Today's Politicos vs The Words and Deeds of The Founders

On Wednesday Eric Holder testified before Congress about the Justice Department’s wiretapping of Associated Press reporters’ phones. I’m not sure “testify” is the proper term. Holder showed up, didn’t say anything for four hours and called it a day. He has recused himself from any further involvement in the whole wiretapping business. Not that he actually has that whole recusing business in writing or anything, or if he does, the document is in the same place his Fast and Furious records are kept. And those are locked up tighter than the maker of that crummy Islamic video. This from “The Most Transparent Administration in History.” Yes, as transparent as a milkshake.

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It was bound to happen. Progressives, an appellation the president embraces, believe that the Constitution is an outdated encumbrance to the necessary exercise of power. Officials who do not respect the rule of law are free to do whatever they perceive as necessary in a given situation. This time that involved, in the words of Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, “an astonishing assault on the core values of our society.”

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As adequately demonstrated throughout history, impinging on individual freedoms for the common good eventually requires the use of force. But it’s not necessary to look to history. In Germany homeschooling is verboten and violating that dictat can result in forcible removal of children and jailing of parents.

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This book is part biography and part social and political history. Quitt draws on previously untapped sources to try to do justice to a complex man now little more than a footnote to history. The irony is that, in his time, Douglas was widely admired and thought much more likely to ascend to the presidency than the man whose election relegated him to the shadows. If Douglas is remembered at all, it is for debating Lincoln in 1858 when Lincoln ran for Douglas’s Senate seat.

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Where, oh where to begin on Benghazi? Let’s start with Jay Carney. During his recent performances at White House press briefings he appears to be doing the political version of Stop, Drop and Roll. I used to think Jay Carney was a reasonably intelligent man. Not that I ever much agreed with him, but I didn’t picture him as a dunce. Now it’s hard to consider him as much else. Why do I say this? Just ask him. Nearly every question posed to him by the White House press corps (alternatively known as the White House “steno pool”) are met with responses like “I dunno”, I have no knowledge”, “We’ll look into that”, and, of course, “Huh?”

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We have known for some time that the State Department, aka Hilary Clinton, was responsible for “heavy substantive revisions” to what the news accounts refer to as “CIA talking points.” Talking points? Aren’t talking points what politicians use for political pronouncements? Why were talking points needed to convey information about events in Benghazi? Oh, wait. It was a political pronouncement. The president’s repeated claim, that he had ended terrorism by killing Osama Ben Laden, would combust if it became known only two months prior to the 2012 election that terrorists were responsible for the attack in Benghazi.

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The K-12 Implosion deals with the problem of an increasingly expensive and poor performing American educational system. It is a brief collation of facts and analysis about the state of American Education. It is only 38 pages of clear prose, written in large type. The K-12 implosion doesn't necessarily provide answers to the problems facing the nation's schools, but does document why things are the way they are and offers a range of ideas which will undoubtedly be tried to resolve the issues.

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During President Obama’s recent press conference he stated that Gitmo is used as a recruitment tool for extremists. This is not a new theme for him and it harkens back to repeated claims he made during the 2008 election. But is Gitmo really used as a recruiting tool? It’s not as if al Qaeda had much trouble recruiting jihadists before the Gitmo detention center opened. Blind loyalty to a fascist-religious cause requires no great recruitment effort. The Spanish Inquisition had them lining up at the door.

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Most everyone has heard of Obamacare, the unpopular name critics appended to the president’s 2,400-page Affordable Health Care Act monstrosity. Make way for a new epithet courtesy of the Republican Party of Florida: “Obama Flight Delays” to describe the ‘in your face’ FAA furloughs that mired weary travelers at airports across the country.

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Many folks seem to be searching for any reason other than they were radical Islamic terrorists to explain the latest episode of, well, radical Islamic terrorism. Time magazine wondered if Tamerlan’s boxing career may have caused him to blow up Americans. This explanation would only be plausible if the intended target was Don King.

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