The Foundation

“The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy.” –Benjamin Franklin

Government & Politics

Democrats Promise to Fix Everything

Why are Democrats on the ropes this fall? It might have something to do with the fact that the 111th Congress was, according to the Associated Press, “the most productive in nearly half a century.” Let’s face it, voters elected Democrats in 2006 and 2008 because Republicans had become corrupt spendthrifts who had lost touch with the electorate. So what did Democrats do? Double, triple and quadruple these problems.

Don’t worry, though, they promise to fix it. Really. Specifically, several Democrats are now campaigning to fix ObamaCare. Never mind that they shouldn’t have passed it in the first place.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD) said, “I voted against the health care bill, but I believe we need to keep the good parts and fix the bad. Repeal is unrealistic and would do away with the bill’s good provisions.” (And those would be…?) Rep. Mark Critz (D-PA) added, “We try to fix what we have instead of going backwards.” Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) said, “No piece of legislation is ever perfect, and it’s important we take steps to make improvements where we can.” Even House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) promised, “We have three years to make it better before it fully goes into effect.”

Other Democrat candidates had the good fortune to have been elsewhere than in Congress when ObamaCare was passed. “I’d like to fix health care,” said Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway. “I want to reform it and fix it and make sure that it works for small businesses and their families,” said Alexi Giannoulias, who is seeking Barack Obama’s former Senate seat in Illinois.

Campaigning for ObamaCare is precarious for many reasons. For example, it’s under legal attack in 20 states over the individual mandate to buy insurance, and we can now add Boeing to the list of companies which will see its costs rise because of the “Affordable” Care Act – although Boeing’s cost increases apply only to 90,000 non-union workers.

Largely because of this unconstitutional and dysfunctional law, some estimates put as many as 99 Democrat-held House seats in jeopardy. “This year is shaping up to be something of a repeat of the 52-seat House and eight-seat Senate rout of Democrats in 1994,” writes political analyst Charlie Cook. “Sure, the circumstances and dynamics are different from then, but the outcome seems to be shaping up along the same lines.”

That said, conservatives must not be overconfident. As we can see in this powerful ad, perhaps better than any other ad we’ve seen, there is much at stake on Nov. 2, and those who value Essential Liberty and the Rule of Law need to get out and vote.

This Week’s ‘Braying Jenny’ Award

“Well let me say why I believe that would be very difficult for the Republicans to take over the House of Representatives. Let me tell you right here and now that I would rather be in our position right now than theirs.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-lusional)

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

“We were at the top and we had fallen very hard. So people had been hurting and I understand that. And it doesn’t give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we’d be in a world wide depression. They want to know what I have done for them.” –Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Searchlight)

From the Left: Democrats Specialize in Foreign Money

Democrats have yet to prove their accusations that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican groups such as American Crossroads have been using foreign cash in their campaigns. It came as no surprise this week, though, when a report revealed that Democrats themselves have received more than $1 million this election cycle from political action committees affiliated with foreign companies. The report, compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics for The Hill, also revealed that Republican House and Senate leaders have received about $500,000 from similar groups.

There is nothing illegal about such activity, but Democrats maintain that their own donations from foreign groups are subject to tougher disclosure rules than those made to American Crossroads or the U.S. Chamber. Their rationale is that any money received by GOP groups is automatically coming from “Big Oil” or other corporations that allegedly seek to take jobs out of the U.S. But Democrats didn’t have any trouble sleeping at night after Barack Obama was elected with the help of $400 million from outside groups that didn’t disclose all their donors either before or after the 2008 election.

In somewhat related news, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has enjoyed some cushy air travel thanks to the U.S. military and the American taxpayer. Pelosi, her family and staff took 85 trips on military aircraft between March 2009 and June 2010. The U.S. Air Force spent $2.1 million dollars on these trips, including a $100,000 food and beverage tab that included top-shelf liquor. And she’s concerned with TV commercials funded by the Chamber of Commerce.

Murkowski’s Worries in Alaska

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s write-in campaign for re-election in Alaska has hit a snag. Of all things, she’s worried about a spoiler. We don’t know if she’s aware of it, but some folks call her a spoiler. She lost the GOP primary to Joe Miller but refused to accept the will of the voters and is mounting a write-in campaign. Her backers have expressed concern that mischievous Tea Party people will put forth another “Lisa M.” write-in candidate to confuse voters. There’s no real proof that this will happen other than the paranoid fantasies of Patti Higgins, the state Democrat Party chairwoman. “They haven’t yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s coming,” she told reporters.

The simple solution would be for state election officials to decide and make public how exactly they intend to count write-in votes for Murkowski. Does her name have to be spelled correctly? Will a ballot with just her initials or an incomplete name count? If Murkowski puts up a sizable opposition that muddies the chances for either Republican candidate Joe Miller or Democrat Scott McAdams to win a clear victory, months-long lawsuits can be expected to follow.

About That O'Donnell Debate Remark

In the Delaware Senate debate between Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell and her Democrat opponent, Chris Coons, the former asked the latter to list the five freedoms in the First Amendment. He couldn’t do it. But according to the Leftmedia, the story here is that O'Donnell doesn’t know what’s in the First Amendment.

The two were talking about science and religion in schools when O'Donnell asked, “Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” Coons, of course, pointed to the First Amendment, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” She replied, “You’re telling me the First Amendment does?” Her point was, to us, obvious – the First Amendment does not contain the words “separation of church and state,” a phrase which emanates from Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, not the Constitution.

It has been remarkable to see the smear job on O'Donnell done by the Leftmedia, as they mock her for making a point that, in reality, was just over their heads.

This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award

For the third time in two months, Barack Obama quoted the Declaration about unalienable rights – and left out the part about where those rights originate.

“As wonderful as this land is here in the United States,” he said, “as much as we have been blessed by the bounty of this magnificent continent that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, what makes this place special is not something physical. It has to do with this idea that was started by 13 colonies that decided to throw off the yoke of an empire and said, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that each of us are endowed [sic] with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’”

Endowed by whom, Mr. President? By our Creator, that’s who. The fact that our Founding Fathers established a government predicated upon Essential Liberty endowed by our Creator is what makes our country great. Obama may think these rights are endowed by the government, but if that’s the case, he’s not very well endowed. Or is it that he now has a “living declaration” to go with his “living constitution”?

Asked later about why Obama left out the phrase yet again, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dodged. “I haven’t seen the comments,” he said, “but I can assure you the president believes in the Declaration of Independence.” If this is so, then why can’t he quote it accurately? And the Leftmedia make fun of Christine O'Donnell.

National Security

Department of Military Correctness: DADT Overturned

The Left’s dangerous social experimentation with American society hit a road block on Wednesday when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay of U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ order for the Pentagon to terminate its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that would have allowed homosexuals to serve openly in the U.S. military. Unfortunately, the Pentagon had already started complying with Phillips’ order, freezing all current DADT discharge cases and giving guidance to military recruiters to accept applicants who disclosed their homosexuality. Additionally, some former service members who were discharged under DADT began trying to re-enlist.

The appellate court instructed lawyers to file arguments in response to the stay by Monday. The court would then decide whether to extend the temporary stay while it considers the Obama regime’s appeal of Phillips’ ruling that the DADT policy was unconstitutional. It remains to be seen how forcefully government lawyers will fight to extend the stay, given Obama’s desire to end DADT, but the administration is at least correct to try. Since the Ninth Circuit is about as far Left as a court can get, chances are the case will end up before the Supreme Court if the appeals process is pursued fully by the White House.

Needless to say, there was little to no concern from the Left about the impact all of this turmoil could have on military effectiveness, but since when has the Left ever cared about that anyway? In fact, Phillips’ decision displayed utter contempt for such concerns, saying that safeguarding what she considers to be a constitutional right outweighed the government’s “unproven” concerns about the order’s impact on military readiness and unit cohesion. We’re not sure what copy of the Constitution the good judge was using, but our copy says not a word about the rights of homosexuals to serve in the military. During the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington ordered them “drummed out of camp.”

Clearly, Clinton-appointee Judge Phillips doesn’t care that the only way to disprove her “logic” dictates that the Pentagon must prove that their concerns about military readiness and cohesion are valid. That requires an actual decrease in military effectiveness once homosexuals start serving openly. Of course, an actual decrease in military effectiveness will lead, inevitably, to an increase in U.S. casualties. Such is the warped reasoning that the despotic branch is using to remake American society in its leftist image.

Military Vote Suppression in Illinois?

The Obama Justice Department has become embroiled in more voting shenanigans, this time in the president’s home state of Illinois. The Illinois State Board of Elections has been lying about the level of county compliance with mailing military election ballots. Executive Director Dan White claims 10 counties didn’t meet the mailing deadline, but in reality 35 of the state’s 110 voting districts failed to comply, effectively stripping untold military service personnel of their right to vote. One election official, Robert Delaney, held up sending 1,300 military absentee ballots for 14 days. But while Patriots who have vowed to fight and die for our country can’t be guaranteed the right to vote, 2,600 inmates in Chicago’s Cook County Jail received hand-delivered applications and ballots – at the same time.

Fifteen other states have also failed to comply with the mailing deadline for military ballots, and the Obama Justice Department is looking the other way as it did with the New Black Panther Party case. Apparently, if you’re white, or if you serve in the U.S. military (which tends to vote Republican), you’re just not a priority to this White House.

Warfront With Jihadistan: $60 Billion Saudi Deal

“The Obama administration notified Congress it plans to sell Saudi Arabia up to $60 billion in advanced military aircraft, including F-15s equipped with bunker-buster bombs that Washington sees as part of an effort to contain Iran,” reports The Wall Street Journal. According to Andrew Shapiro, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, the deal “supports our wider regional security goals in the Gulf” and helps make sure the Saudis “have the tools that they need to be able to defend themselves.” It’s the largest U.S. arms deal with another nation to date, and it includes the purchase of as many as 84 F-15 fighter jets and upgrades for 70 existing Saudi F-15s, as many as 72 UH-60 Black Hawks, 70 AH-64D Apache Longbows, and up to 1,000 one-ton bombs known as Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), among other assorted weapons systems.

The deal now must be approved by Congress, where there are plenty of critics. “This deal would destabilize the Middle East and undermine the security of Israel, our one true ally in the region,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Others point to Saudi Arabia’s less-than-stellar record on human rights as reason for pause. If approved, the Saudis may not spend $60 billion up front, but could commit to $30 billion and come back later for more.

Business & Economy

Income Redistribution: Bribing Seniors

Put it on the tab. In effect, this is what the Nancy Pelosi-led Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration said once the news hit that Social Security recipients won’t receive a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2011. Simply put, economic indicators showed that prices hadn’t increased enough to exceed the generous COLA in 2009.

However, this is election season and the Beltway Democrats aren’t above buying votes. For the second year in a row, Pelosi and Obama have asked that a $250 lump sum payment be sent to all 58 million Social Security recipients. Cost to the treasury: another $15 billion.

An age-old trick in the Democrats’ playbook is to accuse Republicans of wanting to end Social Security, and this payoff ploy is a variation on the theme – now Democrats can campaign by instilling the fear that Republicans will stop this in the upcoming lame-duck session. Whether this deception will convince enough seniors to prevent a Republican tsunami at the ballot box remains to be seen, but Democrats obviously don’t feel they have run out of our kids’ money yet.

Regulatory Commissars: Paying Off Big Corn, Too

It’s well documented that corn-based ethanol drives down fuel efficiency, requires more energy to produce than it creates, and is corrosive to engine parts – all while increasing pollution. However, it has also created a big new market for farmers in the Corn Belt and raises commodity prices significantly. More important, Washington loves it because it’s a twofer: They can pay off one special interest group in key Midwest states by subsidizing this use of corn while assuaging another by supporting renewable “green” energy.

A 2007 energy act requires that the nation use 36 billion gallons of the stuff by 2022, but because of our current economic malaise and the increase of more fuel-efficient vehicles, we are far off track from meeting that mandate. The current blend of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline simply doesn’t sell enough ethanol. So rather than adjusting the obviously flawed 2007 estimates, the central planners will continue the push toward 36 billion gallons. The EPA recently approved raising the “blend wall” of motor fuel to 15 percent ethanol for 2007 model year and later cars. It is also proposing warning labels to prevent drivers from ruining their pre-2007 cars with the wrong blend of fuel.

Certainly this is cheerful news for Midwest corn farmers, but when you add all the deleterious aspects of ethanol on engines and emissions, and the financial toll that these ethanol subsidies create on the federal budget, the overall wisdom of using food for fuel – regardless of the amount blended into each gallon at the pump – just isn’t there.

In related news, “The Obama administration will propose the first-ever greenhouse gas emission limits for heavy trucks and buses next week,” Politico reports. “The proposal will call for a 20 percent reduction in heat-trapping emissions from trucks’ tailpipes.” We can’t have things outside the scope of the federal government, now can we?

Around the Nation: Foreclosures

Leftists are howling for a moratorium on home foreclosures based on seven (yes, only 7) documented unfair foreclosures involving homeowners who are actually current on loan payments. Why? So they can declare that process should trump substance. The “scandal” here is that there were internal sign-offs at banks authorizing these foreclosures without double-checking documents for errors.

While the poster-victim for this non-scandal is someone who has failed to pay his mortgage for two years, a moratorium would cost investors some $2 billion each month. Rather than imposing a costly freeze, New York’s Department of Redundancy Department solved the scandal by requiring foreclosure lawyers to sign a form verifying that forms already signed by someone else verifying accuracy are accurate. No, really! New York also enacted a law that will force banks to pay the legal fees of homeowners who successfully defend themselves against foreclosure, just like every other party who was injured by someone’s negligence. Instead of overreacting to every new hysteria of the week, saner heads should prevail and let existing processes apply the remedies that already exist.

Culture & Policy

NPR Fires Juan Williams

National Public Radio fired longtime liberal analyst Juan Williams this week for perceived anti-Muslim remarks he made on “The O'Reilly Factor” on Fox News, where he is also a contributor. “[W]hen I get on the plane,” said Williams, “I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.” It’s an honest opinion no doubt held by many millions of Americans.

However, Williams was fired – over the phone by an NPR vice president. (Of course, Fox promptly offered him a three-year $2 million contact.) NPR said his remarks “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.” The government-funded news organ has few allies, even among the Leftmedia, especially after CEO Vivian Schiller said that Williams should keep such opinions between himself and “his psychiatrist or his publicist.” As National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez quipped, “No word on whether or not her remarks violate NPR’s standards.”

Schiller later apologized, but not before revealing her intolerance toward speech that doesn’t comport with NPR’s bald-faced leftist ideology. She also wrote in an internal memo, “We’re profoundly sorry that this happened during fundraising week.” No doubt!

Williams’ firing leaves us wondering what NPR will do with another analyst, Nina Totenberg, who once said of former Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, “if there is retributive justice, he’ll get AIDS from a transfusion.” What was that about editorial standards? And isn’t it about time to cut off the federal spigot flowing to this left-wing network?

Surprise! NAACP-Sponsored Study Calls Tea Party Elements ‘Racist’

After Rep. Emanuel Cleaver falsely accused an anti-ObamaCare protester of shouting racial epithets and spitting on him during a March protest in front of the Capitol, the predictable progression of events led to a blanket charge of racism toward the part of the Tea Party itself. This charge was repeated by the NAACP at its annual convention in July.

Earlier this week, an organization working on the NAACP’s behalf released a 94-page report that detailed allegations of anti-Semitism and bigotry among Tea Party leaders. The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a group that believes “the overwhelming majority of white people continue to take for granted the relative privileges accruing to their skin color,” authored the report and found a number of isolated incidents and people who were tied to anti-Semitic and “white power” groups. For example, the report claims that the head of the Wood County Tea Party in Texas was formerly in the Ku Klux Klan. (Then again, so was the late Democrat senator from West Virginia, and the NAACP helped to keep the wizard in office for nearly 60 years.)

Even the NAACP concedes in the report that “the majority of Tea Party supporters are sincere, principled people of good will.” It’s unfortunate, then, that they spend the next 94 pages accusing some of those supporters of the Left’s favorite epithet, the “r” word.

NYT Sees the Light on Poverty … or Does It?

With the number of Americans living in poverty hitting a 15-year high, The New York Times just published a story praising the scholarly establishment for finally “conceding that culture and persistent poverty are enmeshed.” For years, recognizing such a relationship has been considered taboo. After all, let the notion of individual morality seep into public understanding of poverty, and society becomes less supportive of government welfare programs. But now, according to Princeton sociologist Douglas S. Massey, “We’ve finally reached the stage where people aren’t afraid of being politically incorrect.” Or have we?

Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow Robert Rector notes that while the Times touts the re-examination of the “culture of poverty,” in reality little has changed. “One might imagine that experts researching the ‘culture of poverty’ would examine how marital collapse, eroded work ethic, and indifference to academic study contribute to financial poverty,” Rector writes. “Guess again.” Instead, he explains, experts continue to preach “that the main cause of poverty is ‘material deprivation itself.’ In other words, the cause of poverty is poverty: The cure for poverty is to artificially boost the incomes of the poor through welfare payments, free food, housing, medical care, and so on.”

Of course, were this truly the cure, the $15 trillion that our government has spent on anti-poverty programs over the decades would have alleviated the entire world’s poverty. Instead, the opposite has happened, and the real culprit remains taboo. “[E]xperts tiptoe circumspectly around the main cause of child poverty today: the collapse of marriage,” Rector notes. Indeed, at the outset of the War on Poverty, the out-of-wedlock birthrate was 7 percent. Now, it’s 40 percent (72 percent among blacks). Were single mothers on welfare to marry the fathers of their children, an astounding two-thirds would immediately rise above the poverty level.

Rector concludes, “The main problem for liberals in talking about the ‘culture of poverty’ is that any honest examination of behavioral roots of poverty will, almost certainly, diminish public support for the welfare state. Thus, any clear discussion of the links between poverty and behavior is to be scrupulously avoided.”

Judicial Benchmarks: Moment of Silence Upheld

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld an Illinois law mandating a moment of silence in public schools. The law, which sets aside time for “silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day,” had been overturned by a federal court in 2009 on the grounds that it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Judge Daniel Manion, a Reagan appointee, disagreed. Writing for the 2-1 majority, Manion said that the law, by offering students a choice about what to do with the time, differs from vocal prayer in that it neither favors a particular religion, nor forces children to pray at all. In other words, it doesn’t establish a religion.

In her dissent, Judge Ann Claire Williams, a Clinton appointee, wrote that the law makes an “unnecessary reference to prayer,” and that “by enumerating prayer as one of the only two specific permissible activities, the Act conveys a message that Illinois students should engage in prayer during the prescribed period as opposed to a host of other silent options.”

The Illinois ACLU, which filed the original suit challenging the constitutionality of the law, was of course not happy with the ruling. No doubt they’re concerned that children might use the time to – God forbid – pray.

Faith and Family: Chilean Miner Offered Advertising Job

Yonni Barrios may soon have another reason to avoid large holes in the ground: someone might push him into one. Barrios was among the 33 Chilean miners rescued last week after being trapped in a collapsed mine for 69 days. Millions around the world watched as the men were pulled to safety, but Barrios attracted more attention than the others when he asked both his wife and his mistress to greet him at the top. Mrs. Barrios, who has been married to him for 28 years, politely declined the invitation.

Now AshleyMadison, a website that hooks up married people for adulterous affairs, is offering Barrios $100,000 to be its Spanish-language spokesman. The site, which was launched in 2001, claims to have around six millions members. In addition, some 700,000 new people visit AshleyMadison each month, hoping the service will facilitate their disgusting behavior. All too often it does. The site’s tag line: Life is Short. Have an Affair.

Should he agree to the contract, Barrios will be expected to do television, radio and public appearances in North, South and Central America – and stay married to his current wife. After all, one can’t expect AshleyMadison to betray its longstanding “commitment” to infidelity by allowing its spokesperson to divorce.

To Keep and Bear Arms

A man presumably in his 20s attempted to carjack a black Cadillac Escalade at a gas station in Detroit, Michigan. The unnamed victim, 36, was pumping gas when he was attacked by the suspect. The victim’s girlfriend had been in the gas station when the incident began but quickly ran outside, grabbed her daughter who was still in the car, and ran back into the station for cover. The suspect pulled a gun, shooting the victim, who grabbed his own pistol and returned fire as the carjacker was getting in the vehicle. According to police, more than 20 shots were fired, leaving the suspect dead and the victim with multiple hits to the face and body. He is in serious condition at a hospital; his girlfriend and daughter, though terrified, were not hurt. The victim has a valid carry permit.

And Last…

Comedy Central’s twin liberals, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, are planning twin rallies for the National Mall on Oct. 30. Stewart will lead the “Restore Sanity” rally, while Colbert will head the “March to Keep Fear Alive.” All told, they expect 65,000 attendees. Obviously, this falls far short of the highly successful rally they seek to lampoon, Glenn Beck’s “Restore Honor” rally in August, which boasted 500,000 attendees.

It’s almost a given that the enlightened “progressives” who attend the Stewart/Colbert rallies will leave plenty of garbage behind, but there’s another problem – a shortage of portable toilets. The Marines will use about 800 of them for their annual Marine Corps Marathon that same weekend, and the Comedy Central folks are having a hard time finding more. Though Stewart and Colbert have their funny moments, it appears that their minions will be awfully full of, err, stuff by day’s end. Maybe Stewart should consider renaming the rally “Restore Sanitation.”