Free Speech For Liberals

WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Democrats: Free speech for me, not for thee
Examiner Editorial
"The bill is full of draconian restrictions on individual political speech expressed via corporations, but gives privileged status to the Democrats' union masters."

DISCLOSE Act attacks freedom of speech
Ken Klukowski, Examiner OpEd
"At least BCRA applied to unions. It was unconstitutional, but at least it went after both sides. DISCLOSE, by contrast, mostly criminalizes speech from conservative groups, while leaving liberals unfettered."

White House, Google violate lobbying pledge
Timothy P. Carney, Examiner Columnist
"Maybe a millionaire who spends his days leaning on policymakers to benefit his company isn't a lobbyist if he calls himself an 'Internet evangelist.'"

A role for the people in judicial selections
William J. Watkins Jr., OpEd Contributor
"The three nominees (it could be two or one depending on the political climate) would be listed on the ballot for the next regularly scheduled federal election (every two years), and the people would vote for one of the nominees to serve on the Supreme Court."

DCExaminer Editorial Highlights

WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Don't get cocky, GOP
Today's Examiner Editorial
"The GOP still has a severe credibility problem, with 64 percent of those saying they favor a Republican Congress saying so because they oppose Obama and Democratic candidates."

Bright economic forecasts may blind us
Irwin Stelzer, Examiner Columnist
"As always, things are too complicated to warrant either taking to the bomb shelters or uncorking the Champagne."

Big Pharma rumbles with Big Tobacco
Timothy P. Carney, Examiner Columnist
"It's a full-fledged regulatory rumble between Big Tobacco and the even bigger Big Pharma -- the sort of ugly influence game that will become the norm as government sticks its arms deeper into the economy."

An immigrant's view of Arizona's immigration law
Joana Suleiman, Examiner Design Editor
"Most illegal immigrants are not criminals and should not be deported. We need flexible visa programs to meet business and family needs. We need comprehensive immigration reform so that borders are secure. But all the hatred directed toward Arizona is misguided."

Net Nannies from 1984

EDITORIAL: Obama's Internet nanny
FCC regulations not needed to 'protect' the Web

The FCC, a New Deal relic, derives its current authority from the Telecommunications Act of 1996. At the time the law was enacted, Congress wisely decided to take a hands-off approach to the Internet by creating a new "information service" category explicitly designed to remain free from the tangle of red tape that the agency layers on top of telephone service, cable, broadcast television and radio.

[FCC Chairman] Mr. Genachowski, however, is upset that this plain reading of the statute deprives him of the authority to "safeguard privacy," "empower consumers" and "lower the costs of investment." He seeks to remedy this by imposing new rules on the Internet's network infrastructure. In a rather Orwellian fashion, he claims these regulations would not involve regulating the Internet itself. Mr. Genachowski insists that he has no intention of meddling with online content.

Even if that's true, his proposal remains deeply troubling. If a federal agency is allowed to ignore court rulings and erase laws with which it disagrees, there would be no restraint on what a future chairman might do. Surely, if the federal government can provide a "good reason" to reclassify broadband services as telecommunications, it can come up with a "good reason" to prevent such bad language on the Internet or even extend its reclassifications to cover cable television programs on HBO and Showtime.

Absent legal constraints, the agency could even resurrect the Fairness Doctrine and apply it to the Internet. This rule, created during the 1940s, required that broadcast stations give equal time to both sides of controversial issues, but it had the unintended consequence of discouraging stations from discussing anything controversial. The scheme was ultimately canceled by President Reagan's FCC in 1987, a move that ushered in a revival of talk radio.

Neither President Obama nor his appointees have the authority to unilaterally rewrite the law when it suits their convenience. If Mr. Obama wants to impose controls on the Internet, he must go to Congress and ask for the new power - a request not likely to be granted. Members of Congress and the general public appreciate that the Internet's greatness lies in its unregulated, Wild West nature. As the FCC opens its proposals to public comment, we hope that readers deliver the clear message that federal "help" is neither needed nor desired online.

Editorials from the DCExaminer

WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Geithner, GM tell a whopper
Today's Examiner Editorial
"The American people, as the majority shareholders of GM, have a right to know the truth behind the cost of the GM bailout and GM's genuine financial condition."

Double-standard on Obama's dissing of white guys headline
Examiner Sunday Editorial
"Does Obama consider white men a drag on his coalition, or has he given up on them because of their declining support for his policies in opinion polls? Either way, "disses" is exactly the right term to describe it."

How long will our luck hold out?
Hugh Hewitt, Examiner Columnist
"If the driver of the Times Square bomb is found, will he quickly be given Miranda rights as the underpants bomber was on Christmas day regardless of his citizenship?"

National security from SNL
James Jay Carafano, Examiner Columnist
"The Iranian kicked off his summit with a monologue laced with howlers, including a demand that the United States be the first to disarm."

Heckling President Obama
Bill O'Reilly, Examiner Columnist
"They don't seem to be bothered by the fact that Afghan women would be brutalized if the Taliban return. Give peace a chance? Sure, if you don't mind women not being able to leave the house."

Maryland won't pass an Arizona-type immigration law
Gregory Kane, Examiner Columnist
"Maryland remains the only state east of the Mississippi not in compliance with the Real ID Act. And O'Malley has made it clear that local police will not ask illegal immigrants stopped for traffic offenses to provide any valid identification."

Seven reasons not to vote for Democrats
Mark Hemingway, Examiner Columnist
"Kaine then proceeded to lay out seven Democratic talking points so transparently unconvincing, I began to wonder if he's not a Republican double agent."

Tax cuts do not starve Big Government
Steve Chapman, Examiner Columnist
"New studies from economists at opposite ends of the political spectrum leave little doubt that even on half-rations, the beast never fails to feast."

Its Easy To Blame the Rich Guys

PRUDEN: Calling in the clowns to reform Wall Street

It's easy to beat up anyone who works for Goldman Sachs and the other big Wall Street houses. The partners pull down salaries and bonuses that are unimaginably large to most of us; how many Kobe steaks, how many $500-a-bottle French wines can a Wall Street broker consume? How many Manhattan apartments and vacation homes in the South of France can a Goldman Sachs chairman live in? President Obama, ever the nanny, said Wednesday that "at a certain point you've made enough money." He didn't say how much is enough, and who would decide how much is enough, but it's scary to think what Saul Alinsky's disciple might have in mind for all of us.

Mr. Levin and his conspirators in the Senate are trying to make Wall Street in general and Goldman Sachs in particular responsible for the financial crisis of 2008. Investigators at the Securities and Exchange Commission have accused Goldman Sachs of selling $150 million worth of instruments backed by worthless mortgages to a German bank without disclosing exactly what the bank was buying.

The senators deduced from that that Goldman Sachs was trying to rig the market in subprime mortgages and thus set off the great meltdown of '08. The law assumes that not every investment banker is a virgin and does not require that Goldman Sachs relieve its institutional customers from their common-sense duty to know what they're buying. You could argue that what Goldman Sachs and other investment houses are doing is not nice, but it's not against the law. Carl Levin could work to fix that, but screeds are more fun.

There is more at the link. You should go read the whole thing.

DCExaminer Editorial Highlights

WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Reid, Levin demean the Senate
Today's Examiner Editorial
"If there is ever to be a restoration of civility in American politics, the adults in the Democratic Party ought to tell Reid and Levin to clean up their acts."

Obama's politically correct leadership invites military disaster
Jed Babbin, Part Five of a Five-Part Series
"Why would anyone want to serve in an army whose leader believes it's more important to support diversity than to protect their lives from murderous threats within the force?"

Republicans pick Wall Street over free markets
Timothy P. Carney, Examiner Columnist
"By proposing a financial reform bill that is mostly identical to the one proposed by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Republicans have passed up an opportunity to simultaneously appeal to their base, by returning to their alleged principles of limited government, and appeal to much of the middle, by waging a populist battle against Wall Street's corporate-welfare queens who panhandle on Capitol Hill."

Economy is looking up ... for now
Irwin M. Stelzer, Examiner Columnist
"Lying in wait to ambush the recovery are the president's tax increases, the hidden costs of the health care "reform," an energy bill that is ready to be introduced, and a Congress seemingly determined to make a whipping boy of the financial sector."

Editorials from the DCExaminer

WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Obamacare Rx: Don't get sick

Today's Examiner Editorial
"You will also want to avoid getting sick if at all possible once Obamacare is fully in effect because you'll no longer be able to deduct a big portion of major medical expenses from your taxes."

Obama's credibility crisis

Examiner Sunday Editorial
"It seems entirely appropriate to ask if GM's repayment claims were 'suggested' by somebody in the Obama White House."

Weakening America starts with emasculating our intelligence agencies

Jed Babbin, Part One of a Five-Part Series
"Espionage is probably the world's second-oldest profession. But Obama and congressional liberals treat its U.S. practitioners as if they were engaged in the first."

Obama's law-breaking Pentagon

James Jay Carafano, Examiner Columnist
"No strategy is a real problem. By letting the Quadrenniel Defense Review cart roll in front of the strategy horse, Obama is depriving both the Congress and the American people of a full and clear picture of what he is up to."

Immigration and the congressional GOP

Hugh Hewitt, Examiner Columnist
"Because the immigration issue divides Republicans and unites Democrats, the president's team is thankful for an issue on which to pivot away from Obamacare."

What about when the government is anti-people?

Mark Hemingway, Examiner Columnist
"In other words, Clinton and Reno approved a military-style assault with the potential of giving a number of infants present chemical burns and toxic pneumonia. That wasn't an unfortunate consequence -- that was the plan."

Then there's the 'hateful rhetoric' from the Left

Gregory Kane, Examiner Columnist
"Let's see, there was the Weather Underground, in which Bombin' Billy Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, played prominent roles. The Puerto Rican FALN committed more than 100 bombings across the United States and its homeland. Members of the Symbionese Liberation Army murdered Oakland, Calif., schools Superintendent Marcus Foster in 1973."

Back To More Important Things

Here's the thing: there are crazies and wackos on this planet and they need to be dealt with so they don't hurt anyone. I want the people tasked with protecting me, and my right to speak and assemble, to have whatever they need, and be able to do what is needed to get the information required to deal with the above-referenced crazies and wackos. Free speech is such a marvelous tool for id'ing the crazies and wackos. They do it to themselves, if you only give them the opportunity. All we have to do is present our argument reasonably and logically and have the documentation to back it up. We don't need to rant about overthrowing the government or removing sitting elected officials by force. That's what the ballot box and the soap box are for.

Turning COINTELPRO on the tea party?
By: Chris Stirewalt
Political Editor
04/07/10 5:13 PM EDT

Writer David Herszenhorn of the New York Times has the account of how the FBI nabbed the man charged with threatening Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

The suspect, Charles A. Wilson, is accused of leaving messages for Murray saying she should be "strung up" for her support of President Obama's health care program and other ugly-sounding things.

The FBI had the number from which the calls had originated and knew that it belonged to Mr. Wilson. But to make the arrest, they needed to have evidence matching the caller on the tapes with the number -- to eliminate the possibility that someone else was using Mr. Wilson's phone.

To make the match, an agent called Wilson and claimed to be part of Patients United Now, the group behind the "Hands Off my Health Care" campaign. No one from the FBI spoke to Patients United or their parent group Americans for Prosperity about the ruse.

The agent talked with Wilson about the group's effort to see the president's program repealed and asked for his opinion about the legislation, eliciting responses similar to the sentiments left on Sen. Murray's answering machine.
That was enough to get a warrant for Wilson's arrest.

Some questions to consider:

How comfortable are you with the idea of agents posing as activists to elicit anti-government tirades? Sounds like good investigative police work to me.

How comfortable would you be if the Bush administration had done the same thing with Code Pink in an effort to get a anti-war activist to threaten a Senator who voted in favor of invading Iraq? Based on my experiences with code oink, I would have volunteered to help, for free.

Would it be appropriate for an agent to attend a tax day tea party rally next week and elicit similar statements from attendees in an effort to find more threats to lawmakers? See the first question.

DCExaminer Editorial Highlights

WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Independents rally to the Tea Party
Examiner Editorial
"But now comes hard facts from multiple sources that put the lie to the liberal stereotype about Tea Partiers. For one thing, the Tea Partiers are almost certainly more in tune with the views of the average American voter than is Obama."

America is losing the war on its 'Third Front'
Barbara Hollingsworth, Examiner Columnist
"What cameras have captured, however, is unmistakable evidence that Mexican military helicopters are entering U.S. airspace with impunity. American sheriffs have given Poe evidence of two such incursions during the last three weeks."

Five things we've learned about Obamacare since it became law
David Freddoso, Examiner Columnist
"Those are just five things we've learned, out of more than 2,000 pages. You can bet we'll learn a lot more in the seven months leading up to Election Day."

Public schools should experiment like charter schools
Marcus A. Winters, Manhattan Moment
"When you walk into a charter school that adheres to these standards, you see learning taking place. These schools have proven that demography is not destiny. All kids learn regardless of their race, class, or the income bracket of their parents."

Mixing race and politics can be poisonous
Thomas Sowell, Examiner OpEd Contributor
"Yet playing the race card has become an increasingly common response to growing public anger at the policies of the Obama administration and the way those policies have been imposed."

New Products for Your Home-Endorsed by the EPA and DOE

A gasoline powered alarm clock and a space heater with a feather duster and fly paper. You can't make this stuff up.

EDITORIAL: Close enough for government work
The EPA and Energy Department are caught fudging efficiency ratings

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy are charged with identifying how energy-efficient different products are. They claim that 98 percent of the products they test meet or exceed Energy Star requirements, which are government benchmarks used to regulate greater efficiency. Yet a sting by GAO investigators showed that the government agencies incorrectly identified as "efficient" 15 of 20 bogus products submitted by GAO for testing. No action was taken on two of the 20 products. Overall, the government made the correct decision on 11 percent of the test products.

As the Washington saying forewarns, the difference between 98 percent and 11 percent is close enough for government work.

Most disturbingly, the absurd products in question shouldn't have been close calls. Take the so-called "room air cleaner." The product was a space heater with a duster sticking out of the top and several fly strips attached. The picture submitted to the government of the bogus product is pretty hilarious - but the bureaucracy gave the contraption the federal stamp of approval.

Among the other ridiculous items the government certified as energy-efficient was a petroleum-powered timepiece that was described as a "generator-sized clock run on gasoline." Such a machine obviously would be energy-inefficient. Moving the heavy beast alone would keep greens awake at night worrying about wasted energy, making the alarm on the clock superfluous.

News of these phony approvals has bureaucrats running for high ground. While defensively insisting that they take the tests "seriously," the EPA and Energy Department immediately issued a statement defending their testing and telling the public it should not lose confidence in the government program to monitor efficiency ratings. Incorrigibly, the feds again pointed to their own discredited 98 percent accuracy rate and implausibly claimed the Energy Star program has so far saved Americans $17 billion on their electricity bills.

They Never Give Away Anything

PYLE: Oil drilling head fake
Obama didn't open land for energy production, he closed it

Nearly 30 years ago, Congress imposed a moratorium on the safe and environmentally sound practice of offshore oil and natural-gas exploration. In the early 1990s, President George H.W. Bush imposed a similar ban in the form of an executive order. And while this ban was in place for decades, many in Congress and the public at large had no idea that the United States was the only country in the industrialized world purposely embargoing its own energy resources.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2008: Oil was $150 a barrel, the price at the pump exceeded $4 a gallon, and the American people - of all political stripes - were genuinely outraged. In response, the Democrat-controlled Congress and President George W. Bush retired both the congressional and executive bans on offshore oil and natural-gas production.

That move effectively opened nearly the entire Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) for responsible energy production.

Now fast-forward to March 2010: President Obama announced that he, for the first time, is opening new lands in the OCS for energy exploration. You might be scratching your head at this point, because many energy-industry leaders, newspaper reporters, cable news pundits, lawmakers and politicos applauded the president's announcement as some major policy breakthrough and the White House's willingness to compromise on energy policy. However, the announcement, along with the president's sudden eagerness to trade his proposed national energy tax for increased oil and natural-gas drilling, is nothing more than political theater.

Read the rest at the Washington Times.

Always be wary when your opponent seems to be conceding anything. Its usually a good indicator they have something else planned.

DCExaminer Editorial Highlights

WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Time for the full truth about TARP

Examiner Editorial
"TARP was never meant to become a congressional slush fund. Or was it?"

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's April Fools budget

Barbara Hollingsworth, Examiner Columnist
"The District was supposed to be in sound financial shape. Where did all the money go?"

Terrorism isn't an existential threat

Gene Healy, Examiner Columnist
"When the enemy's best recent shot involves lighting his pants on fire, we shouldn't torture ourselves with nightmarish visions of weapons of mass destruction."

Obama's elitism will be his Apocalypse

Ralph Benko, Examiner OpEd Contributor
"But elitism can't be rationalized. There is no way to rationalize insulting your voters."

DCExaminer Editorial Highlights

TODAY'S WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL SECTION HIGHLIGHTS

Obama shows the love to his union bosses

Examiner Editorial
"Obama's hope is that, with Becker calling the shots for the pro-labor NLRB majority, the board will find a way to circumvent Congress and throttle workers' right to secret ballots."

Obama's perverse foreign policy

Examiner's Sunday Editorial
"American presidents are often accused of being opaque or inconsistent in foreign affairs, but President Obama may be the first to be downright perverse, antagonizing our strongest allies, while trying to appease our most dangerous adversaries."

Stuffing union coffers with taxpayer cash

Mark Hemingway, Examiner Columnist
"Despite representing just more than 7 percent of the private labor force (and falling), union political influence today is stronger than at any time since LBJ won passage by the House of Representatives of repeal of the Taft-Hartley Right to Work law, but fell just short in the U.S. Senate."

2010 could be the Black Swan year in politics

Hugh Hewitt, Examiner Columnist
"What if new media transform legions of new activists into committed, effective political operatives, the sort who are willing to dig deep into their pockets to fund and into their time to organize for Republican candidates?"

A deepening crisis between U.S., Israel

John R. Bolton, OpEd Contributor
"The idea that Israel's recalcitrance, personified by pugnacious Bibi Netanyahu, is the central obstacle to peace is exactly backward, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope."

Romneycare shows need to repeal Obamacare

Timothy P. Cahill, OpEd Contributor
"There can no longer be any doubt that RomneyCare was the model for ObamaCare. That fact should be of grave concern to every American."

On the government plantation forever?

Star Parker, Examiner Columnist
"If you want to know where it all leads, look at our inner cities that were long ago taken over by government compassion. This is our future, my fellow Americans."

Obama's U.S. is unprepared for catastrophe, domestic or foreign

James Jay Carafano, Examiner Columnist
"This White House refuses to fund national security adequately. To pay for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gates mortgaged the military's future capabilities -- including homeland defense."

Somebody should be in charge of the prom

Gregory Kane, Examiner Columnist
"First, who is in charge? Is it the adults, or youngsters like McMillen and Taylor? Because I'd rather have adults who are occasionally wrong in charge as opposed to youngsters who are only occasionally right."

The Next Takeover of the American Economy

Socialism on Parade: Its easy to follow when you see it happening. I wonder which Article of the Constitution they'll invent to justify telling you how much you can earn or how much your time is worth. Stop this crap now, folks, or it will be too late and the next paycheck they confiscate will be yours, or your family's.

EDITORIAL: The left's next move: Salary caps

Administration expands reach into private-sector compensation

Emboldened by the passage of health care legislation, the Obama administration will set its sights on a new target - regulating how much money you can make.

Recipients of federal bailout money already face regulations designed to rein in "excessive" corporate salaries. Since the administration has proclaimed this first step a success, it is only a matter of time before it seeks broader control over private-sector compensation. The administration gave itself a pat on the back for a job well done after "only" 16 of 104 senior corporate executives quit when their salaries fell under the pay czar's knife. The administration takes this as indisputable proof that high salaries are not needed to keep executives in their jobs.

The evidence, however, is far from compelling. Most executives are not going to abandon their companies instantly, and the cuts only went into effect in the last few weeks of 2009. While the salary reductions were substantial - on average a 74 percent cut compared to 2008 levels - there is no way to know whether companies are promising to make up the losses to their executives in the future because they think the regulations will be lifted eventually.

Kenneth R. Feinberg, the special master for executive compensation, is a lawyer with no experience running a business. To him, losing 15 percent of company leaders might seem to be an acceptable loss, but it is a different matter to the operations suddenly deprived of management experience and talent. Those firms have a financial stake in the outcome of their decisions. When pay is cut, will the executives be as careful? Will they work as hard? Will they retire sooner?

Such questions need not trouble a government regulator like Mr. Feinberg, who now wants to go after the 25 highest earners at each of 416 companies to slash their salaries. That could affect more than 10,000 high-level corporate officers, and it represents a massive government intervention into the marketplace. The notion that the government is going to decide how much people can earn is shocking, and the damage to the economy will be incalculable.

After taking over General Motors and the entire health care industry, it must seem like a small move to begin micromanaging the internal decisions of another 416 companies. The administration still hasn't learned the lessons from the last century: Central planning does not work.

Chicken Feed

EDITORIAL: Obama's constitutional malpractice
Health care plan would make the Founders sick

Americans have grown used to Congress claiming the right to regulate and control everything they do. But by what right can Congress force Americans to purchase health insurance?

This question is at the root of lawsuits filed by 14 states challenging Obamacare's requirement that those without health insurance must obtain it or face fines of $2,085 per household or 2.5 percent of income - whichever is greater.

Defenders of the new law point to the constitutional provision empowering Congress to regulate interstate commerce. The Supreme Court has long interpreted the Commerce Clause to extend well beyond what a common-sense reading would support. In the 1942 case Wickard v. Filburn, the high court ruled that farmer Roscoe Filburn could not grow wheat in excess of limits set by the 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act. It did not matter that the wheat was grown on his own land for his own use - in this case feeding his chickens. According to the court, "control of total supply ... depends upon the control of individual supply." If enough farmers like Filburn grew their own chicken feed, they would not buy it, and this would have an impact on commerce nationwide.

The Congress that can regulate Roscoe Filburn's chicken feed can regulate anything.

Read the rest here.

Editorials from the DCExaminer

TODAY'S WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL SECTION HIGHLIGHTS

No impartiality between Israel, Palestinians
Examiner Editorial
"What Obama and Clinton seem not to understand is that concessions by Israel frequently represent a diminution of her ability to defend herself against enemies that have declared their determination to destroy the Jewish state."

Congress lags behind public opinion
Noemie Emery, Examiner Columnist
"It is the first bill whose supporters say they have to sell it now after passage, as they failed so spectacularly to sell it the first time."

Suing our way to a carbon-free world
David Freddoso, Examiner Columnist
"Do you drive a car, ride the bus or cause carbon emissions of any kind? If so, you could be named as a defendant in the next lawsuit over Katrina -- or even in this one."

It's Tea Partiers and GOPers against the Elitist Democrats
Ralph Benko, Examiner Contributor
"By placing himself in opposition to the popular will, and treating this opposition as a virtue, Obama aligns himself with the spirit of monarchy. He takes it as a virtue to thwart the consent of the governed."

Goodwin Liu's America
Theodore H. Frank, OpEd Contributor
"America is a better and freer nation than Goodwin Liu thinks. Yet in the current state of the Ninth Circuit, his rigid ideology will further tip the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be."

We Will Remember

PRUDEN: Now comes November

Now the real fun begins. President Obama and his Democratic legion, frightened with good cause, want the health care "reform" debate to be over and done with. "It's time to move on." Lots of luck with that.

"This," the president said, interrupting his undivided attention to a basketball game to celebrate the House vote, "is what change looks like." Alas, it's what an abortion looks like. What the president and the Democrats don't want to think about is that the public has already looked at this "change" and can't wait to punish a lot of somebodies for it.

The first rush of euphoria that greets a presidential legislative triumph has given way in record time to stark reality. Sobering up quickly was inevitable. This was a health care takeover by the government that nobody wanted and even in the Democratic majority nobody wanted to be seen voting for. Only a perverted sense of party loyalty carried the day. Nancy Pelosi's overheard remark to Steny Hoyer, the majority leader, as they walked into the Capitol said it all: "We've got to find at least one more than 216 votes because nobody wants to be blamed for casting the deciding vote."

The rest is here.

Editorials from the DCExaminer

TODAY'S WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL SECTION HIGHLIGHTS

Yikes! Runaway Toyotas and the 'journalism of verification.'
Examiner Editorial
"In today's hyper-competitive news climate, reporters sometimes revert to a yellow journalism standard -- "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story""/a>

Enviros play dirty on coal, natural gas
Examiner Editorial (Sunday)
"What they don't want to talk about is the fact that there's no way those [alternative] sources are going to replace coal-fired power production by 2030."

Renumerate the parents, don't terminate the teachers
Gregory Kane, Examiner Columnist
"If students aren't being educated at CFHS, then simply cut the parents of those students a check for whatever is the per-pupil expenditure in the state of Rhode Island."

If the Democrats break it, they own it
Hugh Hewitt, Examiner Columnist
"If Obamacare passes this week, every American will rightly blame every problem they have with American medicine in the future on the Democrats."

Democratic party is broken, not Congress
Mark Hemingway, Examiner Columnist
"It's the Democratic party that is broken, and it takes a great deal of hubris to confuse that with the problems of Congress."

Just say no to Obamacare
Star Parker, Examiner Columnist
"Obama and his colleagues on Capitol Hill perceive a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity to grasp the holy grail of the Left and realize the dream of transforming America into a European-style welfare state."

Back to the border battles
James Jay Carafano, Examiner Columnist
"Border violence has not been much in the news of late. That will change in a New York minute when the administration reintroduces an "amnesty" bill to grant permanent status to the millions living in the United States unlawfully."

No politics at the Oscars, please
Bill O'Reilly, Examiner Columnist
"Mass-market entertainers simply cannot survive by alienating much of the country. Polls show that 40 percent of Americans currently identify themselves as conservative."

RoE are FUBAR

EDITORIAL: Ready, aim, hold your fire

Our troops are saddled with dangerous rules of engagement

The recent battle in Marjah in Afghanistan's Helmand province was a key test case for new rules of engagement that emphasized protecting civilians rather than killing insurgents. The town was taken, but whether that was because of the new rules or despite them remains to be seen.

The rules of engagement are probably the most restrictive ever seen for a war of this nature. NATO forces cannot fire on suspected Taliban fighters unless they are clearly visible, armed and posing a direct threat. Buildings suspected of containing insurgents cannot be targeted unless it is certain that civilians are not also present. Air strikes and night raids are limited, and prisoners have to be released or transferred within four days, making for a 96-hour catch-and-release program.

In Marjah, the enemy quickly adapted to the rules, which led to bizarre circumstances such as Taliban fighters throwing down their weapons when they were out of ammunition and taunting coalition troops with impunity or walking in plain view with women behind them carrying their weapons like caddies. If World War II had been fought with similar rules, the battles would still be raging. Paradoxically, America's most successful post-conflict reconstructions were in Germany and Japan, where enemy-occupied towns like Marjah were flattened without a second thought.

U.S. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the NATO commander, said, "The Afghan people are at the center of our mission. In reality, they are our mission." Yet protecting civilians is difficult in an unconventional conflict in which the battlefield has no front
lines. As an anonymous Pentagon planner told Time magazine, "It's harder to separate the enemy from the people when they are the people." Helmand province is part of the Taliban's core area; they see the fight as homeland defense.

DCExaminer Editorial Highlights

TODAY'S WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL SECTION HIGHLIGHTS

Taints on the Toyota probe

Examiner Editorial
"There is no creditable way to separate federal policy decisions from their commercial effect on both Toyota and GM as long as the government is simultaneously prosecutor, judge and jury."

Republicans must teach the American Dream

Cal Thomas, Examiner Columnist
"America doesn't need restructuring. It needs revival; revival of the principles that made us strong and great; revival of the moral foundation that proved to be our real strength and allowed us to conquer our demons and become independent, not dependent on government."

Holder's national security cover-up

Michelle Malkin, Examiner Columnist
"Americans have a right to know whether Holder, who put political interests ahead of security interests at the Clinton Justice Department in both the Marc Rich pardon scandal and the Puerto Rican FALN terrorist debacle, has made hiring decisions that provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare."

There are worse things than a dysfunctional Congress.

David Freddoso, Examiner Columnist
""Don't you remember back in December, when the GOP spent two weeks filibustering the "Pisgah National Forest Boundary Adjustment Act?" (You don't?)
DEFINITELY WORTH A READ, TOO

In search of the right dog

Meghan Cox Gurdon, Examiner Columnist

Obama's federal debt blunder

Larry Elder, Examiner Columnist