Not-So-Super Committee: The congressional Super Committee is tasked with cutting $1.2 trillion from future deficits over the next decade. They can accomplish this by cutting spending or raising taxes. They have 9 days left to complete their mission before automatic cuts to defense and entitlements go into effect. Thus far, the Super Committee has been unable to reach an agreement.

If anything illustrates the ineffectiveness of Congress (and a failure of leadership by the President), this it it. Think about it. Over the last ten years, the federal government has spent about $28 trillion. Over the next ten years, federal spending is projected to be $45-50 trillion. All the Super Committee has to do is cut $1.2 trillion out of the next $45-50 trillion in spending, a miniscule percentage. The Super Committee's job isn't even about cutting spending. They are only talking about cutting the rate of future spending INCREASE. I could cut that much out of the budget in a day, if it took me that long. In fact, I'll do it right now, in about ten seconds. We could cut $1.2 trillion out of the military budget over ten years. That would come to $120 billion per year, out of a defense budget that is already larger than the defense budgets of all the other countries in the world COMBINED, a defense budget that costs almost $1 trillion per year when all associated costs are tallied. There. We're done. That wasn't so hard, was it ?

If the Super Committee can't even agree on these small cuts ($120 billion per year out of future $4-5 trillion budgets), what hope is there that Congress can close our annual trillion dollar deficits ? There is no hope, not with our current Congress, and not with our current President. Ron Paul sounds better all the time.

CBS Sucks: Speaking of Ron Paul, CBS held a 90-minute GOP presidential debate on foreign policy. CBS aired 60 minutes of that debate, and candidate Paul got a grand total of 89 seconds to speak on air. Paul advocates a non-interventionist foreign policy (see – defense spending cuts). Apparently, CBS didn't want to hear it. Paul wasn't the only GOP contender complaining, and CBS's excuse was that they gave the most air time to the candidates highest in the polls. It is not the job of CBS to decide which candidates are legitimate and which are not. That's the job of the voters, and the voters can't make a sound choice if certain candidates are cut out of the debate process. It's the job of CBS to give each candidate an equal chance, and CBS failed miserably.

Cain-wreck: I thought Rick Perry forgetting which government deparments he wanted to eliminate was about as bad as it gets for political flubs. I was wrong. Watch Herman Cain trying to answer a question about whether he agreed with Obama's policy in Libya:

Ouch. That was actually painful to watch. 'Let's see…Libya…that's a country, isn't it ? Golly, there are so many countries that it's hard to keep track [even though we've been at war in Libya for months and it was all over the news]. Libya's trying to develop nuclear weapons, right ? No, that's China…or is it Iran ? Wait, no, Libya is where Qaddafi was at, correct ? Whatever it is, I'm disagreeing with Obama's policy on it, because…I have to…even if I have no idea what I'm talking about'.

Give me a break already. Cain sounded like a college student who didn't study for the entire semester and then stayed up all night cramming for the final. So much information "twirling around" inside his head. Thanks for playing Presidential Jeopardy, Mr. Cain, and please accept this wonderful parting gift, dinner for two at Olive Garden. But please spare us any more of your "views" on foreign policy. Cain would have been better off if he just said, 'hell if I know. I'm a businessman. I don't even know where Libya is'.

Given Cain and Perry's recent responses, I'm starting to think maybe I could run for President. There don't seem to be any qualifications for the job.

Supreme Test For ObamaCare: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the lawsuit challenging ObamaCare. This is huge. We should find out next year whether we have a constitutional government or a totalitarian government. If the ObamaCare insurance mandate is upheld by the Supremes, the government would be granted almost unlimited power over the citizenry. The government could then tell us what products we have to buy from private companies, what we have to eat and drink, what we have to wear, you name it. There would be no limits to governmental authority. The ObamaCare mandate to purchase health insurance or be fined is an assault on our basic rights and freedom, and possibly the most unconstitutional law passed since the 1930's, when several unconstitutional FDR laws were struck down by the courts.

There have been calls for Justices Thomas and Kagan to recuse themselves from the proceedings. Justice Thomas' wife has been involved in campaigns to repeal ObamaCare, and Justice Kagan worked for Obama and is on record cheering the passage of ObamaCare. It doesn't really matter if they recuse themselves, unless only one of them does, which would swing the balance of the court. We pretty much already know the entire liberal wing of the court will vote for a totalitarian government and approve the unconstitutional ObamaCare mandate. The conservative wing of the court will vote to uphold the Constitution and liberty, and that leaves…Justice Kennedy, the swing vote who will decide the future of freedom in this country. The eventual ruling is almost certainly going to be 5-4 one way or the other. My view is that any Justice who votes to uphold the ObamaCare mandate should be immediately kicked off the Supreme Court for violating his/her oath of office.

The picture above doesn't really pertain to today's topic, but I thought I'd post it anyway, because it cracks me up.
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A third Democrat-appointed judge in a row has declared ObamaCare to be constitutional. The latest ruling comes from a D.C. judge, Gladys Kessler, appointed by President Clinton. Here is some of the "logic" from that judge:

First, this Court agrees with the two other district courts which have ruled that the individuals subject to § 1501’s mandate provision are either present or future participants in the national health care market. See Liberty Univ., 2010 WL 4860299, at *15 (“Nearly everyone will require health care services at some point in their lifetimes, and it is not always possible to predict when one will be afflicted by illness or injury and require care.”); Thomas More Law Ctr., 720 F.Supp.2d at 894 (“The health care market is unlike other markets. No one can guarantee his or her health, or ensure that he or she will never participate in the health care market. . . . The plaintiffs have not opted out of the health care services market because, as living, breathing beings . . . they cannot opt out of this market.”). Thus, the vast majority of individuals, if not all individuals, will require some medical care in their lifetime.

With all due respect to Judge Kessler, this is one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard. She says "the health care market is unlike other markets" because people "cannot opt out of this market", and for that reason it's fine for the government to mandate people to purchase health insurance. This "logic" could have come straight from President Obama's lips. I wonder if he wrote this ruling for her.

Where to start. First, of all, the health care market is NOT different than other markets. There are plenty of markets that nearly all "lving, breathing beings" will use during their lifetimes. To name a few: food, water, clothing, housing, tools, transportation… Almost none of us "opt out" of those markets (and those markets comprise the majority of ALL markets), yet the government doesn't mandate that we buy food, water, clothing, housing, tools, or transportation, does it ? No. The government doesn't fine us if we refuse to buy broccoli, bottled water, t-shirts, kitchen knives, or automobiles. People would revolt at the mere thought of it, but now we have Democrat-appointed judges attempting to rationalize the unthinkable in a free country. This is a direct frontal assault on freedom, and Democrats are more than happy to wage the battle.

Judge Roy Bean, er, I mean, Judge Kessler, had yet more irrationality in her ruling, and this bit is a doozy. Kessler endorsed government regulation of "mental activity":

As previous Commerce Clause cases have all involved physical activity, as opposed to mental activity, i.e. decision-making, there is little judicial guidance on whether the latter falls within Congress’s power…However, this Court finds the distinction, which Plaintiffs rely on heavily, to be of little significance. It is pure semantics to argue that an individual who makes a choice to forgo health insurance is not “acting,” especially given the serious economic and health-related consequences to every individual of that choice. Making a choice is an affirmative action, whether one decides to do something or not do something. They are two sides of the same coin. To pretend otherwise is to ignore reality.

In other words, why should people get to make their own decisions when Big Brother can make those decisions for them ? After all, Big Brother Knows Best. Who wants a population full of citizens engaging in "mental activity" anyway ? That's so messy, with thoughts running around all over the place. We must put a stop to it. Don't worry your pretty little heads, citizens. Obama's Thought Police have got your back. And your money too, but don't worry about that either. Just go outside and play, children. Daddy Obama will call you when it's time for supper.

At least Judge Kessler recognized the fact that there is "little judicial guidance" on the matter of the ObamaCare mandate. That's because no previous government ever dreamed of doing anything so blatantly unconstitutional as this (well, FDR did, but the Supreme Court stopped him. That's when FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court with judges friendly to his causes. No wonder FDR is a hero to the left. He didn't give a crap about the U.S. Constitution either).

The lack of judicial precedent for ObamaCare should have served as a caution to Judge Kessler, but no. I get the feeling these Democrat Judges start with supporting ObamaCare, and then work backwards to try to justify it by any means necessary, no matter how illogical and contrary to the Constitution and founding ideals of this country (i.e., life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness).

If there's a bright spot in the darkness of this ruling, it comes here:

Kessler joined the other four judges in dismissing the Obama administration's fallback argument that the mandate was justified under Congress's taxing power, ruling "that Congress did not intend the mandatory payment…to act as a revenue-raising tax, but rather as a punitive measure." Given that even those judges sympathetic to the Commerce Clause argument have rejected the taxation argument, I wonder if the administration will eventually abandon it as the case moves up the food chain.

The Obama administration tried to pass off the "it's a tax" argument on the fly, after they realized the Commerce Clause justification might not work. That's because there is no Commerce Clause justification for the ObamaCare mandate, no matter how many Democrat-appointed judges try to manufacture one out of thin air.

Regulate "mental activity" indeed. Regulate This, you little dictators.

At the American Spectator link above, they mentioned Kurt Vonnegut's dystopian short story, Harrison Bergeron. This is important to the topic as well, because ObamaCare has lots of 'Citizen A will pay for the healthcare of Citizen B' in it, to which left-wingers apply the Orwellian label "social justice". See if the following description of Harrison Bergeron rings any bells, if it brings to mind any particular political ideology:

In the story, social equality has been achieved by handicapping the more intelligent, athletic or beautiful members of society. For example, strength is handicapped by the requirement to carry weight, beauty by the requirement to wear a mask and so on. All this equality is due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the United States Constitution. This process is central to the society, designed so that no one will feel inferior to anyone else. Handicapping is overseen by the United States Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers.

Is anybody advocating this stuff in America ??? Anyone ? Anyone ?

Hint – Think of how liberals look at the tax code or government spending. Oops, I gave it away.

Government tyranny has been staved off for a bit longer, as Federal Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled the ObamaCare mandate is unconstitutional. The mandate would have forced all Americans to purchase private health insurance or pay a fine, a clear perversion of the Commerce Clause, which states Congress shall have the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

Getting right to the heart of the matter:

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson wrote that no court had expanded the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to allow the government to regulate a person's decision not to buy a product.

"At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance — or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage — it's about an individual's right to choose to participate," Hudson wrote.

From the Judge's actual case opinion:

Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market. In doing so, enactment of the [ObamaCare mandate] exceeds the Commerce Clause powers vested in Congress under Article I.

In another crucial part of the ruling, the Judge explains why the ObamaCare mandate was so dangerous:

Of course, the same reasoning [to require Americans to purchase health insurance] could apply to transportation, housing or nutritional decisions. This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation.

In other words, if the ObamaCare mandate is allowed to stand, the government could force us to do almost anything it wished. There would be virtually no limitations on government power, rendering the Constitution a worthless piece of paper, and subjugating individual liberty to the whims of our government overlords….which pretty much explains why progressives LIKE the ObamaCare mandate. They're a bunch of control freaks. They WANT to subjugate individual liberty to their idea of the collective good. They want to tell the rest of us what to eat, what to drive, what to wear, what to think, what to see on television or hear on the radio, how much money we should make, how much of our own money the government should let us keep, how we should spend the money we do have, etc, etc, etc. Individual liberty is the arch enemy of the leftists.

So naturally, the White House is "disappointed" that a Federal Court has ruled Congress "exceeded it's authority" with the ObamaCare mandate (actually, only congressional Democrats exceeded their authority. Republicans correctly voted against ObamaCare). Tyrants don't like limits on their authority. Here's Obama defending his unconstitutionality in an interview with ABC last month:

"What I think is appropriate is that in the same way that everybody has to get auto insurance and if you don't, you're subject to some penalty, that in this situation, if you have the ability to buy insurance, it's affordable and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you, you know, there's a thousand dollar hidden tax that families all across America are — are burdened by because of the fact that people don't have health insurance, you know, there's nothing wrong with a penalty," [Obama] said.

What a pantload. Where should I start ?

No, Obama, nobody HAS to buy car insurance. Nobody even HAS to buy a car. Nobody has to drive. Those are individual choices. What Obama is doing with his health insurance mandate would be equivalent to FORCING people to buy a car, a clear violation of liberty. It doesn't matter whether the ObamaCare mandate is convenient to Obama's agenda or not. He shouldn't have the power to force such a thing upon the people. That's why we have a Constitution limiting the government's power in the first place. Plus, Mr. President, it's the STATES that require insurance if one chooses to drive a car, not the federal government. Read the 10th Amendment if you haven't yet, Mr. Constitutional Law Professor.

Obama's reasoning that others have to pick up an uninsured person's healthcare tab is even more specious, especially when you consider that Obama is a known wealth redistributor, as are all liberals. Obama has NO problem with other people subsidizing the housing, food, and healthcare of others. Are you kidding me ? What do you think welfare, section 8, food stamps, and Medicaid are all about, not to mention liberal views on tax policy ? Obama is for subsidization EVERY time. That's how his party gets elected to office, by offering to subsidize one group at the expense of another group. Now, all of a sudden, Obama reverses course and is worried about someone else subsidizing healthcare ? Bull-Spit. What a laughable lie. He could care less about that, as all his other beliefs prove. ObamaCare itself subsidizes healthcare for others. What Obama is really interested in is power. When the Constitution gets in the way of that power, it's damn the Constitution. He's not the first politican to act this way, of course, just the latest example.

Judge Hudson also shot down the White House's revisionist argument that the ObamaCare mandate is a tax and therefore constitutional. You may remember, Obama insisted over and over that the ObamaCare mandate penalty was not a tax, until the case went to court, at which time the Obamaniacs realized arguing that it WAS a tax was better for their case. Judge Hudson writes:

Having concluded that [the ObamaCare mandate] is, in form and substance, a penalty as opposed to a tax, it must be linked to an enumerated power other than the General Welfare Clause…in order for the noncompliance penalty to survive constitutional challenge, it must serve to effectuate a valid exercise of an enumerated power – here the Commerce Clause.

And in a footnote:

If allowed to stand as a tax, [the ObamaCare mandate] would be the only tax in U.S. history to be levied directly on individuals for their failure to affirmatively engage in activity mandated by the government not speciically delineated in the Constitution.

How I love it when the Court gets it right. The Court really is the last bastion of freedom against a tyrannical government. No wonder FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court with those friendly to his unconstitutional wishes. As I said before, tyrants don't like limitations.

We can't pop the champagne corks just yet. This case is not over. The Obamaniacs will no doubt appeal this ruling all the way to the Supreme Court.

But this is a hell of a good start. Score – Freedom 1, Tyrants 0.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. – The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The First Amendment couldn't be more straightforward. Congress shall make NO LAW abridging the freedom of speech. or of the press.

Simple, right ?

Not for liberals it isn't. When the Supreme Court struck down a clearly unconstitutional provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law with it's Citizens United v. FEC ruling, liberals went wild. Never mind that the McCain-Feingold law in question criminalized free speech in America. Liberals were fine with that. That's what they WANTED. Anti-freedom Democratic Congressmen like John Kerry and John Conyers even considered a constitutional amendment to "fix" the First Amendment, as if free speech is a concept that needs "fixing".

While I'm on the subject of the Citizens United ruling, here's a very interesting opinion on the ruling from Obama Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. I find Kagan's thinking to be so misguided as to call into question her fitness for the bench. Here is the political chameleon Arlen Specter talking about Kagan. From The Hill:

“She was very forthcoming in our discussion,” Specter said. “We talked about the Citizens United case and she said she thought the court was not sufficiently deferential to Congress."

Pardon me ??? The Supreme Court isn't supposed to be deferential to Congress, and I dearly hope it never becomes so. The Supreme Court is supposed to be deferential to the Constitution, period. Congress should also be deferential to the Constitution, but too often is not, as partisan fervor overrules constitutionality. The Supreme Court serves as a check against illegal congressional power grabs. Checks and balances, remember ? The Court doesn't waive the Bill Of Rights out of deference to Congress, or to the Executive branch either. Kagan should have some serious splainin' to do at her upcoming confirmation hearings.

Once the Citizens United ruling was in the books, the outraged Democrats had no choice but to accept the restoration of free speech in America, regardless of how much they dislike the idea. The Kerry-Conyers "fix" to the First Amendment was going nowhere, thankfully.

But still, the Democrats have elections to win come november, and the Dems are afraid corporate campaign ads might not cast the Democratic party in a very favorable light, seeing as how Czar Obama is prepping us for the early stages of the Russian Revolution, Part II..with government takeovers of corporations, the abandonment of due process, huge increases in government power and spending, wage mandates, talk of price controls, etc. Democrats fear America's business sector just might end up helping Republicans win some elections and remove the Dems stranglehold on power. GASP ! Something had to be done, so the Democrats have come up with a devious little plan known as the DISCLOSE Act. The DISCLOSE Act passed the House yesterday, and the White House "strongly" supports it, even though it is as unconstitutional as can be.

Here's why. On it's surface, the DISCLOSE Act appears to be a bill that will increase transparency in campaign spending, which most of us would welcome as a good thing. It requires corporations to disclose the top five donors in their political ads (that's not too bad if applied equally to ALL groups), and it requires the head of the company to appear at the end of the ad (I can't think of a reason for this provision, other than to make it a bit harder to produce a campaign ad).

But that's not why the law is bad. The DISCLOSE Act unconstitutionally exempts some groups from it's requirements and not other groups, which is as clear a violation of the Constitution as you will find. It violates equal protection under the law, and it picks and chooses who may engage in free speech and who may not. It suppresses free speech for some and not for others. As CBS reports:

…the bill exempts the NRA, AARP and the Humane Society from the requirements. It exempts 401C4 organizations with over 500,000 members.

U-N-C-O-N-S-T-I-T-U-T-I-O-N-A-L, and discriminatory. Here's more:

"The Democratic majority in the House jammed through a piece of legislation that clearly violates the Constitution, as well as basic principles of fairness and equity," U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue said in a statement. Donohue's powerful business lobby would be subject to the disclosure rules under the legislation.

Said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence: "This bill exempting the NRA, and only a handful of other wealthy groups, from having to follow the same rules as other advocacy groups involved in political campaigns is fundamentally flawed, likely can't survive judicial scrutiny, and should be rejected by the United States Senate as currently written."

In case you're wondering why the NRA was exempted, the Constitutionally-challenged Democrats in the House needed the votes of some conservative Democrats who have actually read the Second Amendment in order to pass this farce of a bill.

Naturally, President Barack "Che" Obama supports the blatant violation of the Constitution of the United States of America. Here's Che's take on the legislation:

"The DISCLOSE Act would establish the strongest-ever disclosure requirements for election-related spending by special interests, including Wall Street and big oil companies, and it would restrict spending by foreign-controlled corporations. It would give the American public the right to see exactly who is spending money in an attempt to influence campaigns for public office. The House bill is not perfect – I would have preferred that it include no exemptions."

Ah yes, we see. Che Obama would have "preferred" that the legislation not be a blatant violation of several portions of the Bill Of Rights, but the Constitutional Law Professor supports it regardless. I wonder which class at Harvard Law taught him that constitutional principles only apply SOMETIMES. Until this question is answered, I propose a moratorium on all Harvard grads being elected to Congress (note to liberals – that was satire).

The bottom line here is this – The Democrats know the DISCLOSE Act is unconstitutional, but they don't care. If they pass the legislation into law in July, they calculate it will not be overturned by the courts in time for the november elections, and that's their endgame here. The Democrats are knowingly putting forth an unconstitutional law because they think it will help them in this one election cycle.

Thus, in addition to willfully violating the U.S. Constitution, they are committing election fraud…with the full support of the President Of The United States Of America.

Democratic Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) says those opposing terror trials in New York City for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other 9/11 plotters are unamerican:

"[Republicans] see this as an opportunity to demagogue," he said. "They will seize on any opportunity to do that, and that means they'll even take a stand that's un-American."

"It's un-American to hold anyone indefinitely without trial," Moran added. "It's against our principles as a nation."

The feeble-minded Moran is demagoguing the issue even as he accuses others of the same thing. The "unamerican" opposition wants the 9/11 plotters tried, they just want them tried by military tribunals, instead of putting on media circus show trials in the Big Apple.

A CNN poll showed that 64% of Americans want KSM and friends tried by military tribunals. Who knew there were so many unamerican Americans ?

Among the unamerican Americans…..

The family of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded by KSM:

"We are sorry to learn of the Justice Department decision to try KSM in a NYC Federal Court.

We are respectful of the legal process, but believe that giving confessed terrorists a worldwide platform to publicize their ideology sends the wrong message to potential terrorists, inviting them in essence, to resort to violence and cruelty in order to gain publicity.

We believe that justice is better served if the trial of KSM, the confessed murderer of Daniel Pearl, be held in closed session."

Another unamerican American is the Democratic Governor of New York, David Paterson, who told the Daily News:

"This is not a decision that I would have made…Our country was attacked on its own soil on Sept. 11, 2001, and New York was very much the epicenter of that attack. Over 2,700 lives were lost. It's very painful; we're still having trouble getting over it. We still haven't been able to rebuild that site, and having those terrorists tried so close to the attack is going to be an encumbrance on all of New Yorkers."

In my last post on this subject, I wrote about the hundreds of family members of 9/11 victims who oppose holding the trials in NYC…what a bunch of lousy unamerican sob's they are.

To make all us unamericans feel even better, ACLU attorneys are saying it's probable that KSM and company will serve as their own attorneys during the trial. Fan-freaking-tastic !

"The chances are excellent that he [KSM] represents himself," said Ron Kuby, a defense lawyer known for taking on controversial clients.

"[KSM's] goal in the legal system is not to beat the rap. His goal is to use the legal system as a forum for his own ideas and to embrace martyrdom through that system."

"It's quite possible that these defendants will undertake to represent themselves," Ben Wizner said. "They've been trying to fire their lawyers the whole time so they can be executed."

Nothing like giving KSM his own personal soapbox, so he can serve as an inspiration to terrorists everywhere.

Noted defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz chimes in with some KSM defense strategy:

Lawyers could seize on the time it's taken to prosecute the accused terrorists, arguing that they were denied their constitutional rights to a speedy trial.

A crafty defense lawyer might also employ a tactic called "graymailing," demanding reams of classified information in the hope that prosecutors refuse to release them. That provides an opening for a lawyer to request the indictment be dismissed.

Torture is also likely to play a central role in the case.

That Mohammed was waterboarded more than 180 times by CIA investigators is no secret.

"The first thing they're going to do is challenge all of the evidence and say all of it is the fruit of waterboarding," Dershowitz said.

Some intrepid reporter somewhere has to ask Attorney General Eric Holder or President Obama if they plan to release KSM if he is acquitted. I'd love to hear the answer to that question.

Returning to Congressman Moran's statement about it being unamerican to hold detainees indefinitely without any type of trial, I'm wondering, which people are recommending such a thing ???

Well, there's THIS guy:

President Barack Obama has quietly decided to bypass Congress and allow the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without charges…Such a decision allows the president to unilaterally hold "combatants" without habeas corpus — a legal term literally meaning "you shall have the body" — which forces prosecutors to charge a suspect with a crime to justify the suspect's detention. Obama's decision was buried on page A 23 of The New York Times' New York edition on Thursday…"The administration will continue to hold the detainees without bringing them to trial based on the power it says it has under the Congressional resolution passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the president to use force against forces of Al Qaeda and the Taliban," the Times' Peter Baker writes. "In concluding that it does not need specific permission from Congress to hold detainees without charges, the Obama administration is adopting one of the arguments advanced by the Bush administration in years of debates about detention policies."

Looks like Congressman Moran, in his overzealous haste to attack Republicans, has inadvertently called his pal Obama unamerican. Oops.

“After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice. They will be brought to New York—New York — to answer for their alleged crimes in a courthouse just blocks from where the twin towers once stood.” – Attorney General Eric Holder.

Eric Holder is mistaken. Those terrorists coming to New York for trial were brought to justice years ago. They aren't on vacation down there in Guantanamo Bay. They are prisoners of a war Al Qaeda declared against the United States in 1996. Self-confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured in 2003. All five of the terrorists coming to New York for trial were already set to be tried before military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. What Holder has done is to grant foreign warriors the full rights of American citizenship by putting them into our civilian court system. Holder is seeking the death penalty, but KSM also faced the death penalty under the military commissions system.

What is to be gained from this ?

It isn't to console the families of 9/11 victims. Hundreds of them are already protesting this decision:

“Families are furious about this,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother Chic Burlingame was the American Airlines pilot of one of the planes hijacked on Sept. 11. She said more than 300 family members have implored the administration not to move the trial to New York. “They know we don’t support this. We support military commissions but they are going to see a wave of fury, and I don’t think they’re prepared for it,” she said Friday after the decision became public.

Bringing the terrorists to New York and trying them only blocks away from the World Trade Center site will guarantee one thing – a media circus, perhaps unlike any we have yet seen. Won't it be fun to watch the terrorists exercise their new array of civil rights ? I know I can't wait for KSM's attorneys to say he should be freed because we didn't read him his Miranda rights. I also can't wait for his lawyers to ask for the evidence against him to be thrown out due to the enhanced interrogation techniques, aka torture. I can't wait for KSM to become the victim. I definitely look forward to KSM taking the stand to urge his followers to continue their jihad against the Great Satan, and having the media instantly spread his message across the globe. And what will happen when KSM's attorneys request access to classified intelligence materials as part of his defense ? There's a reason crimes and wars are treated differently, even if Eric Holder and Barack Obama don't know there is a difference.

Last week, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) tried to pass legislation that would have forced the administration to try 9/11 plotters in military courts. Democrats voted that legislation down by a vote of 54-45. We've spent years insuring that the military commissions pass Constitutional muster, and Obama has said he will try terrorism cases with military commissions, but then he brings the highest profile cases possible into federal court. Why ?

It's not that I think we can't try terrorists in federal court. We've done that before successfully lots of times, and in KSM's case we should be able to prevail, though how we'll get an impartial jury blocks away from the WTC site should be a circus all it's own. It's just that WE DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THIS. We could have avoided the circus.

UPDATE**

Here's President Obama from earlier this year:

"When this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who’ve received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, or commanded Taliban troops in battle, or expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans. These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States. Let me repeat: I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture — like other prisoners of war — must be prevented from attacking us again."

Obama admits KSM and company are prisoners of war who will not be released. Sooooo, why bring them into civilian court ? You know darn well that KSM will NEVER be released. That would be political suicide for Obama and the Democrats. This decision makes no sense to me.

The Senate formally apologized for slavery yesterday, one hundred and forty four years too late, one hundred and forty four years after slavery was abolished.

Do we all feel better now ? A bunch of people who had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery have apologized for it. Now we know that America doesn't condone slavery (and here I thought the Civil War settled that issue). Thank goodness. All those American pro-slavery groups can go pound salt. If there are any, that is, which there aren't (I hope).

But even the Senate's unaminous and meaningless kumbayah vote to apologize for slavery isn't without controversy here in grievance-based America, where it seems everyone feels slighted over something. The Senate's slavery apology contained a disclaimer which stated the apology didn't authorize any reparations claim for the descendants of slaves.

Cue the outrage. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus objected to the reparations disclaimer.

Sigh.

To be clear, I believe reparations for slavery were in order, but they were in order 144 YEARS AGO, not now. They were in order for people who actually WERE slaves. There are no reparations in order for people who are six or seven generations removed from slavery, for people who have the same civil rights as everyone else, for people who even have MORE civil rights than everyone else (affirmative action). I agree with President Obama, who said the best reparations are "good schools in the inner city." Obama embodies the lunacy of the reparations argument. Should we pay reparations to Barack Obama, the most powerful man in the world, just because his skin contains the required amount of melanin ? I don't think so.

As I'm writing this, there are some teevee talking heads arguing about whether or not the coverage of Michael Jackson's death is motivated by race. One talking head is saying it is, that the media is talking about all Jackson's drug use because he is black.

Sigh.

That talking head must not remember the teevee coverage of the deaths of Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole Smith, or Elvis Presley. The media wallowed in all the minutiae of each one's drug use, ad nauseum. It's about celebrity, not race.

Speaking of race-based issues, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court ruling in the Ricci case, and ruled that New Haven discriminated against 19 firefighters (18 white and 1 hispanic) when they threw out the results of a promotion test because no blacks scored high enough to be promoted. New Haven officials were afraid of protests by civil rights groups if no blacks were promoted, so they discriminated against the 19 firefighters and denied them the promotions they earned. As with so many of these types of cases, the Supreme Court vote was split. The 5-4 majority decision was resisted by the Court's four liberal members (who think discrimination is fine and dandy as long as it's done against white people). Of note is the fact that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, was one of those overturned by the Supremes. As one of the appellate court judges, Sotomayor thought discrimination against white people was hunky-dory in the Ricci case too.

Your going to hears lots of grievance-mongering and spin about the Ricci case, but there is no reason for any of it. This country was founded on the notion that all men are created equal, and equal protection under the law is mandated in our Constitution. We have a Civil Rights Act that says you may not discriminate against people based upon race. That goes for ALL races. That's why slavery and Jim Crow laws were wrong. All we should do in this country is give everyone the same opportunity (as in, all the New Haven firefighters had the SAME opportunity for promotion, regardless of race. They all took the same test. That's equality). When we go beyond that to dictate outcomes based solely upon race, we violate our own principles and make a mockery of them.

It's time to get beyond race, as well as all the other false constructs that divide us. I've watched the civil rights movement go from one of righteousness in the 60's to the "gimme" entitlement mindset of today. No. You aren't entitled to anything in this country, except the equal opportunity to achieve or fail. After that, it's up to you, no matter who you are.

There's something about the notion of liberal judges versus conservative judges that has always bothered me. I was taught that justice is blind, which means justice should be neither liberal nor conservative. Justice should be neutral on political matters. Justice should apply the law. When politicians like President Obama start saying they want judges with empathy for certain groups of people, we are being led astray. I know I wouldn't want to stand in front of a judge with empathy for groups A and B if I was a member of group C. In such a scenario, I'm pretty sure that justice is not what I would get. In such a scenario, a kangaroo court is much more likely. I don't want a judge who is a liberal activist or a conservative activist. I don't want a judge who is trying to fix all the problems of society. That is not the role of a judge.

I don't want a judge who says things like the following, which were said by Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor:

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

"All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people out there with court of appeals experience, because court of appeals is where policy is made."

Judges should not make policy, and the law doesn't change based upon your gender, race, or cultural background. The law exists outside those things, and should be equally applied. Judge Sotomayor says she has great respect for the Constitution, as all Supreme Court justices should, but there is one recent decision she made where she didn't apply any Constitutional principles at all. In fact, she completely ignored them. That case was Ricci v. DeStefano, where Sotomayor upheld a lower court ruling dismissing a racial discrimination claim. Here are the facts:

U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, voted to deny a racial discrimination claim in a 2008 decision. She dismissed the case in a one-paragraph statement that, in the opinion of one dissenting judge, ignored the evidence and did not even address the constitutional issues raised by the case.

The case, Ricci v. DeStefano, involved a group of 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who filed suit in 2003 claiming that the city of New Haven, Conn., engaged in racial discrimination when it threw out the results of two promotion tests because none of the city’s black applicants had passed the tests.

Each of the plaintiffs had passed the exam. The case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The city threw out the results because it feared potential lawsuits from activist groups if few or no minority candidates were promoted. The city also claimed that in addition to potential lawsuits, promotions based on the test results would undermine their goal of diversity in the Fire Department.

The firefighters sued, arguing that New Haven was discriminating against them by deciding that the tests would promote too many white candidates and too few minorities.

U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sotomayor issued an order that affirmed Arterton’s decision, issuing a one-paragraph judgment that called Arterton’s ruling “thorough, thoughtful, and well reasoned.”

But according to dissenting Judge Jose Cabranes, the single-paragraph order issued by Sotomayor and her colleagues ignored over 1,800 pages of testimony and more than an hour of argument–ignoring the facts of the case.

“(T)he parties submitted briefs of 86 pages each and a six-volume joint appendix of over 1,800 pages; plaintiffs’ reply brief was over thirty pages long," Cabranes wrote.

"(O)ral argument, on December 10, 2007, lasted over an hour,” Cabranes explained, adding that more than two months after oral arguments, Sotomayor and the majority panel upheld the lower court in a summary order “containing a single substantive paragraph.”

Cabranes criticized Sotomayor and the majority for not explaining why they had sided with the city in their new opinion.

“This per curiam opinion adopted in toto the reasoning of the District Court, without further elaboration or substantive comment, and thereby converted a lengthy, unpublished district court opinion, grappling with significant constitutional and statutory claims of first impression, into the law of this Circuit,” Cabranes wrote in his dissent.

Judge Cabranes also said that Sotomayor’s opinion failed to address the constitutional issues of the case, saying the majority had ignored the facts of the case as well.

“It did so, moreover, in an opinion that lacks a clear statement of either the claims raised by the plaintiffs or the issues on appeal. Indeed, the opinion contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case,” the judge criticized.

“This Court has failed to grapple with the questions of exceptional importance raised in this appeal,” Judge Cabranes concluded. “If the Ricci plaintiffs are to receive such an opinion from a reviewing court they must now look to the Supreme Court. Their claims are worthy of that review.”

To me, this looks like Sotomayor had empathy for one group, but no empathy at all for another group, the plaintiffs. It looks like Sotomayor's brand of "justice" takes off the blindfold and evaluates the worth of one person relative to another. It looks like Sotomayor wasn't even thinking about the merits of the case at all, only with the implications it might have for Sotomayor's preferred groups of people in the future. I wonder if those 19 New Haven firefighters are impressed by Sotomayor's brand of empathy.

The Supreme Court is expected to overturn Sotomayor on this case.

Let me say right up front, I didn't like Ted Stevens, the former Republican Senator from Alaska. He was just the sort of porkbarrel spending politician that I abhor. Like so many others in Washington D.C., he treated the taxpayers like they were his personal ATM machine. He was an entrenched political insider, a career politician who'd been in the Senate since 1968. He was the most Senior Republican on Capitol Hill. When Stevens was convicted on corruption charges, I assumed he finally got exactly what he deserved.

It turns out he didn't. Thanks to Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, we now know there was massive prosecutorial misconduct in the Stevens case. Kudos to Holder for sticking to the principles of the law. Without them, we'd have no justice at all. The case against Ted Stevens has been dropped. Emmett Sullivan, the judge in the Stevens case, has appointed his own prosecutor to investigate the prosecutors in the Stevens case. Here's what Sullivan said about the prosecutorial misconduct:

…U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said yesterday that he has no faith in [a Justice Department] investigation after seeing so much "shocking and disturbing" behavior by the government.

"In 25 years on the bench, I have never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I have seen in this case," he said.

Among other things, the prosecutors wittheld evidence from the defense which would have contradicted the testimony of a key witness against Stevens. The prosecutors SHOULD be prosecuted.

After Stevens' conviction was overturned, the political spin machine cranked up, as sure as day follows night. The spin from the left basically went like this – "This proves the Bush Justice Department was crooked, and now the Obama Justice Department will fix it." Here's a NY Times op-ed to beat that drum:

For eight years the Bush Justice Department cynically put politics and ideology above the law. So it is gratifying to see how Attorney General Eric Holder is handling the case against Ted Stevens…Given the flagrant partisanship of the Bush Justice Department, it is especially reassuring to see Mr. Holder ignore party lines to do the right thing by Mr. Stevens. It has been far too long since the attorney general seemed interested in enforcing ethics and nonpartisanship in a department that has been shockingly lacking in both.

With all due respect to the New York Times and the rest of the liberal media, what in the hell are they talking about ???? Maybe it hasn't occurred to the Times, but Ted Stevens is a REPUBLICAN. If the Bushies were only interested in partisanship and ideology, they wouldn't have brought any charges against Stevens at all, especially when Stevens' Senate seat was about as secure as could be prior to the corruption charges being brought against him. Stevens had been a sitting Senator for 30 years. If the Bushies were only interested in partisanship and ideology, they wouldn't have willingly shot down Stevens' seat and handed it to the Democrats (which is exactly what happened) during an election year that had the Dems so close to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Being the inquisitive sort, I set about the task of trying to find out the political affiliations of the actual prosecutors in the Stevens case, the ones who actually committed the misconduct. Here are the names and brief biographies of the prosecutors who are being investigated. I'm sad to report that I've only been able to come up with the political affiliation of one of them, but it's a biggie. The supervisor of the Stevens prosecutorial team, the boss, was William Welch, a Democrat who had his eye on another job. He wanted to become the U.S. Attorney General for the state of Massachusetts.

I wonder why those crazy partisan Bushies would prosecute a sitting Republican Senator (the first such prosecution in a generation), and then allow a Democrat with political aspirations to head up the prosecution ? Weird, huh ? Or maybe the liberal media is just full of it. You decide.

Not that the right wing isn't doing a little spinning also. I keep reading on the right wing blogs that this was a partisan hit job against Stevens to steal his Senate seat, and that the timing of Stevens' conviction (a week before the election) was a Machiavellian conspiracy by the Dems. There's one big problem with this scenario – Stevens was the one who insisted on expediting his trial so it would be over before the election. I don't know about the partisan hit job thing yet, but the timing of it definitely didn't come from the Democrats.

I have a feeling there is much more to come on this story.

The entire liberal media is telling you the FISA bill passed by the House Of Representatives on friday is the end of civil rights, the death of our Constitution, an example of Democrats caving to the lawless Bush administration, etc, etc. They try to drum this stuff into your head constantly, in the hope that you will forget what happened on 9/11, in the hope that you will forget WHY the Bush administration took the national security actions they took following that tragic attack, the worst ever on our homeland. They don't want you to ponder the REAL reasons for Bush's spying, because then it might look like Bush was only attempting to keep America safe from further attack, which is, after all, the job of the President. No, the liberal media wants you to believe Bush just woke up one day and illogically decided it was time to be a dictator and trample on the citizenry, for no reason really, just because Bush is an evil lawless tyrant and that's what evil lawless tyrants do. The liberal media wants you to know evil has a name, and that name is Bush. Also, the liberal media wants you to know that Bush=McCain=Republicans, just so there won't be any mistake. This IS an election year, after all.

But I assume most of you can see through the liberal media's shallow attempts at deception. Most people have the capacity for rational thought. This post is for you. I'll attempt to tell you what the new FISA update is really about.

In spite of the overblown protestations of the liberal media, many Democrats, most terrorist appeasers, and all outright Al Qaeda members, the new FISA bill is not the death of civil rights. There will be oversight of domestic spying with this new bill. It establishes a measure of balance between monitoring suspected terrorists and privacy concerns. It also attempts to establish limits on the president's executive powers. It spells out areas of domestic and international spying that needed to be spelled out.

The biggest sticking point to passage of the bill had been the provision to shield the telecommunications companies from lawsuits following the telcoms post-9/11 cooperation with the government in tracking terrorists. 40 such lawsuits were in the wings. None of the 40 persons or groups that wanted to sue the telecoms had any idea if their phones were monitored or if their rights were infringed. They just wanted to sue on principle. Democrats were hesitant to bargain away those lawsuits. The new FISA bill will shield the telcoms from lawsuits if the telcoms receive certification from the attorney general that the president ordered them to perform wiretaps to detect or prevent a terrorist attack. I like this provision, because it puts the responsibility for wiretaps on the government where it belongs. It is very troublesome to put the responsibility for making decisions about terrorism on private corporations who are torn between helping their country and treading into questionable legal territory that could cost them millions or billions of dollars.

I have some personal experience in this area. Following 9/11, I was a computer programmer/analyst for a bank. The government requested anti-terrorist type information from the bank, which I was tasked with providing them. Some of the requests involved the tracking of certain financial transactions and some involved other information, such as the reporting of all account signers who didn't have Social Security numbers. If any of you think this is improper action by the government, I can also tell you that the government has been tracking your financial information for decades. If you think your banking transactions are private, think again. They aren't. Nowadays, there are even sophisticated methodologies to track any type of unusual financial activity, and even methodolgies to predict financial activity, but that is a discussion for another time.

The point is that I certainly wouldn't have wanted to face a lawsuit for attempting to help my government track terrorist activity a few months after 9/11. The new FISA bill addresses that problem.

Some other provisions in the new FISA bill, according to the linked article, are:

- It requires the inspectors general of the Justice Department, Pentagon and intelligence agencies to investigate the wiretapping program, with a report due in a year.

– The government can initiate a wiretap without court permission if "important intelligence" would otherwise be lost. It has a week to file the request for approval with the court, and the court has 30 days to act on it.

– It would allow the government to tap a foreigner's overseas calls without FISA court approval.

– Require FISA court permission to wiretap Americans who are overseas.

– Prohibit targeting a foreigner to secretly eavesdrop, without court approval, on an American's calls or e-mails.

– Require the government to protect American information or conversations that are collected when in communications with targeted foreigners.

– Allow the FISA court 30 days to review existing but expiring surveillance orders before renewing them.

– Allow eavesdropping in emergencies without court approval, provided the government files required papers within a week.

– Prohibits the president from superseding surveillance rules in the future.

Is the new FISA bill perfect ? No.

Did the old FISA and spying procedures need to be updated to reflect the modern technological world and the new type of threat the terrorists present ? Absolutely.

Lawyers give more money to political campaigns than does any other industry. During the 2004 elections, lawyers donated $183.8 million. So far in 2008, they've given $103 million, and we have 7 months to go until the election. Approximately 75% of the lawyer's money goes to Democrats. Lawyers, and specifically trial lawyers, are the Democrats number one special interest group, and have been for years. By comparison, the industry that donates the biggest percentage to Republicans is Oil/Gas. They are 16th on the industry donor list, having given $11.5 million in 2008. 73% of that goes to the GOP. You can find the donor numbers at opensecrets.org. The other big Democratic donor industries are Securities/Investment (like Bear Stearns), TV/Movies/Music (the liberal media), and Education (failing public schools/teacher's unions).

So, what do lawyers get in return for all that money they are throwing at the Democrats ?

Well, the Dems let the Protect America Act expire rather than grant immunity to the telecom companies that aided the government in tracking terrorists following 9/11. The lawyers have billions in lawsuits waiting in the wings there. Even national security took a back seat to the trial lawyers on that issue. That's what the Dems do for the trial lawyers. Dems block tort reform, block medical malpractice reform, block 'loser pays' lawsuit reform, and block damages award caps. Democrats are a trial lawyer's dream come true. Dems allow lawyers to continue to feed at the trough, uninhibited. Dems are money in the bank for trial lawyers. It's no wonder that Obama, Hillary, and John Edwards are all lawyers. No wonder all three of them buy into the ideas of victimology and entitlement. It's in their DNA. Everybody I know thinks our society has become overly litigious (except the litigators living in their mansions. They think it's peachy). Democrats are the reason our society is so sue happy. It's a big part of their agenda.

This leads me to the prestigious law firm of Milberg Weiss LLC (and by 'prestigious', I mean 'crooked as hell'). Milberg Weiss is one of the big tort law firms, and their specialty is class action lawsuits against corporations on behalf of their shareholders. You see, if shareholders don't get the expected return on their stock investment, the landsharks at Milberg Weiss are ready and willing to call that fraud or mismanagement, and sue the corporation. I kid you not. If you are a corporation and your stock price drops, Milberg Weiss will sue you if they can get enough of your stockholders to go along. Another specialty of Milberg Weiss is the so-called 'strike suit', which is a lawsuit that is so expensive to defend that corporations find it easier and less expensive to settle rather than fight. I'm pretty sure they used to call that extortion in the old days, but this is a brave new world.

There was a bigger problem with Milberg Weiss – they gave kickbacks to shareholders who provided primary testimony against the corporations they were suing. In other words, the testimony was bought and paid for, and that IS fraud, big time.

To call Milberg Weiss successful is an understatement. A 2004 Forbes article estimated Milberg Weiss lawsuit winnings at $30 billion. A couple weeks ago, I heard a Wall Street Journal analyst say it was up to $45 billion by 2008. The pattern of corruption at Milberg Weiss was mind boggling. They paid millions in kickbacks.

When the Bush Justice Department indicted several Milberg Weiss attorneys in 2006, after investigations that had been going on since the Clinton administration, Democrats in the US Congress rushed to their defense. The Dems politicized the indictments (surprise, surprise !) by issuing the following accusatory statement against the Bushies, which was signed by four Democrat Congressmen – Charles Rangel, Carolyn McCarthy, Gary Ackerman and Robert Wexler:

“The unprecedented recent indictment of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman is a very thinly veiled attempt by the Bush Administration to accomplish by bullying and intimidation what it has not been able to do by law – to end class-action lawsuits, one of the few tools remaining to safeguard the American consumer.”

That is typical Dem hyper-partisanship, but Rangel and company had a bit of a problem – Milberg Weiss attorneys were guilty as hell, and now the convictions are coming down. Seymour Lazar, retired, was convicted of paying $2.6 million to "professional plaintiffs" [link], and previously was found guilty of obstruction of justice, filing a false tax return, and making false statements to the court. Mel Weiss pled guilty to conspiring to obstruct justice by hiding secret payments to plaintiffs in securities lawsuits [link]. The prosecutor in the case against Mel Weiss said the firm has been running this scam for 25 years. Bill 'The King Of Torts" Lerach was also convicted in the kickback scheme [link]. Several others are still awaiting trial.

So, what kind of prison time did these felonious mass corrupters of the justice system get ?

You're gonna love this part.

After defrauding and extorting corporations for 25 years, bribing witnesses, giving kickbacks, obstructing justice, lying to the court, and collecting tens of billions in ill-gotten gains from it all….

Seymour Lazar got probation (he's 80 years old). Mel Weiss got 20-33 months, and Bill Lerach got 2 years. You'd get more time than that if you robbed $200 from the local mini mart.

Isn't it great to have friends in high places ?

Btw, Hillary Clinton has received more money from Milberg Weiss than any other member of Congress. Barack Obama received a lesser amount.

Parents "do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," wrote California appellate Justice Walter Croskey.

The hell they don't, judge Croskey. Have you read the U.S. Constitution ? Apparently not. Makes me wonder how you got to be a judge in the first place. Or maybe you should stay away from those west coast medical marijuana stores.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

A California court ruled this month that parents cannot "home school" their children without government certification. No teaching credential, no teaching…The 166,000 families in the state that now choose to educate their children at home must be stunned.

No doubt. But look who's HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY about this act of judicial communism !

"We're happy," the California Teachers Association's Lloyd Porter told the San Francisco Chronicle. He says the union believes all students should be taught only by "credentialed" teachers, who will in due course belong to unions.

That's just great, Lloyd ! Think of all those brand new union dues ! Never mind the fact that home schooled kids perform way better than their public school counterparts.

For some parents, the motive for home schooling is religious; others want to protect their kids from gangs and drugs. But the most-cited reason is to ensure a good education. Home-schooled students are routinely high performers on standardized academic tests, beating their public school peers on average by as much as 30 percentile points, regardless of subject. They perform well on tests like the SAT — and colleges actively recruit them both for their high scores and the diversity they bring to campus.

Hmmm. That's an inconvenient fact for Big Brother. Sounds like they'll have to come up with some sort of phony excuse to impose the will of the Politburo here….

The case was initiated by the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services after a home-schooled child reportedly complained of physical abuse by his father. A lawyer assigned to two of the family's eight children invoked the truancy law to get the children enrolled in a public school and away from their parents. So a single case of parental abuse is being used to promote the registration of all parents who crack a book for their kids.

I fail to see the justification for banning home schooling due to one case of child abuse. That's like banning automobiles because of one car crash.

This isn't the first time this was attempted. Congress made the effort back in the 90's.

In 1994, a federal attempt to require certification of parent-teachers went down in flames as hundreds of thousands of calls lit up phone banks on Capitol Hill. The movement has since only grown larger and better organized, now conservatively estimated at well over a million nationwide. But what they can't accomplish legislatively, unions are now trying to achieve by diktat from the courts.

Here we go again. This California judge isn't following the Constitution, he's attempting an end run around it. I'd love to hear the opinions of our three remaining presidential contenders on this issue. Let's see if any of the three still understand what liberty means. California has made all of the home-schooled children truants, and all of their parents criminals. At a time like this, I wish I didn't have an anti-profanity rule on this blog. I'll have to resort to cartoon profanity:

*&!!^$$!!* those *##!!%%%#ers !!!