What On Earth?

Pipes calls for Americans to repeal, replace ObamaCare

2012-01-31T14:31:00.000-08:00

Pipes calls for Americans to repeal, replace ObamaCare
The Pipes Plan' lays out a 10-step solution
by Neil W. McCabe
01/27/2012

At the Jan. 26 launch party in Washington for her new book, The Pipes Plan, the president of the Pacific Research Institute called on Americans to reject and dismantle the president’s healthcare reform agenda before it is too late.

When then-speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress had to pass a 2,700-page healthcare reform bill no one had read, so people could find out what was in it, she decided to write a 270-page book that everyone could read to learn how to get rid of it, said Sally C. Pipes, whose book is a 10-step plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

There was a personal reason, too, she said. Her first-hand experience dealing with her own mother's illness also compelled her to present a concrete solution to the healthcare problem.

“It is interesting that Obama in his State of the Union address only devoted 44 words to healthcare,” she said.

“I think it’s because the American people don’t like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” she said.

“Fifty-three percent of Americans want it repealed and as to the individual mandate, 82 percent, according to Gallup, want that repealed.”

Pipes said the American people have been fooled by the claims by President Barack H. Obama Jr., especially the claims that reforms will bend the cost curve downward and that his program will achieve universal coverage.
“Under the plan, still 23 million Americans will be uninsured by 2019,” she said.

Joining Pipes at the event was Virginia Atty. Gen. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, was one of the leading opponents of president’s healthcare reform, who made his own remarks before Pipes.

“I am a specialist at dismantling ObamaCare, so, it is good to have other people who have thought through replacing it,” said Cuccinelli, a member of the group of more than 20 state’s attorneys general suing the federal government in order to have the entire law revoked.

“After we beat this thing in court,” he said. “I think it will be the only time that anyone has eliminated an entitlement—it will be kinda sad that the only time way we’ve ever done it is by court action, but we will take what we can get.”

The next day, those who fought to end the healthcare reform will have the obligation to present an alternative plan, he said.

“Our side, the limited government side, will be face with a different kind of battle from that moment,” he said.

“This president will go on the attack and we will be blamed for any person who passes away for any reason—including 100-plus-year-olds,” he said.

“Be ready for it, it is all they do,” he said.

“Campaigns are sales marketing and communications, and this president is outstanding at those things,” Old Dominion’s attorney general said. “Governing is a lot more—which he has found, and we have suffered.”

Cuccinelli said one of the great obstacles to getting rid of the healthcare law passed in 2010 is that so many people will benefit from its funding and regulatory regime.

By picking out winners, there is now an entrenched and enriched group of people who will fight to save and expand their gold mine, he said.

Pipes, who was raised in Canada, said in her own discussions with that country's Prime Minister Stephen J. Harper, she was surprised when he told her there was no way politically he could dismantle Canada's government-controlled head-on.

Harper told her the forces supporting the status quo were too powerful, she said.

When her own mother took ill, Pipes said it forced her to deal with the Canadian system, which was a wake-up call to her about what was coming to America before the winners from ObamaCare became too powerful.

“What the American people don’t realize is the in Canada, the government is the sole provider of healthcare,” she said. Private providers are prohibited by law there.

“But, they have an escape because Canadians can come to the United States and pay out-of-pocket,” she said.

In a well-publicized case, the Newfoundland premier was criticized in the Canadian press when he went to Miami for cardiac treatment, she said.

“When he got back, he said: ‘It’s my heart. It’s my health. It’s my choice,’” she said.

“My own mother died in December of ’05 of colon cancer,” she said.

The previous June, she convinced her mother to see a doctor about getting a colonoscopy, which is detailed examination with a very small camera or through a fiber optic cable, Pipes said.

“Her doctor said: ‘You know, at your age we cannot get you a colonoscopy —we have people in their 50s waiting six months,’” she said.

“By November of ’05, my mother had lost 30 pounds and called me to tell me she was hemorrhaging,” she said.

“We got her into an ambulance and to the hospital,” she said. “She spent two days in the emergency room, two days in the transition lounge waiting for a bed, she finally she got her colonoscopy, then my mom died two weeks later from metastasized colon cancer.”

Pipes said, “This is what happens with the government global budget and says who get what.”
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To read a related article, click here.

When Nobody's Business Is Everybody's Business

2012-01-31T12:54:00.000-08:00

When Nobody's Business Is Everybody's Business
By Robert Knight
1/31/2012

When I was a copy editor at the Los Angeles Times, a young reporter submitted an article about a single mother having trouble obtaining government checks.

The story was designed to elicit outrage at callous bureaucrats who should be showering this poor woman with subsidies. I asked the reporter if she knew anything about the father. Was he providing any assistance? Was he a deadbeat dad?

The reporter, who has probably gone on to MSNBC, responded: “How dare you ask that question? How dare you be so judgmental? It’s nobody’s business.”

Well, given that the unfortunate woman was asking taxpayers to take the place of the man who sired her children, it was everybody’s business.

It’s no secret that the decline of marriage has contributed mightily to poverty, crime, abortion, drug and child abuse, alcoholism, school dropout rates, sexually transmitted diseases and virtually every known social ill while exponentially bloating state and federal budgets. Every liberal attack on marriage ensures more government jobs for liberals to pick up the pieces.

As the federal government lurches toward a $16 trillion national debt and the states face bankruptcy, the welfare state is strangling freedom and the economy while keeping millions in wretched dependency.

Every attempt to rein in the behemoth is met with threats by public employee unions, fusillades from left-wing think tanks, and media smears.

Exhibit A is unfolding in the City of Brotherly Love, where the welfare state works so well that Philadelphia is a perennial contender for murder capital of the U.S. There's something to be said for Philly, the home of Ben Franklin, Bill Cosby, Independence Hall and hoagie sandwiches. But Philadelphia is also awash in liberal bureaucracy and social pathologies unleashed by the collapse of minority families thanks to the Great Society’s vision of the Good Life.

Here’s the gist of the current drama:

At issue: Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW) Secretary Gary Alexander’s attempts to reduce waste and fraud.

The real target: Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.

The goat: Robert W. Patterson, a DPW official. I worked with Mr. Patterson a few years back at the Family Research Council. He’s a good guy and a careful writer.

Patterson, who was appointed policy adviser in October, came under fire in mid-January from the Philadelphia Inquirer, which “began asking about Patterson’s side job as editor of The Family in America, published by an Illinois-based research center that advocates for the ‘natural human family … established by the Creator.” You know, the Creator that America’s founding fathers cited in the Declaration of Independence, which the Continental Congress adopted in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

However, The Family in America is not a faith-based journal but a scholarly compilation of articles and research summaries published by the Howard Center, whose president is Allan C. Carlson, arguably the nation’s leading social historian. To the Philly hit team, the journal is immediately suspect because it isn’t aggressively secular.

Here’s a snippet from a Philadelphia Daily News editorial:

“Religion is at the center of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, where Patterson works as an editor. It’s fair to wonder how right it is for his extreme views to help shape a policy – in Patterson’s case, welfare policy – that will affect so many in need. And we can’t help but be disturbed by the contempt Patterson must have held, given his beliefs, for many of the clients served by the department.”

Add mind-reading to the amazing powers of the Philly scribes, along with shockingly casual religious bigotry. They KNOW that Mr. Patterson harbors bad motives. After all, he promotes marriage between one man and one woman.

The Inquirer and its cousin Daily News zeroed in on an article in the New Research section of the Family in America that summarized a scientist’s findings that semen had some positive effects on women. Here’s how a Daily News blog describes Patterson’s most colorful crime: “he wrote stories about semen as a mental elixir for women.”

An Inquirer article on January 26 attacked Patterson again, giving a cartoonish version of his views and noting his “musings on how condom use could rob women of reported mood-enhancing benefits of chemicals.”

Unmentioned was the fact that Mr. Patterson had digested a Sept. 22, 2010 blog article in Scientific American summarizing several scientists’ research on the topic. If you want to provoke a liberal wolf pack, try introducing scientific evidence for male-female complementarities.

At the same time the papers were hammering Patterson, the Inquirer ran stories about the Corbett administration’s attempt to reform Medicaid. The January 18 headline screams: “Since August, 88,000 Pennsylvania children have lost Medicaid benefits.”

The article includes unanswered volleys such as “They have chosen to send a signal, and it is very callous,” by a senior fellow from the hard-left Center for American Progress, identified as “a Washington think tank.”

Think of this as a microcosm of what the national press will do when House Republicans this year renew their common sense plan to reform Medicaid in similar fashion to the 1996 welfare reform that replaced open-ended federal matching funds with finite block grants.

Finally, there was this gem:

“Sen. Vincent J. Hughes (D-Phil.) said he believed the reviews were part of a pattern ... of the Corbett administration’s ‘putting their foot on the neck of poor people.’”

Is that all? From the tone of the articles and editorials, one would think Corbett had commissioned a traveling guillotine squad, perhaps with Patterson in a black hood.

But only one head fell in the flurry of liberal righteous indignation, and that was Bob Patterson’s. He resigned from the DPW and will continue to edit the Family in America.

It’s bad news for Pennsylvania, but good news for the rest of the nation.
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To read another article by Robert Knight, click here.

War Through Weakness?

2012-01-31T12:46:00.000-08:00

War Through Weakness?
By Cal Thomas
1/31/2012

One of the memorable slogans from the Reagan administration was "peace through strength." Reagan believed a strong defense was a safeguard against enemy attacks and the best hope of victory should America go to war.

President Obama is taking the opposite approach. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently announced cuts in defense spending of $487 billion over the next 10 years. Supposedly, these cuts will reduce the federal deficit, but Congress always finds new ways to spend money, so I am not optimistic.

The cuts were announced before critical questions were asked: What is America's role in the world in the 21st century? Where does the military fit into that role? The administration thinks a sleeker, more mobile military -- like SEAL Team Six, which has had recent successes taking out Osama bin Laden and rescuing hostages from Somali pirates -- is the way to go, but even the highly-trained SEALs can't confront, say, a nuclear threat from Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or China's increasing military power. The administration says it will preserve its manpower and weapons systems in the Middle East and shift resources to Asia.

Ships and planes take time to build. If America is not building them to ward off present and future threats, someone else -- like the Chinese -- will. The world does not remain stagnant and threats are not always obvious.

Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, says he is "deeply concerned" by the announced defense reductions, including the elimination of "at least 12 new Navy ships over the next five years and retiring at least nine ships earlier than planned."

Akin also worries about what will happen to the estimated 100,000 soldiers and Marines who will become unemployed in a struggling economy.

According to the website U.S. Government Spending.com, defense spending fluctuated in the last century. It hit a peak of 42 percent of GDP during World War II, declining to 10 percent during the Cold War to about 5 percent today.

Reagan's defense buildup followed cuts during the Carter administration. Reagan increased defense spending from 5.6 percent of GDP in 1979 to 7 percent of GDP by 1986. President George W. Bush's administration increased defense spending from 3.6 percent of GDP near the end of the Clinton administration in 1999, to 6 percent in 2010, to confront Islamic extremism.

The Obama administration, usgovernmentspending.com adds, plans to drop defense spending to 4.6 percent of GDP by 2015.

Do these reductions parallel a decline in the threats against America and American interests? Quite the opposite. The administration engages in wishful thinking about the so-called "Arab spring," which is devolving into a religious tornado with the radical Muslim Brotherhood calling the shots in Egypt and elsewhere and the Taliban poised to regain control in Afghanistan.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai have agreed that NATO should pull out all combat forces from Afghanistan by next year, not 2014, as planned. This can only encourage the Taliban, who have recently been sending signals they are not the bad guys most people rightly think they are.

A recent Wall Street Journal story noted that public statements by the Taliban make them sound more "moderate," adding, "The big unknown is whether this new rhetoric represents a meaningful transformation -- or is merely designed to sugarcoat the Taliban's real aims."

It's a safe bet to say it's the latter.

The "big unknown" is what a sound U.S. defense strategy should take into account. As former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once put it, "There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns ... there are some things we de not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

It is to protect not only against the "known knowns," but the "unknown unknowns" that a credible defense strategy should be maintained. Cutting our defenses without a plan of action is an invitation to war.
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To read another article by Cal Thomas, click here.

Democrats Fully Engaged in Fast and Furious Coverup

2012-01-31T12:30:00.000-08:00

Democrats Fully Engaged in Fast and Furious Coverup
By Katie Pavlich
1/31/2012

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are officially trying to cover for Attorney General Eric Holder just before he testifies on Thursday about Operation Fast and Furious, with anti-Second Amendment Ranking Member Elijah Cummings leading the way. Last night, Cummings released a 95 page waste of paper and taxpayer money report, alleging that top Justice Department officials did not authorize the program, despite evidence showing otherwise. The report tries to pin the blame back on a few "rogue" managers in the ATF Phoenix Field Division. This is the same argument we've heard since the beginning of the scandal: it was a local operation, nobody important knew anything.

A few important points:

First, Deputy Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer (the number two man in DOJ), approved wiretaps for Operation Fast and Furious. Wiretap applications require excruciating detail about a case to be presented before approval. Wiretaps are considered the most intrusive tool law enforcement can use. Breuer, who read through the wiretap applications, knew details of the strategy used in Fast and Furious, letting guns walk into Mexico without alerting Mexican authorities, yet he approved it anyway. New emails released last Friday in a late night document dump, show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed about Brian Terry's death just hours after he was murdered in the early morning hours on December 15, 2010. Later in the day, Holder's deputy chief of staff at the time Monty Wilkinson, was told directly by former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke that the guns found at the murder scene were part of Operation Fast and Furious. According to the report, Wilkinson doesn't "recall" that email, despite replying to it with, "Call you tomorrow." Burke, who resigned from his position as U.S. Attorney in August, was in "complete agreement" with former ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Division Bill Newell about Fast and Furious tactics according to a January 8, 2010 briefing memo.

If Wilkinson's "I don't recall," argument sounds familiar, there's a reason why. On May 3, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder testifed before the House Judicary Committee that he had only known about Fast and Furious, "for a couple of weeks." Five months later, memos addressed directly to Holder surfaced, with details and discussion about the program. In defense, Holder said he didn't read the memos and that his staff didn't inform him of their content.

Second, the report claims Fast and Furious was not used as a way for the Obama administration to push through back door gun control measures.

"The report debunks many unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. Contrary to repeated claims by some, the Committee has obtained no evidence that Operation Fast and Furious was a politically-motivated operation conceived and directed by high-level Obama Administration political appointees at the Department of Justice," Cummings wrote in the report.

FLASHBACK: Designed to Promote Gun Control

"Internal ATF emails seem to suggest that ATF agents were counseled to highlight a link between criminals and certain semi-automatic weapons in order to bolster a case for a rule like the one the DOJ announced yesterday [Monday]."

Townhall has obtained the email which states "Can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same FfL and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks Mark R. Chait Assistant Director Field Operations."

Remember this email from Assistant Director in Charge of Field Operations Mark Chait?

Wondering what a demand letter is? This:

“The international expansion and increased violence of transnational criminal networks pose a significant threat to the United States. Federal, state and foreign law enforcement agencies have determined that certain types of semi-automatic rifles – greater than .22 caliber and with the ability to accept a detachable magazine – are highly sought after by dangerous drug trafficking organizations and frequently recovered at violent crime scenes near the Southwest Border. This new reporting measure -- tailored to focus only on multiple sales of these types of rifles to the same person within a five-day period -- will improve the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals and criminal organizations. These targeted information requests will occur in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas to help confront the problem of illegal gun trafficking into Mexico and along the Southwest Border.”

Although Cummings claims he wants to bring justice to the Terry family for his murder, which was a direct result of this recklass program, he has done the opposite by using the scandal to promote new gun control measures, implying ATF should be given more power and as a chance to blame President Bush for using the "same tactics" that were used during Fast and Furious for other programs during his time in the White House. During Bush-era "gunwalking" programs, the Mexican government was informed and cooperating with ATF to interdict and follow guns into Mexico. During Fast and Furious under President Obama, Mexican officials were left in the dark as 2500 guns were delivered to the hands of ruthless cartel members thanks to DOJ and ATF officials.

Note to Cummings: Your cover-up is showing.
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To read a related article, click here.

Five Reasons So Many Grassroots Conservatives Don't Like Mitt Romney

2012-01-31T12:15:00.000-08:00

Five Reasons So Many Grassroots Conservatives Don't Like Mitt Romney
By John Hawkins
1/31/2012

It's a mystery to some people why so many Tea Partiers and grassroots conservatives can’t stand Mitt Romney. What is it about him that turns them off so much that at one time or another, they've preferred Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich to him nationally despite the fact that he has every advantage in the race? Would Mitt Romney be better than Barack Obama? Sure, but there are some very good reasons that so many grassroots conservatives still find him to be a thoroughly unlikable candidate.

1) He's not a conservative. There have been a lot of conservatives who've talked a good game during the primaries and then have let us down in D.C., but if Mitt Romney becomes the nominee and gets elected, some people seem to be hoping that he'll be the first Republican moderate to go to D.C. and turn into a fire-breathing conservative. Based on his record, if Mitt Romney is nominated, he will be the least conservative candidate since Nixon.

Moreover, keep in mind that in 1994, when Mitt Romney was 47 years old, he was telling people that, "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush" and the Contract with America was "not a good idea." Eight years later in 2002, when he was 55 years old, Mitt Romney was saying, "I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican, that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.” Oh, joy! So he was a progressive, like Hillary Clinton! After four years of governing as a barely right of center moderate and coming up with Romneycare, a piece of signature legislation that any liberal Democrat would be proud of, Mitt Romney supposedly became a conservative -- precisely at the same moment he started running for President. What a stunning coincidence!

One of the great ironies of the campaign is that Newt Gingrich has been quite properly dinged for being a good Republican soldier and endorsing Dede Scozzafava over the Conservative Party's Doug Hoffman and now, a lot of the "good Republican soldiers" are endorsing a male version of Scozzafava for President over Newt.

2) He doesn't believe in anything politically other than Mitt Romney. What conservative cause has Mitt Romney ever fought like hell for in his career? There are none. What has Mitt Romney ever done for conservatives in his career? Nothing of significance...oh wait, I forgot; when he was asked about it in the Florida debate, he noted that he started a family and a business, which is nice, but probably puts him on par with about half of the people reading this column.

In the last decade alone, Mitt has been against an amendment to stop gay marriage and for an amendment to stop gay marriage, for cap and trade and against cap and trade, against Bush's tax cuts and for Bush's tax cuts, for abortion and against abortion, for gun control and against gun control....it goes on and on. Like Arlen Specter, Romney would feel just as comfortable running as a Democrat or Republican and like Barack Obama, all of Mitt's promises come with an expiration date. It's almost impossible to know where Romney will be on any issue in six months, including Obamacare, much less where he'd be after he got elected and settled down inside the Beltway. How do you get fired up about a guy like that? How do you believe in him the way conservatives believe in guys like Jim DeMint?

Mitt Romney is a repeat of the same show conservatives have seen over and over again and we all know the ending if the candidate gets elected. These plastic men, these political Stretch Armstrongs get inside the Beltway Bubble, the media starts working on them, the establishment starts whispering in their ear and next thing you know, they're explaining how important comprehensive immigration reform is to the conservative cause or why we need another Bridge to Nowhere.

When you're a grassroots conservative who has been mocked, ridiculed and attacked for believing in conservatism, capitalism, and the Constitution, sold out again and again by people in your own party, and told your nation is on the verge of a debt-driven crisis that could bankrupt us, the last thing you want is to be treated like you're stupid by a phony Massachusetts moderate who tells you he believes the same things you do when you damn well know he doesn't mean a word of it.

3) Mitt Romney has benefitted from a tremendous media double standard. Other than Herman Cain, who at least is a conservative who has worked tirelessly for the Tea Party, Mitt Romney is the single least qualified man running for office in the Republican field. Yes, Mitt's business experience is a plus, but it didn't help him in Massachusetts, where he was an awful, unpopular governor whose signature program, Romneycare, has been a miserable failure. Romney has gotten where he is because he's rich, the establishment is behind him, and much of the conservative media has been greasing the skids for him.

The double standards have been extraordinary and grating. The other candidates had to bring up Bain Capital because much of the conservative media wouldn't touch the very issue that Ted Kennedy used to beat Mitt Romney's brains in back in 1994. Even today, when you try to point out that Mitt's "100,000" jobs created number is pure vapor, that he made a lot of money off of deals where the taxpayers and the FDIC had to pick up the tab, or that it looks awful for Mitt to make millions on deals where businesses went under and hundreds of middle class workers lost their jobs, you're answered with cries of "capitalism" and "free enterprise!" Good luck with that strategy in the general election if, God help us all, Mitt gets that far.

Furthermore, remember when Newt Gingrich was ahead of Mitt in Iowa, running a positive campaign, and was told "Politics ain't beanbag" after Mitt creamed him with millions in negative ads? Then remember when those same people squealed with outrage when Mitt got exactly what he had been dishing out after New Hampshire? We were told Newt was campaigning like a liberal when he hit Mitt on Bain Capital, but when Mitt ran dishonest ads featuring Tom Brokaw crowing about a now discredited ethics investigation, the same people were silent. After the last debate, it was amazing to hear talking heads telling everyone how wonderful Mitt did after Rick Santorum gutted him like a Christmas turkey on Obamacare and Romney was booed by the audience after he was caught lying about not having seen an ad that he personally endorsed.

Let's be honest and name some names: Jen Rubin, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, National Review, Fox News and the Drudge Report among others have been shilling for Mitt Romney and attacking his adversaries during this primary the way the New York Times will for Barack Obama in the general election. That doesn't make them RINOS, liberals, part of the establishment or bad people. Reasonable people can reach different conclusions about which candidate to support. But that being said, these people should realize that as far as a lot of other conservatives are concerned, they are betting their reputations on Mitt Romney. What they are in effect saying in so many words is, "Vote for Mitt Romney and we promise you that not only will he get elected, he'll govern conservatively." Given his record, that's liquidating your house and putting it on a spin of the roulette wheel.

4) Mitt Romney is cozying up to the establishment, not the Tea Party. Never have so many self-interested, politically-gutless establishment space fillers gathered in one place as on the endorsement list for Mitt Romney. If Bob Dole, John McCain, Susan Molinari, Lisa Murkowski, Jim Talent, Joe Scarborough, Mel Martinez, Jim Gerlach, Judd Gregg, Jon Huntsman, John Sununu and Norm Coleman are all lining up behind a candidate in a contested GOP primary, it's an almost ironclad guarantee that candidate is not going to be worth a bucket of warm spit once he gets into office. If you want to know why you're seeing so many Tea Partiers lining up behind Newt Gingrich, who despite his flaws has done more for the conservative cause than any other living politician, it's because they see the politicians backing Mitt Romney and they're well aware that they're not friends of grassroots conservatives.

It's absolutely unbelievable that after the grassroots helped the GOP have its best year in half a century that we may end up with a human "SCREW YOU!" to the Tea Party like Mitt Romney as the nominee. Here we have a moderate establishment-endorsed candidate who supported TARP, is open to more bailouts, came up with the mother of Obamacare, and he has no bold plans to tackle the deficit -- and this is the guy Tea Partiers are supposed to support after fighting to beat Republicans like that in primaries during the 2010 election cycle? Why don't we just drag Robert Bennett out of retirement to run at the top of the ticket?

5) Mitt just isn't likable enough to be a good politician. Mitt Romney comes across like a sort of bizarro-world combination between John Kerry, Richie Rich, Charlie Crist, and Data from Star Trek. This is what makes the first part of this Saturday Night Live skit so funny -- Mitt really does come across as that weirdly out of touch with hu-man emotion sometimes.

He's also an extremely nasty campaigner -- a little like Barney Frank, without the modicum of vicious charm that endears him to liberals. Want to know why this campaign has been so divisive? That's easy: Mitt Romney embraced win-at-all-costs character assassination and negative advertising as the primary tactic of his campaign and the other candidates had to respond to it. Since he's proven too unlikable to be pulled up very much, Mitt's strategy has been to pull the other candidates down, even if it leads to a mud fight that lessens anyone's chances of winning in a general election.

Additionally, as Mike Huckabee has noted, "[Romney] looks like the guy who fires you, not the guy who hires you" -- and by the way, he does. This, along with the incredibly effective Bain ads that helped sink Mitt in South Carolina are why he's had to release pictures of himself awkwardly doing laundry -- because his campaign believes it allows normal human beings to be able to relate to him better. Is that a good sign? That our "super electable" GOP candidate feels compelled to release pictures of himself standing in front of a washing machine to reassure people that he's more like them? Of course, it won't work because Mitt Romney may be the first politician I've ever seen who has the ability to NEVER appear to be completely sincere about anything. Combine that with his campaign's smug "Megan McCainesque" sense of entitlement and Mitt Romney would be going into the 2012 campaign with a likability deficit even compared to Barack Obama, who has nauseated the entire country with his radicalism, incompetence, and Barney the Dinosaur style sloganeering. What it all comes down to is that when people see a pampered, prissy, fake, spiteful son of a governor who's being served the GOP nomination on a silver platter because he kissed the right establishment behinds, benefitted from an enormous media double standard, and has more money than everyone else, well, let's just say that's exactly the sort of person who inspired someone to come up with the word schadenfreude.
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To read another article by John Hawkins, click here.

The Florida Smear Campaign

2012-01-31T11:28:00.001-08:00

The Florida Smear Campaign
By Thomas Sowell
1/31/2012

The Republican establishment is pulling out all the stops to try to keep Newt Gingrich from becoming the party's nominee for President of the United States -- and some are not letting the facts get in their way.

Among the claims going out through the mass media in Florida, on the eve of that state's primary election, is that Newt Gingrich "resigned in disgrace" as Speaker of the House of Representatives, as a result of unethical conduct involving the diversion of tax-exempt money. Mitt Romney is calling on Gingrich to release "all of the records" from the House of Representatives investigation.

But the Wall Street Journal of January 28, 2012 reported that these records -- 1,280 pages of them -- are already publicly available on-line. Although Speaker Gingrich decided not to take on the task of fighting the charge from his political enemies in 1997, the Internal Revenue Service conducted its own investigation which, two years later, exonerated Gingrich from the charges. His resignation was not due to those charges and occurred much later.

Do the Romney camp and the Republican establishment not know this, a dozen years later? Or are they far less concerned with whether the charges will stand up than they are about smearing Gingrich on the eve of the Florida primaries?

There are also charges made about what Congressman Gingrich said about Ronald Reagan on March 21, 1986. But this too is a matter of public record, since his remarks are available in the Congressional Record of that date, so it is remarkable that there should be any controversy about it at this late date.

On that date, Gingrich praised Reagan's grasp of the foreign policy issues of the day but later questioned whether the way the actual policies of the Reagan administration were being carried out was likely to succeed. Gingrich was not alone in making this point which such conservative stalwarts as George Will, Charles Krauthammer and others made at the time.

Since a column of my own back in the 1980s suggested that the administration's policies seemed to be to "speak loudly and carry a little stick," I can well understand the misgivings of others. But that is wholly different from saying that all who expressed misgivings were enemies of Ronald Reagan.

One can of course lift things out of context. But if you want to read the whole context, simply go on-line and get the Congressional Record for March 21, 1986. Among the other places where the smears are exposed are the Wall Street Journal of January 29th, Jeffrey Lord's article in the American Spectator's blog of January 27th, and an article by Heather Higgins in Ricochet.com of January 29th.

Unfortunately, there are likely to be far more people who will see the smears than will have time to get the facts. But, if nothing else, there needs to be some understanding of the reckless accusations that have become part of the all-out attempt to destroy Newt Gingrich, as so many other political figures have been destroyed, by non-stop smears in the media.

Gingrich is by no means above criticism. He has been criticized in this column before, over the years, including during the current primary season, and he will probably be criticized here again.

But the poisonous practice of irresponsible smears is an issue that is bigger than Gingrich, Romney or any other candidate of either party.

There have long been reports of people who decline to be nominated for federal judicial appointments because that means going before the Senate Judiciary Committee to have lies about their past spread nationwide, and the good reputation built up over a lifetime destroyed by politicians who could not care less about the truth.

The same practices may well have something to do with the public's dissatisfaction with the current crop of candidates in this year's primaries -- and in previous years' primaries. Character assassination is just another form of voter fraud.

There is no law against it, so it is up to the voters, not only in Florida but in other states, to punish it at the ballot box -- the only place where punishment is likely to stop the practice.
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To read another article by Thomas Sowell, click here.

They Have Islamist Fanatics, We Have Secularist Fanatics

2012-01-31T11:16:00.000-08:00

They Have Islamist Fanatics, We Have Secularist Fanatics
By Dennis Prager
1/31/2012

The Muslim world is threatened by religious fanaticism. The Western world is threatened by secular fanaticism.

Both seek to dominate society and to use state power to do so. Both seek to eliminate the Other -- for Islamic fanatics, that means non-Muslim religions and secularism; for secular fanatics, it means Christianity and virtually any public invoking of God. The Islamists impose Sharia law; the American Civil Liberties Union and the left generally impose secular law. The Taliban wiped out public vestiges of Buddhism in Afghanistan; the ACLU and its allies seek to wipe out public vestiges of Christianity in America -- as it did, for example, in Los Angeles County, when it successfully pressured the County Board of Supervisors to remove the tiny cross from the county seal. A city and county founded by Catholics -- hence the name "The Angels" -- was forced to stop commemorating its founders because they were religious.

This fanaticism has been on display most recently in the state of Rhode Island. This past Christmas, the governor, Lincoln Chafee, renamed the state Christmas tree a "holiday tree." Though Christmas is a national holiday, for the secular fanatic, anything Christian -- or, as we shall see, anything that relates to religion or God -- must be banned from public life.

The latest expression of the secular equivalent of Islamism is the lawsuit brought against a Rhode Island high school, Cranston High School West, for allowing a banner, written by a seventh grader in 1963, to remain hanging on one of the school walls. An atheist student, along with the ACLU, brought the lawsuit and a judge ruled that it is unconstitutional for it to hang in a public school.

To appreciate how fanatical the student, the ACLU and the ruling are, you have to know the words on the banner. So here they are:

Our Heavenly Father

Grant us each day the desire to do our best, to grow mentally and morally as well as physically, to be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers, to be honest with ourselves as well as with others. Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win. Teach us the value of true friendship. Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School west. Amen

The idea that this prayer violates the Constitution of the United States is as much a mockery of the Constitution as it is of common sense. Only a fanatic can welcome the removal of such a non-denominational, sweet, moral exhortation from a high school wall. America is indeed as endangered by the ACLU as the Muslim world is by Islamists.

Defenders of the judge's decision point to the U.S. Supreme Court decision of 1962 banning state-mandated prayer in public schools. The parallel is invalid. No student is asked, let alone compelled, to state what is on the Rhode Island high school banner. But arguments citing the Supreme Court ruling serve only to confirm my argument: that secular fanaticism has been taking over America. The New York State prayer that the Warren Court outlawed 50 years ago was as non-sectarian, as morally uplifting and as inoffensive as the Rhode Island prayer.

Here is it is in its entirety:

"Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country."

After reading that one sentence, it is intellectually dishonest to maintain that the Warren court's decision was not an expression of fanaticism. One would have to deny that there could even be any such thing as secular fanaticism. Indeed, if it could have, the Warren Court would have declared the Declaration of Independence unconstitutional for its citing the Creator.

It is no wonder, then, that Alaska Airlines announced last week that it would no longer dispense along with meals its famous little cards with a verse from Psalms.

There are Americans who think that we are a better society without a state Christmas tree, and without high school students seeing a prayer to be kind human beings, and without the Alaska Airlines attempt to elevate American life in a small -- and, again, non-denominational -- way.

But the Islamist thinks he is improving Muslim life, too, of course.
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To read another article by Dennis Prager, click here.
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To read another Democrats vs. religious liberty article, click here.

CBO projects $1.08 trillion deficit, 8.9 percent jobless rate in 2012

2012-01-31T10:35:00.000-08:00

CBO projects $1.08 trillion deficit, 8.9 percent jobless rate in 2012
By Erik Wasson - 01/31/12 12:43 PM ET

The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday predicted the deficit will rise to $1.08 trillion in 2012.

The office also projected the jobless rate would rise to 8.9 percent by the end of 2012, and to 9.2 percent in 2013.

These are much dimmer forecasts than in CBO's last report in August, when the office projected a $973 billion deficit. The report reflects weaker corporate tax revenue and the extension for two months of the payroll tax holiday.

A rising deficit and unemployment rate would hamper President Obama's reelection effort, which in recent weeks has seemed to be on stronger footing.

If the CBO estimate is correct, it would mean that the United States recorded a deficit of more than $1 trillion for every year of Obama’s first term.

CBO Director Doug Elmendorf told reporters that Congress will have to make important choices this year regarding the supercommittee trigger and tax policy that will have huge effects on the deficit.

While unable to recommend choices, Elmendorf said that addressing the deficit sooner rather than later is easier.

The deficit was $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010 and $1.3 trillion in 2011. The largest deficit recorded before that was $458 billion in 2008.

CBO had forecast an 8.5 percent unemployment rate for the end of 2012 in its August report. It now expects the jobless rate to be higher and to still be at 7 percent in 2015.

The higher unemployment numbers are due to lower economic growth than previously estimated. Gross domestic product for 2011 is now estimated to have grown 1.6 percent in 2011, down from the 2.3 percent forecast in August. CBO a year ago had predicted 3.1 percent growth for 2011.

The outlook for 2012 has also worsened. GDP is forecast to grow only 2 percent this year, compared to a previous estimate of 2.7 percent.

Budget cuts from the August debt deal and projected tax increases set to kick in when the Bush tax rates expire at the end of the year, will “restrain economic growth this year and significantly restrain growth in 2013,” according to CBO. But it says the fiscal prudence will help growth in the out years.

It is unclear whether the Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire. Republicans want all of the tax rates to be extended, and the White House wants Bush tax rates for families with annual income below $250,000 to be extended.

Gross federal debt would rise from $14.8 trillion at the end of 2011 to $21.7 trillion under CBO's projections.

The CBO uses a “current policy” baseline that assumes the Bush-era tax rates will not be extended after 2013, however.

The deficit will be much higher if Congress takes several actions that many expect.

If the Bush tax rates are extended, for example, the deficit would rise.

It would rise if Congress patches the Alternative Minimum Tax, which lawmakers have routinely done to prevent higher taxes from being imposed on middle class taxpayers.

It would also rise if Congress continues to pass the “doc fix” that prevents a cut to Medicare payments to doctors, something that Congress has done on a near-annual basis.

Finally, if Congress does not follow through on cuts mandated by the failure of the supercommittee, the deficit will grow. Lawmakers are already talking about canceling scheduled cuts to the Pentagon’s budget.

In the “alternative fiscal scenario” where these things happen the gross federal debt rises to $29.4 trillion by 2022.

Elmendorf noted that allowing the lower tax rates to be extended or for the triggered cuts to be dodged would boost short term growth by as much as 2.9 percent in 2013 and lower unemployment to as low as 7.4 percent.

But he said such a choice would come with a steep price, with $400 billion added to the deficit in 2013 alone.

“There is no plausible scenario where the alternative fiscal scenario is sustainable,” he said.

Elmendorf noted that extending all the Bush era tax rates and patching the AMT adds $5.4 trillion to the deficit. He said that just ending tax reductions for the wealthy could contribute about $1 trillion to deficit reduction.

Despite political rhetoric that focuses on discretionary spending, Elmendorf made clear that the bigger driver of the deficit increase are entitlement programs.

“Clearly the deficit will not be brought under control without changes in either revenues or Social Security and federal healthcare programs,” he said. “The gap that has opened between what we are used to getting from the government and the revenue that we are used paying into the government has widened and will only get wider in the coming decade.”

Obama will release his 2013 budget request on Feb. 13. He is expected to included in it recommendations for reducing the deficit by $4 trillion over a decade and to call for the end of Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy.

By the end of March, House Republicans plan to vote on their alternative budget, authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Ryan hopes to release a budget similar to his 2012 budget, which included changing Medicare into a private insurance system for future retirees.

"With four straight years of trillion-dollar deficits, no credible plan to lift the crushing burden of debt, and a Senate majority that has failed to pass a budget for over 1,000 days, the president and his party’s leaders have fallen short in their duty to tackle our generation’s most pressing fiscal and economic challenges," Ryan said in reaction to the CBO report.

Bishop: Obama Administration Is Telling Catholics ‘To Hell With You’

2012-01-31T10:17:00.000-08:00

Bishop: Obama Administration Is Telling Catholics ‘To Hell With You’
By Terence P. Jeffrey
January 30, 2012

(CNSNews.com) - Roman Catholic Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh says the Obama administration is telling American Catholics: “To Hell with you.”

“The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’” the bishop said in a column posted on his diocesan website. “There is no other way to put it.”

The bishop was responding to a regulation, finalized by Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Jan. 20, that orders all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives--including those that induce abortions--without any fees or co-pay.

The regulation includes an exemption for “religious employers.” But to qualify for this exemption, the employer must primarily serve members of its own faith, primarily employ members of its own faith, and primarily focus on inculcating the tenets of that faith—a rubric that would not apply to Catholic hospitals, universities, or charitable organizations.

There is no exemption at all for individual citizens or private businesses.

The Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are morally wrong and that Catholics cannot be involved in them. After the regulation was first announced in August, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic lay leaders urged the administration to rescind it while pointing out that it would require Catholics to act against their consciences and their faith and was thus a violation of the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

Last fall, the Catholic bishops called the regulation an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty” and took the unusual step of asking local pastors to urge parishioners from the pulpit to contact HHS and ask that the regulation be rescinded. Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan of New York, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, personally met with President Barack Obama in November to explain the Catholic Church’s objections to the regulation.

But a week ago Friday, Sebelius announced that the regulation would take effect for individuals and private businesses as of Aug. 1 of this year. She said that religiously affiliated non-profit organizations—such as Catholic hospitals, universities and charitable organizations—would be given until Aug. 1, 2013 to “adapt” to the regulation, but then they would be required to adhere to it also.

“It is really hard to believe that it happened. It comes like a slap in the face,” Bishop Zubik wrote of the administration’s decision to force Catholics to act against their faith.

“Let’s be blunt,” said Bishop Zubik. “This whole process of mandating these guidelines undermines the democratic process itself. In this instance, the mandate declares pregnancy a disease, forces a culture of contraception and abortion on society, all while completely bypassing the legislative process.

“This is government by fiat that attacks the rights of everyone--not only Catholics; not only people of all religion,” said the bishop. “At no other time in memory or history has there been such a governmental intrusion on freedom not only with regard to religion, but even across-the-board with all citizens.”

“Last September I asked you to protest those guidelines to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services, and contact your political leadership in the federal government,” said Bishop Zubik. “I asked that you request that this flawed mandate be withdrawn because of its unprecedented interference in the religious liberty and freedom of conscience of the Catholic community, and our basic democratic process.

“You did,” said the bishop. “And you were joined by Catholics throughout the country (and many others as well) who raised their voices against the mandate, raised their voices against a meaningless religious exemption.

“On January 20, 2012, the Obama administration answered you and me,” said Bishop Zubik. “The response was very simple: ‘To Hell with You.’”

“Kathleen Sebelius and through her, the Obama administration,” the bishop wrote, “have said ‘To Hell with You’ to the Catholic faithful of the United States, to Hell with your religious beliefs, to Hell with your religious liberty, to Hell with your freedom of conscience.”

Bishop Zubik said the Catholic Church cannot submit to this regulation and urged Catholics to again tell President Obama, HHS Secretary Sebelius and members of Congress to rescind it.

“They have given us a year to adapt to this rule,” he said. “We can’t! We simply cannot! Write to the president. Write to Secretary Sebelius. Write to our Senators. Write to those in Congress.”

Bishop Zubik was far from alone in condemning the regulation and calling on Catholics to demand its reversal. Across the country over the past week, many Catholic bishops wrote similar articles and statements.

“The bell is tolling for religious liberty in America. All of us should listen well,” said Bishop James D. Conley, apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Denver.

Bishop Conley called on Catholics to fight the administration’s health-care plan.

“If plans go unchanged, the Catholic Church, acting through our Catholic institutions, will no longer have legal protection for the free exercise of religion,” he said in a column posted on the diocesan website. “Secretary Sebelius is wrong; this is not a year to ‘adapt.’ The Catholic Church will not adapt by violating fundamental elements of our faith. Instead of adapting, this is a year to unify, and to fight injustice and flagrant disregard for the institutional protection of our religious practice.

“The recent decision by HHS should make clear for all Catholics that under the proposed health care plan, the freedom to practice our religious faith is in jeopardy,” said Bishop Conley.

In a column for his diocesan newspaper, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles said the administration is trying to seize a power the U.S. government has never had.

“The Health Department justifies denying exemptions to Catholic charities, hospitals and colleges because it says they are not really ‘religious’ institutions. This may be the most troubling part of this new mandate,” said Archbishop Gomez. “Because in effect, the government is presuming it has the competence and authority to define what religious faith is and how believers should express their faith commitments and relationship to God in society. These are powers our government has never before assumed itself to have.”

“But the issues here go far beyond contraception and far beyond the liberties of the Catholic Church,” said Archbishop Gomez. “They go to the heart of our national identity and our historic understanding of our democratic form of government.”

Archbishop Gomez also called on Catholics to defend their faith and their religious freedom.

“But this is clear: Now is a time for Catholic action and for Catholic voices,” said Archbishop Gomez. “We need lay leaders to step up to their responsibilities for the Church’s mission. Not only to defend our faith and our rights as Catholics, but to be leaders for moral and civic renewal, leaders in helping to shape the values and moral foundations of America’s future.”
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To read another article by Terry Jeffrey, click here.
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To read another article about Obama's disregard for Religious Freedom, click here.

Navy Seal Team 6

2012-01-31T09:35:00.000-08:00

Navy Seal Team 6

Let's be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American sailor, who Obama, just a few weeks ago, was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. In fact, if you remember a little less than two years ago, his administration actually charged and attempted to court-martial 3 Navy Seals from Seal Team Six, when a terrorist suspect they captured, complained they had punched him during the take down and bloodied his nose. His administration further commented how brutal they were. The left were calling them Nazi's and Baby Killers. Now all of a sudden, the very brave men they vilified are now heroes when they make his administration look good in the eyes of the public. Obama just happened to be the one in office when the CIA finally found the b...... And our sailors took him out. Essentially, Obama only gave an answer. Yes or No, to him being taken out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!! Forward on IF YOU AGREE!!"

Ed Schreiber
Col. USMC (Ret.)
"Semper Fi"

OBAMA'S OWN WORDS TRAP HIM:

2008: "Navy Seal Team 6 is Cheney's private assassination team."
2011: "I put together Seal Team 6 to take out Bin Laden."

2008: "Bin Laden is innocent until proven guilty, and must be captured alive and given a fair trial."
2011: "I authorized Seal Team 6 to kill Bin Laden."

2008: " Guantanamo is entirely unnecessary, and the detainees should not be interrogated."
2011: "Vital intelligence was obtained from Guantanamo detainees that led to our locating Bin Laden."

Whoops! No Global Warming For the Last 15 Years

2012-01-30T18:32:00.000-08:00

Whoops! No Global Warming For the Last 15 Years
Science is all about questioning theories.
by John Hayward
01/30/2012

Opponents of the global warming cult have often been confronted with a little presto-chango logical fallacy. When the dearth of evidence that human activity contributes to any sort of climate change became painfully inconvenient, the cult began deliberately conflating “man-made” or “anthropogenic” warming with temperature fluctuations that might be entirely natural phenomena.

This allowed the fanatics to posture as reasonable people of science, while dismissing those who advanced reasonable questions as fanatics. If you agreed that the globe might be warming, you were automatically signed on to the entirely different belief that human activity was causing it. Various studies purporting to show increases in temperature were cited, and magically transformed into “proof” that the economy-destroying, power-centralizing agenda of the Church of Global Warming must be adopted immediately. Greenhouse gases are killing the Earth! The science is settled!

This was always about power and money, not science. Here’s a little data crunching from one of the great cathedrals of global warming alarmism, the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit – which was also the source of the “Climagate” emails that revealed much of the global warming movement was based on deliberate fraud. As reported by the UK Daily Mail:

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

“Released without fanfare,” eh? That’s funny, because this has to be one of the most important stories in modern history. The entire global warming movement just went up in smoke. All of the shrieking hysteria about greenhouse gases, which still drives multi-billion dollar command economics programs in the United States has just been revealed as a pile of anti-scientific garbage.

Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.

Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.

We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.

So the primary factor driving “climate change” is not people running their air conditioners and driving around in cars, but rather… the Sun. Were your kids told any of this when their public-school teachers were busy indoctrinating them in Green dogma about man-made global warming? Was it ever even suggested that maybe human activity had far less to do with global temperature changes than solar activity?

The modern “climate change” movement began with warnings of global cooling, and the threat of an impending Ice Age, back in the Seventies. This was changed for purely political reasons, because it obviously wasn’t something that could be blamed on human activity. But car engines are hot, and hot gas comes out of their mufflers, so maybe that gas is forming into toxic clouds in the upper atmosphere, and turning the Earth into an oven! Factory smokestacks even look kind of like ovens, don’t they? We can scare people into giving up their economic liberty with that!

A Duke University climatologist quoted by the Daily Mail noted “if temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories.” Questioning theories? Now that sounds like science! Unfortunately for the cultists, it’s not very helpful for getting cap-and-trade legislation passed, or selling “carbon credits.”

Other stories hinting at this outcome have popped up over the past few years, but this one is definitive… and utterly devastating to the official religion of the U.S. government. Think of all the millions charlatans like Al Gore have raked in from gullible suckers over the years. “An inconvenient truth,” indeed. The birth of global warming was heralded by big-budget Hollywood movies and hysterical political campaigns. Its final demise occurred without fanfare.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.
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To read about more Global Warming hijinx, click here.

They Killed Him

2012-01-30T18:04:00.000-08:00

They Killed Him
By Bruce Bialosky
1/30/2012

January 22nd was a sad day in America. A pitiful and depressing episode that confirms how a lawyer-controlled and weak-kneed society, ended with the tragic death of Joe Paterno. As sure as day turns into night, the actions taken last November by the Board of Trustees of Penn State University were responsible for the premature death of this great man.

I grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, next door to Paterno’s domain: Pennsylvania. My father graduated from Ohio State, and I was – and still am – a born-and-bred Buckeye fan. I clearly remember the emergence of Joe Pa at Penn State, which had not yet joined the Big Ten – that wouldn’t happen for another 25 years.

In that time we had the great Woody Hayes, but now we were butting heads with this scrawny- looking guy with goofy glasses who was somehow stealing a number of our recruits. Because he wasn’t in the Big Ten – and, of course, because Michigan was the center of everything evil in the world – I developed a mild liking for the guy. If the Buckeyes weren’t winning the national championship, then Penn State and Joe Pa seemed to be an acceptable alternative. It was certainly better than some others (like USC). Sure enough, it didn’t take him too long to produce undefeated seasons – reeling off three very quickly in 1968, 1969 and 1973 – but he had to wait until 1982 to win his first national championship.

Paterno went on to become a national icon. There have been many great college coaches with stellar, decades-long careers, but Joe Pa was beginning to set records. From the time he turned 70 – and then 80! – we all participated in the annual rite of speculation about whether he would or should retire.

Whenever I was asked about it, my answer was always the same: the Bear Bryant Syndrome. Joe knew very well that Bryant had passed away a little over a month after his retirement, and in fact had told sportscaster Brent Musburger that Bryant’s untimely death was one of the reasons he continued coaching. His team, school, and community – along with his wife of nearly 50 years – had become his life.

The Jerry Sandusky scandal shocked everyone; it always smacks your senses when someone is accused of such despicable acts. I read the transcript of the grand jury testimony with utter horror, and yet the fact that it engulfed the entire Penn State University made this sordid story even more appalling and disgraceful. Still, something seemed to be missing.

Mike McCreary, a young staffer for the football team, had walked into the locker room in the Penn State athletic complex while Sandusky, now a former employee, was sodomizing a young boy in the showers. McCreary claimed that he reported it to Paterno, who promptly informed his superiors, Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice-President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz. When Curley and Schultz testified that they had heard a different story than what McCreary related to the grand jury, the two men were indicted despite no further verification by the grand jury and then summarily fired by the Board of Trustees. Then McCreary changed his story, telling the press something different than he told the grand jury. The Trustees still fired Paterno.

The most iconic person in Penn State history, an employee for over 60 years, was fired via telephone call. He was not given the chance to explain his side of the story. A group of weaklings who were more concerned with protecting their jobs and fending off lawsuits just started canning people. Even someone who has been with the University for one year deserves to have their side heard. Someone with 60 years of exemplary service merits a little extra consideration.

The villain in this story, Jerry Sandusky, was now lost in the shuffle and the focus of the sports world was on Paterno and the Trustees. Every sanctimonious sportscaster started whimpering about how they would have done more and how everyone involved should have done more. They, of course, were only thinking of the children.

When Joe Pa finally broke his silence, it was accompanied by yet a third version of McCreary’s story. Apparently, he never really told Paterno what actually happened in the shower. He justifiably couldn’t bring himself to tell a 76-year-old legend the ugly details. The fact that an aging Paterno wasn’t really able to comprehend the whole matter will not convince some of his lack of blame. Some people will insist that he should have been able to understand such despicable behavior, and they will never accept that some among us come from an era where such repulsive activities were utterly inconceivable. So Coach Paterno reported what he had heard from McCreary, and that was all he knew.

Some say Joe died of a broken heart. I say he died from a knife in the back. Does it shock me that the man is now dead? No – there is, after all, the Bear Bryant Syndrome.

There will always be those who maintain that Paterno should have done more. There are those who claim that if they were in the same situation, they would have done more. But the only thing anyone should really say is if they are ever in the shoes of the Trustees, that they would give everyone the decency and fairness of an honest hearing, that they wouldn’t jump to conclusions, and that they would never, ever try to cover their own butts by ruining the lives of others.
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To read another article by Bruce Bialosky, click here.
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To read a related article, click here.

The Audacity of Deceit: Notes on the State of the Union

2012-01-30T17:44:00.001-08:00

The Audacity of Deceit: Notes on the State of the Union
By Frank Gaffney
1/30/2012

Knowing President Obama’s Alinskyite proclivities, his third State of the Union address – coming as it did amidst a reelection campaign – could have been predicted to be filled with lofting, sometimes inspiring but routinely bait-and-switch rhetoric. Even so, his exploitation of the U.S. military for nakedly political purposes translates into an extreme plumbing of what might be called his audacity of deceit.

If the President had been simply paying homage to the amazing men and women in uniform and extolling their courage, patriotism and selflessness, that would have been one thing. It would have been understandable, even commendable, to have cited such qualities in a call for legislators to come together as our troops do to accomplish the difficult missions at hand.

The fact that Mr. Obama wrapped such comments – literally as the opening and closing bookends for his speech – around so many distortions, misrepresentations and outright falsehoods about our national security situation, however, transforms what might have been a welcome presidential paean to the armed forces into a further betrayal of our troops.

Let’s start with his portrayal of the “end of the war in Iraq.” This antiseptic, no-fault characterization of what he has done must not be allowed to obscure the reality: President Obama simply quit that front in the larger war we are in. I call it the War for the Free World.

That doesn’t mean the battle for Iraq is over, let alone the war won. Instead, we have simply surrendered the strategic territory over which we had shed so much blood and spent so much treasure.

In Iraq, as elsewhere, that is translating into a vacuum of power. It is being filled by enemies of our country and setting the stage for this war’s next, likely still-more-horrific phase.

The same can be said of the President’s profoundly misleading description of the “isolation” of Iran, his “decisive blows” against al Qaeda and the prospects for an Afghanistan that will, in the aftermath of his cutting and running there and his negotiating our surrender terms with the Taliban, somehow “never again [be] a source of attacks against America.”

Some have described such remarks as delusional. They are worse. They are designed to delude us.

Ditto one of the President’s bigger applause lines: “Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about.” No objective analysis – of our contracting military presence around the world, of our retreat from leadership on the ground and in space, of our military now in the process of being hollowed out, of the condition of our fraying alliances or the emboldening of our increasingly assertive enemies – would support his contention.

To the contrary, the facts indicate that, under his post-American policies, the “fundamental transformation of America” that he promised on the eve of his election has moved forward inexorably: our transformation from an unrivaled superpower, to a nation that no longer is a reliable ally and no longer a feared adversary.

It doesn’t have to be that way – and we dare not let it continue in this fashion. But the first step towards turning around a perilous trend is to recognize what is happening. And speeches that are not simply pollyannish, but fraudulent, will not do that. To the contrary, they are certain to have the effect of making such a turn-around unlikely until it is still harder, if not as a practical matter impossible, to effect.

Unfortunately, given the nature of the man delivering such a skewed portrayal of the State of the Union, we can only conclude that his remarks were calculated to have that effect – a prime example of his audacity of deceit.
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To read another article by Frank Gaffney, click here.
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To read a related article, click here.

Obama's Trickle Down Government

2012-01-30T16:36:00.001-08:00

Obama's Trickle Down Government
By Terry Paulson
1/30/2012

In President Obama's State of the Union Address, the president shared a quote by Abraham Lincoln that finally got Republicans to rise and applaud a core principle that America used to stand for: "You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

Unfortunately, his programs and policies don't match his words. On the one hand, he talks of an America that rewards hard work and success and ensures that all play by the same rules but, moments later, promises to change the rules and raise taxes on a very few wealthy Americans.

His double-speak would be comical if it were not so maddening: "We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do extremely well while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules." Obama's liberal definition of "fairness" is anything but fair. Liberal "fairness" demands that government must take more from the top five percent of wealthy Americans who already pay 60% of the income tax load to fund the benefit programs for Americans who pay no income taxes and, according to liberals, can't get by without government help.

Gov. Mitch Daniels in the GOP response rightfully called this approach "trickle-down government." Americans have a choice this November--a government that will do everything it can to get out the way so that private enterprise can flourish and jobs can be created or a government that keeps extending handouts and adding debt.

If President Obama had embraced Abraham Lincoln's full quote, he would have had the non-partisan support he says that he wants: “You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

During the Republican January 16th debate in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich received a standing ovation. Why? Because he took a politically incorrect stand for conservative principles that contrasted America's choice: More government dependence or more personal responsibility and opportunity.

Questioned by Juan Williams on whether referring to President Obama as "the food stamp president" was belittling people, Gingrich stood his ground: "The fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history. Now, I know among the politically correct you're not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.... They haven't helped the people. They haven't done anything. (cheers and applause) I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their creator with the right to pursue happiness, and if that makes liberals unhappy, I'm gonna continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn someday to own the job."

Rush Limbaugh recently observed that there is a political Berlin Wall that divides America. Conservatives embrace a West Berlin mentality; the liberal special interest groups are trapped in East Berlin thinking. One side embraces freedom and opportunity; the other settles for "special treatment" and more government dependence.

We need a president who will tear down the wall and truly let all Americans play by the same rules and reap the benefits and consequences that freedom allows. Instead of depending on Washington handouts, it's time to let neighbors help neighbors instead of continually expanding government entitlement programs.

Let me end with another admonition from Lincoln: “I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war on capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.” Let's elect a president who still believes that "We the people" can achieve our American dream by coping with life's challenges and seizing available opportunities.
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To read another article by Terry Paulson, click here.
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To read more about Obama's SOTU address, click here.

An America Built to Be Last

2012-01-30T16:25:00.000-08:00

An America Built to Be Last
By Star Parker
1/30/2012

The theme President Obama gave to his State of the Union address was “An America Built to Last.”

But his vision would be better described as an “An America Built to Be Last.”

As the president asked us to be patient and keep drinking the same kool-aid he’s been serving up for three years, the New York Times reported that the Federal Reserve’s latest assessment of our economy is that “…a full recovery is years away.”

Even his most loyal constituency, black Americans, is losing patience. In Gallup’s latest tracking poll, black approval rate for Obama was 79 percent. This is seventeen points under the 96 percent of blacks who voted for him in 2008, and the first time that black approval has dropped under 80 percent.

The debate will go on for many years about what caused the horrible economic collapse from which we are still trying to recover.

The president continues to sell the idea, which serves his agenda to continue to expand government, that the cause was insufficiently regulated business.

There is much convincing research, in which the president shows little interest, that government caused it, by mandating expansion of low quality mortgages and enabling this expansion because taxpayers ultimately guaranteed these loans.

But economists are still debating what caused the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

What Americans must come to terms with now is what we choose to believe this country is about, why in the past it seemed to work so well, and why today things are falling apart.

According to the president, everything will be okay if we allow him and his government to continue to build and consolidate power over our lives.

He gave more reasons to grow government and barely lip service to what is tearing our nation apart today and dragging it down.

The major factors driving us into insolvency, spending on entitlement programs – Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – and covering the interest on our nation’s debt, which is now surpassing the size of our entire economy, got attention in two sentences in an hour plus long speech.

The unraveling of our social fabric doesn’t seem to bother our president a whit.

You would think our nation’s leader would be concerned that today four of every ten of our babies are born to unwed mothers.

He called on “every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.”

Rather than addressing broken families and why poor kids don’t care about learning, our president thinks he’ll solve this problem by turning our failing public schools into prisons.

It’s nice to know that the president believes what “Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.”

But unlike our president, Lincoln was the Great Emancipator. Lincoln’s agenda was freedom.

According to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 54 percent feel that the Supreme Court should find the Obamacare mandate forcing every American to buy government defined health insurance unconstitutional. Only 17% agree with this flagrant violation of individual freedom.

Now the Department of Health and Human Services has ruled that religious institutions must, like all employers under the new Obamacare law, provide free birth control and sterilization services as part of health coverage.

Catholic universities and charitable organizations are now left with the choice of violating their religious convictions, not offering health insurance and pay millions of dollars in fines, or just shut down.

Catholic charities serve over 10 million of America’s poor.

Diminished freedom and moral relativism is no way out of the morass we’re in.

An America built on government, as President Obama sees it, severed from our roots as a free people under God, is surely an America “built to be last.”
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To read another article by Star Parker, click here.
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To read a related article, click here.

Thou Shall Not Covet

2012-01-30T16:12:00.000-08:00

Thou Shall Not Covet
By Michael Prell
1/30/2012

Thou shall not covet your neighbor’s house, your neighbor’s wife, not “anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Not anything.

If talk of Biblical Commandments makes you feel uncomfortable, then let’s call them “Ten Helpful Guidelines.”

On purely secular and practical grounds, is it better or worse for a society to follow the “Helpful Guideline” to not covet?

Imagine you are in a dark alley and you are approached by a gang. Would you feel better or worse if you knew that gang followed the Helpful Guideline to not covet your wallet?

What if it’s an “Occupy Wall Street” gang? Coveting is the foundation of their movement. A movement that – in a short few months of public coveting – has already racked up multiple counts of assault, rape, murder – and stealing wallets.

Which alley would you rather be in? Which society would you rather be in?

In November, when a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters shouted at President Obama, the President took their side and shouted back: “You’re the reason I ran for office.”

Taking the President at his word, is there any evidence – in his words, deeds or policies – of coveting?

“At a certain point you’ve made enough money.” Says who? The President of the United States. He also said, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” In a CBS News story entitled “Obama Versus the ‘Fat Cats,’” President Obama “ratcheted up his rhetoric against Wall Street” calling them “fat cat[s]” and scolding them for not showing “‘a lot of shame’ about their behavior and outsized compensation.” And Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign is built almost entirely on coveting – the promise to reach into the wallets of rich “Fat Cats” and take their money away.

I interviewed Economics Professor Walter E. Williams, a regular guest host on the Rush Limbaugh Show, and asked him what he thought about government playing the “Covet Card” to demonize so-called rich “Fat Cats.” He said: “Politicians use so much demagoguery along these lines. I’ve said to people: Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. What can Bill Gates make me do? Can he force me to send my kids to a school that I don’t want to send them to? Can he force me to use 1.8 gallons to flush my toilet…what can he do? But, by contrast [the] government…can make my life miserable. So, when people talk about the power of the rich, and government has to protect us against the rich, that’s BS.”

When you and I covet, it’s a sin. When government covets, it’s policy.

Government has the power to turn its covetous policies into coercive action.

Like the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform’ Act (which empowers the government to literally “occupy” Wall Street). Its co-author Barney Frank revealed the true covetous nature of the Bill to NPR: “When it comes to Wall Street’s bottom line, yes; if we do not see some reduction in profits at some of the largest financial institutions as a result of this Bill, I’ve wasted a year.”

The central theme of President Obama’s re-election campaign is coveting. His word for it is “fairness.” What’s “fairness?” According to the Ten Helpful Guidelines: it’s none of your business. Nor is it the business of the President.

If we minded our own business, and followed the Helpful Guideline to not covet, it would not matter to us if our neighbors had more. There would be no class warfare. We would never descend into the covetous madness of declaring what’s “fair” between what our neighbors have and what we don’t have. Following this one Guideline alone would end the most corrosive debate of our time: the covetous urge to take away from the “haves” and give to the “have-nots” in pursuit of some mythical fantasy of fairness in a world that has never been fair – not once, not for a second – since our Ten Helpful Guidelines were first etched into stone.

President Obama is not a stupid man. Therefore he knows that his covet-based promise of “fairness” is an empty promise. A manipulative ruse. A lie.

There’s a Helpful Guideline against that, too.
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To read another article by Michael Prell, click here.
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To read about another example of religious injustice, click here.

Aborting Hitler

2012-01-30T16:03:00.000-08:00

Aborting Hitler
By Mike Adams
1/30/2012

Someone once asked me whether I would abort Adolf Hitler if I knew in advance he would try to launch a Holocaust against millions of Jews. I said I would not. That is because aborting Hitler would not have prevented the Holocaust. It would have justified it. The killing of millions of innocents does not begin with the killing of one innocent. It begins with the idea that in the larger scheme of things it is permissible to kill one innocent person.

The movie Judgment in Nuremburg (1961) shows that, even in Hollywood, Americans once appreciated this important principle. The movie is three hours long. But one only needs to watch the last ten minutes of the movie in order to see how far we have fallen in just a half-century.

For those who do not remember the end of the movie, Spencer Tracy plays an American judge who sentences former Nazis for their involvement in the Holocaust. One Nazi judge who sentenced innocents to death was himself sentenced to life in prison. As the sentence is read, he stares off in disbelief. He initially believes he is innocent because he was simply following the law. He later realizes his life sentence was just.

Only a couple of days after he is sentenced, the former Nazi judge requests that the American judge visit him in his jail cell. As he faces the man who sentenced him, he makes an odd request: he asks him to keep his personal memoirs - adding that they must be placed in the hands of a man who can be trusted. It is then that he declares the sentence passed upon him was just.

After pausing for a moment, the condemned Nazi judge says of the millions of dead Jews, “Those millions of people. I never knew it would come to that.” Spencer Tracy, playing the American judge, responds with one of the most profound lines of his storied acting career saying, “It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.”

That has been the story of the American Holocaust as well. It began in 1966 in my native state of Mississippi. Just two years after I was born, a law was passed that made it legal to abort in the case of rape or incest. But then, the very next year, Colorado passed legislation allowing abortion in cases of rape, incest, or threat to the health of the mother.

Then the floodgates were opened. By the end of the year, several states were pushing legislation modeled after the Colorado statute. Within just six years, abortion for mere convenience was not just permitted by several states. It was enshrined as a fundamental constitutional right.

Some have declared that they will not rest until Roe v. Wade is overturned. Others say that is too lofty a goal. I disagree. I believe it is too shortsighted. We must reach further back if we want to reverse our moral free fall. Pre-1973 thinking is not enough. We must go back to the time when no state authorized the killing of innocents – a time when only the rapist, not the product of rape, was eligible for a sentence of death.

Ideas have consequences. And so do exceptions. One of the consequences of embracing an evil exception is that it hardens our hearts and clouds our thinking in advance of our consideration of other exceptions. Eventually we come to a point where we cannot imagine life without that initial exception.

It is fitting that it all began in Mississippi. We have a legacy of executing innocents by denying their personhood. It happened with slavery. It happened again with abortion. Now we have learned to justify our own Holocaust. We didn’t need Hitler after all.
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To read another article by Mike Adams, click here.

Allen West: Pelosi, Obama, Reid and DWS Need to Get Their Message the Hell Out of America

2012-01-30T15:41:00.000-08:00

Allen West: Pelosi, Obama, Reid and DWS Need to Get Their Message the Hell Out of America
By Katie Pavlich
1/30/2012

Rep. Allen West doesn't seem to be a fan of the class warfare rhetoric being spewed by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Barack Obama on a daily basis. He told them to take their message "the hell out of the United States of America," during a Palm Beach County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner over the weekend.

Click here to watch video.

"Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America."

"This is about 100 percent America."

"This is a battle field."

"I will not allow President Obama to take the United States of America and destroy it."
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No Room for Allen West- or You- in Romney’s GOP
By John Ransom
1/30/2012

Get ready for the all new GOP, under the lead of Mitt Romney.

It’s a GOP where the Tea Party won’t be welcome, where the federal government will continue to bailout out banks and unions and everyone who’s anyone will continue to make money- except of course you and me.

We’ll just continue to get stuck with the 100 year mortgage payment, as the GOP continues to be the “tax collector for the welfare state,” in the WSJ’s apt phrase.

That’s the takeaway from Florida where Florida Representative Will Weatherford, a Romney proxy, helped redistrict Tea Party favorite Congressman and retired Col. Allen West into a much more liberal district than he previously represented.

I guess Tea Party ideas of limited government and fiscal responsibility aren't wanted in the GOP under Mitt.

Writes the Florida political blog the Shark Tank:

West’s congressional district inexplicably sheds the most out support as compared to all other incumbent Republican and Democrat Congressman. A few weeks back we quoted an unnamed legislator saying that, “Allen West was screwed”, a statement which was originally made about made five months before the purposed maps were made public, leading insiders to believe that the fix was in against Allen West. But in light of Weatherford’s comment, it is increasingly clear that this is a fait accompli.

Republicans control both houses of the Florida state legislature plus the governor’s office and could have written the new congressional districts however they wanted. But they decided to throw a bone to liberals in the state by redistricting Allen West out of a job.

Why should that surprise anyone?

Throwing a bone to liberals is the thing that Romney, McCain, Dole, Bush and company do best. They recoil under the assault of the left-wing media in this country, seeking refuge in the “bipartisan” label, reaching across the aisle to “get things done” so that they can hit the cocktail circuit and make jokes about guys like Col. West…oh, and you too.

This is the same GOP gang that gave us Charlie Crist, Romneycare, real estate bailouts, automaker bailouts, abortion bailouts, assault weapon bans.

Yeah, yeah, Obama is the Devil, but Mitt and company have been willing accomplices.

And because of that complicity, conservatives will under-vote for president in 2012 rather than support another Bush-Dole-Bush clone in the White House. Heck, there are lots of positive things to say about the Bushes and the Doles, but little good to say about Romney.

He’s Bush-Dole without character.

But give him this: The guy really, really wants to be president. Toward that end, he’ll say anything you want to hear just as soon as he knows what you want to hear. So don’t believe anything that comes out of Romney’s mouth. When he says “read my lips,” you should plug your ears- and just imagine Mitt saying whatever you want to hear.

It won’t matter anyway.

As Romney advisor, former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman- you know, the guy who lost to Al Freakin’ Franken?- admitted recently, Romney is not going to repeal Obamacare no matter what he says on the campaign trail.

Observes the Wall Street Journal:

It was a remarkable admission, especially given the aspiring Republican President whose ear Mr. Coleman happens to have. Then again, it may also be evidence of his kind of crack political thinking that couldn't outwit Al Franken of all people in the 2008 race and again in the 2009 recount and thus provided the 60th Senate vote for ObamaCare.

The larger point is that the path of least political resistance for the GOP would be to revert to its historic minority role as tax collectors for the welfare state, and this temptation is especially strong for health care. No one doubts that repealing and replacing ObamaCare will be a hard slog if the party does take the White House and Senate in 2012, namely because the American political system is designed to make change hard (even if those controls failed in 2010 amid Democratic abuses). Mr. Coleman's advice is, essentially, why bother trying.

But that hasn’t stopped Romney from bravely telling us that Obamacare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional, while Romenycare’s individual mandate is not.

The Obamacare repeal will be Mitt’s 0-97 vote in the Senate, just the way Obama’s budget was an oh-fer in 2011.

Oh-well-they-tried.

And here it is: Romney is lying to you one way or another.

He’ll keep one big, fat Obamacare or he’ll try to foist on you 57 varieties of Romneycare that add up to the same thing.

But in either case, like Allen West, the rest of us will pay the price for Romney’s intellectual inconsistencies in pursuit of the great, white house.

Because if Romney wins the nomination, expect neither hope nor change for the GOP.

Expect four more for Obama or in the best case scenario, Obama lite.
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To read another article by John Ransom, click here.
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To read another article about Allen West, click here.

'You Should Be Called Out, Fired, Fined and Shamed'

2012-01-30T12:15:00.000-08:00

'You Should Be Called Out, Fired, Fined and Shamed'
By Michael Brown
1/30/2012

For years I have been saying that those who came out of the closet one generation ago (speaking of gay activists) want to put us in the closet today. For making that statement, I have been derisively scorned and ridiculed: “No one is trying to put you in the closet!” But as the tide continues to turn in favor of the gay activist agenda, I’m noticing a shift. People are now saying to me, “Bigots like you belong in the closet!”

Last Wednesday (January 25th), Dr. Frank Turek and I engaged in a radio dialogue-debate with gay activist Mitchell Gold, founder of Faith in America, which is devoted to “ending the harm of religion-based bigotry.”

Speaking at a reception on Capitol Hill December 2, 2011, Gold made reference to this alleged “religion-based bigotry,” saying, “I know those . . . three words might seem harsh or incendiary to some, but unfortunately those are the words that best describe the disease that has and is dividing our country and too many families.”

In other words, if you have any moral or religious or social objection to homosexual practice you are suffering from a divisive and destructive “disease.” In fact, if you simply affirm that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, not the union of two people, you are suffering from the “disease” of “religion based-bigotry.” And bigots, of course, should not be tolerated.

In the midst of our very spirited debate (the three of us are from New Jersey or New York), I repeatedly told listeners they needed to read the book Mitchell edited, Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America. In keeping with the sub-title, I reiterated that it was important that those of us who opposed gay activism understood the personal dimensions involved. In fact, I started the show by asking Mitchell to tell his own story, wanting others to know the pain he suffered growing up with same-sex attractions.

I also made clear that rampant, no-fault divorce among heterosexuals (including all too many Christians) had done more to destroy marriage than all gay activists combined.

Still, when I asked Mitchell what he thought I should do with my deeply held spiritual and moral convictions, the fruit of 40 years of study, prayer, and reflection, he basically said that I needed to keep studying until I abandoned my opposition to homosexual practice. So much for tolerance, diversity, and religious freedom.

The emails I received from those in Mitchell’s camp were even more enlightening (I have not corrected the typos).

From Rosemarie: “You are the one that is blinded by bigotry. Read how the churches handled slavery, mixed marriages, etc. . . . You and others like you will have a lot to answer for at the judgement. You might make it in the gates and you will most likely be surprised who is there and who is not there.”

From John: “I just finished listening to your program featuring Mitchell Gold, and I feel like crying. . . . It's such a bold, unquestioned arrogance. . . . I'm a very loving, open-minded athiest as an adult. I whole-heartedly wish that all of humanity would abandon belief in god(s) and truly learn what it is to be kind, and loving and gentle to each other. In all likelihood, it will never happen, but I sincerely believe it's the only way we will avoid extinction. Upon hearing the message of your show... (devicive, bigotted, self-righteousness) wrapped in the guise of love, I am far-from-assured in my hope for humanity.”

From Cindy: “As a Christian, I was deeply offended by your comments as well as Frank Turek's comments. . . . Your arguments are outdated and preposterous. You and Mr Turek reminded me of my grandmother when she would rant on and on about black folk. She was fearful.”

From Jeana: “More than 60% of the congregation in my church are divorced. Don't blame that on the gays. There are 4 pregnant unwed teenagers in my church. Don't blame that on the gays. Porn addiction is an epidemic among the married men in my church. Don't blame that on the gays. In other words stop blaming the world's problems on the gays just so you can justify your hate. You can deny your hate all you want but if you listened to yesterday's broadcast, your disgust and hate comes through loud and clear.” (My emphasis.)

From Jess: “I couldn't believe how obnoxious you and Mr. Turek were to Mitchell Gold. You two acted like immature teenage boys...bullying someone who's diiferent than you.” (But of course. Bullying!)

And clearest of all, from Pablo: “Free speech espousing hate even disguised as pseudo or real religious speech is still hate speech. Hate speech in any and all circumstances is not protected by US law. If you use religion to disguise your hatred of other groups you should be called out, fired, fined and shamed.”

Now, go back and re-read the opening paragraph and tell me if it sounds far-fetched to you.
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To read another article by Michael Brown, click here.
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To read an article by Frank Turek, click here.
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To read articles about Gay Agenda Influence, click here.

Fast and Furious: Holder’s Perjury Defense Gets Shaky

2012-01-30T11:51:00.000-08:00

Fast and Furious: Holder’s Perjury Defense Gets Shaky
The latest Friday night document dump raises questions.
by John Hayward
01/30/2012

To the great annoyance of congressional investigators, Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department has been dragging its feet turning over subpoenaed documents relating to several inquiries – most infamously the “Fast and Furious” gun walking operation, in which American guns were deliberately allowed to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartel killers.

DOJ has a habit of releasing these subpoenaed documents in massive “dumps” on Friday night, to guarantee minimal media coverage. Last Friday’s dump weighed in at 500 pages, and turned out to contain some very interesting emails sent in the wake of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder. Among the first media outlets to dig out these messages was… National Public Radio:

The email messages show the former top federal prosecutor in Arizona, Dennis Burke, notifying an aide to Holder via email on Dec. 15, 2010 that agent Brian Terry had been wounded and died. "Tragic," responds the aide, Monty Wilkinson. "I've alerted the AG, the acting Deputy Attorney General..."

Only a few minutes later, Wilkinson emailed again, saying, "Please provide any additional details as they become available to you."

Burke then delivered another piece of bad news: "The guns found in the desert near the murder [sic] ... officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store."

Uh-oh. This is very bad news for Attorney General Eric Holder’s perjury defense - which rests on the assertion that he has no idea what’s actually going on at the Justice Department, doesn’t read his email, and was totally out of the loop on Operation Fast and Furious until it became a media sensation. Specifically, Holder told Congress in May 2011 that he “probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” Later, he changed his mind and said it was more like “a couple of months.”

But here we have emails clearly demonstrating that Holder’s aide, Monty Wilkinson, was fully aware of the Fast and Furious connection to Agent Terry’s murder on December 14, 2010 almost immediately. NPR’s summary of the incriminating emails leaves out some very important details, which the Washington Times provides:

The released emails show a conversation between one official, whose name was redacted, and now-former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke.

“On December 14, 2010, a BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol operations 18 miles north of the international boundary when he encountered [redacted word] unidentified subjects. Shots were exchanged resulting in the agent being shot. At this time, the agent is being transported to an area where he can be air lifted to an emergency medical center,” the email read.

Another email sent an hour later, read: “Our agent has passed away.”

Burke then forwarded those two email to Eric Holder’s then-deputy chief of staff, Monty Wilkinson, adding that the shooting was “not good,” due to the fact that it had happened “18 miles w/in” the United States border.

Wilkinson responded with, “I’ve alerted the AG [Holder], the Acting DAG, Lisa, etc.”

Later that day, Burke sent an email to Wilkinson alerting him that the guns used to kill Brian Terry were weapons from the gunrunning operation, Fast and Furious.

“The guns found in the desert near the murdered BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about – they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store,” Burke wrote to Wilkinson in an email.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) of the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of the leading investigators of the Fast and Furious scandal, said via Twitter that these documents “clearly show Holder’s people knew about gun running days before I opened my investigation, yet they lied.” (Note: I have taken the liberty of transcribing Grassley’s comment from highly compressed Twitter-speak.)

Now, in order to maintain his “Sergeant Schultz” defense against perjury, Holder would have to claim that his aide, Wilkinson, never actually briefed him after claiming to have done so, and never passed along any of the Fast and Furious-related details of Terry’s murder.

If Wilkinson is willing to go under the bus for his boss, he might try claiming he was somehow distracted from researching this immensely significant story, after plainly stating he would look into it, and keep Holder up to speed. Keep in mind that the emails make it absolutely and unambiguously clear that Wilkinson knew weapons found at the scene of Terry’s murder were connected to an investigation he and Burke “were going to talk about.” It strains credulity that Wilkinson simply lost interest in the Terry murder, which generated a huge amount of DOJ message traffic, and near-panic among the ATF brass running Operation Fast and Furious.

Or, alternatively, Holder would have to claim that Wilkinson dutifully prepared a detailed briefing within a day or two of Terry’s murder, but Holder never bothered to read it.

Burke, by the way, is a key Fast and Furious player who admitted, after resigning, that he leaked a Justice Department memo to the press, in an attempt to discredit whistle-blowing ATF agent John Dodson. To date, he’s pretty much the only person to lose his job because of the Obama Administration’s deadly gun-walking scandal. He just happens to have been the subject of a critical profile in the Arizona Republic this weekend, which pointed out that many observers think he was thrown under the bus to protect his superiors, perhaps including AG Holder:

Curiously, the supporters and detractors agree on one point: They say Burke became a scapegoat to protect higher officials in the Justice Department or White House. Dave Workman, a gun-rights blogger, described Burke as "the chief sacrificial lamb."

Sen. Grassley, in an October statement, said: "Mr. Burke is to be commended, to some extent, for being the only person to resign and take responsibility for the failed operation. Of course, I do not believe he should feel obligated to be the only fall guy."

Phoenix attorney Andy Gordon, a close friend for nearly two decades, said Burke may be loyal to a fault, protecting higher-ups in the Justice Department. "DOJ threw him under the bus. That's my view," Gordon said.

Another friend, attorney Tim Nelson, said: "I don't know the workings of the Obama administration, whether they were looking for a fall guy or what. But it certainly looks that way."

It is difficult to see how Holder could remain in office after making these claims – the man would clearly be a dangerous incompetent whose continued presence posed a clear and present danger to the Justice Department’s operations and accountability. However, if he doesn’t continue his cluelessness defense, he’ll be facing perjury charges. All of this is sure to come up when Holder makes his next appearance before the House Oversight committee tomorrow. If former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke really wants to clear his name, this would be a good time to come forward, and tell Congress exactly what he discussed with Holder’s aide, in the hours after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.
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To read a related article, click here.

This Conscience Thing

2012-01-30T11:34:00.000-08:00

This Conscience Thing
By W. James Antle, III on 1.30.12 @ 6:08AM

Catholic leaders object to an Obama administration rule on contraceptive coverage, but will Americans listen?

Has President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services awakened a sleeping giant?

In pews across America, Catholics listened yesterday to letters from their bishops denouncing an HHS requirement that forces virtually every employer in America to pay for health insurance that covers contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients.

As Nancy Pelosi complained during the health care debate, many of her coreligionists have "this conscience thing" concerning the sanctity of human life. Now the executive branch of the federal government is telling them to drop dead.

There is technically a small religious exemption, but it doesn't apply to most activities engaged in by communities of faith. For now, a church doesn't have to buy condoms for monks or the pill for nuns. But religious schools, hospitals, and social service providers will have to comply with the regulation.

Oddly, the best way for religious leaders to follow their conscience without running afoul of the government is to not serve or employ people outside the faith. "Sectarian self-segregation is O.K., but good Samaritanism is not," observes the columnist Ross Douthat. "The rule suggests a preposterous scenario in which a Catholic hospital avoids paying for sterilizations and the morning-after pill by closing its doors to atheists and Muslims, and hanging out a sign saying 'no Protestants need apply.'"

The American Catholic bishops have pointed out that even Jesus and his disciples might not have qualified for the narrowly tailored religious exemption. The practical result may be to force religious traditionalists out of charitable activities, much like the Catholic Church has been pushed out of the adoption business in Massachusetts.

According to some folks, that's perfectly fine. "Perhaps the Catholic Church should divest itself from activities that are not 100 percent religious in nature," was one typical reader response to an article about the controversy.

Never mind that caring for the sick, feeding the poor, and clothing the naked are considered religious activities in many faiths. Forget that no one is forced to work for a Catholic hospital or Baptist college. Pay no attention to other ways such workers could affordably obtain these services if they so choose. Under the HHS regulation, the coverage is required even if the employee objects.

Religious communities in contemporary America are voluntary. No one is forced to attend or support any church, profess any doctrine or creed. Government, however, upholds community norms at gunpoint.

You don't have to look very far to find comments suggesting that this rule is a good way to stick it to churches whose social teachings are deemed too reactionary. Even many American Catholics disagree with their church on birth control. But the regulation does raise interesting questions for people of many political stripes.

Will libertarians defend the freedom of conscience not just for the "individual who wants to sell lemonade, paint his or her house purple, hop on an airplane, ingest intoxicants, or marry someone from the same sex," but also the individual who doesn't want to fork over her money to help pay for activities that offend her faith?

Will conservatives who backed the Bush-era "faith-based initiatives" see the risk inherent in allowing administrations with different values to fund and regulate the missions of organizations guided by faith?

Will the Catholic left see how allowing the federal government to force people to buy health insurance they do not want can have unintended consequences?

This move could prove to be detrimental to a president whose reelection fight may well hinge on the outcome in a few states with large Catholic populations. Or it could reveal that in our tolerant age, many Americans possess little tolerance for values that are not their own.
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To read an article by W. James Antle, III, click here.
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To read another article about the Democrat's war on religion, click here.

The Rich Ate My Vote

2012-01-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

The Rich Ate My Vote
By Larry Thornberry on 1.30.12 @ 6:07AM

A report from the Nelson/Durbin inquisitional rally on voters under Republican duress.

TAMPA -- With Florida Republicans set to vote Tuesday for their preferred presidential nominee -- almost surely Mitt Romney -- Democrats chose Friday to put on a political show-trial accusing Republicans of attempting to deny the vote to blacks, the young, the elderly, and selected other Democratic constituencies (no mention yet of widows and orphans, but it's early).

The show took place at the Hillsborough County Court House in downtown Tampa Friday, and it starred Democratic U.S. Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Bill Nelson of Florida, along with a supporting cast of useful witnesses who (as we have learned to say) stayed on message.

Nelson, seeking re-election this year, has charged that changes made by the heavily Republican Florida Legislature last year to Florida's voter laws are nothing short of attempts at voter suppression, suppression that strikes at the very heart of democracy and self-government. Durbin used his Senate Judiciary subcommittee to orchestrate this overwrought charge by holding a hearing Friday in which witness after witness repeated the Democratic talking points. I've been to pep rallies that were less one-sided.

Republicans, including the legislative sponsors of the legislation, spokesmen for the Florida Secretary of State's and the governor's office, and the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, say the charges are bogus -- cheap and transparent political theater. The laws were changed to save some election expense and to guard against voter fraud, they say, and do not prevent anyone from registering and voting.

The Durbin/Nelson rodeo got going Friday morning in front of the courthouse with the usual demonstrators with quaint costumes and loudspeakers forecasting the end of self-government if these evil laws are not struck from the books. Scattered among the college students and various leftist indignatos were a few counter-demonstrators who weren't going along with the gag. Most of these thought Nelson, rather than Florida's new voting laws, should go.

Dueling signs carried such messages as: "Those who fear our votes don't deserve our votes," and "Buh bye Bill Nelson." There were several rat-bags with signs indicating they were "part of the 99 percent" (of what, their appearance did not make clear). And there was one lonely guy whose sign carried this universal but ambiguous message: "The joke's on us."

Retiree Lew Green of Apollo Beach thought he knew what the joke was. He didn't miss the irony of a senator from Illinois, with its colorful history of voting practices, lecturing Floridians on how to vote. "I'm from Chicago," Lew told me. "I can't wait till I die so I can go back home to vote."

So what's the ostensible cause of all this heavy breathing on the part of Nelson, Durbin, et al.? No, the poll tax hasn't been re-instated. The legislature, however, did cut early voting days in Florida from 14 to eight, but added evening and weekend hours so plenty of non-work hours are available to all voters. The time that third-party registration outfits have to turn in voter paper work to supervisors of elections offices was more than cut in half and penalties added for late filing.

That's it. Inside the court house, witness after witness said what Nelson and Durbin wanted to hear, that the new arrangements leave blacks and Hispanics and students and the elderly at wits end as how to ever register and cast a vote. No mention that Florida counties have multiple supervisor of elections offices and that other venues, Department of Motor Vehicles offices and public libraries to name just two, are available for the eligible to register or to deal with matters such as address changes.

There's ample time to deal with these matters before elections. But Friday's witnesses, many from various racial and ethnic grievance groups, panted that this minimal level of responsibility required on the part of potential voters is just too big an obstacle for their constituencies. One witness shot the moon by saying the new laws were worse than Jim Crow, an absolutely knee-buckling thing to say, not just because the guy saying it wasn't even born when Jim Crow, a truly nasty fellow, was run out of town. Neither Durbin nor Nelson had anything to say about this remarkable assertion. Apparently when accusing Republicans of perfidy, there is no upper limit, no credibility test at all. One is justified in wondering if there would have been even a ripple if a witness had claimed the new law requires poll workers to eat Democrats if they attempted to vote.

At the end of the proceedings, the spinning of the issue complete, the unanswered charges laid out in breathless detail, Nelson said, "Mr. Chairman, I think that rule of law has been assaulted here in this state by this election law under the pretense of election fraud." There was indeed a good deal of pretense going on in Tampa on Friday. But not the kind Nelson wants the world to believe. The purpose of the "hearing" was clearly not to gather information but to deliver a point of view. If anything was assaulted, it was common sense.

For the most part the mainstream media in Florida played their assigned role in this charade. No matter how transparently overwrought and politically motivated the charges are, Florida reporters mostly rose to the bait, as Nelson knew they would. News outlets took the charges seriously in newspaper stories and TV stand-ups, rarely quoting anyone on the other side of the issue.

Florida isn't the only state in the voting law hot seat this year. Durbin said his subcommittee will be looking at the laws of more than 30 states in search of similar frontal attacks on the franchise. His ministry will be supported by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who has crooned about how evil Republicans are attempting to require Democratic voters to meet unreasonable standards at the polls, like having to show a photo I.D. to ensure the voter is who he represents himself to be. (Yes, a photo I.D. The same thing many Americans have to show to cash a check or to buy a six-pack of beer.)

When services were over Friday after two-plus hours of fantastical testimony, I felt like I'd been at the Queen of Heart's court with the Mad Hatter as bailiff. But I ask for no sympathy from TAS readers. Further, I caution those on the mainland not to just enjoy a laugh at Florida's expense and move on. This political circus may soon be coming to a courthouse near you.
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To read another article by Larry Thornberry, click here.

Romney Explains Why He Can't Beat Obama

2012-01-30T11:20:00.000-08:00

Romney Explains Why He Can't Beat Obama
By David Catron on 1.30.12 @ 6:08AM

"It's not worth getting angry about."

Most media coverage of last Thursday's GOP debate has focused on the war of words fought by the two front runners, but the crucial exchange of the evening didn't occur between Gingrich and Romney. The most telling moment of the debate was the latter's response to Rick Santorum's eloquent explanation of Obamacare's importance to the GOP's strategy in the general election and why giving Romney the nomination would be tantamount to surrendering the high ground on health reform: "Folks, we can't give this issue away in this election. It is about fundamental freedom." The former Massachusetts governor responded with the usual rote talking points, which Santorum vehemently rejected. Romney then uttered the most revealing words of the debate: "First of all, it's not worth getting angry about."

Most Republican voters, and more than a few independents, would disagree. Romney apparently didn't notice that the hundreds of thousands of people who showed up at the nation's capitol to protest the impending passage of Obamacare were pretty angry. In fact, after the law was passed over their vehement objections, a significant portion of the voters were so outraged by the back-room skullduggery used to pass "reform" that many Democrats were actually afraid to hold town hall meetings and face their own constituents during the run-up to the 2010 midterms. Moreover, despite the many whoppers told by the President's accomplices in the media about the "anti-incumbent mood" of the electorate, the drubbing the Democrats received in that election was obviously driven by voter indignation about being force-fed Obamacare.

And the anger remains. That is why Obama's recent State of the Union address contained only three references to his "signature domestic achievement." This is, as Michael Barone puts it, "the strongest evidence possible" that the President sees Obamacare as "a millstone around the neck of his campaign." Thus, he and his minions will not have missed the significance of Romney's prissy rebuke of Santorum's passionate plea not to "give this issue away." They no doubt recognized it as a Freudian slip betraying Romney as a man without real convictions, and realize that this is the source of his countless flip-flops. In the art of politics, as in the art of war, the key to victory is knowledge of one's enemy. Having cut their political teeth in Chicago, the President's men know a trimmer when they see one and what it takes to defeat him.

The only real difference between Romney and Obama's long-ago-vanquished opponents is that the Chi-town pols were less amateurish. Romney's reversals of position have been so frequent and transparently self-serving that a moderately intelligent preschooler could see through them. Health reform is Exhibit A. When running against Ted Kennedy for the Senate in 1994, Romney represented himself as the champion of a free market health system: "I do not believe in a government takeover of the healthcare system." After becoming Governor of Massachusetts, however, his position changed so radically that he signed a health reform law that later became the model for Obamacare. Now, he claims to oppose Obama's version of the plan, though the two laws are identical in all important respects.

Romney would also have us believe that he will repeal Obamacare in its entirety. He has made this claim in virtually every Republican debate. During his exchange with Santorum on Thursday, for example, he phrased it thus: "It's bad medicine, it's bad for the economy, and I will repeal it." Predictably, this differs from what he said immediately after the law was passed: "I hope we're ultimately able to… repeal the bad and keep the good." It also conflicts with what his people are saying even now. During a recent interview one of Romney's most important advisors said, "We're not going to do repeal… but you will see major changes… You can't whole-cloth throw it out. But you can substantially change what's been done." This is no more than the President and the Democrats themselves have promised.

Romney's affinity with Democrat positions has not been limited to health reform, of course. He has, for example, often agreed with them on Second Amendment rights. While running for Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 he repeatedly stated that he supported that state's tough gun laws. And, in 2004, he famously signed into law a ban on so-called assault weapons and even certain types of shotguns. By the time he had begun his first presidential campaign, however, his views had "evolved." In a 2007 speech to the NRA, he declared, "I support the Second Amendment as one of the most basic and fundamental rights of every American." During his current bid for the presidency, Romney has dodged gun control questions in the debates and his campaign website offers no hint as to his position du jour.

Perhaps the most egregious of Romney's one-eighties have involved abortion. He has changed his position on that issue at least three times. During the 1994 Senate race against Kennedy he said, "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country." In 2001, however, he published a letter in The Salt Lake Tribune in which he wrote, "I do not wish to be labeled prochoice." If the "evolution" had stopped there, many would accept what could well have been a genuine change of heart. But when he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 he declared, "I will protect the right of a woman to choose under the law of the country and the laws of the Commonwealth." Now, for purposes of his current presidential campaign, he's again "pro-life." How he avoids vertigo while executing so many pirouettes is anyone's guess.

Presumably, Romney would admonish us that his about-faces are "not worth getting angry about." That may be the one thing he really believes. What he and his supporters in the GOP establishment don't get, however, is that real voters take these things very seriously. Those who vote based on abortion and gun rights are justifiably angered by politicians who make promises about which they forget the day after being elected. When Rick Santorum's tone during last Thursday's debate betrayed annoyance at Romney's health care contortions, it was because he actually cares about the threat to basic liberty presented by Obamacare. It's not an easy thing for a man of genuine principle to tolerate an opportunist like Romney, who obviously sees the issue as just another lever that he can use to hoist himself into public office.

It will, however, be very easy for Obama and his creatures to exploit Romney's flip-flops in the general election. They will make sure the voters understand that these reversals reveal Romney as just another unprincipled politician willing to say anything to win the election. That the President himself is cut of the same cloth won't matter. The reporters and bloggers whose job it is to point that out will be dutifully reciting White House talking points. One wonders if, after his resultant loss in November, Romney will find this "worth getting angry about."
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To read another article by David Catron, click here.

Obama's Helter-Skelter Strategy

2012-01-30T11:07:00.000-08:00

Obama's Helter-Skelter Strategy
By Jed Babbin on 1.30.12 @ 6:09AM

Critics of the president's Pentagon cuts are missing the overriding problem with his military spending "plans."

If you're wondering where to find the strategic thinking behind Obama's slashing of the military budget, you won't find it in Clausewitz, Kissinger, or David Galula. After days of searching, I think I found it lying at some unequal distance between the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" and the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter."

Obama's plan to slash $487 billion in Pentagon spending over ten years comes sandwiched between the $400 billion in cuts he made using Robert Gates as his knife and the possible sequestration of another $600 billion in cuts under last year's random results from the failed "supercommittee."

Congress and the pundit community have fallen into the political trap that these cuts pose. They are attacking the cuts by defending the constituencies -- individual military assets they favor, contractors in their states -- and losing the battle. They are losing because they don't argue against the underlying theories of the so-called "plans," none of which match the others.

There are so many internal contradictions and inconsistencies in these "plans" that we should focus on them first and debate the budget numbers later.

To do this, congressional Republicans need to look at the three statements of the plan issued by Obama and his administration. First was the 5 January "Sustaining Global Leadership" strategy issued by Obama which states his goals in refashioning our global military role. Second is the 26 January "Defense Budget Priorities and Choices" paper published by the Pentagon. In the middle was the president's State of the Union address. (Next month, when the Pentagon 2013 budget is actually submitted to Congress, there will be a fourth round of contradictions to analyze.)

There are too many contradictions and internal inconsistencies to review them all in one column. Just for starters, let's look at a few of the more glaring examples.

The 5 January "strategy" says that the Pentagon will be implementing "…the Joint Operational Access Concept, sustaining our undersea capabilities, developing a new stealth bomber, improving missile defenses, and continuing efforts to enhance the resiliency and effectiveness of critical space-based capabilities."

So how does the 26 January budget outline accomplish these objectives?

The Joint Operational Access concept, according to the Pentagon, means getting U.S. forces to the theater of battle and enabling them to move quickly within the theater. This is to be accomplished, according to the budget outline, by retiring 27 C-5A heavy airlifters and 65 older C-130s, and canceling the new Army C-27 tactical transport. Those reductions in airlift come on top of Obama's decision to stop production of the C-17 heavy airlifter.

And all that ignores the question of how much airlift do we need? Where is the study that shows the threats we have to meet, the forces we need to move to defeat them, and how much airlift we need to do it? The budget outline references "air mobility studies" in support of the cuts, but no such studies comparing the airlift requirement to the threat and how forces need to be moved to defeat them have been done in many years.

The "strategy" paper says we are going to sustain our undersea capabilities, which means kicking the budget can down the road, as accomplished in the budget outline. It says we'll delay those undersea capabilities indefinitely, beyond the "Future Years Defense Plan" that forecasts spending for six years. Among those assets delayed is a new Virginia class hunter-killer submarine. The replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines is also delayed for at least two years. Do we need those assets sooner or later? Given the age of our current fleets, the answer is sooner because the threats they are meant to deter or defeat are not shrinking, particularly in the Asia-Pacific theater toward which Obama says we're "rebalancing."

That paper also says that we're going to have a new stealth bomber. But when? It will take at least ten years to design, develop, and fly a prototype. Neither the "strategy paper" nor the budget outline says when we will have it, what it might cost or -- the critical question -- when we'll need it. Which means that Obama is giving lip service to the new bomber and looks forward to piddling funding at it without actually producing it.

The "strategy" also says we're going to enhance the resiliency and effectiveness of critical space-based assets. (I'm as tired of the air quotes as you are, dear reader, but Microsoft Word lacks a sarcasm font.) The budget outline funds upgrades for the Global Positioning Satellites, the Space-Based Infrared System, and the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites.

All of those assets are important, and previous budget plans included them. But there's more. A lot more.

Our entire military and intelligence capabilities are built around a satellite infrastructure. Our "net-centric warfare" strategy, around which all of our military forces are built, relies on the instant communication, reconnaissance, and battle-management provided by satellites. Our intelligence community is just as dependent on satellites for imagery and other electronic intelligence gathering.

Right now there are hundreds of satellites in orbit, most of them top-secret in capabilities and many so secret that their existence is not disclosed. In the unclassified world, we know about the MILSTAR satellites that our forces depend on for jam-resistant communications at all levels, from the lowliest Marine squad leader to the national command center. They are -- as best we can make them -- protected against quickly-evolving cyberwar attacks. So is the Wideband Global SATCOM constellation of satellites that provides high-capacity communications to deployed forces.

Nothing in the budget paper says we will replace these assets, all of which are aging out. A satellite of these types -- and the classified ones -- routinely cost $1 billion each, take years to develop, and cost hundreds of millions to launch. How are we going to "enhance" our space-based assets? We aren't, at least according to the Obama documents.

We won't be able to afford satellites, ships, or aircraft in part because Obama is diverting the defense budget to his "green energy" plans to starve us of energy. Forget drilling: in his State of the Union address, Obama said: "And I'm proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world's largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history -- with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year."

The Green Grifters will get money -- millions? billions? -- that could actually be spent on assets that kill people and break things. To sustain the Green Grifters, Obama is robbing our military of capabilities it needs.

Last, and not least, is the idea of "reversibility." Panetta's budget outline says that it makes "… major adjustments in a way that best allows for their reversal or for regeneration of capabilities if future circumstances change." Really?

Obama has terminated production of the F-22, C-17, DDG-1000, and much more. When a production line is shut down, it's not kept in mothballs. It's broken up, people are reassigned, and factories are either emptied and sold or filled with machinery and people to build other products. If you want to resume production of one of those systems, you'll have to pay billions to do it, and spend the time it will take, which will be measured in five-year chunks. Panetta's easy "reversal or regeneration" is a fantasy.

Obama's strategy and Pentagon budget will not produce the defense capabilities we need now or in the future. They may as well have been drafted by Paul McCartney and the late John Lennon:

Do, don't you want me to love you
I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you
Tell me, tell me, tell me, come on tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.

Helter skelter, helter skelter
Helter skelter.

Obama may be a lover and a dancer, but he ain't no strategist.
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To read another article by Jed Babbin, click here.

Environmentalist-in-Chief

2012-01-30T10:58:00.000-08:00

Environmentalist-in-Chief
By William Tucker on 1.30.12 @ 6:09AM

At the rate he's going, our president will soon be taking credit for the discovery of natural gas.

In Ancient China, the Emperor went out every spring and walked the fields to bless the harvest and encourage the crops to grow. Sure enough, when the peasants put the seeds in the ground, the crops appeared and the Emperor took credit.

The job of President of the United States is often much the same. According to the legend embraced by some, he is responsible for just about everything good that happens in the country. If a group of wildcatting oil geologists in North Dakota, for instance, use 3-D seismographic to discover a whole new strata of shale oil, and if "fracking" techniques developed in Texas should make these deposits accessible for the first time in history -- well then, it must be the President who made it all happen.

This was the mantle, at least, that President Barack Obama was willing to assume last week when he declared in his State of the Union address:

Over the last three years, we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I'm directing my administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now -- right now -- American oil production is the highest that it's been in eight years. That's right -- eight years. Not only that -- last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years.

Now those with long memories might be wondering at this point from whence this new enthusiasm for fossil fuels. They might remember the President's Inaugural Address three years ago when he proclaimed:

We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.

They remember that the words "oil" or "gas" or "fossil fuels" were never mentioned on that January afternoon.

Then there was the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill after which the President suspended all new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and then after the ban was lifted made it so difficult to secure new permits that most drilling rigs have long left the Gulf for Brazil, the coast of Africa, and other more hospitable places around the globe.

Most curious of all, however, is the President's claim to have opened up "millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration," implying that this is why "American oil production is the highest it has been in eight years" so that "we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years." As more than one wag suggested, once you've run an economy into the ground with 9 percent unemployment, you're bound to get a little decreased oil consumption.

The Institute for Energy Research is one of those Washington think tanks that runs around trying to keep track of such proclamations. Before the newspapers were on the stands the next day, IER had put out a report casting a little light on the President's claims. One of its graphs shows the number of permits for oil and gas exploration issued by the Bureau of Land Management. As IER notes, the Obama Administration has auctioned off less than half the number of leases annually as the Clinton Administration.

Then there were graphs illustrating the production of oil and gas on federal lands as opposed to private and state lands: As the numbers show, the obvious trend has been reduced production on federal lands and increased production from the private and state sector:

Now this is not necessarily a bad thing. When Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot conceived the Conservation Movement, they cast the federal government in the role of an aristocratic landholder who is not troubled by an immediate need for money but is able to hold resources off the market in anticipation that they will later become more valuable. This speculative venture is the way the market conserves resources. It is not the government alone that follows this practice. Last week Chesapeake Energy, the nation's second largest developer of natural gas, announced it will drill no more wells in the Marcellus Shale for the time being because the price of gas has dropped so low. It will save the resources for another day. President Obama is doing the same thing with federal resources. He can certainly take credit as the nation's Chief Conserver. But Oil-and-Gas-Developer-in-Chief? Best save that for the wildcatters out in the Marcellus and the Bakken.

Most curious of all was the President's claim that if there has been a boom in natural gas production over the past decade, government research was responsible:

The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don't have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock -- reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.

This is a claim put forth in December by the Breakthrough Institute in a paper entitled "Decades of Government Funding Behind Sale Revolution." Breakthrough is the brainchild of Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, authors of the 2003 essay, "The Death of Environmentalism" (and subsequent book), in which they argued that environmentalism had become too "timid" and "complaint-based" and should leverage global warming to become grandiose and ambitious once again. "The Era of Small Thinking is Over" is their slogan. Naturally such a group needs a bigger government to fulfill its plans and so it spends time trying to show government is responsible for all good things.

Most people who know the history of fracking technology give credit to George P. Mitchell, the Texas wildcatter who spent twenty lonely years trying to pry gas out of the Barnett Shale with his pioneering technology. Breakthrough corrals Dan Stewart, however, a former vice president at Mitchell Energy who is willing to give the federal government some credit. "They did a hell of a lot of work, and I can't give them enough credit for that," says Stewart, obviously with an eye on the next Department of Energy grant. "DOE started it, and other people took the ball and ran with it. You cannot diminish DOE's involvement."

DOE's involvement, it turns out, consisted mainly of research done in the 1970s by the Carter Administration during the "Energy Crisis." The 1976 Eastern Gas Shale Project mapped fields in Appalachia and made some early estimates of the potential of shale gas deposits. Mitchell later drew on this research in tackling the Barnett.

We got the DOE and GRI involved in the Barnett in the early 1990s. [The GRI is the Gas Research Institute, the private research arm of the gas industry.] Mitchell hadn't wanted to get them involved because we were trying to understand it and didn't want competition for the Barnett until we had a handle on what we were doing.

By the early 1990s, we had a good position, acceptable but lacking knowledge base, and then Mitchell said, "Okay, I'm open to bringing in DOE and GRI" in 1991.

DOE participation involved paying one-third the cost of the first horizontal well and contributing to the development of microseismic mapping techniques at the Sandia National Laboratory. "The DOE gave money to the GRI, and the GRI kept DOE updated," Stewart recalls. But while the DOE was putting up money here and there, it was Mitchell who bore the brunt of the risks:

Mitchell had the money to invest in R&D. And he had the vision. He had people in the company saying this is bulls--t, this is wasting our money, you're using our retirement money on something that's no good. They'd say, "Dan, if Barnett is the best thing we have, then we don't have s--t."

Breakthrough did not interview Mitchell, although he might have shed a little more light on the situation.

So does all this mean that President Obama can claim credit for the shale boom as well? Or is this just a case of victory having a thousand fathers?

CNN unleashed a "truth squad" after the President's speech and came to the following conclusion:

Federal research helped boost shale research in the last decades of the 20th century, particularly in the 1970s. But private industry originated the technology and picked up the slack as federal investments in research waned.

Most fascinating of all, however, is a single bland sentence in the Breakthrough report that describes one of the federal government's earliest attempts to unlock gas from shale deposits:

The U.S. for years funded radically experimental efforts, including large explosions underground, that were too expensive and risky for private firms to do.

As CNN discovered, it's a little more interesting than that. These early experiments were nuclear explosions:

[O]ne series of tests in the late 1960s and early 1970s raises eyebrows today. In the ultimate "fracking," the U.S. government attempted three times to use nuclear bombs to open up subterranean gas formations in the Rocky Mountains -- two in western Colorado and one in New Mexico. The tests produced less gas than predicted, and what was freed was radioactive.

I say let's let Obama take credit for that one.
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To read another article by William Tucker, click here.

For Santorum - Michelle Malkin

2012-01-30T10:35:00.000-08:00

For Santorum
By Michelle Malkin
January 30, 2012 08:24 AM

Rick Santorum opposed TARP.

He didn’t cave when Chicken Littles in Washington invoked a manufactured crisis in 2008. He didn’t follow the pro-bailout GOP crowd — including Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich — and he didn’t have to obfuscate or rationalize his position then or now, like Rick Perry and Herman Cain did. He also opposed the auto bailout, Freddie and Fannie bailout, and porkulus bills.

Santorum opposed individual health care mandates — clearly and forcefully — as far back as his 1994 U.S. Senate run. He has launched the most cogent, forceful fusillade against both Romney and Gingrich for their muddied, pro-individual health care mandate waters.

He voted against cap and trade in 2003, voted yes to drilling in ANWR, and unlike Romney and Gingrich, Santorum has never dabbled with eco-radicals like John Holdren, Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi. He hasn’t written any “Contracts with the Earth.”

Santorum is strong on border security, national security, and defense. Mitt the Flip-Flopper and Open Borders-Pandering Newt have been far less trustworthy on immigration enforcement.

Santorum is an eloquent spokesperson for the culture of life. He has been savaged and ridiculed by leftist elites for upholding traditional family values — not just in word, but in deed.

He won Iowa through hard work and competent campaign management. Santorum has improved in every GOP debate and gave his strongest performance last week in Florida, wherein he both dismantled Romneycare and popped the Newt bubble by directly challenging the front-runners’ character and candor without resorting to their petty tactics.

He rose above the fray by sticking to issues.

Most commendably, he refused to join Gingrich and Perry in indulging in the contemptible Occupier rhetoric against Romney. Character and honor matter. Santorum has it.

Of course, Santorum is not perfect. As I’ve said all along, every election cycle is a Pageant of the Imperfects. He lost his Senate re-election bid in 2006, an abysmal year for conservatives. He was a go-along, get-along Big Government Republican in the Bush era. He supported No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug benefit entitlement, steel tariffs, and earmarks and outraged us movement conservatives by endorsing RINO Arlen Specter over stalwart conservative Pat Toomey.

I have no illusions about Rick Santorum. I wish he were as rock-solid on core economic issues as Ron Paul.

And I wish Ron Paul was not the far-out, Alex Jones-panderer on foreign policy, defense, and national security that he is.

If Ron Paul talked more like his son, Rand Paul, about the need for common-sense profiling of jihadists at our State Department consular offices overseas and if he talked more about the need for strengthened visa screening and airport security scrutiny of international flight manifests, I might have more than a kernel of confidence that he would take post-9/11 precautions to guard against jihadi threats and protect us from our enemies foreign and domestic. But he doesn’t, so I can’t support Ron Paul.

Mitt Romney has the backing of many solid conservatives whom I will always hold in high esteem — including Kansas Secretary of State and immigration enforcement stalwart Kris Kobach, former U.N. ambassacor John Bolton, and GOP Govs. Nikki Haley and Bob McDonnell. With such conservative advisers in his camp, Romney would be better than Obama. And a GOP Congress with a staunch Tea Party-backed contingent of fresh-blood leaders in the House and Senate will help keep any GOP president in line. Romney’s private-sector experience and achievements are the best things he’s got going. Only recently has he risen to defend himself effectively. But between his health care debacle, eco-nitwittery, and expedient and unconvincing political metamorphosis, Mitt Romney had way too much ideological baggage for me in 2008 to earn an endorsement — and it still hasn’t changed for me in 2012.

Then there’s Newt, who has long made a career out of trashing progressive Saul Alinsky while employing his tactics at every turn. I’ve been making this point for years and have chronicled his dalliances with leftists as long as anyone in the conservative blogosphere.

Many grass-roots conservatives were awakened to Newt’s double-talk and double-dealing during the NY-23 race. Inconvenient truth: Newt’s transgressions are not from decades ago. It’s not ancient history. It’s here and now. Readers of this blog know the truth: It’s not just “the GOP establishment” that’s repulsed by Gingrich’s combination of moral baggage and K Street/Beltway culture of corruption. It’s the very grass-roots that Gingrich’s cheerleaders purport to represent.

Remember October 2009?

From reader Barnaby, who sent back his crossed-out Republican solicitation forms with a “NO RINOS” sticky note for Newt Gingrich:

Remember the rebuke in Dubuque? May 11, 2011:

Guy: Speaker Gingrich, what you just did to Paul Ryan is unforgivable.

Gingrich: I didn’t do anything to Paul Ryan!

Guy: Yes, you did. You undercut him and his allies in the house.

Gingrich: No, I…

Guy: You’re an embarrassment to our party.

Gingrich: I’m sorry you feel that way.

Guy: Why don’t you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself.

Lest we forget, this election is not about choosing a showboat candidate to run against John King or Juan Williams or Wolf Blitzer.

It’s not about “raging against” some arbitrarily defined GOP “machine.”

For many grass-roots conservatives across the country, Romney and Gingrich are the machine.

And at this point in the game, Rick Santorum represents the most conservative candidate still standing who can articulate both fiscal and social conservative values — and live them.

Side note: Unlike many bloggers and pundits weighing in on GOP 2012, I have zero connections to any of the final four GOP candidates’ campaigns. I have neither received a single penny from, nor donated a single penny, to any of their campaigns. I have not served as any kind of consultant or adviser to any of the campaigns. I have not written any speeches or talking points or briefing papers for any of their campaigns. I have not organized any blogger calls or social media efforts for any of their campaigns. I have not spoken to Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich since interviewing them for Hot Air at CPAC in 2006, and as far as I can recall, I have not communicated directly with either Santorum or Paul. My first and only contact with Santorum’s campaign came last week when a spokesman called to assure me that Santorum was not withdrawing from the Florida primary or the race in general and was in it for the long haul.

So much for my “establishment” credentials, eh?
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To read another article by Michelle Malkin, click here.
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To read more about Rick Santorum, click here.

Why Rick So Irritates Mitt

2012-01-28T23:13:00.000-08:00

Why Rick So Irritates Mitt
By Kevin McCullough
1/29/2012

Mitt Romney desperately needs both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to stay in this Presidential race as long as possible. Though it is not a reality the former Governor relishes. In fact the disdain he has for the situation seems to be aging him on the trail right before our very eyes.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is an easy villain for Romney and his notoriously dirty campaign team. Beginning back in 2008 when they passed verifiably false information to National Review that was repeated with nary a breath of inspection, the Romney campaign has always utilized a multi-angle position of attack.

Unfortunately for the Governor these days he is on the receiving end of some multi-pronged offensives of his own. The difference being they have become very public--usually taking place on debate stages--and they are made up of facts, instead of fomented fiction.

Rick Santorum has especially shone bright when picking the Governor's weak spots, and if the withering sweat dribbles that Romney exhibits under the factual correction of his GOP colleagues, I hesitate to express any desire to see what would happen under the billion dollar assault that President Obama will level at him.

Sen. Santorum has reminded folks of Romney's two biggest vulnerabilities and he has single-handidly voiced the most articulate response to them.

A number of debates back it was Senator Santorum, not Bachmann, Perry, or Cain, who dismantled Romney's epic myth that he had fought for the sanctity of marriage as then governor of Massachusetts. Santorum correctly asserted the facts: that while the judges in the state had definitively over-reached, the Governor was never ordered by the bench to execute their wholesale change in the writing of laws, nor could he have been compelled to under the separation of powers in the commonwealth. Santorum's articulate and precise observation was that not only did Romney not ignore the court--which he was in position to do--he went the extra step in enforcing the court's non-legislative law into existence and even forced the first several marriage licenses to be processed. Santorum's view like most GOP base voters is simple. The Governor was in position to call the court's bluff and should have done so. It would have created a temporary crisis in the state courts, but it likely would've been resolved by a higher court, and Romney would've been able to truly claim the mantle of someone who fought to keep marriage defined as it always has been.

This week in debate number nineteen of this election cycle Senator Santorum nailed Governor Romney to the wall on his biggest fiscal weakness--Obamacare. Senator Santorum calmly laid out the facts that Obama looked to Romney's own model as not-so-much the blueprint for the federal version, but more like the actual skeleton.

Santorum pointed out that the mandate, penalties, co-ops, and oversight all work the same way in the Obama version of health care reform as they do in the Romney version. He didn't even mentioned the state-tax-payer-supported $50 abortions that Romneycare went out of their way to include.

Romney countered by merely claiming that his version didn't do certain things like raise taxes and rob medicare programs. (Of which only the latter claim is true. Romney raised taxes on BLIND PEOPLE in Massachusetts who needed state certification of their condition to qualify for state aid.)

Wolf Blitzer attempted to rescue Governor Romney but Senator Santorum did not allow it. Re-stating what he had previously asserted he asked Romney if the mandates, penalties, and population coverage was the same in his plan, and Romney was forced to concede the point.

It showed utter weakness for the potential nominee to have to reconcile the similarities, and Santorum illustrated that this would be the exact weakness Obama would exploit in a campaign match-up between the two.

The crowd seemed overly populated with Romney fans--a strategy more likely to be carried out by Ron Paul's campaign--but even the majority of the people in the room applauded Santorum when he forced the Governor to finally concede his weakness.

This has to bother the Governor immensely. But Santorum's case is sound.

Many knew that Romney has been inconsistent as a social conservative, but Santorum forced the world to see how weak he is as a FISCAL nominee as well.

Ann Coulter said it less than a year ago, "Mitt Romney will be the nominee, and the republicans will lose."

Senator Santorum demonstrated why Ann was right to say that, and while there may not be time for the Santorum team to make the long steep climb they need to, at least everyone in the room is aware of what the greater issue should be to primary voters--Romney can't win.

And as Ann Coulter believed, he probably won't.
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To read another article by Kevin McCullough, click here.
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To read another article by Rick Santorum, click here.

Top 10 perils of Pelosi

2012-01-28T23:01:00.000-08:00

Top 10 perils of Pelosi
by Human Events
01/28/2012

It has been a year since Nancy Pelosi surrendered her gavel and stepped down as speaker of the House as a result of the Republican mid-term tsunami. To help ensure that history is not repeated, and to underscore the importance of this year’s elections, we present the Top 10 Perils of Pelosi.

1. Piled up trillions in debt

When Nancy Pelosi became speaker in January 2007, the national debt was $8.67 trillion. By the time she was deposed by the Tea Party Republicans four years later, that debt increased 60%, reaching $13.87 trillion. Since appropriation bills must constitutionally originate in the House, it is fair to blame Princess Pelosi and her kingdom of liberal Democratic congressmen for the spending spree.

2. ObamaCare abstinence

Despite the unpopularity of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. ObamaCare), Pelosi used parliamentary maneuvers and partisan arm-twisting to ram the legislation through the House. Her classic statement urging its passage—“We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it”—is an appropriate slogan for her tenure as speaker.

3. Tea Party assault

When the Tea Party arose to counter Pelosi’s profligate spending, her response was to smear the movement. She tried to cast doubt on its authenticity, saying, “It’s not really a grassroots movement. It’s astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America.” She later likened Tea Partiers to Nazis, and fiscal-conservative Republicans to terrorists. Of course, the mainstream media followed suit and have attacked the Tea Party ever since.

4. Occupy hypocrisy

Unlike her scorn for the Tea Party, Pelosi was quick to support the Occupy Wall Street crowd and embraced the group’s assertion that that the top 1% is unfairly profiting from the 99%. Yet Pelosi is firmly ensconced in the upper reaches of that 1%, with a net worth of some $101 million, making her the sixth wealthiest member of the House. Even as the 99% suffer through hard times, Pelosi saw her net worth soar in the Great Recession.

5. Airplane brouhaha

Flying back and forth between Washington, D.C., and her district in San Francisco proved to be too grueling for the House speaker when the military-provided transport she used had to land for refueling. Pelosi threw a fit and demanded that the Pentagon summon a larger aircraft capable of a non-stop flight—at triple the cost.

6. Special waivers

When the Democrats took over the House in 2007 Pelosi led the charge to raise the federal minimum wage. An exception to the wage mandate in the bill, cosponsored by Pelosi, was made for the U.S. territory of the Northern Marianas Islands, where a major employer—StarKist-Tuna—is owned by Del Monte, which is headquartered in Pelosi’s congressional district. Oh, and an astounding 20% of the all waivers to ObamaCare approved by the administration last spring were for businesses in Pelosi’s district.

7. Insider trading

An average citizen who profits from insider stock trading faces the risk of spending time behind bars. Not so for Pelosi, who took advantage of a loophole for members of Congress and made millions participating in a special Initial Public Offering by VISA at the same time Congress was considering credit-card legislation that would cost the company a bundle.

8. Lied about torture briefing

While Pelosi railed against the Bush Administration for using enhanced interrogation techniques on terror detainees, she seemed to have conveniently forgotten that she was briefed on the use of waterboarding way back in 2002. When news of the briefing became public in 2009, Pelosi charged the CIA with lying, but was refuted by Obama-appointed CIA director Leon Panetta.

9. Taxpayer extravagance

Wealthy Pelosi knows how to live the good-life. Witness her recent vacation in Hawaii where she and her husband stayed in a $10,000-per-night hotel. While we don’t begrudge the rich spending their own money, it irks us when they are extravagant at taxpayers’ expense. Pelosi’s congressional travel expenses for a two-year period exceeded $2 million, including over $100,000 spent on in-flight alcohol and food. Only the best liquor was served—Grey Goose vodka, Courvoisier cognac and Bombay Sapphire gin.

10. Taxpayer-funded Botox

Most healthcare plans don’t pay for cosmetic surgery that has no medical rationale. But the very first Omnibus Spending Bill passed in the Nancy Pelosi era made sure that the healthcare plan for members of Congress included taxpayer-funded Botox injections and face-lifts for members of Congress—a measure that the former speaker seems to have taken full advantage of.
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To read another Top Ten Human Events article, click here.

Winners and Losers

2012-01-28T22:31:00.000-08:00

Winners and Losers
Saturday, January 28, 2012
by Burt Prelutsky

All in all, 2011 provided us with some pretty good news. For one thing, our military took care of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, God got rid of Kim Jong-Il and, for good measure, Barney Frank finally got around to announcing his retirement.

It was to be expected that Jimmy Carter, who insisted on paying his last respects to the otherwise unlamented Yasser Arafat, was probably the only person in the civilized world demented enough to send his sincere condolences to North Korea on the passing of its longtime dictator, the aforementioned Kim Jong-Il. So it is that although Carter’s claim to the title of Worst President of the United States has been usurped by Barack Obama, Mr. Peanut retains clear title to being the Worst Ex-President of the United States.

Speaking of titles, I had been unaware until reading his obituary that among Kim Jong-Il’s own honorifics were Best Leader Who Realized Human Wisdom; Master of Literature, Arts and Architecture; Humankind’s Greatest Musical Genius: World’s Greatest Writer; and, contrary to Al Gore’s opinion, Greatest Man Who Ever Lived.

One of the titles I fully expected to see, but didn’t, was Greatest Golfer in the Universe. After all, even the likes of Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson and Arnold Palmer, could only fantasize about shooting a round of 38 that included 11 holes-in-one. Although I have no reason on earth to doubt the North Korean news agency that reported such a miraculous round of golf, I have always wondered why Jong-Il required 27 shots to complete those other seven holes. I can only imagine that those damn little windmills threw him off his game.

An odd coincidence is that I believe 38 is the same score that Obama once reported bowling, a score that justifiably earned him the title of World’s Biggest Wienie.

Speaking of the man who is destined to take his place with the likes of James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding and Jimmy Carter, as America’s most inept one-term presidents, Obama has been accused of picking winners and losers in the business world by subsidizing the winners with our tax dollars. Furthermore, cynics claim that he selects them solely on the basis of the owners’ financial contributions to his re-election campaign. Pshaw! Even someone as openly partisan as I am can see how unjust that is. If that charge had any merit at all, Solyndra, as well as several other green energy concerns handpicked by this administration would be flourishing. So where, I ask on Obama’s behalf, are all these alleged winners? Instead, I say that Obama has exhibited the exact same questionable instincts when picking winners in the world of commerce that he’s shown in picking cabinet members, friends and religious mentors.

Finally, in all the squabbling between Republican presidential contenders, I have yet to hear anyone utter the unfortunate truth about Arabs and Muslims. For all the joyous blather that greeted the so-called Arab spring, the world has had no reason to rejoice over the results in Egypt, Libya or Syria. For their part, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, continue to be the same cesspools they were before America sacrificed blood and treasure in the hope of protecting one group of medieval terrorists from another.

In Saudi Arabia, one of our alleged allies in that part of the world, school textbooks continue to promote the official Islamic bilge that women are “weak and irresponsible,” that homosexuals “should be killed,” and that “the hour of judgment will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.”

In the meantime, any Christian unfortunate enough to find himself in the Middle East is fair game for jihadists.

But all the while, we Americans are trained to parrot the lie, so often repeated by George Bush and Barack Obama, that Islam is a religion of peace and that America’s Muslims -- in spite of Major Hasan’s murderous rampage at Fort Hood, the campaign to erect a victory mosque at Ground Zero, and the Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, who, along with their friends and relatives in Gaza, celebrated on 9/11 -- are every bit as benign and patriotic as the folks in the Tea Party movement.

Until we get a president who is willing to acknowledge that we are at war with Islamic fundamentalists; that Muslims played absolutely no role in the creation of the United States; that they are dedicated to a worldwide caliphate, whose primary goal would be the extermination of Jews and Christians; and that in any war waged between one Muslim sect and another, our place should be on the sidelines, cheering them on; we will continue being drawn into one bloody and ultimately futile enterprise after another.
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.

The Zionist Imperative

2012-01-27T12:14:00.000-08:00

The Zionist Imperative
By Caroline Glick
1/27/2012

European and American perfidy in dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program apparently has no end. This week we were subject to banner headlines announcing that the EU has decided to place an oil embargo on Iran. It was only when we got past the bombast that we discovered that the embargo is only set to come into force on July 1.

Following its European colleagues, the Obama administration announced it is also ratcheting up its sanctions against Iran... in two months. Sometime in late March, the US will begin sanctioning Iran's third largest bank.

At the same time as the Europeans and the Americans announced their phony sanctions, they reportedly dispatched their Turkish colleagues to Tehran to set up a new round of nuclear talks with the ayatollahs. If the past is any guide, we can expect for the Iranians to agree to sit down and talk just before the oil embargo is scheduled to be enforced. And the Europeans - with US support - will use the existence of talks to postpone indefinitely the implementation of the embargo.

There is nothing new in this game of fake sanctions. And what it shows more than anything is that the Europeans and the Americans are more concerned with pressuring Israel not to attack Iran's nuclear installations than they are in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Obama has a second target audience - American Jews. He is using his fake sanctions as a means of convincing American Jews that he is a pro-Israel president and that in the current election season, not only should they cast their votes in his favor, they should sign their checks for his campaign.

Both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were quick this week to make clear that these moves are insufficient. They will not force Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. More is needed.

As to American Jewry, the jury is still out.

In truth, American Jewry's diffidence towards taking a stand on Iran, or recognizing Obama's dishonesty on this issue specifically and his dishonesty regarding his position on US-Israel ties generally is not rooted primarily in American Jews' devotion to Obama. It isn't even specifically related to American Jewry's devotion to the political Left. Rather it has to do with American Jewish ambivalence to Israel.

The roots of that ambivalence - which is shared by other Western Jewish communities to varying degrees - predate Obama's presidency.

Indeed, they predate the establishment of the State of Israel. And now, as the US and the EU have given Iran at least another six months to a year to develop its nuclear bombs unchecked, it is worth considering the nature and influence of this ambivalence.

Today's principal form of Jew-hatred is anti- Zionism. Anti-Zionism is similar to previous dominant forms of Jew hatred such as Christian anti-Judaism, xenophobic and racist anti- Semitism, and Communist anti-Jewish cosmopolitanism in the sense that it takes dominant, popular social trends and turns them against the Jews. Anti-Zionism's current predominance owes to the convergence of several popular social trends which include Western post-nationalism, and anti-colonialism.

The problem that anti-Zionism poses for American Jewry is that it forces them to pay a price for supporting Israel. This is problematic because Zionism has never been fully embraced by American Jewry. Since the dawn of modern Zionism, the cause of Jewish self-determination placed American Jewish leaders in an uncomfortable dilemma.

UNLIKE EVERY other Diaspora Jewish community, the American Jewish community has always perceived itself as a permanent community rather than an exilic community. American Jews have always viewed the United States as the new Promised Land.

With the formation of the modern Zionist movement in the late 19th century, American Jews found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Clearly, the state of world Jewry was such that national self-determination had become an existential necessity for non-American Jews.

But while supporting Jewish refugees and a scrappy little country was okay, support for the Zionist cause of Jewish national liberation involved an acceptance of the fact that Israel - not the US - is the Jewish homeland. Moreover, it involved accepting that there are Jewish interests that are independent of - if not necessarily in contradiction with - American interests. For instance, irrespective of the prevailing winds in Washington, and regardless of whether the US supports Israel or not, it is a Jewish interest that Israel exists, thrives and survives.

In a recent op-ed in Haaretz, Hebrew University political science professor Shlomo Avineri contrasted world Jewry's massive mobilization on behalf of Soviet Jewry in the 1970s and 1980s and their relative silence today in the face of Iran's Holocaust denial and open calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state. Avineri is apparently confounded by the disparity between Western Jewry's behavior in the two cases.

But the cause of the disparity is clear. Supporting the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate was easy. Unlike Israel, Soviet Jews were powerless. As such, they were pure victims and supporting them cost Diaspora Jews nothing in terms of their position in their societies.

Just as important, the cause of freedom for Soviet Jewry was perfectly aligned with the West's Cold War policies against the Soviet Union. The frequent Jewish demonstrations outside Soviet legations provided Western leaders with another tool to fight the Cold War.

In contrast, supporting Israel, and the cause of Jewish freedom and self-determination embodied by Zionism, is not cost-free for Diaspora Jews. At root, to support Israel and Zionism involves accepting that Jews have inherent rights as Jews. To be a Zionist Jew in the Diaspora means that you embrace and defend the notion that the Jews have the right to their own interests and that those interests may be distinct from other nations' interests. That is, to be a Zionist involves rejecting Jewish assimilation and embracing the fact that Jews require national independence and power to guarantee our survival. And this can be unpleasant.

PRO-ISRAEL AMERICAN Jews have historically tried to tie their support for Israel to larger, more universal themes, in order to extricate themselves from the need to admit that as Jews and supporters of Israel they have a right and a duty to support Jewish freedom even if it isn't always pretty. Again, for Israel's first several decades, it was about helping poor Jews and refugees. In recent years, the predominant defense has been that Israel deserves support because it is a democracy.

Certainly, these are both reasonable reasons for supporting Israel. But neither support for Israel because it was poor nor support for Israel because it is free is a specifically Zionist reason for supporting Israel. You don't have to be a Zionist to support poor Jewish refugees and you don't have to be a Zionist to support democracy.

You do have to be a Zionist however, to defend the Jews in Israel and throughout the world in a coherent manner when the predominant form of Jew-hatred is anti-Zionism.

You have to be willing to accept and defend the right of the Jewish people to freedom and self-determination in our national homeland against those who deny that right. You have to be a Zionist to defend Israel's right to survive and thrive even though it is no longer poor and its democratically elected government is not liked by the Obama administration.

And you have to be a Zionist to realize that since Jewish survival is dependent on Jewish power, and anti-Zionists reject the right of Jews to have power, that anti-Zionists seek to bring about a situation where Jewish survival is imperiled.

The weakness of American Jewry's response to Iran's genocidal intentions towards Israel is of a piece with its weak response to the forces of anti-Zionism generally and to Jewish anti- Zionists particularly. Since 2007, the US government has effectively ruled out the use of force against Iran's nuclear weapons program and embraced a policy of pursuing negotiations with ayatollahs while enacting impotent sanctions to quell congressional pressure. At least in part, this policy is due to the US's assessment that a nuclear Iran does not pose a high-level threat to US national security.

Both then-president George W. Bush and later Barack Obama determined that an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear weapons program does pose a high-level threat to the US. As a consequence, both administrations have taken concerted steps to prevent Israel from attacking Iran.

On the merits, both of these policies are easily discredited. But the fact that they continue to be implemented shows that they are supported by a large and powerful constituency in Washington.

To oppose Iran's nuclear program effectively, American Jews are required to oppose these strongly supported US policies. And at some point, this may require them to announce they support Israel's right to survive and thrive even if that paramount right conflicts with how the US government perceives US national interests.

That is, it may require them to embrace Zionism unconditionally.

No doubt, if they do so, their own conditions will improve. They will finally be able to speak coherently against the gathering forces of anti-Zionism - both from within the Jewish community and from without. This in turn will act as a lightning rod for inspiring American Jews to embrace their Judaism.

With their leaders having abjectly failed to contend with the most powerful form of Jew-hatred, it is no wonder that so many Diaspora Jews are leaving the fold. If they reverse course and go after their attackers, American Jewish leaders will give community members a meaningful reason to proudly embrace their identity.

In a speech this week at the Knesset, Netanyahu explained the different lessons the Holocaust teaches the international community on the one hand, and the Jews on the other.

As far as its universal lessons are concerned, Netanyahu said, "The lesson is that the countries of the world must be woken up, as much as possible, so that they can organize against such crimes.

The lesson is that the broadest possible alliances must be forged in order to act against this threat before it is too late."

As for the Jews, Netanyahu embraced Zionism's core principle: "With regard to threats to our very existence, we cannot abandon our future to the hands of others.

"With regard to our fate, our duty is to rely on ourselves alone."

We must hope that world Jewry will recognize today that the fate of the Jewish people in Israel and throughout the world is indivisible and rally to Israel's side whatever the social cost of doing so. But even if they do not recognize this basic truth, the imperatives of Zionism, of the Jewish people, remain in place.
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To read another article by Caroline Glick, click here.

Obama's Misstatements on the Union

2012-01-27T12:06:00.000-08:00

Obama's Misstatements on the Union
By David Limbaugh
1/27/2012

Only a president long shielded from criticism and accountability could make the kind of State of the Union speech President Obama did Tuesday night. It's hard to know where to begin, given his repetition of tired ideas from his previous SOTUs, his taking credit for successful policies he resisted and omitting failed ones he promoted, his numerous misrepresentations on issues big and small, and his glaring refusal to address the main issues that threaten the nation.

Let me touch on just a few highlights in this brief space.

Excessive spending is the primary threat to our nation's and Americans' financial future, yet Obama glossed over it and distorted his record.

He said, "We've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more." But everyone knows he's had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the cutting table. His unrelenting passion is spending. Even The Washington Post said, "Obama does not mention that Republicans forced him to accept $2 trillion in budget cuts during the debt-ceiling impasse."

Obama said, "I'm prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long-term costs of Medicare and Medicaid and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors." Well, that's mighty magnanimous of him, but why is he so grudging about it? As president, he should be singularly focused on entitlement reform. Yet he has obstructed and demagogued such reforms. His condition that the "programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors" is completely dishonest, because Paul Ryan's plan did just that and he rejected it while ridiculing and demonizing Ryan.

Obama said, again, that to avoid Warren Buffett's secretary's paying a higher tax rate than her boss, we should adopt the "Buffett rule," prescribing that "if you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes." The Heritage Foundation tells us that according to Congressional Budget Office data, the top 1 percent of income earners already pay 30 percent of their income in all federal taxes. In addition, when wealthy people pay a lower effective income tax rate, it's a result either of lawful deductions (often charitable) or of capital gains and dividends on property they've acquired with money that has already been taxed. Also, before the wealthy realize many of these gains, the businesses that produce these gains have already paid a corporate income tax rate of 35 percent (the highest in the world). This means that Buffett, on much of this income, pays an effective rate of 50 percent (35 percent corporate plus 15 percent capital gains). Indeed, 99.4 percent of millionaires and billionaires pay far more in taxes in actual and relative terms than middle- and low-income earners, and for Obama to suggest otherwise is not only deeply deceitful but also damaging -- because of the class envy he constantly stokes -- to the social fabric of this country.

Obama said he wants to lure American companies home yet has steadfastly refused, notwithstanding his SOTU rhetoric, to agree to rectify the primary reasons they leave: punitive corporate income tax rates and onerous regulations.

Obama suggested that he is not only a pioneer in clean energy but also bullish on domestic energy. His record on the former is disgraceful, and both his claim and record on the latter are insulting. He has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on quixotic green-energy programs with Solyndra and its cousins, spending $5 million for every single "renewable energy" job he has created. He has defiantly refused to take responsibility and is continuing to pursue more. He has waged war on domestic coal, natural gas and oil. He not only imposed a punitive moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf but also lawlessly reinstituted another one after federal district and appellate courts shot down his initial moratorium. When he lifted this revised moratorium, drilling remained in limbo because of the administrative obstacles his administration had imposed on drilling permits. His actions caused devastating losses to the Gulf economy and jobs, which rippled throughout the nation's economy. Most recently, to placate his environmental extremist base, he blocked the job-producing Keystone XL pipeline for no legitimate reason.

Obama threatened to withhold federal subsidies to colleges unless they hold tuition costs down without recognizing that one of the main reasons they've skyrocketed is the profligate subsidies he continues to increase.

He railed against bailouts after having established a record as President Bailout. He blamed banks again for causing the housing crisis and economic meltdown by making loans to people who couldn't afford them, without admitting that government, mainly his party, was the primary culprit.

He said he'd established the closest military cooperation with Israel in history, but he has bullied that nation for three years, and our relationship has rarely been more strained.

Believe me, I could go on.
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To read another article by David Limbaugh, click here.
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To read a related article, click here.

Obama's Vision for a Spartan America

2012-01-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

Obama's Vision for a Spartan America
By Jonah Goldberg
1/27/2012

President Obama's State of the Union address was disgusting.

The president began with a moving tribute to the armed forces and their accomplishments. But as he has done many times now, he celebrated martial virtues not to rally support for the military, but to cover himself in glory -- he killed Osama bin Laden! -- and to convince the American people that they should fall in line and march in lockstep.

He said of the military: "At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They're not consumed with personal ambition. They don't obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together. Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach."

That is disgusting.

What Obama is saying, quite plainly, is that America would be better off if it wasn't America any longer. He's making the case not for American exceptionalism, but Spartan exceptionalism.

It's far worse than anything George W. Bush, the supposed warmonger, ever said. Bush, the alleged fascist, didn't want to militarize our free country; he tried to use our military to make militarized countries free.

Indeed, Obama is upending the very point of a military in a free society. We have a military to keep our society free. We do not have a military to teach us the best way to give up our freedom. Our warriors surrender their liberties and risk their lives to protect ours. The promise of American life for Obama is that if we all try our best and work our hardest, we can be like a military unit striving for a single goal. I've seen pictures of that from North Korea. No thank you, Mr. President.

Of course, Obama's militaristic fantasizing isn't new. Ever since William James coined the phrase "the moral equivalent of war," liberalism has been obsessed with finding ways to mobilize civilian life with the efficiency and conformity of military life. "Martial virtues," James wrote, "must be the enduring cement" of American society: "intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command must still remain the rock upon which states are built." His disciple, liberal philosopher John Dewey, hoped for a social order that would force Americans to lay aside "our good-natured individualism and march in step."

This is why Obama's administration believes a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. This is why Obama has been prattling about "Sputnik moments" and sighing over his envy of China and its rulers. This is why his spinners endeavored to translate the death of bin Laden as some sort of vindication of his domestic agenda: because he cannot lead a free people where he thinks they should go.

At the end of his address, Obama once again cast the slain bin Laden as the Vercingetorix to his Caesar. (Vercingetorix was the defeated Gaulic chieftain whom Caesar triumphantly paraded through Rome.) "All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves," Obama rhapsodized.

The warriors on the ground "only succeeded ... because every single member of that unit did their job. ... More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other -- because you can't charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there's somebody behind you, watching your back. So it is with America."

"This nation is great because we worked as a team. This nation is great because we get each other's backs."

No. Wrong. It is not so with America. This nation isn't great because we work as a team with the president as our captain. America is great because America is free. It is great not because we put our self-interest aside, but because we have the right to pursue happiness.

I don't blame the president for being exhausted with the mess and bother of democracy and politics, since he has proved so inadequate at coping with the demands of both. Nor do I think he truly seeks to impose martial virtues on America. But he does desperately want his opponents to shut up and march in place. And he seems to think this bilge will convince them to do so.

What I can't forgive, however, is the way he tries to pass off his ideal of an America where everyone marches as one as a better America. It wouldn't be America at all.
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To read another article by Jonah Goldberg, click here.
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The True State of the Union

2012-01-27T11:36:00.000-08:00

The True State of the Union
By Michele Bachmann
1/27/2012

When the American people bestowed the highest office in the land onto President Barack Obama three years ago, they did so trusting him to follow through on his promise of “hope and change.” He has not kept that promise. The supposed accomplishments the President presented in Tuesday night’s State of the Union only serve to divert America’s attention from the true state of the union. Under three years of an Obama administration, our country is suffering; millions linger without a job, gas prices have nearly doubled, and our national debt is greater than the value of the entire U.S. economy.

Though he tried to do so, President Obama cannot blame the sad reality of our nation’s state on the inaction of Congress or the ineptitude of his Presidential predecessors. After all, it was President Obama, not Congress, who asked for nearly $5 trillion dollars to be added to the national debt. It was President Obama who recently cancelled the Keystone Pipeline project, killing thousands of potential American jobs. Under President Obama the unemployment rate has risen from 6.8% when he was elected to today’s 8.5%, a reality that’s caused many Americans to simply stop looking for work. Unfortunately, the unemployment rate is not the only figure that has seen an upsurge under this Administration – gas prices have nearly doubled from the day the President took office to now. When you compare that to only a 28-cent gas price increase under the last President’s administration, it is truly disheartening.

I agreed with the President when he called for all Americans to reclaim their “American values.” But, contrary to the President’s beliefs, the time-tested values that made America great do not include redistribution of wealth or lack of incentive to prosper. In reality, our country was founded by Americans who believed in values such as hard work and determination. They believed strongly in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” None of them believed in taking away from their neighbors to achieve their dreams, but instead worked hard to provide for their own families and carve out a home in America for the generations to come.

Yet there is still hope for our nation. There is hope because we are the descendants of these hard working Americans. The same values that inspired them to greatness inspire us today. We don’t need handouts or bailouts, we need incentive and inspiration. As a member of Congress, I will continue to fight everyday to preserve and promote these true American values.
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To read another related article, click here.

The second Florida debate: Santorum's big night

2012-01-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

The second Florida debate: Santorum's big night
Gingrich and Romney disclose all over each other.
by John Hayward
01/27/2012

It’s only natural that the front-running candidates would receive extra attention, especially when they go after each other as vigorously as Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney did during the second Florida debate, hosted by CNN. Somewhere in the melee of accusations about each others’ finances, campaign advertising, hunger to deport elderly illegal aliens, and reverence for Ronald Regan, a winner emerged: Rick Santorum.

The outcome in Florida between Romney and Gingrich wasn’t really in doubt, due to Gingrich’s spectacularly ill-advised radio ad calling Romney “anti-immigrant.” This brought the previously neutral Senator Marco Rubio into the contest, to Romney’s defense. Romney’s anger at Gingrich’s continuing insistence on calling him “the most anti-immigrant of the four candidates” was genuine – one of the most genuine moments a stiff Romney had on the stage that night – and it made Gingrich look scurrilous. Gingrich didn’t help himself with paranoid mutterings that all the stories appearing about his complex relationship with Ronald Reagan were the handiwork of the Romney attack machine. (I think Gingrich has the better of the Reagan debate in general, but he's not going to get anywhere portraying Romney as puppetmaster of the conservative press.)

For some reason, Gingrich was convinced that accusing Romney of a desire to deport illegal alien grandmothers and grandfathers was a trump card, and he kept trying to play it. Romney pointed out that his strategy involved, not roundups and deportation, but cracking down on those who employ illegals until the lack of jobs prompts them to “self-deport” – a strategy President Obama has actually proved can be quite effective, although his method of implementing it leaves much to be desired, since it involved destroying everyone's ability to work.

When Romney said our illegal immigration problem doesn’t involve 11 million grandmothers, Gingrich found himself holding a thoroughly deflated talking point. Judging by the crowd reaction, Gingrich’s odd plan to help those illegal septuagenarians live out their days on American soil with board-issued “residency” permits still isn’t selling very well.

It also wasn’t much fun watching Gingrich pretend he doesn’t know what a blind trust is, or watching Romney ignore a belated, but well stated, plea from Gingrich to save the campaign-ad nitpicking for other venues and use debate time for the discussion of important issues. It turns out both Romney and Gingrich, through trusts and mutual funds, own pieces of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The stage grew thick with stagnant pools of disclosure.

Most of Gingrich’s best moments - such as saying that we should be cutting government spending down to match income instead of taxing people to meet government spending demands, or calling for the repeal of disastrous financial regulations - came from his back catalogue of greatest hits. His claim to have presided over four balanced budgets was punctured by Ron Paul, so effortlessly that Gingrich ended up agreeing with him. His attempt to recapture a bit of Rubio magic, by saying he had the young Senator in mind for “a more dignified and central role” than a Cabinet post, spawned a thousand instantaneous Twitter jokes that he obviously wasn’t thinking about Rubio for Vice President.

Maybe Gingrich has Rubio in mind for moonbase commander. The proposal Gingrich has been taking the most heat over, his desire to establish a lunar colony as a gateway to manned exploration of Mars, he actually defended quite ably. He talked about the importance of having big, inspirational ideas, and said his plans for reviving space exploration involved offering “prizes” to private citizens and companies, not big government spending programs. This is an intriguing concept he’s been talking up for a long time, in many areas besides space exploration.

Gingrich said he envisions a “90 percent privatized” space program, with the goal of routine commercial launches from our spaceports. Nevertheless, everyone else agreed space exploration is a luxury America cannot afford right now, with our titanic budget deficit and economic problems. How sad a commentary on our exhausted, indebted, crumbling leftist government that is! Our parents went to the Moon in tin cans guided by pocket calculators. Barack Obama blew the Moon and Mars on a handful of useless “green energy” junk that generated nothing except bankruptcies.

Romney gave a lot of vague answers, including a Cuba policy involved sticking to the Helms-Burton Act and hoping something better waits for that island dungeon after the Castro boys shuffle off. It tasted like the kind of platitude-flavored cotton candy nobody is supposed to remember eating after the election is over. “If I’m President,” Romney vowed, “I’ll use every resource we have to help the people of Cuba enjoy freedom after Castro leaves this planet.” Maybe he should work with Gingrich on that. Romney can help the people of Cuba, while Gingrich helps Castro leave this planet.

Romney was at his best when defending entrepreneurial success, declaring that he was proud to be in a free enterprise system making investments that create jobs, as well as paying his huge tax bill and making even larger charitable donations. “Success should be seen as an asset that can help America,” he said with conviction.

The problem is that many of Romney’s other answers, while often logical, were not memorable. People are likely to come away thinking he got the better of Gingrich in their conflict, but they’ll soon forget what it was about, and might not remember much else that Romney said during the evening. When his Massachusetts health care plan came under intense criticism, he began his response with, “First of all, it’s not worth getting angry about.” It might someday be remembered as the epitaph of his campaign.

Romney also found himself on the wrong end of an embarrassing flap over a campaign ad that was profoundly unfair to Gingrich. Romney claimed he didn't know anything about the ad, and it was probably from one of the nefarious Super PACs, but CNN checked it out in real time and found it was a bona fide campaign production, complete with "I'm Mitt Romney, and I approved this ad" at the end. The comical lengths Romney exeted to express ignorance left no one laughing. If he really is that clueless about his campaign's activities, it's even worse, because that would do a lot of damage to his image as a highly skilled professional manager of complex operations.

Ron Paul had a good night, staying focused on his themes of individual liberty, sound money, and disengaging from military deployments overseas. The collapse of the housing bubble is a big issue in Florida, and Paul gave a sharp and concise diagnosis of excessive credit, interest rates held artificially low for too long, and public money poured into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His criticism of the Federal Reserve, and the “rip off” of fiat money, was as energetic as ever.

Paul’s faith in the power of free trade to reform dictatorships is rather inflated, and his belief that ending the welfare state and military deployments would save enough money to enable the complete repeal of income taxes is absurd, no matter how tantalizing the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment might be to small-government enthusiasts. On the subject of spending reduction, he made a good point when he noted that his debate opponents weren’t talking about a lot of specific cuts, while he’s got a trillion dollars’ worth of them ready to go.

This was really Rick Santorum’s night to shine… right from the start, when he gave an introduction filled with lovable enthusiasm and a shout-out to his 93-year-old mother in the audience, instead of political boilerplate. He concluded with his assessment of the 2012 election as America’s decision between being “a country built from the bottom up or top down,” and an appeal to the Reagan Democrats so thoroughly abandoned by Barack Obama.

While confessing that his tax reform ideas aren’t as dramatic as the others’, Santorum demonstrated a good understanding of the way high tax rates crush investment. He was compelling in his criticism of Democrats for their “abysmal” treatment of South America, where they have sided with the likes of Chavez and Castro, and against the people of Honduras during their constitutional crisis, while a largely ignored jihadist menace festers. (He did, unfortunately, feel compelled to use the European Union as a positive example of disparate nations coming together in economic harmony. Maybe he’s been so busy campaigning that he hasn’t found time to keep up with the news from Europe.)

When it came time to move the debate along from the Romney / Gingrich squabble over petty campaign issues, Santorum was commanding. He vowed that his Administration would spend less every year until it reached a balanced budget at the end of his first term, which is a bold agenda, but not impossible. He was adept at criticizing the incumbent President, doing an especially good job of trashing his delusional State of the Union speech from this week… but he was particularly good at hammering Mitt Romney (and to a lesser extent Gingrich) over health care reform.

Calling health care a “foundational” issue that Republicans can’t give away in this election, he leveled a blistering indictment of RomneyCare, and quite simply defeated Romney on the issue of mandates and fines. He said Romney’s system amounts to forcing people to either buy insurance or pay a fine, and many of them are paying the fine because it’s cheaper than obeying the insurance mandate, just as we’ve seen happening with ObamaCare.

Santorum invoked the fear that has plagued many who don’t support Romney, that he’ll end up getting killed in the general election when Obama pats him on the head and thanks him for the swell health care reform ideas. While Romney was able to highlight some important differences between the two programs, including ObamaCare’s tax increases and Medicare raid, he also found himself claiming that his Massachusetts program would be working better if he were still in office to manage it.

In responding to a question about the role of religious faith in the Presidency, which sounded a bit like a mousetrap designed to make the GOP candidates look eccentric, Santorum had one of his best moments, expounding on the Constitution as the “how” of America, while the Declaration of Independence is the “why.” He talked about the uniqueness of our Constitutional defense of God-given rights, for “if our President believes that rights come from the State, then everything government gives you can be taken away.”

Santorum was doubtless helped by being able to stay out of the mudslinging exchange between Romney and Gingrich. Far too much of his charisma drains away when he gets angry, but at his best he seemed warmer and more authentic than the others. He had much more to offer than incoherent anger at the incumbent President. It might not be enough to totally upend the presidential race at this point, but if this debate has any impact, Santorum will have a shot at finishing second in Florida.

Maybe that will give him enough gas to stay in the race. At a minimum, it will increase his appeal as candidate for a dignified and central role in the next Republican administration, such as moonbase commander.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.
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To read another article about Rick Santorum, click here.

Neither liberty nor safety

2012-01-27T11:10:00.000-08:00

Neither liberty nor safety
by Roger Hedgecock
01/27/2012

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," said Benjamin Franklin in 1759.

Liberals everywhere were in full-throat roar protesting George Bush's Patriot Act and his War on Terror in the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11. What price in liberty to be safe from terrorism? Barack Obama himself decried the loss of liberty, the loss of personal freedoms, declaring in 2005 that the Patriot Act "puts our own Justice Department above the law."

Today only crickets from the Left as Obama assaults liberty and freedom of choice on a nearly daily basis.

Consider the list of Obama's assaults on liberty. Any one of these done by a Republican President would bring down the wrath of the Left. Done by Obama, the action is noted in the Obama reelect media for a single news cycle and then dropped

Obama's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is more arrogantly intrusive than ever. The Fourth Amendment protection against "unreasonable" searches and seizures has been repealed at your local airport. Rep. John Mica, who authored the TSA legislation, observes that the unionized TSA now strip-searching grannies and detaining Senators bears little resemblance to his original idea.

Doctor-patient confidentiality? ObamaCare is requiring doctors and hospitals to make records of every aspect of your personal health, and health history, for use by Obama's Department of Health and Human Services. For use by the "death panels"?

ObamaCare tramples First Amendment religious freedom by ordering Catholic hospitals to cover free contraceptives, requiring Catholic adoption agencies to adopt kids to gay couples (resulting in the adoption agencies closing), and requiring Catholic taxpayers to fund federal abortion grants.

"No Child Left Behind" has been expanded to collect not only student test scores and grades, but the government now keeps permanent records on students' disciplinary actions, economic status, and even pregnancies. Worse, the feds discourage the states from allowing parents to access these "permanent records." What police state has ever done without such record keeping? Old East Germany's Stasi would be proud.

The federalization of K-12 education continues under Obama. A group of Bay Shore, Long Island, high school students will soon be wearing electronic monitors to allow school officials to track their physical activity around the clock to fight obesity. Is any excuse sufficient to ban all privacy?

The Obama EEOC has ruled that a private employer's requirement for a high school diploma to qualify for a job might violate the Americans With Disabilities Act. The act does not cover this issue, but Obama's EEOC thinks it should.

Obama wants restrictions on guns sold to Americans in violation of the Second Amendment even as his Justice Department runs the Fast and Furious program to allow the same guns to walk across the border into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels.

EPIC(Electronic Privacy Information Center), a privacy advocacy group, sued Obama's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to discover through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that DHS is monitoring political dissent. EPIC has more than 300 pages of contracts and memos detailing work done by General Dynamics for DHS. One "tracking report" titled "Residents Voice Opposition Over Possible Plan to Bring Guantanamo Detainees to Local Prison-Standish MI" summarizes dissent on blogs and social networking sites, quoting commenters by name.

Angry that FOIA requests and lawsuits were revealing the extent of Obama's liberty-shredding actions, Obama's "Justice Department" issued new rules allowing federal agencies to deny the existence of requested documents even when the agency knows they in fact do exist. The Right to Lie to protect the public from knowing about the loss of their liberties is now the official policy of the Obama administration.

Obama's FBI has obtained a court order against an American woman accused of mortgage fraud to force her to decrypt her PGP-scrambled hard drive so that the FBI can fish around without a warrant in her personal computer for incriminating evidence. The judge said the Fifth Amendment did not apply. For Obama, the Constitution (that "list of negative rights") does not apply whenever it acts to restrain his objectives.

The State of the Union? Slipping into dictatorship. Where's the ACLU?
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To read another article by Roger Hedgecock, click here.

Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants

2012-01-27T11:04:00.000-08:00

Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants
by Michelle Malkin
01/27/2012

So, it turns out that the cool cat billed as "No Drama Obama" by his sycophants is actually quite the drama queen. While the White House publicly pretends to ignore conservative detractors of his administration, Chief Touchy-Touchy seems to be personally consumed by our critiques. Yes, mine included.

On Wednesday, the president had himself a mini-"Toddlers and Tiaras"-style meltdown with Arizona GOP Gov. Jan Brewer after landing in Phoenix for a post-State of the Union dog-and-pony show. As Brewer told pool reporters on the scene, Obama took umbrage at Brewer's recent memoir. She minced no words on the cover: "Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America's Border."

And she minced no words describing her impressions of Obama as they sparred over her state's tough immigration enforcement law, which is now the subject of a Justice Department witch-hunt. Brewer called Obama "patronizing" and "condescending." I'd say she was excruciatingly polite.

According to Brewer, "He was a little disturbed about my book. ... I said to him that I have all the respect in the world for the office of the president. The book is what the book is. I asked him if he read the book. He said he read (an) excerpt." In the shadow of Air Force One, Obama complained that Brewer hadn't "treated him cordially" and then stalked off while she was responding mid-sentence.

Photogs captured the fracas on film. The civility police gasped at Brewer's "disrespectful" finger-pointing. On cue, one progressive commentator insinuated the gesture was a "racist" jab tantamount to lynching.

The president was singing a more laid-back tune last summer. As debate on Capitol Hill over the debt ceiling and spending sizzled, Obama bragged to reporters: "I'm not trying to poke at you guys. ... I generally don't watch what is said about me on cable. I generally don't read what's said about me even in The Hill (newspaper), so part of this job is having a thick skin and understanding that a lot of this stuff is not personal."

Uh-huh. At least two other Republican governors -- Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana -- have recounted similar presidential snit fits on the tarmac. He sulked over a letter Jindal wrote to the administration about food stamps for Gulf oil spill victims; he bolted after a half-minute meeting with Perry at an Austin airport over border security issues.

You know those "petty grievances" of "Washington politics" that Obama has long condemned? Now it can be told: He knows whereof he squawks.

As New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor's new book, "The Obamas," reveals, the president and his inner circle spent even more time carping about conservative influence on public opinion. "He wanted the media to be more of a referee; to put unfair Republican charges to rest," Kantor discovered. "He could brush off the wildest, most baseless attacks themselves, he told (senior adviser and Chicago pal) Valerie Jarrett, along with (campaign finance bundler and treasurer) Marty Nesbitt and (bundler and finance mogul) John Rogers, at lunch in the little dining room next to the Oval Office."

But what "galled him," the book observed, "was when they gained mainstream credibility despite distortions of truth."

Kantor then dutifully served as a pro-Obama referee:

"Rogers had just noticed a new book by the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin called 'Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies.' Among many other allegations, Malkin wrote that Michelle Obama -- the president's 'bitter half' -- was secretly running the country in Lady Macbeth-like fashion. Malkin even took a hatchet to long-dead Fraser Robinson (Mrs. Obama's father), arguing with no evidence that his job at a water plant made him part of the 'Chicago political corruptocracy.' The book debuted at number one on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list and stayed there for weeks."

The facts? It was a former alderman in Chicago, Leon Depres, who provided evidence that Robinson's job in the city water department was a reward for loyalty to the Daley political faction.

It was Washington Post writer Liza Mundy who reported that the department was "a renowned repository of patronage jobs."

It's the Illinois press that has long documented Mrs. Obama's ties to the Chicago machine. It's Kantor herself who spotlighted the first lady's internecine warfare with her husband's Cabinet. And from her meddling in everything from the AmeriCorps inspector general firing case to her aggressive, Big Labor-backed push for a publicly subsidized food police corps, Michelle Obama has been openly expanding her East Wing fiefdom in Marie Antoinette-like fashion.

How long before we see a FLOTUS tarmac tantrum? We did get two divas for the price of one. As longtime observers of the royal Obamas have long observed: Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants' problem has never been the color of their skin. It's the thinness.
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To read another article by Michelle Malkin, click here.

The State of the Union flop

2012-01-27T10:54:00.000-08:00

The State of the Union flop
by Charles Krauthammer
01/26/2012

WASHINGTON -- Once upon a time, small ball was not Barack Obama's game. Tuesday, it was the essence of his State of the Union address. The visionary of 2008 -- purveyor of hope and change, healer of the earth, tamer of the rising seas -- offered an hour of little things: tax-code tweaks to encourage this or that kind of behavior (manufacturing being the flavor of the day), little watchdog agencies to round up Wall Street miscreants and Chinese DVD pirates, even a presidential demand "that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18." Under penalty of what? Jail? The self-proclaimed transformer of America is now playing truant officer?

It sounded like the Clinton years with their presidentially proclaimed initiatives on midnight basketball and school uniforms. These are the marks of a shrunken presidency, thoroughly flummoxed by high unemployment, economic stagnation, crushing debt -- and a glaring absence of ideas.

Of course, this being Obama, there was a reach for grandeur. Hope and change are long gone. It's now equality and fairness.

That certainly is a large idea. Lenin and Mao went pretty far with it. As did Clement Attlee and his social-democratic counterparts in postwar Europe. Where does Obama take it? Back to the decade-old Democratic obsession with the Bush tax cuts, the crusade for a tax hike of all of 4.6 points for 2 percent of households -- 10 years of which wouldn’t cover the cost of Obama's 2009 stimulus alone.

Which is why Obama introduced a shiny new twist -- the Buffett Rule, a minimum 30 percent rate for millionaires. Sounds novel. But it's a tired replay of the alternative minimum tax, originally created in 1969 to bring to heel all of 155 underpaying fat cats. Following the fate of other such do-goodism, the AMT then metastasized into a $40 billion monster that today entraps millions of middle-class taxpayers.

There isn't even a pretense that the Buffett Rule will do anything for economic growth or job creation (other than provide lucrative work for the sharp tax lawyers who will be gaming the new system for the very same rich). Which should not surprise. Back in 2008, Obama was asked if he would still support raising the capital-gains tax rate (the intended effect of the Buffett Rule) if this would decrease government revenues.

Obama said yes. In the name of fairness.

This is redistribution for its own sake -- the cost be damned. It took Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels about 30 seconds of his State of the Union rebuttal to demolish that idea. To get the rich to contribute more, explained Daniels, you don't raise tax rates. This ultimately retards economic growth for all. You (a) eliminate loopholes from which the rich benefit disproportionately (tax reform) and (b) means-test entitlements so that the benefits go to those most in need.

Tax reform and entitlement reform are the really big ideas. The first produces social equity plus economic efficiency; the second produces social equity plus debt reduction. And yet these are precisely what Obama has for three years steadfastly refused to address. He prefers the easy demagoguery of "tax the rich."

After all, what's he got? Can't run on his record. Barely even mentioned Obamacare or the stimulus, his major legislative achievements, on Tuesday night. Too unpopular. His platform is fairness, wrapped around a plethora of little things, one mini-industrial policy after another -- the conceit nicely encapsulated by his proclamation that "I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or to Germany." As if he can command these industries into existence. As if Washington funding a thousand Solyndras will make solar economically viable.

Soviet central planners mandated quotas for steel production, regardless of demand. Obama's industrial policy is a bit more subtle. Tax breaks for manufacturing -- but double tax breaks for high-tech manufacturing, which for some reason is considered more virtuous, despite the fact that high tech is less likely to create blue-collar jobs. Its main job creation will be for legions of lawyers and linguists testifying before some new adjudicating bureaucracy that the Acme Umbrella Factory meets their exquisitely drawn criteria for "high tech."

What Obama offered the nation Tuesday night was a pudding without a theme: a jumble of disconnected initiatives, a gaggle of intrusive new agencies and a whole new generation of loopholes to further corrupt a tax code that screams out for reform.

If the Republicans can't beat that in November, they should try another line of work.
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To read another article by Charles Krauthammer, click here.
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To read a related article, click here.

A Little Bit Ghetto

2012-01-27T10:47:00.000-08:00

A Little Bit Ghetto
By George Neumayr on 1.27.12 @ 6:09AM

CNN's GOP presidential debate in Florida revolves around trash talk and tacky questions from Wolf Blitzer.

Early in Thursday's Republican presidential debate, CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer caught Mitt Romney flatfooted on one of his anti-Gingrich ads. The ad accuses Newt of calling Spanish a "language of the ghetto." What, Blitzer asked Romney, did you mean by that? "I haven't seen the ad, so I'm sorry, I don't get to see all the TV ads," replied Romney. "I doubt that's my ad."

But it is his ad. "We did double check, just now, Governor, that ad that we talked about," said Blitzer. "We double checked. It was one of your ads. It is running here in Florida on the radio, and at the end you say 'I'm Mitt Romney and I approved this ad.'"

The exchange captured what Romney has tried to avoid -- the image of a remote plutocrat working so hard to buy an election he isn't even aware of his own ads.

Establishment pundits will no doubt ooh and ah over Romney's generally confident performance -- CNN informed viewers that he now enjoys the services of a new "debate coach" -- but rank-and-file conservatives should find the prospect of a rising Romney deeply depressing. How is it possible that two years after the Tea Party propelled the GOP back to congressional power Republicans are contemplating a former Paul Tsongas voter as the head of their party?

Gingrich spent too much of the debate responding to attacks rather than making them. He should have used every question as an occasion to remind voters of Romney's liberalism. The best licks on Romney as a liberal ended up coming from Rick Santorum. Training less fire on Gingrich at this debate than at previous ones, Santorum turned his attention to Romney with a sustained broadside against Romneycare. How, Santorum asked, will the GOP be able to argue against the Obamacare mandate with a nominee who hatched the idea? Romney said in reply: "It is not worth getting angry about." Yes, it is.

Romney's tutelage under a new debate coach admittedly bore some fruit. America's immigration problem isn't "11 million grandmothers," he said concisely after Newt had belabored his point about not deporting elderly illegal immigrants.

Newt had his moments in the debate, but he failed to deliver any knockout punches. His knowledge of policy is far more detailed than Romney's, who usually just sticks to his narrow talking points, and Newt's conservative credentials remain far stronger. Romney continues to appear as a more handsome and taller GOP version of Michael Dukakis -- the bloodless and visionless technocrat who, as Newt suggests, just wants to "manage the decay" in Washington, D.C.

Romney's contribution to the Reagan Revolution was nil, as he admitted in a roundabout way to Blitzer. Newt used the same question to remind the audience that Michael Reagan had just endorsed him. Newt added that Nancy Reagan had also conferred upon him her husband's mantle in a past speech.

The Republican establishment has been working overtime to hoodwink GOP voters into overlooking the ideological differences between Romney and Newt, trotting out Big Tenters with zero expertise on conservatism to claim that Newt is not "conservative." Against an immutable standard of conservatism, he is not, but next to Romney he looks like Edmund Burke.

The establishment never fails to choose the more liberal of two leading candidates. The boys from the yacht club have once again decided to lose with a semi-reformed RINO.

If Romney wins the nomination, he will have won largely on personal attacks and a plastic, big-bucks campaign. Some victory.

Ron Paul had one of the most endearingly direct lines in the debate when he said, after a petty back-and-forth between Newt and Mitt that Wolf Blitzer had encouraged, "That subject doesn't really interest me a whole lot." Blitzer seemed determined to ask "nonsense" questions, as Newt put it, circling back several times to now-exhausted tax return and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac issues. When he wasn't trying to stir up trouble on that front, Blitzer was uncorking cutesy questions about the candidates' wives and an ageist question to Ron Paul about his medical records.

From time to time Blitzer kicked control of the microphone over to "CNN en Español." Modern America doesn't have segregated schools anymore, but it does have segregated channels. Media liberals call this progress.
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To read another article by George Neumayr, click here.
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To read a related article, click here.

Florida Fireworks Finale

2012-01-27T10:36:00.000-08:00

Florida Fireworks Finale
By Robert Stacy McCain on 1.27.12 @ 6:10AM

Romney, Santorum shine in Sunshine State debate.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Newt Gingrich tried to defend his claim that Mitt Romney is "the most anti-immigrant candidate" in last night's Republican presidential debate here, an accusation that Romney called "inexcusable" and "repulsive."

Gingrich did not seem to understand that this accusation, made in a Spanish-language radio ad aimed at South Florida's large Latino population, may actually end up helping Romney win next week's primary. The controversy stirred by the ad, which Gingrich ordered his campaign to pull off the air, highlights differences of policy -- and puts Gingrich clearly to Romney's left, which isn't a good place to be in a Republican primary.

After a long discussion of the issue, CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Gingrich, "I just want to make sure I understand. Is [Romney] still the most anti-immigrant candidate?" The former House Speaker answered: "I think, of the four of us, yes." This provoked a long response from Romney, who said he favors "enforcing the U.S. law to protect our borders," a position that is not "anti-immigrant." Romney accused Gingrich of "the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has characterized American politics too long," and then invoked the most popular Republican in Florida: "I'm glad that Marco Rubio called you out on it. I'm glad you withdrew it. I think you should apologize for it, and I think you should recognize that having differences of opinions on issues does not justify labeling people with highly charged epithets."

Thursday's debate, the 19th televised debate among Republican presidential candidates this year, certainly did not lack fireworks. And while many political junkies have become weary of watching these affairs, the event here on the campus of the University of North Florida may be as decisive as the South Carolina debates that were credited with helping Gingrich score a crucial win there Saturday. Polls this week in Florida show Romney pulling away, and the former Massachusetts governor had one of his best-ever debate performances Thursday, while Gingrich had one of his worst yet.

While arguments between the two Florida frontrunners got the biggest play, however, Thursday was also an impressive performance for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Polls show Santorum running a distant third in the Sunshine State, but he slammed both Gingrich and Romney for their previous stances on health care. "This is the top-down model that both of these gentlemen say they're now against, but they've been for, and it does not provide the contrast we need with Barack Obama if we're going to take on that most important issue," Santorum said. "We cannot give the issue of health care away in this election. It is too foundational for us to win this election."

This provoked an extended argument between Santorum and Romney over the so-called "individual mandate" in the health legislation Romney supported in Massachusetts. When Santorum's criticism of the Massachusetts plan grew heated, Romney replied by saying "it's not worth getting angry about." Asked after the debate about that flare-up, Santorum described himself as "passionate," and his passionate performance won praise from many conservatives, including Guy Benson of Townhall.com: "What a night for the former Pennsylvania Senator … he definitely made a very serious case that he might be the best Not Romney in the race." Santorum seems unlikely to score the kind of miraculous last-minute surge in the Sunshine State that carried him to victory in the Iowa caucuses three weeks ago, but Thursday's debate could help him gain support as he seeks to rekindle his campaign's sense of momentum.

At this point, no candidate in the race has been able to win two consecutive contests. After Santorum edged Romney in Iowa, Romney came back to win convincingly in New Hampshire. But Gingrich won solidly in South Carolina, halting Romney's momentum. If current Florida polls are accurate and Romney wins here Tuesday, the biggest challenge for Romney's opponents will be to raise enough money to continue the fight through a long campaign.
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To read another article by Robert Stacy McCain, click here.

Obamination

2012-01-27T10:24:00.000-08:00

Obamination
By Lisa Fabrizio on 1.26.12 @ 6:07AM

How this president "marked" the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

So let me see if I've got this straight; because being a brainwashed, knuckle-dragging, bitter clinger sometimes makes it hard for me to absorb all of the nuanced penumbrae emanating from the declarations of men like Barack Obama. A man who goes out of his way to encourage Americans to make sure that they never offend the followers of certain faiths, yet chooses January 23 -- a day of mourning for all who cherish life -- to offend the largest segment of them; pro-life Christians. A man who is the first U.S. president in my memory to issue a statement in favor of abortion on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Of all the cherished utterances of our beloved leader the last three years, perhaps none is so divisive and offensive as this, his tribute to the judicial fiat that has resulted in the deaths of more than 40 million Americans, and a testament to his twisted views:

As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman's health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman's right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right.

While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue -- no matter what our views, we must stay united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant woman and mothers, reduce the need for abortion, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption. And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.

Yes, this sorry statement is not only insulting but also instructive, as it displays the same perverted outlook on the subjects of life and love he evinced when he opined that, should his daughters make a "mistake," he didn't want them "punished with a baby." What exactly can he mean by suggesting that our sons and daughters -- chilling words from the mouth of an abortion advocate -- should have the same rights and freedoms? Do they not have them now? Might he be suggesting further gender-bending fiats along the lines of gays in the military, same-sex marriage, and his elevation of gay rights as a foreign policy priority?

Yes, that's right; he has singled out discrimination against homosexuals abroad as a "deep concern" for his administration: not slavery, honor-killing, forced abortion or religious persecution. This sordid episode gives new meaning to George Washington's warning about avoiding "foreign entanglements." But what else can we expect from a man who for years sat at the feet of Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright?

A man who has the nerve to assert that "government should not intrude on private family matters," by inserting itself into America's sacred bedrooms, is the same man who, through his myrmidons in the Congress, used every unethical and thuggish subterfuge at his command to intrude that same government into every doctor's office, nursing home, and operating room in the land via Obamacare.

That this man, who uses every occasion to spurn the Constitution -- from czars, to executive orders to illegal recess appointments -- has the nerve to lecture those who actually understand and revere that august document on the definition of the First Amendment is particularly appalling. Speaking of which, this is the same purported professor of constitutional law who just released an edict, aimed primarily at the Catholic Church, stating that she must comply with healthcare dictates that directly violate her sacred teaching.

Fortunately for us, the Constitution provides for a firewall against the foreseen ravaging of a free people by a tyrant like our current commander-in-chief and his accomplices in Congress. It is indeed ironic that the U.S. Supreme Court -- the same body that found a right to abortion amid the smoking ruins of the 14th Amendment -- recently issued a slap-down to Barack Obama and all who would seek to use the arm of government to control religious entities, in the form of a shocking unanimous decision in defense of religious liberty.

Such judicial victories may pave the way for more success against the incursions of men like Barack Obama, who have little understanding of our Constitution and even less about what passes for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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To read another article by Lisa Fabrizio, click here.

Harry Reid's Parallel Universe

2012-01-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

Harry Reid's Parallel Universe
By Peter Hannaford on 1.26.12 @ 6:07AM

Even more amazing, he's hardly the only Dingy Democrat in Washington.

One year when George W. Bush was president, there was talk of his making recess appointments when Congress would be on holiday. Senate Leader Harry Reid countered by keeping the Senate technically in session by having one or two members show up each day. Bush, with the Constitution in mind, dropped the recess appointment idea.

Barack Obama, by contrast, went right ahead with a recess appointment last month, despite the fact the House Republicans stayed in session for the same reason -- to prevent such a move.

This time, Harry Reid said it was right and proper for Obama to do what he did. Reid saw neither the irony nor he inconsistency in this, for he lives in a parallel universe.

The other day he returned to Washington with a warning to House Republicans to eschew Tea Party "extremism." The Tea Party movement was driven by a desire to stop the government's profligate spending and the rapidly growing national debt. In Harry's universe, this is "extremism."

In December, the Senate Democrats and Obama wanted a two-month extension of the payroll tax rate holiday and unemployment benefits. The House Republicans said it didn't make sense to come back after two months and re-argue the issue, so they proposed a 12-month extension. Reid wouldn't budge and ultimately the House blinked before the two items ran out on December 31.

About this Reid said, "I hope that the Republicans will understand, as they learned in the last week of last year, they can't be led over the cliff by this extremism."

Saying that Senate Democrats had "bent over backwards" to work with House Republicans, Reid declared that all he was asking for was a spirit of compromise. His version of compromise is, you give, I take.

Since January 2007, Harry Reid has been Senate Majority Leader. Speaking of bending over backwards, one thousand days have now passed since the Senate last passed a federal budget -- an all-time record, thanks to Harry Reid. By stalling over and over again, he and his Democrat colleagues have not had to make tough choices about cutting the government's bloated spending. Instead, the government operates on "continuing resolutions" that have kept existing spending in place, plus automatic annual increases. The result? Spending grows apace and the national debt is now over $16 trillion.

No wonder House members supported by Tea Party groups are upset. Harry Reid -- living off in space -- thinks uncontrolled spending is normal and fiscal responsibility amounts to "extremism."

Harry has brought some of his colleagues along into his parallel universe. Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, for example, recently said, "I have noticed the tone take a very precipitous turn toward edginess and a lack of civility with the growth of the Tea Party movement." (Translation: Anyone who disagrees with the Democrat playbook is uncivil.) Vice President Joe Biden, who takes frequent trips to the parallel universe, has likened Tea Party members to terrorists.

These are the same folks who have extolled the "Occupy" people as earnest exercisers of First Amendment rights. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was one who cooed over the Occupy movement. It is useful to compare its record in recent months to that of the Tea Party groups. For example, arrests: Occupy 4,149, Tea Party 0; rapes Occupy 12, Tea Party 0; anti-Semitic diatribes: Occupy 12, Tea Party 0; murder: Occupy 1, Tea Party 0; head and body lice infestations: Occupy 1, Tea Party 0; scabies outbreaks: Occupy 1, Tea Party 0; suicide: Occupy 1, Tea Party 0. Now if you live in the Harry Reid parallel universe, as so many Democrat office holders and operatives do, that is clear evidence that the Tea Party members are extremists.

Most people would say they are extremely well behaved, but the parallel universe people would like you to think they are a danger to the nation.
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To read another article by Peter Hannaford, click here.

Birther Alert - The Plot Thickens on Obama Fraud

2012-01-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

Birther Alert - The Plot Thickens on Obama Fraud

The Plot Thickens...

An intensive investigation has revealed the identity of the man whose Social Security number (SSN) is being used by President Obama: Jean Paul Ludwig, who was born in France in 1890, immigrated to the United States in 1924, and was assigned SSN 042-68-4425 (Obama's current SSN) on or about March 1977.

Ludwig lived most of his adult life in Connecticut. Because of that, his SSN begins with the digits 042, which are among only a select few reserved for Connecticut residents.

Obama never lived or worked in that state! Therefore, there is no reason on earth for his SSN to start with the digits 042. None whatsoever!

Now comes the best part! Ludwig spent the final months of his life in Hawaii, where he died.

Conveniently, Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, worked part-time in the Probate Office in the Honolulu Hawaii Courthouse, and therefore had access to the SSNs of deceased individuals.

The Social Security Administration was never informed of Ludwig's death, and because he never received Social Security benefits there were no benefits to stop and therefore, no questions were ever raised.

The suspicion, of course, is that Dunham, knowing her grandson was not a U.S. Citizen, either because he was born in Kenya or became a citizen of Indonesia upon his adoption by Lolo Soetoro simply scoured the probate records until she found someone who died who was not receiving Social Security benefits, and selected Mr. Ludwigs Connecticut SSN for Obama.

Just wait until Trump gets past the birth certificate and onto the issue of Barry O's use of a stolen SSN. You will see leftist heads exploding, because they will have no way of defending Obama. Although many Americans do not understand the meaning of the term "natural born" there are few who do not understand that if you are using someone else's SSN it is a clear indication of fraud.

When will we wake UP? Where there is smoke, there is FIRE.

So is our president really an American, or a fraud? Click here and follow the links to learn a lot more about some very reasonable doubts. All of you people who have doubted and ridiculed the Birthers - get ready to eat a shit sandwich, assholes!

America and the Arab Spring

2012-01-25T15:48:00.000-08:00

America and the Arab Spring
By Caroline Glick
1/25/2012

A year ago this week, on January 25, 2011, the ground began to crumble under then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's feet. One year later, Mubarak and his sons are in prison, and standing trial.

This week, the final vote tally from Egypt's parliamentary elections was published. The Islamist parties have won 72 percent of the seats in the lower house.

The photogenic, Western-looking youth from Tahrir Square the Western media were thrilled to dub the Facebook revolutionaries were disgraced at the polls and exposed as an insignificant social and political force.

As for the military junta, it has made its peace with the Muslim Brotherhood. The generals and the jihadists are negotiating a power-sharing agreement. According to details of the agreement that have made their way to the media, the generals will remain the West's go-to guys for foreign affairs. The Muslim Brotherhood (and its fellow jihadists in the Salafist al-Nour party) will control Egypt's internal affairs.

This is bad news for women and for non-Muslims. Egypt's Coptic Christians have been under continuous attack by Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist supporters since Mubarak was deposed. Their churches, homes and businesses have been burned, looted and destroyed. Their wives and daughters have been raped. The military massacred them when they dared to protest their persecution.

As for women, their main claim to fame since Mubarak's overthrow has been their sexual victimization at the hands of soldiers who stripped female protesters and performed "virginity tests" on them. Out of nearly five hundred seats in parliament, only 10 will be filled by women.

The Western media are centering their attention on what the next Egyptian constitution will look like and whether it will guarantee rights for women and minorities. What they fail to recognize is that the Islamic fundamentalists now in charge of Egypt don't need a constitution to implement their tyranny. All they require is what they already have - a public awareness of their political power and their partnership with the military.

The same literalist approach that has prevented Western observers from reading the writing on the walls in terms of the Islamists' domestic empowerment has blinded them to the impact of Egypt's political transformation on the country's foreign policy posture. US officials forcefully proclaim that they will not abide by an Egyptian move to formally abrogate its peace treaty with Israel. What they fail to recognize is that whether or not the treaty is formally abrogated is irrelevant. The situation on the ground in which the new regime allows Sinai to be used as a launching ground for attacks against Israel, and as a highway for weapons and terror personnel to flow freely into Gaza, are clear signs that the peace with Israel is already dead - treaty or no treaty.

EGYPT'S TRANSFORMATION is not an isolated event. The disgraced former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in the US this week. Yemen is supposed to elect his successor next month. The deteriorating security situation in that strategically vital land which borders the Arabian and Red Seas has decreased the likelihood that the election will take place as planned.

Yemen is falling apart at the seams. Al-Qaida forces have been advancing in the south. Last spring they took over Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province. In recent weeks they captured Radda, a city 160 km. south of the capital of Sana.

Radda's capture underscored American fears that the political upheaval in Yemen will provide al- Qaida with a foothold near shipping routes through the Red Sea and so enable the group to spread its influence to neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qaida forces were also prominent in the NATO-backed Libyan opposition forces that with NATO's help overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in October. Although the situation on the ground is far from clear, it appears that radical Islamic political forces are intimidating their way into power in post-Gaddafi Libya.

Take for instance last weekend's riots in Benghazi. On Saturday protesters laid siege to the National Transitional Council offices in the city while Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of the NTC, hid inside. In an attempt to quell the protesters' anger, Jalil fired six secular members of the NTC. He then appointed a council of religious leaders to investigate corruption charges and identify people with links to the Gaddafi regime.

In Bahrain, the Iranian-supported Shi'ite majority continues to mount political protests against the Sunni monarchy. Security forces killed two young Shi'ite protesters over the past week and a half, and opened fired at Shi'ites who sought to hold a protest march after attending the funeral of one of them.

As supporters of Bahrain's Shi'ites have maintained since the unrest spread to the kingdom last year, Bahrain's Shi'ites are not Iranian proxies. But then, until the US pulled its troops out of Iraq last month, neither were Iraq's Shi'ites. What happened immediately after the US pullout is another story completely.

Extolling Iraq's swift deterioration into an Iranian satrapy, last Wednesday, Brig.-Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps Jerusalem Brigade, bragged, "In reality, in south Lebanon and Iraq, the people are under the effect of the Islamic Republic's way of practice and thinking."

While Suleimani probably exaggerated the situation, there is no doubt that Iran's increased influence in Iraq is being felt around the region. Iraq has come to the aid of Iran's Syrian client Bashar Assad who is now embroiled in a civil war. The rise of Iran in Iraq holds dire implications for the Hashemite regime in Jordan which is currently hanging on by a thread, challenged from within and without by the rising force of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Much has been written since the fall of Mubarak about the impact on Israel of the misnamed Arab Spring. Events like September's mob assault on Israel's embassy in Cairo and the murderous cross-border attack on motorists traveling on the road to Eilat by terrorists operating out of Sinai give force to the assessment that Israel is more imperiled than ever by the revolutionary events engulfing the region.

But the truth is that while on balance Israel's regional posture has taken a hit, particularly from the overthrow of Mubarak and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in Egypt, Israel is not the primary loser in the so-called Arab Spring.

Israel never had many assets in the Arab world to begin with. The Western-aligned autocracies were not Israel's allies. To the extent the likes of Mubarak and others have cooperated with Israel on various issues over the years, their cooperation was due not to any sense of comity with Jewish state. They worked with Israel because they believed it served their interests to do so. And at the same time Mubarak reined in the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas because they threatened him, he waged political war against Israel on every international stage and allowed anti-Semitic poison to be broadcast daily on his regime-controlled television stations.

Since Israel's stake in the Arab power game has always been limited, its losses as a consequence of the fall of anti-Israel secular dictatorships and their replacement by anti-Israel Islamist regimes have been marginal. The US, on the other hand, has seen its interests massively harmed. Indeed, the US is the greatest loser of the pan-Arab revolutions.

TO UNDERSTAND the depth and breadth of America's losses, consider that on January 25, 2011, most Arab states were US allies to a greater or lesser degree. Mubarak was a strategic ally. Saleh was willing to collaborate with the US in combating al- Qaida and other jihadist forces in his country.

Gaddafi was a neutered former enemy who had posed no threat to the US since 2004. Iraq was a protectorate. Jordan and Morocco were stable US clients.

One year later, the elements of the US's alliance structure have either been destroyed or seriously weakened. US allies like Saudi Arabia, which have yet to be seriously threatened by the revolutionary violence, no longer trust the US. As the recently revealed nuclear cooperation between the Saudis and the Chinese makes clear, the Saudis are looking to other global powers to replace the US as their superpower protector.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect to the US's spectacular loss of influence and power in the Arab world is that most of its strategic collapse has been due to its own actions. In Egypt and Libya the US intervened prominently to bring down a US ally and a dictator who constituted no threat to its interests. Indeed, it went to war to bring Gaddafi down.

Moreover, the US acted to bring about their fall at the same time it knew that they would be replaced by forces inimical to American national security interests. In Egypt, it was clear that the Muslim Brotherhood would emerge as the strongest political force in the country. In Libya, it was clear at the outset of the NATO campaign against Gaddafi that al-Qaida was prominently represented in the anti-regime coalition. And just as the Islamists won the Egyptian election, shortly after Gaddafi was overthrown, al-Qaida forces raised their flag over Benghazi's courthouse.

US actions from Yemen to Bahrain and beyond have followed a similar pattern.

In sharp contrast to his active interventionism against US-allied regimes, President Barack Obama has prominently refused to intervene in Syria, where the fate of a US foe hangs in the balance.

Obama has sat back as Turkey has fashioned a Syrian opposition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab League has intervened in a manner that increases the prospect that Syria will descend into chaos in the event that the Assad regime is overthrown.

Obama continues to speak grandly about his vision for the Middle East and his dedication to America's regional allies. And his supporters in the media continue to applaud his great success in foreign policy. But outside of their echo chamber, he and the country he leads are looked upon with increasing contempt and disgust throughout the Arab world.

Obama's behavior since last January 25 has made clear to US friend and foe alike that under Obama, the US is more likely to attack you if you display weakness towards it than if you adopt a confrontational posture against it. As Assad survives to kill another day; as Iran expands its spheres of influence and gallops towards the nuclear bomb; as al- Qaida and its allies rise from the Gulf of Aden to the Suez Canal; and as Mubarak continues to be wheeled into the courtroom on a stretcher, the US's rapid fall from regional power is everywhere in evidence.
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To read another article by Caroline Glick, click here.

Schools of Education

2012-01-25T15:38:00.000-08:00

Schools of Education
By Walter E. Williams
1/25/2012

Larry Sand's article "No Wonder Johnny (Still) Can't Read" -- written for The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, based in Raleigh, N.C. -- blames schools of education for the decline in America's education. Education professors drum into students that they should not "drill and kill" or be the "sage on the stage" but instead be the "guide on the side" who "facilitates student discovery." This kind of harebrained thinking, coupled with multicultural nonsense, explains today's education. During his teacher education, Sand says, "teachers-to-be were forced to learn about this ethnic group, that impoverished group, this sexually anomalous group, that under-represented group, etc. -- all under the rubric of 'Culturally Responsive Education.'"

Education majors are woefully lacking in academic skills. Here are some sample test questions for you to answer. Question 1: Which of the following is equal to a quarter-million? a) 40,000, b) 250,000, c) 2,500,000, d) 1/4,000,000 or e) 4/1,000,000. Question 2: Martin Luther King Jr. (insert the correct choice) for the poor of all races. a) spoke out passionately, b) spoke out passionate, c) did spoke out passionately, d) has spoke out passionately or e) had spoken out passionate. Question 3: What would you do if your student sprained an ankle? a) Put a Band-Aid on it, b) Ice it or c) Rinse it with water.

Guess whether these questions were on a sixth-grade, ninth-grade or 12th-grade test. I bet the average reader would guess that it's a sixth-grade test. Wrong. How about ninth-grade? Wrong again. You say, "OK, Williams, so they're 12th-grade test questions!" Still wrong. According to a Heartland Institute-published School Reform News (September 2001) article titled "Who Tells Teachers They Can Teach?", those test questions came from prospective teacher tests. The first two questions are samples from the Praxis I test for teachers, and the third is from the 1999 teacher certification test in Illinois. According to the Chicago Sun-Times (9/6/01), 5,243 Illinois teachers failed their teacher certification tests. The Chicago Sun-Times also reported, "One teacher failed 24 of 25 teacher tests -- including 11 of 12 Basic Skills tests and all 12 tests on teaching learning-disabled children." Yet that teacher was assigned to teach learning-disabled children in Chicago. Departments of education have solved the problem of teacher test failure. According to a New York Post story (11/14/11) titled "City teacher tests turn into E-ZPass," more than 99 percent of teachers pass.

Textbooks used in schools of education advocate sheer nonsense. A passage in Enid Lee et al.'s "Beyond Heroes and Holidays" reads: "We cannot afford to become so bogged down in grammar and spelling that we forget the whole story. ... The onslaught of antihuman practices that this nation and other nations are facing today: racism, and sexism, and the greed for money and human labor that disguises itself as 'globalization.'" Marilyn Burns' text "About Teaching Mathematics" reads, "There is no place for requiring students to practice tedious calculations that are more efficiently and accurately done by using calculators." "New Designs for Teaching and Learning," by Dennis Adams and Mary Hamm, says: "Content knowledge is not seen to be as important as possessing teaching skills and knowledge about the students being taught. ... Successful teachers understand the outside context of community, personal abilities, and feelings, while they establish an inside context or environment conducive to learning." That means it's no problem if a teacher can't figure out that a quarter-million is the same as 250,000. Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar's text "Methods that Matter" reads, "Students can no longer be viewed as cognitive living rooms into which the furniture of knowledge is moved in and arranged by teachers, and teachers cannot invariably act as subject-matter experts." The authors add, "The main use of standardized tests in America is to justify the distribution of certain goodies to certain people."

Schools of education represent the academic slums of most any college. American education can benefit from slum removal.
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Top read another article by Walter Williams, click here.

A Brass Age?

2012-01-25T15:29:00.001-08:00

A Brass Age?
By Thomas Sowell
1/25/2012

This may be the golden age of presumptuous ignorance. The most recent demonstrations of that are the Occupy Wall Street mobs. It is doubtful how many of these semi-literate sloganizers could tell the difference between a stock and a bond.

Yet there they are, mouthing off about Wall Street on television, cheered on by politicians and the media. If this is not a golden age of presumptuous ignorance, perhaps it should be called a brass age.

No one has more brass than the President of the United States, though his brass may be more polished than that of the Occupy Wall Street mobs. When Barack Obama speaks loftily about "investing in the industries of the future," does anyone ask: What in the world would qualify him to know what are the industries of the future?

Why would people who have spent their careers in politics know more about investing than people who have spent their careers as investors?

Presumptuous ignorance is not confined to politicians or rowdy political activists, by any means. From time to time, I get a huffy letter or e-mail from a reader who begins, "You obviously don't know what you are talking about..."

The particular subject may be one on which my research assistants and I have amassed piles of research material and official statistics. It may even be a subject on which I have written a few books, but somehow the presumptuously ignorant just know that I didn't really study that issue, because my conclusions don't agree with theirs or with what they have heard.

At one time I was foolish enough to try to reason with such people. But one of the best New Year's resolutions I ever made, some years ago, was to stop trying to reason with unreasonable people. It has been good for my blood pressure and probably for my health in general.

A recent column that mentioned the "indirect subsidies" from the government to the Postal Service brought the presumptuously ignorant out in force, fighting mad.

Because the government does not directly subsidize the current operating expenses of the Postal Service, that is supposed to show that the Postal Service pays its own way and costs the taxpayers nothing.

Politicians may be crooks but they are not fools. Easily observed direct subsidies can create a political problem. Far better to set up an arrangement that will allow government-sponsored enterprises -- whether the Postal Service, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Tennessee Valley Authority -- to operate in such a way that they can claim to be self-supporting and not costing the taxpayers anything, no matter how much indirect subsidy they get.

As just one example, the Postal Service has a multi-billion dollar line of credit at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Hey, we could all use a few billions, every now and then, to get us over the rough spots. But we are not the Postal Service.

Theoretically, the Postal Service is going to pay it all back some day, and that theoretical possibility keeps it from being called a direct subsidy. The Postal Service is also exempt from paying taxes, among other exemptions it has from costs that other businesses have to pay.

Exemption from taxes, and from other requirements that apply to other businesses, are also not called subsidies. For people who mistake words for realities, that is enough for them to buy the political line -- and to get huffy with those who don't.

Loan guarantees are a favorite form of hidden subsidies for all sorts of special interests. At a given point in time, it can be said that these guarantees cost the taxpayers nothing. But when they suddenly do cost something -- as with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- they can cost billions.

One of the reasons for so much presumptuous ignorance flourishing in our time may be the emphasis on "self-esteem" in our schools and colleges. Children not yet a decade old have been encouraged, or even required, to write letters to public figures, sounding off on issues ranging from taxes to nuclear missiles.

Our schools begin promoting presumptuous ignorance early on. It is apparently one of the few things they teach well. The end result is people without much knowledge, but with a lot of brass.
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To read another article by Thomas Sowell, click here.

Obama Misquotes Lincoln

2012-01-25T12:30:00.000-08:00

Obama Misquotes Lincoln
The past is what our betters decide to make of it.
by John Hayward
01/25/2012

During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, President Obama quoted Abraham Lincoln as follows:

I'm a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more. That's why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and States. That's why we're getting rid of regulations that don't work. That's why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program.

Leaving aside the tortured logic of describing a government takeover of health insurance, with the practical effect (and secret ultimate goal) of driving private companies out of the industry altogether, as “a reformed private market,” or a top-down federally controlled public education system as containing any meaningful amount of “competition,” Obama is deliberately misquoting Lincoln, in a way that completely changes the meaning of what the Great Emancipator said.

Charles C. Johnson at Big Government got the actual Lincoln quote from distinguished professor Harry Jaffa of Claremont McKenna College, who was able to recite it from memory. The full quote is easily found on the Web, and presumably could have been located by President Obama’s immense royal retinue, if they had been interested in anything other than propaganda.

Here is what Lincoln actually said:

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.

Obama didn’t merely paraphrase Lincoln’s words. He completely inverted their meaning. The government isn’t supposed to usurp the freedom of citizens when it thinks it can handle elements of their lives better than they can. That’s a recipe for “soft tyranny,” since the ruling class gets to decide whether it can handle any given endeavor better than the people. As Obama has demonstrated, the ruling class will make, and cling to, these judgments in defiance of all evidence to the contrary. He did just promise to double down on his solar-energy boondoggles, didn’t he?

Lincoln said the government is supposed to act in the case of serious needs the people cannot adequately meet on their own, in most cases because they involve the use of compulsive force to correct injustice: “all crimes, misdemeanors, and non-performance of contracts,” as he put it. He did list a few specific items that “exist independently of the injustice in the world,” some of which could have proved useful to President Obama, if he had been interested in quoting Lincoln accurately: “Making and maintaining roads, bridges, and the like; providing for the helpless young and afflicted; common schools; and disposing of deceased men's property, are instances.”

Honest Abe was comfortable with the government spending money on “infrastructure,” but that’s entirely separate from questioning how much of our money the government should be spending. Granting the duty of federal or state agencies to maintain roads and bridges does not mean granting limitless discretion for them to exercise as much power as they please in the endeavor. Obama tried to advance a false dichotomy during the State of the Union by suggesting that anyone who supports the government building roads is some kind of hypocrite for demanding reduced government spending, right after his butchered Lincoln quote:

On the other hand, even my Republican friends who complain the most about Government spending have supported federally-financed roads, and clean energy projects, and federal offices for the folks back home.

Lincoln was very clear about the limits of legitimate government, in the same speech that our supposedly super-intelligent President is either lying about, or did not bother to read. “In all that the people individually do as well for themselves,” Lincoln asserted, “government ought not to interfere.” He didn’t say “interfere a little” or “interfere when the government thinks it has detected some unfairness.”

The government Obama presides over has gone far beyond “providing for the helpless young and afflicted.” If vital welfare services for the truly destitute were the sum total of government spending, it would be a miniscule fraction of its current size. That’s why assaults on limited-government conservatives as heartless misers who don’t care about the poor are so deeply disingenuous. We have sailed very far beyond a “welfare state” for the needy. The Obama “transformation” is all about promoting middle-class dependency.

The title of Lincoln’s speech, by the way, is “The Nature and Object of Government, with Special Reference to Slavery.” Just try to imagine Barack Hussein Obama reading this passage out loud, without choking on the words:

Equality in society alike beats inequality, whether the latter be of the British aristocratic sort or of the domestic slavery sort. We know Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers among us. How little they know whereof they speak!

There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday labors on his own account to-day, and will hire others to labor for him to-morrow. Advancement—improvement in condition—is the order of things in a society of equals. As labor is the common burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of the race.

Lincoln was talking about slavery, but there are many other forms of indenture.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.
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Mitt Romney's taxes

2012-01-25T12:03:00.000-08:00

Mitt Romney's taxes
The defenders of an ineffective state whine about effective tax rates.
by John Hayward
01/25/2012

Mitt Romney’s long-awaited tax returns for 2010, and his estimated taxes for 2011, are finally in the hands of the media. The New York Times combed through hundreds of pages of documents…

… whoa, wait a second. Romney’s taxes are hundreds of pages long? I guess that might seem par for the course, as he’s pulling in $20 million per year. But when did we become comfortable with American citizens, even the rich ones, shuffling stacks of paperwork thicker than a Stephen King novel while Uncle Sam shakes the loose change out of their pockets? Americans are said to spend over 6 billion hours per year filling out tax forms. We have, sadly, come to accept that as reasonable.

At any rate, here’s the big picture, according to the Times:

Mr. Romney and his wife, Ann, had an effective federal income tax rate in 2010 of 13.9 percent, paying about $3 million in taxes on an adjusted gross income of $21.6 million, the vast majority of it flowing from a myriad of stock holdings, mutual funds and other investments, including profits and investment income from Bain Capital, the private equity firm Mr. Romney retired from in 1999.

That rate will rise to 15.4 percent for 2011, when the couple expects to report an adjusted gross income of about $20.9 million.

There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth about that 13.9 percent tax rate. As it happens, the lowest effective tax rate paid by a recent presidential contender was 13.1 percent. That fat-cat tax-evading money-grubbing greedy snob was none other than John Kerry, the Democrat candidate for President in 2004. As Romney pointed out in the Monday night GOP debate, he inherited nothing and earned his wealth. Kerry inherited everything, by marrying a rich man’s widow. Do you remember a lot of Democrats howling with rage over Kerry’s amazingly low effective tax rate? Was it ever mentioned at all?

Even at an effective rate of 13.9 percent, Romney forked over $3 million dollars, which is more than the combined payment of several hundred middle-class taxpayers. Barack Obama’s $3.6 trillion government spent Romney’s three million bucks in precisely 27 seconds. If every penny of Romney's annual tax was used to pay down the national debt, Obama's government would borrow it all back in 73 seconds. If the government had confiscated Romney’s full 2011 earnings of $20.9 million, it would have enough money to run for just over three minutes.

Since the average cost of Obama's "green jobs" works out to about $4.8 million apiece, Mitt Romney's annual taxes are not quite enough to fund one green job.

Romney's income puts him squarely in the special "super rich" category, the top one-tenth of one percent of all Americans. The Weekly Standard recently noted that this tiny group - there are less than 150,000 of them - pays 16.4 percent of the total federal tax burden. They pay more taxes than the lower 80 percent of income earners combined... but they're still not paying their "fair share." Confiscate 100 percent of their income, and you could fund the federal government for about two months.

The Times complains that “thanks to rules that tax income from investments at rates far lower than income earned in wages, Mr. Romney has a lower effective tax rate than many affluent Americans. Indeed, Mr. Romney will have given more to charity in 2010 and 2011 than to the federal treasury: more than $7 million in charitable donations, or about 16.5 percent of the family’s income, both directly and through the couple’s family foundation.”

And that’s supposed to be bad? Society would be better off if Romney gave all that money to Obama’s government, where it would be devoured by bureaucrats, doled out to politically connected supporters, and eventually burped out as a handful of coins for the needy? Romney said in the last debate that he was proud to pay a huge sum in taxes, but he should be much prouder of those charitable donations. At least they didn’t vanish into an insatiable black hole of waste and graft.

In a similar vein, the corners have already been chewed off those capital gains dollars, through some of the highest corporate taxes in the world, before they get taxed again as personal income. But we’re not supposed to think about the double taxation at all. Instead, the Left wants us to view capital gains as another rich potential source of government revenue. Never mind that we also want to encourage private investment… but we’ll see less of it when taxes rise, and then liberals will scratch their heads about the mysteriously stagnant economy, and start looking for someone else to blame. They'll crank up the tax rates, introduce a new round of brilliantly crafted deductions to control how money is spent, and then start complaining about the greedy sons-of-guns who actually take all those deductions.

The whole point of the encyclopedia-sized maze of paperwork someone like Mitt Romney files with the IRS is to protect income by taking lawful deductions, which the government offers to encourage certain forms of behavior. The immense power conveyed by using the tax code to fine-tune our populace is not something politicians would surrender without the fight of their lives, which is why they’ll battle Fair Tax and Flat Tax reform plans to the death. And yet, someone who dutifully obeys the State and spends his money in the desired manner becomes a target of hatred and envy. Instead of just asking how much money Mitt Romney paid in taxes, why don’t we total up how much he spent in ways the authors of our tax code directed him to?

Instead of fiddling around with huge volumes of tax law to produce ideologically acceptable outcomes, the government should be taking as little as possible from its citizens, using the most clear and simple methods possible, and spending no more than it collects. That will never happen, but the acolytes of leftist Big Government also don’t have the guts to do what they really want, and call for the seizure of all income above a politically determined limit. “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” as lifelong politician Barack Obama once observed.

Instead, we get the Times sniffing about how Romney’s tax disclosure is likely to “spur new questions about the structure of his investments, including those in partnerships and funds based overseas.” Big Government will never stop “spurring” itself to ask “new questions” about a vast number of things that should be none of its business. The penumbra of State power extends far beyond merely enforcing clear, duly passed laws. Its acolytes presume to pass judgment on lawful behavior they find unacceptable… and they keep repeating that judgment until it becomes unlawful.

That’s how we’ve reached the point where a law-abiding, successful man can submit a phone book worth of paper to the government every year, and be told he still hasn’t submitted enough.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.

Republican response: Obama's speech didn't ring true

2012-01-25T11:44:00.000-08:00

Republican response: Obama's speech didn't ring true
by Audrey Hudson
01/25/2012

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address was full of promises for reforming the government and boosting the economy but Republican lawmakers say they don’t have much confidence in the president or his policies.

“He talks a good game but the results just aren’t there for the American people,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R. –WY).

“The country is not better off today than it was three years ago,” Barrasso said. “We are living under Obama’s economy and we have the president and his policies to thank for where we are – higher unemployment, higher costs for energy, lower values on our homes, the list goes on an on.”

Rep. Tom McClintock (R. –CA) said the speech was indistinguishable from Obama’s previous addresses and highlighted the “same government bromides that have utterly failed.”

The more Obama invests in his mistake, the less willing he is to admit them, McClintock said.

“We have needlessly lengthened and prolonged and deepened this economic suffering and squandered trillions of dollars in the process, and his answer to this failure is more of the same,” McClintock said.

Obama came armed with a long to-do list for Congress, and said that if Republicans obstruct his agenda he will find a way around them. “Some of what’s broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days,” the president said.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels delivered the GOP response immediately following the president’s annual speech, and called Obama’s attacks on Congressional Republicans unfair and untrue.

“No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others,” Daniels said.

“As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category. If we fail to shift to a pro-jobs, pro-growth economic policy, there will never be enough public revenue to pay for our safety net, national security, or whatever size government we decide to have,” Daniels said.

House Republicans are the only lawmakers who have passed bills in the last year to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements and encourage new job creation, “only to be shot down nearly time and again by the president and his Democrat Senate allies,” Daniels said.

Rep. Steve Pearce (R. –NM) said the president’s words didn’t match his actions of the last three years.

“I’m all for the things that he says, I’m just not sure he’s all for the things that he said. He says we need more energy but he’s doing everything he can to make energy harder to produce. He wants to reform the tax code and I agree, but he hasn’t done anything about it, and I agree with offshore drilling, but he never got around to doing it,” Pearce said.

Added Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ): “How this Senate and administration can continue to talk about jobs and reining in government spending with a straight face is beyond me. The House has passed a budget, not to mention nearly 30 jobs bills, only to see them die in the black hole of Harry Reid’s Senate.”

The focus shifted to First Lady Michelle Obama’s box above the House chamber floor and her guest Debbie Bosanek as the president touched on his plan to raise taxes on the rich. Bosanek has worked for two decades as Warren Buffett’s secretary.

“Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary,” Obama said.

“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

One Republican Senator was heard to remark that perhaps the billionaire Buffett should consider giving his employee a raise.

Republicans said it’s not likely Congress will pass Obama’s proposed taxes, and in light of the federal deficit reaching more than $15 trillion, say the focus should remain on spending cuts.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R. –FL) called it “counterproductive” to tell Americans the only way their jobs can be protected is to raise their bosses’ taxes. “When I hear policymakers in Washington pitting the American people against each other, telling people that the only way you can do better is if someone else is worse off, I get concerned. Because not only is it not true, that type of thought has never worked anywhere in the world,” Rubio said.

Added Rep. Jim Jordan (R. –OH), chairman of the Republican Study Committee: "Scattered throughout tonight's speech was the ridiculous idea that America isn't fair because successful people get to keep too much of the money they earn. The president also prescribes more taxpayer-funded failures like Solyndra while blocking the jobs and energy that would come from building the Keystone pipeline.

That's not the way to create jobs or an economy that’s built to last.”

(Watch Gov. Mitch Daniels deliver the GOP response below.)
Click here.
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Affirmative Action Reconsidered

2012-01-25T11:32:00.000-08:00

Affirmative Action Reconsidered
By Kevin Mooney on 1.25.12 @ 6:08AM

New legal cases and initiatives confirm renewed popular opposition to race as an organizing principle in American society.

When President John F. Kennedy included a call for "affirmative action" as part of an executive order he issued in 1961, the phrase was widely viewed as a proactive extension of the civil rights movement. The idea was to adopt corrective measures that would reverse discriminatory practices and for employers to open up new opportunities to minorities who had been denied equal treatment. However, for Americans living in the 21st century, the concept of affirmative action in employment, college admissions, and government contracting has conflicting connotations.

For some, the term is synonymous with the use of racial quotas, set-asides, and other preferential policies at odds with constitutional rights. For others, affirmative action continues to register as a benign, anti-discriminatory policy measure aimed at compensating minority groups for past injustices and safeguarding hard fought gains.

But the existing legal regime that sorts out individual Americans on the basis of race is no longer tenable in a society that has become more multi-ethnic at the turn of the century, Roger Clegg, the president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO), told listeners during a recent Federalist Society luncheon in New Orleans. In fact, in some parts of the country, it is no longer clear which group is actually in the minority, Clegg noted in his talk. Moreover, many individual Americans check off more than one box when asked about their ethnicity in census samples, he points out.

But there is another option gaining momentum at the state level that appeals to long-standing constitutional ideals. In defiance of academic elites, far-left pressure groups and establishment figures in both major political parties, average Americans are voting down race and gender preferences as a matter of government policy; and they are doing so by sizable majorities. The demographic shift that has become evident in recent years is at least partly responsible for the public's heightened opposition toward preferential policies, Clegg suggested.

"There is a form of affirmative action that is not controversial, that no one is trying to abolish," he said. "It does not violate the original meaning of the phrase. The idea was that companies that may have had a history of discrimination could not just sign a piece of paper and pretend that it wasn't a problem anymore. Instead, they had to take proactive measures."

But affirmative action does become controversial, Clegg added, when it is attached to policies that treat people differently based on their ethnicity or gender. This approach, which is still operative in many government agencies and academic institutions, no longer sits well with a growing majority of Americans.

Up next for voter approval, is the Oklahoma Civil Rights Initiative (OCRI), which will be on the state ballot in November. The proposal would amend the state constitution with language prohibiting government-sanctioned discrimination.

State Sen. Robert Johnson, the prime sponsor of the resolution to put the civil rights initiative on the ballot, has invoked language reminiscent of Martin Luther King Jr. to make his case.

"I have always believed we should be evaluated by our character and merit, not by the color of our skin," he has observed. "Equality of the law is a fundamental American value. This proposal would give Oklahoma voters the opportunity to reaffirm the importance of that value in state government."

The proposed amendment declares: "The state shall not grant preferential treatment to, or discriminate against, any individual or group on the basis of race, color sex, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting." The Oklahoma initiative is closely patterned after California's Proposition 209, which passed with 54 percent of the vote in 1996.

While the language is as clear and unambiguous as the public sentiment behind it, the mixed messages of the U.S. Supreme Court have created an uncertain legal environment that allows for continued judicial mischief at the lower level. Writing for the majority in the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor ruled that it was permissible for the University of Michigan Law School to use race as one of many factors in a "narrowly tailored" fashion to achieve student diversity. But in the concurrent Gratz v. Bollinger ruling, the majority of justices rejected the point system used at the University of Michigan undergraduate school. When the two rulings are blended together, it is evident that the high court is opposed to the use of overt quotas and set-asides.

Left-leaning political figures who are working to overturn or block the civil rights initiatives typically aim their arrow through the Grutter ruling. Gov. Jerry Brown of California filed an amicus brief last year backing up the latest legal challenge to Proposition 209 that is now before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But just a few months later, Brown also saw fit to veto legislation that would have reinstated race and gender preferences. Even as he attempts to placate his far left base, Brown recognizes that he faces an uphill climb in the court system.

Ward Connerly, the former University of California regent who was the galvanizing influence behind the civil rights initiative, had threatened to take legal action if Brown signed off on the bill. Moreover, the 9th Circuit and the California Supreme Court have already upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 209.

"By Any Means Necessary"

The key instigator behind the continued legal challenges to Connerly's initiatives is a highly aggressive pressure group known in full as the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), which came together in response to Proposition 209. Shanta Driver, a 1975 Harvard graduate with a J.D. from Wayne State University Law School, founded the organization in 1995. BAMN claims it is out to "restore the real meaning" of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.

To this end, it has repeatedly filed suit in an effort to overturn the initiatives. Last year, on July 1, two Clinton appointees, who formed a majority on a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, embraced BAMN's tortured legal reasoning. Judges R. Guy Cole Jr. and Martha Craig Daughtrey ruled that the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), widely known as Proposal 2, is unconstitutional because it alters the state's political structure in a manner that unduly burdens racial minorities. The case could conceivably go back to the U.S. Supreme Court if the ruling in Michigan stands and remains in conflict with court decisions that uphold Proposition 209 in California.

"When it comes to race, nothing is unbelievable and nothing is surprising," said Connerly, who now heads up the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) based on Sacramento. "This is the kind of decision that reaffirms the idea that some groups will work to preserve preferences 'by any means necessary.' I know they [BAMN attorneys] believe they have hit pay dirt here. But I have spoken with very good constitutional scholars and I am absolutely convinced that this case will be overturned before the full sixth circuit. If by some chance this case does go to the U.S. Supreme Court, I expect that we'll get the ruling we have long desired on the issue of preferences and they will bite the dust once and for all."

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has successfully petitioned the Sixth Circuit to rehear the case en banc (in full). He issued his first brief in defense of MCRI earlier this month. The civil rights law remains in full force pending a final court ruling, which is expected within the next few months.

While BAMN and other hostile litigants continue to invoke Grutter as a rationale for the continuation of race and gender preferences, they persistently misconstrue the larger point behind the ruling, Jennifer Gratz, the executive director of the MCRI, explained.

"While it's clear that O'Connor favored a holistic approach that included race, she also said it was acceptable for voters in states to make preferences unconstitutional," observes Gratz, who was also the plaintiff in the other Supreme Court case that struck down quotas at the University of Michigan. "She [O'Connor] certainly did not mandate the use of preferences and made it clear that over the next 25 years [from the time of that decision] race should ultimately cease to be a factor."

O'Connor specifically cited state laws in California, Washington State, and Florida (that were in effect at the time of her ruling) banning race and gender preferences as examples of what other states should be emulating. Since then, Arizona and Nebraska have also passed constitutional amendments banning preferential policies.

While Connerly continues to encourage grassroots activists who are ambitious to pass new initiatives in their home states, he cautions them against placing too much faith in either major political party. Despite embracing post-racial sentiments during his 2008 election effort, President Obama has inserted race and gender preferences into the Dodd-Frank finance bill, the health care bill, and the stimulus package, which are highlighted in a report from ACRI.

In Michigan, former President Gerald Ford joined with other Republicans running for state-wide office in 2006 to oppose the initiative banning preferences. Those Republicans lost; the initiative passed with broad support across party lines.

There's a lesson in that.
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To read another article by Kevin Mooney, click here.

Obama Against Any President

2012-01-25T11:16:00.000-08:00

Obama Against Any President
By Burton Folsom, Jr. & Anita Folsom on 1.25.12 @ 6:08AM

What really makes a president great?

According to President Obama, those presidents who grow government the most are candidates for being the greatest presidents. Big glitzy programs count for a lot. In an interview with Steve Kroft of CBS on 60 Minutes Overtime, President Obama spoke glowingly of his contributions: "I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president -- with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln -- just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history."

A key problem, of course, is that the president's two largest programs, his stimulus package and Obamacare, are both under an avalanche of criticism. The stimulus package led to a rise, not a fall in unemployment, and its pork-barrel provisions are exposed almost daily. Obamacare scores low in the polls; it is heavily challenged in the courts; and all Republicans voted against it and most ran elections against it very successfully in 2010.

Presidents Johnson and FDR have similar baggage. In Johnson's first two years, Vietnam became intractable; and increasing the payments in Aid to Families with Dependent Children gave single mothers incentives to take the cash from the government and not get married. FDR's major programs of his first two years, the AAA and the NRA, were both struck down by the Supreme Court. And FDR ended up with more than 19% unemployment in 1938 when the countries of Europe, according to a League of Nations survey, had only 11%. Is that the kind of success a president should emulate?

If we look at the opinions of historians, however, President Obama may be on the right track. They tend to give high ratings to presidents who announce big programs and increase the national debt sharply. Johnson does well, and FDR does even better -- ranking among the top three presidents in most polls. The Arthur Schlesinger Presidential Polls, for example, conducted in 1948, 1962, and 1996, consistently exalted FDR at the top, or near the top.

How do historians rank presidents who achieve prosperity and security for Americans? Let's pose the question this way: What if we had a president who, in his first two years as president, cut federal spending in half; produced budget surpluses in both years; cut tax rates, and slashed unemployment from 12 to 2%? Where should historians rank such a man?

The answer is "in last place -- the worst president in U.S. history." That has been the fate of Warren G. Harding, who was president from 1921 to 1923. He accomplished all of the above -- the federal budget plummeted from $6.4 billion in 1920 to $3.1 billion in 1923; tax rates on the rich fell from 73 to 56%; and the U.S. slashed the national debt and unemployment during Harding's two years as president -- before his untimely death in office.

True, some historians point out, Harding had two major scandals with the Veterans' Administration and with oil leases at Teapot Dome. His appointees extorted or stole public money, but Harding seems to have known nothing about it. Along these lines, Solyndra and Fast and Furious, two recent Obama scandals, may prove to be as damaging to him as Teapot Dome was to Harding.

But Harding's record at improving prosperity for Americans was strong. And shouldn't that be a major point in evaluating his presidency? Harding's humdrum cuts in tax rates and federal spending may lack drama, but they gave Americans jobs.

Under President Obama, by contrast, millions of jobs have disappeared, home values are way down, and standards of living have declined. Yet President Obama tells us he likes "what we've gotten done" with Obamacare and stimulus spending. So do most historians. But historians are safe with tenured jobs; other Americans get laid off when taxes rise, regulations increase, and debt skyrockets to pay for Obama's hope and change. And they, more than the historians, will elect the next president in 2012.

About the Author

Burton Folsom, Jr. is professor of history at Hillsdale College and author of New Deal or Raw Deal? (Simon & Schuster, 2008). His new book, co-authored with Anita Folsom, is FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America (Simon & Schuster, 2011).

About the Author

Anita Folsom works at Hillsdale College and is co-author of FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America (Simon & Schuster, 2011).

Obama's Open Buffet

2012-01-25T11:07:00.000-08:00

Obama's Open Buffet
By George Neumayr on 1.25.12 @ 6:09AM

He dishes up more gimmicky socialism in his State of the Union address.

Glib and cocky as ever, Barack Obama used his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to push his sophomoric and gimmicky socialism. While the nation drowns in debt and the economy continues to teeter, Obama devotes himself to the empty symbolism of the "Buffett rule." He had the Omaha billionaire's secretary placed in a seat of honor near the First Lady.

Barack and Michelle are the quintessential champagne socialists, enjoying the trappings of power -- the First Lady donned an ostentatious royal blue designer dress that probably cost more than several months of her prop's secretarial salary -- while decrying the excesses of the rich.

The speech was immensely dull, revolving around the usual tedious laundry list of nothing proposals. It made Monday's sterile Republican presidential candidates debate look stimulating.

Obama conceives of himself as the great puppet master of the American economy, doling out "rewards" and "punishments" to the business community. He paid tribute to the widow of Steve Jobs, also strategically placed in the audience. This seemed odd. Didn't Steve Jobs regard Obama as an anti-business president? Jobs was also known for shipping jobs to Asia, owing to the left's stifling regulations. Obama, in this address, made a special point of condemning this practice, vowing to reward companies that keep jobs at home and punish companies that go global.

It is clear that Obama doesn't want companies to prosper here or abroad, unless they somehow fit into his statist schemes. The speech was full of dreary government-knows-best proposals. The great community organizer announced that community colleges under his leadership will play a pivotal role in the revival of the American economy. Community colleges can become "community career centers" that tutor Americans in new skills, he said. Obama also revealed his high hopes for wind farms and other forms of "clean energy."

He made liberal use of the word "investment" as his euphemism for new government programs. Near the beginning of the speech, he praised bailouts (he bragged at length about bailing out the American auto industry); by the end of it, he had vowed to end them.

He professed great regard for the martial virtues of America's soldiers, holding them out as an example to bickering and undisciplined politicians. Candidate Obama had said George W. Bush's wars ruined America's standing in the world. But now he says that the returning soldiers from Iraq elevated the world's "respect" for America.

Having already turned America's military over to gay rights activists, he now unleashes environmentalists on them too. One of the military's new missions, according to his State of the Union address, is to offer a helping hand in the search for "clean energy."

Obama strained hard to remind Americans that Osama bin Laden was killed on his watch and that he is passionately pro-military. He said that he wants to set up a jobs program for returning vets. He rejected the assertion that America is in decline. "America is back," he declared.

Sensing that he needed to offer a few words in support of leaner government, he quoted a line from Abraham Lincoln to the effect that government should only perform those tasks beyond the power of the people. Never mind that most of the proposals in the speech were a violation of this principle. By "shared responsibility," the jargony phrase with which he peppered the speech, he means a fatter federal government that swoops down and takes responsibility from the people.

"Spreading the wealth around," as he said to Joe the Plumber in 2008, is his organizing principle. Wealth belongs to the government automatically, under this thinking, and so any money not taken by Obama constitutes in his mind reckless government "spending." It pains him to think that millionaires are making profits off already-taxed money. He proposes the Buffett rule to correct this injustice and usher in a new era of income equality. This isn't "class warfare," he said, but "common sense," a threadbare claim the 2012 race will test.
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Gingrich Frames the Debate

2012-01-25T10:52:00.000-08:00

Gingrich Frames the Debate
By Peter Ferrara on 1.25.12 @ 6:09AM

Before this campaign is over, America will know who Saul Alinsky is, even if Mitt Romney does not.

Let me just say that I believe the debate we're going to have with President Obama over the next eight or nine months is the outlining of the two Americas:

Those two choices, I believe, will give the American people a chance to decide permanently whether we want to remain the historic America that has provided opportunity for more people of more backgrounds than any country in history, or whether, in fact, we prefer to become a brand-new, secular, European-style, bureaucratic socialist system.

The America of the Declaration of Independence v. the America of Saul Alinsky; the America of paychecks v. the America of food stamps; the America of Independence v. the America of Dependence; the America of strength in foreign policy v. the America of weakness in foreign policy.

In so summarizing his South Carolina victory speech last week, Newt Gingrich framed the debate against President Obama with a clear vision that will sharply clarify the choice the American people will have to make this year.

Do we want the America of the Declaration of Independence? Or the America of radical Marxist revolutionary and social manipulator Saul Alinsky? One TV commentator indicated that most Americans do not even know who Saul Alinsky was. But that is exactly why Gingrich is so right to frame the debate this way, because with Barack Obama as their President, Americans need to know who Saul Alinsky was, and when Gingrich is done with his campaign, every American will.

President Obama is not only a follower of Saul Alinsky, and literally a practitioner of his strategies and tactics for the radical socialist takeover of America. After graduation from Harvard Law School, Obama was an instructor of fellow Marxist comrades in the Alinsky philosophy and methodology of social manipulation for the radical Marxist organization ACORN.

The American people need to know this, and all about Alinsky, to make an informed decision on whether to vote for Obama for reelection. That vote would represent a fundamental rejection of America, and all it has stood for since 1776.

America has long been the land of world leading prosperity, a true workers' paradise. But the real point of Obama's State of the Union last night was that all of that has to change now, because America is "unfair," in the Alinsky/Marxist worldview.

Let's give the President credit where credit is due. Obama is a very sophisticated Marxist philosopher, combining the highly advanced social manipulation tactics of Alinsky with careful, long developed insights in how to craft a modern, neo-Marxist message to sell to a majority of modern America. This is what we heard in last night's State of the Union. The real question this year is whether this generation of Americans can be duped into trashing the greatest, most prosperous, most successful nation in the history of the world, for a retrograde Marxist vision that thoroughly failed throughout the last century, and which the rest of the world has learned through hard experience is confused to the point of practical silliness. This only indicates how much deep trouble America is in, with Obama as President, and his philosophy and worldview having taken over the modern Democrat party.

What Gingrich indicated in his South Carolina victory speech is that he understands what Obama is really all about, and the fundamental challenge he represents to the future of America. And he intends to reveal the truth of Obama's carefully crafted neo-Marxist message to the American people.

Gingrich is the only candidate remotely capable of carrying the flag for the true, original, historic America in this fundamental, existential battle for national survival. He so rightly identified the public mood in his South Carolina speech, saying, "The American people feel that they have elites who have been trying for a half-century to force us to quit being American and become some kind of other system." He further identified the pending danger, "If Barack Obama can get re-elected after this disaster, just think how radical he would be in a second term."

Gingrich recognizes the central importance of the economic issues in this campaign, and has proposed the most specific, most bold, most comprehensive supply-side economic recovery program of all the candidates, which I have discussed in this space before. He very effectively dramatizes that by saying, "President Obama has been, historically, the most effective food stamp President in American history…. If you want your children to have a life of dependency on food stamps, you have a candidate, it's Barack Obama. If you want your children to have a life of independence and paychecks you have a candidate, it's Newt Gingrich."

Gingrich recognizes another component of his long-term economic recovery and prosperity program is an American energy policy, unleashing producers to maximize production of American energy from all sources. He adds as another central component: "Since I am the only Speaker of the House in your lifetime to have helped create four consecutive balanced budgets, I think I can tell you, as President, I will work very hard to get back to a balanced budget as rapidly as possible, and then to run a surplus to pay down the debt so no Chinese leverage exists on the United States by having our debt." Indeed, as Speaker, he left a legacy of paying down $560 billion in debt with four consecutive record budget surpluses.

Gingrich rightly touts his proven leadership and success on these policies, saying, "I worked with Ronald Reagan to create jobs, and 16 million jobs were created by the American people in the 1980s. I worked with Bill Clinton, the Democrat, to create jobs, and 11 million jobs were created by the American people during the four years that I was Speaker." His goal in sharp contrast to Obama: "I would like to be the best paycheck President in American history."

He also recognizes that "One of the key issues is the growing anti-religious bigotry of our elites." He served as one of the most faithful, highly effective leaders in modern history on social conservative issues while in office, from pro-life, to pro-gun rights, to pro-family and traditional moral values issues. Most intriguing, he has proposed in this campaign a comprehensive, truly original, historically and legally based strategy to counter liberal activist judges, who have implemented from the bench in recent decades the social liberal agenda. (See Newt.org).

Gingrich concludes, however:

But the centerpiece of this campaign, I believe, is American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinsky….[W]hat we are going to argue is that American exceptionalism, the American Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution, the American Federalist papers, the Founding Fathers of America, are the source from which we draw our understanding of America. [Obama] draws his from Saul Alinsky, radical left-wingers, and people who don't like the classical America.

Having served President Reagan in the White House Office of Policy Development in the early 1980s, I can say the comprehensive conservatism and breadth of this South Carolina victory speech is quintessentially Reagan.

The Romney Trash-Talking Contrast

In sharp contrast, Romney is the perfect foil for Obama's Alinsky strategy and tactics. Everything about him, from his business career, to his public record, to his appearance, to his inability to express fundamental principles and philosophy, only communicates "Country Club" Republican. Al Sharpton calls him "Mr. 1%." Does the Republican Party, let alone confused "conservative" talking heads, really want to run this year against Obama a Wall Street multimillionaire who pays a 15% tax rate, and can't explain or defend that?

Instead of the inspiring substance of leadership that Gingrich has provided, Romney has engaged in low brow trash talking, backed by the millions provided by his Country Club cronies. Romney says, "We're not seeking a talk show host. We're seeking a leader." New Jersey Governor and Romney crony Chris Christie chimes in, "Newt has been an embarrassment to the Republican Party."

You want a leader? Gingrich led the entire party to an historic victory in 1994 to the first Republican takeover of Congress in 40 years, something even Reagan didn't accomplish. Then in 1996 and 1998, Gingrich as Speaker led the first reelection of Republican House majorities in since the 1920s. Some embarrassment, Chris.

Romney has no comparable history of successful political leadership. Instead, he has lost every race he has run, except his one gubernatorial victory in Massachusetts. Some leadership.

Instead, Romney has sent his surrogates out to trash the true leader with the false claim that he had to resign as Speaker in disgrace, the only Speaker to have to resign in U.S. history, they say. The only problem is that there was no resignation, and there was no disgrace.

Gingrich never resigned as Speaker. In 1998, after Republicans failed to make the traditional gains expected in a second midterm election, Gingrich took responsibility as the leader to decline to run for reelection as Speaker.

Moreover, the Romney campaign is engaging in the same calculated deception as Obama in arguing he had to resign in disgrace over supposed ethics charges, taking advantage of what it hopes is a public with short memories. The "ethics" charges were filed against Gingrich at the beginning of his service as Speaker, by defeated left-wing Democrats bitter over losing their first majority in 40 years. This was the exact same thing that was done to Sarah Palin recently. Out of 84 supposed charges, 83 were dismissed. The IRS cleared Gingrich of the last years later. In January 1997, upon returning for a second term as Speaker, Gingrich settled to end the political mudslinging by agreeing to pay $300,000 to cover the costs of the investigation. There was no fine. Gingrich did not leave as Speaker until two years after that, upon the disappointing election results discussed above.

But he left as a legacy the first reelected Republican House majorities in 70 years, since the 1920s, and record budget surpluses, balancing the budget in three years instead of the expected seven, doing it the only way it has ever been done, cutting both taxes and spending. Contrast that with Romney mentor and cheerleader George H.W. Bush, who in 1990 fell for Democrat seduction for tax increases that are still with us, in return for budget cuts that never happened, with the deficit soaring by 50% as a result.

Yet, Romney continues with his own disgrace, charging Gingrich with "influence peddling." But he provides exactly zero documentation of any instance of actual influence peddling. Gingrich's consulting contracts all included prohibitions of any lobbying of any sort, at his insistence. For making that dishonest charge without documentation, it is Romney who should resign his campaign, in disgrace.
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SOTU FACT CHECK: Obama pushes plans that flopped before

2012-01-25T10:34:00.000-08:00

FACT CHECK: Obama pushes plans that flopped before
CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press
Updated 04:32 a.m., Wednesday, January 25, 2012

President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Listen in back are Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner, right.
President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on...

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a wish list, not a to-do list.

President Barack Obama laid out an array of plans in his State of the Union speech as if his hands weren't so tied by political realities. There can be little more than wishful thinking behind his call to end oil industry subsidies — something he could not get through a Democratic Congress, much less today's divided Congress, much less in this election year.

And there was more recycling, in an even more forbidding climate than when the ideas were new: He pushed for an immigration overhaul that he couldn't get past Democrats, permanent college tuition tax credits that he asked for a year ago, and familiar discouragements for companies that move overseas.

A look at Obama's rhetoric Tuesday night and how it fits with the facts and political circumstances:

___

OBAMA: "We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising."

THE FACTS: This is at least Obama's third run at stripping subsidies from the oil industry. Back when fellow Democrats formed the House and Senate majorities, he sought $36.5 billion in tax increases on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but Congress largely ignored the request. He called again to end such tax breaks in last year's State of the Union speech. And he's now doing it again, despite facing a wall of opposition from Republicans who want to spur domestic oil and gas production and oppose tax increases generally.

___

OBAMA: "Our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a government program."

THE FACTS: That's only half true. About half of the more than 30 million uninsured Americans expected to gain coverage through the health care law will be enrolled in a government program. Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people, will be expanded starting in 2014 to cover childless adults living near the poverty line.

The other half will be enrolled in private health plans through new state-based insurance markets. But many of them will be receiving federal subsidies to make their premiums more affordable. And that's a government program, too.

Starting in 2014 most Americans will be required to carry health coverage, either through an employer, by buying their own plan, or through a government program.

___

OBAMA, asking Congress to pay for construction projects: "Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home."

THE FACTS: The idea of taking war "savings" to pay for other programs is budgetary sleight of hand. For one thing, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been largely financed through borrowing, so stopping the wars doesn't create a pool of ready cash, just less debt. And the savings appear to be based at least in part on inflated war spending estimates for future years.

___

OBAMA: "Through the power of our diplomacy a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program now stands as one."

THE FACTS: The world is still divided over how to deal with Iran's disputed nuclear program, and even over whether the nuclear program is a problem at all.

It is true that the U.S., Europe and other nations have agreed to apply the strictest economic sanctions yet on Iran later this year. But the global sanctions net has holes, because some of Iran's large oil trading partners won't go along. China, a major purchaser of Iran's crude, isn't part of the new sanctions and, together with Russia, stopped the United Nations from applying similarly tough penalties.

___

OBAMA: "Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last - an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values."

THE FACTS: Economists do see manufacturing growth as a necessary component of any U.S. recovery. U.S. manufacturing output climbed 0.9 percent in December, the biggest gain since December 2010. Yet Obama's apparent vision of a nation once again propelled by manufacturing — a vision shared by many Republicans — may already have slipped into the past.

Over generations, the economy has become ever more driven by services; not since 1975 has the U.S. had a surplus in merchandise trade, which covers trade in goods, including manufactured and farm goods. About 90 percent of American workers are employed in the service sector, a profound shift in the nature of the workforce over many decades.

The overall trade deficit through the first 11 months of 2011 ran at an annual rate of nearly $600 billion, up almost 12 percent from the year before.

___

OBAMA: "The Taliban's momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home."

THE FACTS: Obama is more sanguine about progress in Afghanistan than his own intelligence apparatus. The latest National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan warns that the Taliban will grow stronger, using fledgling talks with the U.S. to gain credibility and stall until U.S. troops leave, while continuing to fight for more territory. The classified assessment, described to The Associated Press by officials who have seen it, says the Afghan government hasn't been able to establish credibility with its people, and predicts the Taliban and warlords will largely control the countryside.

___

OBAMA: "On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world's number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories."

THE FACTS: He left out some key details. The bailout of General Motors and Chrysler began under Republican President George W. Bush. Obama picked up the ball, earmarked more money, and finished the job. But Ford never asked for a federal bailout and never got one.

___

OBAMA: "We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there's no reason why Congress shouldn't at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation."

THE FACTS: With this statement, Obama was renewing a call he made last year to require 80 percent of the nation's electricity to come from clean energy sources by 2035, including nuclear, natural gas and so-called clean coal. He did not put that percentage in his speech but White House background papers show that it remains his goal.

But this Congress has yet to introduce a bill to make that goal a reality, and while legislation may be introduced this year, it is unlikely to become law with a Republican-controlled House that loathes mandates.

___

OBAMA: "Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households."

THE FACTS: It's true that a minority of millionaires pay a lower tax rate than some lower-income people. On average, though, wealthy people pay taxes at a much higher rate than middle-income taxpayers.

Obama's claim comes from a Congressional Research Service report that compared federal taxes paid by people making less than $100,000 with those paid by people making more than $1 million. About 10 percent of families with incomes under $100,000 paid more than 26.5 percent in federal income, payroll and corporate taxes. And about a quarter of millionaire taxpayers paid a rate lower than that.

___

OBAMA: "We can't bring back every job that's left our shores.... Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed."

FACT CHECK: Many of the jobs U.S. companies have created overseas won't return because they were never in the United States in the first place.

As Obama said in his speech, U.S. workers have become more productive and labor costs have fallen.

But there are powerful forces pushing the other way: Many of the overseas jobs in U.S. companies weren't transferred from the U.S. They were created in fast-growing markets in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere to serve customers in those markets. Companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index now earn more than half of their revenue from overseas.

That has fueled more job creation abroad. U.S. multinationals cut more than 800,000 jobs in the United States from 2000 to 2009, according the Commerce Department. They added 2.9 million overseas in the same period.

___

OBAMA: "Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned doesn't know what they're talking about ... That's not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Cape Town to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they've been in years."

THE FACTS: Obama left out Arab and Muslim nations, where popular opinion of the U.S. appears to have gone downhill or remained unchanged after the spring 2011 reformist uprisings in the Middle East. A Pew Research Center survey in May found that in predominantly Muslim countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Pakistan, views of the U.S. were worse than a year earlier. In Pakistan, a major recipient of U.S. foreign aid that went unmentioned in Obama's speech, just 11 percent of respondents said they held a positive view of the United States.

FOUND ON A SEABEE MESSAGE BOARD:

2012-01-25T10:03:00.001-08:00

FOUND ON A SEABEE MESSAGE BOARD:

Piss on a Crucifix, and they'll call you an "Artist"

Piss on The American Flag, and they'll call you a Freedom of Speech "Constitutionalist"

Piss on a Police Car, and they'll call you an Occupy Wall Street "Freedom Lovin' 99 percenter"

Piss on a Taliban piece of shit that just tried to kill you and your fellow Marines, and they'll call you a "Villain"

Sure is a messed-up administration we have running this great country!!!!!

Be sure to vote them ALL GONE in November!!!!!

A bogus chart on Obama and the debt gets a new lease on life

2012-01-25T00:35:00.000-08:00

A bogus chart on Obama and the debt gets a new lease on life
Posted by Glenn Kesslerat 06:00 AM ET, 09/29/2011

Who Increased the Debt? President Reagan 189%. President GHW Bush 55%. President Clinton 37%. President GW Bush 115%. President Obama 16%.”

— Data on a chart floating around the Web this week (an older version of the chart above)

This post has been updated since it was first published.

There’s a saying attributed to Winston Churchill that goes something like this: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

Try as we might at The Fact Checker, we find that no matter how many times we clearly identify an untruth — such as a ridiculous e-mail on Obama’s health-care plan — it still keeps popping up, months later.

So imagine our surprise when we found in our Facebook feed this week a chart, purporting to show how Republican presidents — Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush — had increased the debt by a significantly greater percentage than either Bill Clinton or President Obama. Pretty impressive chart, “liked” by at least 7,000 people on a posting by the liberal group MoveOn.org.

But this chart, originally created by the office of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, is as phony as a three-dollar bill. Our friends at PolitiFact did a pretty thorough takedown of it in May, giving it their worst rating: “pants on fire.” They even caught the Pelosi people in a bad mathematical error, based on the fact that the Democrats calculated the numbers as if Obama took office a year later than he did.

That error greatly reduced Obama’s supposed percentage increase (from 35 percent to 16 percent) and boosted George W. Bush’s increase (from 86 percent to 115 percent). Pelosi’s office corrected the math error after it was spotted by PolitiFact, but amazingly, the chart that turned up in several places in our Facebook feed was the old chart.

But even with the corrected number, this is still a Four-Pinocchio whopper. Let’s explain why.

The Facts

The person who posted this on Facebook noted: “From the US Treasury Dept — any questions?” But it actually is not a Treasury Department calculation, just manipulated data taken from the Treasury Web site.

The chart has some basic conceptual flaws. For instance, as the debt keeps getting higher, the possible percentage increases will keep getting smaller. Under the mixed-up logic of this chart, a person can go from 10 to 20, and that would be a 100 percent increase. If the next person goes from 20 to 30, that’s only a 50 percent increase, even though the numerical increase (10) is the same.

The chart also cherry-picks the data that portray Obama in the best light by claiming to show “public debt” but in actuality using the statistics for gross debt.

Gross debt includes intergovernmental transactions such as bonds held by Social Security and Medicare, but public debt is the more commonly used figure of national indebtedness, at least among economists.

If the chart actually used public debt rather than gross debt, it would have put Obama and George W. Bush virtually in the same league — 60 percent increase (as of September 2011) for Obama versus 70 percent for Bush — even though Bush served as president much longer.

But the biggest problem is that this is just dumb math. What really counts is not the raw debt numbers, but the size of the debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product. The GDP is the broadest measure of the national economy and directly indicates the nation’s ability to service its debts. In fact, the White House budget office historical tables portray much of the data as a percentage of GDP, because that is the best way to truly compare such numbers over time.

If the chart were recast to show how much the debt went up as a percentage of GDP, it would look pretty bad for Obama after not even three years in office. In fact, Obama does almost twice as poorly as Reagan — and four times worse than George W. Bush.

Reagan: plus 14.9 percentage points

GHW Bush: plus 7.1 percentage points

Clinton: down 13.4 percentage points

GW Bush: plus 5.6 percentage points

Obama: plus 24.6 percentage points

(Note: We derived most of these data from table 7.1 of the budget office historical tables, which gives end-of-fiscal year figures, so they do not quite match up to presidential terms. Obama’s figures are based on the GDP: public debt ratio as of June 30, 2011)

Update: David Clayton, one of our dedicated readers, crunched the numbers for calendar years and shows that, in the transition from Bush to Obama, adjusting the dates makes a difference in the result. His math shows that a more accurate figure would be plus 11.6 percentage points for Bush and plus 19.7 percentage points for Obama. The shift doesn’t change the overall result but divides up the responsibility for the debt more accurately. In a later column, we also posted other ways that readers suggested to look at presidential debt records.

One can offer reasons for why Obama’s performance appears so poor, including the fact that he is battling a recession. An improvement in the nation’s economy would boost the gross domestic product, which would certainly begin to reduce his ratio. But the fact remains that under basic economic measures, not phony ones, his record on the growth of the national debt is the worst of recent presidents. (We make that statement using the logic of Pelosi’s office, which pins all of the growth of the debt on individual presidents. In reality, many factors, including the economy, wars and congressional actions, contribute to the rise of the debt.)

The Pinocchio Test

If MoveOn.org or Pelosi’s office had any sense of shame, they would have quietly removed the links to this chart from their websites when PolitiFact gave it a “pants on fire” rating four months ago. The fact that an outdated version is still floating around — and that people are still deluded into thinking it to be correct — is doubly shameful.

Four Pinocchios
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more facts about debt - a repost...

Obama Has Now Increased Debt More than All Presidents from George Washington Through George H.W. Bush Combined
By Terence P. Jeffrey
October 5, 2011

(CNSNews.com) - The Obama administration passed another fiscal milestone this week, according to new data released by the Treasury Department. As of the close of business on Oct. 3, the total national debt was $14,837,099,271,196.71—up about $44.8 billion from Sept. 30.

That means that in the less-than-three-years Obama has been in office, the federal debt has increased by $4.212 trillion--more than the total national debt of about $4.1672 trillion accumulated by all 41 U.S. presidents from George Washington through George H.W. Bush combined.

This $4.212-trillion increase in the national debt means that during Obama’s term the federal government has already borrowed about an additional $35,835 for every American household--or $44,980 for every full-time private-sector worker. (According to the Census Bureau there were about 117,538,000 households in the country in 2010, and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were about 93,641,000 full-time private-sector workers.)

When Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, according to the Treasury Department, the total national debt stood at $10,626,877,048,913.08.

At the end of January 1993, the month that President George H. W. Bush left office, the total national debt was $4.1672 trillion, according to the Treasury. Thus, the total national debt accumulated by the first 41 presidents combined was about $44.8 billion less than the approximately $4.212 trillion in new debt added during Obama’s term.

As of Monday, Obama had been in office 986 days—or about 32 and a half months. During that time, the debt increased at an average pace of $4.27 billion per day. Were that rate to continue until Obama’s term ends on Jan. 20, 2013, the debt would then stand at about $16.86534 trillion—an increase of more than $6.2 trillion for Obama’s four years.

That would equal nearly $53,000 for each American household or more than $66,00 for each full-time private-sector worker.

That total national debt did not exceed $6.2 trillion until 2002, when George W. Bush was president.

A Few Words About Abortion

2012-01-25T00:14:00.000-08:00

A Few Words About Abortion
By Judge Andrew Napolitano
1/25/2012

Last week marked the 39th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that permitted abortions. Prior to that case, abortion was regulated by each state, and most of them prohibited it unless two physicians could certify that the baby growing in the mother's womb would likely result in the death of the mother. Even the states that permitted abortions when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, an extremely rare occurrence, did not permit it after the sixth month of pregnancy.

Roe vs. Wade changed all that. It permits abortions in all 50 states during the first three months of pregnancy for any reason or for no reason. It permits abortions during the second three months of pregnancy for the health of the mother. "Health of the mother" can mean mental health; thus, most states have taken the liberal position that if a continued pregnancy would make the mom sad or challenge her psychologically, or if she has second thoughts about the pregnancy, the baby may be aborted.

Roe vs. Wade also permits the states to prohibit or to allow abortions during the last three months of pregnancy. Most states prohibit all abortions during the final three months, as this is the period of viability; when the baby can live -- assisted, of course -- outside the mother's womb. New Jersey, my home state, is the exception, as it permits abortions up to the moment of birth.

In the past 39 years, American physicians have performed more than 50 million abortions. Abortion is the most frequent medical procedure performed in the U.S. The linchpin to Roe vs. Wade is the Court's rationale that because the decision to undergo an abortion ordinarily occurs between patient and physician, and because that interaction ordinarily takes place in private, the right to privacy insulates abortion from the reach of the State. Roe vs. Wade itself does not define the right to an abortion, but it does unambiguously declare that the baby in the womb is not a person, and that the right to privacy protects the mother's decision to kill the baby.

Did you catch that? The Supreme Court declared that the baby in the womb is not a person. When it made that declaration, it rejected dozens of decisions of other courts, in America and in Great Britain, holding that the baby in the womb is a person. This is reminiscent of the Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision in 1857 in which it ruled that blacks were not persons. In both cases, it cited no precedent, it gave no rational basis, and in Roe vs. Wade, it merely said that because philosophers, physicians and lawyers could not agree on whether babies in wombs are persons, it would declare them not to be persons.

If the baby in the womb is a person, then all abortion is unlawful. That's because of the constitutional protection for all persons. The Constitution unambiguously prohibits the government from impairing or permitting others to impair the life, liberty and property of persons without due process. Here's my political beef with so-called pro-life politicians in both parties. In the years in which the pro-life Ronald Reagan and both Presidents Bush were in the White House, from time to time, both chambers of Congress had pro-life majorities. Did you see any legislation passed that declared a baby in the womb to be a person? No. This could have been done by a simple majority vote and presidential signature, and Roe vs. Wade, and all the killing it spawned, would have ended.

How scary is this? The Supreme Court declares a class of humanity not to be persons, and then permits people to destroy the members of the class. That's what happened to blacks during slavery; that was the philosophical argument underlying the Holocaust; that's what is happening to babies in the womb today; and that might become the basis for the government killing persons it hates or fears in the future. It will declare them to be non-persons.

Is the baby in the womb a person? Of course babies in wombs are persons. From the moment of the union of egg and sperm, there is present a fully actualizable human genome; meaning all the genetic material necessary for post-birth existence is there. And the parents of that union are human beings. With human parents and a human genome, what else could a baby in a womb be but a person? If you have any doubt, why not give the benefit of that doubt to life, rather than to death? Unless you prefer death to life and killing to nurturing and misery to joy, I expect you agree.

Since you have been reading this essay, 10 babies have lost their lives, as abortions occur in the U.S. about two and a half times a minute. How long can a society last when we cannot protect the weakest among us, and when we destroy them out of convenience, and when we make that destruction legal? Who will be destroyed next?
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To read another article by Judge Andrew Napolitano, click here.
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The Euphemisms of 'Pro-Choice' Evil

2012-01-25T00:05:00.000-08:00

The Euphemisms of 'Pro-Choice' Evil
By Ben Shapiro
1/25/2012

This week marked the 39th anniversary of the greatest American moral tragedy of the 20th century: Roe v. Wade. And yet the left cheered this anniversary with the enthusiasm of an intoxicated teenager stumbling on a free copy of Penthouse. Planned Parenthood, which rakes in millions each year by performing abortions, asked via Twitter, "How has #Roe changed your life?"

The sample answers were horrifically fascinating. "Because of Roe, I have grown up knowing that my girlfriends won't die from back-alley abortions," one young man wrote. The young man might as well have written, "Because of Roe, I don't have to use condoms." It's certainly easier to sleep after a night of unprotected sex knowing that the girl you just impregnated can always have her uterus scraped. One young woman wrote, "Because of Roe, I get to go to college, instead of bearing a child who wouldn't." And, as we all know, a child who won't go to college isn't worthy of life. The true value of human life can only be justified by attending a Modern Dance in Lesbian Thought course taught by an otherwise unemployable 45-year-old harpy.

Most of the posts, though, were not quite as foolish. Most employed the hackneyed expressions of the abortion crowd.

They spoke about women's choice -- a powerful euphemism never deployed when discussing a woman's choice to refrain from having sex. When it comes to the choice to have sex, women are simply slaves to passion; when it comes to killing the unborn, then they suddenly have the ability to exercise choice.

They spoke about women's health -- another euphemism implying that pregnancy is a disease of some sort, a cancer eating away at the mother's vitals. (President Obama himself used this analogy.) Women rarely have therapeutic abortions -- they almost always have abortions because they simply don't want the responsibility of bringing up a child, and they don't want the guilt of having to give up a child to adoption.

They spoke about the right to control their body -- but neglected to mention the living, breathing being inside it. Until that being was there, pro-lifers were perfectly happy to leave these women and their uteruses to their own devices. Nobody was clamoring to examine these women's reproductive organs until they decided to begin sucking the living contents into a waste can.

The great moral evil that is abortion-on-demand -- and it is a moral evil -- has been papered over in the public mind by euphemisms. That's why it's considered impolitic to show actual photographs of abortion -- we mustn't offend the sensibilities of those who think of it as a clean, quick "termination." No more biologically involved than a polyp removal. That's why pro-lifers are derided as benighted apes when they have the temerity to call fetuses babies -- we should never remind mothers that they themselves call the being in their wombs babies. No mother I have ever met -- or have ever heard of -- has ever referred to her child as either a fetus or an embryo, except by conscious militant choice.

The euphemistic thinking of liberals on the abortion issue ends in logic so twisted it should be sold by Wetzels.

Liberals scream "right to privacy," but seem to throw that euphemism out the window when they demand that taxpayers pay for their birth control (Obama announced this week that we'd all been drafted into the War on Unprotected Sex) and abortion (Planned Parenthood is government-funded), and sanctify any sexual relationship they choose to engage in that day.

Liberals suggest that they aren't pro-abortion -- they just want it to be "safe, legal and rare." If they want it to be safe and legal, they clearly don't want it to be rare, and the numbers show it: nearly 55 million abortions since Roe. If liberals hadn't been quite so concerned about keeping abortion safe and legal, they'd have an entire generation of youngsters ready to support their enormous entitlement state. Instead, they have millions of morally-scarred young women justifying the mass murder of the unborn.

The real liberal argument for abortion is simple and requires no euphemism. It states that babies are not babies until some unspecified time when they become babies -- and until that time, they are entirely disposable.

The only problem with the argument is that it requires that we ignore both science (a fetus' heart begins to beat within three and a half weeks of embryonic fertilization) and basic human decency in favor of a callous selfishness that sears our collective soul.

The left's Orwellian recasting of abortion as an issue about "freedom" is only its latest attempt to defend the indefensible. And it has worked. Clarity of language is important. Those who defend life must not be afraid to use the language of truth -- and life -- to fight the emanations and penumbras of ethical falsehood.
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