GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

House votes on Iraq

Democrats pulled out all the stops and roped in some wayward Republicans in their attempt to embarrass President Bush on the eve of a major troop deployment in Iraq. Former military leaders and freshmen representatives who have served in Iraq were among the gaggle of voices supporting the Democrats’ call to abandon the field of battle against the radical Islamic fundamentalists. The vote on Democrats’ nonbinding resolution is scheduled for later today.

“In a few days, and in fewer than 100 words, we will take our country in a new direction on Iraq,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her colleagues. “A vote of disapproval will set the stage for additional Iraq legislation which will be coming to the House floor.” The fact that Pelosi believes this pivotal issue can be summed up in 100 words demonstrates just how out of touch she and her fellow Democrats are over the war. Her signal that additional legislation is coming can only mean that she will embrace John Murtha’s systematic call to defund our troops, despite Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s pledge that Congress will do no such thing.

Murtha’s oversight panel on military spending plans to tie so many strings to congressional funding of the Iraq war that the President will not be able to execute the deployment effectively. “They won’t be able to continue. They won’t be able to do the deployment,” bragged Murtha on his plans to control President Bush’s use of $93.4 billion in new combat funds for Iraq. “They won’t have the equipment, they don’t have the training and they won’t be able to do the work. There’s no question in my mind.” As Murtha predicts, this kind of micro-management will impede the executive’s constitutional power to command the armed forces and could lead to just the negative outcome that liberals believe (hope?) will happen.

Democrats are priding themselves on the orderly debate, which allowed every member of the House to speak on the issue. Of course, it will be little reported that the Republicans were flatly denied the opportunity to offer a competing resolution. Still, Minority Leader John Boehner was able to put the debate in a larger context. “The battle in Iraq is about more than what happens there. This is one part of a much larger fight, a global fight against Islamic terrorists who have waged war on the United States and our allies. This is not a question of fighting for land or for treasure or for glory. We are fighting to rid the world of a radical and dangerous ideology. We are fighting to preserve and defend our sacred way of life.”

That fight will continue, whether or not Democrats succeed in hamstringing us in Iraq. By engaging in this debate, they are already jeopardizing our mission.

Osama roots for Obama

Australian Prime Minister John Howard took heat at home this past week for stating the obvious about Demo presidential candidate Barack Obama’s call to pull out of Iraq by this time next year. “If I was running al-Qaida in Iraq I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray for a victory, not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats,” Howard said. Though he was criticized by his political opponents, Howard proudly defended his words. “If I hear a policy is being advocated that is contrary to Australia’s security interests, I will criticize it.” Australians have been targets of al-Qa’ida violence in the past, and thanks to strong leaders like Howard, they have stood tall with the United States in this long war. We’re proud to have them by our side.

This week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ award

“[T]he war should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and on which we’ve now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.” —Barack Obama, serving up the campaign flavor of the month

“Their sacrifices are never wasted… What I meant to say was those sacrifices have not been honored by the same attention to strategy, diplomacy and honesty on the part of civilian leadership that would give them a clear mission.” —Obama later the same day, showing the flip-flopping prowess Democrats value in their presidential candidates—their lives were wasted, but their sacrifices were not…

Pelosi Pre-emptive Surrender Disorder (PPSD)

Apparently Democrats aren’t content with surrender in Iraq. Deciding that the fight against radical Islamic terror is just not worth waging, Pelosi this week led her Democrat colleagues in pre-emptive surrender by declaring, “[T]here is no previous authority for the president, any president, to go into Iran.”

Leaving aside for a moment the separation-of-powers issues surrounding Pelosi’s statement, what does it say about the party in control of Congress when it openly announces that, if its members have their way, the military option for dealing with Iran will not be available to the United States? Is there any way more certain to embolden an enemy than to announce openly that the military option is not an option? And they wonder why Americans don’t trust them on national security…

Fellow Patriots, we hope as fervently as anyone that the security challenges posed by Iran can be resolved without resorting to war, but it is sheer folly to tell a potential adversary that it faces no threat of war. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Taking the McCain out of McCain-Feingold

In the 1990s, after dirtying his hands with infamous Savings and Loan kingpin Charles Keating, John McCain became the voice of campaign-finance reform. The legislation that he co-championed with Democrat Russ Feingold tried to rewrite the rules about how campaigns for public office should be financed. First Amendment rights were trampled along the way, and now there is more money in politics than ever before, and even McCain himself can no longer walk the line he once tried to foist on others. He is currently considering opting out of public financing for his presidential bid, and if he hopes to match the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be raised by his rivals, he will most likely go private.

As a reformer, McCain tried to rein in 527s and soft money, but now that he is a candidate, he has tapped into the GOP fundraising giants who have rebuilt the soft-money machine. Six of his eight national-finance co-chairmen have contributed at least $13.5 million in soft money and 527 donations since 1998. How McCain will explain his backslide on this issue will require some first-rate election-season gymnastics.

Who spoke about Plame? Apparently not Libby.

Six well-known Washington journalists took the stand during I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s perjury trial this week, all testifying that he was not the first to speak to them about the identity of desk-set CIA analyst Valerie Plame. Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, David Sager of the New York Times, Evan Thomas of Newsweek and Robert Novak all said under oath that they heard of Plame’s identity from someone other than Libby.

The prosecution hopes to prove that Libby lied about not exposing Plame as retribution for her husband Joe Wilson’s trashing of the administration’s intelligence gathering leading up to the Iraq war. Libby’s defense is that he suffers from a faulty memory and did not deliberately mislead investigators. His lawyers have opted not to put him or his former boss Vice President Dick Cheney on the stand, fearing that exposing them to cross-examination could weaken their case.

Fred Thomson, former Senator and U.S. Attorney, told ABC News this week that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s prosecution of Libby is a “travesty and injustice.” Thompson tried to let the special-counsel provision expire when he led the Senate Government Affairs Committee in the late 1990s because of the potential for abuse. Since there was no clear violation of the law in Libby’s case, Thompson believes that there is no justification for Fitzgerald’s work. Of Fitzgerald, Thompson said that he “turned out to be a fella who can see miles and miles in a straight line, but had no peripheral vision at all and didn’t realize apparently that he was caught up in a bureaucratic political dogfight.” We think that’s an accurate description.

The push for the popular vote

As the nation begins to focus on the 2008 election, a movement is afoot to undermine the Electoral College. The key player in this effort is a group called National Popular Vote, a 501©(4) non-profit group that advocates having the popular vote dictate presidential selection.

Because the Constitution states that “Each state shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors,” the NPV effort is concentrating on getting as many states as possible to enact a bill that would, in effect, “guarantee that the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia will win the Presidency.”

In all, 23 states currently have bills in their legislatures awarding the state’s electors to the winner of the national popular vote rather than the votes in their state. Sixteen of these states went for President Bush in the 2004 presidential election while John Kerry carried seven—among them these states represent 255 electoral votes. Nothing like the states throwing away their own rights.

Justice Kennedy ‘dispirited’ with salary

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy further endeared himself to conservatives recently by proclaiming that judicial pay is just not good enough. “In more than three decades as a judge, I have not seen my colleagues in the judiciary so dispirited as at the present time,” Kennedy told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The blunt fact is that the past congressional policy with respect to judicial salaries has been one of neglect.” While at first it sounded laughable to your humble editorial staff, we’ll stipulate that Kennedy actually has a (small) point. Nineteen federal judges have left the bench for higher-paying jobs since 2004, and the Senate has been stalling on or blocking new appointments during President Bush’s entire term. We recommend that pay for the judiciary should be based on performance by constitutional standards. For example, if a Supreme Court justice issues a bone-headed opinion based on international law, said justice would owe taxpayers a refund.

Rep. Charlie Norwood dies

Republican Representative from Georgia Charlie Norwood died this week of lung cancer at the age of 65. Elected to the House in 1995, the decorated Vietnam veteran introduced the first comprehensive managed-healthcare-reform bill, and was a vocal supporter of patients’ rights. He also supported special education and property rights. Rep. Norwood is survived by his wife, Gloria, two sons and four grandchildren.

New Legislation Introduced

Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) is seeking co-sponsors for the Seniors’ Tax Simplification Act (HR 432), which would allow seniors to file their federal income taxes on a new, simplified form.

Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) introduced the legislation (HR 937) to withhold U.S. funds from the United Nations Development Program in light of the recent debacle over North Korea’s corruption.

NATIONAL SECURITY

North Korea turns over a new leaf… again

In a move the Wall Street Journal appropriately labels “faith-based nonproliferation,” the U.S. is considering diplomatic recognition and foreign aid in return for North Korea’s “promise” not to pursue nuclear weapons and long-range missile capability. This time they mean it—really. For Kim Jong Il, the six-nation accord, which includes China, North and South Korea, Russia, the U.S. and Japan, arrives not a moment too soon. Until now, U.S. efforts to bar Pyongyang’s access to world-banking markets had been successful, potentially destabilizing the leader’s chokehold on power. Unfortunately, the accord stands to undo that achievement by keeping the failed dictator’s reign on life support via foreign aid. Moreover, the accord’s vagueness with respect to accountability is almost certain to undermine any hope in the deal. About $400 million in aid is contingent on North Korea’s “full accounting” of its nuclear programs within 60 days, a key piece of which is an accounting of its enrichment of uranium. Of course, North Korea denies ever having enriched uranium, let alone having processed enough plutonium to make “eight or ten bombs,” as U.S. experts have estimated.

According to ousted UN Ambassador John Bolton, the agreement is only marginally better than the Clinton administration’s ludicrous 1994 Agreed Framework. “This is a very bad deal,” says Bolton. “It contradicts fundamental premises of the President’s policy he’s been following for the past six years, and second, it makes the administration look very weak at a time in Iraq… when it needs to look strong.” No word yet as to whether Michael Jordan will autograph another basketball for the Dear Leader.

Iran formally charged with aiding Iraqi insurgents

This week the U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq, formally charged Iran with arming the Iraqi insurgents with lethal weaponry. The Green Zone news conference with reporters included displays of mortar shells, RPGs and other incriminating evidence. Some items, such as the RPG-7, are produced only in Iran. Others, such as mortar rounds, had physical features linking them to Iranian arms factories. While the Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP) gained the most coverage, due to its ability under the right circumstances to pierce even the heavy armor on M1 tanks, other significant weapons were not mentioned. For example, our sources tell us that top-of-the-line Austrian sniper rifles, loaded with Chinese armor-piercing ammunition, have made life especially difficult for our soldiers and marines over the last year.

Iran’s response was entirely predictable: “We deny such charges. We ask those who are claiming such evidence: Show the documents in public.” We could not agree more. We have advocated holding Iran’s feet to the fire on this issue for nearly a year now. (See “National Security Front” 06-12 Digest, March 2006.) After making the evidence public, we should make something else public: our promise to obliterate specific facilities in Iran the very next time an American soldier dies from an EFP roadside bomb, or an American Marine is killed when an armor-piercing round goes through his body armor (as happened just this week). As long as there is no penalty for arming the insurgency, why should Iran be expected to cease and desist? We hope and expect that very soon Iran will be made to pay for its all-but-overt support for those killing American troops in Iraq.

The deadline for UN Security Council Res. 1737, requiring Iran to recognize its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, is 21 February. After that, the UN will have to decide what sanctions—if any—to impose on Iran. Fortunately, the UN never drags its feet when dealing with rogue regimes.

FBI laptops still missing

From February 2002 to September 2005, 160 laptops and 160 weapons turned up missing from FBI inventories. At least ten laptops (and as many as 61) contained classified or other sensitive information. A report on the debacle said, “Without knowing the content of these lost and stolen laptops, it is impossible for the FBI to determine the extent of the damage these losses might have had on its operations or on national security.” The Bureau failed to report 20 percent of the weapons missing and 76 percent of the laptops to the Justice Department, though they claim progress in reducing the number that go missing each month—something they say is inevitable considering the FBI’s size of inventory (52,000 weapons and 26,000 laptops).

FBI weapons have turned up at crime scenes, once even in the pocket of a murder victim. The thought of the laps to which computers have found their way is even more unpleasant. This is not a new problem and is one inherent to a large bureaucracy—we’ll give them that, but it is unacceptable just the same. It is reasonable in every way to expect the Federal Bureau of Investigation to maintain custody of its most critical equipment.

DHS goes after illegals in prison

The Homeland Security Department recently announced plans to hire 220 additional agents for Immigration Custom Enforcement’s (ICE) Criminal Alien Program, whose job is finding criminal illegal aliens, especially those “hiding” among our own prison systems. This should be a fairly easy assignment, since criminal illegals account for more than 25 percent of some states’ prison population.

Julie Myers, the head of ICE, announced the program this week. In addition, she said that next year ICE plans to train up to 250 members of local law enforcement throughout the country to work with ICE’s Criminal Alien Program. She predicts that 66,000 illegal aliens may be captured through the program.

In addition, ICE will establish a 37-person Improved Integrity Oversight office within its Office of Professional Responsibility. Myers said the new office would “conduct criminal and serious misconduct investigations involving the activities of ICE and CBP employees deployed domestically and overseas.”

BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Entitlements take majority of federal budget

Fulfilling President Reagan’s observation that the nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program, the unabated rise of the American welfare state threatens to engulf the federal budget. Welfare payments to individuals (primarily through Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security) in President Bush’s proposed federal 2008 budget now consume nearly 60 percent of its total.

Additional chunks of the federal budget will be devoured by these three welfare programs due to the looming demographic impact of retiring baby boomers. Unless strong budgetary discipline is imposed, Cheops’ law (everything takes longer and costs more) may help create an unsustainable financial welfare-state burden. Federal budgeting is merely a process of making financial choices writ large, but now that it’s vastly cheaper to fund defense spending and the war in Iraq at one fifth of the budget than to pay for an out-of-control welfare state at three-fifths, it’s high time to reprioritize our federal budgetary allocations before it’s too late.

Patriot Alliance

The Patriot has recently updated and expanded our “Patriot Alliance”—a register of the nation’s leading conservative organizations and advocacy groups that we endorse. Whether you’re interested in organizations dedicated to free-market advocacy, education and academia, or Second Amendment rights, you will find the best and the brightest here.

Publisher’s note: The Patriot does not receive any payment or other compensation for our endorsement of Alliance members, nor do we request reciprocal endorsements in return. Our mission and operations budgets are funded by—and depend entirely upon—the voluntary financial support of American Patriots like YOU—consider supporting The Patriot today!

Consumers need ‘Medical Costs 101’

Independent surveys conducted last November revealed consumers do not know the true costs of medical care. This is partly a result of our historical insulation from actual medical costs due to the existence of third-party payers such as health plans and state and federal governments. Also, the lack of available pricing for particular medical treatments, which prevents comparison-shopping, also plays a prime role.

Health insurers, and to a lesser extent government plans, have slowly developed tools to aid and encourage consumers to be more judicious with their healthcare dollars. New health plans are getting more consumer ‘skin in the game’ via higher deductibles; this encourages consumers to reduce unnecessary trips to the doctor. In addition, President Bush’s 2006 Executive Order on healthcare transparency is beginning to bear fruit, as provider quality and pricing information now appears on certain health insurer, government and provider websites. With the ever-rising costs of healthcare, we’re likely to see more of these carrots and sticks for educating and engaging consumers.

‘Karl, meet Kyoto’

The Kyoto Protocols are the newest manifestation of Marxism, seeking the same goals by the same means: global redistribution of power and wealth away from capitalist countries while crushing dissent (e.g., “the debate is over”). Communist China is exempt from Kyoto, as are emerging economic powers India and Brazil. European countries are faltering under the impossible economic burden, all while failing to live up to emission-reduction standards. If the U.S. had become a signatory, the estimated cost to our economy is $260 billion every year—more than $11 trillion by 2050.

Some world leaders are fighting back, however, and taking heat for it. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is still criticized for (rightly) saying in 2002 that Kyoto was nothing more than “a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.” Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, an economist, joined him this week, objecting to the UN’s recent report on global warming: “Global warming is a… myth, and every serious scientist says so,” Klaus said. “It’s obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.” Australian Prime Minister John Howard is also a Kyoto/warming skeptic. Would that our own president would speak with such clarity on the issue! Contrary to “popular belief,” definitive evidence of man-made global warming is just not there. And the best idea, regardless, is to let the free market be free.

CULTURE

IPCC report isn’t science!

If the science doesn’t fit your agenda, just change the science! In a slight-of-hand feat that would make Houdini envious, the “we’re-all-doomed” global-warming “report” delivered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last week to great Leftmedia fanfare wasn’t even a science report, but was in fact just the Summary for Policymakers. The actual IPCC science report is being held up for another three months. The reason for the three-month delay? Why, to make sure the “science” fits the scary conclusions in the summary, of course.

The IPCC’s procedures for the science report actually state that, “Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers [emphasis added]…” That is, reach your conclusions first, then change the “facts” to fit your conclusions. This is not science; it is leftist dogma, and it will be criminally dogmatic if used to coerce the economic policies of sovereign nations. It must be exposed and challenged at every opportunity, and skeptics of man-made global warming must be allowed to speak to the facts and not have their livelihoods threatened.

Warning: USA may be hazardous to your health

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recently released a report rating the United States and the United Kingdom as the two worst places in the world for childhood quality of life.

The 52-page study ranks 21 industrialized nations on 40 indicators in six categories. With the highest instances of child poverty and teenage obesity, the U.S. came in last in health and safety, and only the UK ranked lower in behavioral risks and relationship satisfaction.

Lamenting that “childhood is being reshaped by forces whose mainspring is not necessarily the best interest of the child,” UNICEF generously offered a remedy: In fulfillment of its self-proclaimed role as mayor, council and electorate of the world village that is needed to raise a child, UNICEF determined that perhaps it is time “to re-gain a degree of understanding, control and direction over what is happening to our children in their most vital, vulnerable years.”

We have a simpler term for this: parenting.

‘Wrongful birth’ claim sways jury

In a perversion of truth that calls murder a birthright and birth a crime, a New Jersey jury recently awarded $28 million in medical costs and emotional damages to a New York woman as compensation for the “wrongful birth” of her son. Wanda Tineo claims a medical misdiagnosis failing to identify a rare genetic disorder in her unborn son stripped her of her right to “terminate” her pregnancy and “spare” her baby an infant death. Instead, little Justin entered the world in 2003, and the jury ruled that someone must pay.

Despite dire predictions of death, over three years later Wanda admits that her son has “shown tremendous improvement since birth.” Yet, she claims, “This cannot happen to another person… People don’t understand what it takes to take care of a handicapped child.” Perhaps not, but millions have understood the experience of being slaughtered in the womb. It is with these innocent lives that we take our stand.

‘No Child’ Commission: Keep trying

The Commission on No Child Left Behind recently turned in their homework: a 230-page report with proposed changes to the mammoth federal education law. Of course, the only proposed changes are to make it bigger. “You’re never going to hit a home run unless you swing for the fences, and this is swinging for the fences,” said commission co-chair Tommy Thompson, a former secretary of Health and Human Services. The commission recommends new testing requirements in science, as well as additional tests for math and reading, with sanctions for schools that do not measure up to proficiency standards by 2014. The Bush administration had called for sanctions by 2020. Ted Kennedy, of all people, wants a history test worked in. (He might consider a remedial course himself.) Every tunnel-visioned educrat agrees that more money would help, too.

We have said it before and we will say it again: NCLB is bound to fail. Yes, the Founders knew what they were doing by excluding education from Congress’ enumerated powers in our Constitution.

Anglican Church in turmoil

Meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania this week, Anglican primates are reviewing whether the U.S. Episcopal Church has met obligations outlined in the 2004 Windsor Report, one of which is a moratorium on consecrating homosexual bishops and blessing same-sex unions. Controversy continues in part because of the Episcopal Church’s refusal to rescind the ordination of Vicky Gene Robinson, an avowed homosexual. While this is the lightning rod of the tumult in the media, the core issue is much deeper: whether or not the basic tenets of the faith, such as the authority of Scripture, mean anything any longer. U.S. presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has promised to continue the liberal departure from Scripture, and indeed anything resembling real Christianity. There is now talk of establishing an alternate Anglican body in the U.S. for conservatives. While some may be worried about the relational and legal consequences of such a split, eventually it becomes necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff.

And last…

The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality scheduled a hearing Wednesday titled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?” Unfortunately, due to a winter storm, the hearing was postponed. The irony is certainly tough to beat, though we’re sure the committee will be undeterred—after all, it’s politics. Of course, Al Gore’s infamous global-warming speech three years ago in New York—on the coldest day in decades—ranks first on the irony list. Gore explained his gaffe away by saying that warming caused the cold weather and President Bush was responsible for the warming. Then again, Gore also invented the Internet.

Next week, Gore will be the pampered darling of the Academy Awards for his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”—a mocumentary knockoff of the pop film, “The Day After Tomorrow.” In recognition of this event, The Patriot will be launching a major petition drive to thwart one of the biggest political power grabs in U.S. history—the Left’s initiative to bridle the U.S. economy and force Kyoto Treaty compliance.

Lex et Libertas—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for the editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families, especially those of our fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who have died in defense of American liberty while prosecuting the war with Jihadistan.)