Here’s why:

…It’s for good reason that our Constitution mentions only three federal crimes (treason, piracy, and counterfeiting).

The Founders viewed the criminal sanction as a last resort, reserved for serious offenses, clearly defined, so ordinary citizens would know whether they were violating the law.

Yet over the last 40 years, an unholy alliance of big-business-hating liberals and tough-on-crime conservatives has made criminalization the first line of attack — a way to demonstrate seriousness about the social problem of the month, whether it’s corporate scandals or e-mail spam…

…There are now more than 4,000 federal crimes, spread out through some 27,000 pages of the U.S. Code. Some years ago, analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offenses on the books, and gave up, lacking the resources to get the job done. If teams of legal researchers can’t make sense of the federal criminal code, obviously, ordinary citizens don’t stand a chance…

Every now and again, in any human government, the law books get a bit cluttered and its time to revise to ensure that the laws are short and easily understood. If we’ve got 27,000 pages of US Code, then we’re about 26,500 more than we need.

One of the tasks for Sara….errrmm…I mean for the next President of the United States is to preside over a full revision of our law code. And we have to be certain that no liberal gets within 100 miles of the revision process – nothing but the most rock-ribbed conservatives leavened with libertarians should have anything to do with it.

And then we pass a constitutional amendment which requires that each bill cite constitutional authority for its existence and that all bills be 50 pages or less. Time to jackhammer the bureaucrats out of our way and the best way to do it is to cut down on the sheer volume of paper they’ve buried us under.

The Battle of the Bulge – here’s a recent account about a veteran of the battle:

The crisp, winter sun burned through the fog around noon in the town of Longchamps, Belgium … revealing a wall of German tanks aligned on the snow-capped hillside.

No sooner did 2nd Lt. Everett “Red” Andrews call the target back to his fellow troops in the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, than he was struck through the mouth by shell fragmentation from the ensuing German onslaught.

“I hold the record for the shortest time spent as a forward observer ever,” he joked, before calmly describing the scene in graphic detail. “I peaked my head above the fox hole to see if we hit the targets, and next thing I knew I was clutching the blood from my mouth in my hands and trying to put it back in me. I thought I was going to die. I was twenty-two years old, I didn’t know. I guess besides my bright red hair at the time, that was another reason folks call me ‘Red.'”

The fragmentation is still lodged in his lower jaw, sixty-five years after forcing his early exit from the seminal World War II Battle of the Bulge, the largest land battle in U.S. Army history.

Andrews received a Purple Heart for his injuries suffered during the battle. He is quick to defer the significance of his service and the harsh conditions he experienced, first mentioning the hardship of the infantrymen he served alongside.

Here is an excellent description of the overall battle. It is important that we remember these events, and the men and women who served in them. We are forgetting far too much of our history – we aren’t teaching our children and grand-children just what this country has done, and what it has meant to those who sacrificed the most for it.

Interesting bit of news from Byron York:

Congressional investigators looking into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin have discovered that the head of AmeriCorps met with a top aide to First Lady Michelle Obama the day before Walpin was removed.

According to Republican investigators, Alan Solomont, then the chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, had denied meeting with Jackie Norris, at the time the First Lady’s chief of staff. But recently-released White House visitor logs show that Solomont met with Norris on June 9 of this year (as well as on two earlier occasions). President Obama fired Walpin on June 10 after an intense dispute over Walpin’s aggressive investigation of misuse of AmeriCorps money by Obama political ally Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, California.

After being presented with the visitor logs, investigators say, Solomont explained that he met with Norris to discuss Corporation business but did not discuss the Walpin matter. When pressed, Solomont said he might have made an offhand comment, or a mention in passing, about the Walpin affair, but that he and Norris did not have a discussion about it.

Shades of the Clinton-era White House Travel Office scandal! This does smell very much of that sewer we know of as Chicago machine politics. Protect your flunky by getting rid of the man who might find out the truth – all very easy; and it just takes a wink and a nod in the right place. Its not like Michelle Obama or her staffer would have to call and order the firing…just the right hint at the right time works very well for those versed in Chicago politics…as are the Obama’s and their staff. Continue reading →

According to Watts Up With That?, climate data is disappearing.

Nothing like shoving the bad news down the Memory Hole, huh? Of course, if you have to massage your data to make it look like you weren’t conducting a scam all along, it does help if its off line for a while – so, hopefully, people will forget what you said before.

I really didn’t expect it to get this bad:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 24% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18.

That’s a one point improvement from yesterday when Obama’s Approval Index rating fell to the lowest level yet recorded. Prior to the past three days, the Approval Index had never fallen below -15 during Obama’s time in office.

We’re heading towards GW Bush post-Katrina numbers here.

Now, is this a permanent trend? I’m not sure, but it doesn’t seem to be related to just how the economy is going. There hasn’t been any major bad economic news for a couple months now and lots of alleged good news – so what is driving Obama down isn’t “its the economy, stupid”, but something else.

It could be that the bloom is just off the rose – we know what we’ve got for President, and we don’t like it. He’s just been terrible – and the more he travels around and talks about himself, the worse it gets.

It just gets worse and worse:

New details on President Barack Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings have emerged, as an eye-witness has finally broken her silence and says that Jennings was present at Tufts University during the infamous “Fistgate” scandal, and says that he bears personal responsibility for the event.

Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit reports that a Massachusetts teacher – who remains anonymous out of concern for herself and her family – told him that she saw Jennings in 2000 at the 10 Year Anniversary Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN)/Boston conference at Tufts University.

At that time Jennings was the executive director of GLSEN, an organization which he founded. The event, cosponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Education, featured a youth workshop on sex, specifically targeting 14-21-year-olds. During that workshop GLSEN presenters taught youth how to perform a dangerous sexual practice known as “fisting” – a practice so obscene that it cannot be described here.

This is just an outrage – first, that anyone like Jennings would ever be considered for a White House position. Second, that as soon as this comes out, he’s not forced to quit.

The man has a sick, twisted agenda of normalizing men having sex with boys – he’s a predator who has dressed himself up as an educator and liberals, naturally, have fallen for it. But rational people now have to take a stand – and Jennings has to go.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: What’s really sad is the way some on the left actually defend that sicko.

A stunning reversal:

Cook report: Number of “likely” Democratic House seats down to … 218

A bare majority. Actually, there are only 39 seats listed in the “lean Democratic” and “Democratic toss-up” columns, but as Taegan Goddard points out, if you toss in Bart Gordon’s retirement today in a very winnable GOP district you’re down to the magic number. But never mind that. Follow the first link to Cook and skim the column of “likely Democratic” seats, which are considered safe-ish, to see how many come from districts with a Republican-leaning PVI. If you see multiple retirements in that column — and the NRCC thinks you very well might — then suddenly a bunch of seats are in play on top of the 40 that are already shaky.

My prediction remains – a 25 to 30 seat GOP House gain; a 2 to 3 GOP Senate gain. I fully expect us to be in the minority in the next Congress, though with increased numbers giving us better leverage to block the worst aspects of Obama’s liberalism. On the other hand, things are getting rather dicey for the Democrats.

So much for Obama’s pledge that his reform will bring down the deficit – though only idiot liberals ever really believe that…or, did they? Are they lying to themselves as much as they lie to us?

It’s probably just coincidental that bad numbers about President Obama’s much-coveted healthcare legislation came out late last week when few people were paying attention.

This is the absolutely crucial healthcare reform plan that simply had to be drafted, discussed, debated, amended and passed before early August. It’s supposed to cover millions more Americans and reduce the nation’s soaring medical costs.

Turns out, not.

Here’s a little chapter review before semester finals:

Analysts in the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services Department reported Friday that the nation’s $2.5-trillion annual healthcare tab will not shrink at all under the Democrats’ legislative blueprint as being pushed by happy Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader in the Senate.

Instead, they said, the nation’s medical costs will actually grow faster under the new bill than….

…they would if that chatty crowd of Washington spenders did absolutely nothing nada zippo about it. And even if they did pass the existing version for all that money, 24 million Americans would still remain uncovered.

Wasting our time, wasting our money and making things worse, in to the bargain – that is liberalism, always and everywhere.

What comes with even for a moment tolerating anti-Semitism:

A Muslim man attacked a Chabad rabbi Saturday night as he was conducting the annual ceremony to light the public Chanukah menorah in Stefenfaltz Square in the city of Vienna, Austria.

The attacker hurled himself at Rabbi Dov Gruzman, principal of the city’s Jewish school run by the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic movement, and began punching him, a local resident told Arutz Sheva.

As the rabbi tried to hold off his attacker, the Muslim suddenly bit his victim, severing part of his finger in the process. The Muslim was caught and arrested by police, and was held for questioning. The rabbi was evacuated to the hospital where doctors rushed to reattach his finger.

It is no longer “never again” in Europe but, “as soon as the Islamists figure they can do it”. The only thing holding Europe back from a new descent in to barbarism is the residual moral strength of the Europe of 50 years ago – a very frail reed, at the moment. The current alignment in Europe is all in favor of another Holocaust as it would be easier, and safer, to kill Jews than to fight off Moslems.

You would have thought that the murder of Pim Fortuyn a few years back would have woke Europe up to its peril – a ultra-hip, gay politician (who dared to have rational ideas about immigration and integration) was murdered because he was ultra-hip, gay (and had rational ideas about immigration and integration). But it had no effect at all – in fact, if anything, the ruling class in Europe became even more determined to grovel to Islamism.

This brute was arrested, but do you think his actions will cause Europeans to think about what sort of civilization they want to live in? I don’t think so.

Rep. Joe Wilson has a petition up demanding that the stimulus funds be audited. I urge everyone to sign it.