Red State

On the ever-busy Change.gov, former Sen. Tom Daschle has posted a video talking about the health care transition team and the comments he's received. The pick for Health and Human Services Secretary says hearing compelling personal stories is most important for urging legislators to action.

The Galen Institute, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to free-market ideas for health reform, wants to share people's stories with the Obama transition team. What personal experiences have caused you to wish for consumer-driven changes in the health system? Would you like more options and more control over your health care?

Please share your stories either in comments or e-mail them to amy@galen.org. Let's give some constructive, substantive feedback.

Barack Obama announced Monday that Susan Rice would be taking the post as United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Her significance as an Obama appointment is not a crucial as the status that Obama is going to give the post of UN Ambassador, returning it to Cabinet status. From a diplomatic view point this places the UN Ambassador on the same level as the Secretary of State, signaling that Obama will be placing emphasis on the UN.

Under President Bush the UN Ambassador was removed as a Cabinet position. A position it was first given by Bill Clinton the only other Administration to hold the UN Ambassador at Cabinet level. This in essence creates two cabinet level positions from the same Department. Both the Secretary of State and the UN Ambassador are part of the State Department.

With the UN Ambassador holding cabinet level in an Obama Administration emphasis on working closely with the UN in relation to United States Foreign Policy is obviously going to be a key to US diplomacy under Obama. A close association with the UN like this can only spell disaster for The United States.

First the corruption within the UN has made it an extremely weak organization throughout the world. Secondly the majority of the Nations who participate in the UN are Nations who have either dictatorial leaders like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela or militaristic governments with Generals who continually over throw their government with military coups in order to obtain power.

Both types of governments abuse their people and are on far less than friendly terms with The United States and condemn our actions using the UN as their platform. As a UN member we have already removed ourselves from the UN Human Rights Council because of the hypocrisy in allowing the worst human rights violators to either head or have a strong voice within the council and the UN position on human rights.

Now Barack Obama will allow this corrupt anti-American organization to have a voice in US foreign policy and our UN Ambassador the same level of power as the Secretary of State. Obama has long been an advocate of the UN even to the point of backing legislation that would cost American tax payers an additional 65 billion dollars per year to finance a UN poverty initiative. An initiative which has all the markings of the oil for food program that funnelled billions of dollars to the UN and Saddam Hussein while the Iraq was under UN sanctions before the war.

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton who as Ambassador was a strong critic of UN corruption considers the elevating of the position to cabinet level a bad idea. According to Bolton, "One, it overstates the role and importance the U.N. should have in U.S. foreign policy," Mr. Bolton said. "Second, you shouldn't have two secretaries in the same department."

As far as the appointment of Susan Rice as UN Ambassador, her credentials less than stellar but she does have one extreme blemish on her record while she was serving as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Clinton Administration. Rice played a major role in the decision to refuse the offer by the government of Sudan in turning over Usama bin Laden to the US.

Sudan was also willing to share intelligence information of Al Qaeda activities with the US through David Williams then Middle East and African Agent in Charge for the FBI. Rice assisted in the decision process which resulted in the White House also rejecting the intell offered by the Sudanese government.

Rice obviously has an appeasement mentality and along with Obama's policy of involving the UN in US foreign policy this appointment and elevation to cabinet level of the UN Ambassador sends a signal that as a Nation we will become subject to the UN and the anti-American attitude that permeates within this corrupt organization.

Ken Taylor

Yeah, I still think it's a mistake.

Good on the President-elect for this decision:

President-elect Barack Obama is not planning to implement a windfall profit tax on oil companies because prices have dropped below $80 a barrel, an aide said on Tuesday.

"President-elect Obama announced the policy during the campaign because oil prices were above $80 per barrel," an aide on Obama's transition team said. "They are currently below that now and expected to stay below that."

Oil prices have fallen from a record $147 a barrel in July to under $50 this week.

Of course, no matter what the price of oil, a windfall profits tax is a terrible idea so the President-elect should not have waited until the price of oil fell before making the decision to ditch the tax. Additionally, it would have been nice if the President-elect had taken a stance against the windfall profits tax irrespective of the price of oil during the campaign. But I suppose that was not possible; the "reality-based community" would have objected if Barack Obama was actually reality-based when it came to this issue.

Okay, so it is somewhat mean to be so snarky and yes, Democrats have far more to brag about in this election cycle than do Republicans so perhaps I jumped offsides on the snark. But it remains worth noting that with Saxby Chambliss's big win in today's Georgia Senate runoff, Obamamania has met certain limits. While there was some concern that Chambliss was not breaking 50% in the polls and thus may have been vulnerable, the incumbent won by 20 points. I'm sure that is good for a few raised heads and cocked eyebrows in Punditland, where many of the residents seemed to think that the race would be closer.

It should be noted as well that in the battle of the surrogates, John McCain and Sarah Palin overcame Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Barack Obama--all of whom campaigned for Chambliss's opponent, Jim Martin. With the win, Republicans will officially prevent Democrats from reaching 60 seats in the Senate. The only contest that remains is the one in Minnesota where Norm Coleman is doing well enough that Al Franken is trying to get the Senate to come and save him.

So tonight was a big win for Republicans. And a wake-up call to Democrats that there remain positions of electoral strength for Republicans. The party has been written off before and has come back to surprise. Maybe we are seeing the stirrings of a surprise gather even now.

This article is intriguing, even though I'm not sure I really believe it in total. But he makes a couple of interesting observations:

Most conservatives did show up on Election Day, but a significant number voted Democrat. Mr. Obama picked up one-third more conservative voters than Sen. John Kerry, at 20 percent. Self-identified conservatives in exit polling comprised 34 percent of voters in both 2004 and 2008, yet the number who called themselves Republican dropped from 37 percent to 32 percent. In an evenly split nation, the GOP losing 14 percent of its base overwhelmed almost everything else.

and

Two key right-leaning constituencies deserted Republicans: security moms and Catholics. Though the media has made the "gender gap" a household term, the more apt classification was a "marriage gap." Single women were heavily Democrat, and married women leaned Republican. "Security Moms" became the label for married mothers attracted to the hawkishness of the GOP.

Hmmmm.

Laugh at me if you will, but I watched the last season and a half of The West Wing. Mainly because I wanted to see if all of the rumors were true that a Republican would win the White House on the show. Of course Hollywood didn't let that happen, but it was pretty intersting to say the least.
The brief synopsis is this:
The Democrat who wins the election, Matt Santos (played by Jimmy Smits) practically came out of nowhere to win the nomination. He was a minority candidate, very young, not a lot of Washington experience, and won a huge following. On election night in the show, he picked off South Carolina and Texas, traditionall red states, however he was a Congressman from Texas. He ran on a pretty moderate platform in the general election, with the exception of universal healthcare.
His Republican opponent was an old guy named Arnold Vinnick, a senator from California (played by Allan Alda). Vinnick was old, a moderate Republican, old, a senator for several years, old, and was doing very well in the polls up until an incident at a nuclear reactor tilted the election in Santos' way. He did wind up winning California in a close race, mainly because it was his home state. The election was a lot closer than this year's, with Santos clinching the win in a close victory in Nevada. Vinnick immediately concedes out of concern for dragging the country in an electoral fiasco.
I understand that this election wasn't nearly as close as in the TV show, but there are some striking similarities. There was one especially at the end of the series.

If you haven't gone to another post, the series ends with Santos putting his administration together, enrolling his kids in a public school (like any president would do that), and his inauguration. Along with putting his administration in place, he offered Vinnick the Secretary of State position, which Vinnick accepted. It's kind of realistic, since Obama could possibly offer John McCain the post of Secretary of Veterans Affairs. A line that was uttered near the end of one episode kind of struck me at this current time.
To paraphrase, Santos told Vinnick that he could take whatever time that was needed to persuade him, but Vinnick was expected to support whatever decision Santos would make in the end. In other words, say what you want, but it's my game with my rules. This is what we're getting with Barack Obama and his cabinet picks. There's a lot of people out there that are in awe of the "centrists" selected by Obama to fill these posts, but Obama gets the final say on policy. Robert Gates can say whatever he wants on Iraq, but Obama can do whatever he wants in the end. Larry Summers can spew free market economics on Obama as much as he wants, but Obama gets to determine the course of action in the end.
I grow tired of people on the left (and even some on the right) that are telling me to give Obama a chance. I don't trust him. Maybe Obama really does want to govern from the center, but I don't think Reid and Pelosi will let him. I also believe that some of these "centrists" are a masquerade. After all, aren't all of the "moderate" Democrats elected in 2006 voting in lockstep with Reid and Pelosi?
Back to my point, it's kind of strange how the end of The West Wing told the story of this past election. Not that studying it would have helped all of that much, but whether it's a nuclear reactor or economic meltdown, sometimes there's only one incident a candidate needs to propel to victory.

Both Sarah Palin and Barack Obama campaigned in Georgia. Palin flew all over the state rallying Republicans. Obama flew under the radar heavily targeting black voters, demanding support for Martin, and running heavy radio advertising on urban stations.

Ladies and Gentlemen, black voters turned out for Obama, but not for Obama's candidates. Remember that for 2010.

But folks, remember this too: Sarah Palin asked Republicans to turn out and they did. Of all the Republicans who campaigned for Chambliss, she was the only one that went all over the state for him. And it paid off.

Now Saxby, pay attention: If you do not fire Charlie Harmon tomorrow and undergo a significant restructuring of your Washington office you will prove yourself a fool who has learned nothing from this. Hiring a Democrat to run your office was a bad idea. That he pushed you to engage in bipartisan compromises that did nothing but piss off your base was inexcusable. A Chief of Staff could keep you out of this crap, not get you into it. He should himself resign.

Also, memo to the Georgia Republican Party: Sue Everhart is not eligible for re-election in 2009 as Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. The stunning lack of anything displayed by the statewide GOP apparatus disqualifies her.

Perhaps we did not purchase the bill of goods, but 68,588,471 American voters, most still alive and voting only once, were sold the campaign schtick – hopeCHANGEhope – and now they're learning about it from Karl Rove. On their home turf, NBC's Today program, Karl Rove reviews their messiah's national security & foreign policy team and tells them this:

The team represents, to a substantial degree, continuity.

Ouch. Continuity = More of the Same. (Gates, btw, is not a Republican.)

(There's more beyond the vid.)

The AP tells us of Rove's appearance on the Fun with Matt Lauer Show:

Rove pointed to the retention of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the naming of James Jones as national security adviser, a Vietnam war veteran who rose to become a Marine four-star general and served as military chief of NATO during the Bush administration. Obama also named Hillary Rodham Clinton as his nominee for secretary of state.

Pejman Yousefzadeh notes that Obama's "approach on decision-making seems to be lifted straight from the playbooks of George W. Bush and John McCain."

Hillary for State was uninspired. Obama was forced to hire the "monster" for political reasons. He cannot govern without her, so he is now tied to the co-winner of an election held 16-years-ago. This isn't just the status quo; it's recycled. (And the media will proclaim that Obama's saving the planet for it.) In accepting the nomination, Hillary talked of the same problems: Iran, the Norks, Palestine, etc. More. Of. The. Same.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano at DHS seems like another patronage appoint, which Presidents of all stripes have doled out for centuries, and it is… more of the same. She is not nearly as qualified as is Secretary Chertoff, unless she has some super power of which we've not been told. (This is always a possibility in the Obama Administration.)

I know Obama says that he will be the ultimate decider in his Administration, but this has also been done before.

If this is change from President Bush's first term, we have been there and done that.

Check out this picture from a Boston Globe article on today's runoff election:

The caption below the photo says, "Jim Martin, the Democrat vying for the US Senate seat in Georgia, posed with rappers (from left) T.I., Young Jeezy, and Ludacris during a campaign rally in Atlanta."

Here's a question I have: who in their right mind thought, in a state-wide runoff, it would be a good idea to have Martin appear at public venues with these Kings of Misogyny?

The article is actually pretty good in its opening paragraphs, saying:

Jim Martin, the Democrat trying for the second time in a month to unseat Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, was standing in one of Barack Obama's old campaign offices the other day, circled by a staff paid for with Obama's dollars, facing a large banner bearing Obama's image.

The postcard-sized handbills stacked around the room were old door-knockers printed to promote the Obama-Martin ticket, crudely cut in half for their new purpose. "For President," some of them still read, in Obama's familiar Gotham typeface.

"I have a little bit more help than I did before," Martin said with a little smile. The longtime state legislator and former human resources commissioner, who waged a lackluster campaign for lieutenant governor two years ago, carried the unsettled air of someone who had been pushed by an unexpected inheritance into flashier digs than he ever expected to call his own.

Further, the question that is asked directly after that exerpt -- "Is there a sustainable Obama coalition, and is the Obama machine durable? Has Obama created anything greater than himself?" -- is one which has a clear and obvious answer, but an answer which Democrats will probably spend anywhere from the next two to eight years avoiding.

The fact is, Obama has always been about moving himself forward, regardless who is advanced or pushed back into oblivion by his tireless self-promotion and self-aggrandizement.

Remember, this is the man who during the general election campaign performed whiplash-inducing 180°s on Iraq, on abortion, on the DC gun ban, on FISA and telecom immunity, on welfare reform, on the death penalty for child rapists, on debating John McCain "anywhere, any time," on the financing of his campaign, and on too many other issues to recount here (not to mention on Jim Johnson, on Jeremiah Wright, on Wes Clark, on Austan Goolsbee, on Samantha Power, on Tony Rezko, and on Scarlett Johansson, as well as on too many other people to recount).

The constant delusions of grandeur -- and constant need, whatever his current level of accomplishment, to make himself feel even more important through false claims of importance and ridiculous iconography (imitation White House Rose Garden, anybody? How about fake Presidential seal? And -- even Obama supporters can honestly admit the level of absurdity on this one -- holder of the Office of the President-Elect? Perhaps I missed the day that became an actual office, complete with its simultaneous campaign-related requests for money and use of the official-business-only .gov domain) -- that Obama insists on enjoying are further signs that this truly is a person who cares only about himself and his own advancement, and who will shed all friends, supporters, and coattail-hangers-on, both in the personal and electoral worlds, for the opportunity to get ahead by just a little bit more.

Barack Obama is carrying those 10 million email addresses and 3 million cell phone numbers into the White House with him to serve his own ends, not to retain a tool for the purpose of making that grassroots army available to other Democrat candidates and issue-advocacy organizations.

He may, at points in the future of his choosing, assign his devoted followers to assist others -- like Jim Martin here in Georgia -- but the bottom line is, Obama has created an army of activists who are very clearly loyal to him, and to nothing and no one else.

And that's just the way he wants it.

Who Am I?

I was raised in one country but my father was born in another. I was not his only child. He fathered several children with a number of women.

I became very close to my mother because my father showed little interest in me. Then my mother died at an early age from cancer. Later in life, questions arose over my real name. My birth records were sketchy and no one was able to produce a reliable birth certificate.

I grow up practicing one faith, but converted to Christianity because this was widely accepted in my country. But I practiced non-traditional beliefs and did not follow mainstream Christianity.

I worked and lived among lower-class people as a young adult before I decided it was time to get serious about my life and I embarked on a new career.

I wrote a book about my struggles growing up. It was clear to those who read my memoirs that I had difficulties accepting that my father abandoned me as a child.

I became active in local politics when I was in my 30s and then burst onto the scene as a candidate for national office when I was in my 40s. I had a virtually non-existent resume, very little work history, and no experience in leading a single organization. Yet I was a powerful speaker who managed to draw incredibly large crowds during my public appearances.

At first, my political campaign focused on my country's foreign policy. I was critical of my country in the last war. But what launched my rise to national prominence were my views on the country's economy. I had a plan on how we could do better. I knew which group was responsible for getting us into this mess.

Mine was a people's campaign. I was the surprise candidate because I emerged from outside the traditional path of politics and was able to gain widespread popular support. I offered the people the hope that together we could change our country and the world.

I spoke on behalf of the downtrodden including persecuted minorities such as Jews, but my actual views were not widely known until after I became my nations leader. However, anyone could have easily learned what I really believed if they had simply read my writings and examined those people I associated with. But they did not.

Then I became the most powerful man in the world. And the world learned the truth.

ADOLPH HITLER (text from an anonymous email)

While president-elect Obama appears to be moving to the center on economic policies, it is important to keep our eyes on the attorney general position because the legal system is the vehicle through which Obama plans to really shift the nation left.

Eric Holder, who gained his law degree from Columbia Law School in New York City in 1976, has been nominated by Obama to be the next US attorney general. He would be the first black in the post. Holder is of Caribbean descent.

Holder first was nominated to serve as a judge of the superior court of the District of Columbia by Ronald Reagan in 1988. In 1993, Holder was nominated by Bill Clinton as US attorney for the District of Columbia. He became deputy attorney general of the United States, the #2 post at the Justice Department, in 1997. He briefly served as acting attorney general until John Ashcroft was approved by the senate in 2001 to serve as president George W. Bush’s first attorney general.

The office of the United States attorney general is described as the head of the Department of Justice, chief law enforcement officer of the United States and chief lawyer of the US government. The office was established under the Judiciary Act of 1789 which says that the original duties of attorney general were "to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the president of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments.”

Holder’s nomination should give us pause because the AG acts as the de facto model for the nation’s jurisprudence. But Holder has been involved in four controversial cases since his rise to national prominence in 1997, each of which gives an indication where he might take our legal system. None is encouraging. Below are the four cases, with a comment following each.

1) The most famous case involved Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who was brought to Florida in November 1999 after his mother and 10 others had drowned during their boat trip to freedom. Elian had been set in an inner tube and was picked up by American fishermen.

After a prolonged legal battle, Elian was seized at gunpoint by immigration officials from his great uncle’s home in Miami and eventually returned to his father and to Cuba.

Below is an interview involving Holder from Fox news on April 23, 2000. Jeff Asman is talking to Fox judicial analyst judge Andrew Napolitano after asylum had been applied for in Elian’s name by his guardian, his great uncle Lazaro Gonzalez:

Napolitano: The order issued by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals four days ago .... said once the INS chooses the guardian, and the INS chose Lazaro Gonzalez to be the guardian, and an application for asylum has been made by the guardian, the INS can not change the guardian and that’s exactly what they did here." Asman: "So is this executive overreach?" Napolitano: "This is more than executive overreach. This is contempt of the circuit court of appeals order. This is a high class kidnapping is what it is, sanctioned by no law, sanctioned by no judge..."

In an interview later that morning, Napolitano questioned Eric Holder:

Napolitano: Tell me, Mr. Holder, why did you not get a court order authorizing you to go in and get the boy? Holder: Because we didn’t need a court order. INS can do this on its own. Napolitano: You know that a court order would have given you the cloak of respectability to have seized the boy. Holder: We didn’t need an order. Napolitano: Then why did you ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for such an order if you didn’t need one? Holder: [Silence] Napolitano: The fact is, for the first time in history you have taken a child from his residence at gunpoint to enforce your custody position, even though you did not have an order authorizing it.

Earlier in that interview:

Napolitano: When is the last time a boy, a child, was taken at the point of a gun without an order of a judge. Unprecedented in American history." Holder: "He was not taken at the point of a gun." Napolitano: "We have a photograph showing he was taken at the point of a gun." (Editorial note: The famous photograph of an armed soldier from the US Border Patrol’s BORTAC unit was taken by Alan Diaz and won a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography.) Holder: "They were armed agents who went in there who acted very sensitively..."

Two weeks before the raid that seized Elian, NBC’s Tim Russert asked Holder: "You wouldn't send a SWAT team in the dark of night to kidnap the child, in effect?"

Holder said: "No, we don't expect anything like that to happen."

When the INS did exactly that Russert asked Holder in a later interview: "Why such a dramatic change in position?"

Holder responded: "I'm not sure I'd call it a dramatic change. We waited 'til five in the morning, just before dawn." (of April 22, 2000)

Meanwhile Obama’s nominee as White House Counsel, Greg Craig, was the lawyer who represented Elian Gonzalez’s father, who was living in Cuba at the time and still is. Elian eventually was returned to his father and then returned to Cuba with his father.

Comment: So for once, liberals sided with the father in a custody case, but only since the father lived in a communist nation.

Those Holder interviews show a disrespect for law. And this type of uncertainty and concocted law really is not what we should expect of an attorney general. That Holder would be silent when Napolitano asked “Then why did you ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for such an order if you didn’t need one?” shows that Holder does not have the ability to interpret the law and make a case for sound legal actions.

2) Holder was the driving force behind Bill Clinton’s pardon of 16 members of the communist FALN Puerto Rican terrorist group which executed an estimated 146 bombings and a string of armed robberies in the US and Puerto Rico between 1974 and 1983, killing six and wounding many. Their attacks included the infamous January 24, 1975 bombing at Fraunces Tavern in New York City which was populated by people out for a meal. The bomb killed four and injured more than 50. FALN took responsibility.

The terrorists in that case were belligerent and unrepentant. Ida Rodriguez told the judge, “You say we have no remorse. You’re right. … Your jails and your long sentences will not frighten us.”

After 18 years in prison, eight of the Fraunces Tavern terrorists were pardoned by Bill Clinton. Clinton’s press people claimed that the terrorists hurt no one, which is untrue. Clinton issued a pardon on August 11, 1999 for a total of 16 terrorists. He did this for one reason alone: To please New York City’s big Puerto Rican electorate in anticipation of Hillary’s first run for US senate in 2000.

As deputy attorney general at the time, Eric Holder had to sign off on all clemency pleas that went to Clinton. And he recommended for the FALN 16 despite opposition from the FBI and Clinton’s own Justice Department.

Louis Freeh, FBI director in September 1999, wrote that clemency “would likely return committed, experienced sophisticated and hardened terrorists to the clandestine movement.”

But rather than consult bombing victims and their families, Holder met with members of Congress and then recommended a course of action for the terrorists to take.

Comment: This is hardly the way an attorney general should act. This was a blatant disregard for the common security of the American people. This is the type of legal laxity that led to 9/11, where terrorists were either not pursued during the Clinton years, or were pursued in venues like American courtrooms that treated them like common criminals rather than international terrorists.

3) In another controversial action, Holder in January 2001 participated in one of the most notorious pardons of all time, Clinton’s last-minute clemency for fugitive financier Marc Rich. As deputy AG, Holder consulted with one-time White House counsel Jack Quinn who acted as Rich’s lawyer.

Rich has never served time in prison. He fled the United States and has lived in Switzerland since 1983 after being indicted on charges of evading more than $100 million in income taxes and other frauds including arms dealing, and business transactions with Iran for oil.

In exchange for Rich’s pardon, Rich’s ex-wife Denise gave almost a half-million dollars to Clinton’s presidential library foundation; $1.1 million to the Democrat party; and $109,000 to Hillary Clinton’s senate campaign.

Comment: Holder played dumb in the Rich case, saying he did not know much about Rich. Is this the type of person we want as attorney general? Someone who works to grant clemency to people who don’t deserve it any way, shape of form, people who fled justice and the United States? What does this say about Holder? Pardoning a person like Rich hardly seems like a worthy goal for a president or a deputy attorney general.

4) As deputy attorney general, Holder was a strong supporter of restrictive gun control, federal licensing of handgun owners, a waiting period on handgun sales, restricting handgun sales to one per month, banning possession of handguns by anyone under age of 21, national gun registration, and mandatory prison sentences for minor offenses like giving a child an heirloom handgun if he were too young.

Holder also quoted the anti-gun propaganda that every day “about 12, 13 more children in this country die from gun violence" which is true only if you include 18-year-old gang members.

Holder also co-signed an amicus brief in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the landmark firearms case which was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court in favor of gun ownership as an individual right.

The brief was filed in support of DC's ban on all handguns, and a ban on the use of any firearm for self-defense in the home, saying that the 2nd Amendment is a "collective" right, not an individual one.

After 9/11, Holder authored a Washington Post column entitled ‘Keeping Guns Away From Terrorists’ arguing that a new law should give "the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms a record of every firearm sale."

Comment: This type of thinking goes against the Natural Law on which American freedom is based. One of Natural Law’s primary tenets is that all people have the right to self-defense, which may sound like common sense. But in America today, people who harm criminals in defending themselves against those criminals frequently are prosecuted. This has happened under liberalism, which entrusts all defense to the courts - often after it is too late - and none to individual action. So there is no intrinsic right to self-defense according to liberal socialism.

Real self-defense today means the individual right to own a gun in order to defend both your person and your home. Holder’s persistently anti-gun positions disqualify him from being an acceptable candidate for attorney general of the United States.

Please visit my website at www.nikitas3.com for more.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/plo-ready-for-state-in-west-bank/

Palestinians shift position on peace accord Gaza affiliation awaits Hamas surrender

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/scholar-congressional-exhibits-too-liberal/

Scholar: Visitor center edits Constitution Exhibit mangles, redefines the power, role

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/bush-looking-to-secure-legacy/

Bush launches campaign to improve image Touts battle against AIDS

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/obama-picks-cause-new-headaches-for-party/

Obama picks cause new headaches Arizona, Illinois, N.Y. seats opening

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/in-from-the-cold-a-familiar-obama/

PRUDEN: In from the cold, a familiar Obama

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/new-south-champion-accused-of-corruption/

'New South' champion accused of corruption Mayor arrested; county bankrupt

Maria Stainer
Assistant Managing Editor
Continuous News Desk
The Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/plo-ready-for-state-in-west-bank/

Palestinians shift position on peace accord Gaza affiliation awaits Hamas surrender

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/scholar-congressional-exhibits-too-liberal/

Scholar: Visitor center edits Constitution Exhibit mangles, redefines the power, role

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/bush-looking-to-secure-legacy/

Bush launches campaign to improve image Touts battle against AIDS

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/obama-picks-cause-new-headaches-for-party/

Obama picks cause new headaches Arizona, Illinois, N.Y. seats opening

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/in-from-the-cold-a-familiar-obama/

PRUDEN: In from the cold, a familiar Obama

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/02/new-south-champion-accused-of-corruption/

'New South' champion accused of corruption Mayor arrested; county bankrupt

Maria Stainer Assistant Managing Editor Continuous News Desk The Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com

During the campaign, Barack Obama had a singular reaction to nearly every one of his associates, sponsors, advisers and friends that were challenged by his opponents. That was to throw them under his bus, run them over, and drive like a bat outta hell to get away from them. But, now some of them are being hauled back into the bus despite the troubles during the campaign. It seems odd that the media are not remarking on the fact that supposedly discredited advisers and associates are suddenly OK again with team Obama. We are left wondering if Obama really did find these associates unsavory enough from which to disassociate? Or, as it now seems more likely, was he just cynically dumping on them during the campaign so that he could save votes and to appear as if he cared what people thought of his untoward associations?

The most famous of those Obama distanced himself from was the very wrong Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr., he of the fiery "God damn" America sermons. Obama spent more than a decade calling Wright a "member of the family" and saying that the wild-eyed hater was his "spiritual advisor." Obama mentioned him in numerous speeches and even attended book signings with the man. Wright was also such a “friend of the family” that he was close to Obama’s children, like a long lost uncle. When the news first began to come out about how radical Wright was, Obama initially addressed the situation by saying he could never distance himself from the Rev. As the truth of Wright's hatred for whites and Jews became too obvious to deny, Obama suddenly discovered that Wright was a man he "never knew." Result: Obama distanced himself from Wright, throwing him under the bus.

The next most famous traffic altercation was with 60's domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Obama worked closely with Ayers on various education initiatives in Chicago while Obama was an up-and-coming Chicago politician. Ayers even held in his own home one of Obama's earliest fundraisers as he began his run for the Senate. As Ayers became an embarrassing yet central character from Obama's past, though, team Obama began to claim that the candidate hardly knew the Marxist-murderer, Ayers. So, Ayers became another close associate thrown under the Obama campaign bus.

These two weren’t the only ones that Obama instantly realized that he was “disappointed” in. There was also Reverend Otis Moss, III, Father Michael Pfleger, Jim Johnson, and Robert Malley, among others.

But now that the election is over, things are amazingly different for Obama and those folks he so sternly cast aside during the campaign. Apparently, Obama has a renewed respect for those that he roundly denounced only months ago.

Since the election, for instance, terrorist William Ayers has since come out and confirmed that he and Obama were closer than Obama claimed during the campaign -- and Obama has not contradicted that statement. Back in the bus for Ayers.

Additionally, Robert Malley has been given a new life with Obama after having been chucked under the bus for campaign appearances. Malley came under fire during the campaign when it was discovered he was an Obama foreign policy adviser. The reason that Malley was looked upon askance was because of his past stated support and close relationships with the terror group Hamas. Malley "voluntarily" quit the Obama campaign when his ties to Hamas became an issue. Back then he was under the bus. However, just after the election, Malley seems to have been sent to the Middle East by Barack Obama as his envoy to Syria and Egypt. So, Malley was hauled back into the bus.

There is also dumped adviser Samantha Power, like Malley a foreign policy “expert,” the latest associate that has been hauled back into the bus after having had Obama formally distance himself from her during the campaign.

In March of '08, Samantha Power "voluntarily" quit the Obama campaign over an off-the-cuff remark she made to a British journalist. She called Hillary Clinton a "monster" over how she was carrying on her campaign in comparison to the purportedly clean way her candidate was operating his. The comment gave the supposedly clean Obama campaign a black eye of sorts. (Video of Power's "resignation")

So, off she went after embarrassing the candidate. After the imbroglio flashed hot in the news, team Obama claimed that Power was not really an "official" adviser since she wasn't a paid one.

Ridiculously, Power's past advocacy of cutting off American associations with Israel and giving millions of dollars to help the Palestinians and Hamas build a powerful and effective military wasn't enough to keep her off his foreign policy team, but calling Hillary a "monster" was.

But that was then. NOW she is back on Obama's team as if nothing ever happened.

As the Associated Press reports:

State Department officials said Friday that Samantha Power is among foreign policy experts the president-elect's office selected to help the incoming administration prepare for Clinton's anticipated nomination as secretary of state.

From this resurrection of these two supposedly "disgraced" foreign policy advisers we are seeing a pattern that should alarm any supporter of Israel. With Robert Malley, we see Obama accepting back onto his team a man that has admitted having ties close enough to Hamas to plan and hold ongoing meetings -- even when he wasn’t an official with any government or campaign -- and with Power we have a woman that advocates for helping Hamas create a powerful, well funded military force.

From these early Obama appointments of advisers that have clear anti-Israeli policy ideas, we can see a certain pattern of the path Obama's Middle Eastern policies might take. And it isn't a good one where it concerns Israeli security, either.

Then we add in the clear preference that Obama has shown Pakistan, another country that harbors extremist Muslim terrorists, and we have reason to fear for America's relationship with both Israel and India -- two countries that are fast friends with anti-Islamofascist sentiment and free-trading policies.

But, there is one other thing that all this shows. It shows that Barack Obama must not have meant a word he said when throwing associates and advisers under the bus during the campaign. It shows that he was only cynically distancing himself from any advisers and associates that caused him trouble on the campaign trail. But, obviously Obama was not distancing himself at all. Merely making it seem like he was doing so in order to get votes.

Yes, I am saying he lied.

This is just as alarming. It makes his word impossible to believe.

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CNN is warning Americans that already making Barack Obama into one of America's greatest "heroes" may not be a good idea. Despite the fact that Barack Obama has yet to take office, despite that he has yet to really do anything to earn that status, CNN is saying that "already, he's being compared to the most remarkable leaders."

It might make one amazed that now, after cheerleading for him for the last four years, CNN suddenly finds that calling Obama a hero is not necessarily the best idea. "The Americans who are comparing him to those remarkable predecessors," CNN warns, "are putting a lot of faith in a man they barely know."

And why do we "barely know" Barack Obama, CNN? Is it perhaps because the American media never took the time to vet this man? Is it because all we've gotten is hero worship from the media?

Still, CNN is quite right that putting Obama on a pedestal before he has even done anything is quite dangerous. In contravention to all of America's past notables that became national heroes after they actually achieved something above and beyond, the media has bestowed this status upon Barack Obama ahead of any such achievement. Unfortunately, this sort of sycophantic deification undeserved risks a crash-and-burn greater than that of any other public figure in history and also courts an increase in racial tension that might seem to have been tampered by his election. As Obama fails to live up to the glorified hype the fall back retort to detractors will be to claim that they are racists. This will not help the US at all.

I seriously hope that Obama is at least an adequate chief executive for these United States. If he is not, this country could be in a serious mess both socially as well as politically.

But, I am afraid that what we are seeing with this CNN report is an early example of the media attempting to claim that it "warned" us all that things might not be so wonderful in Obamalot, a sort of plausible deniability of their complicity of hiding his past so he could win election. Even as the media is a chief reason that Obama became president in the first place, some outlets have begun to act as if they are now interested in "truth" and the "news."

Be sure and Visit my Home blog Publius' Forum. It's what's happening NOW!

The Arena asked us contributors to . . . well . . . contribute. As I write here, I find it interesting that the President-elect appears to be backing away from his commitment to remove troops from Iraq in 16 months and his approach on decision-making seems to be lifted straight from the playbooks of George W. Bush and John McCain. This probably won't get the President-elect the same level of opprobrium, of course; the President-elect's current rapturous honeymoon precludes this sort of thing. But someone ought to point out the irony. We were asked to consider whether Bill Clinton would come along as an asset or a liability given the appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. In the business, this is what is called a "gimme."

Considering the general issue further, I wanted to weigh in as well on Hillary Clinton's executive experience and what it bodes for her leadership at Foggy Bottom, as well as how the reappointment of Robert Gates as Defense Secretary--a reappointment I look upon with great favor--could be botched. I do so in a follow-up here.

Since the recount in Minnesota is going badly for Al Franken, he is contemplating asking the Senate to intervene. To be sure, the Senate has the Constitutional authority to do so but few things could de-legitimize Franken more than having a Democrat-controlled Senate state that he is the winner when the election officials in the state of Minnesota--no red state, that--seem to think differently. Indeed, who doesn't think that the Senate would decide the election purely on partisan grounds--especially with Harry Reid at the helm.

We have, of course, seen this kind of controversy before. The seating of Frank McCloskey enraged and embittered House Republicans and was remembered when the GOP swept to power in the aftermath of the 1994 midterms. I suppose that it would be fairly easy for Republicans to be cynical and make hay amongst the base if Al Franken is seated by Harry Reid & Company. But as the state of Minnesota seems to be handling this issue just fine so far and as there are no federal issues at stake, it seems to me that it would be good policy if branches of the federal government stayed out of the matter. And wouldn't it be nice if good policy triumphed from time to time?

Barack Obama is reportedly going to buy his wife a $30,000 thank you present, a ring no less. It is apparently a gift to thank her for her support during the campaign.

First the $60,000/year tuition for Sidwell, now this. I thought John McCain LOST, because this sounds like something he'd do for Cindy.

What happened to the one-home "community organizer" they elected? I guess this is the "Change" he was talking about?

John Goodman, head of the National Center for Policy Analysis, breaks down Obama HHS Secretary Tom Daschle's philosophy on health care reform, as expressed in his book Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis, thusly:

The main ideas: Medicaid expansion, Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) for everyone who wants to enroll, Medicare for the nonelderly as a FEHBP option, a play-or-pay mandate for individuals, income-based, refundable tax credit subsidies (both at work and away from work), a play-or-pay mandate for employers, electronic medical records, a national health board ("to establish a single standard of care for every other provider and payer"…covering every disease from cancer to diabetes and even depression), preventive care, dental health, mental health, long-term care, home care, community health centers and combating obesity.

Not on the list: Health Savings Accounts, although Daschle was once an advocate, and even cosponsored HSA legislation.

Not on the list: Single-payer health insurance, but only because it is not politically practical.

Not on the list: Any way to pay for any of this. (The issue is not, can we afford reform? The issue is, can we afford not to?) I'm not kidding.

As I pointed out at the time it became known that Daschle would be the HHS Secretary nominee, the move has all the hallmarks of an attempt to enact the disastrous HillaryCare plan of 1994, but to do it far more cleverly than the tone-deaf, politically clumsy First Lady was able to do at the time.

Since being booted from the Senate by the voters, Daschle has been a fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he has agitated for a total overhaul of the U.S. health care system that is centered on the implementation of a "private system within a federal framework."

Daschle envisions this nationalized system, which is being described in doublespeak because Daschle, et al know there is little appetite in America for a total government takeover of health care, as being overseen by a health care equivalent of the Federal Reserve which utilizes the power of the government to "ensure harmonization" within American health care. (Yes, he actually said "ensure harmonization.")

As if that wasn't enough, Daschle has pointed to the U.K.'s national health service, with its waiting lists, rationing of care, nonsensical drug and benefit policies, and tendency to leave emergency room-bound patients waiting in ambulances in the parking lot for hours at a time to reduce congestion, as a model to which the U.S. system should aspire.

In other words, he's a perfect choice for the far-left Barack Obama we expected to be getting as a result of the November 4 election.