Congress committee hearings: Devastating Black Panther voter intimidation testimony today; Steven Colbert (Updated)

New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case: 'Bombshell' for Obama? "The case could damage the Obama administration, says Mr. Lichtman at American University. But he also argues that most Americans understand that the Voting Rights Act was intended to correct gross and historic injustices, not nit-pick along partisan lines.
""You can try to force [the Voting Rights Act] to be equal, but it's not," he says. "If these are the worst examples you can find, then, by God, white people in America are pretty safe.""

Thomas Lifson  "This outrageous behavior by the top law enforcement agency of the United States, denying equal protection of the law to white voters, has the potential to seriously damage AG Eric Holder, and the man who appointed him, Barack Obama, and the entire Democratic Party. The DoJ's inspector General is already investigating, and and if Republicans control, the House of Representatives next year, we can expect serious investigation armed with subpoena power."
"Zoe Lofgren's contemptible summoning of satirist Steven (sic) Colbert to testify before her committee -- only to have the comedian be asked to leave by the more level-headed John Conyers -- may well have been a diversionary effort, to suck away the media spotlight."

Colbert asked to leave Judiciary hearing  ""I certainly hope that my star power can bump this hearing all the way up to C-SPAN1," he quipped.
"His testimony at times bordered on the absurd.
" "The obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables," he said at one point. At another, he said, "Maybe the easier answer is to have scientists create vegetables that pick themselves." "

An Apologetic 9/11?

Victor Davis Hanson "If the Imam Raufs of America would spend three times as much time condemning madrassas, Wahabbism, anti-Muslim oppression by others abroad, and the silence of so many in the Muslim community about the radicalism that spreads among them as they do warning us to be more liberal — or else — then there would be far fewer Major Hasans and his fellow zealots who on over 30 occasions have tried to trump the mass murder of 9/11.
"What a weird society — each time a radical Islamist is stopped before killing the innocent, we keep going back to the single Timothy McVeigh murdering of 15 years past, and mouth some banality like “there are all sorts of terrorists.”
"So maybe just a tiny bit of George Patton and a bit less of Tony Robbins."  Emphasis gleefully added.

Let Us Euthanize Obamacare Before it Euthanizes Us

Big Government  "He claimed in Maine that people could keep their own health insurance, in Maryland that people could keep their own doctors. In Washington, DC, he promised that his plan would cut costs but would not lead to the rationing of care. He has consistently claimed that it would not fund abortions, and that its “end-of-life visits” would not lead to euthanasia.
"Six months later, all of these claims are being questioned by taxpayers who see people losing their health care plans and paying more for health insurance. More and more Americans are realizing that they and their children will be stuck with the bill as healthcare costs rise, and that they will be paying for “family planning services” that include not just sterilizations and contraception, but abortions as well."  Steven Mosher

Equality -- or Freedom? The Paycheck Fairness Act

Pat Buchanan  "In short, women alleging sexist practices by their bosses do not have to prove their guilt. The boss must prove his innocence. This is another way of saying businessman are to be presumed guilty when charged.
"If that is not un-American, it surely once was.
"Should this bill become law, the effects are predictable: more forms to be filled out by businesses, more bureaucrats for the EEOC, more charges of sex discrimination, more class-action suits, more fines, more lawyers getting rich via the litigious looting of the private sector.
"America's decline is directly related to the growth in government power and the concomitant loss of freedom. "
If conservatives stand up to this you better believe they will be demagogued in Congress and by writers of TV programs. (That's the new paradigm)

Report on Afghanistan

Oliver North  "Negative news infatuation disorder is the only rational explanation for the exuberant coverage of the palace intrigues perpetrated by Washington insiders depicted in Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars." Instead of covering the troops fighting this war and concentrating on the far more relevant issue of how it is being fought, it's far easier -- and apparently more fun -- to focus on internecine battles within the present administration."
Cross-check the above article with this post:  Is Obama Complacent about Terrorism?

Six Months Closer to Repeal

Heritage  "When Obamacare first passed six months ago today, Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner promised: “Obamacare is today’s Intolerable Act. And just as the colonists banded together to enact change after those acts were passed, so should America respond to Obamacare. This law must be repealed.” In Heritage’s “Solutions for America,” we note that, “The easiest way to address all these grievances: repeal Obamacare.” That is why it is so encouraging to see conservatives in the House embrace the repeal cause in their new document: Pledge to America. And our sister organization, Heritage Action for America has announced bipartisan support for Discharge Petition #11 which would force a vote on repealing Obamacare. The Road to Repeal is well on its way, thankfully."

Gary McCoy, Townhall

Peter Wehner on our commander-in-chief

Bookworm Room  "I wonder if our troops ever resent the ordinary Americans who marched to the polls to elect a president who would march them to meaningless (in the President’s own mind) deaths?"
But, but...Bruce Springsteen said to vote for Obama!

Tom Brokaw Dissed 'Contract With America' Then, Disses 'Pledge To America' Now

Newsbusters "So on the very day that Republican House members were set to announce their Pledge to America, who did NBC's Today show bring on to discuss it? House Minority Leader John Boehner? Rising Republican star Paul Ryan? No, on Thursday's Today, Meredith Vieira invited on Brokaw to, once again, rain on the GOP's parade as he claimed the Pledge doesn't "address, in many ways, some of the toughest issues that are still before us, Medicare, Social Security."

GOP’s Pledge to America  "The pledge also commits House Republicans to a full repeal of Obamacare."

A Pledge to America  The document itself.

Remembering the Blunder Years

About.com

 American Thinker "As long as any of us who lived through Carter's four years of misery index are alive, there will be witnesses to cry out against his insufferable moral preening, his pharisaical self congratulation. Is there any way to impeach an ex-President?"

The Carter-Obama Comparisons Grow   "Pat Caddell, who was Mr. Carter's pollster while he was in the White House, thinks some comparisons between the two men are overblown. But he notes that any White House that is sinking in the polls takes on a "bunker mentality" that leads the president to become isolated and consult with fewer and fewer people from the outside. Mr. Caddell told me that his Democratic friends think that's happening to Mr. Obama—and that the president's ability to pull himself out of a political tailspin is hampered by his resistance to seek out fresh thinking."  John Fund.

“Obama‘s Wars“, by Bob Woodward (Updated)

Is Obama Complacent about Terrorism?  "Read in context, Wittes notes, the President’s comment “does not reflect complacency, but a hard-headed realism about certain facts.”  There are reasonable bases upon which to criticize the Administration’s approach to national security, but claiming this quote shows complacency about the terrorist threat is not one of them."  Volokh Conspiracy

United States is 'Woefully Unprepared' for Nuclear Terrorism " “Sharif al-Masri, an Egyptian who was captured in late August near Pakistan's border with Iran and Afghanistan, has told his interrogators of "al-Qaeda's interest in moving nuclear materials from Europe to either the U.S. or Mexico," according to a report circulating among U.S. government officials. Masri also said al-Qaeda has considered plans to "smuggle nuclear materials to Mexico, then operatives would carry material into the U.S."" We may wish we had more border states like Arizona with Sheriff Joe. I'm just sayin'.

Sustaining American Leadership with Military Power "This same equation of military-diplomatic power proved effective in easing tensions during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1995–1996, when President Bill Clinton
sent two aircraft carriers to demonstrate America’s firm commitment to the Taiwanese democracy. Similarly,
the display of America’s military strength against a defiant Saddam Hussein in 2003 convinced Libyan President Moammar Qadhafi to abandon his weapons of mass destruction program." Pacifists will cause the death of multitudes.

Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward: the cast  "Bob Woodward's new book exposes deep divisions between a cast of senior White House figures. Here's a run-down of the key revelations about each of the main players. " UK Telegraph.

Max Boot: Obama’s War  "Ever since President Obama came to office, conservatives have been expressing concern about his level of commitment to the war in Afghanistan. The deadline he announced last fall to begin a troop drawdown in the summer of 2011 only added to doubts about his staying power. But at every decision point, he has consistently opted to double down in Afghanistan rather than pull out, as many of his supporters urge."

This from a Military Blogger:  "Dynamite in the hands of a child is not more dangerous than a strong policy weakly carried out." By Greyhawk in Mudville Gazette

From Roger Simon:  All the President’s Creeps "But does all this ring true? More or less in the way most of Mr. Woodward’s “insta-histories” do. We know the drill by now. All the Beltway riff-raff — panicked their side of the story won’t come out — rush to leak to him before their competitors do, filling up reams of notebook paper for Bob. And what he doesn’t get, he can always make up. Who’s to debate it really? At least he’s more reliable than Oliver Stone.
"Back to the Times’ article, however. It doesn’t speak well for Obama as an executive, chief or even lowly. The atmosphere he has created is, well, downright creepy:"...

Too Few Good Men   "...But from 2001 until now, both the United States and its allies have taken an economy of force approach. There were enough troops to topple the Taliban and then just enough to keep Afghanistan from reverting to Taliban control. There have never been enough forces, however, to defeat them and to stabilize the country. With the addition of 30,000 American troops, there will undoubtedly be progress. But it would be a strategic roll of the dice to expect to win this war by hoping we have "just enough" forces to carry out the campaign successfully." Gary J. Schmitt is a resident scholar and the director of advanced strategic studies at AEI.

Too Few Good Men, Cont. "...But, if the book is even half accurate, and Washington Post and New York Times accounts of the book's content are on the mark, then the president is a far more feckless chief executive than any of his most ardent critics could ever have imagined."

Academic Freedom: Obama Edition

Cal Thomas  "During a previous political uprising in the 1980s, academic institutions managed to fend off conservative attacks on some of the subjects taught on their campuses -- from "peace studies" to kinky sexual practices, to bad history -- with cries of "academic freedom." Where are those cries now that the federal government is on the verge of regulating the content of subject matter on college campuses and changing the way these institutions are accredited?"

Undying opposition to Obama "Rest in peace, sir. We will do everything we can."

A Nation of Peasants?

Victor Davis Hanson  "Traditional peasant societies believe in only a limited good. The more your neighbor earns, the less someone else gets. Profits are seen as a sort of theft. They must be either hidden or redistributed. Envy rather than admiration of success reigns.
"In contrast, Western civilization began with a very different ancient Greek idea of an autonomous citizen, not an indentured serf or subsistence peasant. The small, independent landowner -- if left to his own talents and if his success was protected by, and from, government -- would create new sources of wealth for everyone. The resulting greater bounty for the poor soon trumped their old jealousy of the better off."

Lisa Benson, Townhall.