The Big Question

-By Dan Scott

This April 15th, millions of Americans will be protesting the rampant deficit spending of Congress (and the Obama Administration by encouraging it). Tea Parties will be held in every State of the Union. On that day, we who oppose reckless spending will have a cathartic moment having vented our spleens at the irresponsible behavior of those running government. We the People will have spoken, politicians will condescendingly notice, the MSM will spin the story line to minimize it and of course the Left is unhappy calling us sore losers and unpatriotic. But on April 16th will anything have changed?

When it comes to Congress acting as an agent of the People, the record is pretty spotty.
When a number of people in power attempted to give a blanket amnesty to illegal aliens, We the People hounded our representatives to the point the email servers crashed and the telephone switchboards couldn’t handle the traffic. The people in power got the message loud and clear, NO (almost a year before the 2008 election). When those in power attempted to pass the first bail out package, the People spoke and they narrowly defeated the bill (shortly before the 2008 election). Through bribery (sweeteners via minimal changes in the bill), stealth and fear, the leaders of the House and Senate convinced just enough members of Congress to pass the bailout bill over the objections of the overwhelming majority of the People. Again, just before the 2008 elections. Through clever deflection under the cover of the Presidential election, those who voted for the bailout package were never held to account for their vote. Since then, We the People have come to regret failing our chance to hold these people responsible. Congress passed a so-called stimulus bill over the objections of the most people via a party line vote. Congress has passed a number of other bills with little popular support. Many of us have thrown up our hands in disgust not knowing what to do and many will be protesting on April 15th.
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The Big Question”


Obama’s Intel Services More Worried About Right-Wing Terror Than Islamists?

-By Warner Todd Huston

On the heels of the odious report by the State of Missouri, recently retracted, focusing on so-called “right-wing terrorism” and implying that every right of center group in American politics is an inch away from being terrorists, now we have a federal agency report doing the same thing.

The Department of Homeland Security has also created a secret report that wasn’t supposed to be made public but has leaked out nonetheless. In it we see the same outrageous conclusions that “right-wing terrorists” are a danger in this country. (Download PDF file)

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Obama’s Intel Services More Worried About Right-Wing Terror Than Islamists?”


Justice Ginsberg Would Rather be Liked by Foreigners Than be Right

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ever since Justice Sandra Day O’Connor began babbling about it several years ago, the talk of Supreme Court Justices of the United States of America using foreign court rulings to base their decisions upon has been a topic of dread for those interested in adhering to the U.S. Constitution.

It should be shocking to see a U.S. Supreme Justice talking about using foreign precedent but it would sadly not surprise anyone that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former ACLU lawyer, is doing just that. Not only is she bringing up the subject but she professes not to understand why any American would be upset that a SCOTUS Justice might see nothing wrong with using foreign court decisions to decide our own rulings.

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Justice Ginsberg Would Rather be Liked by Foreigners Than be Right”


Defining Article 2, Section 1 in Context

-By Nancy Salvato

According to Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, no person except a “natural born citizen” (citizen at birth) shall be eligible to the office of President.

The question that needs to be answered definitively is what exactly is a “natural born citizen”? To understand this phrase, we need to look at the context in which it was written.

It is clear that the Framers included that phrase in the requirements for Commander in Chief because they wanted to ensure loyalty to the US Constitution and not give undue influence to any one country, group, or person.
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Defining Article 2, Section 1 in Context”


Symptom of a Constitutional Disease

-By John Armor

On special occasions, I wear a red silk tie printed with 56 signatures, all but one of them in black; the featured one in white is “Th. Jefferson.” The names are, of course, the signers of the Declaration of Independence. When asked, I tell folks I practice law for a bunch of dead guys. They pay me nothing. But it is an honor to represent them, especially when it reaches into the Supreme Court.

That brings me to President Obama’s nomination of Harold Koh, Dean of Yale Law School, as Legal Advisor to the State Department. This nomination is a symptom of a constitutional disease that will cause great, and possibly fatal, damage to our Constitution in the next four years.

That is a bold and harsh charge. Here is the proof:
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Symptom of a Constitutional Disease”


What are we if NOT a Christian Nation?

-By Warner Todd Huston

As President Obama engaged in his “America Stinks” tour of Europe this week he told audiences in Turkey that the U.S. is not a Christian nation. “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation,” he said on April 6. This echoes his statement in 2007 when Obama told CBN, “whatever we once were, we’re no longer just a Christian nation.”

The subtle difference between those two statements just over a year apart is interesting. Candidate Obama seemed to admit that we might have “once” been a Christian nation but are no longer “just” a Christian nation. But, suddenly as president, he seems to be saying squarely that we “don’t” consider ourselves Christian. Interesting that he seemed to feel obligated to mitigate as a candidate his now openly admitted belief that we just aren’t a Christian nation.

In any case, it is obvious that this is Obama’s way of ingratiating himself with Muslim audiences. But whatever his immediate goal, his sentiment is a popular one with Americans that sport left-wing, anti-religious ideology, people who look to Obama as their leader.

But is he right? Is it true that we aren’t a Christian nation? Did the Founding Fathers choose the Christian ethic as the one upon which they based this country, or not? The answer would appear to be an emphatic yes once the historical record is reviewed. It would also appear that we are straying far afield from that grounding.

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What are we if NOT a Christian Nation?”


At Last a Good Boy Scout Story

-By Warner Todd Huston

Out of Georgia comes a heart warmer about the Boy Scouts for a change. Instead of radical gays attacking this noble organization, instead of extremist left-wing politicians trying to make a name for themselves by attacking one of America’s finest youth organizations, we have a story that makes you smile. And you can bet it won’t make national news.

Rodrigo and Rosa Cano moved to the United States in 1980. A decade or so later Rosa gave birth to David who the proud parents enrolled in a local Boy Scouts troop when he reached his tenth year. They hoped that young David could further help them assimilate in their new home as young David brought home his Scouting experiences.

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At Last a Good Boy Scout Story”


Reuters Knowingly Reports Lie About Binghamton Shooting — The Taliban Did It

-By Warner Todd Huston

Reuters published a story today, April 4, detailing some nonsense from a Taliban terrorist who has claimed “responsibility” for Friday’s shooting rampage in Binghamtom, New York. The question that comes to mind is why? Why did Reuters imagine this idiotic claim, this obvious lie, was worth reporting to the world? Does Reuters not have the good sense God gave a door knob? Why would Reuters pass this Taliban propaganda off as news?

From Peshawar, Pakistan, Reuters reports that this Taliban leader wannabe has said that the murderous rampage perpetrated by an unhinged Vietnamese immigrant was done by his “men.” This half-wit terrorist claims that he ordered the “men” to attack the U.S. because of the use of Predator drones that have been so successful in cutting out so many of those nits in their Pakistani strongholds.

But we all know this “acceptance of responsibility” is an outright lie. We may not know why Jiverly Voong went off the deep end, but we know he had zilch to do with Pakistan. So, why did Reuters think it a story worthy of reporting? There can only be one reason.

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Reuters Knowingly Reports Lie About Binghamton Shooting — The Taliban Did It”


Another City Tries to Quash Tax Day Tea Party Gathering

-By Warner Todd Huston

Brendan Steinhuser of FreedomWorks is reporting that another official of an American city is trying to prevent organizers of a tea party tax protest from being “allowed” to stage their protest, this time in Burleson, Texas.

Unlike the the situation in Cape Coral, Florida where it was overburdening regulation that served as a stumbling block to the freedom of the people to assemble, the Texas case proves to be more un-American because it is an unelected city official that is vowing to block the tax protest by abusing his insider power to cajole city officials to deny American’s their rights..
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Another City Tries to Quash Tax Day Tea Party Gathering”


Government as the Agent of Prosperity

-By Thomas E. Brewton

A reader asserts that, in the chicken-or-egg-first debate, prosperity is not possible without organization of the economy by government.

David Airth, a reader who frequently posts thought-provoking ripostes to articles appearing on this website, commented in response to AIG Employees’ Side of the Story.

He wrote, in part:
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Government as the Agent of Prosperity”


Was he born here? Barack Obama vs the Law trailer

-By Warner Todd Huston

So, why won’t he show the birth certificate, anyway?

I am not personally convinced the birth certificate is an issue, but I have to say, I have no leg to stand on but my “feeling” that it isn’t relevant because we’ve not seen actual birth certificate to butress my “feeling.” So, what do I tell people that insist this is an important issue?

I have nothing logical to tell them to disabuse them of their notion because I can’t prove them wrong.

So, why won’t Obama just publish the real birth certificate?


The Train Wreck

-By Dan Scott

A number of people recently have been commenting on how the economy seems to be showing signs of recovery, all without a single penny of the so called stimulus bill having been spent. The stock market has been moving up of late giving investors a sense of hope that the bottom has been reached signaling an end to their financial losses. Hope is good but false hope is dangerous as it causes people to lower their defenses against the oncoming train wreck. Counting on an economic recovery is occurring due to a bear market rally, is false hope. The psychology of the bear rally is based on false hope.

Have you noticed the price of gas lately? Its been creeping back up and now is up to $2/gallon. It’s not due to domestic demand but the world price of oil. Because of the misconduct of the RULING POR (Pelosi, Obama, Reid) Party causing over a trillion dollars to be printed, the dollar is devaluing and the price of oil is going up as a result. If the price of oil continues to rise we will soon reach the tipping point where the economy will stall again. That tipping point is somewhere around $2.50/gallon based on what happened in January 2007 when unemployment started it’s steady climb. The economy then took a nosedive as the price of gasoline hit $4/gallon. Of course President Obama continues to talk in non-sequiturs claiming in order for the economy to recover he must impose a carbon tax to create “green jobs”. He plainly admitted such a tax scheme would cause the price of energy (electricity) to “skyrocket”, his term not mine. While he was specifically speaking of coal in regards to electricity, such a tax would also hit petroleum products like gasoline almost as hard.
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The Train Wreck”


The United States of America Is Not a Democracy

-By Frank Salvato

“Pure democracy is the most vile form of government…such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
– James Madison, Father of the US Constitution

The word Democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution…and for good reason. The United States is not a Democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic and it is essential that the American people understand this reality. If we continue to allow the untruth that the United States of America is a Democracy to flourish we invite the demise of our government and our nation; we invite the cessation of the American Experiment and doom future generations to a fate unknown.
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The United States of America Is Not a Democracy”


Florida Gov’t Cancels Tea Party Fearing ‘Too Many Attendees’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember this report from our nation’s history?

CNN (Continental News Network) Boston, 1773: The city of Boston canceled a proposed protest over tea taxes today, citing the fear that too many people dressed as Indians would be gathered near the wharves. Organizers expressed sadness over the cancellation, but meekly returned to their homes fearful of upsetting the officers of the Crown. Taxmen breathed a sigh of relief as the tar and feathers were put away not to be used this day.

You don’t remember that pre-revolutionary history? I should say you shouldn’t, because it didn’t happen. But flash forward a few hundred years and you’ll find it is happening today in Cape Coral, Florida where city officials canceled a tax day tea party gathering because they “feel too many people could show-up.”

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Florida Gov’t Cancels Tea Party Fearing ‘Too Many Attendees’”


Hillary Clinton: Sorry Mexico, Your Violence is All Our Fault

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mexican government officials are in the pocket of Mexican drug lords. Members of the Mexican military lend their support to Mexican drug lords. Mexican police double deal by being footsoldiers for Mexican drug lords at the same time they work for the various states. It’s all a great, corrupt mess down there.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s message to Mexico? It’s America’s fault.

And as the violence in Mexico begins to leak across the border into our southwestern states, what is Barack Obama’s idea to help? He wants to disarm our own people by raising the specter of “assault rifles,” a term that has no real meaning, and by re-instituting the “assault weapons” ban in the U.S.

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Hillary Clinton: Sorry Mexico, Your Violence is All Our Fault”


What Constitution? Publius Forum Podcast

-By Warner Todd Huston

And here is the newest Publius Forum Podcast, a live reading of mine titled “Constitution Schmonstitution” where I suggest that our nation has lost it’s understanding of its own Constitution.

Feel free to visit the Publius Forum TalkShoe page to see my past podcasts. New podcasts appear approximately monthly, or whenever the mood strikes me to do one.


The Constitution Be Damned

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Tocqueville forewarned us about the tyranny of majorities that by nature impose ill-considered policies trampling upon individual liberties, liberties which the Bill of Rights was enacted to protect.

The Constitution created a government that people expected to defend them against foreign aggression and to protect the natural law rights of individuals to life, political liberty, and free exercise of private property rights. Today, instead of protecting individual rights against mob will, we have a Federal government that follows the mob and presumes the power to force people to conform to the schemes of academic state-planners.
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The Constitution Be Damned”


How to Use Your Children to Annoy a Liberal

-By Selwyn Duke

Since liberals place a premium on tolerance, the loving and charitable thing to do is help them develop it. Note here that, unbeknownst to many, tolerance involves enduring something considered to be a negative. We don’t tolerate a fine meal or a nice car, for instance; we relish such things. But we might have to tolerate bad weather, a cold or Nancy Pelosi. Now, since liberals actually perceive a great many positive things to be negative, placing them in situations wherein they may cultivate tolerance is not difficult.

One under-appreciated vehicle through which to do this is your children. You can use your kids to annoy liberals, but I don’t mean in the way liberals annoy other people with theirs. Liberals, by not civilizing their children, breed brats who bounce balls in supermarkets, play hide-and-go-seek in restaurants, keep the makers of psychotropic medication in business and sometimes chant “Yes, we can!” No, the techniques in question here are far different.
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How to Use Your Children to Annoy a Liberal”


Constitution, Schmonstitution — What Gov’t Wants it Takes Law or No

-By Warner Todd Huston

I propose that “Dueling Banjos” replace our current national anthem. Remember the 1972 movie Deliverance with Burt Reynolds? OK, recall that scene of the goofy looking kid plucking out “Dueling Banjos” on the porch? That kid was supposed to represent a backwards, inbred, and half sentient hillbilly if you’ll recall. Well, that is officially the United States of America today.

No, I am not saying that the country is like a slack-jawed southerner, but is instead like an inbred, uneducated fool. I am not talking about genetic inbreeding here, either. I am saying this country has become like a dumbed-down, socially and historically illiterate, inbred, incurious, fool, one that understands one thing and one thing only: entertainment. We can thank our putrefying “education” establishment for this as well as the coarsening culture about us.

The reason I am drawn to this sad conclusion is the complete ignorance of the people of this country to the rule of law. Not just the ignorance evinced by the self-empowering politicians and the activist judges, but the bulk of the population. The Constitution has at last become a document that has no meaning to the largest number of Americans.

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Constitution, Schmonstitution — What Gov’t Wants it Takes Law or No”


A Constitutionally Illiterate Congress

-By Nancy Salvato

The definition of a citizen is one who is ruled and can rule in turn. We must have the capacity for both under the law. All citizens must be able to take the following oath of office:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.”

Sadly, in today’s day and age, those elected to our legislature do not have to understand the law to represent their electors. Consequently, this Congress has proven to be the most constitutionally illiterate group of people ever elected to office.
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A Constitutionally Illiterate Congress”


NY Dem Steals Republican Email

-By Warner Todd Huston

You might recall the gyrations that Democrats made about Bush’s “most secretive presidency”? One item upon which the Democrats focused their ire was the system by which the Bush administration saved White House email communications in order to satisfy the Presidential Records Act. Bush was definitely amiss in properly saving them for posterity (and legality) and it cost the government millions to go back to retrieve unstored emails.

As we all know, Congressional Democrats made a big show of their concern over those lost emails and constantly sent public letters to the White House to force compliance with the records act. It was a piece with their “worst president in history” campaign so lovingly crafted and diligently carried out.

Now, however, it appears that public letters to the president asking about compliance with the Presidential Records Act are a tad less important to Congressional Democrats. Even though the White House has not answered any requests from Congress on how compliance will be carried out, Democrats are less keen to push the issue.

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NY Dem Steals Republican Email”


Natural Born Citizens

-By Nancy Salvato

This is a commentary in response to James Taranto’s recent column in which he takes yet another opportunity to use his bully pulpit to jab at the vast numbers of people who take painstakingly seriously the idea that no person except a natural born citizen shall be eligible to hold the office of President.

I used to enjoy reading James Taranto. I used to appreciate his sarcasm and wit. Not so much anymore.

Taranto writes,

You might have heard of Hawaii, a southern North Pacific archipelago that almost half a century ago became America’s 50th state. It’s known for pineapples, palm trees and tropical weather, and while it’s said to be a lovely place to visit, hardly anyone goes there because it’s so expensive and far away–over 10 hours by plane from New York, and getting there by car literally takes forever.
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Natural Born Citizens”


Thanks for Sending us a Terrorist, President Obama

-By Warner Todd Huston

Dear President Obama,

We are thankful to you, our wonderful president, for showing the world that the citizens of Illinois are kinder and gentler than those evil Bushies. It has always been obvious to us that we are more open minded and far more caring than anyone but your gift to us this month proves our love for multi-culturalism. We can hold our heads up high in The Hague and in the hallowed halls of the École Nationale d’Administration at long last.

We are blessed and we thank god — not meaning to specify any particular god or gods to which you subscribe — for your beneficence with this action coming so soon during these early days of your administration of hope and change. To think that this hallowed day has arrived already!

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Thanks for Sending us a Terrorist, President Obama”


Obama Gunning for the Second Amendment

-By Selwyn Duke

This will seem like a strange way to open a piece of commentary, but the gun owners who voted for Barack Obama believing he respected Second Amendment rights remind me of the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. Specifically, I think of the scene from “The Return of the Pink Panther” in which Clouseau was getting a real dressing down from his superior, Chief Inspector Dreyfus. The issue was that Clouseau had naively stood by talking to a “blind” organ grinder outside a bank while the institution was being robbed. After Dreyfus pointed out that the organ grinder was the lookout for the thieves and Clouseau said that such a thing was impossible because the beggar was blind, Dreyfus asked how Clouseau knew this. Clouseau replied, “He told me so.”

Quite frankly, this wasn’t nearly as stupid as believing that a member of Chicago’s socialist New Party, who was weaned in a black power church, was a gun caesar and not a gun seizer. And now Obama is in fact striking a blow against the Second Amendment. He isn’t doing anything obvious such as advocating a ban on semi-automatic rifles, however (not yet); rather, in typical Saul Alinsky “Rules for Radicals” style, he is attacking where his adversaries least expect.
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Obama Gunning for the Second Amendment”


Free Speech For Students… Unless You’re Christian, That Is

-By Warner Todd Huston

Our institutes of “higher” learning are all about being inclusive. They are stridently for freedom of speech and stand 100% behind the concept of open political debate. Well, unless you’re a Christian, that is. Christians, you see, are the only group that our fetid colleges and universities have agreed to discriminate against.

Last week, another example of that well known “tolerance” our schools are so concerned with promulgating was seen in Pomona College in Claremont, California. There two Christian, pro-life students were banned from the Pamona campus. Their crime? Video taping a question-and-answer session with a Planned Parenthood representative invited to speak there.

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Free Speech For Students… Unless You’re Christian, That Is”


Conflation Junction: Tenn. Columnist Thinks Criminals and Madmen Obey Laws

-By Warner Todd Huston

See, the thing that makes crazy people, well… crazy, is that they don’t do things like normal people. Laws, rules, even simple human kindness is meaningless to such unbalanced people. The same can be said of criminals. See the thing that makes them criminals is that they don’t obey laws. But the Memphis Commercial Appeal’s Rich Locker seems to think making a law will magically make a wacko suddenly heed reason. On top of that, to illustrate his allusion he conflates the criminal actions of a man in Alabama to laws in Tennessee in order to justify his anti-gun sentiment for Tennesseans. Will these disingenuous Old Media types never learn a love of logic?

The tragic and criminal actions of the nut in Alabama that killed 10 people in a wild traveling rampage served as Locker’s platform to advocate for a Tennessee law that would make illegal the carrying load guns in a vehicle. He seems to insinuate that such a law would have prevented the sicko in Alabama from driving around killing people. Locker neglects to reveal how some words on a piece of paper, though, could prevent a madman from transporting a loaded gun in a car.

The opening paragraph is a perfect example of this conflation in order to draw out an emotional reaction in the reader.

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Conflation Junction: Tenn. Columnist Thinks Criminals and Madmen Obey Laws”


First Kill all the Lawyers… or at Least Put Them Out of Work

-By Warner Todd Huston

With apologies to the many fine folks at law that visit these pages, and those of my colleagues on the web that ply the law, today I am going to act the vulgar Shakespearian and advocate to “first kill all the lawyers.” Well, if not kill them exactly, then at least put many of them out of work — not that I am any expert on Shakespeare, he says to a chorus of “you betchas.” Still, the thought comes to mind because of a recent story in the Boston Globe that waxes pathetic over the many Bean Town lawyers that can’t find a job in this faltering economy.

The Globe piece starts out with a pity party for Boston lawyer Paul Semenza, a lawyer for 25 years that cannot find a job in his chosen profession. He now sells sofas and mattresses in a furniture outlet. And to that I say, good riddance to Paul… at least figuratively as Paul may be the nicest fellow in the world. But may he take several thousands more of his kind with him into exile. Let them get real jobs that are useful to his fellows at long last.

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First Kill all the Lawyers… or at Least Put Them Out of Work”


Recognizing the Reality of Radical Islam

-By Frank Salvato

Newsweek recently ran an article by Fareed Zakaria titled, Learning to Live with Radical Islam. In this article Mr. Zakaria contends that in our quest to prevail over the virulent factions within the fundamentalist Islamic culture we in the West must learn to discern the radical Islamist from the jihadi; the fundamentalist from the terrorist. Although Mr. Zakaria touches on a few noteworthy points – specifically the West’s need to engage in the war of ideas – his thesis that, “We can better pursue our values if we recognize the local and cultural context, and appreciate that people want to find their own balance between freedom and order, liberty and license,” ignores the fact that jihadis rule by force and that their “cultural context” and “license” is no less than totalitarian.

That the United States and the Western nations engaged in the violent struggle against radical Islamist aggression were delinquent in engaging in the war of ideas goes without saying. In reaction to the act of war perpetrated on the United States on September 11, 2001, our government reacted to secure the nation, to strike at the heart of the governments and terrorist organizations that executed the slaughter of 3,066 innocents at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, PA. This response was immediate for the simple fact that it was within our government’s purview; it was something that could be executed with an order.

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Recognizing the Reality of Radical Islam”


We Know What’s Best For You

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Democrat-Socialists are prepared to force everyone to do what their academic planners think will be best for the new one-world government.

Two current examples of Democrat-Socialist dirigisme are “green” energy and nationalized healthcare.

During the presidential campaign primaries, Hillary Clinton proposed to institute a national health insurance plan that would compel every person to subscribe to it. The same sort of program already exists in socialist Massachusetts (with catastrophically bad results, per the Kaiser and Harvard Medical School studies). Many elements of those plans are incorporated into the President’s budget proposal.
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We Know What’s Best For You”