Interrogating the CIA

By REUEL MARC GERECHT AUgust 29,2009

A clever, streetwise classmate of mine at the Central Intelligence Agency's junior officer training program—a former Delta Force officer—quickly and rudely discovered that counterterrorism in the much-vaunted Reagan years wasn't a serious endeavor at Langley. He had original and provocative ideas on using physical force to scare the bejesus out of terrorist suspects who had American blood on their hands. Although the… Continue

Whose Medical Decisions? Part IV

Thomas Sowell

August 21, 2009

The serious, and sometimes chilling, provisions of the medical care legislation that President Obama has been trying to rush through Congress are important enough for all of us to stop and think, even though his political strategy from the outset has been to prevent us from having time to stop and think about it.

What we also should stop to think about is the mindset behind this legislation, which is very… Continue

OPINION: CROSS COUNTRYAUGUST 28, 2009

Native Americans and the Public Option

After decades of government-run care, some Indians are finally saying enough.

By TERRY ANDERSON



Bozeman, Mont.



Montana Sen. Max Baucus, a leading architect of national health-care reform, visited the Flathead Indian Reservation near Pablo, Mont., in May, and he was confronted with a surprising critique. "I hope any [new health-care] plan does not forget the nation's first… Continue

Eric Holder's Hate Crime Color Scheme

By Jan LaRue

Imagine the Ku Klux Klan in full regalia standing before a polling place deep in Dixieland hurling racial insults at black people arriving to vote in the last election. Imagine further a Republican-run U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) dropping the civil complaint against the KKK that had been filed by a Democrat-run DOJ.

Unless you've dropped acid, your fantasy life probably can't get you there.



Try… Continue

The Real Myth of Health Care

Joseph C. Phillips

Friday, August 28, 2009

One of the more pernicious myths surrounding the debate over health care is the oft repeated claim that conservatives do not want reform. Nonsense! What we do not want is the warm bucket of snake oil currently being sold to the American people by this administration. Conservatives have long argued for the need to reduce mandated benefits, reduce the reliance on third-party payers and get rid of public… Continue

What About the Next Time? > [Victoria Toensing]

“All volunteers step forward. We have a person in custody who is high-ranking al-Qaeda. He taunts that an attack on United States soil is imminent but laughs mockingly when we ask for specifics. We need interrogators.” Such was the threat in the summer of 2002 when the CIA asked the Justice Department for guidance on what its personnel could do to get such information from captured al-Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubdayah.



Since… Continue

Airbrushing out Mary Jo Kopechne

Only a Kennedy could get away with it.



By Mark Steyn August 29, 2009



We are enjoined not to speak ill of the dead. But, when an entire nation — or, at any rate, its “mainstream” media culture — declines to speak the truth about the dead, we are certainly entitled to speak ill of such false eulogists. In its coverage of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s passing, America’s TV networks are creepily reminiscent of those plays Sam Shepard… Continue

Prosecuting the CIA

Eric Holder unleashes a special counsel on U.S. war fighters.

'It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department." –Attorney General Eric Holder, April 2009

"Justice Department Names Prosecutor to Reopen CIA Abuse Cases" –Wall Street Journal, yesterday

August 25,2009





Mr. Holder had it right the first time. His about-face yesterday,… Continue

Obama's Summer of Discontent

The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long.

By FOUAD AJAMI AUGUST 25, 2009

So we are to have a French health-care system without a French tradition of political protest. It is odd that American liberalism, in a veritable state of insurrection during the Bush presidency, now seeks political quiescence. These "townhallers" who have come forth to challenge ObamaCare have been labeled… Continue

August 14, 2009, 0:00 a.m.

Testing Obamacare’s Meddle

To cut costs, government must meddle not just with how we live, but how we die.



By Jonah Goldberg

If I went to a Democratic town hall, I’d probably boo, too. Hence, according to various Democrats and supporters of Obamacare, I’m paranoid and just a bit unpatriotic.



Well, let me dilate on my paranoid treachery for a moment.



Under the plan discussed at President Obama’s infomercial-esqe town… Continue

Mary Robinson’s Medal of Freedom

Anti-Americanism and anti-Israel activism win Obama’s approbation.

By JOHN BOLTON

Barack Obama’s decision to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mary Robinson has generated unexpected but emotionally charged opposition. Appointed by then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as high commissioner for human rights in 1997-2002, Ms. Robinson had a controversial but ineffective tenure. (Previously, she was president of Ireland, a ceremonial… Continue

Us Versus Them

By Quin Hillyer on 8.7.09



We are for freedom, they are for coercion.

We are for personal choice when other lives aren't at stake. They are for choice only when the choice involves other lives being snuffed out.

We are for personal responsibility enforced by self-restraint and social norms. They are for responsibility imposed from without by government bureaucrats.

We conservatives are for the ideals that make America America. They, the… Continue

Utopia Versus Freedom

If you cannot tolerate imperfections, be prepared to kiss your freedom goodbye.

By Thomas Sowell August 04, 2009



‘Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.” We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the… Continue

Support Your Local Sharia

David R. Stokes

Sunday, August 02, 2009

It is pretty clear at this point that barring some kind of last minute reality check the Fairfax County (Virginia) Board of Supervisors will approve the Islamic Saudi Academy’s application for a special exemption this Monday, August 3rd. This will enable the Saudi-funded madrasa to expand and plant even deeper roots in America’s backyard, teaching in the anti-democratic traditions of wahhabism.

It will happen… Continue

A Liberty Issue

Government health care would be wrong even if it “controlled costs.”



By Mark Steyn August 01, 2009



My conservative friends — and even a few media liberals — are agreed: The bloom is off the Obama rose. He’s not the Obamessiah, just another 50-percent president. He tried to do too much too fast, and his numbers are sinking. The Europeanization of health care is dead. Fuhgeddabouddit.



I wouldn’t be so sure. President Obama… Continue

The God Who Bleeds

Obama isn’t supposed to be a typical politician.July 31, 2009

By Jonah Goldberg



In one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, Captain Kirk is mistaken for a god by inhabitants of a planet of Native Americans (it’s a long story). The illusion works for Kirk until a jealous shaman cuts Kirk’s hand, revealing that the divine being is just a man after all. “Behold! A god who bleeds!” the shaman mocks, exposing Kirk as a fraud to the rest of the… Continue