Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:26:38 -0500
From: reason@free-market.net ("Jeff Taylor")
Subject: Reason-Express: REx24, v4
To: ReasonExpress@free-market.net (Reason Express List Member)
Welcome to REASON Express, the weekly e-newsletter from REASON magazine.
REASON Express is written by Washington-based journalist Jeff A. Taylor and
draws on the ideas and resources of the REASON editorial staff. For more
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REASON Express
June 12, 2001
Vol. 4 No. 24
1) Bush Builds a Cave of Steel
2) Cop on Trial for Raid Gone Wrong
3) Don't Even Look Ready to Work or the INS Will Pounce
4) Quick Hits
- - Steel Driven Man - -
If George W. Bush winds up being a one-term president, he may well look back
to last week and wonder what he was doing. Signing a back-loaded $1.35
trillion tax cut and sniping with the Euros over missile defense and pollution
got a lot of notice. But it is Bush's decision to prop up domestic
steel-makers that carries the biggest risk of long-term hurt.
Unlike going squishy on his tax cut, or even rolling over while Ted Kennedy
wrote his education bill, bowing to K Street lobbyists screaming for special
treatment marks Bush as susceptible to external electoral pressure. Bush was
threatened that retired steel workers in key states Ohio, Illinois, and, yes,
Florida won't take kindly to watching their pension check dry up if the
industry does a mass Chapter 11.
So the fear that those 300,000 votes would go the wrong way has Bush backing
away from the free trade line he had staunchly backed. Not even the craven
Clinton administration figured it was worth running to the International Trade
Commission to claim that steel imports threaten the U.S. industry. A favorable
ruling would give the administration the power to impose quotas, thus sending
a powerful anti-trade message to rest of the world. Deep, painful recessions
can follow trade wars.
Clinton Treasury chief Robert Rubin, his smarmy bond-trader
if-you-worry-about-tax-rates-you-are-simply-not-making-enough mantra aside,
seemed to grasp that the U.S. has to champion trade as much as possible.
Backsliding only closes markets to U.S. firms, and the U.S. benefits from open
trade more than anyone else.
In contrast, Bush Treasury chief Paul O'Neill betrays an autocrat's suspicion
of markets. If everyone would just ply "fair," then everyone would win. Here
"fair" means a reasonable return of investment and winning means full
executive employment far into the feature.
But sometimes markets are profoundly unreasonable. They demand things--that
inefficient producers stop producing, and that "free trade" presidents
actually support free trade.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32756-2001Jun6.html
- - Addressing the Problem - -
A trial in Tennessee provides a disturbing look at how haphazard drug raids
have become. A retired man in Lebanon died when police raided his house
instead of a next-door neighbor's.
Former Lebanon police detective Steve Nokes is on trial on charges of criminal
responsibility for reckless homicide and other counts in the Oct. 4 raid that
killed homeowner John Adams, 62. When men used a battering ram to enter his
home without warning, Adams mistook them for burglars and opened fire with a
shotgun.
Incredibly, another detective, Tommy Maggart, testified that he had worries
about the raid before it started.
He added that he told Nokes of his doubts as the raid team assembled back at
the police station. Several other officers also recalled this.
''The good news was she was at home. The bad news is, I think we have the
wrong address,'' is how Maggart recalled it.
Under cross-examination Maggart then conceded that his overall info was
sketchy, at best. He didn't have an actual address to raid.
''I was told it was the only double-wide on the street,'' Maggart explained.
For their part, prosecutors focused on a statement by Nokes indicating that he
had seen the suspect enter and leave the mobile home.
Whatever the actual facts of case, or its ultimate outcome, it should be clear
that embarking on potentially deadly raids with only the thinnest of
information is standard operating procedure for far too many departments.
http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/01/04/05591557.shtml?Element_ID=55915
57
- - Give Them a Hand - -
An immigration inspector at Miami International Airport may have opened a
window on a whole new form of discrimination: handism. Polish citizen Bozena
Weglinski, 44, claims she was denied entry to the United States because the
inspector didn't like the look of her hands.
"The inspector told her her hands looked like she was coming to work," said
Renata Sadej, Weglinski's cousin whom she was coming to visit with a valid
10-year travel visa. That visa was summarily revoked and Weglinski put on the
next plane back home.
An Immigration and Naturalization Service spokeswoman said there are no
admissions test based on appearance.
"We put them through a line of questioning to determine if they are admissible
to the United States," said Maria Elena Garcia. "Do we have them put their
hands out in order to make that determination? No."
But the INS does have something called expedited removal program, designed to
quickly route those with false documents--o no documents--back home. Some
7,000 people were sent packing via this program in the past year from Miami
alone.
It would be not very shocking for an investigation of the matter to find that
the INS does in fact have some sort of watch list for suspicious
characteristics. After all, for some time now various law enforcement agencies
have relied on appearances to nab suspected drug couriers at airports and on
the open road.
Too little luggage, too much cash--not to mention looking too ethnic in one
regard or another--can trigger a quick game of 20 questions with a constable.
Further, anyone familiar with how traffic tickets are issued would not be
shocked to find there might be some kind of formal or informal quota system
among front-line inspectors. Fail to hit the right number and maybe you end up
checking the 2:53 a.m. flights from Montevideo for a month.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-cwork605.story?coll=sfla%
2Dnews%2Dpalm
QUICK HITS
- - Quote of the Week - -
"I love pretty women, but how can I think about highway safety when there's a
half-naked woman running around?"
--South Carolina State Rep. Robert S. "Skipper" Perry (R) on the flak
surrounding an anonymous memo to female state legislative pages about proper
attire. From a fictional "Men's Caucus," the memo said underwear was
"optional" and that "The terms 'babe,' 'honey,' 'sugar' and 'little missy'
should be accepted as compliments and terms of endearment."
http://web.thestate.com/content/columbia/2001/06/08/politics/pages08.htm
- - Quote of the Week, Truth to Power Division - -
"Hillary Clinton could be in the White House before these tax cuts start
kicking in."
--Stephen Moore, president of the anti-tax Club for Growth, on President's
Bush's new tax cut.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31931-2001Jun6.html
- - Clip Job - -
The Esquire Theatre near Cincinnati, Ohio specialized in art-house,
hard-to-find films, some of the rarely-screened NC-17 variety. But without
telling customers, or anyone else, the theatre cut several seconds out of the
NC-17-rated The Center of the World, causing the distributor to yank the film
from the venue.
http://enquirer.com/editions/2001/06/08/loc_esquire_theaters.html
- - Art of the Deal - -
Canadian teenagers were taught about lesbianism and masturbation in a Women in
Art course at the University of Winnipeg. The 15-year-old girls from schools
in the Winnipeg area had been expecting a week of lessons about female
artists. University president Constance Rooke said the material wasn't "age
appropriate" and that greater care would be taken in the future to ensure this
did not happen again.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_316202.html?menu=news.weirdworld.sexlife
- - Hog Mild - -
A Minnesota man gets turned down by local government on a request to build 31
homes on a 16-acre site. So he's gone with his next-best alternative--a hog
farm. Neighbors are not amused.
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/thu/news/docs/62988.htm
- - Freebooter - -
Princeton University professor Edward Felten is suing for the right to publish
his research on the music industry's latest anti-piracy technology. The suit
also seeks to overturn parts of 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
http://www.tennessean.com/business/archives/01/04/05587830.shtml?Element_ID=55
87830
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