CART WILLIAMS

Always crusty, sometimes cranky,
forever on the right, seldom if ever wrong
yet hardly ever dangerous.

On a mission to impose a one hundred and
eighty degree course correction on a confused and
divided nation headed in the wrong direction.

That is one reason I think that education is too important to be left to the educators!

I can't wait to trade in my Corvette for a golf cart and pay $25,000 boot.

Science tells us that the human brain reaches its maximum potential in early adulthood. Why then are young adults so seldom capable of doing what people with more years of experience can do?

Because experience trumps brilliance.

Elites may have more brilliance, but those who make decisions for society as a whole cannot possibly have as much experience as the millions of people whose decisions they preempt.

In short, the Gallup Poll showing soldiers, small businesses, cops, preachers and pastors to be trusted, while journalists, bankers, big business, unions and congressmen are not mirrors the message of polls showing that conservatives now outnumber liberals two-to-one.

Those institutions in society perceived as dominated by liberals are also, perhaps not coincidentally, the least trusted in the land.

They encouraged immigrants to maintain their birth-country cultures, granted them legal privileges denied to native-born Americans, and denounced the idea of Americanization as un-American.

They pushed the rewriting of history syllabi and textbooks so as to refer to the “peoples” of the United States in place of the single people of the Constitution.

They urged supplementing or substituting for national history the history of subnational groups. They downgraded the centrality of English in American life and pushed bilingual education and linguistic diversity.

They advocated legal recognition of group rights and racial preferences over the individual rights central to the American Creed.

They justified their actions by theories of multiculturalism and the idea that diversity rather than unity or community should be America’s overriding value. The combined effect of these efforts was to promote the deconstruction of the American identity that had been gradually created over three centuries.

For a liberal activist, that’s forgivable, I guess. But academics? Reporters? Editors? Even liberal opinion writers aren’t supposed to “coordinate” their messages with the mother ship.

The conservative movement at least admits it is a movement (even though conservatives outnumber liberals 2-1 in this country). Establishment liberalism, not just in the press but also in the White House, academia, and Hollywood, holds power by refusing to make the same concession. “This isn’t about ideology. . . . We just call them like we see them. . . . We don’t have an agenda.”

Had Eric Holder not accused the nation of being cowards, had the president not appealed to voters in a recent video on the basis of race, had the president not intervened to stereotype the police in a minor matter at Harvard, had the Supreme Court justice not suggested racial background can make a better judge, had both the attorney general and the president not implied, before reading the bill, that 70% of Arizonans were intent on racially stereotyping, we would not quite be where we are — in which a bankrupt country in the middle of two wars is obsessed over the NAACP calling the tea party veritable racists and the dropping of charges against a fringe crack-pot group like the New Black Panther Party.

I say “quite,” because Mr. Obama’s campaign itself had always been characterized by one too many racial Macaca moments to suggest that the media image of a healer was quite right — from Rev. Wright, to typical white person, to the clingers of Pennsylvania, to Michelle’s various editorials on a downright mean country to never been before proud, etc.

I realize to review this well-trodden ground is to earn a bullseye on the left-wing NY-DC list or its successor to come, but the truth is that the administration deliberately gambled that by playing identity politics they could galvanize the base vote (it worked when over 95% of African-Americans voted along racial lines) without offending centrist devotees.

And not because they were righties at heart but precisely because they were lefties.

The NYT’s commitment to progressivism is Reason #1 they folded like a cheap tent with regard to printing the truth. From Duranty on they have been shills not for the likes of the CIA but for the likes of the KGB.

So to Douthat’s assertion that people losing at the casino should simply acquire better “policy substance and deep expertise” to win more chips, Codevilla’s riposte is that you can’t win because the game is rigged. Not the player nor even the dealer, but the deck is under question.

Whether Douthat’s or Codevilla’s view prevails is what 2010 election and the interregnum to 2012 are going to about.

That election and the year following will decide whether politics will continue to be perceived as a process of power sharing between Republicans and Democrats or whether the current system itself has been judged and found wanting.

2010 and 2011 are not going to decide the answer; they are going to determine the question.

Which it is will be depends on both the actions of the left and the conservatives. If the left — or whatever anyone wants to call it — continues to press for the re-architecturing of American society it must follow that the conservatives will act not only to roll things back but act to break the power of the so-called revolutionaries.

The left’s best strategy, one which it has adopted before, has been to fall back before the wire is tripped and when things calm down to tiptoe forward again.

The significance of Clinton’s move to the right was to rob the conservative meme of its energy and bring action once again within the ambit of the status quo. Everybody went back to the tables.

A recent NORC Social Survey of white adults born after World War II showed that in the years 1980-2000, only 18.4% of white Baptists and 21.8% of Irish Protestants—the principal ethnic group that settled the South—had obtained college degrees, compared to a national average of 30.1%, a Jewish average of 73.3%, and an average among those of Chinese and Indian descent of 61.9%.

Policy makers ignored such disparities within America's white cultures when, in advancing minority diversity programs, they treated whites as a fungible monolith.

Also lost on these policy makers were the differences in economic and educational attainment among nonwhite cultures. Thus nonwhite groups received special consideration in a wide variety of areas including business startups, academic admissions, job promotions and lucrative government contracts.

Where should we go from here? Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end.

When the Dems pull out the race card, they’re as good as saying, “We don’t care about employing ad hominems against you, we don’t care about making an accusation that associates you willy-nilly with the Nazis, we’re fighting with gloves off.” That’s the game, and up to now what have conservatives been doing but protesting it.

I say we stop protesting it. I say we join ‘em. Let’s not care about employing ad hominems either. Let’s take off the gloves.

I propose that each time a liberal calls a conservative, “racist,” answer back by calling him or her, “Marxist traitor.” In fact, in a lot of cases it totally true, and in the other cases it’s not far off (courtesy of the Mainstream Media, nearly all of today’s leftists hold Marxist opinions even if they don’t call themselves Marxists).

The lib will say, “Marxist traitor?! That’s over the top!” The reply should be, “And calling me a racist isn’t?”

Gloves off. For every “Racist!” raise them a “Marxist traitor!” Race Card trumped by the Red Card. On and on, relentlessly, until they get the idea and stop. If they have no problem associating us with the Nazis, let us have no problem associating them with the ideology that murdered a hundred million. Tit for tat, no wide berth given, no benefit of doubt to those who have fouled up the political debate beyond all recognition with their unrestrained use of the race card.

Yes, that is always the lie liberals never seem to answer. Islamists don’t give a damn about any other law EXCEPT Sharia law.

The sooner the Europeans understand that, the sooner they will be able to totally ban this horrific practice of forcing women to look like sacks of potatoes. British liberals also never seen to answer the question of how misogyny and allowing women to be used as chattel actually helps their “civil rights” and why either of these loathsome practices should be allowed in a free society.

But liberals today always use the same tactics. If you disagree with them, you’re simply guilty of “Islamophobia” or “racism.” Sadly, the same tactic is used here in the United States.

Disagree with Obama on ANYTHING and you are a racist. You want Obama to stop spending us into oblivion? You must be a racist. You want Obama to stop his socialist takeover of health care and other industries (like the banking industry), well then you MUST be a heartless racist, not wanting all those poor people and minorities to be on the pbulic dole. You want Obama to actually reduce the size of our bloated and out-of-control Federal government? Well then you’re a racist for not wanting to create even MORE government jobs for even MORE Americans. Concerned about reducing the size of the military? You’re a racist because you’re taking “vital” funds away from needed social welfare programs.

You can see where this is going. Shut up any opposition by simply calling them racists. And the liberal left wonders why they’re hated so much today by most Americans.

By contantly calling people “racists,” they have now cheapened the term where people don’t believe, let alone take note of it, anymore. They simply ignore the accusations and move on. That’s why this current flap with that woman at the Department of Agriculture was mostly a firestorm within the Federal government and the media. Most Americans really didn’t care and are (rightfully so) concerned mostly with jobs and the economy.

Acceptance of the burqa means acceptance of Sharia law, or Islamic jurisprudence and “custom.” So, it isn’t just a matter of some hare-brained woman’s alleged “right” to wear it in public.

Sharia law and Western concepts of rights cannot coexist; one must defer to the other. They are antithetical. Islamists full well know this and exploit it to the maximum; most of our politicians do not know it or evade the knowledge. They are beholden to multiculturalism and dare not make distinctions between Western and Islamic ideas.

Banning the burqa, however, is a feeble means of addressing the philosophical conflict between Western culture and the non-culture of Islam.

I was a Woodstock child, a Kent State victim, an advocate for honest government, and a political hopeful. After my home was torched by the liberal encombant government in a town I lived in,(many now in jail), I realized that the fight for our liberty is real.

Progressives have taken over many small cities and towns and have literally bankrupted the local governments, destroyed small businesses, and overtaxed the working citizen. When I listen to Mr. Beck I am encouraged that the restoration of America can be achieved.

When the majority of citizens start voting with their brains and truthful information rather than voting for a party line, or treating their vote like they were answering a multiple choice question and taking a wild guess as to the unknown name on the ballot, then liberty will be restored for our children.

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.

Quote of the Day

Virtue and decency are so nearly related that it is difficult to separate them from each other but in our imagination.

Watch out Charlie – the worm is about to turn and investigations into your activities may get placed on the front burner – IF the Repubs have any cahones – something they’ve not demonstrated (not advocating exposure!) much in the past.

They know what’sbest for GM…Chrysler…Wall Street..and you and me?

How can the president of a major nation and society, the one with the most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about business when he’s never worked for one?

Or about jobs when he has never really had one? And neither has 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers!

It’s very similar to wanting (somehow) to have cheap high quality immediate “universal” health care by government fiat. Or thinking that banning guns will somehow change the character of the bad guys and stop crime. Or saying, “I’ll kick some ass” and somehow stopping an oil spill.

Parallel to the economic error, such projects look only at the immediately visible effects, not the whole picture.

They can’t actually create power economically. Because of clouds and seasonal variations, all solar power plants require backup from other sources, such as coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants. That’s solving the problem twice, increasing the costs. And that doesn’t even count the still woefully low efficiency of current solar technology, technology no one yet knows how to radically improve.

No problem, according to the postmodernist. Just pretend. Pretend hard enough and circumstances will comply.

No need to feel constrained any longer by objective reality; there’s no such thing. There are only different perspectives. Just wish upon a star and your dreams can come true.

Spot a contradiction in the plan? Just take a “wider perspective” and all contradictions vanish in the haze of “competing narratives.” Hegel’s philosophy has been Disneyfied by Dewey’s followers and the resultant over-made up hag is ravaging American energy policy.

It would be bad enough for the federal government to subsidize the construction of solar power projects if they worked. It would still be an inefficient use of resources; it would still exceed its constitutionally enumerated powers; it would still be an immoral redistribution of wealth to politically connected companies. But at least in that case American taxpayers — somewhere — might get a Hoover Dam out of the deal. In this instance, that’s simply impossible.

There is no known solar technology that can reliably deliver large-scale power in a cost-effective way. There is nothing even in the research stages that promises that result anytime soon, if we just throw enough R&D money at the right company. This is nothing less than a sheer waste of public funds to create a mere appearance, a chimera to satisfy the vanity of a powerful Green demagogue longing to appear visionary.

A survey of terrorists by former CIA case officer Marc Sageman found that “80 percent were, in some way, totally excluded from the society they lived in.” The rioters may be more motivated by a belief that they are being persecuted on the basis of their religion or ethnicity and a desire to self-govern than by radical Islam, but the lack of assimilation will also breed extremism.

In the United Kingdom, pro-terrorist gangs are forming in such areas and that is a trend that will come to France if it has not already.

Al-Qaeda and other forces hostile to the French government and police can be counted on to try to paint France’s ban on the wearing of the burqa and niqab as an act of oppression, even if few actually wore them. If the past is any indication, this line will be bought by those who have violently reacted to any potential police action with a knee-jerk belief that it is ill-intentioned and abusive.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, based in Algeria, threatened to retaliate when the ban was first being discussed. A Muslim group called “Sheikh Yassin,” in honor of the Hamas founder killed by the Israelis, rioted at a debate about the ban in May. Islamist forces are undoubtedly looking at violent opposition to governing authorities in the “sensitive urban zones” as an opportunity.

The birthright law was intended to apply to recently freed slaves, and you know it. Republicans would be right to go after this issue in any way they can.

You call it “playing with dynamite” because you promulgate the tired old narrative that they’re going to risk losing that mythical “Hispanic vote”. Here’s an even better idea! The Republicans should just become Democrats, then they’d -really- attract the Hispanic vote!

And we’re obsessed with a low-level manager at the Department of Agriculture getting fired over race? Have we all gone nuts? Trust me, there are a lot, and I mean A LOT, more important things to worry about in the world today.

But if you want to obsess about race, think of Egypt. The northern Egyptians really hate the southern Egyptians and this hatred has gone back about, oh, 2,000 years. And they still hate each other to this day. And you think WE have problems?

Many mosques foment radicalism. Islam has been very successful over its history in using host country’s (western) classic liberlism to get a foothold then demand its own rules.

In northern Virginia where I used to live two mosques/schools within five miles of me and my family were implicated in supporting terrorism.

The only religions open to attack, contempt and cartoons are ones in which Jesus is featured.

No matter how insane, and dangerous and utterly unlike a real religion Islam is at its very core, we cannot criticize it, in and of itself, only certain players who obviously haven’t seem to have gotten the RoP message.

Health control advocates won’t stop with ObamaCare (HR 3590). “Once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Whether health control supporters demand that all policies include certain benefits or that everyone must buy government-approved insurance or something like “Medicare for all,” the policies don’t follow from the alleged justifications for them. But they do follow from one motive: charity at gunpoint.

Taxes would go down for anyone making under $250,000 a year. “Too big to fail” was to be a thing of the past. Our nation was to become post-racial by the long-awaited election of a black man to the White House. And so it goes.

By allowing illegal aliens to enter the country and work they become a permanent source of cheap labor that undercuts the ability of poor Americans to earn a living, and allow dishonest employers to gain an unfair advantage over honest employers.

When politicians claim they want a comprehensive bill to solve the problem it is a lie. Remember they did this before when Regan was President and they lied then and are doing so again.

This is a blatant attempt to buy votes and saddle the tax payers with an immense bill to pay for social services to a group of people, most of whom will never earn enough money to PAY income tax.

I don’t mean have money withheld, I mean that at on April 15 the IRS keeps the money.

This is another attempt to buy voters by a mostly dishonest Congress at the expense opf the tax payers and the new underclass that this will create.

We've managed peaceful process for most of our 222 years as a nation, except for a bit of unpleasantness back in the 1860s.

We have watched for the last year and a half, the increasing distancing of the policy makers from the national will. One need not be driven by polls in policy making, but one must at least acknowledge the arguments put forth by the electorate. When the controlling government ignores the will of the people, fails to convince of the correctness of their choices and blatantly seizes the liberties of the nation for their own benefit, it is inevitable that consent will erode.

Gallup is a landmark in the public opinion measurement industry. Their methodology is sound and their numbers are verifiable.

Congress Now at Record Low Confidence Level

To stop health care exploitation we must address the root issue: the nature of rights and the purpose of government.

Health care is not a right. Rights are freedoms of action, not entitlements to what others produce.

Obama and Eric Holder need to do their jobs in a race-neutral, color-blind way. That is their sworn responsibility, which both have shirked. We don't need lectures from a deeply ignorant, angry man of African (not African-American) descent who doesn't even know his country's history. Deeply ignorant, arrogant, and unable to feel empathy for others (expecially during a deep recession) is a recipe for a disastrous presidency.

Racism is ugly, but Obama seems bound and determined to use it for his own cynical, political ends. What else would you expect from an Alinsky-trained community organizer? That's what community organizers do: pit one citizen against another.

There’s lots more, on UN internal power struggles, Ban compromising the integrity of the UN’s anti-corruption arrangements and whatnot. But you get the idea. The question now is, will anyone do anything about it?

Don’t bet on the Obama administration stepping up to the plate. At the U.S. Mission to the UN, headed by Ambassador Susan Rice, the Obama administration has not yet filled the post of envoy for UN Management and Reform.

For the past 18 months, this slot has been filled by an acting representative — a clear message to the UN that for Washington, which provides roughly one-quarter of the UN’s entire budget, oversight of what the UN does with such resources is a very low priority.

As for the “deplorable” Ban Ki-Moon — he availed himself of the considerable public relations machinery within his office (almost one-quarter of it funded, of course, by U.S. taxpayers) to send Lynch a 6-page reply, also linked in Lynch’s piece. It was signed by Ban’s chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, who described Ban as having provided “genuine visionary leadership on important isses,” and noted that “We are living in a dramatically changing, constantly evolving world.”

But the reversal of the payout to Chrysler creditors, the absorption of large insolvent private companies, and the promises for intrusive cap-and-trade energy legislation only seem to confirm that the president has no understanding of the historical role of entrepreneurship and businesses in creating the sort of wealth that he takes for granted can be redistributed.

Obama, past and present, seems always to talk of how someone else’s money should be spent, dispersed, and redistributed, but never to worry about how it can be made in the first place.

So, fairly or not, when the president talks, business people do not gain confidence that he knows, or cares, much about them or what they do. If he thinks even surgeons are greedy profiteers, who then escapes presidential disdain?

Third, the real worry is not for 2010 — after all, few revolutionaries create their utopias in a mere 18 months — but for the years to come, for which business people must right now schedule purchases, hire, and in general gamble that their investments will pay off when the boom returns.

But two things have changed:
1) The money has run out
2) The Country Class is beginning to realize that the Left will -never- be satisfied until the US is “fundamentally transformed”, in the words of BHO.

To quote this excellent article, “The country class sees the ruling class as the a**holes who won’t let them live their lives freely.” and sees the Ruling Class’s attempts to better them “as a desire to enslave them.”

The cultural elite typically perceives themselves as caring, generous, fair, free-spirited, intellectually superior and open-minded. They believe they are an elite, and they disdain those they believe do not possess their qualities. They derive pleasure from these convictions.

Liberals instinctively avoid facts or logic that threaten their feelings of moral superiority. They become evasive and emotional when the flawed logic of their political philosophy is seriously challenged. They resort to rhetorical tricks like anecdotal evidence, ad hominem attack, slogans, changing the subject or dramatic appeals to emotion. Dr. Hanson characterizes this as dishonesty. Perhaps so, but often they sincerely believe their wrong-headed convictions.

Liberals instinctively base thought and action on emotion instead of logical discrimination because an emotional response not only feels better; it is easier than a logical response. To discriminate honestly and fairly requires fact checking and intellectual discipline. Addressing the world’s complex problems requires knowledge and understanding of economics, science, risk assessment and math. Logical rigor is work, and it can be unpleasant, especially when it conflicts with what makes you feel good about yourself. The liberal elite prefer decisions and action based on emotion because gratification comes sooner and more easily.

Most liberal policies involving technology, economics and the environment rest on bedrock of emotion, junk economics and junk science. Nowhere is this more apparent than their belief that human activity is causing dangerous global warming. Anthropogenic global warming is a weakly substantiated theory at best, but liberals present it as scientific fact and advocate draconian solutions to combat it. Conveniently, their solutions require exercising long-standing liberal initiatives like more taxation and government. In character, instead of engaging in serious logical consideration of opposing data and theories, liberals quickly tag scientists skeptical of global warming as crackpots or evil and suppress their arguments. It is easier. It feels better.

The liberal elite are often morally corrupt as well as intellectually lazy. Unfortunately millions of well-intentioned Americans share their convictions. The innocent liberal often sincerely believes liberal precepts. The less innocent are dependent upon liberal generosity with other people’s money.

These people are as they are precisely because they have not had to deal with reality. They are victims of our nation’s economic and material success. They receive all of the benefits that affluence bestows, without ever having to manifest any of the virtues that made that affluence possible in the first place.

Our nation is DOOMED because our culture has decayed from within. Character is destiny, and the character of a nation is its culture.

Even more significantly, these and other products of Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses empower countless boards and commissions arbitrarily to protect some persons and companies, while ruining others.

Thus in 2008 the Republican administration first bailed out Bear Stearns, then let Lehman Brothers sink in the ensuing panic, but then rescued Goldman Sachs by infusing cash into its principal debtor, AIG.

Then, its Democratic successor used similarly naked discretionary power (and money appropriated for another purpose) to give major stakes in the auto industry to labor unions that support it.

However, I do not share her optimism about the GOP given its track record of continuous expansion of government into the daily lives and work of ordinary citizens.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., sharpened the focus by asking the CBO director: "What's going to be necessary (is) either a 25% increase in taxes or a 20% reduction in spending, or some combination thereof. Is that correct?" Elmendorf replied "yes."

Statists are less interested in persuasion now than they are in just raw power — they are through trying to recruit those who disagree and have decided the best step is to first blame them for societies ills and then to bull-doze those who don’t leave the public square.

In contrast, it’s interesting to note the blend in sources such as Scripture: Paul was well-read, educated, spoke multiple languages and was a tent-maker, a decidedly blue-collar (i.e., non-scholar) job; Amos spoke to the King and was a goat herder from down South; Hosea married a prostitute; David was a keeper of sheep, a musician, an army vet, a King and a poet, married to (though not uniquely) the wife of a local vineyard owner, and on.

That question is: what intellectual or moral defect makes a person susceptible to the socially suicidal cancer embodied in the internally inconsistent premises and tenets of statism? Specifically, what is the common denominator – extant across history and varying cultures – that allows a given individual to be deluded into believing that equality of outcome can ever be legislated?

Surely this question is something we can study scientifically, since there are vast numbers of individual human beings – in every culture – who, at varying points along the continuum of their own human development, either buy into or reject the addled notions peddled by the likes of Obama, Marx, and Mao.

As Levin and others recognize, the main battleground between the competing philosophies of conservatism and statism is now the United States.

The Statist, however, as has been often pointed out, most recently by Levin, is preoccupied not with liberty but with equality. “In his war against the individual, the free market and ultimately the civil society,” Levin writes, the “Statist must claim the power to make that which is unequal equal and that which is imperfect perfect.” The problem is that the Statist is interested not only in equality of opportunity, to which no reasonable person could object (assuming that opportunity is not manipulated to favor one class of persons over another, as, for example, affirmative action), but in equality of outcome, which sanctions the massive interventions of the state into the private domain.

Like a fraternity, this class requires above all comity -- being in with the right people, giving the required signs that one is on the right side, and joining in despising the Outs.

Sen. Orrin Hatch continued dreaming of being Ted Kennedy, while Lindsey Graham set aside what is true or false about "global warming" for the sake of getting on the right side of history.

No prominent Republican challenged the ruling class's continued claim of superior insight, nor its denigration of the American people as irritable children who must learn their place.

Reason, facts, logic, the Rule of Law and the Constitution – mere obstacles to be overcome on the way to absolute rule. Look up Antonio Gramsci – then you’ll acquire some notion as to how these monsters operate – and where they plan to take us. Recall this from Orwell’s 1984? Orwell understood that mentality perfectly:

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.

Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.

What pure power means you will understand presently.

We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.

The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods,but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.

We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

Power is not a means; it is an end.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

The object of persecution is persecution.

The object of torture is torture.

The object of power is power”.
-George Orwell – 1984

What’s coming? I’m not sure. I have some notions, and I’ll expand on them one of these days, but Jonah, you do have this one insight correct: Something is happening here, and almost nobody knows what it is, do they, Mr. Jones?

Certainly not the Ancien Regime; Glenn Reynolds links to blogger C.J. Burch, who spots this similarity between today and a century ago:

“In the days before World War I all of the Princes of Europe, all its nobles, all its educated and cultural elites saw a storm on the horizon. A storm that could lay all they had built low. Yet not one of them, not one, could muster the strength or the courage to do anything other than what they had always done before and what had brought them all to the brink of disaster.”

In a brief defending the [Obamacare] law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.

Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

“The Commerce Clause supplies sufficient authority for the shared-responsibility requirements in the new health reform law,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “To the extent that there is any question of additional authority — and we don’t believe there is — it would be available through the General Welfare Clause.”

Open borders.

Mandatory Universal Healthcare.

Two Supreme Court appointments and counting, in less than 19 months.

Finance Services Reform.

A one color only Justice Department.

Takeover of auto companies, insurance companies, financial institutions etc.

Outright lies, “on Cspan”.

Buying votes of Senators.

Apologising for the United States of America in front of despots around the world.

Not bad for a year and a half by a guy that will if he tries be “impeached.”

What are we waiting for? He’s guilty. When will the trial take place?

Additionally, the Republicans (far more than the Democrats) have had to contend with the distractions of the Tea Partiers, whose candidates have the potential to steal away the conservative voters on which the Republicans rely so heavily.

A recent Gallup poll highlighted the steep overlap between the Tea Partiers and the Republican base.

Obama is down, but it's very early in the play. Like Reagan, he came here to do things. And he's done much in his first 500 days. What he has left to do he knows must await his next 500 days -- those that come after reelection.

The left might want US out for their reasons but a lot of the country wants US out for reasons that are becoming too obvious.

When we do not secure the borders, when we have the “enemy” bowing the Mecca in the middle of Manhattan and building citadels of conquest near sacred ground, and we are doing nothing but using our blood and treasure to nation build, any sane person would realize that this is far different than our actions in the 1940’s.

We are shedding blood thousands of miles away on foreign soil but we allow practitioners of the religion of HATE to infiltrate and slowly conquer? It doesn’t pass the smell test.

To make the comparison is an insult to the sensibilities of many. What angers many is that this is NOT a war. It is something else entirely pretending to be a war, with many of our young people being slaughtered needlessly.

I normally agree with most of your columns but this one has to stand apart. The culture of the “country” we are “fighting” in right now is far different than those of our former enemies. And there is not ONE LIFE IN AFGHANISTAN THAT IS WORTH THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN.

The reason why support is disintegrating for the war in Afghanistan is because nobody has explained to the American public what our goal there is. What is the end game in that country? Obama and the military say it’s to defeat the Taliban. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean we fight for another 20 or 30 years until this generation of Taliban fighters dies out and then their children simply give up? Because if you expect religious zealots like the Taliban to simply give up, you know nothing about Muslim jihadits, let alone the culture of the people in that country. These people hold grudges for centuries and the only thing they have to hold on to in their pathetic little lives is the Islam and their tribes. So if Allah and the local tribal chief tell them to keep fighting, they keep fighting until somebody kills them.

And what about al Qaeda? The primary reason for invading Afghanistan was to defeat al Qaeda, NOT the Taliban. If al Qaeda simply moves to Pakistan and lets the Taliban keep fighting in Afghanistan, is it our mission then to fight them in both Pakistan AND Afghanistan? Talk about an endless war.

I’ve said it many times before on this web site. We should have gone into Afghanistan like the British General Lord Roberts of Kandahar did over 100 years ago. Our mission should have been what was called a “Punitive Expedition,” where we went into that country, killed as many of the Taliban and al Qaeda as possible, put in a provisional government friendly to the United States, and then left. If the Taliban came back into power, you invade again, doing the same thing, only killing more of them. These mini-invasions are still a lot cheaper in terms of blood and treasure than it is to occupy the entire country forever.

Another option could be to maintain a large base in Afghanistan to prevent al Qaeda from taking over the country again. We have Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and for over 100 years now that base has served as a warning to the Cubans that if they cause America any problems, we have the option of invading them from there. It is a costly option, but one that seems to work well and it at least gives some stability to the region. But, even though we have a base at Guantanamo, we certainly do NOT have to run the entire country.

In times such as these, we need only to look at world history. The ancient civilizations of Persia and Greece come to mind. One might consider the history of the British or Roman Empires; Napoleonic France or Spain; also the dynasties of the Chinese and Japanese Emperors, along with the Egyptian Pharos, or the Mayans and Aztecs. All of these republics, empires and dynasties have fallen upon the dust heap of history. Do these once great societies have any meaning in our present day? Oh yes! Big time!

The study of these civilizations was the basis and foundation for our Constitutional Republic. Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams and all our founding fathers studied how these civilizations emerged, evolved and eventually failed. Our founders answered these rises and collapses of past civilizations with the Great American Experiment; The Constitution of the United States of America; our map for continuing success.

Our grand document is based on the creation, evolvement and failure of every civilization in history. It was conceived through the wisdom of all the grand thinkers in world history. (Thinkers and philosophers who knew that their history would be important to some future civilization and they were intelligent enough to write it down or carve it in stone) Our Constitution is a document written to preserve individual liberty and to organize a union of separate states, into a Federal Union; The United States of America.

Why do we now fail our Constitution? Why don’t we teach more of it in public and private schools? Why do politicians and judges say it’s outdated? The reality is that we are at the crossroads between the success or failure of our Constitutional Republic. This Great Document needs to be honored and cherished dearly.

Our Congress; the Senate and House of Representatives, is now failing us by passing legislation that they do not read before they vote on it’s passage. Our President is failing our country by signing this unread legislation into law. We might call this a failure of their Oath of Office. Or we might call it a failure of our national identity. Either way, we can not continue to exist as a nation under these failures in government.

Ancient Rome is a prime example. Senators of the Roman Republic sat in their Coliseum seats, along with the Roman Emperors. They watched as slaves fought gladiators and cheered for blood. They watched as Christians were eaten by lions while the minions screamed for more blood. Those Senators allowed the decline of the Roman Republic by their lack of concern, accession and decadence. Eventually, their appeasements to the Caesars contributed to the decline of the Republic and the Empire. All was lost as hoards of barbarians over-ran a militarily-over-extended, over-taxed, Roman Empire.

That barbarism was unmatched until the 20th century, when Marxist/Socialist/Communism overtook Russia and Eastern Europe, culminating in the deaths of 50 million human beings. All of them murdered and starved by a mentally ill, psychotic-paranoid, Joseph Stalin; along with his secret police.

Adolph Hitler murdered 6 million Jews. Joseph Stalin murdered 50 million of his own Soviet people. The German people were compliant with Hitler and the Soviets with Stalin. They followed those leaders to their graves. The Roman Senators were compliant with the Caesars. Rome fell, as all great civilizations did in time. None of those civilizations had a living Constitution: a map for success throughout the ages. Our nation has one and it’s high time our Congress and our President start abiding by it.

The failure to follow our Founding Fathers’ map has lead America down the wrong road; to the crossroads we find ourselves looking upon. A “fundamental change in America”, we do not need. What we do need, is to return to a “foundation based on our Constitution”. We should command the respect due to us and their Oath of Office, from all our elected officials in city, county, state and federal government. Only that respect to their Constitutional Oaths and to the People, will save this country from the dust heap of history. We, as a free Nation, still have the right to demand that of our elected representatives. This is the duty and the responsibility of every citizen in a Constitutional Republic. Demand it! Vote for it! Pass it on to everyone!!

If you are an American Patriot, then please, remember this on November 2, 2010. VOTE !

He later added, "(T)he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general.

Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." Two hundred years later, at least two-thirds of a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget is spent on charity or "objects of benevolence."

What would the founders think about our respect for democracy and majority rule? Here's what Thomas Jefferson said:

"The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society."

John Adams advised, "Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

These settlements may be especially relevant if aides who were allegedly abused by former Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) seek restitution. Massa resigned under allegations that he sexually harassed male staffers.

Quite often, the harassment cases, after a secretive mediation process, can land staffers retroactive raises, vacation time and cash payouts for their perceived pain and suffering.

For privacy reasons, the details of all these cases — including the names of the victims and the alleged harassers — are almost never made public.

Or maybe a hearing exam.

One day you progressive highwaymen, you ‘for the good of the majority’ wealth redistributionists, you champions, (and in your case I think denizen) of the dependent class, will put your hand in the producer’s pockets one time too many.

And it will be cut off.

The fact of the matter is that in order to give out all these compassionate-sounding goodies, all dressed up as “rights,” the government has to come to your house and steal your money before it can give it to poor old sick Darlene down the street. (And in the meantime the various “stakeholders” in the con game are making out — literally — like bandits.)

Little do they realize that their health care will cost more than they can afford; their unemployment benefits will lead to a subsistence life style; their free education will be entirely worthless because it will give them no knowledge or skills; their cities will not flourish but will rapidly change into third world jungles which many have already become;their culture will not be something to be proud of it but will become a trashy inhumane and ugly milieu.

“Rick Davis carries the most influence with John,” says a McCain intimate. “Salter’s on the outside.”

For while we have been bogged down in two wars, China has become the world's leading manufacturer, steelmaker, auto producer and exporter, and the second largest economy on earth.

Nevertheless, we are ever admonished, we must not flag or fail in our pursuit of global democracy, for only when the world is democratic will our providential mission be accomplished. And only then can we be truly secure.