Spicy: the Flash-Bang Holster

I'm trying to wrack my brain and recall when I've last seen a holster like this one.

Wrack. Get it?

I'll be here all week. Remember to try the roast beef special.

Wingers need not worry about Obama's "civilian national security force": DHS only wants about 625 million rounds of ammo

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." --Barack Obama, 2 July 2008

The Department of Homeland Security is looking to purchase a total of 625 million rounds of ammunition.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is getting an "indefinite delivery" of an "indefinite quantity" of .40 caliber ammunition from defense contractor ATK.

U.S. agents will receive a maximum of 450 million rounds over five years, according to a press release on the deal... The high performance HST bullets are designed for law enforcement and ATK says they offer "optimum penetration for terminal performance."

This refers to the the bullet's hollow-point tip that passes through barriers and expands for a bigger impact without the rest of the bullet getting warped out of shape: "this bullet holds its jacket in the toughest conditions."

We've also learned that the Department has an open bid for a stockpile of rifle ammo. Listed on the federal business opportunities network, they're looking for up to 175 million rounds of .223 caliber ammo to be exact. The .223 is almost exactly the same round used by NATO forces, the 5.56 x 45mm.

That's only two rounds for every man, woman and child in America, which hardly seems enough.

RED ALERT: Former Marine Strike Planner on Obama's Azerbaijan Leak: "Start viewing this administration as an existential threat to Israel"

Four senior American diplomats -- most likely in the State Department -- as well as senior intelligence officers appear to have leaked a key military relationship between Azerbaijan and Israel.

A highly knowledgeable Democratic friend emails Ron Ben-Yishai’s YnetNews report “US thwarting Israeli strike on Iran.” The report asserts that the Obama administration is leaking information to the media in order to avert an Israeli strike in Iran. Ben-Yishai observes that in recent weeks the administration has “shifted from persuasion efforts vis-à-vis decision-makers and Israel’s public opinion to a practical, targeted assassination of potential Israeli operations in Iran.” My friend comments succinctly on the report: “Wow. Ron Ben-Yishai is considered to be one of the most serious Israeli defense correspondents.”

Ben-Yishai gives few examples of the Obama administration’s efforts to thwart an Israeli strike on Iran, but the news this week provides what seems to be a case study supporting his thesis. Foreign Policy reports that, according to “four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers,” Azerbaijan has granted the Israelis access to airbases in that country. Such access would dramatically mitigate the difficulty of an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This leak destroyed any capability of a surprise attack by Israel using these bases. And it came from Obama administration officials.

"Bill", a former Marine Corps strike planner, weighed in on the implications of this leak Friday on The Mark Levin Show. Read every word.

I just want to comment on this revelation by the State Department regarding this Israel-Azerbaijan connection. A few years ago, I was writing an article and studying how Israel might go about attacking Iran with the assets we knew they had...

I've got experience as a Marine F-4 Phantom Radar Interceptor Officer. I've planned strike missions. I've got a thousand hours in the Phantom. So I'm familiar with the problems strike planners have in attacking a target or multiple targets like Iran. And as I looked at the map, I thought: 'Boy, oh, boy, if the Israelis had an alliance with Azerbaijan, that would be the perfect place to launch a strike.

They've got this beautiful, 10,000-foot concrete runway in Baku. You take off, you come right out over the Caspian Sea. The pilots flip on their radar altimeters, drop down 25-feet off the deck, and they just race in a straight line.

They pop up over some hills, and they're in Tehran before the Iranians even know what hit them. They could then go hit the other targets. It reduces the distance for this strike by, oh, six, seven hundred miles. It might alleviate the need for tankers. Or, if they do need tanker support, you could put them over the Caspian Sea...

...The beauty of Baku is that the Caspian Sea is right at the end of the runway. It's a straight shot, maybe 300 miles, from that base to Tehran. A good radar altimeter will get an F-4, F-16, F-15 strike fighter maybe 25 feet off the water. Going in at that altitude, you're not going to be picked up by radar.

But there's something even more important here. The Iranians are not expecting an attack from the north. Now, with the revelation of this relationship, they are. And that has a lot of implications beyond the tactical.

Think of it this way. Prior to this revelation, the Iranians -- although they noticed some connections between Israel and Azerbaijan -- didn't know how deep that connection was.

Now the Iranians can start bullying the Azerbaijanis. They can send a diplomat up to Baku and say, basically, 'if any Israeli plane hits us from the north, when we get our nuke, we are going to test it on Baku. Of course that will all happen behind the scenes, but the threat will be made.

Now, I want you to consider this: there are many ways to attack Iran. You can go for the nuke sites. Or you can go for a decapitation strike. A decapitation strike is a much easier operation if you're coming from Azerbaijan.

Think of it this way: every once in a while, the Iranians have a little get-together. They bring all of the Mullahs together in one place... Why not? They'd be doing us and the world a tremendous favor if they did that.

And it's not going to happen now.

I can guarantee that all of those new Soviet anti-aircraft missiles that the Iranians bought are all going up north now, pointed and waiting for something there. In fact, they'll probably put radars on the Caspian from the mountaintops there, just to see if there's anything come up off the water.

Strategic, tactical surprise: gone.

You have to ask for the motivation behind the leak. I mean, if the Israelis can do this operation, it's to our benefit! From a diplomatic standpoint, if you wanted to tell the Iranians that the Israelis did this, it's without our permission. And then try to butter up the Iranians after the strike, so they don't close the Strait of Hormuz, that's one thing.

But giving away all of the secrets of an ally? When you're doing that, you have to ask whether we still have Israel as an ally. We are not acting like an ally. In fact, if you ask me, based on the amount of time I expect the Israelis put in this relationship with Azerbaijan, I would start viewing this administration as an existential threat to Israel.

This administration is not going to do anything to stop the Iranian terror state from acquiring nuclear weapons. They are actively working against America's closest allies to prevent a strike against Iran. They are, under Obama's orders, leaking highly classified information to America's enemies through the media.

Who leaked this information? And when are we going to prosecute them?

Where is the House Foreign Affairs Committee? Do we still have one?

I urge you to contact Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen at (202) 225-5021 and ask the committee what it is doing to find the sources of these leaks.

New Pics Emerge of Fast and Furious Weapon Used in Officer-Involved Shooting

Turns out a third American law enforcement officer came close to losing his life thanks to the aborted Holder-Obama gun-running operation known as "Fast and Furious".

BC15 Investigators have obtained a police report, audio recordings, and photographs of a weapon linked to the Fast and Furious case after it turned up at a crime scene in Maricopa, AZ in March 2010...

According to an Arizona Department of Public Safety police report, members of a special vehicle theft task force were attempting to pull over a truck that had been stolen from Avondale when the driver fled and then pointed a handgun at an officer... According to the police report, the driver, Angel Hernandez-Diaz, also had an AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle in his possession during the vehicle chase... The AK-47, according to the ATF, is linked to the Fast and Furious case.

...According to the police report, Hernandez-Diaz was attempting to transport the weapon and the vehicle to a drop-off point in the desert...

According to Ofc. Mike Ruiz, an officer involved in the pursuit, Hernandez-Diaz’s vehicle had been disabled by a spike strip when Hernandez-Diaz took off running from the truck... “I saw the suspect bail out of the vehicle,” Ruiz told a DPS investigator during an interview about the incident.

“I pulled up, exited my vehicle, (and) yelled, ‘Police! Stop!” he said, explaining how he followed Hernandez-Diaz around a corner.

“Right as I came around that corner…he was almost down to…almost like crouched but not quite a crouch,” he told the investigator, describing Hernandez-Diaz... “With his gun in the right hand…and he was pointing it right at me,” Ruiz said. “I fired one round off…and I figured he had me.”

...Ruiz’s bullet did not strike Hernandez-Diaz, but the suspect was taken into custody and convicted of possessing two guns that were found inside the stolen truck, stealing the truck, and running from officers.
The gun Hernandez-Diaz was accused of pointing at Ruiz was never found. However police found two weapons inside the stolen truck: the AK-47 and a Beretta pistol...

Thousands of Holder's weapons are still unaccounted for.

How many more law enforcement officers and civilians will be killed thanks to Fast and Furious?

That's a rhetorical question, because the shameful Holder still serves as Attorney General, despite lying to Congress, stonewalling it, and acting as if he is above the law.

It will take a new president to get to Eric Holder.

Larwyn's Linx: They’re Always Shocked When We’re Not Stupid

Send us news tips. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

They’re Always Shocked When We’re Not Stupid: Sundries
Justice Breyer on Obamacare: 'I Haven’t Read Every Word of That, I Promise’: CNS
President Flexible!: Bruce

Democrats In Disarray: Beacon
Waaah! Democrats Crying Over Scalia’s Performance This Week: JWF
Better Care Won't Be Found In Obamacare's Tyranny: Bachmann

Obama’s Inner Lenin Invoked in Desperate Re-Election Strategy: Pelerin
When You Disagree With Leftists, They Simply Dehumanize You: RWN
NAACP Condemns Sharpton's Call for Civil Unrest: WZ

Economy

Biden: I don't want 'real job…you have to produce': York
Alabama nightclub sponsors “Food Stamp Friday” party: Hot Air
Obamacare's $17 Trillion Surprise: Beacon

Obama goes off on wild socialist rant at campaign stop in Vermont: GWP
On Restoring American Individualism: AT
Groupon TVIXes Muppets: ZH

2012 Elections

Paul Ryan endorses Mitt Romney: WaPo
Americans Spitting Out the Obama Kool-Aid; Peggy Noonan Calls It “Creepy”: GWP
There Obama Goes Again: Kudlow

Scandal Central

Eco-scams are as easy as “A123?: Malkin
Another wrist slap for Rangel: Malkin
Biden: “We Want To Create A Global Minimum Tax”: WZ

Climate & Energy

Democrat policies threaten to starve American refiners: ATR
Sen. Levin tries to legislate a parking place: DC
GM's Political Agenda: automaker pulls support for Heartland Institute: LAT

Obama Kills Atlantic Offshore Drilling For Five Years: Breitbart
Vitter: Obama’s Energy Policy Bows To The Saudis: HayRide
Yea, Alpha Proxima Day!!!: Soylent (NSFW)

Media

The liberal shock at the collapse of ObamaCare’s “Constitutional” arguments: Q&O
Malkin: Ginsburg Coached Pro-Obamacare Lawyer: Breitbart
You Only Run Twice: Bruce

Rush stunned at Kagan's 'boatload of money from the feds is a gift' comment: Scoop
Ameritopia and the Fable of The Frogs: KingShamus
Read Mark Levin's "Ameritopia" for Insight on the Founders and Freedom of the Press: Rush

MSNBS' Toure has epic race-baiting meltdown on CNN: Breitbart
OK couple parted after 65 years after deadly attack by man who could look like Obama's son: Daily Mail
Please pass the popcorn …: ProWis

#Trayvon: NYT complains about “blogger cherry-picking” – glosses over own selective bias: Toldjah
Election 2012 MSM Bias: CDN
Old Photos May Be Deceptive in Fla. Shooting Case: AP

World

Palestinian Protest Turns Violent: 'Peaceful' March Features Firebombs, Rock-Throwing: Beacon
Olympic Committee changes womens beach volleyball bikini rule for…: Creeping
Bin Laden lived 9 years undetected in Pakistan, fathered 4 children, wife says: Fox

Violent Protests On Israeli Border Led By Jeremiah Wright: Jawa
Obama clears Iran oil sanctions: Times
Violence, Firebombings Erupt as Spain Announces €27 Billion Deficit-Cutting Plan: Mish

Sci-Tech

The Hidden Risk of a Meltdown in the Cloud: TechReview
MasterCard, VISA Warn of Processor Breach: Krebs
China's Alibaba tests social shopping with Pinterest clone: Reuters

Cornucopia

The Death of Mrs. G: Sowell
Shy Boy and Girl Shock Simon Cowell on Britain's Got Talent: Britain's Got Talent
Winning lottery ticket sold in Maryland, other winners expected: officials: Post

Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Rick Santorum for President

QOTD: "Nobody just stood there with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea. You return force with force when somebody assaults you. George was out of breath. He was barely conscious. His last thing he remembers doing was moving his head from the concrete to the grass so that if he was banged one more time, he wouldn’t be, you know, wearing diapers for the rest of his life and being spoon-fed by his brother. And there would have been George dead had he not acted decisively and instantaneously in that moment when he was being disarmed." --Robert Zimmerman, brother of George Zimmerman

Congratulations, Democrats: U.S. Now Has Highest Corporate Tax Rate In the World

And progressives still can't figure out why global companies won't repatriate their cash to the United States. Cause they're smart like that.

This April Fool’s Day, the joke is on all of us. That’s because as of April 1, the U.S. now has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.

Our high corporate tax rate has long made the U.S. an uncompetitive place for new investment. This has driven new jobs to other, more competitive nations and meant fewer jobs and lower wages for all Americans. Other developed nations have been cutting their rates for over 20 years. The U.S. did nothing.

Hey, libs: let's try raising corporate tax rates to, say, 100 percent. That should really help revenues, right?

Hashtag EpicFail.

The Intelligensia at the Washington Post: So Polluted With Statism, Even Automobile Reviews Are Political

It's one thing to suffer through the tortured secretions of Washington Post hacks editorial writers like, say, E.J. Dionne. Everyone knows his mind has been so poisoned with Statism that he now conflates fidelity to the Constitution with "judicial activism".

But it's quite another to read political drivel in a WaPo automobile review, written by someone who claims to be named "Warren Brown".

I like the clean design of the stately-bordering-on-prim Honda CR-V. It appeals to my inner Rick Santorum. But I absolutely love the swank swagger of the Mazda CX-5’s body. It addresses the dominant, motivating Barack and Michelle in me. There is an audacious flow about it front to rear...

...The three-point grille (left corner, right corner, bottom-connecting corner) opens gently, almost with a smile. The side panels are rhythmically muscular, as if they are involved in dance. The rear end with its upward-tilted bottom, slanted back window and sloping, roof-mounted air spoiler, is downright sassy.

It's unclear which rear end he's referring to. Is it that of Barack or Michelle?

Legacy media: so good at journalism stuff it's scary.

Hat tip: JTT.

Surprise! Obamacare already added $17 trillion in unfunded liabilities to America's balance sheet

It should come as no surprise that a bill which 72 percent of Americans believe is unconstitutional, which numbers over 2,200 pages, and which not one person in Congress bothered to read turns out to have a terrifying price tag for future generations.

The federal government’s unfunded health care obligations have grown by a whopping $17 trillion since the passage of President Obama’s controversial reform bill, a new study has found....

Staff at the Senate Budget Committee, which calculated the figure using methods based on those used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), found that total unfunded obligations for federal health care programs have jumped from $65 trillion in 2009 to $82 trillion in 2011... Added to the government’s existing obligation for entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the total now comes to almost $100 trillion.

That is almost seven times the United States’ annual gross domestic product (GDP).

[And the] total cost of the health care law, as calculated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), has risen dramatically since its passage, dwarfing the $900 billion figure touted by the president and Congressional Democrats in 2009... CBO now estimates the law will cost taxpayers $1.76 trillion over the next decade.

The only good news: America will be bankrupt long before all of these debts come due.

Oops: Obama's own bloated bureaucracy kerplodes his energy lies

I guess this is what happens when you have so many agencies, offices, bureaus and administrators that you can't keep them all straight. Notice the sources of the data for the accompanying graph: the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of the Interior. Oops. I see an early retirement in some bureaucrat's future.

Already struggling for a variety of mostly government-induced reasons, further reductions in crude would literally starve America’s robust refining sector of its lifeblood. [Remember that] the Obama Administration is already inhibiting domestic oil and natural gas production wherever possible. Cancelling lease sales on the Atlantic coast, delaying lease sales for nearly a year in the gulf, and increasing the amount of time it takes companies to receive requisite permits have all immediately impacted domestic oil production, and in turn, America’s refiners...

...But it doesn’t end there. The most explicit attack on refiners from the Obama Administration thus far must be the decision to kill the Keystone pipeline. As most people know by now, the Keystone Pipeline would have delivered around 800,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil to, you guessed it, America’s refiners. Creating tens of thousands of construction jobs and ensuring that America’s refiners have crude oil to manufacture into other products, the Keystone pipeline would have been a shot of life for the recession weary construction and refining industries. Unfortunately, Obama’s decision to kill the pipeline is indicative of the Administration’s antagonistic stance towards anyone involved in the oil and natural gas supply chain...

Any member of a private sector union who votes for Barack Obama in November deserves his or her inevitable fate. Which is: unemployment, misery and despair.

Larwyn's Linx: Obama doubling down on his leftist radicalism

Send us news tips. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Obama doubling down on his leftist radicalism: DLim
Why Manipulate the Tragedy of Trayvon Martin?: Mac Donald
Has This Woman Created a Meme?: iOTW

Second Trayvon Martin Twitter feed identified: DC
6 shot, 1 dead in Bobby "Hoodie" Rush's District Last Night: Marathon
Levin: If I had another son, I think he'd look like Brian Terry: Scoop

Economy

Obama's budget unanimously rejected by House: AT
How the Fed helped cause the housing bubble and crisis: Peth
CNN and why the fiscal collapse of the U.S. is inevitable: WinSol

Biden Admits It: We Want to Create a 'Global Minimum Tax': FAM
No $5 Footlongs Due to $10 Minimum Wage: Beacon
What a real death panel might sound like: Babalu

2012 Elections

Pretty Pathetic: WS
Obama's Trust Fund Baby: Beacon
Obama's Schedule, Friday, 30 March 2012: Dossier

Climate & Energy

"We’re not drilling everywhere!" - Louisiana Democrat Rips Obama: Beacon
The EPA's Unreliable Science: AT
Nah, but the sun doesn't have anything to do with global warming!: Wired

Media

NBC Hosts a Lynch Mob: AmSpec
George Zimmerman’s Father on Obama: “So Much Hate Coming From This President” : GWP
P.C. blinders hobble Trayvon Martin reporting: Tapscott

Liberal Cocoon Warning: Ace
Yeah, We Were Serious: LI
Limbaugh: My ratings are up from 10% to 60% across 600 stations lately: Hot Air

Can Justice Survive Media Lynch Mob?: NoisyRm
Enhanced Image Proves ABC Blew It On Zimmerman Video: Riehl
Which way does your news source lean: Left, right or sideways? (Interactive Chart): PolFi

Rush: Liberals Can’t Defend Their Corrupt Ideas, So They Create Phony, Divisive Distractions: GWP
#StopRush turns into #MediaMattersStopped: LI
Six Men Who Could Be Obama’s Sons Arrested For Pummeling White Man: JWF

World

Bolton accuses Obama admin of leaking classified info to compromise Israeli attack on Iran: Scoop
Outrage: Obama Administration Won’t Say If Jerusalem Is Capital of Israel (Video): GWP
Hamas' Parent Comes to America: IPT

The New Anti-Semitism: Hanson
Is Obama Signaling a Second Administration Even MORE Anti-Israel?: Lid
Parents of murdered British students criticise Barack Obama: Telegraph

Sci-Tech

BlackBerry maker RIM abandons battle with iPhone and Android: Guardian
Darpa Backed Director’s Bomb Detector, Despite Failed Tests: Wired
Foxconn audit finds violations, fixes promised: CNet

Cornucopia

Who is the Route 29 Batman? This guy.: WaPo
2012 NBA Mock Draft: Terrence Ross and Underrated Stars Who Will Shine: Bleacher Report
Kentucky-Louisville argument results in a punch being thrown at dialysis center: Kentucky

Image: iOwnTheWorld
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Rick Santorum for President

QOTD: "I think the Obama administration has long believed that an Israeli attack was worse than an Iranian nuclear weapon. The president says that containment and deterrence of Iran is not his policy, and I think today that’s true. But it’s his plan B, it’s his backup plan when his current efforts at sanctions fail, and diplomacy fails, and Iran gets nuclear weapons.

And I think that the pressure that the administration has put on Israel has been just merciless behind the scenes. But nonetheless, as I say, every evidence is that the pressure is failing, that the Israeli government will do what they think is necessary.

So the Obama administration has torqued it up a notch, and now they’re going to reveal very sensitive, very important information that will allow Iran to defeat an Israeli attack. I think that’s what’s going on." --Amb. John Bolton

Oh, my: Obamacare caused health care premiums to necessarily skyrocket

It seems so, eh, inconceivable that a massive, 2,300-page bill -- which no one bothered to read before Democrats passed it into law -- could result in unintended consequences.

Leaving ObamaCare in place while striking its individual mandate isn't good enough. The full plan must be scrapped before it drives health premiums even higher.

ObamaCare is wildly unpopular with Americans. Even a new CBS-New York Times poll finds two-thirds want it shot down.

...The cost of an average family premium shot up 9.5% in 2011 — the highest rate in seven years and three times the rate of overall inflation, finds a major new survey of employer plans by Kaiser Family Foundation.

Just before Obama signed his health overhaul, he vowed it would "bring down the cost of health care for families, for businesses and for the federal government." In December, he told CBS' "60 Minutes" he was "putting in place a system that's going to lower health care costs."

In fact, there's evidence ObamaCare is fanning medical inflation.

Kaiser attributes the premium spike to "changes from the new health reform law." The 200-page study explains: "Significant percentages of firms made changes in their preventive care benefits and enrolled adult children in their benefits plans in response to provisions in the new health reform law."

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., notes that Obama, as a candidate, promised he'd slash family premiums by $2,500 a year by the end of his first term... The concern is that as ObamaCare becomes a massive Medicaid program that limits reimbursements to providers, it will shift costs massively to those who remain in the private health-insurance market.

Already, Obama's so-called Affordable Care Act has not lived up to its name. It's been anything but affordable — and the worst inflation is yet to come.

Oh, and then there's this:

Despite the [Obamacare individual] mandate, there will still be 27 million uninsured a decade from now, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The promised uninsured rate — 10% in 2022 — isn't much better than in 1980, when it was 12%, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

The law also tries to cut the uninsured population by making it illegal for insurers to deny coverage because of preexisting conditions, called "guaranteed issue"...

...But fewer than 4% cited poor health as a reason for not getting coverage, according to the CBO. Meanwhile, 71% cited the high cost of premiums.

....A recent CBO report, for example, says that premiums over the next 10 years will rise at a faster rate than they have for the past five.

Gee, I'm shocked. You mean to say that massive, centrally-planned economies like those of North Korea and Zimbabwe don't work?

Democrats == Schmucks.

As an aside: if there's a better newspaper in America than Investors Business Daily, I have yet to discover it.

Leftist-In-Training (i.e., "Journalist") Beclowns Herself With Faux Book Review of Ameritopia

Over at the Indiana Daily Student, a leftist-in-training (also known as a "journalist") named Sidney Fletcher -- if that is her real name -- just butchered a review of Mark Levin's bestseller Ameritopia.

Sure, there are examples and ideas in the literature of liberal utopias that might be considered tyrannical. The work of utopian socialist Charles Fourier comes to mind.

But I suspect that if Levin were to ask young leftists about their utopias, he would discover that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Leftist utopias are a libertarian’s paradise...

...It is people such as Levin, who claim to be on the side of liberty but want to take women’s rights to control their own body and want to continue the clear economic bias of the state in favor of the rich, who are responsible for statism and for creating the problems in America today.

Levin decries utopia as the fantasy of the left, but in doing so he ignores his own desired utopia: a utopia led by the perversions of the memory of the Founding Fathers in which all those annoying minorities would just go away.

Sidney, it is curious indeed that you omitted two of the most critical elements of Ameritopia. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are central to Levin's thesis and yet you give no credence to the history and context of the these documents, other than to tar the Founders and Framers as racists.

The Constitution inarguably created the most benificent society ever seen on Earth. People of every background, race, religion and creed strive to enter the United States, not because it is an intolerant society, but because it offers the most opportunities for the individual to succeed on his or her own merits.

Clearly you have skipped over the battle between the northern and southern states while the Declaration of Independence was being written. The slave states, most prominently South Carolina and William Rutledge, refused to endorse The Declaration unless the scourge of slavery was omitted. It is clear, however, that no country with a founding document like the Declaration could long tolerate slavery.

In fact, the ratification of the Constitution by the states performed two noble services to advance the anti-slavery cause: it banned the importation of slaves, setting the stage for the eventual end of the despicable practice; and it forced the southern states to count slaves as three-fifths of an individual for purposes of Congressional representation.

This was critically important, because the slave states wanted to have it both ways: they sought to count slaves as human beings for the purposes of strengthening their Congressional numbers, but also to treat them as chattel from a legal perspective.

The Constitutional compromise thereby instantiated an inherent conflict between North and South.

Had the Declaration and Constitution not united the states, there would have been no Civil War over the issue of slavery and emancipation. Slavery likely would have survived far longer in a set of disparate states without a cohesive federal charter like the Constitution.

In summary, you do a disservice to the overall point of the book. Conservatism recognizes the inherent flaws of government and its tendency to dissolve into various corrupted forms of tyranny or authoritarianism -- consider the long history of mankind as proof -- and attempts to strengthen the bulwark against this dissolution. That bulwark is the Constitution.

You claim that "Leftist utopias are a libertarian’s paradise", yet the public sector unions and trial lawyers -- two groups working in lockstep with Democrats -- argue endlessly for bigger government, more regulations, more taxes and more sovereignty of the government over the individual. You can look no farther than the teachers unions' unequivocal war against charter schools, against the will of most parents seeking a better education for their children.

In fact, progressivism, the tenet of the Democrat Party since Woodrow Wilson, recognizes no limits on government. Can the federal government force you to buy health insurance? Why, of course it can! Can it tell you what kind of shower heads, light bulbs, cars, clothing, baby strollers and food to purchase? Yes of course! No, leftist utopias are totalitarian states, where freedom of speech is banned, there are no gun rights, and state governments have no power whatsoever.

Tell me, which of the Bill of Rights do you think Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would support?

And Sidney, I ask you: where are the limits on government if not the Constitution? Many of our temporary politicans take an oath to uphold that document and then promptly attempt to evade or ignore it. If laws are malleable, if they can be shredded at the whim of a Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer for some temporary expedient, what prevents the eventual descent of this Republic into Ameritopia? Where are the limits on government, if we are to ignore our highest law, not to mention history, facts, logic and experience?

The default condition of humankind has been poverty, misery and slavery. We live in the most magnificent society ever seen on Earth, and instead of protecting it, Democrats continuously push us to adopt the failed policies of central planning, massive debts, unlimited welfare, and managed economies. And now we stand perilously close to the abyss, both from an economic and a societal perspective.

So do you support America? Or Ameritopia?


Related:
• The Fork In The Road
• The Complete Epilogue: Ameritopia

Just for you, Bobby Rush

It's the NRA Concealed Carry Hooded Sweatshirt!

I say we all chip in and buy one for Booby Rush.


Hat tip: @Gunservatively.

Israel Smells a Rat [Dan from NY]

Dan from NY:

All day I was toying with the idea of sending around one or more of the stories about Israel’s supposed deal with Azerbaijan to use their airfields as a staging area for an attack on Iran. But I kept asking myself who really benefits from the story – and never pressed “send.” Now I have an answer to my question, and as I suspected the beneficiary (and source) of the story was Israel’s “best friend,” Barack Obama.

Israelis Suspect Obama Media Leaks to Prevent Strike on Iran

ABC News – 3/29/2012

JERUSALEM - Two reports today about Iran's nuclear program and the possibility of an Israeli military strike have analysts in Israel accusing the Obama administration of leaking information to pressure Israel not to bomb Iran and for Iran to reach a compromise in upcoming nuclear talks.

The first report in Foreign Policy quotes anonymous American officials saying that Israel has been given access to airbases by Iran's northern neighbor Azerbaijan from which Israel could launch air strikes or at least drones and search and rescue aircraft.

The second report from Bloomberg, based on a leaked congressional report, said that Iran's nuclear facilities are so dispersed that it is "unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would be…" A strike could delay Iran as little as six months, a former official told the researchers.

"It seems like a big campaign to prevent Israel from attacking," analyst Yoel Guzansky at the Institute for National Security Studies told ABC News. "I think the [Obama] administration is really worried Jerusalem will attack and attack soon. They're trying hard to prevent it in so many ways."

...Thursday's reports come a week after the results of a classified war game was leaked to the New York Times which predicted that an Israeli strike could lead to a wider regional war and result in hundreds of American deaths. In a column this afternoon titled "Obama Betraying Israel?" longtime defense commentator Ron Ben-Yishai at Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper angrily denounced the leaks as a "targeted assassination campaign ... of potential Israeli operations in Iran," Ben-Yishai writes. "The campaign's aims are fully operational: To make it more difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] to carry out a strike, and what's even graver, to erode the IDF's capacity to launch such strike with minimal casualties."

And the question remains: why do the Russians know more about Obama's agenda than America's citizens?

This is six-year old Aliyah Shell, one of 10 killed and 50 wounded last weekend in Chicago. So where are the professional race-baiters?

At 3:00pm on Saturday afternoon, 6-year old Aliyah Shell was sitting with her mother and sister on the front porch of her home in the 3100 block of South Springfield Avenue. A pickup truck drove by, slowed to a near stop and the passenger side window rolled down. Shots rang out.

Aliyah Shell was killed by the gunfire as the truck drove off.

At least 10 people were killed, including a 6-year-old girl, in shootings over the weekend in Chicago... The slain were among at least 49 people wounded in shootings from 5 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Monday...

So where are the professional race-baiters like Al "Not So" Sharpton and Jesse Jerkson?

Where is MSNBS, ABS, CBS and NBS Nightly News?

Where are the New Black Panthers and the other thugs seeking to profit from Trayvon Martin's death?

They don't give a crap about Aliyah Shell, or the hundreds of others killed and wounded every year in Obama's hometown of Chicago.

No, they care only about fomenting hatred, division and dissent. They studiously avoid the ramifications of their failed policies, from the "Great Society" to the "War on Poverty".

All Americans -- citizens of every race, creed, religion and color -- should reject the Democrat Party and its vicious marketing of racial hatred.

Six Views of the Mainstream Media [Looking Spoon]

The Looking Spoon:

Larwyn's Linx: Four Thoughts on the Individual Mandate Argument

Send us news tips. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Obamacare

Four Thoughts on the Individual Mandate Argument: Kerr
The Folly Of The Government's Argument Today: Denninger
Thoughts on the Individual Mandate Oral Argument: Somin

Has the Pro-ACA Side Come up with a “Limiting Principle?”: Volokh
More Than Just Broccoli: American
Scalia likens Obamacare to cruel and unusual punishment: Beacon

RNC Releases Embarrassing Audio Of Obama Lawyer: NiceDeb
“Justices poised to strike down entire healthcare law”: ProWis
Government Case for Obamacare Is In Shambles: IBD

Nation

MO Governor Nixon: For Sale or Rent: Mommentary
The identity politics industry; unraveling the civil society: ProWis
Couple who fled home after Spike Lee tweet hires law firm: Driscoll

Wisconsin's Beseiged Leaders Need Tea Party's Help: Malkin
Guide to “White Hispanic” Skin Color for Gringo Media!: SooperMex
Trayvon Martin: The pictures are worth a thousand words: JPA

The Bankrupt Race Card: Sultan Knish
A Post-Racial Lynch Mob: Coulter
I blame Palin: 'Kill Zimmerman' Twitter Account Launched: Breitbart

Economy

Bernanke on Obama's Job Numbers: 'He's Makin' S*** Up To Get Reelected': HyScience
Democrat Budget Resolution Raises Taxes by $2 TRILLION: ATR
Seven of Obamacare’s Biggest Failures from the Last Two Years: Foundry

Media

Newsweek: Cheney Should Have Left His New Heart to Someone Not Seen as a 'War Criminal and Evildoer': NB
Could Obamacare have unintended consequences? Don’t ask the Associated Press: DC
CNN Says: Not Everyone Hates Obama-Care: S&L

Great News: Black Rapper Calls For Race Riots Over Trayvon Martin Killing: GWP
NY Man Convicted of Hizballah Support: IPT
Media Matters writer 'sorry' after blasting Drudge for Martin photo: Fox

The Left’s War On Women: A Day In The Life Of Michelle Malkin On Twitter (Explicit Language): Hawkins
@Soledad_OBrien’s Unpopularity Destroys Morning Ratings for CNN: RSM
MSNBC Boss Phil Griffin Defends Sharpton Protesting in Trayvon Martin Case While Also Covering It: NB

World

The real Obama Doctrine revealed: Gimme space: Pletka
Cuba: The Pope’s shameful trip: Fausta
Rove: Obama's Open-Mic Russia Comment Could Sink Re-election: Max

Obama Groveling Before Russians Fulfills 2008 Promise: IBD
More Attacks on Jews in France: Mead
State Department hits bottom, digs deeper: Matzav

Questioning Obama's 'Secret Plans': Beacon
All the Pravda: Sultan Knish
Socialism claims another victim: Portugal's meltdown leaves families destitute: WaPo

Sci-Tech

Is This The Perfect Sexting App?: Insider
U.S. Outgunned in Hacker War: WSJ
Google Scared This 27-Year-Old Entrepreneur Into Changing His Idea... Now Worth More Than $500 Million: Insider

Cornucopia

Saturday Blonde Joke: Denny
Why Is Bill Maher an Atheist?: Looking Spoon
MSNBC: The Government Lawyer for ObamaCare Is Like a Fifth Grader: Glob

Image: Curmudgeonly & Skeptical
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Rick Santorum for President

QOTD: "...companies need to make major changes in the way they use computer networks to avoid further damage to national security and the economy. Too many companies, from major multinationals to small start-ups, fail to recognize the financial and legal risks they are taking—or the costs they may have already suffered unknowingly—by operating vulnerable networks...

...FBI agents are increasingly coming across data stolen from companies whose executives had no idea their systems had been accessed... "We have found their data in the middle of other investigations ... They are shocked and, in many cases, they've been breached for many months, in some cases years, which means that an adversary had full visibility into everything occurring on that network, potentially.'" --Devlin Barret, "U.S. Outgunned in Hacker War"

The Complete Epilogue: Ameritopia

The epilogue of Ameritopia, Mark Levin's latest bestseller -- a brief synopsis of its key themes -- is available in PDF format... and now plain HTML, for easier reading.

My premise, in the first sentence of the first chapter of this book, is this: “Tyranny, broadly defined, is the use of power to dehumanize the individual and delegitimize his nature. Political utopianism is tyranny disguised as a desirable, workable, and even paradisiacal governing ideology.”

Plato’s Republic, More’s Utopia, Hobbes’s Leviathan, and Marx’s workers’ paradise are utopias that are anti-individual and anti-individualism. For the utopians, modern and olden, the individual is one-dimensional—selfish. On his own, he has little moral value. Contrarily, authoritarianism is defended as altruistic and masterminds as socially conscious. Thus endless interventions in the individual’s life and manipulation of his conditions are justified as not only necessary and desirable but noble governmental pursuits. This false dialectic is at the heart of the problem we face today.

In truth, man is naturally independent and self-reliant, which are attributes that contribute to his own well-being and survival, and the well-being and survival of a civil society. He is also a social being who is charitable and compassionate. History abounds with examples, as do the daily lives of individuals. To condemn individualism as the utopians do is to condemn the very foundation of the civil society and the American founding and endorse, wittingly or unwittingly, oppression. Karl Popper saw it as an attack on Western civilization. “The emancipation of the individual was indeed the great spiritual revolution which had led to the breakdown of tribalism and to the rise of democracy.” Moreover, Judaism and Christianity, among other religions, teach the altruism of the individual.

Of course, this is not to defend anarchy. Quite the opposite. It is to endorse the magnificence of the American founding. The American founding was an exceptional exercise in collective human virtue and wisdom—a culmination of thousands of years of experience, knowledge, reason, and faith. The Declaration of Independence is a remarkable societal proclamation of human rights, brilliant in its insight, clarity, and conciseness. The Constitution of the United States is an extraordinary matrix of governmental limits, checks, balances, and divisions, intended to secure for posterity the individual’s sovereignty as proclaimed in the Declaration.

This is the grand heritage to which every American citizen is born. It has been characterized as “the American Dream,” “the American experiment,” and “American exceptionalism.” The country has been called “the Land of Opportunity,” “the Land of Milk and Honey,” and “a Shining City on a Hill.” It seems unimaginable that a people so endowed by Providence, and the beneficiaries of such unparalleled human excellence, would choose or tolerate a course that ensures their own decline and enslavement, for a government unleashed on the civil society is a government that destroys the nature of man.

On September 17, 1787, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Delegate James Wilson, on behalf of his ailing colleague from Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin, read aloud Franklin’s speech to the convention in favor of adopting the Constitution. Among other things, Franklin said that the Constitution “is likely to be well administered for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become corrupt as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other. . . .”

Have we “become corrupt”? Are we in need of “despotic government”? It appears that some modern-day “leading lights” think so, as they press their fanatical utopianism. For example, Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time magazine, considers the Constitution a utopian expedient. He wrote, “If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it sure doesn’t say so. . . . The framers weren’t afraid of a little messiness. Which is another reason we shouldn’t be so delicate about changing the Constitution or reinterpreting it.” It is beyond dispute that the Framers sought to limit the scope of federal power and that the Constitution does so. Moreover, constitutional change was not left to the masterminds but deliberately made difficult to ensure the broad participation and consent of the body politic.

Richard Cohen, a columnist for the Washington Post, explained that the Constitution is an amazing document, as long as it is mostly ignored, particularly the limits it imposes on the federal government. He wrote, “This fatuous infatuation with the Constitution, particularly the 10th Amendment, is clearly the work of witches, wiccans, and wackos. It has nothing to do with America’s real problems and, if taken too seriously, would cause an economic and political calamity. The Constitution is a wonderful document, quite miraculous actually, but only because it has been wisely adapted to changing times. To adhere to the very word of its every clause hardly is respectful to the Founding Fathers. They were revolutionaries who embraced change. That’s how we got here.” Of course, without the promise of the Tenth Amendment, the Constitution would not have been ratified, since the states insisted on retaining most of their sovereignty. Furthermore, the Framers clearly did not embrace the utopian change demanded by its modern adherents.

Lest we ignore history, the no-less-eminent American revolutionary and founder Thomas Jefferson explained, “On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

Thomas L. Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times and three-time Pulitzer Prize recipient, is even more forthright in his dismissal of constitutional republicanism and advocacy for utopian tyranny. Complaining of the slowness of American society in adopting sweeping utopian policies, he wrote, “There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today. One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.”

Of course, China remains a police state, where civil liberties are nonexistent, despite its experiment with government-managed pseudo-capitalism. Friedman’s declaration underscores not only the necessary intolerance utopians have for constitutionalism, but their infatuation with totalitarianism.

It is neither prudential nor virtuous to downplay or dismiss the obvious—that America has already transformed into Ameritopia. The centralization and consolidation of power in a political class that insulates its agenda in entrenched experts and administrators, whose authority is also self-perpetuating, is apparent all around us and growing more formidable. The issue is whether the ongoing transformation can be restrained and then reversed, or whether it will continue with increasing zeal, passing from a soft tyranny to something more oppressive. Hayek observed that “priding itself on having built its world as if it had designed it, and blaming itself for not having designed it better, humankind is now to set out to do just that. The aim . . . is no less than to effect a complete redesigning of our traditional morals, law, and language, and on this basis to stamp out the older order and supposedly inexorable, unjustifiable conditions that prevent the institution of reason, fulfillment, true freedom, and justice.” But the outcome of this adventurism, if not effectively stunted, is not in doubt.

In the end, can mankind stave off the powerful and dark forces of utopian tyranny? While John Locke was surely right about man’s nature and the civil society, he was also right about that which threatens them. Locke, Montesquieu, many of the philosophers of the European Enlightenment, and the Founders, among others, knew that the history of organized government is mostly a history of a relative few and perfidious men co-opting, coercing, and eventually repressing the many through the centralization and consolidation of authority.

Ironically and tragically, it seems that liberty and the constitution established to preserve it are not only essential to the individual’s well-being and happiness, but also an opportunity for the devious to exploit them and connive against them. Man has yet to devise a lasting institutional answer to this puzzle. The best that can be said is that all that really stands between the individual and tyranny is a resolute and sober people. It is the people, after all, around whom the civil society has grown and governmental institutions have been established. At last, the people are responsible for upholding the civil society and republican government, to which their fate is moored.

The essential question is whether, in America, the people’s psychology has been so successfully warped, the individual’s spirit so thoroughly trounced, and the civil society’s institutions so effectively overwhelmed that revival is possible. Have too many among us already surrendered or been conquered? Can the people overcome the constant and relentless influences of ideological indoctrination, economic manipulation, and administrative coerciveness, or have they become hopelessly entangled in and dependent on a ubiquitous federal government? Have the Pavlovian appeals to radical egalitarianism, and the fomenting of jealousy and faction through class warfare and collectivism, conditioned the people to accept or even demand compulsory uniformity as just and righteous? Is it accepted as legitimate and routine that the government has sufficient license to act whenever it claims to do so for the good of the people and against the selfishness of the individual?

No society is guaranteed perpetual existence. But I have to believe that the American people are not ready for servitude, for if this is our destiny, and the destiny of our children, I cannot conceive that any people, now or in the future, will successfully resist it for long. I have to believe that this generation of Americans will not condemn future generations to centuries of misery and darkness.

The Tea Party movement is a hopeful sign. Its members come from all walks of life and every corner of the country. These citizens have the spirit and enthusiasm of the Founding Fathers, proclaim the principles of individual liberty and rights in the Declaration, and insist on the federal government’s compliance with the Constitution’s limits. This explains the utopian fury against them. They are astutely aware of the peril of the moment. But there are also the Pollyannas and blissfully indifferent citizens who must be roused and enlisted lest the civil society continue to unravel and eventually dissolve, and the despotism long feared take firm hold.

Upon taking the oath of office on January 20, 1981, in his first inaugural address President Ronald Reagan told the American people:

If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on earth. The price for this freedom at times has been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay that price. It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We’re not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.

So, my fellow countrymen, which do we choose—Ameritopia or America?

Buy a copy and pass it on. Drop some knowledge on your family, friends and colleagues. These are perilous times. And November is coming.

And now, a word from our sponsor, Government Motors

Good news, comrades!

Government Motors is now bailing out French auto companies. What could possibly go wrong?

Breaking: Eric Holder Levels Racism Charges at SAT and ACT Tests for Requiring Photo IDs

Attorney General Eric Holder used the announcement that the SAT and ACT tests would require photo ID to pillory the collegiate testing process as "racist and discriminatory."

Holder asserted that requiring a valid ID to take an entrance exam is racist, stating, "...today, a growing number of students are worried about the same disparities, divisions, and problems that Dr. King fought throughout his life to address and overcome."

Holder also pointed to union elections as bastions of Jim Crow-style racism, because they require IDs in order to vote.

As for the TSA, which requires IDs for air travelers, Holder termed it a "cauldron of racial injustice."

Holder also pilloried the liquor store industry for its discriminatory policies of requiring identification in order to buy alcohol.

And the attorney general saved some of his harshest vitriol for the military, observing that recruiting offices' outrageous requirements for IDs had set a terrible precedent, one which would have outraged Dr. King.

The Social Security Administration didn't escape Holder's attention; he described it as a "factory for racial discrimination."

Actually, Eric Holder didn't say any of those things, but for some reason he hates photo ID requirements for voters. Eric Holder despises the sanctity of the ballot box, because he would never go after the military, the TSA, liquor stores, et. al. for their practices of requiring identification. Eric Holder, in short, wants to taint the vote.

No, Eric Holder is the most malevolent and lawless attorney general in American history. He makes John Mitchell look like an Eagle Scout. And I can't wait for Congress to get to the bottom of his involvement with Operation Fast and Furious.