GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

Hope ‘n’ Change: Obama’s public works to save America

On last Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” President-elect Barack Obama promised to cut the pork from the federal government’s spending. Yet in direct contradiction to this statement, and under mounting pressure to declare his economic strategy even before taking office, Obama is constructing a plan that will tack another $2 trillion to the federal deficit.

Touting what he calls “the largest public works program in history,” Obama is proposing to dole out billions to cities for infrastructure projects that will revitalize “Main Street.” These projects would create construction, technology, and even “green” jobs, which would purportedly reduce our vile carbon footprint. In theory, it will counteract the loss of nearly two million jobs this year, though we would remind the president-elect that government doesn’t create jobs – the free market does.

Mayors of several of these cities – New York, LA, Chicago and Akron – have already met with Nancy Pelosi to angle for their share. Mark Williamson, spokesman for Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, offered an interesting yet irrelevant justification for the program, saying his city’s request for funding for 230 infrastructure projects costing from $40,000 to $15 million was a “drop in the bucket” compared to the price of the Iraq war.

Conservatives contend that this plan only passes the buck to future generations, while merely giving the appearance of improving the economy. The money spent on infrastructure pulls money and jobs from other areas of the economy. Obama has not yet placed a price tag on the plan, but it has been estimated at upwards of $700 billion, an all-too-familiar number.

Louisiana delivers two House seats for GOP

Last week, Republicans claimed victory in two Louisiana congressional elections that had been postponed due to Hurricane Gustav. In the 2nd Congressional District, voters finally ousted Democrat William “The Fridge” Jefferson, who after nine terms in the House gained national infamy when federal agents found $90,000 in cash in his freezer. In his place will now be Anh “Joseph” Cao, the first Vietnamese-American ever elected to Congress. The national Republican Party aided Cao in his effort, and he rose from underdog status in a district that is nearly 65 percent black and heavily Democrat.

In the 4th District, Republican Dr. John Fleming defeated Democrat Paul Carmouche in an open race for the seat of retiring Rep. Republican Jim McCrery. This race also saw the presence of national party support with Barack Obama appearing in a radio ad for Carmouche and Vice President Dick Cheney giving fundraising help to Fleming. Louisiana Democrats were quick to release a statement claiming that Cao was a fluke who was just visiting, and that they plan to regain their loss in 2010. But in a state that seems to be turning increasingly Republican, such assumptions are far from a foregone conclusion.

Kennedy seeking NY Senate seat for niece

We noted the brouhaha over Barack Obama’s former Senate seat in Illinois above, but his is not the only seat that will be up for grabs in the coming days and weeks. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), the apparent incoming secretary of state, will be giving up her seat and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) wants a piece of the action. Kennedy is pulling strings behind the scenes to ensure that his niece, Caroline, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, gets the seat. Naturally, Paterson and Kennedy both deny discussing the possibility. “He hasn’t sent any message to me from anyone. And no one has even called me and said they’ve spoken to him,” said the governor. (Right – and Barack Obama didn’t talk to Rod Blagojevich, either.) On the other hand, The New York Times reports that “some influential Democrats have privately suggested that given the buzz set off by Ms. Kennedy’s emergence, [Gov. David Paterson] would have little choice but to appoint her if she decided she truly wanted the job.” All this leaves us wondering why the “Democratic” Party is so utterly undemocratic.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Warfront with Jihadistan: Obama angers the Angry Left

Reality bites, and the glassy-eyed followers of The One are not happy about it. Since winning the election and creeping ever closer to actual decision-making, Barack Obama has looked at the real world and – surprise, surprise – has decided that he cannot follow the naive bring-the-troops-home-now-and-surrender tripe that he fed his hungry minions during the campaign. Last week, Obama said he still plans to make good on his campaign promise to end the war “responsibly” in 16 months, though he gave himself plenty of wiggle room by adding that conditions in Iraq could change that. “I believe that 16 months is the right time frame…. But as I have said consistently, I will listen to the recommendations of my commanders.” Funny, we don’t recall Obama ever consistently saying he would listen to U.S. commanders, and his Far Left lemmings don’t recall that either, but we’re beginning to learn that any time he says he has “consistently said” something, he’s obfuscating or outright lying.

Antiwar groups have found their savior’s new tack very disheartening, to say the least. They whine that Obama has left room for keeping troops in Iraq far longer than the surrender monkeys had expected. Barbra Bearden, spokeswoman for a group called Peace Action, said, “There’s a lot of disappointment on the part of the peace movement.” So much so, apparently, that the group started a “No Soldier Left Behind” program (how original!) in order to pressure Obama to bring the troops home now. Even Obama’s bankrupt media mouthpiece, The New York Times, lamented in a recent headline that “Campaign Promises on Ending the War in Iraq Now Muted by Reality.” We at The Patriot are delighted that both Obama and The Times finally recognize that reality must drive national security decisions, and we hope that understanding continues.

Department of Military Readiness: Missile test success

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) chalked up another success last Friday when their hit-to-kill interceptor destroyed a mock missile target over the Pacific Ocean. In addition to testing the kill vehicle, the intercept also tested the integrated radar architecture that will be vital to the system’s success, in this case employing radars on land and on Navy ships at sea to provide a real-time track of the incoming target. The intercept was rightly touted by the MDA as a significant milestone in the development of the ground-based missile defense system.

The intercept comes at a crucial crossroads for the missile defense program. Ironically, and perhaps tragically, after eight years with a supportive administration, the technologies for a whole range of missile defense systems – ground-based, sea-based, and air-based – are just coming to maturity. Yet looming ahead is the arrival of a leftist president who is decidedly not supportive of missile defense. When questioned about the U.S.-Polish missile defense deal negotiated over the past two years, Barack Obama’s answer was both evasive and dishonest: “I support deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable.” This was one of the most hackneyed excuses of the Clinton administration for resisting federal law (See: Missile Defense Act of 1999). “We’ll deploy it when the technology is proven.”

Will the incoming administration and their liberal friends in Congress undo the work of the last eight years? The United States has proven both land-based and sea-based missile defense does work. Not “will work” – it works, right now. Keep your eye on this issue when Obama’s first defense budget request goes to Congress.

Black tactics against Blackwater

What gets less respect than a pit bull these days? Try Blackwater Worldwide, for starters. In September 2007, we cautioned against forming judgments based on media accusations of recklessness and outright massacre against Blackwater guards. Many of the facts of an incident on 16 September 2007 in Nisour Square, Baghdad, in which 17 Iraqis were killed still remain sketchy, at best. The guards, who opened fire with automatic weapons and grenade launchers in a busy traffic circle, maintain they were defending their armored State Department convoy from what they believed was an imminent car bomb attack.

This week, using statements from a sixth Blackwater guard who struck a deal with the government in exchange for his testimony, U.S. prosecutors filed a 35-count indictment against the guards – all of whom were decorated Marine or Army veterans – for manslaughter and use of automatic weapons in violent crimes. Prosecutors allege that the guards fired on unarmed civilians, including one man shot in the chest “while standing in the street with his hands up.” Reiterating our previous counsel, we again warn against the rush to judgment, if for no other reason than to allow these five accused their fair day in court.

As usual, a sense of fairness is exactly what’s missing from the prosecution. Notwithstanding that federal prosecutors likely lack a winnable case – one problem being the fact that FBI agents had to “reconstruct” the crime scene weeks after the incident; another being that State Department agents granted immunity to the guards for statements made during their initial probe; and, finally, that juries are usually reluctant to second guess actions of war-zone personnel in harm’s way – we have no problem with their desire to hold wrongdoers accountable.

But we are concerned with underhanded tactics prosecutors use to do so. Take the prosecution’s novel, expansive interpretation of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, for instance. The statute, exclusively intended to govern conduct of soldiers and military contractors in war zones, was never intended to apply to civilian contractors working for non-DoD agencies (in this case, the State Department). That’s a big stretch, but there is worse. Prosecutors attempted to enhance punishments with charges of “using a machine gun to commit a crime of violence” under – wait for it – the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. Considering that these automatic weapons were issued by the government to these defendants to conduct government business, isn’t the tortuous twisting of a crack law a bit over the top? As readers well know, we’re all for the rule of law, accountability and justice. Our problem is with the “ends justify the means” approaches used by certain overzealous federal prosecutors to promote their own careers.

Profiles of Valor: 3rd Special Forces Group

On 6 April 2008, in the mountains of Afghanistan’s Nuristan province, a battle erupted between a team of 12 Special Forces troops from Operational Detachment Alpha 3336, a few dozen Afghan allies and hundreds of jihadis. The soldiers had jumped from helicopters at daybreak onto a mountain covered in ice, attempting to gain the high ground on a terrorist stronghold in the Shok Valley. Their mission: To capture or kill members of the militant group Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG). But insurgents quickly took positions against the U.S. troops – and the insurgents had the high ground. Staff Sgt. Luis Morales saw an insurgent and opened fire, killing him, but enemy fighters then began firing on U.S. and Afghan troops from practically every direction. Because there was only one way up the valley, the jihadis “were able to wait until we were in the most vulnerable position to initiate the ambush,” said Staff Sgt. Seth Howard. Several soldiers were hit in the opening barrage, but they all fought back. “We were pretty much in the open, there were no trees to hide behind,” said Morales, who helped pull Staff Sgt. Dillon Behr, shot in the hip, back to a safer position. Morales himself had been shot in the thigh and ankle.

For the next seven hours, the small contingent of U.S. and Afghan troops fought hard while pinned to the side of the mountain, and managed to get down the mountain without being overwhelmed only when Air Force jets bombarded the insurgent positions with 2,000-pound bombs. The soldiers who could walk carried those who couldn’t, including Staff Sgt. John Wayne Walding, who was hit by a bullet that according to Master Sgt. Scott Ford, the team sergeant, “basically amputated his right leg right there on the battlefield.”

A helicopter attempted to land and evacuate the soldiers, but took several rounds in the rotor and hovered just long enough for the medic to jump off. A second helicopter then landed in an icy stream nearby and collected the troops. Among the Americans and Afghans, there were 15 wounded and two killed, both Afghans, while 150 to 200 jihadis were killed. The Green Berets were nearly out of ammunition, too – each one had two magazines left. Today, 10 of those soldiers from Operational Detachment Alpha 3336 of the 3rd Special Forces Group will receive the Silver Star for their heroism. It will be the highest such number given to elite troops for a single battle since the Vietnam War. (For more details of the battle, see The Washington Post’s account.)

Faith in tragedy – F/A-18 crash claims four lives

On Monday, an F/A-18D Hornet crashed into a neighborhood near MCAS Miramar in San Diego during training exercises with the USS Abraham Lincoln. The pilot, who ejected shortly before impact, reported that the jet’s first engine failed about 100 miles off the coast, then the second engine failed as he was flying toward the Miramar airstrip to land the partially disabled plane. Tragically, the crash claimed the lives of four members of the Yoon family, all immigrants from South Korea: Young Mi Yoon, her 15-month-old daughter Grace and two-month-old daughter Rachel, and her mother who was visiting from South Korea to help with the newborn. The father, Dong Yun Yoon, has displayed remarkable courage and faith. Of the Marine aviator, Yoon stated, “I pray for him not to suffer for this action. I know he’s one of our treasures for our country.” Pressed about what he had said, Yoon reiterated, “I don’t have any hard feelings. I know he did everything he could.”

Of his lost family members, Yoon expressed confidence in his Christian faith: “I believe my wife and two babies and mother-in-law are in heaven with God.” Such a demonstration of God’s grace amid tremendous grief and suffering is the most powerful witness any Christian can offer. Our heartfelt prayers are that our Heavenly Father will bless Don Yoon with even greater measures of grace and faith and comfort in his earthly losses.

BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Income Redistribution: Taxpayer assistance for the Big Three

Selling off the hated (by the media) corporate jets. No more big executive bonuses. A “car czar” with the final say over certain financial transactions. These provisions and more are the pound of flesh the federal government planned to extract if the $14 billion Big Three bailout package passed by the House 237-170 Wednesday had been approved in the Senate. Fortunately, Senate Republicans had the votes to put the brakes on the auto bailout … for now, anyway.

Senate Republicans insisted that the United Auto Workers union accept wage cuts in 2009 as part of any bailout, but the UAW fought hard to maintain their posh compensation. A defiant UAW President Ron Gettelfinger warned, “If we’re gonna be asked to give up more, and it appears that we are, then we should have an equity stake in the company.” Indeed, the UAW refused to budge on wage cuts until 2011, when the current contract expires. That sticking point meant most Senate Republicans remained opposed to the deal, which will not be taken up again until January.

The bill’s failure leaves GM and Chrysler in a precarious position, as they are claiming to need $15 billion between them over coming months in order to survive. Ford isn’t seeking federal help beyond a credit line at this time. GM and Chrysler now hope that the White House will allow the Treasury Department to issue them loans from the $700 billon Wall Street fund.

This week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ award

“One thing we’ve learned from past recessions, is that you’ve just got to spend money to get out of it. We just have to use our best judgment [because] there’s no science to this. We just have to spend some significant money. … What are people going to do … if they think Congress doesn’t care?” –Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)

Old media continues losing money, influence

Liberal mainstream media titans are falling faster than snowflakes in a globally warmed December. On Monday, the mainstream media conglomerate Tribune Company, which includes the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel and Chicago’s WGN broadcasting company, among others, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to rapidly falling revenues and circulation induced by the loss of advertising dollars to Web-based publications. Tribune Company was the subject of a heavily leveraged $8.2 billion buyout in 2007 that was made with mostly borrowed money. These same forces continue to diminish other newspapers across the nation.

Tribune’s viability has rapidly degraded since the buyout, featuring ballooning debt and asset selloffs to raise cash and slow the hemorrhaging, although their ownership stake in the Chicago Cubs is not currently part of the bankruptcy filing. The newspaper industry is experiencing its worst year ever, with advertising revenue through the first three quarters of 2008 already 21 percent below 2006 levels. Tribune Company’s leading newspaper, the hyper-liberal Los Angeles Times, has lost half of its revenue since just 2007.

Likewise experiencing financial distress is the New York Times Company, which hopes to borrow up to $225 million against its newly built and extravagant headquarters to ease its revenue’s inexorable march to the bottom. The irony of liberal papers experiencing the same sort of financial distress that they sought to disseminate prior to the election is not lost on us here at our humble shop. Eventually, just as computers consigned horse-and-buggy-era typewriters to the dustbin of history, the Internet will sentence most newspapers to the same fate. Next thing we know, newspaper chiefs will be testifying to Congress that they need a bailout.

CULTURE & POLICY

Around the nation: Concealed carry in national parks

Last week, the Department of Interior adopted a new regulation that allows concealed weapons permit holders to carry their weapons into national parks if the state in which the park is located allows concealed carry. This is a significant change from the previous regulations, which prohibited the possession of loaded firearms in national parks. Indeed, the new recognition that there is a Second Amendment even in national parks is a step in the right direction. There is also a Tenth Amendment issue here – that the laws of states prevail, even on federal land.

Although the NRA and sensible gun owners across the country welcomed this change, gun-control advocates reacted with their usual hysteria. Using the same apocalyptic exaggerations they trotted out (unsuccessfully) to oppose state concealed carry laws, the gun grabbers issued warnings of bedlam. Of course, their predictions of carnage never came true in states that have enacted concealed carry laws. To the contrary, crime dropped in these states. For the same reasons, national parks will not become the free-fire zones that the gun grabbers predict. Instead, law-abiding citizens now can defend themselves and their families against hostile predators – human and animal – that might threaten their lives.

Although the regulation takes effect before Obama takes office, his record shows his support of radical gun-control laws, and we expect an executive order undoing the regulation. During his tenure in the Illinois Senate and again in the U.S. Senate, Obama rarely saw a gun-control measure that he didn’t support. He supported a ban on handguns; he voted in favor of a ban on virtually all semiautomatic rifles, pistols and shotguns; he favors registration and licensing; he opposes concealed carry. Yet he promises, “I believe in common-sense gun safety laws, and I believe in the Second Amendment. Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear. I said that throughout the campaign. I haven’t indicated anything different during the transition. I think people can take me at my word.” But a simple check of his “Change” Web site (under Crime and Law Enforcement) puts the lie to this promise.

Judicial Benchmarks: Iowa SC to hear same-sex marriage case

Iowa became ground zero for the same-sex “marriage” debate this week as the state Supreme Court heard arguments against the state’s same-sex marriage ban. The lawsuit, filed by Lambda Legal in 2005 on behalf of six same-sex couples and three of the couples’ children, contends the ban violates constitutional due process and equal protection rights.

Maggie Gallagher of the Virginia-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy notes that Americans “care about this issue” and have repeatedly said “same-sex marriage is not a civil right,” and the Polk County attorney’s office holds that creating public policy is the place of the legislature and not the courts. Conversely, according to Aderson Francois of Howard University’s Civil Rights Clinic, “It doesn’t really matter whether a majority of people want to deny that right, the Constitution simply doesn’t provide for that.”

The prize, however, goes to the Associated Press for reporting that if same-sex couples win in Iowa, the state would become the fourth “to uphold the right of same-sex couples to legally marry.” Uphold? Nothing like objective journalism.

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

Warning: Christmas in the Hoosier State may be hazardous to your health – or your life. Just in time for the holiday rush, Planned Parenthood of Indiana is offering gift certificates applicable to all services, abortions included, in any of the state’s 35 clinics. According to Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, the certificates will improve access to health care for the uninsured. Furthermore, Indiana Health Commissioner Dr. Judy Monroe is all for the certificates, calling them “a really meaningful gift.”

How utterly sad that these “humanists,” as they have identified themselves, disrupt the celebration of the world’s most significant birth to give free death certificates to teenage girls.

Interestingly, Cockrum recently found herself playing defense after a video revealed an Indiana Planned Parenthood staffer encouraging a pro-life activist posing as a 13-year-old pregnant girl to lie about the identity and age of the father. After the girl hinted that the father may be 31, the staffer suggested that the girl claim he’s 14, thereby circumventing the legal requirement to report statutory rape. While Cockrum noted the worker has been put on “immediate, unpaid suspension,” she couldn’t avoid pointedly saying Planned Parenthood “cannot be certain whether this video has been altered.” Unbelievable.

Frontiers of Junk Science: Abortion study

Johns Hopkins researchers released a report this week claiming that abortion does not cause emotional distress. But there has been strong evidence to the contrary for many years now, leading one to wonder about the motivations of the Johns Hopkins team. Then we learned that three of the four study authors come from the university department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, which is funded by none other than Planned Parenthood of Maryland. Furthermore, co-author Robert Blum, who is worth roughly $1 billion, is a long-time supporter of unrestricted abortion. To top it off, the researchers said that studies showing a link between abortion and depression are politically motivated.

Perhaps two of the studies to which they referred were those in the British Journal of Psychiatry and the Journal of Psychiatric Research, both published this week. “The results of both studies add to the strong body evidence detailing the causal association between abortion and mental health disorders,” said Moira Gaul, Family Research Council’s Director of Women’s and Reproductive Health.

Faith and Family: Conservatives split from ECUSA

Last week, conservatives in the Episcopal Church voted to form their own branch of Anglicanism in response to growing liberalism within the denomination. Several parishes and dioceses have previously voted to leave the church, but last week’s vote in Wheaton, Illinois, marked the biggest split so far. Troubles began decades ago, but have grown hot since 2003, when Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson was elected, despite being an open homosexual. Conservatives have become increasingly disenchanted with the direction of the ECUSA. Changes to the main book of prayer, the role of female clergy and basics of the faith such as the definition of salvation and liberals’ claim that Scripture is not infallible and inerrant also have upset conservatives over the years.

Anglican leaders have not yet recognized the separation. We “simply continue to be clear that The Episcopal Church, along with the Anglican Church of Canada and the La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico, comprise the official, recognized presence of the Anglican Communion in North America,” said the Rev. Charles K. Robertson, an adviser to American Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. The decision certainly hasn’t come without cost. There will likely be years of legal battles over property to follow.

Speaking of the Bible, New Mexico-based Revision Studios is set to publish “The Princess Diana Bible” in spring 2009. This so-called Bible, named because of Diana’s “many good works,” relays familiar Bible stories in an unfamiliar (not to mention inaccurate) way. Indeed, it’s nothing more than pro-homosexual propaganda. For example, Adam and Eve are now Aida and Eve: “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Aida, and she slept: and he took one of her ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from woman, made he another woman, and brought her unto the first. And Aida said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of me. Therefore shall a woman leave her mother, and shall cleave unto her wife: and they shall be one flesh.’ And they were both naked, the woman and her wife, and were not ashamed.” Max Mitchell of the studio said, “There are 116 versions of the Bible, why is any of them better than ours?”

We are reminded of 2 Peter 3:16, which says, “There are some things in [the Scriptures] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction.”

And last…

In a study too naive for words, researchers at New York University have determined that power doesn’t corrupt – at least not Barack Obama. Researcher Joe Magee declared, “Our research suggests that people may not need to worry too much about power corrupting Obama. His newfound power might enable the change he desires rather than that power changing him instead.” Sure. And how did Magee and his colleagues reach this dispassionate conclusion? They tested college students by giving them a feeling of power and then monitored their behavior. They then found that in some cases, power shields people from outside opinions, allowing them to be guided by their own insights. That doesn’t exactly strike us as proof of the hypothesis, but maybe that’s why we’re not academicians. We tried to think of some examples of power corrupting individuals – we thought of slumlords, preachers and even governors – but for some reason, the answer evaded us. And besides, Barack Obama wouldn’t have had anything to do with it anyway.