By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Officials in Newtown, Conn., are asking people to stop sending gifts to the grief-stricken community following the deadly school shooting, saying they're deeply grateful but can't handle the donation deluge.
For more than a century, Americans have romanticized about railroads. The railroad industry played an exceedingly important role in this country's early history. Travel became easier, people were more connected, and new communities sprang up across this land.
Jewelry collectors who don't mind if their gems have a rather shady past will soon get the chance to bid on a stash of valuables linked to reputed mobster Frank Calabrese Sr.
If the phone hacking scandal gripping Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. empire has a familiar ring, it might be because you've heard the story before. Scrappy outsider turns modest newspaper business into international media conglomerate. Ambition turns to hubris. Mogul dramatically falls from grace.
Some old dead white man once said: "All historical analogies are odious." He meant they stink because the time, place and dramatis personae of any historical event are so particularistic. Drawing similarities with another event defies logic.
The 1941 film "Citizen Kane" will be shown at Hearst Castle, the elaborate California estate built by the newspaper magnate who inspired Orson Welles' cinema classic.
A serious biography of Eleanor Medill "Cissy" Patterson was long overdue. During the 1940s, she was part of the "royal family of American journalism." A descandent of abolitionistJoseph Medill, owner of the Chicago Tribune, sister of Joe Medill Patterson of the New York Daily News and cousin to Col. Robert R. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, she outshone them all with her flamboyance, grit and intelligence.
It is refreshing to encounter this memoir by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. His life was haunted by a specter, and yet he is able - on paper, anyway - to bear it lightly with consummate grace. The specter in question was none other than the overwhelming figure of Orson Welles, who may or may not have been his father.
"If you want to send a message," Samuel Goldwyn famously told his screenwriters, "go to Western Union." He was determined that his movies would be about entertainment, not politics. Now you would have better luck trying to send a message by Pony Express because the telegram has gone the way of buggy whips and high-button shoes. But via cell phone, e-mail or Twitter, the old movie mogul's point is still a valid caution.
As I was preparing to write a column on the ludicrous maligning of the Tea Party movement by liberals, Democrats and the mainstream media (which I hope to write next week instead) I started thinking about one of the key objectives of the Tea Party people - the strict enforcement of the 10th Amendment ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.").
