Where’s the Transparency? Obama’s Secret Orders Caught Media Unawares

-By Warner Todd Huston

Despite all claims to the contrary, President Obama has not been very vigilant about pursuing that idea of “transparency” he ballyhooed during the recent campaign. Politico reported on a host of documents, proclamations and executive orders that Obama has made in the last month and none of them were online. In fact, many were not even released at all to the press by the White House.

So, where is the drumbeat of outrage about the “secret presidency” we heard for the last 6 or so years?

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Where’s the Transparency? Obama’s Secret Orders Caught Media Unawares”


Sneaking Abortion Funding Into Every Bill

-By Warner Todd Huston

For some thirty years Congress has built into bills a legislative device called a “pro-life rider.” These riders prevent public funding for abortion from being slipped into bills under the radar. These riders have wide bi-partisan support having resisted elimination since the 1970s.

But, now these riders are coming under threat by the new Obama administration and his pro-abortion Democratic Party cohorts. A bi-partisan group of House members, however, seek to quash the effort by Obama and his followers to reverse a thirty-year tradition, one that conforms to the majority opinion of the American electorate.

Heath Shuler (D-NC), Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and nearly 100 of their fellow House members have signed a letter urging the House majority leaders to retain pro-life riders into the coming session and beyond. (see text of letter here, .pdf file format)

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Sneaking Abortion Funding Into Every Bill”


Philly Judge Dishonors Memory of Fallen Police Officer

-By Warner Todd Huston

On February 13, a popular Philadelphia police officer was killed in the line of duty. 25-year-old Officer John Pawlowski was shot by Rasheed Scrugs, a career criminal that was due in court the following Monday for his latest car theft bust. Since then Officer Pawlowski’s photograph was placed as a memorial in the roll-call room of the 35th District, a room that doubles as the courtroom of Municipal Court Judge Craig M. Washington.

Judge Craig M. Washington was not as reverent of the memorial as everyone else, however, and requested the photo of the fallen officer be removed from his “courtroom.” Judge Washington went to several police officials demanding that the memorial photos be removed. When police officials refused the request, Judge Washington decided to rip down the memorial himself.

Naturally, the Federal Order of Police and officers of the 35th District were not amused. In fact, they were incensed.
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Philly Judge Dishonors Memory of Fallen Police Officer”


Maryland: Tradition and History Severed With New State Song Legislation

-By Warner Todd Huston

Contrary to popular conception, the South was not united during the Civil War. Every single southern state gave thousands of their sons to the northern armies and Maryland was no different. In fact, Maryland gave more soldiers to northern armies than it did southern (About 32,981 fought for the north and only 4,039 fought for the south). But this does not mean that Maryland was a state with overwhelming northern sentiment. Federal authorities were constantly suspicious of Maryland’s pro-Confederate sentiment, so much so that they feared New President Abraham Lincoln’s travel through the state might end in an assassination attempt. Being a border state, it had an awful lot of vocal southern sentiment and that sentiment shows in the state song, “Maryland, My Maryland.”

And now, 144 years after the civil war ended, legislation is going through the Maryland state house in Annapolis to change the long standing lyrics of the state song(adopted in 1939). It seems the “Confederate sympathies” in the song are too much for lawmaker Pamela Beidle (D-Anne Arundel) to take.
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Maryland: Tradition and History Severed With New State Song Legislation”


Offending the Islamofascists

-By John Armor

It was just a minor story on Friday about a Dutch politician being denied entry to Britain at a London airport. You might well have missed it. But it was an extremely important event for its broader meaning.

Geert Wilders, a member of the Netherlands parliament, was invited to Britain by a member of the House ot Lords. The invitation asked Wilders to show his 17-minute film “Fitna,” which he made last year. Fitna juxtaposes quotes from the Koran with images of Islamofascists attacking and murdering various non-Muslims.
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Offending the Islamofascists”


Investing In High Unemployment And High Inflation

-By Dan Scott

Now that Pelosi, Obama and Reid got their so-called Economic Recovery Plan passed and signed into law what’s an investor to do? That depends upon whether you think the plan will work or not. If you don’t believe it will work as advertised then you know the economy is about to enter a period of high unemployment and high inflation in what I would call the Carter follies redux. At this point even some in the liberal MSM don’t believe it will either.
Analysis: Stimulus won’t jump-start economy By Jeannine Aversa / Associated Press
No, the big stimulus plan won’t “save or create 3.5 million jobs,” as the president and congressional Democrats claim — at least not this year.
The economy will remain feeble through 2009, analysts warn, and businesses will keep shedding jobs, though not as many as they would have without the $789 billion boost._Advertisement
The stimulus agreement, heading for final votes in the next day or so, goes to the heart of President Barrack Obama’s strategy to revive the economy and will go far in shaping how Americans view his economic leadership.
What it won’t do is quickly snap the country out of the painful recession, now in its second year.
It should provide some relief, economists say, though some argue it won’t plow enough money into the economy to prop it up.

So already the liberals are back peddling by blaming Bush for a year long recession, when in fact it’s only been 6 months or 2 quarters of negative GDP, they admit their pump priming of the economy with deficit spending isn’t going to work as advertised.
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Investing In High Unemployment And High Inflation”


Unheroic Superheroes, Watch out for the Watchmen

-By Warner Todd Huston

Who Watches The Watchers? -A Comic Book As Political Commentary and a new blockbuster movie soon to hit theaters

If you thought the last Batman movie, The Dark Knight, was dark and cynical, wait until you see Watchmen, arriving in theaters on March 6, 2009. Brooding Bruce Wayne will have nothing on a “hero” that rapes his sidekick, another one that has no interest in mankind at all, one that is a megalomaniac, one that is psychotic, and one that is overweight and sexually impotent all set against a backdrop of a United States that is many shades of despair and evil. It makes Batman, The Dark Knight, seem like a festival of sweetness and light. This is the Watchmen, soon to be released by Warner Brothers. If this new flick at all follows that anti-American, nihilism of the original comic books we are in for some dark stuff, indeed.

Why do contemporary artists all seem to think the end of the world is nigh? Why has art become a thing of ugliness, instead of light? With all the beautiful things we see every day, the delicacy of a flower, the turn of a woman’s arm, the grace of a bird in flight, we are treated only to the bizarre and horrid by our artists. These days we see sculptures that look like molecular mistakes writ large. We live in architecture with the image of a jumble of blocks thrown to the ground in the midst of a temper tantrum by a gigantic, petulant child. We view paintings that appear more accidental than planned. We have movies full of violence and anti-social behavior. On the radio we hear music that celebrates all the worst in man. We even have comic books that belittle heroism, that deconstruct the good and exceptional turning their heroes as cartoonishly flawed as the most obscene head case on the Jerry Springer Show.

When did entertainment turn so dark?

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Unheroic Superheroes, Watch out for the Watchmen”


This is Why Government is Legalized Theft

-By Warner Todd Huston


Imagine you are the head of a company that loses a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Then imagine the public outcry if you announced that you were going to raise your prices to pay off the lawsuit. Would the public get incensed? Would you lose business? Likely both. It’s even somewhat likely in this litigious climate in which we live that the decision to raise prices to payoff the lawsuit would spawn yet another lawsuit against you. Ah, but we are talking business, aren’t we?

Now imagine that you are a city government and a court finds out that you’ve ripped off hundreds of thousands of your city water customers by wildly overcharging them for installing new fire hydrants. Imagine that you’ve been ordered by the courts to rebate $22 million to those city water customers. And then imagine that you announce that the rebates will be paid for by taxing the city water at an even higher rate than before.

In other words, you, the city, will be expecting the water customers to pay for their own rebates by charging them higher rates to fund that same rebate. Yes, the same “customers” that have no competition for water and no choice but to pay through the nose will be paying themselves their own rebate.

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This is Why Government is Legalized Theft”


The New Yorker: Obama Like Gandhi

-By Warner Todd Huston

We’ve seen the Obamacized media call President Obama Lincoln, we’ve heard him called FDR and Kennedy, we’ve been informed that he gives newsers a thrill up their leg. The media has even ridiculously called Barack Obama a “light worker.” He is The One, their Obammessiah. Well, we can now add another undue adulation to the media’s obsession of finding great figures to compare Obama to: Mahatma Gandhi. At least according to the New Yorker’s Hendrick Hertzberg he is, anyway.

In a piece from February 23, headlined “Partisanship, by the bye,” Hertzberg likened Obama’s work on the so-called stimulus bill to a “Gandhian” effort because it is going so swimmingly for The One.

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The New Yorker: Obama Like Gandhi”


Retiree Makes Own Electric Car — Becomes Tax Cheat and Enviro Criminal

-By Warner Todd Huston

A retiree from NASA who resides in Texas tinkering around with spare parts, a friend’s junked VW Beetle, with the sponsorship of a battery maker, invented his own electric car. It’s that ol’ American ingenuity at work (I won’t say Yankee ingenuity since the fellow is in Texas). We should applaud him, right? Not so fast.

Like you, I celebrate the garage inventor, the sort of creature that makes Apple computer a household name. I love the fact that as an American one can come up with an idea, build it, and maybe even get rich from it. But, let’s think about this story a bit, shall we? It becomes one of every good deed not going unpunished.

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Retiree Makes Own Electric Car — Becomes Tax Cheat and Enviro Criminal”


Chuck Schumer: Liar, Propagandist, Anti-American, Killer of Free Speech

-By Warner Todd Huston

Usually I don’t go for the hard-edged treatment of politicians as my headline here does. I don’t often call individuals “liars” and the like, though I’ve been known to do so on occasion. Generally, I prefer to assume that those that oppose my views are truthfully advocating for deep held beliefs and not using lies and obfuscation to get there — some exceptions to that, of course. I am not really the biggest fan of the wild-eyed, Olbermannesque sort of bombast and name-calling.

But, after what Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said of his desire to push the ill-conceived “Fairness Doctrine” down our throats, I just can’t see any other explanation of his motives. Every single word he said on this issue was convoluted, unAmerican, illogical and meant solely as a cynical means to his ends of quashing free political speech so that his party could consolidate it’s domination of American politics.

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Chuck Schumer: Liar, Propagandist, Anti-American, Killer of Free Speech”


AP: Advertising Kids ‘E-Book’ Obama Indoctrination Effort

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press is taken with the new e-book full of letters to President Obama published by the National Education Association (NEA) a liberal teachers union. Naturally, all the kids in this book are filled to overflowing with leftist talking points like pushing the anti-military angle — one kid even said he was “very luckey because I am not part of a military family.”

The kids were all indoctrinated with concern over global warming, infused with unthinking anti-war sentiment, disdain for our soldiers, and enthusiastic for Father Obama and his big government machine. Sadly, it appears that not one of these kids have been taught by their teachers about liberty, freedom, personal responsibility and American principles.

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AP: Advertising Kids ‘E-Book’ Obama Indoctrination Effort”


Defending the Pope

-By Selwyn Duke

Pope Benedict XVI has found himself in a maelstrom of controversy over his lifting of the excommunication of Richard Williamson, an illegally-consecrated prelate who has downplayed the magnitude of the Holocaust. The Pope has been scored by the media, certain Jewish groups and even some fellow Catholics, yet few truly understand what they’re criticizing. Let’s examine the matter.

There is no question that Williamson has made some outrageous statements. For instance, first we have the Holocaust comment that put him on the radar screen:

“I think the most serious conclude that between 200,000 to 300,000 perished in Nazi concentration camps, but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber. I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against, 6 million Jews having been gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.”
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Defending the Pope”


Obama to Hold ‘Fiscal Responsibility Summit’… So Who’s Gonna Teach HIM?

-By Warner Todd Huston

In January, then president-elect Obama announced that sometime in February he intended to hold what he was calling a “fiscal responsibility summit” as he would be planning his proposal for the 2010 budget. Apparently it will be held on February 23, most likely at the White House.

But first we have the stimulus bill that Obama most likely plans to sign on February 17. That in mind, I ask the question: what does Barack Obama know of “fiscal responsibility”?

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Obama to Hold ‘Fiscal Responsibility Summit’… So Who’s Gonna Teach HIM?”


UAW Walks Out on GM During Bailout Negotiations

-By Warner Todd Huston

When the Auto Bailout was approved by Congress one of the stipulations was that the automakers had to get concessions from the unions.

So, in an attempt to abide by Congress’ demands, GM has been in negotiations with the United Auto Workers to make the requisite deals. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as if the UAW is in the mood for making any deals, at least if it involves any cuts for them. Consequently the UAW has decided to walk out on further negotiations.

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UAW Walks Out on GM During Bailout Negotiations”


Stimulus: Congress rejected mandated open access/net neutrality; affirmed reasonable network management

-By Scott Cleland

In promoting the important goals of extending broadband to all Americans and stimulating the economy, Congress has rejected attempts by net neutrality regulation proponents to broadly impose open access or net neutrality requirements on the marketplace at large via the economic stimulus bill. The Congress obviously understood that would not be an economic stimulus, but a wrong-headed, counter-productive depressant to necessary private broadband investment (see the stimulus bill).

Importantly, Congress implicitly affirmed the necessity for “reasonable network management” and also implicitly rejected the core end-to-end network principle of the net neutrality movement — where they define/accuse any smart network management/innovation as anti-competitive discrimination or infringement of free speech.
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Stimulus: Congress rejected mandated open access/net neutrality; affirmed reasonable network management”


It’s Not Obama’s “Stimulus” Bill

-By Frank Salvato

Now that the behemoth “stimulus” package has been reconciled in conference it appears that we, the taxpayers, will be saddled with financing a superfluity of special interest projects and entitlements. From programs that serve to combat sexually transmitted diseases and facilitate smoking prevention initiatives to the $30 million earmarked – yes, earmarked – for a wetlands restoration project meant to protect the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse, We the People have been bamboozled into financing the biggest raid on the US Treasury in the history of our nation. But before we grab the pitchforks and the torches and start marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House in protest, we should consider the facts surrounding the crafting of this abysmal piece of pork legislation.

The American citizenry has employed the convenient practice of blaming the President of the United States for all things enacted or ignored by government. This practice has been facilitated by the mainstream media for decades, if not since the birth of our nation. It can be argued that we have fallen into this practice primarily because it is easier and less time consuming than keeping tabs on each of the 535 voting members of Congress. But in taking the less engaged and less accurate approach to holding our elected officials accountable we perpetuate the misconception that the Executive Branch is all powerful. In fact, it is the Legislative Branch of our government that is charged – exclusively – with the tasks of finance and legislation.

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It’s Not Obama’s “Stimulus” Bill”


Chicago Suburban Democrats Throw Homeless Man off Ballot

-By Warner Todd Huston

Savor that headline, will you? The Democratic stronghold of Oak Park, home of trendy downtown shops and many Obama signs, is working with its lawyers to keep a homeless man off the ballot for the next village election.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Oak Park’s village board voted 2-1 to prevent Daniel Fore from running for village trustee on the April 7 ballot because he does not have a residential address. Fore is, however, registered to vote in Cook County using the address of an Oak Park relative and has been a well known citizen of the area since the 1970s.

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Chicago Suburban Democrats Throw Homeless Man off Ballot”


Don’t Blame President Obama

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The simple truth is that no president can pull an economy out of recession or guarantee continuous prosperity.

Our nation has become hypnotized by the PR hype surrounding all presidents. The proposed stimulus plan almost certainly will do little to boost employment, but it will give a huge boost to inflation. In our economic ignorance, we desperately want to believe that presidents can take steps to manage the economy back to low unemployment and prosperity. We therefore demand action, even if such action always leads to inflation that makes economic problems worse.

Chalk the misperception up to President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR). He was the first president to operate on the hubristic presumption that a president could plan and successfully manage the entire economy to prosperity by imposing the liberal-progressive ideology of social justice. Even Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., one of President Roosevelt’s most sycophantic eulogizers, was compelled to tie the New Deal to what he termed the imperial presidency.
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Don’t Blame President Obama”


Congress: Don’t Kill the Internet’s Golden Goose — Welcoming Private Investment Capital

-By Scott Cleland

It is more important what Congress does not do — than what it does do — concerning the final language on broadband in the pending economic stimulus bill.

It is critical for economic growth and job creation for Congress not to derail the market competition and private investment dynamic, which is currently very successful for 90+% of the country, in trying to achieve broadband open access for the <10% of the country that does not have it, or enough of it.

Economically-depressing, open access/net neutrality restrictions on broadband investment are counter-productive in an economic stimulus package.
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Congress: Don’t Kill the Internet’s Golden Goose — Welcoming Private Investment Capital”


When Did Obama Decide to Turn Against Himself?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Shocking video of Obama campaign promises that he wantonly violated with this stimulus bill!

We were told by every love struck denizen of the Old Media that Barack Obama was bringing a “new” politics to Washington. He was, we were assured, a candidate that was post-partisan, post-racial, and anti-business-as-usual. We were told we could bank on his campaign promises and that he wasn’t like any other politician.

Unfortunately, President Obama seems to have summarily dismissed the promises of candidate Obama, at least as far as this stimulus bill is concerned.

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When Did Obama Decide to Turn Against Himself?”


‘Name That Party’ Reaches House Floor

-By Warner Todd Huston

We have for a few years now been chronicling the constant failure of the media to label a criminal or troubled politician with his party affiliation when that politician is a Democrat, we all know. Every couple of days we detail a new “name that party” story where an Old Media outlet reports on a Democrat politician arrested, convicted, or accused of a crime though he seems never to be labeled as such. We’ve also noted many times the opposite tale where a recalcitrant pol that happens to be a Republican finds his party receiving top billing in the Old Media. We have dozens and dozens of examples.

Well, it appears that at least one member of Congress has noticed the same thing and has mentioned the media’s penchant for Democrat Party passing on the floor of the House of Representatives. The Hill’s Briefing Room blog gives us the story.

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‘Name That Party’ Reaches House Floor”


Boehner: Thanks to Dems, We Don’t Have Time to Let America Know What’s in This Stimulus Bill

Representative John Boehner (R-OH), Minority leader of the House has been very good on Obama’s Generational Debt Bill — obscenely known as the “stimulus bill.” Here he is scolding Democrats for not giving Congress time to even read this 1,100 page bill. Boehner contends that “not one member has read.”

Boehner deserves a pat on the back for his strong stance against this bill.


Houston, We Have a Problem

-By Nancy Salvato

64 percent of all students engage in one of three of the most serious cheating behaviors — copying from another student’s work, using cheat notes or helping someone else cheat.”

I wonder how many people find the above statistic the least bit surprising. More importantly, I’m curious as to how it has come to this? Why do students cheat in such large numbers?

I would guess that a substantial portion of these cheaters use “pre-conventional” thinking skills. According to Kohlberg’s Moral Stages of Development, cheaters see morality as something external to themselves, as something that people say they must do -so when they break the rules, it is with the intention of not getting caught. What is right to them is what meets their own interests. They haven’t internalized the values of the family or community. When they follow the law, it is only because they don’t want to get into trouble. Their behaviors as members of our society depend on external controls.
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Houston, We Have a Problem”


Things I Don’t Want to Write About

-By John Armor

When you write a weekly column for 15 years, there comes a time when you have a column due, and only a handful of subjects you don’t want to write about in your knapsack. Judge for yourself whether you want to read about a stolen hat, a blocked intestine, a frozen underground pipe, or how cold it’s been the last two weeks.
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Things I Don’t Want to Write About”


An Interview With Richard Nadler from 2007

I did an interview with Richard Nadler, President of the nonprofit think tank Americas Majority a few years ago that I’d like to add to this series. This interview was conducted at the 2007 Conservative Leadership Conference.

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.


Whatdidhesayagain?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Jimmy over at Deciever.com noticed a funny disconnect in Senator Judd Greg’s (R-NH) little tap dance as he was announcing that he wanted out of taking President Obama’s offer to become Secretary of Commerce.

When the Associated Press asked Gregg to share the results of his soul-searching, this is what he came up with:

“For 30 years, I’ve been my own person in charge of my own views, and I guess I hadn’t really focused on the job of working for somebody else and carrying their views, and so this is basically where it came out.”

If I were an arrogant jackass, this is what I might call “a teachable moment.” You see, it’s a really, really good thing that Judd Gregg realized this deep truth about himself and decided to go back to the Senate, where his job has always been to work for somebody else and carry their views.

You know — his constituents? The people of New Hampshire? Memba’ them?

I generally approve of Senator Gregg… but I gotta admit, Jimmy pegged a hilarious disconnect there!