Wrong House, Wrong 'Victim'

Assigned Reading: 24-year-old Burglar Meets His 72-year-old Match
(FROM: New York Daily News)

This is absolutely phenomenal. The knife-wielding burglar was 24-year-old Gregory McCalium. The 'victim' was 72-year-old Frank Corti, a retired boxer, former member of the British armed forces, and current resident of Oxford, England.

McCalium reportedly broke into Corti's home and presented a knife before being promptly disarmed, punched twice in the face--dude, if that's only two shots, I'd hate to be in the ring with Mr. Corti for a three-minute round--and restrained until police arrived. Personally, I love it.

It also goes without saying, though, that Mr. Corti is darned lucky that the punk thug wasn't better armed. In this case, Mr. Corti should be thankful that a knife was all that McCalium brought. Not that he couldn't have taken care of himself, but the odds would have been decidedly more in his favor if he had been armed.

Of course, Mr. Corti's skills should not go unrecognized. The old saying goes that "you never bring a knife to a gun fight" -- here, I think it should be revised: "Never go to Frank Corti's house will ill intentions."

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Paper, or Even More Plastic?

I hope that everyone is having a great holiday weekend. A few things have stuck out about mine: First, of course, was being able to celebrate my fifth wedding anniversary with my wonderful wife by following our daughter around a water park as she frolicked in waist-deep water and enjoyed kiddie water-slides, and by enjoying a nice dinner with just the two of us; second, gorging myself on chicken and spare ribs, potato salad, baked beans, a few ethnic dishes and some good Polish beer at a family cookout yesterday; and third, watching my daughter wave a flag and applaud the veterans in an area Fourth of July parade.

At the latter, I also had the chance to shake the hand of my liberal Democrat congressman, Joe Sestak, and ask that he please kick Arlen Specter's behind in the Democratic primary next year.

"I intend to," he said. "Thanks for your support."

"Oh, Joe?" I mentioned. "I wouldn't call it support. I'm a conservative Republican."

That was enough to make him stop in his tracks. But it's true -- I'm a conservative Republican (with increasingly Libertarian leanings), and I'd like nothing more than to see Sestak beat the snot out of expedient opportunist Specter in the primary . . . and then lose to Pat Toomey in the general election.

Yes, I know that Sestak is a rabid, raging liberal. And that's fine. Because, if it comes down to it, I'd rather have someone in office that has convictions, even if they're the wrong kind. Look at Specter, for example -- with regard to "card check," the man voted with the Democrats in 2007 but, back in March of this year while he was still a Republican, said that he didn't know which side of the debate on which he would come down, and that he was being "lobbied pretty heavily" on the issue.

Lobbied pretty heavily? By whom? If it's the American people, calling his office and demanding that he vote one way or another, that's one thing, but if it's his colleagues in the Senate looking to trade favors or if it's Gov. Ed Rendell looking to push him one way or another or if its the labor unions themselves making veiled political threats, it's another.

When I called Sestak's office recently asking that he vote against the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, I knew I wouldn't be getting anywhere. Like them or not, Sestak has convictions, he has core values that he takes to his office. I knew this when I voted in November 2008 for Craig Williams--the other guy--and I'll know this when I vote for Pat Toomey in 2010. I may not agree with Joe Sestak on pretty much anything, but the man makes decisions based on his beliefs rather than political expedience, and I respect that.

Another thing that stuck out this weekend was a short conversation I had with a young tree-hugger. My wife and I were at the supermarket on Friday night after dinner--romantic fifth anniversary, I know--looking to buy a few things for the family cookout the next day. Our cashier was a crunchy-looking kid who had been talking with the lady in front of us about his classes at a nearby college I like to refer to as "Pennsylvania's Berkeley." When I went to pay for our stuff, I noticed a small sign next to the debit card reading device. The sign read something like this:

In an effort to preserve our natural resources, Genuardi's will be using smaller plastic bags with 15% less plastic, our goal being less plastic in area landfills. Of course, Genuardi's encourages you to recycle your plastic bags in recepticles at the front of the store, and reusable bags are also available for purchase.

"Less plastic in the bags, huh?" I asked the crunchy guy in the apron, ringing up our stuff.

"Yep, just doing what we can to help the environment, I guess," he said.

"But the bags are smaller, right?" I asked."

"Uh-huh."

"So you're putting less groceries in every bag?"

"Uh-huh."

"So, won't you be just using more bags, anyway?" I asked.

He stopped, glanced at the can of olives in his hand, then at his buddy bagging groceries, then at me.

"Yeah, I guess so. That doesn't make much sense," he said. "I mean, it's just our company policy."

I smiled. My wife smiled. We took our groceries and left.

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What Does Independence Day Mean to You?

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

By Kelly Strong


I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze
A young Marine saluted it, and then
He stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He'd stand out in any crowd.

I thought, how many men like him
Had fallen through the years?
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?

How many Pilots' planes shot down?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, Freedom is not free.

I heard the sound of taps one night,
When everything was still.
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times
That taps had meant "Amen"
When a flag had draped a coffin
of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard
at the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, Freedom isn't free!!

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Five Years

Back when Joanna and I were dating.

My day started early that Saturday morning, but not as early as hers. My tuxedo was already pressed, after all, and during breakfast at the hotel I was able to nervously read a newspaper and make smalltalk with various friends and extended family members who had flown in for the wedding. Joanna, however, had been up with the sun, her parents' house an epicenter of activity with a dozen girls and women of all ages running around, piling into a modestly sized bathroom to apply makeup, waiting patiently for their turn to have their hair done.

The entire day was a blur. The ceremony was wonderful, with a little more than 100 people packed into a small Polish church in suburban Philadelphia. I distinctly remember four things: (1) how absolutely beautiful my wife looked as the doors opened at the back of the church, (2) the bird that sang throughout Father Mickey Genovese's homily, (3) hearing so many people saying "congratulations" in the receiving line that I eventually started saying "congratulations" to them myself instead of "thanks for coming" or "great to see you," and (4) that I managed not to trip and fall or faint.

I came close, though, afterward. July 3, 2004 was the hottest day of the year to date, I believe, and standing out in the hot sun in a black tuxedo, posing for photographs, almost got the better of my consciousness. At one point, I sent one of my buddies back into the limousine-bus for a beverage, thinking I was surely going to pass out. I should have been more specific.

"Dude," I said, lamenting that the phenomenal tuxedo--a gift from my brother, who works for perhaps the top name in men's fashion--would likely have emitted steam if I had removed my jacket. "I really need something to drink. I'm going to pass out."

"Sure thing, Jeff," he said. And he came back with a glass of champagne.

The reception constituted about five hours of doing our best to spend a little time with everyone. The room was majestic (only a few months before, it had hosted President George W. Bush for some fundraising dinner), the food was great (or so I was told, as we barely had any time to eat), the drinks were flowing (though every time I put one down to shake someone's hand or pose for a picture, it was whisked away by someone in white gloves), and the company was fantastic. By the end of the night, our faces hurt from smiling so much, and our feet were numb because of the dancing. All in all, it was absolutely phenomenal.

And the five years since have been even better. We might not have the nice cars or the disposable income or the fancy new television, and we may not have had the chance to escape for exotic vacations or sample all the finest restaurants in Philadelphia, but every day is better than the last, and that's about all you can ask for.

It's funny. Each day, it seems, I receive wonderfully nice e-mails from so many readers who look at what they know about my busy life and thank me for putting the time in here at America's Right. The thing is, I couldn't do any of it without my wife. Balancing work, school, family and the Web site is not always easy, but Joanna is about as supportive as a spouse could ever be. Without her, none of this would happen. Without her, God only knows where I'd be.

So, because today is our five year wedding anniversary, and because the courts I cover for my day job are closed for the holiday weekend, we're scooping up the munchkin and heading off to spend the day at an area water park. It's fair to say that not a day goes by where I don't thank God for blessing us and our family, but it's also not often that we have a chance to cut loose.

Unless something absolutely crazy happens--I hope not--this is all you will find at America's Right today. Tomorrow's content will be fairly simple as well, as Independence Day should be spent away from the computer and with family, a chance to come together and remind ourselves and others of just what it means to be free. Now, more than ever, we need the opportunity for introspection.

In the meantime, however, if you need me, I'll be in the lazy river. I'm the one that looks like a manatee -- a pale, hairy manatee who obviously married up.

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The Stimulus Swindle

By Rick Saunders
America's Right

Like the video, but wary of receiving a political education from a man, a coffee table, and a jar of pennies? The charts included in this piece (click to enlarge them) were made from data from the U.S. Dept. of Labor. They're not as fancy as a coffee table full of pennies, but they represent the fate of so many Americans thanks to the actions of the Obama administration -- penniless.

Last February, President Barack Obama proclaimed that the "stimulus package" (not to be confused with a "suicide pact") would create or save between three and four million jobs. Administration propagandists continued the party line that, despite some job losses, other jobs were being created and the stimulus plan "was working." Such logic leads me to wonder whether our president is still smoking unfiltered Camels in the Rose Garden, or if he has evolved into indulging in a different species of chopped leaves.

We now know that:

• the nation’s unemployment rate is (again) up--not down as Obama had assured us would happen if only the stimulus lunacy were enacted--to 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983 following the disastrous administration of Jimmy (“Dhimmi”) Carter;
• the Obama regime continues to peddle the notion that universal, collectivized healthcare--with annual price-tags in the trillions of dollars--is the way to go, despite the failure of the stimulus infusion to prevent the loss in June of an additional 467,000 jobs; and
• the likely response by Obama and White House Press Jester Robert Gibbs to these "inconvenient truths" will be that the stimulus package just didn’t contain enough money . . . and then blame the Republicans. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will nod their heads approvingly, and then clamor for a second "stimulus."
  

These folks are amazing. No, strike that. "Amazing" doesn’t even come close to describing the toxic amalgam of stupidity, arrogance, recklessness and outright unprincipled behavior of this regime--and its congressional enablers--when it comes to looking out for the interests of America and its citizens.

And now, with a "filibuster-proof" Senate super-majority thanks to the addition of Al ("SNL-Was-Just-a-Warm-up-Act-for-What’s-Coming-You-Rubes") Franken, the ominous truth of Lord Acton’s famous observation comes even more sharply into focus: "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."

These people are unfit to govern. To borrow a phrase from White House Hearst correspondent Helen Thomas: "It’s shocking."

At least the Republicans seem to be finally getting it:

At a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, the rising unemployment rate is further evidence that we cannot borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.

More than four months after the economic stimulus was signed into law, our country still faces the highest unemployment in almost three decades.

Sadly, Democrats’ answer to near record unemployment is runaway federal spending and a national energy tax that will increase the cost of energy on every household in the country and cost millions of American jobs.

Congress should be doing what every American family is doing during these tough economic times: cutting expenses, and making sacrifices.

Instead, Washington is pushing for more spending, more debt and higher taxes, all on the backs of our nation’s taxpayers.

Our nation deserves a strategy for prosperity, not more spending, more taxes and more unemployment.

-- Congressman Mike Pence, July 2, 2009

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Stimulus Jobs? Ellie Mae can't find 'em, either.

Reps. Boehner, Westmoreland release new video asking: 'Where are the stimulus jobs?'

Absolutely brilliant.

I like it. Some people are going to dismiss it as having too much fun with the current economic situation. I disagree. I look at it as a way to reduce the GOP's message of fiscal sanity down to a level where even the most casual viewer can understand. All we need is an American voting public that quits taking the party line provided to them by the agenda-setting mainstream press, and starts asking questions of one another and themselves.

From the official press release at the House Minority Leader's Web site:

Washington, Jul 2 -- House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today released a new web video targeting Washington Democrats’ trillion-dollar "stimulus" bill and asking "where are the jobs?" The tongue-in-cheek web video, inspired by a classic 1984 TV commercial by now-Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), features a job-sniffing GOP bloodhound named Ellie Mae and a down-home voiceover by Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA).

"This is a lighthearted web video, but the underlying point is no laughing matter," Boehner said. "At a time when Americans are looking to Washington for leadership, the trillion-dollar 'stimulus’ isn’t working. Americans were promised the ‘stimulus’ would keep the unemployment rate from going above eight percent. It’s now at 9.x percent, and rising. Where are the jobs?"

In the video, job-sniffing bloodhounds follow the "stimulus" money trail across the nation in search of the millions of jobs the Obama Administration promised to "save or create" if the trillion-dollar spending bill were enacted. The trail takes them to AIG Headquarters in New York City, where "stimulus" funds were used to pay big bonuses to top executives; to Wisconsin, where "stimulus" funds are paying for repairs to a bridge that reportedly carries about 260 cars per day, many to a place called Rusty’s Backwater Saloon, according to a June 16 report in the Wall Street Journal; and to North Carolina, where "stimulus" funds were reportedly used by one town to hire a new worker whose job is to apply for more "stimulus" funds from Washington.

"A real 'stimulus' would help small businesses across America get back on their feet and create jobs," Boehner said. "Washington hasn’t tried that yet. Instead we’ve made government bigger, wasted taxpayers’ money, and piled new debt on our children and grandchildren. Republicans have put forth a better solution -- a plan that recognizes small business, not government, is the engine of the American economy. We hope Washington Democrats will work with us in the months ahead to make it a reality."

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Lessons From 1934 Revisited

New jobless numbers are out. Unemployment in America has risen to 9.5 percent, after repeated promises from the president and the White House that eight percent would be the top end, that the stimulus package and the shovel-ready projects it funded would boost the economy and provide millions of new jobs. It hasn’t.

The president is falling further and further short of the "millions of jobs saved or created" rhetoric he forced down Americans’ throats, and today he will take to the TelePrompTer for a speech on the issue. Undoubtedly, he’ll blame the Bush administration--"the economic situation we inherited was obviously worse than we originally thought"--and hold himself up as the Savior who, despite best efforts, just couldn’t do enough--"imagine how bad the jobs picture would look if we hadn’t passed the stimulus package"--just as I had predicted back in January and February.

I’m taking this opportunity to re-run one of my favorite pieces here at America’s Right. It first appeared back in April, but I want people who haven’t read it to read it for the first time – and I want people who did read it to read it again and consider again, in the wake of everything going on, the implications of it all.

Lessons From 1934
AMERICA'S RIGHT -- April 11, 2009

PLAN OF ACTION FOR U.S.

SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!
UNDER THE GUISE OF RECOVERY
BUST THE GOVERNMENT
BLAME THE CAPITALISTS FOR THE FAILURE
JUNK THE CONSTITUTION AND DECLARE A DICTATORSHIP

And that's what the power-drunk "young pinkies from Harvard and Columbia" are doing in this political cartoon, originally published in the Chicago Tribune on April 21, 1934. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

Ten months before that, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed legislation which would artificially inflate prices and wages. It was fear of decreasing prices and wages, blame for which was placed squarely on the shoulders of capitalism and the free market, which facilitated Roosevelt's New Deal policies which, according to UCLA Econonics Department Vice Chair Lee Ohanian, "short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces."

In other words, said Ohanian and University of Pennsylvania economist Harold Cole, Roosevelt's leadership at a time of economic crisis actually may have extended the Great Depression by seven years, an assessment which has since been clouded by the left's revisionist history.

"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian back in August 2004. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

The legislation signed by FDR in June of 1933, just ten months before the Chicago Tribune cartoon was run, was called the National Industrial Recovery Act. Fast-forward to 2009 and we have the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- essentially the same name, save for the word "industrial," likely missing because it brings up the blood pressure of the global socialists masquerading as environmentalists on the left. Since Obama's own ill-conceived stimulus policy was signed into law, we've seen the young pinkos in today's federal government almost use the "Plan of Action for U.S." in that Chicago Tribune cartoon as a checklist.


Spend! Spend! Spend! Despite decrying the $1.2 trillion deficit inherited from the similarly free market-averse Bush administration, President Obama and his Democrats spent at a rate of approximately $1 billion per hour for every hour of his first 50 days in office. At first, it was $787 for a so-called stimulus package. Then, it was $410 billion for an appropriations bill. Somewhere after that, I lost count; last I checked, we're hovering at about $2.5 trillion, and that's not even including the budget.

Bust the Government! It's a record budget this year, right in there at about $3.65 trillion, accounting for a yearly $1.75 trillion budget deficit. Some are estimating that Barack Obama will add to the national debt more than has been added by every president from George Washington to George W. Bush . . . combined.

Blame the Capitalists for the Failure! My goodness, where to even begin? We've seen protesters load into chartered buses so as to protest in front of houses owned by AIG executives, and heard about how those same executives and their families have received death threats. We watched as the Obama administration instituted salary caps for executives whose companies accept federal bailout funds, and shook our heads as Barney Frank lobbied to extend those salary caps to all employees of such companies. And the list goes on and on.

Junk the Constitution and Declare a Dictatorship! Well, the dictatorship has not necessarily been declared yet, but we've certainly turned a blind eye to our Constitution. Among other examples of blatant disregard: Congress violated Article 1, Section 9 by passing ex post facto legislation which would apply a 90 percent punitive tax on executive bonuses such as those previously provided for specifically by Congress to AIG executives. And, of course, there's Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner lobbying for unprecedented power and control over private organizations, allowing the federal government to buy and sell assets, a clear violation of the Takings Clause. At this point, hang up your fake parchment reproduction of our Constitution, close your eyes, and throw a dart -- you're likely to hit a clause or provision which has been, or will be, brushed aside by our president and his administration.

History, we're seeing, is repeating itself.

"The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," Cole, the Penn economist, said in 2004. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened."

Today's Capitol Hill is the very definition of government intervention, which oddly enough even Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned us about at the World Economic Forum in January.

"Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state's omnipotence is another possible mistake," Putin said. "True, the state's increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent."

Greatest possible extent? A fortnight ago, the president of the United States essentially constructively terminated a private sector CEO, General Motors' Rick Wagoner. I'd say our government is intervening a little bit.

Unfortunately, this administration and the Democrats currently holding power in our nation's capital are ensuring that each and every American man, woman and child bear the consequences and burdens of leadership unable to learn the lessons from history which should have been learned long ago. This Chicago Tribune cartoon, in plain black-and-white, should make that fact painfully obvious. Spread the word.



(NOTE: Economists Cole and Ohanian also penned a more recent op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal. It can be found by clicking HERE. Many thanks to a reader who e-mailed me with the information -- I had read their previous reports, but didn't notice the WSJ piece back in February. Thank you.)

As similar as everything may be, simply looking to learn the lessons of our past without adjusting what needs to be learned by looking at the current political climate simply will not be enough. After re-reading it myself, after considering again all of the similarities in language and in circumstance, I see one very distinct, endlessly important difference:

FDR, in 1934, looked at the expansion of government as a way to recover from economic crisis; Obama, in 2009, looks at the economic crisis as a way to justify the expansion of government.

Do not think, even for a moment, that this administration’s actions since taking office in January have not been intentional. Higher unemployment increases the palatability of Barack Obama’s public healthcare option, and tighter and tighter belts at the kitchen table level increases America’s dependence on government. The liberal agenda which has been carefully crafted by the Democrat Party over the past four decades simply cannot thrive in an era of prosperity. That’s why they push cap-and-trade. That’s why they force relaxed lending standards in the name of "social engineering." That’s why they send good taxpayer money after bad banks. That’s why they carjack our automotive industry, point the hood ornament toward the nearest tree, set the cruise control, and wait to be there to pick up the pieces afterward.

Now that the Democrats have the votes to push just about any measure through Congress, regardless of how contraconstitutional or absent common sense, the GOP is being handed a political opportunity on a silver platter. Fight everything as best we can, try our best to turn the Blue Dog Democrats or any on the left with even the slightest concern about the governmental power grab currently on the way -- but, at the end of the day, we must come together and be that obstructionist party of "no."

No matter how much grief the Republicans are given by the Democrats and the mainstream press, they must continue to just say "no." Propose alternatives, but just say "no." Be constructive obstructionists, if there is such a thing. Face it -- the Democrats are going to do what they're going to do regardless and, this way, we can ensure that they take full ownership of it all, and that their actions absolutely bury that party for years and years to come.

Saying "no" in 1934 could have ended the Great Depression seven years earlier. Saying "no" in 2009, knowing full well the ulterior motives of the party currently in power, may hurt for a little while, but could very well save the United States of America in the long run.

It's going to hurt, but let's give the Democrats just enough rope to hang themselves. Let's allow them to dig their own grave and fall in.

Just make sure we're there with a shovel when they've reached the bottom.

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Hands Off

The Libertarian Party interview.

By Ronald Glenn
America's Right

As I promised, America's Right will continue to present opinions from third parties about the philosophy of third parties and the issue of the day. The first such installment was an interview with James Clymer, national chairman of the Constitutional Party National Committee. This time, I was fortunate enough to gain insight from Donald E. Ferguson, director of communications for the Libertarian National Committee.

In the face of so much government intervention and political discussion already underway about the 2010 elections, a fresh perspective is good. From talking to Jeff Schreiber, I know that he feels his own ideological transformation is not complete -- as if moving from a liberal Democrat to a staunch conservative wasn't enough, he says often that, since Barack Obama took power and began to expand government, the Libertarian streak in him is growing. I can see it. If there ever was a time for the Libertarian Party, I'd think that now would be it.

For that reason, I really wanted to speak with someone in the party able to articulate the group's perspective and worldview. For his time, I'd like to thank Mr. Ferguson for taking time to respond to my e-mail, answer my questions and share a little bit about his party here at America's Right.

AMERICA'S RIGHT: As an introduction, briefly state the core values of the Libertarian Party.

DONALD FERGUSON: The Libertarian Party believes in the traditional American principle of limited government in both personal and economic matters. As long as someone is not harming others or living at their expense, they should be free to live their life as they please.

AR: What is the most common socioeconomic profile of a member of the Libertarian Party?

DF: The Libertarian Party is very diverse, but we enjoy lots of support from entrepreneurs, small businessmen, and people who work every day.

AR: Critics of the Libertarian Party say a politician in America cannot win an election by telling voters what he or she will NOT do for them. Is that criticism fair?

DF; Candidates have an obligation to speak with voters about their shared values and how their lives would be better if they were elected, based on their core principles. For Libertarians that means pressing the value of tax relief, education reform, and pro-economic growth policies.

AR: Many conservatives have reached the conclusion that American domestic and foreign policy is plagued by two secret organizations, namely the Federal Reserve Bank and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). If the Libertarian Party controlled the American Federal Government, would it abolish these two organizations?

DF: Libertarians are avid supporters of Federal Reserve transparency and are currently working to build support for Congressman Ron Paul's HR 1207, a bill to allow audits of the Fed.

AR: Do the election laws in America prevent third parties from winning elections? If so, how could these laws be changed to improve the election process?

DF: Current state election laws certainly often make it more difficult by requiring large numbers of petition signatures, requiring they be turned in too early or requiring very high electoral thresholds to stay on the ballot, while the legislators who write the laws exempt their own parties.

AR: Does the Libertarian Party want to end the war on drugs through legalization?

DF: Yes. Unfortunately, treating personal drug use as a criminal, and not a health, problem creates more crime than it seeks to eliminate. We saw the same phenomenon when the drug alcohol was prohibited in the 1920s. The best way to curb and deal with drug use is through decriminalization and legalization so it may be treated as a health concern.

AR: How does the Libertarian Party balance private property rights and environmental concerns?

DF: Private property rights are the best way to curb pollution. As Rush Limbaugh says, people don't pollute their own stuff and the former Soviet Union was far more polluted than the United States environmentalists attack.

AR: If someone wants to start a Libertarian Party committee or group on the local level, what is a good way to start?

DF: The best way is to go to http://www.lp.org and find your state chair. They will let you know how you go about chartering a local affiliate. Many local chapters got their start on MeetUp.com, so that is an invaluable -- and free -- way to find new members.

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A Different Kind of Power Grab

All I want for Christmas . . .

Assigned Reading: Fuel Standards Are Killing G.M.
(FROM: The Wall Street Journal)

Driving my sexy half-dozen-year-old, V-6 minivan with the squeaky brakes into work yesterday, I was passed on I-95 heading northbound by a brand-new, dark blue Chevrolet Camaro.

Dude.

Back in April, when it was announced that the venerable American automaker would be shuttering its Pontiac brand and I reacted by blathering on about my beloved 1984 Recaro Edition Trans-Am, I mentioned the "ear-splittingly loud" sound made by that beautiful car. It rumbled. It shook the ground around it. It just oozed power. It sounded fast. I still have dreams that I'm driving that car.

Yesterday, however, even though my windows were down and my sunroof was open (it saves money on gas, and we're on a tight budget), I couldn't hear the Camaro as it blew by me on the left side. As soon as I saw it closing the gap in my side-view mirror, I turned down the radio and perked up my ear, waiting to hear that gutteral roar. But there was none. It made me sad -- even though I've always been a Trans-Am guy and condescendingly looked down my nose at the Chevy F-body counterpart, with the fresh absence of GM's Pontiac "excitement" division, I would consider buying a new Camaro. (After I get some of that lawyer money, though, and pay off all of our debt. And after I buy my wife that Mustang she's been pining for.) But with the new CAFE standards and Obama's energy policy on the horizon, I just don't see how GM will be able to offer the power and sound I'd eventually look for.

Yesterday, I took a cruise on General Motors' cumbersome Web site for a little fantasy research, much in the same way I might look at a vacation resort we can't quite yet afford, or that 1911 that's just out of my reach. I was delighted to see that not only does the interior of the Camaro seem top-notch, but that the vehicle is offered with a 304-horsepower V-6 as well as a 426-horsepower V-8. So maybe some of the Camaros do rumble, but the question is: for how long?

Consider this from the Wall Street Journal piece:

The actual Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) results will depend on the mixture of fuel-thrifty and fuel-thirsty vehicles consumers choose to buy from each manufacturer -- not on what producers hope to sell. That means only those companies most successful in selling the smallest cars with the smallest engines will, in the future, be allowed to sell the more profitable larger pickups and SUVs and more powerful luxury and sports cars.

Sales of Toyota's Prius, Yaris, Corolla and Scion, for example, allow and encourage Toyota to market more Lexus 460s, Sequoia SUVs and Tundra pickups in the U.S. without incurring fines. Hyundai's success selling Accent and Elantra compacts allows it to sell 368-horsepower Genesis sedans.

Right now, if someone is looking for an inexpensive, reliable vehicle made in America by American workers, many of the Japanese and Korean automakers offer entry-level vehicles for much less cost and much more value than similar offerings by General Motors, manufactured in Canada and Mexico. Where GM excels is in its sport utility vehicles and its trucks, and where the company will make an impression is in its sports cars -- very few of which will be available to the public if the Democrats and president have their way. Look for interest in GM to dwindle even further, as taking away the option to buy the cars people want is just the liberals' latest salvo in their War Against Success and Prosperity.

After all, nobody really pines for a brand new Chevy Aveo, do they? The Cobalt doesn't have anyone cheering, does it? GM needs to make people salivate again.

Heck, being passed by a new Camaro yesterday, as horribly silent as it may have been, was enough to get me--who is light years away from purchasing another vehicle, nonetheless one without a sliding door and recepticles for stray Cheerios--to tool around the GM Web site and wish I could afford to take one home.

Because of the interference of Barack Obama's White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress, however, General Motors will likely soon be forced to remove perhaps its best arrow from its marketing quiver (much like Obama's habit of hamstringing the American military and intelligence communities removes arrows from our national security quiver), and the automotive company owned by you and by me may truly go the way of the Tucker.

On the bright side, though, perhaps when everyone else is white-knuckling it down I-95 in some Congress-approved, glorified golf cart, my squeaky, rattling, six-year-old shaggin' wagon might not seem that bad, after all.

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WH Press Corps Calls Administration on Staging Events

By Rick Saunders & Jeff Schreiber
America's Right

Maybe, just maybe, there is the slimmest of slim chances that the torrid love affair between mainstream media journalists and the Squatter-in-Chief at 1600 Pennsylvania is cooling off. Let us hope, for the sake of our children and our children's children, that the infatuation keeps chilling.

For that reason, it was absolutely glorious to see Chip Reid, CBS White House correspondent, and Helen Thomas, Frodo Baggins' great-grandmother, expose White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to be the doofus he really is. Watching and listening to the entire video clip is very revealing as to the depths to which The Guy from Chicago and his minions have gone to package, control, manipulate and dictate--perhaps "suggest" would be a more palatable verb?--to persons deemed worthy of posing questions the questions they should pose.

Reid’s comments are particularly good, and Thomas’ additions are even better. When Gibbs tried to deflect Reid’s question of how he and the White House could justify the control of participants and questions to be posed at "town hall meetings," she interrupted him to object to the nature and degree of control being imposed by the Obama regime over press conferences and town hall meetings: "The point is the control from here," she said. "We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some control but not this control. I mean I'm amazed, I'm amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and you have controlled . . . it’s shocking."

Careful, Helen. With that attitude, you might be next in line to get the "evil eye."

Even better, when Gibbs suggested that the discussion be continued until after the town hall meeting at issue had been completed, Thomas actually piped up and insisted that "no, no, no . . . we’re having it now." And Gibbs’ response? "Well, I’ll be happy to have it now." Yeah, right. Gibbs then asked if there was any evidence "going on" that he or anybody else "was controlling the press," to which Thomas responded that "formal engagements are pre-packaged . . . by calling reporters the night before to tell them they’re going to be called on. That is shocking."

A wounded Gibbs subsequently dismissed her by saying that, "well, we’ve had this discussion ad nauseum," and then pointed off to another reporter.

But Helen didn't give up. "Of course you would [move on]," she said. "Because you don’t have any answers."

She almost sounds like a Republican. And these Saturday Night Live-like escapades can only get better as the destruction of the economy, the decimation of America’s security and the frenetic dash to a collectivist landfill orchestrated by the Obama regime continues. Even more so because the only thing the average journalist loves more than the Barack Obama is their ego, their career, and their access. The more the White House pushes them out, the more they'll push back. And, speaking of Saturday Night Live-esque buffoonery, with Sen. Al Franken--does that sound weird, or what?--now likely to be placed on the Judiciary Committee just in time for the Sotomayor investiture, the lunacy will only deepen. Stay tuned to that particular sideshow, and keep a barf bag nearby.

As it turns out, Thomas and Reid had reason to be critical of the Obama administration's handling of the health care town hall meeting earlier today. After all, the White House has a history of manipulating audiences and questions, especially in the town hall format, a style designed to bring the president as close to everyday Americans as possible. A March 27, 2009 piece at the Washington Post details exactly who was "randomly" chosen to participate in another East Room town hall meeting, going so far as to contrast how the questioners presented themselves with who they really were. Here's an excerpt -- but read the whole thing . . . it's fascinating:

[T]he five fully identified questioners called on randomly by the president in the East Room were anything but a diverse lot. They included: a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union, a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama among Hispanics during the primary; a former Democratic candidate for Virginia state delegate who endorsed Obama last fall in an op-ed in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama's campaign in 2008.

Ooh . . . tough room. Shockingly, today's town hall meeting on health care was no different, with the White House micromanaging everything just the way Helen Thomas and Chip Reid knew they would do. Consider the similarity of the March 27 report with this one, published today by the Washington Post:

In the highly stage-managed event, questions for Obama came from a live audience selected by the White House and the college, and from Internet questions chosen by the administration’s own new-media team.

Of the seven questions the president answered, four were selected by his own staff from people who submitted videos on the White House Web site or who responded to a request for “tweets” from the administration.

The president called randomly on three audience members. Each turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the SEIU union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials said that was a coincidence.

Coincidence? I don't think so. Barack Obama and his flunkies believe that regular ole' Americans like us are stupid. After all, they banked on blanket political ignorance to put them in the White House.

In one touching moment, a downtrodden-looking woman named Debby Smith stood up with the microphone and explained to a nodding, empathetic president that she suffers from kidney cancer, has a new tumor, and has no health insurance and therefore no way of paying for it. President Obama, "Compassionate Collectivist" to George W. Bush's "Compassionate Conservative," embraced Ms. Smith and assured her that he would "find out what we can do within existing law" and touted her as the perfect example of why we need to spend nearly two trillion dollars borrowed from the Chinese, destroy our health care system, eliminate jobs and devastate our economy for a net gain of 16 million newly covered Americans.

What Barack Obama did not explain, however, is that Debby Smith was part of a carefully hand-picked audience and had not only previously volunteered for Obama's campaign, but has been a longtime healthcare activist. Not only that, but back in December Smith actually moderated a healthcare-related town hall meeting connected with then President Elect Barack Obama -- so it's fair to say that he has known of her plight for a while now.

It's this kind of blatant dishonesty that has worked so far for this president but, perhaps thanks to an apparently sobering White House press corps, it may not work for much longer. Regardless of the average American's political knowledge base, people simply do not like to be lied to. And, from the beginning of his disastrous presidency on to now, it's difficult to find a single day where Barack Obama was telling America the truth.




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Rick Saunders is a freelance writer who splits his time between endeavors in southern California and the American southwest. He began writing for America's Right in December 2008. Jeff Schreiber established America's Right in January 2008.

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Another Interpretation of Obama's Honduran Policy

The president's reaction to the ongoing situation in Honduras can be attributed to little more than political opportunism and carefully crafted image-related strategy

By Nathaniel Givens
America's Right

Matt Drudge ran with the headline: "Obama sides with Castro, Chavez," and from that point on the playbook appeared to be set. Obama opposes the Honduran coup because he likes socialist strong men, and presumably he likes socialist strong men because he has dreams of being a socialist strong man of his own. Sensational, but spurious, connections.

There are two problems with this narrative. In the first place, it omits some relevant facts about the Honduran coup, and in the second place it takes the wrong measure of Obama.

The Coup in Honduras

The coup d'état took place on June 28, 2009 when the Honduran military broke down the door to Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, drove him to the airport in his pajamas, and flew him out of the country. According to the Honduran Constitution, speaker of the parliament Roberto Micheletti was next in the line of presidential succession, and he was sworn in as president by the national congress that day. The coup ended nearly 40 years of democratic rule in Honduras, but many government officials claim that the coup was in fact legal.

The reason behind the coup was that President Zelaya was attempting to grab more power. He had proposed a ballot referendum to modify the Honduran Constitution so that he could seek a second term in office. The Supreme Court, attorney general, legislators, and human-rights ombudsman all agreed that this was unconstitutional, but he ordered the Honduran military to distribute the ballots anyway in order to poll public opinion. The head of the army refused, and so Zelaya fired him and the ballots were apparently distributed after all.

June 28, 2009 was to be the day of the vote.

The problem with the argument in favor of the coup was that it was pre-emptive. Zelaya had not broken the law yet. He had attempted to do things that were ruled unconstitutional, but so has every president, and not just in Honduras. Clearly the Honduran army, supreme court, and legislators were suspicious that, if the poll came back strongly in favor of the change, then Zelaya would try to have the changes implemented after all. That fear seems justifiable, but it’s not adequate basis for a coup. You don’t get to overthrow an elected official because you think he may do something illegal in the future. [Good point. If that were the case, our Congress would have a revolving door. -- Jeff]

It gets worse, however. While the Honduran government claims that the kidnapping of Manuel Zelaya was an arrest, I can find no mention of what criminal statute was broken. Nor is there any indication that charges will be filed or that a trial will take place. What kind of an arrest is that?

Finally, the behavior of the armed forces since seizing control include both violent confrontations with protesters and a clamp down on free speech. At least one radio station was shut down, and transmission of two TV news channels has been halted.

The news that Chavez and Castro immediately supported Zelaya is also misleading. They did support him. But so did the presidents of practically every Central and South American nation including the most conservative (Mexico) and the largest (Brazil). In fact, the Organization of American States--including all 35 independent nations of the Americas and the independent nations of the Caribbean--also issued an ultimatum that Zelaya be placed back in power.

Furthermore, the support of Zelaya is not coming exclusively from the left. It is unanimous throughout the American continents.

Personally, I believe that Zelaya was a corrupt, leftist president and Honduras is almost certainly better off without him. But that doesn’t mean that it’s acceptable to remove him by any means necessary. Conservatives should understand the importance of getting the right result using the right process.

Obama’s Motivations

As I wrote earlier at America’s Right:

The biggest lie of the Obama campaign was the lie that he believed in any principles at all. I saw his promises to the left and right, observed that his history was left, and figured he was a committed lefty going incognito with the help of an obedient press to win the general election. Apparently, Dan Savage and the gay community came to the same conclusion. But it turns out that Obama isn’t a covert ideologue -- he’s a man without any true principles at all.

It’s satisfyingly sensationalist to link Obama to socialists, but it’s also spurious. Obama isn’t a genuine socialist, because to be a genuine socialist he’d have to have a consistent ideology.

This doesn’t mean his policies aren’t socialist. Although I’m reluctant to make such an inflammatory comparison, Obama is like Hitler in this particular regard. Hitler took over the National Socialist Party, but he never cared about political or economic theory at all. He wasn’t interested in the plight of the working class. He was interested in power. And socialism--with its emphasis on collectivism and state control of industry--is more amenable to the kind of power Hitler craved than classical liberalism.

Obama’s support for socialist policies is undoubtedly similar. It’s not about the policies themselves. Socialism is merely a vehicle for advancing government power.

Given this understanding of Obama, it is easy to see why he came out so quickly against Honduras and so slowly against Iran and North Korea.

Obama’s strength is his image, and his image is one of a non-partisan, populist, decisive leader. But leadership involves risk. Obama hedges that risk by making sweeping, stirring speeches and then leaving the details of policy making to others. He lets Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do the work of writing his bills and shepherding them through the legislature. If they fail, it’s not Obama’s fault. If they succeed, then he’s responsible after all. Look, after all, at the way he took credit for operations in Iraq after he was among Democrats who worked hard to present every available obstacle to such a result.

Iran and North Korea are much, much too risky for Obama to take a direct leadership role. They are risky both in the broad sense of posing a threat to American security, but more importantly they are risky to Obama’s credibility. Ever since he disastrously claimed he’d meet foreign leaders "without precondition," Obama’s foreign policy has been a vulnerable spot. He has invested a tremendous amount of image-crafting to protect this weakness. From the Cairo speech to the Iranian New Years' greeting to the Blue Mosque speech to endless rhetoric about a new era in American diplomacy, he has a lot riding on how Iran and North Korea turn out. His hedge in those cases is multilateralism. As long as Obama has a hefty cadre of foreign leaders with him, he will always be able to do damage control to his credibility if something blows up -- figuratively or literally. If he steps out alone, however, then he alone could take the blame if something goes wrong.

So, when the Iranian protests broke out, Obama waited days to ratchet his rhetoric up, just as when the AIG fiasco became public, he kept his silence for the first couple of days. He had to test the political winds and consult with his image experts before taking a position.

But Honduras is a different matter altogether. Obama has no vested political interest in the nation, and it is too small to present a serious security risk. In addition, there’s already overwhelming consensus in support of Zelaya. So there’s very little downside to making clear, decisive statements. On the other hand, the story was in the headlines and so Obama had a great opportunity to come out in front and look like a bold leader. In short: great upside.

That is the real reason for his strong comments about Honduras. He’s not coming to the aid of his ideological allies. He is merely engaging in political opportunism. He saw a great risk-and-reward proposition, and he took it.




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Nathaniel Givens has a background in mathematics and systems engineering, and most recently has worked as a senior business analyst for a financial company. He is a conservative and a practicing Mormon, and maintains his own Web blog which can be found at kiriath-arba.blogspot.com. Nathaniel has been writing for America's Right since December 2008, and lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.

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Boehner's 'Filibuster'

As I mentioned last Friday, House Minority Leader John Boehner did a phenomenal service for the American people in advance of the doomed House vote on Henry Waxman and Ed Markey's Cap-and-Trade nightmare. Of course, from a leadership standpoint, I would have liked to see Boehner do a better job of rallying his House Republicans, but looking at his speech on its own, you can see that this particular politician has perhaps reached a breaking point and put his heart behind this.

For a while now, I have not been sold on Congressman Boehner. Obviously, under his leadership, the GOP have spent like drunk monkeys, abandoned free-market principles and, as a result, have lost a record number of seats in the past two elections -- but, watching his speech for a second time, I saw something in him. He gets it. I think he knows where the GOP went wrong, and I hope he proves me right as we get closer to next year's midterm elections.

The videos, like the one above, have reached YouTube. The rest can be found HERE.

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Party Before Country

New York State Senate Democrats sit defiantly through the Pledge of Allegiance in protest after losing political control of the Chamber to Republicans.

Typical.

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Obama Bluffs on Defending Hawaii

Assigned Reading: Aloha, 'Star Wars'
(FROM: The Washington Times)

This editorial in the Times ran on Monday, but considering the missile test touted by North Korea does not happen until Saturday--Independence Day--I felt it was still pertinent.

This is an issue that the Republican Party must own in advance of the 2010 midterm. Under Bill Clinton, the intercept speeds of our ballistic missile defense systems were restricted. And now, under Barack Obama, funding has been cut, operations already in place have been scaled back, research and development has been stymied, and hosts like Poland who banked on U.S. commitment to the system are being left high and dry.

The Obama administration's attitude toward missile defense and, given what he's done with Gitmo and our intelligence services, national security in general will serve as a weakness for the Democrats in 2010 and beyond -- if the GOP is ready, willing and able to remind the American people of it.

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Blanket Surveillance, Iran, Cap-and-Trade, and the Passivity of American Democracy

By Ronald Glenn
America's Right

How many of you, in each of your hometowns, have a street corner on which every day brings a new protest? It might be anti-war one day, anti-gay marriage the next. But any way you look at it, you can always count on somebody being there with a homemade sign.

On Saturday, June 27, 2009, a rally was held in Binns Park in the center of the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, protesting the blanket surveillance as part of a pilot program for Bosch Security Systems, and as reported in previous articles here at America’s Right. The rally was initiated by the Lancaster Coalition for Peace and Justice and attended by the ACLU. A couple television stations were noticeably in attendance, filming and doing interviews. The organizers wanted to show that the surveillance cameras, the integral part of a program that would make Lancaster the most-watched city in the nation, would not be accepted without objection.

I felt there was a moment that occurred amidst the one hour of speeches that was extraordinary, and said much about the state of American politics. One of the speakers graciously chided one of the protesters for having a sign that equated the politician responsible for the cameras with Adolf Hitler. Name calling, after all, is bad form and could very well hinder more than help. Political battles are supposed to be based on mutual respect.

I understood the point, but I wondered, as I watched these hundred citizens gathered together to protest for the cameras, what it took in America to make someone angry. I thought about what happened to me at my office at this time last year, when one of my co-workers made this comment to me:

“Gas in my neighborhood is almost $4.50 a gallon," he said. "There are countries in the world where, if the government let that happen, we’d be burning cars and having the police shooting tear gas at us. Here all we do is stay home and watch more TV instead of driving."

In years past, I had lived in a college town where protesting was a permanent part of life. So permanent, in fact, that there was a part of the public park in the center of town that we called "Protest Corner." Protesters would be situated at an intersection so when you drove down the main street in town you could read the signs and try to figure out the issue of the day. If you drove by often enough, you started to realize some people in particular spent a lot of time there. Most importantly, though, was how safe the public felt knowing these people were stuck on street corner and so could be avoided, and there was no threat to personal safety or private property.

Protesting has become a form of advertising. The rally in Lancaster was more for the press than the public, who are convinced of the truth of a thing more by public information dispensed through the media than they are by personal experience or investigation. Public officials feel threatened by bad press or by a threat to their pocket-books, not by twenty people on a street corner holding makeshift signs and asking passing motorists to honk in solidarity if they want to end the war in Iraq.

This is why, as I mentioned in my last piece for America’s Right, there are conservatives who genuinely feel democracy in general is showing great signs of turning into a catastrophic failure. Many of the most diligent conservatives I have spoken to in the last few months are arguing that the democratic process is being used against the American public in order to create a totalitarian state. Power comes exclusively through the election process. Once a politician is in power he feels he has permission to do whatever he wishes. These conservatives feel the only hope is a literal revolt in which millions of Americans simply refuse to follow a government that has strayed so far from any constitutional foundation of governance that obedience to it is immoral.

This strategy reminds me of the old saying that in a totalitarian state the people are scared of the government, but in a democracy the government is scared of the people. But think about it, what does our government have to fear from its citizens? This last week, when the protests in Iran were center stage, all the contradictions of the modern American outlook was present. America has been promoting democracy as the answer to the world’s woes since World War II, but according to report after report I read on the Internet and from various interviews I heard, it is likely that the reigning government did win the election. Some even said they probably won by a two-to-one margin. Regardless of whether the election results can be trusted--does ACORN have a branch in Tehran?--people often do vote for the wrong governments for inexplicable reasons and, while the protests were justified in the sense that the reigning government should be toppled, perhaps more consideration should be given to the logic that democracy should be paramount. Hamas won the election in the West Bank, remember?

America would never tolerate such a protest on its own soil that would even remotely threaten its existence. Americans would gladly sit in their living rooms and cheer the National Guard for shooting protesters. I saw this personally as a child during the sixties when protests were at their heyday. In our present age, what do we have to protest? When democracy is king, nothing. We had our chance to change the power structure when we voted, but that is it.

Some people have tried to fight the failure of the ballot box by running to the courts, but the representative of the ACLU at the Lancaster rally told me they were having a hard time coming up with a winning strategy to sue against the blanket surveillance. In fact, she said, the cameras might make us more free, not less free. Her comments reminded me that the court system often follows the statement attributed to the infamous communist Leon Trotsky, who supposedly remarked that "overthrowing a government is not a question of politics, it is a question of tactics."

The American public has tolerated far more than $4.50 a gallon gas. We now have a cap-and-trade tax bill based on fraudulent global warning, trillions of debt, a rogue IRS, and child protective services who have robbed the public of endless constitutional guarantees. In a government run by Barack Obama and Henry Waxman, are you more afraid of the government or are they afraid of you? It would be nice to say that we should not fear each other at all and America should be a wonderful, joyful love-fest, but it could well be that being nice is what has brought America into this mess in the first place.

It is also a fact, though, that the election process has changed the capacity Americans have for revolt. At every political meeting I have attended someone raises the point that too many people in America are receiving government checks to make the possibility of radical change possible. Promising a check in the mail is how people get elected.

The American public is no better than a teenager who complains endlessly about his parents, but runs to them every time he needs money or wants to use the car. The people of Iran showed us that there are times when you need to fight. It is curious why they thought it was the American people who would help them.




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Ronald Glenn has worked in real estate and law for more than twenty years. He now works in Philadelphia, and lives outside the city with his wife. Ron has been writing for America's Right since January 2009.

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