A fait accompli

"Justice Department shields Holder from prosecution after contempt vote"

Yep, the very department that Attorney General Eric "Neutral, leaning towards favorable" Holder heads up is claiming with straight faces that refusing to honor a Congressional subpoena and being cited for criminal contenpt of Congress (by a bipartisan vote, no less) for doing so "does not constitute a crime".

What an absolute travesty of "justice".  Let's see Joe or Jane Q. Citizen get the same consideration from the Feds the next time they decide to defy a lawful subpoena.

This news means that the House of Representatives will now have to pursue a lawsuit in civil court to compel Holder to produce the documents he's been hiding, presumably to save both his and Obama's rear ends.  They must be awfully explosive for the pair to be forced to go to these ends.

Back on the horse

After going through several personal challenges over the last couple of years, we finally feel ready and able to devote some time and energy to this site.  We apologize for taking so long to get our act together; it was unfortunately necessary to concentrate on our health and well-being instead of outside interests.  Please pardon our dust as we get back up to speed, and we hope to once again earn your readership and trust.  Onward, then.

Let's see, what sorts of events have occurred during our extended absence?  Surely things have changed and the maddening situations about which we previously wrote no longer occur, right?  Well, no, as a quick review of just today's news tells us:

1.  The House Government and Oversight Reform Committee has this afternoon voted to hold Attorney General Eric "Neutral, leaning towards favorable" Holder in contempt of that body for refusing to provide documents and emails pertaining to the "Fast and Furious" scandal, despite a last-minute (and surprise) assertion of executive privilege by President Obama (who as a Presidential candidate excoriated Bush 43 for doing the exact same thing).  

Both men have previously stated (in the case of Mr. Holder, under oath) that they knew absolutely nothing until quite late in the game about this amateurish and stumblebum "operation" (in the view of many a thinly-disguised PR stunt that, had it somehow succeeded, would have been used as a propaganda tool to push for more gun control for law-abiding Americans) that has cost the lives of at least two American law-enforcement officers, not to mention those of countless innocent Mexican citizens.  So, pray tell, exactly which of these highly sensitive communications between minions in the Executive Branch, concerning an operation about which this pair apparently hadn't a clue, need protection from Congressional oversight?  Desperate measures indeed.

By the way, as far as we can determine not one person to date has lost their job over this utter debacle.  It's good to be a Federal government employee.


2.  A former head prosecutor in the Baltimore (wildly anti-lawful gun city in wildly anti-lawful gun Maryland) State's Attorney's office, the person who decided whether or not to go after people for gun crimes (and, judging by the comments to the story, an absolute jerk who insisted on charging otherwise law-abiding people to the max for such "crimes" as stopping for lunch in the city while in the middle of transporting an unloaded, cased firearm in their vehicle from Pennsylvania to North Carolina), was himself arrested last Friday night after cops stopped him for a traffic violation and discovered he had a loaded pistol in his car's center console:

"Matthew Fraling, 49, who spent 23 years as a city prosecutor and oversaw prosecutions of gun offenders for his final two years, was pulled over on Friday night at about 11:45 p.m. in the 2500 block of Guilford Ave. after an officer in an unmarked vehicle began following him.

The officer, Det. Kenneth Ramberg, wrote in charging documents that Fraling was pulled over after he crossed the center line, and he initially told the officer he did not have any weapons on him or in the vehicle. Ramberg asked Fraling to step out of the vehicle and again asked if there were any guns, and Fraling said he had one in the vehicle's center console for which he did not have a permit to carry."

We have to agree with one of the wags who commented - Mr. Fraling has undoubtedly now switched his position and whole-heartedly supports the idea of lawful firearm carry in the backwards state of our birth.

(h/t to NJT)

Start making the popcorn

John Solomon of The Daily Beast is reporting that the Senate Judiciary Committee has reached a deal that will allow Ken Melson, the acting head of the ATF, to testify before that body next month about the disastrous "Project Gunwalker" debacle that has claimed the lives of at least two U.S. law enforcement agents as well as those of countless innocent Mexican citizens.

Since Mr. Melson has already stood up for himself by refusing to be the fall guy and resign his position amid the fallout from the botched "investigation", he will presumably be quite eager to explain in great detail exactly who among his superiors at Justice (and at State, since this mess involved an international border) knew about and authorized allowing thousands of straw-purchased guns to be sent to Mexico over the objections of street-level ATF agents and even the gun dealers themselves. 

Bob Owens of Pajamas Media theorizes about the possible repercussions from Melson's upcoming appearance.  We think Owens's third scenario is the one most likely to come about - that Attorney General Eric "Neutral, leaning towards favorable" Holder will ultimately be held accountable over this.  Why?  We think it's because Senator Chuck Grassley smells important blood in the water, otherwise he wouldn't have paid the relatively high price he did (releasing holds on three Obama nominees) for securing Melson's on-the-record testimony.  Representative Darrell Issa is also apparently convinced (and is working like mad to prove) that Holder perjured himself when he testified in front of Issa that he didn't know about the failed scheme until it broke in the national news. 

Be sure to tune in for this particular hearing.  We look forward to watching the roaches scurry away from the light.

A new Obamacare "glitch" rears its ugly head

"WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed."

Another maddening detail that proves just how hastily and shoddily this unconstitutional law was constructed. Thank you so much, Nancy "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy" Pelosi.  Your scheme worked to perfection.  Except for that whole avoiding controversy thing, of course.

We wonder how many other nasty surprises like this one are lurking around just waiting to be discovered in that execrable piece of legislation (rammed down our throats by the Senate in the dark of night on Christmas Eve precisely because of the presence of such ill-conceived "twists").

Health care "reform" is on the ropes

The chances of unconstitutional Obamacare remaining the law of the land aren't looking too good these days:

"Judges on a federal appeals court panel on Wednesday repeatedly raised questions about President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, expressing unease with the requirement that virtually all Americans carry health insurance or face penalties."

Dear Leader's choice to defend the case once again isn't helping matters any, either:

"Acting U.S. Solicitor Neal Katyal sought to ease their concerns by saying the legislative branch can only exercise its powers to regulate commerce if it will have a substantial effect on the economy and solve a national, not local, problem."

First of all, it's not "regulating" free commerce if you make people buy something they don't want to own.  That would be "forcing" government-mandated commerce.

Secondly, who would get to decide what constitutes a "national problem?  Congress, of course, the very same body that would then supposedly solve those dire issues by requiring that people purchase something.  Nope, no conflict of interest there. 

Thirdly, Mr. Katyal's overbroad argument could be stretched in any number of ways to justify forcing Americans to do any number of things they don't wish.  How about solving a "national problem" of an overabundance of orange juice, for example, by making people buy a certain quantity every month, thus avoiding a price plunge and keeping a multi-billion dollar industry in business?  Especially if, you know, some of the growers, producers and distributors are big donors to whatever party happened to be in control at the time. 

In the same vein, maybe Congress could require that every household buy one Government General Motors car every two years, which would make GM profitable and protect the taxpayers' current (forced) investment in the company. 

What about making people buy $500 or so worth of U.S. made electronic devices every year to stimulate the economy and help harden that industry against cheap foreign competition?  Such a mandate would certainly have a "substantial effect on the economy".

The possibilities for abusing this kind of unlimited and unchecked power are endless, which is precisely why the Founders expressly limited the authority of the Federal government in the first place.  The health care law needs to be overturned for lots of reasons, but protecting the citizens from a predatory Congress intent on arbitrarily picking their pockets "for your own good" by making them purchase whatever that body wishes to is the most critical one.

Your tax dollars at work

Remember when we were informed by those in power that General Motors (as opposed to the thousands of other businesses in the same dire financial straits at the time) was "too big to fail", which is why those feckless martinets subsequently used our tax dollars (confiscated from us on pain of imprisonment) to acquire 33% of the company?

Well, here's the return on our forced "investment":

"In late 2010, General Motors agreed to sponsor a propaganda film celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP made film titled (translated to English) 'The Birth of a Party' or 'The Great Achievement of Founding the Party' is set to premiere all over the Communist nation on June 15 reported China AutoWeb last September."

We currently drive two Chevrolets.  They are for sure the last GM products we will ever own.

ALL sides want your civil liberties to disappear

Just some of the latest assaults on everyone's basic freedoms from the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government:


1.  Charles Kadlec of Forbes magazine reports that President Obama is apparently about to issue an executive order requiring any company (no matter what size) competing for a government contract, along with its senior officers (such as the owner if the firm is a sole proprietorship) and political action committee (if one exists), to generate a single report listing all contributions these parties may have made to political parties and candidates for the last two years.

"Similar disclosure requirements were in a bill that last year’s Democratic Senate was unwilling to pass. By signing the order, President Obama would override the democratic process and rule, instead, by decree."

Mr. Kadlec is quite correct when he opines that this kind of information in a single easily-accessible government database will almost certainly be misused by Dear Leader to arbitrarily deny contract awards to any firms who happened to contribute to his political opponents. 


2.  In other chilling Dear Leader news, his administration has filed a memo in a criminal case maintaining "the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) gives judges the right to censor and withhold material that is 'unclassified'.'" 

Sorry, White House sycophants who are nominally all for "transparency".  Either material is classified or it isn't.  If the latter, common peasants (and especially criminal defendants, as in the case in which the memo was submitted) have every right to request and look at it.  We paid for it, after all.  The defendant's attorneys certainly agree:

"CIPA authorizes substitutions only for 'classified information,' not unclassified information."

Indeed, the CIPA makes no mention of "unclassified" materials being protected, nor does the word "unclassified" even appear in its text." 

Having something be that legally crystal clear doesn't mean the judiciary will pay the slightest bit of attention, as the next story shows us.


3.  The Indiana Supreme Court has overturned a cornerstone of American and English common law that has been in place as far back as 1215 by ruling that residents of that state have no right to resist an unlawful police entry into their home:

"In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry.

'We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,' David said."

And hence the problem with viewing the Constitution as a "living, breathing document" that only means whatever those currently wearing the black robes thinks it means through their ideological prisms, rather than their strictly interpreting the plain text of the document.

We wonder what "modern" opinions Justice David holds on the other absolute liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights such as freedom of speech and the right to a speedy trial, but fear those pronouncements would prove just as ludicrous. 


4.  We have just noticed that U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) last year introduced S. 3081, legislation that would permit the President to imprison anyone, even U.S. citizens, without charge or trial indefinitely merely by designating those people "enemy belligerents".

This proposed law almost certainly would not pass judicial review on Fifth Amendment grounds (except if Indiana Supreme Court Justice Steven David were to rule on the issue, no doubt), but the fact that someone who was held captive without trial for five and a half years in an undeclared war would think this legislation is a good idea simply boggles the mind.

You give up your rights first, Senator

New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, along with a few other members of Congress, wants to make it illegal for people placed on a top-secret document known as the "terror watch list" to buy or possess firearms.

That sounds pretty reasonable on the surface, at least until one realizes that

1.  Such people haven't even been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one.

2.  The government won't list the criteria they use for putting someone on that watch list, what happens to the people so labeled or the process by which an innocent person placed on it by mistake might get off it.

3.  There apparently hasn't been a single incident of such a listed person buying a firearm and then using it even in a garden-variety criminal act, much less a "terror" incident:

"There is no public information about anyone on the watch list who was allowed to buy a firearm using it in a crime."

4.  Finally (and most importantly), does anyone else have a problem with a government official having the sole power to arbitrarily designate, using a secret process unknown to just about everyone, a person as a "terror suspect" in order to deny them their Constitutional rights without any due process whatsoever?  What about denying them free speech?  Indefinite detention without charges being filed?  Cruel and unusual punishment to obtain information about terror plots?  Under this argument, those steps would be perfectly OK as well.

"'This is a homeland security issue, not a gun issue, and there's no reason we shouldn't be able to stop a terrorist from buying a dangerous weapon in the United States,' Lautenberg told the AP."

No reason except the Constitution, thankfully, which prevents overweening bureaucrats and politicians from imposing their unlawful will on the peasants under the guise of "homeland security" and "it's really for your benefit so shut up and submit to whatever we want you to".

Lautenberg would have been a model apparatchik in the old Soviet Union.

Not an auspicious beginning

The incoming head of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has announced that one of her top priorities in that position will be to push legislation requiring all firearm transfers between law-abiding individuals to go through a licensed gun dealer:

"'It is outrageous that gun buyers evade the background check system every day, even in broad daylight,' Wasserman Schultz said Monday at a gun reform rally in Miami sponsored by Mayors Against Illegal Guns."

Nobody's evading anything, ma'am.  Law-abiding people exercising their Second Amendment right to purchase, own and carry a firearm without first having to beg the government for permission aren't criminals, as much as you would like to make them out to be.

And just why does Ms. Wasserman Schultz wish to impose this sort of burdensome process on the peasantry?

"The issue of gun reform rose in prominence in January after a shooting rampage in Tucson left six people dead and 13 others injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), a close friend to Wasserman Schultz.

The suspect arrested in the shootings, Jared Lee Loughner, had been expelled from community college for disturbing behavior and denied entrance to the military for a history of drug abuse. Yet he was able to buy a firearm and high-capacity ammunition magazines from local, licensed gun dealers."  (Emphasis ours)

So an unlicensed transaction wasn't at all to blame for this incident, but to prevent a repeat of the tragedy we must get rid of unlicensed transactions. 

We're sure that argument makes perfect sense to someone besides Ms. Wasserman Schultz.  We wish her luck finding those few individuals.

A false "parole"

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-IL, is apparently planning to go on a rock star-like 20-city tour to force Dear Leader's feet to the fire over the president's campaign promise to deliver a blanket amnesty to millions of immigrants (of all races) living here illegally.

As part of this farcical publicity event Gutierrez has now introduced the term "parole-in-place" to replace the (rightly) skeptically-viewed word "amnesty", as the former somehow infers that a penalty will be assessed on the people who thumbed their noses at immigration law and jumped the line ahead of the millions of people worldwide patiently waiting to come here the legal way.  A closer look at the plan Gutierrez is proposing reveals that nothing could be further from the truth:

"Under such a plan, Gutierrez explained, parents who are illegally in the U.S. but whose children were born in this country could come forward, go through a background check “and if it’s found that you haven’t violated any other law but immigration status,” you’d be 'frozen' and not deported."

In other words, arrive here illegally and immediately have a child and you would be able to stay indefinitely without so much as a fine, and even eventually apply for permanent resident status once those children turn 21.  That sure is some sweet "parole" indeed.

"Many of the immigrants attending the event were there with young children and babies."

But whenever reasonable people point out the very real concept of "anchor babies" those individuals are immediately labeled as being somehow racist towards Latinos.  This knee-jerk characterization is a complete fallacy, of course, as such kids are not only of Hispanic descent but also Chinese, Turkish and Irish, to name just a few.

Need some specific examples?  How about this story out of California, in which several houses in the city of San Gabriel were busted for hosting Chinese women who came here solely to have their children on American soil, after which the moms happily flew back to their home country with a newly minted U.S. citizen, with all the rights and privileges that status entails of course:

"Immigration experts say they can only guess why well-to-do Chinese women are so eager to get United States passports for their babies, but they suspect it is largely as a kind of insurance policy should they need to move."

How nice that the American peasant can provide such a valuable service for those matrons.

Another one?  Here's an upscale hotel in New York City which advertises month-long stays for Turkish women planning to do the very same thing as the Chinese women.  The place even throws in a free stroller and airport transfer:

"The Marmara Manhattan, a New York hotel which is part of the Turkish warmth chain, exploits the 14th amendment to the US constitution, which points out that all children born on American soil 'are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside'."

...

"Though the price is an inexpensive and easy one to pay for US citizenship. Many will ultimately use the newborn, known as an “anchor baby”, a stepping stone for the immigration of extended family. The hotel has up to now sold 15 of the packages."

Move along, citizen.  No anchor baby abuse going on here.

Look, we are extremely sympathetic to the plight of poor and oppressed people the world over, and even well-off individuals who reside in dictatorships or politically unstable nations that place restrictions on their freedoms.  The United States, however, simply can't accept everyone who manages to arrive here, and we must enforce our borders and immigration laws to prevent our nation from experiencing utter chaos.

Sorry, Mr. Gutierrez, that's the way it's going to have to be.  Good luck convincing the American people otherwise.

More odious details emerge from the "fog" of Obamacare

"Investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee have discovered that a little-known provision in the national health care law has allowed the federal government to pay nearly $2 billion to unions, state public employee systems, and big corporations to subsidize health coverage costs for early retirees. At the current rate of payment, the $5 billion appropriated for the program could be exhausted well before it is set to expire."

Byron York has the details.

In a nutshell, American workers will now be forced to pay for the health care expenses of others who have chosen to retire early (mostly union members and public employees - in other words, core Democratic supporters), and it's not going to help save the taxpayers any money.  As a matter of fact, the program almost certainly will end up blowing past its multi-billion dollar budget well before its scheduled expiration in January 2014.

No wonder liberal Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi wanted to hurriedly ram this 2000+ page Ponzi scheme through Congress before anyone got a chance to read it at all, much less thoroughly.

According to Pelosi, we just had "to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy".  Well, the peasants are certainly finding out to their utter disgust exactly what's in it, but the controversy sure isn't going away anytime soon.

We wonder what else will be rearing its collectivist head out of that utter morass of a law before it can be repealed by the new Congress.

It wasn't a suggestion, fellows

"A spokesman for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has confirmed that Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Assistant Director Kenneth Melson did not produce documents and information related to the unfolding Project Gunrunner story that were requested 'as soon as possible, but no later than 5:00 p.m. on March 30, 2011' by Chairman Darrell Issa."

(Codrea)

We find it amazingly ironic that a thuggish government agency so historically eager to put average gun stores (most of which try their level best to comply with the Byzantine, arbitrary and ever-changing ATF rulebook) out of business over the most minor of paperwork errors has the unmitigated gall to completely stonewall a Congressional committee trying to answer the simple question of "Who in the ATF administration signed off on actively allowing thousands of known straw-purchased firearms to be smuggled into Mexico for the purpose of arming the drug cartels in that country, causing the deaths of untold Mexican citizens and at least two U.S. law-enforcement officers?"

The fact that the ATF brass, led by Acting Director Ken Melson, has blatantly ignored the lawful requests of both a House of Representatives committee chairman as well as the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee speaks volumes about the depth of their involvement in this ongoing scandal.

A personal question for Mr. Melson - is covering the rear ends of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, Attorney General Eric "Neutral, leaning towards favorable" Holder, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and possibly President Obama himself really worth losing your career (and now very possibly your freedom) over?

An example of a "reasonable" gun law "fix"

Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY, a reliable anti-gun legislator (at least for the peasants.  This naked hypocrite at least at one time held an unrestricted New York City concealed carry permit, a document unobtainable to all but the rich, famous and politically-connected there), has introduced the "Fix Guns Check Act of 2011", which among other things would bar a person from owning and carrying a firearm merely for a single arrest (whether or not there was a subsequent conviction) for drug possession within a five-year period.

Any arrest.  This means that a person given a misdemeanor ticket (which is technically an arrest) for possession of a small amount of marijuana, regardless of whether he or she was armed at the time, would automatically void that person's right to own and carry a firearm.  The same would go for a person busted for a prescription drug violation that was later dropped because the matter was cleared up, or someone who unwittingly found themselves in the same room or vehicle with a person in possession.  And certain abusive police officers of course never claim to have found drugs on someone on whom they want to inflict legal trouble, or plant drugs on a crime scene to get themselves out of a jam of their own making.  Oh, no.

We won't even mention the conflict between federal laws regarding possession and states that permit the medicinal usage of marijuana this law would cause.  Wouldn't a court have loads of fun sorting that out?

Actually, the proposed law doesn't require the person to be caught with a usable amount of drugs or even be arrested to become a prohibited person under its auspices:

"The bill’s definition of an 'unlawful user' also includes anyone arrested for drug paraphernalia within the past five years if the paraphernalia is found have traces of a drug, and those who make an 'admission' to using or possessing a controlled substance in the past five years. The meaning of 'admission,' however, is not defined."

Of course it isn't.  This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to deny millions of people their Second Amendment rights in one fell swoop without even the hint of due process.

Nice try, Chuck.  Our nation neither needs nor wants your unconstitutional "fixes".  Thanks for playing anyway.


(link via Unc)

The fog has lifted, exposing the wreck for all to see

"We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy"

- former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on the House floor last March, as she attempted to justify cutting off debate over the health care Ponzi scheme that was ultimately forced down our collective throats.

Well, we're all now "finding out" what's in that absolute nightmare of a law and the news sure isn't getting any better, according to this editorial in yesterday's Cincinnati Enquirer.  It's worth your time to check out.

Another presidential promise swirls down the drain

"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation"

...

"As President, I will not assert a constitutional authority to deploy troops in a manner contrary to an express limit imposed by Congress and adopted into law."

Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, December 20, 2007, questioned in a Boston Globe interview about the possibility of his having to bomb Iran should he be elected.

Say what you will about President George W. Bush and the wisdom of invading Iraq (we didn't agree with the decision much either), but he at least sought and received Congressional approval before embarking on that course of action.  Dear Leader simply took a few minutes out of his latest vacation in Rio to let us know about his "unilateral authorization" via a "presumptuous and flippant" radio announcement rather than a serious Oval Office address like President Bush chose to deliver in 2003.

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner, who authored the above description of the president's quiet little weekend aside, further expounds on the president's pattern of shattering his campaign vows:

"This is a president who has repeatedly shredded the clear meaning of words in order to deny breaking promises he has clearly broken -- consider his continued blatant falsehoods on tax increases and his hiring of lobbyists."

It's nice to see that mainstream journalists are now finally beginning to notice that the Emperor is strutting around quite starkers.  When will Dear Leader's legions of star-struck supporters (many of whom specifically voted for him because of his constant bashing of Bush on the war issue and his self-promotion as a person who wouldn't engage in the same sorts of acts) do the same?

One man alone apparently now decides which laws govern us

President Obama has now taken the unprecedented step of unilaterally ordering the Justice Department to not defend a federal law under court challenge, in this case the Defense of Marriage Act.

As always with such matters concerning "Justice", Attorney General Eric Holder is leading the charge in trampling the rule of law: 

"'[T]he President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny,'  Mr. Holder said. 'The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination.'"

Why, we don't need courts at all anymore in this country.   Messrs. Obama and Holder have apparently decided that they are the final arbiters about which laws are constitutional and which aren't, and the other two branches of government can simply go suck eggs.

This overreaching of authority on the part of Dear Leader has nothing to do with the issue of gay marriage, no matter what side of that contentious issue one favors, but rather is all about a rogue executive branch arrogantly ignoring a statute which was enacted by Congress, signed into law by a president and which has not to date been struck down by a court.

In other words, Dear Leader has just circumvented our entire system of government by basically telling the nation's law enforcement department not to enforce a law.  It doesn't matter one bit if that statute concerns a hot-button issue such as gay rights or such a mundane one as the maximum weight of a semitrailer on the interstate - it's the law of the land until it is repealed or struck down, and the Justice Department is duty bound to prosecute under its auspices and defend any challenges to it in court.

Until today, as one more bit of our Constitution is flagrantly discarded by this community organizer and his minions.

The craziest thing about this whole story is that Dear Leader still can't bring himself to take a position one way or the other on the very issue at hand:

"The White House says President Barack Obama is "grappling" with his personal views on gay marriage even as he's ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of a law that bans it."

The only thing about this entire matter he's "grappling" about is the fact that his liberal base overwhelmingly supports gay marriage while at the same time his black voter base overwhelmingly does not.  He needs both constituencies to win reelection in 2012, so it will be very interesting to watch him squirm, vacillate and ultimately not take a position one way or the other.  Such indecisiveness on his part truly illustrates the opportunistic, rudderless, incompetent leader he really is.

Pointing out the obvious

The U.S. Senate voted 98-0 yesterday to criminalize the impossible. 

The proposed new law, an amendment to an FAA bill introduced by Democratic senators Nelson and Schumer, would make it a felony to save, copy, collect or distribute in any form the images generated by the TSA-operated full-body scanners at airports. 

Curiously, these are the very machines the American public was specifically and repeatedly told lack any of those capabilities in the first place:

"The TSA says it does not store the images from the body scanners and there is no way they could ever be copied."

So why the need to add one more new crime to the bloated U.S. Criminal Code (one that provides for penalties of up to a year in jail and a $100,000 fine for a violation, no less), unless the government is blatantly lying to us about what those machines can or can't do?

We repeat the assertion we recently made about this provision - if such a scan showed a weapon or a suspected explosive device, that information would be evidence of a crime and would undoubtedly be of vital importance in the subsequent investigation and criminal prosecution of the suspect - evidence DHS would in no way allow to be lost to eternity because of the lack of a "save" command.

That's all you can come up with?

"Virginia Democratic Rep. Jim Moran is blaming his party's losses last November in large part on voters who 'don't want to be governed by an African-American.'"

Moron Moran is rapidly approaching Bidenesque-levels of foot-in-mouth disease.

That statement is completely false, both here as well as everywhere else in the country save for a few blockheads leftover from the Dark Ages.  We would be ecstatic if the White House were occupied by Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Herman Cain or any other of a large group of freedom-promoting, fiscally-conservative individuals who, by the way, coincidentally happen to be black.  Our problem with the current president is solely his collectivist ideology, not his skin color.  Moran might as well accuse us of not being approving of Obama because his ears are too big.  That argument's just as silly.

"'In this case a lot of people in this country, it's my belief, don't want to be governed by an African-American, particularly one who is inclusive, who is liberal, who wants to spend money on everyone and who wants to reach out to include everyone in our society. And that's a basic philosophical clash,' Moran said." (Emphasis ours)

Well, Moran got the bold part of the quote correct in any event.  We indeed don't want Dear Leader to "spend money on everyone", mostly because it isn't his cash that he's handing out like candy in the guise of "investments" to his core supporters such as labor unions in return for votes.

Shame on the Congressman for attempting to label peoples' genuine political differences with the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration as mere race-baiting.  It does demonstrate, though, that liberals such as him have no intellectual arguments left and are thus forced to engage in such despicable behavior in a desperate attempt to salvage what's left of the tattered "Hope and Change" agenda.

From the Department of Glaringly Obvious Headlines

"White House defends Obama's Senate vote against Raising Debt Ceiling But Warns of Catastrophe if GOP Doesn't Raise Debt Ceiling"

CNSNews wryly chronicles that Dear Leader had a very different take on such a dumb financial strategy when he was a minor backbencher Senator a few years ago, which of course was before his administration and his Democrat minions who ran the last Congress saddled the country with more debt (3.22 trillion dollars) in the last two years than all of the other Presidents and Congresses combined: 

'"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,' Obama said on March 16, 2006. 'Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.'"

So it was not OK then, but perfectly fine now, to burden future generations in such a manner?  Do as I say, not as I do, huh?

Heck of a "leadership" style there, sir.  What wealth of experience prepared you to do such a bang-up job of being Chief Executive again?  Oh, that's right, nothing.

And that utter lack of preparedness sure is showing these days, to our nation's ultimate detriment.

"Ruling" by executive order and bureaucratic policymaking instead of governing by simply following the law

Thomas Sowell has a great article out today on how Dear Leader's Department of Health and Human Services on January 1 is going to begin implementing a "Death Panel" component of Obamacare, notwithstanding the fact that Congress specifically left that provision out of the legislation after an avalanche of protest from the peasantry:

"[Congressman Earl] Blumenauer's office praised the Medicare bureaucracy's action but warned: 'While we are very happy with the result, we won't be shouting it from the rooftops because we are not out of the woods yet.'" 

What a perfectly transparent government President Obama and his minions have given us.  They're so proud of their sneaky little sleight of hand creation of yet another "rule" out of thin air, yet on the other hand they desperately don't want the likes of you and I to find out about it.  It's frankly quite maddening. 

As Sowell astutely points out, when are we as a country finally going to quit tolerating these types of bureaucratic machinations, ones that are nothing more than "end runs" around the laws that the rest of us are supposed to follow on pain of imprisonment?