Obamacare, Tribal Law & "Judicial Activism"

It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place. If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be ““difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power" . . . and we would have a Constitution in name only. Surely this is not what the Founding Fathers could have intended.

Judge Roger Vinson, Order Granting Summary Judgment, Fla. v. Dept. of HHS, 31 Jan. 2011

I concur with Judge Vinson's decision completely. There is no question that, at the time of the founding, the Commerce Clause was designed solely to prevent trade barriers being erected between the states. Judge Vinson pointed out in his decision that the Supreme Court deviated from the original intent of the drafters by vastly expanding the powers of Congress under the Commerce Clause during the New Deal. But even that expansion has not been unlimited and the Court has never ruled that the Commerce Clause gives the government the power to proactively force people to take actions as a mere consequence of citizenship.

Lawrence Tribe begs to disagree with Judge Vinson in a NYT op-ed. Tribe dismisses Judge Vinson's reasoning out of hand, disingenuously calling the difference between "activity" and "inactivity" a distinction without a difference. He further opines that any claim that Obamacare is unconstitutional is purely partisan politics. Ann Althouse, herself a law professor, has a field day with Tribe's op-ed.

Tribe is very much of the "living Constitution" school, arguing that the Supreme Court justices are free to amend the Constitution per their whim as the "need" arises - and the need always arises when the left wants it to. Think Roe, Boumediene, Perry v. Schwarzanegger. The blogger at Marginal Revolution, responding to Tribe, makes a tongue in cheek argument that the living Constitution could well be used to support the right in this scenario:

“What Tribe forgets is that the constitution is a living document. The constitution’s meaning is not fixed by the New Deal. The constitution evolves to meet the needs of the people in the here and now. Tribe’s interpretation of the commerce clause, which may have been appropriate for the age of steel and iron, is not necessarily right for the age of genes and bytes. We are fortunate, the constitution lives.”

Heh. Perhaps we originalists should be pondering a doctrinal shift.

On a related note, Thomas Sowell does an excellent job of explaining how the left, fully in the spirit of Orwell, is redefining the term "judicial activism"

. . . The new definition of “judicial activism” defines it as declaring laws unconstitutional.

It is a simpler, easily quantifiable definition. You don’t need to ask whether Congress exceeded its authority under the Constitution. That key question can be sidestepped by simply calling the judge a “judicial activist.”

A judge who lets politicians do whatever they want, whether or not it violates the Constitution, never has to worry about being called a judicial activist by the Left or by most of the media. But the rest of us have to worry about what is going to happen to this country if politicians can get away with ignoring the Constitution. . . .

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Obama's Claim: "I Didn't Raise Taxes, I Lowered Them"

Adolf Hitler once said "The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." Who knew Obama studied the wit and wisdom of der Furher. But that apparently is the case. Exhibit one, his claim in an interview on Sunday with O'Reilly - "I didn't raise taxes; I lowered them over the past two years." Lolllll. This joker must think we live in an alternative universe where the Lincoln hypothesis - that you can't fool all of the people all of the time - doesn't apply.

Obama's problem is that what may have been true in 1935 is not true in 2011, when there are a huge pool of people sitting at their keyboards with access to the internt. This from the WSJ:

. . . Perhaps Mr. Obama has forgotten some of his tax achievements. Allow us to refresh his memory. In his historic health-care bill, for example, there is the new $27 billion "fee" on drug companies that is already in effect. Next year, device manufacturers will get hit to the tune of $20 billion, and heath insurers will pay $60 billion starting in 2014—all of which are de facto tax increases because these collections will be passed on to consumers as higher costs. Of course, these are merely tax increases on business.

As for tax increases on individuals, perhaps he forgot the health-care bill's new 0.9 percentage point increase in the Medicare payroll tax for families making over $250,000 and singles over $200,000. That tax increase takes effect in 2013, as will the application of what will be a 3.8% Medicare surtax (up from 2.9% today) to "unearned income" for the first time. This is a tax hike on investment and interest income, which will reduce the incentive to save and invest.

Mr. Obama also told Mr. O'Reilly that he hasn't moved to the "center" since November's Democratic election defeat, saying "I'm the same guy." Save for a couple of tactical retreats that he couldn't avoid, we agree with him. As the President said recently in the State of the Union, he's going to insist on raising taxes again on people making over $200,000 when his deal with Republicans in Congress expires in 2012. Definitely the same guy.

And then there is this from the Americans For Tax Relief:

ATR says the $1 trillion health care overhaul alone added numerous taxes, including the individual mandate that requires most Americans to purchase health insurance or else pay a fine.

During the legislative debate, Obama and Democrats in Congress argued that a penalty for not carrying insurance is not a tax. But in recent attempts to defend Obamacare as constitutional, the Obama Justice Department has called the penalty a tax.

The health care law’s employer mandate provision also should be considered a tax, ATR said. That provision requires companies to report all business-to-business sales of goods and services exceeding $600 to the Internal Revenue Service. In a bipartisan vote, the Senate recently voted to repeal the so-called 1099 provision, and Obama says he supports the repeal.

The health care law also includes a tax on medical device manufacturers, as well as a higher tax on withdrawals from health savings accounts and a cap on flexible spending accounts.

Other taxes in the health care law cited by ATR include a surtax on investment income, an excise tax on comprehensive health insurance plans, a hike the in the Medicare payroll tax and a tax on indoor tanning services. (See complete list)

On Feb. 4, 2009, Obama signed a federal tobacco tax hike, raising the excise tax 62 cents per pack. Critics, including ATR, said that tax alone violated Obama’s campaign pledge not to raise taxes on couples earning less than $250,000 and on individuals earning less than $200,000.

During Sunday’s interview, Bill O’Reilly asked Obama if he is “a man who wants to redistribute wealth,” as The Wall Street Journal has described him.

The president denied it, again saying, “I didn't raise taxes once; I lowered taxes over the last two years.”

Responding on Monday, ATR said Obama’s claim of being a net-tax-cutter “rests on the temporary tax relief he has signed into law. “That tax increases Obama has signed into law have invariably been permanent. In fact, Obama signed into law $7 in permanent tax hikes for every $1 in permanent tax cuts,” ATR said.

“Over 90 percent of the dollar value of the tax cuts Obama signed into law are only temporary,” said ATR. “100 percent of the tax increases Obama signed into law are, however, permanent … Permanent changes to tax law signed by Obama amount to a net tax hike of $618.7 billion.

Obama is shameless. As Harry Truman once said of Richard Nixon

[He] is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.

I think that could equally be said about Obama today.

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Academia, Left-Wing Bias & The Newest Victim Class

John Tierney, writing in the Science section of the NYT, has made a discovery of immense proportions. The newest left-wing victim class among card carrying social scientists is . . . . conservatives. Heh. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to play my victim card to cut short the next leftie diatribe. "Hey, Jesse Jackson, shut up you hate spewing conservativphobe!!!"

This from Mr. Tierney at the NYT:

Some of the world’s pre-eminent experts on bias discovered an unexpected form of it at their annual meeting.

Discrimination is always high on the agenda at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s conference, where psychologists discuss their research on racial prejudice, homophobia, sexism, stereotype threat and unconscious bias against minorities. But the most talked-about speech at this year’s meeting, which ended Jan. 30, involved a new “outgroup.”

It was identified by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia who studies the intuitive foundations of morality and ideology. He polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

“This is a statistically impossible lack of diversity,” Dr. Haidt concluded, noting polls showing that 40 percent of Americans are conservative and 20 percent are liberal. . . .

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

Tierney points out that the left vastly outnumber conservaives throughout much of academia - "six to one among the general faculty, and by higher ratios in the humanities and social sciences." In the social sciences though, those numbers become exponentially more lopsided. So how did this come about and what is the net effect:

In his speech and in an interview, Dr. Haidt argued that social psychologists are a “tribal-moral community” united by “sacred values” that hinder research and damage their credibility — and blind them to the hostile climate they’ve created for non-liberals. . . .

The fields of psychology, sociology and anthropology have long attracted liberals, but they became more exclusive after the 1960s, according to Dr. Haidt. “The fight for civil rights and against racism became the sacred cause unifying the left throughout American society, and within the academy,” he said, arguing that this shared morality both “binds and blinds.”

“If a group circles around sacred values, they will evolve into a tribal-moral community,” he said. “They’ll embrace science whenever it supports their sacred values, but they’ll ditch it or distort it as soon as it threatens a sacred value.” It’s easy for social scientists to observe this process in other communities, like the fundamentalist Christians who embrace “intelligent design” while rejecting Darwinism. But academics can be selective, too, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan found in 1965 when he warned about the rise of unmarried parenthood and welfare dependency among blacks — violating the taboo against criticizing victims of racism.

“Moynihan was shunned by many of his colleagues at Harvard as racist,” Dr. Haidt said. “Open-minded inquiry into the problems of the black family was shut down for decades, precisely the decades in which it was most urgently needed. Only in the last few years have liberal sociologists begun to acknowledge that Moynihan was right all along.”

Similarly, Larry Summers, then president of Harvard, was ostracized in 2005 for wondering publicly whether the preponderance of male professors in some top math and science departments might be due partly to the larger variance in I.Q. scores among men (meaning there are more men at the very high and very low ends). “This was not a permissible hypothesis,” Dr. Haidt said. “It blamed the victims rather than the powerful. The outrage ultimately led to his resignation. We psychologists should have been outraged by the outrage. We should have defended his right to think freely.”

Instead, the taboo against discussing sex differences was reinforced, so universities and the National Science Foundation went on spending tens of millions of dollars on research and programs based on the assumption that female scientists faced discrimination and various forms of unconscious bias. . . . . After reviewing two decades of research, they report that a woman in academic science typically fares as well as, if not better than, a comparable man when it comes to being interviewed, hired, promoted, financed and published.

“Thus,” they conclude, “the ongoing focus on sex discrimination in reviewing, interviewing and hiring represents costly, misplaced effort. Society is engaged in the present in solving problems of the past.” . . .

So what is the perscription of Dr. Haidt to solving this conundrum: Step one, all social psychologists should start reading the National Review and Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions.” Fair enough, I concur. Step two, "a new affirmative-action goal: a membership that’s 10 percent conservative by 2020." Lolll. Spare me. At this point, I doubt that "affirmative action" is an effective way to cure anything. The real cures are, one, to punish those in the community that try to silence alternative thought, as happened with Larry Summers or Patrick Moynihan, by playing the victim card. Two is to require researchers to look below the numbers to see if there is actual '-ism' at work in any numerical disparities. The rest will take care of itself, particularly as the "race card" loses all of its legitimacy in America - and that is what I believe is happening.

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Geert Wilders: "The lights are going out all over Europe"

This is the text of Geert Wilders opening statement at his trial in the Netherlands for "hate speech" against Muslims. It is a thorough denunciation of multiculturalism, hate speech laws and the suicidal partnership of the Western leftist elite with the Islamists:

The lights are going out all over Europe. All over the continent where our culture flourished and where man created freedom, prosperity and civilization. The foundation of the West is under attack everywhere.

All over Europe the elites are acting as the protectors of an ideology that has been bent on destroying us for fourteen centuries. An ideology that has sprung from the desert and that can produce only deserts because it does not give people freedom. The Islamic Mozart, the Islamic Gerard Reve [a Dutch author], the Islamic Bill Gates; they do not exist because without freedom there is no creativity. The ideology of Islam is especially noted for killing and oppression and can only produce societies that are backward and impoverished. Surprisingly, the elites do not want to hear any criticism of this ideology.

My trial is not an isolated incident. Only fools believe it is. All over Europe multicultural elites are waging total war against their populations. Their goal is to continue the strategy of mass immigration, which will ultimately result in an Islamic Europe — a Europe without freedom: Eurabia.

The lights are going out all over Europe. Anyone who thinks or speaks individually is at risk. Freedom-loving citizens who criticize Islam, or even merely suggest that there is a relationship between Islam and crime or honour killing, must suffer, and are threatened or criminalized. Those who speak the truth are in danger.

The lights are going out allover Europe. Everywhere the Orwellian thought police are at work, on the lookout for thought crimes everywhere, casting the populace back within the confines where it is allowed to think.

This trial is not about me. It is about something much greater. Freedom of speech is not the property of those who happen to belong to the elites of a country. It is an inalienable right, the birthright of our people. For centuries battles have been fought for it, and now it is being sacrificed to please a totalitarian ideology.

Future generations will look back at this trial and wonder who was right. Who defended freedom and who wanted to get rid of it.

The lights are going out all over Europe. Our freedom is being restricted everywhere, so I repeat what I said here last year:

It is not only the privilege, but also the duty of free people — and hence also my duty as a member of the Dutch Parliament — to speak out against any ideology that threatens freedom. Hence it is a right and a duty to speak the truth about the evil ideology that is called Islam. I hope that freedom of speech will emerge triumphant from this trial. I hope not only that I shall be acquitted, but especially that freedom of speech will continue to exist in the Netherlands and in Europe.

(H/T Gates of Vienna and Crusader Rabbit)

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Islamism, Socialism, Freedom & The War Of Ideas

Former Navy Cdr. and present day Islamic reformer, M. Zhudi Jasser, has written an essay on the Muslim Brotherhood, socialism Islamic style, and the American left's insane embrace of Islamists. His most important points:

. . . The transformation we are witnessing in Egypt may get us to finally develop a long enough attention span to develop a long term strategy on the ground to counter the ideologies of Islamism and its Islamic socialism. Read about political Islam, shariah and the goals of Islamist groups. Engage Muslims on Islamism. If the United States is truly dedicated to the Freedom Agenda our soldiers are risking their lives for in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is time to begin to vigorously promote genuine free markets, property rights, and the universal inalienable rights of individuals endowed by their Creator as the only antidote to Islamic socialism domestically and abroad.

If we continue to stay out of the debate raging within the House of Islam, Islamism and its inherent Islamic socialism will march across Muslim majority countries starting now with Egypt. It is time for America and all liberty-loving people to clearly take sides in this civil war of ideas within the Muslim consciousness. It is time for us to lift up reformist Muslims who separate mosque and state and believe in western democracy over the illusion of the Islamic state and its inherent Islamic socialism.

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Kicking the Blue Dogs

How many times can you kick a blue dog before they go red? We are in the process of finding out.

The far left owns the Democrat Party - and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Pelosi and her ilk have nothing but disdain for "conservative" blue dog Democrats. According to Politico today:

There's been "no communication" this Congress between House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi . . . and members of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, one of its top members said Monday.

Rep. Heath Shuler (N.C.), who challenged Pelosi for the job of Democratic leader in the 112th Congress, suggested that Blue Dog Democrats feel shut out from the leadership in the House.

With that kind of pariah treatment, is it any wonder that Pelosi is the best friends Republicans have, at least in the south, where virtually all blue dogs are kennelled. Having jammed Obamacare down the blue dogs' throats, having shut them out of the creation of most of the major legislation, and now ignoring them, Crazy Nancy and company are kicking the blue dogs red. This from the LA Times today:

Conservative Democrats switch to GOP across the Deep South
Defections reflect the Democrats' drubbing in the midterm election and Republicans' consolidation of power in the South.

For Democrats, Ashley Bell was the kind of comer that a party builds a future on: A young African American lawyer, he served as president of the College Democrats of America, advised presidential candidate John Edwards and spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.

But after his party's midterm beat-down in November, Bell, a commissioner in northern Georgia's Hall County, jumped ship. He joined the Republicans.

Bell, 30, said he had serious issues with the healthcare law and believed that conservative "blue dog" Democrats in Congress who shared his values had been bullied into voting for it.

Bell's defection is one of dozens by state and local Democratic officials in the Deep South in recent months that underscore Republicans' continued consolidation of power in the region — a process that started with presidential politics but increasingly affects government down to the level of dogcatcher.

"I think the midterms showed you really can't be a conservative and be a member of the Democratic Party," Bell said.

Since the midterm election, 24 state senators and representatives have made the switch in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Texas.

In some cases, the ramifications have been profound: In Louisiana, defecting Democrats gave Republicans a majority in the state House for the first time since Reconstruction; in Alabama, they delivered the GOP a House supermajority. Republicans have 65 votes to the Democrats' 39, enough to pass constitutional amendments over Democratic opposition.

The trend continued through late January — when nine officials in Lamar County in northeastern Texas left the Democratic Party — and into last week, when Louisiana Atty. Gen. James D. "Buddy" Caldwell switched parties, leaving the GOP in control of every major state office in Baton Rouge. . . .

I have always thought the term "conservative democrat" to be an oxymoron in any event. That said, as Hot Air observes:

When Reagan won his two big victories, he did so with the support of what were called Reagan Democrats, especially in the South, who backed Reagan but stayed with the Democratic Party. Obama and Pelosi have done what even Reagan couldn’t do — convert Southern Democrats to the GOP.

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Clueless Obama Channels His Inner Marx

This from Obama's speech at the Chamber of Commerce the other day:

If we're fighting to reform the tax code and increase exports, the benefits cannot just translate into greater profits and bonuses for those at the top. They have to be shared by American workers, who need to know that opening markets will lift their standard of living as well as your bottom line," President Obama told the Chamber of Commerce on Monday morning.

Its Obama channeling his inner Marx.

Obama wants to rule by fiat what markets ultimately determine. The laws of supply and demand apply to jobs and wages also. If our economy is booming and employers have to compete for employees, what then happens to employee wages and benefits? Indeed, that history is the history of our nation. Free market capitalism has been the single greatest boon to mankind in history. Ask Milton Friedman.



On a related note, as Friedman also points out, government regulation creates monopolies, it does not create competition.



Obama will never be mistaken for a free market capitalist. To the contrary, his push of our nation into crony capitalism, picking winners and losers in the marketplace, can only hurt the "have nots" he claims to be championing.

Update: Given that small businesses create the most jobs in America and provide perhaps the most direct avenue to increasing wealth, it would seem that one of the focuses of Obama should be on removing barriers to small business creation. Instead, we are seeing a growth at the state level of big businesses partnering with government to limit competition. This from Hot Air:



And this from the WSJ:

Amid calls for shrinking government, lawmakers across the country are vowing to cut regulations that crimp economic growth. President Barack Obama recently said it's time to root out laws that "are just plain dumb."

Tell that to the cat groomers, tattoo artists, tree trimmers and about a dozen other specialists across the country who are clamoring for more rules governing small businesses.

They're asking to become state-licensed professionals, which would mean anyone wanting to be, say, a music therapist or a locksmith, would have to pay fees, apply for a license and in some cases, take classes and pass exams. The hope is that regulation will boost the prestige of their professions, provide oversight and protect consumers from shoddy work.

But economists—and workers shut out of fields by educational requirements or difficult exams—say licensing mostly serves as a form of protectionism, allowing veterans of the trade to box out competitors who might undercut them on price or offer new services.

"Occupations prefer to be licensed because they can restrict competition and obtain higher wages," said Morris Kleiner, a labor professor at the University of Minnesota. . . .

While some states have long required licensing for workers who handle food or touch others—caterers and hair stylists, for example—economists say such regulation is spreading to more states for more industries. The most recent study, from 2008, found 23% of U.S. workers were required to obtain state licenses, up from just 5% in 1950, according to data from Mr. Kleiner. In the mid-1980s, about 800 professions were licensed in at least one state. Today, at least 1,100 are, according to the Council on Licensure, Enforcement and Regulation, a trade group for regulatory bodies. Among the professions licensed by one or more states: florists, interior designers, private detectives, hearing-aid fitters, conveyor-belt operators and retailers of frozen desserts.

At a time of widespread anxiety about the growth of government, the licensing push is meeting pockets of resistance, including a move by some legislators to require a more rigorous cost-benefit analysis before any new licensing laws are approved. Critics say such regulation spawns huge bureaucracies including rosters of inspectors. They also say licensing requirements—which often include pricey educations—can prohibit low-income workers from breaking in to entry-level trades.

Texas, for instance, requires hair-salon "shampoo specialists" to take 150 hours of classes, 100 of them on the "theory and practice" of shampooing, before they can sit for a licensing exam. That consists of a written test and a 45-minute demonstration of skills such as draping the client with a clean cape and evenly distributing conditioner. Glass installers, or glaziers, in Connecticut—the only state that requires such workers to be licensed—take two exams, at $52 apiece, pay $300 in initial fees and $150 annually thereafter.

California requires barbers to study full-time for nearly a year, a curriculum that costs $12,000 at Arthur Borner's Barber College in Los Angeles. Mr. Borner says his graduates earn more than enough to recoup their tuition, though he questions the need for such a lengthy program. "Barbering is not rocket science," he said. "I don't think it takes 1,500 hours to learn. But that's what the state says." . . .

Mr. Kleiner, of the University of Minnesota, looked at census data covering several occupations that are regulated in some states but not others, including librarians, nutritionists and respiratory therapists. He found that employment growth in those professions was about 20% greater, on average, in the unregulated states between 1990 and 2000.

Licensing can also drive up costs to consumers. Licensed workers earn, on average, 15% more than their unlicensed counterparts in other states—a premium that may be reflected in their prices, according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and conducted by Mr. Kleiner and Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton University.

Mr. Kleiner estimates that across the U.S. economy, occupational licensing adds at least $116 billion a year to the cost of services, which amounts to about 0.1% of total consumer spending. In a look at dentistry, Mr. Kleiner found that the average price of dental services rose 11% when a state made it more difficult to get a dental license.

State regulators say licensing is vital to protect the health and safety of citizens, and industry experts generally agree that certain professions should be monitored. Inept or untrained electricians or tree-trimmers, for example, could put innocent bystanders in danger. Acupuncturists, tattoo artists and massage therapists can potentially inflict more direct harm.

However, in many service trades, licensure "is totally out of control," says Charles Wheelan, a lecturer in public policy at the University of Chicago. He says the marketplace might be a better judge than the government of whether a barber or a yoga instructor is competent. "It's fairly easy for you to tell whether you've gotten a bad haircut or not, and if quality turns out to be bad, it's not a big social problem," says Mr. Wheelan. . . .

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Happy 100th Birthday, Ron

Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, Republican National Convention, 1992 ((H/T Gay Patriot)

When Reagan took the helm in 1981, we were a nation in decline. Under the second most incompetent president of the past century, Jimmy Carter, stagflation - the combined totals of inflation (13.5%) and unemployment (7.2%) - topped 20%. America was being humiliated by Iran's Khomeini who was holding our embassy officials hostage. And the communist empire of the Soviet Union, then led by Leonid Brezhnev, posed the greatest threat to the West. On the day President Reagan left office eight years later, our economy was booming, the hostage crisis was a distant memory, and the Soviet Union was fatally hemmoraging. Communism was in retreat throughout its sattelites, and in particular in Poland. His was a most successful presidency.




Fred Thompson: What Set Reagan Apart

As we celebrate his centennial and observe politicians of all stripes trying to align themselves with Reagan’s legacy, we should remember what made Ronald Reagan such a compelling leader. When given a moment on the international stage, Reagan unfailingly proclaimed America as the beacon of hope for those who yearn for freedom.

John Heubusch @ PJM - Reagan's Foreign Policy Legacy

Few presidents have altered the trajectory of world affairs as dramatically as Ronald Reagan, whose Centennial America we celebrate on Feb. 6.

The year-long Centennial celebration is an opportunity to examine the legacy and lessons of our 40th president, who not only reversed the “malaise” mentality at home and revived American optimism, but also stared down totalitarians abroad and won the Cold War.

Hot Air - Happy Birthday, Mr. President

How many people today remember what it was like to live in a world of a divided Europe, a divided Germany, and a divided Berlin — where guards with guns shot people who wanted to get out rather than get in? “We come to Berlin,” Reagan told the crowd at Brandenburg Gate, “because it is our duty to speak at this place of freedom.” And it’s largely because of Ronald Wilson Reagan, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Lech Walesa that the Iron Curtain world died quietly in its sleep 21 years ago. Reagan and those stalwarts gave us a world where freedom and liberty triumphed over an “evil empire,” and the first step towards that victory was Reagan speaking plainly about its very nature rather than indulging in the pablum of moral relevancy that Reagan’s political opponents demanded.

Weekly Standard - Natan Sharansky Remembers Ronald Reagan

I have to laugh. People who take freedom for granted, Ronald Reagan for granted, always ask such questions. Of course! It was the great brilliant moment when we learned that Ronald Reagan had proclaimed the Soviet Union an Evil Empire before the entire world. There was a long list of all the Western leaders who had lined up to condemn the evil Reagan for daring to call the great Soviet Union an evil empire right next to the front-page story about this dangerous, terrible man who wanted to take the world back to the dark days of the Cold War. This was the moment. It was the brightest, most glorious day. Finally a spade had been called a spade. Finally, Orwell's Newspeak was dead. President Reagan had from that moment made it impossible for anyone in the West to continue closing their eyes to the real nature of the Soviet Union. . . .

Dr. Sanity - How Can You Not Love A Guy Like That

I vividly recall the day I met President Reagan almost exactly 20 years ago. It was one of the saddest days of my life. I was at the Johnson Space Center memorial service for the Challenger astronauts on the Friday after the Challenger accident. The President had come to JSC to honor the fallen crew and to heal the nation. . . .

Happy Birthday, Ron.

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Cameron & Multiculturalism

PM David Cameron attacked multiculturalism in Britain yesterday. Here are a portion of his remarks.



I applaud his raising this issue. Whether Cameron will be able to follow through and change the hold multiculturalism has on Britain is suspect.

Multiculturalism is a direct outgrowth of marxism. Karl Marx, in the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto, stated that "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles [between the] . . . oppressor and oppressed." And that defines the heart and the soul of the left to this day.

The left throughout Europe and America have taken the Marx paradigm and overlayed it upon society. The left divides society into "oppressed" groups by whatever sets them apart from the "oppressor" class, be it Muslims, women, blacks, gays, etc. The left treats the oppressed groups as entitled to special treatment and to freedom from judgment or criticism. Commonly, any criticism is delegitimized as a "racist" attack and the one speaking the criticism is demonized. The flip side of the left's marxist paradigm is that the "oppressor's" culture and history is demonized. This is, in a nutshell, is what actually defines "multiculturalism." It is and always was a tool to destroy traditional society, allowing it to then be rebuilt into a Marxian worker's paradise.

Britain has been on this multicultural path for decades in fits and starts, with it becoming core British policy under the Labour governments of PM Tony Blair and then PM Gordon Brown. It has, when applied to the triumphalist Islam that is pervasive in Britain's Muslim community, become a virulent toxin.

If Cameron is serious about attacking this cancer, then his task is daunting, for it has metastisized throughout British culture and is ensconced in British law. For just a few examples, see the following:

- an 80 yr old woman under attack for publishing her concerns with Islam in a Church newsetter.

- a discussion of Muslim no go areas, attacks on freedom of speech, and the degree of radicalism to be found amongst the Muslim population of Britain

- the problems of honor violence, forced marriages and female genital mutilation among the Muslim population in the UK

- a poll of 600 Muslim students attending university in Britain found that 32% of British Muslim students support killing for Islam and that 40% want to see Sharia Law imposed in Britain.

- any person or organization that takes a principled stand against the encroachment of Islam is inevitably demonized in Britain as "far right wing" and racist. Indeed, the treatment given such groups in Britain is even more vicious and pervasive than the treatment by the left of the Tea Party on this side of the pond. One such organization that figures prominently in the news reports below is the English Defense League. As to whether they are "far right wing," here is their website and below are two interviews with the head of the EDL. The EDL does not seem either racist or "far right wing" to me. They are standing up and saying, "no more." And that is driving the left crazy.

In the immediate aftermath of his speech condemning multiculturalism, Cameron was attacked by the left and by Muslims. This from the Guardian:

David Cameron was accused of playing into the hands of rightwing extremists today as he delivered a controversial speech on the failings of multiculturalism within hours of one of the biggest anti-Islam rallies ever staged in Britain.

Muslim and anti-fascist groups questioned the prime minister's judgment and sensitivity to the issues, saying he had handed a propaganda coup to the hard-right English Defence League as 3,000 of its supporters marched through Luton chanting anti-Islamic slogans. . . .

And this from the Daily Mail:

A major row over Islamic extremism erupted last night after Labour accused David Cameron of being a far-Right ‘propagandist’.
Sadiq Khan [the Labour Party's Shadow Justice Secretary] made the incendiary remark in response to an outspoken speech by the Prime Minister attacking ‘state multiculturalism’, calling for a stronger British identity and signalling a crackdown on Muslim groups. . . .

Gavin Shuker, the Labour MP for Luton South, questioned why Mr Cameron had given his speech on the same day that 1,500 EDL supporters demonstrated in the town. They were policed by 1,800 officers from 14 forces in an operation costing around £800,000.
‘On the day far-Right extremists descended on Luton, is Mr Cameron unwise to attack one form of extremism when another form is on the streets making people in Luton feel unsafe?’

The Muslim Council of Britain’s Dr Faisal Hanjra said: ‘The Muslim community is very much in the spotlight, being treated as part of the problem as opposed to part of the solution.’ . . .

The last quote, from the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), hints at the problems Britain has with its Muslm population. The MCB is Britain's branch of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, yet they are treated by many in the government and the media as spokesman for the UK's Muslim population.

At any rate, to say again, Cameron's task is daunting. Multiculturalism pervades not merely Britain's culture, but its laws. And it is augmented by permisive immigration rules. Moreover, given that multiculturalism is central to the left's power structure throughout the West, they will fight Cameron tooth and nail to preserve it in substance, if not in name. I hope Cameron succeeds, but I will be very surprised if he does.

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Heh

From Maggies Farm - the penultimate OH SHIT!!! moment


Just one of the many humorous items you will find among their "document dump."

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Gore, Godzilla & The Religion of Global Warming

And just to correct the record, according to IPCC scientist Roger Pielke, Sr., responding to a similar claim made in the NYT: "[T]he oceans have not been warming in recent years (e.g. see the 2010 paper by Know and Douglas)." As I said a month ago, making the same point as Krauthammer:

Thus do we need to be forcing the warmies to answer, at every turn, the simple question, what evidence would be necessary to falsify the theory of global warming? What are the "facts" that they identify as forming the crucial underpinnings of AGW? With that answer in hand, then the meme of AGW will cease to be mindless dogma. It will become actual science that cannot withstand scrutiny.

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The Road To U.K.'s Hell Is Paved With The Best Of Intentions

The EU Convention on Human Rights was promulgated in post-WWII Europe in response to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Not only did the ECHR spell out the rights of individual citizens - it also established a supra-national body to have the final say over those rights. For a long time now, the decision to adopt and join the ECHR has haunted the Brits, and I have blogged frequently here on the insanity of Britain being unable to deport some of the most vile and dangerous of radical Islamists because of the ECHR. That said, a recent series of outlandish decisions from the European Court of Human Rights is finally starting to choke the Brits. This from the Daily Mail:

For the third time in a week, Strasbourg’s unelected European Court of Human Rights is under the spotlight.

First, Tory MPs made it clear they have no intention of bowing to the court’s demand to grant the vote to tens of thousands of prisoners.

Next Lord Carlile, the Government’s reviewer of anti-terror laws, said its rulings against deportation had turned Britain into a ‘safe haven’ for those who wish the country harm.

Now Damian Green, the immigration minister, has said its rulings have turned human rights into a ‘boo phrase’.

He said the court’s judgments – and our own judiciary’s liberal interpretation of them – meant the public immediately expected bad news when the phrase ‘human rights’ was uttered. ‘Clearly, something is wrong if you get to that stage’, Mr Green said.

His remarks will fuel the anger of MPs towards the European court.
In 2005, 17 judges ruled in favour of John Hirst, who argued prisoners should be able to vote. He had been in jail for killing his 69-year-old landlady with an axe, after which he calmly made a cup of coffee. Under pressure from the court, the British government announced last year that it would comply with the ruling. Hirst celebrated by drinking champagne and smoking cannabis – and put a video of it all on YouTube.

The court believes it can overrule the UK Parliament and Supreme Court.

But the astonishing truth is that its 47 ‘representatives’ need never even have served as judges in their homeland. . . .

The judges – one for every nation in the Council of Europe – have blocked the deportation from Britain of countless foreign criminals and awarded thousands in compensation to alleged Islamic terrorists.

The court gave £4,700 to Soviet spy George Blake for ‘distress and frustration’ after the Government banned him from publishing a book about how he betrayed Britain.

And £7,000 was handed to Stuart Blackstock, who shot PC Philip Olds in the 1980s, after his release from jail was delayed. . . .

The British judiciary is in no doubt that the European court is seeking to impose a federal law upon the UK.

Ex-Law Lord Hoffmann said: ‘The Strasbourg court has been unable to resist the temptation to aggrandise its jurisdiction and to impose uniform rules on member states.

‘It considers itself the equivalent of the Supreme Court of the United States.’ . . .

Britain has the Magna Carta and the 1649 English Bill of Rights, among other sundry compacts with the Crown that, in toto, establish an English Constitution. Indeed, these same compact largely inform the U.S. Bill of Rights. So why would Britain possibly need to adopt the ECHR and submit their nation to the whims of a supra-national body?

They did so because the British system is dysfunctional, to put it kindly. None of the ancient compacts with the Crown are binding in Britain today, except as subject to the whim of Parliament. At least a century ago, the British Parliament unilaterally claimed complete sovereignty - i.e., that they have the final say not subject to review - and that the ancient compacts were binding only on the monarchy, not the Parliament.

What that means is that whatever Parliament passes, whether it be restrictions on speech or the ownership of guns, for but two examples, it is not subject to any check and balance. It is a tyranny of the majority. And that is why former PM Brown was able to sign away Britain's sovereignty to the EU - thus presenting a complete break with the ancient compacts - without a referendum of the people of Britain. It is a tragedy that will not end until the people of Britain rise up against the Parliament the way they rose up against the Crown in 1642. The fact that they are just now getting rightfully upset with the ECHR suggests that may be long in coming.

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Obama Betrays The UK

The alternative title to this post - Obama's WTF Foreign Policy

Obama promised to reset our foreign relations in the run up to the 2008 election. He is making good on his promise with a vengeance. He is certainly resetting our relations with our closest and most stalwart ally - one who has stood with us shoulder to shoulder in Iraq and Afghanistan - Britain.

From the latest Wikileaks dump, we learn that, as part of the START negotiations, the Russians pressed the Obama administration for information on Britain's nuclear arsenal. The Obama administration asked the Brits if they could release the information. The Brits refused. Obama promptly betrayed the Brits, secretly releasing the information to the Russians anyway.

This from the Telegraph:

A series of classified messages sent to Washington by US negotiators show how information on Britain’s nuclear capability was crucial to securing Russia’s support for the “New START” deal.

Although the treaty was not supposed to have any impact on Britain, the leaked cables show that Russia used the talks to demand more information about the UK’s Trident missiles, which are manufactured and maintained in the US.

Washington lobbied London in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with detailed data about the performance of UK missiles. The UK refused, but the US agreed to hand over the serial numbers of Trident missiles it transfers to Britain.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers said: “This appears to be significant because while the UK has announced how many missiles it possesses, there has been no way for the Russians to verify this. Over time, the unique identifiers will provide them with another data point to gauge the size of the British arsenal.” . . .

Note that this betrayal of our closest ally comes on top of Obama's duplicity in forcing through the START Treaty even though it contained a provision in the preamble tying our missile defense program to our strategic offensive nuclear weapons. As I wrote at the time:

. . . It had to be utterly obvious to anyone with a brain cell that the only reason to include mention of the "interrelationship" of "strategic defensive arms" in the START Treaty was because Russia was bound and determined that it be an operative part of the treaty. It would seem that there are only two possible explanations as to why Obama would have agreed to allow that provision into the START Treaty:

1. Obama had his negotiators agree under the table to limit further development of our missile defense. Couple that with lying to Congress and the American people and what you have is an act that makes Nixon's actions in Watergate seem like a case of jaywalking; or

2. Obama is really so grossly incompetent and so out of his depth that he actually could not see that Russia was demanding this language in the treaty because they wanted to limit our missile defense.

Inquiring minds want to know which it is.

It is important to note that Obama refused to release to Congress the START negotiating documents that would have clarified this central issue. There was no reason not to release those documents. It is time to ready the subpoenas. . . .

The cupidity of Obama to pass this treaty at all costs and irrespective of its fatal flaws seems near akin to the destructive obsession exhibited by Captain Ahab. In the end, Obama has gained nothing towards the goal of legitimizing his quest for a nuclear free world (a dangerous fantasy in and of itself) and, at the very least, sets in stone the perception that he is grossly incompetent in foreign affairs.

Obama's betrayal of our closest ally in his pursuit of START, on top of all the above, is the first true government scandal we have had since the Iran-Contra affair - though this one is potentially of far more import and far more damaging. Obama has committed an utterly unconscionable betrayal of the trust of our ally, Britain, in addition to damaging our own interests while misleading Congress and the American people. This needs to be investigated by Congress - today - and Obama needs to personally issue a public apology to the Queen. One can only imagine the damage this latest revelation will do to the cooperation we receive from all of our allies in the future.

Update: Nice Deb has a great post up on this topic, raising two critical issues. The first is whether this act by the Obama administration violates Article III of our NATO Treaty? Arguably yes, and if that is so, it is very serious indeed. Second is whether, as the administration is now indicating, this is just a carryover of the notification provisions of START 1. But Britain was not a signatory to START 1 and their nuclear weapons, regardless of where they are being held, are not subject to "limits" of START. At any rate, do see her post on this issue.

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Art & Verse Saturday - Romance

Bloggers Note: As an alternative to all current events, all the time, I am going to begin doing a series of posts on Saturdays aimed at the arts and philosophy. I do hope you find them enjoyable. Most of the posts will be thematic, and since Valentine's Day falls in February, the themes for the month will be romance, courtship, and eroticism. And with that preamble, here is the inaugural Saturday post:


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Art: Lovers In A Wood
1873, John Grimshaw

Grimshaw, who lived in 19th century Britain, is one of the few landscape artists whose paintings invariably give the ambiance of romance. You can find much of his work here.
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Good romance poems distill passion and desire into a few well chosen words. Part of their allure, for me at least, is that they also have practical value. If you can memorize the lines from some good romantic poetry and then trot them out at just the right moment, your chance of bedding down the object of your desire increases significantly. The number of good romantic poems are near infinite. Two of my favorites are from the medieval Italian poet, Dante Alligheri - a poet more associated with his guide map to hell than to the bedroom - and from Lord Byron, one of the great poets of the Romantic era:

From La Vita Nuova

In that book which is
My memory . . .
On the first page
That is the chapter when
I first met you
Appear the words . . .
Here begins a new life

- Dante, 1293

She walks in beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

- Lord Byron

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Oooops . . .

On this day, in 1958, a B-47 bomber on a training mission off the cost of Georgia collided at 37,000 feet with an F-86 fighter. The B-47 was able to stay airborne, barely, and requested permission to drop its payload so that it didn't detonate in a crash landing. Once approved, the pilot jettisoned his payload - a 7,000+ lbs. Mark 15 hydrogen bomb with a 3.8 megaton yield - into the waters off of Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia. Despit a dillegent search, the "Tybee bomb" has never been found. Oooops indeed.

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Krauthammer's Rx For Egypt

It's nice to get out in front of the man I consider our nation's most astute observer of the political winds, Charles Krauthammer. Specifically, for ten days I have been writing that Obama needs to be focused like a laser on giving secular opposition a chance to develop in Egypt prior to the next election, that an interim government needs to be formed by the military, that there is no chance to salvage Mubarak, and that an interim government should not include the Muslim Brotherhood or its mouthpiece, el-Baradei. And today, Krauthammer weighs in, making exactly the same points.

Who doesn't love a democratic revolution? Who is not moved by the renunciation of fear and the reclamation of dignity in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria?

The worldwide euphoria that has greeted the Egyptian uprising is understandable. All revolutions are blissful in the first days. The romance could be forgiven if this were Paris 1789. But it is not. In the intervening 222 years, we have learned how these things can end.

The Egyptian awakening carries promise and hope and of course merits our support. But only a child can believe that a democratic outcome is inevitable. And only a blinkered optimist can believe that it is even the most likely outcome.

Yes, the Egyptian revolution is broad-based. But so were the French and the Russian and the Iranian revolutions. Indeed in Iran, the revolution only succeeded - the shah was long opposed by the mullahs - when the merchants, the housewives, the students and the secularists joined to bring him down.

And who ended up in control? The most disciplined, ruthless and ideologically committed - the radical Islamists.

This is why our paramount moral and strategic interest in Egypt is real democracy in which power does not devolve to those who believe in one man, one vote, one time. That would be Egypt's fate should the Muslim Brotherhood prevail. That was the fate of Gaza, now under the brutal thumb of Hamas, a Palestinian wing (see Article 2 of Hamas's founding covenant) of the Muslim Brotherhood. . . .

ElBaradei would be a disaster. . . .

The Egyptian military, on the other hand, is the most stable and important institution in the country. It is Western-oriented and rightly suspicious of the Brotherhood. And it is widely respected, carrying the prestige of the 1952 Free Officers Movement that overthrew the monarchy and the 1973 October War that restored Egyptian pride along with the Sinai.

The military is the best vehicle for guiding the country to free elections over the coming months. Whether it does so with Mubarak at the top, or with Vice President Omar Suleiman or perhaps with some technocrat who arouses no ire among the demonstrators, matters not to us. If the army calculates that sacrificing Mubarak (through exile) will satisfy the opposition and end the unrest, so be it.

The overriding objective is a period of stability during which secularists and other democratic elements of civil society can organize themselves for the coming elections and prevail. ElBaradei is a menace. Mubarak will be gone one way or the other. The key is the military. The United States should say very little in public and do everything behind the scenes to help the military midwife - and then guarantee - what is still something of a long shot: Egyptian democracy.

For a different take on this, you should visit Big Lizards. Dafydd does not think that the Muslim Brotherhood presents the threat that I believe it does, and his posts are always worth a read.

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Unemployment & Statistical Games

Great news - the Obama Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is reporting that unemployment in January dropped from 9.4% to 9%. Expect to hear Obama beating his chest and singing paeans to himself in the near future.

The extremely bad news - we only added 36,000 jobs - that is about 100,000 shy of the number needed just to keep up with the expanding pool of avaiable workers. Indeed, the labor force participation chart above shows the reality - that the percentage participation of Americans in our work force continues a precipitous decline.

So somewhere, there is a huge disconnect. Our unemployment situation got worse in January. How the BLS got its number was by dropping half a million from the number of available workers. That adjustment makes just no sense, to me at least. Our available workforce is expanding, not contracting - everywhere but in the math Dept. at BLS apparently.

More on this and possible explanations at Bizzy Blog and Hot Air.

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Obama's Lawless Thugocracy (Update 2)

Somebody explain to me why the Obama regime should not be counted among the most lawless and corrupt we have seen in this country. Here are some examples:

20. Under Obama, the National Labor Relations Board, ostensibly a neutral organization, has become radically pro-Union. They have outrageously brought suit against Boeing to force the company to keep all production in unionized Washington. This is an Orwellian assault on capitalism, and indeed, it is an act that ignores both law and seven decades of precedent interpreting that law.

19. Obama's newly radicalized NLRB has also brought suit against Arizona because that state passed a law requiring secret ballots for unionizaiton. A secret ballot is the single most basic procedure guaranteeing fair and free elections in any democracy. The only reason to allow any other procedure is to make room for thuggery and intimidation by unions.

18. In perhaps his most thuggish act to date, Obama has proposed to sign an Executive Order that would require "all companies (and their officers) . . . to list their political donations as a condition to bidding for government contracts." What that means is that "[c]ompanies can bid and lose out for the sin of donating to Republicans. Or they can protect their livelihoods by halting donations to the GOP altogether—which is the White House's real aim." This is not just thuggery taken to a new level, it seems a clear violation of the First Amendment.

17. Obama has taken our nation into war a kinetic military action against Libya, after consulting, not Congress, but the U.N. And the left calls the war in Iraq illegal?

16. Obama betrayed our closest ally, the UK, in his single minded quest to get a START Treaty done at all costs with Russia. Despite the UK's refusal to allow the US to release their nuclear information to Russia, Obama agreed to do it in secret anyway. That comes on top of Obama potentially lying to Congress about the nature and effect of a provision in START tying our missle defense program to the START offensive nuclear weapons treaty.

15. Immediately after a Federal Court declared Obamacare unconstitutional in toto, the Obama regime announced their intent to ignore the decision and continue implementing Obamacare.

14. A federal judge today ruled that the Obama regime acted with “determined disregard” for the law "by lifting and reinstituting a series of policy changes that restricted offshore drilling" after the policy was struck down by the court.

13. The regime is now stonewalling Congress, refusing to respond to document requests from the House Oversight Committee. This should be viewed in conjunction with the Obama Justice Dept. refusal to respond lawful subpoenas from the Civil Rights Commission.

12. Obama is deeply involved in crony capitalism, picking the winners and losers in our economy. Now we learn that the Obama EPA, which started enforcing draconian new regulations on our energy sector in January, has issued the first waiver to those regulations. The recipient - the biggest of Obama's cronies, GE.

11. The number of entities now given waivers from Obamacare is in excess of 700, with over 40% of these waivers going to unions and other entities, such as AARP, that lent their strong support to passing Obamacare.

10. Obama is conducting a jihad against our coal industry. The most outrageous example of that jihad occurred recently when the EPA acted, for the first time in its history, to withdraw a permit properly issued three years ago to the largest coal mining operation in WV.

9. The HHS, acting with all the subtlety of the old Soviet politburo, threatened insurers with destruction of their business if they publicly point out that their rate increases are being caused by Obamacare. If that doesn't violate the First Amendment, then nothing does.

8. The Obama regime has turned to regulatory agencies to impose his deeply ideological agenda. The only body with legislative authority under our Constitution is Congress. Moreover, it is clear neither the 111th or 112th Congress would approve the power grabs that Obama's regulators have made. Yet today we have the EPA regulating plant food and the FCC claiming the power to regulate the Internet. It may be Constitutional, but it is a complete distortion of the government our Founders envisioned.

7. Don't forget Obama's extortion of GM & Chrysler bond holders to pay off the UAW. Who cares about the 5th Amendment and property rights.

6. Obama fired Gerald Walpin, the Inspector General of AmeriCorps, after he caught an Obama crony involved in corruption.

5. Obama is in the midst of unilateral, massive land and ocean grabs specifically aimed at shutting off new mining or drilling as part of his jihad on our energy sector. It is Constitutional according to black letter precedent, but yet again Obama is shutting Congress out of the decision making loop.

4. Obama paid off teacher's unions by infusing them with billions in cash while restricting states' ability to renegotiate union contracts, all as a part of the unnamed XXXX Act of XXXX.

3. Obama's DOJ is engaging in race-based unequal enforcement of civil rights laws and has lied about it under oath.

2. Obama decided to make recess appointments without even submitting individuals for Congressional confirmation - and at the same time justified his acts as necessary because of Republican obstructionism.

1. The Obama administration committed fraud in support of GM.

If Bush had done even one of the things above, our nation, from sea to shining sea, would have gone deaf from the din and decibel level of the left's primal screams. And do note that the above is just off the top of my head. It is hardly a complete list. Bottom line, the next time someone on the left screams in your ear that the right stands athwart the rule of law (or that a court decision they don't like is, ipse dixit, judicial activism), take aim at their crotch and kick them with all the force you can muster. Repeat as necessary until they experience an epiphany.

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Today's Reading: Totten on Egypt

Michael Totten is one of our most astute observers of the Middle East. He has two articles of note that shed a great deal of light on the situation in Egypt. The first, written in 2005, is Nassar's Biggest Crime wherein he discusses why the Muslim Brotherhood is the dominant opposition in Egypt today and the ramifications thereof, while secular political parties are nascent and disorganized. And do note the parallels between Sadat's strategy and that of el-Baradei, who is today championing the Muslim Brotherhood:

“When Nasser took over,” Big Pharaoh said, “people were angry at Britain and Israel. He nationalized all the industry. He banned political parties. He stifled everything. Banned the Muslim Brotherhood. Banned the Communists. Banned all. When Sadat took over in 1970, he had two enemies: the Communists and the Nasser remnants. So to counter these threats, he did what the United States did in Afghanistan during the Cold War – he made an alliance with the Islamists. He brought back the Muslim Brotherhood which had fled to Saudi Arabia when Nasser was around. He used them to destroy the left.”

“That was part of it,” he continued. “During the oil boom of 1973 a lot of Egyptians went to Saudi Arabia to work. Then in the 1990s, two important things happened. After the first Gulf War, Saudi Arabia began to Saudize its economy and said they no longer needed Egyptian workers. When the Egyptians came home they were contaminated with Wahhabism. Egypt’s economy kept getting worse. Unemployed members of the middle class either sat around and smoked shisha or got more religious. That was when Islamism moved from the lower class to the middle class. Now it is moving even to the upper class.”

“Egypt will get over it after a while,” I said, “just like Iran is getting over it now.”

“That will take 25 years! I don’t have 25 years!”

The Iranian theocracy has been in power for 26 years.

And here is Michael Totten today in PJM, interviewing Abbas Milani, Prof. of Iranian studies at Stanford, about the parallels between Egypt of today and the Iranian revolution of three decades ago:

MJT: I find this very disturbing. Iran in the 1970s—and I guess today, too—was much more liberal and modern than Egypt.

Abbas Milani: Oh, absolutely.

MJT: And yet Iran got this government. If it can happen in Iran, it can certainly happen in Egypt where the middle class is very small and people are not nearly as well educated.

Abbas Milani: And there are a lot more Islamists, and they are much better organized.

MJT: The liberals in Egypt are, what, ten percent of the population?

Abbas Milani: I’m not sure about that, but I do know something about the Muslim Brotherhood.

MJT: Okay, so what do you know?

Abbas Milani: They are extremely well organized.

MJT: Are they moderate? Many experts are saying so now, but I’m skeptical.

Abbas Milani: There are moderate elements within the Muslim Brotherhood. But if the Muslim Brotherhood still stands behind Sayyid Qutb, then no. He, along with Hassan al Banna, was one of its founding fathers. You should read him. He was absolutely uncompromising.

MJT: What about the guys running it now? There is all this talk about how they’re no longer as dangerous as they used to be, that they’ve renounced violence and want a democracy. I don’t really buy it, but some people insist this is the case, that the Muslim Brothers have gone mainstream and we have nothing to worry about.

Abbas Milani: I don’t know the Egyptian scene as well as Iran, so let’s look at the Iranian case. If you look at the whole Islamic movement you can see that there were moderate forces in the early part. There were quietist ayatollahs who took part in the revolution, including some who were senior to Khomeini in clerical status. They had an enormous popular base. They were truly moderate and they truly understood the dangers of Khomeini.

Within this movement was also Fadayan-e Islam, the Islamic terrorist group founded by Navvab Safavi who was very much enamored of the Muslim Brotherhood. He even met with Sayyid Qutb. If you look at how this vast network, that included moderates and radicals, evolved once the revolution came, it was the radicals who won. Because they were the most ruthless. They were the most brutal.

Everything I’ve seen indicates that there are moderate Muslim Brothers, but if the society goes into a protracted struggle, I have no doubt that the radicals would win.

Almost every radical group in the Middle East is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. . . .

Do read both articles in full as they contain a ton of insightful material. My take away, from reading both, is that I am even more convinced that our government should be doing all they can to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of the government while buying time for secular opposition parties to develop and gain a following. It is our last and best hope. But if yesterday's report in the LA Times is accurate, however, the point is moot, and Obama is making a huge mistake.

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What Do You Call Forty Thieves Surrounding A Ghurka? . . . . Outnumbered

This from the Indian press:

Bishnu Shrestha, a brave Gurkha soldier in Indian Army, defeated 40 train robbers while returning home after a voluntary retirement. . . .

While in the train, Maurya Express from Ranchi to Gorakhpur on September 2, 2010, 35 year-old Bishnu saved a girl about to be raped by train robbers, in front of her helpless parents. After looting the train, when the robbers started stripping the 18 year old girl in front of him, he couldn’t contain his calmness. He took out his khukari and attacked the group of 40 robbers, alone. In the fight, he killed three of dacoits and injured eight others. Remaining looters ran for their lives. . . .

Ooorah.

If you do not know about the ghurkas, they are Nepalese soldiers who form units in both the Indian and British armies. They are famed for two things - their bravery in warfare and the unique knives they carry at all times, the khukari.

(H/T American Digest)

Update: Finally found a pic of the Ghurka hero, Bishnu Shrestha. Here he is shortly after leaving the train:

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Heh - Terrorist Warning, Snow & Madness

Recent terror threats have caused European countries to raise their threat levels:

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.”

The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out.

Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards.” They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France ‘s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country’s military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.” . . .

Read the whole post at Barking Moonbat EWS.

And in contemplation of all of the snow falling across the U.S., these diary entries from one northeasterner tell a tale of serenity descending into madness:

December 8 - 6:00 PM. It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!

December 9 - We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the Whole World? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life.

December 12 - The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry, we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. l don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.

December 14 – Snow, lovely snow! 8 inches last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish l wouldn't huff and puff so.

December 15 - 20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.

December 16 - Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.

December 17 - Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own living room. . . .

Read it all at Maggies Farm

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While El-Baradie Dissimulates, Obama Fantasizes About A Peaceful Muslim Brotherhood

Here is what being fed to America by our MSM and El Baradei:



Yet here is what is being said by the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in interviews to Iranian News, as reported in the Jerusalem Post today:

A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt told the Arabic-language Iranian news network Al-Alam on Monday that he would like to see the Egyptian people prepare for war against Israel, according to the Hebrew-language business newspaper Calcalist.

Muhammad Ghannem reportedly told Al- Alam that the Suez Canal should be closed immediately, and that the flow of gas from Egypt to Israel should cease “in order to bring about the downfall of the Mubarak regime.” He added that “the people should be prepared for war against Israel,” saying the world should understand that “the Egyptian people are prepared for anything to get rid of this regime.”

Ghannem praised Egyptian soldiers deployed by President Hosni Mubarak to Egyptian cities, saying they “would not kill their brothers.” He added that Washington was forced to abandon plans to help Mubarak stay in power after “seeing millions head for the streets.”

In my initial post on Egypt, A 3 A.M. Phone Call From Egypt, I said that Obama needed to get out in front events by calling on Mubarak to institute specific democratic and economic reforms on a short time table or to step down and let a caretaker government formed from the military to do it, and that Obama's entire focus needed to be on allowing time for secular opposition groups sufficient time and space to form.

I would add today that events have already gone too far too fast for Obama to do anything other than to call for Mubarak to make a quick exit and the military to form the transitional government until September elections. If Obama vacillates further, even that option will likely disappear. Allowing the deeply disingenuous Islamic snake, el-Baradei, tool of Iran and partner with the Muslim Brotherhood, to form part of a transitional government would be a catastrophic mistake, yet one that becomes ever more likely as Obama vacillates in the White House.

Update: Now this is what I would expect from the man serving out Jimmy Carter's second term. This from Hot Air:

In order to stay ahead of the crisis in Egypt, the Obama administration yesterday signaled that it supports the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian politics as long as they renounce violence and commit to democracy:

The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government.

The organization must reject violence and recognize democratic goals if the U.S. is to be comfortable with it taking part in the government, the White House said. But by even setting conditions for the involvement of such nonsecular groups, the administration took a surprise step in the midst of the crisis that has enveloped Egypt for the last week. . . .

About that renouncing violence bit - somebody needs to point out to Obama that Ghannem's remarks about "preparing for war" with Israel ought to be a clue as to the Muslim Brotherhood's take on violence. And these are the same people who advocated that Egypt go to war against Israel during Israel's war with Gaza in 2007. For Obama to say he will support the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a transitional government if they will only "renounce violence" is pure fantasy.

Why is Obama asking Egypt to violate its constitutional separation between Mosque and State at this point? Whether or not that makes sense in Egypt down the road, for now, Obama is repeating the mistakes of Carter in allowing the radical Islamists to get their foot in the door while the secular opposition parties are nascent and disorganized. As I said from Day 1, Obama should be focused like a laser on buying the time and space for Egypt's secular parties to develop, even if that means just buying them time until the September elections scheduled to be held in Egypt.

Hot Air later quotes NRO's Duncan Currie, who states

“I fully expect the Muslim Brotherhood to do well in any election,” Gerecht tells me. “They have a fairly substantial following.” He has no illusions about the group’s Islamist agenda, or about its virulent anti-Americanism, or about its hatred of Israel. In his view, calling for U.S. “engagement” with the Brotherhood is like calling for engagement with Ayatollah Khamenei. But Gerecht insists that allowing Brotherhood members to participate in a democratic process is the sine qua non of Egyptian political maturation. The country will never achieve real progress, he says, without first creating the political space necessary for a momentous debate over God and man. Indeed, Egypt’s secular liberals must defeat the Islamists in the public square, rather than through military repression. They must win the battle of ideas. …

If Egyptians voted the Brotherhood into a position of serious power, that would generate a kaleidoscope of problems for America and Israel (and Egypt). No serious analyst should pretend otherwise. But Gerecht’s logic is inescapable: You can’t have authentic Egyptian democracy while disenfranchising the country’s largest opposition movement. If you aren’t willing to countenance Brotherhood electoral participation, you shouldn’t be demanding representative government.

All well and good. I don't disagree with any of that. But if there is no organized secular opposition, then what we will see is a repeat of Iran circa 1979, with a well organized radical Islamist movement eventually instituting a democracy of "one vote, one time."

Update II: As over a million protesters line Cairo's streets, it appears Mubarak will be announcing that he will not run for another term. That point is moot now, I think. I doubt he will last out the week, with the question being who or what replaces him. It seems not everyone is enamored of El-Baradei leading up a transitional government. This from a French news agency: "The intellectual community of Egypt calls on Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, and Sami Enan, Chief of the Egyptian armed forces, to act as leaders of the opposition." These individuals are apparently even getting the thumbs up from the Brotherhood. I would assume that is tactical, as they hope to see all restrictions on religious organizations removed prior to the September elections. But as I said above, that would be about the best situation we could hope for.

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