Evangelicals face a difficult but clear choice on Nov. 8th

Of all of us are struggling with the difficult task of selecting from four candidates for President of the United States, with the two leading candidates having shown themselves to be highly flawed. But perhaps evangelical Christians have the most difficult task.

Since NBC “Today” co-host Billy Bush released the 11 year-old recording of vulgar “locker-room” banter between himself and Donald Trump, and since the recent accusations of Trump making inappropriate sexual advances to several women years ago, Christian’s face the question of how to react to the moral infractions that have been shown, and alleged.

Andy Crouch, the executive editor of Christianity Today magazine, expressed the general displeasure of evangelical leaders to these things, writing, “Indeed, there is hardly any public person in America today who has more exemplified the ‘earthly nature’ … that Paul urges the Colossians to shed: ‘sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry’ (3:5). This is an incredibly apt summary of Trump’s life to date. Idolatry, greed, and sexual immorality are intertwined in individual lives and whole societies.”

Those who have been around for more than a few years remember a similar situation involving President Bill Clinton and then-First Lady, and now presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton from the mid-1990s. In both cases religious folks had plenty to object to on moral grounds.

Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives, not for his immoral conduct, but for lying about it under oath to a federal grand jury. Despite this, Clinton was able to finish his second term as President.

While nearly everyone agrees that such conduct is wrong, not everyone agrees on how important these kinds of things are in terms of whether they should disqualify someone from becoming or remaining President of the United States. It obviously was not considered important enough to remove Bill Clinton from office.

But that was then and this is now, and today Christians and Christian activities are being criticized as never before. A faction of the public wants to ban public Christmas scenes, and to malign religious institutions in general.

Donald Trump’s political enemies think evangelicals must focus on the she-said/he-said of the recent allegations of inappropriate sexual advances on women, and believe that if these allegations are true he should be disqualified from the presidency.

However, many or most evangelical Republican leaders are sticking with Trump, saying that despite his lewd comments there is no other real option for them. They generally say they will not abandon Trump, as quite a few Republicans in Congress have already done.

“It’s not like this is new,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “That’s why I aggressively supported another candidate in the primary, Ted Cruz, who I share values with. But we only have a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump now.” And Franklin Graham conceded that while Trump’s comments on the recording are troubling, they are not sufficient to abandon him, and that the “godless progressive agenda of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton likewise cannot be defended.”

Evangelicals face criticism for not walking away from Trump and his immoral behavior, but they realize that one of the two flawed candidates will win the election, and they must support the one that has the best plan for the country and the most favorable view of the place of religion in their lives. Trump may fail the first test, but he passes with flying colors on the second one.

American Values President Gary Bauer believes that if Hillary Clinton becomes president, religious schools will be forced to do things that are against their religious principles; she will appoint liberal justices to the Supreme Court; religious displays in the public square will face bans; and Clinton has expressed hostility for Second Amendment rights. Donald Trump takes the appropriate view of these things.

“A Christian who cannot see the difference between a candidate who has sinned and yet promises good policies, and a candidate who has sinned and promises bad policies,” he wrote, “has been failed along the way — either by our educational system, our political leaders or our faith leaders.”

“And, he wrote, “voters should do everything they can to make sure Crooked Hillary never steps foot in the Oval Office!”

Basically, most evangelical leaders seem to offer this rationale: We are not voting to fill a vacancy among the Seven Archangels; we are voting for the President of the United States. They realize that Trump’s views on the Supreme Court, the flawed tax system, the dangerously high National Debt and deficit spending; the severely weakened military; our weakened relations with foreign nations; the stagnant economy and lack of good jobs; the immigration problems; and liberal attacks on guaranteed rights are the most important considerations in who to vote for in this election.

Christian leaders are displeased with Trump’s actions, but recognize that as imperfect as he may be as a human being, he is a vastly better choice for President of the United States for them than Hillary Clinton, who will win the election if more people abandon Trump for morality reasons.

Whatever happened to integrity and honor in public service?

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), Obamacare: the gift that keeps on giving … headaches, cramps, nausea, and economic insecurity. The list goes on.

From its unseemly beginnings as a one-party creation in smoky back rooms that passed a Congress dominated in both houses by Democrats, without being read and debated by anyone, with only Democrats voting for it and with few Americans supporting it, the ACA is a vast array of failings. 

It’s not an absolute and total failure; nothing is perfect. 

But nearly all of its promises were broken, as many had predicted: you most likely can’t keep your doctor or your insurance plan if you like them; you probably aren’t going to save $2,500 a year in premium payments; and if you see more choice, more competition, and lower costs in healthcare, you will be among an infinitesimally small minority to do so.

Jonathon Gruber has now told the world in a series of recently discovered videos how, in designing the ACA, Congressional Democrats and their staffs employed deception and opaqueness to sneak the law past the American public.

He is an MIT economics professor, the architect of the Massachusetts healthcare plan known as Romneycare that was the model for Obamacare, and who also helped the Democrats create their version of a national healthcare system that most Americans didn’t want. 

In a video from October of 2013 Dr. Gruber admits that a “lack of transparency” was a blessing for the Obama administration and congressional Democrats in passing the ACA. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” he said. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”

In another video, he said, “So it's written to do that. In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said healthy people are going to pay in — you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money — it would not have passed.” … “That was really, really critical for the thing to pass,” he said. “But I’d rather have this law than not.”

In effect he was saying: “I’d rather not have mugged that old lady and stolen her groceries, but I’d rather have had food to eat than not.”

Efforts by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) and President Obama to distance themselves from the good professor fell well short of the mark: videos, you know.

Of course, all of this under-handedness was for our own good, you know, and if we just weren’t so stupid they wouldn’t have had to deceive us to give us what they insist we need.

But, however, we aren’t all stupid. Some of us knew all along that this bill was a sham and the promises couldn’t be kept, and that at its base Obamacare really is nothing more than a system to control the people and a huge redistribution of wealth from the young and healthy to the old and unhealthy. 

And then there is Barack Obama, himself; President of the United States, leader of the free world, who not only made many promises for the ACA that didn’t come true (did he lie to the people, or just not know what he was talking about?), and over the years said twenty or more times that he can’t act alone on immigration. “That’s not how democracy works.” “That’s not how our Constitution is written.” “I can’t solve this problem by myself.” What he didn’t say, in so many words, is: “Unless I have to act alone because Congress won’t give me the bill that I want, and so I will just do whatever I please.”

And last week he did act alone to circumvent both Congress and the existing laws on immigration and illegal alien deportation to order ICE to ignore up to 5 million illegal aliens in the country, all the while falsely claiming he was doing nothing more than any other president in the last 50 years. Except that he was. The presidential acts alluded to were in response to Congressional action, not because of a lack thereof.

The process of writing and passing the ACA was one devoid of honesty and integrity. Mr. Obama’s issuing of an Executive Order countermanding existing laws on immigration because Congress won’t obey his “orders” is an exercise in petulance, arrogance and overstepping his Constitutional bounds.

Both of these situations reflect the idea that Congressional Democrats and the president think they know better than the people that elected them, and that they are paid to serve what is good for them and for the country, and they have yet again shown that they will do whatever is necessary to achieve their narrow goals, and legal and moral processes be damned. This the-ends-justify-the-means tactic reflects a level of arrogance and hubris that would make the Founders nauseous. 

Our Constitution lays out a framework for doing things in our government that worked very well until we started changing it. 

Allowing any president to unilaterally extend the power of the executive is dangerous and foolish. Every true American in Congress must oppose this.

Going Rogue, Part IX: Expanding Power and Control over the People

It’s been nearly six months since the antics of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have received attention, but in the last several days two instances have sneaked past the mainstream media filter and become public knowledge, even though only a limited number of people will have seen the reports.

In the first example, a couple seeking to have a retirement home in New Mexico purchased 20 acres of land near Sante Fe. Over the years, the unused land had accumulated quite a lot of trash which the couple intended to clean up to make their property a suitable place for them to spend their remaining years. But no, cleaning up their own property for their own use will not be possible because the dedicated public servants at the EPA have cited the Clean Water Act and prohibited the clean-up saying it might harm the Rio Grande River.

Now, who among us would not want to prevent activities that pollute the nation’s waterways? However, it is difficult to understand how cleaning up tin cans, broken glass and other such trash could actually harm a river, unless the trash ended up being dumped in the river or on its banks, which the couple did not intend to do.

The EPA’s decree at first glance seems intrusive and absurd. Actually, it is much worse than it appears: the Rio Grande about which the EPA folks were so concerned is 25 miles away from the couple’s property.

This outrageous interference has driven property owners Peter and Francoise Smith to court to seek justice against this mindless government over-reach.  The case is being brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation on the Smith’s behalf, and the organization alleges that the land does not contain any relatively permanent, standing or continuous body of water that can be regulated by the Clean Water Act.

We’ll have to wait to see how this plays out in court.

In order to further expand its cancerous growth of power and control over the American people, the EPA stretches definitions to the breaking point, asserting that mud puddles that form after rain are “wetlands,” as illustrated in the second example.

The EPA now seeks to gain control over land alongside ditches, gullies and other spots where water may temporarily accumulate from rains or melting snow, claiming they are part of navigable waterways. Seriously.

They are not waterways or wetlands, of course, and they are certainly not navigable, but these temporary “waters” often interfere with how private property owners want to use their own property, to perhaps construct an out building, grow crops, raise livestock and conduct other activities in which private landowners may choose to indulge. But the EPA proposes to tell these landowners just how they may use their property.

“Never in the history of the Clean Water Act has federal regulation defined ditches and other upland features as ‘waters of the United States,’” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking committee member, and Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

In a related event, the EPA notified Virginia last December that it would have to take steps to reduce the amount of highway runoff from rain that eventually ends up in a particular stream in Fairfax County. The EPA considers this a no-no because the runoff contains sediment that collects in streams. The rub comes in how the agency has twisted reality to assume control over runoff: it treats rain as a pollutant.

Virginia’s Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and the Democrat Fairfax County Board of Supervisors claim that the EPA’s position is illegal and say further that if the Commonwealth is forced to comply it would cost the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and Fairfax County hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with storm water regulations just for the one creek the EPA cited. To control the rain “pollution” VDOT would have to seize private land, evict persons living on it, tear down homes, businesses and other structures on the land, and plant grass that would absorb the runoff.

Reasonable people consider such radical steps as an idiotic solution for a problem with such a tiny effect on the whole of the Commonwealth.

The EPA is likely the most out-of-control federal agency, although it is not without challengers for that dubious distinction. It believes it has authority to do virtually anything it imagines will promote better environmental conditions, no matter how insignificant the perceived problem may be in reality.

It makes no difference to these public servants how many people are affected, how many jobs are lost or how much money is spent; no legal, moral or practical concern is sufficient enough to deter them from regulating themselves into power-induced ecstasy.

The fact that Democrat Congressman Nick Rahall joined with Republican chairmen of two House committees, and that the Democrat Fairfax County Board of Supervisors joined with Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in protest, illustrates the degree to which officials now believe the EPA is out of control.

Let’s hope changes are on the way.

The cost of Obamacare seriously threatens businesses and jobs

It is a simple concept: A business is an organization that provides products or services that it believes people need or want, and if it provides good quality at a fair price it should succeed. Some businesses are single-person entities, but most employ a few people or as many as thousands of people to perform tasks related to the production and sale of its products or services, and in return for their labor they receive agreed-upon compensation that enables them to buy things from other businesses like food, shelter, clothing and other needs and wants. It is what makes America run.

Since Leftists don’t understand the way businesses work, they view them with suspicion and not infrequently seek to punish them for doing things they must do to stay in business. They sometimes even seek to punish businesses when they don’t do things the Left thinks they should do, but which have no business-related function.

When you combine the Left’s abysmal understanding of business operations with its compulsion for government solutions to every perceived problem, and add in the habit of implementing solutions without fully considering the repercussions, the stage is set for mass chaos.

Case in point: The ominous effects of Obamacare on employers, particularly small businesses, have been discussed since healthcare reform was just a poisonous glimmer in the Leftist mind. But despite the ample economic reasons for why this healthcare reform was a bad idea, the Left still doesn’t get it: Obamacare raises operating costs for businesses that implement the plan, and when costs rise, businesses must raise prices and/or cut expenses to offset the increase. Higher prices discourage customers, who either find a better price from a competitor or just buy less of that product or service. Both put businesses at risk.

But the Left freaks out when companies opt to protect their customers and themselves from the harmful effects of higher prices when they focus on the biggest expense most businesses have: employee costs.

Because the Left’s solutions are poorly thought out, they fail the common sense test and therefore fail to persuade people to accept them on their merits. The Left then resorts to forcing its ideas on us. Barack Obama’s manic effort to replace traditional energy with “green” energy is a prime example of an idea that people rejected because they saw that it couldn’t work. Nevertheless, the Obama administration declared war on coal and oil production to force us to use inadequate wind and solar energy because they arrogantly believe they know what is best for the rest of us.

Since Obamacare increases health insurance costs, often doubling them, businesses have to decide how to offset those costs. They can cut expenses, raise prices, or some combination of the two. Those who can’t justify increasing prices and can’t cut enough other expenses must look at employment expense, and reduce full-time staff below the threshold level through staff reductions and/or reduce full-time employees to part-time hours. Even companies that decide not to implement Obamacare must pay a $2,000 per employee penalty.

But despite the fact that rising employee costs are the problem, the Leftists reject staff and hour reductions as unfair; believing the money to cover the enormous costs of Obamacare will simply appear out of thin air. Thus, when the Papa John’s pizza chain said it must raise prices or reduce employee hours to get expenses under control, the Left suggested boycotting Papa John’s: To convince the company to do nothing about increased employee expenses, the Lefties propose that people buy their pizza from a competitor. Only the Left would react to an employer trying to stay in business by boycotting it.

Other chains also are boycott targets for the same reason: Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, McDonald’s, and Applebee’s.

Obamacare’s anti-business and job-killing requirements are not the only reason the Left proposes a boycott; a business that doesn’t spend its money according to Leftist dogma also may be attacked.

A self-identified liberal website urges liberals to “bring these people down,” referring to a list of “fast food joints” that the website owner dislikes because of how they use their own money: Chick-fil-A, Cinnabon, White Castle, Waffle House, A&W, KFC, Long John Silver's, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, IHOP, Arby's, Chili's, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Hardee's, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse, Wendy's, and Outback Steakhouse.

All of these businesses deserve our support, and at least one organization supports businesses targeted by the Left’s loony idea. Rebooting America organized a Papa John’s Appreciation Day last week.

One employer who owns about 100 restaurants nationwide decided to pass on the costs to his customers along with reducing employee hours. He plans to put a 5 percent surcharge into effect to help offset the increased cost of health insurance and also to help customers see the harmful unintended or unadvertised effects of foolish, ill-considered policies like Obamacare.

In order to fix a healthcare problem that required only a little tweaking, our intrepid Leftist government instead tried to revamp an entire economic system and created a myriad of other serious problems. What’s really scary is that the worst is likely yet to come.

The American media’s fraud and corruption are at an all-time high

Recent dishonesty demonstrates why the mainstream media is largely no longer worthy of the trust of the American people.

Following the massacre of movie-goers in an Aurora, Colorado theater early last Friday morning, ABC’s Brian Ross twisted himself into knots to connect the violence with the Tea Party on “Good Morning America” with George Stephanopoulos. Here is the text.

Stephanopoulos: I’m going to go to Brian Ross. You’ve been investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You found something that might be significant.

Ross: There’s a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea Party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.

So, Mr. Ross, if you don’t know “if this is the same Jim Holmes,” why even mention this? It’s not like “Jim Holmes” is so unusual a name that it couldn’t be shared by multiple individuals. Is wild speculation your idea of responsible journalism? Or, are you just taking advantage of a horrible crime and the pain it caused to score cheap political points for your own ideology?

Even if it was the same Jim Holmes, there was no indication that the shooting had any connection whatsoever with the Tea Party. Like the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords last year, this is another pitiful and failed media attempt to tie the Tea Party to violent acts.

ABC issued a correction, and then an apology, and that likely will be the extent of its efforts at contrition. However, the family of the man Mr. Ross falsely connected to the shooting was still getting death threats days later.

Question: How can anyone trust Brian Ross’ reporting hereafter, or that of ABC?

The cable network MSNBC got caught manipulating a comment by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, totally changing the context of a statement he made in order to ridicule and demean him.

The fraud that MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell palmed off on her viewers painted Mr. Romney as an out-of-touch elitist who doesn’t understand how retail commerce works.

Ms. Mitchell introduced a video clip, saying “I get the feeling – take a look at this – that Mitt Romney has not been to too many Wawa’s [convenience stores] along the roadside in Pennsylvania.” In the clip, Mr. Romney comments: “I was at Wawa’s, I wanted to order a sandwich.  You press the little touch tone keypad, alright, you just touch that, and you know, the sandwich comes at you, touch this, touch this, touch this, go pay the cashier, there’s your sandwich.  It’s amazing.”

Ms. Mitchell and her accomplice yuck it up at the candidate’s obvious ignorance of this common method of selling food: “It’s amazing,” she smirks.

But she pulled a fast one on viewers who trust her to honestly tell them what is going on the in the world. What actually happened was that Mr. Romney, prior to relating the Wawa’s anecdote, commented on how a friend had a simple procedure badly mangled by incompetent government bureaucracy that required him to fill out a 33-page form to notify the government of his change of address. Twice.

He was contrasting government inefficiency with the efficiency and innovative nature of the private sector. But that’s not the message Ms. Mitchell wanted her viewers to get, apparently.

Question: Is Andrea Mitchell’s reporting trustworthy?

After the shooting death of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Florida, a large number of people, aided by media reports, rushed to judgment accusing Mr. Zimmerman of a racially motivated killing of the young man we all came to know from the photo of an angelic-looking youngster taken when he was 12 years-old.

Whether Mr. Zimmerman committed a crime, or merely defended himself will be determined at trial, which every American – even those knee-jerks who jumped to the conclusion that the shooting was racially motivated – needs to understand is the proper setting for such determinations.

News organizations are expected to accurately report to the public what is known about events. A well-informed public is less likely to react emotionally and inappropriately, as so many did in the Trayvon Martin shooting. These days it seems the mainstream media frequently ignores ethical standards.

Supporting that point is the way NBC News edited the recording of Mr. Zimmerman talking with a police dispatcher, and creating the impression that Mr. Zimmerman had a racial prejudice against Trayvon Martin. It then broadcast this deception on the “Today Show”: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good.  He looks black,” George Zimmerman tells police in NBC’s edited version.

Here, however, is original text of the call:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

In these examples, people were deliberately trying to manipulate you with fraudulent reporting, or they are incompetent. When news organizations slant the news, or manufacture the news, whatever the cause, it is unethical, underhanded and unforgiveable.

Comments are welcome

What’s wrong with this picture? America through the looking glass

Summoning forth recollections of “Monty Python's Flying Circus” and other farces, the following true-life examples of what’s going on in America ought to wake you up.

1. A Massachusetts school principal wanted to rename "St. Patrick's Day" in an effort to be "inclusive and diverse," and to ease discomfort that some students might have in celebrating St. Patrick's Day or Valentine's Day. Lisa Curtin, principal of the Soule Road School in Wilbraham, Mass., decided to change the names, and in February renamed “Valentine’s Day” to "Caring and Kindness Day,” according to parents with children in the school. Some parents criticized the decision to change the name St.Paddy’s Day to "O'Green Day" as stupid and illogical.

That’s an apt description.

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2. A North Carolina grandmother became upset when her 5-year-old granddaughter's home-made lunch was taken away at school because school officials said it wasn't nutritious enough. The lunch, which consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich on white-wheat bread, potato chips, a banana and apple juice, was taken away and she was forced to eat cafeteria chicken nuggets.

The assistant superintendent of the school system agreed that the lunch was healthy, but it was missing milk, a key part of what is considered to be a healthy meal under state guidelines. The grandmother says the state should not be inspecting lunches and should instead focus solely on academics.

Don’t you admire her restraint?

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3. As reported by a Washington newspaper, First Solar, a heavily government-subsidized solar company, received a U.S. taxpayer loan guarantee to sell solar panels in other countries. Last September, $455.7 million in guarantees to subsidize the sale of solar panels to two solar farms in Canada were approved. The owner of the solar farms is First Solar.

Your government at work.

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4. A Burnsville, Minn. man was arrested and thrown in jail because city officials said he had not properly put up siding on his house. Mitch Faber was cited with “having an unfinished exterior” when, nearly four years after he started it, his home’s stucco project was not complete.

Faber told a Minneapolis TV station he always intended to finish the project, but that he ran into financial trouble when the economy took a turn.

His first encounter with the city happened in 2007 when he got a letter saying the siding needed to be finished. “We were in the process of finishing,” Faber told the station. “This wasn’t something that we were trying to avoid doing.”

There were two more letters in 2009 and another in 2010, which required Faber to appear in court. That’s when he was told to finish the siding, or go to jail.

In order to comply, Faber and his wife spent $12,000 to put a stucco facade over their house’s plywood exterior. It wasn’t enough: Last November, Faber was arrested after city inspectors concluded the work wasn’t up to code.

What happens in Burnsville if you actually commit a crime?

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5. In what is being portrayed as a preview of fully implemented Obamacare, government officials in Michigan are demanding that a 9-year-old child follow standard procedure and take a dangerous course of cancer medications that can cause additional cancer – even though the boy has had three scans indicating an absence of the disease.

The Home School Legal Defense Association is an organization that concerns itself with home school rights, responsibilities and restrictions but also intercedes in cases that could have a significant impact on child and parental rights.

The HSLDA’s chairman, Michael P. Farris, confirmed that the Michigan Department of Human Services has filed suit to force the parents to administer the chemicals to their son even though he’s been clean of cancer on scans over the past year.

Well, at least it’s not a death panel.

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6. The District of Columbia Board of Elections opened an investigation after an undercover video posted online showed an activist against voter fraud going into a Washington polling station and beginning the process to vote under the name of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. When he said he didn’t have his ID, the poll worker said it really didn’t matter, and was prepared to give the activist a ballot.

Rather than find out why poll workers did not ascertain the real identity of the “voter,” who did not accept the ballot, the Elections Board has decided to investigate the activist.

Vote early and often in DC.

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7. The New York City Department of Education created a plan to ban the use of 50 words on standardized school tests, thinking the terms might be offensive to some people.

Among the words on the forbidden list were: birthdays, celebrities, cigarettes, crime, divorce, evolution, politics, sex, religion, rap music, Halloween, terrorism, rock-and-roll music, and violence.

Fortunately, and contrary to the previous examples, common sense prevailed and the school system decided against going forward with its plan.

These examples reflect government at all levels run amok, and they paint a dismal picture of America’s future, unless we wise up.

Sometimes, like it did last week, bad news comes down in buckets

Last week was full of bad news. President Barack Obama created a firestorm with controversial comments about the role of the Supreme Court, interpreted by some as an attempt to intimidate the Court into allowing the health care reform law to stand. At the end of the week March job numbers and unemployment numbers were released showing only bad news. Job creation was an anemic 120,000, and so many people became discouraged over the poor job climate and dropped out of the job market that it caused the unemployment rate to drop by one-tenth of a percent to 8.2 percent. Normally, it is a good sign when unemployment drops, but not this time.

And, a huge scandal erupted following the news that an office of the General Services Administration (GSA), the Public Buildings Service, which is known as the "landlord" for the federal government, is now being investigated for a 2010 Las Vegas conference that cost taxpayers a cool $820,000 to $840,000.

The details of the outing reveal an orgy of spending for the benefit of the public servants who attended. The conference provided such lavish niceties as clown and mind-reader entertainment, and more than $146,000 worth of food and drinks, including $44-a-person breakfasts; $19-a-person "artisanal cheese" displays; $16-per-person pasta stations; and shrimp costing $4 each. Attendees also received $3,700 worth of shirts, $6,300 worth of commemorative coins and $1,800 worth of special vests. As you might imagine, such an extravagant affair took a lot of planning, more than $130,000 worth.

A couple of videos from the event have surfaced, showing a Buildings Service employee performing in a music video in which the employee raps: "Donate my vacation, love to the nation, I'll never be under OIG investigation." Other highlights show public employees arrogantly flaunting the wasting of the public’s money.

No doubt President Barack Obama was terribly embarrassed by this revelation, having only a year before this outrageous misuse of public funds made strong statements against corporations who received federal bailouts living it up at taxpayer expense. “You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime," he scolded. So, it had to hurt to find his own Executive Branch employees acting with the same disregard for taxpayer funds as the corporations that got bailouts.

However, the administration hastened to correctly point out that the start of this problem predates Mr. Obama’s presidency. In 2004 the Buildings Service spent $93,000 on the conference, about 11 percent of the 2010 total. From that point on, the bill got bigger and bigger as the conference moved around the country, totaling $323,855 in 2006, $655,025 in 2008, and then the 2010 near-million-dollar Vegas lollapalooza.

Obviously, the Bush and Obama administrations weren’t paying much attention to how the public’s money was being handled. And the Inspector General Office’s report last week indicates the Obama administration knew about the trip at least in May of 2010, five months before the conference took place, and did nothing about it.

The gross misuse of public funds by the Buildings Service at its biennial conference isn’t the end of the story for this agency, however. The commissioner’s budget has been rising since 2009, the year Commissioner Robert Peck was appointed. In fiscal 2009, his budget was $3.25 million, only slightly higher than two years earlier. But in 2010 the budget jumped to $6.94 million, and jumped again in 2011 to $9.16 million. 

The man at the center of the scandal is Jeffrey E. Neely, the person who made sure that the conference was “over the top,” compared to previous bashes. He initially approved a $300,000 budget for the 2010 conference, but later nearly tripled the budget to about $823,000. Mr. Neely attended five of the eight agency “dry run” meetings held in advance of the conference to be sure the proposed venue would be able to deliver a show to end all shows for government workers, according to information from the GSA Office of Inspector General.

Commissioner Peck was fired in the wake of the scandal, GSA Administrator Martha Johnson resigned, and several employees have been placed on leave pending investigation, following the IG report. Apparently, none of those involved has tried to pay the taxpayers back for their outrageous spending abuses.

The evidence that our federal government is overgrown, arrogant and abusive of the citizenry continues to mount up. And yet even the suggestion that spending needs to be cut and government needs to be downsized and brought under control elicits howls of protest from liberals, statists and those on the receiving end of taxpayer money being freely doled out for all manner of inappropriate things.

Over-indulgences like this tawdry Las Vegas episode are clearly out of bounds, but apparently they are not all that unusual, and that sort of behavior didn’t originate under Barack Obama, or George Bush. But Barack Obama is the president now, and it will be instructive to see if he has the courage and the regard for the people of the United States to take quick steps to do something meaningful about government malfeasance like this.

American Royalty: Arrogance on Display

The term “entitlement” can be used to describe the thinking of an increasing number of Americans who believe that their country owes them a living, or a job, or food, or something else. And it can be used to describe the thinking of a large number of elected officials at every level of government from the small town mayor to members of the U.S. Congress.

There is something about being elected to certain positions that seems to convey to at least some of those elected to them a sense of superiority, the idea that they deserve deference, subservience and our undying respect.

Such people are always around and they represent no particular political affiliation. I’m allowing that there are plenty of Republican boobs, too, but right now, with the Democrats in control of Washington, the most prominent and numerous boobs are Democrats.

Leading this short list of the many in the Hall of Shame is Rep. Charles Rangel. Mr. Rangel leases a Cadillac DeVille, for $774 per month paid for by you and me. When a reporter had the temerity to ask Rep. Rangel why he leased such an expensive car, he was told, “Why don’t you mind your own [expletive deleted] business.”

This little perk is available only to members of the House of Representatives. And it's not just the car, but gas, registration, and insurance, too. Furthermore, there is apparently no limit to the privilege. John Conyers leases a Lexus that comes in at $998 a month.

Then there is Sen. David Vitter, who got to the gate 20 minutes before his plane was set to leave only to find the security door closed. He is said to have opened the door anyway and then engaged in a "do-you-know-who-I-am” tirade that apparently grew quite heated, according to media reports.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent cavalier misuse of the transportation she is allotted from the U.S. Air Force epitomizes this shameful characteristic. She apparently “treats the Air Force like her personal airline," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "Not only does Speaker Pelosi issue unreasonable requests for military travel, but her office seems unconcerned about wasting taxpayer money with last minute cancellations and other demands."

Congressman Barney Frank’s behavior in the mortgage banking crisis is perhaps the most dangerous and damaging behavior by an arrogant lawmaker. He opposed efforts to regulate mortgage banks, especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and he was a strong supporter of making loans to non-credit-worthy borrowers. He also received substantial campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie, and now attempts to shift blame that he rightfully earned to Republicans.

Our elected representatives often forget one very important thing: They are public servants. They have been elected by the people to provide a service to the people. They are paid by the people. They work for us.

Many of them misuse their positions, and in fact seem to have forgotten why they have been elected, and the phenomenon tends to worsen with tenure; the longer someone has been in high office, the more entitled they become.

Two words define the best solution to this display of hubris: Term limits.

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Technorati Tags: Arrogance, Politics, Government

Weirder and Weirder

As the political season progresses, more and more oddities appear.

We have for the first time in US history a woman who has a chance at being nominated for the Presidency and a black man who has a chance of being nominated for the Presidency. There are those in the US who will not support the idea of a woman or a black President, regardless of who the individuals are. There are those who will not support the particular woman candidate or the particular black candidate. Frankly, I don’t think that because a relative few American hold those feelings says very much about our society, although I’m fairly sure that a few people will disagree with me.

And, perhaps more relevantly, there are also those who will vote for a woman candidate precisely because she is a woman, and there are also those who will vote for a black candidate precisely because that candidate is black. I think that says a lot more about our society than the other side of this issue. Factions in the US have been so successful at inculcating individual Americans with their particular point of view on such things as race and feminism that more than a few people will be convinced that either a black President or a female President is needed right now.

And we also have a strange evolution of the Clinton political machine from a finely honed juggernaut into a series of gaffs hardly anyone could have predicted that may have sunk Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. The Clintons have controlled the Democrat Party for more than 10 years, and way back when this eternal campaign began Sen. Clinton was thought to be a shoe-in for the nomination. And yet today she is trailing an opponent who has far less experience than Sen. Clinton claims to have, and who was a virtual unknown when this campaign began.

How could such a thing have happened? Is it possible that those long years of dominance in the Democrat Party have lulled the Clintons into a false sense of security? Could they have underestimated the opposition or overestimated their power and appeal?

Those questions are better answered by people better informed than I. One thing I do feel confident in saying is that the rest of this campaign will be interesting viewing into the thinking of the American people, and an interesting exercise in the political process.

Justice Has Been Served?

Mike Nifong, the despicable Durham County, N.C., district attorney who was disbarred for his
prosecution/persecution of three Duke University lacrosse players last year on fallacious rape charges, was sentenced to one day behind bars for criminal contempt of court. Nifong could have been sentenced to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. He was ordered to report to the Durham County jail next Friday at 9 a.m.

After a two-day hearing, the judge found that Nifong "willfully made false statements" to the court in September when he insisted he had given defense attorneys all results from a critical DNA test.

Duke University law professor Thomas Metzloff said the sentence was "unprecedented." "This just doesn't happen," he said. "This was a very important moment because it showed that the court system really cared about what happened in this case."

Oh, really?

Here we have an elected official, charged with upholding the law in the county he served as district attorney, who misused his power by manufacturing a case that would attract national attention and help him win reelection, trashing the lives of three college students and their families in the process, and he gets just one day in jail? And he doesn’t have to report until next week?

Even the maximum sentence of 30 days and a $500 fine is insufficient in this case. After all, how much more egregious could Nifong have been in his malfeasance?

If the judge really cared about what happened in this case, as the professor believes, he would have thrown the book at Nifong, and given him the maximum sentence for every infringement he could think of. And, he would have had Nifong stripped of his business suit, dressed in an orange jump suit, hand cuffed and led to jail immediately. That would have been unprecedented, and it would have been a powerful statement, warning others who might want to follow Nifong down the path of abuse of power.

Justice in this case is not only blind, it is stupid.

Driving Me Crazy

We took a short trip Wednesday, about two hours and twenty minutes away. Most of the trip was Interstate highway, so it’s not a bad drive, unless there is a lot of traffic, which there was, or if there is a lot of construction, which there was. We encountered no fewer than seven areas where the Interstate was narrowed to one lane in first 85 miles of the trip. Seven. And some of them had absolutely no work being done.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

One of my pet peeves is people who drive in the passing lane, but who are not passing. They aren’t going faster than traffic in the right lane, and sometimes are going slower than traffic in the right lane. It’s as if they feel they have special dispensation to use the passing lane for their personal convenience, and other drivers are expected not only to know that, but to give them free use of that lane, despite all of the problems that result from their apparent disregard for normal driving etiquette, and their lack of concern for the plight of other drivers (or even the recognition that there are other drivers). Other cars pull up behind them, expecting them to move over … they don’t. The drivers most often go around them in the right lane, and you might figure they would get the message that they should move into the right lane. Sometimes they do, but often, they don’t.

A single driver behaving so arrogantly is bad enough, but what I encountered on this trip was far worse.

I have learned from experience that you can drive a few miles above the posted speed limit without fear of being stopped, and many or most drivers also know this. I know that in a 70 mph zone you can drive 77 mph and police officers just watch you go by. It is not unsafe, in most situations, to do so. On this trip there was a “convoy” of motorcyclists, nine of them, and the group was driving the speed limit or perhaps two miles per hour faster. That’s slower than I usually drive, and slower than most of the traffic on I-77 was driving. Now, I don’t object to drivers/riders going only the speed limit; that is their choice, and perhaps it is safety thing for bike riders. But I object strenuously when in doing so these bikers ride parallel in both lanes and refuse to move over to allow faster traffic to pass. It probably took a good five minutes to work my way through this bunch of yahoos, and if safety happened to be some part of this mindless behavior, it occurs to me that they defeated their own purpose by forcing cars to maneuver in and out of their formation to get around the obstacle to smooth traffic flow that they created.

It was inconsiderate and dangerous, and if there are any bikers reading this that indulge in this asinine practice, I hope you’ll reconsider it.

I should add here that this is the first time I've encountered this phenomenon, and I hope it is the last.

Technorati Tags: America, Common Sense, Arrogance

Attention John Murtha!

What part of “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States” do you not understand?

Or do you think you and your fellow travelers in the anti-Bush, anti-war camp are above the Constitution, Article II, Section 2, which vests control of the military in the President, acting as Commander in Chief.

Presidents have made mistakes for years in allowing Congress to act when it is neither called for nor wise, as in allowing the Senate to approve which general or admiral gets what top position. That is the President’s decision; the Congress has no roll in it. Yet, presidents, apparently trying to be nice and cooperative, have made the mistake of putting these assignments up for approval. Such behavior only increases the self-importance imagined by certain members of Congress.

In this case, they have come to believe they can manipulate the Commander in Chief by playing with funding. Such behavior is inappropriate, dangerous, and reflects the arrogance and petulant nature of Mr. Bush’s enemies, led by John Murtha.

Technorati Tags: America, Democrats, Politics, Liberalism, U.S. Constitution, Iraq War

Injustice in Pursuit of Political Goals

A while back I wrote a column about what I believe is a monumental miscarriage of justice and prosecutorial misconduct of the worst kind in the perjury trial of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby titled “Prosecutorial Discretion?”

It is my position that there was never a crime to begin with, and had prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald made that essential determination at the beginning, as he should have, the investigation in which Mr. Libby’s alleged perjury occurred would never have taken place, and Mr. Libby’s life would not have been turned upside-down by an over-zealous prosecutor more concerned with his own fortunes than with honorably discharging his duties.

An op-ed in The Washington Post penned by someone much more knowledgeable than I about the intricacies of the Libby case has painted a picture similar to that in my column, but much more damning. Victoria Toensing, a former deputy federal prosecutor and one of the key people in the drafting of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, the law that was allegedly broken in the alleged “outing” of CIA “agent” Valerie Plame, sees tremendous problems with the indictment and trial of Mr. Libby, as the following comments show:

Could someone please explain to me why Scooter Libby is the only person on trial in the Valerie Plame leak investigation? …

Fitzgerald apparently concluded that a purported cover-up was sufficient motive for Libby to trim his recollections in a criminal way. So when Libby's testimony differed from that of others, it was Libby who got indicted.

There's a reason why responsible prosecutors don't bring perjury cases on mere "he said, he said" evidence. Without an underlying crime or tangible evidence of obstruction (think Martha Stewart trying to destroy phone logs), the trial becomes a mishmash of faulty memories in which witnesses can seem as guilty as the defendant. Any prosecutor knows that memories differ, even vividly, and each party can be convinced that his or her version is the truthful one.

If we accept Fitzgerald's low threshold for bringing a criminal case, then why stop at Libby? This investigation has enough questionable motives and shadowy half-truths and flawed recollections to fill a court docket for months. So here are my own personal bills of indictment:

Ms. Toensing then goes on to explain why several others are just as eligible for indictment as Mr. Libby, given the circumstances of this "case." Those of you who believe in true justice ought to read the entire Victoria Toensing article.

I think you will come to the conclusion that the trial of Lewis Libby is a circus and a travesty, and stems not from a criminal act, but from an anti-Bush/anti-Cheney political agenda that attempted to create a crime—the supposed outing of CIA covert agent—where no crime, in fact, existed.

Technorati Tags: America, Justice, Politics, Crime