Things You Hear on NPR: Castro ‘A Complex Figure’

NPR’s first news story on Castro’s death a couple of days ago, as I remember it (I cannot find it on their Web site), was conspicuously neutral, concluding by calling him (I paraphrase from memory) a figure some saw as a dictator.

Give me a break.  Fidel Castro was a murderous dictator who jailed, tortured, and killed people just for speaking their minds, just for calling for democracy—even for being related to those who did.  Read about any of the brave Cuban democrats and dissidents.  Give them a break.

‘Pope Francis apparently not amused by “communist crucifix”‘

China Kills Children, Sells Them as Food

More sensitive readers should perhaps skip this one.

Planned Freeloading, Theft

Rarely is a liberal this explicit about it:

America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working. 

Thumbs Up Rob Portman, Thumbs Down Sherrod Brown

Just a quick report on my (Ohio’s) two senators, from my communications with them yesterday about the debt-ceiling fight:

I called Senator Portman’s office and immediately reached a real person.  The staffer seemed unprepared to discuss policy details apart from particular proposals, but as to the particular proposals currently on the table, he assured me that Senator Portman would support Senator Lee’s version of “Cut, Cap, and Balance”, and that he would not support the “Gang of Six” proposal (more on that here). 

Separation of School and State

During my last semester of law school, we read an interesting case for Corporations class, A. P. Smith Mfg. Co. vs. Barlow, 13 N.J. 145, 98 A.2d 581.  In this 1953 decision by the New Jersey supreme court, the question (basically) was whether the corporation was allowed to donate money to charity, or whether donating would be an illegal waste of the shareholders’ money.  I won’t bore you with the legal details (the court found that the corporation was allowed to make such donations), but listen to some of the testimony in the case: