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Archive November 2009

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Editorial: Geithner Must Go!

Last week, two members of Congress finally stood up for Main Street over the K Street/Big Government lobbyist cabal. Congressman Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Congressman Michael Burgess (R-TX), in a congressional hearing, called for the resignation of former New York Fed Chair, and now Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner.

Brady and Burgess join countless Americans from across the political spectrum who have zeroed in on key problems that Geithner has created within the Obama Administration. A full 42 percent of Americans rated Geithner performance as poor in a recent Rasmussen Poll, with only 20 percent rating him as “good.”

Geithner’s problems begin during confirmation hearings, when Americans learned that he had failed to pay taxes over three years. The future Treasury Secretary’s excuse for violating tax laws was to blame it on Turbo Tax.

Not long after his wobbly confirmation, Geithner laid out a new Public-Private Investment Plan, which would buy up bad assets, putting the taxpayer on the hook for, at least, $1.1 trillion dollars of debt from the real estate markets. And he did so without seeking Congressional advice, nor allowing congressional consent.

According to Geithner, the Public-Private Plan, was supposed to work like the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), removing much of the risk and restoring confidence in the market. But most economists agree that what is more likely to happen is that the plan will become insolvent, like FHA, causing taxes and debt to rise or more money to be printed.

And now, in a new report from special inspector general Neil Barofsky, it has been revealed that Timothy Geithner helped implement a deal with American International Group (AIG) to buy all of its troubled derivatives for a full 100 cents on the dollar.

For anyone who has ever taken part of a private sector business deal, buying bad debt for 100 cents on the dollar is just simply bad math. But, like most of his colleagues, Treasury Secretary Geithner has fed at the government trough his entire career, having never held a job in the private sector financial community

What is more surprising to many is that Barack Obama has put his faith into career bureaucrat, who’s only other job was working at Kissinger Associates -- which is connected to AIG.

As one advisor after another is forced to leave the Administration, the Obama White House is in a dire need of a tested, well-qualified appointee in the Treasury Department that has had experience making good business deals and keeping businesses afloat. Not one that’s only experience is taking the taxpayers’ money and forgetting to pay his own.

In short, Timothy Geithner must go.

SEIUs Message To America

ALG Editor's Note: William Warren's award-winning cartoons published at GetLiberty.org are a free service of ALG News Bureau. They may be reused and redistributed free of charge.

Czar of Lies

By Robert Romano

As the Climategate scandal unfolds and the manipulation and suppression of data disproving “man-made” global warming becomes more widely known, the fallout also continues to unfold as the Copenhagen Climate Summit prepares to promulgate another global treaty curbing carbon, energy-based emissions in the industrialized world.

The scandal began after computer hackers broke into the servers of the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU). There, they found and published emails showing that researchers deliberately manipulated climate “change” data to hide the actual decline of the Earth’s temperatures.

Now, it has been discovered, Barack Obama’s Science Czar, John Holdren, is in the middle of the growing scandal that could change the very course of human history.

As reported by the Canada Free Press, Holdren was also in regular contact with the UEA via email. In one email, he singles out solar physicists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon who, according to Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball “were authors of excellent work confirming the existence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) from a multitude of sources. Their work challenged attempts to get rid of the MWP because it contradicted the claim by the proponents of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Several scientists challenged the claim that the latter part of the 20th century was the warmest ever.”

Dr. Ball continues, “They knew the claim was false, many warmer periods occurred in the past. Michael Mann ‘got rid’ of the MWP with his production of the hockey stick, but Soon and Baliunas were problematic. What better than have a powerful academic destroy their credibility for you? Sadly, there are always people who will do the dirty work.”

Enter John Holdren, who in one exchange wrote, “I’m forwarding for your entertainment an exchange that followed from my being quoted in the Harvard Crimson to the effect that you and your colleagues are right and my ‘Harvard’ colleagues Soon and Baliunas are wrong about what the evidence shows concerning surface temperatures over the past millennium.”

According to Dr. Ball, “Holdren provides lengthy responses on October 13, 14, and 16 but comments fail to answer [‘man-made’ climate change skeptic Nick] Schulz’s questions… He then demonstrates his lack of understanding of science and climate science by opting for Mann and his hockey stick over Soon and Baliunas. His entire defense and position devolves to a political position. His attempt to belittle Soon and Baliunas in front of colleagues is a measure of the man’s blindness and political opportunism that pervades everything he says or does.”

Fast forward to 2009, when Barack Obama has appointed Holdren, already a controversial figure, to be the nation’s so-called “Science” Czar. According to Americans for Limited Government research, since the 1960s Holdren has advocated draconian practices in order to control the world’s population and bring down the economy of the U.S.

In 1969 he wrote, “If…population control measures are not initiated immediately… technology… will not fend off the misery to come.” Holdren further states, “Some form of ecocatastrophe… seems almost certain… before the end of the century.” Holdren believes capitalism, the traditional family, and new achievements in energy production are propelling the world toward unmitigated disaster.

Because of this in 1973 he advocated a “de-development” of the United States to keep the nation “in line with the realities… of the world’s resource situation”. He also has pushed for government mandated family sizes, government controlled energy distribution, and totalitarian government controls over every aspect lives—all in the interest of “equality”.

And of course, the redistribution of wealth from America and the West to the Third World. In 1971 Holdren called for a “massive de-development campaign of the United States” because of the “rapacious depletion of our fossil fuels”. He justifies this by saying, “Resources…must be diverted from frivolous…uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries.”

And, apparently, whatever it takes to achieve that agenda—including pushing flawed “man-made” climate change science and discrediting scientists who espouse contrary views—is fair game for Holdren and his buddies at the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

For years, the IPCC has utilized the CRU’s data as the primary source that the world now knows was manipulated to implement a radical political agenda. And now, that includes White House officials, including Holdren. How far does this scandal go?

In addition to discontinuing any involvement with treaties and abolishing any and all laws and government policies that have depended on CRU’s data, it is time for the House Oversight and the Senate Environment and Public Works committees to undertake a widespread investigation.

The role Holdren and any other government officials have played in bullying and discrediting legitimate scientists like Baliunas and Soon must be uncovered. This should also include looking into the Environmental Protection Agency that suppressed a report by Dr. Alan Carlin critical of the “man-made” global warming hypothesis.

In short, heads must roll for the greatest fraud ever perpetrated in human history. Obama Science Czar John Holdren is a good start.

Robert Romano is the ALG Senior News Editor.

The WIRE: We Have Ways to Make You Talk


We Have Ways to Make You Talk

Monday, November 23, could well turn out to be a Red Letter day for the Far Left. On that day, the ultra-liberal Baltimore City Council, by a 12-3 vote, passed the first law in the country requiring non-profit organizations to advertise what they don’t do.

Like Hawthorne’s scarlet letter, this one, too would an emblazoned “A.” Though, not for “Adultery” – but for “Abortion.” Or, perhaps, more precisely, “Authoritarianism.” Because on the evening of November 23, Baltimore’s City Council – acting as an eager handmaiden to Planned Parenthood – put the full power of Big Government on the side of gutting the First Amendment by forcing pro-life centers to advertise that they do not advocate abortion.

For limited government proponents, the primary issue is not about abortion. It’s about a chilling foray by government autocrats into oppressing Free Speech not by proscribing -- but by prescribing -- what must be said. As Carol Clews, of Baltimore’s Center for Pregnancy Concerns put it, "This legislation may serve as serious encouragement to those who would like to see organizations saddled with more laws and restrictions."

And for the major media, the story is not about an isolated assault on four, underfunded pro-life centers in the ragtag town of Baltimore. It’s about what many political analysts now see as a historic test case to determine just how far the state is willing to go to dictate the words – and eventually deeds – of those who run afoul of Big Government’s stand on controversial issues.

According to Baltimore’s new law (awaiting only the signature of pro-abortion mayor, Sheila Dixon), pro-life centers must post prominent signs outside their establishments announcing that they do not advocate abortion. Should the state decide that the signs are not big enough, these charitable centers – providing free food, clothing, counseling, and care to pregnant women wanting to keep their babies – would be fined $150 a day. In short, enough to shut them down.

Lest anyone think it’s simply a “truth-in-advertising” issue, the City Council, itself, put the lie to that canard. It rejected out of hand an amendment requiring that Planned Parenthood post equally conspicuous signs advising that they do not provide food, clothing, counseling, or care for those wanting to remain mothers-to-be.

So, the intent of the law is clear: Authoritarianism. And it doesn’t take too great a stretch of the imagination to envision the day when the Far Left turns its new-found powers of government coercion on churches failing to advertise that they don’t advocate sin.


“And, what else don’t you do?”


The Battle of Baltimore: Editor’s Footnote

The WIRE has it on the very best authority that MSNBC medical maven turned abortion zealot harpy Nancy Snyderman was all set to do a feature piece on the above story when something suddenly went awry. In fact, she had already invited a pregnancy center exec to face off against a Planned Parenthood honcho when MSNBC minions frantically called at the last moment to abruptly cancel the set-to.

So, one wonders: What went awry? A broken camera? The Rapture? The peacock died? Or, perhaps -- just perhaps -- the higher ups at the declining cable menagerie suddenly realized that even the normally nescient Dr. Nancy couldn’t spin the Big Government/Planned Parenthood assault on Free Speech speciously enough to convince viewers that the First Amendment was a trivial matter, after all. Code Blue on that one, Doc.

The Lighter Side: Mushing the Wimp

Among television aficionados, “Jumping the Shark” is a popular term for TV shows that have – almost invariably with a single episode – worn out their welcome in America’s living rooms.

The term comes from the unfortunate 1977 episode of “Happy Days” when The Fonz, fully attired in his black leather jacket, straps on water skies and leaps over a man-eating shark. Already in decline, the show went from happy to sappy, with this episode hastening its demise.

Fast forward three years to March of 1980, when the Boston Globe ran an editorial criticizing then-President Jimmy Carter for his speech the previous evening taking Americans to task for a general malaise and admonishing them to exercise more self-discipline.

When the editorial hit the streets on the bitter cold morning of March 15, it inexplicably bore the now-infamous headline: “Mush from the Wimp.” Though its author, the late Kirk Scharfenberg had meant it as an inside joke, the headline appeared in 161,000 copies of the Globe before being pulled from publication. And, it helped hasten the end of Jimmy Carter’s reign of error.

Perhaps, the time has at last come to commemorate the Scharfenberg headline with its own place in political history equally as esteemed as The Fonz’s “Jumping the Shark.” Perhaps, there is a moment in a failing presidency so absurd in and of itself that it becomes symbolic of a botched reign and deserves to be afforded the moniker “Mushing the Wimp.”

And if so, The WIRE would like to nominate the picture of a beaming Barack Obama eagerly greeting a gate-crashing Michaele Salahi as that moment in what is quickly becoming the deepening Obama debacle.

Somehow, the picture seems to symbolize a presidency where inappropriate style has come to dwarf insignificant substance. Whether giving an I-Pod to the Queen of England, embracing Hugo Chavez, running around the world apologizing for all things American, or embarrassing the Prime Minister of Japan by bowing until his nose touches the tiles, Barack Obama has become a walking, talking definition of all that is awkwardly and ostentatiously inappropriate.

In short, on the evening of November 24, gaily bedecked in black tie, tails, and patent leathers, Barack Obama “Mushed the Wimp” – and his failed presidency now has a symbolic Threshold Moment by which to mark its ineluctable decline.

November 24, 2009: Barack Obama
         “Mushing the Wimp”

ALG in the News: Don Todd on Fox 5


ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured video, ALG Research Director Don Todd was featured on a Fox affiliate in DC.

Thanksgiving Message 2009

"On the Fourth of July, we celebrate our Independence;

on Thanksgiving Day, we commemorate our dependence.

And as our Forefathers taught us: we could hardly have achieved

the former had we not so gratefully acknowledged the latter."

- Rev. C. Gordon Clews, November 23, 1967

Dear Friend, 

For many Americans, there is no purer, more peaceful and profoundly enjoyable, holiday than Thanksgiving.

No gifts need by given. No demands need be met to run frantically from pillar to post assuring that all the relatives are paid a proper visit. No endless jaunts to shopping malls. No trees to trim or lights to string.

Nothing but family, faith, friends – and, of course, the Detroit Lions (“into each life some rain must fall”).

Seriously, all of us here at Americans for Limited Government wish you and yours the very happiest of Thanksgivings. It is, truly, a wonderfully serene day when we all can pause and give thanks for the bountiful blessings attendant to living in a land of which Ronald Reagan said:

“You can call it mysticism if you want to, but I have always believed that there was some divine plan that placed this great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage.”

May you be richly blessed on this Thanksgiving Day, 2009. Now, go get out the tinsel, trim, and icicle lights!

Sincerely,

The Staff at ALG News

Editorial: SEIU Targets Boy Scouts, Brings Renewed Attention to Unions Thuggery

Last week, Nick Balzano, an executive board member of the Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) Allentown Local 32BJ chapter resigned after threatening to file a grievance against the Allentown, PA city council for letting a Boy Scout clean up a walking path. The Scout, 17-year-old Kevin Anderson was attempting to earn an Eagle Scout badge.

As reported by Michelle Malkin in the New York Post, Balzano bellowed at a city council meeting, “We’ll also be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails. We may file another grievance on that… None of them can pick up a hoe. They can’t pick up a shovel. They can’t plant a flower. They can’t clear a bicycle path. They can’t do anything. Our people do that.”

Commented Malkin, “Balzano was ready to bludgeon the Boy Scout because his gung-ho volunteerism posed a threat to the SEIU labor monopoly.” As contemptible as this incident was, it’s just the tip of the iceberg of the SEIU’s continued thuggery against ordinary Americans.

As it turns out, Anderson may have been lucky to escape with his life. Consider:

  • The brutal beating of activist Kenneth Gladney in South St. Louis County, MO, at a town hall event sponsored by Congressman Russ Caranhan (D-MO) by SEIU members. Gladney was handing out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags.
  • At another town hall meeting in Tampa, FL that Congresswoman Kathy Castor (D-FL) appeared at, SEIU members physically pushed members of the public out of the event. As reported by Red State’s Erick Erickson, “The event was conveniently held in a forum where only 250 people could fit. 1000 people showed up. SEIU members were given reserved seating that took up at least half of the 250 seats. As people came in who visibly oppose the Democrats healthcare plan, SEIU members barred access to the room… Democrat event organizers slammed one senior citizen into the wall as he and his wife tried to enter. The couple were opposed to Obamacare and made it known.”
  • The beating of Kourosh Kenneth “Ken” Hamidi, a public access news reporter in California, at a SEIU Local 1000 chapter meeting who was attempting to enter the meeting with his video crew. Hamidi says that union leaders at the meeting told the thugs to “beat the Hell out of him.” Hamidi was a fierce critic of the Local and had previously run for president of the chapter.

What emerges is a pattern of pure, political violence by the SEIU against Americans who wish to speak out against either the union directly, or the public policies they support.

What makes that all the more egregious is that this is the same union that Barack Obama has long associated himself with before he, as he put it, “was elected to anything.” Leading a rally to energize SEIU enforcers, he shouted loudly, “we are going to paint the nation purple with SEIU.” Which, apparently includes lacerations and bone-deep bruises.

When American citizens were speaking out loudly over the summer, the White House told his supporters to “punch back twice as hard” against opposition to Obama's government-run health care initiative. Clearly, his SEIU cohorts took it to heart, as noted above.

Just to insure that the SEIU onslaught continues full tilt, SEIU President Andy Stern meets regularly with Obama, as reported by the Washington Times: “Service Employees International Union head Andy Stern was the most frequent White House visitor in the first nine months of the year. The union chief met with top officials and attended events some 22 times, according to White House logs.”

Ironically, while Barack Obama has been welcoming Stern with open arms, he has been churlishly snubbing one of Stern’s minion’s favorite targets: the Boy Scouts of America. In fact, until just days ago, Obama was the first President in nearly 100 years who had personally refused to allow his signature to be affixed to Eagle Scout Award certificates.

Reported the Grand Junction Sentinel on Saturday, November 21st, “Certificates received by Boy Scouts achieving the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in scouting, traditionally are signed by the president of the United States, but they have yet to be signed by President Barack Obama… Adam Abrams, White House regional communications director, said Obama’s signature will be on the certificates of Eagle Scouts going forward.”

Now, perhaps it’s just a coincidence, and it had nothing to do with Obama saving face in light of the Boy Scout bashing by his bosom buddies at SEIU. Or, perhaps not.

Bob Bauer: On the Constitution A Mixed Bag

by Victor Morawski

When the President decided to appoint his own personal attorney, Robert Bauer, as White House Counsel, speculation erupted that he did so because Bauer is the same sort of far-left ideologue with which this president has time and again populated his administration. And such speculation is certainly not out of place.

Bauer is the husband of recently departed Communications Director Anita Dunn — who raised a fire-storm of controversy by counting Mao Tse Tong among her favorite political philosophers. And he is a partner in a law firm, Perkins Coie, which has a long history of supporting far-left Democratic causes — and which, (not so coincidentally) investigated Obama nemesis Sarah Palin for alleged ethics violations in July.

In short, while connubially, Bauer may play second fiddle to Chairman Mao, politically, he is a radical after Obama’s own heart.

Bauer, who unapologetically considers himself to be “firmly on the left,” has on occasion appeared to take positions that some defenders of limited government could applaud.

Offering concluding remarks at a recent academic conference, he called for less government involvement in the political process, especially as it relates to political speech over the airwaves, saying: “I do not agree with the current trend towards regulation in politics because I believe that salvation, including for those on my side of the political spectrum, lies in robust, uninhibited political activity without interference of the government.”

But is this the real Bob Bauer? His actions as counsel for the Obama Campaign during the 2008 election say, “No.” Far from promoting uninhibited political free speech absent government interference, he actually threatened to involve government, in the form of the FCC, in revoking the licenses of television stations then airing a campaign commercial critical of Obama.

Typical of the stealthy way this administration has operated, rather than just challenging the claims of the ad in free, open debate Bauer, by means of a threatening letter, instead attempted to restrict the free speech of those stations through prior restraint.

Citing what he claimed to be “unarguable falsities” (so much for open discussion of the facts) in the ad’s portrayal of Obama’s position on the Second Amendment, Bauer demanded that the stations stop running an NRA financed advertisement for what he claimed to be the “public interest” and “(f)or the sake of … FCC licensing requirements”—a not-so-veiled threat!

And, lest they miss the point, he went on a page later, to reinforce it, claiming that, since the stations had the option not to air the ad, all responsibility for doing so would fall on them and may result in “an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility” to protect the public from supposedly “false, misleading or deceptive advertising.” Again, the stations were to adopt the Obama campaign’s position on the advertisement’s falsity because its claim to rightness in this was after all “unarguable.”

Another clear indication of Bauer’s underlying disdain for constitutional safeguards may be found in his review of liberal Justice Stephen Breyer’s book Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution. Bauer laments the fact that Breyer’s concept of “Active Liberty” is not “a form of unabashedly activist judging,” but is instead a concept which mixes judicial activism with judicial restraint in a way that Bauer finds “confused and contradictory.”

By contrast Robert Bork, in reviewing the same book, considers Breyer’s “Active Liberty” to be nothing more than a “transparent justification for activism” masquerading as a “theory of interpretation.” What he instead finds to be a contradiction is reconciling Breyer’s call for judicial restraint emanating from the pages of his book with his real life “vigorous judicial activism” in areas like religious liberty, affirmative action and campaign finance.

So, what can the American people expect from Barack Obama’s latest resident radical? If the past is, indeed, prologue, a White House prepared to attack free speech from every angle – and a Supreme Court increasingly committed to letting it, the Second Amendment notwithstanding.

Victor Morawski, professor at Coppin State University, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

Political Pornography

by David Bozeman

Today I bought the now infamous Newsweek edition featuring Sarah Palin, clad in running shorts, on the cover. The political junkie in me thought it a great piece of memorabilia. The regular guy in me thinks she looks awesome, and I can’t stop looking at it.

Typical of some men ashamed of purchasing skin magazines, I sandwiched it between an aviation monthly and a newspaper, hoping the cashier, twenty years my junior, wouldn’t notice. Thanks for the awkward moment, Newsweek. Ironic, since you used to be one of the legitimate publications. And yes, their analysis of Sarah Palin is as substantive as a skin rag and about as relevant.

It doesn’t end with the out-of-context cover (taken from Runner’s World). The contents page inexplicably features a full photo of Levi Johnston, Playgirl model and the father of Palin’s grandson. He, as a subject, barely fills a single paragraph in one of the Palin hit pieces, though he briefly opines on the Perspective page that Playgirl is not porn and may even be art (ahh, wisdom beyond his years). The contents page for the Features section shows the back of candidate Palin’s legs at a 2008 rally, with three young men’s eyes locked in a hypnotic gaze. Inside, among various photos, is one of a Palin doll, clad in a naughty school-girl uniform: high socks, short skirt and a tear-away top with a sexy red bra underneath.

Nice work. Start dusting off your mantles, editors, I smell a Pulitzer.

The cover story ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah’ doesn’t even aspire to objectivity. Apparently, even studmuffin Johnston merits more space than a pro-Palin conservative. Evan Thomas warns that Palin and the right are attempting to purge the GOP of its moderate wing, much to its peril. Nothing new here, and the fact that self-professed conservatives tend to outperform such mushy moderates as Bob Dole and John McCain says more about the American electorate than it does about Sarah Palin.

The acerbic Christopher Hitchens tried to debunk Palin as a populist, a notion recently advanced in The Weekly Standard. He “takes care of the lazy charge” that liberal hatred of Palin is predicated on disdain for people who don’t live in big east coast cities. He writes that FDR’s appointee for governorship of the Alaska Territory in 1939 was, in fact, highly regarded. Ernest Gruening, a war veteran, spent fourteen years at the post and went on to serve honorably in the Senate for about a decade. One small fact decimates Hitchens’ argument — that he had to reach back seventy years to find — is that Gruening was once an editor for The Nation magazine. An impressive legacy, but far-leaning leftists, wherever they come from, will always be hailed by one another. Whether they win the affection of average citizens is another story.

Hitchens concludes — and I’m paraphrasing — that for the US to stand tall, science, technology and higher education must advance. This will happen in big cities and on the east coast. There will always be groups who feel disrespected and left behind. We must reason with such people and not act as their ventriloquist or megaphone.

Excuse me! Do you think I’m some illiterate hayseed? Middle-class Americans in the South and West don’t feel left behind — we’re leading the way! Because of repressive taxation and regulation, America’s most productive are leaving the eastern urban centers in droves for the Sun Belt. We don’t shun technology and advancement — we wish government would get out of the way and allow more of it. Sarah Palin inspires Americans to rely not on demagogues of any stripe but on themselves, thus the leftists are terrified of her.

While Hitchens’ arguments are not pornographic, they fail to revive what used to be a respectable publication. He is famous for attacking none other than God and Mother Teresa, and while Palin is not in their league, she, at least, stands in good company. Too bad Christopher Hitchens, by collaborating with purveyors of soft political porn, can’t say the same thing.

David Bozeman is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

The WIRE: Time for a Kaine Mutiny?


Time for a Kaine Mutiny?

The normal posture to assume when an atavistic politician overstays his welcome and blows his exit is to politely divert the eyes in order to avoid embarrassment. But when that departing politician is also the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, it’s hard to overlook a farewell faux pas of disastrous dimensions.

Departing Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was left with little wiggle room when his heir apparent, Creigh Deeds, got unceremoniously thumped in the recent governor’s race. Deeds had run on a promise to carry on Kaine’s policies – which means Kaine has likely worn out his gubernatorial welcome. And the Old Dominion already has two Democrat senators.

So, what’s a guy to do? Well, in Kaine’s case, self-immolate and see if you can take down the rest of your party down with you.

In Kaine’s valedictory remarks, he unburdened himself of the opinion that, "...tax increases are on the table to help balance the budget. McDonnell says he will advocate against raising taxes." Wrong. And right.

Wrong, because any politician calling for tax increases when so many citizens of Virginia – and the other 49 states as well – are already pinching pennies just to pay their bills may as well be offering guaranteed exposure to the Black Plague. Right, because McDonnell, unlike Kaine, has not gone obviously insane.

So, here’s the question for every other Democrat officeholder now that their Chairman has declared himself suicidal: Do they intend to follow him over the cliff – or will they openly revolt against his job-killing tax mania?

It’s a fair question to ask followers about their leader. Which makes The WIRE wonder why the Chairman of the Republican Party doesn’t directly confront the Dems about such a critical issue. Maybe he could just ask them, “What Up?”


Cry the Beloved Little Country

Rodrigo Cantero will likely never be a household name in the American lexicon. He’ll never win American Idol. Soar to renown on a Field of Dreams. Or top the charts of the rich and famous.

But Rodrigo Cantero has penned some words that should sear themselves into the heart of every American who cherishes freedom – and etch themselves into the soul of all who resent seeing their country turned from being the “Arsenal of Democracy” into an ally of despots.

Decrying the Obama-led assault on his native country of Honduras, Cantero wrote to The WIRE editors:

“It has been a difficult year, but not because of what has happened in my country (80% of the population approve of the removal of Zelaya), but because of the international community. They have tried and tried again to bring us to our knees, but they never imagined such a small, poor country could stand up to the rest of the world. They could not measure our resolve and our determination to preserve our democracy. It’s ironic that in order for us to maintain our democracy we had to remove a democratically elected president.

“Years from now the world will remember Honduras and our stand for freedom. History will show them how the smallest, poorest of all countries gave a free lesson on democracy and its principles (or at least I hope!!!!).”

Lest anyone think that Rodrigo Cantero is a leader of the opposition party, or a member of the military the left has maligned, he is neither. He is an average, young, everyday Honduran, a self-employed member of that country’s proud emerging middle class, whom The WIRE is pleased to have as a Latin America Correspondent.

And years from now, if justice prevails, the world will, indeed, remember his beloved little country’s stand for freedom – ironically enough, against the world’s most powerful democracy.


The Newest Right

A growing issue among all of the political factions in Washington – as well as the nation’s top political reporters – is where the conservative movement is going. Guessing who will emerge where has become something of a parlor … with the highest possible stakes. Influence and affluence alike are at stake.

Now comes the announcement of a “Conservative Action Project” bringing together in a unique, perhaps historical, coalition the Old Right; the New Right; the Center Right; and the conservative movement’s latest, Internet-driven incarnation, the Net Right.

For, perhaps, the first time ever, they have joined forces with a single, indivisible goal: to stop the government takeover of health care. Whether they can succeed, or not, remains to be seen. But who is included in the coalition – as well as who is excluded – is a story in itself. The roster reads like a roll call of who was, is, and wants to be in the power pantheon of the right:

Tom Schatz, President, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste; William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government; Matt Kibbe, President, Freedom Works; Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform; Wendy Wright, President, Concerned Women for America; Jim Martin, President, 60 Plus Association; Marion Edwyn Harrison, President, Free Congress Foundation; Herman Cain, President, THE New Voice, Inc.; T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr., former Chief Domestic Advisor to President Reagan; Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com; Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council; Alfred Regnery, Publisher, American Spectator; James C. Miller III, former Reagan Budget Director; Tom Winter, Editor in Chief, Human Events; Karl Ottosen, Untied States Federation of Small Businesses

If the Washington power brokers had a “Political Register Red Book,” these names would top the list. Now the trick will be to see how long the book’s bindings will last.

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