A Trifecta Of Liberalism, All In One Crazy Radical

This is quite a learning experience:

The media should investigate the racial views of conservative activists like the ones who descended on Washington last weekend, one liberal congresswoman said Wednesday.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said that it’s not enough for African-Americans to levy allegations of racism against the right-leaning protesters, and that the media must look into their views.

“I want those people talked to; I want them interviewed,” Waters told the liberal Bill Press Radio show in a podcast. “I want journalists to be all over those rallies and the marches with the birthers and the teabaggers.”

“What I’m looking for is the very people who carry the signs who are referring to the policies in very, very strange ways like ‘Obamacare’ and ‘Barry Obamacare with Kennedy,’” she said. “What I’ve been interested in is hearing from those people that everybody’s referring to — everybody on the Mall, in the rally.”

Wow. This Democrat Congresswoman is actually saying that anyone who disagrees with Obama should have their thoughts examined. Recall the Thought Police, anyone? Now do you see that this is not simply a flight of fancy, but something that the Left actually wants to see implemented?

But there's more.

She perpetuates the laughable assertion that such dissent is also inherently racist. Hot Air pops that balloon with a dose of common sense:

The Hill reports that Waters identifies racists by their use of the term “ObamaCare”, which would apparently include me. Gee, when I called it HillaryCare in 1993, was that racist too?

So let’s get this straight. Calling Obama’s overhaul of the American health-care system “ObamaCare” is evidence of some kind of bigotry, either latent or overt. Calling protesters “teabaggers,” on the other hand, is — what, exactly? Wit? Sophomoric humor? A complete ignorance of American history?

And never mind the fact that she's using an extremely vulgar term to accuse all dissenters of being racist. It's okay if it's done by the Left, you know.

Maxine Waters is a complete and total nutjob. Unfortunately, she's representative of far too many Leftists in this country, and in the American government.

There's my two cents.

Thought Police? Old News. Make Way For The Lifestyle Police!

New York Post:

EAT your vegetables. Avoid sweets and fats. Never smoke. And do your calisthenics.

Or be ready to pay a hefty tax.

Ridiculous? Sure. But under ObamaCare, Americans may well find themselves moving quickly toward a world of just those kind of mandates. Here's why.

As taxpayers start paying an ever-larger share of the nation's health bill (as they clearly will under the Dems' health reforms), pressure will mount for Uncle Sam to see that folks live healthy lives. There'll be two key rationales for broader sin taxes and other ways to control lifestyles:

* They promote "wellness."

* They make those living "unhealthy lives" bear the medical costs of their "reckless" behavior.

Certainly, the nation's "nannies" -- those who seek to run lives -- will push these arguments. And they'll have a point; after all, why should, say, a non-smoker pay for the lung-cancer treatment of someone who insisted on smoking all his life?

Such reasoning is already used to partly justify mind-boggling cigarette taxes in places like New York. Smokers drive up government health-care bills (e.g., higher Medicaid and Medicare costs), so it's only fair that they pay more in taxes.

Lifestyle cops also trot out health-cost arguments to push trans-fats and fast-food bans, zoning changes to promote fruit and vegetable sales and more public recreation space.

In April, then-city health czar Tom Frieden called for steep new taxes on soda -- which he claims would help curb obesity, and so lower costs tied to treating obesity-related diseases.

Last month, an Urban Institute study urged higher levies "on sugar-sweetened beverages, cigarettes and alcohol." It claimed "disease prevention" -- "increased physical activity, improved nutrition and smoking cessation" to "reduce both diabetes and hypertension" -- saves bucks. A second UI study asserted that excess weight causes "over $200 billion in annual health-care spending, half . . . funded by the taxpayers."

President Obama made his views clear in May when he tapped Frieden to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC then put out its own study, pegging the "cost of obesity" at $147 billion. Co-author Eric Finkelstein tied the issue directly to ObamaCare: "Unless you address obesity, you're never going to address rising health-care costs."

But then, who'd care about the taxpayers' health-care tab -- if there were no nationalized health care to begin with? "Preventable" costs are no reason to dictate lives but to avoid socialized medicine, like ObamaCare.

That's not the nannies' goal, of course. The CDC report, notably, cites 24 intrusive "strategies":

* Making kids walk to school.

* Pushing moms to breastfeed.

* Cutting down entrée portions served in public venues.

* Creating more bike lanes and recreational areas.

* Discouraging sales of "unhealthy" foods.

* Offering incentives to stores to push farm produce.

If voters back such steps for their own health, of course, that's one thing. But to claim they're essential to save taxpayers bucks gets the logic backward -- because, again, without nationalized health care, there'd be no nationalized costs. Folks would make their own choices -- and just pay the consequences.

Actually, sin-taxers understand this. By slapping levies on soda and cigs, they're implicitly telling folks: You can consume these products and possibly drive up health-care costs, as long as you're willing to pay the tax.

But why only soda and cigs? What about ice cream, Chinese food, salted pretzels -- laziness? Why not tax TV and Web time? (Not to give anyone ideas.)

Economist Gerald Prante goes further, asking: Rather than taxing fattening foods, why not tax obesity itself? Taxpayers could declare their height and weight on their 1040s, and pay an "obesity tax" based on the resulting Body Mass Index.

And no reason to stop there. If the goal is to make each of us pay the health costs linked to our own indulgences, there's a more efficient way to do it: Simply make everyone pay his own medical bills -- and scrap nationalized health care altogether.

Lifestyle dictators will have none of that, of course. They'd rather end personal financial responsibility for health-care costs and then claim government has a right to mandate how we live -- since it pays the bills.

Which is why a vote for government health care is a vote for government-run life. Let's hope Americans understand that before ObamaCare goes to the floor.

This gets to the core of the motivation for Obamacare: control. This article does a great job of highlighting what might (I would say 'will') happen down the road with Obamacare. The Thought Police will expand into becoming the Lifestyle Police, and the government will control all manner of behaviors in your daily life in the name of what's good for you. When the government controls what you eat, drink, drive, wear, where you live, how you travel, and who knows how many other things...well, use your own imagination.

What's stopping the government from leveling new regulations or taxes on certain groups of people, like fat people or tall people or people who hold particular beliefs, like a religion or political philosophy?

Nothing.

Now, with this kind of power over the minutiae of daily life, one must ask whether or not the holder of that power is capable of making the most appropriate decisions on your behalf. So: how much do you trust your government?

There's my two cents.

Fight The Hate Crimes Thought Police Bill!

I got the following e-mail late last week from the Liberty Counsel, and thought it was something you should know about:

Late Thursday night, the Senate voted 63-28 to end discussion on 2009's version of the Hate Crimes bill and to make it an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill.

Just as we've been warning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid found a way to abuse the rules and prevent an honest vote!

I am outraged by this blatant manipulation and I am not alone. While Reid crowed about his great "victory," John McCain and other Senators bitterly protested the underhanded way he attached the Hate Crimes bill to vital defense funding authorization.

"While we have young Americans fighting and dying in two wars, we're going to take up a Hate Crimes bill that has nothing to do whatsoever with defending this nation...,"McCain complained.

Meanwhile, all seven Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee went on record to say their committee never even got a chance to review the bill - a blatant departure from proper procedure.

The reason for all this subterfuge? Reid strong-armed the system and by-passed a fair and open debate in order to deliver a political prize to homosexual interest groups - pure and simple!!

Harry Reid has stooped to a new low as Majority Leader Senators are now being forced to make a choice between approving a vital defense spending bill and voting against the dangerous, unneeded Hate Crimes amendment.

And Reid cynically used the cover of Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court confirmation hearings in hopes that grassroots Americans like you would not take notice!

We have one last chance to protest this travesty. The sneaky late-night cloture vote was designed to silence our voice in this battle. But today, Friday, is a "no-vote" day in the Senate. And the earliest the Defense Authorization bill and its Hate Crimes amendment can come to a vote is Monday.

I know it's a long shot, but there could still be some Democratic defections, especially if they "feel the heat." And there are still some technicalities in the bill that could cause more delays before a final vote can take place.

Even if the Senate's Defense Authorization bill passes along with its Hate Crimes amendment, it still has to be reconciled with the House version. So, the battle is not completely over yet!

We need to be heard up until the last possible minute! And we must not allow Reid and his crowd to think no one noticed what they've been doing.

Also, please take time today to pray that God will cause the tide to turn against the Hate Crimes Law. All things are possible to the wondrous God we serve.

Brandon, we have had a major impact in this battle. Now, Harry Reid and his operatives are hoping they can get off the stage before the rotten tomatoes start flying.

Many courageous conservative Senators don't want them to get away with this outrage. I don't either.

This is the thought crimes bill we've talked about off and on over the past few months. The LC suggests three things to say to your Senators:

1. I am very disappointed that the Senate fast-tracked the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 (S. 909) by attaching it as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act.

2. This Hate Crimes legislation is so controversial that it should have been considered as a stand-alone bill, not rushed as an amendment. It wasn't even reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee!

3. I oppose the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and urge you to oppose it as well. It is an attack on faith and family while granting special rights based on "sexual orientation"
and "gender identity," terms which are not even clearly defined in the bill.

Call it in. Any attempt to control people's thoughts is a bad, bad thing, and that should be obvious to anyone...even Senators.

There's my two cents.

Hate Crimes Bill Needs Your Calls!

RedState (emphasis mine):

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crime bill (S909) is poised to hit the floor of the Senate this week, perhaps as soon as Wednesday. *Call your Senators and tell them you want this thing stopped.

This bill is an egregious example of liberal overreach. If passed we will see any manner of sexual perversions legitimized as unassailable and any crime or speech against these proclivities will be suddenly termed a "hate crime." We will also see crimes against gays and lesbians suddenly deemed as somehow worse than crimes against straight people simply by the virtue that the victims are gay.

We will also have codified crime based on thought if this bill passes. How will a judge or prosecutor determine if "hate" was the basis for crime, anyway? How can a jury know that a gay man was beaten because he is gay as opposed to because he didn't give a mugger his wallet? And what of religious speech against certain sexual proclivities? Will that be deemed a "hate crime" now?

Another problem with this bill is that it determines "hate" by defining the sexual proclivities against which the "hate" is perpetrated. As Representative Alcee Hastings (D, FL) said praising the bill "…this legislation addresses our resolve to end violence based on prejudice and to guarantee that all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability or all of these philias, and fetishes, and isms that were put forward need not live in fear because of who they are."

Of course, just what "sexual orientation" or "gender identity" is going to be codified by law as worthy of protection from "hate crime" and what is not? After all, to make law, definitions must be arrived at. Are we going to include pedophelia in this? If not, why not?

Finally, this thing is typical of a brand of liberal activism that jumps to action regardless of reality or facts. See, this bill was based on the 1998 beating death of Matthew Shepard of Laramie, Wyoming. After Shepard was murdered by a pair of criminals and drug addicts the claim was raised that the beating took place because Shepard was gay. It seems that truth was, however, that the pair of criminals thought Shepard had money and they wanted to rob him of it. Drugs were also a motive. They did not attack him because he was gay. Still, an entire cause was made of something that was not factually true.

In any case, this is bad law that opens the door for thought police, codifying into law as legitimate any manner of sexual perversion, not to mention that it will muddy the waters for prosecutors and judges across the country.

Call your Senators and tell them to vote no. It will only take a few minutes to do.

* Find your Senator's contact info.

We've discussed this idea of thought police before here, and this bill is pushing us one giant step closer to that reality.

If you're thinking it's just not possible that this sort of thing could happen here in America in 2009...well, if I'd asked you a year ago if you thought it was possible that the government would own two of the three big American car makers, would you have thought that possible?  If I'd asked you a year ago if you thought it was possible that the government would own controlling stakes in most of the biggest banks and several of the biggest insurance companies in the nation, what would you have said?  If I'd asked you a year ago if you thought it was possible that we'd be looking at a $1 trillion deficit (with an unbroken string of multi-trillion dollar deficits to follow), what would you have said?  If I'd asked you a year ago if you thought it was possible that the government would cancel our missile defense shield while watching two members of the Axis of Evil firing test missiles and developing nuclear weapons, what would you have said?  If I'd asked you a year ago if you thought it was possible that the government would be firing the CEOs of private companies, what would you have said?  If I'd asked you a year ago if you thought it was possible that the government would take aim at private citizens who happened to disagree with them, what would you have said?

Any rational American would have likely said all of these things were not possible in America in 2009...and yet, all of these things have happened.

Take this seriously.  If you value the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression, the right to dissent, and if you understand that each step closer to the kind of control the liberal Left is seeking in this country -- they want to control your THOUGHTS!!!!! -- then you need to take action and spread the word.

There's my two cents.

The Thought Police Are Coming! The Thought Police Are Coming!

Hate crimes, thought crimes, and double jeopardy:

But the two classic arguments against hate-crime legislation still apply to the Shepard bill, which expands the number of protected classes to include particular genders, sexual orientations and "gender identities," without precisely defining all of the terms involved. The arguments are (1) hate crimes laws effectively place society's valuation of some victims' lives and well-being above that of others and (2) they create opportunities for prosecutions based on a defendant's attitudes or opinions rather than his acts, effectively violating freedom of speech and thought.

Another problem with this particular bill is that it explicitly encourages federal prosecutors to try defendants twice for the same crime, even if the first trial results in acquittal.

People usually think of hate-crimes bills as sentence-enhancers – and indeed, many state hate-crime laws take that format. The Shepard bill does not. In addition to providing financial help for local prosecutors for hate crimes, it creates a new federal charge, with a ten-year prison sentence, that can be used against those who commit "crimes of violence" with firearms or explosives, or which cause serious bodily harm, motivated by hatred toward certain groups.

Among other things, the bill permits the U.S. Attorney General to initiate federal hate-crime prosecution in cases where

"the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to State charges left demonstratively unvindicated the Federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence."

If someone is acquitted of an alleged hate crime at the state level, this bill allows federal prosecutors to haul him into federal court for the same alleged act, based only on evidence that "hate" motivated the crime that the jury says the defendant didn't commit. This makes use of a loophole in the constitutional protection from double jeopardy.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R, Wis.) discussed this provision on the House floor when he urged that the bill be re-written simply to enhance penalties for hate crimes. As he put it:

At the first trial, the person is acquitted of the violent crime, and at the second trial the person is convicted of the hate crime, meaning what the defendant says during the commission of that crime. And that ends up criminalizing free speech, because the actual act of violence the jury determined that the defendant was not guilty, but because of what the defendant said during the commission of the crime aimed at the victim, the person is convicted of saying that. That is where we have the First Amendment slippery slope. And I think if this ever happens, you will find this bill declared to be unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment in the blink of an eye.

Not only is this blatantly unconstitutional, but it slides us ever closer to establishing an actual thought police.  What's even worse is that the entire (stated) premise of the Left's argument about hate crimes is demonstrably false:

Do criminals motivated by hatred get off easy when there are no hate crime laws? It is a question worth considering, because that was the implicit argument behind the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Act of 2009, which passed the House last week and now heads to the Senate.

David Freddoso discusses several examples of 'hate crimes' that were mentioned on the floor of the House, and then finishes with this:

Their killers received or face sentences of life, death, and 50 years. Only in the California case could a hate-crimes law actually affect the penalty [could add 1 to 3 years if convicted] — in the Colorado case, it is effectively symbolic [3 years max].

It is entirely possible that there are cases out there where hate criminals get away with slaps on the wrist, but I could find no such case presented on the House floor last week as the bill's proponents made their case. Given the bill's other problems, this should prompt some reflection as to its rationale.

And how rampant is the problem of 'hate crimes'?  Matt Barber puts some numbers to the myth:

I challenge proponents of S. 909 to provide one verifiable example of a prosecutor refusing to charge a violent criminal because the victim was a homosexual or a cross-dresser.
 
They won't. They can't.

Here, the federal government's own statistics serve to derail the "hate crimes" gravy train. According to the FBI, in 2007 – out of 1.4 million violent crimes in the U.S. – there were a mere 247 cases of aggravated assault (including five deaths) allegedly motivated by the victim's "sexual orientation."
 
Yet S. 909 makes the fantastic claim that there is an epidemic of such "hate crimes." So many, in fact, that it "poses a serious national problem."

This is classic liberalism for so many reasons:
- fixing the wrong problem (determining the severity of a crime based on the intent rather than the crime itself)
- style over substance (more interested in political outcry than actually leveling real consequences)
- all the hubbub is based on a myth (there's no consideration of gay-on-gay crime or other evidence that 'hate criminals' are getting off easy)
- categorizing and elevating one group of people over another based on political sensitivities (gays get more protection than non-gays)

To put this into real life perspective, let's look at a recent example of conflict between gays and mainstream America: Miss California Carrie Prejean and Perez Hilton.  What if...

Congressman Randy Forbes (R-Virginia) is a former ranking member of the Judiciary Crime Subcommittee, and founder of the Congressional Prayer Caucus. He recently took to the House floor and provided a powerful example of how the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act" does not ensure equality under the law.

Congressman Forbes compared the protection Miss California Carrie Prejean would receive under the bill to the special protection homosexual blogger and Miss USA judge Perez Hilton would have been afforded.
 
"Had [Hilton] done what he said he would do and stormed that stage and pulled that tiara off [Prejean's] head and [inflicted] bodily harm when he did it, there would not have been one ounce of protection under this piece of legislation for that young girl," Forbes stated.
 
"But after he did it, if she had in response made a statement back about the very sexual orientation that had led him to his hatred and dislike for her, and if she had responded by slapping him or any physical injury, she would have had the potential of a ten-year federal piece of legislation coming against her."
 
The Virginia Republican also argued that if beauty contestant's father had rushed onto the stage at the Miss USA pageant and responded to Hilton's hatred in a physical way, he would have been open to prosecution under the hate crimes bill as well.

Isn't that great?  The Thought Police will put you away for thinking the wrong thing while protecting people who spew true bile and hatred.

Welcome to the Obama Democrat era.

There's my two cents.

The Crazy Results Of Liberalization

Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant recently won a battle against the Human Rights Council in Canada. Basically, they published some articles in Maclean's magazine that weren't particularly kind to Muslims. Despite being accurate and factually true, Muslims sued them before the HRC to shut them up. Eventually, these two beat back the charges, but if they weren't such big media figures (with deep pockets), there's no telling if they would have won.

Translation: you and I wouldn't stand a chance if we got targeted like this. But this is standard procedure for the HRC. Watch:

This is the full bloom of liberalization. In Canada, it is a more advanced cancer than in America, but not by much. If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you've seen numerous examples like these of how liberal policies always eventually come into conflict with each other, not to mention in conflict with things like the law and common sense.

In one of the most inspiring and well-stated videos I've seen in a long time, here's Levant defending himself in one interview with a state attorney (I believe this was during the HRC lawsuit):

Levant is exactly correct on this! A right is a right. The motivation and intent behind an action -- if it is a legal action -- cannot be used to determine if the right should be protected. That's what thought police do, and that only happens in oppressive Communist regimes and stories like Orwell's 1984.

And yet, this is exactly what we see happening here in America. It's the creep of liberalism, and it will not stop unless we deliberately and aggressively refuse to accept it. Standing up for our rights and freedoms, as established by the Constitution of the United States, is critical if we wish to preserve this country as a free and prosperous nation for our children and our grandchildren.

If you choose not to get involved, you are, in fact, choosing to take a side: the one that will allow our freedoms to be chipped away, day by day.

There's my two cents.

Welcome To The Green Nanny State

Our friend and ally, Britain:

A wonderful story from Britain illustrates all the problems with the over-active, snooping state. First, the facts. The Broadland District Council in Norfolk hired a plane equipped with a thermal imaging system to fly over local towns at night to spot the 'hottest' buildings. Initially, the plane was only going to look at businesses, but clever officials soon realized they could look at houses as well.

The justification for this heat-seeking eye in the sky was that it would allow officials to pay the hottest building a visit to "point out the . . . grants available to improve insulation, which will also help cut carbon emissions." Furthermore, the plane also spots cold houses, which officials will then visit because they "think we might have picked up people on low incomes who are not heating their homes because they cannot afford to." So cold houses, too, will get a knock on the door to inform them of all the government grants that are available.

Concerned about privacy? Think that it's none of the state's business to spy on you because your attic's hot or your bathroom's cold? Believe it's insulting for the state to run round explaining that keeping your house warmer uses more energy? Unhappy with the argument that 'climate change' makes your window insulation the state's business? Not eager to see the government finding ways to spend money so they can justify going around offering to give away even more? Inclined to argue that, if you pay your bills on time, the state and its minions should get lost?

Well, the local Liberal Democrat leader has a retort to all those questions: relax. As he put it:

Cameras are in place all over today and we have to accept them, so long as the right guidelines are in place and it will bring benefits, I think the scheme is a good thing.

Yes indeed, just sit back and accept it. There are guidelines, and benefits, after all, so you lose nothing by the fact that you are constantly under video surveillance in modern Britain, and by the fact that the state has now decided that, for 'the public good,' it should have the right to examine your home, remotely, without telling you, and then to show up at your door offering to increase your dependence on it. Relax.

Makes you wonder where that funny old saying about an Englishman's home being his castle came from. It couldn't have been Norfolk.

This is the end result of environmental liberalism in a nanny state.  Think that kind of control in the name of green zealotry can't happen here?  Surprise...it's already underway:

California utilities would control the temperature of new homes and commercial buildings in emergencies with a radio-controlled thermostat, under a proposed state update to building energy efficiency standards.

Customers could not override the thermostats during "emergency events," according to the proposal, part of a 236-page revision to building standards. The document is scheduled to be considered by the California Energy Commission, a state agency, on Jan. 30.

The description does not provide any exception for health or safety concerns. It also does not define what are "emergency events."

This is consummate liberalism.  It's all about the control, and it's all for your own good.  Big-government liberals think people are too stupid to do [what they think is] the right thing, so they need to control your own tendencies on your behalf.  Expect to see much, much more of this for as long as liberals are in charge.  It'll be like 1984 all over again.

There's my two cents.

GIVE Update

Unfortunately, it looks like the GIVE Act passed the Senate yesterday. It will now have to go into committee to hash out the differences between the House and Senate versions. Here's an interview with Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin talking more about the bill:

I have a very bad feeling about this one.

There's my two cents.

What Is Happening To America?

There are days when I wonder what has become of logic, reason, ethical standards, and just plain honesty in America.  Today is one of those days.  Here's a small sample.

Obama presses for more secrecy

The Left cheered as George Bush left office, as they believed him to be scornful of the Constitution and obsessed with secrecy.  Barack Obama promised to bring a new era of openness, one in which the government would no longer hide intelligence programs from court scrutiny.  Secret surveillance would become a thing of the past!

They should have asked Jim Geraghty about expiration dates.  As the Washington Post reported yesterday, not only has Obama reneged on that particular promise, he's actually arguing for a broader state-secrets privilege than Bush did:

Civil liberties advocates are accusing the Obama administration of forsaking campaign rhetoric and adopting the same expansive arguments that his predecessor used to cloak some of the most sensitive intelligence-gathering programs of the Bush White House.

The first signs have come just weeks into the new administration, in a case filed by an Oregon charity suspected of funding terrorism. President Obama's Justice Department not only sought to dismiss the lawsuit by arguing that it implicated "state secrets," but also escalated the standoff — proposing that government lawyers might take classified documents from the court's custody to keep the charity's representatives from reviewing them. …

In his campaign plan to "change Washington," Obama criticized the Bush administration, saying that it had "ignored public disclosure rules" and that it too often invoked the state-secrets privilege, according to his Web site.

Now, Obama's claim of state secrets has prompted criticism.

How much outrage will we hear from the Left over this?  Not too much, I suspect.  A few like Glenn Greenwald, who has made this a particular focus, will blast Obama for falling back on his promise for openness.  The rest had little real interest in the topic outside of a chance for some serious Bush bashing.

Non-existent transparency

More than a month ago, Tim Geithner announced a new website: financialstability.gov. "The website will give Americans the transparency they deserve," he promised. As of today, however, the website is still under construction.

Are you feeling more confident about the adminstration now?

Being non-political

Democrats complained endlessly about the supposed "politicization" of the Bush Justice Department. When asked about this at his confirmation hearing, Eric Holder piously pledged that his Justice Department would "serve justice" and "not the fleeting interests of any political party." America, he intoned, was "in dire need of a less political and more independent Justice Department."

But an e-mail and flyer recently circulated to Justice Department employees indicate Attorney General Holder has an interesting definition of what it means to be "less political." The flyer invites all employees to attend a speech in the main Justice building on Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact, it notes, all "[s]upervisors are encouraged to grant official time to employees to attend this event."

And what pillar of the legal profession will be lecturing Justice employees to help them "serve justice" in a "less political" way? Why, none other than Donna Brazile, whose own website biography describes her as a "[v]eteran Democratic political strategist" and a Vice Chairman at the Democratic National Committee." Brazile is marketed by more than one speaker's bureau at a cost ranging from $10,000 to $20,000. The flyer doesn't say how many taxpayer dollars are going to pay a Democratic political consultant to speak to career employees at the Justice Department (sounds like a good FOIA request). Good thing the Department is no longer politicized.

Democrats keep Madoff money

From the Hill:

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has apparently decided to keep $100K in contributions from Bernie Madoff, who faces up to 150 years in prison for swindling billions from the likes of Steven Spielberg, Elie Wiesel, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick in a massive Ponzi scheme.

In campaigns, one side often calls on the other to return money for one reason or another. Sometimes it's valid, sometimes not. Regardless, it's Campaign 101. But when the contributor in question is the single biggest financial criminal in history, there can be no question that those illicit funds should not remain in campaign coffers.

Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) gave thousands in Madoff donations to charity. Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) are doing the same.

Given the economic uncertainty our nation faces and that Madoff not only fleeced the rich and famous but major corporations such as HSBC — in other words, Madoff swindled all of us — the DSCC's decision is shockingly tone-deaf.

However, what's almost equally surprising is the virtual silence from the media.

I'm not at all surprised by it.  The mainstream media is a fully integrated house organ of the Democrat party, and has essentially no will on its own aside from what Obama and the Democrats want them to say.  And, if you look at these other stories, there's a clear trend toward an incomprehensible dichotomy in how they report and think about things.

Since we're on the subject of thinking, allow me to bring up the concept of doublethink.  It's a term from Orwell's 1984, and it is defined as "the act of conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty.  To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies."

I don't know about you, but that smacks of Obot-ism to me.  This blog is littered with shining examples of doublethink by liberal Democrats.  Since this was written almost 60 years ago, I'm beginning to wonder if Orwell was some sort of prophet.  At the very least, he is looking more and more prescient with every day that passes under the Obama administration.

There's my two cents.

What Is Hate Speech

This is...well, this is pretty messed up:

Since when did the simple expression of our right of free speech and right to freedom of religion become 'hate speech'?! How is the viewing of a manger scene 'hate speech'?!

This is a prime example of how the Left operates. Did you catch in there the bit about putting up a Catholic creche and a Jewish menorah next to each other? The guy's right - no Jew nor Catholic is likely to complain about that, even though the two religions are very distinct. On the other hand, the Lefty atheist is so 'offended' by any mention of religion that he demands that both of the others be taken down!

If there's a better example of having cake and eating it, too, I'm not sure what it is!

Gateway Pundit adds this:

Dan Barker of the Freedom from Religion Foundation said on "Fox & Friends" on December 1 that the nativity scene represents "hate speech" and "a direct attack on good human values."
Hate speech?... That doesn't even make sense.

And, by the way, he talks about the winter solstice... Isn't that a Wiccan holiday

I've never heard of any Christian or Jew demanding Wiccans keep their rituals and celebrations hidden from the public view. Have you? We understand that freedom of speech and freedom of religion means Wiccans can be Wiccans in public if they so choose. We don't demand they go into hiding just because they have different beliefs from us! So why doesn't the Left get that?

Because it's a corrupt anti-religion religion that doesn't care one bit about genuine freedom, real rights as clearly enumerated in the Constitution, or respect for others. It is a wholly selfish, bankrupt philosophy that is so blatantly intolerant that it openly seeks to silence all dissent. You've just seen it with your own eyes. It's the mindset that leads to the thought police.

The Left must be stopped, or all the freedoms that our Founders and ancestors have bled and died to establish and preserve will be shoved into the deepest, darkest hole the Left can find.

There's my two cents.

Censorship Is On The Way

I wouldn't be surprised to see some major new efforts to censor free speech after January 20th rolls around.  Allow me to introduce the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which would be more appropriately named the Censorship Doctrine.  This is basically a policy that would require all talk radio stations to provide equal air time to opposite viewpoints of anything controversial spoken or reported.  There are any number of problems with this, but I'll just highlight a few of the obvious ones.

First off, we have this little thing called the First Amendment in our Constitution, and it says this:

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.

It is illegal -- according to the Constitution, for whatever that's worth to liberal Dems -- to prohibit or abridge free speech.  Now, without getting into all of those exceptions like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, this is a pretty basic right that pretty much everyone understands.  It means that the discussion and debate of ideas shall not be silenced.  This country was founded on the principles of freedom and choice, and the Founders were trying to enshrine those principles into our nation permanently with this amendment.  And yet, the Fairness/Censorship Doctrine will take square aim against those principles.  Here's how, in a nutshell.

Anytime someone on the radio says something controversial, someone who happens to believe differently can call the radio station and demand equal time to express the opposite viewpoint, and the station cannot refuse.  So, you'd end up with idiots walking in off the street -- potentially with absolutely no experience or ability to hold a coherent thought, much less an audience -- to fill the airwaves with verbal garbage.  What will happen in that case?  The audience goes away because no one wants to listen to garbage.  When the audience goes away, the advertisers go away, and when the advertisers go away, the station goes away.  If this policy gets re-enacted, we'll see a tidal wave of complaints on small radio stations, forcing them to close down.  On top of that, this will also hurt every company with a financial interest in the advertisements and supporting industries around those stations and the products advertised there.  This phenomenon will similarly play out with the larger radio stations, and though they may not necessarily go out of business, they will most certainly ditch all controversial programming.  This is how things worked before Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and no one aired anything that could possibly be considered controversial.  Speech, discussion, and debate were effectively silenced.  Incidentally, once the free market started taking hold in AM radio, the band came alive, and has expanded from a couple hundred stations to a couple thousand stations.  That's what the free market will do when the product is worth buying.

That's another point worth making - the Fairness/Censorship Doctrine is actually an attack on both free speech and capitalism by forcing certain viewpoints into a conversation when the people buying the product don't want it.  If there was a market for liberal talk radio, it would be succeeding - it's been tried.  Remember Air America?  Not many people actually listened to it, so it went out about as fast as it came in, but that's because no one wanted to listen to it, so no one advertised on it, and the stations went under.  Voila - free speech and capitalism at its finest!

Anyway, the next point is that, aside from the truly amazing hypocrisy of the Left caring only about certain jobs -- which obviously do not include talk radio jobs -- being lost, a giant loophole exists in the definition of 'controversial': it's almost totally open-ended, which means that any lawyer or Senator with a microphone can make an argument that a program should be censored on behalf of someone lodging a complaint.

Most of the leading Democrats -- including President-Elect Obama, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Reid -- have already announced their intentions to reinstate this clear violation of the 1st Amendment, so this will be a battle we'll have to fight.  Mike Pence is the leading conservative voice on our side.  Check out his website below for a ton of good information about it (including a great Myth vs. Fact comparison here).

So, why are the Dems looking at this?  Because talk radio is the one area of media that is dominated by conservatives and conservative ideas.  By silencing this key industry, the Democrats will strike a potentially fatal blow to the opposing viewpoint.  If it were really about 'fairness', why would they target the one industry which they don't control?  If it were really about 'fairness', it should be applied across the board to TV, FM radio, newspapers, magazines, and all other forms of media, right?  Not so, according to the Dems.

They're now offering up all kinds of justifications to try to confuse people, so you need to be aware of what this really is, and how to see through the deception.  They consider conservative talk radio to be the equivalent of pornography, and should be censored.  They say it's about 'localism', which means that only local interests should be served by talk radio stations, but a single complaint (presumably from a local) can almost single-handedly derail a station's ability to retain a broadcasting license.  This is not speculation - these are things that have already been proposed or tried in certain cases.  If these policies become institutionalized at a national level, the only major conservative voice in the public media will die.

Ah, but what about the Internet, you say?  Well, that was my first thought, too.  A whole lot of people have broadband Internet access nowadays, so maybe talk radio shows could just go online, right?  Not exactly.  There is also an effort underway to censor the Internet.  Obama's selection for the new Attorney General, Eric Holder, is a dangerous choice for many reasons, his history on censorship certainly being one of them - he's on record as being in favor of implementing 'reasonable' restrictions on the Internet.  I'm guessing that they would not only target talk radio 'shows', but also conservative blogs, conservative e-zines, and anything else they deem 'pornographic' (except for actual pornogaphy, of course - that's free speech).  Now, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to predict that this will turn into a boiling frog scenario, do you?  If we allow a little bit of heat, we'll end up getting boiled before we realize what's happened.  It's liberalism creep - one little, irreversible step at a time, until we've fallen off the cliff.

Both the administration and Congress are about to be led by people who freely propose to violate the very same Constitution they're supposed to defend and uphold.

So, what do we do?

We start working now.  We need to spread the word on what this so-called Fairness Doctrine (i.e. Censorship Doctrine) is, what it did in the past, and how it is a violation of the Constitution.  It's all about eliminating ignorance to such an extent that the deceits of the Left will find no traction.  We've got to get out in front of the actual push to reinstate the policy so that people will be ready for it.  For example, if people hear the phrase 'Fairness Doctrine' but don't know what it's really all about, they will think that sound perfectly reasonable, right?  That's the danger in the name of this policy, and that's why we've got to spread the TRUTH far and wide first.

Then, we need to push our elected reps -- I know, you may not get very far, but trust me, they pay attention to a flood of calls and e-mails, so keep it up -- to fight against this policy.  We need to communicate to them that we understand what it really is, that it is unconstitutional, and that we will not tolerate it.

Then, when the big moment comes and it's time for them to cast a vote, we hammer them with calls and e-mails demanding they oppose it.

I'll keep you up to date as I read about this abomination moving forward.  Let's make this one go down like shamnesty - death by millions of paper cuts.

There's my two cents.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
http://www.theresmytwocents.com/2008/10/obamas-axis-of-bias_29.html
http://mikepence.house.gov/fairnessdoctrine/fairnessdoctrine.htm
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTQwZWExMzVkMWYwOWM0OGUzYmMxNDNiMmI5ODNlYjA=
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/obama_declares_war_on_conserva.html
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/04/schumer-on-the-fairness-doctrine-just-think-of-it-as-regulating-pornography/
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/21/obamas-ag-choice-regulate-internet-communication/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/27753/

Lame Duck Moves

President Bush is now officially a lame duck President. Normally, that means the President just lays low, avoids screw-ups, and starts writing a memoir. In Bush's case, it looks like he's still trying to do his job.

Bush has pushed policies in two key areas that you need to know about, the first of which is oil shale development:

The Bush administration Monday opened up two million acres of public land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to oil-shale exploration, challenging congressional Democrats who have opposed the move.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) has indicated that she would prefer to limit shale drilling on environmental grounds, but found it politically difficult to extend a ban on oil-shale operations after oil prices surged to record highs earlier this year.

It is unclear what will happen after President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January. If he and other Democrats want to keep federal oil-shale lands off-limits, they would have time to change course, because requests for new commercial leases undergo a lengthy review by the Interior Department.

The shale region in the western U.S. holds the equivalent of about 800 billion barrels of oil, according to Bureau of Land Management estimates. That is enough to meet current levels of U.S. demand for 110 years.

The process of converting oil shale into oil is apparently quite expensive, so it would not likely be viable unless prices went back up, but I don't know of anyone who expects prices to stay at their current lows indefinitely. So, this appears to be a preemptive measure, looking ahead to the future. It's no secret that we'll need more energy production if we are to remain a prosperous, free, and secure nation, and this is one component that would help. If this one act could set us free from foreign oil for a century all by itself, isn't it worth considering?

The second issue on which Bush recently acted is on the Freedom of Choice Act:

The Bush administration has decided to push last-minute rule changes in the lame-duck period that would strengthen protections for health providers with religious objections to abortion and contraception. Objections have come from within the administration itself and from states and providers over the new rules, which they claim greatly overreach already-existing protections and obliterate compromises reached on these issues. It appears that President Bush has decided to pre-empt the Freedom of Choice Act as his last major domestic effort:

A last-minute Bush administration plan to grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds has provoked a torrent of objections, including a strenuous protest from the government agency that enforces job discrimination laws.

The proposed rule would prohibit recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or to assist in the performance of abortions or sterilization procedures because of their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

It would also prevent hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and drugstores from requiring employees with religious or moral objections to “assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity” financed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

One commonly debated component of the FOCA is that people with certain religious beliefs may not want to dispense birth control pills or the morning after pill. Current law allows them to refuse such actions. Hot Air offers this analysis:

[T]his isn’t really about dispensing the Pill. It’s about forcing hospitals and clinics who offer OB/GYN services and accept Medicare and other federal funding to provide abortions. The Freedom of Choice Act completely federalizes the issue of abortion, making Congress the sole arbiter of restrictions — which FOCA explicitly repeals entirely. It also repeats the canard that abortion isn’t available in 87% of the country (despite which 22% of all pregnancies in the US end in abortion) and that FOCA intends to rectify that. How? The only option available would be a requirement that all OB/GYN clinics and hospitals provide abortions on request.

The Catholic Church runs almost a thousand health care facilities and treated over 90 million patients in 2007. They have already said that passage of FOCA would likely force them to close down most or all of these facilities in order to avoid being forced to provide abortions. The Bush rules attempt to prevent that from happening. The incoming Obama administration will be forced to repeal them before imposing FOCA, a not insurmountable obstacle but one which will make their intention to force OB/GYN providers to become abortionists plain.

As social issues like abortion and gay marriage have once again become a very front-burner issue, this is probably going to be a big deal in the coming months. We know that Obama is the most radically pro-abortion President this country has ever had (here, here, here), and he has committed to Planned Parenthood that signing the FOCA will be his 'first act as President', so there is good cause for social conservatives and religious people of all stripes to be concerned. As I understand it, this act would not only legalize abortion-on-demand at taxpayer's expense, it would also remove protections for people refusing to participate in such actions based on their religious beliefs. This would be a very dangerous bill if it became law, taking us one more step toward a nation in which there would be a thought police that could prosecute people for thinking or believing the 'wrong' things.

So, Bush has taken action on a couple of very important issues. While it is certain that Obama and his far-Left Dem Congress can undo just about everything Bush has done (including these moves), the more thoroughly entrenched Bush can make them, the harder it will be and the longer it will take to root them out. Even buying some time could be important, as it will allow the Right to inform the American public and generate the all-important public support when these issues come up for votes.

Thank you, President Bush.

There's my two cents.

Obama's Axis Of Bias

More on the coming Obama thugocracy from Investor's Business Daily:

Axis Of Bias

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Media: A major newspaper suppresses damning video of Barack Obama partying with pro-terrorism radicals. Meanwhile, Obama punishes news outlets that do their jobs. Fairness Doctrine anyone?

Los Angeles Times owner Sam Zell must have thought of the Chicago Cubs when he OK'd the layoff of 75 editorial employees this week. Zell owns the lovable loser Cubs, who haven't won the World Series in a century, and the liberal media are turning into the Cubs of modern communications.

But news-hungry consumers don't find it lovable when the media elite keep important stories to themselves. John McCain has demanded that the L.A. Times release its videotape of a 2003 farewell party in Chicago at which Obama is said to have grandly toasted guest of honor Rashid Khalidi, the late PLO head Yasser Arafat's spokesman. (Ex-terrorist Bill Ayers may have been there too.)

But the Times apparently doesn't think Americans are entitled to see Obama praising a terrorist mouthpiece before they decide whether to make him president for four years. Similarly, major news outlets buried this week's story of Obama calling for "major redistributive change" in a newly discovered 2001 radio interview.

But if you think we've got an unholy alliance between liberal Democrats in Washington and this country's media elite now, just watch what happens if Obama becomes president with a Democratic Congress — especially if it features a filibuster-proof Senate.

Major Democratic congressional leaders like Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois, 2004 presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi want the reinstitution of the outdated, pre-Internet "Fairness Doctrine." They want to counter the news revolution in which blogs and talk radio have taken on the Big Three TV networks.

The Obama campaign claims Obama opposes a new Fairness Doctrine, but City Journal editor Brian C. Anderson doesn't think a President Obama would veto such a bill. Moreover, Obama and most Democrats want to impose more "local accountability" on broadcasters, "setting up community boards to make their demands known when station licenses come up for renewal," as Anderson notes.

This measure is "clearly aimed at national syndicators like Clear Channel that offer conservative shows," Anderson says. "It's a Fairness Doctrine by subterfuge." Obama would pair that with relicensing stations every two years instead of the current eight.

We have already seen that Obama's forces have no scruples about punishing media organizations who do not act as disciples of "The One." Newswomen with both WFTV in Orlando, Fla., and the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia dared to ask running mate Joseph Biden about Obama's plans to "spread the wealth," as he infamously told Ohio's Joe the Plumber. The Obama campaign let the journalists know they were now personae non grata.

With both the executive and legislative branches firmly in the power of the most liberal leadership ever — Obama, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — it is naive to think they would not move against those who most threaten their prospects in the midterm elections of 2010. And that is Fox News and conservative talk radio, supported by the blogosphere.

The establishment media and liberal Democrats constitute an axis of bias, arming to threaten the free speech of Americans. George Orwell, call your office.

This is what we conservatives have been saying for quite some time: as just the Democrat nominee, Barack Obama has gone out of his way to silence dissent, even to the point of asking the Justice Department to prosecute a perfectly legal organization that ran an ad that spoke unfavorably (but accurately) about him.  Just think what he could (and probably would) do as President.

I caution you to dismiss this as hand-wringing by conservative radio freaks.  Remember the theory of liberalism creep - it your rights and freedoms are taken away slowly, one small step at a time, in almost unnoticeable increments.  I'd suggest you consider smoking bans.  Here in Kansas City, we now have a metro-wide smoking ban in place.  While that seems cleaner, more healthy, and all that, it is a terrible suppression of freedom because the government (with the support of too many people who misunderstand what's at stake) has forced this ban on private property.  It's one thing to ban smoking in public areas, but it's entirely different for the government to dictate what can and can't be done on someone's own property.

Let me be clear: I am not a smoker.  I don't like being around cigarette smoke.  I think it's a disgusting habit.  But, I will defend the right of smokers to smoke on their own property till the day I die because I understand that people have the freedom to make choices in their life, whether good or bad.  If I don't want to be around smokers, and if a restaurant allows smoking, I am free to choose another restaurant.  The restaurant owner has the choice to allow smoking and risk people like me going elsewhere, or to refuse to allow smoking and risk smokers going elsewhere.  The key is that it's the property owner making that decision in his own business interest, not the government dictating to him.  That's freedom.  That's America.

Don't think this is valid?  Look at how many things have been banned because they've been deemed unhealthy or bad: transfats, foie gras, smoking, incandescent light bulbs...and the list is getting longer.  Once we allow government to dictate our personal choices and freedoms -- even under the guise of being 'good for us' -- we start down a very slippery slope.  Essentially any government action (with a few exceptions for national security, crime, etc.) that prohibits the free choice of citizens is bad, and that's why this Fairness Doctrine simply cannot be allowed.  First it's refusing an interview to a couple local stations.  Next it's withholding a video that would be damaging to their favorite candidate.  Then it's ostracizing an entire network (remember, the Dems refused to participate in a debate on Fox earlier this year).  The Fairness Doctrine takes square aim at huge enterprises of radio networks that do nothing but propagate free speech according to the free market - if people tune in to good programming, advertisers pay money to run ads during that program, and those people buy those products, and business works.

The reason these liberals want the Fairness Doctrine is very, very simple: talk radio is the key component of the distribution of information outside of the mainstream media.  Their monopoly as gatekeepers of information is broken.  Not only does the media want the Fairness Doctrine because they want their monopoly back, but liberal politicians want the Fairness Doctrine because without the media monopoly, they cannot hide their actions from the American people, which happens far too often.  As we have seen this year, the media has simply become the in-house propaganda wing of the liberal Democrat party, and as such, they both have a vested interest in seeing the Fairness Doctrine get reinstated.

If it does, you'll see a crushing of dissent like we haven't seen in America in recent memory, if ever.  It will be reminiscent of a socialist state where the media is literally contolled by the state (though in this case it will be largely voluntary, an even more disturbing prospect), preventing any opposing viewpoints from being heard on anything.

This Axis of Bias cannot be allowed to flourish.  If Obama becomes President -- especially if he gets a supermajority in Congress to help him -- the Axis will become reality in short order.  We've seen the first few steps, and we know from history where those steps will eventually take us.  Let's not give Obama the chance to silence us.

There's my two cents.

Packing The Court For Future Generations

I'd like to remind you of something I posted over a year ago:

The New York Times published an editorial last week revealing another plan by the Democrats to take back control of the Supreme Court. The basic scenario is that if the Supreme Court continues to lean right (originalist), they'll attempt to add new justices to the court the next chance they get. Here's a little background.

The current Court has nine justices on it. The number of members on the court isn't dictated by the Constitution, but rather by Congress, which is one of the checks and balances of our system of government. There have been a number of modifications to the court over the past two hundred years, with the court ranging from 5 to 10 justices, landing on our current number in 1868.

So, if this is a perfectly legal and acceptable -- as well as precedented -- action, what's my point? My point is simply to illustrate what you will get if Democrats control both Congress and the White House. As I've blogged about before, activist judges are extremely dangerous to the American way of life and the freedoms we possess per the Constitution. It should come as no surpise that a Democrat is likely to lean toward (and appoint) activist judges, just as Clinton did. It takes only a simple majority (51 votes) to change the number of justices on the Supreme Court, so it would be very possible if a Democrat won the White House in 2008 while retaining even a slim Congressional majority.

Picture this scenario: Hillary Clinton wins the Presidency in 2008 and the Democrats retain their majorities in both houses of Congress. Clinton could drive through a change that would increase the Supreme Court to 11 justices. She would then likely appoint far-left activist judges to fill the two new positions, stacking the Court with a 6-5 activist judge majority. It's not too far-fetched, if the Democrats win the next election cycle.

If you think that activist judges -- who impose their own bias on huge majorities of voters on critical issues including gay marriage, eminent domain, and civil rights for non-citizen terrorists -- are a problem now, just wait until the court is deliberately stacked toward the activist side.

Of course, we now know that Hillary is out of the picture, at least in terms of making the appointments.  She could very well become one of them, though, appointed by Barack Obama.

On a related note, Thomas Sowell informs us about the kind of judges Obama will appoint (emphasis mine):

One of the biggest and most long-lasting "change" to expect if Barack Obama becomes president of the United States is in the kinds of federal judges he appoints. These include Supreme Court justices, as well as other federal justices all across the country, all of whom will have lifetime tenure.

Sen. Obama has stated very clearly what kinds of Supreme Court justices he wants — those with "the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old."

Like so many things that Obama says, it may sound nice if you don't stop and think — and chilling if you do stop and think. Do we really want judges who decide cases based on who you are, rather than on the facts and the law?

If the case involves a white man versus a black woman, should the judge decide that case differently than if both litigants are of the same race or sex?

The kind of criteria that Barack Obama promotes could have gotten three young men at Duke University sent to prison for a crime that neither they nor anybody else committed.

Didn't we spend decades in America, and centuries in Western civilization, trying to get away from the idea that who you are determines what your legal rights are?

What kind of judges are we talking about?

A classic example is federal Judge H. Lee Sarokin, who could have bankrupted a small New Jersey town because they decided to stop putting up with belligerent homeless men who kept disrupting their local public library. Judge Sarokin's rulings threatened the town with heavy damage awards, and the town settled the case by paying $150,000 to the leading disrupter of its public library.

After Bill Clinton became president, he elevated Judge Sarokin from the district court to the Circuit Court of Appeals. Would President Barack Obama elevate him — or others like him — to the Supreme Court? Judge Sarokin certainly fits Obama's job description for a Supreme Court justice.

A court case should not depend on who you are and who the judge is. We are supposed to be a country with "the rule of law and not of men." Like all human beings, Americans haven't always lived up to our ideals. But Obama is proposing the explicit repudiation of that ideal itself.

That is certainly "change," but is it one that most Americans believe in? Or is it something that we may end up with anyway, just because too many voters cannot be bothered to look beyond rhetoric and style?

We can vote a president out of office at the next election if we don't like him. But we can never vote out the federal judges he appoints in courts across the country, including justices of the Supreme Court.

The kind of judges that Barack Obama wants to appoint can still be siding with criminals or terrorists during the lifetime of your children and grandchildren.

The Constitution of the United States will not mean much if judges carry out Obama's vision of the Constitution as "a living document"— that is, something that judges should feel free to change by "interpretation" to favor particular individuals, groups or causes.

We have already seen where that leads with the 2005 Kelo Supreme Court decision that allows local politicians to take people's homes or businesses and transfer that property to others. Almost invariably, these are the homes of working class people and small neighborhood businesses that are confiscated under the government's power of eminent domain. And almost invariably they are transferred to developers who will build shopping malls, hotels or other businesses that will bring in more tax revenue.

The Constitution protected private property, precisely in order to prevent such abuses of political power, leaving a small exception when property is taken for "public use," such as the government's building a reservoir or a highway.

But just by expanding "public use" to mean "public purpose" — which can be anything — the Supreme Court opened the floodgates.

That's not "a living Constitution." That's a dying Constitution — and an Obama presidency can kill it off.

Here's the point.  It only takes a simple majority of Congress to change the number of justices on the Supreme Court.  There are currently nine justices, with a general breakdown of four originalist, four activist, and one flip-flopper (Kennedy).  Barack Obama has openly pledged to appoint activist judges who reinterpret the law as they see fit (not according to what the Constitution actually says).  With a supermajority in Congress, it is likely that Obama could increase the number of justices to 11, 15, or whatever he could persuade Congress to go along with.  Given that the Left's favorite tool of implementing liberal policies is the court system (since they can't win at the ballot box), and that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of legal decisions, we're looking at an irrecoverable control of the court system if this happens.

Now, let me also remind you of the recent revelation of Obama's statements in 2001 that he regrets the Supreme Court hasn't gotten more involved in economic redistribution.  In that interview, Obama said that legislating economic redistribution was too lengthy a process, and that the courts could provide that redistribution much more quickly; that's why he was disappointed about the Supreme Court's lack of initiative.

If you want to see how fast your rights get taken away, just wait until an Obama-packed 11 member Supreme Court gets busy.

There's my two cents.