So Many Outrages, So Little Time

So Many Outrages, So Little Time
By Quin Hillyer on 12.30.11 @ 6:09AM

Stories I under-covered in 2011.

It's a sad commentary on the Obama administration both that the Republican effort to dethrone him seems so desperately important that it dominated (my) column-writing in the year before election year and that the administration flouts laws and constitutional traditions in so many ways that it's almost impossible to blow the whistle on them all. That said, I have been seriously amiss in writing too little in 2011 on the following stories, some of which I covered at length in previous years -- and all of which I enthusiastically invite other reporters and columnists to write about.

The Obamite War Against the Heroic FDNY: Contradicting the Supreme Court decision in Ricci v. DeStefano which held that results of a race-neutral exam for firefighter promotions ought to be honored, the Obama/Holder Justice Department has been trying to force New York City's fire department to throw out results of a race-neutral test, and to admit into its academy black applicants even if they missed 70 percent of simple questions -- in the process, blocking the admission of black applicants who actually performed well on the test. (Go figure.) DoJ instructions even suggested explicitly quota-based academy admissions, thus ignoring plenty of other Supreme Court precedent. In the latest news, the city of New York has, quite rightly, appealed the rogue judge's order (the judge and the Obamites are aligned) appointing a "monitor" for the fire force's personnel moves.

The Obamite Effort to Discourage Voting by the Military: Eric Eversole, executive director of the Military Voter Protection Project, came on my radio show in September to discuss this, but it still merits far more attention. Clearly, the Obama administration has, at best, fallen down on the job, and more likely, actively discouraged military voting. Clearly, they believe military voters tend to be conservative, so the Obamites want them disenfranchised.

Judicial Wars: Usually one of my favorite topics, this has slipped away from me this year -- partly because Republican senators are so frustratingly weak-kneed about the whole subject. Ed Whelan has some statistics here. Sadly, only a smattering of GOP senators would even support their own Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, in opposing the nomination of Susan Owens Hickey to a federal district court, and they wouldn't do even a temporary filibuster against the manifestly ill-qualified Alison Nathan.

Blocking Obamite Efforts to Nationalize Education Policy: U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett has introduced the LEARN Act to let states opt out of federal micromanagement, and it appears to be a great idea. As Gary Palmer of the Alabama Policy Institute points out (and as U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has been noting as well), the Obama administration is improperly using the "waiver" process to force their own policy choices on the states.

Obamite Flouting of Clear Legislative Language: U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf complains that White House science czar and compulsory abortion advocate John Holdren is violating the law in using federal appropriations for unapproved purposes (in this case, certain bilateral activities with China). Likewise, the Washington Times' Emily Miller catches the White House blowing off other Appropriations restrictions, thus further indicating that he is dangerously authoritarian in outlook.

Obamites Cheating for Union Goons: So many examples of this tendency could be mentioned here that I won't even try to list them all. But here's one highlighted by the Workplace Fairness Institute. In short, the National Labor Relations Board has become, like the Justice Department, a lawless agency.

Obamite War Against Catholics and Other Traditionalist People of Faith: The Catholic Advocate explains in this short online video, and writes in another forum the following:

Think about some of the policies that have taken root since Obama entered the White House:

• No longer defending the Defense of Marriage Act;

• Forcing private insurers to provide contraception like the morning after pill to women at no charge;

• Reversing the ban on federal dollars from funding stem cell research;

• Taking away health care providers' rights of conscience.


Other than the controversial spending and tax bills, these policies are the highlights of what the Obama administration has accomplished. This administration is leading America to a place where religious liberties do not exist, and if we're not vigilant, they'll try to take God away next. Are you comfortable with this?

Finally, in one area where the administration's sins are in the background (the administration ought to use diplomatic pressure to help out, but won't), the manifestly dishonest Ecuadoran environmental case against U.S.-based Chevron Corp. continues apace despite all sorts of evidence of skullduggery that completely belie the idea that Chevron is guilty of much of anything. The whole case was rigged from the beginning.

Aside from all that, a few notes about what has been good about 2011…. To wit: A) The old-fashioned campaign work ethic of Rick Santorum. B) The continuing efforts of J. Christian Adams, Hans von Spakovsky and others to highlight and fight against the Obamite efforts to enable widespread vote fraud. C) The conservative blogging of Jennifer Rubin in hostile territory at the Washington Post. D) The efforts of conservative journalists at all four of the "traditional" conservative periodicals -- The American Spectator, National Review, the Weekly Standard, and Human Events -- to try to uphold Reaganite conservative thought and action in an age of American Idol mentalities and text-message attention spans. E) The legislative and political leadership of Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Jeff Sessions, Sen. Chuck Grassley, and Rep. Frank Wolf on issues where they draw heavy liberal fire but still won't back down. F) The leadership at the state level of governors such as Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and John Kasich of Ohio (along with the recently retired and underappreciated Bob Riley of Alabama), who show that conservative governance really can work. G) The folks at the Heritage Foundation, still the greatest idea bank for the conservative movement, and especially the brilliant team at its Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, who are always superbly responsive and well informed. I) My kind and eminently agreeable friend Victor Schwartz, who always knows what's going on behind the scenes in the world of lawyers. J) Fellow conservative bloggers who labor for the cause. K) Conservative radio hosts across the land -- Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, of course, but also too many others to name, who keep the airwaves full of real facts and intelligent commentary, breaking through the media monopoly of the big TV networks. L) My colleagues at the Center for Individual Freedom and the University of Mobile, who help make all my writing possible. M) Al, Bob, and Wlady, for keeping the Spectator afloat, alive, and vibrant -- with a special thanks to Wlady, who does yeoman's work with unflagging energy, remarkable patience for the quirks and shifting schedules of writers like me, and remarkable good humor.

Here's wishing everybody a wonderful 2012 -- and, if I may say so, a president-elect, by this time next year, who didn't grow up in Hawaii or Indonesia.
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To read an article by Quin Hillyer, click here.

Six Thoughts on the Presidential Race

Six Thoughts on the Presidential Race
By W. James Antle, III on 12.29.11 @ 3:12PM

1. The polls five days out from the Iowa caucuses couldn't be shaping up better for Mitt Romney. He has always had a vested interest in ensuring that the competitive portion of the Republican primaries was over before large numbers of Southern states vote. He's in a good position to do that. If Romney wins Iowa and New Hampshire -- or even comes in a strong second in Iowa -- he will be hard to stop.

2. South Carolina and Florida have long been vital to Newt Gingrich, or any other conservative insurgent who hoped to beat Romney. Both states become even more important if Romney does well in Iowa and wins New Hampshire. But can Gingrich's numbers hold up in either place if he finishes outside the top three in Iowa? Can whoever does come in third take Gingrich's place if he can't?

3. What will the eventual Republican nominee do about Ron Paul? There are obvious pros and cons to letting Paul speak at the convention. But Paul received 1 million votes last time. He is likely to do better, and win more delegates, next year. The Republican nominee will want as many of those votes as possible, a task that will become harder if Paul endorses newly christened Libertarian Gary Johnson instead.

4. The field is likely to start narrowing on January 4. Some candidates stay in until the convention, either out of stubborness or to maximize their support. Others drop out when it becomes mathematically impossible to win the nomination. Others still drop out when they have no realistic path to victory. And then there are those who run out of money. Expect members of the last two groups to start dropping out after Iowa.

5. As well as things are shaping up for Romney, a large percentage -- perhaps a majority -- of Republicans don't really want to nominate him. Expect bumps on the road to the convention, even if he manages to run the table in the early states.

6. The vice presidential sweepstakes will begin soon. If Romney does wind up the nominee, only conservatives need apply -- if he wants to win.
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To read another article by W. James Antle, III, click here.

Voter ID and The Diluted Franchise

Voter ID and The Diluted Franchise
Why does a cybernetic info-society tolerate ridiculous amounts of voter fraud?
by John Hayward
12/29/2011

Last Friday, the Justice Department shot down South Carolina’s voter ID law. Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act requires that certain states obtain pre-clearance from either DOJ or U.S. District Court for changes to voting qualification, a measure designed to prevent scurrilous attempts to disenfranchise black voters. Long after this presumption of bad faith on the part of South Carolinans went from insulting to ridiculous, the Justice Department decided that requiring black voters to present photo IDs would unfairly keep them away from the polls.

This decision was not based on the slightest hint of discriminatory intent, but rather the sheer number of minority voters who would presumably be affected by the new law, measured against what Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez deemed an insufficiently urgent need to prevent voter fraud. South Carolina must now either take the matter to court, or persuade the Justice Department to reconsider.

South Carolina’s law, duly passed by the legislature and signed by Governor Nikki Haley, was extremely lenient – even more so than voter-ID laws already on the books in some other states. A driver’s license, passport, military ID, or photographic voter registration card was good enough to pass muster. According to the South Carolina Election Commission’s filing with the Justice Department, voters could “obtain an Identification Card from DMV, or may obtain a Voter Registration Card with a photo from his county voter registration office, both free of charge.” Nothing more than a trip to the county voter registration and elections office was necessary to obtain the photo ID.

If a voter turned up at the polls without the proper photo ID card, they could still cast a provisional ballot, with plenty of time to pick up the proper identification and show it to election officials before the ballot results were certified. Even conscientious objections to photo identification, which have cropped up here and there, were covered by merely asking for an affidavit from the objector.

This was, nonetheless, deemed unacceptable because “minority registered voters were nearly 20% more likely to lack DMV-issued ID than white registered voters, and thus to be effectively disenfranchised,” according to Perez. In other words, 20% more non-whites lack driver’s licenses, so the minimal imposition of asking for them to obtain free photo ID cards to validate their identities on Election Day was tantamount to barricading them from the polls.

Even at that, an Associated Press report notes that, out of the 240,000 ostensibly registered voters who currently suffer without appropriate photo ID in South Carolina, the DMV executive director says “207,000 of those voters live in other states, allowed their ID cards to expire, probably have licenses with names that didn’t match their voter records, or were dead.” The latter categories could include up to 60,000 “deceased people and individuals whose names didn’t match DMV records.”

Governor Haley was angry about the Justice Department decision, which she saw as politically motivated. “The president and his bullish administration are fighting us every step of the way,” she said in a statement. “It is outrageous, and we plan to look at every possible option to get this terrible, clearly political decision overturned so we can protect the integrity of our electoral process and our 10th amendment rights.”

On the other hand, South Carolina ACLU executive director Victoria Middleton said South Carolina’s voter ID law would have been “a dramatic setback to voting rights in our state, and we are pleased to see it stopped in its tracks.” Given the facts outlined above, which of those statements sounds more in touch with reality?

While we’re talking about “disenfranchisement,” what about the legitimate voters, of every race, disenfranchised by voter fraud? Every phony ballot cancels out a real one. Should we do some racial bean-counting in the areas most prone to electoral irregularities, and draw some conclusions about the “discriminatory” effects of failure to require accurate voter identification?

For all the talk of liberal “progressiveness,” the voter-ID wars are a ridiculously antique sideshow for a high-tech society that processes terabytes of data every hour. Besides offering soapbox time to obsolete organizations that require improbable racist conspiracies and theoretical civil-rights hobgoblins to keep their fundraising letters lively, the war against voter ID is fought to keep voter fraud alive. A few suspicious ballots can come in mighty handy for turning close elections, the risk of effective prosecution is relatively modest, and it’s highly unlikely that dubious elections will be overturned. Talking about “documented” cases of voter fraud is somewhat misleading. How many of them are never caught?

It’s increasingly difficult to bamboozle voters into tolerating ballot-box hijinks, in a world where millions of humdrum transactions requiring accurate identification are completed without fuss, every single day. The Left deserves a measure of grudging admiration for convincing Information Age America to hold its elections in 1965, even as they conduct their daily affairs with 21st-century speed and accuracy… especially since those elections are, increasingly, the only real control we have over vast swathes of our nationalized, hyper-regulated lives.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.
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To read a related article, click here.

Political Incorrectness 2012

Political Incorrectness 2012
by Burt Prelutsky
12-29-2011

Apparently the Obama family holiday in the islands will run us taxpayers $4,113,038, and that’s not counting Sno-cones, leis, surf board rentals and assorted Hawaiian souvenirs. Still, it’s hard to begrudge the man his vacation. After all, for months now, it’s been one damn fund-raiser after another, broken up only by a daily round of golf and an hourly excoriation of Republican congressmen. A schedule like that can take it out of anyone.

I probably shouldn’t be making fun of Obama. After all, I have it on good authority -- the U.S. attorney general, no less -- that the only reason anyone would criticize either of them is because of their race. Frankly, I have to admit I hadn’t thought of it that way. I honestly thought that people criticized Eric Holder because, among other things, his Department of Justice had green-lighted Operation Fast and Furious, which resulted in the murder of an American border agent, and because he had refused to indict the Black Panthers for voter intimidation. I was also naïve enough to believe that most Americans were opposed to Obama because of ObamaCare, the trillion dollar stimulus and because he admitted that he wasn’t entitled to a second term if he failed to turn around the economy during his first term.

On the other hand, at the risk of being labeled a racist, I must confess that I personally don’t like Obama. For one thing, I can’t stomach his arrogance. During his “60 Minutes” interview with Steve Kroft, he bragged that in modern times no president, except for FDR, LBJ and Lincoln, had accomplished more than he during their first two years in office!

Quite a stretch to refer to Lincoln’s administration as modern times, but no more of a stretch than to boast about a record that includes ObamaCare, caving in to Russian demands by selling out Poland and Czechoslovakia, and a trillion dollar stimulus whose major achievement was to help lower America’s credit rating for the first time in history.

Compared to this egomaniac, even Donald Trump manages to look humble.

I also don’t like Obama’s attacking Republicans in the House and Senate, claiming they won’t compromise, when we all know that when he says compromise, what he really means is capitulation.

For instance, he told us that the moratorium on payroll taxes had to be extended or the typical middle class family would be hit with $1,000 more in 2012 taxes. But, for mysterious reasons, Chairman Obama only wanted it extended for two months. When the Republicans said a two-month moratorium would only result in pro-rated savings of $167, and suggested the bill should cover the entire year, thus saving the folks the other $833, Obama insisted they were being unreasonable.

In case you missed it, during a recent congressional hearing, Rep. Dan Lungren spent nearly five minutes trying to get Obama’s Assistant Defense Secretary for Homeland Defense, Paul Stockton, to simply acknowledge that we are at war with violent Islamic extremists. At the very least, he tried, but failed, to get Stockton to admit that violent Islamic extremists are at war with us. He couldn’t even get him to confirm that an official with the Defense Department said, shortly after Major Hasan massacred 14 people at Fort Hood, “Losing our program of diversity would be an even greater tragedy than what took place.”

But whether or not Stockton acknowledged it, that is how the wishy-washy boneheads in this administration and in this commander-in-chief’s military establishment deal with national security concerns. Even though Major Nidal Malik Hasan had “Soldier of Allah” on his business cards and Yemen-based terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki on speed dial, no one in the Army dared suggest the major belonged either in the brig or an insane asylum. I’m sure political correctness is also the reason that Bradley Manning, a mere private, but an acknowledged homosexual, got away with removing tons of top security documents from government files.

After all, if you’re a Muslim or gay, nobody can even dare challenge you, lest he see his own career go down in flames. Such is the tyranny of diversity, multiculturalism and political correctness, in America today.

Hell, a gay Muslim could probably stroll into the White House and toss a stink bomb into Lincoln’s bedroom without anyone’s daring to question his presence.

Finally, in North Korea, when Kim Jong-Il recently kicked the bucket, a great many of his countrymen took strong exception to his young son, Kim Jong-Un, taking his place. But even they were ultimately won over by the slogan “Anyone but Obama."
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Bilderberg

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Bilderberg
December 29, 2011
by Burt Prelutsky

It seems that whenever I point out that a true conservative is not ever likely to win the presidency in a country that is only slightly right of the middle, I can count on hearing from people who regard RINOs as worse than Obama, worse than Pelosi, Reid and Waxman, and even worse than jihadists.

They are sure to let me know that Ron Paul is the only true patriot in the running. When I point out that in 2008 when he was well-financed and only had to worry about McCain and Romney, Rep. Paul couldn’t win a single Republican primary. How in the world did anyone think that he would ever win a presidential election when, for reasons I don’t really understand, they permit Democrats to vote?

When these folks aren’t busy lambasting any Republican who isn’t Ron Paul, they’re running around screaming about the Bilderberg Group, the Tri-Lateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, conspiring to create a one-world government. The members of those groups are wealthy and influential, but, if that is really their endgame, they might as well form a bowling league.

I mean, this conspiracy theory has been kicking around since the days of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Now, nearly a century later, does anyone in his right mind actually believe that a billion Muslims, a billion Christians, a billion Chinese, and a billion Russians, North Koreans, English, French, Germans, Poles and Americans, are about to come together for a chorus of Kumbaya? Heck, you can’t even get the wackos hanging out in the U.N. to agree on what to have for lunch.

Instead of worrying myself sick about conspiracies that have allegedly been hatching for 100 years, I choose to concentrate on the creep who has his shoes on the desk in the Oval Office. I realize that it is easy for liberals to discount my anger with Obama. After all, I’m a rightwing partisan. What I don’t get is why liberals don’t get angrier with him.

I mean, here’s a guy who is constantly telling Congress and most Americans that we’re not doing enough, but no president has ever taken as many vacations or played as many rounds of golf in three years as Obama. And as if that’s not enough to make him the playboy-in-chief, between February and December of this year, he spoke at 69 campaign fund-raising events. For the mathematically challenged, that’s roughly seven times a month he’s taken off to bad-mouth Republicans, millions of whom have to help pay for his jet fuel, his campaign buses and his security detail.

Frankly, I’m surprised that Air Force One can actually get airborne, what with having to fly this guy’s ego around. After doing everything but giving Benjamin Netanyahu a wedgie when he came over for a visit, Obama had the chutzpah to say, “I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration. And that’s not just our opinion, that’s the opinion of the Israeli government.”

Well, I hope Obama didn’t damage his rotator cuff patting his own back, but if suggesting that Israel stop building houses in Jerusalem and pull back to 1967 borders is his idea of befriending Israel, I’d hate to think how he treats his enemies.

It isn’t only Obama who exhibits signs of being disengaged from reality. Consider, if you will, how deeply concerned those on the Left claim to be with the environment. Even at the risk of costing 20,000 Americans good-paying jobs laying an oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, they insist the project be scrapped because of the potential for harming Mother Earth. On the other hand, the environment was the very least of their concerns when they congregated for Obama’s inauguration and left the capital looking like a city dump and when hundreds of union thugs trashed Madison, Wisconsin, in order to show their displeasure with Governor Walker for attempting to bring fiscal sanity to the state.

More recently, we all got to witness the liberal approach to ecology at the Occupy Wall Street events. Even if you overlook the crime, the violence and the harm they did to local commerce, it’s hard to ignore the fact that when the L.A. cops finally sent the various anarchists, socialists, anti-Semites and whiny babies home, the mutts left 30 tons of garbage and debris in their wake. That’s 60,000 pounds, which, coincidentally, is just about the combined weight of the Democrats in the House and Senate, plus what Barney Frank had for lunch today.

In conclusion, I will frankly admit that I had no use for Bill Clinton, but at least he tried to pretend he felt our pain. That’s in stark contrast to Chairman Obama, who recently had the gall to say, “I always tell Malia and Sasha, ‘Look, you guys, I don’t worry about you.’ They’re on a path that is going to be successful, even if the country as a whole is not successful.”

I can’t tell you how relieved I was to hear that. I can live with 9% unemployment, a $15 trillion deficit and a nuclear Iran, but worrying about his daughters was keeping me up nights.
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.
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To read another article on the Ron Paul thread, click here.

Republican Voters' Choices

Republican Voters' Choices
By Thomas Sowell
12/29/2011

No one seems to be really happy with this year's field of Republican candidates for that party's presidential nomination -- except perhaps the Democrats.

The sudden rise, and equally sudden fall, of a succession of Republican front-runners is just one sign of the dissatisfaction of the Republican voters with this field of candidates.

In this, as in many other aspects of life, we can only make our choice among the options actually available. So Republican voters who want to be realistic need to understand that they are going to end up with qualms and nagging doubts about whomever they pick this time.

Not all voters want to be realistic, of course. Some voters, whether Democrats, Republicans or independents, treat elections as occasions to vent their emotions, rather than as a process to pick someone into whose hands to place the fate of the nation.

People who think this way tend to vote for someone they just happen to like, whether for personal or ideological reasons, and regardless of whether that candidate has any realistic chance of being elected.

The surprising support in the polls for Congressman Ron Paul seems to be of this sort. But does anyone seriously want to put the fate of this nation in the hands of a man who can casually brush aside the danger of nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism?

Barring some astonishing surprise, the contest for the Republican nomination for president boils down to Mitt Romney versus Newt Gingrich. It is doubtful whether either of them is anyone's idea of an ideal candidate or a model of consistency.

The fact that each of the short-lived front-runners in the Republican field gained that position by presenting themselves as staunch conservatives suggests that Republican voters may have been trying to avoid having to accept Mitt Romney, whose record as governor of Massachusetts produced nothing that would be regarded as a serious conservative achievement.

Romney's own talking point that he has been a successful businessman is no reason to put him into a political office, however much it may be a reason for him to become a successful businessman again.

Perhaps the strongest reason for some voters to support Governor Romney is that the smart money says he is more "electable" than the other candidates in general and Newt Gingrich in particular. But there was a time when even some conservative smart money types were saying that Ronald Reagan was too old to run for president, and that he should step aside for someone younger.

Washington Post editor Meg Greenfield said that the people in the Carter White House were "ecstatic" when the Republicans nominated Reagan, because they were convinced that they could clobber him.

Today, it is said that the Obama administration fears Romney, but would relish the opportunity to clobber Gingrich because of his "baggage." CNN has already started digging into Gingrich's most recent divorce.

Much depends on whether you think the voting public is going to be more interested in Newt Gingrich's personal past than in the country's future. Most of the things for which Gingrich has been criticized are things he did either in his personal life or when he was out of office. But, if we are serious, we are more concerned with his ability to perform when in office.

Even some of those who believe that Gingrich would devastate Obama in head-to-head debates on substantive issues nevertheless claim that all Obama has to do is come back with questions about Newt's work for failed mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac.

But, even at the personal, point-scoring level, Barack Obama can open up a can of worms by going that route, since Freddie Mac at least never planted bombs in public places, like some of Obama's political allies.

There are no guarantees, no matter whom the Republicans vote for in the primaries. Why not vote for the candidate who has shown the best track record of accomplishments, both in office and in the debates? That is Newt Gingrich. With all his shortcomings, his record shows that he knows how to get the job done in Washington.
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To read another article by Thomas Sowell, click here.

The Justice Department's Identity Problem

The Justice Department's Identity Problem
By Cal Thomas
12/29/2011

Is there, or should there ever be, a point when a state is no longer penalized for its discriminatory past?

Not according to the Department of Justice, which last Friday rejected a South Carolina law that would have required voters show a valid photo ID before casting their ballots.

Justice says the law discriminates against minorities. The Obama administration said, "South Carolina's law didn't meet the burden under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory practices preventing blacks from voting." Why South Carolina? Because, the Justice Department contends, it's tasked with approving voting changes in states that have failed in the past to protect the rights of blacks.

Are they serious?

There are two African Americans representing South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives, One is Tim Scott, a freshman Republican. The other is 10-term Rep. James Clyburn, the current assistant Democratic leader. There are numerous minority members of the S.C. state legislature and Governor Nikki Haley who is Indian-American.

This is not your grandfather's South Carolina. This is not the South Carolina of the then-segregationist and Dixiecrat presidential candidate Strom Thurmond. Yesterday's South Carolina had segregated schools, lunch counters, restrooms and buses and a dominant Democratic Party. Today's South Carolina is a modern, integrated, forward-looking, dual-party state.

If Justice thinks proving who one is by showing valid photo ID discriminates against minorities, how does it explain the election of so many minority legislators? Are only whites voting for them?

Democrats, especially, should be sensitive to states and people who have demonstrated that they have changed. It was the Democratic Party of the late 19th century that resisted integration throughout the South, passing Jim Crow laws that frustrated blacks who wanted to vote. Those were Southern Democrats who stood in schoolhouse doors, barring blacks from entering. Today, many members of that same party refuse to allow poor minority students to leave failing government schools as part of the school voucher system because they, apparently, value political contributions from teachers unions more than they value educational achievement.

The South Carolina law that offends the Justice Department anticipated objections that some poor minorities might not have driver's licenses (and certainly not a passport) because they might not own cars. So the state will provide free voter ID cards with a picture of the voter on it. All someone has to do is prove who they claim to be. A birth certificate will do nicely. A utility bill can be used to prove residency.

Not requiring a voter to prove his or her citizenship and residence is a recipe for voter fraud. Democrats like to accuse Republicans of trying to keep minorities from voting because they know most will vote for Democrats. Even if that were true (and it's debatable) the reverse is probably truer. Some Democrats have allegedly encouraged people to vote who were not eligible, some more than once. Without a valid ID, how can we stop this?

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law has compiled a list of new voter identification laws passed this year. In addition to the one in South Carolina, all require some form of photo identification. Will Justice go after all of them, as well?

According to the Brennan Center, a new law in Kansas, effective Jan. 1, 2012, requires a photo ID, with certain exceptions such as a physical disability that makes it impossible for the person to travel to a government office to acquire one, though they must have "qualified for permanent advance voting status..."

A new Texas law, which took effect on September 1, requires a photo ID in order to vote, or another form of personal ID card issued by the Department of Public Safety.

Even historically liberal Wisconsin passed a new law this year requiring voters to prove who they are, in most cases with a photo ID.

Governor Haley and South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson vow to fight the Justice Department ruling. They should. Photo IDs are required when flying on commercial aircraft or cashing a check. That discriminates against no one. Neither does requiring people to prove who they are before voting, unless, of course, there's another agenda, like "stuffing" the ballot box.
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To read another article by Cal Thomas, click here.

The Trojan Horse President

The Trojan Horse President
By Robert Knight
12/29/2011

I was thinking about writing a novel about what might happen if a man who hates America and wants to bring it down is somehow elected president. What would he do?

I sketched out a few plot elements, and you can decide whether this will fly.

First, the Trojan Horse president would initiate unprecedented spending, driving the national debt up by more than $4 trillion dollars just in the first three years.

He would ram through an unreadable law allowing the federal government to seize the health care system, which would transform citizens into beholden subjects.

He would cut out private lenders and federalize student loans.

He would go on a world apology tour, letting America’s friends and foes know that he is doing whatever he can to make sure that America becomes a third-rate power and is brought to heel under a growing world government headed by the United Nations. While on the tour, he would praise Islam and denigrate America’s Christian heritage.

He would cripple America’s ability to be energy independent by halting new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska – even projects that had already undergone years of research and approval. While promoting oil drilling by Brazil and other foreign countries, he would halt a pipeline from Canada’s oil tar sands that could create 20,000 U.S. jobs and reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

He would waste billions on “new” sources of energy that don’t have a prayer of sustaining America’s vast industrial and service industries. This means windmills, solar farms and acres of cages full of hamsters on wheels that generate electricity.

He would appoint a totalitarian-minded director of the Environmental Protection Agency to use global warming hysteria to create carbon rules to shut down or bankrupt coal-burning electric plants and to shackle manufacturers with hundreds of new regulations.

He would essentially end the space program, a main driver of America’s computer and other high tech industries. He would first order NASA to “reach out” to Muslim nations.

He would hollow out the military by killing new weapons, reducing forces and letting our foes know exactly when America is leaving the field of battle, regardless of conditions.

To complete the job of destroying morale, he would orchestrate, with leaks and stacked surveys, an end to the military’s moral code that has been in existence since the nation’s founding. He would brook no commander who held strong moral views, and would appoint spineless bureaucrats to facilitate the new sexually androgynous armed forces.

He would alienate European allies like Poland by yanking away a missile defense system after they had already committed to it and risked the wrath of neighboring Russia.

He would send his secretary of state around the world to promote abortion, homosexuality and anti-blasphemy dictums that stifle criticism of Sharia.

He would use the Justice Department to undermine the rule of law. Here are some ways he could do that:

--Attempt to close down the Guantanamo Bay military prison and bring terrorist suspects into U.S. civil courts where they can claim constitutional immunities.

--Reignite racial animosity by dropping voter intimidation charges against radicals such as the New Black Panther Party thugs outside a Philadelphia polling place.

--Order his attorney general to flout the Constitution’s requirement to “take care that the Laws be faithfully executed” by announcing that the administration will no longer defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act. While doing this, he would play coy with the media about his “evolving” views on same-sex “marriage” and facilitate homosexual activists’ other key goals, such as a federal hate crimes law.

--Have the civil rights enforcement staff ignore voter fraud allegations by citizens who happen to be white.

--Ignore blatant violations by “sanctuary cities” while suing Arizona and threatening other states that dare to enforce federal laws against illegal immigration.

--Threaten states that tighten laws against voter fraud, such as requiring a photo ID. Without evidence, accuse them of trying to “suppress” the minority vote.

-Ship hundreds of taxpayer-purchased firearms to Mexican drug gangs in order to frame law- abiding gun sellers in Texas. When the “Fast and Furious” weapons are used to kill U.S. and Mexican lawmen, the attorney general will pretend he didn’t know about the program until very recently and is shocked, shocked! The attorney general will claim that critics of this criminally insane policy are motivated by racial animus against him and the president. After all, this worked when anyone questioned why the president’s college and medical records were sealed, or why he attended a Marxist reverend’s church for 20 years and hung out with known terrorists.

He would appoint Supreme Court justices who believe in a “living Constitution,” which means they can ignore its plain meaning when it interferes with their ideological agenda.

He would stack the National Labor Relations Board with union hacks who will do unspeakable things such as order a major company (Boeing) not to open a new factory in a right-to-work state (South Carolina) in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. If he got away with that, he would go ahead and strengthen a crony socialist system reminiscent of Mussolini’s fascist Italy or Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela that subsidizes “winners” such as Solyndra.

Finally, throughout his tenure, he would employ the Marxist rhetoric of class warfare, blame “the wealthy” and make more Americans dependent on government checks. He would sucker Republican leaders into secret meetings and emerge to accuse them of wanting to raise taxes on all but the rich.

As I began to flesh out this novel, I decided it was a waste of time. Good fiction has to ring true to life, and the hamster part just won’t wash.
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To read another article by Robert Knight, click here.

America's Big Loser 2011: Americans

America's Big Loser 2011: Americans
By Ben Shapiro
12/29/2011

In North Carolina this week, a young man named Mostafa Kamel Hendi hit upon a plan to make ends meet in this rotten economy: He decided to knock over a local gold store. Tape shows this determined and enterprising flower of American youth strolling into the store, hoodie over his head, and then gesturing to the clerk, Derek Mothershead, to shove some money in a plastic bag.

Mothershead, however, not being a member of the liberal effete class who believe that all robbery is a noble redistributionist impulse, had an unexpected reaction. He handed Hendi some money -- and then, as Hendi bent to put the money in the bag, Mothershead clocked him with a tremendous left. Hendi went down, bleeding profusely. "There was just an opportunity there where I thought that I could actually do something and justice could be served," said Mothershead, "and I thought that's what needed to be done." This tough Mother then forced Hendi to clean up his own blood with paper towels and cleaning solution. "If he wants money," Mothershead added, "get a job. Work like everybody else in this world."

Poor Hendi. If only he had worked for the government, none of this would have ever happened. Unfortunately, it seems there's simply no way to fight back against a government full of Hendis hell bent on taking our money at the point of a gun -- for our own good, of course.

When 2011 dawned, it seemed a year of hope and change. After all, at the end of 2010, we elected Republicans in a Congressional landslide. President Obama was on the rocks thanks to charting a committed course of spending, spending and more spending. Most of all, the voting populace seemed to understand for the first time in 60 years that not only is there no such thing as a free lunch, but the man who offers the free lunch expects your firstborn child in return. Government, we realized, was Rumpelstiltskin rather than Santa Claus.

As the year progressed, however, it became clear that no matter who we elected, they were unwilling to say Rumpelstiltskin and make the greedy monster disappear. Republicans collapsed not once but twice on the spending issue. First, led by hack Speaker John Boehner, they imploded in April when, to avoid the dreaded "government shutdown" -- a shutdown which, by the way, would essentially impact nobody except those on government benefits -- Republicans agreed to cut a mere $38 billion from the 2010 baseline budget and keep funding to Planned Parenthood flowing. As it turned out, that $38 billion wasn't $38 billion at all but actually $352 million.

Then, in July, Republicans caved again. This time, they agreed to raise the debt ceiling so that Obama could continue his Mary Kate and Ashley Olson style spending spree, complete with Rodeo Drive montage. What did they get in return? A big, heaping bowl of nothing: A promised $2.2 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years that actually amounts to a cut of $7 billion in 2012 budget authority and baseline cuts that actually allow Obama's plans to move forward. And, to top that off, Obama got to push the debt crisis down the road past the election so that he wouldn't have to discuss his shopaholic problem until after his re-election. Oh, yes, we were also downgraded, to boot, on our national credit by Standard & Poors. So that worked out well.

The Republican Party has responded to all of this chicken-heartedness by feting Boehner as a great leader and proposing that conservatives nominate one Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts. Romney is clearly to the GOPs liking -- he fits the profile of the tough-talking scalpel-wielder and the in-office wimp. And we've been told that he's inevitable, like death and taxes. Meanwhile, Iowa Republicans, in the apparent grip of rabies, are now considering nominating Congressman Ron Paul, who is a real scalpel-wielder on domestic policy but has his cannon fixed on self-slaughter on the foreign front.

To no one's surprise, with the GOP offering a contrast like this, many Americans are content to settle for the real thing: a second Obama term. Despite a list of scandals that would have sunk any Republican president, despite leading America to the worst economic performance since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, despite crippling American influence in the Middle East for the next two generations, Obama rides high with a 44 percent approval rating. All he needs is to split the independent vote evenly to win re-election.

So what will 2012 be like? It depends on whether Americans are willing to punch back -- not just at Democrats but at Republicans as well. It depends on whether they are willing to tell their fellow citizens to stop leeching off of the 1 percent and start working for themselves rather than the great collective.

When Mothershead investigated Hendi's gun after K.O.-ing him, he found that it wasn't genuine -- it was a pellet gun. The truth is that if we stand up to it, our government is armed with pellet guns, too. Let them shut down the government, other than essential services. Good riddance. Let them warn of dire economic consequences if they're unable to send billion-dollar checks to abortion clinics. Somehow, we'll deal with it.

If we want 2012 to be a year of freedom, we'll have to stand up for it rather than settling for an agenda of half-freedom. Half-freedom is no freedom at all, no matter who is in office.
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To read another article by Ben Shapiro, click here.

Only One Candidate Is Right on The Two Most Important Issues

Only One Candidate Is Right on The Two Most Important Issues
By Ann Coulter
12/28/2011

In the upcoming presidential election, two issues are more important than any others: repealing Obamacare and halting illegal immigration. If we fail at either one, the country will be changed permanently.

Taxes can be raised and lowered. Regulations can be removed (though they rarely are). Attorneys general and Cabinet members can be fired. Laws can be repealed. Even Supreme Court justices eventually die.

But capitulate on illegal immigration, and the entire country will have the electorate of California. There will be no turning back.

Similarly, if Obamacare isn't repealed in the next few years, it never will be.

America will begin its ineluctable descent into becoming a worthless Western European country, with rotten health care, no money for defense and ever-increasing federal taxes to support the nanny state.

So let's consider which of the Republican candidates are most likely to succeed at these objectives.

In order to allow Democrats to indignantly denounce Republicans who said Obamacare would add to the deficit, the bill was structured so that no goodies get paid out immediately. That way, when the Congressional Budget Office was asked to determine if Obamacare was "revenue neutral" over its first 10 years, government accountants were looking at a bill that collected taxes for 10 years, but only distributed treats in the later years.

Starting at year 11, those accountants will be in for a big surprise when the government starts paying out Obamacare benefits without interruption.

Because of this accounting fraud, Obamacare can still be repealed. But as soon as all Americans have been thrown off their employer-provided insurance plans and are forced to start depending on the government for health care, Republicans will never be able to repeal it.

The vast complex of unionized government workers managing our health care from Washington will fight to keep their jobs (for more on this topic, see the Department of Education), voters will want their "free" government treats (for more on this topic, see Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security) -- and even if they don't, there won't be a private insurance market for them to go back to (for more on this topic, see IRS rules favoring employer-provided health care).

The only way to stop Obamacare is to beat Obama in 2012, and repeal it before the health care Leviathan is born.

Otherwise, starting in 2016, Republicans will run for office promising only to improve Obamacare. Newt Gingrich will be calling plans to reform it "right-wing social engineering."

All current Republican presidential candidates say they will overturn Obamacare. The question for Republican primary voters should be: Who is most likely to win?

2012 is not a year for a wild card. It's not a year for any candidate who will end up being the issue, instead of making Obama the issue. It's not a year for one wing of the Republican Party to be making a point with another wing. (And there are no Rockefeller Republicans left, anyway.) It's not a year to be gambling that America will vote for its first woman president, or that the country is ready for a nut-bar libertarian.

Running against an incumbent president in a make-or-break election, Republicans need a candidate with a track record of winning elections with voters similar to the entire American electorate.

Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich have never had to win votes beyond small, majority-Republican congressional districts.

Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have won statewide elections, but Huntsman and Perry ran in extremely red states that don't resemble the American electorate. Only Romney and Santorum have won a statewide election in a blue state, making them our surest-bets in a general election.

But if Santorum wins, we lose on the second most important issue -- illegal immigration -- and he'll be the last Republican ever to win a general election in America.

Just as Americans ought to be able to learn the perils of a welfare state by looking at Greece, we ought to be able to learn the perils of illegal immigration by looking at California.

Massive legal and illegal immigration has already so changed the California electorate that no Republican can be elected statewide anymore. Not so long ago, this was a state that produced great Republican governors and senators like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, S.I. Hayakawa and Pete Wilson.

If even Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, two bright, attractive, successful female business executives -- one pro-life and one pro-choice -- can't win a statewide election in California spending millions of their own dollars in the middle of the 2010 Republican sweep, it's buenas noches, muchachos.

And yet, almost all Republican presidential candidates support some form of amnesty for illegals in order to appeal to the business lobby.

Among the most effective measures against illegal immigration is E-Verify, the Homeland Security program that gives employers the ability to instantly confirm that their employees' Social Security numbers are legitimate. It is more than 99 percent accurate, and no employee is denied a job without an opportunity to challenge the records.

Although wildly popular with Americans -- including Hispanic Americans -- the business lobby hates E-Verify. Employers like hiring non-Americans because they can pay illegal aliens less and ignore state and federal employment laws.

Any candidate who opposes E-Verify is not serious about illegal immigration. If anything, E-Verify ought to be made mandatory to get a job, to get welfare and to vote.

Kowtowing to business (while pretending to kowtow to Hispanics), Paul, Perry and Santorum oppose E-Verify. As a senator, Rick Santorum voted against even the voluntary use of E-Verify.

Jon Huntsman claims to support E-Verify, but also wants to give illegals amnesty as soon as the border is sealed -- as determined by someone other than us. Also, he gave driver's identification cards to illegal aliens in Utah. (You'd think a guy no one has ever heard of would be more careful about ID cards.)

Following his latest guru, Helen Krieble, Newt Gingrich is for amnesty, combined with second-class status for illegals. Instead of giving illegal aliens green cards, Newt proposes giving them "red cards" so they can stay, take American jobs, have children, receive welfare benefits, attend public schools -- and eventually be granted amnesty. The Republican primaries will be over before most voters realize what Newt's "red card" scheme entails.

Only Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney aren't trying to sneak through amnesty for illegal aliens. Both support E-Verify.

Numbers USA, one of the leading groups opposed to our current insane immigration policies, gives Republican presidential candidates the following grades on immigration: Paul, F; Gingrich, D-minus; Huntsman, D-minus; Santorum, D-minus; Perry, D; Romney, C-minus; and Bachmann, B-minus.

And that was before Romney said last week that Obama's drunk-driving, illegal alien uncle should be deported!

That leaves us with Romney and Bachmann as the candidates with the strongest, most conservative positions on illegal immigration. As wonderful as Michele Bachmann is, 2012 isn't the year to be trying to make a congresswoman the first woman president.

Two Little Indians sitting in the sun; one was just a congresswoman and then there was one.
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To read another article by Ann Coulter, click here.

Ron Paul is Dangerous

Ron Paul is Dangerous
By Matt Barber
12/29/2011

After the most recent GOP presidential debate, reasonable people can disagree as to who came out on top. It was abundantly clear, however, who was smothered beneath the pile.

As Ron Paul waxed naive from his perch in Sioux City, Iowa, on issues ranging from foreign policy to judicial activism, one could almost hear his campaign bus tires deflate. Although some polls indicate that Mr. Paul has surged in Iowa, most national polls suggest that, beyond a relatively fixed throng of blindly devoted “Paulbots,” support for the eccentric Texas lawmaker has a concrete ceiling.

Mr. Paul did himself no favors during the debate. Afterward, former Iowa House Speaker Christopher C. Rants blogged, “Ron Paul finally lit a match after dousing himself with gasoline.”

Putting aside for a moment Mr. Paul’s leftist policies on a variety of social issues ranging from his unwavering support for newfangled “gay rights” – to include open homosexuality in the military – to advocacy for across-the-board legalization of illicit drugs, Mr. Paul demonstrated that he has a dangerous, fundamental misunderstanding of the threat posed to every American citizen by radical Islam. This alone disqualifies him for serious consideration as our future Commander in Chief.

During the debate, moderator Bret Baier asked Mr. Paul: “Many Middle East experts now say Iran may be less than one year away from getting a nuclear weapon. … Even if you had solid intelligence that Iran was in fact going to get a nuclear weapon, President Paul would remove the U.S. sanctions on Iran - including those added by the Obama administration. So, to be clear, GOP nominee Paul would be running left of President Obama on Iran?”

Mr. Paul responded: “But I’d be running with the American people because it would be a much better policy.” (The only American people running with this policy risk running the rest of us off a cliff.)

He went on to reject a U.N. agency report that indicates Iran is within months of developing nuclear weaponry, calling it “war propaganda.” He then spouted the same anti-American talking points we’ve come to expect from the hard-left “progressive” establishment, blaming America for Iran’s efforts to go nuclear.

In defense of Islamic terrorists, not unlike those responsible for Sept. 11, Mr. Paul said, “Yeah, there are some radicals, but they don’t come here to kill us because we’re free and prosperous. … They come here and want to do us harm because we’re bombing them.

“I don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” he continued, all the while demonstrating to everyone watching that a President Paul would be unwilling to lift a finger to prevent it.

His pacifist ruminations prompted fellow presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to respond: “With all due respect to Ron Paul, I think I have never heard a more dangerous answer for American security than the one that we just heard from Ron Paul. … I’ll tell you the reason why, the reason why I would say that is because we know without a shadow of a doubt that Iran will take a nuclear weapon, they will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map, and they stated they will use it against the United States of America. Look no further than the Iranian constitution, which states unequivocally that their mission is to extend jihad across the world and eventually to set up a worldwide caliphate. We would be fools to ignore their purpose and their plan.”

Mr. Paul evidently is one of those fools. Iran is today’s version of Nazi Germany, and Mr. Paul’s obtuse strategy of reckless inaction affords him the dubious title of this generation’s Neville Chamberlain. Like Chamberlain’s fruitless appeasement, Mr. Paul’s similar strategy simply feeds the insatiable beast.

Don’t get me wrong. I personally like Ron Paul. He’s that affable - if not a little “zany” - uncle who has the whole family on edge at Thanksgiving. “Oh boy; what’s Uncle Ronny gonna say next?”

Still, you wouldn’t give Uncle Ronny the carving knife for the turkey, much less the keys to the Oval Office.

Mr. Paul is many things, but conservative is not one of them. He’s a died-in-the-wool libertarian. That’s one part conservative, two parts anarchist.

Ronald Reagan often spoke of a “three-legged stool” that undergirds true conservatism. The legs are represented by strong free-market economic principles, a strong national defense and strong social values. For the stool to remain upright, it must be supported by all three legs. If you snap off even one leg, the stool collapses under its own weight.

Mr. Paul is relatively conservative from an economic standpoint, but in true libertarian form, has snapped off the legs of national defense and social values.

The libertarian is a strange and rare little animal – a bit like the woolly flying squirrel. It spends its days erratically darting to-and-fro atop this teetering, one-legged stool in a futile effort to keep it from toppling. America witnessed Ron Paul doing this squirrelly libertarian tango on the night of December 15th. Cute but unstable.

Ron Paul never had a chance; but now, with the possible exception of his most committed devotees, I suspect most people will finally admit it. Regardless of what happens in Iowa, the Paul engine has run out of steam. During the debate it pulled into the station and released its final wheeze right alongside the Cain Train.
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To read another article by Matt Barber, click here.
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To read another article about Ron Paul, click here.

Conservative Establishment Divided Against Itself

Conservative Establishment Divided Against Itself
By Jonah Goldberg
12/28/2011

I've made a disturbing discovery: I am a member of the conservative "establishment." I feel like Michael Douglas at the end of "Falling Down": "I'm the bad guy?"

Largely in response to the real and perceived excesses of the Bush years and the overreach of the Obama administration, the base has become more populist. In particular, the rank and file of the GOP and the conservative movement have become deeply disenchanted with what they see as the rubber-spined, foot-dragging quislings drinking from a trough of Chablis at some Georgetown party. The term "RINO" (Republican In Name Only) has become an epithet of ideological enforcement, spit out in much the same way Mao cursed "running dog capitalists."

In 2010, the tea parties and the conservative base (not always synonymous terms) tried to cull as many RINOs from the herd as they could in the primaries. They were extremely successful, with only a few stumbles.

Things are messier this time around. And to some extent this is to be expected. Presidential primaries rely on much larger pools of voters than primaries in midterms. Moreover, rather than a single Tea Party candidate challenging a worn-out incumbent, the field has had lots of candidates seeking the Tea Party or "true conservative" mantle.

Each of them has tried to play the populist card, not just against the liberal media establishment but also against the so-called conservative establishment. "I believe it is a deliberate attempt to damage me because I am not, quote unquote, the establishment choice," explained Herman Cain when asked about his troubles.

Though he never intended any of this, Mitt Romney is largely to blame for the anti-establishment tumult. Somehow, he has managed to become the Arlen Specter of the 2012 field. (Specter is conservative-speak for "demon RINO from hell." You're supposed to spit on the ground after you say "Arlen Specter." Ptooey.)

In 2008, Romney was the conservative alternative to John McCain, earning endorsements not just from National Review magazine but from many titans of right-wing talk radio -- Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Now Limbaugh insists that support for Romney proves that "the Republican establishment does not want a conservative getting the nomination." Erick Erickson, a CNN contributor and editor of the conservative site Red State, says that if Romney is the nominee, "Conservatism dies and Barack Obama wins."

After National Review issued a stinging anti-Newt Gingrich editorial, many of the same voices insisted that the magazine (where I work, though I didn't write the editorial) has, in the words of one right-wing blogger, lived long enough "to become the villain." Fox News, Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer, George Will and even pro-Romney columnist Ann Coulter are routinely denounced as part of some RINO cabal.

It's difficult to catalog all of the oddities. Hugely successful, powerful and rich conservatives are lambasting the establishment as if they are in no way part of it. Gingrich has gone from being too establishment to too anti-establishment faster than you can say "Freddie Mac." And you can only wonder how befuddled Romney is given that he's moved even further rightward since 2008.

Frankly, I can't blame anyone for being underwhelmed by Romney, or begrudge anyone their frustration with the field. What's harder to understand is how nobody has noticed that the conservative establishment, which includes many of my friends denouncing it, has become vastly more conservative over the last two decades. It's more pro-life, more pro-Second Amendment, more opposed to tax increases.

The political corpses of RINOs litter the roadside of this great migration. Rockefeller Republicans went out with 8-track tapes, leisure suits and Kevin Phillips. And yet, people talk about the conservative establishment like David Gergen is calling the shots.

The mere fact that there's something one can meaningfully describe as a conservative establishment today is a victory, never mind that it is more conservative than it has ever been. But a conservative establishment is useless if it doesn't bring the nation with it. The frustration on the right stems from the fact that none of the candidates seems up to that task.
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To read another article by Jonah Goldberg, click here.

Russia: Back to the Future

Russia: Back to the Future
by Robert Maginnis
12/28/2011

Last weekend’s massive protest in Moscow’s Prospekt Sakharova will result in a new Soviet-style Russia not an Arab Spring-like revolution. The West had better beware because the Russian bear is coming out of hibernation.

Twenty years ago this month the Soviet Union crumbled and from those ashes rose a promising Russian democratic republic. But Soviet-era corruption reared its ugly head in Russia’s December 4th parliamentary elections. That corruption sparked numerous protests, calls for new elections and earned Russia’s prime minister an accusatory message from a U.S. senator.

Senator John McCain​ (R-AZ) tweeted Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin a satirical message. “Dear Vlad,” tweeted McCain, “the #Arabspring is coming to a neighborhood near you.”1 That tweet linked a news article about allegations of fraud in Russia’s parliamentary elections.

Predictably Putin dismissed McCain’s ribbing as dunce naivety. Yes, Russia’s elections were likely corrupt, but they were also a gauge of the country’s mood for change which Putin intends to leverage to earn another term as president.

Putin’s political party, United Russia​, lost State Duma seats in the elections in spite of widespread corruption but nationalist parties which also support Putin for president gained those same seats. On balance the election confirms Putin’s political support for a back-to-the- future Russia propelled by growing nationalism.

Putin intends to ride the nationalist sentiment to rebuild Russia where his former Soviet masters failed 20 years ago. Putin memorably described the Soviet Union’s demise as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. Then two weeks ago Putin, in full campaign mode, expressed a similar sentiment on Russian television. The Soviet Union “should have started timely economic reforms and changes,” Putin said, instead the regime collapsed.

Putin, a former KGB – Soviet-era secret police - lieutenant colonel, sees himself as Russia’s savior, the man destined to bring about “reforms” and “changes.” But first he must win back the presidency this March, a virtual certainty. Then Putin intends to restore Russia’s grandeur using Soviet-style politics, building a new Warsaw Pact-like geopolitical alliance, growing the military, and implementing a popular anti-West foreign policy.

Putin’s politics are right out of a Soviet-era playbook. In September Putin and outgoing President Dmitriy Medvedev confirmed their intent at the United Russia congress to extend the Putin dynasty, which started in 1999, ran through two terms as president and recently four years as prime minister.

Medvedev told the congress that Putin will stand for the presidency in 2012 and he [Medvedev] is to replace him as prime minister. The party rubber stamped the Putin nomination and the prime minister accepted the unanimous endorsement “with gratitude.” Putin said between chants of “Putin, Putin” that he would build “a strong and happy Russia,” translated financial benefits for his supporters.

Putin’s critics saw in that congress visions of the Soviet era. Liberal-democratic party leader Vladimir Zhirinovskiy​ compared the United Russia’s “Putin, Putin” congress to ones held by the Soviet Communist Party​. “The same milkmaids, officers, and steel workers" with "hired hands shouting all the slogans," Zhirinovskiy said, according to RIA Novosti.

Putin played to Soviet-era nostalgia when he called for building a Eurasian Union. On October 4, Putin published an article in Izvetiia announcing his Eurasia Union initiative that will have an economic focus similar to the euro zone, though led by Russia politically and bears a suspicious resemblance to that of the former Soviet Union.

The objective is not to rebuild a unified state dependent financially on Moscow, but create a supranational political and economic structure that gives Moscow strategic oversight of countries on its periphery. Russia already has a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan has indicated it intends to join. That union integrates their economies and reduces restrictions on movement of goods across their borders.

A Russian-led Eurasia Union will attract former Warsaw Pact countries especially now that Europe is collapsing. It also suggests a reorientation of Russian foreign policy strategy under soon-to-be-president Putin that de-emphasizes Europe and puts Moscow in the catbird seat.

Keep in mind even though the proposed Eurasia Union starts as a political and economic association it could become a defense alliance. The former Warsaw Pact was the military compliment to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the former communist states of Eastern Europe.

Putin is modernizing Russia’s military already armed with the world’s largest atomic weapons arsenal. Last month Putin declared, according to Interfax, the Russian armed forces will be brought up “to a new level in the next five to 10 years” so that both the army and the military-industrial complex “are capable of guaranteeing Russia stable peace without undermining the national economy.”

Moscow is aggressively rebuilding its atomic strike capability, doctrinally the nation’s primary means of defense. For example, just last week Russia’s Northern Fleet successfully carried out the salvo launch of two Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles from the Yuriy Dolgorukiy​, a submersed nuclear submarine in the White Sea. Such strategic modernization of its nuclear forces does not contravene the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the U.S., but it is leaving the U.S. in the dust because America stopped atomic weapon modernization projects.

Moscow is also aggressively building conventional expeditionary platforms. It is constructing over 100 naval ships, over 1,000 helicopters and 600 military aircraft including the fifth generation Sukhoi PAK-FA fighter.4 Meanwhile, Russian ships and aircraft are returning to distant seas and air space to challenge the U.S.

Putin promises an anti-U.S. foreign policy. He told the United Russia congress he “will continue to pursue an active foreign policy” while “straightforwardly and honestly” defending Russia’s interests. He cautioned that dialogue with Russia is "possible only on an equal footing" and that "nothing can be imposed on Russia from outside."

These comments are aimed at the U.S., which Putin considers Russia’s primary adversary. His concern is with NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe and America’s European-based ballistic missile defense (BMD), which he claims threatens Russia’s sovereignty.

Putin is especially weary of America’s BMD which he says is intended to neutralize Russia’s nuclear deterrent and is a pretext to station American forces in Eastern Europe. Washington argues the BMD is to counter the emerging Iranian missile threat.

But President Medvedev and by assoication Putin threaten that if the U.S. continues to refuse cooperation with Russia regarding the BMD, Moscow will deploy its Iskander mobile ballistic missiles and early warning system on its border with Poland and Lithuania. He will target the American BMD and fit the Iskanders with advanced maneuverable re-entry vehicles and penetration aids.

On other fronts Moscow is re-engaging the Middle East, such as building a military port in Syria to re-establish a Mediterranean presence. It is playing an active and unhelpful role in the ongoing nuclear crisis with Iran, leveraging its control of the Northern Distribution Network into Afghanistan, contesting arctic region claims, and moving back into areas that haven’t seen Russians for two decades.

The election protests express genuine discontent with Russian corruption. But the real story is the Putin dynasty is strong and soon will shed any pretense of reform. It will tap into the growing Russian nationalism to rebuild Moscow’s stature Soviet-style with a back-to-the-future agenda which means the Russian bear is back with a vengeance.
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To read another article by Robert Maginnis, click here.

Hostages to Insolvency

Hostages to Insolvency
Don’t loan the government anything you aren’t prepared to lose.
by John Hayward
12/28/2011

The New York Times published a melancholy article Monday on the disintegrating Greek health care system:

Greece used to have an extensive public health care system that pretty much ensured that everybody was covered for everything. But in the last two years, the nation’s creditors have pushed hard for dramatic cost savings to cut back the deficit. These measures are taking a brutal toll on the system and on the country’s growing numbers of poor and unemployed who cannot afford the new fees and co-payments instituted at public hospitals as part of the far-reaching austerity drive.

At public hospitals, doctors report shortages of all kinds of supplies, from toilet paper to catheters to syringes. Computerized equipment has gone unrepaired and is no longer in use. Nurses are handling four times the patients they should, and wait times for operations — even cancer surgeries — have grown longer.

Access to drugs has also been affected, as some drug manufacturers, owed tens of millions of dollars, are no longer willing to supply Greek hospitals. At the same time pharmacists, afraid that the government might not reimburse them, are asking for cash payments, even from those with insurance.

This cautionary tale comes to us from a nation further down the insolvency slide than America, but it’s an open question exactly how much farther, once allowances are made for scale. One of the consistent threads running through stories about Greece is how the speed of their fiscal collapse took so many Greek citizens by surprise, even though it was quite obvious to outside observers for many years, and not all that difficult to predict with a spreadsheet.

Don’t laugh at the Greeks. We’ve got doomsday spreadsheets all over the place in America, and plenty of people who refuse to look at them. The same people will spend the next decade complaining about how sudden American fiscal collapse was, and bitterly protesting the brutal unfairness of the austerity measures, after they become unavoidable.

The sad tale of Greek health care teaches us an important lesson: Don’t “loan” the government anything you aren’t prepared to lose.

As we bump and skitter along our debt ceiling, we should take careful notice of how eagerly the government puts vital services on the chopping block. As soon as there is serious talk of spending restraint, Big Government sighs and throws some cops and firefighters at the budget cutters. A vast army of bureaucrats works in Washington. Their immense compensation has made the nation’s capital the richest city in America. But when the debt limit approaches, nobody talks about cleaning out the second assistants to the third deputies of the Associate Under-Secretary of Whatever. No one speaks of the money wasted on summits to plan meetings in advance of conferences. The caretakers of the leviathan State speak often of their passionate desire to cut “waste, fraud, and abuse,” but Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) never has any trouble finding a few billion dollars of ridiculous crap to chronicle in his annual “Wastebook.”

Big Government exposes its jugular to every swing of the budget-cutting axe. Knowing this makes it exceptionally foolish to place even more vital aspects of our lives, such as health care, under its control… because we can be absolutely certain that those vital affairs will be taken hostage the next time Americans balk at handing over another trillion dollars of tax money or debt.

Those ObamaCare “public exchanges” are guillotines in which countless necks will be laid. The blades will begin quivering at the first mention of fiscal restraint. Today’s tragedies from the Greek health care system will become dire prophecies of what waits for Americans if the next trillion dollars of debt is not swiftly approved.

“Of course we can significantly reduce the rate of government growth!” the people of 2014 will be told. “That is, assuming you don’t mind having the streets clogged with the corpses of the poor and their children.”

Every time we increase our dependency upon government, the power of the political class grows. Even if politicians weren’t inclined to exploit the tethers of dependency for electoral gain, it’s risky to wire everything into a single budgetary power plant that could melt down at any moment. Centralization brings vulnerability, not only because everything might fail at once… but because programs the greatest number of people are most deeply dependent upon are just about guaranteed to fail first.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.

Feds' War on Religion (Part 2 of 2)

Feds' War on Religion (Part 2 of 2)
By Chuck Norris
12/27/2011








Last week, I documented more than a dozen ways in which, in just the past six months, the Obama administration is trampling on the religious liberties of America's finest military service members.

I am very disappointed by the dissolution of religious liberties in the U.S. military. Times have sadly and radically changed since my father served in World War II, since I served four years in the Air Force and since my two brothers, Wieland and Aaron, served in the Army in Vietnam. (My brother Wieland paid the ultimate price there in the line of duty.)

I thank God that I served in the Air Force during a time in which moral absolutes and a deep reverence for God pervaded culture, especially the military. No service member was ashamed or afraid to express his faith in God or his Christian beliefs. In fact, the very thought that service members would somehow have to protect or defend their Christian faith would have seemed ludicrous.

Remember that it was only a few short decades ago when a commander in chief spoke passionately about his Christian faith. President Ronald Reagan said this before the lighting of the national Christmas tree Dec. 16, 1982: "In this holiday season, we celebrate the birthday of one who, for almost 2,000 years, has been a greater influence on humankind than all the rulers, all the scholars, all the armies and all the navies that ever marched or sailed, all put together. ... It's also a holy day, the birthday of the Prince of Peace, a day when 'God so loved the world' that he sent us his only begotten son to assure forgiveness of our sins."

The First Amendment secures our total religious rights and liberties: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The American Civil Liberties Union and like-minded groups, such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation, are not preserving First Amendment rights; they are perverting the meaning of the establishment clause (which was to prevent the creation of a national church like the Church of England) and denying the free exercise clause (which preserves our right to worship as we want, privately and publicly). Both clauses were intended to safeguard religious liberty, not to circumscribe the practicing of religion. The Framers were seeking to guarantee a freedom of religion, not a freedom from it.

I respect all religions but adhere to one. I believe what Benjamin Rush -- a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a member of the presidential administrations of Adams, Jefferson and Madison -- wrote: "Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mohammed inculcated upon our youth than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles. But the religion I mean to recommend in this place is that of the New Testament."

And in so doing, I believe in the collection of beliefs stated almost poetically in the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended to the grave. The third day, he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from where he will come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy Christian church; the fellowship of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and eternal life. Amen."

Any questions?

No Christmas hesitations here. My family celebrates Christ in Christmas; that 2,000 years ago, God sent a savior, named Jesus, born to die for the sins of mankind; that whoever believes in him will have eternal life, which I chose to do decades ago at a Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles.

Friends, now is not the time in the history of our republic to be sheepish about our patriotism or religious convictions, as so many of our leaders are. Now is the time to demonstrate with boldness in what and whom we believe. That is the type of leader and president that we need in America's future.

We need more God-fearing men and women like those portrayed in "Courageous," the inspiring film about everyday heroes that also was expanded into a best-selling novel by my friend and prolific author Randy Alcorn (http://www.epm.org). In the novel, one character speaks for many of us and challenges the rest: "But there are some men who, regardless of the mistakes we've made in the past, regardless of what our fathers did not do for us, will give the strength of our arms and the rest of our days to loving God with all that we are and to teaching our children to do the same. And whenever possible, to love and mentor others who have no father in their lives but who desperately need help and direction. We are inviting any man whose heart is willing and courageous to join us."

Whatever your religious persuasion, don't be ashamed of it. And don't hesitate to let others know where you stand, respectfully speaking. Freedom of speech and religious liberty are your First Amendment rights. This is America. And that's one of the things that still make us a great nation. In God we trust.
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To read Part 1 of this article, click here.

Sen. Coburn's 2011 Gov't Wastebook

Sen. Coburn's 2011 Gov't Wastebook
By Tad DeHaven
12/27/2011

The office of Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has released the 2011 edition of its annual “Wastebook.” The document spotlights 100 particularly ridiculous expenditures of taxpayer money from the past year. From an entertainment standpoint, it’s pure gold. But it’s also infuriating, depressing, and a painful reminder of what happens when politicians and bureaucrats spend other people’s money.
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To read another article mentioning Tom Coburn, click here.