WHY I AM A FREDHEAD

The summary below is excerpted from a hostile source but I still like what I hear:



Thompson, who is expected to enter the presidential race formally in September, but plans to campaign in Iowa on Friday, was not known as a big-ideas guy and was hardly a heavy-hitter when it came to legislation during his Senate career from 1994 to 2002. Still, he was considered a reliably conservative vote on economic, security and social issues alike. He backed Bush's tax cuts, a prohibition on a late-term abortion procedure and voted to give the president the authority to invade Iraq.

More prominently, he established a reputation for working to limit the role of the federal government and protect states rights - an issue that remains very important to him and, perhaps, is an indication of what may lie at the root of his candidacy.

Broadly, he favors a strong federalist approach that emphasizes personal liberties and fiscal conservatism. "Centralized government is not the solution to all of our problems and, with too much power, such centralization has a way of compounding our problems," Thompson wrote in a recent column on his Web site. "This was among the great insights of 1787," when the Constitution was adopted, "and it is just as vital in 2007." He adds: "How we draw the line between federal and state roles in this century, and how we stay true to the principles of federalism for the purpose of protecting economic and individual freedom, are questions we must answer."

Thompson also:

* Splits with Bush on immigration, opposing the president's comprehensive immigration law overhaul bill and, instead, argues for increased border security as well as full enforcement of current federal immigration laws. The issue has divided the GOP, and Thompson is seeking the support of Republicans who object to illegal immigrants getting a path to U.S. citizenship. In one online column, he says: "Federal law must be enforced, or our neighborhoods will continue to be the scene of chilling and lurid crimes committed by those who broke the law in the first place to come to America."

* Appears to take a hard-line approach to foreign policy. He criticizes the United Nations, saying the world body "seems to oppose human freedom rather than promote it." And, in one particularly incendiary commentary for ABC radio in April, he carried on about the perception of the U.S. around the world and its relationships with certain countries. He assails Mexico on immigration, arguing that leaders there "apparently have an economic policy based on exporting their own citizens while complaining about U.S. immigration policies that are far less exclusionary than their own." He adds: "The French jail perfectly nice people for politically incorrect comments, but scold us for holding terrorists at Guantanamo." Thompson saves his most aggressive comments for Russia, contending that ex-KGB agents "apparently" run the country, use their oil wealth to engage in blackmail, and dispose of people who cross them. "Oppose the Russian leadership, and you could trip and fall off a tall building or stumble into the path of a bullet."

* Emphasizes individuals' right to keep and bear arms, as well as the right to own and keep property. He suggests in one online piece that the Virginia Tech massacre could have been deterred had those who were at least age 21 and met certain criteria been allowed to carry concealed weapons on school grounds. In the Senate, Thompson voted against requiring criminal background checks for purchases at gun shows.

* In a recent commentary, he assailed a 2005 Supreme Court decision giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

* Calls Bush's tax cuts a "success story" that helped grow the economy and says: "Letting them expire would amount to a tax hike of historic proportions." He also says the president should hold the line on spending.

More here. And another interesting post on Fred here

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ELSEWHERE



Soviet-style patience required for life in bureaucratized Britain: "A customer who was trying to report a problem to BT [British Telecom] was kept hanging on the company's helpline for 20 hours without getting an answer. Hannah King, 51, rang an 0800 number after a telephone line she had paid for was not installed at her new home. From 1pm until 9pm she listened to piped music and a recorded message every few minutes. She gave up until the next morning, when she dialled the same number and waited another eight hours without a reply. The next day Mrs King tried between 8am and noon - but again no one from BT picked up. "I was so frustrated and angry I broke down in tears," she said. "It is a helpline for goodness' sake, surely a company as big as BT can answer their phones." Mrs King, who has a new flat at Milford Haven, called the helpline after an engineer failed to turn up. She said: "The problem is that if something goes wrong you have no other point of contact with BT. You have to ring their helpline number and you end up listening to music and voice prompts without ever speaking to a real person."

Europe rediscovers babies: "Europe is in the midst of a baby boomlet after fretting for two decades that European women weren't having enough children to replenish graying populations and sustain economic growth. At least 16 countries, stretching from Iceland to Italy, saw modest upticks in their birthrates from 2004 to 2006. Roughly half the continent has reversed declining fertility rates or halted their slide, says William Butz, president of the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB), which tracks worldwide population trends. The increases are small, but the trend bucks a 20-year decline"

Why rebuild New Orleans?: "The Drudge headline read: "MUCH OF NEW ORLEANS IS STILL VULNERABLE TO FLOODING." It linked the New York Times report: "One Billion Dollars Later, New Orleans Is Still at Risk." Of course most of New Orleans is still "at risk" of flooding; most of the city is in a flood zone because most of the city is below sea level. The nation is throwing away money rebuilding the city because of racial politics and piss-poor reporting. Democrats charged that George Bush "ignored" New Orleans because he hates black people. To prove them wrong, Bush promised to rebuild New Orleans bigger, stronger, better. This is machismo politics at its worse. Whatever happened to mitigation? FEMA rules say you don't rebuild in the flood zone. You move people to higher ground. There are flood zones all over the place - even in the hills of West Virginia. Intelligent people do not build there."

Do we need a t-shirt tax to save jobs?: ""Virtually all of America's 114 million households (most of them 'working families') buy shirts every year. In fact, last year, Americans bought 4.5 billion T-shirts and other apparel tops, 94.3 percent of them imported. That's an average of almost 40 shirts per household. But very few U.S. workers -- fewer than half a million -- make their living producing T-shirts, other apparel and textiles. Yet Obama and the union audience clearly side with the one third of one percent of American workers who still make shirts and other clothing rather than the 99.7 percent who unambiguously gain from being able to buy their clothing at more affordable prices. Democrats and their union allies are not representing 'working families' against big corporations, but a small and declining share of U.S. producers and their employees at the expense of the vast majority of American households."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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