Free Republic

With far more political acuity than critics expected, President George Bush disarmed world government proponents while promising more aid to developing nations. The U.N.'s High Level Panel on Financing Development concluded its four-day conference in Monterrey, Mexico, without explicit authorization for U.N. taxes on currency exchange, fossil fuels and a host of other tax targets. The conference, publicized as a poverty-reducing initiative, was, in fact, another effort by the U.N. to gain taxing authority. Ernesto Zedillo, head of the U.N. panel, issued a report on June 28, calling for the new taxing authority. U.S. delegates to the conference made it...

For good reason, there has been serious hand-wringing over what to do about the ethical lapses of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The fact that Supreme Court justices are exempt from the code of ethical conduct which applies to the rest of the federal judiciary; the problem of bringing a sitting justice before the Congress to question the conduct of a constitutional co-equal; the reality that justices cannot easily defend themselves against news media charges; the defiant, in-your-face posture of Thomas—the list goes on but it need not. There is clear precedent for how to deal with the justice....