the royal governor's opposing views."

As a practical matter, Red Lion's "scarcity" rationale has vanished. Scarcity of broadband width may have been a problem 38 years ago, but since the advent of the internet age, 38 years might as well be 38,000 years. In 1969, the average television received perhaps four or five channels, and no one even dreamed of sitting at his personal computer and being able to access dozens if not hundreds of websites arguing pro and con on every conceivable issue. If there were ever a scarcity-based rationale for the Fairness Doctrine, it has long since disappeared into cyberspace.

Mr. Hentoff put his finger on the real reason those on the Left want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine: "They bridle at the high ratings of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and other conservative broadcasters who currently have more public favor than the comparatively fewer liberal commentators." Unable to make a go of it with their own talk radio formats -- formats like the recently bankrupt Air America outlet in New York City, which apparently couldn't even attract a decent audience in the biggest media market in the country -- liberals now want to dragoon conservative broadcasters to provide a cost-free soapbox for them. Wouldn't it be better for liberals to obtain an audience, not by having the government coerce their opponents into providing it for them, but by the old-fashioned method: Earn it.

Twenty years ago, the FCC understood that there's something better than the Fairness Doctrine. Let's call it the Freedom Doctrine. The Freedom Doctrine was good enough for Tom Payne, and it's good enough for us.

Yesterday's mass murder at Virginia Tech University will doubtless re-ignite the Second Amendment debate. While the American Civil Rights Union has its view of that issue, it is not our purpose, for now, to discuss it. This is a time in which respect for the murder victims counsels circumspection.

We can, however, treasure the heroism that was shown by some during the siege. Below, Paul Mirengoff, writing on Power Line, notes the story of a 76 year-old Holocaust survivor, Professor Liviu Lebrescu, who gave his life so that his students could escape. Paul in turn quotes Ronald Reagan, who asked -- and then answered -- "Where do we find such men?"

"Don't miss Seth Leibsohn's short piece on Professor Liviu Lebrescu who was among those killed at Virginia Tech yesterday. Professor Lebrescu is also the subject of [a] Jerusalem Post article [today]....

"Seth notes that Lebrescu, a holocaust survivor, sacrificed his life to save his students. He was shot while blocking the door to his classroom, while students jumped out the window. More than sixty years after his liberation, the rescued became the rescuer.

"In a 1974 speech in which he introduced returning POW John McCain to the CPAC convention, Ronald Reagan asked where we find such men. He answered, 'We [find] them in our streets, in the offices, the shops and the working places of our country and on the farms.' Professor Lebrescu's heroism reminds us that we also find them among those who come to this country from other lands."

Roll Call reports that our top military commander in Iraq will make a rare visit to Capitol Hill next week, but House majority leaders initially declined the Defense Department's offer of a members-only closed-door briefing with Army Gen. David Petraeus.

Some might recall that it was only quite recently when these same House leaders travelled several thousand miles to talk with President al-Assad of Syria, a state sponsor of terrorism according to both the Bush and Clinton administrations. But when it comes to travelling eight feet across the hall to meet with the commander of our own soldiers, an entirely different attitude emerges.

For those who have been wondering why liberals, frequently led by the ACLU, have opposed any serious effort to obtain intelligence from terrorists captured in Iraq and elsewhere -- and have instead filed one lawsuit after the next designed to thwart even moderate measures to persuade detainees to talk -- the answer is at hand. Liberals are invested in failure -- failure in Iraq, and, for some, failure across the globe. Hence al-Assad is treated like a statesman while General Patraeus is treated like a stomach ache.

This is not the way it used to be. Harry Truman, JFK and Hubert Humphrey were liberals, but they knew America had enemies and were prepared to confront them, with force when necessary. It's woeful, and dangerous, that our current liberal leaders have forgotten so much their predecessors knew.

The attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union must be exhausted. It's not easy to contort one's reasoning in such a way that defends the Nazi's right to march while simultaneously supporting so-called hate crimes legislation. Perhaps a little consistency would be less hazardous to their mental health?

In recent weeks, the ACLU has come out in strong support of the American National Socialist Workers Party of Roanoke, VA -- a neo-Nazi group -- and their plan to march through a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Cincinnati tomorrow. This is par for their course: the ACLU pushed for -- and won -- the landmark Supreme Court case in favor of Ku Klux Klan expression, Brandenberg v. Ohio (1969).

At the same time, the ACLU has come out in favor of new hate crimes legislation sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR). The bill -- H.R. 1592 -- would allow federal law enforcement officers to more easily investigate and prosecute so-called hate crimes.

But what crime isn't motivated by some form of hate, or at least callous indifference towards the rights, property, or life of another? Can we not just prosecute the criminal activity -- as we always have -- without making the same criminal act against given classes of people more heinous than against other classes of people?

Not according to the ACLU, whose m.o. has long been that some people are more equal than others.

In effect, the ACLU's logic concerning hate speech is this: crude, hateful speech that advocates violence and crime should be protected, but politically-incorrect, hateful thoughts or speech directly related to an actual violent crime against certain classes of people should be prosecuted, over and above the crime itself.

Got that?

A white paper submitted by the Alliance Defense Fund explains how dangerous Sen. Kennedy's hate crime bill is:

H.R. 1592 is a discriminatory measure that criminalizes thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and provides greater protection to some victims than others simply because of a status, whether chosen or inherent. The bill has the potential of interfering with religious liberty and freedom of speech as proposed, and creates additional risks for the future.

Make no mistake, that potential is real.

In 2005, Canada amended a very similar hate crimes law to protect homosexuals from "intolerance." During the two years preceding the passage of C-250, a number of lawsuits were filed against traditional Christians and Jews, with the Canadian courts generally sided against those traditionalists who spoke against the gay lifestyle and agenda. And since C-250 passed, the investigation and prosecution of Christians -- like this one -- has increased. "Hate speech" has become a "hate crime" in and of itself, even when not accompanied by criminal activity, violent or otherwise.

H.R. 1592 is bad law for a number of reasons. The tortured logic of the ACLU means that it could become even worse, proving once again that the ACLU is more interested in protecting the speech of Skinheads and Nazis than they are of devout Christians.

City No. 1: Blacksburg, Virginia, April 17, 2007.

Cho Seung-Hui, a 23 year-old student at Virginia Tech, well prepared and having armed himself to the teeth, kills two classmates early in the morning, returns to his room to prepare a package of videotapes he will send to NBC, and, after a hiatus of about two hours, walks to a classroom building across campus, chains the doors shut, and shoots to death 30 students and faculty before taking his own life.

At the time of this episode, Virginia Tech rules forbade students from possessing firearms, the University having declared itself to be a "gun free zone." A bill previously introduced in the Virginia General Assembly that would have allowed students, otherwise eligible under the law to carry handguns, to have them on school property as well had been defeated. A Virginia Tech administrator said at the time that the University wanted students to "feel safe."

So far as is known, none of the students Cho killed or injured, and no student witness or bystander, had a firearm. In addition, consistent with the University's gun control policy, no student or bystander was in a position to obtain one while Cho was still firing. Virginia Tech security personnel and Blacksburg police were unable to stop Cho, in part because they arrived too late.

The total killed, not counting Cho, was 32.

City No. 2: Grundy, Virginia, January 16, 2002.

Grundy, approximately 120 miles west of Blackburg on Route 460, is the home of Appalachian School of Law. On January 16, 2002, 43-year-old Peter Odighizuwa, a Nigerian student, spent part of the morning discussing his academic problems with professor Dale Rubin. At the end of that conversation, Odighizuwa walked to the offices of Dean Anthony Sutin and Professor Thomas Blackwell, where he opened fire on them with a .380 ACP semi-automatic handgun. According to the county coroner, powder burns indicated that both victims were shot at point blank range. Also killed was a student, Angela Denise Dales. Three other people were wounded.

When Odighizuwa left the building where he committed the murders, he was approached by two students with personal firearms. At the sound of gunfire, fellow students Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross, unbeknownst to each other, ran to their vehicles to fetch their personally-owned guns. Gross, a police officer with the Grifton Police Department in his home state of North Carolina, retrieved a 9 mm pistol. Bridges pulled his .357 Magnum from beneath the driver's seat of his Chevy Tahoe. As Bridges later told the Richmond Times Dispatch, he was prepared to shoot to kill.

Bridges and Gross approached Odighizuwa from different angles, with Bridges yelling at Odighizuwa to drop his gun. Odighizuwa did so and was subdued by several other, unarmed students.

Having encountered armed students prepared to use their guns to defend themselves and others, Odighizuwa was stopped before he brought about further bloodshed. The total killed was 3, slightly less than one-tenth the death toll at "gun free" Virginia Tech.

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Almost always when I write in this space, I try to present facts to speak in behalf of one position or another. I shall not do so here, the facts having spoken for themselves.

The following quote by ACLU attorney Yale Freeman is astounding:

"There is a time to speak you [sic] religious beliefs and that is in your church."

Mr. Freeman said this in defense of the ACLU's objection to a private citizen offering Bibles to students during lunch at various high schools in Collier County, Florida. (HT: Stop the ACLU)

As local news stories report (here and here), many students and teachers gladly accepted the Bibles and thanked Jerry Rutherford, the giver of the gifts. And those who didn't want them were not forced to take them.

What is so astonishing here is not whether the Bible distribution was permitted by the school district's policy. (Indeed, it seems the policy prohibits such action, though the constitutionality of that policy is certainly in question.)

Rather, the blatant honesty of Mr. Freeman in his opposition to religious speech is what is so amazing. As he went on:

"There's really no reason to introduce it into the secular school system. There is plenty of opportunity to worship freely."

In other words, only Secularism is welcome in schools financed by tax dollars collected from all citizens, including the religious. Fortunately, the United States Supreme Court disagrees with this view.

In essence, Mr. Freeman has given voice to what has long been the unspoken policy of the ACLU: to push all religious expression safely inside the walls of church buildings. "Outside of official worship services, Christian," the ACLU is saying, "you are very welcome to keep your mouth shut."

Here's my question for Mr. Freeman: Where in the Constitution does it state that free speech is the right of all Americans excepting the religious, who must abide by special free speech zones in their churches and synagogues? What Founder advocated for this peculiar notion?

While the ACLU's position on this issue is absolutely wrong, at least their candor here is refreshing.

My colleague Eric Langborgh notes in his piece below that the ACLU has taken umbrage at the offer by a private person to give Bibles to high school students, apparently during the school day. Eric quotes ACLU attorney Yale Freeman as saying, "There is a time to speak you[r] religious beliefs and that is in your church." Eric believes Mr. Freeman's words give away the otherwise "unspoken policy of the ACLU to push all religious expression safely inside the walls of church buildings."

To illustrate that the ACRU practices the free speech it preaches, I respectfully dissent. As has been widely broadcast, the "flying imams" have demanded that prayer rooms be set aside for them in publicly-funded airports, and the Muslim Student Association in Minneapolis has sought, it would seem successfully, to have taxpayer money spent on basins to be used at the local community college for the Islamic religious ritual of foot washing. If the ACLU has raised any objection to these things -- much less threatened a lawsut -- I haven't seen it.

Accordingly, it may not be the case that the ACLU seeks to push ALL religious expression safely inside the walls of the church. Evidently, some religious expression, namely Islamic, need not be pushed inside the walls of the mosque. Airports and public colleges are, in that instance, OK.

As noted, some religions are more equal than others.

Over the weekend, Fox News reported this gem of a story:

82-YEAR-OLD EX-BEAUTY QUEEN STOPS INTRUDER BY SHOOTING OUT TIRES Saturday, April 21, 2007

WAYNESBURG, Ky. -- Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle's tires and stop an intruder.

Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment.

Ramey said the man told her he would leave. "I said, 'Oh, no you won't,' and I shot their tires so they couldn't leave," Ramey said.

She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.

"I didn't even think twice. I just went and did it," she said. "If they'd even dared come close to me, they'd be 6 feet under by now."

Ramey then flagged down a passing motorist, who called 911.

Curtis Parrish of Ohio was charged with misdemeanor trespassing, Deputy Dan Gilliam said. The man's hometown wasn't immediately available. Three other people were questioned but were not arrested.

After winning the pageant with her singing, dancing and comedic talents, Ramey sold war bonds and her picture was adorned on a B-17 that made missions over Germany in World War II, according to the Miss America Web site.

Ramey lived in Cincinnati for several years and was instrumental in helping rejuvenate Over-the-Rhine historic buildings. She returned to Kentucky in 1990 to live on her farm.

"I'm trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another," she said.

I'm not entirely sure what the motto of this story should be, but I haven't seen it cited by any gun-control organizations.

MSNBC reports that former Russian President Boris Yeltsin has died.

For whatever else might be said of Yeltsin -- and there is plenty, good and bad -- no one of my generation will ever forget the picture of him standing on the tank in those crucial days during the attempted coup by old-line Communist generals against Gorbachev.

The amount of sheer physical courage it took for Yeltsin to confront the military was mind-boggling. When the Red Army soldiers didn't shoot him, I knew the world's long international nightmare, Soviet Communism, was over.

Congratulations to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for its decision on Friday refusing to enjoin Arizona from enforcing Proposition 200, which Arizona voters adopted in 2004 to stem vote fraud.

Proposition 200 amended Arizona law to require persons wishing to register to vote for the first time in that state to present proof of citizenship, and to require all Arizona voters to present identification when they vote in person at the polls.

The law was challenged as improperly burdening the right to vote, and the plaintiffs went to federal court seeking a preliminary injunction against its enforcement even before a trial established the facts. The trial court turned them down, but on October 5, 2006 -- a little more than a month before the election -- a panel of Ninth Circuit judges reversed that ruling and ordered that an emergency injunction be entered, effectively opening the door on election day to the very potential for fraud that Arizona voters had sought to prevent.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court saw it differently (as it so often does in reviewing actions of the Ninth Circuit, which is both the most liberal and the most reversed federal appellate court in the country). The Supreme Court vacated the injunction, and the 2006 elections were conducted with the safeguards Arizona voters had chosen.

But the plaintiffs did not give up. They returned to the trial court, and again sought to enjoin enforcement of the registration identification requirement (they did not, however, resume the battle at that stage about the voter identification requirement).

The trial court once more ruled against them. On Friday, a unanimous panel of the Ninth Circuit agreed, holding that they had failed to so much as "raise serious questions going to the merits of their arguments." So for the moment, at least, the voters of Arizona who chose to enact modest measures against vote fraud have an important victory.

Kudos to the Ninth Circuit. The case, which can be found on the Ninth Circuit's website, is Gonzalez v. State of Arizona, No. 06-16521.

Scott Johnson, writing yesterday on Power Line, puts yet more skids under the liberal reaction to the murders at Virginia Tech. In particular, Scott quotes Mark Steyn as Steyn laughs out loud at Yale's reaction to the shootings -- a reaction that, in terms of unadulterated nonsense, tops even the calls for yet more gun regulation that the Virginia Tech episode itself proves don't work. As Scott observes:

Mark Steyn devotes his weekly Sun-Times column to the political and cultural infantilization of American society manifested in events related to the Virginia Tech massacre. He urges us to get "realistic about reality."...He notes that at Yale, the students cannot even pretend to be realistic about reality:

"[T]he dean of student affairs, Betty Trachtenberg, reacted to the Virginia Tech murders by taking decisive action: She banned all stage weapons from plays performed on campus. After protests from the drama department, she modified her decisive action to 'permit the use of obviously fake weapons' such as plastic swords."

Unfortunately, Steyn's not done with the Ivy League:

"A few years back, a couple of alienated loser teens from a small Vermont town decided they were going to kill somebody, steal his ATM cards, and go to Australia. So they went to a remote house in the woods a couple of towns away, knocked on the door, and said their car had broken down. The guy thought their story smelled funny so he picked up his Glock and told 'em to get lost. So they concocted a better story, and pretended to be students doing an environmental survey. Unfortunately, the next old coot in the woods was sick of environmentalists and chased 'em away. Eventually they figured they could spend months knocking on doors in rural Vermont and New Hampshire and seeing nothing for their pains but cranky guys in plaid leveling both barrels through the screen door. So even these idiots worked it out: Where's the nearest place around here where you're most likely to encounter gullible defenseless types who have foresworn all means of resistance? Answer: Dartmouth College. So they drove over the Connecticut River, rang the doorbell, and brutally murdered a couple of well-meaning liberal professors. Two depraved misfits of crushing stupidity (to judge from their diaries) had nevertheless identified precisely the easiest murder victims in the twin-state area. To promote vulnerability as a moral virtue is not merely foolish. Like the new Yale props department policy, it signals to everyone that you're not in the real world."

Yale, however, isn't even in the [pretend] real world. [Its reaction] has to be some kind of a new low in the avoidance of reality. And the aphorism of the Roman poet Horace applies to "reality" as well as "nature": "Though you drive nature out with a pitchfork, she will still find her way back."

Former Senator John Edwards has made a name for himself speaking about the "two Americas." While I have not seen any very specific explanation of what these two Americas are, it's reasonably clear that, in Mr. Edwards' view, America No. 1 consists of rapacious, oppressive Robber Baron-wannabees, and America No. 2 consists of millions in the struggling proletariat skrimping by on whatever crumbs America No. 1 deigns to toss their way.

At least that's what I used to understand the two Americas to be. Now I know differently.

America No. 1 consists of people who get $400 haircuts, and America No. 2 consists of everybody else. No wonder Mr. Edwards gets so worked up about it!

In fact, Mr. Edwards is correct about there being two Americas. One pays taxes, the other doesn't.

Liberals of Mr. Edwards' stripe talk at length about how upper income citizens don't pay their "fair share," but are studiously silent about how much they DO pay, and what the ephemeral phrase "fair share" is supposed to mean.

Here are the "two Americas" in actual facts and figures: One America -- the top half of wage earners -- pays virtually all the country's federal income tax (97% to be exact). The other America is getting, for practical purposes, a free ride. It pays 3% of the income tax. It also benefits disproportionately from welfare and entitlement spending.

But there's more. The ire of John Edwards and his fellow liberals is particularly directed at those at the top. So here are the numbers for those groups. Of federal income tax paid in 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, the top one-tenth of earners paid over two-thirds of the income tax burden. And the much-reviled top one precent of earners paid 37%. In other words, these supposed top-one-percent parasites -- one one-hundredth of the population -- paid well over one-third of the income tax.

No fair-minded person thinks that those prospering shouldn't carry most of the