Editor’s Note: For additional NewsReal coverage of this story click here and here.

It is true. You already know about it. Tareq and Michaela Sahali weaseled their way through White House security and crashed the State party. What in the world were they thinking?  And what in the world is the world thinking?

As I’m typing this sentence millions of Americans are simultaneously having the same thought: “If the president can’t secure his own front door from uninvited strangers, how’s he going to keep America safe from terrorist attacks?” I’m going to risk your un-forgiveness, and not just for my overuse of colons, but for my spontaneous impulse to blurt this out. Here it goes:

What in the ever loving____?  Just who in the ____ is minding the store? Ok, Buster, hand over those keys to the Pennsy Ave. digs right now, you are grounded, mister! NO MORE PARTIES!  Especially the SOCIALIST KIND!  Howsabout spending a little of that stimulus allowance on a few rent-a-cops, chief?   White House thinks: “Do we risk offending a guest with a name such as Tareq Sahali , or do we risk the extremely remote chance of him being a W.H. party crasher?  We shall err on the SAFE SIDE!” Call in the expert: WWCD (What would Clinton do?)

Ok, I feel better now. Sorry.

You’ll have to admit, this presidency is so full of tragedy, in order to remain sane one is almost forced to focus on the comedy of it all.

Can any of us wait to hear the Mathews Excuse, or Keith Obamarmann’s spin on this colossal blunder? Will the far left use this opportunity to beat up Obama because of the extreme dissatisfaction over his conservative style of leadership?  What will the ladies of the View have to say about this national embarrassment?

In the ensuing days you can bet jokes, jabs, and jeers will run viral on the net, and comedy writers are at this very moment glued to their computers with empty cans of Energy Drinks strewn about their feet, briskly typing  W.H. security faux pas scripts.  More than likely the president’s own writers are the busiest among these, loading Obama’s guns up with some brilliant comic relief lines he can quickly fire off in order to mitigate the inevitable bombardment from the talk show hosts and SNL. No doubt, there is plenty of comedy to cull out from this gaffe, and that may well be the best defense for the White House. Because if the laughter is high enough it just might camouflage the reality of the tragedy.

Ronald Kessler of Newsmax offers his cataclysmic view of the situation:

“While the couple did pass through a magnetometer to detect weapons, they could have assassinated the president or vice president using other means—anthrax, for example.”

Maybe in another time and with another White House that radiated confidence, this incident might not be so obtrusive. But in November of 2009, there is a disquieting diffidence growing rapidly in our population and throughout the world, inflicting many more people than the H1N1 virus.  While under Obama, it may be true that our nation is growing more likeable in the eyes of the world, The United States of America is also beginning to be perceived as a weak and uncertain nation,  lacking leadership. The tragedy in this is when a couple of uninvited guests are able to invade the home of the leader of the free world, other aspiring uninvited guests are likely to perceive this as their invitation.

Terror attacks are sporadically breaking out on our soil for the first time since 9/11. The Taliban has gained the momentum in Afghanistan as the president cannot decide whether or not to grant his General’s request for more troops. American soldiers are being killed as he dithers. Job loss in the nation has reached panic zone level. Our deficit is quite literally off the galactic charts. We are printing money and debasing our currency. China, our largest creditor could, at any time, dump our securities on to the world market creating unimaginable chaos. And our president is hosting parties where he cannot distinguish between celebrity guests and intruders.

If Obama decides to utilize his customary levity to control this damage, let’s hope his writers aren’t suffering from holiday hangovers. They’ll need to be on top of their creative games for this one.

The Vice President and a party crasher.

Maybe President Barack Obama really didn’t know Van Jones was a 9-11 Truther or Anita Dunn was a Maoist.  After all, at Obama’s first State Dinner, it is clear he and his staff are clueless on the true identity of people in the White House.Tuesday night President Obama hosted his first State Dinner at the White House.  Much of the media coverage has been on who was and wasn’t invited.  NewsReal has reported on many key Republican leaders who weren’t invited to the dinner.  However, the news is now focused on a couple of people that got into the dinner without being invited.

CNN’s Campbell Brown covered the State Dinner by interviewing those who helped break the news.  Stars of a new reality TV show, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, managed to get into the White House State dinner even though they were not on the guest list.  Even worse, the couple (which posted pictures of themselves on Facebook) were seen hugging people like Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel. People who should not have been allowed in the White House had their arms around our nation’s #2 leader and our President’s right hand man.  The couple also met the President at the event.  Yikes! Thankfully, the couple had no weapons on them, but obviously they could have gotten physical with world leaders if they had been so inclined.

Campbell Brown: “I don’t want to be an alarmist about this..but…a crazy person, who got in uninvited could grab a fork and do something insane.”

This event has alarmed many on the security of the White House. Thankfully this reality show couple had no plans to hurt anyone. The only thing they wanted was to self-promote.  Mission accomplished! Bravo, owned by NBC by the way, reportedly filmed them preparing for the dinner.  And Larry King is going to be interviewing the couple on CNN this Monday.  Also, Michaele Salahi’s Facebook page is covered with a mixture of attacks and congratulations for the publicity stunt.  One guy summed up their success this way:

“The Salahis are happy to announce that Saturday morning they’ll be launching their six-year-old son in an untethered balloon shaped like a space ship.” – Facebook Fan comment

What are we to take away from this event besides another chapter of reality TV shame?  I believe this embarrassing incident finds its greatest importance in its symbolism. It represents an Administration that has consistently proven itself faulty on who has the ear of the President and clueless on the policies presented to the American people.

Obama somehow managed to sit under the spiritual guidance of Reverend Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and never heard the pastor’s incendiary statements about America.  Obama worked alongside ACORN as a community organizer for years and never quite caught on to the illegal activities they were supporting.  Obama gave two of his top staff positions to a 9-11 Truther and a Mao Zedong supporter but acted like he was unaware of their philosophies.

The President’s polices are equally clueless and misguided.  Obama has constantly wavered on how to handle the war on terror. The only thing he has consistently done is stop using the word “terrorism.” Obama has thrown hundreds of billions at a bad economy which has only led to an ever-increasing unemployment rate.  Moreover, the President has bet his entire presidency on passing socialized medicine that he promises won’t raise our debt one dime.  We all see how well that has gone.

Our real concern as citizens should not be focused on what idiots manage to sneak into the White House, but on the clueless incompetence of those who were hired or voted into it.

Remember the good old days when people used to make jokes comparing the New York Times to Pravda, and it was considered an insult to the New York Times? Now, the publishers of The Pentagon Papers have suddenly decided that the “public’s right to know” does not extend to things that damage the editorial page’s political stance, while Russian TV hosts important public debates.

During the Bush Administration, it was Pulitzer material to expose anti-terrorism methods and operations including:

• The Terrorist Surveillance Program
• How we tracked terrorist financing
• Exposing secret terrorist holding facilities in allied countries
• Exaggerated accounts of terrorist interrogation

But when it comes to the hundreds of emails exposing the “scientists” who are manufacturing fraudulent data that is being used to seize control of the U.S.—and world—economy in the name of “global warming,” the New York Times is suddenly queasy about exposing documents that were “never intended for the public eye.” The last time they kept a secret this well, was when Stalin was starving millions of Ukrainians to death.

But the New York Times is not alone.  Despite stories on every network that Barack Obama is going to Copenhagen to advocate for a “climate change” treaty, NONE of them have reported on this story—not even to try to refute it.

In this upside down world, the only good public debate on Climategate broadcast anywhere other than Fox News, is on something called Russia Today. Alice, please check in, Wonderland is calling.

Of course the media has also protected us from other news stories that might just confuse us and take us off the Obama storyline:

• Those dubiously obtained ACORN tapes—who did those kids think they were, Dateline, 60 Minutes?
• A Presidential advisor named Van Jones’s history radical statements
• Navy SEALS being court-martialed for allegedly giving the terrorist who committed the atrocity pictured below a “bloody lip.”

Of course, they have a habit of not wanting to remind us of the nature of our enemy.  So, they have also “protected” us images of 9/11, especially those of people forced by the flames to leap to their deaths from the World Trade Center. So, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that when Barack Obama is making an overseas trip to lead the world to the promised land of continuously moderate weather, that the sycophantic American media would ignore the fact that the case for man-made global warming is crashing and burning in spectacular fashion all around them.

Nothing to see here, folks.  Move along.

Just a few months ago, the nets all made little mea culpa statements about “missing” the ACORN story.  Now, they are willing to look even more ridiculous with their don’t-confuse-us-with-the-facts-our-mind-is-made-up stance, ignoring a huge story staring them in the face—complete with documentation!

Maybe Anita Dunn’s shot across the bow worked.

And they wonder why they are losing viewers and readers by the day.

Today’s open thread was submitted by Chana.

Updated: Video changed since Youtube took down the previous open thread that was embedded.

In the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi’s version of the bill designed to implement President Barack Obama’s overhaul of the American health care system (and in the process provide coverage to 30 million currently uninsured Americans and possibly illegal aliens) passed, but immediately came under fire for being too expensive. Pundits predicted that a similar version would not pass in the Senate.

Harry Reid’s Senate version of the bill had Reid’s progressives looking at what could be cut from the House’s plan in order to make the bill more financially palatable. Since Senate Democrats seem to enjoy spending other people’s money just as much as House Democrats do, they naturally didn’t find too much. One of the things they did ultimately select, however, was the elimination of those subsidies that had been allotted to financially assisting medical residents in becoming primary care physicians and general surgeons.

By eliminating these subsidies and placing more of the financial burden on future physicians, Reid and his minions reasoned that they could keep their version of the plan under a trillion dollars, thereby making its passage in the Senate more likely. The Senate version passed, and Reid and his progressives gloated before the state-run media’s TV cameras.

Both versions had one serious flaw in common: they both failed to address what a Fox News report has identified as the premier health care challenge currently facing the nation: the severe shortage of physicians.

In fact, finalizing either version of the bill will make the shortage of physicians worse. President Obama acknowledged the problem of a physician shortage last July when he commented that:

The status quo is we don’t have enough primary care physicians.

With universal coverage, the removal of the subsidies and the addition of 30 million previously uninsured persons to the mix, Obama’s health-care reform plan is going to lead to an even greater physician shortage and longer waiting times for patients.

The Association of American Medical Colleges, for example, has predicted a primary care physician shortage of 46,000 by 2025 if nothing is done; if universal health care is passed, that figure would increase by 25%.

In Massachusetts, whose health care system served as the model for the universal coverage Obama wants to implement nationwide, the percentage of residents of that state having difficulty getting care because of the physician shortage rose to 24% from 16% between 2007 and 2008.

The reason so many are having trouble finding a doctor is that since the system was implemented back in 2006, one-half of the state’s doctors have moved to other states to practice medicine. A recent poll revealed that a shocking 33% of the state’s primary care doctors are considering changing professions due to dissatisfaction with the current practice environment which forces them to deal with crushing work-loads and a massive administrative bureaucracy. In fact, Massachusetts is not only having trouble retaining doctors, it is finding it exceedingly difficult to attract new ones.

By drastically increasing patient demand while the number of primary care physicians decreases, Obama’s vision of reform will turn health care into a nightmare. There will be longer wait times, shorter visits, higher prices, and decreased patient satisfaction. In this model, patient demand can only be met with the increased use of nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants.

In September, a survey conducted by Investors Business Daily found that 45% of doctors would consider quitting medicine altogether if Congress passes its plan to overhaul health-care.

Who can blame them? Why would anyone want to pursue a career in medicine under this scenario?

President Obama pardoned a turkey for Thanksgiving named Courage. That turns out to be the gutsiest decision that Obama has made since taking office.

Courage is not the only recipient of Obama’s generosity who has reason to be thankful. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his boss Osama bin Laden are grateful for the opportunity provided by the Obama administration to put on a propaganda display during the circus trial that the whole world will be watching. KSM will be the perfect ringmaster, following up on his ringleader performance on 9/11.   And I couldn’t think of a better clown than Attorney General Eric Holder.

But there are many more folks who should be writing thank you notes to Obama this season.  In no particular order, here are just a few:

• Vladimir Putin – Obama handed him a gift of abandoning our anti-missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland without obtaining a single concession from Russia.
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – Obama left the dissidents hanging (some literally) while he decided to engage unconditionally the thugs who stole the Iranian presidency  – which, by the way, has bought them more time to develop their nuclear arms program.
• United Nations – Obama has raised the profile of this dysfunctional organization, telling the General Assembly in September that the UN is  “an indispensable factor in advancing the interests of the people we serve.” He intends to make the UN the moral arbiter of our foreign policy.
• China and climate change - Obama’s decision to move ahead and offer specific carbon emission reduction targets in Copenhagen while China gets a free pass will give China just the boost it needs to surge past us and become the world’s #1 economy.
• ACLU - They have the best friend they have ever had in the White House.  The Obama administration must have exceeded the ACLU’s most optimistic expectations by publicly releasing previously classified memos on enhanced interrogation, re-opening criminal investigations of CIA interrogators and giving al Qaeda leaders the full protections of the Constitution that Americans are entitled to in a criminal trial.
• ACORN - The Justice Department is slow-rolling any investigation, much less prosecution, of ACORN for its alleged criminal wrong-doing while the Obama administration is giving ACORN the opportunity to compete for billions of dollars of new grant money, courtesy of the stimulus windfalls.
• Arizona’s 15th congressional district - According to an Obama administration website, 30 jobs have been saved or created in this district with just $761,420 in stimulus money.   Unfortunately, members of this district will have a hard time writing a thank you note because no such district actually exists.
• The New York Times and MSNBC - They are the Obama administration’s favorite ‘news’ outlets.
• Fox News - The Obama administration’s bashing has boosted their ratings beyond anything that traditional advertising could have accomplished.

Finally, the conservative movement should thank Obama.  His failed economic policies, experiments in wealth redistribution, and weakness abroad have unified conservatives more than anything else could possibly have done.

Why is President Obama so terrified of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin?

Organizing for America (OFA), the activist arm of the Democratic National Committee, is openly campaigning against Palin, who isn’t running for anything. OFA is the outgrowth of Obama for America, the president’s campaign to win the White House. OFA exists to unceasingly agitate for radical change.

It’s really shouldn’t be that surprising given that America’s first Marxist president is always in campaign mode.

OFA is trying to raise money to fight Palin, calling her “dangerous” because she opposes the efforts of Democrats to ram socialist medicine down the throats of unwilling Americans.

Here’s the email OFA sent out a few days ago to its members:

Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn.

It’s dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term “Death Panels” — and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists.

Whatever lie comes next will be widely covered by the media, then constantly echoed by right-wing attack groups and others who are trying to defeat reform.

As we approach the final sprint on health reform, we can’t afford more deception and delay. We need to be ready for anything — and have the resources to respond with ads, events, and calls to Congress when the attacks come.

So we’re setting a big goal: $500,000 in the next week to help push back against Sarah Palin and her allies. Please chip in $5 or more to help reach our goal.

Earlier this month, Palin publicly said that she hopes health reform will be “dead on arrival.” And since then, she’s been working fiercely toward that goal.

On Tuesday, Palin went on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show where she outrageously — and falsely — suggested that Americans could “face jail time as punishment” if they don’t buy insurance.

Palin has many more interviews scheduled on Hannity and other conservative shows in the next few weeks, with more platforms to go after the President. As soon as she does, the rest of our opponents will likely parrot those attacks.

We need to be prepared. And we’re counting on you help. Can you chip in $5 or more?

[link omitted]

Thanks,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

President Obama used OFA resources to blast out a mass fundraising email about an hour after his socialist medicine legislation was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives two weeks ago.

OFA has been pressing members to call and email lawmakers to keep up the pressure for so-called healthcare reform. It also plans to run ads in states where Democratic senators are ”wobbly” on the plan.

from the homepage of Organizing for America (my.barackobama.com)

The next time you’re tempted to tell one of your Tea Party friends they are exaggerating about the Obama-run government, don’t.

Rush Limbaugh makes a joke one day, and the media or the Administration acts it out the next.

Glenn Beck is excoriated for saying Obama is going to fill the government with radicals—and then several quit under pressure because the American people can’t stomach their extreme views.

Sean Hannity is poo-poohed by “smart” so-called conservatives like Brooks, Buckley and Frum, saying Obama is not radical, he’s moderate, even conservative by “temperament.”  We get Cap and Trade, Government Motors and Socialized Medicine.

Vince Flynn’s latest thriller seems to take a point to the ridiculous extreme when his hero, Mitch Rapp, is hauled before a Senate committee for dislocating a terrorist’s shoulder while extracting information in the middle of a massive terrorist attack.  A friend chuckled and commented about my review, “I like the point, but that’s a bit far.”

You might think so, but as Steve Centani reported on Fox News last night, Ahmed Hashim Abed, the Iraqi terrorist who ambushed American contractors, burned their bodies and hung them from a bridge, (which precipitated the Battle of Fallujah) has filed a complaint against the Navy SEAL team that captured him.

A terrorist has a “bloody lip;” the SEALs are being court-martialed

And not because this piece of human debris only has a bloody lip.  This is not a joke.  Well, it is, but not a funny one.

The 2004 atrocity on the Fallujah bridge became a symbol of the brutality of the insurgency in Iraq.  The fact that these men are facing punishment instead of a medal ceremony is a perfect symbol for the futility of the Obama play-acting at war.

Of course, next week Barack Obama will be accepting a medal—and a million bucks.  Because the people on the committee expected precisely this kind of behavior from the United States now that he is President.

My head hurts.

An article by Rowan Scarborough on Fox’s website lists the three scapegoats to political correctness:

Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.

Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement.

Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation.

What’s mindboggling about this, is that the SEALs had handed Abed over to Iraqi custody, and he was returned after making the complaint.  The SEALs all deny he was punched while they had him.  (So much for the old fighting to the death thing, eh?)  It’s no secret the enemy would rather be in American custody than Iraqi custody.

So, the SEALs probably did not even give Abed the bloody lip; but this is certainly going to give the Obama Defense Department a black eye.

This is going to do wonders for recruiting.  I already know one college student considering OCS after graduation who upon hearing this news said, “Well that option’s off the table until we get a real Commander-in-Chief.”

The three SEALs were offered a non-judicial punishment called “a captain’s mast.”  A slap on the wrist to be sure, but a long-term derailment of three promising careers.  A mark on their permanent records, if you will.

So, McCabe, Keefe and Huertas rejected the plea agreement and demanded to appear before a Court Martial to fight for real justice.

Think it’s a stretch to blame Obama for this?  It’s pretty far down the chain of command, after all.

Look, admirals and generals know what their Commander-in-Chief wants, and know how to curry favor.  This is new ground.  While many of us were outraged at the Haditha prosecutions of Marines, non-combatants died there.  George W. Bush was a war president for 7 years.  There were no “fat lip” prosecutions during that time.  If you think that’s a coincidence…

To paraphrase Indiana Jones, have none of these people EVER seen a World War II movie?  Even the Geneva Convention, which the Obama crowd claims to genuflect before, allows you to take non-uniformed combatants out back and shoot them immediately.  To extend GC protections to terrorists makes a uniform a target, and not wearing one a distinct advantage.

I’m confident that no court-martial panel made up of warriors will convict these heroes.  And they are certainly better off facing a “military tribunal” of sorts than in falling into the hands of the Obama/Holder Justice Department, where the following is considered a possible war crime.

Think I’m kidding?  Read the Justice Department report on the justification for Holder’s persecution of the CIA.

Note that despite being three of the best-trained soldiers in the world, these three are still not officers.  Perhaps they should have lectured their comrades that Muslims around the world should rise up against the Yankee invaders, railed that infidels must be beheaded, tried to turn in other soldiers for war crimes, and reached out to al Qaeda recruiters with telephone calls.

Then, they’d likely be at least Captains by now in the politically correct military.

For enemy morale and recruiting, this is worse than Abu Ghraib, and even the future KSM trial.  Our most highly trained commandos, the point of the spear in our fight against the enemy, are being put ON TRIAL for something that would likely have a street cop given a week’s suspension.  Forget being trained to resist our interrogation techniques, now al Qaeda can just tell their operatives, “If you are captured, just cry `I have an owie!’”

Today, the Obama-led military has given al Qaeda something to be thankful for.  The biggest propaganda victory since the beginning of the war on terror.

“Do you believe President Obama was born in the United States?

“Here‘s my litmus test—are you pushing home schooling?”

“Do you or don’t you believe in evolution?”

“Are you one of those crazy birthers?”

Those are all questions Chris Matthews has demanded anyone he considers more conservative than normal must answer—no matter how off topic.  When the guest pauses, disbelieving the bizarre turn the conversation has taken, Chris pounces and accuses them of “having to think about it,” and the word “crazy” makes an appearance more often than not.

But last night, Chris stared genuine crazy right in the face in the person of Dennis Kucinich, and he treated him like a wise sage of foreign policy and Constitutional process.  He avoided the obvious question:

“Congressman Kucinich, did you tell Shirley MacLaine that you interacted with a UFO?”

In her 2007 book, Sage-ing While Aging, MacLaine writes that Kucinich:

“…had a close sighting over my home in Graham, Washington, when I lived there. Dennis found his encounter extremely moving. The smell of roses drew him out to my balcony where, when he looked up, he saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him. It hovered, soundless, for ten minutes or so, and sped away with a speed he couldn’t comprehend. He said he felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind.”

While he gets a pass on MSNBC in his appearances, the late Tim Russert, (rest in peace, you are missed) did ask the question at a Democrat Presidential primary debate:

KUCINICH: “It was an unidentified flying object, OK? It’s, like, it’s unidentified,” Kucinich said during one of the few highlights at the Democratic  presidential debate in Philadelphia. “I saw something.”

Then Dennis decided to dig a little deeper in the hole.

KUCINICH:  “You have to keep in mind that more — that Jimmy Carter saw a UFO and also that more people in this country have seen UFOs than I think approve of George Bush’s presidency,”

When Russert cited a poll that 14% of Americans claim to have seen a UFO (but not to have communed with it) Kucinich asked Russert to repeat the percentage, and acted satisfied that it proved he was mainstream.

Of course, it is unusual for Dennis Kucinich to be able to claim commonality with 14% the American people, a definite high point in his career.

Of course, it doesn’t take Shirley MacLaine  to remind us that Dennis is a loon. When he announced for President in October of 2003, Kucinich made this statement:

I am running for President of the United States to enable the Goddess of Peace to encircle within her arms all the children of this country and all the children of the world.

Hilariously, the New York Times dubbed this announcement “populist.”

Tuesday night, though, Dennis Kucinich was on Hardball to represent the supposedly respectable Democrat anti-war position on the Afghanistan counter-insurgency plan being endlessly debated by President Obama.  Kucinich was there to be the Left side of the argument, to be sure, but besides his otherworldly nuttiness, Matthews also ignored the fact that Kucinich never was a supporter of the war effort in Afghanistan in the first place, stating in early 2002:

“…the blood of innocent people who perished on September 11 [was] avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan.”

Matthews prompted Kucinich to tell us why the war effort in Afghanistan is doomed and may even be counterproductive:

KUCINICH:  …And it‘s absolutely true, Chris, that the more troops we send, the more enemies we‘re creating.  People are uniting against the United States.  They do not want a foreign occupier.  There‘s been a history of Afghanistan.  You know, Russia tried and their effort collapsed.  And Queen Victoria found she couldn‘t do it.  You can go back through history.  You cannot conquer Afghanistan.

And then the next question is, what are you going to do when you conquer it?  I think that there‘s one other point I want to mention here, Chris, and that is the role of Congress because that‘s not being discussed at all.

MATTHEWS:  Yes, sir.  I want to hear that.

KUCINICH:  Under Article One, Section Eight, Congress makes the decision as to whether we go to war and Congress makes the decision, as courts have decided, whether they‘re going to continue—whether we continue or not to fund a war. .. and Congress should say it‘s time to end the war.

“Yes, sir?”  We’re doing the same thing in Afghanistan as the Russians?  ”Yes, sir?”

Let’s compare that to how Chris treats Republicans or conservatives whose views are shared by a lot more than 14% of the public—though by no one Chris hangs around with:

When Conservative Republican Congressman Mike Pence from Indiana came on Hardball to talk about why the Republicans voted against the Cap and Trade energy tax plan that will amount to a takeover of the economy that dwarfs the health care bill, Chris started screaming about evolution to a surprised Pence.

Matthews demanded “Do you or don’t you believe in evolution?”  sarcastically asked Pence, “Did you ever take biology?”   And seemed to take Pence’s pretty mainstream response that he thought God directed the process as a non-answer before lecturing:

MATTHEWS:”There are people that really are against science in your party who really do question not just the science behind the climate change but the science behind evolutionary fact, that we were taught – you and I – in our biology books. They don’t accept the scientific method. They believe in belief itself…. I think you believe in evolution but you’re afraid to say so because your conservative constituency might find that offensive.”

When Chris Chocola, President of The Club for Growth –which studiously avoids social issues and backs fiscally conservative candidates– appeared on Harball on election night 2009, Chris weirdly changed the topic: (near the end of the clip)

MATTHEWS: Last question—here‘s my litmus test—are you pushing home schooling?

CHOCOLA: We don‘t—no, we support school choice.

MATTHEWS: No, but home schooling, where you don‘t go to public school because you don‘t want to mix with other children. You want to keep the kids at home, so you can teach them about life at home, away from the exposure of other social groups. Are you for that? Because I would consider that culturally conservative — at least.

In another segment last night, after his very respectful treatment of Dennis Kucinich, Chris took this parting cheap shot at  Kate Obenshain, Vice President of Young America‘s Foundation, giving her no chance to respond or defend herself.

MATTHEWS:  Let me just tell you at Thanksgiving time, with really a full heart, the reason people on the left sometimes ask me, why do you have so many Republicans on the show, when so many of the other shows on this network don‘t have as many on like you, I bring you on so that people can see what Republicans are like. Kate, thank you very much for coming on.  Kate Obenshain.  And it‘s great to have you on to remind everybody what a Republican looks like.

Thanks a lot.  Steve, thank you—I‘m being a little sarcastic.  You‘ve been great tonight, Kate.  You‘ve made the point I wanted to make.

It might be hard to fathom, but could there be a few scenario where Sarah Palin—well, you heard a point of view just now like hers—could win the White House?

What was Kate Obenshain’s crime?  She was for tough interrogation techniques for terrorists.  Like most Americans.   The shame!  Just think how she’d have been treated if Chris didn’t have such a “full heart” of holiday spirit!

But Chris was unintentionally revealing, here, besides being incredibly nasty.  By “people on the Left,” did he mean Keith Olbermann whose guests are basically restricted to the same 10 hard leftists night after night?

That same night, Olbermann devoted a segment to trying to figure out Sarah Palin’s take on the book of Revelation.  With a remarkable lack of commentary, he cherry-picked clips from Assemblies of God preachers (though she no longer attends a church in that denomination) and threw in Billy Graham for good measure.  Ostensibly, it was to try to discern Palin’s policy toward Israel.  The subtext?  See how crazy this woman is.

So, here’s the MSNBC standard.  Sarah Palin, Billy Graham and evangelical Christians in general?  Nuts.  Dennis “UFO” Kucinich?  Foreign policy sage.  A respected Progressive voice.

Here’s a question Chris should ask to weed out the conspiracy loons who want to delegitimize a President despite objective evidence to the contrary:

Do you think George W. Bush won the 2000 Presidential Election?

Chris Matthews is known for loudly demanding answers of guests, then talking over them and supplying the answer he wants from them, himself.  But last night on Hardball, he outdid himself, berating Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence for withholding communion from Patrick Kennedy over Kennedy’s insistence on including abortion in government health care.

This hit Matthews’s two biggest hot buttons:  First, he considers himself the new guardian of the Kennedy legacy.  He was on MSNBC around the clock for the funeral of Mary Jo Kopechne’s chauffeur, while his special on the Kennedy brothers ran simultaneously with the week’s festivities.  Matthews, with leg a-tingling also proclaimed that week that Barack Obama was the new Kennedy brother.

But I think it was the remnants of Chris Matthews’s conscience that sent him over the top last night.  Bishop Tobin’s stand that Catholics must not be advocates for abortion hit close to home for Chris, who still claims to be a Catholic.  Perhaps he was afraid he might be next?

I’d call it a heated exchange, except all the heat was on one side, while the Bishop calmly tried to instruct him, and Chris did 80% of the talking, so there wasn’t much exchange.

In a moment of priceless contradiction, Chris told the Bishop if he did not propose exact penalties for abortions, he had no right to try to outlaw them, and it wasn’t the Church’s role anyway.  In other words, if he wasn’t willing to actually legislate, then he shouldn’t propose general moral principles for legislation!

That would be like saying in order for the Church to demand the state enforce “Thou shalt not steal,” that the Bishops must also draw up statutes differentiating between grand larceny and petty theft, between armed robbery and embezzlement.

The exchange really must be seen to be believed and to capture the frantic intensity of Matthews’s rant.  It should be noted, that the only “authority” that Matthews quotes is John F. Kennedy, perhaps giving new literal meaning to the term “political idol.”

After an aggressive grilling in which Chris did only his usual overtalking of his guest, Matthews pretty much lost it on camera:

MATTHEWS: I think you’re intervening. I think you’re getting into law here, and you don’t like Congressman Kennedy’s voting record in Congress. That’s what you’re really going after, where he stands on the law. A lot of catholics agree or disagree in every poll I’ve seen about what the law should be. They generally accept the teaching authority of the church, the magistar (ph), your teaching authority, your excellency.

Where the disagreement is where the law should be, what the penalty should be. I’ve never heard of anybody in the church, in the laity, in the clergy, or in the hierarchy saying a woman should be put in prison for having an abortion. And then I said, wait a minute, if you think it’s murder, there’s an inconsistency here.

And if there is a hesitancy to punish a woman for having an abortion, maybe that’s instructive to you, sir, your excellency, because when you realize you don’t really want to punish a woman for having an abortion, under the law, then maybe you should step back from using the law as your tool in enforcing moral authority.

Maybe your moral authority comes from the pulpit and from teaching, and a congressman has a totally different role, which is to write the law. Now, I’ve asked you three times, your excellency, to tell me what the law should be. And if you can’t do it, maybe you shouldn’t be involved in telling Congressman Kennedy how to write the law. You say you don’t know how to do it. Well, you ought to try before you tell him what he’s doing wrong. That’s my thinking.

Because when it comes to the law, it’s a secular question. It has not to do with the moral-we do a lot of things in this country we don’t like, we think are immoral. But the question is, what sanction do you apply to it? And I’m asking you again with respect, because you are here on the show of your own free will, at our request. What should be the penalty for a young woman or a girl, even, to have an abortion? And if there is no penalty for it, are you really outlawing it?

TOBIN: Sure. And it can perhaps be different degrees of penalties, depending on the involvement of the person. There might be some penalty for the woman having the abortion.

MATTHEW: What would be appropriate?

TOBIN: For a doctor performing-

MATTHEWS: No, let’s get to the woman. No, you have no idea, and it’s not your area. And yet this is the very area you’ve transgressed in. You’ve gone into the area of lawmaking, and condemned the behavior of public officials who have to write public policy. And I get back to what John Kennedy said when he was under pressure to explain the separation between church and state, the difference between rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar, which is the law, and rendering to your flock and people like me what is right and wrong.

And I would contest that your problem is you haven’t gotten people to obey your moral code through teaching, and you have resorted now to use the law to do your enforcement for you. And the problem with that is you are hesitant, even here, your excellency, to state for me now what the punishment should be under the law for having an abortion, because you know, deep down, if you said one minute in prison, you would be laughed at, because the American people, catholic and non-catholic, do not think it’s a criminal act to have an abortion.

They may not like it. They may think it’s immoral. But they don’t think it’s criminal. And yet you are here bringing the force of the law, the authority of the police, and the bench, the law, the judiciary. You want to bring it all to bear, including the Constitution, to enforce your moral beliefs, which are very valid, and I happen to share them. But how do you do it under the law, your excellency?

Whew!

But here was the main point the Bishop made that Matthew refused to accept; and it seems pretty unarguable to me that one cannot be a Catholic and deny the Church this role:

TOBIN: But the point is that any Catholic in public office, his first commitment has to be to his faith, not just for a Catholic, but for a member of any religious community. No commitment is more important than your commitment to your faith, because it involves your relationship with God.

And if your faith somehow interferes with or your job gets in the way of your faith, as I have said on other occasions, you need to quit your job and-and save your soul. Nothing can become more important than your relationship with God.

Patrick Kennedy is perfectly free to become an Anglican, I’m sure the current Archbishop of Canterbury would welcome him with open arms.  If he chafes under even that, he could become a Unitarian and just define for himself what he wants his religion to be.  But if he finds his “Irish Catholic” cultural label to be politically useful, he’s going to have to deal with some standards every once in a while.  Tough luck.

As for Chris, he might want to carry a lightning rod around for a few days…

UPDATE:  I’ve just learned that the conversation Bishop Tobin had with Patrick Kennedy was 3 YEARS ago, according to the Bishop.  It was on the issue generally, not on the health care debate, obviously.  Kennedy released the info during the health care debate for obvious political reasons, proving he can be just as sleazy as anyone in his family.

First of all, I would like to join my fellow blogger Chris Yogerst in thanking David Horowitz, Michael Finch, and everyone else at the Freedom Center for providing us one of the most stimulating conferences that I have ever attended in my life.

What I got out of the Restoration Weekend – in addition to meeting fascinating people, paying tribute to our military and and listening to provocative speeches from Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Ann Coulter and many others –  was a call to action. Horowitz performed his own version of  Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride – summoning every American who believes that our country is heading over the cliff  to do whatever he or she can to help us reverse course now!

Several speakers, including Bachmann, made the point that the Democratic leadership is hellbent on passing their reckless agenda, even if it means giving up their power temporarily in 2010 and 2012. They are of the view that once programs like Obamacare and cap-and-trade are passed, the country will be so radically altered that it will only be a matter of time before they return to power with permanent majorities. And just in case there is any doubt, they will make sure to re-fund ACORN’s fraudulent vote-stealing programs and a universal voting registration program that will be sure to bring millions of illegal immigrants and convicted felons to the voting booths without challenge.

Representative Bachmann has taken up Horowitz’s call to lead the tea party movement in a protest of the insane trial in federal civil court of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his band of co-terrorists. Ms. Bachmann asked the audience members to give her their cards so that a contact list can be compiled of potential protesters. Of course, I obliged. I live in New York and was a block from Ground Zero on 9/11. I intend to protest the propaganda circus that Eric Holder is bringing to town, along with hopefully many thousands of other outraged Americans.

This is but one of many fronts in the ongoing war against the Left to take back our country.

The Democrats’ health insurance monstrosity moved forward in the Senate  during what is being aptly referred to as a Saturday Night Massacre. We heard from Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina by phone the morning after (the massacre unexpectedly took him back to Washington D.C. to vote.) He reported on plans ahead to stop the bill from leaving the Senate floor. It will be an uphill battle, to be sure.

But even if the filibuster-proof majority in the Senate holds together and the bill advances to become law against the wishes of the majority of the American people, the war is not over. In the spirit of Restoration Weekend’s call for action, it must be challenged in court on the day it is enacted.

The mandate for every individual to purchase health insurance at levels dictated by the government can be overturned as an unconstitutional overreach of Congressional power. With a center-right Supreme Court that resists encroachments on individual and states rights, there is a real chance that this provision can be invalidated. It is the first time that Congress has ever required all of us to purchase something -  i.e., to engage in commerce even if we choose not to – simply because we are alive and breathing. That is not regulating interstate commerce.  It is forcing individuals to engage in commerce or face penalties and possible jail time simply because they are alive. Even the income tax required the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution in order for it to be lawfully imposed.

If this provision can be overturned, the Obamacare ponzi scheme may well fall apart like a house of cards.

Stay tuned tomorrow for some ideas to stop some other Leftist assaults on our freedoms, such as accommodation of Islam in our public schools.

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Hat tip to The Washington Times for appreciating the significance of this particular party list.

The Times reports today about who did and didn’t make the cut for President Barack Obama’s first state dinner. Noticeably absent are top Republican lawmakers. Who did make the list? Well, Oprah Winfrey, for one.

Although many in mainstream media will attempt to discount the significance of the invite list – who made Obama’s A-List and who didn’t – the fact is this list is a solid representation of Obama’s vanity and skewed priorities in Washington.

So far, according to the Times, we know one Republican did get an invitation –

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell received an invitation but decided to skip the dinner.

“Sen. McConnell is with his constituents this week and will be at Kentucky events tomorrow and tomorrow night,” Don Stewart, the senator’s communications director, said Monday.

But the list of top congressional Republicans stiffed by the Administration is longer and says far more about Obama’s notion of bipartisan leadership in Washington.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner won’t be there; he’s on Thanksgiving break and home in Ohio. His deputy, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, also didn’t get an invitation to the dinner.

The president didn’t invite his 2008 rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, even though Mr. Obama the candidate pledged a post-partisan presidency.

Hollywood, however – according to some reports and rumors – will be well represented.

According to rumors, talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, who endorsed Mr. Obama during the campaign, will be attending. Reports emerged Monday that Hollywood will be in the house: DreamWorks partners David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, along with Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman Michael Lynton and WME Entertainment Agency co-CEO Ari Emanuel, will attend, according to deadline.com.

Obama shaking hands with South Korea's President Lee Myung-Bak

President Barack Obama came to a startling realization last week while in South Korea: the educational system in South Korea is better at teaching kids math and science than ours is. In fact, when it comes to those subjects, the differences are truly startling. American students rank 21st in science and 25th in math compared with students in other countries, and they rank even lower vis-à-vis many Asian countries such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

CNN reported on the President’s tour of South Korean schools. Obama was visibly impressed with both what he saw and with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s explanation of why his country’s children excel:

Lee Myung-Bak: Even if somebody is dirt poor, they are insisting that their kids are getting the best education.

The dropout rate for South Korean students is negligible, while ours has tripled in the past 30 years. South Korean children spend more time in the classroom, and while in school, they study hard. Obama concedes this fact:

Barack Obama: There is a hunger for knowledge [in South Korea], an insistence on excellence, a reverence for science and math and technology and learning.

So what does the President propose in order to get American students back on the right educational track and give them the skills which will allow them to take advantage of “expanding opportunit[ies] for all Americans in a world where education is the key to success?”

Will he order that the American educational system,which has been so politicized and imbued with liberal ideologies that both the curricula and the educators have been corrupted, be immediately and radically reformed? Will he begin to purge textbooks of leftist and politically correct content designed (and so carefully selected and presented) to have the greatest effect on impressionable young minds? Or, perhaps he will reign in the teachers’ unions, which have become increasingly more powerful and vocal in lobbying for non-educational issues?

None of the above.

The President, as usual, has taken the wrong approach to the problem. His answer is the “Educate to Innovate Campaign (EIC),” and he has enlisted the aid of that premier educator of children: Big Bird.

Obama explains that, EIC will be a two-year initiative focused on “Sesame Street,” where kids will be taught about math and science with an after-school program focusing on robotics. There will even be a national “lab” day to “provide students with hands-on scientific learning,” he proudly announced.

This program is about “expanding opportunity for all Americans in a world where education is the key to success. That used to be what we were about,” Obama said. “That’s what we’re going to be about again.”

If that’s the plan, then we’re in a heap of trouble.

You’d think that Keith Olbermann–a guy who spent years agitating against his own country’s war effort by repeating enemy propaganda in order to discourage Americans for pure partisan advantage—and Arianna Huffington– the doyenne of a website whose comment sections are famous for particularly venomous hate speech– would tend to be First Amendment absolutists.

After all, there actually have been times in American history when wartime powers granted to the government allowed for jailing people who engaged in such things.  Woodrow Wilson, for instance, jailed a man in a small town about 15 miles from where I live for speaking out against War Bonds.

But Friday night, the media’s biggest hater, who spews invective on a nightly basis in barely controlled rage, and the media’s oddest figure, who has argued from every side of the political fence, got together and decided that Glenn Beck is a clear and present danger to the survival of our democracy, and that he meets the “exception” to the First Amendment.

And it’s “paranoid” for Beck to say the Left in this country has totalitarian tendencies?

Keith set the stage, by hilariously pretending that political rage is all on the Right, and basically all happened in the last year or so…

OLBERMANN:  The ugly environment was not fostered overnight, but town hall opposition to health care reform and all those tea bagger rallies gave comfort to racism and even intonations of violence.  The Birther movement was nothing more than extreme and desperate attempt to delegitimize a new president.  And Congressman Joe Wilson‘s “you lie,” though a first should not have been a surprise.

Our third story on COUNTDOWN, a sweeping new report on anti-government rage in America not only connects the dots it refuses to let off the hook the most irresponsible voice in the mainstream media, the man it describes as the fearmonger-in-chief, Glenn Beck.  Simply stated Beck creates an intersection between the mainstream and the extreme, according to the report by the Anti-Defamation League.  It calls Beck, “The most important mainstream media figure who has repeatedly helped to stoke fires of anti-government anger…”

Wait a minute.  Isn’t the ADL supposed to combat anti-Semitism? I don’t remember it’s purpose being to keep people from “defaming” the government.  Did they have a problem with “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?  Did they have a problem with Keith Olbermann calling Dick Cheney a war criminal?

Remind me, which side of the political spectrum is behind the war effort against those who have, as a primary concern, the genocidal elimination of Israel?  Which side is arguing for tolerance of those views, and arguing the U.S. and Israel are the aggressors in the Middle East?  Which side commended the New York Times for exposing a surveillance program that designed to stop the most anti-Semetic people on earth from committing violence?

The fact that Keith Olbermann only sees anger on the Right and considers himself reasonable and objective, and having made no contribution to bitter discourse in this nation is just too bizarre to comment on.

Next, Keith argues that ordinary free debate may not be enough to save us from the sinister Glenn Beck.  Judging by Keith’s ratings and Glenn’s ratings, I can see why he might think that.

OLBERMANN:  It would be nice to think of Glenn Beck just as a joke, as fodder for this show and the “Daily Show” and others that point out how stupid some of this stuff is.  But this report, you know, suggests something else, this is—fearmonger-in-chief term is frightening.

HUFFINGTON:  It is frightening.  Well, I would say the fearmonger-in-chief title should still be reserved for Dick Cheney, even in retirement.  But barring that, there is something that we need to really pay attention to with Glenn Beck.  We cannot just dismiss him.  Because the truth of the matter is that there is a good reason why we have an exemption to the free speech protection by the first amendment when we say you cannot shout fire in a crowded theater.

And he‘s doing that every night.  He‘s basically using images of violence to bring together with all that he‘s accusing the Obama administration of, which varies from racism to communism, Nazism and everything else in between.  So,all that has definitely an impact.  I believe words matter, language matters and he‘s using it in incredibly irresponsible ways night after night.

Yeah, like Keith Olbermann didn’t spend the last 8 years screaming that the Gestapo was going to come get you for voting Democrat because of the Patriot Act.  He’s not saying right now that 45,000 Americans die in a “holocaust” each year because of a lack of health insurance.

Try Googling “Keith Olbermann” “war criminal” “Cheney” sometime.  Glenn Beck compares Barack Obama’s economic theories to those of socialist dictators.  Keith Olbermann equates George W. Bush and Dick Cheney with the murderous actions of those dictators.

OLBERMANN:  Some of Beck‘s claims, according to the report from the ADL, let me quote it again, “play an important role in drawing people further out of the mainstream making them more receptive to extreme notions and conspiracy theories.” And without going into Sociology 101, isn‘t the point here that people like Beck enable some of the wildest, most paranoid notions about what the U.S. government is doing and instead of people thinking, as they think these things, for whatever they think them, no, that‘s crazy, he says, no you‘re not crazy, come with me down this path?

You mean like committing “War crimes” and supposedly listening in on the private conversations of ordinary Americans?

OLBERMANN:  Obviously, the new component to this is the race of the president.  And a lot of this rage that we‘re discussing here is rooted in racism, something we certainly knew before the ad put out its analysis.  But Beck tried unsuccessfully to turn that one in the other direction, claiming that Mr. Obama is the racist.  Is that the twist by which he and the other actual racists are rationalizing their own prejudice simply project it on to the other people?

Obviously?  What is obvious is that Keith is losing the argument—and his mind.  Repeating that the opposition to Obama is largely racist without any proof doesn’t make it any more convincing—and most of the mainstream media has backed away from this, leaving MSNBC out on that limb all by itself.

So, Glenn Beck is the dangerous threat to our freedom?  Or to the government’s freedom of action.  Let’s see, whose free speech is Glenn Beck trying to take away?  What limits to the First Amendment is he proposing?

Not only is our side not trying to silence the slanders and venom of crazy Keith, if I were king for a day, I would decree that everyone must watch one episode of Countdown.  THAT would be the way to create Conservative voters, and double the size of the Tea Parties.

Associated Press

The Associated Press offered a superficial glance at a complex and alarming update in the upcoming trial of the five 9/11 defendants,  leaving me to wonder where is their thoughtful, penetrating examination of this judicial travesty about to take place in New York City. There is certainly no shortage of critical questions in want of answers.

The AP reported Sunday that the five 9/11 defendants to be tried in New York City will not deny their role in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but will nonetheless be pleading “not guilty.” This, to me, initially seemed a sure sign that the defense attorney feels compelled to observe no ethical responsibilities to the American judicial system as his clients attempt to put U.S. foreign policy on trial.

9/11 defense attorney Scott Fenstermaker

The attorney assigned to defend the five terrorists on trial, Scott Fenstermaker, reported Sunday that all five of his clients are also planning to use the “stage” they are given to deliver their radical Jihadist message and explain why they believe more Americans must die. The Obama Administration can’t say they weren’t warned – again, and again, and again.

There is the possibility that Fenstermaker has chosen the path of least resistance in representing his clients, for the sake of self-preservation.  There can be no doubt this case will have a significant impact on his career – for better or worse. But what we may perceive during this trial as over-zealous representation may be the actions of a defense attorney caught between the rock of the American justice system and the hard place of representing hardened terrorists who would stop at nothing to continue their mission against America.

Either way, Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama Administration, which pulls his strings, opted to take great risks with a trial in our civilian judicial system, and for no clear, justifiable reason.  Even if the trial concludes without incident, the results would not justify the risk. If it does not go without incident, the results could be catastrophic.

Holder’s defense to the outrage following the announcement of the trial in NYC was weak, aloof and dismissive of the true weight of his choice.

“I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is,” Holder said. “I’m not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial, and no one else needs to be, either.”

The blatant arrogance and ignorance exhibited by the Obama Administration and Holder is of far less concern than the wider implications to our judicial system. Merely saying that these five terrorists will have the same rights as any other American defendant in our court system doesn’t begin to convey the realities of the situation in which our justice system has been placed.

John Yoo, a columnist with the Philadelphia Inquirer and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, made up for the AP’s lack of insight on the trial when he wrote extensively on the disaster about to unfold:

“…the positive benefits [of a civilian trial] remain obscure to the point of vanishing. All that is known for certain are the heavy costs:

Giving Mohammed and his fellow terrorists the same constitutional rights as any U.S. citizen accused of a crime risks our nation’s most vital intelligence secrets. Mohammed can demand that the government turn over all of its information on him and tell him how it was acquired or it risks a mistrial or acquittal. Soviet moles like Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen used the same tactic to bargain the government down from the death penalty. Ordinarily, such information does not harm the public because the crime has already been committed. But the release of intelligence during hostilities can be disastrous when it informs the enemy of our knowledge, capabilities, and intentions.”

He went on to say:

“This red herring [Holder’s statement] distracts from the administration’s failure to explain why the benefits of using civilian courts outweigh the costs to the war effort. It certainly doesn’t help those who are already protected by the Bill of Rights and can be tried in civilian courts. If anything, their rights are at risk, not just by a failure to convict terrorists who killed almost 3,000 people, but by the inevitable judicial compromises that must balance the requirements of a fair public trial with the demands of protecting wartime secrets. Those compromises will no longer be limited to the special context of military courts in wartime, but will become part of the law that governs all Americans.”

Until the trial concludes, Americans will be forced to hold their breath and hope the Obama/Holder decision doesn’t cost us all a great deal in life and/or liberties.

Glenn Beck’s concerns about the lack of constitutional authority for federal government spending and federal programs are always well-intentioned and often well-founded, but uncharacteristically Beck slipped up last week.

On his TV show he asked, “What’s in the House and Senate health care bills that is not in the Constitution? The redistribution of wealth.” Actually, Beck’s wrong on this one. Unfortunately, the redistribution of wealth –at least of income– is enshrined in the Constitution as the 16th Amendment. If Congress wants to use income taxes to fund a socialized healthcare system, there is nothing in the Constitution to stop it from doing so.

But other aspects of the proposed socialist healthcare scheme may be unconstitutional. It seems to me the smarter consitutional ground to use to attack ObamaCare is the seemingly totalitarian requirement to purchase health insurance. Never before in the history of the republic has the federal government imposed such a sweeping mandate on Americans.

Legal thinkers David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey argue that “The Constitution assigns only limited, enumerated powers to Congress and none, including the power to regulate interstate commerce or to impose taxes, would support a federal mandate requiring anyone who is otherwise without health insurance to buy it.”

Rivkin and Casey concluded

Of course, these constitutional impediments can be avoided if Congress is willing to raise corporate and/or income taxes enough to fund fully a new national health system. Absent this politically dangerous — and therefore unlikely — scenario, advocates of universal health coverage must accept that Congress’s power, like that of the other branches, has limits. These limits apply regardless of how important the issue may be, and neither Congress nor the president can take constitutional short cuts. The genius of our system is that, no matter how convinced our elected officials may be that certain measures are in the public interest, their goals can be accomplished only in accord with the powers and processes the Constitution mandates, processes that inevitably make them accountable to the American people.

Beck said on the same show from last week that if the Senate were to approve a motion over the weekend to move forward with debate on ObamaCare that ultimately the Senate would approve the legislation. Beck’s probably wrong on that point too.

The Senate did vote 60 to 39 to move forward with debate on the legislation but it’s far from in the bag. Many of the Democrats had to be bought off in order to vote to avoid a Republican filibuster. For example, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), had to be promised an extra $100 million for her home state of Louisiana in order to vote against a filibuster.

There are still plenty of opportunities to prevent a fascistic takeover over the nation’s healthcare system.

Are Christians using Bible verses to wish death on President Barack Obama?  Even worse, are Christians using Bible verses to convince people to kill President Obama?  MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and the Huffington Post’s Frank Schaeffer seem to think so.

After church last Sunday, a conservative church member came up to me.  He told me a friend of his showed him a verse his church has been praying for Barack Obama.  It was Psalm 109:8.

May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. Psalm 109:8

What was my initial reaction?  My hope was that the people praying it meant they wanted Obama voted out of office and not dead.  My church member assured me the prayer was only for Obama to lose the 2012 election.  He then added that they specifically only pray verse 8 and not verse 9.  Why not verse 9?

May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. Psalm 109:9

Thankfully my church member didn’t think they should pray that verse for President Obama.  No one should wish death on anyone – especially our President.

Up until recently at least two companies were making merchandise like bumper stickers and t-shirts that say, “Pray for Obama, Psalm 109:8.”  This past week the merchandise fell under the criticism of Maddow and some bloggers.  Since the media gave this issue attention, both companies selling the merchandise have stopped.

Some of the criticism is valid.  Like me, people could get the wrong idea when they first read Psalm 109:8.  The context of the passage is of an evil leader being killed – it is not talking about someone being voted out of office.  I believe proper use of the Bible centers around using verses in their proper context.

Also, the verse is used  by most people as a joke and not for genuine prayer.  Obviously I have no problem with someone praying for Obama to lose the election in 2012.  I pray for that myself.  But I’m not totally comfortable with using a call to prayer with an out of context Bible verse as a joke.

Sadly, some commentators have gone beyond valid criticism and used the story to incite fears that evangelicals or some on the Right are hoping for violence against Obama.  As usual, MSNBC leads the way in that type of an attack.

Maddow: “Can you tell me if this means something less threatening to people hearing this in a biblical context?”

Schaeffer: “No actually it means something more threatening…I find genuinely frightening…There’s a direct parallel with Timothy McVeigh’s t-shirt on the day of the Oklahoma City bombing…There is a crazy fringe to whom these little messages pouring out of Fox News, now on a bumper sticker, talking about doing with Obama, asking God to kill him.  Really this is trawling for assassins.  This is serious business…It goes to show the religious right, the Republican far right have coalesced into a group who truly want American revolution.  And if it turns out to be blood in the streets and death – so be it…This is the American version of the Taliban…This is the Old Testament equivalent for calling for Holy War. “

If one is looking for an example of crazy, leftist alarmism – there you go.  Schaeffer should win some type of Lunacy on the Left Award.

Schaeffer is one of Maddow’s favorite guests, most likely because she can always count on him to make some outlandish statements attacking evangelicals. And Maddow, like most on the Left, actually thinks that Schaeffer is a valid source on evangelicals, simply based on him being the son of a former evangelical leader.

Using Psalm 109:8 probably isn’t a sign of good taste, but it certainly isn’t on par with the Taliban, Jihad, or Timothy McVeigh.  To suggest such a thing proves once again that the Left doesn’t understand what real terrorism looks like.

• Δημοσκόπηση του ινστιτούτου Gallup

• Υγειονομική περίθαλψη και οικονομία τα τρωτά σημεία του Αμερικανού προέδρου

Το ποσοστό αποδοχής του έργου του προέδρου των ΗΠΑ Μπαράκ Ομπάμα έπεσε κάτω από το 50% σύμφωνα με δεύτερη μεγάλη δημοσκόπηση, η οποία αποτελεί μία ένδειξη ότι υφίσταται τις συνέπειες της μακράς αντιπαράθεσης για την υγειονομική περίθαλψη και της αδυναμίας στην οικονομία, ανέφερε την Παρασκευή το ινστιτούτο δημοσκοπήσεων Gallup.

Σύμφωνα με τη δημοσκόπηση, το 49% των Αμερικανών εγκρίνουν τις επιδόσεις του Ομπάμα. Μία έρευνα του Πανεπιστημίου του Κίνιπιακ την περασμένη Τετάρτη είχε αναφέρει παρόμοια αποτελέσματα, με την υποστήριξη στον Ομάμα να βρίσκεται στο 48%.

Είναι η πρώτη φορά σε αυτές τις δύο δημοσκοπήσεις που η υποστήριξη στον Αμερικανό πρόεδρο πέφτει κάτω από το 50%. Για μήνες βρισκόταν λίγο πάνω από το 50%, ενώ όταν ανέλαβε καθήκοντα τον Ιανουάριο ήταν κάτι λιγότερο από 70%.

Το Gallup ανέφερε πως η πτώση στη δημοτικότητα του Ομπάμα είναι πιθανόν αποτέλεσμα του έντονου δημόσιου διαλόγου που διεξάγεται για την υγειονομική περίθαλψη καθώς και της κακής κατάστασης στην οποία βρίσκεται η οικονομία των ΗΠΑ, με εκατομμύρια άνεργους Αμερικανούς.

“Οι Αμερικανοί ανησυχούν επίσης για την εξάρτηση της κυβέρνησης Ομπάνα από τις δημόσιες δαπάνες προκειμένου να επιλυθούν τα προβλήματα του έθνους και το αυξανόμενο έλλειμμα του ομοσπονδιακού προϋπολογισμού”, ανέφερε το Gallup σε μία ανάλυση της δημοσκόπησής του, η οποία διενεργήθηκε σε δείγμα 1.533 ανθρώπων από την Τρίτη έως την Πέμπτη. Το περιθώριο λάθους ήταν +/- 4%.

• (Πληροφορίες από το ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ), enet.gr, 09:25 Σάββατο 21 Νοεμβρίου 2009

This week, as we near the controversial health care debate to take place tomorrow in Congress, National Public Radio aired stories on two controversial studies that put forth new guidelines reducing screening recommendations for two forms of cancer frequently diagnosed in women.

They were just the two latest reports, in a series of stories aired over the past few months by the government-subsidized radio network, on new federal guidelines calling for decreased preventive and early-detection screening of several diseases that affect a wide range of the American population - the elderly, men, women, teens and newborns.

According to the most recent report on NPR, new guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists call for women to get Pap smears every two years, between the ages of 21 and 29. Previous guidelines called for annual pap smears every year for three years after the start of sexual activity, or 21 years of age, followed by one every three years if all three previous exams were normal. Pap smears have been very effective in the early detection of cervical cancer, a growing problem for young women.

The ACOG’s new guidelines come just days after new screening guidelines for breast cancer were announced to much public fury, and the day before Congress begins debate on the health care reform bill.

“It’s just pure coincidence that these guidelines have been released now,” says Dr. David Soper, the Chairman of ACOG’s Gynecology Practice Bulletin Committee.

The new mammography guidelines established by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force call for women, ages 50 and older, to have mammograms once every two years, as opposed to previous guidelines that recommend women 40 and older get annual mammograms.

The USPSTF, a group of experts convened by the Department of Health & Human Services, led by Kathleen Sebelius, is taking a lot of heat from women’s advocacy groups and physicians. But, in their coverage of the debate, NPR chose to talk first to a physician who said of the new guidelines, “It’s about time!”

“I was never convinced that mammography screening worked that well in younger women,” Dr. Susan Love said in support of the government-backed guidelines in an interview with NPR.

The American Cancer Society disagrees with the conclusions of the White House-convened USPSTF, and released a statement the same day the new government guidelines were released.

“The American Cancer Society continues to recommend annual screening using mammography and clinical breast examination for all women beginning at age 40. Our experts make this recommendation having reviewed virtually all the same data reviewed by the USPSTF, but also additional data that the USPSTF did not consider. When recommendations are based on judgments about the balance of risks and benefits, reasonable experts can look at the same data and reach different conclusions.”

– statement from Otis W. Brawley, M.D., chief medical officer, American Cancer Society

The American College of Surgeons followed with a press release supporting the American Cancer Society’s position on the new guidelines.

“The College is supporting the ACS guidelines despite the recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force stating the women should have regular mammograms once every two years beginning at the age of 50. The College believes the ACS guidelines have resulted in an effective approach toward dealing with the possibility of breast cancer and that women should continue to follow them in consultation with their physicians.”

– American College of Surgeons

The National Medical Association was also quick to react to the government-backed guidelines of the USPSTF, issuing a press release to caution women about the potential harm.

“The NMA is concerned about the USPSTF recommendations that women have routine mammography screenings beginning at age 50 instead of 40. The new recommendations could have serious implications for African American women since studies have shown that African American women develop breast cancer at an earlier age, are often diagnosed at a later stage of the disease, and develop more aggressive types of breast cancer. The USPSTF recommendations could result in even higher death rates for this disease and further exacerbate the challenges for the uninsured and the under insured.”

– National Medical Association

Women are not the only ones to have their health and wellbeing subjected to new screening guidelines. In the Nov. 11^th issue, the Journal of the American Medical Association noted a disparity between recommendations of the USPSTF and those of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for screening for the hepatitis B virus.

According to the JAMA report, “More than 500 million persons worldwide are infected with hepatitis B or C virus, estimates the World Health Organization, and more than 5 million US residents have such infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Yet these infections often go undetected and untreated because patients and physicians may be unaware of who is at risk or may fail to pursue testing.

“Although prevention efforts have helped dramatically reduce the incidence of hepatitis B and C viral infections in the general U.S. population, demographic shifts are leading to growing numbers of chronically infected patients who may develop severe complications such as cirrhosis and hepatic cell carcinoma.”

Despite these alarming facts, the USPSTF still “recommended against routine screening for HCV infection in asymptomatic adults who do not have risk factors and found insufficient evidence to recommend for or against routine screening in those at risk. The task force also recommended against routine screening of asymptomatic individuals for HBV.”

The list of USPSTF-recommended cutbacks in preventive and early-detection screening goes on:

• Favors ending screenings for all forms of cancer if and when an older patient is more likely to die of another condition than of cancer
• Supports reductions in screening for prostate cancer
• Suggests there is insufficient evidence available to support guidelines calling for regular skin cancer screening.
• Finds insufficient evidence to support screening for newborn jaundice, despite the fact that 60 percent of babies are born with jaundice – a condition that can lead to brain damage.

A Single Agenda for Legislating and “Researching”

The perfectly-aligned agendas of the Obama Administration and Sebelius’ department (which oversees the work of the USPSTF) are causing increased concern among Americans that these new and more restrictive guidelines – put forth by a government agency leading up to the most critical health care reform debate in our nation’s history – are veiled attempts by our federal government to pave the way for rationing of health care through a phased conditioning of expectations.

The unity of purpose among Democrats in Washington – defying all obligations to the American people – is tough to deny.

DISCLAIMER: I love many NRP programs – Car Talk, A Prairie Home Companion and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, in particular. And I enjoy their human interest stories from around the world, which is I why I contribute financially to NPR. However…

Taking aim at the Left's dirty laundry.

Last night, former Alaska Governor, future bestselling author, and perennial thorn in liberals’ sides Sarah Palin sat down with Sean Hannity to discuss everything from the life stories she shares in her new book to the issues of the day, all the while demonstrating why the Left just can’t get her out of their heads.

(Complete Interview: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 above, Part 5, Part 6)

Regardless of whether or not Palin is your preferred 2012 candidate, it’s clear to see which of her traits strike fear into liberal hearts: as a successful career woman with a large family, her very existence demolishes the left-wing smears about the Republican Party and traditional values enslaving women. Her loving care of baby Trig and her frank discussion of discovering he would suffer from Down’s Syndrome is a powerful example of a pro-life leader living her principles. And in a political spectrum dominated by men, a message delivered by a charismatic, attractive woman is going to get results. She has to be made a laughingstock not because she is, but because otherwise people will start looking a little too closely at that man behind the left-wing curtain.

In the video above, Palin demonstrates another quality that not only got under liberals skin, but seems to have been too hot for the McCain campaign to handle: a willingness to go after the Democrats‘ dirty laundry. When Hannity asked about the fallout after she accused Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists,” Palin said:

I am still perplexed as to why we weren’t fairer to the electorate and discuss those associations and the past voting records and the experiences that one of the candidates had in his career. I think that it was unfortunate. I would remind people that it wasn’t negative campaigning and it wasn’t off-base to call someone out on their associations and on their voting record. Now, what you did, and other common-sense conservatives, what you guys did was try to do the job that a campaign should have done […Rev. Jeremiah Wright] should have been a bigger issue because I think it was indicative of, um, some of the, uh, quote unquote tolerance candidate, in terms of hearing a message and being fed things that are not good for our country […] his associates have been extremely radical, and we see that, then, in some of the appointments that he has made. [Emphasis added.]

For years the Left has promoted (and many Republicans have bought into) the idea that there are some arbitrary rules of political decorum that dictate political speech, and anything beyond, “While I have the greatest respect for my good friend from the great state of Massachusetts, I humbly disagree on…” is intolerable (except, of course, when it’s said by one of their own). Say you’re going to vote a certain way, or take a certain stance, and you’ll (usually) be okay, but Heaven help you if you dare notice unethical, hypocritical, or dangerous conduct on the part of our enlightened progressive betters!

Sarah Palin not only understands that such self-censorship amounts to abandoning a legitimate analysis of our leaders’ character and ideology, but also sees that it isn’t enough to let the same pundits deliver the same messages to the same people; our political leaders must be equally frank with the American people. That might not make the Sarracuda presidential material, but it’s a big step in the right direction.

—–

Hailing from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Calvin Freiburger is a political science major at Hillsdale College. He also blogs at the Hillsdale Forum and his personal website, Calvin Freiburger Online.

Nicholas D. Kristof writes today in The New York Times a column lashing out at the critics of Obamacare.  He compares us to the opponents of Social Security and Medicare whom, he said, used the same “bogymen” arguments about socialist programs, killing jobs etc.  He said that those members of Congress who “flinch” and let health care reform fail will be “on the wrong side of history.”

In touting the success of Medicare in particular, Mr.  Kristof shows how wrong he is.  Medicare is facing bankruptcy.  It is fraught with abuse and waste.  More and more doctors are pulling out of the system because they simply cannot afford to participate.  Whatever good Medicare may have done in helping to ensure health care for the elderly who need it, it is far from being a model of success that would give Americans any comfort in how a much larger government-run program will operate.

In fact, as an admission of the fraud and waste besetting Medicare today, the sponsors of Obamacare intend to pay a sizable chunk of its cost by making massive cuts in Medicare, claiming that the services will not be diminished.  If that were so, why haven’t these cuts been made already to save Medicare from looming bankruptcy?

History shows that large government-run programs are inefficient, politicized and inevitably lead to a race towards the lowest common denominator of service.   The debacles of government-run health care in Canada and the United Kingdom are staring us in the face.  But, even putting those glaring debacles aside, we have a demonstration today of how incompetent the government is when it cannot even manage getting the swine flu vaccines out on the schedule that it promised us months ago.    And now we are being asked to turn over one-sixth of our economy to government control!

Those who say that there will not be government control once Obamacare is passed have their heads in the sand.  The government will be setting health care standards.  It will be making the rules that private insurance companies must follow while unfairly competing with its public option in the same markets that it regulates .  There are no strict controls on illegal immigrant participation in at least the unsubsidized health insurance plans to be offered on the government-established exchanges, which means more demand for patient care chasing after fewer doctors willing to participate.  That is a prescription for rationed care.

What all this means is that the level of health care which people who have insurance today will deteriorate.  New taxes and penalties will be imposed on small businesses and individuals who wish to exercise their freedom of choice and opt out of health insurance.  The deficit will grow down the line as spending on the benefits balloon while the tax revenue built up in the early years of the program are exhausted.  

Instead of seeking bipartisan support for eliminating insurance industry abuses such as denial of coverage to policyholders who become gravely ill, targeting government subsidies and incentives to those citizens and legal residents who truly need help in obtaining affordable insurance, setting up exchanges where private insurance firms alone can compete across state lines, and eliminating frivilous malpractice lawsuits and egregious penalties for ‘pain and suffering’ that drive up malpractice insurance rates, the Democratic Party leaders in Congress and President Obama want it all their way.   They want to ram a disastrous program down the throats of the American people even though a majority of Americans do not want government-run health care.

Faulting an ill-conceived program is not “demonizing universal health care” as Kristof would have us believe.  It is performing the duty of every citizen to keep this country from being on the wrong side of history and from defying common sense.

The Saul Alinsky-inspired charity known as the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is filled with and funded by plenty of well-intentioned people who probably sincerely believe their efforts are improving America.

The problem is they’re largely Marxists and Marxism has never helped anyone.

As I wrote in an op-ed in the Thursday Washington Times, as this Sunday’s “second collection” approaches, most Catholics thinking of giving to CCHD probably believe their money will be used to help the poor by funding charitable projects such as soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Well, the joke’s on them because CCHD doesn’t provide direct relief to the poor. That’s not its purpose.

It is an extreme left-wing political organization created to feed and foster radical groups like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Most Catholics are blissfully unaware of its true mission, though it says right on its website that it aims to support “organized groups of white and minority poor to develop economic strength and political power.”

Long mocked as the “Catholic Campaign to Help Democrats,” CCHD is the charitable arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Since its creation in 1969 – the year before ACORN was founded – CCHD claims to have spent $290 million on more than 8,000 “low-income-led, community-based projects that strengthen families, create jobs, build affordable housing, fight crime, and improve schools and neighborhoods.” Some say the grand total is closer to $450 million.

Earlier today Ralph McCloud, director of CCHD, offered an eloquent but unconvincing defense of the radical charity he works for. Listen to the platitude-heavy discussion about the charity that finally cut off ACORN last year here.

Here is an amusing exchange from the USCCB streaming video from the event today that sounded strangely like a PBS telethon:

A PRIEST: You know that old axiom: Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. As I read more and more about CCHD it’s about teaching fishing and it seems like that’s part of where these monies go, that our own generosity helps others to sustain themselves and also to contribute to the life of society as well, right?

MCCLOUD: Sure. I would take it even a step further in that it’s kind of like teaching an individual to fish but in addition teaching an entire community to fish where they can be supportive of one another.

That’s not quite the way I see CCHD. The charity only reluctantly cut off ACORN last year and continues to fund the equally radical community organizing group, the Industrial Areas Foundation, that was founded by Saul Alinsky himself. It also funds People Improving Communities Through Organizing (PICO), Direct Action and Research Training Institute (DART), and the Gamaliel Foundation. All of these groups are ACORN wannabes.

CCHD funds groups that teach a man to steal another man’s fish so that he will survive at the expense of the other man for life.

That’s “social justice.” That’s what CCHD believes in.

The New York Times has defended the Obama administration’s unconscionable decision to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) and four of his al Qaeda cohorts in a federal court in Manhattan under the rules applicable to everyday criminal defendants.

Aside from the bogus constitutional law arguments claiming that such trials are required, which I discussed in yesterday’s blog, the argument in favor of affording KSM and his colleagues full constitutional protections in our civil court system is that it will supposedly show the world how fair our system is, in contrast to the terrorists’ atrocities.  In today’s New York Times, this argument is carried to its illogical conclusion in an op-ed article by Steven Simon, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Simon was wrong in the past about Iraq and even more wrong today about the merits of trying KSM in our civil courts.

After dismissing out of hand the real possibility that KSM could exploit legal technicalities at his trial and be set free because of the lack of admissible evidence, Mr. Simon says that the trial will be a learning opportunity for the Muslim world that will lead jihadists to put down their arms.

Simon says:

It is strongly in our interest to reinforce these trends by underscoring the terrorists’ killings of civilians and our own commitment to the rule of law

Simon points to prominent radical clerics whom, he claims,  have already “reversed course in recent years” and argues that the KSM trial will accelerate that trend.

One of the clerics cited by Simon as an example of such conversion is Yusuf al-Qaradhawi (also spelled Qaradawi).   Simon praises Qaradhawi for advancing a “jurisprudence of jihad” that “forbids the killing of most civilians”.

This one example alone undercuts Simon’s entire argument and shows just how ludicrous it is.    Qaradhawi is the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that has supported terrorism and has a long-term strategy to destroy Western secular institutions. He is a supporter of Hamas and the Palestinian intifada.  He believes that Islamic charities should be used to provide support for the families of suicide bombers.

Qaradhawi has no interest in the rule of law as we know it.   His objective is to destroy our legal and capitalist institutions.  Jihad is is lifeblood.    Here is just a small sampling of Mr. Qaradhawi’s thinking:

Muslims must carry out jihad to liberate all the land of Islam.

Secularism may be accepted in a Christian society but it can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society.  Christianity is devoid of a shari`ah or a comprehensive system of life to which its adherents should be committed…For Muslim societies, the acceptance of secularism means something totally different; i.e. as Islam is a comprehensive system of worship (`ibadah) and legislation (Shari`ah), the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Shari`ah, a denial of the divine guidance and a rejection of Allah’s injunctions… The acceptance of a legislation formulated by humans means a preference of the humans’ limited knowledge and experiences to the divine guidance

the governments [of the world] must be pressured to demand that the U.N. adopt a clear resolution or law that categorically prohibits affronts to prophets -to the prophets of the Lord and his Messengers, to His holy books, and to the religious holy places.

the collapse of the capitalist system, which is based on usury and securities rather than commodities in markets, shows us that it is undergoing a crisis and that our integrated Islamic philosophy – if properly understood and applied – can replace the Western capitalism

What naive or misguided ‘experts’ like Mr. Simon either do not understand or refuse to acknowledge is that influential clerics like al-Qaradhawi and their many millions of Islamist supporters all over the world – including in this country – mock our judicial and democratic system.   They view Islam as the only true religion and all of us unbelievers as infidels who are not innocent civilians worthy of protection from jihad.  Whatever means they may use – suicide bombings, airplanes as weapons, or infiltration and manipulation through what Robert Spencer has called stealth jihad, they are the enemies of twenty-first century democratic civilized society.

If we let these fanatics and their bone-headed lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights and other like-minded advocates for terrorist suspects abuse our legal system to achieve their evil ends, we will be enablers of their success.

Proponents of central planning, collectivism and world government such as Amy Goodman, the good comrade in front of the camera at Democracy Now!, are giddy over the recent announcement from the administration of President Barack Obama that the United States may consider re-joining the International Criminal Court [ICC].

Goodman was extremely pleased to report that:

The United States has announced it will attend an International Criminal Court meeting this week as an observer for the first time since The Hague court was set up in 2002. The US signed the ICC treaty during Bill Clinton’s presidency, but it was never ratified by Congress. Clinton’s successor George W. Bush later rejected the idea of joining the court.

The ICC, you may recall, was established by treaty in 1998 to provide a forum in which to try persons who are “accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.” Although that treaty (known as the Rome Statute) has been ratified by some 110 countries, the United States, which has always opposed the prospect of a foreign body having jurisdiction over American citizens, is not among those nations; nor, for that matter, are Russia, China, or India.

Clinton signed the Rome Statute during the final days of his presidency. George W. Bush, who feared that ambitious prosecutors and judges would subject American soldiers and government officials to politicized prosecutions, subsequently rescinded that signature.

Bush found the following language of a particular provision cited in Article 5, Section 2 of the ICC document particularly troubling:

The Court shall exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression once a provision is adopted in accordance with Articles 121 and 123 defining the crime and setting out the conditions under which the Court shall exercise jurisdiction with respect to this crime.

The Bush administration had a major problem with the use of the word “aggression;” and even today, years after the drafting of the treaty, there is still no satisfactory definition as to what constitutes “aggression.” Bush feared that the language was so broad that the potential for abuse in the form of targeted prosecution against American civilian and military leaders was too great a possibility to ignore. Water boarding a suspect, or an Abu Ghraib-type incident, might get an American soldier executed somewhere by a foreign government acting under the jurisdictional control of the ICC.

This was an unacceptable possibility for Bush, but doesn’t seem to be much of an issue for Obama, whose position on the issue was articulated by National Security Advisor Spokesman Ben Chang, who exclaimed during the first month of Obama’s administration that:

We support the ICC in its pursuit of those who’ve perpetrated war crimes.

But why would the folks at Democracy Now! and others on the left be so especially keen on having an International Criminal Court in which to try war criminals? The real answer is chilling.

The left considers the biggest war criminal of all to be none other than: George W. Bush.

Wolfgang Kaleck, general secretary of the leftist European Centre for Human and Constitutional Rights–who has already tried unsuccessfully to sue Bush and former U.S. authorities in European courts–has articulated the left’s position clearly and without ambiguity:

Judicial clarification of the crimes against international law the former U.S. government committed is one of the most delicate issues that the new U.S. president Barack Obama will have to deal with.

Kalek went on to warn the Obama administration that it will have to:

Deal with the turpitudes committed by the Bush government. And, furthermore, the U.S. government will have to pay compensation to the innocent people who were victims of these crimes.

It’s all coming into focus now. What an achievement it would be for the left to have an American ex-President on trial in a foreign court for “war crimes,” with the potential added bonus of a shakedown of the American taxpayer for the payment of crippling “reparations.” Obama would be opening a Pandora’s box with the re-ratification the Rome Statute.

Or is that the plan?

Hey, Chris, this isn't an actual photo.

Friday on Hardball, just after the announcement by Eric Holder that the Justice Department would bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists to New York for a criminal trial, Chris Matthews was the only MSNBC host to express any common sense doubt about the plan.

MATTHEWS (Friday): … a show trial opportunity… Human rights matters, even in cases of the worst people in the world, but sometimes I think we got to treat them a little tougher than we treat your average criminal.

Over the weekend, Matthews was suddenly transformed (by a trip to the woodshed?) into just another MSNBC ideologue spouting the party line that those who objected to this political show trial were “spreading fear,” and enemies of the Constitution.

While trying to prove how smart he is, (and asking paragraph-long questions which he mostly answered himself) Chris Matthews instead embarrassed himself as he, in effect, compared 9/11 to an incident of riot control getting out of hand.

Incredibly bringing up the Boston Massacre, Matthew blathered on about the American system of justice trying the redcoats who “fired on our civilians.”  That’s right, according to Chris, the American legal system applied SIX YEARS BEFORE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

So, I guess that would make expanding the Constitution to include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed no big stretch.  Conservatives say that liberals have a 9/10 mentality.  Matthews apparently is stuck in 1770.

Chris started off his interview with class.

MATTHEWS: Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky is a Democrat from Chicago. And U.S.Congresswoman Judy Biggert is a Republican from somewhere else.

After Schakowsky parroted the Administration line that there was only “irrational fears” in the objection to the trials, and Biggert raised security concerns, Chris went off on what he clearly thought was a clever prosecutorial trap:

MATTHEWS: You know, back in the early part of our country-I want to go back to-stick with Congresswoman Biggert for a second and see if she is consistent here.  Back in the beginnings of our country, we had a trial for the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, and we gave those British soldiers a real trial. And John Adams was their defense attorney. And a lot of them got off.  Do you think that was a mistake, to give them a real trial, or should we just have executed them? What should we have done?

BIGGERT: Well, I’m talking about having a real trial.

MATTHEWS: I mean, was it wrong to give-was it wrong to give a real trial to people who shot down our people in the Boston Massacre? Or was that a good emblem of the kind of country we were going to be, a country of laws?  What was…

BIGGERT: I-I think…

MATTHEWS: John Adams was their defense lawyer. Should he not have taken that job? Should he have not defended the enemies of our country and shown that we have a good system of law in this country? Was that a mistake, historically?

“We” who, paleface?  First, in 1770 John Adams was essentially still a British lawyer defending British soldiers in a British court.

Two, there was doubt both of guilt and motive when it came to the soldiers.  The crowd was threatening and pelting the redcoats with sticks.  Some frightened soldiers opened fire.

The closest comparison in modern history would be Kent State—though I hate to mention it, since the 60s radicals in charge of our government now is apt to drag those people out of the old folks home and conduct a show trial on them, too.

The Boston Massacre was tragic, and it was an example of the heavy handedness of King George, but it was not terroristic murder, nor were those who fired the shots un-uniformed  foreign combatants captured on the battlefield.  Otherwise, great parallel, Chris.

And even if you thought Paul Revere’s famous engraving was an accurate depiction, rather than an attempt at fanning revolutionary flames, comparing 5 civilians killed in a riot control situation to the deliberate murder of 3000 innocents who were going to work that day is morally bankrupt.

This is the kind of silliness that the more thoughtful Chris Matthews of times past used to rightfully skewer hapless politicians and commentators for engaging in.   It’s sad, really.