Efforts by American presidents to consolidate and centralize power are nothing new. FDR took full advantage of the Great Depression by vastly expanded his reach through the New Deal and, in an effort to preempt any check on his grab for federal power, cynically attempted to pack the U.S. Supreme Court. Nixon resigned in disgrace over Watergate. Clinton was impeached attempting to deny an American her rightful day in court. And so it’s no surprise that President Obama, even as a constitutional scholar, has shrewdly utilized his executive powers in implementing his transformational national agenda. What is startling, however, is the breathtakingly comprehensive scope of his reach into every facet of our lives. In their recently published and No. 1 bestselling book, “The Blueprint” (Lyons Press, 2010), authors Ken Blackwell (Ohio’s former secretary of state and conservative activist) and Ken Klukowski (a constitutional legal scholar) lay out the sheer breadth of President Obama’s power grab. (more)
It’s always sad to see bad behavior rewarded in any way. When a spoiled hotel heiress makes a naughty home video and instantly becomes a popular celebrity, or a tacky couple shamelessly crashes a White House event and is green-lighted for a reality TV show, we all feel a bit uneasy. (And don’t even get me started on dubious cultural icons like Bret Michaels of VH1’s “Rock of Love”, Snooki, or Mike a.k.a. The Situation of MTV’s “Jersey Shore”). (more)
“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; And then…they came for me … And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
Pastor Martin Niemöller (more)
Like most of us, I normally ignore or delete the many e-mails of jokes, partisan trivia and the like often forwarded to me. However, I found one such recent e-mail, which included a White House photo, especially troubling. (more)
On a recent visit to my Washington, D.C., neighborhood drugstore, I witnessed several customers angrily reacting to the District government’s latest overreach: a ridiculous nickel-a-bag tax. This silly tax was proposed by council members Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) and Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and went into effect at the beginning of the year. (more)
As my friends and I cheered-on Scott Brown on Tuesday, Jan. 19, in that Boston hotel ballroom, like many Americans, I hoped and believed that Brown’s dramatic election victory meant the Democrats’ massive health care bill was dead. After all, a relatively unknown underdog Republican state senator—underfunded and out-registered—had just defeated the favorite Democratic nominee in the bluest of states. Importantly, Brown had run as the candidate who, if elected, would cast the 41st vote in the U.S. Senate against the pending health care bill. (more)
Conservatives have long written-off New York as a state taken over by social-welfare liberals, union bosses, and dependents on big-government. New York lost its only Republican senator, Alfonse “pothole” D’Amato, in 1998, and after three Republican terms under George Pataki, the governorship slipped to liberals Eliot Spitzer in 2004 and then (through scandal) David Paterson in 2008. Reflecting an overall trend in the northeast, liberals won congressional seat after congressional seat in both upstate New York and the Long Island, Staten Island and other New York City suburbs. President Barack Obama’s appointment of Republican Rep. John McHugh as his Secretary of the Army appeared to spell doom for yet another Republican seat. And sure enough, Democrat candidate Bill Owens won the seat just in time to vote in favor of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s health care bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. (more)
