The Foundation

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” –James Madison

Government & Politics

A ‘Party of No’ Could Get ‘Yes’ Votes in November

In a Super Bowl pre-game interview, Barack Obama announced that he wants to have a televised meeting with both Republicans and Democrats to discuss ideas about crafting health care legislation. Imagine that – an open debate with both parties equally represented, hashing out plans and crafting a bill using the best ideas brought to the table. In 2008, Candidate Obama told us that was how health care reform would come to pass in his new bipartisan and transparent Washington. The reality has been far different, though entirely predictable to those who recognized him for what he is: a socialist.

Legislation was crafted not to reform health care, but to put it solely under government control. Deals were made behind closed doors, and yet, even with bulletproof majorities in both chambers, the Democrat Congress has not passed a health care bill.

Now Obama is pretending to play the role of peacemaker, but he views bipartisanship as Republicans submitting to his will. Indeed, he won’t agree to scrap the existing legislation and start from scratch, even though the public has made its distaste for the bills quite clear.

House Minority Leader John Boehner has made dropping the current legislation a prerequisite for Republicans to come to the table. It is, after all, a waste of time to debate a bill that’s essentially dead. Republicans want to cut costs while Democrats want a health insurance entitlement for all. Both sides want to prevent insurance companies from rejecting ill customers, but Democrats, beholden to trial lawyers, reject the common-sense cost-cutting idea of tort reform, among other free-market measures. Unfortunately, neither side is talking about the constitutional role of government.

Even if the meeting happens, both sides are so deeply entrenched that a compromise is rather unlikely. Besides, Obama may be trying to set a political trap of sorts for Republicans by wooing them to the table, offering them a bad deal, then once again accusing them of being “The Party of No,” that mantra so often repeated by his accomplices in the Leftmedia.

Such a label wouldn’t be bad, however, considering that the alternative means going along with a plan that would raise taxes, remove competition in the insurance industry, drive down the quality of health care in our country, and add hundreds of billions – if not trillions – of dollars to the national debt.

In fact, when combined with advocating fiscal responsibility and constitutional Rule of Law, “Just Say No to Socialism” sounds like a winning formula for Republicans come November. Of course, the GOP would have to awaken from its stupor first.

RIP: Rep. Jack Murtha, the Marine Corpse

On Monday, longtime Pennsylvania Democrat Congressman John Murtha died after complications arising from gallbladder surgery. He was 77.

The Leftmedia headlined his obituaries “U.S. Representative Murtha, Supporter of Troops, Dies at Age 77” and “Pa. Dem Murtha remembered as military advocate.” Given his actual history, however, this is the sort of revisionism that was heaped upon the citizens of Oceania in George Orwell’s “1984”: “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.”

While many lauded the head of the House defense appropriations subcommittee as a “staunch supporter of the military,” he’s better known in military circles for his blindly partisan criticism of the Long War and his hasty indictment of eight fellow Marines for supposedly “murdering” innocent civilians “in cold blood” in Haditha, Iraq. (All but one of the defendants have been cleared or had charges dropped; the other is awaiting court-martial.) While Murtha may have had legitimate questions about the tactics used to fight the enemy in Iraq, many took offense at his characterization of our military as cold-blooded killers.

The press conveniently forgets this and other transgressions, such as the ABSCAM scandal of the 1980s, in which Murtha escaped indictment by the skin of his teeth, or, more accurately, by the “D” after his name. The Leftmedia focused instead on his early military life and perceived service to his district by securing dozens of earmarks for projects there.

While we praise Murtha’s personal service to the Marine Corps (or as the commander in chief would say, “Marine Corpse”), which spanned nearly four decades on active duty and as a reservist, we cannot condone his behavior once he went from serving his country on the field of battle to representing his district and nation in the halls of Congress. Too often did he epitomize the “culture of corruption” that his good friend Nancy Pelosi hypocritically opposed.

History is a harsh judge when men of character falter. A life which was devoted to service fell into one which was merely self-serving, and Marines everywhere must be saddened that one of their own met his Maker without recanting those false accusations against eight of his brothers.

New & Notable Legislation

Senate Democrats had hoped to offer President Obama a legislative victory with an $80 billion “jobs bill,” otherwise known as “Stimulus II” (or is it III, IV or V?). But Thursday, they dropped the bill in favor of a leaner version without unrelated pork. The centerpiece is still $13 billion to exempt companies from Social Security payroll taxes for previously unemployed new hires in 2010. Other incentives include renewing expired business tax credits, extending unemployment benefits, and suspending a cut in Medicare payments to physicians. The White House is predicting growth of 95,000 jobs per month in 2010, but not even the Associated Press buys that. The AP notes the obvious: “[C]ompanies are unlikely to hire workers just to receive a tax break.” Besides, after hiding the loss of over 800,000 additional jobs in 2009, who can trust any figures that these elitists produce?

Blue Dog Democrats plan to propose a bill that will cap discretionary spending at specific levels, going further than the president’s anemic $250 billion decade-long non-discretionary spending freeze. The sheer size of the Blue Dog coalition – 54 House Democrats – means that whatever proposal they come up with will have to be given serious consideration by the majority.

A bill by Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to prevent federal funding for civilian trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees in civilian courts is picking up steam. Sixteen Republican and two Democrat cosponsors have joined King, and he is confident the bill will pass if it is brought to a floor vote. Beyond the House bill, both U.S. senators from New York, the New York City mayor, police commissioner, and the state Senate have voiced opposition to holding the 9/11 terror trials in Manhattan.

Tea Party National Convention

Tea Partiers once again sailed into a sea of controversy last week as more than 600 people from around the country attended the first “National Tea Party Convention” held at the landlocked Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center in Nashville. The event culminated with more than 1,100 people enjoying a keynote dinner speech by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, which was also broadcast around the country on cable.

You might think that the storm was due to mainstream media’s vulgar derision of attendees as “tea baggers” or the tamer “Astroturfers” – but you would be wrong. Larger issues seemed to erupt concerning sponsor Judson Phillips and his for-profit Tea Party Nation, the location, ticket fees, hotel rates, travel costs, Sarah Palin, her purported speaker’s fee, the colors of the tablecloths and napkins, and just about everything else.

While the event may not have represented all Tea Party organizations as the convention title might suggest, it’s difficult for us to take seriously the disparagement that ensued over like-minded people exercising their right to assemble peaceably, freely paying the known costs (nothing hidden, except the hotel and gasoline taxes) and enlightening themselves with whatever the conference offered.

Skepticism, especially in politics, is healthy, but contempt is not. This hullabaloo over a sold-out conference of willing participants had all the hallmarks of Leftmedia agitation.

The Tea Party is the mother of all big-tent movements. There is plenty of room, and need, for Tea Partiers of all stripes and in all places – including those willing to fork over big bucks for a weekend confab. However, to be most effective, we must all remain focused on the fact that the Rule of Law is being usurped by the rule of men, and we must each play our part to work diligently at electing honorable representatives to replace the current hegemony in Washington.

National Security

Countdown to Nuclear Iran

On Thursday, Iranian Wing-Nut-in-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had enriched uranium to 20 percent and could, if it wishes, enrich to 80 percent. During remarks in Tehran amid the celebrations surrounding Revolution Day, Ahmadinejad also claimed Iran would soon greatly increase its production of 3.5 percent enriched uranium.

Ahmadinejad’s defiant claim came just days after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated that the “only path left” is more diplomacy and more sanctions to force Iran into compliance with its Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations. Gates went on to opine, “If the international community will stand together and bring pressure on the Iranian government, I believe there is still time for sanctions and pressure to work. But we must all work together.”

Apparently Secretary Gates missed the memo regarding the five existing UN Security Council Resolutions urging Iran to desist from making nukes; also Iran’s kidnapping of 15 British sailors and marines, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard being officially listed as a terrorist organization, Iran’s providing anti-ship missiles and long-range rockets to Hezbollah, Iran’s providing explosively formed penetrators and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to al-Qa'ida in Iraq, Iran’s providing weapons and training to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Qom, Iran’s attempted shipment of arms to Hamas onboard the merchant ship FRANCOP intercepted by Israel, Iran’s blatantly fraudulent election last June, Iran’s receipt of Russian SA-15b surface-to-air missile system and rumored receipt of the even more capable SA-20, Iran’s numerous ballistic missile launches, the hundreds of statements by Iranian leaders that they will never give in to outside pressure, and, finally, China’s continued veiled threats to veto any further sanctions against Iran.

All of these and more occurred during the previous six and a half years of “bringing pressure on the Iranian government,” a period in which the “international community” most assuredly did not work together. Why in the world would Gates think things will be different now, especially after Obama spent his first year in office bowing to every foreign leader on the planet?

Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons will not be stopped by UN talk or the “international community.” It will be stopped only by American resolve, or perhaps Israeli resolve, though we have wasted nearly seven years so far.

Department of Military Readiness: Missiles in Romania

Romanian President Trian Basescu recently announced approval of U.S. plans to install missile defense sites in his country aimed at thwarting potential Iranian missile threats. Our readers may recall that Barack Obama reversed earlier agreements to site defensive missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic as a worthless gesture to Russian President Putin. The Russian response was less than encouraging to our EU allies, and in a surprising (and dare we say encouraging) turn of events, Obama’s DOD has now agreed to a four-phased defensive missile plan for Romania and the region.

Such a plan should be seen as less intrusive to Russian ballistic missile capability and would actually improve response times to any Iranian missile launch. Naturally, however, Moscow still doesn’t see it that way and has raised new veiled threats concerning the future of any new START talks and perhaps even our agreements over Black Sea deployments of Aegis cruisers.

How Obama responds to this renewed Russian intransigence will be interesting to watch, especially in light of recent news from Iran. Russian threats worked once. Any more such about-faces will surely decrease our EU allies’ reliance on U.S. security assurances and may even lead to an unwanted rapprochement with Russia by some of the former Soviet states. Stick to a good plan, Mr. President.

This Week’s ‘Braying Jackass’ Award

“I am very optimistic about – about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration.” –Vice President Joe Biden

Which administration, exactly?

Army to Punish Hasan’s Superiors

“The military will formally discipline at least six officers, mostly from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, for failing to take action against the officer accused of carrying out last year’s deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood,” reports The Wall Street Journal. After Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood in November, killing 14 (including an unborn child), the Army began an investigation of Hasan’s superiors. As many as eight of his senior officers could face censure for failure to report his Islamist radicalization. Letters of reprimand would effectively end their careers. Unfortunately, 14 people died due to politically correct negligence. No letter can change that.

‘Reasonable Expectation of Privacy’

The Obama administration has argued that Americans don’t enjoy a “reasonable expectation of privacy” when it comes to their whereabouts as revealed by their cell phones, and therefore warrant-less tapping is allowed. Read more.

Profiles of Valor: WWII Vet Louis Stamatakos

On Feb. 28, 1945, Louis Stamatakos saved a B17 Flying Fortress crew from sure disaster in the skies over Germany. The 19-year-old from Dayton, Ohio, was trained as a tail gunner and survived 31 missions over Europe with the 8th Air Force, which flew out of England. While bombing railroad yards in Kassel, Germany, on his 23rd mission, two 250-pound bombs failed to drop. One was stuck by a single shackle and the other by both shackles. “Everyone went crazy when they heard that,” Stamatakos said, “and then somebody said, ‘Hey, get the Greek, he’s been going to armament school.’ I took a look and said, ‘Well, maybe I can break them loose.’”

Break them loose he did – with a short-handled fire ax. The wind had spun a small propeller on the nose of one bomb, which armed it and meant one false move would detonate it. At 20,000 feet and 20 below zero, Stamatakos kept swinging until the shackles released both bombs. “That’s back when I was young and dumb,” said Stamatakos. Crewmate Richard Rainoldi, a retired Air Force colonel, said, “If he hadn’t done it, it was either bailing out or blowing up.”

Stamatakos’s three sons were so impressed with their dad’s story that they tracked down Rainoldi, who had been the plane’s navigator, and he gave a sworn statement that was delivered to the Army. On Christmas Eve, 2009, Stamatakos, now a retired Michigan State University professor, received a letter from the Department of the Army saying he would be awarded the Silver Star in a ceremony on Feb. 17 at Michigan’s state capitol in Lansing.

Business & Economy

Income Redistribution: Expect to Fail if You Plan to Fail

Leftists consistently deny that raising taxes harms the economy, insisting instead that higher taxes and draconian government regulations boost the economy. This, of course, runs contrary to the actual outcome that the tax-and-regulate approach has incurred every time it’s been tried.

The Laffer curve – the theory that reducing tax rates causes economic growth and a corresponding growth in overall government taxation revenues – and supply-side economics inspired the Reagan tax cuts of 1981, which significantly lowered the Carter administration’s high tax rates and sparked an unprecedented 25 years of economic prosperity. Counterintuitive though it might be for liberals, these cuts generated higher tax revenues for the federal government by increasing overall economic activity and growth.

The Obama administration is being forced to face these previously established hard truths. The Congressional Budget Office forecast in August that 2010 tax collections would bring in $2.264 trillion. Only the government has grown over the last year, however, not the economy. Therefore, tax revenues are down and, this week, the CBO revised its estimate down to $2.175 trillion.

Sadly, the Obama administration’s insanity continues with its willful ignorance of the third prong necessary for economic growth, which is a reduction of government spending. So long as overspending, high-taxing and over-regulating leftists are in power, the economy will suffer.

Recession Continues, But Salaries Skyrocket

There’s good news and bad news. The (seemingly) good news is that the number of six-figure salaries is rising – skyrocketing, actually. The bad news is that you’re footing the bill. According to an analysis by USA Today, the number of federal workers making $100,000 or more has risen from 14 percent to 19 percent since the start of the recession. At the end of 2007, 1,868 civilian Defense Department employees made $150,000 or more. By June 2009, the number was 10,100. Spikes in the Transportation Department were even more shocking, with the number of employees making $170,000 or more growing from one – yes, one – to 1,690.

Jessica Klement, government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, says the high skill level of government workers such as scientists and physicians is the reason for the high pay, and she claims federal salaries are actually 26 percent below private-sector salaries for equivalent jobs. Yet, USA Today’s study of the more than two million federal employees found their average salary stands at $71,206, while average private-sector pay is only $40,331. Surely, not all the nation’s best and brightest work for Uncle Sam.

USA Today names pay hikes and a new merit-based raise system for Defense workers as among the chief culprits for the rising salaries. Still, as Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) notes, “There’s no way to justify this to the American people. It’s ridiculous.” With 7.3 million private-sector jobs lost, “ridiculous” is an understatement.

This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award

“The small businesses I’ve talked to – and I’ve been talking to a lot of them as I have been traveling around the country – their biggest problem is right now they can’t get credit out of their banks, so they’re uncertain about that, and they’re still uncertain about orders. You know, do they just have enough customers to justify them doing more? It’s looking better at this point, but that’s not the rationale for people saying I’m not hiring. Let me put it this way: Most small businesses right now, if they’ve got enough customers to make a profit and they can get the bank loans required to boost their payroll, boost their inventory and sell to those customers, they will do so.” –Barack Obama, the man who has never even had a job in the private sector, much less had to meet payroll

Wall Street Rethinks Democrat Support

Previously a sure source of campaign cash for Democrats, Wall Street political dollars are making a U-turn. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 2008 saw the record-breaking sum of $89 million flow from the securities and investment industry to Democrats. Now, the New York Times reports one-time Democrat supporters are writing checks to the other side in protest of the president’s regulatory rampage.

“The expectation in Washington is that ‘We can kick you around, and you are still going to give us money,’” noted one Wall Street leader. “We are not going to play that game anymore.” Democrat Thomas R. Nides – an executive at Morgan Stanley, chairman of the Securities and Financial Markets Association and self-proclaimed Obama fan – was more blunt: “[E]ven if you are a big fan, when you are the piñata at the party, it doesn’t really feel good.”

Indeed, since taking office, Obama has put a bull’s-eye on Wall Street banks, calling for salary caps, proposing “proprietary trading” limits, and recommending a “financial crisis responsibility fee” (a.k.a. tax) on the largest banks. Graciously, though, the president said recently that he doesn’t “begrudge” multi-million dollar bonuses for Wall Street Execs Jamie Dimon or Lloyd Blankfein, both of whom are big Democrat donors.

Despite private loyalties and past contributions, when it comes to drawing dough from Wall Street executives, Democrats are beginning to find roadblocks where once the path was clear.

When Reassurance Isn’t Reassuring

“Absolutely not” – “That will never happen in this country.” So said tax cheat Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner when asked whether the United States is at risk of losing its AAA debt rating in light of the projected $1.6 trillion budget deficit for 2010. Apparently, Geithner thinks himself wiser than Moody’s Investors Service, which recently indicated the government’s rating will suffer unless action is taken to cut projected budget deficits. Unfortunately, Geithner also opposes cutting spending, as he believes it could harm the economy.

Culture & Policy

Climate Change This Week: Blizzard Disrupts Bureaucracy

The Obama administration announced this week that it will unveil yet another bureaucratic brainchild: another new agency to study and disperse information about climate change to both the public and policy makers. Interestingly enough, the press conference announcing the agency was disrupted by the blizzard in Washington, DC, and had to be conducted via telephone.

The agency, which will be headquartered in DC, will have six directors throughout the country and will work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA head Jane Lubchenco claims that its creation is crucial to making informed decisions regarding wind power, fishing industries and coastal community planning. But NOAA is known to be in the tank for envirofascists, and there is little reason to believe that this information will be accurate.

There is humor to be found in almost any situation, however, and Republican Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) certainly found it in the snow-covered streets of Washington. He and his family used some of the 32 inches of snow that fell on the city to make an igloo. The structure, placed strategically near the Capitol, was then fitted with a sign reading “Al Gore’s New Home.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Public Works is running out of places to put the snow, settling on an empty parking lot at the edge of town where they’re building a “snow mountain.” How appropriate – things have been piling higher and deeper in the Swamp for some time now.

Naturally, warmists such as those at Time magazine are blaming global warming for the snow, though they correctly point out that “Weather is what will happen next weekend; climate is what will happen over the next decades and centuries.” But then, curiously, the mag admits that “while our ability to predict the former has become reasonably reliable, scientists are still a long way from being able to make accurate projections about the future of the global climate.” And here we thought it was settled science.

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto concludes, “It’s true that cold weather, while providing an occasion to mock global warming, does not disprove it. But the mocking would be far less effective had global warmists not spent the past quarter-century making a mockery of the scientific method.”

Around the World: Missionaries Charged With ‘Kidnapping’

It’s always nice when governments have their priorities in order, especially in the wake of a devastating tragedy. The Haitian government has made theirs perfectly clear – it is more important to prosecute those participating in the relief effort than to save their own citizens.

After the Jan. 12 earthquake, people around the world stepped in to help. The United States (as usual) led the charge, both through government aid and contributions of time and money by private citizens. Ten Baptist missionaries were among them, risking their own lives to travel to Haiti and pitch in. On Jan. 29, these same missionaries were arrested and charged with kidnapping – despite their claim to have had the necessary papers in order – after they tried to bring 33 Haitian orphans across the border into the Dominican Republic. There, the missionaries told authorities, the children would have been placed in another orphanage better equipped to deal with their needs.

When the attorneys for the “Baptist 10” wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, asking for her intervention on their behalf, Clinton’s icy response demonstrated precisely where her priorities are – or more accurately, are not. “Obviously,” Clinton remarked, “this is a matter for the Haitian judicial system.”

The State Department has turned a blind eye to the missionaries’ fate (if convicted, they could spend the rest of their lives in a Haitian jail), stating that it would be “highly unusual” for the secretary of state to become involved. Americans traveling to other countries to serve the cause of humanity are now aware that their efforts may be met with similar mindless cruelty, their plight with a similar cold shoulder.

At the end of the day, the injustice being committed by the Haitian government, coupled with the lack of interest and incompetence of our own, is only going to hurt the Haitians and others suffering hardships around the world.

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

As usual, the Super Bowl ads have everyone talking. Two in particular are worth noting: Pam Tebow sharing her story about choosing life for her son Tim versus an abortion, and the creepy Green Police ad for the Audi A3 TDI. Read more at PatriotPost.US.

To Keep and Bear Arms

As Matthew Alan Clinage and Christopher Polson attempted to steal battery packs from a golf cart in the wee hours of the morning, 70 year-old property owner Robert Rowley in Winter Haven, Florida heard his motion sensor alarm sound. Rowley immediately took his handgun and flashlight outside to evaluate the situation. When he saw the two men, both in their early-20’s, he asked them to leave, but one of the suspects began approaching him. In an attempt to scare away the thieves, Rowley fired a shot into the air, the ground, and the suspect’s truck as they tried to escape. He was unaware that the bullets had hit the suspects, but the two soon showed up at a local hospital with gunshot wounds.

Clinage was taken to jail after treatment; Polson remains in a hospital and will be taken to jail once he is released. Both were charged with grand theft and burglary of an occupied residence, while Clinage was also charged with violation of community control due to a prior conviction of grand theft of a firearm.

And Last…

First Lady Michelle Obama has taken up childhood obesity as the cause worthy of her attention. As ABC News reports, “The far-reaching, nationwide campaign called ‘Let’s Move’ calls for … myriad initiatives that target what Obama calls four key pillars: Getting parents more informed about nutrition and exercise, improving the quality of food in schools, making healthy foods more affordable and accessible for families, and focusing more on physical education.”

We have to give Michelle credit for acknowledging that it’ll take far more than government to tackle such a problem. “There’s no expert on this planet who says that the government telling people what to do actually does any good with this issue. This is going to require an effort on everyone’s part.” However, her husband has a few connections and has created the first-ever federal task force for “optimal coordination” between private companies, nonprofits and government agencies. Optimal coordination doesn’t sound like a phrase that describes government, but who knows super-sized better than Barack Obama?

In other news from the Village Academic Curriculum, the 2011 Obama budget makes further funding cuts for the District of Columbia’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, an education voucher system for low-income, mostly minority students. The 2010 budget had cut funding altogether, but in response to protests, some funding was restored. Now that amount will face an additional 30 percent cut. So, while these kids may not receive a good education, at least they’ll be skinny.