Ellen DeGeneres lets Bill Clinton live

Former President Bill Clinton dropped by the Ellen DeGeneres show last Tuesday for a softball interview about charity work and general world-saving.

In one of those TV moments that ought to be on the show's permanent highlight reel, the former president was discussing the television shows he likes to watch and Ellen asked him if he had watched "Dancing With the Stars."

President Clinton responded that he had not watched it, but said he wanted to watch it just to see Emmitt Smith dance. "I'm always interested in people who can multi-task," the former president said.

A wave of laughter went through the audience and there was a moment, caught by the director, when Ellen DeGeneres smiled the smile of the comedian who has the joke and is waiting to unleash it.

"Yeah, well, you certainly do that," she said, and then rushed ahead to begin the next bit, a trivia quiz, changing the subject in a manner that stopped the audience from laughing. She chose to let Bill Clinton live. She could have left him hanging there for a laugh that might have challenged the record set by Ed Ames and his tomahawk on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.

See the clip here on YouTube.com (at this link, it's about 8:50 into a clip that runs 9:54).

While Ellen is reading the intro to the trivia quiz, you can read the former president's face as he realizes he walked right into a comedian's den and got out with his life. He even rolls his eyes in the universal gesture of "Whew!"

Another great escape.



Copyright 2006

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Hillary Clinton takes care of Maggie Williams

For the life of me, I cannot recall what it was that Maggie Williams could not recall.

I just remember that in one or more of the many investigations into possible abuses of power and obstruction of justice in the Clinton White House, the first lady's chief of staff was questioned by investigators and simply did not recall.

Ms. Williams' testimony was consistent with the testimony of Mrs. Clinton, who didn't recall anything either.

Apparently everybody's memory has returned because in July, Senator Clinton used campaign funds to write a $37,500 check to Ms. Williams.

It was a mistake, the Clinton campaign told the New York Times when the paper was rude enough to ask. Ms. Williams should have been paid less than $5,000 as a reimbursement for travel costs.

Of course, the mistake was writing down that campaign money was used to take care of Maggie Williams.

What was it she couldn't recall? Was it about Mrs. Clinton's role in the travel office firings? The FBI files? The documents removed from Vince Foster's office? The vanishing Rose Law Firm billing records?

Who can remember, it's all so long ago. Surely no one cares any more.

If anyone cared, it would cost a lot more than $37,500 to keep Maggie Williams from recalling.



Copyright 2006

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Bruce Berman's American photographs

America Wants to Know had an opportunity to visit the Getty museum yesterday and see the new exhibition, "Where We Live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection."

If you're in the Los Angeles area, it's worth a trip.

It seemed to me that every photograph had the powerful draw of the opening scene in a motion picture you know instantly you are going to watch to the end, because the story has gripped you from the first frame of film.

For admirers of mid-century cultural icons (if you've read The 37th Amendment, you know I'm one of them), the photographs from the collection of film executive Bruce Berman capture muscle cars and movie theaters and filling stations and roadside restaurants and much more.

My favorite image in the collection is a photograph by Jim Dow titled "University Club Library Detail, Display of Books, New York, New York." It shows a wall of books in the background and a shelf of books in the foreground, all tagged with library labels and ready to lend, under a soaring, elaborately decorated ceiling.

By coincidence, the Getty is currently displaying "Icons from Sinai," an exhibition of religious icons from the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine in Egypt. Through the photographer's eye, the University Club Library bears a striking resemblance to St. Catherine's basilica. The library displays books for the devotion to knowledge exactly the way the church displays icons for the worship of dead saints.

"I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me library or give me death!"

"Where We Live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection" continues at the Getty through February 25, 2007.


Copyright 2006


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Democrats pass the Law of Unintended Consequences

Giddy Democratic senators Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer held a rally for a higher minimum wage Thursday.

"We will raise it and raise it and raise it and raise it!" Senator Kennedy yelled.

"Let justice roll!" Senator Clinton shouted.

"No one in America should be forced to live on six dollars and fifteen cents an hour!" Senator Schumer thundered, provoking a wave of embarrassed laughter. The federal minimum wage is currently five dollars and fifteen cents an hour.

In Los Angeles, airport hotels were just ordered by the city government to pay a "living wage" equivalent to ten dollars and sixty-four cents an hour in wages and benefits. It is the first time private businesses on private property with no contractual relationship to the government have been ordered by the government to raise the salaries of their employees.

The L.A. Times described the scene in the Los Angeles City Council chamber when the living wage ordinance passed Wednesday by a vote of 11 to 3:

After the vote, about 100 hotel workers who filled most of the seats in the council chamber began a rhythmic clap familiar in the city's union halls and chanted "Si se puede" (Yes, we can.)

Si se puede is the slogan chanted by the half-million illegal immigrants who filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles a few months back, demanding legal status.

Let's observe the Law of Unintended Consequences in action by following this to its logical conclusion:

1. Democrats win control of the House and Senate.

2. The federal minimum wage is raised, making the "jobs Americans aren't doing" more attractive to Americans who aren't doing anything, like unemployed teenagers (and their frustrated parents).

3. Congressman Bennie Thompson, incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, keeps his promise to "revisit" the just-passed law requiring the construction of seven hundred miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border.

4. The Democratic-majority House and Senate pass "comprehensive immigration reform" that includes a "path to citizenship," and the president signs it into law.

5. Businesses on the razor's edge of profitability find the higher minimum wage crippling and have a strong incentive to hire illegal immigrants for cash under the table.

6. Illegal immigration soars.

7. President Tom Tancredo.

State and local governments may not share the federal government's enthusiasm for illegal immigration. The people who pay the bills for education and low-income health care services and public transporation and police and fire protection and prisons might be feeling very frustrated that their costs are going up and up and up due to an influx of people who have broken the laws of the United States in order to get here.

Well, beleaguered officials, America Wants to Know is here to help.

Did you know that the United States Constitution can be amended even if the House, the Senate, the President, the Supreme Court, and all fifty state governors oppose the idea?

Would you like to have some fun?

Would you like to have some leverage?

Under Article V of the United States Constitution, two-thirds of the state legislatures can call a constitutional convention to propose amendments.

A proposed amendment becomes part of the United States Constitution when it is ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures.

The House, the Senate, the President, the Supreme Court, and the fifty state governors have no role in the process: no vote, no veto, no appellate jurisdiction.

The state legislatures can control the whole process from start to finish.

Don't be frightened. The procedures set up by the Founding Fathers guarantee a lengthy, public debate. Nothing goofy is going to slip into the Constitution by accident. There will be plenty of time for all viewpoints to be heard and all arguments to be made. Ultimately, the Constitution can only be amended if an overwhelming majority of the citizens of the United States want it to be.

If nothing else, a proposed constitutional amendment on immigration is a two-by-four that will get the federal government's attention.

To find out more, read "How to Get Congress to Foot the Bill for Illegal Immigration, and Fast" at www.SusanShelley.com.


Copyright 2006

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The motive for war: How to end the violence in Iraq

The Iraqis are murdering each other by the hundreds every day, and the American government is flailing in the dark, looking for a way to stop the violence.

Republican Senator John McCain suggests more U.S. troops. Democratic Congressman John Murtha suggests fewer U.S. troops. President Bush reportedly has a four-point "victory strategy" for "a last big push" to win the war; the plan calls for more troops, more money, a regional conference and a Iraqi reconciliation effort.

The Iraq Study Group, appointed by the outgoing Republican Congress and likely to be ignored by the White House, is about to release its recommendations. One "former senior administration official" described the group's upcoming report to the Guardian newspaper in London. "What they're going to say is: lower the goals, forget about the democracy crap, put more resources in, do it," the official said.

None of these suggestions will work, because none of them address the one critical question: Why are the Iraqis killing each other?

This is the answer: They are killing each other because the group or sect or tribe that controls the government will control all the wealth of the country, and everyone outside the victorious group or sect or tribe will be frozen out.

In Iraq, the oil and the oil industry are owned by the government. The major industries of the country are owned by the government. The vast majority of decent jobs are handed out by the government.

In Iraq, if you get on the wrong side of the government, you are going to starve to death, or worse.

Of course they're fighting. Wouldn't you?

Americans have a hard time understanding freedom the way fish have a hard time understanding water.

Freedom is a condition that exists under a government of limited power. In America, the government does not have power over your employment unless you work in the government itself. If you work in mining, or oil, or manufacturing, or agriculture, or construction, or communications, or textiles, or any of the other major industries in the United States, you work in the private sector for a company owned privately by individuals or publicly by shareholders.

But in Iraq, if you work in any of those industries, you work for the government.

What good is political freedom under economic conditions like that? If your political views rub someone the wrong way, you could be permanently out of work everywhere in the country for the rest of your life.

The Iraqi people are not free.

Take that into account the next time you see a man-on-the-street interview of a grieving Iraqi who insists that he supports one or another of the murderous thugs who might gain control of Iraq's government, and its oil revenue.

The only way to stop the war is to remove the motive for murder. The government cannot own the wealth of the country. The state-owned enterprises must be privatized.

In Africa, Tanzania is privatizing all its state-owned enterprises. The process is not without its critics. Labor union leaders in Tanzania complain that workers are not making enough money. But if you search on your favorite Internet search engine for "violence in Tanzania," all you will find is a series of articles about local authorities trying to reduce the incidence of domestic violence in Tanzanian homes.

President Bush was not wrong when he said free nations are peaceful nations. Iraq will be peaceful when Iraqis are free.

Iraqis will be free when they have a path to economic survival as individuals, not as members of a group.

That's why it is a catastrophic mistake to talk about dividing up "the pie" of Iraq's oil revenue between the rival ethnic and religious groups. This would further entrench the economic circumstances that are forcing Iraqis to show their loyalty to a tribal leader, even at the cost of their lives.

"When a country begins to use such expressions as 'seeking a bigger share of the pie,'" Ayn Rand wrote in 1977, "it is accepting a tenet of pure collectivism: the notion that the goods produced in a country do not belong to the producers, but belong to everybody, and that the government is the distributor. If so, what chance does an individual have of getting a slice of that pie? No chance at all, not even a few crumbs. An individual becomes 'fair game' for every sort of organized predator. Thus people are pushed to surrender their independence in exchange for tribal protection."

The novelist and philosopher could have been watching the nightly news out of Baghdad. "Warfare--permanent warfare--is the hallmark of tribal existence," she wrote. "The inculcation of hatred for other tribes is a necessary tool of tribal rulers, who need scapegoats to blame for the misery of their own subjects."

Ayn Rand warned, "In the light of tribalism's historical record, it is ludicrous to compromise with it, to hope for the best or to expect some sort of fair 'group shares.' Nothing can be expected from tribalism except brutality and war. But this time, it is not with bows and arrows that the tribes will be armed, but with nuclear bombs."

Her solution was capitalism, "the antagonist that has demonstrated its power to relegate ethnicity to a peaceful dump."

"Capitalism has been called nationalistic," she wrote, "yet it is the only system that banished ethnicity, and made it possible, in the United States, for men of various, formerly antagonistic nationalities to live together in peace."

If anybody has a better idea, let's hear it.


Copyright 2006

Source notes:

Ayn Rand, "Global Balkanization," a lecture delivered on April 10, 1977; reprinted in "The Voice of Reason," available through these links to Amazon.com or the Ayn Rand Institute's bookstore.

For a list of Iraq's state-owned enterprises, click here.

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier post, "Why the Iraq policy isn't working."

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Hillary Clinton's bad dream

Hillary Clinton told the Association for a Better New York today that Democrats will focus on improving the quality and affordability of health care.

"Health care is coming back," the former first lady told the group, adding, "It may be a bad dream for some."

You may not remember--hey, she may not remember--but the Clinton health care reform plan was torpedoed by a Democratic House and Senate.

It's getting pretty tiresome to hear politicians snarling about health care as if the other party is dedicated to killing people.

Health care isn't free. Drug research isn't free. Americans seem to live in a permanent 1950s childhood where dad's company just pays for everything and the kids get to whine about how much they don't want to go to the doctor.

The various plans for making health care "affordable" always result in the same thing: cost-shifting. If Medicare won't pay, private insurance companies will be hit with higher prices and will pass them along to policyholders. If businesses can't pay the higher premiums, they will pass the costs along to their employees in the form of higher co-payments and lower coverage levels. If nobody pays, hospitals and emergency rooms close.

Sound familiar?

If you think drug prices are high now, imagine how high they'll be when Medicare sets price controls (excuse me, "negotiated discounts,") and pharmaceutical companies make up the difference by raising prices on drugs used by non-Medicare patients.

Efforts to "improve health care quality" usually include government mandates for insurance coverage of certain services and requirements for higher nurse-to-patient ratios at hospitals. Whatever the merits of these policies, they raise costs, and the costs are passed on. If the government demands higher quality and lower prices simultaneously, the result is more cost-shifting, which only accelerates the meltdown.

People are just not going to stand still and be forced to work for the benefit of other people. They will close their businesses before they will lose money by government directive.

And they should.


Copyright 2006

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Jesus Christ resigns as Favorite Political Philosopher

It was a different President Bush who took the podium Wednesday in the White House East Room.

Gone was the annointed warrior of God, the man called by history to liberate the world from tyranny. In his place was a savvy Texas politician, a man who looked like he intended to stay in the game and play the hand he was dealt.

Gone was the theory of the unitary executive. Gone was the claim of unlimited commander-in-chief powers during wartime. In their place was a pledge to consult with Congress about the best way forward in Iraq.

The eagle has landed.

Welcome back, Mr. President.



Copyright 2006

Editor's Note: You might be interested to read "A Plan to Get Out of Iraq: Blackstone's Fundamental Rights and the Power of Property" at www.SusanShelley.com.


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Sneak peek at Argus Hamilton's election jokes

"Democratic Party candidates routed the Republicans Tuesday in a historic congressional election. The whole world was watching. In a welcome change of pace, Baghdad television news reported all day about the bloodbath in Washington." -- Comedian Argus Hamilton

Click here to get a sneak peek at Argus Hamilton's Thursday column for some of the fastest and funniest election jokes anywhere. Read Argus every day at www.ArgusHamilton.com.


Copyright 2006 Argus Hamilton
Used by permission.

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Lyndon Johnson loses

Well, the Democratic majority wasn't a math error after all.

The big-spending Texan running an undeclared and unpopular war was not able to save himself by handing out new Medicare benefits.

On the bright side for the president, it appears he's patched things up with Lady Bird. They had their arms around each other at the polls in Crawford Tuesday morning.

What was it that cost the GOP its majority in Congress? Was it Iraq? Warrantless wiretaps? Overspending? The ban on Internet poker?

It doesn't matter. Two of the biggest smiles on election night were on the faces of Senators Bill Frist and John McCain, both candidates for the Republican nomination for president in 2008, who now can look forward to running against whatever the Democrats say and do for the next two years. That will be much easier than defending the Republican record in Congress.

Congratulations to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who will be the first female Speaker of the House in American history, and who did it without affirmative action, without whining about sexism, and without relying on her husband's help.

That's a real victory, and not just for Democrats.


Copyright 2006

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Maybe, maybe not

America Wants to Know is going to go out on a limb here and predict that in tomorrow's election, the Republicans will hold their majorities in both the House and the Senate.

The polls certainly don't show that.

But take out your phone bills and count the services that did not exist just a few elections ago. Caller ID. Cell phones. Blackberries. Voice mail.

Pollsters take lists of phone numbers and call them and ask the people who answer how they're going to vote.

They use scientific sampling techniques to select the numbers they will call.

But what happens to a poll's accuracy when a significant number of people don't answer their phone or tell the pollsters they don't have time to take a survey?

Are the polls skewed to include a disproportionately high number of bored retirees and a disproportionately low number of frantic working parents?

Do the pollsters talk to non-citizens who don't admit to being non-citizens when some stranger calls on the phone?

Do the pollsters take into account the high number of people (every workplace has them) who constantly voice their dissatisfaction but don't ever really do anything about it? ("Oh, was the election this Tuesday?")

If the Democrats fail to recapture the House, the candidates and the leadership may not be to blame for failing to turn out all those voters who said they were planning to vote for them. It could be that in the final analysis, their majority was just a math error.


Copyright 2006

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The coming bloodbath at CBS News

Katie Couric appeared on CNN's Larry King Live show last week, an ominous sign since Larry King has a habit of devoting a full hour to high-profile people who have recently died.

The signs are everywhere.

Nielsen Media Research reports that the ratings for the CBS Evening News have fallen every week since Ms. Couric's debut as anchor. In one recent week, the broadcast was 1.1 million viewers behind ABC's second-place World News Tonight.

CBS was doing as well or better with veteran newsman Bob Schieffer in the anchor chair, and that was before they spent a king's ransom on overhauling and promoting the program, not to mention the check they wrote to pull Ms. Couric away from NBC's Today show.

Last week, CBS News let it be known that Bob Schieffer will join Katie Couric on Tuesday for the network's election night coverage.

And when Larry King asked Katie Couric if the program was her "baby," she talked about the "incredible team of people" who put the show together every night. "No, I don't come in and say 'Hello, welcome to my broadcast, my baby,'" she said. "I basically say 'Hey, you guys, what are we working on? What are we thinking? I'd really love to do this. What do you think?' It's a really wonderfully collaborative effort."

In that statement, the new CBS News anchor displays the formidable skill that took her to the top and kept her there in the shark-tank business of television. It takes some skill to sound so modest and gracious and humble while throwing your producers and staff to the wolves and placing yourself a safe distance away from the blame.

Very impressive.

If there was any remaining doubt about how this story will end, Katie Couric put it to rest on the Larry King show last week. "Larry, I didn't take this job for ratings," she said, "I took this job for the challenge and for the ability to really work on editorial content, to do serious news stories, the opportunity to work on '60 Minutes,' which I think is the only true journalistically superior magazine show on television. I've always dreamed of working on that show."

Now we're going to see what Lesley Stahl is made of. Don't bet against her, either.



Copyright 2006

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "Saving Katie Couric" and "Bob Schieffer's elegant exit."

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A call from Robert Redford

America Wants to Know will now make a confession.

Robert Redford has always melted our glaciers.

So when the phone rang today and a deep, sexy voice said "This is Robert Redford," we listened to the entire robo-call pitch for a vote against California's Proposition 90.

There was a time when we thought we could never say no to Robert Redford.

In fact, when "Indecent Proposal" was in the theaters and people were asking, "Would you sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars," we thought the only reasonable answer was "I'd pay twice that."

Robert Redford is a fine actor in addition to being, well, you know, all the rest of it, but even he cannot convince us that in the name of protecting the environment, governments should be allowed to slash the value of private property and not pay a dime in compensation to the owners.

Proposition 90 would stop state and local governments from using the power of eminent domain to take property from one private owner in order to sell it to another private owner for more profitable use. You might remember that the Supreme Court said in its 2005 Kelo v. City of New London decision that states had the power to do this if they so desired (see the earlier post "Seizing your house to put up a mall: Why the Supreme Court thinks it's fine.")

But Mr. Redford warned that the California ballot initiative has a hidden provision. It would require governments to pay compensation to property owners if a new rule or law causes substantial economic losses.

Environmentalists fear that this will inhibit governments from taking aggressive action to protect land and water and plants and insects and wildlife and views and trails.

Environmentalists are much less interested in protecting private property, which is misguided, because private property is the foundation of freedom.

Sir William Blackstone, the eighteenth-century English legal scholar who was a powerful influence on the framers of the U.S. Constitution, wrote that the absolute rights of Englishmen were life, liberty and property. Blackstone said a man has the right to his life and limbs, the right to move freely from place to place, and the right to own and enjoy his property.

If the government has the power to wipe you out financially by taking your property, you are not really free.

That's why the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment says "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

That's why the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 after the Civil War, specifically stating that all inhabitants of a state shall have the same right "to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property." At the time, the former Confederate states were passing laws to prohibit former slaves from owning or even renting land. Judiciary Committee Chairman James Wilson stood on the floor of the House and read Blackstone's fundamental rights out loud to explain why the Congress was putting a stop to that practice.

The Thirteenth Amendment had ended slavery, but it wasn't enough to guarantee freedom. The Southern states were demonstrating that there could be no freedom without property rights.

California's Proposition 90 does not stop the government from regulating land use. It simply recognizes that when government puts new restrictions on private property in order to protect the environment, it has effectively taken that property for public use.

Proposition 90 strikes a reasonable balance between the need to protect the environment and the need to respect property rights in a free society.

If you live in California, vote for Proposition 90 with a clear conscience.

If you're Robert Redford, the two-million-dollar offer still stands.



Copyright 2006

Editor's Note: For more information about the post-Civil War Black Codes and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, please see "How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing," the appendix to "The 37th Amendment: A Novel" by Susan Shelley.

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