Thoughts on Cap & Trade

The only emissions problem is on Capitol Hill

“The Heritage Foundation’s senior policy analyst for energy and environment, Ben Lieberman, has produced a stellar paper on [the cap and trade bill]… Based on available evidence and analysis, Lieberman concludes ‘that both the seriousness and imminence of anthropogenic global warming has been overstated.’ But even if we assume the problem is as bad as the hysterics claim, the proposed bill ‘would have a trivial impact on future concentrations of greenhouse gases. …[It] would reduce the earth’s future temperature by 0.1 to 0.2 degree C by 2100, an amount too small to even notice.’ The bill would bind only the U.S., not other nations, many of which, like China, are ‘polluting’ at a record pace. Also note that many European nations that have already imposed similar emissions restrictions have seen their emissions rise. But what would the costs be for this quixotic legislative paean to earth goddess Gaia? Contrary to the flawed analyses being advanced by the bill’s proponents, Heritage estimates that the direct costs would be an average of $829 per year for a household of four, totaling $20,000 between 2012 and 2035. But when considering the total cost as reflected in the cost of allocations and offsets, the average cost to that family unit would be $2,979 annually from 2012 to 2035. Adding insult and hypocrisy to injury, the bill would hurt the poor the worst because they would bear a disproportionate burden of the higher energy costs the bill would trigger. Now here’s the kicker. The bill is also projected to harm the manufacturing sector and cause estimated ‘net’ job losses, averaging about 1.15 million between 2012 and 2030. The overall gross domestic product losses would average $393 billion per year from 2012 to 2035, and the cumulative loss in gross domestic product would be $9.4 trillion by 2035. The national debt for a family of four would increase by $115,000 by 2035. Enough already. Throw the bums out.” –columnist David Limbaugh

Obama’s Propaganda Campaign to Mainstream Extreme Liberalism

by David Limbaugh

A fellow conservative I highly respect told me last week that he doesn’t see how Republicans can ever regain the majority without reaching out to moderates, because, he said, only 30 percent of Americans are conservative. Let me try to clear up this growing misconception.

The issue is quite timely, considering that GOP-defecting Sen. Arlen Specter is rationalizing his self-serving move as necessitated by an increasingly intransigent conservatism in the Republican Party. He echoes the David Frum Republicans that the party is too conservative, backward-looking, stale and out of fresh ideas.

It’s true that a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that only 21 percent of Americans now identify themselves as Republicans, compared with 35 percent as Democrats and 38 percent as independents. But there’s a huge difference between party identification and ideological identification.

The bipartisan Battleground Poll, as recently as Aug. 20, 2008, revealed that 60 percent of Americans identify themselves as conservative and only 36 percent as liberal.

So it’s the Republican Party that’s in trouble, not conservatism. The GOP’s shrinkage can’t be because it’s too conservative. George W. Bush, our most recent Republican president, was hardly an extreme conservative. His most outspoken critics today include wide swaths of conservatives who decried his failure to rein in federal spending and control illegal immigration, among other things.

And the GOP’s 2008 presidential candidate, John McCain, was hardly a staunch conservative, either, lest he would never have been the liberal media’s favorite Republican. McCain didn’t lose because of any extreme conservatism. Nor did Obama win because he was honest about his liberalism, which he denied every time he was confronted about it.

Even though the nation is mostly conservative and “liberal” is still a dirty word, President Obama is moving us leftward at a breakneck pace by disguising his actions through smooth rhetoric and slick salesmanship. Obama is a consummate practitioner of presenting his extreme leftist agenda as moderate and mainstream.

Obama tells us he’s a disciple of capitalism while he gobbles up big chunks of the private sector and refuses to allow them out from under his government thumb when they try to refund their TARP money. He declares an end to earmarks as he signs a bill bloated with almost 9,000 of them. He boasts of his fiscal responsibility as he schemes to quadruple the deficit. He claims he’s making America safer as he shares with terrorists our classified interrogation techniques and plans to release terrorist detainees on American soil, against the advice of his national security advisers.

With his upcoming Supreme Court pick, Obama will surely select an uncompromising liberal activist but present him or her as an objective, non-activist jurist — as another step on his mission to mainstream extreme liberalism by masking it as centrism.

In his statements about his ideal justices, Obama, as always, has spoken out of both sides of his mouth as he has attempted to re-educate the public about the proper role of the high court.

On the one hand, he says he seeks a nominee “who shares (his) respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded and who brings a thoughtful understanding of how to apply them in our time.” On the other, he says he wants a pragmatic justice with “empathy” — one who understands “how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives — whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation.”

But a justice who respects the Constitution would not be guided by pragmatism or empathy, which are irrelevant to the appellate judge’s primary interpretive function. He would honor the court’s role as interpreter of laws and would resist the temptation to become a part of an unelected super-legislature, understanding that to do otherwise would jeopardize our liberties.

From preserved audiotapes, we know Obama’s vision for the high court. For all to hear, he lamented that the universally-recognized-as-liberal Warren court was not radical after all, because it didn’t legislate what Obama calls economic justice: massive redistributions of wealth.

It’s outrageous enough when the political branches redistribute the nation’s wealth and the court lets them get away with it. But it would be taking it to an entirely new level if the court were to start doing it on its own — a prospect that probably gives Obama goose bumps.

Obama knows that the advancement of his extremist agenda depends on his sophisticated propaganda campaign to fraudulently package extremism as mainstream and marginalize mainstream conservatism as extreme.

He will only succeed “to fundamentally change” America if the conservative majority stays silent, credulous and compliant and some of its would-be leaders keep covering for him. The upcoming Supreme Court nomination would be a good place to break this silence.

Memo to Capitalists: Be Very Afraid

by David Limbaugh

Lately, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has been on a childish tear, taunting Republicans to admit their belief in the biblical account of the Creation. Someone ought to ask this paragon of smug self-satisfaction why, if he’s so brilliant, he unquestioningly echoes the demagogic hyperbole of global warming fanatics hellbent on destroying the economic system responsible for producing unprecedented prosperity in the advanced industrialized world.

Oh, yes, it’s fashionable to denounce capitalism these days, but the historical record is clear. As Richard C. Bayer documents in his 1999 book, “Capitalism and Christianity,” the gross domestic products remained flat in the 1,000-year period from 500-1500 for all now-advanced industrial countries but rose geometrically with the advent of merchant capitalism (1700-1820) and modern capitalism (1820-present).

More specifically, “Real per capita U.S. GDP in 1989 ($18,317) was seventeen times what it was in 1820 ($1,048),” using 1985 real dollars. The growth rates of the other advanced industrial nations showed exponential jumps in that period, as well. But this track record didn’t keep class warfare exponents in the 1930s from blaming our economic hardship on capitalistic exploitation, and it isn’t keeping them from doing it today.

As long as people have different worldviews, there will be vigorous debates about the effectiveness, fairness and morality of capitalism compared with other economic systems. But common sense supports history’s empirical evidence in validating the generalized notion that robust economic production will accompany political and economic liberty rather than command and control systems.

People will produce more when they are allowed to retain more of the fruits of their labor. You simply cannot expand the economic pie by separating rewards from efforts. To do so is a failsafe prescription for economic stagnation — if not immediately, then in the long run. Yet the current administration and its wholly owned congressional partners have embarked on a course to destroy capitalism from every imaginable front.

Sadly, far too many Americans are apparently oblivious to the magnitude and peril of this systemic assault. They are also obviously unaware that the constriction of economic freedom will necessarily result in a constriction of political freedom. When the government, instead of the free market, picks winners and losers, it exercises coercive power in employing its value judgments. If it has a prejudice against capital and favors labor, its decisions will reflect those biases, at the expense of the rule of law.

We’ve already seen this with the White House’s strong-arming of GM creditors, using threats and intimidation to force a major shift in ownership and control from disfavored (business) groups to favored (labor) ones. Thomas Lauria, attorney for creditor Perella Weinberg Partners, blew the whistle on the White House’s totalitarian threat to destroy his client’s reputation unless it accepted the administration’s Chrysler-restructuring plan to give the United Auto Workers 55 percent of the company. Other creditor representatives have told similar stories. One described the administration as the most shocking “end-justifies-the-means” group he has ever encountered. Another said, Obama is “the most dangerous smooth talker on the planet — and I knew Kissinger.”

The White House, of course, denies the charges — as if it’s remotely conceivable it would admit them if they are true — but we all saw Obama directly single out and publicly demonize the firms, such as Perella Weinberg, that wouldn’t roll over to his demands.

Folks, this is just a small taste, a foreshadowing of what we can come to expect from an administration that has already decided who should be the winners and losers and has undertaken a comprehensive agenda to “right the wrongs” — and even the score — by using the capricious power of government to radically redistribute income and wealth in this nation.

Obama promised to lower taxes on all but the top 5 percent of income earners, but his policies make that impossible. He is dramatically increasing our national debt, which will require massive tax increases on all producers in the long run. Likewise, the very allocation of his “stimulus” spending is, in itself, an exercise in income and wealth shifting.

But it’s not just through preferred spending, income tax increases, his mortgage default bailout bill, his union-favoring restructurings, and venture capitalist purges that he’ll redistribute income and wealth, guaranteeing long-term economic despair for all. He also seeks to implement Social Security means testing and nationalize health care. He’ll pass his cap and trade bill, which is a complete farce in terms of reducing carbon emissions but a cinch lock to extort wealth from corporations. He’ll increase capital gains tax rates, place caps on executive salaries, and punish energy players he detests and favor those he prefers.

Call me an alarmist, but we are witnessing the beginning of the most frightening period of government tyranny in our nation’s history.

Fearing Our Government

by David Limbaugh

Of the dozens of reasons to be concerned about the ever-growing and unchecked power of the federal government under President Barack Obama, the upcoming assault against conservative talk radio may surpass them all.

It’s not enough that liberals dominate the executive and legislative branches, liberals are poised to control the judiciary, and, at liberals’ direction, government is absorbing ownership and control of large chunks of the private sector. They must also shut up the opposition.

We have genuine cause for alarm on multiple fronts — and actual alarm indeed exists among increasing numbers of people, not all of whom are predisposed to excitability.

The government has declared war on innocent life in the womb in the name of “free choice.” It is spending unconscionable amounts of money it doesn’t have and can’t possibly acquire without taxing the primary producers in this nation into abject servitude. It’s set to impose “cap and trade” taxes in the name of protecting an environmental threat that exists mostly in the data-resistant prisons of their ideological minds, which will yield no environmental benefit but will cause irreparable economic harm.

It has passed constitutionally repugnant and morally odious legislation, carving out new crimes for violent acts motivated by “hate” against certain protected groups. Neither military veterans nor conservative males are among the protected groups, but pedophiles very well may be. The proscribed “hate” under the statute may not be “hate” at all, but mere political or theological disagreement with the view of the dominant media culture and the ruling class on, for example, the normalcy of homosexual behavior. Meanwhile this same ruling class and its enablers, who are so selectively indignant about certain majority opinions they mischaracterize as “hate,” openly bask in the kind of behavior no one can rationally dispute as hateful at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

The government, through President Obama, has trotted the globe, painting the United States, the most magnanimous nation in the history of the world, as an international pariah and disgrace for which he must presume to apologize.

The government would have prosecuted officials of the previous administration for conducting enhanced interrogation techniques they reasonably believed were legal — and the lawyers who furnished the legal opinions approving the techniques — until it discovered, with egg on its face, that in a recent case, an appellate court — and the Justice Department, in another — had endorsed the prior administration’s definition of torture.

The government threatens and intimidates creditors into transferring wealth to the administration’s friends in labor. It uses taxpayer money to fund nefarious enterprises, such as ACORN, to engage in widespread illegal activities designed to corrupt and skew the census, elections and other democratic processes as we watch, with mouths agape, seemingly powerless — for now — to stop it.

The government is a heartbeat away from nationalizing health care based on deliberate misinformation about the nation’s uninsured and despite the 100 percent failure rate of such fantastic reforms elsewhere on the globe.

This government has declared a false moral equivalence between the respective behaviors of democratic Israel and Palestinians committed to the extinction of Israel. It will attempt to force the Israelis to accept the twin suicidal concessions of relinquishing strategic real estate vital to its security and agreeing to the “return” of millions of Palestinian refugees. It appears to have abandoned any pretense of preventing Iran — a nation also committed to Israel’s extermination — from acquiring nuclear weapons while encouraging Israel, instead, to disarm.

But of all the unfolding outrages, I doubt any will ignite true patriots more than the imminent resurrection of the government’s war on conservative talk radio. If we can’t even express political dissent, the nation we’ve known as a bastion of individual liberty will be no more.

President Obama, in classic misdirection, has proclaimed that he will not support efforts to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine, through which the government would silence conservative talkers in the name of achieving “balance.”

But he doesn’t have to support the Fairness Doctrine to accomplish the same sinister goal when Congress and the Federal Communications Commission will do his dirty work for him. WorldNetDaily reports that Michael J. Copps, acting FCC chairman, has denounced the lack of racial and gender diversity in the broadcast industry as “a shameful state of affairs.” Unsurprisingly, his proposed corrective is to force the transfer of station ownership to greater numbers of minorities, who are statistically more likely to carry liberal talk shows.

Let the record emphatically reflect that conservatives have never tried to use government to shut down the liberal media monopoly in network television and major newspapers, under the deceitful pretense of achieving balance or otherwise.

Let the record also reflect that if this administration presses forward with this overreach, it might finally jolt the complacent among us out of their stubborn naiveté and apathy.

Radicalizing Even the Faith-Based Program

“How many in-your-face radical leftist appointments must Obama make before some realize this apparently conciliatory man is indeed a polarizing radical? Let’s just look at the [Harry] Knox appointment [to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships]. … Knox is the militant homosexual activist who, just last month, called Pope Benedict XVI and certain Catholic bishops ‘discredited leaders’ for opposing same-sex marriage. He said the Knights of Columbus are ‘foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression’ because they supported California’s Proposition 8 ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. … Knox also denounced the teachings of the apostle Paul as ‘not true.’ ‘Paul,’ said Knox, ‘did not have any idea of the kind of love that I feel for a partner when I am partnered. … The straight man, the heterosexual man who got the privilege of writing the book, the educated, rich heterosexual man, Paul … didn’t think it was natural because for him it must not have been.’ When appointed, Knox said the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community ‘will support the president in living up to his promise that government has no place in funding bigotry against any group of people.’ Sounds harmless enough on its face until you understand that Knox and the LGBT community consider the failure to support the judiciary’s thwarting of the people’s democratic will to define marriage as heterosexual in character to be bigotry.” –columnist David Limbaugh

Obama’s Relentless War on the American Dream

It’s probably poor form to piggyback onto another columnist’s work, but Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger’s disturbing discoveries about President Barack Obama’s budget summary justify an exception. Those not blinded by the Obama cult fog have produced abundant evidence of Obama’s grudge against capitalism, but Henninger’s revelations are hard to top.Despite Obama’s later denials, he was most serious when he cavalierly told Joe the Plumber he wanted to “spread the wealth around.” We’ve seen it born out in his policies so far and in the promises of those to come.

He will restore the Clinton tax hikes on higher-income earners, but there is so much more. He’ll reduce the effective charitable gift deduction, thus reducing charitable giving. This is no surprise, though, because he believes “charity” is the province of government — not the private sector.

He’ll impose a cap and trade tax on corporations under the pretense of making them “greener,” raise the tax rates on capital gains and dividends, reverse welfare reform, and nationalize health care.

He’ll eliminate the ceiling on payroll tax contributions, which is presently about $110,000. This will be a major hit to those earning more than $110,000, not that Obama cultists will have any sympathy for those greedy beneficiaries of life’s lottery, to borrow from the Al Gore vernacular.

Some might argue that this is only fair because the entire income of lower-income earners is subject to that tax. But to make that argument surrenders any illusion that this tax funds Social Security. If you eliminate the ceiling, higher-income earners will pay exorbitant amounts into a mythical fund (it’s never been segregated from general revenue) with no expectation of getting appreciably more back on retirement. Fairness? Only if you believe the wealthy should be punished.

Funny you should mention that, because it’s precisely what our president appears to believe, which brings me back to Henninger, who took the trouble to read the president’s budget summary for lay readers, “A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America’s Promise.”

Henninger directs us to a chart on Page 11, crafted by French economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez (“rock stars of the intellectual left”), which purports to show that beginning with the Reagan era, the top 1 percent of income earners in the United States have received an increasing share of the national income pie.

Obama regards this trend as necessarily sinister, as indicated by his empathically articulated verdict that the financially successful must have broken the rules.
On Page 5, Obama says, “While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not.” “Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care, and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected.” “There’s nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few. … It’s a legacy of irresponsibility, and it is our duty to change it.”

Some economists dispute the Piketty-Saez graph and contend that marginal tax cuts have given higher-income producers less reason to shift their income into tax shelters, thus accounting for some of the higher taxable income shown in the graph.

But a more important point is that Obama is ratcheting up his class warfare to levels that would make Marxists blush. This self-professed uniter is sowing distrust and divisiveness among Americans by demonizing groups of people and appealing to our baser instincts of envy and jealousy, in defiance of God’s commandments against coveting.

Obama is sending unmistakable signals that he has an unconventional notion — to say the least — about the American dream. It’s as if he’s saying, “It’s fine to aspire to financial success, but only to a point, beyond which you’ll incur the punitive wrath of the federal government.”

It’s one thing to maintain that upper-income earners should pay higher tax rates because they are better able to shoulder the burden for essential government services. But it’s constitutional blasphemy to claim that the tax code should be used as a weapon against the wealthy and that the state should be the tyrannical arbiter of how income is distributed.

It’s hardly surprising that Obama degenerated into incoherent babbling when unconvincingly denying his socialism to a New York Times reporter. But given his war on capitalism and achievement, isn’t it time we brought this subject out in the open instead of closing our eyes and pretending we all accept America’s free market traditions?

Or would you prefer not invoking the politically incorrect terms “Marxist” or “socialist” until Obama’s statist policies have worked their magic to bankrupt America and spread the misery among Americans in a reverse trickledown effect?

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

Targeting Rush: Saul Alinsky Would Be Proud

In his eight full years as the recipient of endless vile, often-delusional slander, President George W. Bush rarely grumbled, much less counterattacked his tormentors. Yet before he completed his first week in office, President Barack Obama — a dedicated disciple of Saul Alinsky, who is to left-wing radicalism and social agitation what Karl Marx is to communism — declared war on Rush Limbaugh.

This was a calculated move by a man who professes to be open to all ideas but apparently brooks no dissent. He not only does not tolerate dissent well but also really doesn’t even like to be questioned, as we saw during the campaign, when he accused the normally fawning press of grilling him for merely asking a follow-up question. We caught another glimpse of this last week, when he showed irritation at the White House press corps for daring to ask him a policy question after he had decreed that the sole purpose of his visit was to press the flesh.

But Obama’s effort to target Rush is not just his ego at work. He has begun a full-court press to advance his extreme left-wing agenda and was angling both to garner enough Republican support to insulate himself against future accountability for failure and to validate his self-styled image as a bipartisan uniter.

That’s why he invited a group of Beltway conservatives for dinner, in a move reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s “listening tour” — as if discerning observers believe that listening, as opposed to projecting an image of openness, was either Clinton’s or Obama’s purpose. That’s why he surrounded himself with big-business CEOs as he unveiled his misnamed “stimulus” package. That’s why he often throws meaningless, abstract bones to conservatives in his speeches while having no intention of diluting his specific concrete liberal policies.

Obama is savvy enough to realize he can’t eliminate all dissent. But he’s enough of an Alinskyite to know that marginalizing and demonizing his strongest opponents could intimidate the fainthearted into supporting or withholding criticism of his policies and increase his chances for success.

Perhaps Alinsky would couch Obama’s strategy in different terms, but it is essentially a divide-and-conquer approach. Make no mistake: The goal is to single Rush out and pick him off.

So Obama is trying to parlay his extraordinarily high approval rating to lay a foundation for his shock troops in the press and the party apparatus to discredit and eventually compromise or silence Rush.

As if in conspiratorial lockstep, the media are dutifully responding with round-the-clock distortions and deceitful context manipulation of Rush’s clearly articulated statement that he hopes Obama’s socialist blueprint for America fails, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is circulating a petition denouncing him. These are part of their larger goal to emasculate Rush and other conservative radio hosts through the Unfairness Doctrine.

Unhappily for them, their plan has backfired so far, as it obviously led to a counteraction, which, in turn, arguably contributed to the consolidation of Republicans in unanimous opposition to Obama’s trillion-dollar mega-pork scheme.

But this is no time for Republican gloating — obviously. Obama is far from dispirited or deterred. He has only just begun. His plan did, after all, pass the House with solely Democratic votes. It has a good chance to sail through the Senate, as well.

For those on the right who still cling to the fantasy that Obama is a bipartisan centrist, I refer you to his recent statement that FDR did not do enough by way of government spending to end the Depression, his decidedly pro-abortion executive order and pronouncement celebrating Roe v. Wade, his Web-documented commitment to the radical homosexual agenda, his announced closure of Gitmo and termination of enhanced interrogation techniques, his planned discontinuation of missile defense systems, his actions on carbon emissions and fuel efficiency in deference to the global warming hoax, his shameless apologies for America to the Muslim world, his arrogant carving out of exemptions for his own staff and appointees from ethical rules he is now otherwise imposing, his groundwork to shut down political criticism, and his government-expansion-on-steroids, non-stimulus pork bill.

The inevitable explosion of federal debt this legislation would cause is reason enough to oppose it, even if it were likely to stimulate the economy. But even some liberals are disputing its potential to stimulate. The hastily crafted bill, with its corrupt funding of ACORN and other favors, is a disgracefully irresponsible effort to expand the public sector, diminish the private sector, empower the autocrats, and further divest us of our individual liberties — all at the expense of present and future generations.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC. 

Found on Continue reading . . .

Gitmo Questions for Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

During his first week in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year. Later communications from his office disclose that he hasn’t yet fully explored the potentially negative consequences of closing the facility. The problem, he said, is more complicated than it first appeared. This raises a number of questions, Mr. Gibbs:

• How can President Obama credibly maintain that the issue is more complicated than he thought, when people have been raising these problems for years? Is he just now discovering that there are serious consequences involved, or did he already know and finesse the issue during the campaign for political purposes? If he didn’t know (and even more so if he did know), doesn’t he owe former President George W. Bush an apology for his unfair criticisms? Doesn’t he owe the American people an explanation as to how he could possibly have been unaware of such rudimentary aspects of this fundamentally important national security issue?

• Given that he now concedes there are unexplored complications, wasn’t it precipitous and imprudent of him to issue the closure order? What if further research indicates there are no reasonable alternatives other than to bring these prisoners to the U.S. mainland and grant them the full panoply of constitutional rights? Or does he actually favor full-blown constitutional rights for terrorists? If so, will he not be leading America back to its pre-Sept. 11, 2001, mindset, which treated terrorism as a law enforcement matter rather than a military one?

• Democratic Rep. John Murtha praised the Gitmo closure order as a “first key step in restoring America’s image and credibility in the world.” Murtha said, “The problem with Guantanamo was never about its bricks and mortar … (but) that its very existence stains and defies the moral fiber of our great nation.” Based on the president’s repeated statements, it’s obvious that he essentially agrees with Murtha that the primary problem Gitmo poses is its effect on America’s image in the international community. That being the case, why won’t the president’s simultaneous executive order banning “torture” rectify this supposed image problem, thereby allowing us to preserve the facility and avoid these complicated issues concerning its closure? After all, if, as Murtha says, it’s not about the bricks and mortar, then why don’t we keep using the same bricks and mortar and handle our image problem with clear publications of the president’s orders forbidding enhanced interrogation techniques? Isn’t the honest answer that the president is more worried about his image with his hard-core anti-war base than America’s image internationally? But if I’m wrong and his overriding concern truly is with international opinion, then could you please explain why he and other Democrats are constantly exaggerating and mischaracterizing the alleged incidents of abuse? We know there were only three cases in which waterboarding was used. Also, if America’s image is the problem, why does Mr. Obama continue to sanction the charge that the Bush administration was behind the regrettable incidents at Abu Ghraib, when the evidence indicates it did not authorize them and swiftly punished those who were culpable? Wouldn’t it better serve America’s international image if the Obama administration made clear to other nations that these were renegade acts never authorized by the Bush administration? Or would the damage to the president’s image with the fringe left from such a clarification be a price he’s unwilling to pay, even if it would serve his stated goal of repairing America’s image?

• What if the president’s further study reveals that our national security strongly militates in favor of keeping Gitmo open? Is the president prepared to say he is more concerned with America’s image than its safety?

• In that the president has decided, categorically, to forbid whatever he believes constitutes “torture,” could you please explain to the American people what alternative techniques he might implement that are reasonably designed to extract lifesaving information from terrorists? We do know, do we not, that information gleaned through these controversial techniques prevented real attacks and saved real lives? If the president is aware of no effective alternative techniques, will he tell the American people that he’d rather terrorist attacks occur and American lives be lost than debatable techniques be imposed? With all due respect, it is not a sufficient answer to say that in theory, enhanced interrogation techniques don’t work, because we know that in reality, they do — and did.

• Now, could we please turn to the question of abortion and consider how President Obama’s controversial executive order will fulfill his campaign promise to bring America together?

Found on The Patriot Post

They’re Poor Winners Too

Leftists are always lecturing Republicans and conservatives on the importance of civility and bipartisanship yet revealing, whether winner or losing, that they are the ones who need lessons in manners and collegiality.

If you aren’t convinced of the left’s nonpareil arrogance and nastiness from observing their behavior toward President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the past eight years, then contrast the behavior of Mr. Bush’s staff leaving office and that of Mr. Clinton’s, who literally trashed the White House like juvenile delinquents.

Fast-forwarding to this week, did you see Obama supporters booing President Bush at the inauguration, singing, “Na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye”? Pure class.

The Washington Times reported that these same Obama supporters mocked Mr. Cheney “with derisive laughter when he appeared on huge TV screens by the Capitol grounds, rolling down a ramp in a wheelchair after suffering a back injury moving out of his Naval Observatory home. ‘Good riddance!’ one man yelled.”

Nor was it just rude mobs at the parade. “Hardball” host Chris Matthews wasn’t content to bask in his euphoria over Obama’s assumption of office. Like many of his colleagues, he needed to kick Bush as he was going out the door. “There’ll be no more bullying of the world, no more acting like one of the bad guys on occasion. We’re going to try again to be the good guy of the world and to get along with our fellow democracies. It is a dramatic change that’s to come.” Dramatic, indeed, Chris. Continue reading “New Column: They’re Poor Winners Too”

Bloodlust of the Avenging Left

There is obviously no limit to the political left’s bloodlust for all things George W. Bush, as witnessed by two news items this week. If Barack Obama is as levelheaded and pragmatic as his supporters insist, he’ll have his work cut out for him dealing with these avengers on his side of the ideological spectrum.

On Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers issued a 500-page report, whose executive summary boasts “was drafted to itemize and document the various abuses that occurred during the Bush Administration.” The report recommends “that the new Administration conduct an independent criminal inquiry into whether any laws were broken in connection with these activities.”

The same day, Slate magazine published an op-ed by Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman suggesting that 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee be impeached, essentially because “he was responsible for the notorious torture memos that enabled the excesses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other places.”

Both of these items are equally outrageous and demonstrate the potential dangerousness of leftists in power. How ironic that the gravamen of each complaint is an alleged abuse of power while its recommended remedy would constitute a worse abuse (the criminalization of policy differences), especially considering the weakness of the complaints.

The Conyers vendetta seeks to criminally probe Bush officials involved with the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, the tough interrogation techniques of enemy combatants, the manipulation of intelligence, the firing of U.S. attorneys, and other matters.

The report protests that its purpose “is not payback, but to uphold the rule of law. … Such an effort would be a welcome sign to our friends, and a warning to our foes, that this Nation can indeed serve as a beacon of liberty and freedom without weakening our ability to combat terrorism or other threats.”

Oh, yes, I’m sure al-Qaida is quaking in its boots at the prospect of indictments of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld for implementing policies they deemed necessary — and which have proved to be immensely successful — to thwart terrorism and safeguard the United States. Fitting the outgoing administration for orange jumpsuits would surely be a stern “warning to our foes.”

If the NSA’s warrantless wiretap procedure were so threatening to our civil liberties, liberals wouldn’t have to mischaracterize it as domestic spying on innocent old ladies, as opposed to the monitoring of terrorist communications into the United States for the purpose of preventing attacks. If it were such an abuse of executive power, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review wouldn’t have reaffirmed that the president has inherent constitutional authority to monitor these international communications without permission from the court.

If Rep. Conyers were so worried about the president’s almost unfettered right to fire U.S. attorneys, as opposed to playing partisan politics, he would have fiercely objected when President Clinton fired them all at the beginning of his tenure. Continue reading . . .