Editorials and Opinions

Federal agencies’ raw power

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:00:04 -0500

By DOUGLAS COHN
and ELEANOR CLIFT
WASHINGTON — The FBI can investigate and arrest you. The SEC can subpoena and investigate you. The IRS can audit, pry, fine, sue, and even refer you to the Justice Department for criminal wrong doing. The CIA can do who-knows-what. This raw power is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution that Congress was empowered “to make laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution . . . all other Powers vested in this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

Published in The Messenger 5.22.13

Argus Hamilton

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:00:04 -0500

HOLLYWOOD — God bless America, and how’s everybody?
Cannes Film Festival got off to a rollicking start in France Saturday when red carpet interviews were interrupted by gunfire from a man in the crowd with a starter pistol. It was chaos. Order was restored when France surrendered to the guy with the starter pistol.

Published in The Messenger 5.22.13

Imagine...

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:00:04 -0500

By MICHAEL REAGAN
Remember the 1996 movie, “A Time to Kill”?
An adaptation of John Grisham’s 1989 legal thriller, it stars Matthew McConaughey as a small-town lawyer in Mississippi who defends a black man who killed the two white racists who had raped his 10-year-old daughter.
Published in The Messenger 5.20.13

Argus 5.17.13

Fri, 17 May 2013 19:00:05 -0500

HOLLYWOOD — God bless America, and how’s everybody?
The Surgeon General advised Americans who will sunbathe on Memorial Day to use sunscreen on the beach or at the pool. She said to stay covered. When the White House heard that the Surgeon General was an expert on covering up, they put her in charge of the IRS.

Getting it wrong

Fri, 17 May 2013 19:00:05 -0500

By PETER FUNT
Scott Pelley of CBS News raised eyebrows and passions among journalists at a Quinnipiac University luncheon the other day when he said, “Our house is on fire.” He was talking about challenges to the news business from within, as reporters become careless in a rush to be “first”; and, from outside, where social media supply what he labeled “more bad information” than at any time in history.