Heavy-Handed Politics: May 17, 2009

"We know, as have our Nation's defenders down through the years, that there can never be peace without its essential elements of liberty, justice and independence. Those true and only building blocks of peace were the lone and lasting cause and hope and prayer that lighted the way of those whom we honor and remember this Memorial Day. To keep faith with our hallowed dead, let us be sure, and very sure, today and every day of our lives, that we keep their cause, their hope, their prayer, forever our country's own." --Ronald Reagan

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that she was misled by the CIA on waterboarding. She spent eight years complaining about how dumb President Bush was and the minute she's in trouble, she says he fooled her.

-- JAY LENO

VISION

"Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it." --President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)

"Every measure which establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives to it an administrative form creates thereby a class unproductive and idle, living at the expense of the class which is industrious and given to work." --French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

"The world ain't going to be saved by nobody's scheme. It's fellows with schemes that got us into this mess. Plans can get you into things, but you got to work your way out." --American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes."

Pakistan army widens hunt for Taliban

Washington Times

Convoys follow president's vow

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan | The Pakistani army appears to be extending its campaign against the Taliban beyond the Swat Valley to Waziristan, according to eyewitness accounts in the southwestern town of Jandola - a step that could strain forces already struggling to reclaim areas closer to the capital.

ON LIBERTY: TWO VERY DIFFERENT VIEWS

SOURCE: To The Point News

RAHN: Europe's worsening crisis - Washington Times

It is true that the Federal Reserve's excessive low-interest rate policies, the mismanagement of the government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage institutions, and overleveraging by some of the big private investment banks did create much of the housing bubble in the United States. Yet, it is also true that actions by the Bank of England and the Blair/Brown government in the United Kingdom created most of the British housing bubble. Also, low-interest-rate policies by the European Central Bank (which creates the euro) supported much of the housing bubble in many European countries from Spain's Atlantic coast all the way to the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria.

EDITORIAL: Dick Cheney's compelling witness - Washington Times

An extraordinary scene played out Thursday with what amounted to a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate between a popular sitting president and an unpopular former vice president. The former veep won, hands down.

Cheney: Pelosi knew of interrogations - Washington Times

Accusing President Obama of giving Americans "less than half the truth," former Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday tough interrogation tactics worked, and said the tactics had the approval of members of Congress including current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

THE TERRORISTS' BEST US HOPE
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

President Obama is attacking a red herring when he defends his decision to send the worst terrorists at Guantanamo to United States prisons by saying the likelihood of escape from secure federal facilities is very low. Of course it is. No rope ladder or prison laundry truck is likely to do the trick. But when it comes to federal judges, we can't be so sure.

Biden's Gaffe

By David Aikman

Ever since he became a senator in the 1970s, Vice President Joe Biden has been famous for his verbal gaffes, a tendency to talk endlessly without much planning at all. Much of the time it has been amusing, fodder for late-night comics.

But at a recent Gridiron Dinner of Washington insiders, Biden foolishly gave away information that is classified secret and could be invaluable to America's adversaries. He revealed the whereabouts of the secret location to which Vice-President Cheney had been sent by the Secret Service after 9/11.

This isn't funny at all. The location may now have to be changed, for security reasons, at great expense to the taxpayer. It's one thing to be loose-lipped as a senator, quite another when you are Vice President.

Outlawing Opinion
By Chuck Norris

It greatly alarms me that Americans' constitutional right of freedom of speech is being squeezed out of our culture.

Karl Rove: Flip-Flops and Governance

Our president isn't quite as advertised.

Democratic Senator Wants to Cap Carbon Emmissions to Stop Global Warming, But Drives Cadillac to Work

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) supports government efforts to cap U.S. carbon emissions in the cause of controlling global warming…

All the News That’s Fit to Suppress
By Michelle Malkin

Conflict of interest stories make great front-page headlines—except when the newspaper that revels in breaking them is itself in the middle of an ethical morass. Take The New York Times, which now admits it spiked a story on possible illegal coordination between left-wing activist groups ACORN and Project Vote and the Obama campaign just before Election Day.

RESTRUCTURING AMERICA

U.S. Courts Should ‘Download’ International Law into Domestic Law, Obama Nominee Says
(CNSNews.com) – Harold Koh, nominated by President Barack Obama to be the State Department’s top legal adviser, advocatest the concept of “transnationalism,” which he has described as the “downloading” of international laws and customs into domestic law, either through the legislative process or through the federal courts’ using international law in interpreting the Constitution of the United States.

KEEP THE PRINTING PRESSES RUNNING 24/7

Obama Wants U.S. to Loan $100 Billion to Global Bailout Fund
(CNSNews.com) - President Obama has asked Congress to authorize $100 billion in loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help create a $500 billion global bailout fund.

Obama Seeks to Reduce Costs by Limiting Medicare Reimbursements for Hospital Readmissions(CNSNews.com) - In a cost-saving measure tied to the proposed expansion of health care, the Obama administration is seeking to reduce hospital readmission rates by rewarding or penalizing hospitals through Medicare payments