Have we tired sufficiently of the ruling class on Mount Olympus, er, Capitol Hill? Instead of citizen legislators who go to Washington as a public service, they go to wrap themselves in power and dictate to the rest of us what is good for us, but that we are too dim to know better. Their key objective every two, four, or six years is to get reelected so that they don’t have to return to dwell among the unwashed mortals. Had enough?

Little by little, Washington is chipping away at our constitutional rights and we battle this tug-of-war as hard as we can, but taking away those rights is their full time job, while keeping them is something we do when we are not earning our daily bread. Chief among these power grabs is the right to bear arms. Every time some evil or deranged person wreaks havoc with a gun, the superior minds in Congress pass or attempt to pass laws that curtail the rights of law abiding citizens believing that until we have the kind of gun control that exists in most dictatorships, we will not be safe. But their attacks on law abiding citizens, particularly on what law abiding citizens own, rather than what they do, only serve to make us less safe and more dependent on the government.

Some Disturbing Examples of “Gun Control”

Tuscon — Jared Loughner displayed symptoms of mental instability beginning in the tenth grade, six years before that fateful day. Both Arizona and federal gun control laws prohibit the purchase of a gun by someone who is mentally impaired or a drug user, of which Loughner was both. But in our politically correct society, no one took the necessary steps to bring Loughner in front of a magistrate to have him legally declared mentally impaired. So, when he went to buy a gun, there was no record of his disability. This is not to say that he would not have obtained a gun illegally if he was denied the legal purchase of a gun, but it was not due to a lack of gun control laws.

Virginia Tech – Here is another case of a mentally disturbed person getting a gun despite well known warning signs. Cho Seung-Hui showed signs of mental problems for at least eighteen months before he shot 32 people dead. The head of one department at the school tried to help him but ran into a brick wall because he hadn’t threatened anyone at that time, so he couldn’t be forced into counseling. Gun control laws were there to prevent him from legally buying a gun. They didn’ t work. Those same gun control laws made sure no one else on campus but the police was able to defend themselves. Those gun laws did work and 32 died.

Long Island Railroad Massacre — Colin Ferguson killed six and wounded nineteen on a commuter train carrying passengers home from New York City. Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy’s (D-NY) husband was one of those killed and her son paralyzed. Ferguson bought his gun legally in California seven months before the crime after an FBI background check and a fifteen day waiting period. What different words put on paper would have kept this particular madman from his rampage? He took three agonizingly slow minutes to empty his gun twice before being tackled during his second reload. The average gun fight lasts 3-5 seconds, but this wasn’t a gun fight. New York’s gun control laws made sure of that. This was a massacre.

The Equal Footing

After the Tucson shooting, the aforementioned Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy had another new solution. Don’t allow the sale of ammunition magazines that hold more than ten bullets. Another law was proposed by Long Island Congressman Peter King (R-NY):

“Legislation which would make it a federal crime to carry a weapon within 1,000 feet of any event which is attended by the President, the Vice President, members of the Senate, members of the House of Representatives, Cabinet officials, including the CIA director as well as federal judges,” said King.

Fortunately this bill went nowhere, but let me propose an alternative gun law that would put this on an equal footing.

I propose that any law restricting the right of law abiding citizens to bear arms apply equally to members of Congress. This would mean that since it is illegal in Washington, D.C. to carry a gun, members of Congress should not be allowed to carry a gun, even if they are former law enforcement officers.

If a citizen in a particular Congressman’s district cannot carry a gun, and if they wanted to protect themselves would have to hire a bodyguard with his own money, then the member of Congress would not be allowed access to any taxpayer funded security. The member of Congress could only hire security out of his own salary, not his office budget, not his campaign cash. He should be as defenseless at home, work and in public as the people he represents.

We have to return to the principle that ours is a government of the people. Laws that are good for the people are good for the government. If we are to be disarmed by law, then the lawmakers should be equally disarmed. I can almost see Chuck Schumer grabbing the microphone in front of a rolling TV camera to scoff at such parity. “We would be in danger at any public event. We would not be able to hold town hall meetings!” I have news for you, Senator Schumer, that was the whole point of the 2nd Amendment, that if you took too much power to yourself, you should be afraid of the people.

That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. — The Declaration of Independence

So, is there a libertarian member of Congress who is willing to take this equality proposal and turn it into legislation?

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

The families of the victims in the Tuscon shooting are experiencing agony which cannot be described in words. To understand it, it must be lived. To lose a child, a spouse, a sibling, a friend, neighbor or loved one to such a senseless tragedy leaves one in shock and despair.  A feeling of vulnerability envelopes them. In an instant their worlds are turned upside down, and every day they will have to find a way to get through it, to learn how to cope without their loved one. I know. It happened to me.

 In the midst of this vulnerability, the liberal impulse strikes out like a venomous snake, a dispassionate lunge at unsuspecting victims mesmerized by the rattle.  The most dangerous form of this knee jerk reaction is the hue and cry for new gun legislation.  The venom spreads when those of us in a vulnerable condition cannot think clearly enough to be rational listen to feel good rhetoric that makes us believe “something is being done”. Even some otherwise conservatively thinking people fall under this spell. Peter King comes to mind in the present day.

 My sister was a Special Agent in the FBI.  She was killed on November 22, 1994 in the line of duty, while attempting to subdue a criminal who invaded the Metropolitan Police Department with a weapon he obtained from a dealer in arms smuggled from China and brought to Washington by his gang.  Thus he obtained the weapon illegally, modified it illegally and used it illegally. Think of a law, if you can, that would have stopped that one.  Although she was not a gun rights ideologue, she did not believe in gun control which would not have taken the guns out of the hands of criminals, which meant she placed no faith in piling gun legislation upon itself in useless repetition when criminals won’t obey the new laws in any event.

 Statistics reveal a pattern of crime in America that belies the effectiveness of gun control. 70-80% of all violent crimes in America are committed by repeat offenders who are out of jail on some form of early release. Every day, people lose their lives to recidivist criminals.  Criminals disobey the law for a living.  Similarly, crazy people do crazy things. There is no better way to say it. Neither cares what new law may have been passed to “prevent” them from doing something.

 Instead of taking a stand against the monsters that savage the innocent, our passive society led by a liberal media demonize the gun and talk radio.  It has an impulse to redirect its fervor toward the authoritarian means of controlling its citizens, instead of metering the punishment criminals deserve.  The average time served for violent crimes in this country is just over 2 years.  Does anyone really think that piling up new useless legislation upon old that they will get anything more than a round up of the same criminals doing the same thing over and over? We have discipline in our families, in our churches and in (some of) our schools. Why can we not set our goals on swift and sure retribution against criminals from a society that has decided once and for all to stop cowering at their predation?

 Joe Zamudio, like my sister, was a hero.  They ran toward the danger, when everyone was running away. I am reminded every day by her absence, that my sister never returned. I am thankful Mr. Zamudio and people like him are my fellow citizens and that he survived.  Let us not dishonor their efforts and memories by ignoring the savages of the street who terrorize the innocent, by making laws which make it more difficult for us to defend ourselves and our fellow citizens, while doing nothing to stop them.

 To those who said we should have more gun control because Joe Zamudio almost killed an innocent person, here’s a news flash. A hundred million gun owners didn’t almost kill any innocents today, obeyed the law all day, and some even defended themselves because they could.  That happens every day and goes largely unreported. Peter King needs to wake up and get the anti-venom for the liberal impulse to create a law that will do nothing it is intended to do. Someone needs to remind him the anti-venom is not found in Kool Aid.

Did you ever watch a business, celebrity, or government agency find itself in the middle of a media frenzy that it thinks will soon blow over and instead it only gets worse? In a way, I feel sorry for TSA Administrator John Pistole, but after listening to him try to defend what they are doing, a head slap is the more appropriate reaction. What are these idiots thinking?

Fighting the Last War

Almost every new “solution” the TSA comes out with is to fight the dismal failure they just allowed. Here are a few questions for Administrator Pistole before the TSA’s next grope:

•  How many attempted hijackings have there been by Islamic terrorists since 9/11 that have been thwarted by hardened cockpit doors or air marshals on planes? My guess is none because the Islamic terrorists moved on to the next strategy.
• Perhaps millions of shoes have been removed by passengers and run through the scanning machines. How many shoes have been found containing explosives? My guess is none because the Islamic terrorists moved on to the next strategy.
• Perhaps this question is too early to ask, but I’ll go ahead anyway, how many people have been electronically denuded and or intimately fondled that resulted in the capture of an underwear bomber? My guess is none because the Islamic terrorists moved on to the next strategy.
• How many people attempted to commandeer a plane using nail clippers? And why was a soldier, who was carrying his unloaded carbine on a military flight stripped of his nail clippers because they might be used as a weapon to take over the plane? “What about this?” the soldier asked the TSA agent, tapping the stock of his carbine.  Blank stare. “I’ll need those clippers, sir.” I am not kidding (click here to read the story). It just might be, but I doubt it that the Islamic terrorists are saying, “Why didn’t we think of that?” But is it probably more likely they are saying, “Take over a plane using WHAT???”

How About Trying Something That Works?

After all we learned from the 9/11 hijackers what did we do? We focused on nail clippers, cockpit doors, and using technology to screen flyers. But political correctness kept us then and continues to keep us stupid. Richard Reid the shoe bomber was next up.

On December 21, 2001, Reid attempted to board a flight from Paris, France to Miami, Florida, but his boarding was delayed because his disheveled physical appearance aroused the suspicions of the airline passenger screeners. Reid also did not answer all of their questions, and had not checked any luggage for the transatlantic flight. Additional screening by the French National Police resulted in Reid’s being re-issued a ticket for a flight on the following day. He returned to the Paris airport on December 22, 2001, and he boarded American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami, wearing his special shoes packed with plastic explosives in their hollowed-out bottoms.

He “aroused suspicions” and “did not answer all of their questions”. So why was this guy allowed to board a plane, ever? But board he did and he attempted to set off his shoe bomb in mid-flight. He didn’t try to commandeer the plane and fly it into a building, mind you; been there, done that. If for some unknown reason we felt compelled to allow him to fly he should have had his own air marshal, at about 6’5” and 265 rock solid pounds named Bruno who should have introduced himself to Reid saying, “Hi, the name’s Bruno, I’ll be sitting next to you personally escorting you on your flight. Have a nice day.” Instead they let Reid on the plane, and he tried to light the fuse but it would not ignite, it is presumed because of the one day delay he was walking around in the rain and profusely sweating, that he might have dampened the fuse. But don’t worry, I am sure we had many engineers working feverishly to design some technology to prevent another 9/11.

From that moment forward we could not leave home to fly without carefully checking our socks for holes so we would not be embarrassed when everyone was walking around without shoes. Naturally that was also probably the last time we would see a shoe bomber, but never mind.

Then there was the Christmas Day bomber. Here is part of his tale:

On November 11, British intelligence officials sent the U.S. a cable indicating that a man named “Umar Farouk” had spoken to al-Awlaki, pledging to support jihad, but the cable did not reflect Abdulmutallab’s last name. Abdulmutallab’s father made a report to two CIA officers at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, on November 19 regarding his son’s “extreme religious views”, and told the embassy that Abdulmutallab might be in Yemen. Acting on the report, the suspect’s name was added in November 2009 to the U.S..’s 550,000-name Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, a database of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. It was not added, however, to the FBI’s 400,000-name Terrorist Screening Database, the terror watch list that feeds both the 14,000-name Secondary Screening Selectee list and the U.S.’s 4,000-name No Fly List, nor was his U.S. visa revoked.

U.S. State Department officials said in Congressional testimony that the State Department had wanted to revoke Abdulmutallab’s visa, but U.S. intelligence officials requested that his visa not be revoked. The intelligence officials’ stated reason was that revoking Abdulmutallab’s visa could have foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida.

Abdulmutallab’s name had come to the attention of intelligence officials many months before that, but no “derogatory information” was recorded about him. A Congressional official said that Abdulmutallab’s name appeared in U.S. reports reflecting that he had connections to both al-Qaeda and Yemen. The NCTC did not check to see whether Abdulmutallab’s American visa was valid, or whether he had a British visa that was valid; therefore, they did not learn that the British had rejected Abdulmutallab’s visa application earlier in 2009. The British did not inform the Americans because the visa application was denied to prevent immigration fraud and not for a national security purpose.

He bought his ticket with cash. The ticket agent refused to allow him to board the plane because he did not have his own passport, but somehow he and a “smartly dressed man” talked their way around that and he boarded the plane.

Always Two Steps Behind

So now, all of us are getting our freedom and dignity removed so that the next underwear bomber, who will never come, won’t blow up a plane. So now we have printer cartridges filled with explosives being shipped in the cargo hold. What are the full body scanner’s going to do about them? Nothing. We will have to spend millions more developing full cargo scanners and while we are working on that, the terrorists will be figuring out how to detonate explosives carried in a body cavity of a person on a plane. The new full body scanners cannot currently see into body cavities. So just imagine what the TSA will roll out after that attempt. “Just grab your ankles, this won’t hurt a bit.”

It’s Time to Get Serious Rather than Clever

It’s time to back off on the machines. Technology can be a very useful tool, but it cannot be used as a solution for all problems and this is coming from a guy who spent over 20 years in Information Technology. We need to go back to some very old, but very effective tools: brains, eyes, ears, and nose. Apply the technology resources where they will do the most good, handling information and getting the right names on the right lists to keep people off planes who are dangerous. Make their lives inconvenient by making them travel by boat, train or car, rather than putting the rest of us through hell.

The TSA should have agents checking the people,  rather than looking at monitor screens and IDs. Study their eyes, their demeanor, how they look, how they move, their behavior focusing particularly on Islamic males between the ages of 20-40. It is not racial profiling it is terrorist profiling. If anyone causes a TSA agent to feel the least bit wary, do not hesitate to politely ask that person to step out of line and question them. If the agent is not satisfied, take the person to an interrogation room and give them a detailed interview and if need be give them the full body search and if that means you have to do that to 10, 20, 30, or 50 people of similar age, color, sex, national origin, and religion in a row, do so without hesitation and brook no interference.

Between the shoe bomber, the Christmas Day bomber, and the Times Square bomber we got very lucky. But it is not as if we didn’t have the opportunity to stop them using our brains, eyes, ears and noses. We didn’t need the sophisticated technology that we so fervently pursue and believe in and we didn’t use the tools we have had for thousands of years.

I am not optimistic that we will get control over this problem. What we probably need is fewer TSA agents who are more highly paid and more thoroughly trained in behavioral analysis, but the current topic of discussion is how we can unionize all the TSA workers. That’s what we need now folks, a great way to protect the incompetent TSA workers and discourage the good ones to the point of quitting to do more interesting and less restrictive work.  Let’s start using our heads.  The American people are outraged because they don’t see the intrusion worth the risks.  If the TSA can’t figure it out perhaps they shold consult the Israelis.  Or is this administration too busy turning them into our enemies too?

As President Obama said while campaigning to be President of the United States, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig!”  How true.  Yesterday President Obama reached for the lipstick to dab on four proposals suggested by the Republicans to the massive pig of a health care proposal clinging to life.  The four proposals are:

1. Use undercover medical professionals to conduct investigations to fight waste and fraud in Medicare, Medicaid and other Federal programs.
2. “Demonstrations of Alternatives” to the current malpractice mess.
3. Increasing doctor reimbursement for Medicare.
4. Expanding Heath Savings Accounts (HSA).

The pig smiled.  She thought she looked beautiful.  Just don’t try to put a bikini on her because, as President Obama famously said, she’s still a pig.  Let’s look at the President’s magnanimous attempt at bipartisanship in detail.

1)  Undercover Medical Professionals to Uncover Fraud

It is estimated that somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion is lost or stolen each year from Medicare and Medicaid.  This program has been in place for 40 years.  If those numbers are consistent over that period, that’s $4 TRILLION.  Gone. Stolen from you and me.  How much better shape would we be in if we had that money back?  That’s government efficiency for you.

The President of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer in the country.  The amount of Medicaid and Medicare losses each year are four times the entire budget of the Department of Justice.  How’s this for a proposal?  Create a Medicare/Medicaid fraud unit within the FBI and fund it so that we can stop these losses.  If you stop the fraud, it’s free money.  What you save in fraud should more than pay for the FBI funding.  Why take medical professionals and give them law enforcement duties.  Are you going to ask police to operate on you?  Mr. President it’s your job to enforce the laws and prevent this widespread fraud.  You don’t need a new act of Congress.  Just Do It!

2) Tort Reform –No; “Demonstrations of Alternatives” — Yes

Trial lawyers are one of the biggest contributors to the Democratic Party.  Do you think such “Demonstrations of Alternatives” will amount to anything other than hush money?  “Shut up , we’re looking into tort reform.”  The counter argument is that Americans have a right to their day in court when they have been injured.  True enough, and I am reluctant to arbitrarily limit their awards through a fixed dollar limit.  I would take aim squarely at the lawyers.

John Edwards, one-time Senator and presidential candidate, was involved in about 63 cases as a personal injury attorney and amassed a fortune of about $70 million.  In one particular case, he stood before the jury and took on the persona of a child in the womb crying out for oxygen to appeal to the emotions of the jury and win the case.  Oddly enough he voted against a ban on partial birth abortion.  Gee, in the once case it’s a child who can actually speak while still in the womb!  But on the other hand it is just a mass of tissue at birth that can be disposed of with the trash.  We have learned a lot about the moral character of John Edwards.  He is the poster boy for the old joke, “How do you know a lawyer is lying?  His lips are moving.”

Here is a simple solution to tort reform.  Fixed fees for attorneys and loser pays.  The lawyers should set their hourly rate and bill according to hours worked, not how much they can squeeze out of the jury.  The award should be for the benefit of the injured party, not the lawyer.  The second part is to prevent frivolous lawsuits.  The loser pays the legal fees of the winner.  The argument here will be that the tables will be turned and no one will sue corporations for damages because of the risk of paying their legal fees.  Right now lawyers are running a lottery fishing for lawsuits of any kind because they know that most corporations will settle for less than it would cost to defend the suit, even if they know they are right.  All customers of that corporation pay more for their products (e.g., drugs, medical devices) and the lawyer gets rich.  I am sure that if such a proposal as this gets passed a new market for “legal fee insurance” will open up where a plaintiff with a strong case can buy insurance to cover the cost of the other sides legal fees if they do lose.

3) Increasing Doctor Reimbursement for Medicare

So much for bending the cost curve down.  The real way to curtail spending on health care is to eliminate 3rd party payers.  (see It can be done).

4)  Increase Health Savings Accounts

These plans exist today, however, they are not all available across state lines (see It can be done).  I had such a plan in New York while employed by a company, but when I went out on my own I could not buy the same plan in New York State.  We don’t need ObamaCare, we just need states to allow these plans to exist within their borders or allow individuals to buy across state lines.

The Pig Lives!

Three of the  four Republican proposals that President Obama likes don’t cost anything.  But he $1 trillion to $2 trillion health care catastrophe is still alive and until we slay that beast and start over we will go from a serious health care problem to a fiscal crisis and end up with both.  If you don’t believe me, read how the model for ObamaCare is working in Massachusetts.

When you are waiting for someone an hour can seem like a long time, but when you really want to accomplish something an hour is really not that long.  Here are some things you can’t do in an hour:

1. Run a marathon
2. Watch a feature length movie
3. Read a novel
4. Watch a baseball or football game
5. Make a good batch of chili

However there are some things that you can accomplish in less than an hour, such as:

1. Eat a doughnut
2. Watch a M*A*S*H re-run
3. Walk a mile
4. Take a shower
5. Brush your teeth
6. Take out the garbage
7. Change the oil in your car
8. Order and pick up a pizza
9. Check your e-mail
10. Complete the interrogation of someone named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a plane using a bomb in his underwear

That’s right #10 was completed in 50 minutes before the FBI decided to read him his Miranda rights and put him into the criminal justice system.  You will probably not be surprised to find out that he soon had a lawyer who advised him to stop speaking to the FBI.  So now if they want him to divulge any information they will have to go the plea bargain route up to and including setting him free.  Aren’t you glad we got rid of Bush and Cheney?  I mean, seriously, don’t you feel safer?

What Did He Know?

Does anyone believe what the Obama administration is telling us that they got everything they could out of this 23 year old novice in 50 minutes.  The kid was definitely talking, so why stop him?  He just got back from Yemen and probably had a wealth of information to give up.  He belongs in Guantanamo.  Are we not, as Obama finally admitted, at war?  Or are we at war, but just not with this guy?  (And by the way, Obama has been in office a year now so why hasn’t he captured Osama bin Laden?  During the campaign he snorted that McCain wouldn’t even follow him to his cave, as if Obama had the address).

Regardless of your position on “enhanced interrogation techniques” and let’s just say you put those aside.  You want to keep this guy where you can interrogate him again and again.  Where you can work to gain his trust, and where you can corroborate other information you find until he has been in your custody so long his information is stale and no longer of use.  Here’s a little secret for the Obama administration… it takes longer than 50 minutes.

An Embarrassment of Incompetence

Close on the heels of Janet Napolitano’s blundering at the helm of the Department of Homeland Security we have this astonishing exchange between Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, as reported in the Washington Examiner by Byron York:

On “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs whether President Obama was informed of the decision to read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights before or after it was done. Gibbs avoided the question, saying, “That decision was made by the Justice Department and the FBI, with experienced FBI interrogators.” Gibbs stressed that “Abdulmutallab was interrogated and valuable intelligence was gotten as a result of that interrogation.”

Wallace pressed. “But we now find out he was interrogated for 50 minutes,” he said to Gibbs. “When they came back, he was read his Miranda rights and he clammed up.”

“No,” Gibbs answered. “Again, he was interrogated. Valuable intelligence was gotten based on those interrogations. And I think the Department of Justice and the — made the right decision, as did those FBI agents.”

“Let me just press one last question,” Wallace said. “You really don’t think that if you’d interrogated him longer that you might have gotten more information, since we now know that Al Qaeda in Yemen — ”

“Well, FBI interrogators believe they got valuable intelligence and were able to get all that they could out of him,” Gibbs said.

“All they could?” Wallace asked.

“Yeah,” Gibbs said.”

Sometimes I wonder if this is all a bad dream and I will wake up at some point, in a cold sweat, comforted in knowing that it was just that.  With the enhanced interrogation techniques, aka waterboarding, that was used on exactly three very bad men, and yielded 60% of what we learned about Al Qaeda, we are now Mirandizing terrorists on the battlefield.  For those who never got a sufficient dose of crime dramas on TV here is how the Miranda rights start:

“You have the right to remain silent…”

Say no more.  That is all you have to know.  From using a technique to compel these murderous fiends to give up information about their likeminded associates, we have moved to telling them it is their right not to say anything.  Here’s my advice… steer clear of tall or government buildings.

How 9/11 Happened

This is exactly how 9/11 happened.  The Clinton Administration treated terrorism as a law and order issue rather than a war on our way of life.  They constructed walls between the FBI and CIA forbidding them to share information.  What the CIA learned about the terrorists before 9/11 they couldn’t tell the FBI and vice versa.  As a result we got blindsided.

It is interesting to note that in putting together the 9/11 Commission to investigate how it all happened and what we could do to prevent it happening again, Jamie Gorelick, the individual who constructed this barrier in her role in the Clinton White House, was added to the Commission panel when she should have been testifying before it.  (Later, without any financial background she was appointed Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae, made millions during her tenure, and Fannie Mae’s actions led to the current financial debacle).

What more will the Obama Administration do to weaken our defenses?

Don't Anyone Dare Say Government Caused This Mess

You can never solve a problem if you do not face up to the full scope of the problem.  In listening to President Obama, and reading liberal columnists like Maureen Dowd, in the description of what caused the current economic calamity, the government is always given a pass.

We are in an economic morass because of the eight years of failed Bush policies, greed on Wall Street, tax breaks for the rich, etc.  Government’s culpability which, I believe, is really the gravamen of our economic problems is never mentioned at all.  Democrats and Liberals don’t dare point to Democrats and liberal policies as having anything to do with the collapsing economy.  That is why they always say that this is the worst economy since the Great Depression, as they also said when Clinton ran for President.  They don’t dare say it is the worst economy since Jimmy Carter, since that would remind the American people that the Democrats screwed up that one as well.

Unmentionable Causes of the Current Economic Mess

• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of control.  Explosive increases in debt taken on under the leadership of Franklin Raines (Democrat), and Jaime Gorelick (Democrat), remember she also gave us the firewall between the CIA and FBI that hamstrung the investigation of al Qaeda.  Raines made over $90 million while at Fannie Mae and at the same time was accused of overstating earnings by $10.6 billion.  So, where’s the demand for a clawback of Raines’s salary?
• Barney Frank (Democrat) and Chris Dodd (Democrat) — Frank blocked every attempt to put in place greater regulation over Fannie Mae.  The Bush Administration tried to increase regulation over Fannie Mae, but Frank blocked it.  What you hear today is that the reason for the economic problems are a lack of regulation.  Chris Dodd got VIP mortgage treatment from Countrywide mortgage before they went belly-up.  Asked to come clean on the mortgages, Dodd first said sure, we’ll get around to it.  Then he made some papers available for viewing, but not copying, and has since clammed up.
• Community Reinvestment Act — Carter (Democrat) administration program to push home ownership for low income people, by forcing banks to report how much they were offering loans in low income neighborhoods and face the consequences if it wasn’t enough.
• Janet Reno (Democrat) — in the Clinton Administration Reno threatened action against financial institutions if they weren’t lending enough low income individuals.  What bank doesn’t want to be publicly branded a racist institution?

So we have homeowners, who should have never qualified for a mortgage, about to receive bailouts from all the responsible people who took mortgages they could afford, when they could afford them.  Do you ever hear about any of this cast of characters mentioned by President Obama or the main stream media? No.  It wasn’t the government actively pushing social policy on those people least able to handle it.  It was greedy banks and unscrupulous lenders, trying to avoid being branded racists, who took advantage of these poor ignorant people.  Perhaps if the government hadn’t destroyed our education system, these people might have read what they were about to sign.

How Do you Solve Only Half a Problem?

As these characters are never mentioned as having a role in the problem, how can you ever hope to fix the problem if these bad actors are still going about their business doing what caused the crisis and blaming everyone else.  President Obama demonstrates his inexperience more profoundly every day, seemingly making things up as he goes along.  That is not leadership and what we need now in times of crisis is leadership.  Obama has never shown the courage or willingness to take on his own party.  Without rooting out these characters and really fixing the whole problem, it will only happen again down the road.

What we need now is a leader.  Someone who actually has experience running the executive branch of a state.  Someone who is not afraid to take on the entrenched power of their own party and has succeeded in doing so.  Is there anyone out there who fits that bill?  Gee, that sounds like Sarah Palin.

Guantanamo

In less than one week the lack of experience of Barack Obama, that the media chose to ignore, was on radiant display this week.  His two executive orders, one, to close Guantanamo Bay, and two, to only interrogate enemy combatants as per the Army Field Manual, began the process of compromising our safety.

Today’s New York Times carries a story about a Saudi, who was released by the U.S. from Guantanamo is now a deputy leader of al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.  He was suspected of involvement in the deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen.  He was released to Saudi Arabia to go through a rehabilitation program in that country before being released.  He is back on the front lines, ready to kill Americans.

So what is the president’s plan?  He doesn’t have one. Over the course of the next year, he’ll get back to us with whatever plan a commission or a committee recommends.  Maybe it was a political bone that he felt he had to throw to the left to keep them at bay.  Speaking of hope….

Interrogation

After more than seven years where President Bush kept us safe, President Obama rushed to put us at risk.  He abolished the practice of aggressive interrogation.  Now the enemy with whom we are engaged has no qualms about decapitating a prisoner (Daniel Pearl), no concern about torturing people and hanging the remains from a bridge for all to see (Blackwater contractors), and has one objective, that is, to see us all dead.  How do you negotiate with someone whose only demand is that you die?

The techniques used in very rare circumstances, were thoroughly reviewed and legal opinions issued that permitted their use.  Information was obtained that saved lives.  But now, the CIA has a much harder job to keep us safe.  In the Clinton administration the FBI was prohibited from sharing information with the CIA and vice versa.  Over 3,000 Americans died when those two agencies could not share information and connect the dots.

It was encouraging to hear President Obama in his inaugural address say that this enemy will be defeated.  But to follow it up by closing Guantanamo and taking an important tool away from the CIA.  You can almost envision Osama bin Laden, sit up in his cave and smile and say, “Just like Clinton.  The paper tiger is back.  Now is the time to strike and the dog will run with its tail between its legs just like in Somalia.”

I hope not.  This is not the change we were waiting for.

For all the Bush bashing that has gone on since September 11, 2001, it is a pretty sure bet that when he leaves office on January 20, 2009, part of his legacy will be that he kept us safe for the last seven years.  The fundamental difference between the polices of the Bush administration and those of Clinton and Carter was that Bush saw it as a war, Clinton and Carter as crimes.  On a war footing, you take the battle to your enemies with the objective of destroying them.  On a law and order footing, you investigate the crime after the fact, arrest suspects, give them their Miranda rights, put them on trial, and if you are lucky, they may spend some time in jail.

Law and Order

In 1979, where it all started, Iranian “students” took over the U.S. Embassy and held it for over 400 days.  Jimmy Carter tried to negotiate a settlement, sponsored a botched rescue, and saw the hostages finally released his last hour in office.  The Iranians didn’t want to be holding American hostages when Ronald Reagan was president.  Reagan would have seen the taking of the U.S. Embassy as an invasion on U.S. soil, which is what our Embassies are.  He would not have tolerated a ragtag bunch of radical students occupying U.S. soil.

From that, and Somalia, Osama bin Laden saw the U.S. as a paper tiger that would cut and run if hit hard.  Clinton’s law and order approach can be seen in the response to the first World Trade Center bombing and the constructing of a “wall” between the CIA and the FBI.

War Footing

President Bush saw the attacks on the U.S. as a war.  He mobilized the country and struck back hard.  By going on offense rather than hanging back playing defense, he has kept the enemy pinned down in Iraq and Afghanistan, while simultaneous rooting them out aggressively wherever they went.  Those captured on the battlefield were sent to Guantanamo, where they were interrogated and held.  Lawyers in the U.S. began to complain that these prisoners were being held without being charged and that was unconstitutional.  Again, that is seeing it from a law and order perspective.  On a war footing, the enemy that is captured on the battlefield is held until the end of hostilities, like we held Japanese and German prisoners during WWII.  If it takes 50 years until the war is won and hostilities ended, then they should be held for 50 years.

Rooting Them Out

In trying to prevent another attack at home, Bush also aggressively sought to disrupt their operations.  Part of that process was to intercept their communications and learn what they were up to.  This caused an uproar over eavesdropping on Americans without a warrant.  However, the program was designed to intercept international phone calls, even if one end was in the U.S.  For example, if an Al Qaeda terrorist is captured or killed on the battlefield but their cell phone is recovered and their cell phone has an address book in it, the administration would set up all the numbers in the address book to be monitored and calls listened to. The purpose was to keep all Americans safe.

Many on the left believe that people in the Bush administration should be prosecuted for this practice.  They call this activity criminal.

Who Are Your Enemies?

President Bush tried to prevent our enemies, those who wished to kill as many of us as possible, from doing us harm.  He knew our enemies to be deadly and ruthless.

And then you have Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber.  Joe the Plumber had the audacity to ask Barack Obama a question about how Obama’s policies would affect people like Joe.  Pretty dangerous stuff, no?  Since that chance encounter, Joe the Plumber has been investigated by six Ohio state agencies.  Did you see the ACLU representative on the evening news demanding what the Obama campaign knew about this and when they knew it?  Did you see Chris Matthews slamming his hand on his desk and saying, “This is AMERICA, not the Soviet Union!  We don’t investigate citizens because of their political beliefs.”?  Did you hear Senator Dick Durban rise in the senate to decry what happened to Joe the Plumber and compare it to the Nazis, the Soviet Gulags, and Pol Pot?

Neither did I.