The protests by public employees in Madison, WI against the prudent efforts of Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin's Republican majority legislature are  not surprising.  At the outset, I want to say that since I work at a state university, I consider myself a public employee.  Thankfully, I am not unionized and my annual compensation rate is determined by the degree of meritorious performance and I recognize the acute budget problems states such as Wisconsin face are due to excess spending.  Sadly, many public employees in Wisconsin and elsewhere consider it their divine right to have extravagant benefit packages to their employment compensation and believe they should be lavishly compensated even in the midst of acute fiscal crises.  I believe public employees should be treated fairly in their work and that conservatives should appreciate those in this segment of the workforce, but Wisconsin's leaders must stand firm and implement the reforms necessary to solve their state's economic problems. 

Calvin Coolidge said there is  no right to strike against the public safety and his declaration rings true nearly a century later.  Self-serving teachers are depriving children of the need to learn the skills to be productive members of a global 21st century economy. These teachers place the "sacrament of collective bargaining" on a higher level then responsible conduct and educating Wisconsin's children and young adults.  Individual workers, if given the chance will perform responsibly and can negotiate fairer contracts and working conditions for themselves, than money grubbing and class warfare infested union bosses whose knowledge of personal and societal economics equals Charlie Sheen's knowledge of sobriety and chastity.   Wisconsin's Democratic Senators, instead of engaging in principled intellectual disagreement with these Republican reform proposals, flee like craven cowards to Illinois and make it legally impossible for Wisconsin's Senate to enact these reforms.  There should be laws to punish legislators who refuse to carry out their constitutional duty to vote on legislation and refuse to let the public's business be fulfilled.

It will be a tough challenge to restore fiscal solvency to federal, state, and local governments who have spent like drunken sailors and planned prudently or saved for rainy days.  What's happening in Wisconsin will determine if we can actually  impose discipline on government or if we will be ruled by thuggish union bosses and their Democratic compatriots who are more concerned with preserving their coercive power than protecting the interests of their workers or promoting public fiscal solvency.

Donald Rumsfeld's autobiography Known and Unknown:  A Memoir was published today by Sentinel which is a conservative imprint of Penguin Publishers.  I haven't had the opportunity to read this important historical work yet but it is already drawing attention.  Rumsfeld, by any measure, has had successful careers in the private sector and public service.  He served as a congressional representative from Illinois and was a key supporter of the 1966 Freedom of Information Act which drastically, if clumsily, increased public access to executive and independent agency government branch records.  Rumsfeld also has served twice as Secretary of Defense.  His most consequential and controversial service in this position was between 2001-2006 when military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq occurred.  No matter what policies the U.S. pursued in responding to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. Government and its leading national security policymakers, including Rumsfeld, would have received criticism.

Sometimes such criticism is justified but frequently it is not.  Rumsfeld received more than his fair share of carping criticism from penile-brained critics whose knowledge of warfare and Islamist terrorism almost equals Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen's familiarity with sobriety.

Rumsfeld made significant mistakes in overseeing these operations.  While the conventional military operations in Iraq in early 2003 were properly resourced and brilliantly executed, he failed to provide proper personnel for occupation and counterinsurgency duty.  He was right to insist that the military quit relying on World War II and Cold War conventional forces paradigms for fighting emerging military operations, but he put to much trust in the technological seductions of a revolution in military affairs to effectively fight countersurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Such operations require successful and sustained cultivation of local populations by forces with a permanent presence in the countries where such operations are being conducted.  Sadly, many U.S. and allied lives were lost because of this oversight but that does not diminish the U.S. moral right to militarily intervene in these countries and to help them on the long and painful path to some modicum of domestic stability.

Rumsfeld has been criticized by his grandstanding critics for not showing sufficient self-flagellation over  his real or imagined mistakes in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Such emotional ejaculations are best suited for private conduct such as marital relationships, personal soul-searching, or confessing to God or ministers instead of capitulating to the ignorant pantings of antiwar critics who have zero understanding of the Islamist threats facing the U.S. during the Bush 43 Administration which remain today under the Obama Administration.  Rumsfeld and Bush were also deficient in frequently communicating to the American public and world opinion that the war against Islamist terrorism will take decades, will be brutal and messy at times, and not have a happy World War II type resolution such as the Japanese surrender on the U.S.S. Missouri.  Despite these flaws, he conducted himself honorably and history will take a critical but more favorable and nuanced view of his DOD stewardship in four to five decades when relevant documentation is declassified.  Unlike his successor Robert Gates, he resisted pressures to allow open military service by homosexuals and was willing to challenge entrenched military opinion when he thought such views were detrimental to the ability of U.S. forces to win against emerging asymmetric military threats.  Such attributes are signs of courage and strong leadership instead of a willingness to acquiesce to popular fantasies or long-standing institutional beliefs.

Judge Roger Vinson of Florida's U.S. Court's Northern District in Pensacola, gave Obamacare a well deserved smack down today.  In his ruling on a case brought by 26 states questioning the constitutionality of this statute, including its mandate that individuals legally had to purchase health insurance, Vinson struck down this provision of the law as unconstitutional and declared the entire law unconstitutional.  My favorite part of this opinion is on p. 42 which reads:

"It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as a result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.  If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be 'difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power' [Lopez, supra, 514 U.S. at 564] and we would have a Constitution in name only.  Surely this is not what the Founding Fathers could have intended."

Vinson did reject the complaint of the litigants that the law's Medicaid provisions were unconstitutional, but this opinion, besides being an excellent and comprehensive exposition of the Constitution's Commerce Clause, represents another legal dagger in the bleeding walking corpse of Obamacare.  The Justice Dept. is appealing this legislation which will eventually go to the Supreme Court.  However, today's ruling should be tough to reverse and we can hope the Obama Administration will no longer cling to its power hungry delusions that it can impose this imprudent and unconstitutional legislation on our health care system.  It is now incumbent on Congressional Republicans, and maybe even some realistic Democrats, to create health care legislation that actually cuts costs, promotes malpractice tort reform, promotes consumer choice and flexibility, and actually improves the quality of health care practice.

Recently, we've seen a revolutionary eruption in Tunisia which toppled a brutal and corrupt, but nominally pro-western dictatorship.  The outcome of this upheaval is uncertain and the situation remains volatile.  Yemen, which provides some help to the U.S. in its war against Al-Qaida, saw demonstrations this week and is struggling with separatist movements and the g rowth of Al Qaida in the Arabia Peninsula.  Lebanon has seen pro-Iranian Hizbollah gain the throttles of power which will probably demolish the triumphant expectations engendered by the Cedar Revolution a few years ago.  Even Jordan is experiencing unrest due to rising food prices and high unemployment.

However, most observers have been stunned by the turmoil in Egypt.  This country has been the U.S.' most important ally in the Mideast and has justifiably cracked down against the Islamist terrorists within the long-standing Muslim Brotherhood.  However, Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian regime has been in power for nearly three decades and has proven to be corrupt, unable to meet the economic aspirations of Egypt's growing population, allows the persecution of Coptic Christians, and has proven unwilling to move its governmental structure into a more democratic and, most importantly, non-Islamist direction.  Some of the protestors are relatively secular democrats who could move Egypt into a positive direction.  However, as Caroline Glick points out in a column in today's Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=205559 we should not be optimistic that opposition figure Mohammed El Baradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has the credibility to move Egypt into a positive direction.

If Egypt falls into Islamist control, the consequences would be grievous.  The Mideast's largest army would be used to attack Israel and actively support various Islamist groups in their terrorist attacks against the west.  Egypt controls the strategically vital Suez Canal through which significant portions of the world's oil passes.  The economic consequences of this being cut off would be cataclysmic.  If you think we're actively involved militarily in the Mideast now, just wait and see what happens if the worst case scenario happens now.  We need to encourage Mubarak to step aside soon but it is more important that his successor be competent, non-corrupt, absolutely reject Islamist ideology, maintain good relations with Israel and the United States, and engage in major economic reform efforts to provide enhanced employment opportunities for the Egyptian people.  The U.S. has been charged with favoring stability over freedom in the Mideast.  However, if the alternative to dictatorial stability and corruption is Islamist revolution, represssing women and religious minorities, and exporting terrorism, than dictatorial stability, regardless of its brutality and corruption, is the lesser of two evils. 

The U.S., Israel, and the west are in a delicate diplomatic and strategic situation.  Apologizing for real or alleged historic sins will not cut it.  We need to encourage pragmatic elements within Egypt to create a more democratic and honest regime which will implement policies to genuinely improve the lives and economic prospects of Egyptians.

Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Washington, DC and Chicago last week.  While in Washington, he was greeted with a state dinner by Obama and a chillier reception from Congress.  Our multifaceted bilateral relationship with China is vitally important and filled with numerous opportunities and challenges.  The growing Chinese middle class has the potential to be a major purchaser of U.S. products and services.  China is also increasing its investment in the U.S. economy and holds a significant volume of U.S. debt which gives it considerable potential leverage over the U.S.

At the same time, China also commits intellectual property fraud on a wide scale and is a significant human rights abuser of groups such as Tibetans, the Falun Gong exercise group, and Christians.  Considerable debate exists over whether China desires to threaten the U.S. directly or U.S. preeminence in the Western Pacific.  Their military has grown considerably in striking power in recent decades and is committed to achieving preeminence in an informatized battlefield environment.  China continues increasing its ballistic missile arsenal directed at Taiwan, made little or no effort to restrain North Korea's nuclear program, has periodically harassed U.S. military forces conducting maneuvers in the Western Pacific, has  successfully tested space weapons, coerced Japan in a recent dispute over the ownership of offshore islands, has constructed a string of pearls of naval assets in areas as diverse as Thailand, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka to ensure secure access to its economy's continually growing demand for oil and natural gas, and has sought to increase its political leverage in Africa and Latin America by providing "no strings attached" economic development assistance to countries in these regions.

After centuries of repose following its mysterious decision to quit pursuing international exploration and maritime activity during the 16th century, China is beginning to strut on the world stage.  While Marxist-Leninist or Maoist Communist ideology no longer animates Chinese foreign and national security policymaking, old-fashioned nationalism and economic prosperity have become the primary drivers of Chinese geopolitics.  It's not a surprise that China unveiled a new stealth military aircraft when Hu Jintao was being feted at the White House.  While China may desire domestic political and international economic stability in its rhetoric, its actions demonstrate its desire to threaten U.S. interests on a global scale and to remove U.S. influence from the Western Pacific.  The U.S. has made some efforts to increase its security cooperation with countries as diverse as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, India, and even Vietnam as Chinese hard and soft power increase.   These efforts should increase in the years to come and also include Taiwan. Due to the perennial rise and fall of powers throughout history and the perception that the U.S. is a declining power, I believe that military conflict of some kind between the United States and China is historically inevitable at some point within the next two decades.  Future Presidents and U.S. leaders need to start preparing public opinion for this eventuality NOW and make sure our forces, and those of allied nations, have the appropriate mix of conventional, nuclear, information warfare, and space-based assets to win this confrontation.

My first posting of the new year is about the sad tragedy in Tucson, AZ where Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and five other individuals were murdered by a crazed gunman.  Additional bystanders were injured and Tucson and the country have been irrevocably scarred.  Although Rep. Giffords is not of my partisan persuasion, I pray she recovers as do all other survivors of this attack.  She seems like she is a conscientious public servant who was meeting directly with her constituents to hear their hopes and concerns about governmental policies.  It would be particularly tragic if this horrific attack puts additional barriers between citizens and their elected officials.

A lot of inflammatory drivel has been spewed by the political left (including Pima County, AZ sheriff Clarence Dubnik) about how the Tea Party, vitriolic conservative rhetoric, and cultural barbarity caused this incident.  Sarah Palin has come in for the usual denunciations from the left as have defenders of our Second Amendment constitutional rights.  The fact of the matter is that this act was committed by a mentally ill individual from an apparently dysfunctional family who chose to surrender to evil and act on his darkest impulses.  Obviously, steps could and should have been taken to have Jarrod Loughner institutionalized, but our society's increasing willingness to tolerate psychopathic individuals in the name of destigmatizing the seriously mentally ill has drastically increased the possibility of incidents like this due to what can be overly stringent medical privacy laws.

My most vivid experience of inflammatory political rhetoric was Ted Kennedy's libellous denunciation of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in the U.S. Senate on July 1, 1987.  Fortunately, Kennedy has received his just desserts for this and other forms of political and moral perfidy he committed in his life.  Liberals believe they can impugn those who disagree with their efforts to impose government controlled health care, increase national debt, impose abhorrent social practices on our military, and demonize those who disagree with them as racists, sexists, homophobes, and provincial rubes and yet are surprised when they encounter rhetorical and other forms of opposition.  I will not believe the left is serious about controlling violent political rhetoric until they apologize for their attacks on Bork, Clarence Thomas, Miguel Estrada, and George W. Bush.  Clean your own political mouths out with soap before you expect reciprocal action from conservatives.

Politics is about differences.  Even if these differences are profound, they can still be expressed forcefully but civilly without resort to physical violence.  In democratic countries targeting rival political candidates for electoral defeat in upcoming campaigns is as common as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.  The hysteria of the left over the fact that Sarah Palin's political action committee had "targeted" Rep. Giffords district is reflective of their ignorance and intolerance of dissent.  The fact of the matter is Democratic strategists target Republicans they feel are electorally vulnerable all the time.   We must learn from this that life is a precious gift from God which can be taken from us at any minute.  We should be grateful for the heroic individuals who are medically treating the injured, wrestled Loughner to the ground, and the congresswoman's intern who helped save her life at the store by holding her.  We are inheriting the wind of a culture that is becoming increasingly secularized and which seeks to eliminate the sacred from the public square, political discourse, and from discussions of moral right and wrong as reflected in Saturday's Tucson Tragedy.

The 112th Congress will convene in a few days and should begin by making a number of reforms to enhance its efficiency, accountability, and the overall quality of legislation it produces.  House Republicans are making a good start by promising to reduce the number of legislative days and having a public reading of the U.S. Constitution to impart to members the critical importance of their legislation actually adhering to constitutionally enumerated rhetoric.  Hopefully, the proposal that all bills cite specific U.S. constitutional authority in their text is implemented right away.

Congress should move to two-year budget cycle to facilitate longer-term fiscal planning and its highest budget priority, aside from moving to substantially cut spending and reduce the budget deficit, should be ensuring the 13 agency spending bills which make up the federal budget actually get passed by October 1, 2011 which is the start of the federal fiscal year.  A sign of the unlamented 111th Congress' incompetence, was its failure to pass FY 2011 legislation on time despite overwhelming Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.  Congress' should also drastically reduce the volume of legislation it passes and emphasize quality legislation which improves our economy, creates lasting jobs, lowers  national debt, enhances national security, and gives individual Americans the freedom to make the decisions that are best for them and their families.

The 111th Congress passed 290 public laws and many of them deal with absolutely irrelevant material to the daily lives of Americans such as naming post offices after various local figures and minting coins for five star generals.  Congress should limit its substantive legislative output to 20-25 laws beyond the 13 agency appropriations bills.  These individual laws should be no longer than 500 pages and written in plain English to give members of Congress the time to read and study them before voting on them.  All legislation should be posted online within three days of the vote in order to give the public the opportunity to comment on the merits or demerits of such legislation.  Congress should quit wasting time honoring favored individual or group constituents through resolutions and Congressional Record speeches.  Instead it should spend the majority of its time conducting oversight of federal programs, debating the performance of these programs, and making cuts where needed.  It needs to tackle the entitlement crisis and Republicans need to be willing to look at "sacred cows" such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security which are major causes of our fiscal problems and make excisions and promote enhanced efficiencies as needed regardless of the squealing social welfare lobbyists will engage in.  Earmark reform is also essential although earmarks do not make up as much of the federal budget as some critics maintain. Nevertheless, they are a problem that needs to be rectified.

This will require partisan discipline and principled policymaking which provides conservatives with the opportunity to demonstrate genuine commitment to the core conservative principle of fiscal rectitude and distinguish ourselves from liberal profligacy and ideologically vapid organizations like the "No Labels" movement which mistakenly thinks you can remove political classification from political discourse and policymaking.  Finally, Congress will have to be especially vigilant to thwart regulations the Obama Administration may seek to impose which it cannot achieve through legislation due to changed congressional electoral demographics.  In particular, rigorous scrutiny will need to be paid to thwarting attempts to implement Obama Care and to EPA attempts to impose cap and trade on multiple sectors of the American economy and U.S. consumers which would produce ruinous cost increases at a time of acute economic frailty.

The next Congress should also look at repealing laws which are no longer needed and spend time repealing or reducing the impact of bad laws such as Obamacare, the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and portions of the misnamed Financial Services Reform Act.  Judiciary Committees in both the House and Senate need to regularly look at overturning bad court rulings such as the 9th Circuit District Court ruling in San Francisco overturning California voters passage of Proposition 8 in 2008.  Congress also needs to close down unneeded federal agencies such as USDA's Federal Utilities Service which was created in the 1930's to electrify farms, remove duplicative job training programs, and close redundant agency facilities within departments such as NASA, DOE, and other agencies.  Inserting agency sunset provisions into appropriations legislation should also occur in order to prevent the perpetuation of government agencies who have passed their "use by date" and the political constituencies desirous of perpetuating these agencies and their programs.

I'll add my perspective to the cacophony of recommended books being disseminated by print and online publications at the end of this year.  Let's start with politics.  Mitt Romney's No Apology:  The Case for American Greatness (St. Martin's) provides excellent analysis of the domestic economic and international challenges facing the U.S. and how the Obama Administration is failing miserably in both of these areas.  We need an intellectually coherent candidate to go up against the inevitable campaign of distortion Obama and his minions are likely to put out in 2012 to deflect responsibility from their execrable record of presidential leadership these past two years.  Romney's work is a good introduction to the type of arguments he and other GOP presidential candidates need to present to the electorate who let itself be seduced by Obama's charismatic contortions.

Former President George W. Bush's Decision Points (Crown) is also recommended reading.  The commercial success of this book is evidence of how much better he is looking to Americans as Obama's follies become more apparent with each passing second.  Bush made mistakes during his presidency, but he remains a man of honor, integrity, and geopolitical prescience, who kept America safe from post 9/11 terror attacks and took the fight to the enemy instead of naively believing that Islamist terrorism could be defeated by Western legal documentation and discourse.

Presidential biographies can also be instructive reading for comparing the personalities and issues of bygone epochs with contemporary developments.  Edmund Morris' Colonel Roosevelt (Random House), the concluding volume of his biographical trilogy of Theodore Roosevelt, is an excellent example of narrative history and insightful analysis.  This covers Roosevelt's post-presidential  years and chronicles his exploring expeditions in Africa and South America, his quixotic 1912 third-party presidential campaign including surviving an assassination attempt in Milwaukee, his virulent and justified criticism of Woodrow Wilson's timid reaction to German atrocities and Wilson's messianic delusions of creating a new world order, and the events of his personal life including the death of his son Quentin in France during World War I.  Roosevelt is a titan of American history.  He can arguably be considered America's intellectually premier President with a prolific output on politics, natural history, and numerous other subjects.  While America's economy required some increased economic regulation during his presidency and post-presidency, he had insufficient understanding of how excessive regulation could throttle American productivity and ingenuity.

However, this deficiency is more than compensated by his brutally realistic understanding of international politics and military force and their relationship to sinful human nature.  Roosevelt would have known how to deal with contemporary Islamist terrorists, Julian Assange and Wikileaks, Mexican drug cartels, maritime pirates, and other national and transnational threats to U.S. security.  He would not have felt the need to cultivate the liberal media and foreign policy establishments but would have decisively defended U.S. interests.

Traveling to Australia earlier this year, helped increase my awareness of that amazing country's political and historical development and the role of Australian conservatism in that country's ongoing political development.  Peter Costello served as Australia's Treasurer from 1996-2007 as part of John Howard's government and helped eliminate that country's national debt.  The Costello Memoirs:  The Age of Prosperity  (Melbourne University Press) documents his role in sustaining the economic prosperity Australia enjoyed during the Howard government and documents the byzantine relationship he had with Howard over whether he would succeed Howard as that country's Liberal Party leader.  I received Howard's memoir Lazarus Rising (Harper Collins) for Christmas and look forward to plunging into it in the not to distant future.  Tony Abbott is the current leader of Australia's conservative coalition and his Battlelines  (Melbourne University Press) provides the insights of this thoughtful leader who narrowly lost an election earlier this year to Prime Minister Julia Gillard's Labor Party who's failure to deliver is rivaling the Obama Administration's.  Anything by Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey is enjoyable, including his History of Victoria (Cambridge University Press) and Miriam Estenson's The Life of Matthew Flinders (Allen & Unwin) which chronicles the life of this late 18th and early 19th century British explorer who mapped much of modern Australia and got to experience incarceration by the French in Mauritius during the Napoleonic Wars.

While we were in Sydney, there was a demonstration by local leftist dimwits protesting Israel's seizure of a Turkish ship attempting to supply weapons to Hamas in Gaza.  The Palestineans are having disturbing success convincing elements of international opinion that they are a "unique" people entitled to a nation state as a means of compensating for purported Israeli "racism, imperialism, and occupation."  Ephraim Karsh's Palestine Betrayed (Yale University Press) is a wonderful antidote to such stupidity as it irrefutably demonstrates that Palestineans have been betrayed by their own leaders and self-serving Arab countries who seek maintain them in their victimhood instead of encouraging them to become productive law-abiding citizens in a democratic Israel or being productive law-abiding citizens within other Arab countries.

My wife and I enjoy visiting art museums and I enjoy art museum handbooks and books about various artists and artistic schools I like.  Something I just finished reading today is Linda S. Ferber The Hudson River School:  Nature and the American Vision (Skira Rizzoli and New York Historical Society) which showcases and describes works by Hudson River School painters such as Frederic Church,Thomas Cole, Jasper Cropsey, Asher Durand, and others in the New York Historical Society's collection.  Both of us also visited the Big Apple for our 10th anniversary and I've enjoyed works on this metropolis' history including Yasmin Sabrina Khan's Enlightening the World:  The Creation of the Statue of Liberty (Cornell University Press) and Kenneth T. Jackson, ed. The Encyclopedia of New York City 2nd ed. (Yale University Press).

With the unfortunate liberal social encroachments made during the Obama Administration, as evidenced by judicial attempts to overturn Proposition 8 in California and impose same-sex marriage and this administration's and the 111th Congress' moronic decision to allow open military service by homosexuals, its high time for a scholarly and ideologically polemical work to document and ultimately discredit the insidious rise of this political, judicial, legal, and social movement to normalize this perverse lifestyle and criminalize the speech of those determined to oppose this threat to our culture.  One possible title for such as work could be Deconstructing Stonewall in "honor" of the riots in New York City's Greenwich Village section which launched the gay rights movement and has become a symbol of political mythology and iconography within that movement.
 
Happy New Year and good reading to fellow conservatives in 2011!

Historians will tell you that it is often several years or decades before the significance of an individual, event, or  organization's activities can be measured.  These assessments are generally accurate.  The Republican-controlled 80th Congress (1947-1948) has a special place in Democratic political mythology for being a "do-nothing" Congress despite approving the Marshall Plan and passing the Taft-Hartley Act to restrict the power of militant organized labor.  However, the soon to conclude 111th Congress can already be assessed as the worst in our history and we'll be paying the price of its actions for decades to come.  Under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and their co-conspirator in crime and degeneracy Barack Obama, this congress was unable to pass a any of the 13 annual federal agency fiscal appropriations bills on time despite having decisive House and Senate majorities.  It worsened our economic situation through wasteful fiscal stimulus policies that did not create new jobs and worsened the federal budget deficit.  It sought to increase compulsory unionization through "card check" legislation and unionizing the Transportation Security Administration.  Instead of promoting pro-market policies it enacted constitutionally dubious and expensive health care legislation that will INCREASE instead of lower costs, empower government bureaucrats, decrease the overall quality of health care, and lessen the quality of the doctor patient health care relationship.  This is only partially rectified by extending the Bush tax cuts through 2012, but failing to address a culture of reckless spending and personal dependency where so many individuals and organizations feel they are entitled to direct government financial assistance.

At a time when we are fighting a war against remorseless Islamist enemies, and may also have to fight against fanatical North Koreans, this Congress and the Obama Administration decided that their highest national security policy priorities were not aiding an overstressed force and promoting war winning strategies.  Instead, they decided that imposing the social engineering experiment of open military service by homosexuals, in order to obsequiously pander on their knees to their militant homosexual base, was "job one."  It's exceptionally sad that so many members of Congress, especially Republican Senators like Illinois' Mark Kirk and Massachusetts' Scott Brown let themselves be whipped by the lavender lobby.  There's no telling what damage this imbecilic and moronic decision will do to overall combat readiness and military unit cohesion.  Military barracks are now going to become places of sexual tension and morally upright soldiers will have to live in fear of offending the gay ideological hegemony in this "diverse friendly" force.  Do not be surprised to see significant departures from the military and problems attracting quality recruits in the years to come.  Military personnel should also take steps to undermine implementation of this legislation until a more intelligent and moral Congress and President are in place.  While the 112th Congress, won't have the votes to overturn this repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT), they should include language in the next defense appropriations legislation prohibiting the  use of federal funds for implementing this, and work for reinstatement and enhanced enforcement of DADT in the 113th Congress when, God willing, we'll have a solidly conservative Republican President and Congress to overturn this depraved legislation.  The next Congress should also begin another protracted battle in our cultural war by starting work on repealing the infamous 2003 U.S. Supreme Court Johnson decision which overturned state anti-sodomy laws.

This Congress, fortunately, was unsuccessful in its attempts to approve the illegal alien promotion legislation known as the DREAM Act.  Instead of actually, addressing our acute border security problems, this Congress and administration was more concerned with suing Arizona when it unilaterally enacted legislation to try to enhance the stability of its own borders and the safety of its population.   This Congress also did nothing to stop the EPA from arrogating to itself the power to regulate carbon emissions without considering the economic consequences of such actions on individuals, families, and small businesses; enacted excessive financial "reform" legislation  which will not decrease the likelihood of future financial crises and impose increased regulatory burdens on all businesses and increase prices for consumers.  It did nothing to stop the runaway Transportation Security Adminstration from groping law abiding airline passengers when this agency should have access to Customs & Border Protection information to go after actual terrorists  who match the behavioral profile of Islamist terrorists most likely to blow themselves up on a plane along with the passengers on that plane.

This Congress also failed to plug holes in governmental computer security and security clearance policy which allowed openly homosexual military private Bradley Manning to pass hundreds of thousands of secrets to Julian Assange and Wikileaks which will undoubtedly kill American soldiers and foreign nationals who have aided our military and intelligence operations.   So far, the most authoritative congressional response on this has been by  outgoing House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers of Michigan who has essentially said Assange is some kind of crusader  for open government and should not be prosecuted.  Readers should know that Conyers would be viewed by 19th century slavery proponents as absolute vindication for their views.

As diseased waste exits the anuses of humans and animals, the 111th Congress will soon leave.  It has overstayed its welcome and left an asphyxiating legislative, regulatory, and moral stench that will take years, if not decades or ever, to overcome.  The incoming Congress will have a chance to rectify the multiple excesses of this Congress and get this country moving in the right direction again.  It will take considerable courage by Speaker Boehner, Senator McConnell, and all new and returning members of Congress, to summon up the intellectual and moral resolve to ruthlessly combat Harry Reid and the Obama Administration and to punish those within our own ranks who are not committed to sound conservative public policymaking and traditional Judeo-Christian moral values.

The proposed tax deal between the Obama Administration and congressional Republicans has received a mixed reception.  Some Republicans are concerned that the deal only lasts two years and will increase the budget deficit.  Many of the virulent leftists in Obama's Democratic ranks are aghast that the 2001 Bush tax cuts may survive and have instinctively reverted to their class warfare rhetoric.  I think that this agreement, though far from perfect, has more good than bad and support it.  I would prefer the Bush tax cuts be made permanent but am cautiously pleased that the Obama Administration is partially cognizant of last month's election results.  The last thing this struggling economy needs is massive tax increases which would surely plunge us into a double dip recession.  I'm not thrilled about the extension of unemployment benefits as this encourages a dependency mentality but hope that extension of the tax cuts to all consumers will help create more jobs.  History also shows that increased economic activity also produces higher tax revenues.

This was hard for Obama whose economic ideological proclivity is to tax, spend, and redistribute.  He demonstrated a modicum of intelligence and pragmatism by recognizing the upcoming Republican House takeover and the GOP's augmented Senate numbers.  However, he was petulant at his press conference as demonstrated by his bizarre claim that tax cuts for the rich are the GOP's "holy grail."  Actually, our highest economic ideal as conservatives should be a government that balances its budgets, has efficient programs, and facilities long-term economic growth by minimizing its intrusion into personal and societal economic activity.

It's especially amusing to see the economic illiterates among congressional Democrats.  It's a sad commentary on American economic educational quality, particularly prevalent in many sectors of academe, that the belief persists that you can tax and spend your way to prosperity.  Actually, it takes personal prudence, saving, timing, advance planning, and providential fortune to achieve and maintain personal prosperity.  In the spirit of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," I would like to  make the following suggestion to critics of this proposed tax legislation.  If you really want to see the 2001 Bush tax cuts expire, pay the income tax rate for your income level that existed prior to these cuts being enacted when you fill our your tax returns next year.  You can call it your "patriotic sacrifice" in your own warped leftist world view if it makes you feel better.  Let the rest of us who are trying to make our economy better have the freedom to plan our economic activity more effectively by allowing this legislation to pass.  Then we can begin the hard task of reducing government spending including making tough cuts in entitlement programs, duplicative and wasteful government programs, and even some areas of defense that are the major cause of our fiscal malaise.

Like an alcoholic refusing to leave the bottle or a drug addict clinging to their needle, U.S. administrations of both political parties have often had a childlike faith that nuclear arms control agreements with the Soviet Union/Russian Federation will work, be adhered to by Russia, and be in our best national interests.  The historical record shows the opposite to frequently be the case.
The Obama Administration has negotiated a new Strategic Arms and Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia which it wants the Senate to advise and consent to during this lame duck session. As the following Heritage Foundation analysis
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/09/Twelve-Flaws-of-New-START-That-Will-Be-Difficult-to-Fix
demonstrates this treaty reflects the Obama Administration's muddle-headed antinuclear utopianism, fails to address protecting the U.S. and its allies from strategic attack, imposes restrictions on missile defense systems whose importance is increasing in light of developments in Iran and North Korea, its weapons reductions further limit the credibility of our aging nuclear weapons arsenal which has not been tested (outside of flawed computer simulations) since the early 1990s, unnecessarily includes conventional prompt global strike weapons in the same category as nuclear weapons, and leaves a large Russian advantage in nonstrategic weapons and other flaws.

Russia has failed to become a democracy and has become something resembling a criminal oligarchy that is using its oil and natural gas reserves to increase its military and geopolitical power.  This treaty needs to be rejected by the U.S. Senate and realism, instead of idealistic delusions,  must characterize our relations with Russia.

The U.S. military is fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and is also conducting maneuvers with the South Korean military as a warning to North Korea following that regime's recent attack against a South Korean island.  Our military, diplomatic, and intelligence communities are also having to assess the damage of the leaking of thousands of U.S. Govt. documents to the terrorist supporting organization Wikileaks.  The Senate will soon consider a grievously flawed arms control treaty with Russia which should be shot down.  Unfortunately, the Obama Administration, leading congressional Democrats, and our very models of modern politically correct major generals Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Admiral Mike Millen have decided its now okay to permit open military service by homosexuals.  Yesterday, the Pentagon released a shoddily argued report that was reflective of the pro-gay rights ideology of the Obama Administration including the delusional belief and egregiously flawed historical analogy that military service is somehow a right on a constitutional level with racial integration or gender equality.

The report claimed that a majority of the 400,000 military personnel who responded to a survey they conducted had no objections to integrating openly gay personnel into service.  First of all, there are just over 1.4 million active duty personnel in the military, and to believe that nearly 30% of them had the time to fill out such a survey defies logic and the response rates for social science surveys.  Numerous leading military officers and combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and repeatedly stated their vehement opposition to allowing military service by LBGT individuals since it would be seriously injurious to unit cohesion and combat readiness.  The Center for Military Readiness has prepared an excellent set of resources on the multiple problems involved with repealing 10 USC 654 including increased misconduct, penalizing opponents of this potential policy in their career promotion paths, and undermining the good order, discipline, morale, and unit cohesion essential for military success.  Intelligence professionals will tell you that openly gay military personnel are increasingly likely to be blackmailed by hostile intelligence services and the fact that Private Bradley Manning, who is responsible for much of the material Wikileaks has received is gay, should be a bracing slap of reality for those who naively think depraved individuals should be trusted with military secrets.  Anther useful historical precedent documenting the folly of this lifestyle and national security is that 4/5 of the Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, and Straight ring of British spies who worked for the Soviet Union and did grave damage to the west were gay or bisexual.

Allowing service by these individuals will increase sexual harassment and other forms of litigation and have detrimental effects in the battlefield, on ships and submarines, and in the barracks as increased interpersonal tension will make it harder for military personnel to execute their responsibilities.  The military is a far different organizational culture than a civilian factory, laboratory, and office and differences in personal lifestyle choices and practices, which can be more readily accomodated in civilian workplaces, cannot be allowed to interfere with military activities.   It may also tempt hostile nations and terrorist groups to believe that the U.S. military is becoming soft and flabby and invite aggression against us as they perceive us as becoming increasingly soft and decadent.

The military's purpose is not serving as a laboratory for social experimentation,  reflecting purportedly evolving societal sexual mores, or promoting the ideological agenda of proponents of a particular lifestyle choice.  It's purpose is defending the U.S. and its vital national interests by killing and destroying our enemies.  Last month's election results show the country is waking up from its drunken stupor that elected the leftist extremism of Barack Obama, and that regime and its fanatical supporters are trying to ramrod through this legislation before they lose control of the House and partial control of the Senate in January.  After then, repeal of 10 USC 654 (mistakenly labelled but commonly called Don't Ask Don't Tell) doesn't have a chance of success.

This past Saturday, my wife and I were in New York City spending a long weekend there celebrating our 10th anniversary.  We saw tourist sites such as the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island which commemorate America's historical legacy and future promise.  We were moved by seeing Ground Zero where the ugly reality of Islamist terror hit home and by the memorial currently being built so we can honor those who were killed on 9/11 and to continue our fight to eliminate this evil from this world.  Not to far from Ground Zero, is New York City's Federal Court House which we also walked by on our way to a subway station.

Today, a jury trial of a perpetrator of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania resulted in this individual ONLY being convicted of conspiring to damage U.S. Govt. property and being acquitted of the more serious charge of terrorism because a federal judge refused to allow evidence from a witness who had been coerced which would have resulted in a successful conviction.  Nine years after 9/11, it is amazing that the Obama Administration and other leftist fools, domestic and international, think we can apply traditional western standards of law and justice and evidentiary procedure to Islamist terrorists who are contemptuous of our legal system.  These terrorists believe they will enter the perverted Islamic version of heaven if they kill Americans or others not adhering to their religious worldview.  Our court rules, whether they be civilian or military in provenance, are meaningless to those genuflecting before Sharia and seeking to impose it globally.  The President and his partner in terrorist appeasement, Attorney General Eric Holder, have again been exposed as absolute imbeciles as today's laughable verdict demonstrates.  How many tax dollars were wasted providing this perpetrator with legal counsel and the other multiple financial costs of conducting a federal trial in expensive New York City?

We must learn that we should feel no regret about how we get information from terrorists that can prevent assaults against U.S. citizens and interests.  If we capture terrorists we should pump as much actionable intelligence from them, by all means necessary, then exterminate them.    Today's verdict shows  how woefully inept our legal system is in addressing Islamist terrorism let alone deterring and defeating it.   They must be laughing at us in Waziristan, Yemen, Somalia, and other sanctuaries of Islamist terror as our legal "solons" think they can treat battle hardened ideologues in the same way our legal system treats tax evaders or perpetrators of financial fraud.

Following the 2008 elections, liberal punditry and academics were prognosticating conservatism's extinction and heralding a new progressive golden age under Obama's presidency.  My, how the worm turns.  Instead of being the messiah who would be the new restoration of FDR, Obama has greatly annoyed his core supporters who believe he's not gone far enough with his leftist agenda.  However, the unequivocal message of last night's historic election, is that the American people believe he's gone to far with his messianic ideological delusions and needs a slap of conservative realism to smash his pretensions and incompetence.

The House shift to GOP control is that it will allow more effective oversight of Obama Administration corruption in areas such as health care reform, the economic stimulus, his abysmal failure to trim our debt, and numerous other failures in environmental policy, border control, foreign policy, and national security policy.  Three major Democratic committee chairs were toppled last night:  John Spratt (SC) of the Budget Committee, Ike Skelton (MO) of the Armed Services Committee, and James Oberstar (MN) of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.  This will be an excellent opportunity for Reps. Darrell Issa (CA) who will chair the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Paul Ryan (WI) who will probably chair the Ways & Means Committee to produce effective legislative and regulatory remedies to our economic problems.

I'm pleased with our Senate gains, although I would have liked to have turfed Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid too.  Sharon Engle was to erratic to knock off Reid. Illinois' Mark Kirk winning Obama's former Senate seat from his incompetent banker buddy was nice as was Pat Toomey's win in Pennsylvania.   In addition, I'm excited about Florida's Marco Rubio and his limitless leadership potential. The newly elected Tea Party members need to transition from being bomb throwing critics to learning the mechanics of Congress and governmental policymaking and becoming constructive statesmen and women.  They should learn from distinguished leaders such as Indiana's Dan Coats and Mike Pence, Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, South Dakota's John Thune, Arizona's John Kyl, and  other experienced Republican congressional leaders.  I'm also pleased with Iowa voters ousting three activist judges who sought to impose gay marriage on that state.

The governor's races are produced desirable gains and additional gains in state legislatures which will facilitate favorable redistricting to enhance our chances of ousting Obama in 2012.  Time will tell if Obama becomes more pragmatic and centrist as a result of last  night, or if he will succumb to the netherworld offered by his core leftist sycophants.

The polls in Indiana close in about 10 minutes.  It should be a good night for conservatives in the Hoosier state and most places around the country.  The electorate is about to give Obama a well deserved kick in the groin for his arrogant incompetence.  The establishment liberal media is already thinking of ways it can further denigrate the American people's intelligence.   Undoubtedly, we will hear words such as fear, ignorance, emotionalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and other canards of liberal babbling will disgorge from the mouths of leftist political paladins.  I'm looking forward to seeing Chris Matthews lose that tingle he felt toward Obama two years ago, watching Keith Olberman's face turn beet red and explode in thermonuclear rage, and, best of all, watching Rachel Maddow's face spin in demonic agony like Linda Blair's face did in the Exorcist.

I hope newly elected conservatives will take the time to learn the procedures of Congress for their advantage and to promote beneficial public policies.  It will also take time to master the intricacies of governmental agencies and their policymaking.  Although there are bad "career politicians," there are also good "career politicians" who strive to be conscientious public servants.  We need to encourage our newly elected Representatives and Senators to remain connected to the people who elected them, to be men and women of intelligence and integrity, and to work for the long-term national interest instead of short-term political gain or the quick benefit of their district or state.  Conservatives should lead the way in promoting sound governance and policymaking instead  of constantly blaming government bureaucrats.  We need to be willing to take unpopular positions like cutting wasteful spending in defense and other areas and even reducing spending in popular entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. 

These newly elected officials need to extend the 2001 Bush tax cuts, begin repealing Obamacare, developing market based health care policies, and their election should also end lousy legislation and policy proposals such as the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and cap and trade legislation.  Tonight and the next day or two should be ones of joy, but we still have a lot of work ahead to help our country recover economically and morally.