vtgop

The Clavelle Plan: ACT 60 For Health Care

School administrators and state politicians insist that local control is alive and well in the state. Nothing could be further from the truth. Thanks to the efforts of Cheryl Rivers and Peter Shumlin our state government controls nearly all aspects of local education and the bureaucracy continues to expand. Now our attention turns to the issue of health care. Very few choices exist in the state today and Peter Clavelle would like to make things easier by eliminating choice all together.

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Press Tip-Off: Behind the Census Poverty Report

The number is already all over the news: 1.3 million Americans joined the ranks of the poor between 2002 and 2003. That's according to this year's "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States" report from the Census Bureau, but there's so much context missing from reporters' coverage.

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Another Call To Action

PEGGY NOONAN

Now Is the Time
We must do what we can to win this war.

Thursday, August 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag" (Wall Street Journal Books/Simon & Schuster), a collection of post-Sept. 11 columns, which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore.

Everyone who reads me knows I am a political conservative, by which I mean I adhere to a particular philosophy, a way of viewing life and man and his time on earth. I do not think a lot of modern conservatives have taken on their philosophy because they were brought up in it, schooled in it, and swallowed it whole. And I don't think a lot of them became conservatives because they read a book by Hayek or Adam Smith and thought, "Ah ha, this seems sound!" I think a lot of people in our time who have become conservatives did it because they had a certain and particular kind of mind. To choose just one facet, they have a natural respect and even sometimes love toward human beings, while at the same time having no illusions--none--about who we are.

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Rep. Duffy Responds To The Rutland Herald

The Rutland Herald
Letters to the Editor

August 10, 2004

The editorial you printed in the Rutland Herald on Saturday, August 7 concerning the Citizens Alliance for Judicial Accountability requires a response.

You state, "There's no such thing as an "activist" judge " Justices who fail to exercise judicial restraint, disregard precedent, and ignore original intent, thereby using the courts to further their own political agenda, or who usurp the power reserved for the legislative branch of government, are "activist" judges. Constitutionalists believe that the constitution ought to be interpreted according to its plain meaning and the original intent of the framers.

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For more on the Alliance for Judicial Accountability go to http://www.cajavt.org/

Links To Educational Resources

Some months back Nina Shokraii Rees, Deputy Under Secretary for the Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII), was invited to the statehouse and asked to share her thoughts and answer questions about the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Vermont Education Commissioner Richard Cate was in attendance but sadly no lawmakers were anywhere to be found.

For those who might be interested in educational issues we encourage you to subscribe to the OII Newsletter. An example of the type of content one would find in the newsletter is the publication from The Greater Educational Opportunities Foundation, an OII grantee in Indianapolis. This document is designed to provide journalists with easy access to information about No Child Left Behind, as well as information on education issues in Indiana. Check it out.

Dr. Steven Rhoads' Recent Book Release Is Getting Attention

In this provocative exploration of the masculine and feminine, Rhoads dispels contemporary clichés and spotlights biological realities. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, Taking Sex Differences Seriously is a groundbreaking look at the way we are.

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Dr. Steven Rhoads has taught public policy at the University of Virginia for over thirty years. He will appear on NPR's Talk of the Nation, Wednesday, August 4 at 3 pm EST. Click here for more information.

Remembering Fouad Ajami's Take On Iraq

Iraq and the Arabs' Future
by Fouad Ajami
From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2003

Fouad Ajami is Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

THE ROAD TO MODERNITY

There should be no illusions about the sort of Arab landscape that America is destined to find if, or when, it embarks on a war against the Iraqi regime. There would be no "hearts and minds" to be won in the Arab world, no public diplomacy that would convince the overwhelming majority of Arabs that this war would be a just war. An American expedition in the wake of thwarted UN inspections would be seen by the vast majority of Arabs as an imperial reach into their world, a favor to Israel, or a way for the United States to secure control over Iraq's oil. No hearing would be given to the great foreign power.

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Visit The Governor’s Campaign Web Site

Don't forget to visit the re-election Web site for Governor Jim Douglas at http://www.jimdouglas.com/. Click links below to watch
our first Internet ad of the season

For Windows Streaming Media:

High speed connection click here.
Low speed connection click here.

For Quicktime Movie click here.

House Targets Marriage Validation

(Senators Leahy & Jeffords did not back the FMA stating that it should be left to the states to decide. If they do not back this effort their words become meaningless)

By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Washington Times, DC, July 23, 2004
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040722-115443-3438r.htm

In a showdown on the role of Congress and the courts in defining marriage, the House voted yesterday to strip federal judges of the ability to rule on such cases, leaving the matter up to the states.

The Marriage Protection Act would prohibit the Supreme Court and other federal courts from deciding challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which says no state could be forced to accept a same-sex "marriage" entered into in another state.

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A Democratic Party Shaped by Bill Clinton

An unusually united Democratic Party descends on this historic hub to celebrate the John Kerry-John Edwards ticket; special tribute also will be paid to the heart and soul of the party, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the most influential senator of his times.

But even more than the nominee--who captured this prize more decisively than anyone in memory--or the favorite son, this is a Democratic Party shaped by Bill Clinton. The former president remains a controversial figure, his role in history unsettled and disputed, but his impact on the party is enormous. He moved the Democrats to the center while keeping the party's political base energized and committed.

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