Tue Nov 30, 1:03 pm ET
Is California’s prison system cruel and unusual punishment?
By Zachary Roth
Buzz up!12 votes ShareretweetEmailPrintBy Zachary Roth zachary Roth – Tue Nov 30, 1:03 pm ET
In a major test case, lawyers for California prisoners allege their clients are kept in such overcrowded conditions that they should be released, rather than continue serving sentences that fall under the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court began hearing the case today, in a proceeding likely to shine a spotlight on the nation's controversial incarceration system.
A panel of federal judges ruled last year that the overcrowding in California prisons constituted a violation of the Eighth Amendment's protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The judges ordered California to release 40,00 inmates over two years. But lawyers for the state appealed, leading to the Supreme Court's hearing.
Lawyers for the prisoners argue in court papers that California's prisons are housing twice as many prisoners as they were built to contain, and as a result, the safety of prisoners, guards, and prison personnel is in jeopardy.
For instance, the lawyers argue, prisoners aren't receiving adequate access to health care. "Prisoners are dying unnecessarily at the alarming rate of one every eight days because they do not receive basic medical care from the State," wrote Donald Specter of the Prison Law Office.
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association agrees. "Due to overcrowding," lawyers for the group wrote in an amicus brief, "California uses converted gymnasiums to house hundreds of inmates on double- and triple-stacked bunks. In these prison 'dormitories' there are normally only one or two correctional officers to supervise approximately 200 inmates."
But lawyers for the state counter that releasing so many prisoners would put Californians at risk, because there isn't currently enough money for the rehabilitation programs that the released inmates would need. And, they say, with the state facing a budget crisis, it's by no means certain that that money will materialize.
They also say the state hadn't been given enough time to comply with previous court orders on the issue.
The case could have implications beyond the Golden State. Eighteen other states have filed a brief in support of California, because they fear that they, too, could be forced to release prisoners.
During the 1980s and 1990s, tough-on-crime laws -- including California's "Three Strikes and You're Out" law -- helped to swell prison populations across the country. Though the United States makes up less than 5 percent of the world's population, it incarcerates almost 25 percent of the world's prisoners.
______________________________________________________________________________________
I thought prisions was for correction. Somebody breaks the law & they get everything. The victem gets nothing. They should make the prisioner work for their up-keep
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
PRAYER REQUEST
PLEASE, PRAY FOR NORBERT. HE IS A GUN SHOOT VICTEM WHO BELIEVES GOD HAS LEFT HIM & TAKEN EVERYTHING HE LOVED AWAY FROM HIM. HE SAYS EVERYBODY HE LOVES HAS DIED, HIS UNBORN SON, AND THE BABY MOTHER. HIS FATHER. HE HAS DONE OTHER THINGS & NORBERT NEEDS THE LORD!!! HE HAS A HARD HEART AS HE'S BEEN HURT EVER SINCE HE WAS A YOUNG CHILD. PLEASE, PRAY FOR HIS SALVATION, HIS HEALING, TO KNOW GOD LOVES HIM! AND OTHER PEOPLE LOVES HIM. HE CANNOT ACCEPT ANY TYPE OF LOVE.
FROM LYNN JENKINS
Republican Leadership Vote
With our nation facing a nearly $14 trillion debt and two consecutive budget deficits of over $1 trillion dollars the new Republican house majority has a lot on its plate. This Wednesday Republicans elected a new leadership team to chart the path toward fiscal responsibility and a less intrusive federal government. Congressman John Boehner of Ohio was unanimously selected as the Republican conference’s nominee for Speaker of the House. Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia was chosen to hold the post of Majority leader in the next Congress, and Congressman Kevin McCarthy from California was elected as next the Majority Whip.
As I said, Republicans have an uphill battle ahead, but I am confident that the good men and women on the new House leadership team are the best people for the job. Republicans have learned from mistakes of the recent past and will be continually engaging with the American people as we move forward. I look forward to working side by side with my colleagues in leadership to get this nation back on the right track.
Supporting an Earmark moratorium
The Congressional earmark process has been abused for years and is in desperate need of repair. That is why this week I was proud to support a new two year earmark ban. With a $1.3 trillion deficit facing our nation and a Congress that has been on a two year spending spree, it is time to stop the federal government’s out-of-control spending. The Congressional moratorium on earmark requests is a crucial step in restoring fiscal responsibility and discipline to Congress. While I understand earmarks are a small portion of the federal budget, they are often used as incentives for members to vote for big spending legislation they would otherwise oppose. Therefore, I believe eliminating earmarks will have a far reaching impact on the size and scope of the federal government.
Over the last two years, Kansans and folks around the nation have stepped up to take back their government. I have heard their message, and I will continue fighting to protect Kansans’ hard-earned tax dollars and to ensure our children and grandchildren are not buried under an enormous mountain of this generation’s debt.
Congratulations to St. George Elementary for Blue Ribbon School Award
I am honored to be joining the good folks at St. George Elementary School in St. George, Kansas today as they celebrate being named a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education. The Blue Ribbon School Award is considered the highest honor an American school can achieve, and it is great to see the hard work of the students and teachers at this fantastic school be recognized for their efforts on the national stage.
With an increasingly competitive global economy, effective education will become even more critical in equipping the next generation’s work force. As a parent of two children being educated in Kansas public schools, I have great faith in Kansas’ education system, and have worked hard my entire career to strengthen it. Please be assured that in the 112th Congress I will continue to work to ensure America’s schools remain competitive, accountable, and effective.
With our nation facing a nearly $14 trillion debt and two consecutive budget deficits of over $1 trillion dollars the new Republican house majority has a lot on its plate. This Wednesday Republicans elected a new leadership team to chart the path toward fiscal responsibility and a less intrusive federal government. Congressman John Boehner of Ohio was unanimously selected as the Republican conference’s nominee for Speaker of the House. Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia was chosen to hold the post of Majority leader in the next Congress, and Congressman Kevin McCarthy from California was elected as next the Majority Whip.
As I said, Republicans have an uphill battle ahead, but I am confident that the good men and women on the new House leadership team are the best people for the job. Republicans have learned from mistakes of the recent past and will be continually engaging with the American people as we move forward. I look forward to working side by side with my colleagues in leadership to get this nation back on the right track.
Supporting an Earmark moratorium
The Congressional earmark process has been abused for years and is in desperate need of repair. That is why this week I was proud to support a new two year earmark ban. With a $1.3 trillion deficit facing our nation and a Congress that has been on a two year spending spree, it is time to stop the federal government’s out-of-control spending. The Congressional moratorium on earmark requests is a crucial step in restoring fiscal responsibility and discipline to Congress. While I understand earmarks are a small portion of the federal budget, they are often used as incentives for members to vote for big spending legislation they would otherwise oppose. Therefore, I believe eliminating earmarks will have a far reaching impact on the size and scope of the federal government.
Over the last two years, Kansans and folks around the nation have stepped up to take back their government. I have heard their message, and I will continue fighting to protect Kansans’ hard-earned tax dollars and to ensure our children and grandchildren are not buried under an enormous mountain of this generation’s debt.
Congratulations to St. George Elementary for Blue Ribbon School Award
I am honored to be joining the good folks at St. George Elementary School in St. George, Kansas today as they celebrate being named a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education. The Blue Ribbon School Award is considered the highest honor an American school can achieve, and it is great to see the hard work of the students and teachers at this fantastic school be recognized for their efforts on the national stage.
With an increasingly competitive global economy, effective education will become even more critical in equipping the next generation’s work force. As a parent of two children being educated in Kansas public schools, I have great faith in Kansas’ education system, and have worked hard my entire career to strengthen it. Please be assured that in the 112th Congress I will continue to work to ensure America’s schools remain competitive, accountable, and effective.
Friday, November 19, 2010
FROM TOWNHALL
Taking the Gloves Off: Is the Health Care Bill Constitutional
Email Jillian Bandes
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Sign-Up The legal arguments surrounding the constitutionality of the health care debate are nuanced, and at the center of the debate is whether Congress can regulate a citizen’s inactivity. The Federalist Society holds its annual conference in Washington, D.C. this week, and that's one of the hottest topics. In an afternoon panel on Thursday, four legal scholars went head-to-head in a panel titled “Litigation: Debating the Constitutionality of the Federal Health Care Legislation.”
Four lawsuits in four different states have been launched challenging Obamacare’s constitutionality — in California, Michigan, Virginia, and Florida — according to the panel’s moderator, David Stras, of the Minnesota Supreme Court. So far, the California and Michigan cases have been thrown out. The Virginia case is pending. In Florida, twenty other states have latched on to the case, which has just survived a motion to dismiss. Which arguments the courts will address in that suit remain to be seen.
On the panel, Charles Fried of Harvard University Law School took the unpopular position that the individual mandate in Obamacare was nothing more than a regulation of commerce — a regulation of activity — and was therefore completely Constitutional. The Commerce Clause in Article 1 of the Constitution allows Congress to “regulate Commerce ...among the several States,” which has provided the basis for interstate laws that govern the purchase and sale of goods and services.
“The commerce here is health insurance, and what the individual mandate does, is prescribes along with many other rules... for the economic activity, which is health insurance,” said Fried.
The liberal professor then went on to expound his theory of limitless government power: Government has the full authority to garnish wages from its citizens in the form of taxes, he said, and the individual mandate is able to garnish wages in order to force purchase of insurance. Fried also said that the government has authority to require its citizens to buy Froot Loops, for example, though it has no authority to require its citizens to eat them. Just because the government is requiring citizens to buy health care doesn’t mean it’s requiring them to go to the doctor.
David Rivkin, a partner at the law firm of Baker & Hostetler and outspoken political activist, said that Fried's argument was downright fruity. If there are no limits to what the government can require its citizens to buy, there is no way to say one type of purchase is more valid than the other.
“The fact that there's no meaningful, judicially enforceable doctrine here dooms what you... are defending,” said Rivkin. “Any failure to purchase something has impacts.”
Rivkin agreed with Randy Barnett, a professor of legal theory at Georgetown University Law Center, who cited the “necessary and proper” clause, as well as the "substantial effects" doctrine originally proposed by Justice Antonin Scalia.
“You realize there is a limiting doctrine on necessary and proper,” said Rivkin, and that the “line between economic and non-economic activity” has already been formulated through existing case law.
Fried insisted that in practice, the government’s powers have been virtually limitless. He cited a case where the government had required children to be vaccinated — a purchase, a service, and physical pain.
“There was a needle into the body they mandated for that,” said Fried, who insisted that the only leg conservatives have to stand on were “liberty arguments,” that "make my heart beat faster.”
Rivkin insisted that government’s power had to be limited, and that the health care bill was unprecedented. Next up, he said, was the “Happiness and Welfare Act of 2011.”
Jillian Bandes
Jillian Bandes is the National Political Reporter for Townhall.com
Email Jillian Bandes
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 1diggdigg
Sign-Up The legal arguments surrounding the constitutionality of the health care debate are nuanced, and at the center of the debate is whether Congress can regulate a citizen’s inactivity. The Federalist Society holds its annual conference in Washington, D.C. this week, and that's one of the hottest topics. In an afternoon panel on Thursday, four legal scholars went head-to-head in a panel titled “Litigation: Debating the Constitutionality of the Federal Health Care Legislation.”
Four lawsuits in four different states have been launched challenging Obamacare’s constitutionality — in California, Michigan, Virginia, and Florida — according to the panel’s moderator, David Stras, of the Minnesota Supreme Court. So far, the California and Michigan cases have been thrown out. The Virginia case is pending. In Florida, twenty other states have latched on to the case, which has just survived a motion to dismiss. Which arguments the courts will address in that suit remain to be seen.
On the panel, Charles Fried of Harvard University Law School took the unpopular position that the individual mandate in Obamacare was nothing more than a regulation of commerce — a regulation of activity — and was therefore completely Constitutional. The Commerce Clause in Article 1 of the Constitution allows Congress to “regulate Commerce ...among the several States,” which has provided the basis for interstate laws that govern the purchase and sale of goods and services.
“The commerce here is health insurance, and what the individual mandate does, is prescribes along with many other rules... for the economic activity, which is health insurance,” said Fried.
The liberal professor then went on to expound his theory of limitless government power: Government has the full authority to garnish wages from its citizens in the form of taxes, he said, and the individual mandate is able to garnish wages in order to force purchase of insurance. Fried also said that the government has authority to require its citizens to buy Froot Loops, for example, though it has no authority to require its citizens to eat them. Just because the government is requiring citizens to buy health care doesn’t mean it’s requiring them to go to the doctor.
David Rivkin, a partner at the law firm of Baker & Hostetler and outspoken political activist, said that Fried's argument was downright fruity. If there are no limits to what the government can require its citizens to buy, there is no way to say one type of purchase is more valid than the other.
“The fact that there's no meaningful, judicially enforceable doctrine here dooms what you... are defending,” said Rivkin. “Any failure to purchase something has impacts.”
Rivkin agreed with Randy Barnett, a professor of legal theory at Georgetown University Law Center, who cited the “necessary and proper” clause, as well as the "substantial effects" doctrine originally proposed by Justice Antonin Scalia.
“You realize there is a limiting doctrine on necessary and proper,” said Rivkin, and that the “line between economic and non-economic activity” has already been formulated through existing case law.
Fried insisted that in practice, the government’s powers have been virtually limitless. He cited a case where the government had required children to be vaccinated — a purchase, a service, and physical pain.
“There was a needle into the body they mandated for that,” said Fried, who insisted that the only leg conservatives have to stand on were “liberty arguments,” that "make my heart beat faster.”
Rivkin insisted that government’s power had to be limited, and that the health care bill was unprecedented. Next up, he said, was the “Happiness and Welfare Act of 2011.”
Jillian Bandes
Jillian Bandes is the National Political Reporter for Townhall.com
FROM TOWNHALL
Ray LaHood: Obama's Power-Mad Cell Phone Czar
Email Michelle Malkin
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Sign-Up America is in debt past its eyeballs. Unemployment remains stuck near double digits. Small and large businesses, unions and insurers are clamoring for Obamacare waivers in droves. Jihadists are making a mockery of homeland security. And border chaos reigns. So, what's one of the Obama administration's top domestic policy agenda items this month? Combating distracted drivers.
What? You missed the Million Anti-Distracted Drivers Protest March on Washington and the Great Grassroots Groundswell for federal intervention on our highways and byways? Don't worry. You weren't the only one.
Making the cable TV rounds to unveil a public service announcement campaign against "epidemic" cell phone use and texting on the road, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood revealed bizarre and alarming plans on Wednesday to install devices in cars that would block a driver's ability to communicate.
"There's a lot of technology out there now that can disable phones, and we're looking at that," he threatened. LaHood -- a liberal Republican and pork-addicted Chicago crony who embodies Obama "bipartisanship" -- envisions centralized government mechanisms to shut off commuters' BlackBerries and iPhones.
And that's just the start. "We need to do a lot more if we're going to save lives," LaHood vowed, while paying obligatory lip service to encouraging "personal responsibility." Will the cell phone banners ban radios, GPS devices, makeup and fast food in cars next? All are also listed as causes of distracted driver-induced accidents.
Any death due to such reckless behavior is tragic. But by "saving lives," what cell phone czar LaHood really means is "controlling lives." There are already 30 states with laws in place regulating drivers' cell phone and/or texting habits. The District of Columbia and Guam also passed bans. The safety benefits of such laws are in dispute.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety examined insurance claims and driving habits in Louisiana, Washington, Minnesota and California, which all passed texting bans two years ago. Its study found that when compared to neighboring states that had not yet banned texting while driving (Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi), the no-texting states actually reported higher accident rates among young drivers -- while the states with no bans maintained constant accident rates. Safety officials theorized that drivers in no-texting states may have adjusted their habits to hide their cell phone use from visual detection by police -- incentivizing even riskier behavior.
_LaHood and his fellow social meddlers have lashed out at the study and any other evidence that state enforcement of these bans is futile. But there's a long history of government safety regulations backfiring on central planners. Back in the 1970s, the federal drive to require child safety-caps on aspirin bottles resulted in no reduction in child poisoning deaths. In fact, renowned risk analyst Kip Viscusi at Harvard Law School found that the regulations induced many parents to leave the caps off altogether because they were inconvenient and difficult to remove.
_Moreover, the push for federal policing of our driving habits comes just as the federal government itself reports that the rate of teenage-related car accidents has fallen. Yes, fallen. Despite increased cell phone use, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that when the years 2004 through 2008 were compared, there was a 38 percent reduction in the number of car accidents involving 16 and 17 year olds.
So what's really driving LaHood? He's pursued an anti-car ideological zeal from Day One -- from entertaining proposals to impose mileage taxes on drivers and to track drivers' routes, to redistributing tax dollars to pie-in-the-sky high-rail projects that no private business will touch, to peddling a "livability initiative" that would discourage suburban growth and corral residents in high-density areas dependent on public transportation.
Like the rest of Obama's radicals, the Transportation Department's self-appointed cell phone czar is a power-hungry busybody hiding behind children to expand government's reach. If only federal agencies came equipped with anti-big government ignition breathalyzer locks.
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
Email Michelle Malkin
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 0diggsdigg
Sign-Up America is in debt past its eyeballs. Unemployment remains stuck near double digits. Small and large businesses, unions and insurers are clamoring for Obamacare waivers in droves. Jihadists are making a mockery of homeland security. And border chaos reigns. So, what's one of the Obama administration's top domestic policy agenda items this month? Combating distracted drivers.
What? You missed the Million Anti-Distracted Drivers Protest March on Washington and the Great Grassroots Groundswell for federal intervention on our highways and byways? Don't worry. You weren't the only one.
Making the cable TV rounds to unveil a public service announcement campaign against "epidemic" cell phone use and texting on the road, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood revealed bizarre and alarming plans on Wednesday to install devices in cars that would block a driver's ability to communicate.
"There's a lot of technology out there now that can disable phones, and we're looking at that," he threatened. LaHood -- a liberal Republican and pork-addicted Chicago crony who embodies Obama "bipartisanship" -- envisions centralized government mechanisms to shut off commuters' BlackBerries and iPhones.
And that's just the start. "We need to do a lot more if we're going to save lives," LaHood vowed, while paying obligatory lip service to encouraging "personal responsibility." Will the cell phone banners ban radios, GPS devices, makeup and fast food in cars next? All are also listed as causes of distracted driver-induced accidents.
Any death due to such reckless behavior is tragic. But by "saving lives," what cell phone czar LaHood really means is "controlling lives." There are already 30 states with laws in place regulating drivers' cell phone and/or texting habits. The District of Columbia and Guam also passed bans. The safety benefits of such laws are in dispute.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety examined insurance claims and driving habits in Louisiana, Washington, Minnesota and California, which all passed texting bans two years ago. Its study found that when compared to neighboring states that had not yet banned texting while driving (Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi), the no-texting states actually reported higher accident rates among young drivers -- while the states with no bans maintained constant accident rates. Safety officials theorized that drivers in no-texting states may have adjusted their habits to hide their cell phone use from visual detection by police -- incentivizing even riskier behavior.
_LaHood and his fellow social meddlers have lashed out at the study and any other evidence that state enforcement of these bans is futile. But there's a long history of government safety regulations backfiring on central planners. Back in the 1970s, the federal drive to require child safety-caps on aspirin bottles resulted in no reduction in child poisoning deaths. In fact, renowned risk analyst Kip Viscusi at Harvard Law School found that the regulations induced many parents to leave the caps off altogether because they were inconvenient and difficult to remove.
_Moreover, the push for federal policing of our driving habits comes just as the federal government itself reports that the rate of teenage-related car accidents has fallen. Yes, fallen. Despite increased cell phone use, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that when the years 2004 through 2008 were compared, there was a 38 percent reduction in the number of car accidents involving 16 and 17 year olds.
So what's really driving LaHood? He's pursued an anti-car ideological zeal from Day One -- from entertaining proposals to impose mileage taxes on drivers and to track drivers' routes, to redistributing tax dollars to pie-in-the-sky high-rail projects that no private business will touch, to peddling a "livability initiative" that would discourage suburban growth and corral residents in high-density areas dependent on public transportation.
Like the rest of Obama's radicals, the Transportation Department's self-appointed cell phone czar is a power-hungry busybody hiding behind children to expand government's reach. If only federal agencies came equipped with anti-big government ignition breathalyzer locks.
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
FROM AUL
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010
This Week's Feature
The Fine Print: Unraveling the Health Care Law and Abortion
President Obama’s health care law states that all insurance companies will have to cover preventive care for women. However, the law doesn’t define preventive care.
Members from the Institute of Medicine (part of the government’s National Academy of Science) will hear this week from a number of pro-abortion advocates about preventive care – which could be defined to include drugs that cause abortion.
Members of AUL’s legal team will be joining other pro-life advocates to fight such an interpretation, and will be there arguing the legal angles on such a drastic change. For more on that, click here.
On The Docket
Hope Clinic for Women v. Adams
AUL has been defending the right of parents in Illinois to be notified before their minor child can obtain an abortion. In 1995, the Illinois General Assembly enacted the Parental Notice of Abortion Act, which has been held in legal limbo ever since. The ACLU has filed multiple challenges, and this week, AUL’s legal team will be filing an amicus brief on behalf of the Illinois legislators.
The ACLU claims there is “no justification” for involving parents. AUL points to studies that reveal that parental involvement laws decrease minor abortion and birth rates. Many studies also show that abortion has a particularly harmful impact on minors, both physically and psychologically.
Mr. Smith goes to Washington
This week, the newly elected congressmen head to Washington, D.C. to begin their orientation. Stay tuned for reports from Capitol Hill as AUL works with the Members to put pro-life promises into action.
Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO, began the process of meeting with House and Senate members, and observed: “Thousands of people across America invested in the campaigns of this next generation of leaders, and we believe that they can make a difference for Life. AUL will be there to promote laws that protect us all, born and unborn.”
Hot Off the Presses
For legal analysis and a Washington, D.C. insider’s perspective on the most significant events regarding life issues, AUL’s William Saunders pens the “Washington Insider,” a column featured regularly in the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly.
William L. Saunders is the Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs at Americans United for Life. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he writes frequently on issues of life, law and policy, and in this extensive analysis, he takes on critical issues like whether the health care law allows for taxpayer funded abortion and what can be done to stop such a change in the law.
To read more, click here.
Life in the News
Politico reports on concerns from AUL and others over who will get powerful committee chairmanships
This Week's Feature
The Fine Print: Unraveling the Health Care Law and Abortion
President Obama’s health care law states that all insurance companies will have to cover preventive care for women. However, the law doesn’t define preventive care.
Members from the Institute of Medicine (part of the government’s National Academy of Science) will hear this week from a number of pro-abortion advocates about preventive care – which could be defined to include drugs that cause abortion.
Members of AUL’s legal team will be joining other pro-life advocates to fight such an interpretation, and will be there arguing the legal angles on such a drastic change. For more on that, click here.
On The Docket
Hope Clinic for Women v. Adams
AUL has been defending the right of parents in Illinois to be notified before their minor child can obtain an abortion. In 1995, the Illinois General Assembly enacted the Parental Notice of Abortion Act, which has been held in legal limbo ever since. The ACLU has filed multiple challenges, and this week, AUL’s legal team will be filing an amicus brief on behalf of the Illinois legislators.
The ACLU claims there is “no justification” for involving parents. AUL points to studies that reveal that parental involvement laws decrease minor abortion and birth rates. Many studies also show that abortion has a particularly harmful impact on minors, both physically and psychologically.
Mr. Smith goes to Washington
This week, the newly elected congressmen head to Washington, D.C. to begin their orientation. Stay tuned for reports from Capitol Hill as AUL works with the Members to put pro-life promises into action.
Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO, began the process of meeting with House and Senate members, and observed: “Thousands of people across America invested in the campaigns of this next generation of leaders, and we believe that they can make a difference for Life. AUL will be there to promote laws that protect us all, born and unborn.”
Hot Off the Presses
For legal analysis and a Washington, D.C. insider’s perspective on the most significant events regarding life issues, AUL’s William Saunders pens the “Washington Insider,” a column featured regularly in the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly.
William L. Saunders is the Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs at Americans United for Life. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he writes frequently on issues of life, law and policy, and in this extensive analysis, he takes on critical issues like whether the health care law allows for taxpayer funded abortion and what can be done to stop such a change in the law.
To read more, click here.
Life in the News
Politico reports on concerns from AUL and others over who will get powerful committee chairmanships
A NOTE FROM REV. LONDA
There hasn't been much news out there. Plus, I've been ill & I need to get back into this blog for God.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
FROM HERITAGE
Heritage Action Urges GOP Senators to Support Earmark Ban
Londa,
Last week, Americans told Washington that they are tired of business as usual. One of the biggest issues in the election was our government's inability to control its spending appetite. The earmarking process is a prime example of this spending problem.
On Tuesday, newly elected and returning Republican Senators will debate and adopt internal conference rules, which will guide their caucus throughout the 112th Congress. They must embrace this opportunity if they are to demonstrate their commitment to changing Washington. Republicans Senators should adopt a two-year moratorium on earmarks.
Across the country, thousands of activists like you are calling their Republican Senators and Senators-elect to urge them to support the earmarks moratorium. If you have friends in states with Republican Senators, urge them to make the call.
Senators have the chance to start changing the way they do business and prove they understood the message you sent on election day. Stay tuned to Heritage Action for the latest on this fight to ban earmarks in the US Senate.
Sincerely,
Michael A. Needham
Chief Executive Officer
Heritage Action for America
Londa,
Last week, Americans told Washington that they are tired of business as usual. One of the biggest issues in the election was our government's inability to control its spending appetite. The earmarking process is a prime example of this spending problem.
On Tuesday, newly elected and returning Republican Senators will debate and adopt internal conference rules, which will guide their caucus throughout the 112th Congress. They must embrace this opportunity if they are to demonstrate their commitment to changing Washington. Republicans Senators should adopt a two-year moratorium on earmarks.
Across the country, thousands of activists like you are calling their Republican Senators and Senators-elect to urge them to support the earmarks moratorium. If you have friends in states with Republican Senators, urge them to make the call.
Senators have the chance to start changing the way they do business and prove they understood the message you sent on election day. Stay tuned to Heritage Action for the latest on this fight to ban earmarks in the US Senate.
Sincerely,
Michael A. Needham
Chief Executive Officer
Heritage Action for America
Friday, November 12, 2010
FROM PATRIOT POST
The Foundation
"No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt." --George Washington
Government & PoliticsDebt Commission Floats Some Ideas
The federal budgetBarack Obama's 18-member bipartisan deficit commission is expected to release its full report on the nation's fiscal nightmare by Dec. 1. The commission is tasked with reducing -- or at least advising Congress and the White House on how to reduce -- Obama's disastrous deficits from the current 8.9 percent of GDP to just 3 percent by 2015. The commission is the president's way of appearing to be serious about cutting federal spending, while maybe getting Republicans to agree to raise taxes while he's at it.
This week, commission members began leaking ideas. First, apparently thinking that voters were just kidding in their decisive demand that Congress control spending and cut taxes, Senators Tom Carper (D-DE) and George Voinovich (RINO-OH) urged Congress to raise gas taxes by 25 cents per gallon in order to -- get this -- increase spending on infrastructure. Carper and Voinovich say that 10 cents of the tax hike should go to deficit reduction and the remainder to transportation funding to repair bridges and roads. Voinovich claims the new revenue would create 775,000 new jobs. Ah, yes, economic growth and recovery through tax hikes -- we've seen how well that works.
Following that, Chairman Erskine Bowles, Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff, and former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, the co-chairman, released their own preliminary report on Wednesday in which they sided, at least in part, with the tax-and-spenders by suggesting a 15-cent spike in the gas tax, part of $751 billion in total tax hikes over 10 years. The pair recommends that tax revenue level out at 21 percent of GDP, which is much higher than the historic average of 18 percent.
The proposal also includes eliminating the child tax credit and the mortgage interest deduction, while significantly reducing overall tax rates. For example, the top rate of 35 percent would fall to 24 percent, with just two lower rates of 15 and 9 percent. The corporate tax rate would be cut from 35 percent to 26 percent, which would finally be competitive with the rest of the world.
Bowles and Simpson offered ideas to cut nearly $4 trillion from the federal budget by 2020. That's a good start, but it's not nearly enough. If their measures are followed -- a big "if" -- the deficit would drop to 2.2 percent of GDP, which ends up leaving them some wiggle room to reach their mandate. Their ideas include cuts to Social Security and Medicare, two of the largest budget allocations; $410 billion in cuts to discretionary spending by 2015; a three-year pay freeze for most federal employees, on top of a 10 percent cut in the total federal workforce; and eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
"We'll both be in a witness protection program when this is all over, so look us up," quipped Simpson. Both are quick to admit that the proposal would likely be a nonstarter in Congress. With a no-holds-barred approach to so many sacred cows, it's easy to see why. First, 14 of the 18 commission members must agree on a final report -- and that's the easy part. Then Congress has to make the hard choices, which, if history is any guide, members will avoid like the plague.
Quote of the Week
"The deficit commission appears to have adopted the flawed notion that taxes and revenues are a zero-sum game -- that tax increases produce higher revenues, when more often the opposite is true. For example, does anyone doubt that the commission's proposal to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction would detrimentally impact the housing (and possibly financial) market? Equally important, how can this commission be taken seriously if it sanctions Obamacare, which not only is wildly unpopular with the American people but also greatly burdens the federal fiscal equation? Many are praising the commission's 'boldness' in proposing to reduce the growth of the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion by 2020 from its projected growth of $7.7 trillion. That's like an alcoholic promising to cut down his liquor consumption from two bottles of bourbon a day to one. Obama, who initiated (and stacked) this commission as an Alinskyite strategy to turn the tables on Republicans on the spending issue, must be laughing all the way to the statist bank." --columnist David Limbaugh
On Cross-Examination
"[I]t's important to understand why we have had deficits of 10% and 8.9% of GDP for the past two years, with another 10% or so anticipated in fiscal 2011. The most important reason is the burst of spending from the 111th Congress that has taken federal outlays as a share of GDP to 25% in 2009, 23.8% in 2010 and back to an estimated 25% in 2011. This is unheard of in the modern era, when the average has been under 21%." --The Wall Street Journal
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"If people are, in fact, concerned about spending, debt, deficits and the future of our country, then they're going to need to be armed with the information about the kinds of choices that are going to be involved, and we can't just engage in political rhetoric." --Barack Obama, engaging almost exclusively in political rhetoric
We Need Your Help
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it." --Thomas Paine
Fellow Patriots, our 2010 Annual Fund campaign is underway. As you know, The Patriot Post is not sustained by any political, special interest or parent organization. Nor do we accept any online or e-mail advertising. Our operations and mission are funded by -- and depend entirely upon -- the voluntary financial support of American Patriots like YOU!
Like many mission-based organizations, we raise most of our budget in the last two months of each year. We still must raise approximately $275,000 before year's end.
Fellow Patriots, Please Support Our 2010 Year-End Campaign
Donate Online
Donate by Mail
"No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt." --George Washington
Government & PoliticsDebt Commission Floats Some Ideas
The federal budgetBarack Obama's 18-member bipartisan deficit commission is expected to release its full report on the nation's fiscal nightmare by Dec. 1. The commission is tasked with reducing -- or at least advising Congress and the White House on how to reduce -- Obama's disastrous deficits from the current 8.9 percent of GDP to just 3 percent by 2015. The commission is the president's way of appearing to be serious about cutting federal spending, while maybe getting Republicans to agree to raise taxes while he's at it.
This week, commission members began leaking ideas. First, apparently thinking that voters were just kidding in their decisive demand that Congress control spending and cut taxes, Senators Tom Carper (D-DE) and George Voinovich (RINO-OH) urged Congress to raise gas taxes by 25 cents per gallon in order to -- get this -- increase spending on infrastructure. Carper and Voinovich say that 10 cents of the tax hike should go to deficit reduction and the remainder to transportation funding to repair bridges and roads. Voinovich claims the new revenue would create 775,000 new jobs. Ah, yes, economic growth and recovery through tax hikes -- we've seen how well that works.
Following that, Chairman Erskine Bowles, Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff, and former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, the co-chairman, released their own preliminary report on Wednesday in which they sided, at least in part, with the tax-and-spenders by suggesting a 15-cent spike in the gas tax, part of $751 billion in total tax hikes over 10 years. The pair recommends that tax revenue level out at 21 percent of GDP, which is much higher than the historic average of 18 percent.
The proposal also includes eliminating the child tax credit and the mortgage interest deduction, while significantly reducing overall tax rates. For example, the top rate of 35 percent would fall to 24 percent, with just two lower rates of 15 and 9 percent. The corporate tax rate would be cut from 35 percent to 26 percent, which would finally be competitive with the rest of the world.
Bowles and Simpson offered ideas to cut nearly $4 trillion from the federal budget by 2020. That's a good start, but it's not nearly enough. If their measures are followed -- a big "if" -- the deficit would drop to 2.2 percent of GDP, which ends up leaving them some wiggle room to reach their mandate. Their ideas include cuts to Social Security and Medicare, two of the largest budget allocations; $410 billion in cuts to discretionary spending by 2015; a three-year pay freeze for most federal employees, on top of a 10 percent cut in the total federal workforce; and eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
"We'll both be in a witness protection program when this is all over, so look us up," quipped Simpson. Both are quick to admit that the proposal would likely be a nonstarter in Congress. With a no-holds-barred approach to so many sacred cows, it's easy to see why. First, 14 of the 18 commission members must agree on a final report -- and that's the easy part. Then Congress has to make the hard choices, which, if history is any guide, members will avoid like the plague.
Quote of the Week
"The deficit commission appears to have adopted the flawed notion that taxes and revenues are a zero-sum game -- that tax increases produce higher revenues, when more often the opposite is true. For example, does anyone doubt that the commission's proposal to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction would detrimentally impact the housing (and possibly financial) market? Equally important, how can this commission be taken seriously if it sanctions Obamacare, which not only is wildly unpopular with the American people but also greatly burdens the federal fiscal equation? Many are praising the commission's 'boldness' in proposing to reduce the growth of the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion by 2020 from its projected growth of $7.7 trillion. That's like an alcoholic promising to cut down his liquor consumption from two bottles of bourbon a day to one. Obama, who initiated (and stacked) this commission as an Alinskyite strategy to turn the tables on Republicans on the spending issue, must be laughing all the way to the statist bank." --columnist David Limbaugh
On Cross-Examination
"[I]t's important to understand why we have had deficits of 10% and 8.9% of GDP for the past two years, with another 10% or so anticipated in fiscal 2011. The most important reason is the burst of spending from the 111th Congress that has taken federal outlays as a share of GDP to 25% in 2009, 23.8% in 2010 and back to an estimated 25% in 2011. This is unheard of in the modern era, when the average has been under 21%." --The Wall Street Journal
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"If people are, in fact, concerned about spending, debt, deficits and the future of our country, then they're going to need to be armed with the information about the kinds of choices that are going to be involved, and we can't just engage in political rhetoric." --Barack Obama, engaging almost exclusively in political rhetoric
We Need Your Help
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it." --Thomas Paine
Fellow Patriots, our 2010 Annual Fund campaign is underway. As you know, The Patriot Post is not sustained by any political, special interest or parent organization. Nor do we accept any online or e-mail advertising. Our operations and mission are funded by -- and depend entirely upon -- the voluntary financial support of American Patriots like YOU!
Like many mission-based organizations, we raise most of our budget in the last two months of each year. We still must raise approximately $275,000 before year's end.
Fellow Patriots, Please Support Our 2010 Year-End Campaign
Donate Online
Donate by Mail
FROM TOWNHALL
Don't Be Taken In by the Deficit Commission
Email David Limbaugh
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 0diggsdigg
Sign-Up If preliminary rumblings from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's upcoming report are accurate, I'm afraid the conservative agenda -- though overwhelmingly victorious in last week's elections -- might be against the ropes again, especially with GOP congressmen praising the report.
Our astronomical deficits are the result not of low taxes, but of profligate spending. So why do we accept the premise that the starting point for deficit and debt reduction discussions must be various tax hikes, tolerating unacceptably high levels of spending, and seeming to take off the table the eradication of programs the government was never intended or constitutionally authorized to establish in the first place?
The deficit commission appears to have adopted the flawed notion that taxes and revenues are a zero-sum game -- that tax increases produce higher revenues, when more often the opposite is true. For example, does anyone doubt that the commission's proposal to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction would detrimentally impact the housing (and possibly financial) market?
Equally important, how can this commission be taken seriously if it sanctions Obamacare, which not only is wildly unpopular with the American people but also greatly burdens the federal fiscal equation?
Many are praising the commission's "boldness" in proposing to reduce the growth of the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion by 2020 from its projected growth of $7.7 trillion. That's like an alcoholic promising to cut down his liquor consumption from two bottles of bourbon a day to one. Obama, who initiated (and stacked) this commission as an Alinskyite strategy to turn the tables on Republicans on the spending issue, must be laughing all the way to the statist bank.
Do you realize that just three years ago -- 2007 -- our federal budget deficit was just $161 billion? So why are we congratulating ourselves as prudent stewards of our grandchildren's money for planning half-trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see? Besides, no one can honestly believe these reduction projections are realistic. One thing you can bank on is that government-spending projections are always understated.
Without doubt, there will be the inevitable upward pressure on deficits and debt from the increased interest on the debt as a result of Obama's reckless spending orgy. But that's hardly the only explanation for the nearly exponential increases in the projected growth of the deficit.
If we are going to be serious about tackling this fiscal crisis, which threatens the long-term survival of the republic, at some point we're going to have to have a debate on the ever-expanding dependency cycle to which we've addicted ourselves. If the elections told us anything, it was that people want this nation to radically reverse its current fiscal course. Nibbling around the edges is neither what the people have demanded nor what will alleviate our problems.
Those who think Obama is completely incompetent ought to reconsider. The one thing he's not incompetent at is getting his way -- shoving his agenda down our throats. There was a method to Obama's madness in shoving Obamacare through, folding new spending programs into his "stimulus" bill that will persist in perpetuity, and otherwise reversing welfare reform en route to re-expanding the welfare state. He knew that no matter how much the public objected, it would be very hard to roll back his new initiatives once in place and that he would be establishing a new set point from which any debate on spending and taxes would have to begin.
We don't have to accept this state of affairs as the inevitable status quo, and we shouldn't give too much credence to a deficit commission that accepts, apparently without much question, that Obamacare is here to stay. Nor should we casually swallow the commission's implied message that we will be fiscal heroes if we merely aspire to roll back federal spending to 22 percent -- and later 21 percent -- of gross domestic product. A few short years ago, such spending levels would have been met with uniform horror by all but the most brainwashed Marxists. As Steve Manacek wrote at Ricochet.com, such excessive spending levels have been relatively rare in our history. Yet we now have a commission whose charter purpose is to reduce the deficit advocating these levels as just a starting point? Can you imagine what the ending point would be?
Sanguine reactions to the commission's tax-related solutions are equally suspect. It recommends capping revenues at 21 percent of GDP, as if that is Grover Norquist's dream. But Manacek points out that federal revenues have never reached 21 percent of GDP, so there is nothing comforting here for those who recognize excessive taxes as enemies of freedom and economic growth.
It's not that there aren't attractive features in the preliminary commission reports. But to paraphrase Obama, conservatives just "won," and they mustn't accede to Obama's misguided approach to deficit reduction.
David Limbaugh
David Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert in law and politics and author of new book Crimes Against Liberty, the definitive chronicle of Barack Obama's devastating term in office so far.
Email David Limbaugh
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 0diggsdigg
Sign-Up If preliminary rumblings from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's upcoming report are accurate, I'm afraid the conservative agenda -- though overwhelmingly victorious in last week's elections -- might be against the ropes again, especially with GOP congressmen praising the report.
Our astronomical deficits are the result not of low taxes, but of profligate spending. So why do we accept the premise that the starting point for deficit and debt reduction discussions must be various tax hikes, tolerating unacceptably high levels of spending, and seeming to take off the table the eradication of programs the government was never intended or constitutionally authorized to establish in the first place?
The deficit commission appears to have adopted the flawed notion that taxes and revenues are a zero-sum game -- that tax increases produce higher revenues, when more often the opposite is true. For example, does anyone doubt that the commission's proposal to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction would detrimentally impact the housing (and possibly financial) market?
Equally important, how can this commission be taken seriously if it sanctions Obamacare, which not only is wildly unpopular with the American people but also greatly burdens the federal fiscal equation?
Many are praising the commission's "boldness" in proposing to reduce the growth of the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion by 2020 from its projected growth of $7.7 trillion. That's like an alcoholic promising to cut down his liquor consumption from two bottles of bourbon a day to one. Obama, who initiated (and stacked) this commission as an Alinskyite strategy to turn the tables on Republicans on the spending issue, must be laughing all the way to the statist bank.
Do you realize that just three years ago -- 2007 -- our federal budget deficit was just $161 billion? So why are we congratulating ourselves as prudent stewards of our grandchildren's money for planning half-trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see? Besides, no one can honestly believe these reduction projections are realistic. One thing you can bank on is that government-spending projections are always understated.
Without doubt, there will be the inevitable upward pressure on deficits and debt from the increased interest on the debt as a result of Obama's reckless spending orgy. But that's hardly the only explanation for the nearly exponential increases in the projected growth of the deficit.
If we are going to be serious about tackling this fiscal crisis, which threatens the long-term survival of the republic, at some point we're going to have to have a debate on the ever-expanding dependency cycle to which we've addicted ourselves. If the elections told us anything, it was that people want this nation to radically reverse its current fiscal course. Nibbling around the edges is neither what the people have demanded nor what will alleviate our problems.
Those who think Obama is completely incompetent ought to reconsider. The one thing he's not incompetent at is getting his way -- shoving his agenda down our throats. There was a method to Obama's madness in shoving Obamacare through, folding new spending programs into his "stimulus" bill that will persist in perpetuity, and otherwise reversing welfare reform en route to re-expanding the welfare state. He knew that no matter how much the public objected, it would be very hard to roll back his new initiatives once in place and that he would be establishing a new set point from which any debate on spending and taxes would have to begin.
We don't have to accept this state of affairs as the inevitable status quo, and we shouldn't give too much credence to a deficit commission that accepts, apparently without much question, that Obamacare is here to stay. Nor should we casually swallow the commission's implied message that we will be fiscal heroes if we merely aspire to roll back federal spending to 22 percent -- and later 21 percent -- of gross domestic product. A few short years ago, such spending levels would have been met with uniform horror by all but the most brainwashed Marxists. As Steve Manacek wrote at Ricochet.com, such excessive spending levels have been relatively rare in our history. Yet we now have a commission whose charter purpose is to reduce the deficit advocating these levels as just a starting point? Can you imagine what the ending point would be?
Sanguine reactions to the commission's tax-related solutions are equally suspect. It recommends capping revenues at 21 percent of GDP, as if that is Grover Norquist's dream. But Manacek points out that federal revenues have never reached 21 percent of GDP, so there is nothing comforting here for those who recognize excessive taxes as enemies of freedom and economic growth.
It's not that there aren't attractive features in the preliminary commission reports. But to paraphrase Obama, conservatives just "won," and they mustn't accede to Obama's misguided approach to deficit reduction.
David Limbaugh
David Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert in law and politics and author of new book Crimes Against Liberty, the definitive chronicle of Barack Obama's devastating term in office so far.
FROM TOWNHALL
The Fed Trashes the Dollar
Email Pat Buchanan
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 0diggsdigg
Sign-Up If it is the first responsibility of the Federal Reserve to protect the dollars that Americans earn and save, is it not dereliction of duty for the Fed to pursue a policy to bleed value from those dollars? For that is what Chairman Ben Bernanke is up to with his QE2, or "quantitative easing."
Translation: The Fed is committed to buy $600 billion in bonds from banks and pay for them by printing money that will then be deposited in those banks. The more dollars that flood into the economy, the less every one of them is worth.
Bernanke is not just risking inflation. He is inducing inflation.
He is reducing the value of the dollar to make U.S. exports more competitive and imports more expensive, so that we will consume fewer imports. He is trying to eliminate the U.S. trade deficit by treating the once universally respected dollar like the peso of a banana republic.
Sarah Palin has nailed cold what Bernanke is about:
"We shouldn't be playing around with inflation. It's not for nothing Reagan called it 'as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.'
"The Fed's pump-priming addiction has got our small businesses running scared and our allies worried. The German finance minister called the Fed's proposals 'clueless.' When Germany, a country that knows a thing or two about the dangers of inflation, warns us to think again, maybe it's time for Chairman Bernanke to cease and desist.
"We don't want temporary, artificial economic growth bought at the expense of permanently higher inflation which will erode the value of our incomes and our savings."
Egging Ben on is the Nobel-prize winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. Fed policy is too timid, says Krugman.
When Bernanke said we are not "going to try to raise inflation to a super-normal level," he blew it, says Krugman, and "there goes the best chance the Fed's plan might actually work."
What the Fed should do, he says, is change expectations "by leading people to believe that we will have somewhat above-normal inflation ... which would reduce the incentive to sit on cash."
But "sit on cash" is a definition of saving. Is saving bad? Once, Americans were taught that saving was a good thing.
Not to Krugman. He wants to panic the public into believing the money they have put into savings accounts and CDs will be rapidly eaten up by Fed-created inflation, so they will run out and spend that money now to get the economy moving again.
Whatever the economics of this, the morality of it is appalling.
Imagine a husband and wife with a bright child who are saving to send the boy to the best prep school, then Princeton, then, hopefully, Harvard or Yale Law, so the boy can realize his dream of being a great lawyer and perhaps one day sitting on the Supreme Court.
Krugman is recommending that the Fed goose the money supply to cause a general fear of inflation, so that couple will run and get their money out of the bank and start spending it, because, if they don't, their own government will start destroying the value of their savings.
This is Weimar economics.
As for inflation, are not the prices of gold, silver, oil and other commodities flashing signals that it is on the way?
In denouncing Bernanke, even the Chinese are not all wrong. They have followed the monetary policy we created at Bretton Woods in 1944, where we tied the dollar to gold at $35 an ounce, while other nations tied their currencies to the dollar at fixed rates of exchange.
China is being denounced for manipulating its currency when Beijing is adhering to a strict dollar-renminbi exchange rate, while our Fed is manipulating the dollar price to seek competitive advantage.
The other Chinese complaint is that they lent us trillions to buy Chinese goods and now we are robbing them by depreciating the dollar-denominated Treasury bonds they accepted in return for their goods.
Pay back your banker in Monopoly money, and you will find you are soon unable to borrow from anyone anywhere.
In four years, the American people have delivered three straight votes of no confidence in the U.S. government. The Fed, however, retains a confidence that it does not deserve, when one considers that, when it was created in 1913, a $20 bill could be exchanged for a $20 gold piece.
Today, it takes seventy $20 bills to buy a $20 gold piece, which means the dollar can buy in 2010 what you could get for 2 pennies in 1910. Quite a record for a central bank set up to protect the dollar.
If Bernanke's inflation does not generate growth, confidence in the Fed will also vanish. Then a crisis of capitalism will be at hand.
Historians will not deal kindly with the men who traded the horse of U.S. economic nationalism for the rabbit of the Global Economy.
Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan is a founding editor of The American Conservative magazine, and the author of many books including State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America .
Email Pat Buchanan
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 0diggsdigg
Sign-Up If it is the first responsibility of the Federal Reserve to protect the dollars that Americans earn and save, is it not dereliction of duty for the Fed to pursue a policy to bleed value from those dollars? For that is what Chairman Ben Bernanke is up to with his QE2, or "quantitative easing."
Translation: The Fed is committed to buy $600 billion in bonds from banks and pay for them by printing money that will then be deposited in those banks. The more dollars that flood into the economy, the less every one of them is worth.
Bernanke is not just risking inflation. He is inducing inflation.
He is reducing the value of the dollar to make U.S. exports more competitive and imports more expensive, so that we will consume fewer imports. He is trying to eliminate the U.S. trade deficit by treating the once universally respected dollar like the peso of a banana republic.
Sarah Palin has nailed cold what Bernanke is about:
"We shouldn't be playing around with inflation. It's not for nothing Reagan called it 'as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.'
"The Fed's pump-priming addiction has got our small businesses running scared and our allies worried. The German finance minister called the Fed's proposals 'clueless.' When Germany, a country that knows a thing or two about the dangers of inflation, warns us to think again, maybe it's time for Chairman Bernanke to cease and desist.
"We don't want temporary, artificial economic growth bought at the expense of permanently higher inflation which will erode the value of our incomes and our savings."
Egging Ben on is the Nobel-prize winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. Fed policy is too timid, says Krugman.
When Bernanke said we are not "going to try to raise inflation to a super-normal level," he blew it, says Krugman, and "there goes the best chance the Fed's plan might actually work."
What the Fed should do, he says, is change expectations "by leading people to believe that we will have somewhat above-normal inflation ... which would reduce the incentive to sit on cash."
But "sit on cash" is a definition of saving. Is saving bad? Once, Americans were taught that saving was a good thing.
Not to Krugman. He wants to panic the public into believing the money they have put into savings accounts and CDs will be rapidly eaten up by Fed-created inflation, so they will run out and spend that money now to get the economy moving again.
Whatever the economics of this, the morality of it is appalling.
Imagine a husband and wife with a bright child who are saving to send the boy to the best prep school, then Princeton, then, hopefully, Harvard or Yale Law, so the boy can realize his dream of being a great lawyer and perhaps one day sitting on the Supreme Court.
Krugman is recommending that the Fed goose the money supply to cause a general fear of inflation, so that couple will run and get their money out of the bank and start spending it, because, if they don't, their own government will start destroying the value of their savings.
This is Weimar economics.
As for inflation, are not the prices of gold, silver, oil and other commodities flashing signals that it is on the way?
In denouncing Bernanke, even the Chinese are not all wrong. They have followed the monetary policy we created at Bretton Woods in 1944, where we tied the dollar to gold at $35 an ounce, while other nations tied their currencies to the dollar at fixed rates of exchange.
China is being denounced for manipulating its currency when Beijing is adhering to a strict dollar-renminbi exchange rate, while our Fed is manipulating the dollar price to seek competitive advantage.
The other Chinese complaint is that they lent us trillions to buy Chinese goods and now we are robbing them by depreciating the dollar-denominated Treasury bonds they accepted in return for their goods.
Pay back your banker in Monopoly money, and you will find you are soon unable to borrow from anyone anywhere.
In four years, the American people have delivered three straight votes of no confidence in the U.S. government. The Fed, however, retains a confidence that it does not deserve, when one considers that, when it was created in 1913, a $20 bill could be exchanged for a $20 gold piece.
Today, it takes seventy $20 bills to buy a $20 gold piece, which means the dollar can buy in 2010 what you could get for 2 pennies in 1910. Quite a record for a central bank set up to protect the dollar.
If Bernanke's inflation does not generate growth, confidence in the Fed will also vanish. Then a crisis of capitalism will be at hand.
Historians will not deal kindly with the men who traded the horse of U.S. economic nationalism for the rabbit of the Global Economy.
Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan is a founding editor of The American Conservative magazine, and the author of many books including State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America .
FROM TOWNHALL
The Vast Child-Fattening Conspiracy
Email Brent Bozell
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Sign-Up When it comes to the increasing sex, violence and profanity in entertainment media, the social libertines are indifferent. They insist that children will hardly be warped or ruined by the media they consume. They chortle at the paranoia of Hollywood critics. Their mantra: If you don't like it, just turn the channel.
But if the issue isn't indecency, but instead, say, obesity, so many of those titans of "tolerance" suddenly become the censors. Behold San Francisco, the paradise of permissive sexual attitudes. The city council may welcome flowers in your hair, but they have just voted to ban "Happy Meal" toys unless the "happy" menu is low in fat and sodium, and includes fruits and vegetables.
Apparently, that villain Ronald McDonald has been leading a Vast Child-Fattening Conspiracy.
This is hardly the first step toward dietary dictates in San Francisco. In 2007, Mayor Gavin Newsom banned city-government use of bottled water, and this past summer, Newsom instituted a ban on sugary sodas in city vending machines. And not just sugary sodas, but sports drinks and even artificially sweetened water. The rule insists juice must be 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice with no added sweeteners, and machines should allow the choice of soy milk or rice milk.
Then there's the Big Apple, San Francisco's East Coast cousin, another hub of libertine behavior. New York City schools now regulate the types of foods that students may sell for fundraising inside the school: Acceptable products include Fiber One bars, Soy Crisps and Ayala's Herbal Water. To qualify as an approved item, a snack must meet 11 criteria developed by the city. All products must be in marked, single-serving packages with a maximum calorie count of 200. Artificial sweeteners like Splenda are banned. Less than 35 percent of the item's total calories may come from either total sugars or fat. Grain-based products must contain at least 2 grams of fiber.
After resistance to the city's ban on bake sales of homemade goodies, the city relented partially: Parents may sell cupcakes and cookies -- but only once a month, and not in the school cafeteria.
Entire blue states have capitalized on the dietary-puritan wave. In the state of Illinois, the legislature raised taxes last year not only on alcohol, but on candy and soft drinks. The state tax on candy was multiplied by six, from 1 percent to 6.25 percent, unless it needs refrigeration or contains flour. That rate also applies to soda and non-carbonated sweetened drinks, like iced tea. They did it for the children (and, allegedly, for roads and bridges).
What weird people they are. Now their media friends are getting into the act. The same networks that think it's harmless to put orgies into dramas and profanities into sitcoms are utterly panicked about drinking a Pepsi. The Business and Media Institute found CNBC anchor Erin Burnett asking the president of the American Beverage Association why anyone lets Coke or Pepsi be sold. This is what's next? Soda Pop Prohibition?
Burnett demanded to know: "Let me ask you, is there anything good about drinking a full-calorie soda? Why do they even sell it? What's good for me in drinking it?" When she was told it's delicious, Burnett replied sourly: "I'm sure you could say we like cocaine, right?"
So when parents buy their children a Mountain Dew, they might as well be pushing cocaine? All that's missing here for CNBC is the dietary equivalent of documentaries like "Reefer Madness." You don't hear anyone using the mantra that "If you don't like a Pepsi, don't drink one."
In the journal Policy Review last year, Mary Eberstadt tackled the "curious reversal in moralizing" about food and sex: "Modern man (and woman) ... has taken longstanding morality about sex, and substituted it onto food. The all-you-can-eat buffet is now stigmatized; the sexual smorgasbord is not ... According to them, after all, consensual sex is simply what comes naturally, and ought therefore to be judged value-free. But as the contemporary history outlined in this essay goes to show, the same can be said of overeating -- and overeating is something that today's society is manifestly embarked on re-stigmatizing."
The libertines love to mock those anti-Hollywood puritans in Menckenesque tones, suggesting the critics are haunted by the fear that someone somewhere might be happy with their sleazy television. It's now just as easy to say that the big-city food police are haunted by the fear that some child somewhere may be enjoying a Happy Meal, with French fries and "cocaine" on ice.
Brent Bozell
Founder and President of the Media Research Center, Brent Bozell runs the largest media watchdog organization in America.
Email Brent Bozell
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 1diggdigg
Sign-Up When it comes to the increasing sex, violence and profanity in entertainment media, the social libertines are indifferent. They insist that children will hardly be warped or ruined by the media they consume. They chortle at the paranoia of Hollywood critics. Their mantra: If you don't like it, just turn the channel.
But if the issue isn't indecency, but instead, say, obesity, so many of those titans of "tolerance" suddenly become the censors. Behold San Francisco, the paradise of permissive sexual attitudes. The city council may welcome flowers in your hair, but they have just voted to ban "Happy Meal" toys unless the "happy" menu is low in fat and sodium, and includes fruits and vegetables.
Apparently, that villain Ronald McDonald has been leading a Vast Child-Fattening Conspiracy.
This is hardly the first step toward dietary dictates in San Francisco. In 2007, Mayor Gavin Newsom banned city-government use of bottled water, and this past summer, Newsom instituted a ban on sugary sodas in city vending machines. And not just sugary sodas, but sports drinks and even artificially sweetened water. The rule insists juice must be 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice with no added sweeteners, and machines should allow the choice of soy milk or rice milk.
Then there's the Big Apple, San Francisco's East Coast cousin, another hub of libertine behavior. New York City schools now regulate the types of foods that students may sell for fundraising inside the school: Acceptable products include Fiber One bars, Soy Crisps and Ayala's Herbal Water. To qualify as an approved item, a snack must meet 11 criteria developed by the city. All products must be in marked, single-serving packages with a maximum calorie count of 200. Artificial sweeteners like Splenda are banned. Less than 35 percent of the item's total calories may come from either total sugars or fat. Grain-based products must contain at least 2 grams of fiber.
After resistance to the city's ban on bake sales of homemade goodies, the city relented partially: Parents may sell cupcakes and cookies -- but only once a month, and not in the school cafeteria.
Entire blue states have capitalized on the dietary-puritan wave. In the state of Illinois, the legislature raised taxes last year not only on alcohol, but on candy and soft drinks. The state tax on candy was multiplied by six, from 1 percent to 6.25 percent, unless it needs refrigeration or contains flour. That rate also applies to soda and non-carbonated sweetened drinks, like iced tea. They did it for the children (and, allegedly, for roads and bridges).
What weird people they are. Now their media friends are getting into the act. The same networks that think it's harmless to put orgies into dramas and profanities into sitcoms are utterly panicked about drinking a Pepsi. The Business and Media Institute found CNBC anchor Erin Burnett asking the president of the American Beverage Association why anyone lets Coke or Pepsi be sold. This is what's next? Soda Pop Prohibition?
Burnett demanded to know: "Let me ask you, is there anything good about drinking a full-calorie soda? Why do they even sell it? What's good for me in drinking it?" When she was told it's delicious, Burnett replied sourly: "I'm sure you could say we like cocaine, right?"
So when parents buy their children a Mountain Dew, they might as well be pushing cocaine? All that's missing here for CNBC is the dietary equivalent of documentaries like "Reefer Madness." You don't hear anyone using the mantra that "If you don't like a Pepsi, don't drink one."
In the journal Policy Review last year, Mary Eberstadt tackled the "curious reversal in moralizing" about food and sex: "Modern man (and woman) ... has taken longstanding morality about sex, and substituted it onto food. The all-you-can-eat buffet is now stigmatized; the sexual smorgasbord is not ... According to them, after all, consensual sex is simply what comes naturally, and ought therefore to be judged value-free. But as the contemporary history outlined in this essay goes to show, the same can be said of overeating -- and overeating is something that today's society is manifestly embarked on re-stigmatizing."
The libertines love to mock those anti-Hollywood puritans in Menckenesque tones, suggesting the critics are haunted by the fear that someone somewhere might be happy with their sleazy television. It's now just as easy to say that the big-city food police are haunted by the fear that some child somewhere may be enjoying a Happy Meal, with French fries and "cocaine" on ice.
Brent Bozell
Founder and President of the Media Research Center, Brent Bozell runs the largest media watchdog organization in America.
FROM TOWNHALL
Throw Carol Browner Under the Bus
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Sign-Up Energy czar Carol Browner needs to go the way of disgraced green jobs czar Van Jones: under the bus and stripped of her unbridled power to destroy jobs and lives in the name of saving the planet. ASAP.
One of the Beltway's most influential, entrenched and unaccountable left-wing radicals, Browner has now been called out twice by President Obama's own federal BP oil spill commission and Interior Department inspector general. How many strikes should a woman who circumvented the Senate confirmation process and boasts a sordid history of abusing public office get?
Pushing the question -- and shining a bright, hot spotlight on Browner's behind-the-scenes maneuvering -- should be a top priority of the new House GOP majority. Not least of all because Washington insiders are still buzzing about possible White House plans to increase her policy role and elevate her status with Team Obama.
First, the BP oil spill panel dinged her for disseminating misleading information to the public about the scope of the disaster. In the aftermath of the spill, she falsely claimed that 75 percent of the spill was "now completely gone from the system" and falsely claimed that the administration's August report on the disaster was "peer-reviewed." The false claim "contributed to public perception" of Browner's calculation as "more exact and complete" than it was ever designed to be, the oil spill commission concluded in October.
This week, the Interior Department inspector general singled out Browner's office for butchering peer-reviewed scientists' conclusions in a key report about the administration's preordained deepwater drilling moratorium. The scientists first blew the whistle on the administration's monkey business this summer. A federal judge sided with the misrepresented scientists and blasted the Interior Department's big green lie that its moratorium was "peer-reviewed" and endorsed by "seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering."
As the court concluded: "Although the experts agreed with the safety recommendations contained in the body of the main Report, five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they 'do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium' on floating drilling."
It was Browner's office behind the hatchet job. After cutting, pasting and tweaking the drilling moratorium report, one of Browner's staff members sent a 2 a.m. e-mail back to the Interior Department on May 27 with edited versions that implied that the outside scientists endorsed the moratorium. The Interior Department inspector general tip-toed around Browner's responsibility for fudging the truth, using passive language to describe how the edited versions "caused the distinction" between what the administration wanted and what the scientists believed "to become effectively lost."
Nonsense. The distinction didn't "become" lost. Browner's office disappeared it, doctored it and obliterated it. Browner's wordsmiths played Mad Libs with the report until it fit their agenda. There was "no intent to mislead the public," Browner's office claims. But this eco-data doctoring fits a long pattern of politicized science over which Browner has presided.
While head of the Clinton administration's EPA, she ordered a staffer to purge and delete her computer files to evade a public disclosure lawsuit. Lambasted by the judge for "contumacious" behavior and contempt of court, Browner claimed it was all an innocent mistake -- and blamed her young son for downloading games on her work computer that she was trying to erase.
During her tenure as EPA chief, she was also caught by a congressional subcommittee using taxpayer funds to create and send out illegal lobbying material to more than 100 grassroots environmental lobbying organizations. Browner exploited her office to orchestrate a political campaign by left-wing groups, who turned around and attacked Republican lawmakers for supporting regulatory reform.
According to the left-leaning Atlantic, Obama has increasingly relied on Browner's counsel on issues beyond her environmental portfolio. Which means he's listening to her advice and strategizing on how to apply her truth-fudging, transparency-evading tactics to the rest of the economy and domestic policy.
Browner, a darling of left-wing billionaire George Soros' environmental justice circles and the wife of a top energy lobbyist, is a dangerous woman whose ideological zeal has helped power the Democrats' war on prosperity. Sunlight, as always, is the best disinfectant -- and a much-needed monkey wrench in the Obama job-killing machine.
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
Email Michelle Malkin
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Sign-Up Energy czar Carol Browner needs to go the way of disgraced green jobs czar Van Jones: under the bus and stripped of her unbridled power to destroy jobs and lives in the name of saving the planet. ASAP.
One of the Beltway's most influential, entrenched and unaccountable left-wing radicals, Browner has now been called out twice by President Obama's own federal BP oil spill commission and Interior Department inspector general. How many strikes should a woman who circumvented the Senate confirmation process and boasts a sordid history of abusing public office get?
Pushing the question -- and shining a bright, hot spotlight on Browner's behind-the-scenes maneuvering -- should be a top priority of the new House GOP majority. Not least of all because Washington insiders are still buzzing about possible White House plans to increase her policy role and elevate her status with Team Obama.
First, the BP oil spill panel dinged her for disseminating misleading information to the public about the scope of the disaster. In the aftermath of the spill, she falsely claimed that 75 percent of the spill was "now completely gone from the system" and falsely claimed that the administration's August report on the disaster was "peer-reviewed." The false claim "contributed to public perception" of Browner's calculation as "more exact and complete" than it was ever designed to be, the oil spill commission concluded in October.
This week, the Interior Department inspector general singled out Browner's office for butchering peer-reviewed scientists' conclusions in a key report about the administration's preordained deepwater drilling moratorium. The scientists first blew the whistle on the administration's monkey business this summer. A federal judge sided with the misrepresented scientists and blasted the Interior Department's big green lie that its moratorium was "peer-reviewed" and endorsed by "seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering."
As the court concluded: "Although the experts agreed with the safety recommendations contained in the body of the main Report, five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they 'do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium' on floating drilling."
It was Browner's office behind the hatchet job. After cutting, pasting and tweaking the drilling moratorium report, one of Browner's staff members sent a 2 a.m. e-mail back to the Interior Department on May 27 with edited versions that implied that the outside scientists endorsed the moratorium. The Interior Department inspector general tip-toed around Browner's responsibility for fudging the truth, using passive language to describe how the edited versions "caused the distinction" between what the administration wanted and what the scientists believed "to become effectively lost."
Nonsense. The distinction didn't "become" lost. Browner's office disappeared it, doctored it and obliterated it. Browner's wordsmiths played Mad Libs with the report until it fit their agenda. There was "no intent to mislead the public," Browner's office claims. But this eco-data doctoring fits a long pattern of politicized science over which Browner has presided.
While head of the Clinton administration's EPA, she ordered a staffer to purge and delete her computer files to evade a public disclosure lawsuit. Lambasted by the judge for "contumacious" behavior and contempt of court, Browner claimed it was all an innocent mistake -- and blamed her young son for downloading games on her work computer that she was trying to erase.
During her tenure as EPA chief, she was also caught by a congressional subcommittee using taxpayer funds to create and send out illegal lobbying material to more than 100 grassroots environmental lobbying organizations. Browner exploited her office to orchestrate a political campaign by left-wing groups, who turned around and attacked Republican lawmakers for supporting regulatory reform.
According to the left-leaning Atlantic, Obama has increasingly relied on Browner's counsel on issues beyond her environmental portfolio. Which means he's listening to her advice and strategizing on how to apply her truth-fudging, transparency-evading tactics to the rest of the economy and domestic policy.
Browner, a darling of left-wing billionaire George Soros' environmental justice circles and the wife of a top energy lobbyist, is a dangerous woman whose ideological zeal has helped power the Democrats' war on prosperity. Sunlight, as always, is the best disinfectant -- and a much-needed monkey wrench in the Obama job-killing machine.
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
FROM AUL
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
This Week's Feature
Lou Anne’s Law Takes Effect
After more than ten years of litigation and desperate obstructionism by Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates, Arizona’s comprehensive abortion clinic regulations went into effect on Monday, November 1. The regulations were first enacted in 1999 following a tragic and preventable death at a Phoenix abortion clinic in which Lou Anne Herron, a 33-year-old mother, died as the result of a late-term abortion. AUL’s Vice President for Legal Affairs, Denise Burke, played a key role in defending this legislation during this ten-year battle.
“This case reveals another dark side of abortion – women’s lives are at stake in under-regulated, under-monitored abortion clinics,” said Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of Americans United for Life. “If the abortion industry really cared about women, it would not fight regulations designed to protect a woman’s health.”
Burke added: “Thankfully, Arizona women now have more protection against the substandard conditions and practices at abortion clinics.”
For more information about Lou Anne’s story and the legal maneuverings of Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates during this hard-fought case, check out Burke’s analysis here.
On The Docket
Life Wins: Pro-Life Women Governors now outnumber Pro-Abortion Women Governors
Thanks to the dramatic wins of all four pro-life women gubernatorial candidates in the mid-term elections, pro-life women now outnumber pro-abortion women in the Governors' mansions.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer cruised to re-election victory winning by 13 points. Susana Martinez in New Mexico won decisively by eight points and is the nation’s first female Hispanic governor. Congresswoman Mary Fallin soundly defeated Jari Askins by 20 points. And South Carolina elected Nikki Haley by a four-point margin.
For more information about AUL’s analysis visit here.
A Winning Attorney
AUL is proud to congratulate William Saunders who received the St. Thomas More Award in Charlotte, North Carolina on Tuesday, November 9. This award recognizes an individual who promotes and embodies the virtues of St. Thomas More, as well as inspires lawyers and other professionals to honor God through their work. The award is traditionally given to individuals who have contributed significantly to respect for the dignity of the human person in the field of law.
During the event, Saunders encouraged the attendees with the certainty that pro-life attorneys can further the cause within the legal profession regardless of the specific area of law practiced.
Saunders is following up on that theme by speaking to the law students at Washington University Law School’s Advocates for Life chapter on “Why Roe Must Go (and what happens when it does).”
This Week's Feature
Lou Anne’s Law Takes Effect
After more than ten years of litigation and desperate obstructionism by Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates, Arizona’s comprehensive abortion clinic regulations went into effect on Monday, November 1. The regulations were first enacted in 1999 following a tragic and preventable death at a Phoenix abortion clinic in which Lou Anne Herron, a 33-year-old mother, died as the result of a late-term abortion. AUL’s Vice President for Legal Affairs, Denise Burke, played a key role in defending this legislation during this ten-year battle.
“This case reveals another dark side of abortion – women’s lives are at stake in under-regulated, under-monitored abortion clinics,” said Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of Americans United for Life. “If the abortion industry really cared about women, it would not fight regulations designed to protect a woman’s health.”
Burke added: “Thankfully, Arizona women now have more protection against the substandard conditions and practices at abortion clinics.”
For more information about Lou Anne’s story and the legal maneuverings of Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates during this hard-fought case, check out Burke’s analysis here.
On The Docket
Life Wins: Pro-Life Women Governors now outnumber Pro-Abortion Women Governors
Thanks to the dramatic wins of all four pro-life women gubernatorial candidates in the mid-term elections, pro-life women now outnumber pro-abortion women in the Governors' mansions.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer cruised to re-election victory winning by 13 points. Susana Martinez in New Mexico won decisively by eight points and is the nation’s first female Hispanic governor. Congresswoman Mary Fallin soundly defeated Jari Askins by 20 points. And South Carolina elected Nikki Haley by a four-point margin.
For more information about AUL’s analysis visit here.
A Winning Attorney
AUL is proud to congratulate William Saunders who received the St. Thomas More Award in Charlotte, North Carolina on Tuesday, November 9. This award recognizes an individual who promotes and embodies the virtues of St. Thomas More, as well as inspires lawyers and other professionals to honor God through their work. The award is traditionally given to individuals who have contributed significantly to respect for the dignity of the human person in the field of law.
During the event, Saunders encouraged the attendees with the certainty that pro-life attorneys can further the cause within the legal profession regardless of the specific area of law practiced.
Saunders is following up on that theme by speaking to the law students at Washington University Law School’s Advocates for Life chapter on “Why Roe Must Go (and what happens when it does).”
FROM TOWNHALL
Obama's Plan: Trickle Up Poverty
Barack Obama is a serious threat to the American way of life as we now know it. How you may ask? Through the impoverishment of the Middle Class our taxes are going up, health-care has been socialized, and the government is getting more control over our lives. The military is losing funding to pay for horrendous domestic programs while our troops must defend themselves through politically correct Rules of Engagement. New financial regulations are lining the pockets of Obama's campaign contributors while our wages along with stock prices plummet. The border with Mexico is becoming more porous as the Administration continues to neglect illegal immigration.
Bestselling author, conservative icon, and popular radio host Dr. Michael Savage lays it all out on the line in his newest book Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama's Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security. He argues that ignoring the Tea Party is a colossal mistake on the part of Obama, and the will of the people demands a more representative government. We are dangerously close to losing this country unless something is done immediately. If you're concerned with the direction of this country, this is the book for you. Get Townhall Magazine today and receive Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama's Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security by Michael Savage absolutely free!
Barack Obama is a serious threat to the American way of life as we now know it. How you may ask? Through the impoverishment of the Middle Class our taxes are going up, health-care has been socialized, and the government is getting more control over our lives. The military is losing funding to pay for horrendous domestic programs while our troops must defend themselves through politically correct Rules of Engagement. New financial regulations are lining the pockets of Obama's campaign contributors while our wages along with stock prices plummet. The border with Mexico is becoming more porous as the Administration continues to neglect illegal immigration.
Bestselling author, conservative icon, and popular radio host Dr. Michael Savage lays it all out on the line in his newest book Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama's Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security. He argues that ignoring the Tea Party is a colossal mistake on the part of Obama, and the will of the people demands a more representative government. We are dangerously close to losing this country unless something is done immediately. If you're concerned with the direction of this country, this is the book for you. Get Townhall Magazine today and receive Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama's Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security by Michael Savage absolutely free!
FROM TOWNHALL
No Illegal Alien Pilot Left Behind
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Sign-Up Chalk up another Code Red Elmo moment for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. While Islamic terrorists groom suicide bombers starting in kindergarten, the grownups in charge of protecting America can't seem to reach an elementary level of competence.
The "good" news: Hindsight-driven bureaucrats at DHS moved to ban high-risk cargo from Yemen and Somalia this week after a global air scare involving makeshift printer/toner cartridge-bombs. The bad news: More than nine years after the 9/11 jihadist attacks, untold numbers of high-risk flyers have been able to board, ride and pilot American planes -- some with Transportation Security Administration approval to boot.
Outside Boston, one shady flight school provided single-engine pilot lessons to at least 33 illegal immigrants from Brazil. But clear counter-terror rules ban illegal aliens from enrolling in U.S. flight schools. Clear counter-terror regulations require TSA to run foreign flight students' names against a plethora of terrorism, criminal and immigration databases. Head-scratching airport security officials were at a loss last week to explain how dozens of these illegal alien students eluded their radar screen when the agency "performs a thorough background check on each applicant at the time of application" and checks "for available disqualifying immigration information," the Boston Globe reported.
A cluebat for the Keystone Kops: No matter how DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano might spin it, the "system" is not "working" in any sense of either word.
Whistleblowers have warned for years about the gaping holes in both the TSA's and the Federal Aviation Administration's foreign pilot screening systems. In 2005, aviation safety inspector Edward H. Blount of the Alabama Flight Standards District Office sent a letter to the TSA warning of federal policies that were "fostering illegal flight training by foreign individuals" in the U.S. on improper visas. Blount reported that he and another investigator were told by a TSA official that the agency was "not going to look at the visa status" of pilot applicants.
The next year, TSA issued a backside-covering memo shirking responsibility and instead pointing fingers at the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of State for neglecting to follow up on rigorous immigration status checks for foreign pilots.
In 2008, ABC News discovered that thousands of foreign nationals were able to enroll in flight schools despite the strict flight security rules. "Some of the very same conditions that allowed the 9-11 tragedy to happen in the first place are still very much in existence today," one regional TSA officer warned. "TSA's enforcement is basically nonexistent," former FAA inspector Bill McNease told the network. The matter was kicked upstairs to DHS higher-ups in Washington. And there it gathered dust.
Compounding those persistent gaps are the myriad ways the open-borders lobby has undermined secure identification. Homeland security officials were warned years ago about the use of bogus Mexican matricula consular cards by illegal aliens boarding planes. American banks have pandered to the pro-amnesty lobby in search of illegal alien customers; the financial industry championed the use of the matricula consular cards as identification despite widespread fraud, inability to verify validating documents and lack of any central database. Dozens of municipalities have incorporated consular cards as "valid" ID for illegal aliens, and three states still issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Open-borders ideologues populate every corner of the Obama administration, from DHS to the Department of Justice, where civil rights division head Thomas Perez has long crusaded for illegal alien licenses.
These comprehensive failures are partly attributable to incompetence, partly attributable to industry pressure and partly attributable to the intentional undermining of the very immigration laws Congress passed after 9/11 -- laws specifically designed to prevent future alien hijackers like the 9/11 monsters from so easily exploiting the homeland security lapses that allowed them to live and train here for years unencumbered even after their temporary visas had expired.
As I reported in the aftermath of the would-be Christmas Day bomber fiasco last year, data are only as good as the people entrusted to collect, process and use the information to protect national security. Without the ability to share and access the information across numerous agencies, the data are useless. There is still no functional interoperability among an alphabet soup of national security and criminal databases -- including NAILS, TECS, CLASS, VISAS VIPER, TUSCAN, TIPPIX, IBIS, CIS, APIS, SAVE, IDENT, DACS, AFIS, ENFORCE and the NCIC. The Senate raised questions about understaffed efforts to modernize some of these databases last spring. They're still waiting for answers.
As usual, the homeland security moppets under fire stress that they found no links to terrorism among the immigration law-breaking flight students outside Boston. This misses the gobsmackingly obvious point that, despite billions of dollars and years of bureaucratic expansion, our homeland security infrastructure cannot yet provide adequate protection against unauthorized, unscreened, undocumented and unwanted intruders -- terror-related or not. That is not a consolation. That is an indictment.
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
©Creators Syndicate
Email Michelle Malkin
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 0diggsdigg
Sign-Up Chalk up another Code Red Elmo moment for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. While Islamic terrorists groom suicide bombers starting in kindergarten, the grownups in charge of protecting America can't seem to reach an elementary level of competence.
The "good" news: Hindsight-driven bureaucrats at DHS moved to ban high-risk cargo from Yemen and Somalia this week after a global air scare involving makeshift printer/toner cartridge-bombs. The bad news: More than nine years after the 9/11 jihadist attacks, untold numbers of high-risk flyers have been able to board, ride and pilot American planes -- some with Transportation Security Administration approval to boot.
Outside Boston, one shady flight school provided single-engine pilot lessons to at least 33 illegal immigrants from Brazil. But clear counter-terror rules ban illegal aliens from enrolling in U.S. flight schools. Clear counter-terror regulations require TSA to run foreign flight students' names against a plethora of terrorism, criminal and immigration databases. Head-scratching airport security officials were at a loss last week to explain how dozens of these illegal alien students eluded their radar screen when the agency "performs a thorough background check on each applicant at the time of application" and checks "for available disqualifying immigration information," the Boston Globe reported.
A cluebat for the Keystone Kops: No matter how DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano might spin it, the "system" is not "working" in any sense of either word.
Whistleblowers have warned for years about the gaping holes in both the TSA's and the Federal Aviation Administration's foreign pilot screening systems. In 2005, aviation safety inspector Edward H. Blount of the Alabama Flight Standards District Office sent a letter to the TSA warning of federal policies that were "fostering illegal flight training by foreign individuals" in the U.S. on improper visas. Blount reported that he and another investigator were told by a TSA official that the agency was "not going to look at the visa status" of pilot applicants.
The next year, TSA issued a backside-covering memo shirking responsibility and instead pointing fingers at the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of State for neglecting to follow up on rigorous immigration status checks for foreign pilots.
In 2008, ABC News discovered that thousands of foreign nationals were able to enroll in flight schools despite the strict flight security rules. "Some of the very same conditions that allowed the 9-11 tragedy to happen in the first place are still very much in existence today," one regional TSA officer warned. "TSA's enforcement is basically nonexistent," former FAA inspector Bill McNease told the network. The matter was kicked upstairs to DHS higher-ups in Washington. And there it gathered dust.
Compounding those persistent gaps are the myriad ways the open-borders lobby has undermined secure identification. Homeland security officials were warned years ago about the use of bogus Mexican matricula consular cards by illegal aliens boarding planes. American banks have pandered to the pro-amnesty lobby in search of illegal alien customers; the financial industry championed the use of the matricula consular cards as identification despite widespread fraud, inability to verify validating documents and lack of any central database. Dozens of municipalities have incorporated consular cards as "valid" ID for illegal aliens, and three states still issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Open-borders ideologues populate every corner of the Obama administration, from DHS to the Department of Justice, where civil rights division head Thomas Perez has long crusaded for illegal alien licenses.
These comprehensive failures are partly attributable to incompetence, partly attributable to industry pressure and partly attributable to the intentional undermining of the very immigration laws Congress passed after 9/11 -- laws specifically designed to prevent future alien hijackers like the 9/11 monsters from so easily exploiting the homeland security lapses that allowed them to live and train here for years unencumbered even after their temporary visas had expired.
As I reported in the aftermath of the would-be Christmas Day bomber fiasco last year, data are only as good as the people entrusted to collect, process and use the information to protect national security. Without the ability to share and access the information across numerous agencies, the data are useless. There is still no functional interoperability among an alphabet soup of national security and criminal databases -- including NAILS, TECS, CLASS, VISAS VIPER, TUSCAN, TIPPIX, IBIS, CIS, APIS, SAVE, IDENT, DACS, AFIS, ENFORCE and the NCIC. The Senate raised questions about understaffed efforts to modernize some of these databases last spring. They're still waiting for answers.
As usual, the homeland security moppets under fire stress that they found no links to terrorism among the immigration law-breaking flight students outside Boston. This misses the gobsmackingly obvious point that, despite billions of dollars and years of bureaucratic expansion, our homeland security infrastructure cannot yet provide adequate protection against unauthorized, unscreened, undocumented and unwanted intruders -- terror-related or not. That is not a consolation. That is an indictment.
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
©Creators Syndicate
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
FROM TOWNHALL
Taxed Enough Already!
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Sign-Up Now that we have new representatives, it's time to advance immediately on them and address the issue that can both rebuild our economy and relieve us of government oppression: tax reform.
As I began to point out in last week's article, Congress' plan to subsidize all its outrageous borrowing and spending will demand far more than the tax man's just collecting on expired Bush tax cuts. There are a host of other levies coming down the turnpike from Washington.
Who isn't already completely fed up with the feds' utter waste of our tax monies? Just a week ago, war analysts and government auditors reported that only 10 percent of U.S. taxpayers' money being poured into Afghanistan is actually being used to stabilize the country, with as much as $1 billion in aid ending up in the hands of the Taliban and other insurgency groups!
When a nation is in economic peril, who in their right minds spend tens of millions of taxpayers' dollars to fund a president's 10-day tour to India, Indonesia, China, Japan and South Korea? Couldn't we have sent any other ambassador, who wouldn't have required the accompaniment of such a massive security, political, corporate and media entourage?
So first, there's all that federal waste happening, which already has cost taxpayers exorbitant amounts. It has been estimated by watchdog organizations that the feds waste nearly $1 trillion every year.
Second, as I itemized last week, the expiring Bush tax cuts are on the imminent horizon, which, if they were to expire, would cost Americans a minimum of $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years.
And then there are the inevitable taxes that are coming because of the feds' massive and compounding deficits and debts. Even if all the Bush tax cuts were repealed, the Congressional Budget Office concludes that the deficit would be nearly $1.1 trillion in 2011. The cumulative deficit from 2010 to 2019 under President Barack Obama's proposals would total $9.3 trillion. And the national debt in 2020 would top $24.5 trillion, exceeding the gross domestic product projection for 2019 of $22.8 trillion. And here's the kicker: By 2020, half of income tax revenue would go toward paying interest on that $24 trillion national debt.
That is why Washington is considering charging Americans an additional, European-style value-added tax -- above and beyond sales tax -- which is a form of consumption tax at each stage of an item's manufacturing or distribution, ultimately passed on to the consumer (even though the National Retail Federation just released a study saying a VAT "would result in the loss of 850,000 jobs in its first year, reduce the US gross domestic product for three years, and cut retail spending by $2.5 billion over its first decade," as summarized by CNBC).
And if Obamacare is not repealed, a host of other taxes are coming to your front door. Americans for Tax Reform has pulled from Obamacare legislation almost 20 taxes coming down the pike (with references to the location in the law and the dates the taxes begin, some in 2011) that will result in working families paying more than $500 billion in additional taxes.
And don't forget that entitlement spending already is growing at an alarming rate. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs alone constitute 56 percent of federal expenditures. And even CBS recently admitted that by 2020, roughly 93 cents of every dollar of federal revenue will be eaten up by major entitlement programs and payments on the national debt.
And we are going to pay for Obamacare how?
Should we feel any more confident that Washington bureaucrats are handling our tax monies when The Wall Street Journal recently reported that as of the end of last year, federal workers nationwide owed $1 billion in overdue taxes -- with Capitol Hill employees owing $9.3 million, an average of $15,498 among those working in the House and $12,787 among those working in the Senate. They're like tax junkies on steroids!
America's Founders would have been horrified at the bloated federal bureaucracy we have now and the maze of taxes we have to navigate -- sales taxes, income taxes, school taxes, fuel taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, bridge and road usage taxes (tolls), corporate taxes, property taxes, Social Security taxes, utility taxes and even death taxes!
The debt and taxation frenzy we face today was among the great concerns to our Founders at the dawn of our republic. Thomas Jefferson said it best: "Considering the general tendency (of the federal government) to multiply offices and dependencies and to increase expense to the ultimate term of burden which the citizen can bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which presents itself for taking off the surcharge; that it may never be seen here that, after leaving to labor the smallest portion of its earnings on which it can subsist, government shall itself consume the residue of what it was instituted to guard."
I'll say it again: Now that we have new representatives, it's time to advance immediately on them and address the issue that can both rebuild our economy and relieve us of government oppression: tax reform.
(In my next article, I will show how the U.S. can do away with the Internal Revenue Service and replace it with a far more inexpensive taxation system that is equitable for all.)
<
Chuck Norris
Chuck Norris is a columnist and impossible to kill.
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Sign-Up Now that we have new representatives, it's time to advance immediately on them and address the issue that can both rebuild our economy and relieve us of government oppression: tax reform.
As I began to point out in last week's article, Congress' plan to subsidize all its outrageous borrowing and spending will demand far more than the tax man's just collecting on expired Bush tax cuts. There are a host of other levies coming down the turnpike from Washington.
Who isn't already completely fed up with the feds' utter waste of our tax monies? Just a week ago, war analysts and government auditors reported that only 10 percent of U.S. taxpayers' money being poured into Afghanistan is actually being used to stabilize the country, with as much as $1 billion in aid ending up in the hands of the Taliban and other insurgency groups!
When a nation is in economic peril, who in their right minds spend tens of millions of taxpayers' dollars to fund a president's 10-day tour to India, Indonesia, China, Japan and South Korea? Couldn't we have sent any other ambassador, who wouldn't have required the accompaniment of such a massive security, political, corporate and media entourage?
So first, there's all that federal waste happening, which already has cost taxpayers exorbitant amounts. It has been estimated by watchdog organizations that the feds waste nearly $1 trillion every year.
Second, as I itemized last week, the expiring Bush tax cuts are on the imminent horizon, which, if they were to expire, would cost Americans a minimum of $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years.
And then there are the inevitable taxes that are coming because of the feds' massive and compounding deficits and debts. Even if all the Bush tax cuts were repealed, the Congressional Budget Office concludes that the deficit would be nearly $1.1 trillion in 2011. The cumulative deficit from 2010 to 2019 under President Barack Obama's proposals would total $9.3 trillion. And the national debt in 2020 would top $24.5 trillion, exceeding the gross domestic product projection for 2019 of $22.8 trillion. And here's the kicker: By 2020, half of income tax revenue would go toward paying interest on that $24 trillion national debt.
That is why Washington is considering charging Americans an additional, European-style value-added tax -- above and beyond sales tax -- which is a form of consumption tax at each stage of an item's manufacturing or distribution, ultimately passed on to the consumer (even though the National Retail Federation just released a study saying a VAT "would result in the loss of 850,000 jobs in its first year, reduce the US gross domestic product for three years, and cut retail spending by $2.5 billion over its first decade," as summarized by CNBC).
And if Obamacare is not repealed, a host of other taxes are coming to your front door. Americans for Tax Reform has pulled from Obamacare legislation almost 20 taxes coming down the pike (with references to the location in the law and the dates the taxes begin, some in 2011) that will result in working families paying more than $500 billion in additional taxes.
And don't forget that entitlement spending already is growing at an alarming rate. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs alone constitute 56 percent of federal expenditures. And even CBS recently admitted that by 2020, roughly 93 cents of every dollar of federal revenue will be eaten up by major entitlement programs and payments on the national debt.
And we are going to pay for Obamacare how?
Should we feel any more confident that Washington bureaucrats are handling our tax monies when The Wall Street Journal recently reported that as of the end of last year, federal workers nationwide owed $1 billion in overdue taxes -- with Capitol Hill employees owing $9.3 million, an average of $15,498 among those working in the House and $12,787 among those working in the Senate. They're like tax junkies on steroids!
America's Founders would have been horrified at the bloated federal bureaucracy we have now and the maze of taxes we have to navigate -- sales taxes, income taxes, school taxes, fuel taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, bridge and road usage taxes (tolls), corporate taxes, property taxes, Social Security taxes, utility taxes and even death taxes!
The debt and taxation frenzy we face today was among the great concerns to our Founders at the dawn of our republic. Thomas Jefferson said it best: "Considering the general tendency (of the federal government) to multiply offices and dependencies and to increase expense to the ultimate term of burden which the citizen can bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which presents itself for taking off the surcharge; that it may never be seen here that, after leaving to labor the smallest portion of its earnings on which it can subsist, government shall itself consume the residue of what it was instituted to guard."
I'll say it again: Now that we have new representatives, it's time to advance immediately on them and address the issue that can both rebuild our economy and relieve us of government oppression: tax reform.
(In my next article, I will show how the U.S. can do away with the Internal Revenue Service and replace it with a far more inexpensive taxation system that is equitable for all.)
<
Chuck Norris
Chuck Norris is a columnist and impossible to kill.
TOWNHALL DAILY: Sign up today and receive Chuck Norris and Townhall.com's daily lineup delivered each morning to your inbox.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
FROM PROPHOECY NEWS WATCH
Christian Couple Banned from Foster Parenting Because of their Objection to Homosexuality
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eunice and Owen Johns will argue that Christians are now being forced to live “in the closet” as the state’s interpretation of equality law favours gay rights over religious freedom.
The Christian Legal Centre, which is backing the couple, said the future of Christian foster carers and adoptive parents “hangs in the balance”.
Gay rights campaigners said the couple’s views were out of date and that councils should protect the rights of a child before the “prejudices” of parents.
Mr and Mrs Johns' case represents the latest clash of rights resulting from equality laws which were introduced under Labour and designed to prevent discrimination on the grounds of religion or sexuality.
Roman Catholic adoption agencies have closed because they cannot reconcile the requirements under the new laws with their belief that children should not be placed with gay couples.
Mr and Mrs Johns, who have fostered almost 20 children over several years, applied in 2007 to become foster carers, providing respite care for children between the ages of five and 10.
But Derby City Council withdrew their application after a social worker discovered that their traditional views on the family meant they could never tell a child that homosexuality was acceptable.
The couple then challenged the council and were given the opportunity to reapply in 2008 but Derby’s adoption panel failed to come to a final decision about the their application. A judicial review of their case, which is supported by the council, is expected to begin at the High Court, sitting in Nottingham, on Monday.
“It may not be long before local authorities decide that Christians cannot look after some of the most vulnerable children in our society, simply because they disapprove of homosexuality,” said a spokesman for the the Christian Legal Centre which was set up to protect the freedom of Christians to live their lives in accordance with their beliefs.
Andrea Minichiello-Williams, barrister and director of the CLC, added: “The Johns are a loving Christian couple, who have in the past, and would in the future, give a wonderful home to a vulnerable child.
“Research clearly establishes that children flourish best in a family with both a mother and father in a committed relationship, like the Johns have.
“One of the issues before the Court is whether Christian couples, who have traditional views on sexual ethics, are ‘fit and proper persons’ to foster - and, by implication, adopt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eunice and Owen Johns will argue that Christians are now being forced to live “in the closet” as the state’s interpretation of equality law favours gay rights over religious freedom.
The Christian Legal Centre, which is backing the couple, said the future of Christian foster carers and adoptive parents “hangs in the balance”.
Gay rights campaigners said the couple’s views were out of date and that councils should protect the rights of a child before the “prejudices” of parents.
Mr and Mrs Johns' case represents the latest clash of rights resulting from equality laws which were introduced under Labour and designed to prevent discrimination on the grounds of religion or sexuality.
Roman Catholic adoption agencies have closed because they cannot reconcile the requirements under the new laws with their belief that children should not be placed with gay couples.
Mr and Mrs Johns, who have fostered almost 20 children over several years, applied in 2007 to become foster carers, providing respite care for children between the ages of five and 10.
But Derby City Council withdrew their application after a social worker discovered that their traditional views on the family meant they could never tell a child that homosexuality was acceptable.
The couple then challenged the council and were given the opportunity to reapply in 2008 but Derby’s adoption panel failed to come to a final decision about the their application. A judicial review of their case, which is supported by the council, is expected to begin at the High Court, sitting in Nottingham, on Monday.
“It may not be long before local authorities decide that Christians cannot look after some of the most vulnerable children in our society, simply because they disapprove of homosexuality,” said a spokesman for the the Christian Legal Centre which was set up to protect the freedom of Christians to live their lives in accordance with their beliefs.
Andrea Minichiello-Williams, barrister and director of the CLC, added: “The Johns are a loving Christian couple, who have in the past, and would in the future, give a wonderful home to a vulnerable child.
“Research clearly establishes that children flourish best in a family with both a mother and father in a committed relationship, like the Johns have.
“One of the issues before the Court is whether Christian couples, who have traditional views on sexual ethics, are ‘fit and proper persons’ to foster - and, by implication, adopt.
FROM TOWNHALL
We Are Not for Sale
Email Caroline Glick
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Sign-Up Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is playing with fire. And Israel is getting burned.
Over the past week, it has been widely reported that the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government are conducting secret negotiations regarding future Israeli land surrenders to the Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem. According to the reports, the Obama administration has presented Netanyahu with a plan whereby Israel will cede its rights to eastern Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians and then lease the areas from the Palestinians for a limited period.
The reports on the length of the lease vary. Some claim that the White House is offering a seven year rental. Others claim the Americans are offering Israel to lease Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley for several decades before relinquishing them completely.
Netanyahu has reportedly accepted Obama's proposal in principle. The only remaining dispute is the length of the lease. Netanyahu is demanding that Israel be permitted to lease Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley from the Palestinians for somewhere between forty and ninety-nine years. The Americans foresee a shorter timeframe.
The fact that these discussions are taking place is deeply disturbing both for what they tell us about the Obama administration's view of Israel and for what they tell us about Netanyahu's wisdom and character.
By calling for Israel to cede the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians, US President Barack Obama is ignoring the most fundamental reality of the Middle East: Israel is besieged by its neighbors who seek its destruction. Without the Jordan Valley Israel would become the modern day equivalent of Czechoslovakia stripped of the Sudetenland in 1938. It would be utterly indefensible.
None of Israel's neighbors have accepted Israel's right to exist. The absolute majority of the Arabs in all of the states neighboring Israel wish to see Israel destroyed. By relinquishing the Jordan Valley Israel would effectively be committing national suicide by inviting an invasion it would be incapable of staving off.
This is the truth today and given the depth of Arab hatred of Jews, in all likelihood, it will remain the case in forty years and in 99 years. At any rate, Obama's suggestion that Israel entrust its future to an unsubstantiated hope that the Arab world will be fundamentally transformed is both ignorant and dangerous.
As for Netanyahu, he has no right to gamble away Israel's future. He has no right to commit future generations to strategic suicide on the basis of Obama's strategic myopia.
The very notion that Israel ought to ever surrender control over the Jordan Valley is egregious and unacceptable. And by proposing that Israel do so, the Obama administration is destroying the last vestiges of its credibility as an ally to the Jewish state. But that is not the worst aspect of the reported US proposal to Israel.
The worst aspect of the US proposal is that it calls for Israel to cede Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians and then lease them from the Palestinians. Speaking to Army Radio, Science Minister Daniel Herschkowitz explained, "If we agree to the offer, we will be broadcasting to the Palestinians that the land is actually theirs."
Indeed, we would. But it is worse than that.
Jerusalem is the center of Jewish history, civilization, culture, and faith. It is the lifeblood of the Jewish state and the Jewish people. As for the Jordan Valley, Jerusalem cannot be defended without it. When the US asks Israel to lease the areas from the Palestinians, what the US is telling Israel is that it rejects the very notion of Jewish national rights to the State of Israel.
Perhaps one day Israel's leaders may be foolish enough to withdraw from Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. Perhaps one day they will be stupid enough to withdraw from the Galilee and the Negev. But no Israeli leader has the right to cede the Jewish people's national rights to the land of Israel to anyone.
At heart, the US proposal entails an Israeli submission to the Palestinians. It requires Israel's leaders to say that the Palestinians have all the rights. We just have some minor security and political considerations. These considerations in turn are of limited duration and once they are settled, we will be out of everybody's way. The Palestinians will be free to enjoy all of their rights without the troublesome Jews around bothering them.
Netanyahu knows full well that Israel cannot survive without the Jordan Valley. He also knows that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people and that we are the rightful owners of this land. So what explains his actions?
In acting as he is, Netanyahu is clearly trying to avert yet another crisis with the Obama administration. No doubt he believes that the Palestinians will save the day again by refusing to make a deal with Israel. Just as the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel's right to exist, just as they refuse to give up on their demand that Israel destroy itself by accepting millions of foreign born Arabs as full citizens in the framework of a "peace" agreement; and just as they refuse to accept any limitations on the sovereignty of a future Palestinian state, so Netanyahu believes, they will refuse to lease the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem to Israel for 40 or 99 years.
Netanyahu may be right to think this. The Palestinians may reject the deal. But he is taking an enormous risk.
Yassir Arafat didn't have a problem lying to Yitzhak Rabin in 1993. To get Rabin to set up the Palestinian Authority, arm the PLO, raise billions of dollars in international aid for the PA, and allow it to expand to the outskirts of Israel's major cities, Arafat lied and said that the PLO recognized Israel and would live at peace with the Jewish state.
It is easy to imagine Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's deputy of forty years acting in a similar fashion.
And then what would Netanyahu do?
If Netanyahu's tactics could only cause Israel tactical damage, his gamble that the Palestinians will also refuse this deal might be defensible. But his tactics cause Israel strategic harm even if the Palestinians reject this deal as well. And so they are inexcusable. Israel cannot survive without the Jordan Valley. By negotiating a surrender of the Jordan Valley, Netanyahu makes it acceptable for the US and the rest of the world to demand that Israel commit national suicide.
Even worse than that, Netanyahu's willingness to negotiate with the US on the basis of a plan that rejects the Jewish people's right to the land of Israel confuses Israel's friends and so dooms their defenses of Israel to failure.
By accepting the legitimacy of this proposal, Netanyahu is telling Israel's supporters abroad that the Palestinians are right. Israel belongs to the Arabs more than it belongs to the Jews. With this message, the only thing supporters of Israel can do is encourage the Israeli government to make territorial concessions that are suicidal for the country.
This disastrous belief has been engendered since the inception of the Oslo process in 1993. Its deleterious influence abroad is evidenced by the flood of statements over the years by Israel's supporters claiming that Israel must vacate Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.
Take a recent statement by the American pollster Frank Luntz. Luntz often advises American pro-Israel groups about how to improve Israel's image in the world. Yet as this friend of Israel sees things, "The only way for Israel to create sympathy is to be the side working hardest for peace. The best case for Israel is to demonstrate that she is willing to go twice as far as her neighbors to establish peace."
And while moves like Netanyahu's confuse Israel's friends abroad, his willingness to consider a plan that denies Jewish rights to Israel and calls for Israel to make suicidal withdrawals demoralize Israelis at home. For evidence of this demoralization, one need only look to the Kadima Party.
As Kadima's leader Tzipi Livni reminds us every time she opens her mouth, Kadima's plan is for Israel to destroy itself by withdrawing to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines as quickly as possible.
Livni says day in and day out that Israel's interests are best served by surrendering Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Jordan Valley as quickly as possible. To the extent that Netanyahu tries to withstand US pressure to surrender all these areas, Livni accuses him of endangering the country.
Livni's most recent broadside came on Wednesday at the Knesset. There she attacked the Netanyahu government for purportedly reacting with happiness to the news that the Republicans won control of the US House of Representatives in Tuesday's elections.
As she put it, "For those of you who believe that Obama's loss is good for Netanyahu, I ask myself have you all gone crazy?... He who says that a... weak American president is good for Israel is not just speaking stupidly, they are encouraging something that endangers Israel itself."
Obviously Livni is wrong. Israel is not best served by preferring the political fortunes of a hostile US President to its national interests and rights. If Netanyahu and his associates expressed happiness at the outcome of the US elections they would be fully justified for doing so. The overwhelming majority of Israelis -- who rightly view Obama as hostile --understand this.
But despite the idiocy of Livni's arguments and the lunacy of Kadima's policy, consistent opinion polls show Kadima closely trailing Likud. And Netanyahu deserves a large share of the blame for this state of affairs.
When Netanyahu agrees to negotiate from a position of moral weakness and strategic blindness, the message he sends the public is that we should take the likes of Livni seriously. He tells us that the difference between Kadima and Likud is one of tone, not substance.
They are all shoving us off the same cliff so we might as well go with Blondie. For 17 long years, successive Israeli leaders have come into office committed to defending the country only to be reduced within a few short months to quibbling over the price of surrender. Leaders from the Right hoped that the Palestinians would scuttle the deals. Leaders from the Left begged the Palestinians to accept them.
If Netanyahu wishes to be remembered as something more than another hack no different from Livni and all the rest, he should end these destructive talks and tell the Obama administration the truth: Israel's survival is non-negotiable and the rights of the Jewish people are not for sale.
Caroline Glick
Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, where this article first appeared.
Email Caroline Glick
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 0diggsdigg
Sign-Up Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is playing with fire. And Israel is getting burned.
Over the past week, it has been widely reported that the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government are conducting secret negotiations regarding future Israeli land surrenders to the Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem. According to the reports, the Obama administration has presented Netanyahu with a plan whereby Israel will cede its rights to eastern Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians and then lease the areas from the Palestinians for a limited period.
The reports on the length of the lease vary. Some claim that the White House is offering a seven year rental. Others claim the Americans are offering Israel to lease Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley for several decades before relinquishing them completely.
Netanyahu has reportedly accepted Obama's proposal in principle. The only remaining dispute is the length of the lease. Netanyahu is demanding that Israel be permitted to lease Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley from the Palestinians for somewhere between forty and ninety-nine years. The Americans foresee a shorter timeframe.
The fact that these discussions are taking place is deeply disturbing both for what they tell us about the Obama administration's view of Israel and for what they tell us about Netanyahu's wisdom and character.
By calling for Israel to cede the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians, US President Barack Obama is ignoring the most fundamental reality of the Middle East: Israel is besieged by its neighbors who seek its destruction. Without the Jordan Valley Israel would become the modern day equivalent of Czechoslovakia stripped of the Sudetenland in 1938. It would be utterly indefensible.
None of Israel's neighbors have accepted Israel's right to exist. The absolute majority of the Arabs in all of the states neighboring Israel wish to see Israel destroyed. By relinquishing the Jordan Valley Israel would effectively be committing national suicide by inviting an invasion it would be incapable of staving off.
This is the truth today and given the depth of Arab hatred of Jews, in all likelihood, it will remain the case in forty years and in 99 years. At any rate, Obama's suggestion that Israel entrust its future to an unsubstantiated hope that the Arab world will be fundamentally transformed is both ignorant and dangerous.
As for Netanyahu, he has no right to gamble away Israel's future. He has no right to commit future generations to strategic suicide on the basis of Obama's strategic myopia.
The very notion that Israel ought to ever surrender control over the Jordan Valley is egregious and unacceptable. And by proposing that Israel do so, the Obama administration is destroying the last vestiges of its credibility as an ally to the Jewish state. But that is not the worst aspect of the reported US proposal to Israel.
The worst aspect of the US proposal is that it calls for Israel to cede Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians and then lease them from the Palestinians. Speaking to Army Radio, Science Minister Daniel Herschkowitz explained, "If we agree to the offer, we will be broadcasting to the Palestinians that the land is actually theirs."
Indeed, we would. But it is worse than that.
Jerusalem is the center of Jewish history, civilization, culture, and faith. It is the lifeblood of the Jewish state and the Jewish people. As for the Jordan Valley, Jerusalem cannot be defended without it. When the US asks Israel to lease the areas from the Palestinians, what the US is telling Israel is that it rejects the very notion of Jewish national rights to the State of Israel.
Perhaps one day Israel's leaders may be foolish enough to withdraw from Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. Perhaps one day they will be stupid enough to withdraw from the Galilee and the Negev. But no Israeli leader has the right to cede the Jewish people's national rights to the land of Israel to anyone.
At heart, the US proposal entails an Israeli submission to the Palestinians. It requires Israel's leaders to say that the Palestinians have all the rights. We just have some minor security and political considerations. These considerations in turn are of limited duration and once they are settled, we will be out of everybody's way. The Palestinians will be free to enjoy all of their rights without the troublesome Jews around bothering them.
Netanyahu knows full well that Israel cannot survive without the Jordan Valley. He also knows that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people and that we are the rightful owners of this land. So what explains his actions?
In acting as he is, Netanyahu is clearly trying to avert yet another crisis with the Obama administration. No doubt he believes that the Palestinians will save the day again by refusing to make a deal with Israel. Just as the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel's right to exist, just as they refuse to give up on their demand that Israel destroy itself by accepting millions of foreign born Arabs as full citizens in the framework of a "peace" agreement; and just as they refuse to accept any limitations on the sovereignty of a future Palestinian state, so Netanyahu believes, they will refuse to lease the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem to Israel for 40 or 99 years.
Netanyahu may be right to think this. The Palestinians may reject the deal. But he is taking an enormous risk.
Yassir Arafat didn't have a problem lying to Yitzhak Rabin in 1993. To get Rabin to set up the Palestinian Authority, arm the PLO, raise billions of dollars in international aid for the PA, and allow it to expand to the outskirts of Israel's major cities, Arafat lied and said that the PLO recognized Israel and would live at peace with the Jewish state.
It is easy to imagine Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's deputy of forty years acting in a similar fashion.
And then what would Netanyahu do?
If Netanyahu's tactics could only cause Israel tactical damage, his gamble that the Palestinians will also refuse this deal might be defensible. But his tactics cause Israel strategic harm even if the Palestinians reject this deal as well. And so they are inexcusable. Israel cannot survive without the Jordan Valley. By negotiating a surrender of the Jordan Valley, Netanyahu makes it acceptable for the US and the rest of the world to demand that Israel commit national suicide.
Even worse than that, Netanyahu's willingness to negotiate with the US on the basis of a plan that rejects the Jewish people's right to the land of Israel confuses Israel's friends and so dooms their defenses of Israel to failure.
By accepting the legitimacy of this proposal, Netanyahu is telling Israel's supporters abroad that the Palestinians are right. Israel belongs to the Arabs more than it belongs to the Jews. With this message, the only thing supporters of Israel can do is encourage the Israeli government to make territorial concessions that are suicidal for the country.
This disastrous belief has been engendered since the inception of the Oslo process in 1993. Its deleterious influence abroad is evidenced by the flood of statements over the years by Israel's supporters claiming that Israel must vacate Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.
Take a recent statement by the American pollster Frank Luntz. Luntz often advises American pro-Israel groups about how to improve Israel's image in the world. Yet as this friend of Israel sees things, "The only way for Israel to create sympathy is to be the side working hardest for peace. The best case for Israel is to demonstrate that she is willing to go twice as far as her neighbors to establish peace."
And while moves like Netanyahu's confuse Israel's friends abroad, his willingness to consider a plan that denies Jewish rights to Israel and calls for Israel to make suicidal withdrawals demoralize Israelis at home. For evidence of this demoralization, one need only look to the Kadima Party.
As Kadima's leader Tzipi Livni reminds us every time she opens her mouth, Kadima's plan is for Israel to destroy itself by withdrawing to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines as quickly as possible.
Livni says day in and day out that Israel's interests are best served by surrendering Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Jordan Valley as quickly as possible. To the extent that Netanyahu tries to withstand US pressure to surrender all these areas, Livni accuses him of endangering the country.
Livni's most recent broadside came on Wednesday at the Knesset. There she attacked the Netanyahu government for purportedly reacting with happiness to the news that the Republicans won control of the US House of Representatives in Tuesday's elections.
As she put it, "For those of you who believe that Obama's loss is good for Netanyahu, I ask myself have you all gone crazy?... He who says that a... weak American president is good for Israel is not just speaking stupidly, they are encouraging something that endangers Israel itself."
Obviously Livni is wrong. Israel is not best served by preferring the political fortunes of a hostile US President to its national interests and rights. If Netanyahu and his associates expressed happiness at the outcome of the US elections they would be fully justified for doing so. The overwhelming majority of Israelis -- who rightly view Obama as hostile --understand this.
But despite the idiocy of Livni's arguments and the lunacy of Kadima's policy, consistent opinion polls show Kadima closely trailing Likud. And Netanyahu deserves a large share of the blame for this state of affairs.
When Netanyahu agrees to negotiate from a position of moral weakness and strategic blindness, the message he sends the public is that we should take the likes of Livni seriously. He tells us that the difference between Kadima and Likud is one of tone, not substance.
They are all shoving us off the same cliff so we might as well go with Blondie. For 17 long years, successive Israeli leaders have come into office committed to defending the country only to be reduced within a few short months to quibbling over the price of surrender. Leaders from the Right hoped that the Palestinians would scuttle the deals. Leaders from the Left begged the Palestinians to accept them.
If Netanyahu wishes to be remembered as something more than another hack no different from Livni and all the rest, he should end these destructive talks and tell the Obama administration the truth: Israel's survival is non-negotiable and the rights of the Jewish people are not for sale.
Caroline Glick
Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, where this article first appeared.
FROM PATRIOT
The Foundation
"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave." --Patrick Henry
Government & PoliticsElection Wrap: The House
Boehner takes the gavelBy summer, it was widely expected that the Republican Party would snatch control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats this year, but the extent of the GOP victory was nothing short of historic. Republicans gained at least 60 seats Tuesday, swinging them to a 239-186 majority so far. Ten races are still undecided as of this writing. The results surpassed the 1994 Gingrich Revolution that netted 54 seats and to which this year was frequently compared. In fact, Tuesday's GOP victory was the largest gain for either party since 71 Democrats were defeated in the 1938 midterms.
The message among the electorate was loud in clear in the House races: Turn out big spenders and yank the speaker's gavel from Nancy Pelosi's hands. The Speaker had become a lightning rod in the final weeks of the campaign, and election results demonstrated that the American public had finally tired of her arrogant and far-left "leadership."
Key to the Republican House victory was targeting vulnerxable freshmen Democrats who rode Obama's coattails into office two years ago. Several such representatives were elected in 2008 by thin margins in traditionally Republican districts, indicating that their victory was more repudiation of the GOP than embrace of Democrat principles (if there is such a thing). The Democrats' lukewarm conservative Blue Dog coalition took a huge hit as well. Their ranks were reduced from 54 to 26, with two retirements, two leaving for higher office, and 24 electoral defeats. Of course, only 24 of those 54 voted against ObamaCare, which gives us an idea of just how "conservative" the caucus is.
Other notable defeats for Democrats included Chet Edwards of Texas, Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt of South Carolina, and 17-term fixture Ike Skelton of Missouri, who was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and John Dingell of Michigan survived hard-fought Republican challenges to their seats, but we can take pleasure in knowing that they will no longer be chairing any committees.
Tom Perriello of Virginia kept the Obama Curse alive by going down to defeat after repeated personal appearances by the president. The president's personal endorsement also proved fatal in other races. So much for the guy who had boasted to a concerned House Democrat, "Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me."
Election Wrap: The Senate
Republicans fell short of taking the Senate, but they managed to gain at least six seats as of this writing. Republican Dino Rossi has conceded Washington's Senate race to incumbent Patty Murray, but the contested Alaska seat is sure to remain in Republican hands. There, Democrat Scott McAdams dropped out after coming in a distant third behind current senator and write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski, and Republican primary-winner Joe Miller. It will take time to tally the write-in ballots, but at this point, it seems Murkowski has accomplished the unthinkable.
Notable Republican gains included John Boozman over Democrat Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas and Dan Coats over Democrat Brad Ellsworth in Indiana. Russ Feingold was also sent packing by voters in the birthplace of progressivism, Wisconsin.
As in the House, the Tea Party's contribution to GOP gains was mixed, but mostly positive. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio handily won their contests in Kentucky and Florida, respectively. Conservative Pat Toomey defeated Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, one of many GOP victories that rocked the Keystone State Tuesday night. In a key symbolic win, moderate Republican Mark Kirk beat Obama basketball buddy Alexi Giannoulias to take the president's old Illinois seat.
World Wrestling Entertainment mogul Linda McMahon was defeated in Connecticut by Richard "Fighting Dick" Blumenthal, and Leftmedia punching bag Christine O'Donnell lost in Delaware to "bearded Marxist" Chris Coons. Both McMahon and O'Donnell were victims of less-than-enthusiastic support from the state and national Republican apparatus. California voters continued to defy all reason as Carly Fiorina fell short in her bid to unseat the obnoxious Barbara Boxer. In Nevada, Sharron Angle failed to send Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid back to Searchlight.
Reid faced the fight of his political life Tuesday in a state with 15 percent unemployment and a record-high home foreclosure rate. Despite the poor economic conditions and Reid's longtime Washington insider status, some 11 percent of voters didn't make up their minds about who to vote for until the weekend before the election. Most of them ended up voting for Reid. Angle drew strong support from voters disappointed with Obama and Washington, but Reid spared no expense in a massive get-out-the-vote campaign that chartered buses to shuttle voters to the polls. Reid's win may not be great news for Republicans, but his gift for shooting off his mouth or, alternatively, putting his foot in it, will serve its purpose in the battles to come next session.
The outlook for 2012 could be even better for Republicans. Democrats will have to defend 21 seats then, compared to just 10 for Republicans. Several of those 21 Democrats won election for the first time in the Democrat takeover of 2006 and must defend their seats in red states. As they look at losses in Illinois and Wisconsin, Democrat senators from Nebraska, Florida and Missouri must be getting a little nervous.
Election Wrap: The States
Republicans cleaned up on the state level, too, with a net gain of 10 governorships -- Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Republicans also picked up more than 650 state legislator pickups across the nation. The GOP now controls both houses of the legislatures of 26 states, and controls the governor's mansion in 15 of those 26.
That will be an important factor as the run-up to 2012 begins. State legislatures control redistricting, and governors can play key roles in presidential races, turning out voters and donors for candidates visiting their state. This year's sweep was good timing for the GOP because they are now in position after the 2010 census to re-draw the lines of certain states' congressional districts advantageously. That could help them preserve their gains in 2012 and perhaps even recapture the White House.
Quote of the Week
"We make a great mistake if we believe that ... these results are somehow an embrace of the Republican Party. What they are is a second chance, a second chance for Republicans to be what they said they were going to be not so long ago." --Senator-elect Marco Rubio (R-FL)
On Cross-Examination
"In short, despite all of the flack and the arguments from a couple months ago, I am forced to conclude that the Buckley rule still seems the most sound: vote for the most conservative candidate electable. Now, I will concede that's hardly an easily applied rule of thumb like, say, 'Never try to tickle a wolverine when it's eating.' But I think reasonable people understand that electability is a perfectly valid factor to consider and not impossible to apply, either." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
This Week's 'Braying Jenny' Award
"Looking at what happened [Tuesday], what we heard and saw [then] is -- let's understand the message. The message was not, 'I reject the course that you are on.' The message is it didn't go fast enough to produce jobs. ... No regrets. Because we believe we did the right thing. I feel very at peace with how things have proceeded." --soon-to-be-former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
From the Files of the Just Plain Bizarre
"Harry Reid isn't just Dracula, he isn't just Lazarus, he's our leader and our whole caucus is thrilled that he's unbreakable and unbeatable." --Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)
Rebutting Obama's Rebuttal
Patriot Post Publisher Mark Alexander responds to Barack Hussein Obama's spin on the midterm election derailment of his endeavor to "fundamentally transform America." Read more here.
Campaign Finances
"Everything was going great and all of a sudden secret money from God knows where -- because they won't disclose it -- is pouring in," said Nancy Pelosi, shortly before Tuesday's midterm elections. She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Speaker was referring to the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. FEC ruling in January. The Court struck down provisions of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (a.k.a. McCain-Feingold) that limited corporate campaign spending, holding that they violated the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.
Obama criticized the decision at the time, spinning scary predictions of foreign entities' involvement in American politics. But what he and his cronies really feared were American companies contributing to candidates friendlier to the free market.
In fact, it has been primarily Democrats that have reaped the benefits from McCain-Feingold since its passage. The law still permits political contributions from 527 groups (named for the section of the law that allows them), many of which work for Democrat electoral success (e.g., ACORN and MoveOn.org). In the 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections, such 527 groups spent $667 million on Democrat candidates, nearly three times more than on Republicans. But as dissatisfaction with the Obama-Pelosi agenda grew, so did groups willing to oppose them. The Citizens United decision leveled the playing field even more, as evidenced by Obama and Pelosi's indictment of it and by the Republican's electoral wave earlier this week. Ironically, the law, which amounted to little more than incumbent protection, didn't work for one of its authors, soon-to-be-former Sen. Russ Feingold.
News From the Swamp: Now What
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), currently minority whip but likely to become majority leader, has released a 22-page plan for House Republicans now that they have control of the chamber. "Delivering on Our Commitment" outlines several priorities. For example, Cantor aims to do away with legislation recognizing "individuals, groups, events and institutions," which he believes takes up too much of Congress' time. Better oversight is another crucial thing under his plan, with committees asked to produce quarterly reports on their areas. Of course, curbing runaway spending is the primary goal for Republicans. It remains to be seen if they learned their lesson after their own spendthrift ways cost them control of Washington in 2006 and 2008.
In other news, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) stepped down from his post at the head of the House Republican Conference, a post he has held since 2008. "Now that we have restored a Republican majority to the House of Representatives and I have fulfilled my commitment to the Republican Conference, my family and I have begun to look to the future," Pence wrote to Republicans. Many interpret his words about the future as indicating a possible run for president in 2012. Pence, a solid constitutional conservative, would be a welcome addition to the field.
On the other side of the aisle, Reps. Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) face ethics trials. House Ethics Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) announced in October that the trials wouldn't happen before the elections. Rangel's trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 15, while Waters will face trial Nov. 29.
Amazingly, Nancy Pelosi has indicated she is considering staying in Congress to run for minority leader. It had been widely expected that she would leave Congress. Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), a member of the Blue Dog coalition, is among a few Democrats publicly urging Pelosi to step aside. Schuler says he will challenge her for the minority leader post if she seeks it.
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National SecurityWarfront With Jihadistan: Bomb Plot Thwarted
Last Friday, two explosive-laden packages on board FedEx and UPS cargo planes bound for the U.S. from Yemen were intercepted in the UK and Dubai. The bombs, wired to explode using cell phones as timers, were powerful enough to bring the aircraft down, according to U.S. and British officials. French officials said that one bomb was only 17 minutes from exploding. Discovery of the bombs led officials to conduct wider searches for additional such devices at the Newark and Philadelphia airports, as well as a delivery truck in New York City. It also prompted the Air Force to escort a passenger plane to New York. No other bombs were found.
The packages, addressed to Jewish synagogues in Chicago, were intercepted after a detailed tip from Saudi intelligence that included the packages' tracking numbers. It is believed that al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula, a Yemeni group that is affiliated with Osama bin Laden and includes the radical U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, is responsible for this latest attack. It is also believed that the group, responsible for last year's failed Christmas Day undi-bomber attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, performed a dry run of this cargo plane attack in September.
This latest incident has governments and aviation authorities around the globe ramping up security. In typical Beltway fashion, even though the bombs targeted synagogues exclusively, a politically correct FBI agent warned, "Since two of the suspicious packages that were intercepted were addressed to religious institutions in Chicago, all churches, synagogues and mosques in the Chicago area should be vigilant for any unsolicited or unexpected packages, especially those originating from overseas locations." Why would mosques need to worry about bombs from radical Islamists -- unless someone there was expected to help with their final "delivery"? The Long War is being made even longer with this kind of pathetically PC thinking.
Department of Military Correctness: Light Sentence
On Sunday, a military judge sentenced Omar Khadr, a teen terrorist convicted of five war crimes, to 40 years in prison. That sentence, however, was merely symbolic as the U.S. had already agreed to limit his prison time to eight years, the bulk of which will be served in Canada. Khadr, who is from Toronto, planted land mines in Afghanistan and hurled a grenade that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer in 2002. The seven-officer jury was unaware of the sentencing deal before deliberations began on Saturday. According to McClatchy, "The Pentagon's Chief War Crimes Prosecutor, Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, said he made the eight-year plea deal with Khadr to secure the certainty of a conviction for the victims of the so-called 'child-soldier.'"
Former Army Sgt. Layne Morris lost an eye in the firefight that resulted in Khadr's capture, and he had a different perspective, saying Khadr's short sentence put him on "the fast-track to freedom'' during "the prime of his life." And tragically, SFC Speer and his widow had the prime of their lives ripped away by this brutal jihadi.
In related news, today marks the one year anniversary of the attack at Fort Hood, which left 14 dead (including an unborn child) and 32 wounded. U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, M.D., who was paralyzed from the chest down when civilian police shot him, faces the death penalty.
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From the Left: A Passage to Asia
A familiar adage says that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Notoriously thin-skinned Barack Obama doesn't strike us as particularly tough, but after what he called Tuesday's "shellacking" of his chosen party, he's leaving anyway, embarking on a 10-day Asian trip to India, Indonesia, Korea and Japan, complete with a fleet of 34 warships.
Yet the part that has raised eyebrows is the cost: The three-day Indian portion of the junket has been reported by Indian media as costing $200 million a day. Apparently, coconut removal is expensive. Considering the idea of the trip is to promote American jobs, though, it seems like we're redistributing an awful lot of cash by sending 3,000 people on the trip.
While the Mumbai trip is noteworthy for its scheduled visit with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a celebration of the Indian Diwali holiday, also included in the itinerary is a G-20 summit in Seoul and an Asia-Pacific leaders summit in Yokohama. But the president will return just in time for a lame-duck session of Congress that will likely spend much more than $200 million a day. It's possible that this Asian trip could be a comparative bargain to taxpayers.
Business & EconomyRegulatory Commissars: De Facto Drilling Ban Continues
The administration's ill-advised moratorium on deepwater oil drilling ended last month, but no one is in a hurry to issue permits. None have been issued since last May and it could be months before the first new one is issued. Michael Bromwich, Director of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE, which we pronounce "bummer"), was coy when asked about permits. He hopes it happens before year's end, which doesn't boost our confidence, nor probably that of the oil companies seeking the permits.
It's not just deepwater drilling permits that are going nowhere either. Shallow-water permits have dropped 53 percent since last year. Michael Hecht, President and CEO of GNO Inc., an economic development agency, said, "The concern is that we still have a de facto moratorium." For an administration supposedly focused on creating -- and saving -- jobs, their actual policies continue to have the opposite effect. No doubt, though, they will take all the credit for the economy adding 151,000 jobs last month and the stock market surging this week. The expected political tsunami Tuesday might have had something to do with that.
The Federal Reserve Has a Plan
Perhaps spurred by the smashing success (cough, cough) of this administration's economic stimu-less package, the Federal Reserve has announced it will buy $600 billion in government bonds over the next eight months in an attempt to speed up the economic recovery. This is known as "quantitative easing," which is known in straight talk circles as inflation. Combine this with the $35 billion the Fed is dishing out monthly to replace mortgage bonds in its portfolio that are being retired, and the "investment" total is monumental. As The Wall Street Journal explains, "In essence, the Fed now will print money to buy as much as $900 billion in U.S. government bonds through June -- an amount roughly equal to the government's total projected borrowing needs over that period." Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) described the risk of this move as "incalculable," and Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig called the decision a "bargain with the devil."
Indeed, economists from Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC said that even were the Fed to buy up $1.5 trillion in Treasury bonds, unemployment would drop by only 0.3 percentage points in each of the next two years. Meanwhile, the injection of newly printed money isn't sitting well internationally, and the London Telegraph reports that several countries have implemented or are considering capital controls to deal with the "Fed's lax policy [which] is causing havoc."
Yet despite the risks and ramifications, the Fed marches on. After all, when it comes to interfering in the market, the only pace bureaucrats know is full speed ahead.
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Red Tag Sale at GM
Even President Ronald Reagan used the government to rescue Chrysler, probably against his best instincts, but his rescue didn't involve a ridiculous federal government takeover of the company accompanied by the willful destruction of stock and bondholder rights. What is more, whereas Reagan's plan worked because it was limited in scope, today's typical government bureaucrat never mentions just exactly whom Obama's takeover helped. It certainly wasn't "the little guy."
Under the steady guidance of the Obama administration, government-owned General Motors is planning on issuing its first stock IPO since it became Government Motors. The company's goal is to raise $50 billion, but that may be hard to do given that GM expects to sell it's stock at $27 a share -- half what the government needs to earn a profit.
There was no word on why the Obama administration decided that now is a good time to cash out and reduce its ownership in Government Motors from 50 percent to 35 percent. We're sure it can't possibly be related to the continued decline in GM's share of the U.S. auto market and the central planners' failure to solve the cost issues that drove GM into bankruptcy in the first place.
Culture & PolicyAround the Nation: Notable Ballot Measures
Congressional seats weren't the only things on the ballot around the country Tuesday. Notables include rejections of the individual mandate of ObamaCare in Arizona, Oklahoma and Colorado. The provisions, while largely symbolic at this point, were to be strong rebukes of Democrats' takeover of the health care system and unconstitutional mandate that individuals purchase insurance. The measures won in Arizona and Oklahoma by comfortable margins, though Colorado voters fell for leftist propaganda and the measure failed. Numerous state legislatures will take up some version of a rejection of the mandate when those legislatures return to session next year, while court challenges work their way through the system.
In Iowa, three state Supreme Court justices were voted out of office, marking the first time that had happened since the current system was set up in 1962. Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and justices David Baker and Michael Streit were voted off the bench, all as a result of the court's unanimous ruling this year legalizing same-sex marriage. Supporters of the justices formed a group called Fair Courts For Us to try to save them from electoral defeat. Dan Moore, the group's co-chairman, said, "What I want Iowans to know is that our courtrooms need to be the safest place for parties to go to work out their differences and disputes. They need to know courts will be fair and impartial and decisions won't be based on fear and popularity." Of course, had justices not legislated from the bench, this triple play never would have been an issue.
As we noted last week, voters in Portland, Maine, considered allowing legal residents who are not U.S. citizens to vote in local elections, but not state or federal elections. That measure failed Tuesday 52-48.
Finally, California's Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana, failed 46-53. What was particularly interesting is that many police and parents supported the measure, while marijuana growers and potheads opposed it. The reason for that apparent oddity is that, for pot growers, Prop. 19 would so tax and regulate marijuana as to make it unprofitable. Besides, if people can smoke it at the World Series with impunity as it is, why go to all that trouble to make it "legal"?
ACORN Files Chapter 7
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was founded in 1970 as a way to get out the vote among various leftists, particularly minorities. However, last year, after an undercover investigation revealing a willingness to break the law on the part of ACORN workers, the organization has had a hard fall from the tree.
Ironically, ACORN filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Election Day. CEO Bertha Lewis was defiant to the end, saying in a statement, "For over 40 years ACORN has fought the good fight." However, a "barrage of unmitigated accusations certainly took its toll," and the "ongoing political onslaught caused irreparable harm." She continued, "We have spent our remaining resources trying to dissolve the organization with integrity, while continuing to respond to the extremist attacks. Let us all learn from the past, and march boldly into the future." We hope that future is something other than enabling voter fraud and aiding other illegal activity.
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
Do you have kids who are learning to ride a bike? Better buy some insurance along with those training wheels. A New York Supreme Court justice recently ruled that a six-year-old girl can be sued over accusations that she hit an 87-year-old woman with a training bicycle. The judge's decision revolves around a 2009 accident, in which a pair of then-four-year-old children struck an elderly pedestrian with their bikes. The woman, who underwent surgery for a fractured hip, died from complications three months later.
King's County Supreme Court Justice Paul Wooten rejected arguments presented by the attorney for one of the children that the case should be dismissed because of the child's age and that the child shouldn't be liable because she was under her mother's supervision. Instead, Wooten determined that the child has apparently reached the age of sue-ability. "For infants above the age of 4," he wrote, "there is no bright-line rule." It seems there is also no bright light of common sense in the judge's ruling. With judicial activism like this, infants who spit up on Aunt Susie's favorite blouse will soon be liable for property damage.
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And Last...
Nancy Pelosi's home city made some waves on Tuesday. "San Francisco has become the first major U.S. city to pass a law that cracks down on the popular practice of giving away free toys with unhealthy restaurant meals for children," Reuters reports. Indeed, the tolerant "live and let live" Board of Supervisors in one of America's most leftist cities has targeted McDonald's by requiring certain nutritional standards for kids' meals before toys may be included in the package. Those standards include, according to Reuters, "meals that have less than 600 calories, contain fruits and vegetables, and include beverages without excessive fat or sugar." Supervisor Eric Mar, who sponsored the measure, crowed, "We're part of a movement that is moving forward an agenda of food justice." Apparently, "food justice" is nothing more than taking toys from kids. You could call it No Child's Toy Left Behind.
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Opinion
Jonah Goldberg: In Victory, the GOP Will Turn on Each Other
Charles Krauthammer: A Return to the Norm
Linda Chavez: A Cautionary Note for GOP in Tuesday's Election
Mona Charen: Impressions From a Historic Election
Michelle Malkin: Voters Speak: No to Soak-the-Rich Schemes
David Limbaugh: Obama Doesn't Seek Compromise; Neither Should We
Jonah Goldberg: Defeat, Then Denial
L. Brent Bozell: Losing Your Head at the Supreme Court
Suzanne Fields: A Reprise of the Goblins
Oliver North: Heroes
Ann Coulter: We're all Bigots Now!
Michael Reagan: Repeal It Now!
Jeff Jacoby: Debt Solution Lies in Success of Europe
Lawrence Kudlow: Stopping the Bad Stuff Is a Plus
Larry Elder: November 3 Contract With America
More Opinion
"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave." --Patrick Henry
Government & PoliticsElection Wrap: The House
Boehner takes the gavelBy summer, it was widely expected that the Republican Party would snatch control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats this year, but the extent of the GOP victory was nothing short of historic. Republicans gained at least 60 seats Tuesday, swinging them to a 239-186 majority so far. Ten races are still undecided as of this writing. The results surpassed the 1994 Gingrich Revolution that netted 54 seats and to which this year was frequently compared. In fact, Tuesday's GOP victory was the largest gain for either party since 71 Democrats were defeated in the 1938 midterms.
The message among the electorate was loud in clear in the House races: Turn out big spenders and yank the speaker's gavel from Nancy Pelosi's hands. The Speaker had become a lightning rod in the final weeks of the campaign, and election results demonstrated that the American public had finally tired of her arrogant and far-left "leadership."
Key to the Republican House victory was targeting vulnerxable freshmen Democrats who rode Obama's coattails into office two years ago. Several such representatives were elected in 2008 by thin margins in traditionally Republican districts, indicating that their victory was more repudiation of the GOP than embrace of Democrat principles (if there is such a thing). The Democrats' lukewarm conservative Blue Dog coalition took a huge hit as well. Their ranks were reduced from 54 to 26, with two retirements, two leaving for higher office, and 24 electoral defeats. Of course, only 24 of those 54 voted against ObamaCare, which gives us an idea of just how "conservative" the caucus is.
Other notable defeats for Democrats included Chet Edwards of Texas, Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt of South Carolina, and 17-term fixture Ike Skelton of Missouri, who was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and John Dingell of Michigan survived hard-fought Republican challenges to their seats, but we can take pleasure in knowing that they will no longer be chairing any committees.
Tom Perriello of Virginia kept the Obama Curse alive by going down to defeat after repeated personal appearances by the president. The president's personal endorsement also proved fatal in other races. So much for the guy who had boasted to a concerned House Democrat, "Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me."
Election Wrap: The Senate
Republicans fell short of taking the Senate, but they managed to gain at least six seats as of this writing. Republican Dino Rossi has conceded Washington's Senate race to incumbent Patty Murray, but the contested Alaska seat is sure to remain in Republican hands. There, Democrat Scott McAdams dropped out after coming in a distant third behind current senator and write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski, and Republican primary-winner Joe Miller. It will take time to tally the write-in ballots, but at this point, it seems Murkowski has accomplished the unthinkable.
Notable Republican gains included John Boozman over Democrat Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas and Dan Coats over Democrat Brad Ellsworth in Indiana. Russ Feingold was also sent packing by voters in the birthplace of progressivism, Wisconsin.
As in the House, the Tea Party's contribution to GOP gains was mixed, but mostly positive. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio handily won their contests in Kentucky and Florida, respectively. Conservative Pat Toomey defeated Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, one of many GOP victories that rocked the Keystone State Tuesday night. In a key symbolic win, moderate Republican Mark Kirk beat Obama basketball buddy Alexi Giannoulias to take the president's old Illinois seat.
World Wrestling Entertainment mogul Linda McMahon was defeated in Connecticut by Richard "Fighting Dick" Blumenthal, and Leftmedia punching bag Christine O'Donnell lost in Delaware to "bearded Marxist" Chris Coons. Both McMahon and O'Donnell were victims of less-than-enthusiastic support from the state and national Republican apparatus. California voters continued to defy all reason as Carly Fiorina fell short in her bid to unseat the obnoxious Barbara Boxer. In Nevada, Sharron Angle failed to send Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid back to Searchlight.
Reid faced the fight of his political life Tuesday in a state with 15 percent unemployment and a record-high home foreclosure rate. Despite the poor economic conditions and Reid's longtime Washington insider status, some 11 percent of voters didn't make up their minds about who to vote for until the weekend before the election. Most of them ended up voting for Reid. Angle drew strong support from voters disappointed with Obama and Washington, but Reid spared no expense in a massive get-out-the-vote campaign that chartered buses to shuttle voters to the polls. Reid's win may not be great news for Republicans, but his gift for shooting off his mouth or, alternatively, putting his foot in it, will serve its purpose in the battles to come next session.
The outlook for 2012 could be even better for Republicans. Democrats will have to defend 21 seats then, compared to just 10 for Republicans. Several of those 21 Democrats won election for the first time in the Democrat takeover of 2006 and must defend their seats in red states. As they look at losses in Illinois and Wisconsin, Democrat senators from Nebraska, Florida and Missouri must be getting a little nervous.
Election Wrap: The States
Republicans cleaned up on the state level, too, with a net gain of 10 governorships -- Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Republicans also picked up more than 650 state legislator pickups across the nation. The GOP now controls both houses of the legislatures of 26 states, and controls the governor's mansion in 15 of those 26.
That will be an important factor as the run-up to 2012 begins. State legislatures control redistricting, and governors can play key roles in presidential races, turning out voters and donors for candidates visiting their state. This year's sweep was good timing for the GOP because they are now in position after the 2010 census to re-draw the lines of certain states' congressional districts advantageously. That could help them preserve their gains in 2012 and perhaps even recapture the White House.
Quote of the Week
"We make a great mistake if we believe that ... these results are somehow an embrace of the Republican Party. What they are is a second chance, a second chance for Republicans to be what they said they were going to be not so long ago." --Senator-elect Marco Rubio (R-FL)
On Cross-Examination
"In short, despite all of the flack and the arguments from a couple months ago, I am forced to conclude that the Buckley rule still seems the most sound: vote for the most conservative candidate electable. Now, I will concede that's hardly an easily applied rule of thumb like, say, 'Never try to tickle a wolverine when it's eating.' But I think reasonable people understand that electability is a perfectly valid factor to consider and not impossible to apply, either." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
This Week's 'Braying Jenny' Award
"Looking at what happened [Tuesday], what we heard and saw [then] is -- let's understand the message. The message was not, 'I reject the course that you are on.' The message is it didn't go fast enough to produce jobs. ... No regrets. Because we believe we did the right thing. I feel very at peace with how things have proceeded." --soon-to-be-former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
From the Files of the Just Plain Bizarre
"Harry Reid isn't just Dracula, he isn't just Lazarus, he's our leader and our whole caucus is thrilled that he's unbreakable and unbeatable." --Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)
Rebutting Obama's Rebuttal
Patriot Post Publisher Mark Alexander responds to Barack Hussein Obama's spin on the midterm election derailment of his endeavor to "fundamentally transform America." Read more here.
Campaign Finances
"Everything was going great and all of a sudden secret money from God knows where -- because they won't disclose it -- is pouring in," said Nancy Pelosi, shortly before Tuesday's midterm elections. She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Speaker was referring to the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. FEC ruling in January. The Court struck down provisions of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (a.k.a. McCain-Feingold) that limited corporate campaign spending, holding that they violated the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.
Obama criticized the decision at the time, spinning scary predictions of foreign entities' involvement in American politics. But what he and his cronies really feared were American companies contributing to candidates friendlier to the free market.
In fact, it has been primarily Democrats that have reaped the benefits from McCain-Feingold since its passage. The law still permits political contributions from 527 groups (named for the section of the law that allows them), many of which work for Democrat electoral success (e.g., ACORN and MoveOn.org). In the 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections, such 527 groups spent $667 million on Democrat candidates, nearly three times more than on Republicans. But as dissatisfaction with the Obama-Pelosi agenda grew, so did groups willing to oppose them. The Citizens United decision leveled the playing field even more, as evidenced by Obama and Pelosi's indictment of it and by the Republican's electoral wave earlier this week. Ironically, the law, which amounted to little more than incumbent protection, didn't work for one of its authors, soon-to-be-former Sen. Russ Feingold.
News From the Swamp: Now What
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), currently minority whip but likely to become majority leader, has released a 22-page plan for House Republicans now that they have control of the chamber. "Delivering on Our Commitment" outlines several priorities. For example, Cantor aims to do away with legislation recognizing "individuals, groups, events and institutions," which he believes takes up too much of Congress' time. Better oversight is another crucial thing under his plan, with committees asked to produce quarterly reports on their areas. Of course, curbing runaway spending is the primary goal for Republicans. It remains to be seen if they learned their lesson after their own spendthrift ways cost them control of Washington in 2006 and 2008.
In other news, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) stepped down from his post at the head of the House Republican Conference, a post he has held since 2008. "Now that we have restored a Republican majority to the House of Representatives and I have fulfilled my commitment to the Republican Conference, my family and I have begun to look to the future," Pence wrote to Republicans. Many interpret his words about the future as indicating a possible run for president in 2012. Pence, a solid constitutional conservative, would be a welcome addition to the field.
On the other side of the aisle, Reps. Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) face ethics trials. House Ethics Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) announced in October that the trials wouldn't happen before the elections. Rangel's trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 15, while Waters will face trial Nov. 29.
Amazingly, Nancy Pelosi has indicated she is considering staying in Congress to run for minority leader. It had been widely expected that she would leave Congress. Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), a member of the Blue Dog coalition, is among a few Democrats publicly urging Pelosi to step aside. Schuler says he will challenge her for the minority leader post if she seeks it.
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National SecurityWarfront With Jihadistan: Bomb Plot Thwarted
Last Friday, two explosive-laden packages on board FedEx and UPS cargo planes bound for the U.S. from Yemen were intercepted in the UK and Dubai. The bombs, wired to explode using cell phones as timers, were powerful enough to bring the aircraft down, according to U.S. and British officials. French officials said that one bomb was only 17 minutes from exploding. Discovery of the bombs led officials to conduct wider searches for additional such devices at the Newark and Philadelphia airports, as well as a delivery truck in New York City. It also prompted the Air Force to escort a passenger plane to New York. No other bombs were found.
The packages, addressed to Jewish synagogues in Chicago, were intercepted after a detailed tip from Saudi intelligence that included the packages' tracking numbers. It is believed that al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula, a Yemeni group that is affiliated with Osama bin Laden and includes the radical U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, is responsible for this latest attack. It is also believed that the group, responsible for last year's failed Christmas Day undi-bomber attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, performed a dry run of this cargo plane attack in September.
This latest incident has governments and aviation authorities around the globe ramping up security. In typical Beltway fashion, even though the bombs targeted synagogues exclusively, a politically correct FBI agent warned, "Since two of the suspicious packages that were intercepted were addressed to religious institutions in Chicago, all churches, synagogues and mosques in the Chicago area should be vigilant for any unsolicited or unexpected packages, especially those originating from overseas locations." Why would mosques need to worry about bombs from radical Islamists -- unless someone there was expected to help with their final "delivery"? The Long War is being made even longer with this kind of pathetically PC thinking.
Department of Military Correctness: Light Sentence
On Sunday, a military judge sentenced Omar Khadr, a teen terrorist convicted of five war crimes, to 40 years in prison. That sentence, however, was merely symbolic as the U.S. had already agreed to limit his prison time to eight years, the bulk of which will be served in Canada. Khadr, who is from Toronto, planted land mines in Afghanistan and hurled a grenade that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer in 2002. The seven-officer jury was unaware of the sentencing deal before deliberations began on Saturday. According to McClatchy, "The Pentagon's Chief War Crimes Prosecutor, Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, said he made the eight-year plea deal with Khadr to secure the certainty of a conviction for the victims of the so-called 'child-soldier.'"
Former Army Sgt. Layne Morris lost an eye in the firefight that resulted in Khadr's capture, and he had a different perspective, saying Khadr's short sentence put him on "the fast-track to freedom'' during "the prime of his life." And tragically, SFC Speer and his widow had the prime of their lives ripped away by this brutal jihadi.
In related news, today marks the one year anniversary of the attack at Fort Hood, which left 14 dead (including an unborn child) and 32 wounded. U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, M.D., who was paralyzed from the chest down when civilian police shot him, faces the death penalty.
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From the Left: A Passage to Asia
A familiar adage says that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Notoriously thin-skinned Barack Obama doesn't strike us as particularly tough, but after what he called Tuesday's "shellacking" of his chosen party, he's leaving anyway, embarking on a 10-day Asian trip to India, Indonesia, Korea and Japan, complete with a fleet of 34 warships.
Yet the part that has raised eyebrows is the cost: The three-day Indian portion of the junket has been reported by Indian media as costing $200 million a day. Apparently, coconut removal is expensive. Considering the idea of the trip is to promote American jobs, though, it seems like we're redistributing an awful lot of cash by sending 3,000 people on the trip.
While the Mumbai trip is noteworthy for its scheduled visit with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a celebration of the Indian Diwali holiday, also included in the itinerary is a G-20 summit in Seoul and an Asia-Pacific leaders summit in Yokohama. But the president will return just in time for a lame-duck session of Congress that will likely spend much more than $200 million a day. It's possible that this Asian trip could be a comparative bargain to taxpayers.
Business & EconomyRegulatory Commissars: De Facto Drilling Ban Continues
The administration's ill-advised moratorium on deepwater oil drilling ended last month, but no one is in a hurry to issue permits. None have been issued since last May and it could be months before the first new one is issued. Michael Bromwich, Director of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE, which we pronounce "bummer"), was coy when asked about permits. He hopes it happens before year's end, which doesn't boost our confidence, nor probably that of the oil companies seeking the permits.
It's not just deepwater drilling permits that are going nowhere either. Shallow-water permits have dropped 53 percent since last year. Michael Hecht, President and CEO of GNO Inc., an economic development agency, said, "The concern is that we still have a de facto moratorium." For an administration supposedly focused on creating -- and saving -- jobs, their actual policies continue to have the opposite effect. No doubt, though, they will take all the credit for the economy adding 151,000 jobs last month and the stock market surging this week. The expected political tsunami Tuesday might have had something to do with that.
The Federal Reserve Has a Plan
Perhaps spurred by the smashing success (cough, cough) of this administration's economic stimu-less package, the Federal Reserve has announced it will buy $600 billion in government bonds over the next eight months in an attempt to speed up the economic recovery. This is known as "quantitative easing," which is known in straight talk circles as inflation. Combine this with the $35 billion the Fed is dishing out monthly to replace mortgage bonds in its portfolio that are being retired, and the "investment" total is monumental. As The Wall Street Journal explains, "In essence, the Fed now will print money to buy as much as $900 billion in U.S. government bonds through June -- an amount roughly equal to the government's total projected borrowing needs over that period." Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) described the risk of this move as "incalculable," and Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig called the decision a "bargain with the devil."
Indeed, economists from Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC said that even were the Fed to buy up $1.5 trillion in Treasury bonds, unemployment would drop by only 0.3 percentage points in each of the next two years. Meanwhile, the injection of newly printed money isn't sitting well internationally, and the London Telegraph reports that several countries have implemented or are considering capital controls to deal with the "Fed's lax policy [which] is causing havoc."
Yet despite the risks and ramifications, the Fed marches on. After all, when it comes to interfering in the market, the only pace bureaucrats know is full speed ahead.
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Red Tag Sale at GM
Even President Ronald Reagan used the government to rescue Chrysler, probably against his best instincts, but his rescue didn't involve a ridiculous federal government takeover of the company accompanied by the willful destruction of stock and bondholder rights. What is more, whereas Reagan's plan worked because it was limited in scope, today's typical government bureaucrat never mentions just exactly whom Obama's takeover helped. It certainly wasn't "the little guy."
Under the steady guidance of the Obama administration, government-owned General Motors is planning on issuing its first stock IPO since it became Government Motors. The company's goal is to raise $50 billion, but that may be hard to do given that GM expects to sell it's stock at $27 a share -- half what the government needs to earn a profit.
There was no word on why the Obama administration decided that now is a good time to cash out and reduce its ownership in Government Motors from 50 percent to 35 percent. We're sure it can't possibly be related to the continued decline in GM's share of the U.S. auto market and the central planners' failure to solve the cost issues that drove GM into bankruptcy in the first place.
Culture & PolicyAround the Nation: Notable Ballot Measures
Congressional seats weren't the only things on the ballot around the country Tuesday. Notables include rejections of the individual mandate of ObamaCare in Arizona, Oklahoma and Colorado. The provisions, while largely symbolic at this point, were to be strong rebukes of Democrats' takeover of the health care system and unconstitutional mandate that individuals purchase insurance. The measures won in Arizona and Oklahoma by comfortable margins, though Colorado voters fell for leftist propaganda and the measure failed. Numerous state legislatures will take up some version of a rejection of the mandate when those legislatures return to session next year, while court challenges work their way through the system.
In Iowa, three state Supreme Court justices were voted out of office, marking the first time that had happened since the current system was set up in 1962. Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and justices David Baker and Michael Streit were voted off the bench, all as a result of the court's unanimous ruling this year legalizing same-sex marriage. Supporters of the justices formed a group called Fair Courts For Us to try to save them from electoral defeat. Dan Moore, the group's co-chairman, said, "What I want Iowans to know is that our courtrooms need to be the safest place for parties to go to work out their differences and disputes. They need to know courts will be fair and impartial and decisions won't be based on fear and popularity." Of course, had justices not legislated from the bench, this triple play never would have been an issue.
As we noted last week, voters in Portland, Maine, considered allowing legal residents who are not U.S. citizens to vote in local elections, but not state or federal elections. That measure failed Tuesday 52-48.
Finally, California's Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana, failed 46-53. What was particularly interesting is that many police and parents supported the measure, while marijuana growers and potheads opposed it. The reason for that apparent oddity is that, for pot growers, Prop. 19 would so tax and regulate marijuana as to make it unprofitable. Besides, if people can smoke it at the World Series with impunity as it is, why go to all that trouble to make it "legal"?
ACORN Files Chapter 7
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was founded in 1970 as a way to get out the vote among various leftists, particularly minorities. However, last year, after an undercover investigation revealing a willingness to break the law on the part of ACORN workers, the organization has had a hard fall from the tree.
Ironically, ACORN filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Election Day. CEO Bertha Lewis was defiant to the end, saying in a statement, "For over 40 years ACORN has fought the good fight." However, a "barrage of unmitigated accusations certainly took its toll," and the "ongoing political onslaught caused irreparable harm." She continued, "We have spent our remaining resources trying to dissolve the organization with integrity, while continuing to respond to the extremist attacks. Let us all learn from the past, and march boldly into the future." We hope that future is something other than enabling voter fraud and aiding other illegal activity.
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
Do you have kids who are learning to ride a bike? Better buy some insurance along with those training wheels. A New York Supreme Court justice recently ruled that a six-year-old girl can be sued over accusations that she hit an 87-year-old woman with a training bicycle. The judge's decision revolves around a 2009 accident, in which a pair of then-four-year-old children struck an elderly pedestrian with their bikes. The woman, who underwent surgery for a fractured hip, died from complications three months later.
King's County Supreme Court Justice Paul Wooten rejected arguments presented by the attorney for one of the children that the case should be dismissed because of the child's age and that the child shouldn't be liable because she was under her mother's supervision. Instead, Wooten determined that the child has apparently reached the age of sue-ability. "For infants above the age of 4," he wrote, "there is no bright-line rule." It seems there is also no bright light of common sense in the judge's ruling. With judicial activism like this, infants who spit up on Aunt Susie's favorite blouse will soon be liable for property damage.
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And Last...
Nancy Pelosi's home city made some waves on Tuesday. "San Francisco has become the first major U.S. city to pass a law that cracks down on the popular practice of giving away free toys with unhealthy restaurant meals for children," Reuters reports. Indeed, the tolerant "live and let live" Board of Supervisors in one of America's most leftist cities has targeted McDonald's by requiring certain nutritional standards for kids' meals before toys may be included in the package. Those standards include, according to Reuters, "meals that have less than 600 calories, contain fruits and vegetables, and include beverages without excessive fat or sugar." Supervisor Eric Mar, who sponsored the measure, crowed, "We're part of a movement that is moving forward an agenda of food justice." Apparently, "food justice" is nothing more than taking toys from kids. You could call it No Child's Toy Left Behind.
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Opinion
Jonah Goldberg: In Victory, the GOP Will Turn on Each Other
Charles Krauthammer: A Return to the Norm
Linda Chavez: A Cautionary Note for GOP in Tuesday's Election
Mona Charen: Impressions From a Historic Election
Michelle Malkin: Voters Speak: No to Soak-the-Rich Schemes
David Limbaugh: Obama Doesn't Seek Compromise; Neither Should We
Jonah Goldberg: Defeat, Then Denial
L. Brent Bozell: Losing Your Head at the Supreme Court
Suzanne Fields: A Reprise of the Goblins
Oliver North: Heroes
Ann Coulter: We're all Bigots Now!
Michael Reagan: Repeal It Now!
Jeff Jacoby: Debt Solution Lies in Success of Europe
Lawrence Kudlow: Stopping the Bad Stuff Is a Plus
Larry Elder: November 3 Contract With America
More Opinion
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