For Leftist Democrats the Constitution Is Something to Circumvent!

This article was written by Kyle-Anne Shiver at Pajamas Media:    (Following the article is a video of Ezra  Klein describing the Constitution as confusing and written over  100 years ago.)

“2010:  The Year They Came for the Constitution”

“I nearly spit out my coffee while reading a New York Times post-election day column titled “Tea Party Rooted in Religious Fervor for Constitution.” One nearly had to pity the Gray Lady’s desperation in running the column.

Oh, my! These rough-around-the-edges provincials have gone and pulled off the biggest electoral tsunami since 1938 by running around touting the wonders of the U.S. Constitution and flagellating Democrats for running afoul of it. Oh, what to do? Why, frame these ignorant upstarts with the tar brush of religious fundamentalism, of course. That always works.

What a load of pitiful poppycock.

Every American who has the educational attainment of fourth grade civics understands that the U.S. Constitution is the very document to which every single elected federal official must swear a fealty oath. Every American past the fourth grade also knows that the entire armed forces of the United States serves to protect and defend that very document: not a president, not even the people, but the U.S. Constitution. We don’t call it the “supreme law of the land” for nothing, folks.

What the New York Times and everyone else associated with the know-nothing media of the left fails to see is that 2010 is already widely known as the year the proverbial “they” came for the Constitution. It was the ninnies of the 111th Congress, led by Pelosi and Reid, that openly trashed our Constitution. It was the 111th Congress, whose flagrant disregard for the limits on their power lit the fires of Tea Parties all across the land.

And sentient Americans who follow politics with even a modicum of scrutiny would think that Democrat pols, who’ve been around a long, long, long time, would at least know enough not to mock the U.S. Constitution in the glare of a rolling video camera or in front of meat-hungry press mongrels.

But, no. Time after time, when asked about the constitutionality of their congressional machinations, Democrat legends had a never-ending outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease.

No human being could possibly ascertain whether a bill could be considered constitutional if he or she had never even read the bill. Yet, over and over again, Democrat Congress members were caught on tape saying exactly that — that they had not even read the bills they were voting on.

This despicable lackadaisical attitude on the part of our lawmakers came into perfect focus the day a giddy-with-power Nancy Pelosi met with reporters just after she had performed the legislative-blitzkrieg passage of ObamaCare. Still flush with the thrill of pyrrhic victory, Speaker Pelosi was asked whether the bill, especially the individual mandate, was constitutional. Her response will be remembered in constitutional infamy: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

 

Yes, Ms. Pelosi, the U.S. Constitution is serious enough for you to have sworn an actual oath to uphold it.

Ms. Pelosi may disagree with some as to whether the power to mandate all American citizens to buy a product is conferred on the federal government by the Constitution, but to behave as though this is not a matter for serious concern is pure, unbridled, imperious arrogance. Yes, Ms. Pelosi, the American people still regard the U.S. Constitution as the “supreme law of the land.” Such mocking condescension will be remembered long after the click-click of Madam Speaker’s Guccis are no longer heard on the floors of the U.S. Capitol.

As if it were even possible, Representative Pete Stark then one-upped Madam Pelosi’s constitutional nonchalance. When a valiant citizen queried Representative Stark as to where in the Constitution he and his fellow Democrats had found the legal authority to pass the health care bill, he retorted that “the federal government can do most anything in this country.” Actually, the U.S. Constitution lists quite a number of things that federal government cannot do, individual rights it cannot infringe.

And anyone who thinks otherwise is simply not fit to serve in the United States government — even as a pencil-pushing clerk.

Add to these repugnant anti-constitutional sentiments expressed by those sworn to uphold said document the egregious remarks by Democrat Alcee Hastings, speaking on the congressional rules:

When the deal goes down, ah … all this talk about … ah … rules … we make ‘em up as we go along.

Tell that to your children, Mr. Hastings. Not to the American people.

So, when liberal pundits begin their concerted efforts to demean constitutional concerns and awareness, it would do them a heaping spoonful of good to remember that it was their own party who so repulsively denigrated the very document they were sworn to uphold. They should recall the Democrat machinations started the whole return-to-the-Constitution movement — the now-ubiquitous 1773 redux, the Tea Parties.

And when these same folks try to make Americans of a patriotic constitutional bent feel somehow the fools, it would do well for the public to remember the indelible mark of the 111th Congress at the hands of Democrat power-lusting mongrels.

As 2010 fades into history, no living, sentient American will remember the year as anything other than the year when progressives came for the Constitution. And the same year in which the same Constitution provided for elections in the 50 states. The people exercised their constitutional right to vote many of the would-be tyrants out on their disgusting derrieres.

In the eloquent words of Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, our Constitution has an admirable track record, without any real competition among our current civilizational rivals:

The American Constitution has been tested over 223 years. In contrast, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea do not have constitutional pedigrees of much more than 60 years. The last time Americans killed each other in large numbers was nearly a century and a half ago; most of our rivals have seen millions of their own destroyed in civil strife and internecine warring just this century.

As we prepare to roll into 2011 with a different crew in charge of the People’s House, it would do all Americans well to remember that without the U.S. Constitution, our rights are whatever the state says they are. If protecting that sacred document requires a little effort now and then, it would appear to be worth it.

If fealty to the document which ensures our individual rights looks like “religious” fervor to some, then so be it. Better to have feverish fealty to the Constitution than to regard it as nothing more than a worthless piece of ancient folderol. Because without it, we have nothing.”

For a review of Leftist Democrat Ezra Klein  of the Washington Post, click on below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1LpRkPyUHg

“I Want to Work for The Government”

“Ramblings by Bob Johnson”  offers us Prager fans the following information about…..well, you read it….and be sure to click on to the “visit” to watch your money disappear!!!

“I Want to Work for The Government”

“I am sure it is no surprise that federal employees earn more than their private sector counter-parts!  Would it surprise you to know that public employees cost MUCH MORE than private employees.  According to the CATO Institute, the 2008 average compensation (wages AND benefits) for a federal employee was $119,982 versus $59,909 for a private sector employee! The federal employee cost is DOUBLE the cost of a private sector job! Let me repeat that:  It cost TWICE as much for a federal employee than a private sector employee!  And who is paying the federal salaries?  You guessed it!  You and I (taxpayers) are paying the bill for all those people!  Ain’t it great!

And, this is not new!  As far back as 1950, a federal employee cost 19% more than a private sector person.  Now the difference has grown to 100%!  Not only is the wage level higher, the benefit differential between public and private is substantial.  As a federal employee you get:  more vacation and holiday pay; greater job security; earlier retirement; exemption from state income taxes; and many more!  In addition, public employees are LESS productive that private employees!  Life just got better, right?!?!

Let’s delve into these numbers a little more.  Each federal employee cost the taxpayers over $39,500 in annual benefits…more than four (4) times their private sector complement.  And let’s remember that the federal government added more than 81,000 jobs in the Obama administration’s first year.  Furthermore, the 700,000 jobs “saved” by the “stimulus” package were almost exclusively civil service jobs!

Here are a couple of other interesting facts.  In 2010, less that 7% of private sector working Americans belong to labor unions; whereas more than 52% of total union membership is government employees.  Something to think about as you ponder the relationship between the Democrats and the nation’s unions.  How much money did unions contribute to Democratic candidates in 2008 and 2010?  Ask Andy Stern former president of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union).

The federal government has become a sanctuary for highly paid, underperforming employees.  And, there is no end in sight.   Congress does not have the courage to force significant cuts in the federal budget….because it would mean cutting some federal jobs.  Congress has not gotten the message of November 2.  Currently, Congress is considering a 1,924 page costing $1.27 TRILLION  to allow the government to continue to operate through this fiscal year.  And, the bill is LOADED with EARMARKS!  HELLO!!!!

Bottom line:  If you are a recent college graduate or anyone else in the job market, try to land a government job!  The wages and benefits are great!  I want to work for Uncle Sam!  Oh, that’s right…I do work for the government!  I pay taxes!

Warning:  Before you read this post, the US National Debt Clock will probably pass $14,000,000,000,000 in debt! Unless federal spending and the size of government (at all levels) is reduced, the country can never regain control of its’ destiny!

Visit: www.usdebtclock.org  and watch your money disappear!

Democrat Lefties ‘Thinking’ Out Loud No.1

From RealClearPolitics video news: 

“George State Sen. Robert Brown (D) says a former party member who became a Republican might need to keep his “white” sheets “for the midnight meeting”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/12/29/ga_dem_gop_wear_white_sheets_for_midnight_meeting.html

From Mediaite:

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick continued his unlikely dominance of this week’s news cycle today, when TV pundits still found themselves with nothing better to talk about. The latest of those pundits to be brought on the air, faced with the unenviable task (especially when you don’t get enough time to do it) of voicing an opinion on this story that hasn’t been heard already: CNN’s Max Kellerman, who went on the network today to vehemently disagree with his friend Tucker Carlson’s now-infamous position on Vick…and advocate for pigs.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/max-kellerman-on-michael-vick-pork/

“The issue of the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person and differs depending on what they want to get done.”    Washington Post man, Ezra Klein.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/30/lefty-blogger-the-constitution-is-confusing-because-hey-its-pretty-old/

 

Charles Krauthammer Clarifies Creeping Marxism ‘Obamastyle’

Charles Krauthammer,  America’s  leading analyst of contemporary Washington’s CREEPING MARXISM, writes this chilling piece in today’s Washington Post:

“Most people don’t remember Obamacare’s notorious Section 1233, mandating government payments for end-of-life counseling. It aroused so much anxiety as a possible first slippery step on the road to state-mandated late-life rationing that the Senate never included it in the final health-care law.

Well, it’s back – by administrative fiat. A month ago, Medicare issued a regulation providing for end-of-life counseling during annual “wellness” visits. It was all nicely buried amid the simultaneous release of hundreds of new Medicare rules.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), author of Section 1233, was delighted. “Mr. Blumenauer’s office celebrated ‘a quiet victory,’ but urged supporters not to crow about it,” reports the New York Times. Deathly quiet. In early November, his office sent an e-mail plea to supporters: “We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists . . . e-mails can too easily be forwarded.” They had been lucky that “thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it. . . . The longer this [regulation] goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”

So much for the Democrats’ transparency – and for their repeated claim that the more people learn what is in the health-care law, the more they will like it. Turns out ignorance is the Democrats’ best hope.

And regulation is their perfect vehicle – so much quieter than legislation. Consider two other regulatory usurpations in just the past few days:

On Dec. 23, the Interior Department issued Secretarial Order 3310, reversing a 2003 decision and giving itself the authority to designate public lands as “Wild Lands.” A clever twofer: (1) a bureaucratic power grab – for seven years up through Dec. 22, wilderness designation had been the exclusive province of Congress, and (2) a leftward lurch – more land to be “protected” from such nefarious uses as domestic oil exploration in a country disastrously dependent on foreign sources

The very same day, the Environmental Protection Agency declared that in 2011 it would begin drawing up anti-carbon regulations on oil refineries and power plants, another power grab effectively enacting what Congress had firmly rejected when presented as cap-and-trade legislation.

For an Obama bureaucrat, however, the will of Congress is a mere speed bump. Hence this regulatory trifecta, each one moving smartly left – and nicely clarifying what the spirit of bipartisan compromise that President Obama heralded in his post-lame-duck Dec. 22 news conference was really about: a shift to the center for public consumption and political appearance only.

On that day, Obama finally embraced the tax-cut compromise he had initially excoriated, but only to avoid forfeiting its obvious political benefit – its appeal to independent voters who demand bipartisanship and are the key to Obama’s reelection. But make no mistake: Obama’s initial excoriation in his angry Dec. 7 news conference was the authentic Obama. He hated the deal.

Now as always, Obama’s heart lies left. For those fooled into thinking otherwise by the new Obama of Dec. 22, his administration’s defiantly liberal regulatory moves – on the environment, energy and health care – should disabuse even the most beguiled.

These regulatory power plays make political sense. Because Obama needs to appear to reclaim the center, he will stage his more ideological fights in yawn-inducing regulatory hearings rather than in the dramatic spotlight of congressional debate. How better to impose a liberal agenda on a center-right nation than regulatory stealth?

It’s Obama’s only way forward during the next two years. He will never get past the half-Republican 112th Congress what he could not get past the overwhelmingly Democratic 111th. He doesn’t have the votes and he surely doesn’t want the publicity. Hence the quiet resurrection, as it were, of end-of-life counseling.

Obama knows he has only so many years to change the country. In his first two, he achieved much: the first stimulus, Obamacare and financial regulation. For the next two, however, the Republican House will prevent any repetition of that. Obama’s agenda will therefore have to be advanced by the more subterranean means of rule-by-regulation.

But this must simultaneously be mixed with ostentatious displays of legislative bipartisanship (e.g., the lame-duck tax-cut deal) in order to pull off the (apparent) centrist repositioning required for reelection. This, in turn, would grant Obama four more years when, freed from the need for pretense, he can reassert himself ideologically and complete the social-democratic transformation – begun Jan. 20, 2009; derailed Nov. 2, 2010 – that is the mission of his presidency.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

How American Marxists Twist the News…..Soviet Style

Mark Waldeland has sent in  the following Dennis Prager article from  Townhall.com reviewing how Marxist propaganda governs news in America’s more Marxist news services:

“Is America “dead last again?”     Dennis responds:

“If you believe that Americans have lousy health care, it is probably not because you have experienced inferior heath care. It is probably because you were told America has lousy health care.

Last week, major news media featured these headlines:

Reuters: “U.S. scores dead last again in healthcare study”

Los Angeles Times: “U.S. is No. 1 in a key area of healthcare. Guess which one …”

NPR: “US Spends The Most On Health Care, Yet Gets Least”

The Week: “US health care system: Worst in the world?”

Now let’s delve into this widely reported headline as written by Reuters.

For those readers who rely on a headline to get news — and we all do that sometimes — the issue is clear: America is rated as having the worst health care “again.”

For those who read the first sentence or two, an even more common practice, the Reuters report begins this way: “Americans spend twice as much as residents of other developed countries on healthcare, but get lower quality, less efficiency and have the least equitable system, according to a report released on Wednesday. The United States ranked last when compared to six other countries — Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, the Commonwealth Fund report found.”

For those reading further, the claim of the headline and of the first two sentences is reinforced. The third sentence offers commentary on the study by the head of the group that conducted it: “‘As an American it just bothers me that with all of our know-how, all of our wealth, that we are not assuring that people who need healthcare can get it,’ Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis told reporters …”

Only later in the report does the discerning reader have a clue as to how agenda-driven this report and this study are. The otherwise unidentified Karen Davis, president of the never-identified Commonwealth Fund, is quoted as saying how important it was that America pass President Obama’s health care bill.

Could it be that Ms. Davis and the Commonwealth are leftwing?

They sure are, though Reuters, which is also on the Left, never lets you know.

Here’s how the Commonwealth Fund’s 2009 Report from the president begins: “The Commonwealth Fund marshaled its resources this year to produce timely and rigorous work that helped lay the groundwork for the historic Affordable Care Act, signed by President Obama in March 2010.”

As for Davis, she served as deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Department of Health and Human Services in the Jimmy Carter administration all four years of the Carter presidency. And in 1993, in speaking to new members of Congress, she advocated a single-payer approach to health care.

I could not find any mainstream news report about this story that identified the politics of Karen Davis or the Commonwealth Fund. If they had, the headlines would have looked something like this:

“Liberal think tank, headed by single-payer advocate, ObamaCare activist, and former Carter official, says America has worst health care”

Conversely, imagine if a conservative think tank had released a study showing that, in general, Americans had the best health care in the world. Two questions: Would the media have reported it? And if they did, would they have neglected to report that the think tank was conservative? The answer is no to both.

In microcosm, we have here four major developments of the last 50 years:

1. The Left dominates the news media in America; and around the world, leftwing media are almost the only news media.

2. The media report most news in the light of their Leftwing values (whether consciously or not).

3. Most people understandably believe what they read, watch or listen to.

4. This is a major reason most people on the Left are on the Left. They have been given a lifetime of leftist perceptions of the world (especially when one includes higher education) and therefore regard what they believe about the world as reality rather than as a leftwing perception of reality.

The same thing happened on a far larger scale in 2000 when the world press reported that the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) ranked America 37th in health care behind such countries as Morocco, Costa Rica, Colombia and Greece.

This WHO assessment was reported throughout the world and regularly cited by leftwing critics of American health care. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, no one other than a few conservatives noted that Cuba was ranked 39th, essentially tied with the United States.

Which means that the WHO report is essentially a fraud. Who in his right mind thinks Americans and Cubans have equivalent levels of health care? For that matter, how many world leaders travel to Greece or Morocco instead of to the United States for health care?

The answer is that WHO doesn’t assess health care quality; it assesses health care equality, exactly the way any organization on the Left assesses it. And since the world’s and America’s news media are on the Left, they report a Leftist bogus assessment of American health care as true.

Imagine this headline around the world: “World Health Organization declares America and Cuba tied in health care.”

Of course, only Leftists would believe that. But since non-Leftists would realize how absurd the claim was, that is not what anyone was told. Instead, the world and American media all announced “America rated 37th in health care by World Health Organization.”

These two reports illustrate why so many people in America and around the world think America’s health care is inferior and why they support movement toward nationalized health care.

But these two reports are only one example of the larger problem — the world thinking is morally confused because it is informed by the morally confused. How else explain, for example, why America, the greatest force for good among nations, is hated, while China, never a force for good, isn’t?

The answer is, unfortunately, simple: Garbage in, garbage out.”

Comment:   “Those who control the airwaves control the people”…….a principal Marxist-Leninist axiom.

America the Wussified! Ed Rendell Exposes A Fatal American Disease

The best hour of radio I have heard in my life occurred today listening to Dennis Prager during the noon segment of his own radio show.  His topic was, as he described  it….”The Wussification of America!”

Actually, it should be titled, “The Feminization of America!’……for it is the ultimate battle in a culture between the female approach to matter…..feelings, dominating the male approach to matter……problem solving.   It is a war between security and liberty…..female versus male……the let’s pretend against  what is……the reader who prefers romance and fiction and the one who prefers to figure how to get things to work. 

If cultures can become over masculinized, it is simple common sense the cultures can become over-feminized.  

Historically,  over-feminzed cultures become vulnerable.   They are in decline……for they have lost common sense, raison d etre and search for truth for the dream of peace and cuddle.

Democrat Governor Ed Rendell  becomes the headlight in the fog.   He  bristled at the postponement of the Vikings-Philadelphia Eagles football game last Sunday due to a rather pussyfoot snowfall in Philadelphia. 

Margaret Carlson carries her story, “Wussy White House Needs Rendell Power”, rising out of the Philadelphia scene:

“Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s romp through the media following the cancellation of the Philadelphia Eagles-Minnesota Vikings football game shows why he is often mentioned as just the person to bring the rarefied West Wing of the White House down to Earth.

Having trouble connecting with real people over there in the Oval Office? Rendell’s a human switchboard — and he’s available starting next month, when his term as governor ends.

His latest pronouncement came on Sunday after the National Football League’s rare postponement of a game due to a forecast of snow. In Rendell’s world, real men live to make a touchdown in the snow.

“This is football. Football’s played in bad weather,” Rendell said before the storm struck his city on Sunday but after the NFL had postponed the Sunday-night game. He predicted the major roads would stay open throughout the storm.

In a welter of other interviews, he waxed nostalgic over great games played under the worst conditions, from the 1967 NFL Championship game (the “Ice Bowl” in Green Bay) to the 2002 New England Patriots-Oakland Raiders “Tuck Rule” game to this month’s match between the Patriots and the Bears in Chicago.

Rendell is one of the few unmanaged politicians left. If he hadn’t been Philadelphia district attorney, then mayor for two terms, then Pennsylvania governor since 2003, Rendell might well have been a sports broadcaster. Oh, wait a minute! He is a sportscaster, giving commentary on Comcast SportsNet following Eagles games for years.

Snowing, Crowing

As the snow continued on Sunday, he didn’t stop at gloating that every roadway had been “treated, plowed and passable.” Grandmothers in Buicks could have handled the Schuylkill Expressway. “Not one accident,” Rendell crowed.

By Monday, the NFL’s decision to postpone the Eagles- Vikings game stood for, well, everything that ails us.

“We’ve become a nation of wusses,” Rendell declared. “The Chinese are kicking our butt in everything. If this was in China do you think the Chinese would have called off the game? People would have been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down.”

Though his football remarks got the most attention in our sports-crazed culture, the throw-away line about China provided the legs that carried the story to “NBC Nightly News” and the BBC. Just this month, U.S. education officials were surprised by a report that showed students in China outperforming American kids by a wide margin in reading, math and science.

Trophies for All

Pre-wussification, we were an economic powerhouse, and our children were the best-educated in the world, until we decided to sheathe our little princes and princesses in bubble wrap. We give them graduation ceremonies for getting through nursery school, a trophy just for showing up at soccer. We’ve removed play from the playground to keep them from scraping a knee. We intervene like lawyers in every dispute.

At school, where the teacher should always be right, parents quibble over grades and behavior and prefer longer summer vacations to a longer school year, the norm in other countries.

In Shanghai’s schools, which topped the international test results, neatly dressed and engaged students work long hours on a curriculum that is creative and intellectually rich. Take no comfort in the belief that they study to the test; that’s what we do now, to try to get accountability into a broken system.

Americans-as-wusses was a disturbing thought to drop on a holiday-dazed country, but Rendell is known for going rogue, even on himself.

Conceding 2000

Despite loving sports, he isn’t always a team player. He bucked his party’s establishment and their handpicked candidate when he ran for governor. He happened to be on television when the Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore and said immediately that Al Gore should concede the 2000 presidential election.

During the 2008 campaign, referring to the space between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh — known locally as Alabama — Rendell blurted out that his state was full of “conservative whites” who were “probably not ready to vote for an African- American candidate.”

He became an enthusiastic supporter of that African- American candidate, Barack Obama, helping to deliver his swing state. But when Obama appointed Rendell’s good friend, former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, as Homeland Security secretary, he delivered this observation: “Janet’s perfect for that job. Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect.”

He meant it as a compliment. Really.

Not Connecting

The criticism of Obama’s West Wing is that it is an elite, inbred crowd — a little wussy, perhaps — that fails to connect with people even when it delivers the goods, as it did in the final days of the lame-duck Congress. Rendell, a cross between a steelworker and a linebacker, could be a one-man corrective.

After he moves his sports memorabilia and his two golden retrievers out of the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg, the only job he tells friends he’s really interested in is commissioner of Major League Baseball.

When asked on TV about whether he might fill Rahm Emanuel’s shoes as White House chief of staff, Rendell’s reply is always that the best man for the job is Colin Powell. When Colin Powell is asked about it, he says the perfect choice would be Ed Rendell.

Gentlemen, let’s toss a coin and decide.”

Further comment:   The feminized prefer to dream peace, love and the compliment of sweet words and any rule where security is guaranteed.  If left unchallenged, they remain simple, weak, and defenseless as they were born.     Such societies become soft.   They pay tribute for protection.  They “are not murdered. They commit suicide”.

Above all, the masculinized fight to solve problems and be free to think and explore and accomplish.  If unharnessed they remain the predator they were born to be.  We see the overmasculined societies in the black inner cities of America and the Jihadic Arab world, where the brutal run rule. 

When I went to public school, both elementary and secondary, old maid school teachers ran the show.   They were supremely well educated, knew they worked  in a place where they were supposed to teach knowledge, and furthermore, they knew what knowledge the learner had to have to become an aware and worthy human being for the student’s personal and citizen life.     These were females succeeding in a very masculinized environment.

As a student from k-12, I was never asked how I felt.   We never had lessons designed to  make anyone  feel how Muslims might feel living  in “Christian” society.   Boys were able to rough house on the playground.  No one ever, ever used bad language. 

No medications were given to anyone to feel this way or that way.   A single woman stood  in total control  of 30-36 children in elementary school class.  And in high school a single woman stood it total control  of  30-36 students providing a curriculum that was to be mastered.   Standards were established and were honored.   Those who performed got better judgments than those who for whatever reason performed less.  

The entire educational institution knew what its purpose was supposed to be…….To teach knowledge to prepare students for adult life in a democratic nation.    The old maid school teachers were dedicated to do just that.

The public schools I attended were never closed because of inclement weater…..even when -28 F.  There were no school lunch handouts.   No guns, no drugs, no police, no lawyers,  no Obama love songs for students to memorize.  The picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and later, Harry S. Truman,  was on the wall  in every classroom which also displayed an American flag.

We had a number of DP students during my high school years, 1948-52.  These were Displaced Persons, refugees from the European conflagration of the second world war.  Esthonians, Yugoslavians, Ukranians, Jews.    They were treated no differently from any American citizen.  I think they studied more, however.  We had no lessons regarding how we were or they were supposed to feel.

I wound up in a college prep stream.   For those who did not show a record of scholastic performance  were provided other schedules.   I had learned, whether I liked it or not, by age 14 that I was responsible for my actions both good and bad at all times at those schools.   I was a profoundly curious but poorly disciplined student, so I had ups and downs.

I never spent  a singled second talking with anyone acting as a ‘school counselor’. 

 Besides the sciences and math,we were taught American things and classic literature….what was important for Americans to know about their country and the struggles of those in our past.   No education is perfect….there is too much to know…..but I and others were given a solid groundwork of knowledge.    

Unfortunately, we took our country for granted as it turned out.  We didn’t make certain our children would enjoy the same discipline.  I tried.   We sent our three children to an Episcopalian elementary school.  They received about the same education in this private school that I got free in my public school education  decades earlier.

The  public school had not yet  fallen into a tarpits of ‘Progressive’ political and cultural revolution and feminized equality.    That would come later. 

It will probably  never recover.

Krauthammer: “All GOP Can Do In Congress Is Containment”

Conservative enthusiasts might expect that Republicans in Washington may be able to accomplish significant legislation to check Obama’s Marxist political achievements starting next week when Republicans begin to control the House of Representatives.   Such will  NOT be the case.

Alas, Obama is still president and the Senate is still Democrat headed by Harry Reid.   Also in the Senate are a host of RINOs totally undependable voting against something liberal.   Click on below to hear Charles Krauthammer’s comments about GOP successes in the coming 112th Congress expressed on Fox News:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/12/30/krauthammer_all_gop_can_do_in_congress_is_containment.html

Eric Holder Will Be Called On By House Republicans to Begin to Explain

The following article was written by Charlie Savage and  printed in the NewYork Times.

“For Holder, New Congress Means New Headaches”

WASHINGTON — When the Obama administration wakes up next month to a divided capital, no cabinet member will be facing a more miserable prospect of oversight hearings and subpoenas than Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

Mr. Holder is a particularly juicy target because he presides over issues that have served as recurrent fodder for political controversy — including using the criminal justice system for terrorism cases, and federal enforcement of civil rights and immigration laws.

More than most administration officials, he has served as a proxy for Republican attacks on what they see as President Obama’s left-leaning agenda. At least two possible 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls have already called for Mr. Holder’s resignation.

“It’s likely to be a difficult year,” said Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor at the University of Texas, Austin, who said Mr. Holder’s coming fights are likely to “attract press attention in a way that steps on other messages the Obama administration would like to have front and center.”

Sitting in a conference room adjacent to his office this month, Mr. Holder pointed out that he had been deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, when both chambers of Congress were under Republican control and were conducting aggressive oversight of the Justice Department.

“You’ve got to understand that I cut my teeth in the leadership of this department dealing with the situation we’re about to encounter,” he said.

He defended himself in advance on some hot-button issues, and he seemed to hint at some steps in the realm of counterterrorism policies that might hearten his conservative critics in Congress but could draw criticism on the left. He also laid out what amounts to an agenda for the coming year, from continuing to restore the “traditional mission” of the department — law enforcement work put on the back burner after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — to national security matters, including a fresh push to overhaul an important surveillance law.

As Mr. Holder takes up such work, the incoming House chairmen most likely to play leading roles in Justice Department oversight are Representatives Lamar Smith of Texas, the new head of the Judiciary Committee, and Darrell Issa of California, who will lead the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Both declined to be interviewed, but Mr. Smith said in a statement, “I am committed to fair and reasonable oversight of the Justice Department and to ensuring openness and transparency of our federal law enforcement agencies.”

Mr. Holder said that he did not know Mr. Issa well, but that he had known Mr. Smith for years. The two recently had lunch, and Mr. Holder said he believed they could work together.

Like much of Washington, the two chairmen are likely to start off focusing on economic issues. But it seems inevitable they will turn to Mr. Holder, a frequent target of their criticism over the past two years.

Last March, for example, they released a joint letter criticizing the Justice Department for not doing more to investigate the community activist group Acorn, and for an early 2009 decision to downsize a voter-intimidation lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party, a black-nationalist fringe group they portrayed as an Obama administration ally.

“We’ve already seen this administration dismiss one case against a political ally — the New Black Panther Party — for no apparent reason,” Mr. Issa and Mr. Smith wrote. “We remain concerned that politicization at the Justice Department once again may result in the administration’s political friends getting a free pass.”

Asked about the prospect of oversight hearings and subpoenas involving the New Black Panther case, Mr. Holder said, “there is no ‘there’ there.”

“The notion that this made-up controversy leads to a belief that this Justice Department is not color-blind in enforcement of civil rights laws is simply not supported by the facts,” he said. “All I have on my side with regard to that is the facts and the law.”

Another high-profile issue confronting Mr. Holder in the new year is how to deal with mounting pressure to prosecute the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, over his role in a major disclosure of classified government documents. Prosecutors have been examining whether Mr. Assange could be charged as a conspirator to the leak, or for publishing the materials.

Mr. Holder pushed back against the suggestion that indicting Mr. Assange would open the door to prosecuting traditional news organizations that take steps to ferret out and disclose information the government says should be a secret — including The New York Times, which published some of the WikiLeaks documents and often writes about classified matters.

“Do you think that what you do is consistent with what you understand Assange and WikiLeaks did?” Mr. Holder asked a reporter. “Would I have liked not to see the stuff appear? Yes. But did The Times act in a responsible way? I would say yes. I am not certain I would say that about those people who were responsible for the initial leaks and the wholesale dumping of materials.”

(While WikiLeaks was criticized for publishing a cache of Afghanistan war documents without redacting some details about informers, it has since been more cautious. Of a cache of more than 250,000 State Department cables, it has so far published fewer than 2,000, many of which were selected and redacted by a consortium of newspapers, including The Times.)

Meanwhile, Mr. Holder seems to be adjusting the Justice Department’s legislative agenda in light of the new Congress.

He said he agreed with the director of the F.B.I., Robert S. Mueller III, that there is a need to make sure that Internet-based communications providers — like those providing encrypted e-mail and chat services — design their systems so that they can be wiretapped, just like phone companies.

Obama administration officials have been developing a draft bill to impose that mandate, although the administration has not yet signed off on it. The plan has drawn criticism from advocates of Internet freedom, who argue that it would impede technological innovation and that any tools developed to eavesdrop on suspected criminals and terrorists could also be exploited by hackers or repressive regimes seeking to identify political dissidents.

But, significantly, Mr. Holder appeared guarded when asked about a proposal he aired last spring, dismaying civil liberties groups: expanding the time interrogators can question terrorism suspects before they must read them Miranda warnings or present them to a judge for an initial hearing.

Asked about reviving the proposal, Mr. Holder spoke vaguely about continuing conversations with lawmakers. But he also disclosed that the department had sent “guidance” to agents emphasizing that under existing law, they can question terrorism suspects about immediate threats to public safety before reading them Miranda warnings.

Still, no issue has fed more Republican attacks on Mr. Holder than his support for sometimes using the criminal justice system to handle terrorism cases — especially his November 2009 decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, in federal court rather than a military commission.

The White House soon pulled back that decision amid concern about the cost and disruption of providing security for the trial in Manhattan, leaving Mr. Holder exposed. The issue of where to hold a trial has remained in limbo ever since.

This month, over Mr. Holder’s objections, the still-Democratic-controlled Congress passed a bill that forbids the military to spend its money to transfer detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States, even for trials. In the interview, he declined to engage with a question about whether Congress was doing him a backhanded favor by making the civilian trial option harder.

Indeed, last month, two potential Republican presidential candidates, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, declared that Mr. Holder should resign over the outcome of the first, and possibly only, trial in regular court of a former Guantánamo detainee.

A jury convicted the detainee, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, on just one charge for his role in the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa, while acquitting him on 284. Mr. Pawlenty and Mr. Gingrich accused Mr. Holder of endangering national security by prosecuting him in civilian court.

But, noting that Mr. Ghailani will soon be sentenced to from 20 years to life in prison, Mr. Holder said he wondered “a year from now, when people look back and Ghailani is in jail, will that have the same resonance that people try to give it now.”

Indeed, he said, as a former American history major, he has to think about his job over the long run.

“You’ve got to just develop as thick a skin as you can, understand that some people will disagree with you on a principled basis but other people will disagree with you for purely political and partisan reasons,” he said.

New York City Union Accused of Ordering Workers to Sabotage Blizzard Cleanups

John Hinderaker wrote about this unfortunate news at PowerLine today.  If it turns out to be true, I would recommend those sanitation workers who reported the crime, should be highly honored and rewarded as Heroes they are.

from PowerLine:

“In New York, sanitation workers have reported that their union ordered them to sabotage the city’s blizzard cleanup efforts. If that claim is true, the union may be responsible for at least one death. Mayor Bloomberg has vowed to investigate.

It remains to be seen what will come of this particular controversy, but the broader point is coming into ever-clearer focus: it is time to ban public employee unions.

For the large majority of our history, public employee unions have been illegal. It is only since the 1960s and 1970s that they have been allowed. Currently, they are legal in roughly half the states. The United States has carried on a four-decade experiment in legalization, and the results are in: public employee unions are a cancer on our country.

Public employee unions flourish because government is, by its nature, a monopoly. Thus, there is no need for unionized government units to compete against non-unionized units. Moreover, public officials who negotiate with public employee unions generally lack the same incentives that private employers have to keep costs down. The result has been a fiscal disaster, with numerous states and municipalities now going over the waterfall of bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, public employee unions have become perhaps the dominant force in our political life. They extract dues from their members which goes to fund the candidacies of politicians who will pay public employees even more money. The unions’ ill-gotten clout has created a vicious cycle; at the same time that government units are going broke, public employees are now far better paid than their private sector counterparts, while enjoying better benefits and ridiculous job security.

Enough is enough. Legalization of public employee unions has been a disaster. It is time to end the experiment and make them illegal once again, at both the federal and state levels. I expect that this will become one of the great political issues of the next decade.”

The following is a video from HotAir of a councilman who weights in on  the charge:

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/30/video-nyc-councilman-repeats-charges-of-sanitation-snow-slowdown/

Holder Gets Holder 2, James Cole, as Assistant Attorney General

Below is a Fox News report of a coming clash with the White House  with the appointment of  James Cole as Assistant Attorney General……a Siamese twin of Eric Holder  regarding Marxism, Guantanamo, the World Trade Massacre as being a corner store shooting, and Muslims.

“President Obama has outraged Republicans by directly appointing six officials this week without the consent of Congress, including his pick for deputy attorney general, who once compared the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to the drug trade. 

The president announced the so-called recess appointments Wednesday, using his power to install sidelined nominees while Congress is on break. They will still need to be confirmed by the Senate before the end of the next session, but the recess appointments allow Obama to break a series of logjams and fill positions that have been vacant for months. 

Obama appointed four new U.S. ambassadors, along with the U.S. public printer and the deputy attorney general. 

The latter, James Cole, had been in limbo since he was nominated in May, though his name did clear the Senate Judiciary Committee over the summer. Republicans had questioned his past consulting work with bailed-out insurance giant AIG but had been particularly critical of his stance on prosecuting terror suspects. 

That concern flared up again after Obama installed Cole on Wednesday. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, accused Cole of wanting to pursue terror suspects as a criminal matter in civilian courts. He cited a 2002 Legal Times column in which Cole called the Sept. 11 attacks “criminal acts of terrorism against a civilian population” — like the Oklahoma City bombing.

Cole went on to write that the United States has faced “many forms of devastating crime,” from the drug trade to organized crime to rape and child abuse. “The acts of Sept. 11 were horrible, but so are these other things,” he wrote. 

King said Cole’s appointment indicates the administration wants to continue to implement “dangerous policies” of treating terrorism as a criminal issue. Attorney General Eric Holder, Cole’s new boss, has pushed for criminal trials but has struggled to bring mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed stateside for prosecution. 

“I find it absolutely shocking that President Obama would appoint someone who has diminished the 9/11 terrorist attacks by comparing them to the drug trade and who believes that a civilian courtroom is the appropriate venue for 9/11 trials,” King said in a written statement. “I strongly oppose the recess appointment of James Cole to lead the national security team at the Department of Justice.” 

But Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, applauded Obama for breaking through and filling the critical deputy position at the Justice Department. 

“Despite repeated requests, for more than five months, Senate Republicans refused to debate the nomination of Jim Cole to be the deputy attorney general. I have no question that Jim Cole is highly qualified to fill this vital law enforcement post,” Leahy said. “The delays in considering his nomination were unnecessary and wrong.” 

According to the White House, Cole’s nomination sat on the Senate floor for 155 days, longer than any deputy attorney general nominee since the Reagan administration. 

Cole previously served in the Justice Department for more than a dozen years before heading into private practice in 1992. He also served on former President Bill Clinton’s transition team in 1992. 

Not counting the most recent additions, Obama has made a total of 22 recess appointments this year, six of which have since been confirmed by the Senate. 

Obama also announced envoy appointments Wednesday for Azerbaijan, Syria and NATO allies Turkey and the Czech Republic. 

Specific senators had blocked or refused to consider the confirmations of the nominees for various reasons, including questions about their qualifications. But in the most high-profile case, that of the new envoy to Syria, Robert Ford, a number of senators objected because they believed sending an ambassador to the country would reward it for bad behavior. 

“Making underserved concessions to Syria tells the regime in Damascus that it can continue to pursue its dangerous agenda and not face any consequences from the U.S.,” Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the incoming chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a written statement. “That is the wrong message to be sending to a regime which continues to harm and threaten U.S. interests and those of such critical allies as Israel.” 

The administration had argued that returning an ambassador to Syria after a five-year absence would help persuade Syria to change its policies regarding Israel, Lebanon and Iraq as well as its willingness to support extremist groups. Syria is designated a “state sponsor of terrorism” by the State Department. 

Former President George W. Bush’s administration withdrew a full-time ambassador from Syria in 2005 after terrorism accusations and to protest the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, killed in a Beirut truck bombing that his supporters blamed on Syria. Syria denied involvement. 

Obama nominated Ford, a career diplomat and a former ambassador to Algeria, to the post in February, but his nomination stalled after his confirmation hearings and was never voted on. 

The other Obama nominees announced Wednesday are Matthew Bryza for Azerbaijan, Norman Eisen for the Czech Republic and Francis Ricciardone for Turkey. 

Bryza, a career diplomat, was opposed by some in the Armenian-American community because of comments he made in his previous position as deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs while trying to negotiate an end to the Nargorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

The nomination of Ricciardone, another career diplomat who served as ambassador to Egypt during the Bush administration, had been held up by outgoing Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican from Kansas, who had concerns about his work in promoting democracy while he was stationed in Cairo. 

The nomination of Eisen, a lawyer who has worked in the Obama White House on ethics and reform, was being held up by Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who said the nominee had made misrepresentations to Congress about the firing of a federal official. “