Free Republic

The Progressive Era and Race: Reform and Reaction, 1900–1917, by David W. Southern, Wheeling, W.V.: Harlan Davidson, 240 pages, $15.95 The Progressive movement swept America from roughly the early 1890s through the early 1920s, producing a broad popular consensus that government should be the primary agent of social change. To that end, legions of idealistic young crusaders, operating at the local, state, and federal levels, seized and wielded sweeping new powers and enacted a mountain of new legislation, including minimum wage and maximum hour laws, antitrust statutes, restrictions on the sale and consumption of alcohol, appropriations for hundreds of miles...

TIRANA, Albania - Albanians chose a new parliament on Sunday in elections that mark a crucial step in the tiny Balkan country's push for closer ties with Europe, but local observers raised concerns over voting procedures in rural areas. Previous elections in Albania, which was sealed off from the world during decades of communist rule that ended in 1990, have been plagued by fraud and irregularities. Sunday's voting is being watched as a test of the impoverished nation's ability to hold a fair election. Both NATO and the European Union have warned Albanian authorities that only free and fair elections...

George Friedman, who runs the Stratfor private intelligence service, spotted a change in al-Qaida's outlook over the last year. The Islamist terrorist organization, which previously treated George W. Bush as largely irrelevant to its global designs, now has zeroed in on the president. Combining that change with the terrorist triumph in Spain points to an ominous trend in the war on terrorism -- and in the U.S. presidential election. Failure of the Arab ''street'' to rise in response to the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq has led to questions in the Arab world about al-Qaida's relevance. The coordinated...

SOCIALIST PARTY IN TURMOIL. Last fall, the Socialist Party-USA nominated retired Oregon State Senator Walt Brown as its Presidential nominee for 2004. Brown -- a former Democrat -- was the most mainstream of the democratic socialists contenders in last year's nomination fight. More strident Marxists in the party opposed Brown, but were not able to block him. Now, months later, a vocal faction in the party is trying to force Brown from the ticket because of his views on the abortion issue. The SP-USA platform is solidly pro-choice, and without exceptions. Brown, it turns out, personally supports the ban on...

X-NADER RUNNINGMATE ENDORSES KUCINICH. Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich's Presidential campaign last week picked up the endorsement of Native American activist Winona LaDuke. Who? LaDuke was the Green Party nominee for Vice President on Ralph Nader's ticket in both 1996 and 2000. "Dennis is not a Green, but he's a Green in his heart," said LaDuke at the Minnesota Kucinich rally. Also on the third party front, Kucinich was previously endorsed by John Hagelin (the three-time Natural Law Party nominee for President) and Barbara Ehrenreich (1988 Socialist Party nominee for Vice President).

I just saw on FNC that the Campaign Finance Reform exempts the Socialist Party from listing its donors. It was also stated that there are no entities on the right afforded the same exemption. It is done under the notion of protecting free speech for an extreme political entity.

Some More Equal Than Others On Thursday, the Federal Elections Commission extended an additional six-year exemption to the Socialist Workers Party which allows them to keep the names of their donors secret. The commies are the only political party in the country that continue to enjoy being able to play politics under this different set of rules from everybody else

FUN WITH THE DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND Many Boortz listeners are now frequent visitors to the Internet's premiere comment board for Democrats. It's called DemocraticUnderground.com. Over the weekend my ever-alert listeners brought two different conversation threads to my attention. The first thread began with a suggestion by one Democrat that the Congress be equally divided between men and women. Why? Because "Congress is Unjust" That's why. This person didn't bother to explain why it would be "just" to deny to a voter the right to vote for a candidate of their choice. Here's your link to that thread. http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID60/22942.html The second thread...