During the Progressive era in the early decades of the 20th century, reformers of varying political stripes sought to enhance the quality of governmental policymaking and citizens ability to influence this policymaking through the electoral process.
One example of this was the citizen's ballot or referendum initiative enacted in California.  In the century since this was enacted into California law several, hundred citizen initiatives have been placed onto California state ballots for the Golden State's electorate to determine whether these measures should be passed to repeal existing laws or recommend new laws to that state's legislature.  These initiatives have covered a variety of topics including economics, education, immigration, and other policy issues.

1978 saw the passage of conservative inspired Proposition 8 which was intended to reduce increasingly onerous property tax rates and other citizen ballot initiatives have produced results favorable and unfavorable to conservative political and governmental aspirations.  A succinct summary of the origins of these Progressive era reforms can be found in Kevin Starr, Inventing the Dream:  California Through the Progressive Era, New York:  Oxford University Press, 1985, 235-282.)  The political careers of many figures were launched as a result of California's Progressive Era including Hiram Johnson (1866-1945) who was California's Governor from 1911-1917 and later served as U.S. Senator.

A more recent demonstration of this positive reformist instinct has been Proposition 8 which passed during the November 2008 elections.  This resolution sought to reaffirm traditional California state law that marriage is only between a man and a woman.  In passing this resolution (on the same day that it decisively elected Barack Obama to the presidency), California voters joined electors in more than thirty states and in global cultures of various religious perspectives in reaffirming their commitment to traditional marriage.  Unfortunately, we live in a very litigious society and proponents of same-sex marriage have become increasingly vociferous in trying to impose their moral and political agenda on society making concerted use of the judicial system to coercively enact their beliefs. 

Litigant Kristin Perry has filed suit against Proposition 8's constitutionality and the case is being heard in a San Francisco federal district court.  Many constitutional law experts believe this case will eventually be referred to the U.S. Supreme Court which will have to issue a ruling on whether same-sex "marriage" is constitutional.  Perry and her allies arrogantly believe they can use the court system to impose public policy and legal rulings on our polity which have been repeatedly rejected by American voters when these voters are given the chance to express their views on this issue.  If Proposition 8 or any other electorally approved issue stance is rejected by rampaging judicial activists at the urgings of litigious malcontents such as Kristin Perry, we might as well shred our constitutional electoral rights and call ourself a litigious judicial dictatorship.  Do we still want to consider ourselves a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, or a government of judicial tyranny bankrolled and manipulated by affluent litigants who seek to impose their lifestyle practices on our communities, cities, and nation?

Rep. Steve Buyer announced his retirement from his congressional seat yesterday.  Buyer has served in Congress since he was first elected to Indiana's 5th district congressional seat in 1992.  Indiana lost a congressional seat in 2001 as part of post-2000 Census congressional redistricting and he represented Indiana's 4th congressional district since then.  Before being elected to Congress, Buyer served in the military and his service included action in Operation Desert Storm in 1991.  Buyer was one of the many soldiers who's health was adversely affected by what became known as Gulf War syndrome.  Instead of complaining about his disability and harboring hostility toward the federal government, Buyer decided to make constructive use of his God-given abilities to enhance national life.

At the time of the Gulf War, the 5th district was represented by Democrat Jim Jontz.  Jontz was a throwback to 19th century agrarian and labor populism who managed to experience some political and electoral success in the Indiana General Assembly and later would become the head of the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action.  Jontz, unfortunately, decided to oppose Operation Desert Storm and drew a challenge from Buyer who defeated the three term incumbent to restore the congressional representation of this part of Indiana to its more traditional Republican moorings.

During his nine terms in Congress, Buyer has been an articulate and principled proponent of the three pillars of contemporary conservatism:  fiscal, foreign policy/national security, and social.  His congressional tenure saw him serve on numerous House committees including  Armed Services, Energy and Commerce, Judiciary, and Veterans Affairs.  Buyer's service on the House Judiciary Committee granted him national recognition during Bill Clinton's impeachment and he was one of the House managers selected to present impeachment articles to the Senate.  (This accomplishment alone should earn him the eternal gratitude of conservatives.)  I highly recommend reading Buyer's remarks in the House Judiciary Committee's 1998 report recommending Clinton's impeachment (House Document 105-830, pp. 155-199).

 Supporting American veterans was another important attribute of Buyer's congressional career.  He chaired the House Veterans Affairs Committee during the 109th Congress and was involved in attempts to improve the woeful security of Dept. of Veterans affairs personnel records and was also instrumental in helping veterans who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan get the medical and mental health treatment they needed as a result of the unprecedented injuries they experienced during their combat operations.

Buyer has received some criticism in recent months for a scholarship fund he has tried to establish but which has not issued any scholarship awards and has been targeted for investigation by a self-appointed leftist ideological group.  Anyone who is experienced with higher educational funding matters, however, knows that it takes a long time to achieve the financial capitalization necessary to endow and sustain a scholarship.  When Buyer announced his retirement yesterday, he mentioned that the serious illness of his wife was the reason for this decision.  Buyer represents a secure district and could have held this seat as long as he wanted to. 

I'm proud Steve Buyer has been my congressman these past few years.  He and his staff respond to constituent inquiries with professionalism and courtesy and without regard for their constituent's partisan persuasion. He sponsored several job fairs at various locales in this district which extends from Monticello to south of Bloomington and also conducted public meetings on health care legislation. In a time period where we have seen the ethical sins of politicians as ideologically diverse as Mark Sanford and John Edwards paraded before the public, it's refreshing to see a politician end his political career because he loves his wife and places her well being above his political aspirations and desire to oppose the Obama Administration and its ill-advised policies.  We need to resist the temptation of believing that all politicians are corrupt and that we should "throw the bums out."  As conservatives, we need to reject the folly of term limits as the esteemed Illinois conservative Republican Rep. Henry Hyde did, and promote an ethos of public service as being consistent with the highest intellectual and moral principles we as Conservatives must espouse and adhere to. We need more articulate and principled conservatives like Steve Buyer who defend unborn children, traditional marriage, fiscal responsibility, and a strong and assertive national defense against the unprincipled individuals and groups opposing these proven virtues.

The revered musical Fiddler on the Roof has a song "Miracle of Miracles" where Tevye describes the various miracles God performs in the Old Testament.  The modern day political election equivalent happened last night with Scott Brown's electrifying win in yesterday's Massachusetts Senate special election.  The red state of Massachusetts actually went Tory Blue last night by electing the moderately conservative Brown to assume the now denounced "Ted Kennedy seat."  Brown ran an effective and principled campaign emphasizing the real world political and economic concerns of the Commonwealth's citizens.  His victory, hopefully, means the end of Obamacare and is a well deserved kick in the groin to commemorate Obama's first year in the presidency.

More and more people are realizing that there is no good behind Obama's grandiloquent rhetoric.  In his victory speech last night, Brown effectively denounced Obama Administration policies of giving Islamist terrorists the same constitutional rights enjoyed by law abiding American citizens.  Brown has also successfully tapped into our anxiety about the mounting debt burden this country faces and how it will shackle future generations in ways we cannot possibly imagine unless concerted action is taken now.  While Brown may not be as conservative as we'd like on some social issues, he is, nevertheless, a significant improvement over Ted Kennedy. His victory is a sign that some signs of intelligent life and moral sobriety may be returning to a state that has become synonymous with liberal secularist depravity instead of being the City on a Hill envisioned by John Winthrop and other Puritan founding fathers.

Besides supporting fiscal sanity and a strong national defense, Brown can bolster his reelection chances in 2012 and his long-term political future by nurturing a cultivating a staff who delivers effective and responsive constituent service to Massachusetts residents regardless of their political beliefs or social status.  This was a very effective formula for noted South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond's political longevity.  If a representative helps a constituent with their government information needs or provides effective casework for them in battling government bureaucracy, that pays enormous dividends even if the legislator and constituent are of divergent political perspectives.

Hearty congratulations are in order to Senator-elect Brown and I look forward to the contributions he will make to the Senate and to enhancing the quality of legislative policymaking.  Hopefully, Senator McConnell and other Republican Senate leaders will give Brown plum committee assignments and greet him like a rock star when he arrives to be sworn in.  Brown's victory proves that all things are possible with God and in American electoral politics.

The polls appear positive and indicate that GOP candidate Scott Brown may truly shock the world in tomorrow's Massachusetts Senate race.  Goodness knows, is opponent Martha Coakley has been manna from heaven.  This is an individual who filed bogus child abuse charges in a 1986 Middlesex County, MA case against a family using tactics that would have been recognized as stemming from the Salem witch trials.  She arrogantly thinks she's entitled to this Senate seat based on recent Democratic dominance of Bay State politics, dissed the iconic Fenway Park stadium which is an integral part of New England's sporting heritage, acclaimed star Boston Red Sox Curt pitcher Schilling was a Yankee fan because he endorsed Brown, and has run such an inept campaign that even prominent liberal Boston journalists such as Mike Barnacle are practically writing her political obituary.  She even had Messiah Obama come to campaign on her behalf yesterday and all he could come up with against Brown was denouncing his truck.   All in all, this sounds like a campaign that is absolutely clueless in its understanding of Bay State residents opposition to Obamacare, the arrogance of Obama and his allies in Massachusetts Democratic Party in thinking they could phone this election in, and the abject failure of the Obama Administration to meet the country's economic and national security needs.

We should not break out into victory celebrations yet, because Massachusetts and national Democrats will use every legal and illegal trick they know to manipulate the votes and election laws in Coakley's behavior.  We must not forget that she is currently Massachusetts Attorney General and will use every trick she can to steal the election with the full financial and political backing of the White House, Massachusetts state government, and affiliated thug organizations like ACORN.  Hopefully, Brown's campaign and the Republican National Committee have a phalanx of battle hardened election attorneys ready to go to war with the Massachusetts and national Democratic establishments who will be hellbent on retaining Ted Kennedy's Senate seat at all costs.   It would be especially wonderful if we could give Massachusetts Democrats a taste of the medicine Al Franken's Minnesota senate campaign gave to Norm Coleman in his successful efforts to steal the 2008 election from this former one-term GOP Senator.

During the 1988 presidential campaign, Democratic nominee and then current Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis claimed credit for the burgeoning growth of his state's high tech industry by calling it the Massachusetts Miracle by falsely crediting it to his policies.  Actually, it was the free market oriented policies of the Reagan Administration and the initiative, intelligence, and ingenuity of the American workforce that spurred the development of this important industry.

Just over two decades later a real Massachusetts miracle may be in the offing.  The reddest of red states (see my early 2007 posting on how U.S. political commentators get their political colors wrong) may be about to send a Republican to the Senate.  Following the death of Ted Kennedy, the Bay State's Democratic Governor Deval Patrick appointed party hack Paul Kirk and former national committee chair to keep Kennedy's Senate seat warm until a special election could be held.  Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley won her party's nomination and the Republicans elected state Senator Scott Brown to be their apparent sacrificial lamb in an election for a seat which had not been in Republican hands since Edward Brooke's 1978 defeat.  (In fact, many Republicans outside of New England would have described Brooke as a RINO to use a contemporary acronym.)

Brown has run a remarkably effective campaign and has given himself a fighting chance thanks to an energized cadre of supporters.  Brown is ably tapping into grassroots concerns over the cost of Obamacare, the President's fiscal profligacy, and his ineffectual response to terrorism.  His defense of traditional marriage also gives one hope that there are still some lingering vestiges of Puritanism in a state now noted for its pagan moral proclivities.

Coakley, who thought she could coast to a coronation, has proven to be a leaden campaigner who has resorted to lame and irrelevant attacks against Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, brought out tired old abortionist cliches about the somewhat pro-life Brown being against women (which caused one of Brown's daughters to publicly denounce Coakley), and failed to address the genuine economic concerns and anxieties of Massachusett's residents.   A recent sign of her campaign's desperation was one of her apparatchiks slugging a reporter from the Weekly Standard for allegedly stalking her.  Sounds like paranoia is afflicting her campaign.  Her campaign is  being bolstered by a six figure contribution from the Democrats union cadres and she still may demagogue her way to victory.  Massachusetts state officials are already threatening to delay certification of election results until they can figure out a way to fraudulently manufacture enough votes to propel Coakley to victory.  While I'm not as optimistic that Brown can shock the political world as some conservatives are, his strong campaign should encourage us to realize that opposition to the fraudulent and increasingly ineffective Obama is rising in one of the keystone states of his electoral coalition.  Stay tuned and see what happens in next Tuesday's election.

Even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cannot adhere to the victim identity politics of his political party.  A forthcoming book on the 2008 presidential campaign quotes Reid as saying Barack Obama's presidential electability was enhanced because he was light skinned and did not have a "black accent" or something to that effect.  Once word of this rhetorical transgression got out, the liberal blogosphere was "shocked shocked" in the same way Claude Rains was "shocked" that there was gambling going on in his cinematic Casablanca casino.  You would think that 4 1/2 decades after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act that our political discourse would be beyond this imbecility but that's not the case.

The Christmas terrorist incident in Detroit, thankfully averted by attentive passengers, is prompting airlines and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), to look at ways of enhancing airline security.   Unfortunately, panic and political correctness, instead of common sense, appear to be assuming precedence.  Measures being considered include preventing people from going to the bathroom the last hour of the flight (this will eliminate prospective passengers above the age of 30), prohibiting passengers from using blankets, being able to read  (this would be a big deterrent to me), and not allowing passengers to keep carry on materials underneath the seats in front of them.  The TSA legally has to post proposed new regulations in the Federal Register www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/ and I encourage readers to let the TSA know if any of their proposed regulations are idiotic examples of political correctness instead of true enhancements to airline security.

True security enhancing measures would include consolidating the National Counterterrorism Center's terrorist watch list and no fly lists.  If you're on the watch list, you shouldn't be allowed to fly at all.  If you have been to Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia and were not on legitimate U.S. Government business you should not be allowed into the U.S. given the prevalence of terrorist training centers in those countries.  We should expand the use of body scanning machines and place particular emphasis on screening individuals with Islamic names and from countries or geographic regions with records of Islamist terrorist activity.  We should quit frisking old ladies and other individuals who do not fit the profile of Islamist terrorists who are likely to seek to blow themselves and airline passengers up in the delusional belief they will inherit heavenly bliss. The key focus of U.S. airport security personnel should be focusing on the religious, racial, and behavioral characteristics of  Islamist terrorists and their sympathizers. If a U.S. Embassy or consulate overseas receives notification that a foreign national with terrorist sympathies or actions has applied for a U.S. visa, that individual's application should be denied on the spot without right of appeal and information about this individual's application be instantaneously transmitted to the terrorist watch  list and to the Dept. of Homeland Security.  It should also be U.S. policy that individuals denied visas by allied countries such as the United Kingdom and Israel are also denied U.S. visas.  We need to announce to the world that individuals seeking to enter the U.S. do not have an inherent right to do so, but must strictly adhere to U.S. legal and national security requirements for the privilege of entering, visiting, working, or studying in this country.  We should also require our airport security screeners to be trained and certified by Israel which has the world's preeminent transportation security practices.

We also need to abandon our foolish notions that closing  Guantanamo Bay will improve our security and our delusional desire to curry favor with Islamist and European secularist world opinion.  When the security of the American public is at stake, we must do whatever we consider is necessary regardless of the howls it may engender in certain sectors of international opinion.  We must have the courage to profile all possible terrorists and prevent them from getting on board our airplanes and not inconveniencing law abiding passengers of all ages and backgrounds who desire to fly safely for personal and business reasons.

Yesterday, we were reminded that Islamist terrorists still desire to kill Americans on a large scale and are engaged in a titanic existential struggle to impose Sharia on the world.  Thanks to the courage of passengers on the Christmas day flight from Amsterdam to Detroit and thanks to the ineptitude of the attacker in seeking to detonate his explosive device near the end of the flight instead of just after the plane took off from Amsterdam, this was just a terrorist incident instead of a horrific attack with hundreds of fatalities.  We should be thankful that an investigation will be conducted on the security breakdowns that caused the attack instead of having to look for the black box in Atlantic Ocean waters.

A number of questions must be asked.  Why did the U.S. allow a flight which originated in Nigeria (a country noted for its lax airport security procedures) and presence of some Islamist terrorists, to come to the U.S?  Was the perpetrator of this attempted attack actually on the "no-fly" list?  If he was, why was he allowed to board?  Why was such a poor job done inspecting this individual's carry on baggage at either Amsterdam of the flight's place of origin in Nigeria?  Why was he allowed to carry explosive materials onto the plane? Throughout history our enemies have been emboldened by our expressions of rhetorical weakness or demonstrations of actual weakness when we're at war.  During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese government and Viet Cong took great encouragement from the antiwar demonstrations in the U.S.  I expect Al Qaida and the Taliban take equal satisfaction when their useful idiots in this and other countries denounce our efforts to defend freedom.

This attempted attack is also a response to the Obama Administration's pathetic efforts to distance themselves from Bush Administration antiterror policies.  The absolutely imbecilic decision to publicly try the perpetrators of 9/11 in a Manhattan federal district court, instead of executing these monsters in a Guantanamo brig, is one example of their failure to understand the nature of the conflict we're in.  The multicultural political correctness of our airport security screening, which began during the Bush Administration, is a another sign of our weakness.  We know that the individuals most likely to cause terrorist incidents on airplanes are Arabic, Farsi, and Pashtun speaking Muslim males and females.  Yet we conduct detailed body searches on elderly women and other individuals who have no interest or ideological desire in blowing up planes in the name of Islam or any other cause.  We are so afraid of racial and religious profiling and being branded as "racists" that we weaken our defenses against the individuals most likely to commit terrorist actions and kill Americans as we genuflect before the false gods of diversity and multiculturalism.  We delude ourselves into thinking Islam is a "religion of peace" when its raison d'etre and modus operandi, since its origins in the Arabian peninsula nearly 15 centuries ago, have been to spread their religious beliefs by violence. 

Yesterday's attempted attack, along with the Fort Hood murder spree by an Islamist psychiatrist,  demonstrates that Americans are reaping the seeds of the Obama Administration's weakness in pursuing our enemies and understanding the existential threat they pose to us.    Unless we jettison politically correct multiculturalism in our transportation security and military counterintelligence, their will be more attacks on American soil which will result in large scale fatalities.  All individuals engaged in air and other forms of travel must serve as front line transportation security sentinels. It's time to wake up from the Obama hangover and face the cold brute reality of our rapacious Islamist enemies.  The war goes on despite the howlings of our antiwar critics.

News reports today indicate that Iranian troops have entered Iraq and planted Iranian flags at the Fakkah oil field.  The Iranians are undoubtedly emboldened by the vacillating appeasement being shown by the Obama Administration toward them.  Recent examples of Iranian assertiveness include seizing British citizens whose boat got to close to Iran and three American hikers who were stupid enough to go hiking in Iraq's Kurdistan region near the Iranian border and subsequently have been seized and are being held by the Iranians.  Perhaps the Iranians did this to celebrate the recent 30th anniversary of the hostage crisis which doomed the hapless and incompetent administration of Jimmy Carter.

Barack Obama seems well on  his way to being our generation's version of Jimmy Carter.  Instead of forcefully denouncing and addressing Iran's invasion of sovereign Iraq territory, the site of so much American blood, treasure, and sacrifice, the "Messiah" is in snowy Copenhagen trying to reach a superficial agreement to fight climate change which will not achieve its goals but create new and costly burdens on domestic and international economies and American consumers and consumers from other countries.  So far there has been no sign of protest from the Obama Administration which is hellbent on getting a empty climate change agreement at a fatally flawed international conference and getting equally bad health care legislation through a U.S. Senate.  This legislative chamber is being imprisoned by an approaching snowstorm in Washington, DC and by Obama's Senate KGB apparatchik and Nazi Gauleiter Harry Reid who is putting the Senate through what seems like 24/7 sessions lasting several days in an efforts to get supposedly recalcitrant Republicans to submit to the purportedly sublime and omniscient health care wisdom of the "President."

The Iranians are probably laughing their heads off at the incompetence of Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other members of the administration's foreign policy and national security team.  Keep your ears tilted for Vice President Joe Biden to proclaim his belief that it's still possible to "reset" relations with Iran and that some "grand bargain" can be struck with Tehran's mullahs to get them to return the hostages, leave Iraq, and stop their nuclear weapons program.  Oil prices are starting to rise again at a time of the year when they should be falling.  I fear we are headed for some rough times with Iran and there is no evidence that anyone in the upper echelons of this pathetically naive and delusionally utopian administration knows how to deal with the mullahs.  Eloquent words won't cut it with Tehran neither will increased economic sanctions no matter how widespread their imposition and enforcement by the  international community.  Only brute force and the willingness to use such force against Tehran without mercy or regret will work against the Iranian regime.

For the past couple of weeks, world governmental environmental leaders and self-appointed civil society environmental activists have descended on Copenhagen, Denmark like a biblical plague of locusts to attempt to reach an agreement on reducing carbon emissions and thwarting global climate change.  Most accounts indicate these deliberations are floundering amidst unrealistic expectations and the profound differences between developed and less developed economies on how best to address this issue.  Major world leaders such as Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are now on their way to Copenhagen to grease the wheel of conference deliberations and provide their secular anointing to  this "messianic mission" to rid the world of climate change.

It is both amusing and hypocritical to see these self-appointed environmental guardians descend on Copenhagen like ambulance chasing lawyers denouncing our alleged conspicuous consumption and environmental degradation.  Some news reports have indicated that the Danish limousine industry was unable to cope with the demand for its services from conference attendees and that wholesale importing of gas guzzling limousines had to be procured from Germany,  the Netherlands, and France in order to transport world leaders, environmental policy groupies, and celebrities who proclaim to be "concerned" about the environment as they jet set to the latest Hollywood cause du jour.  Adding to the festival circus atmosphere, has been the drama queen antics of the Group of 77 nations (an organization of less developed countries) who are reprising their antics of the late 1970s by demanding that the wealthier countries and the taxpayers of those countries (that's us folks) authorize massive transfers of wealth to their countries so they can cope with the consequences of climate change allegedly caused by our allegedly excessively materialistic lifestyles.

Climate change is a complicated matter that defies easy categorization.  A lot of it occurs due to naturally occurring climatic events which cannot be altered by human regulatory, scientific, or environmental policy.  Some climate change is human caused, but the world's leading economies, including the U.S., have made concerted efforts over the past few decades to reduce their pollution and have achieved significant breakthroughs in pollution reduction.  Growing industrializing economies such as China and India are probably responsible for most human caused climate change and you have to factor in the corrupt and incompetent economic development policies pursued by many of the world's dictatorial regimes in their efforts to achieve national economic development and personal enrichment.  It's especially amusing to hear countries like Nigeria and Venezuela complain about climate change when they and many other critics of western countries environmental policies have significant oil or natural reserves which they are seeking to develop with the financial and technological assistance of western and Chinese companies.  It's also amusing hearing ignorant socialist gasbags like Bolivian "President" Evo Morales say climate change is caused by capitalism's alleged evils and by Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, whose policies have grievously damaged his country's significant agricultural resources, denounce developed countries and demand reparations from these countries and their taxpayers.

What's especially  infuriating is that the proposed "solutions" to climate change such as cap and trade and various carbon emission reductions are sure to cause considerable economic hardship for average citizens the world over by drastically increasing their transportation and home heating and cooling costs at a time of global economic recession.  There is a devoted cadre of international environmental activists seeking to impose a new form of economic colonialism on citizens not genuflecting to their secularist religion of climate change environmental activism.  These activists, many of whom are national or international environmental policymakers, brazenly seek to subvert national sovereignty and personal choice to impose a global one size fits all environmental solution on the world regardless of whether it is scientifically sound or benefits personal and national economic development.  If these individuals are successful, it would be a dangerous capitulation to a pernicious movement that seeks to exert political and economic control over individuals who have not voted for such policies and cannot remove those individuals from their policymaking positions.  Fortunately, the intellectual credibility of many of these extortion artists has been grievously damaged by the recent revelations that significant "calculations" about global warming are rigged and fraudulent based on leaked emails from a climate change research center at England's East Anglia University.

We should follow the advice of prominent Danish climate change skeptic Bjorn Lomberg and seek to address climate change by developing more affordable and energy efficient technologies.  One way to begin is by increasing our use of nuclear power which is actually the most environmentally friendly energy technology available.  We should explore developing affordable technologies that power cars through methods other than fossil fuels while allowing cars to sustain speeds of up to 65-70 miles per hour and go up 400-500 miles at a trip without having to refuel or recharge.  We need to respect the national sovereignty of individual countries and quit trying to monomanically impose a global one size fits all solution to this matter.  With over 200 countries in the world, there is the potential to achieve solutions that reflect political, economic, scientific, and technological realities in these countries, are economically affordable for citizens of these countries, and actually result in improved environmental conditions in these countries.  Such prudent policies and policymaking can keep transportation costs affordable for those of us who might  like to travel to Copenhagen or other international locales and not have to be lectured at by self-appointed environmental extortionist caudillos who seek to impede our ability to travel and engage in normal economic activities.

Senators John McCain and Tom Coburn have provided an extremely valuable public service on their websites.  Both of these Senators have published a heavily documented report detailing the frivolous and wasteful pork expenditures in the Obama Administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which is popularly known as the economic stimulus law.
The wasteful projects uncovered in this document encompass the geographic span of the country, a variety of federal agencies, and, undoubtedly, the pork barrel proclivities of Representatives and Senators from both parties seeking to maximize their earmarks privileges for local political benefit. 

Examples of this fiscal profligacy include $49,918 for 11 students and four faculty from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks to attend the Copenhagen Climate Change conference.  The report's comments on this particularly dubious appropriation mentioned that these students and faculty members will emit 53,940 pounds of carbon dioxide from their air travel alone which is the amount of emissions required to heat and light two single family homes in Fairbanks, AL for a year.  What would Al Gore say?

One outrageous appropriation in this legislation include $935,000 for an African Heritage dance troupe in Washington, DC to weatherize homes.  I didn't know home weatherization was part of the curriculum of American dance programs.  Can I get this troupe to perform the Nutcracker while they put insulation in the attic?  The National Institutes of Health was awarded $219,000 to study the "hookup" behavior of college students for one year.  Is there a line in this grant to document booze, condom, and prophylactic expeditures?  Another earmark documented by McCain and Coburn's report is awarding SUNY Buffalo $399,000 to study young adults who drink malt liquor and smoke marijuana?  $4.7 million is allocated for exploring the possibilities of corporate supersonic jets.  I guess the appropriators of this fund forgot about the example of the Concorde.  $1.9 billion was allocated to the Energy Dept. for its failure to cleanup nuclear waste at Washington state's troubled Hanford nuclear site.

My personal favorite is $100,000 to Minneapolis' Heart of the Beast Puppet Theatre whose reportoire includes "socially conscious" and anti-capitalist productions.  I suppose we can credit Al Franken's arrival in the U.S. Senate for this one.  While there are many worthwhile government research projects, you'll find none of them is McCain and Coburn's report.  All in all, this report shows that Obama Administration claims of promoting fiscal responsibility are empty rhetoric and that Chicago style pork barrel projects are alive and well in his administration.

It used to be common to see nativity scenes in many courthouse grounds around the country.  Unfortunately, this has declined in recent years as militant secularist groups have gone to court or threatened to go to court to prevent communities from erecting these structures on courthouse grounds or other publicly owned properties.  The extremely lame "rationale"  used by these groups, whose memberships include the American Civil Liberties Union, its state affiliates, and other pathologically deranged secularist groups and individuals, is that such displays constitute "government endorsement of religion."  The ultimate objectives of these groups and individuals is, of course, not concern that governmental entities endorse Christianity or any other religion, but that all traces of religious belief, particularly Christianity, are removed from American public life.

The true legal test courts and legislatures should follow in ruling on public displays of religious belief on government property is not, whether such displays constitute an establishment of religion, but whether these displays physically restrict the ability of individuals not holding the religious beliefs expressed in the display, to practice or not practice any other form of religious expression.  Of course, anyone with a modicum of intelligence will know that the presence of a nativity display or any other form of religious belief on governmental property, does not prevent them from holding or not holding particular religious views or practicing those views.

Governments desiring to place nativity displays on their properties should respond to extortionate attempts to remove religious expression from the public square in several ways.  They should seriously consider filing SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suits against the ACLU or any of its allied organizations or individuals who threaten to engage in litigation against any governmental attempts to restrict the free expression of religious views.  Congress and state legislatures should also consider legislation preventing these organizations and like-minded individuals from filing such suits on the grounds that such litigation blatantly violates the Constitution's "free exercise of religion" clause.  State and local governments should also encourage individuals in these states who oppose the ACLU's extortionate tyranny to publicly demonstrate outside the offices of these organizations, disrupt their meetings, and these governments and the federal government should also explore the feasibility of revoking or drastically revising the tax exempt status of these groups.  If the free expression of religious belief is to still occur on governmental properties throughout the U.S., it's up to concerned citizens and courageous governmental leaders to stand up to the militantly secularist mafioso in the ACLU and allied organizations opposed to the constitution's "free exercise" clause.

Last night, President Obama addressed the nation and world on his administration's strategy for Afghanistan.  The event was held in West Point's Eisenhower Hall and Obama's belief that he could emulate President Eisenhower and noted West Point alum Douglas MacArthur's grandiloquence fell woefully short in the address' delivery.  I will give Obama a modicum of credit for ignoring the surrender hyenas in his party  who want us to withdraw from Afghanistan and allow the restoration of Taliban rule and sanctuary for Al Qaida.  The administration's decision to increase our troop strength by 30,000, while short of what General McCrystal has requested, is at least a step in the right direction which can be augmented by additional contributions from our ISAF allies in that country.

The general idea of benchmarks for the  Afghan and Pakistani governments to meet has some merit, but determining how well these benchmarks have been achieved must be determined solely by theater military commanders and not Washington DC politicians with little understanding of regional political and cultural realities.  The worst part of the Obama Administration's plan is it decision to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011.  During today's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Mississippi Republican Roger Wicker cogently asked  witnesses Defense Secretary Gates, Secretary of State Clinton, and Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Mike Mullen if there were any historical instances of a military power announcing a surge of troops and their targeted withdrawal date at the same time.  Due to this strategic imbecility, all the Taliban and Al Qaida have to do is lay low until July 2011 and then can emerge from their lairs and strike with full ferocity at Afghan and Pakistani targets.  Gates, Clinton, and Mullen said that our withdrawal timetable is flexible, but we should never commit to a specific date for withdrawal until theater military commanders, not domestic political considerations, make an educated professional assessment that security conditions in Afghanistan and Pakistan have improved to a point where the presence of our forces is unnecessary.

Obama did a decent job explaining that we don't want Afghanistan and Pakistan to become sanctuaries for terrorist again.  However, he failed to tell the American people and the international community that long-term nation building in this region is essential to ensure the viability of these countries and that we cannot expect these countries to stand on their own within the limited parameters of U.S. election cycles.  We cannot abandon Afghanistan and Pakistan to a ruthless enemy and ensuring the security of these countries will be a decades long commitment.  Yes, we must work to limit corruption among governmental officials in these countries but we must also consider our long-term geopolitical and strategic interests in that region.  We must be willing to use both the imperial cudgel on our enemies and demonstrate compassion to and build trust among the long-suffering Afghan people. Obama has demonstrated that he can speak in rhetorically pleasing platitudes, but he has failed to demonstrate that he has sufficient understanding of our enemies ideological objectives, the moral imperative for us to achieve victory in this conflict, and his need to abandon his multicultural fantasies and become a ruthless warrior president who can tell the American public and world opinion that tough steps must be taken to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

We often are told that oil is a source for potential military and geopolitical conflict and it's true that "black gold" has been a historical, contemporary, and future source of political tension and conflict.  However, oil's importance is less than water's when one calculates potential future arenas of natural resource conflict.

Individuals living in the western U.S. know how important and scarce water can be.  Considerable technological expertise and expense have been used, often at significant environmental cost, to ensure that sunbelt states as diverse as Arizona, California, and Texas have access to ample water sources to fuel their economies and maintain what early 21st century Americans consider as minimal standards of living.  Books such as Norris Hundley's The Great Thirst:  Californians and Water History document the political, legal, and environmental impacts of this unending quest for water in America's most populous state. Numerous other works and court cases document the contentiousness of water policy within the U.S.  Federal agencies such as the Interior Dept's Bureau of Reclamation and numerous state and local government water agencies, along with commercial water suppliers, engage in a continual struggle to find new and abundant sources of water at affordable costs for consumers and businesses.  This struggle is likely to become more intense if global warming is a reality and with continual population growth in the western states which may require these states to seek water resources from other areas of the U.S.  Imagine the consequences of California seeking to obtain water from the Missouri River or the Mississippi River.  Talk about stoking regional political antagonisms in the U.S. on a scale not seen since the Civil War.

Dependable access to potable water is also a major problem in numerous global areas.  I recently heard a National Public Radio story about problems accessing water in the Arabian Peninsula country of Yemen.  This country has experienced prolonged drought which has been exacerbated by corrupt individuals and governmental officials seeking to drill deeper underground in areas where there water reserves are highly unlikely.  There are water shortages in areas such as Israel which also affects many of its surrounding neighbors and could produce conflict beyond the already existing tensions in that region.  India and Bangladesh have difficulties in making effective use of regional water resources due, in part, to India's population growth.  Anyone familiar with Australian environmental history, will know the important role played by the Murray and Darling rivers in fostering that countries economic prosperity including its major status in global grain markets.  Think about the impact of drought depleting water resources in grain producing areas of the world as diverse as Canada, the U.S., Australia, Argentina, and Russia.  It is also possible to find increasing numbers of national security policy documents and substantive public policy analyses addressing the possibility of international political and military conflict over water resources.

Africa has also been victimized by droughts on a regular basis which has caused significant humanitarian catastrophe and created refugee flows which impact regional geopolitical dynamics.  No area of the world is immune to water shortages.  The 21st century may see governmental policymakers in the U.S. and elsewhere  compelled to take what might seem draconian steps such as limiting lawn watering and other areas of non-essential water use to ensure that there are sufficient water resources to meet personal household economic needs and essential national and international economic needs.  Most of the U.S. has been extremely fortunate that we have not been deprived of dependable and relatively cheap access to high-quality water.  There is no guarantee that this will continue if continued population growth, natural resources consumption, and existing legal and regulatory policies do not adjust to continually evolving economic, environmental, and political trends along with adapting to unpredictable climatic trends which may also restrict water availability.   Such water shortages could produce regional and global conflicts on a scale that might make us nostalgic for twentieth century conflicts because water effects us all in ways oil cannot.

This past Saturday night, the U.S. Senate agreed to open debate on health care legislation.  This 2,000 plus page monstrosity, as congressional Republicans have graphically pointed out by displaying it on the Senate and House floors, will increase a variety of taxes and ultimately do nothing to improvev the quality of U.S. health care.  Bringing this bill to the Senate floor reflects the childlike faith of the Obama Administration and its congressional sycophants that Americans will ignore the over six decades of unhappy experience with nationalized health care in countries all over the world despite overwhelming evidence that such systems decrease the quality and availability of health care to their citizens.

So far a considerable amount of political horsetrading and logrolling is occurring as the Administration seeks to garner the support of Democrats who may be politically or, dare we hope, intellectually and morally inclined to resist the seductive siren of socialized medicine.  One of these Democrats is Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, the scion of a prominent New Orleans familial political dynasty.  Landrieu has already secured an additional $300 million in Medicaid funding for Louisiana in a stunning affirmation of her genetic encoding to garner federal largesse for her state regardless of whether or not its taxpayers or national taxpayers can afford such spending during a time of double digit unemployment and trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see or budget prognosticators can forecast.  Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln will be another purportedly moderate Democrat the Obama Administration will try to entice with various favors.  Lincoln is now chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee and we may see Arkansas receive all kinds of favors when the next quinquinnial federal farm legislation is written a couple years down the road.  Perhaps features of this legislation might include giving Tyson Chicken monopolistic control of the U.S. poultry industry, additional Medicaid money for Arkansas, or no telling what other earmarks which may occur at the expense of other U.S. agricultural sectors.

Indiana Senator Richard  Lugar has wisely said that our current economic problems make health care reform extremely unwise at this time.  You would think Harry Reid would be intelligent enough to listen to a midwestern Rhodes Scholar.  Unfortunately, Reid, Pelosi, and Obama are dead set on imposing a nationalized health care system which Americans don't want, cannot afford, and has proven to be detrimental to health care quality in many highly developed countries.  Obama has convinced himself that his presidential legacy depends on enacting this legislation regardless of its abysmal quality.  His stubborn messianic insistence on this legislation may well make him the 2nd consecutive Democratic President to squander significant political capital on an issue that only appeals to a collectivist cabal on the leftist fringes of the Democratic Party.  The failure of this legislation can represent a seismic political defeat for mister "change you can believe in" and open up opportunities for the GOP to present sensible, pragmatic, and market-oriented health care reform that will empower individual American medical consumers and their families instead of an already titanic and ineffectual federal medical bureaucracy.