Former Massachusetts Governor and probable GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney,  has been criticized for the health care plan he enacted during his gubernatorial tenure.  Many critics said his plan, which required Bay State residents to purchase some level of health insurance, reeks of socialism and is a precursor to Obamacare.  During a presentation in Michigan yesterday Romney sought, with some success, to dispel this criticism.

Political leaders sometimes must seek to enact policy within an undesirable political environment.  In Romney's case, that involved working with an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature.  He could have decided to be a political coward and take a pass on substantively addressing this critically important issue, but he demonstrated real courage by constructively attempting to address rising health care costs.  The Constitution's 10th Amendment gives states the right to choose legislation and policies that may not be acceptable nationally but which might be plausible within state boundaries.  This version of federalism has been followed by American political leaders of all ideological hues and Romney was consistent in seeking to promote a version of health care cost control within conservative parameters while dealing with an overwhelmingly leftist legislature.

The U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause should prohibit the federal government from requiring citizens to buy specific products or services.  Even the strongest critics of Obamacare, a category in which I include myself, cannot deny the reality that uninsured Americans are key factors in driving up health care costs.  Romney's Massachusetts experiment, flawed though it has proven to be, at least sought to expand health insurance coverage.  To his credit, Romney has said that the Massachusetts program was only for statewide consumption and never intended for national application.  He correctly recognizes that states should have the freedom to determine the best health care policies for its citizens and has said that he would give all 50 states a waiver from Obamacare if he becomes President. Conservative critics of this plan should also remember that this plan was at least partially crafted by the Heritage Foundation.  Romney also correctly recognizes that effective health care policy must include coverage of preexisting conditions, portability, the ability to buy health insurance across state lines, and the imperative of tort reform to reduce malpractice insurance costs.  It may be desirable to not legally require individuals to purchase health insurance as a matter of rhetorical constitutional purity, but it is absolute personal and societal economic folly not to have some kind of health insurance coverage for yourself and your family.

As conservatives we should quit whining about compatriots such as Romney who seek to expand insurance coverage and moan about it being socialism.  We need to get off our sanctimonious posteriors, and should seek to present, develop, and apply constructive alternatives such as Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan instead of mouthing off about Obamacare.  We must offer and demonstrate that our policies offer better quality and lower cost health care for Americans regardless of their economic status or political position.  We must present policies that make it easier for individuals and businesses to purchase and offer flexible health insurance access and coverage.

Just two days ago, I was praising President Obama for his courage in ordering the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden.  It was an actual example of the audacity he rhetorically has hyped in his political career and it succeeded in consigning Bin Laden to the eternal torment he richly deserves for the evil he perpetrated against innocent people of many religious beliefs.  Within three days of this action, however, he has reverted to a sniveling multicultural coward afraid of inflaming Islamist "sensitivities."  Despite the hopes of CIA Director Leon Panetta that a photo or photos of Bin Laden's corpse would be publicly disclosed, Obama and his advisors let his fear of the "Arab Street"override the prudent wisdom of releasing definitive photographic proof of Bin Laden's death.

I firmly believe Bin Laden was killed and I have no sympathy or patience for conspiracy theorists in this country like the birthers or in any other country who don't want to face reality.  Unfortunately, misguided decisions like this are what perpetuate conspiracy beliefs.  This is especially true in the Middle East, where there is a high level of superstition, low levels of education and common sense, delusional fantasies about the purported power of the U.S., and equally delusional fantasies about the ability of Islamist fanatics to escape the consequences of their heinous actions.

Bin Laden headed an organization that has taken sadistic pride in posting Internet videos of its victims being beheaded such as Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl.  They actively use the Internet to recruit new adherents and jihadis and seek maximum media exposure for their actions as demonstrated by their dutiful use of Al Jazeera.  They do not adhere to western Judeo-Christian or secularist conceptions of the rule of law or human dignity.  They are flat out killers and no sympathy should be shown toward them or their prospective followers.  Displaying photos of Bin Laden's cadaver would not place any additional danger on U.S. troops, operatives, or diplomatic personnel nor will it stop potential revenge attacks against the U.S., American citizens, or U.S. interests!  Releasing photos of his corpse would definitively prove that he is dead and give a chance for his followers to quit clinging to the mythology that he is still capable of exhorting them to further acts of sadism.  It will also offer irrefutable proof of the fatal consequences of murdering American citizens to would be Islamists.

We showed no problem in releasing photos of Saddam Hussein's sons when they were killed, Zarqawi's battlefield death, mug shots of Saddam Hussein when he was captured and when he was executed, yet Barack Obama and his cabinet of cowards are afraid of showing a dead Osama Bin Laden.  Are they still hoping to get the votes of Bin Laden's Pakistani neighbors for the 2012 presidential election?  The ultimate reality is that Barack Obama and far to many Americans cannot accept, after nearly three decades worth of Islamist terrorist attacks against us, that we are in an existential war against militant Islam and that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY we can be reconciled with or find common ground with these individuals and their affiliated organizations.  We must destroy them or be destroyed by them.  There is no middle ground!  Every conciliatory or sympathetic gesture to their "religion" on our part is recognized by them as cowardice and weakness.  That's why it's so critical we have a new President in 2013 who will repeatedly tell Americans and the international community that we must remain militarily involved in that part of the world and that there can be no reconciliation with the falsely proclaimed "religion of peace."

Yesterday's killing of Islamist terrorist kingpin Osama Bin Laden is something we can all celebrate.  In a superbly executed operation, U.S. special operations and intelligence forces were able to verify that Bin Laden was at a fortified compound in Abbotobad, Pakistan and took decisive action to remove this monster from this world.  While being a master strategist and promoter of religious hatred, Bin Laden proved at the end to be a deranged coward who used one of his "wives" as a human shield to protect himself from his inevitable fate.  Soon after this, he got to meet Jesus and heard the dread words "depart from me you accursed" and he now finds himself in hell where he is, undoubtedly, suffering with all the Islamist fools who followed his deranged visions.  While it would have been nice to exhibit Bin Laden's corpse at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum, dumping it into the ocean is also appropriate as his body has provided a nourishing meal for fish in that area by now.

It was also especially amusing to read a news account of how some "Muslim clerics" felt Bin Laden's corpse had not been treated with sufficient sensitivity by the Navy in its dumping his body into the sea.  A man who authorizes the murders of thousands of people does not deserve such consideration when it comes time to dispose of his physical remains.  Where were these "clerics" and their concern with human dignity when Osama's minions massacred innocents on 9/11 and in many other areas around the world?  If anything, we should have wrapped Bin Laden's body with a pig cadaver before throwing it into Davey Jones' locker. 

Bin Laden's takedown is a testimony to the patience of our military and intelligence communities and to our national security leadership. It's particularly nice that the last faces he saw on this earth were those of American soldiers.  I'll even praise Obama for his willingness to allow this action to be carried out, though he should credit the enhanced interrogation techniques authorized by former President Bush as being critical to achieving the information necessary to execute this operation.  It's to bad Obama felt the need to say that we are not targeting Islam because it is the perversity of this religion which has caused so much death and misery to the world in its nearly 14 centuries of existence.  Islam is also the ideological lodestar for the terror perpetrated by Al Qaida, Hamas, Hizbollah, and other like-minded organizations.  While we celebrate today, we must continue to aggressively target Al Qaida's decentralized cells in areas such as Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan/Pakistan, and elsewhere as well as critical leaders such as Ayman Zawahiri and others.  The intelligence we captured during the operation should provide useful insights into Al Qaida operational strategy and tactics.   We must also maintain security vigilance at home as well to guard against possible revenge attacks.

We must also ask questions about what Pakistan did or didn't know about Bin Laden being camped out just a few hundred yards from their national military academy in an affluent community populated by military retirees.  It is a matter of record that elements of Pakistan's intelligence agency (ISI) created the Taliban nearly two decades ago and have actively provided aid and comfort to Islamist terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda.  It's also common knowledge that some elements of the Pakistani government and military have been reasonably cooperative with us in our efforts to kill or capture high-value terrorist targets while others have "spit into the wind" on a regular basis to see whether they should support their indigenous Islamist terrorists or cooperate with the chief provider of their foreign assistance.  There will be interesting developments on this in the days and weeks to come.  Despite this victory, the war against Islamist terror will continue to rage and we will need to keep military and intelligence forces in the Islamic world for the foreseeable future.  In some cases, we may be able to conduct multilateral operations against these forces.  However, it is more likely that such operations will be unilateral ones conducted without the permission of the host country as yesterday's attack demonstrates.

I also want to thank the analysts, soldiers, and operatives who carried out this mission.  While there names will probably never be known during our lifetime, they rank in American military  iconography with individuals such as those who assassinated Japanese Admiral Yamomoto during World War II and with other secret heroes of U.S. intelligence and military operations.  Hopefully, they and their families will receive appropriate medals and financial rewards for their exemplary service to our country and for bettering humanity by eliminating Osama Bin Laden.

It's refreshing to hear that today Sun News Network is being introduced in Canada to provide Canadians with an news alternative to the snide leftism of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).  Infantile leftist critics are already branding Sun News as being the "Fox News of the North."  Sun's launch comes at a particularly propitious  time as Canada is in an election campaign which will culminate on May 2 with Conservative Prime Minister's Stephen Harper's government, hopefully, gaining a majority due to its solid management of Canada's economy.  This particular election occurred because the opposition parties in Canada, the Liberals, the socialist New Democrats, and the separatist Bloc Quebecois (which wants Quebec to become an independent country) collaborated together to topple Harper's minority government in the House of Commons.  The only thing these three parties have in common is that they're not Conservative.  Consequently, Canada is having its fourth election in eight years since all Canadian governments in this period have been minority governments who don't command a majority in the House of Commons.  Point this fact out to any dimwits you hear say they think the U.S. should have three or more political parties.

Sun News promises an edgy alternative to the CBC and one its show hosts is Ezra Levant an Alberta Conservative who has tangled with  Canada's notorious Human Rights Commission which seeks to restrict non-leftist speech and political activity.  Levant has also written a book on the ethical importance of producing oil from Alberta's tar sands.  I encourage American conservatives living near Canada to make sure they get Sun News as part of their cable service and the network's website looks like it will eventually carry streaming video.  It will be wonderful for Canadians to get a credible conservative alternative to the CBC and I wish Sun News bon voyage.

I'm very pleased to announce the publication of my newest book Geopolitics:  A Guide to the Issues
http://www.amazon.com/Geopolitics-Contemporary-Military-Strategic-Security/dp/0313385793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302566384&sr=1-1
Published by Praeger, this work traces the modern history of geopolitics as an academic discipline, shows how countries as diverse as Australia, Brazil, China, India, Russia,  and the United States have used and continue using geopolitics in their economic, foreign policy, and national security policymaking; profiles the works of historical and contemporary geopolitical scholars such as Julian Corbett, Andrew Erickson, Rudolf Kjellen, Halford Mackinder, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Mackubin Thomas Owens,  Friedrich Ratzel; lists numerous publicly accessible websites for additional research, describes current and emerging geopolitical hot spots such as Arctic natural resources, China in Africa, China's "String of Pearls" strategy, Islamic integration in Europe, maritime piracy, Mexican drug wars and Central American gangs, Russian energy diplomacy, sovereign debt, the South China Sea/Strait of Malacca; and features a detailed glossary and many maps.   It also stresses the vital importance of teaching and studying geography to understand economic, political, and security trends and developments.

Last Friday evening the federal government narrowly averted a reprise of the 1995-1996 shutdown when Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, and Senate Majority Leader Contrary Harry Reid agreed to a modicum of budget cuts.  The amount was not as high as many of us on the fiscal conservative side would like but they are a tentative step in the right direction.  A much more substantive step in the direction of restoring national fiscal sanity and solvency was made by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's release of the GOP budget alternative to the "dead on arrival" budget submitted by the Obama Administration.  Rep. Ryan and his Republican colleagues should be commended for their long-term approach to this problem and, hopefully, will be able to withstand the whining class warfare rhetoric which is being directed toward them by defenders of the fiscal status quo.

It would be nice to believe that Obama's sudden interest in fiscal rectitude, which he will elaborate on in a speech this upcoming Wednesday, is genuine.  However, he and the Democratic Party, and even some Republicans, have a decades long track record of resisting substantive cuts to government spending.  Any true reduction of government spending must address the entitlement trinity of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  Unfortunately, the past seven decades demonstrate that any attempt to point out unpleasant truths about Social Security will produce demonic howls from Democrats and allied interest groups who refuse to recognize that demographic trends make sustaining Social Security as we know it extremely difficult.  New York "Senator" Charles Schumer's recent babbling about "Tea Party extremism" is an obvious example of donkey infantile behavior.

These individuals and organizations also must recognize that the federal government can no longer be our mommy and daddy and meet all our material needs.  Unfortunately, their political power base is dependent on maintaining and increasing the American public's dependence on the federal government regardless of the economic and social consequences of such dependence.  The past year has seen the global consequence of excessive public reliance on governmental financial support in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal.  With a national debt exceeding $14 trillion, we should not assume we are immune from such economic calamity.  History clearly demonstrates that countries which fail to manage their finances eventually disintegrate and become vulnerable to economic and military exploitation from other countries.  Our increasingly heavy reliance on China to support our fiscal profligacy should be a cause of acute concern to America.  While we can no longer be an isolationist island in an interlocked global economy, we must NEVER make the mistake of letting any single country, or combination of countries, restrict our financial autonomy.

We will have to make painful cuts to our social spending programs, some defense cuts, and maybe have to consider some tax increases to begin the long painful road to national financial solvency.  We must focus on long-term planning, eliminating waste, reform and simplifythe tax code, enhance personal educational standards and accountability, and emphasizing saving instead of consuming as we strive to increase our living standards.  We will face ferocious resistance from the Democratic Party's welfare state constituencies and will require unprecedented intestinal and political fortitude to withstand these assaults.  Our fiscal predicament has been caused by both parties and all of us as individuals dating back to the New Deal of the 1930s.   It will take several years, multiple presidential administrations, and numerous congressional sessions to achieve this.  Nothing less than our national survival and freedom is at stake.  In this fight, we should be inspired by the concluding words of Abraham Lincoln in his February 27, 1860 Cooper Union speech in New York City  "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to due our duty as we understand it."

Operation Odyssey Dawn becomes more surreal as the weeks go on.  We've now apparently turned over operations to NATO and remain steadfast in our delusional belief that we can't insert ground troops and aren't interesting in overthrowing Qaddafi.  Why have we spent several hundred million dollars on our efforts so far to stop the Libyan dictator's atrocities if we don't intend to overthrow him?  Are we still afraid of the "Arab Street?"  We still don't know the ultimate political objectives of Qaddafi's opponents other than their justifiable anger at his rule.  We don't know if their political objectives will really improve the lives of the Libyan people and are compatible with our long-term geopolitical interests in that region.  We're reluctant to arm them and give the training they need to have a chance of defeating Qaddafi's degraded but still superior military forces.  Barack Obama has proven himself to be a half-hearted warrior who wants the feel-good fuzzies of helping people in distress, but doesn't want to do the dirty work of destroying Qaddafi's forces and overthrowing his bloodthirsty regime. 

Obama and his administration, which are congenitally incapable of providing consistent communication and policy coordination on this critical issue, have also left unanswered whether they will use U.S. military forces to intervene in other humanitarian crises regardless of whether intervening in those situations is in U.S. strategic interests or whether there is a clear plan for victory and force removal.  Even a power has large and wealthy as we are can't resolve all global humanitarian problems that tug at our heart strings.  We also have serious fiscal limitations that the Obama Administration has failed to address and has even worsened by its spendthrift ways such as its healthcare law.  Obama has also weakened our military with idiotic social experimentation that will weaken combat effectiveness such as allowing open military service by homosexuals and promoting the diversity cult delusion of achieving a military that "looks like America."  This at a time when we are still military involved in Iraq and Afghanistan and may require the deployment of military forces to other global crisis areas such as Iran, North Korea, and the South China Sea in the years to come.

It's been particularly amusing to hear the normally pacifistic mainstream media get behind this incompetently designed utilization of U.S. military forces by messiah Obama.  Just a couple years ago, they were virulently denouncing President Bush's use of military force in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Despite the mistakes which were made in these operations, Bush and his colleagues actually deployed these forces to achieve victory.  Such intellectual and moral clarity in using military forces is beyond the intellectual capacity of Barack Obama and his national security policymakers.  Congress needs to hold Obama's feet to the fire on this because there are far more important strategic challenges to the U.S. from more formidable competitors such as Iran, North Korea, and China awaiting us in the years ahead.

The American Psychological Association (APA) produces the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) to identify various forms of mental illness.  If APA had a foreign and national security policymaking branch, it would find a number of factors in the Obama Administration's Libyan policymaking to add to the DSM.  The first disorder would be "pathetic dependence on United Nations backing" syndrome.  This disorder occurs in many foreign ministries around the world, multiple leftist political parties, and in many segments of the international academic and political science communities.  It is based on a delusional belief that nations must get the support of the United Nations for any use of military force to be considered "legitimate" in international law.  Of course, this belief is fallacious nonsense as decisions to use military force must be made by national leaders and military planners in consultation with trusted allies.

A second disorder afflicting the Barack Obama, his administration, and many of the aforementioned groups is that Western military action in the Middle East must also gain the blessing of the Arab League lest the mythical "Arab Street" become inflamed with perpetual "days of rage."  The Arab League is a pathetic collection of Islamic states that seeks to absolve itself from its desire to drive Israel into the sea and push its vision of Islamic imperialism throughout the world, while also allowing its plutocratic regimes to repress their populations, maintain their ostentatious personal wealth, and persecute citizens whose religious beliefs do not include genuflecting toward Mecca five times per day.

Muammar Qaddafi is a nasty tribal thug who has ruined his country and deserves death in the worst possible way.  He has been a sponsor of state terrorism who is responsible for the deaths of Americans and others.  Although Qaddafi has supported revolutionary low lives as far flung as the Irish Republican Army and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, his power base is personal and tribal and he does not have the capability to export his system to neighboring countries.  We should have taken him out in the 1980s and not allowed his cancer to fester.  Our relationship with Qaddafi improved somewhat after Saddam Hussein was captured as the sometimes pragmatic Libyan dictator saw it was in his best interest to get on our good side and seemingly renounce terrorism.  Sadly, many European and American governments and companies became seduced by the mythical idea of Qaddafi as a reliable oil supplier and forgot his true sadistic  terrorist nature.

 The astute 19th century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once observed that the Balkans were not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier.  Libya, despite its oil wealth and terrorist record, is not worth the long-term commitment, blood, and treasure of the United States and its allies who are currently attacking assets of Qaddafi's regime in a surreal military operation.  We have entered this conflict based on the worst Gladstonian and Wilsonian humanitarian idealism without a clear sense of the longer-term strategic interests of the United States.

We know practically nothing about Qaddafi's opponents other than their hatred of the Libyan dictator.  Do they really favor something resembling Western style freedoms or are they really Al Qaida-like Islamists?  They have no clear leader or even collective leadership and have proven themselves to be rank amateurs in conducting military operations.  Before putting our own blood and treasure on the line, we should find out what these rebels stand for and whether their aspirations are beneficial to our long-term geopolitical and strategic interests in the Mediterranean and North Africa.  Providing them with professional military training will take a long-time if they really want to be able to slug it out with and defeat Qaddafi's forces.  We should also permanently get over the notion that the United Nations and Arab League are really interested in improving the daily lives of the Libyan people and that their support is needed for this operation to be legitimate.  We should know Qaddafi and his gangsters will fight like the blazes to preserve their wealth and power and will commit whatever atrocities they feel necessary to maintain their power.

We need to be honest in stating our military objectives.  What kind of imbecile initiates military operations against a country and says he isn't personally targeting that country's leader or desires to overthrow that leader?  What kind of "leader" says he won't insert ground troops into a military operation?   Barack Obama.  Does the Obama Adminstration really think that air strikes alone will topple Qaddafi?  The U.S. and its western allies will have to put ground troops in for a significant period of time to stabilize things after Qaddafi is toppled.  This might not be popular for domestic political purposes, but it's the reality of 21st century wars.  It would be nice if we had a President with the courage to tell the American people that our military will be involved in occupation duties in  multiple Mideast countries for the foreseeable future and that we will need to assassinate leaders hostile to our interests to enhance national security.  However, since we are in this conflict we need to pursue it to a victorious conclusion. 

Ideally, Congress should have been consulted on this, although Congress and other legislative bodies are not known for their agile and expedited responses to domestic or international political crises.  The President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the final call in determining when to use military force, and the constitutional provision mandating congressional declaration of war, is a vestige of simpler 18th century geopolitical realities and cannot cope with the rapidly evolving circumstances of contemporary military conflict.  Congress should, however, conduct rigorous oversight and engage in tough questioning of the Obama Administration and its long-term planning for Libya as this situation evolves in the weeks and months to come.  Our primary objective should be the long-term geopolitical and strategic interests of the United States and not humanitarian sentimentality toward the Libyan people or the Islamic world.  More consequential areas of strategic interest to us in the Mideast include Bahrain (where we have a naval base), Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria. Yemen,  and, most importantly, Iran.

Last week's hearings by the House Homeland Security committee on Islamist extremism in the U.S. represented a start, albeit a tenuous one, in showing the ugly threat this phenomenon is to U.S. public safety and security.  It also showed the great lengths multicultural demagogues will go to protect their delusional beliefs.  The star performer in this regard was Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison who happens to be a Muslim and, along with his coreligionist Indiana Democrat Andre Carson, constitute the congressional jihadi caucus.  Ellison launched into the standard leftist rant of racism against Rep. King and other proponents of this hearing.  He then proceeded to commit perjury by declaring that a Muslim emergency responder in New York on 9/11 who died while doing his duty had been targeted by a media slur campaign which has been exposed as false .
In fact, Mohammed Salman Hamdani's meritorious behavior was explicitly honored in the text of the USA Patriot Act.  However, the desire to play the racist card was to much for an incorrigible leftist dimwit like Ellison.  To make things even worse, Ellison also played the crying diva card by going on a petulant crying jag which ruined the decorum of a committee hearing but made him the front runner for the daytime Emmy's best actress award.

Other leftist twits on the Homeland Security Committee such as ranking member and former committee chair Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas pontificated on how the committee should examine other purported threats to national security such as white extremism.  Well, why didn't they do so when their party controlled that committee between 2007-2010?  White extremists are a despicable bunch, but they are absolute amateurs when it comes to terrorism and other political crimes and wouldn't last five minutes in a terrorist training camp.  The fact of the matter is that Islamist extremism remains the preeminent threat to the national security of the U.S. and other western democracies.  Hopefully, Rep. King's committee will hold future hearings on this topic and feature testimony by expert witnesses such as historian Bernard Lewis, Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, and others who can help educate slow learners on the committee and the American public on the existential threat Islamist extremism poses to our freedoms.

This coming Thursday, the House Homeland Security Committee will begin a series of hearings on Islamic extremism within the United States and the extent that American Muslims are or are not cooperating with U.S. law enforcement and intelligence efforts to combat such extremism.  While many Muslims are honorable and law-abiding citizens, we cannot escape the reality that the primary threat to national security comes from terrorists who explicitly acknowledge the preeminent role the Islamic religion plays in motivating their political ideology.  This ideology includes the desire to restore the caliphate and impose Sharia law on the entire world and is an ideology that cannot be reconciled with religious pluralism and constitutional democracy.

Terrorist apologist organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the usual leftist suspects and purveyors of multicultural mush are already trotting out the tired cliches of leftist rhetorical criticism.  The usual canards such as racist, profiling, and McCarthyism have already oozed out of the mouths of diversity cult adherents.  A Sunday rally at Times Square in New York featured assorted leftist dimwits spouting "Today, I'm a Muslim" when their actual knowledge of that religion's practices is miniscule and Islamic tenets are diametrically opposed to the lifestyles most of them live when they're not participating in the latest leftist cause du jour.  In fact, these demonstrators knowledge of the threat Islamic extremism poses to the country and the global performance of Islamic extremists equals Charlie Sheen's knowledge of sobriety.

Besides the 9/11 attacks, we have witnessed the actual and attempted aims of Islamic extremism at Fort Hood, Texas, the arrest of the Lackawanna Six in New York State, arrests of perpetrators aspiring to blow up Times Square and Portland, Oregon, the efforts of Muslim extremists to go to Pakistan to train with Al Qaida, the attempted 2009 Christmas day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit, the incitements to terrorism by American-Yemeni "cleric" Anwar al Awlaki who has made particularly effective use of the Internet to spew his dogma.  There are also,  undoubtedly, examples of Islamist terrorist plots that I'm not aware of due to my lack of access to classified information.

European countries have struggled with Islamist terrorism with the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, and Spain being examples.  British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have all announced that multiculturalism must be abandoned as a failure.  Undoubtedly, the problems these countries have had with Islamist extremists in their midst has motivated this policy shift.  Sadly, there is no signs that this wisdom has reached the cranium of President Obama and his inept Attorney General Eric Holder who are more concerned with conjuring up historically dead racial hatred than honestly confronting the growing threat of Islamist terrorism within our country and against our interests internationally.  Hopefully, the upcoming hearings by the House Homeland Security Committee will present a series of teachable moments for dimwitted Americans who think radical Islam does not pose an existential threat to our country.

Anyone who believes Barack Obama wishes to encourage and sustain traditional marriage should have had the blinders pulled from their eyes by now.  The administration has decided to quit enforcing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act signed by Bill Clinton, hardly an exemplar or marital fidelity or personal virtue, in order to demonstrate its continuing and unswerving fealty to the gay lobby.  An excellent example of the stakes involved in preserving traditional marriage was eloquently expressed in the Washington Times last week by Jeffrey Kuhner which makes effective use of historical precedent and the multiple negative consequences of increasing societal acceptance of morally aberrant sexual behavior.  It also effectively demolishes the liberal canard that marriage is a "right" regardless of its rhetorical construction or the parties involved in such a compact.  Efforts to impose morally aberrant sexual behavior on society are not just confined to the U.S.  This story from the London Daily Telegraph
describes how two judges from the British High Court ruled that a Christian couple from Derby could not serve as foster parents due to their principled religious objections to homosexuality.    Such a ruling also has a negative impact on people from other religious traditions who consider homosexuality morally repugnant and destructive.  Like water cutting through rock over time, traditional heterosexual marriage is being continually eroded by the rhetorical, legal, and media assaults of its enemies.  That is why we need constitutional amendments and other legal and regulatory mechanisms to defend the sanctity of male-female marriage from its ruthless enemies.

I strongly urge Indiana, Ohio, and other states to enact right to work legislation.  Studies from organizations as diverse as the Cato Institute, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, and National Right to Work Committee demonstrate that right to work states are more attractive to prospective employers, have higher economic growth rates, and are less likely to have acute budget problems due to insufficiently funded public pension obligations.

The right to choose professional associations should be a hallmark characteristic of constitutional democracy.  Even American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers opposed compulsory unionism.  However, union bosses think they alone know what's best for their workers and arrogantly believe they can force workers to join and financially support supports which are more interested in promoting infantile class warfare and values contrary to the economic interests and personal values of their members.  States having right to work laws are in the south and southwest which is where the nation's population center is migrating and consists of states experiencing higher levels of economic growth.  It's time for Indiana and other states to get on the right side of economic history and join these states and enhance their attractiveness to U.S. and international job creators.

Individual workers are capable of determining their preferred working environments more successfully than union bosses who are determined to retain their political and economic power base at all costs despite the damage this does to individual workers and state economic stability.  This is being demonstrated in Wisconsin, Ohio, and my own state Indiana as union sycophants are bused into rallies designed to coerce state legislators and as elected Democratic legislators in Wisconsin and Indiana cowardly fail to fulfill their legislative responsibilities by either fleeing to another state or not showing up for work.  A comparable development happened in Texas a few years ago when crybaby Democrats decided to protest Republican redistricting legislation by fleeing north across the Red River to Oklahoma.  Notice the pattern and the perpetrators?

I hope GOP state legislative leaders in these states change their parliamentary procedural rules to reduce the number of members whose attendance is required for a quorum to a simple majority and to proceed to vote on important collective bargaining reform legislation even if Democrats are awol.  Disciplinary sanctions should also be imposed on able-bodied legislators who refuse to participate in legislative proceedings because they don't like legislation which is being debated.   It's vitally important that state legislatures heed the public will and not let themselves be intimidated by union thugs who belong in authoritarian or totalitarian regimes like Iran, Libya, and North Korea instead of the United States.

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.