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A glut o' glitterati:Julia Roberts complained about George Bush to an interviewer, saying "Republican comes in the dictionary just after reptile and just above repugnant." Meanwhile, Cher doesn't want tax cuts and Sarah Jessica Parker is "concerned" that runaway government spending might slow to a jog. Columnist Michelle Malkin quoted these thought leaders and panned Hollywood's silly devotion to liberalism: "Has Alec Baldwin defected to Cuba yet?" The beefcake actor threatened to leave the country in the event of a Bush victory; he made the threat during the campaign, but before his divorce from Kim Basinger. All this talk of pretty women reminds us of Erin Brockovich, who was portrayed by Ms. Roberts on screen. Master debunker Michael Fumento challenged the Brockovich phenomenon in The Wall Street Journal and National Review. "Far from being 'environmental crusaders' as the media now routinely calls them, [Attorney Ed] Masry and Brockovich have never crusaded for anything but lucre," he remarked in NR Online. Mr. Fumento claims that the famous lawsuit dramatized in the movie was based on blaming Pacific Gas & Electric for a long list of unrelated illnesses. He said Ms. Brockovich claims she has 200 studies supporting her charges, but won't produce them. Losing streak: Wither the Christian Coalition? Ralph Z. Hallow in The Washington Times reported that the group is deep in debt and now "a pale imitation of its once-powerful self." Now the group faces a discrimination suit mounted by 10 black employees. The Coalition still defends its viability, however. "When you have a change of leadership you always have a slump," new executive VP Roberta Combs told the paper. "but I feel we have recovered and are doing well." Driving under the influence of Washington: President Clinton's mandate about drunk driving is still with us-and it raises constitutional concerns for Walter Williams. The plan is that a .08 blood/alcohol concentration must be made law in all 50 states by 2003 or some highway funds will be taken away. Mr. Williams says Congress has no authority to make such demands since functions like this are delegated through the Tenth Amendment. He explained that the issue is not drunk driving (after all, Colorado's limit is even stricter than Washington's) but the federal-state balance of power. Pass the malaise: Jack Kemp is getting hot with his criticisms of today's economic malaise. In a recent column he called on both parties to quit quibbling and do something bold: "double the size of the tax rate reductions to do something serious about reviving economic growth." Mr. Kemp also called for cutting some red meat by lowering the capital-gains tax. (Most of his fellow supply-siders want it gone forever.) He still accuses the Federal Reserve of "helping create this mess by draining liquidity from the economy. Cutting the capital gains tax rate to 15 percent will not restore a healthy oxygen flow of investment capital to our economic children as long as the Fed insists on restricting the flow at the monetary valve." Ditto National Review's Larry Kudlow, who called the Fed's half-point interest rate cut wimpy: "Sort of like leaving a three-foot putt short of the cup. Nice stroke, Alice." Decalogue dispute: The Ten Commandments are under fire once again from hardcore church-state separatists. Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued Allegheny County, Pa., over a Ten Commandments plaque in the county courthouse, Erik Siemers reported in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He wrote that the plaque has been there since 1918 and country officials want to keep it around. County Executive Jim Roddey said he plans to raise money to cover the suit's costs instead of using taxpayer funds. He said he wouldn't allow the plaque if it were going up today, but that tradition deserves respect. "I don't think that we have the right to say those people 82 years ago didn't know what they were doing," Mr. Roddey told the paper. The McCainiacs: George Will took on "McCainism" in his column, complaining that the senator's campaign finance reform proposals are getting an easy time in the media due to over-generalized accusations of corruption. He said proponents exaggerate the power of donors to manipulate congressmen. For example, the National Rifle Association contributed $8.4 million to congressional campaigns from 1989 to 1998, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to the $4 billion in overall spending by all congressional candidates. "How plausible is it that NRA contributions-as distinct from the votes of 3 million NRA members-influenced legislators?" Mr. Will asked. He argued that "legislators' ideologies, party affiliations or constituents' desires" more simply explain how politicians behave.
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