"You Lie" Is Worse Than "You're Dead"

Bozell: Who Is James Eric Fuller?

OK, so conservatives have to be accused of fostering hatred with our alleged vitriol, the kind of vitriol that fuels the flames of violence, like we witnessed in Tucson except — well, except there wasn’t and isn’t a shred of evidence that the killer was influenced by any conservatives since a) he didn’t listen to or watch conservative programming and b) isn’t a conservative.

There is the hypothetical question: What if the perpetrator of violence were liberal? How would the media react then? How many would put Chris Matthews, Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann and Co. on trial for creating the “atmosphere” of “hatred” so often ascribed to conservatives only?

In fact, it happened. One of Jared Loughner’s shooting victims was a local leftist activist, James Eric Fuller, who last week was invited to ABC’s taping of “An American Conversation.” There, in front of all the cameras, he interrupted a local tea party activist by uttering what should be considered in this atmosphere to be a blood-curdling threat: “You’re dead!” Police considered these words serious enough to have him removed and involuntarily committed to a mental institution.

The very same media outlets that had spent seven days pounding conservatives with no evidence didn’t find this threat worth more than a perfunctory mention, an asterisk. The same people who turned the words “You lie!” from Rep. Joe Wilson to Obama into a week-long scandal for conservatives now heard a man proclaim “You’re dead!” to a tea party activist at a national news taping — and they yawned.

Which is not to say that the press wasn’t interested in the pronouncements of this man. In fact, Fuller had been featured in an interview on the radical-left Pacifica Radio network the day before, and they dutifully broadcast his either dishonest or insane rant: “It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled — senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even 9-year-old girls.”

So let’s look at the coverage. The first responsibility to report this was ABC’s, since they invited this crank to their special episode of “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour. ABC did a big story previewing their “healing” event on “World News Saturday.” At first, they pretended that no one made a death threat, and no one was dragged away by police. Anchor David Muir, who co-hosted the town hall meeting, declared, “Wasn’t it something to see this community together? … They want consensus.” Amanpour agreed: “Today we saw them wanting to carry on an honest dialogue … but a reasonable and rational one.”

Read more

Cronyism, Bambi-Style (Chicago)

ObamaCare Rewards Friends, Punishes Enemies
The administration waives allies through the health law's onerous restrictions.

A primary task for the new Republican House majority is to undo as many of the pernicious effects of ObamaCare that it can. One of these effects is the spectacle of employers going hat-in-hand to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for waivers from some of the law's more onerous provisions.

In September, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius began granting waivers to companies that provided workers "mini-med" coverage—low-cost plans with low annual limits on what the insurance will pay out. This followed announcements by some employers that they would have to drop these plans because they did not meet the new health law's requirement that 85% of premium income be spent on medical expenses.

By early December, HHS had granted 222 such waivers to provide mini-med policies for companies including AMF Bowling and Universal Forest Product, as well as 43 union organizations. According to the department's website, the waivers cover 1,507,418 employees, of which more than a third (525,898) are union members. Yet unionized workers make up only 7% of the private work force. Whatever is going on here, a disproportionately high number of waivers are being granted to administration allies.

If this healthcare bill is so damn good, why is the administration granting waivers? Why does it exempt Congress?

Snake in the yard, folks. Get the hoe. Time to kill it once and for all.

If You Like It (and Can Afford It) You Can Keep It

You like it, you can’t keep it

Throughout the debate over healthcare reform, President Obama insisted that individuals would be able to maintain their current healthcare plan: “If you like it, you can keep it.” It was a refrain that was used as Congress was writing the bill, as the bill struggled to pass, and now the president continues to claim that the law will allow individuals to keep their coverage.

The talking point may be consistent, but talking points aren’t law. Right now, the Department of Health and Human Services, administered by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, is implementing the law in ways that radically transform the coverage of many Americans.

Over the next few years, millions of American families, individuals and retired seniors will see their health coverage transformed by new regulations and decisions made by the Secretary and her successors. The bill uses the phrase, “The Secretary shall,” or one of its variants, more than 1,000 times. This means that Congress has left many of the important decisions regarding implementation up to the Secretary and the bureaucracy.

If you like it, you can keep it; but only if the Secretary agrees.

And you can afford the 50% increase in your premium and the $3,000 yearly deductible.

Read more:

Homegrown Terrorists

Homegrown terror: Revisiting the path to domestic radicalization

Last month marked the nine-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks against the United States. As we reflect upon the strikes that took nearly 3,000 lives, recent events remind us of the ongoing struggle to protect the American homeland from further acts of terror. As every month seems to usher in the revelation of a new terror plot hatched within our nation’s borders, we are reminded of the vigilance necessary to combat the dangers posed by radical Islamist ideologies.

Over the past fifteen months, 23 cases involving 56 individuals, both citizens of the United States and foreign nationals of legal residency, have been uncovered while in various stages of development. The groups and individuals captured over the past year and a half derived their inspiration, and often direction, from al-Qaeda, its affiliates, and the broader Islamist fundamentalist movement.

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."

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.

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."

Thomas Sowell

Opinion in Brief

"The corrupt manner in which this massive legislation was rammed through Congress, without any of the committee hearings or extended debates that most landmark legislation has had, has provided a roadmap for pushing through more such sweeping legislation in utter defiance of what the public wants.

Too many critics of the Obama administration have assumed that its arrogant disregard of the voting public will spell political suicide for Congressional Democrats and for the President himself. But that is far from certain.

True, President Obama's approval numbers in the polls have fallen below 50 percent, and that of Congress is down around 10 percent. But nobody votes for Congress as a whole, and the President will not be on the ballot until 2012.

They say that, in politics, overnight is a lifetime. Just last month, it was said that the election of Scott Brown to the Senate from Massachusetts doomed the health care bill. Now some of the same people are saying that passing the health care bill will doom the administration and the Democrats' control of Congress. As an old song said, 'It ain't necessarily so.'"

--economist Thomas Sowell

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."

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.

Written By A Former Marine

Attributed to Robert A. Hall, a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate.

I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.

I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes." Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I'm willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them with their own money.

I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of Zimbabwe , the freedom of the press of China , the crime and violence of Mexico , the tolerance for Christian people of Iran , and the freedom of speech of Venezuela .

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.

I'm tired of being told that "race doesn't matter" in the post-racial world of Obama, when it's all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract
set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois.

I think it's very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.

I'm tired of a news media that thinks Bush's fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama's, at triple the cost, were wonderful; that thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress; that picked over every line of Bush's military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his; that slammed Palin, with two years as governor, for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever. Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn't vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America , while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's, and if you're greener than Gore, you're green enough.

I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don't think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I'm tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.

I'm tired of illegal aliens being called "undocumented workers," especially the ones who aren't working, but are living on welfare or crime. What's next? Calling drug dealers, "Undocumented Pharmacists"? And, no, I'm not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I'm willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military.... Those are the citizens we need.

I'm tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close. So here's the deal. I'll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we'll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.

I'm tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois , where the
"Illinois Combine" of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama's cabinet.

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

Speaking of poor, I'm tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor." The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter.