Edwin Meese III, the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation as well as the United States Attorney General between 1985 and 1988, called Holder’s decisions a “a tragic mistake.”

In the video below, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) questions Holder on his decision during yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight hearing of the U.S. Department of Justice. His questions illustrate why trying terrorists in civilian court is such a tragic mistake.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In a recent speech to the Federalist Society, Senator Sessions quoted Hamilton as saying a judge’s job is to “write footnotes to the Constitution.” And Sessions also criticized Hamilton for arguing that judges “need to empathize” with the parties of cases rather than dispassionately and equitably applying the rule of law.

Ten Republicans broke ranks with their party on this vote: Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and John Thune of South Dakota.

This differs drastically with the Senate Democrat caucus. They voted in lockstep—all 60 members—for cloture, demonstrating a party loyalty and discipline that has been lacking for Republicans in the current Congressional session.

Though, in hindsight, it is clear that Republicans did not have the votes to sustain the filibuster, that does not excuse the GOP defectors. As ALG President Bill Wilson commented yesterday, “Every election cycle, Republican candidates for Senate state their commitment to bringing judges to the federal bench who will help restore the role of constitutionally limited government in American jurisprudence. Instead, Republican and conservative constituents have been betrayed by their own Senators.”

Hamilton was clearly no strict legal constructionist. A coalition letter from 24 conservative leaders late last week urged all members of the Senate to filibuster Hamilton because of his views on the law. According to the letter, Judge Hamilton has ruled “that prayers to Jesus Christ offered at the beginning of legislative sessions violate the Constitution, but that prayers to Allah do not”, chose to follow mandatory sentencing guidelines, overturned a sex offender registry law, and had “urged the President to grant clemency for a police officer who had pled guilty to producing child pornography”.

The Republicans’ lack of unity will have repercussions—it sends a message to the current White House that it can push through even the most outrageously radical appointments to the bench. And with two of the nine Supreme Court justices now in failing health, that bodes ill for future High Court nominees.

Unless Republicans muster the courage to stand strong – and focus on persuading conscientious Democrats to join with them — they will not be able to block a single Obama judicial nominee, giving the White House carte blanche to easily stack the federal bench with radicals. And as that occurs, it will be the Senate Republicans, as well as the Democrats, who must shoulder the blame when decisions are handed down from federal judges like Hamilton restricting religious expression, protecting child predators, and turning a blind eye to the usurpations of a federal government out of control.

In a recent Rasmussen Poll, 74 percent of Republicans nationwide said GOP members of Congress are out of touch with their base that elects them. The Hamilton vote suggests the grassroots Republican dissatisfaction with their representatives will only continue to grow.

1. The deaths of Aspen trees in the West
2. Incredible shrinking sheep
3. Caribbean coral deaths
4. Eskimos forced to leave their village
5. Disappearing lake in Chile
6. Early heat wave in Vietnam
7. Malaria and water-borne diseases in Africa
8. Invasion of jellyfish in the Mediterranean
9. Break in the Arctic Ice Shelf
10. Monsoons in India
11. Birds laying their eggs early
12. 160,000 deaths a year
13. 315,000 deaths a year
14. 300,000 deaths a year
15. Decline in snowpack in the West
16. Deaths of walruses in Alaska
17. Hunger in Nepal
18. The appearance of oxygen-starved dead zones in the oceans
19. Surge in fatal shark attacks
20. Increasing number of typhoid cases in the Philippines
21. Boy Scout tornado deaths
22. Rise in asthma and hayfever
23. Duller fall foliage in 2007
24. Floods in Jakarta
25. Radical ecological shift in the North Sea
26. Snowfall in Baghdad
27. Western tree deaths
28. Diminishing desert resources
29. Pine beetles
30. Swedish beetles
31. Severe acne
32. Global conflict
33. Crash of Air France 447
34. Black Hawk Down incident
35. Amphibians breeding earlier
36. Flesh-eating disease
37. Global cooling
38. Bird strikes on US Airways 1549
39. Beer tastes different
40. Cougar attacks in Alberta
41. Suicide of farmers in Australia
42. Squirrels reproduce earlier
43. Monkeys moving to Great Rift Valley in Kenya
44. Confusion of migrating birds
45. Bigger tuna fish
46. Water shortages in Las Vegas
47. Worldwide hunger
48. Longer days
49. Earth spinning faster
50. Gender balance of crocodiles
51. Skin cancer deaths in UK
52. Increase in kidney stones in India
53. Penguin chicks frozen by global warming
54. Deaths of Minnesota moose
55. Increased threat of HIV/AIDS in developing countries
56. Increase of wasps in Alaska
57. Killer stingrays off British coasts
58. All societal collapses since the beginning of time
59. Bigger spiders
60. Increase in size of giant squid
61. Increase of orchids in UK
62. Collapse of gingerbread houses in Sweden
63. Cow infertility
64. Conflict in Darfur
65. Bluetongue outbreak in UK cows
66. Worldwide wars
67. Insomnia of children worried about global warming
68. Anxiety problems for people worried about climate change
69. Migration of cockroaches
70. Taller mountains due to melting glaciers
71. Drowning of four polar bears
72. UFO sightings in the UK
73. Hurricane Katrina
74. Greener mountains in Sweden
75. Decreased maple in maple trees
76. Cold wave in India
77. Worse traffic in LA because immigrants moving north
78. Increase in heart attacks and strokes
79. Rise in insurance premiums
80. Invasion of European species of earthworm in UK
81. Cold spells in Australia
82. Increase in crime
83. Boiling oceans
84. Grizzly deaths
85. Dengue fever
86. Lack of monsoons
87. Caterpillars devouring 45 towns in Liberia
88. Acid rain recovery
89. Global wheat shortage; food price hikes
90. Extinction of 13 species in Bangladesh
91. Changes in swan migration patterns in Siberia
92. The early arrival of Turkey’s endangered caretta carettas
93. Radical North Sea shift
94. Heroin addiction
95. Plant species climbing up mountains
96. Deadly fires in Australia
97. Droughts in Australia
98. The demise of California’s agriculture by the end of the century
99. Tsunami in South East Asia
100. Fashion victim: the death of the winter wardrobe

And the list goes on. The truth is climate change is causing some of these events, but the earth’s average temperature has been increasing and decreasing since the beginning of time. Maybe the increase in UFO sightings can’t be pinpointed to climate change but certainly animals will adapt to new habitats as the climate changes. But climate change and adaptation to it is nothing new. There’s an underlying assumption that human activity is causing the climate to change in many of these stories, but the scientific consensus on what causes climate change is anything but a consensus. Temperatures have risen and fallen many times before and the earth was cooling as recently as the period from the 1940s to the 1970s giving rise to fears of a coming ice age:

“At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.”

The other implication of this list is that a reduction in Co2 with cap and trade policies like Waxman-Markey and Boxer-Kerry will cure problems as disparate as hurricanes, wars, crime, hunger and…cow infertility. The problem is that no one can actually claim that a reduction of Co2 will prevent these occurrences; one can only speculate that they will be worse in a world that has more rather than less Co2. Given cap and trade’s massive economic consequences and negligible effects on the earth’s temperature, this is a bold and potentially very costly speculation.

Katie Brown co-authored this post.

More from the Heritage Foundation…

From the Washington Examiner:

It’s no coincidence that the White House announced a forum to talk about unemployment a day after Gallup reported that voters now favor Republicans over Democrats going into the next congressional election. The political maestros in the West Wing can read the data as well as anybody else, and they realize many Americans think President Obama’s priorities are mixed up. While Obama spends time on Capitol Hill extolling his plan for massive growth of government spending and taxes by nationalizing health care, unemployment reaches 10.2 percent, its highest level since 1983. He’s already driven the deficit up to an unprecedented $1.4 trillion. His health care reform proposal will take trillions more out of the economy at the worst possible time.

Contrary to the president’s fairy tale that his $787 billion stimulus program has “created or saved more than a million jobs” and slowed the growth of unemployment, the reality is that the month-on-month increase in unemployment from September to October was four times as big as job losses from August to September. The losses in manufacturing and retail jobs accelerated in October, and most of the increase in new unemployment claims came among adult men. The economy is sick and getting sicker.

So the president calls a “forum on jobs and economic growth.” If this routine sounds familiar, it’s because the Obama team did something quite similar a week after the stimulus package was approved. And what will they do at the White House forum on unemployment? “We’ll gather CEOs and small-business owners, economists and financial experts, as well as representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups, to talk about how we can work together to create jobs and get this economy moving again.” In other words, they will … talk.

Obama’s forum announcement came within days of something else — an avalanche of media reports about the fraudulent data behind the claim that a million jobs were created or saved. As The Examiner’s Mark Hemingway reported in a Beltway Confidential post headlined “The return of lies, damned lies and stimulus jobs,” journalists across the country examined Obama stimulus job claims and found them full of what appeared to be purposeful misrepresentations in at least 13 states.

Instead of trying to sell a bogus stimulus program with dishonest data and convening a White House talkfest, Obama should follow the examples of John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan: Stop taking money out of the economy, cut taxes, get rid of bureaucratic interference, and free businesses small and large to do what they do best, which is expand the economy by making things and providing services people need and want. It’s a proven formula, and the White House should stop pretending it won’t work again.

More on NetRightNation…

The Doc Mess. The latest chapter in this crazy drama is to be played out next week when the House deals with the Medicare Doc Fix. At issue is the congressionally created formula for annually updating Medicare physician payment. The congressional formula ties physician payment to general economic growth: if physician payment increases faster than economic growth, payment is proportionally reduced. Of course, the basic concept is bizarre: there is no rational relationship between the supply and demand for medical services and the performance of the general economy, any more then there is a relationship in the demand for tonsillectomies and the phases of the Moon. But this official stupidity is the law; expect similar stupidities if Congress is successful in creating another government-run health plan made in the image and likeness of Medicare.

So, to avoid its own prescribed draconian cuts in Medicare doctors’ payments, Congress goes through an annual Chinese fire drill to prevent its goofy formula from being implemented each year. As a budgetary matter, the accumulated cuts now amount to an automatic reduction in physician payment of 21 percent effective next year. That prospect has the professional medical organizations in a tizzy, and they are willing to do anything – anything, mind you- to avoid that fate worse than death, even to the point of formally embracing H.R. 3962, the gargantuan 2032 page House health care bill.

Bigger Deficits. To lure the desperate doctors into bed with the liberals, their big ugly “public option” and all (analogously, a longer prison sentence, but better food and more yard time), the Congressional leadership included a “permanent fix” to Medicare physician payment in the original version of the 1018 page House bill, small increases, no cuts. But they carved it out because its cost made the House health care bill appear too expensive. So, to keep that version “looking cheaper”, they created another vehicle (H.R 3961), a companion bill, that would provide for a permanent Medicare “doc fix” at a ten year cost of $210 billion. Under the rule for debate in the House, however, as Byron York points out in November 13, The Washington Examiner, this $210 billion “fix” is not “paid for”; like a similar (but unsuccessful) Senate attempt, it would simply add hugely to the deficit. In fact, a former Medicare Trustee says that it will also add trillions to the already crushing unfunded obligations of the Medicare program.

Paying for the Spending. As President Obama warned, Congress should not add one dime to the deficit. If it is going to increase Medicare payment by over $200 billion over the next ten years, it should offset those increases with cuts elsewhere, preferably within the Medicare or other government health care programs.

Fortunately, the Obama Administration has surfaced a potential solution: the introduction of competitive bidding in Medicare Advantage. The Administration projected an estimated $177 billion in savings over ten years. But Obama’s Medicare savings were not earmarked for Medicare, but rather would finance his health care agenda. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) proposed a variant on Medicare competitive bidding that would benchmark government payment to Medicare Advantage plans to actual plan costs rather than Medicare’s administrative pricing for Medicare Part A and B services. CBO estimated a $117 billion savings from that change.

This is a start. Congress could build on the Baucus proposal and secure the projected savings, while creating a “robust” Medicare competitive bidding system. Government payment to health plans in Medicare would based on the weighted average costs of actual health plans, as Baucus has proposed, but the competition would be extended to traditional Medicare fee for service program itself. As former Senator John Breaux (D-LA) has suggested, traditional Medicare should be granted managerial flexibility. This would enable the traditional Medicare program to compete effectively with private health plans, guaranteeing a level playing field, and thus keep the rest of the private health plans “honest”, as they say.

Not only would such an approach guarantee payment for the “doc fix”, but it might even reduce the deficit and ease the pressure on long-term Medicare costs. Such an approach should have direct appeal, not only to moderates and fiscal conservatives in both political parties, but also to the many members of Congress who identify themselves as champions of a “public option” that would compete fairly against private health plans; it would provide an excellent test of such public-private health plan competition, as well as the sincerity of its advocates. All options would compete fairly on a level playing field and guarantee real Medicare savings and rational physician reimbursement in the process.

More from the Heritage Foundation…

These words underscore the fact that no matter how complicated and increasingly urgent this problem is, it is one which can be understood by most Americans – who can then consider, debate, and decide on options for the best way to reduce the deficit before its sheer weight makes many decisions for us.

Through PublicAgenda.org, FacingUp.org and our Students Face Up to the Nation’s Finances interactive curriculum for college students, we’ve been helping people understand the problem, why it matters, and how to get involved in the process of charting a path to fiscal health. This fall, we extended the reach of the Facing Up curriculum to include high school and middle school students, who have been using our learning materials as part of the University of Virginia’s Youth Leadership Initiative program.

Through that partnership, we also got a chance to hear more about how young people feel about the fiscal crisis which is shaping all of our futures. In a mock election held to give students a chance to speak out on a range of issues, 77 percent favored a balanced budget; an increase in the age for Social Security eligibility was supported by 64 percent; and increasing payroll taxes was favored by 53 percent. Reducing Social Security benefits was opposed by 69 percent.

We’ll be hearing a lot more about these issues beginning on Monday, when we start accepting entries for the Students Face Up to the Nation’s Finances contest for students, with $500 prizes for the best essays and best multimedia presentations on the federal budget deficit and national debt and what ought to be done about it. The contest has two divisions – one for college students, and another for high school students – and all will have a chance to comment on and discuss each other’s ideas.

December 11 is the entry deadline; click here to see the full contest rules. Students Face Up to the Nation’s Finances, a nonpartisan curriculum available at FacingUp.org, is available to users free of charge thanks to a grant from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

The Obama Administration announced this morning that it intends to ship five Guantanamo Bay detainees to New York to be tried in civilian federal court. One of those men is the September 11th mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad.

This decision will be seen by many liberals as paving the way for closing the Guantanamo Bay facility. It is also an olive branch by an Administration facing growing criticism from its own party for its failure to move forward on closing the facility by its January 22nd deadline. In fact, the President has been battered lately by the left for staying too close to Bush Administration terrorism policies. So close in fact, that the Obama Administration had announced its intent to continue to use military tribunals despite Obama’s feverish opposition to such an idea during the Presidential campaigns.

Obama tried to make his case today for this decision by stating that Khalid Sheik Mohammad, one of the four set to be tried, would be subject to “the most exacting demands of justice.” But this move would be anything but justice.

Civilian courts are horribly situated to handle the prosecution of these types of detainees. Not only there potential security concerns associated with transporting such high-value detainees thousands of miles away, but these five men, charged with crimes related to the attacks of 9/11 would be tried in New York City, the very same location of the attacks. Defense lawyers are sure to argue that the venue is prejudicial paving the way for multiple due process challenges.

While this decision will certainly appease those seeking to erode America’s ability to prosecute war criminals under a military tribunal, there is no reason to believe a military tribunal isn’t capable of exacting justice on these four suspects. Placing these detainees in a domestic criminal proceeding creates evidentiary, security, and procedural issues. These detainees are not common criminals—but individuals that committed an act of war against the United States. Not only does the law sufficiently provide for use of military tribunals, common sense demands it.

The Obama Administration’s scattered counterterrorism policies, littered with efforts to placate the left while recognizing the legitimacy of some Bush era policies, are an invitation for terrorists to take advantage of America’s divisions. Obama needs to be clear, forceful, and direct, sending the message that America won’t stand for terrorism.

More from the Heritage Foundation…

As a Democratic strategist, communications consultant, and a partner of Squier Knapp Dunn Communications, a Washington-based consulting firm, Anita Dunn has most recently been Obama/the White House’s communications chief.

Recently she quietly stepped down from her post and is attempting to tip-toe out of the administration.  No doubt, her past revelations will haunt her career in the future.

What is her future? She is no longer the White House Communications Chief; however she is still on staff as a “consultant.” How many of you are wondering if this has affected her financial status? You may also be wondering how I can say that her past “revelations” will continue to haunt her and I will happily explain by using her own words against her.

In an interview titled “The Buying of the Presidency” Anita Dunn stated the following about “who” actually makes money during presidential campaigns:

“Let’s be honest: The money goes to TV stations. The people who make a lot of money off of presidential campaigns are the television stations in targeted states. I’ll give you an example: Alaska Senate race 2004. At the beginning of the Senate race, it cost $25 a gross rating point to be on the air in Anchorage, Alaska. By October of 2004, it cost $500 a gross rating point, which is more, or comparable to the city of Philadelphia.”

So, when Anita Dunn bragged about “controlling ALL the media” during the election she also was well aware that manipulating the media was really about manipulating funds. Where does money for campaigns come from? I will let her tell you:

“A $2,300 check is a lot of money to me, but it is a drop in the bucket for a statewide competitive race. The amount of people in this country who can afford to write checks like that and who do write checks like that is relatively small, and they tend to be very wealthy. So the amount of time the candidates and elected officials have to spend talking to rich people — calling them to ask them to hold an event, calling them to ask them to raise money, to share their Rolodex, getting on the phone with 50 of their friends, calling them to ask them for money — skews their perspective. The amount of time it takes is so significant that: a) They have less time to go out and actually campaign with people who don’t have that kind of money, and b) they tend to get a skewed sense of what the issue concerns are.”

Wow. There is no confusion here about why a “consultant” is so valuable to a campaign or a candidate. They obviously need someone to remind them “why” they are actually running for office aside from begging for money. Just how much impact does a consultant have on a candidate’s platform? I will let her tell you herself:

“In terms of the role of the consultant theme, there are small races and there are big races. Most of them, at the end of the day, present you with the same fundamental challenges that I believe that any consultant in this business faces, which is working with a candidate and trying to get out of them what they want to do, why they want to hold an office, and then presenting that. And it is frustrating, as a consultant, when a candidate doesn’t know and expects that to be my job to tell them. … And I’ve worked with a lot of candidates who say, “What’s my message?”

Now I pose this question about how much our legislators, leaders, and basically all politicians really know or are able to communicate what they have determined as “their views” when they so readily pay others to build that “view or platform” for them. As voters we listen to candidates and seem to have the idea that what they say they are representing is genuine. We are being led down the proverbial path largely constructed by the ideals, agendas and special interests of those often faceless minions.

Who organizes and focuses these views for those in office? Largely it is those consultants who so recently have been named as “czars” who have very specific agendas and the ears of our leaders.

Anita Dunn has stepped down as the Communications Officer for the White House but is still on the payroll as a “consultant”. She still has the ear of our president and leaders, but without the accountability publicly demanded in an official capacity. During such financially difficult times in America you’d think that our president would be cutting excess out of the payroll instead of simply changing titles.

As Anita Dunn stepped down from her official capacity many of us thought “Good, we aren’t paying her to continue doing such a poor job of hiding the ineptness within political agendas, but that is simply a mirage. She is now a consultant again with an ear of our president so that he can continue to get his much-needed guidance.  Just how much does a consultant make? Let us look to Anita Dunn for an explanation:

“I’ll tell you, the people who by and large overpay for consultants are Senate, gubernatorial, and congressional campaigns in expensive media markets that do percentage-of-the-buy [typically, a 15 percent commission of the total advertising buy]. I mean, I can totally justify percentage-of-the-buy at a pretty high rate in a cheap state, where I’m going to end up producing 35 or 40 ads, have 18 debates I’ve got to be prepared [for], and just work a huge amount of time for a relatively small amount of money because TV is inexpensive. On the other hand, if you’re doing a New Jersey Senate race, you’re going to produce five ads for a $15 million media buy; you’re not working that hard.”

Okay, so those who overpay consultants are those in the top positions in our government. I can’t help but wonder how much she is now getting paid. She is creating the platform for candidates and then making money on how well her agenda is being pushed. This is not what American voters voted for; nor what they believe their money is actually being spent on.

Ultimately we have to consider if anyone in any political office is actually genuine. It sure explains why so many seem to falter when it comes to actually representing their constituents. Suddenly, we realize why so many did not bother to read the Obamacare initiative when it was presented. They were waiting for a consultant to explain it to them and let’s face it—based upon the expertise and demonstrated acumen of Anita Dunn, they are all in a pickle.

While Dunn bragged about controlling the media, the internet, and her candidates, Americans were looking for truth that no longer could be controlled by the media minions of Obama’s truth squad. No wonder the Obama camp was so ticked off at FOX and the internet.

Since the presidential campaign, I have had my personal email address barraged with requests to donate to Obama and the truth squad. It is astounding to what extent these people will go to in order to get you to fork over some cash for their cause. It is also shocking the lies they perpetuate for their own agenda. How do they get away with asking for money while not being actually connected to a candidate? Let’s ask Anita:

“There are a lot of people who feel that the amount of money that can be raised on the Internet, which is primarily ideological money, is also problematic because of what they see as the left-wing push. Bill Bradley was the first candidate to raise over a million dollars on the Internet. He was actually the candidate who went to the FEC [Federal Election Commission] in 1999 and said, “Can Internet donations be qualified for matching funds?… “What generally happens for presidential campaigns, because you have multiple firms coming in. So, you create a separate corporation that has only one client, which is the campaign. But it’s a way to make sure that the money is made by that. Everything gets distributed. But what the Republicans do, which is more interesting, because they are much more aggressive under the law, is they actually in the past have set up for-profit companies that don’t make any money. They’re not 527s. But the Republicans take a very different attitude toward election law, because they actually don’t believe in it. By and large, our clients believe in this law.”

So you are propably thinking, “What?” Essentially all those emails from groups that are officially not connected to a candidate are raising money for who and for what? Where exactly is that money going to and what is it being spent on? Are their laws in place to somehow govern these funds or at least make them abide by any set of rules which represent any form of truth in spending? Nope. That is what we pay consultants for and we had no idea.

Are we to believe that the Democrats are not working as diligently as Anita Dunn leads us to believe that the Republicans are in that virtual gold mine of the internet? Are we to think Democrats are not as internet savvy and legally bound by law as Anita Dunn asserts merely by stating they “believe in this law” and so they are not benefiting from internet donations nearly as much as the Republicans? Well, I have yet to receive any emails from any Republican requesting a donation. I also haven’t gotten one from a Republican demanding I ignore and boycott FOX News. As a registered Independent I have gotten nothing from the Republicans in my email.

I am thinking perhaps the Democrats are as aggressive and controlling as FOX news asserts. They are not interested in truth. They are not interested in American and our needs. They are listening to the consultants whispering into their ear, “You know, I should really be paid more for doing your job.”

Sources:
http://www.buyingofthepresident.org/index.php/interviews/anita_dunn/
http://www.mahalo.com/anita-dunn
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,567701,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,568706,00.html
http://brainphartspoliticalrefuse.popsugar.com/6078486
http://brainphartspoliticalrefuse.popsugar.com/6049851