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A BEDROCK principle of U.S. democracy is that the coercive powers of government are never used for partisan purpose. The law is blind to political viewpoint, and so are its enforcers, most especially the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service. Any violation of this principle threatens the trust and the voluntary cooperation of citizens upon which this democracy depends. So it was appalling to learn Friday that the IRS had improperly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny. It was almost as disturbing that President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have not personally apologized to the American people and promised a...

Dear Dave, I’m following your plan, and currently I have $14,000 in my emergency fund. What are essentials for three to six months of expenses? Brian Dear Brian, Basically, you should ask yourself this question: What would it take to operate my household for a month? There are several different things that could be classified as “essentials,� but if you take those things and multiply the number by three, four, five or six, you’ll see how much money you need to have a fully loaded emergency fundof three to six months of expenses. This is Baby Step 3 in my...

Doug McIntyre: There's nothing civil about censorship Illegal immigration debate seeps into language By Doug McIntyre Censorship is not civility. Yet that's the argument made in this newspaper last Sunday by columnist Tim Rutten. (Killing 'illegal' is about civility, not politics.) Rutten made a spirited defense of The Associated Press' decision to prohibit their reporters from using the phrase "illegal immigrant" when referring to an individual. I couldn't disagree more. The last people on earth who should be telling journalists what words they can and can't use are fellow journalists. That's exactly what the AP has chosen to do. "Illegal...

Understanding what happened on Friday at Fort Huachuca is key to appreciating how well the community presented its case to representatives of the Pentagon. Charged with listening to fort and local civilian leaders as part of an assessment process that will result in a congressionally directed force reduction of 80,000 soldiers, the Washington, D.C. visitors heard first-hand that water is not an issue and the military installation has inextricable ties to the community. Sierra Vista Mayor Rick Mueller said it best, noting Fort Huachuca and the city are really “one community separated by a fence.” The truth of that statement...

Distraught by his poor performance in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, liberals viciously turned on secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel on social media. hagel’s making biden look rhetorically sure-footed — Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) January 31, 2013 this hearing is beginning to remind me of the 1st Obama-Romney debate — Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) January 31, 2013 This Hagel hearing is a disaster. — Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) January 31, 2013

You know you live in a Country run by idiots if... You can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if... You have to have your parents signature to go on a school field trip but not to get an abortion. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if... An 80 year old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a Muslim woman in a burka is only subject to having her neck and head searched....

President Obama has an anti-colonial, pro-Islam policy. He maintains deafening silence about Islamic imperialism (manifested as jihad and sharia doctrines of Islam, which have always caused and continue to cause havoc across the world), but apologizes at every opportunity for Western colonialism. Whereas the Nazis killed six million Jews, Islamic Jihad has killed 120 million Africans, 60 million Christians, 80 million Hindus and 10 million Buddhists, according to the Center for the Study of Political Islam. Whereas Colonialism brought science and technology to many parts of the world, Islamic Imperialism brought no benefits to those it oppressed. President Obama maintains...

Georgetown University constitutional law professor Louis Michael Seidman has just about had it with the focus of his 40 years of academic study. As he writes in the New York Times on Monday, it is the Constitution itself which has allowed for the series of legislative follies that finally resulted in the “fiscal cliff.” Seidman says that it is time for Americans to realize what lawmakers have known since the constitution’s inception – it is okay to ignore it. “As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government...

... Another thing that brings the community together is the Christmas holiday. Christmas is my favorite holiday, and my family has adopted many different traditions over the years. ... Many of these traditions show how Christmas fosters a sense of community, bringing together people who have little else in common to share in the magic and promise of the season. For a little while, we can put aside our political, cultural, and social differences and just watch trains go around a track, sing Christmas carols, watch dancers and musicians marching down the street, or just admire the lights and decorations...

It's interesting (or maybe just kind of sad) that various government agencies see possible terrorists everywhere but rarely, if ever, catch one. Despite the large number of personnel being thrown at the problem (along with lots of money), actual terrorists seem to be in limited supply. But these agencies haven't let their lack of success temper their vision of a nation under constant imminent attack. Public Intelligence recently posted a Powerpoint presentation from the NYC fire department (FDNY) discussing the unique safety issues mobile food trucks present. Along with some actual concerns (many food trucks use propane and/or gasoline-powered generators...

Complete Headline: Why Was There No October Surprise? Because Every Freakin’ Day for the Last Four Years Has Been an October SurpriseWhere was the October Surprise? Almost everyone anticipated this year’s “October Surprise” — some last-minute, unexpected, shocking scandal to rock the presidential election and derail one of the candidates. But it never appeared. In an era of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink gutterball politics, this mysterious absence of any major scandal was itself noteworthy. How could nothing have happened? Sure, there was Hurricane Sandy. But that doesn’t count. Sandy was a natural disaster that dominated the headlines for a few days, but it...

DoughtyOne at 10:48 PM October 21, 2012

Join The Debate Could Biden hit Ryan too hard?

Editor's note: It's a presidential election year, so we thought we'd weigh in with our list of the five worst presidents. We start with, yes, the current incumbent. See our other choices at U-T Opinion online. He took office at a time when the U.S. economy was on its worst slide in 75 years, but pushed policies using borrowed money that were more meant to preserve government jobs than broadly help the private sector where the great majority of Americans work, ensuring the jobs crisis continued. He railed against the heavy spending and big deficits of his predecessor, but blithely...

We can’t rely on the media, even the alternative media. Free Republic is announcing a new initiative that gives you a platform. We want to leverage the most powerful minds on the right to make a difference. To do this, we want to bring a new level of activism, the citizen investigator. In the spirit of 1750’s The Pennsylvania Gazette published by Ben Franklin and of Andrew Breitbart. For the longest time, our primary focus has been on looking at what the media presents and investigating it or discussing it. We have been missing something, YOU! Jim has created a...

In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics. That's because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today's times. Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there...

Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, so often described as an impediment to his political prospects, might work to his advantage with one crucial segment of the electorate: Jewish voters. The very fact that his Mormonism makes him less popular among evangelical Christians almost certainly makes him more popular among American Jews. Academic analysis of the intersection of religion and politics suggests that Jews maintain a distinctly—and surprisingly—favorable view of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ When comparing these figures with the exit polls from major primaries, Romney fares much better among Republican Jews than he does among any...

New Mexico insiders from both parties describe Wilson, an Air Force Academy graduate, as a tough and disciplined campaigner, a strong fundraiser and someone whose broad support, including among Hispanics, is in the mold of former Sen. Pete Domenici (R). There’s also no better wingman in the state than Gov. Susana Martinez, a likely surrogate whom Wilson has known for about 20 years. “I think New Mexico is always going to be a swing state on races like this,” said Jay McCleskey, a GOP media strategist in the state and former regional political director at the Republican National Committee. “But...

If I had to pick a date when the mainstream media became fully vested in protecting Democratic interests, it would be March 11, 1992, the day Bill Clinton swept the Super Tuesday primaries and established himself as the party’s standard bearer. With a Republican in the White House for the previous twelve years, the media had been, if anything, overly inquisitive. Even during the Jimmy Carter years, the media had done their job well enough to make his life uncomfortable. Over the last twenty years, however, our media have descended from the merely partisan to the fully Orwellian. To commemorate...

Now we know that computers don't help children learn and that drugs don't help them concentrate, because the establishment mandarins who sold us the computers and drugs have conceded failure. In the January 29 New York Times, [1] a prominent professor of child development shows that attention-deficit-disorder drugs only harm the three million children who take them. One out of 10 American children have been diagnosed with so-called Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and most of them have been medicated. [2] Some months ago, the Times reported that test scores lagged in school districts that invested massively in digital education. [3] It...

It is, of course, reason to celebrate that Flagstaff is on track to finish 2011 without a single murder inside the city. Flagstaff is hardly Mayberry, RFD, but violent crimes of all types have plummeted in recent years, thanks to more community policing and better use of neighborhood-level police reports. We'd like to think that the absence of a murder so far this year is due, in part, to those initiatives by the police and community leaders. But we are also realistic enough to know that lethal violence in a state with lax gun laws is hard to keep at...

Americans need to know why the Energy Department approved a loan guarantee for Solyndra when the company was so clearly troubled. But politicizing this mess to smear the entire renewable energy industry won't help the country or the jobless. This industry is estimated to have doubled its number of American jobs in the past two years. Demonizing it could cripple its job-creating potential. San Jose's SunPower is the latest victim. Fox News has made a series of outrageous claims about it, calling its $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee a scandal "bigger than Solyndra." This is utterly baseless. Fox, without a...

To win in 2012, Obama's going to have to act a bit more like the tyrants he's so proud of toppling. Barack Obama can't get away from talking about dictators. Four years ago, candidate Obama controversially asserted that his administration would be open to negotiations with autocratic governments like Syria, Iran, and North Korea. Today, responding to Republican criticisms that he has been weak or hesitant on foreign policy, the U.S. president's supporters are more likely to trot out the fact that three longtime dictatorships have fallen under his watch. How much credit the president deserves for this is certainly...

Reporting from Ogallala, Neb.— On the edge of the Nebraska sand hills is Lake McConaughy, a 22-mile-long reservoir that in summer becomes a magnet for Winnebagos, fishermen and kite sailors. But officials here in Keith County, population 8,370, imagined this scene: an Al Qaeda sleeper cell hitching explosives onto a ski boat and plowing into the dam at the head of the lake. The federal Department of Homeland Security gave the county $42,000 to buy state-of-the-art dive gear, including full-face masks, underwater lights and radios, and a Zodiac boat with side-scan sonar capable of mapping wide areas of the lake...

John Mueller and his students analyze the 33 cases of attempted [EDITED TO ADD: Islamic extremist] terrorism in the U.S. since 9/11. So few of them are actually real, and so many of them were created or otherwise facilitated by law enforcement. The death toll of all these is fourteen: thirteen at Ft. Hood and one in Little Rock. I think it's fair to add to this the 2002 incident at Los Angeles Airport where a lone gunman killed two people at the El Al ticket counter, so that's sixteen deaths in the U.S. to terrorism in the past ten...

People seem to act irrationally when they have nothing to lose. Often we observe in wars that the losing side expends more blood and treasure after its position becomes hopeless. The American South sustained most of its casualties in the Civil War after July 1863, when the dual defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg made its position untenable. Athens suffered its worst casualties in the Sicilian gamble at the end of the Peloponnesian War. The Spanish ruined their empire and depopulated their core provinces during the second half of the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648 rather than cede dominance to France....

When President Barack Obama announced an agreement to double fuel-economy requirements Friday, standing with him were industry executives and environmental, public health and labor leaders, all of whom, remarkably, had signed off on the deal. But the real credit for this historic achievement, which is expected to cut oil consumption by 1.5 million barrels per day and eliminate half of all carbon pollution nationwide, doesn't go to the White House. Instead, thank California. For decades the state has set the nation's clean-energy agenda; it's been the tip of the spear in the fight for higher fuel standards. Its huge automobile...

No man is an island, especially in the markets. Our consumption basket includes the efforts of hundreds of millions of people around the world, and our right to consume depends on our ability to sell to hundreds of millions of people around the world. During the present century the number of adults in affluent and productive countries will shrink by about a third. All of us will be poorer. There will be a third fewer people earnings profits for businesses, paying taxes to governments, buying homes or cars, or taking vacations. Starting around 2015 the adult population will start to...

The lies are flying fast and furious this weekend (and all last week for that matter) related to the "debt ceiling" and partisan wrangling has reached a fever pitch, with some representatives now claiming that the Republicans are "racist" for refusing to raise it.Let's look at the facts, and deal with them - because we really have no other choice here.  I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but there's simply no way to make it shorter.I'm going to start with some indisputable history.  We'll begin with this chart, because it tells us exactly what the outcome of...

In the wake of the recent memo from the Obama administration which announced “prosecutorial discretion” in dealing with illegal aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country have been speaking out what many of them are calling a “backdoor amnesty.” On Wednesday, ICE Union president Chris Crane told PRNewswire: “Any American concerned about immigration needs to brace themselves for what's coming. This is just one of many new ICE policies in queue aimed at stopping the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in the United States. Unable to pass its immigration agenda through legislation, the Administration is now implementing it...

June 5, 2011Liberal vs Conservative: A Spiritual Battle By Lloyd Marcus Without beating around the bush, I believe the battle being fought in America today goes beyond politics; right vs. left.  It is a spiritual battle; good vs evil."For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."  Ephesians 6:12The mindset of the American left is a spirit of Antichrist which is man making himself God.Before writing me off as a Bible nut, please hear me out.  Understanding this reality will...

The New York Times print plenty of anti-Scott Walker pro-Union stories, Op-eds and the like, so why not give the Governor ot Wisconsin equal time? That's right, giving the Governor a chance to write on his own behalf would be fair and balanced. We know that their is only one media organization that's model is "fair and balanced," and it's not the New York Times! (see Op-ed below)

At least three White House advisers and officials, including President Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, have ties to an effort funded by billionaire George Soros to push for a new, "progressive" U.S. Constitution WND first reported last week that Sunstein's wife, Samantha Power, has been a champion of a Soros-funded doctrine, entitled "responsibility to protect," which was used by Obama to justify engaging in an international military alliance to bomb Libya. As the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights, Power reportedly influenced Obama in his decision. Now it has emerged that Sunstein has maintained extensive ties...

In the weeks since Governor Walker introduced his reforms to balance the budget and protect middle-class taxpayers the New York Times has repeatedly used its editorial pages to opine on the reforms. All told there have been at least seven editorials, op-eds or columns in the paper about the Wisconsin reforms. Below is the Op-Ed that Governor Walker wrote that the New York Times chose not to run: -SNIP-

Best dozen Op Ed toons from around the USA this week... More Sunday Funnies at Reaganite Republican__________________________________________________Enjoy your weekend, FReeper patriots

Best dozen Op-Ed toons from around the country this week... More at Reaganite's Sunday Funnies Enjoy your weekend everybody~

THE DEATH of Delvonte Tisdale was haunting enough. Authorities believe the 16-year-old stowed away in the wheel well of a US Airways jet in Charlotte and then plummeted to the ground in Milton as the plane dropped its landing gear on approach to Logan Airport. But how he got on board raises fresh questions about airport security — or the continuing lack thereof. Tweet Be the first to Tweet this!0diggsdiggYahoo! Buzz ShareThis Last month, as public outrage was approaching the boiling point over the alleged indignity of full-body scanners and pat-downs, and just two weeks after package bombs nearly made...

But more than 70 percent of voters in Oklahoma still approved a state constitutional amendment to that effect, apparently persuaded by anti-Islamic activists, and a few cynical politicians, that Oklahoma was about to be brought under Islam’s heel. After Muslim groups challenged the constitutionality of the “Save Our State Amendment,” a federal district judge issued a temporary restraining order. Last Monday, the judge, Vicki Miles-LaGrange, held a hearing to determine whether to issue a preliminary injunction against the measure, and said she would make a decision by the end of November. A federal injunction is warranted to save Oklahoma from...

President Obama is engaging in a relentless assault on our freedoms and constitutional government. The growing backlash against the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport screening procedures signifies that Americans finally may have had enough. There is a grass-roots revolt against state-sanctioned sexual harassment. And who can blame the protesters? Children are stripped of their shirts, and their private parts are touched. Nuns and old ladies are groped by intrusive TSA agents. Breasts have been fondled. Men's crotches have been patted down. Full-body scanners show images of people naked - a clear violation of privacy and civil liberties. The administration...

Finally, the gun lobby has filed two lawsuits in federal court in Lubbock, Tex., to compel the State of Texas to allow young people between the ages of 18 and 20 years old to buy handguns and carry them concealed in public places. The first suit challenges the longstanding federal law prohibiting licensed gun dealers from selling handguns to anyone under 21 years old. The second case contests a Texas law setting 21 as the minimum age for carrying a concealed weapon. As a legal matter, both lawsuits should fail. In its recent Second Amendment rulings, the Supreme Court struck...

Ah, the airport, where modern folk heroes are made. The airport, where that inspired flight attendant did what everyone who's ever been in the spam-in-a-can crush of a flying aluminum tube — where we collectively pretend that a clutch of peanuts is a meal and a seat cushion is a "flotation device" — has always dreamed of doing: pull the lever, blow the door, explode the chute, grab a beer, slide to the tarmac and walk through the gates to the sanity that lies beyond. Not since Rick and Louis disappeared into the Casablanca fog headed for the Free French...

Television reporters caught on tape appearing to discuss the possibility of "child molesters" making up the ranks of Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller's supporters were just bandying about "what-if scenarios," the station's manager said Sunday. But that kind of scenario might not be appropriate even for a brainstorming session, according to a prominent communication professor at American University in Washington, D.C. "If journalists are making bad jokes about what they hope to find at a rally, that sounds inappropriate," Jane Hall said.

Yesterday’s New York Time’s has an editorial titled “Drowning in Campaign Cash” that shamelessly repeats democratic talking points. The NYT seems to forget that in this election cycle the biggest spender was the union of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. No mention of that special interest, only those dastardly bogeymen known as “Republicans” and 501(c) organizations. This brings some points to mind. The liberal 501(c) organization moveon.org was extended a special rate by the New York Times for their disgraceful add “General Betray Us“. Liberal causes have been effectively using 501(c) organizations for some times yet there...

This newspaper makes the following recommendations for Tuesday's ballot. CONGRESS U.S. Senate David Vitter Much of Sen. Vitter's first term in the Senate came in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches that left 80 percent of New Orleans under water. The senator fought hard to hold the Army Corps of Engineers accountable and to get recovery resources for South Louisiana, including vital funding for coastal restoration. He was a leader in the push to finally close the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, the corps-built waterway that contributed to the devastation during Katrina. He also played an important role in...

Twenty years ago this Sunday, East and West Germany reunited, capping one of the most extraordinary transformations in modern history. Communism in the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites had collapsed; the oppressed nations of Europe rejoined the “free world.”My generation was the last to straddle the two worlds, pre- and post-Soviet Union. When I was in elementary and high school, fear of atomic annihilation was real. The USSR was the great, looming adversary on the world stage. Debate over the strategy of “mutually assured destruction” was the ominous focus of international policy discussions.Suddenly, everything changed. Both grizzled Cold...

One of the guiding principles of the tea-party movement is based on a myth Wouldn't it be splendid if the solutions to America’s problems could be written down in a slim book no bigger than a passport that you could slip into your breast pocket? That, more or less, is the big idea of the tea-party movement, the grassroots mutiny against big government that has mounted an internal takeover of the Republican Party and changed the face of American politics. Listen to Michele Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota and tea-party heroine, as she addressed the conservative Value Voters’ Summit in...

Asymmetrical warfare was supposed to benefit the insurgents. For the price of a few flying lessons a gang of jihadis brought down the World Trade Center,a terrorist with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and powdered Tang can blow up an airplane,and a few pounds of plutonium can cripple a major city. Meet the Reverend Terry Jones, asymmetrical warrior. It appears that pinpricks can produce chain reactions in the Islamic world. The threat may be termed asymmetrical because Islam is more vulnerable to theological war than Christianity (or for that matter Judaism). As the youngest of the major religions (apart from...

Book burning is antithetical to American ideals. People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation – much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.

It was an $800 billion misadventure that will be wreaking havoc on the econ omy for years to come. No, not the war in Iraq, where an American combat-troop presence officially comes to an end tomorrow. We're talking about President Obama's economic-stimulus program. Remember the stimulus? The miracle cure Obama said would boost the economy and save millions of jobs? Well, the president's panacea turned out to be an $862 billion bottle of snake oil -- and it cost $100 billion more than the entire Iraq campaign to date. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the total Iraq tab comes...

It’s a classic movie plot. Think “Woman of the Year,” with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. At first the man and the woman hate each other, then they fall into each other’s arms? Well, feature the fight that has erupted between the president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, and Governor Palin of Alaska. The leader of Big Labor went to Anchorage to give a speech and attacked Mrs. Palin, accusing her of doing everything from writing notes on her hands to coming out with conspiracy theories about President Obama and his “death panels” to getting close to calling for violence....