Redstate: Karen Handel for Governor

After highlighting the political and ethical deficiencies of her opponents, Erick Erickson at www.Redstate.com endorses Karen Handel for Governor of Georgia thusly:

She is most decidedly not one of the boys. Of the top tier candidates — Deal, Johnson, Handel, and Oxendine — she is the only one yet to be touched by media reports of scandal. Honest observers of the race pretty much agree they’d all be surprised if anyone raised something serious and credible about her.

RedState has endorsed Handel, but we have not done a very good job of sending her money. She’s a pro-life, pro-entrepreneur Secretary of State and has given every indication that she would be as Governor too. She knows how to balance budgets and cut waste. She stands out from the pack on the campaign trail. And like with Nikki Haley in South Carolina, we need to help get Karen Handel elected.

We stand on the verge of promoting the next generation of conservatives to office. Karen is one of them and she is one of us. Let’s help her win.

America at the Tipping Point?

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32).

This week Senator Harry Reid got the 60 votes he needs to pass the Democrat health care legislation in the Senate along partisan lines. While final passage is not assured, what is certain is that America has as of this hour ceased being a republican democracy. The country has fallen into the hands of a corrupt and unaccountable kleptocracy, aided and abetted by Republicans but chiefly operated by Democrats.

This is evidenced not by the fact that only Democrats will vote for this legislation. It is evidenced by the way the legislation—like all such legislation these past 11 months-- was managed from start to finish in both houses: secret deals cut behind closed doors; the opposition party shut out of the process; drafting done out of sight of all members save a chosen few; weekend and midnight roll-calls; bribes and extortion using taxpayer money (that we don’t have); handouts to favored businesses, unions and assorted cronies; deceitful accounting tricks, and total disregard of either body’s rules, minority rights or the will of the people.

Only in a kleptocracy do elected officials attack citizens who dare to oppose this shameful exercise of Chicago-style thuggery. This week Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehead suggested that opponents are dominated by “birthers and fanatics in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups.” Does Senator Whitehead assume that those on the Left who have risen to oppose the Senate bill are also in thrall to right-wing racists? Perhaps demagoguing his fellow citizens is the only way that Senator Whitehead can call attention to himself in the World’s Most Egotistical Deliberative Body.

The assaults on our civic sensibilities and common sense come fast and furious. That is the intent of the ruling class. One day unelected “czars” determine pay limits for private businesses; the next the EPA usurps Congress by “finding” it can regulate water vapor. Barney Frank seeks power to shut down private businesses while giving Fannie and Freddie free reign. Government payrolls swell by 12% while private sector jobs shrink. President Obama promises fiscal discipline while presiding over the second budget in a row with $1.4 trillion deficits.

Not to worry; according to the President the trillion- dollar- plus health care bill will reduce the deficit by a couple of billion dollars over 10 years. (That is, of course, if Congress allows the bill’s $400 billion in cuts in Medicare take effect, which is the fiscal trick at the core of this bill: Congress has no intention of cutting Medicare).

Meanwhile a bunch of unelected bureaucrats and despots from crappy little countries gather in Copenhagen to extort billions from the “rich” countries to fund their “carbon-reduction programs” (i.e., to fund their lavish parties in Paris and their brutal tyranny of women, homosexuals and dissenters at home). The worst part is that the rich countries—who are “rich” only to the extent of their indebtedness to foreign powers-- -- happily offer up the wealth and prosperity of their citizens as guilt-offerings to the most radical Leftist and irredentist regimes on the planet. Our own country is only too willing to lead the way.

Global warming may or not be occurring, but the science is beside the point. “Cap-and-trade” is a global Ponzi scheme designed to lighten your wallet, restrict your freedoms and shovel billions, maybe trillions, into a global bottomless pit where it will be administered (for a small fee) by the same folks who did such a good job running the Oil for Food program a while back.

Iran is allowed to pursue its nuclear program unchecked while Israel is monitored for infractions of its building codes. Casualties mount in Iraq and lip service is given to the “necessary” war in Afghanistan while timetables for retreat are articulated, then denied. The one clear constitutional responsibility of government—to defend and protect the United States—is treated as a footnote to the really important work of bowing to foreign leaders and apologizing for our very existence.

If we had a reasonably fair and professional media, even a biased one, one might feel better about all this. With a press dedicated to truth and its role as government watchdog, we would know that in time the secrets, lies, fraud and corruption would be exposed to the light of day. But in truth we have not just a biased media but a corrupt one, gleefully urging on the agenda of the elites and providing cover for their schemes. It is all very disheartening.

Yet, we citizens—patriots—do have access to information, primarily through the “alternative media” of talk radio, the internet, cable news, email communication, Twitter, Facebook, and the like. And we have the ability to share it at lightning speed with dozens, indeed hundreds or thousands of others. Might our wise and good masters attempt to commandeer these electronic wonderments for their own purposes, denying access to those with whom they disagree? With this crowd anything is possible. But recall that in an earlier age, in an hour darker than this one, Americans with the benefit of only the printing press and a determination to live as free people found a way to spread the truth and rally their fellow citizens to the cause of independence.

I don’t suggest that we are faced today with the dire circumstances that confronted our founders in 1776. But we are at the start of an unprecedented era where, left unchecked, government is bound to tighten restrictions on political liberty and economic freedom, much like the period that began in 1763 with the Stamp Act. And like British Parliament of the 18th century, our own Congress grows more contemptuous of its subjects with each passing day.

It is said that Americans are slow to anger, but mighty when provoked. As I will detail in a subsequent post, Americans suffered under increasingly despotic British rule for a decade and a half before finally acting to sever the bonds that existed between American and England. Forbearance is a virtue, but like all virtues it has its limits. Our political masters should not conclude that because Americans have yet to rise up as one in anger that they never will.

We would do well to recall that in America power ultimately resides with the people, not the media, the bureaucrats or even with Senators and Representatives. Americans may be loathe to give up their comforts and conveniences, but they still hate tyranny and love freedom. As long as that continues, we can be assured that they will rise to whatever demands are made of them to preserve their rights and liberties.

It’s just a matter of time.

Massachusetts Dem tells Fellows: "You're Screwed"

Democrat Rep. Michael Capuano returned to Washington after losing the Democratic primary for the Senate seat recently vacated by Ted Kennedy. According to The Huffington Post, in a weekly meeting of the Democrat caucus he gave his fellow Dems a two-word warning: "You're Screwed:"

Everywhere Capuano went in his state, he said, he was bombarded with demands that the government do more to create jobs. He was also greeted by deep skepticism about Obama's escalation of the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan.

Of course, many Americans believe that the government doesn't actually "create" jobs. But the fact remains that if Capuano is right, the voters of deep blue Massachusetts--like all voters --care more about jobs than they do about health care "reform," cap-and-trade legislation, the war against Wall Street "fat-cats" and other misplaced priorities of the Obama administration.

No one can be surprised that the economy and jobs are the most important issues on the minds of voters everywhere. No one, that is, except the statists and social engineers who populate the White House, the cabinet and Capitol Hill.

Once the best and brightest in Washington do turn their attention from destroying capitalism to more mundane matters like "creating" jobs it may just be too late. They will have cooked the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg.

Democrats would be wise to heed Rep. Capuano's warning, or else the goose that gets cooked may well be their own.

"A Leap of Faith"

Christian, Muslim or Jew, if you are a Believer you will appreciate this reflection by Redstate's Erick Erickson on faith and trust in G-d and the power of prayer.

"A Senator’s Gift to the Jews, Nonreturnable"

Finally, a Senator who actually does something to celebrate.

To see video of Senator Hatch's ode to Chanukah, click here.

"Journalism and Freedom"

From Rupert Murdoch in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal on the prospect of government subsidies for newspapers:

The prospect of the U.S. government becoming directly involved in commercial journalism ought to be chilling for anyone who cares about freedom of speech. The Founding Fathers knew that the key to independence was to allow enterprises to prosper and serve as a counterweight to government power. It is precisely because newspapers make profits and do not depend on the government for their livelihood that they have the resources and wherewithal to hold the government accountable.

When the representatives of 13 former British colonies established a new order for the ages, they built it on a sturdy foundation: a free and informed citizenry. They understood that an informed citizenry requires news that is independent from government. That is one reason they put the First Amendment first.

Our modern world is faster moving and far more complex than theirs. But the basic truth remains: To make informed decisions, free men and women require honest and reliable news about events affecting their countries and their lives. Whether the newspaper of the future is delivered with electrons or dead trees is ultimately not that important. What is most important is that the news industry remains free, independent—and competitive.

A Doctor Email on Healthcare

Hugh Hewitt at www.Hughhewitt.com has been soliciting and publishing emails from M.D.s all across the country in order to gain their unique perspective on health care in America and the legislation being foisted on Americans by Congress to "fix" the health care "crisis."

As this email suggests, whatever else may be said about the pending legislation, it will by no means "fix" the problem of too few doctors serving too many patients. In fact, by subsidizing access to millions who otherwise wouldn't pay for private medical insurance while at the same time cutting doctor's reimbursements for services, the legislation will ensure that thousands of young doctors and would-be doctors will flee the medical profession and choose to apply their talents elsewhere, thus turning a problem into a disaster.

Believe it or not, altruism is not an adequate incentive for a talented young person to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and to defer career income for 8 to 10 years after college. It is the prospect of ultimately doing well financially while doing good medically that sustains the sacrifice in time, money and effort that all docs suffer.

Nothing wrong with that in a free society. Is there?

Barack Obama Channeling Bush, says Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart skewers Barack Obama on his Afghanistan policy.

Considering that millions in Generation X and Y (is there a Gen Z yet?) view Jon Stewart's show as their sole source of news, this is likely to resonate.

Huckabee's Hopes Dashed by Clemmons, See?

Lets face it. Mike Huckabee was never going to be the Republican nominee for president in 2012. The smooth-talking former minister and faux-populist Arkansas governor doesn't have the economic credentials and foreign-policy experience that the GOP will need in it is next nominee in order to seek to rescue the country from the grips of Obamanomics and Obama's foreign policy disaster.

But Huckabee would have made a go of it had he ran. And he would have provided a distraction that would have drawn media, money and votes from more promising candidates for the GOP nomination. All that changed when Maurice Clemmons killed four police officers in Lakeland WA, near Seattle, the other day while they were filling out paperwork in a local coffee shop.

Clemmons had been released from the Arkansas State prison system nine years ago after then-Governor Huckabee commuted his sentence over the objections of prosecutors. Instantly Clemmons has become a weight around Huckabee heavier even than the one called "Willie Horton" that haunted 1988 Democrat Presidential nominee Mike Dukakis. Unlike Dukakis, who did not personally set Horton free, Huckabee signed the clemency papers that set the stage for Clemmons' parole.

This is not not to say that Huckabee is morally culpable for the evil Clemmons did. After all, as Huck himself points out, "a series of failures" throughout the Arkansas and Washington State bureaucracy led to Clemmons being free to roam the streets of Seattle. But the fact remains that but for Huckabee's signature Clemmons might still be in prison and the children of those four Lakeland cops might still have their fathers.


Luckily, Clemmons was shot dead by a police officer Tuesday morning near Seattle. So its over for Clemmons. And for the families of Clemmons' many victims, who will be spared the agony of a drawn out process of pre-trial motions, courtroom theatrics and post-trial appeals that would have undoubtedly delayed or even prevented the delivery of the justice that these families so richly deserve. (For a chilling account showing just how depraved Clemmons was, click here).


And its over for Huckabee too, at least politically. As blogger Dan Calabrese said, Huckabee may be a good man but he's a lousy leader. His Christian evangelic compassion and belief in personal redemption are admirable qualities in a preacher but are problematic in an executive. Said Calabrese two years ago:


[Huckabee] seems to see his position of authority as a mechanism to impulsively apply his evangelical agenda. As governor, he pardoned or otherwise advocate (sic) the earlier release of more than 1,000 criminals, with beneficiaries including 13 murderers (one of whom went on to kill again), Huckabee acts as though his seat in the state house is license to bestow a Christ-like gift of grace to anyone he chooses.

Even Jesus didn’t cut the thieves down from their crosses. He just offered them a place in Heaven.

I am the last person to weigh in on matters of Christian theology and the concept of grace. But I do think that Huckabee's sense of moral certainty flowing from his religious beliefs has ultimately done him in. His inability to balance his own firmly held views of forgiveness, compassion and grace with his responsibility to protect the common weal apparently led him to gamble on the divine redemption of provably dangerous criminals at the expense of the public's safety.


The Maurice Clemmons affair proves the old adage that to govern is to choose. Motivated by a sense of religious duty and evangelical mission Mike Huckabee chose to dispense justice with a liberal use of his pardon pen. Now his choices have caught up with him, and he will be consigned forever to political purgatory.

But feel not sorry for the Huckster. After all he's got a cable TV show all his own.

"Obama a One-Trick Pony"?

Powerlineblog posts a long and thoughtful piece by a professor at Hillsdale College analyzing a recent Peggy Noonan column on President Obama.

The Noonan column and the professor's analysis gives voice to many on both the Right and the Left who wonder whether Obama has the skills, depth or interest in governing as he campaigned.

In Noonan's words:

Mr Obama is in a hard place. Health care hangs over him, and if he is lucky he will lose a close vote in the Senate. The common wisdom that he can't afford to lose is exactly wrong--he can't afford to win with such a poor piece of legislation. He needs to get the issue behind him, vow to fight another day, and move on. Afghanistan hangs over him, threatening the unity of his own Democratic congressional base. There is the growing perception of incompetence, of the inability to run the machine of government. This, with Americans, is worse than Obama's rebranding as a leader who governs from the left. Americans demands baseline competence. If he comes to be seen as Jimmy Carter was, that the job was bigger than the man, that will be the end.

The Hillsdale professor (who often finds Noonan's gauzy, moralizing writing style off-putting), thinks Peggy Noonan is spot on this time. He concludes with his own observation--that Democrats are sowing what they have reaped:

[In 2008, the Democrats] had on their hands an inexperienced, recently minted US Senator from Illinois who was -- as Joe Biden put it in a candid remark that typifies his propensity for speaking his mind without first thinking about the consequences -- "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Never mind, they thought, Obama's long-standing connections with William Ayers, the unrepentant mastermind of a domestic terrorist bombing campaign in the 1970s. Never mind Obama's close association with the racist demagogue Jeremiah Wright. Never mind his lack of executive experience, his unfamiliarity with the private sector, and his ignorance of the ways of Washington. With the help of the pliable press, he could be sold -- and Americans would congratulate themselves on their lack of racial prejudice if they voted for him.

Now comes the reckoning. For Barack Obama seems to be a one-trick pony. He is very good at delivering a speech if he has a teleprompter at hand, and the first and even the second time that you hear him, you will be impressed. If you bother later to read and re-read the speech you will perceive its emptiness. But few will do that, and by the time that they do, it will be too late.

My take on all this is that it must be very tough to be a Democrat loyalist these days. We conservatives knew what we were getting with Barack Obama, and are surprised only by the scale of his arrogance and the emptiness of his politics. Liberals are just discovering that the man they swooned for as a candidate can't or won't deliver what he promised them.

Imagine how disappointing the next three years is going to be for them. And the worst part is, they can't admit it to anyone. Not even themselves.

"America the Valiant"

A Thanksgiving Day column by Claudia Rosett.

An excerpt:

Thanksgiving is a day to step back... and count not only a laundry list of material comforts, but also the gifts of the spirit. For all the sound and fury, there is no place richer in such blessings, or with more to be proud of, than the United States of America. For more than two centuries, this country has endured and prospered as a free nation, outlasting an array of despotisms that once loomed large. America of its own volition ended slavery, survived its Civil War and led the way to victory in World War II and the Cold War. In modern times no nation has been friendlier to invention, creativity and the commerce that makes for betterment of life around the globe. America is where the Wright Brothers took flight, where vacuum tubes of the lugubrious early computers led onto the microchips of the digital age and where medicine has made the greatest strides.

Yet with all that has come a sense of guilt and unease. Having led the way out of a 20th century afflicted with totalitarian ideologies and two world wars, America over the past decade has been reviled by many of its own elite for being "unilateral," for overthrowing in Iraq one of the world's worst tyrants, for leading a scientific and industrial revolution in which it produced more carbon dioxide per capita than Laos.

The big question before us is whether America will now bow, scrape, regulate and spend its way into decline. Columnist Charles Krauthammer, speaking in New York at the Manhattan Institute's annual dinner in October wisely argued that decline is not an imminent destiny, but a choice.

Read the rest of Claudia Rosett's article here.

Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist

In Barack Obama's America, it appears that the only defendants fit for military justice are those brave men and women whose actions actually protect and defend this country.

If you are a radical Muslim officer in the U.S. armed forces who kills 14 fellow soldiers and an unborn baby while shouting "Allahu Akbar," you will be defended as a victim of Islamophobic harrassment.

If you are a member of the U.S. special forces on the front lines of what used to be called the "war on terror" who gives a mass killer a bloody lip you will be vilifed and court-martialed.

What a country.

H/T: Erick Erickson at Redstate.com

Damn it, I do like Sarah Palin

What is it about Sarah Palin that has the denizens of the "lamestream media" (Sarah's term, not mine) all tied up in knots? The has-been Bob Schiefer (you may have heard of him) declares that Sarah Palin has no future in politics, and Keith Olbermann becomes apoplectic at the news that Sarah Palin reads Newsmax magazine.

Newsweek magazine puts a purloined photo of a shorts-clad Sarah on its cover and declares that Sarah is "bad for the GOP and bad for the rest of us." The media fairly snarls with contempt for her, and even some mainstream Republicans stiffen at the very mention of her name.

Even my wife (who admittedly is not a Republican) and some of my close friends (who are) recoil at the very mention of her name. They declare with smugness that she's either too stupid, too shallow or too inexperienced to be president. When I ask for back up for these assertions, I am told that the burden is on me to prove that she isn't (stupid; shallow; etc.).

Is there another public figure in our history who has suffered the scrutiny and ignominy that Sarah has? The AP reportedly assigned eleven (11) staffers to "fact check" her book, Going Rogue, which was released on Tuesday. Nora O'Donnell of MSNBC ridiculed a 14-year old girl merely for being a fan of the former Alaska governor and now bestselling author. David Letterman, the poster boy for liberal tolerance of all things mysogynistic, makes crude (and unfunny) jokes about Palin's daughter sleeping with a baseball star.

I will leave it to others more qualified than me to analyze the phenomenon called "Sarah Derangement Syndrome" My own theory is that what the Left hates is the connection that Sarah has with ordinary Americans and timeless American values, like family, individual effort and accomplishment --without government assistance--free market capitalism and (especially) the belief in a loving God. The fact that she is an accomplished woman with five kids (including one with Downs Syndrome) who is not beholden to the narrow strictures and doxologies of radical feminism only adds fuel to the already blazing fire.

In other words, what the Left hates about Sarah is what they hate about you. They hate you because you love freedom, fear God and resist government trammeling on your Constitutional rights. They hate Sarah because she gives voice to the primal yearning for liberty, free speech, independence and free enterprise that resides deep in the DNA of every American.

The Left hates Sarah almost as much as they fear her. And they fear her because she has the capacity to light the spark of inspiration in the rest of us to resist everything that the Left represents.

Which is exactly why I like Sarah Palin. Damn it.

Our Wise and Benevolent Rulers Know Best

The U.S. Senate plans to vote late Saturday night on a Motion to Proceed which would bring the 2094-page Senate "health care" legislation to the floor. This Motion needs to attract 60 votes in order to overcome a filibuster. Conventional wisdom has it that all Republicans will vote against the Motion, and a few vulnerable so-called "moderate" Democrats are on the fence. It would presumably require only one or two of these "moderates" to join the Republicans in order to kill the bill.

At the suggestion of author and radio talk show host Mark Levin, I have tried calling the so-called "moderate" Dem Senators (Lincoln, Landrieu, Nelson and Bayh) at their Washington fortresses and all of their field offices to urge them to vote "No"on the Motion to Proceed. It would appear that our benevolent and wise political masters (f/k/a public servants) don't really care what the "folks" think. When I don't get a busy signal I get a voice mailbox. When I get a voice mailbox it is invariably full.

I would like to think that the constituents of these worthies are ringing their phones off the hook. But I have this sinking feeling that the phones have been taken off the hook by our munificent rulers since they already know what the people think and really don't care.

Naw. They wouldn't be that craven. Would they?

For more information on the "Levin Surge" to defeat this bill, click here.

"A perversion of the justice system"

Lindsey Graham, Senator from South Carolina, can be maddening sometimes, as when he sides with John Kerry on the need for climate-change regulation or with John McCain and the rest of the Democrats and squishy Republicans on immigration.

But after watching this brilliant smackdown of AG Eric Holder at the Senate hearing on the outrageous decision to try KSM in Federal court, my affection for Lindsey has grown geometrically.

I just wish he hadn't called Holder a "fine man" in this clip. There is little support for that proposition and much evidence to the contrary.

Broder: Make a Decision, Mr. President

The dean of the liberal Washington press corps, David Broder, calls out President Obama for "dithering" on Afghanistan. He reminds his readers that Afghanistan was the "good war" Obama campaigned on, the one he agreed we ought to have waged and we couldn't afford to lose.

Says Broder in advising Obama, "If we can't afford to lose, than play to win."

By the way the White House attacked Dick Cheney for daring to call Obama a ditherer. Will Broder come in for the same treatment?

Berlin 1989: "Walls Can Fall"

This short piece by Darrell Issa, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is a reminder of the awful price paid by those who lived behind the Iron Curtain in tyranny's shadow and the threat to freedom that Marxist ideology poses to this day.

Issa is quick to single out Ronald Reagan as the indispensable figure without whom the events of 20 years ago might not have transpired. It was Reagan who refused to weaken our defenses or compromise our security that put the final nail in the rotten Soviet Communist coffin. "How different the world's course might have been if Jimmy Carter won reelection in 1980," wonders Issa.

Now that Barack Obama is serving Jimmy Carter's second term three decades later, we may be about to find out.

The Stimulus Sham, Revealed

The red line is the new official unemployment rate of 10.2%. The line below it is Obama's projection of unemployment without the stimulus. The line below that is Obama's projection of unemployment with the stimulus.

Just like Obama's 640,000 jobs "saved or created," you can ssume the Bureau of Labor Statistics 10.2% unemployment numbers are bogus, too. Just imagine what the chart would look like if the BLS counted workers who have given up looking for jobs or are underemployed.

The number would be closer to 17%. Not that far off the 25% real unemployment rate at the peak of the Great Depression.

I don't mind if Obama fails, but why does he have to drag the rest of us down with him?

Senate Conservatives Fund Conference Call

Please join Senator Jim DeMint and Erick Erickson of Redstate.com on the Senate Conservatives Fund Election Conference Call tonight at 8:30 to learn how to take back the country.

To register please click on this link.

NY-23:My Email to the NRCC

To: Mike Bober, Director of Coalitions, National Republican Campaign Committee

Dear Mike,

We spoke a few weeks ago when you were kind enough to take my call objecting to the Repubican establishment support of Dede Scozzafavva in NY-23.

As almost every sentient being now knows, Ms. Scozzofavva (who I will refer to henceforth as Dede) is a liberal Republican running in a special election to replace John McHugh, who was chosen to serve as Secretary of the Army. She faces a Democrat challenger and a conservative independent challenger named Doug Hoffman, who has been endorsed by a number of national Republican leaders who have broken with the party establishment.

Many conservatives--myself included--have broken with the party as well by supporting Doug Hoffman.

You gave me a sincere and impassioned defense of the NRCC's position re: the race, one that I have seen articulated by Newt Gingrich and other establishment figures who have endorsed Dede. That is to say, failure to support the GOP nominee would set a bad precedent in 2010 races where a third party nominee might feel emboldened to challenge the party's candidate. I have also heard Newt say that it is dangerous to second-guess the local party leaders who presumably vetted all the possible candidates before selecting the nominee.

Undoubtedly the NRCC, the RNC and other party organizations who back Dede are well intentioned, sincere, and perhaps even "correct" from the point of view of the party.
Loyalty to party and to its institutions is admirable, under normal circumstances.

But I would argue that these are not normal circumstances or normal times. I believe the party establishment is missing the larger context in which it is operating,

Many Americans, most Republicans and virtually all conservatives intuit that we are in the midst of the greatest and boldest assault on the free markets, the U.S. Constitution
and American institutions in our country's history. Americans are stunned at the speed with which the President and the Democrats in Congress have introduced massive government control into our private enterprise system. Perhaps even more shocking is the public expression of contempt by Democrat leaders (and sadly by some Republicans) for the very people they govern, merely for exercising their Constitutionally protected right to assemble and speak freely. That the bootlicking media is a full partner in all of this is not quite as surprising but disheartening nonetheless.

To be sure, many of us believe that Barack Obama and the Democrats are the ones holding the Statist gun to the head of the American people, so to speak. But we also recognize that the Republicans in Congress and in the previous administration handed them the weapon and loaded the chamber. As a result Americans are increasingly frustrated by the business-as-usual nature of party politics.

We are in a fight for the very heart and soul of our country, and we want political leadership who will either stand in front and show us the way, or stand aside and get out of the way. Mike Pence, Tom Price, Michelle Bachman, Senator Tom Coburn and and Senator Jim DeMint come to mind as examples of the kind of men and women who are standing in front. But they represent a tiny fraction of the hundreds of elected Republican officials in Washington. Most are standing aside, and unfortunately they are too numerous to mention by name.

Whatever Dede's attributes are, it is clear that she doesn't measure up to the kind of political leader conservatives will support. She is beholden to the very special interests (labor unions, for one) that are aligned with the Statist agenda of the majority party. The fact that she says she would oppose this or that legislation, or for that matter vote for John Boehner as Speaker, rings hollow in the face of her record as a New York State legislator or her political alliances. The last time Americans ignored the record and associations of a politican we elected Barack Obama as president.

Successful political parties, like successful governing parties, do not last long if they defy the will of their constituents. Harry Reid will learn that lesson when he finally has to face the voters of Nevada. I am afraid that many Republicans will learn that lesson the hard way, too, if they continue to ignore the sentiments and sensibilitites of its activists.

The furor surrounding NY--23 does not represent an abandonment by "the folks"of the Republican Party or the first rumblings of a nascent third party in American politics. Rather it constitutes a cry in the wilderness, a plea to the GOP's leaders to abandon business as usual and to engage in the hard work of rebuilding the party into an institution that we can be proud of again, a party in tune with the views of it activist base and the values of the vast majority of Americans.

I hope Hoffman wins NY-23, not to poke the party in the eye but to send a message for 2010 and beyond. But even of he loses, the message is the same: Recruit and support candidates who hold fast to the values of free speech, free enterprise, energy independence, national security, rational budgets, low taxes and national sovereignty. Candidates who will fight to turn back the Statist assault with every fiber of their being.

If you will do this I promise you that we will once again be proud and happy to call ourselves Republicans. If you do not, I believe we will all reap the whirlwind.

When Tyranny Calls

Joseph Ashby writing at American Thinker:

In explanation for her "yes" vote on the Max Baucus created health care bill, Maine Senator Olympia Snowe said:

"Is this bill all that I would want? Far from it. Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls."

Senator Snowe is probably right. History is calling. What she has wrong is history's message. History is calling with the warning that tyranny is at our doorstep.

Click here to read the entire post.

Irishman Critiques Anti-Israel Bias at The Guardian

Here is an Irish intellectual's full-throated, articulate and much-needed call for balance, fairness and accuracy in the The Guardian (U.K.) newspaper's Middle East reporting.

Conservatives Take on the GOP Establishment

A new poll out yesterday shows that 73% of Republicans think the GOP establishment and leaders are clueless. I'll bet you, like me, are one of the 73%.

The backing and support of the liberal pro-choice, pro-union, ACORN-endorsed candidate Dede Scozzafava by the Republican establishment (RNC, NRCC, Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congressional leadership) in New York's 23d CD's special election has underlined the problem: While "the folks" are looking for leaders who share their values, the political class is still playing the same old game of party politics.

Now the Scozzafava situation is unusual in that she was chosen to stand in the special election as the GOP nominee by local party leaders in some back room. Most candidates standing for the general election in congressional races upcoming in 2010 will be chosen by primary voters, not by political hacks. Still, it is disturbing to see the national and state Republican elites line up to endorse Scozzafava merely because she wears the party label, even though her views are anathema to the activists the party must attract.

Even Newt Gingrich has said that he supports the liberal Scozzafava not because of her positions but because to support the "other guy" (Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, who has been endorsed by Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum) would be to send the "wrong signal." Wrong signal to whom? To other conservatives who might be tempted to oppose a GOP candidate in the 2010 congressional elections.

Well, that is disingenuous in the extreme, for as I said above most GOP congressional candidates will be chosen by the primary voters, not by the party officials. In such a situation a potential third party conservative candidate would be the potential spoiler to the detriment of the nominee chosen by the people. That is likely to dissuade him or her from challenging the party nominee, regardless of the outcome of NY-23.

I have spoken to staffers at the RNC and the NRCC who admit that their phones have been ringing off the hook. Ordinary Republicans are calling not with angry threats but with a firm warning to the establishment: we are fighting for the future of our country and we will only vote for candidates who will fight along with us. The only question is whether the Republican elites will heed that warning.

If they don't they will be taught a lesson in grassroots politics that they may not recover from.

Looking for a PAC that shares your values? Check out the Senate Conservatives Fund, chaired by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. The SCF is a political action committee dedicated to electing true conservatives to the United States Senate. Sign up for the:

The Climate Treaty Gambit in Copenhagen

"Rule #8: Keep the Pressure On with different tactics and actions..."

"Rule #10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition."

-- Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky (1971).


Keep these rules in mind when you watch this 4-minute video of Lord Christopher Monckton, as he warns Americans about the coming climate treaty disaster in Copenhagen this December.

In December, President Obama will travel to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. It would be ironic indeed if in genuflection to the Nobel elites he flew from there over to Copenhagen to sign a global climate treaty which will cede control of American industrial policy to socialist bureaucrats in Europe and the U.N.

Alinsky's Rules are reminders of the relentness of the Left. If they can't get their industry- and job-killing energy taxes through legislation they will do it through executive fiat. And if they can't get it done that way they'll get 'er done under the rubric of "international cooperation" and global good citizenship.

They've thought all this stuff though, folks. They have the distinct advantage of knowing what their plans are, step by determined step. The rest of us are just playing catchup.

Regarding Rush: "Defending the Invincible"

(As Rush would say, "Right on, right on, right on!")

Posted at Hotair.com 2:15 pm on October 18, 2009 by Doctor Zero

Almost every column written in defense of Rush Limbaugh over the last few days, following the vicious campaign to slander him as a racist, has included a statement along the lines of “Rush is rich, powerful, intelligent, and articulate, so he can take care of himself, and he’ll be just fine.” I don’t mean to disparage the authors of these sentiments, but I must disagree. I know the most popular conservative broadcaster in America doesn’t need some anonymous guest-author on a blog to defend him, but I’m going to do it anyway, without the slightest reservation due to his wealth and power.

Much strife and misery has been visited on this country by the idea that the rights and prerogatives of the rich and successful are diminished by their fortunes… that we should feel no remorse about seizing their property, or insulting their honor, because they’ll still be comfortably rich at the end of the day. We have become much too relaxed about laughing off vile slander, because the target can nurse his wounded soul from the plush accommodations of a West Palm Beach mansion. Honor is as valuable to the millionaire as to the pauper.

I’ll probably never be part of a consortium that purchases a football team, but I understand what it means to watch a dream bleed to death. My hopes and ambitions may be smaller than Rush Limbaugh’s, but they have exactly the same value to me. Whether those dreams are carved from pixels, paper, or platinum, they are equally priceless. It requires only a drop of the moral imagination utterly lacking in the people who slandered Limbaugh to guess what it feels like, when a man whose life revolves around words and ideas sees his dreams boiled away by words he didn’t speak, and ideas he has never held.

The events of the past week were about more than simply thwarting Limbaugh’s desire to buy into a football team. There was the naked greed of parasites like Al Sharpton, desperate to maintain his relevance in a world that has wisely stripped him of the power to destroy a man’s life with a phony rape allegation, or launch murderous riots. There was the blind personal hatred of Limbaugh, by people who long ago tired of watching him rewrite their plans for the part of America that refuses to submit to them. And, of course, this was the latest offensive in a bitter war against the ideas that Limbaugh has long served, as their most cheerful and effective defender. Limbaugh’s enemies in that war are angry because they’re frightened. They’re frightened because all of their estimates and projections said they should have been able to claim victory by now.

Backed up against the wall, and forced to admit the most damaging quotes used against Limbaugh were forgeries, his accusers are left stammering that he’s simply too “divisive” to be involved with ownership of an NFL team. What a bleak example of the totalitarian mindset! If you disagree with the approved ideas distributed by the collective, you’re “divisive” and unfit for membership in polite society. I suppose Limbaugh is saturated with divisiveness particles, whose half-life will extend for decades, but the warning to others is clear: rid yourselves of those “divisive” ideas and get with the program.

Perhaps the President could direct one of his many czars to prepare a list of certified “divisive” positions, and which aspects of society are closed to offenders. It would save people like David Checketts, the investor seeking to purchase the Rams, the time he wasted inviting Limbaugh to join his consortium. Imagine how much more convenient it would have been for Checketts, if he could have pulled up a handy whitehouse.gov web page and learned Rush was too divisive to be minority owner of a football team! The Homeland Security spectrum of terrorist alert levels could be used to measure divisiveness ratings. I’d be willing to give them an email address, so the system could send me a warning message when I approach Level Orange. What do you suppose the divisiveness rating for someone like Jeremiah Wright would be? He built a tidy personal fortune from his Ministry of Hate – would he be allowed to buy a stake in an NFL team?

Only the most gullible dupes, and people who rely on CNN for “news”, seriously think Rush Limbaugh is a racist. The dishonesty and cynicism behind dimwitted assertions that he wanted to buy an NFL team to role-play the life of a plantation owner is breathtaking. His accusers don’t really think he harbors some elusive racist demon, which he suppresses just long enough to become friends with Walter Williams, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, and Tony Dungy. The people who read this crap should be at least as angry over the insult to their intelligence as Limbaugh is about the insult to his honor. This kind of weapons-grade stupidity is one of the things America can no longer afford.

Limbaugh’s accusers want him burned at the stake for the crime of effective conservatism, not the racism they were so eager to lie about last week. The American public should think long and hard about which side of this ideological struggle should be on trial. Rush Limbaugh’s ideas did not produce a titanic deficit, double-digit unemployment, and global adversaries who can barely stop laughing at our President long enough to pretend they respect him. His ideas did not put disciples of Saul Alinsky, Chairman Mao, and Alex Jones in positions of power. His words are not deployed to conceal hundreds of billions in stolen “stimulus” money, thousand-page Mad Lib bills riddled with blank paragraphs, and massive offenses against individual liberty. His EIB Network endorses $1500 Sleep Number beds, not “saved or created” jobs costing half a million bucks apiece. Unlike the “Hope and Change” Administration, he doesn’t spend his three hours on the radio each weekday listing all the things you will no longer be allowed to do. He is the champion of ideas so powerful that his enemies fear the merest taste of them.

Rush Limbaugh has raised his voice in defense of freedom countless times over the years. I’m happy to exercise my freedom to raise my voice in defense of him. I invite you to do the same. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t “need” it. He deserves it. All of us do. There is little we can do to reverse the injustice of the St. Louis Rams affair, but we can make it up to Rush by giving him the chance to deliver a hell of a show on the day after Election Day, next year. If CNN is foolish enough to continue employing cretins like Rick Sanchez by then, all of them should be turning in a very enjoyable performance on that day, as well.

Anita Dunn-"She Came Not to Bury Mao but to Praise Him"

By Pete Wehner, from Commentary Magazine's Blog, Contentions

Pete Wehner is former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

I have written before why I think Glenn Beck is harmful to the conservative movement. But this video that he played on his program of Anita Dunn, communications director for the White House, explaining earlier this year why Mao Zedong is one of her two favorite political philosophers, is a public service. The praise for Mao isn’t a throwaway line by Miss Dunn; she actually explains why he is one of the two people (along with Mother Teresa!) she turns to most when it comes to “fighting your own war.” Everybody has his or her own path, you see; you don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things. It’s about your choices and your path. You figure out what’s right for you. Mao did it his way, and you should do it your way. So sayeth Anita Dunn, philosopher.

In his October 2005 essay in COMMENTARY, Arthur Waldron describes the architect of China’s Cultural Revolution this way: “Mao was the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century. Much of the killing was direct, as in the torture and purges at Yan’an. After the Communist seizure of power in 1949, the practice became countrywide. Mao set his numerical targets openly, and stressed the ‘revolutionary’ importance of killing.” It is said of Mao — who was responsible for the death of some 70 million Chinese — that he derived a “sadistic pleasure” from seeing people put to death in horrible ways.

All this goes uncommented upon by Miss Dunn. Her praise for Mao — unqualified and without caveats, based on the excerpts of her speech — is quite extraordinary. For a senior member of the White House to hold these views is more extraordinary still. Perhaps Pol Pot will be the subject of Dunn’s next favorable meditation.

You might assume that the White House press corps would think this is a matter worth exploring — but you would (so far) be wrong. I won’t speculate as to why that’s the case; I will only say that its lack of curiosity and interest on this matter is, well, worth noting.

Scott's Note: I don't understand Wehner's assertion that Glenn Beck is "harmful to the conservative movement." He may be harmful to the entrenched Republican establishment, and hopefully is very harmful to the entrenched Democratic one, but harmful to conservatism? I don't see it.

Beck is doing the work of a hundred journalists, even though he is not one. He is hated and now feared by the Left, for good reason. He is also resented by the Progressive wing of the GOP (think: columnist David Brooks, Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain) and even some true conservatives, like blogger Ed Morrissey and, I guess, Wehner.

Perhaps they are uncomfortable, because while Beck is single-handedly exposing the corruption at the heart of the White House, he also heaps scorn on the Republican enablers of big government and the Progressive cause. Or maybe they are merely jealous of Beck's audience, influence and financial success.

Personally, I believe that all Americans owe Beck a debt of gratitude. If America is able to throw off the yoke of creeping socialism and government corruption, it will in no small measure be due to Beck's insistence on shining the spotlight of truth into the dark corners of this government.

"For What?" I'll Tell You For What.

"For what?" That was the headline in the Drudge Report this morning, which linked to an AP story asking the same question about the surprise award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. That story has since been scrubbed off the internet

After acknowledging that The Supreme Leader has done nothing but talk since the day he got elected, the story speculates that "the award could be as much about issuing a slap at Obama's predecessor, former President George W. Bush, as about lauding Obama. Bush was reviled by the world for his cowboy diplomacy, Iraq war and snubbing of European priorities like global warming."

Well, as dismaying and churlish as that sounds, it wouldn't be the first time the Nobel Committee awarded the coveted (by some) prize to an American antagonist of George Bush. In recent years the prize has gone to our worst white president, Jimmy Carter, Bush's most outspoken critic. It has also been awarded to Mohamed El Baradei and Al Gore, whose "bodies of work," if not expressly antagonistic to Bush, are certainly "anti-Bush" in every sense of the term.

It's just another example of the disgrace the Nobel Committee and the joke the Peace Prize has become (Yassir Arafat, Desmond Tutu, the U.N. Peacekeeping Rapists...I mean Forces...and Kofi Annan have won this, too). Then again, the Nobel Prize's founder, Alfred Nobel, was no slouch in the joke department, having founded the prize out of guilt for inventing dynamite and other explosive and deadly instruments of war (the best kind, I reckon). His intent was to award the prize to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses"

I guess he should have said "the person who talks the most about" fraternity between nations, because in that category Obama is the undisputed champ.

But this is about much more than dissing Bush and the American imperialists that the world apparently thinks are the greatest threat to mankind. It is a down payment on a reward that no doubt will come Obama's way when he actually succeeds in doing what the elites of Oslo have long hoped and prayed for. (Well, not prayed, exactly. Thats not exactly in the repertoire of the godless elites of Europe and the world.)

These fatuous arrogant bastards want nothing less than what Alfred Nobel wanted, a world where peace reigns and war is no more. In modern formulation, this means a powerless and nuke-less America that stands by and does nothing while dictators and thugs prance around the world stage lecturing the rest of us while at home their people are kept poor and wretched. Better yet, an America that helps to slit its own throat by trashing its currency, taxing its own citizens and industries in the name of "universal healthcare" and refusing to free itself of dependence on religious fanatics for energy.

But this doesn't describe what the international do-gooders and so-called lovers of Peace really want. Oh no. Just look at the list of prize recipients and you'll see a theme. Arafat. Carter. Annan. The U.N. Obama. What the elites of the world want more than anything else is a world without Israel. A world without Jews.

Barack Obama is the closest they have come to someone who could actualize that dream. In that sense the award was a canny and effective way of bringing the dream closer. By inflating Obama's already bloated sense of self-importance, the Prize will emboldened him to redouble his efforts to do all in his power to bring about the terrible vision of these world elites.

At first I thought awarding the Prize to Obama was a disgrace. Now I have concluded that it is
oddly appropriate.

CBO Caves on Health Care; GOP Senators Next?

It turns out that President Obama is right--a government takeover of healthcare is a great way to reduce the deficit!

This afternoon the Congressional Budget Office, the "non-partisan" budget office beholden to a Democrat-controlled Congress--released its estimate of the cost of the Senate Finance Commitee health care bill--the Baucus bill.

The CBO concludes that the Baucus proposal will--wait for it--save $81 billion over 10 years.

The CBO is careful to caveat that the "mark" it analyzed is not a bill at all, but a conceptual framework for a bill, and therefore is subject to "substantial uncertainty."

The bill--according to the CBO, mind you--will require most individuals and families to buy health insurance and penalize them if they don't; will tax purchasers of high-cost policies with an excise tax; and will subsidize individuals and families (not yours, of course) who buy insurance through government-sponsored "exchanges." "Exchanges" are not to be confused with a "public option." Of course not.

The bill, according to the budget office, will drastically increase Medicare eligibility but also "substantially reduce payment rates for most services." In plain English this can be translated as "You doctors and med students out there can suck eggs."

The CBO admits that the bill will "cost" over $800 billion in new outlays over the 10-year period. (And this is the so-called "centrist" bill designed to attract Republicans!). So how does this monstrosity actually save money? Says the CBO:

The costs are partly offset by $201 billion in revenues from the excise tax on high-premium
insurance plans and $110 billion in net savings from other sources. The net
cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the
combination of other spending changes that CBO estimates would save
$404 billion over the 10 years and other provisions that JCT and CBO
estimate would increase federal revenues by $196 billion over the same
period.

Blah. blah. blah. This turkey has about as much chance of being deficit-neutral as Chicago has of getting the 2016 Olympics. But if it does happen to turn out that way, it will be as a result of massive taxes, penalties and mandates on individuals, families and small business.

What makes the CBO report so troubling is that it gives so-called Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine just the cover she needs to vote this thing on to the Senate floor. She has tried to come off as some sort of deficit hawk by claiming she would not vote for the Baucus bill if it increased the deficit. She has also vowed not to vote for a bill that contained a government-run health care option.

Voila! According to CBO, this bill fits the bill. Snowe will now likely vote for it, and give the Dems and Obama the "bi-partisan" legislation they crave. And to make things worse, according to the well-connected Erick Erickson of Redstate.com, other Senate Republicans are on the verge of folding on health care.

There is still a ways to go before a government takeover of health care becomes law. But this latest development brings the whole damnable thing one step closer.

Read the entire CBO letter to Senator Baucus here.

"How Israel Was Disarmed"

"Global View" columnist Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal has penned a chilling "what-if"
analysis of a U.N. Security Council meeting, circa January 2010.

In Stephens' formulation, the U.S., via an abstention, paves the way for passage of a U.N. resolution calling for Israel to give up its nukes and submit to international inspection of its nuclear facilities. Reflecting the hostile turn in U.S. policy towards Israel, a senior Pentagon official says, "The Israelis need to look at this U.N. vote as a shot across their bow...if they want to start a shooting war with Iran, we won't have their backs on the Security Council."

It has been said that good fiction has the ring of truth. Sadly, what would have been unimaginable a year ago rings all too true today.

Dem: Finance Committee Health Bill is Gibberish

I hate to interrupt your celebration of Chicago's upset win of the 2016 Olympic Games, but ...what's that?

Oh. That was Rio's upset win of the 2016 Olympic Games. Sorry, I just assumed Barack, Michelle and Oprah would bring it home to Chicago, you know, for the children. Oh, well...

Anyway, according to CNS News, Senate Finance Committee Democrat Tom Carper said that:

he does not “expect” to read the actual legislative language of the committee’s health care bill because it is “confusing” and that anyone who claims they are going to read it and understand it is fooling people.“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life.”

I guess he thinks we are all as dumb as he is because he, like all the Committee Democrats, voted against Senator Bunning's amendment to post the bill on line 72 hours in advance of a vote.

But you can be sure Carper's confusion and inability to understand what he's voting for won't actually prevent him from voting for the final legislation.

What a disgrace.

"All the president’s Olympic cronies"

For Michelle Malkin's expose on who wins and who loses if Chicago wins the 2016 Olympics, click here.

September is proving to be a cruel month for the Transformer-in-Chief.

Early in the month Van Jones, President Obama’s czar in charge of “green jobs,” resigned after having been unmasked as an avowed Communist with Marxist ideas. Jones was fired in order to short-circuit scrutiny of Jones’ ties to Leftist front groups which in turn have ties to the President. Too late: thanks to the likes of Glenn Beck, the Jones affair opened up an avenue of inquiry into the Obama White House’s ties to radical activists and their incendiary political philosophy.

Next, Obama made his much hyped address to Congress to pitch his health care plan. The highlight of the speech was the “You Lie!” charge which earned Republican Rep. Joe Wilson a rebuke by Congress and about 2 million dollars in online contributions. But the accusation only put the spotlight on Obama’s fantastic assertions about his plan, causing the politicians to promise to remove language in the bill that Obama insisted didn’t exist in the first place.

Days later hundreds of thousands of Americans-- from all 50 states and of all colors and political orientations—gathered in Washington for what must have been the most easy-going protest rally in history. The trigger may have been the health “reform” cram-down effort, but the Tea Party rallies which culminated in the Washington march were about much more. Americans are fed up with the arrogance of politicians and the ambitions of government in all its many forms.

Then came the two kids with a hidden camera. These are the ones who vamped as a prostitute and a pimp through 5 ACORN offices across the country and caught a bunch of committed "community organizers" in the act of encouraging tax fraud, prostitution, and abetting the exploitation of minors. The Decrepit Media first ignored and then dismissed the revelations, choosing instead to aim their guns at the callow youths who took the videos (perhaps to distract us from the media's own shameful failures in the expose' department).

The politicians acted quickly to cover their backsides. ACORN has been thrown overboard by the Census Bureau, the IRS and even Barney Frank, and a major Administration ally in its Progressive war against Americans is now in disarray. More revelations are sure to follow.

By September’s end Obama’s largest domestic policy initiative was bogged down in the Senate, and the prospect of a catastrophic legislative failure led liberals to double down on their attacks on Americans as racists. Jimmy Carter, our nation’s worst white president, asserted that most who oppose Obama do so because he is black. This makes sense only if you believe Americans largely opposed Bill Clinton’s attempted health care overhaul in the 1990s for the same reason.

Barack Obama himself had to reel in the race bait on the Sunday talk shows by stating that he doesn’t agree with Carter’s assertion.

But where Obama has run into the choppiest waters is in foreign policy. In the last 2 weeks alone Obama has reneged on a deal by the previous administration to place land-based missile interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic, has signaled hesitancy about his Afghanistan strategy, and has groveled before the “tyrants of Teheran,” as Benjamin Netanyahu refers to the criminal regime in Iran. Even the Old Media has acknowledged the troubling policy confusion on the President’s part.

In the case of Afghanistan, Obama’s commitment to the “good war” is in doubt. During the campaign he promised to draw down troops from Iraq and send more to Afghanistan. Now that General McChrystal has asked for many thousands more troops to stave off a disaster in that war, Obama can’t seem to decide if it’s worth the risks. A decision to turn down the general’s request will rightly be seen as a failure to support his own policy.

President Obama now stands revealed for the panderer and appeaser of despotic regimes and authoritarian dictators that we suspected he is. His performance at the opening of the U.N. General assembly was dismaying and sickening, especially in contrast to the bracing and morally clarifying speech made by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While Netanyahu effectively called the U.N. a disgrace for failing to condemn Iran, Obama blamed his own predecessor for America's standing in the Arab world.

Obama fancies himself as mediator-in-chief, appearing to rise above his country's interests in order to bring the disparate factions of the world together in a new global order without nuclear weapons or global warming. But the Great Mediator sides with the socialist former Honduran strongman Zelaya over the country’s constitutionally appointed government. He offers to sit down with the duplicitous Iranian regime even yet says nothing in defense of the Iranian people who had their election stolen from them.

And he puts Israel on the “chopping block” (John Bolton’s words) by ensuring that any failure of “peace talks” between Israel and the Palestinians will be blamed on Israel.

So September has indeed been a cruel month for the President. As his poll numbers plummet, his centerpiece legislation languishes on Capitol Hill. His efforts to blame Republicans for the Democrats’ failure have fallen flat. His foreign policy is in disarray.

In the meantime the threat from Iran and other terrorist regimes grows with each passing day. If something isn’t done about it soon, there will be more cruel months ahead.

Not just for Barack Obama, but for all of us.

"Turning the Senate into the Chicago City Council"

Newt Gingrich on the Democrat's threat to use the reconciliation process to jam a health bill
through the Senate:

“Using the budget reconciliation process to pass health reform and climate change legislation…would violate the intent and spirit of the budget process, and do serious injury to the constitutional role of the Senate.”

These are not the words of a Republican or a conservative activist.This is a warning issued on April 2 of this year from the former Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate, Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.). He was referring to a dangerous assault on American freedom as it is protected by the constitutional balance of power -- an assault that is being considered by the Obama Administration right now.

“We Pour Legislation into the Senatorial Saucer to Cool It”

The Founding Fathers designed the Constitution and our government to guard against political power grabs by slowing down the process of making laws.They insisted that the Senate had to be a deliberative body to slow down the passions of the House and stop mob rule from destroying freedom.

In a famous conversation between the two presidents, Thomas Jefferson is said to have asked George Washington why the Framers had agreed to a second chamber in Congress at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. "Why did you pour that coffee into your saucer?" Washington asked him. "To cool it," said Jefferson. "Even so," said Washington, "we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it."

The Founders Relied on the Senate to Carefully Consider Before They Commit Us to a New Law.

One of the key means by which the Senate slows down the legislative process is through the filibuster. Unlike in the House, in the Senate, even a small group of senators can hold up a bill by threatening to continuously debate it.

It takes the votes of three-fifths of the Senate, or 60 senators, to end a filibuster. This means that it effectively takes 60 votes to pass a controversial piece of legislation or nomination.And again, this is for good reason. The Founders looked to the House to more directly reflect the will of the people. They relied on the Senate to take a step back and carefully consider a bill before they commit the American people and our resources to it.

A Revolutionary Act Worthy of a Third World Country

I have taken this brief tour of American constitutional history to make an important point: The Obama Administration clearly has concluded it cannot get a big government health plan through the Senate if they accept the traditional, historic requirement of a 60-vote majority.

It is also clear left-wing activists would cheerfully destroy the integrity of the Senate and the freedoms it protects if that is what it takes to get a government-run, bureaucratic health care system which would expand their power and increase the importance of Washington.Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Democratic majority leader, has warned that a failure to get 60 votes would lead him to try to force through a bill with 50 senators and Vice President Joe Biden breaking the tie.

Changing one-sixth of the American economy with 50 senators voting yes would be a revolutionary act worthy of a third world country.

Senator Byrd: “Reconciliation was Intended to Adjust Revenue and Spending Levels in Order to Reduce Deficits”

The Obama Administration and Sen. Reid are considering getting around the 60-vote majority rule in the Senate by using a process called “reconciliation.” Under reconciliation, just 51 votes are required to pass a bill.

Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, whom I quoted at the beginning of this message, has unique authority on reconciliation. Not only is he the author of a remarkable history of the Senate (four volumes published between 1989 and 1995), he was, as he wrote, “one of the authors of the reconciliation process,” which was created in 1985.

Here is what he said about using reconciliation to pass things like health care reform: “I can tell you that the ironclad parliamentary procedures it authorizes were never intended for this purpose. Reconciliation was intended to adjust revenue and spending levels in order to reduce deficits.”

Sen. Byrd concluded with this warning: “The Senate cannot perform its constitutional role if senators forego debate and amendments. I urge senators to jealously guard their individual rights to represent their constituents on such critical matters.”

For 20 Years, I Was Told to Be Patient When Conservatives Couldn’t Muster 60 Votes

For 20 years as a member of the House, I was told to be patient when conservative reforms could not muster 60 votes or a conservative nomination could not get 60 votes.

For the last decade I was told to be patient when reforms conservatives wanted and personnel conservatives wanted were blocked by the lack of 60 votes in the Senate.

Now after a lifetime of sustaining the constitutional role of the Senate, we find that the left wants to suspend the normal constitutional process so they can ram through a gigantic government run health program immediately.

Every American Who Cherishes the Institutions That Have Preserved Our Liberty Will Tell Their Senators to Fight

We are being told the Obama agenda is so important we should destroy the Senate and make it more like the House of Representatives.

This radical action may make sense to President Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior strategist David Axelrod, all of whom come from Chicago and are used to seeing the Chicago City Council muscled by a strong mayor on behalf of a machine.

However, every American who cherishes freedom and appreciates the institutions that have preserved us from tyranny will be telling their senators to preserve the integrity of the Senate and preserve the protections of American liberty.

This fight over process may turn out to be even more important than the fight over the substance of the big government, big bureaucracy, high-tax health bill they want.

When both process and policy are wrong there is something very bad going on.

Leno Lays an Acorn...

...and its pretty funny. Take a look here.

I saw that Jon Stewart actually made fun of the "mainstream" media for sitting on their thumbs while a bunch of young conservative punks with a hidden camera and a couple of hundred dollars exposed the Acorn scam. He said "I am a fake journalist and I'm embarrassed!"

Its pretty sad when a bunch of comedians and clowns breaks more news than professional journalists. Come to think of it, the mainstream media is a joke, so I guess journalists are clowns too.

"Banks back from the Brink"

That was the pronouncement I saw crawling across the screen this morning on CNBC. The "brink" is the near collapse of the financial system and credit markets which were (supposedly) triggered by the demise of Lehman Brothers a year ago.

Its nice to know that CNBC--not known for the depth of its financial analysis or
its economic forecasting prowess--thinks that the banking system is on the mend.

Perhaps. But liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz has a different view. The iconoclastic former World Bank executive and Clinton economic advisor has been sharply critical of the government's failure to "fix" the banks. He says that the "too big-to-fail" banks have become even bigger since Lehman's demise, thanks to government bailouts, guarantees and the sweet credit spreads owing to the Fed's zero bound monetary policy.

In Stiglitz's view, the banks must shrink in size and their structures must be simplified in order for them to find their way to back to health. He also believes that executive compensation, bonuses and incentives need to be drastically curtailed through regulation--not surprising for a critic of free market economics. Despite the Obama administration's threatening tone regarding oversight of the financial sector, Stiglitz says Obama proposes nothing that will fix the problem.

I don't agree with Stiglitz's politics, his economic orientation or his solutions, which depend far too much on the regulatory machinery of the U.S. and foreign governments than on free market principles. But he is clearly right when he suggests that the banking crisis has not been solved or ameliorated by anything the government has done in the past year.

Stiglitz, a former advisor to President Obama, is reported to have said that whoever designed the Obama administration's bank rescue plan is “either in the pocket of the banks or they’re incompetent." Maybe he was wrong. Maybe its both.

*****************************

Speaking of Lehman Brothers, the U.K. Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard admonishes media types who claim that the Lehman collapse caused the "great credit contraction" of 2008-2009. The demise of the investment bank--and the near collapse of Merrill, Goldman and Morgan Stanley--was the inevitable result of a western economy mired in debt and an Asian economy addicted to exports.

For its part, the western economies engaged in what he calls "Greenspanism--"

Central banks rescued assets each time there was a hiccup, but let booms run unchecked. They pulled "real" rates ever lower, creating addiction to monetary stimulus. Larger doses were required with each cycle, until we hit zero, and it is still not enough.

--while the Asian economies poured their 5 trillion dollars in reserves into western government bonds, accelerating the fall in interest rates and feeding the growing global credit bubble.

Evans-Pritchard notes that the bursting of that bubble continues to roil the global economy, as evidenced by contracting consumer credit in the U.S., a dearth of global demand for manufactured goods and a glut of industrial capacity. The dismal effects of all this have been masked--somewhat--by massive worldwide government stimulus.

At some point the limits of fiscal stimulus will have been reached. The question is: where do we go from there?

************************

As if to lend credence to Evans-Pritchard's thesis, Tim Congdon of International Monetary Research told the U.K. Telegraph that U.S. bank loans have shrunk by an annualized rate of 14% in the three months ended August 31. "There has been nothing like this in the U.S.A. since the 1930s," he told the Telegraph. "The rapid destruction of money balances is madness."

"Money balances" is a fancy term for "credit," which basically is defined as loans from banks and M3 money supply. The money supply has declined by a 5% annual rate.

The irony is that the effort by monetary authorities to inject massive amounts of capital into the banking sector in order to improve their balance sheets has had a "perverse consequence" of destroying credit.

Inflation may the worst nightmare of consumers and creditors. Not so the central bankers of the world. The thing that wakes them up at night drenched in a cold sweat is the prospect of chronic deflation in credit, wages and assets that no amount of printing and monetization can reverse.

If Evans-Pritchard and Congdon are right, then the world's central bankers may indeed have reason for worry.

Why Are Jews Liberals?

That question is often asked of me by non-Jewish friends and acquaintances. I am usually at a loss for an answer.

In a lucid and insightful piece in The Wall Street Journal, Norman Podhoretz, icon of what has come to be known as "neo-conservativism," gives his best shot at an answer. He admits that during the campaign of 2008 he harbored hopes that Jews would vote Democratic in significantly fewer numbers than usual owing to John McCain's strong and consistent pro-Israel stance and Barack Obama's troubling associations with an anti-Semitic pastor (Jeremiah Wright and a pro-Palestinian intellectual (Rashid Khalidi). Alas, Jews were undeterred, voting for Obama over McCain by 78% to 22%.

Podhoretz covers familiar ground in explaining that American Jewish fealty to the Democrat Party grew out of the religious-ethnic coalitions forged by FDR in the 1930s (itself almost inexplicable when one uncovers the true extent of FDR's antipathy towards Jews and his despicable Anti-Jewish Holocaust policies). But unlike all other members of that coalition save for blacks, Jews have steadfastly refused to break from the party of their hero, even as that party has drifted ever leftward.

Podhoretz hits his stride as he posits that without a belief in the Bible and a G-d who controls the universe, American secular Jews have created their own religion, with a liturgy and catechism all its own. That religion is liberalism, and its dogmas--"social justice," abortion, gun control, gay rights and environmentalism--are pursued with an evangelical fervor. (I would add that universal health care is the holy grail of liberalism, which is why its would-be deliverer is nothing short of a messiah). These Jews have convinced themselves that the pursuit of their beloved liberal ideals is the highest expression of "Jewish values."

Yet it is those Jews who are most familiar with real "Jewish values" as expressed in the Bible, the Talmud and the rest of the body of Jewish thought who are least likely to become smitten with liberal causes and thus most likely to vote Republican. Orthodox Jews are many times more likely to vote for conservatives and Republicans than are secular Jews precisely because they reject liberalism's supposed link to Jewish sensibilities. It makes you wonder whether non-religious Jews are so removed from the faith of their fathers and grandfathers that they have forgotten what "Jewish Values" really are. (Hint: abortion and gay rights are not among them).

Sadly, what American Jews share with many liberals is a deep distrust of American values and traditions. They see intolerance and injustice and oppression at every turn, and tend to look to other cultures and societies--even totalitarian ones--as models for our own. And yet, says Podhoretz, it is America that has offered Jews the greatest material and spiritual opportunity of any nation in history:

American Jewry surely belongs with the conservatives rather than the liberals. For the social, political and moral system that liberals wish to transform is the very system in and through which Jews found a home such as they had never discovered in all their forced wanderings throughout the centuries over the face of the earth...Surely, then, we Jews ought to be joining with its defenders against those who are blind or indifferent or antagonistic to the philosophical principles, the moral values, and the socioeconomic institutions on whose health and vitality the traditional American system depends.

After suggesting that there are encouraging signs that American Jews are beginning to develop "buyer's remorse" when it comes to Barack Obama, Podhoretz concludes: "I am hoping against hope that the exposure of Mr. Obama as a false messiah will at last open the eyes of my fellow Jews to the correlative falsity of the political creed he so perfectly personifies and to which they have for so long been so misguidedly loyal."

Having waited myself for some sign of a Jewish awakening to reality, I share Mr. Podhoretz's hope. But I would suggest that neither of us hold our breaths.

Full article here.

"moral bankruptcy behind the glittering words"

The hard part about blogging is trying to come up with something to say that isn't being said better by someone else. This is especially true of something--anything-- said by Dr. Thomas Sowell, the brilliant columnist, thinker, author and senior fellow at the Hoover Institute.

Dr. Sowell has come up with perhaps the best post-Obama Health Care speech analysis I have yet seen. He proves through simple logic the lies at the heart of Obama's speech last night, lies so obvious that one wonders why he gave the speech at all.

Dr. Sowell's point can be summarized by the following grafs, pertaining to Obama's denials that ObamaCare will inevitable and necessarily lead to rationing and waiting times in the style of the U.K. and Canada:

Obama can deny it in words but what matters are deeds-- and no one's words have been more repeatedly the direct opposite of his deeds-- whether talking about how his election campaign would be financed, how he would not rush legislation through Congress, or how his administration was not going to go after CIA agents for their past efforts to extract information from captured terrorists.

President Obama has also declared emphatically that he will not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations-- while telling the Israelis where they can and cannot build settlements and telling the Hondurans whom they should and should not choose to be their president.

And Sowell isn't the only one out there with a mighty pen. Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal wonders why, with unemployment heading to 10%, Obama is "draining a dwindling reservoir of presidential capital on health care?" (memo to Henninger: unemployment including discouraged job-seekers and part-time workers who can't find full time work is closer to 17%). Henninger doesn't say it, but a Republican who turned his back on an economy as fragiles as this one would be pilloried.

Henninger's point is Obama has not only failed to learn from the failure of Hillarycare but he has failed to inernalize James Carville's message posted on desks in the 1992 Clinton campaign War Room--"its the economy stupid." In the face of an economy which has 87% of the pubic dissatisfied, " Barack Obama's mad obsession with arcane health-insurance puzzles looks beside the point."

Henninger believes that Obama's single-minded focus on a new health-care bureaucracy and budget-busting entitlement program when the economy is on fire could lead to unprecedented losses for Democrats in 2010. Says Henninger, "this could be America's greatest failed presidency." (From his mouth to G-d's ears!).

And then there is radio talk show host and columnist Hugh Hewitt, who doesn't think people are as stupid as Obama apparently does. Hewitt believes that seniors hold the keys to the kingdom in the health care debate (did I say debate? I forgot; the time for debating is over). According to Hewitt:

Seniors know that you cannot drain $500 or more billion dollars from medicare and deliver the same benefits as are delivered today. You cannot make deep cuts in Medicare Advantage and not lower the standard of living for many seniors.

Seniors are afraid, and they are right to be afraid, and nothing the president said in his speech will make them less afraid because he did not discuss their fears --he dismissed them.

Hugh Hewitt thinks that "not a mind was changed" last night. I disagree--it is quite possible that once people who were on the fence digest the audacity and tone of Obama's speech and the internal inconsistencies therein, many will conclude that neither the government nor Obama can be trusted with their lives.

'Freeze Building and I Will Be Your Friend’

This is disgusting, if true. Especially this part:

Suffering a severe drop in support on his health reform plan, the war in Afghanistan and the issue of torture of prisoners, President Obama is anxious for a breakthrough in the stalled Middle East peace process.

So Israel has to pay the price for Obama's stupendous failures?

And this one:

The U.S. may agree to allow Israel to complete construction that already is underway but will refuse to agree to a thaw in the building freeze if negotiations sputter.

In other words, Israel has to agree to a permanent building freeze in all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem before the Palestinians will agree to negotiations. And if the talks "sputter," Israel takes it in the shorts.

Oh, by the way, Israel has also to agree to stop demolishing illegal Arab buildings in Jerusalem.

Get it? Israel must force Jews to stop building on legally owned or rented lands. Israel must permit Arabs to build illegally on land it doesn't own.

The sick thing is that Israel PM Bibi Netanyahu seems set to agree to this, according to reports. Maybe he has no choice, given the veto power the U.S. has over Israel's right to defend itself from an increasing nihilist Iran. But such an agreement is a fool's errand, for it will neither buy Obama's friendship nor further Israel's security interests.

In fact it will do the opposite, for once again Israel will have given up something of value in return for nothing. Not even promises.

And once Israel signals to a hostile world that the rights of Jews in the Jewish State are subject to negotiation and abrogation, there'll be no end to the attempts to nibble away at those rights.

This is bad. Very bad.

My Letter to the PTA and Schools re: Obamaganda

Sorry. I am still stewing over this brazen and unprecedented attempt by President Obama to indoctrinate our kids.

Here is an email I am sending to the PTA and the administration of the five schools that my kids attend:

To the Members of the PTA and Administration:

My son, ____ is a sixth grade student at _____.

I am sure by now you know that President Obama will be addressing all of our
nation's schoolchildren on September 8th at noon.

I am concerned and outraged by this unprecedented interruption of class or educational time for the injection of politics into our public schools.

I would be similarly outraged (as would be the entire academic, political and media establishment) if this had been attempted by a president of the opposite party.

Perhaps the speech itself will be an inspirational call to hard work and excellence, with no political subtext, no express or subtle call to action on the President's political agenda.

However, we have reason to be suspicious, given the timing of the event (i.e., the same week as the President's address to a joint session of Congress on health care
and the 8th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11, which President Obama wants to set aside as a National Day of Service).

Lending to the atmosphere of suspicion about the President's motives is the "menu of
classroom activities" prepared by the Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education.

I urge you review the attached "menu" of suggested classroom and follow-up activities and ask yourself whether it is appropriate for our students.

Even if you support President Obama and his agenda, would you be comfortable with this no matter the party or the the domestic priorities of the president or administration?

Please advise what actions if any the PTA/school is recommending for parents who are not comfortable with this attempt to politicize of our children.

Thank you.