The architect of France's burka ban has accused Britain of "losing the battle against Islamic extremism" by failing to introduce one of its own.And so is the U.S. by not making it clear that burkas and sharia law are inconsistent with an open free society. It's not intolerant to stand by your own principles, especially when they're being challenged by people who consider you as less entitled by reason of your religion.

Now it can be told

He knew there were no "shovel ready projects" when he touted them.
Then there's an ethical question: when a politician admits to you off the record that he's lying to the public, should you feel obligated not to report it? David Brooks seems to think it was more important to cover for his source than to let the public know what's going on. I thought these guys stood for the people's right to know.

Reid calls criticism of his wealth a 'low blow.'

I think most everyone knows, I was a very successful lawyer. I did a very good job of investing. I have been on a very fixed income since I came to Washington. I've lived off of what I made in the private sector.

The problem with that claim is that most people who grow wealthy in public service do so from getting "tips" and deals that nobody else has access to. It's an age-old way of paying off politicians. So, it would take an in-depth investigation to tell whether the charge is a low blow. I remember the Dems attacking Dennie Hastert because he purchased some land that was near a coming interstate interchange. That may have been a perfectly innocent deal, but the Dems didn't consider a low blow then.

Clarence Page's column is under the headline, "What's So Bad About Elite?" As I posted in the comments at Hotair.com, "If you have to ask that question, you must be one of them."

John Adams believed in a "natural aristocracy," but his own descendants illustrated that it doesn't follow bloodlines, at least not very far.

Told You So

Obama admits 'tactical lessons' but concedes nothing.

He let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.” He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works.

He had too little experience for the job and still has too much arrogance to admit he was wrong about the promises he made. Those are not "tactical lessons."

It's not a tactical lesson when you spend nearly a trillion dollars to "create millions of new jobs" and unemployment doesn't budge and the recession isn't stimulated. It's not a tactical lesson when you plow ahead with and agenda that pushes deficits into the stratosphere despite the people telling you they don't want it. It's not really down to inexperience alone. It's also about a bull-headed determination to pursue the goals of his revolutionary mentors, Saul Alinsky, Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. It's hard to say that we were deceived. The truth is that those who elected him were voting based on hope, rather than reality. They did get change, but I doubt it was the kind they were expecting.

The truth is that Obama doesn't just "look too much like 'the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat;'" he IS one, and he's deceiving himself and us by denying it. At best he's a lethal new variant, "the spend us into bankruptcy liberal Democrat." I'm sure the plan was to put the spending in place and then raise taxes later to pay for it, but he probably won't have that option now.

The other "tactical lesson:"

He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works.

That's not tactics, it's ignorance, arrogant ignorance. He assumed that once the Stimulus Bill was passed, the jobs would just pop up like mushrooms. That's what comes from trusting ideologically driven economists. The Keynesian theory is that deficit spending will stimulate the economy by spurring consumer spending, but that isn't the case when the boost to income is temporary. Knowing that the economy is down, people will use the money to pay down debt or just put it in savings. In this case, a lot of the stimulus was spent on saving jobs of unionized labor. But we can't do that every year.

And remember that he pushed stimulus on the heels of TARP, which itself proved to be a big boondoggle. If the banks needed liquidity, TARP should have provided a temporary credit line and a pass on some regulations rather than an investment.

And remember, as well, that he followed stimulus with Health Care Reform which will be hugely expensive, if the history of other entitlements is any indication, especially since so much effort went into trying to hide the real costs.

And remember lastly that his determination or bullheadedness has created a huge amount of uncertainty for businesses and others who will be affected by these huge changes. He at least could have kept his promise to make everything transparent. Either he never intended to keep it, or he got buffaloed by Congress who hid everything under a bushel to obscure all the sausage making. He had the prestige to demand that the process be open and bipartisan, but didn't seem to give a hoot. Meanwhile, fearful voters went from worried to angry and began to show up at town hall meetings and "tea party" demonstrations and rallies only to be insulted and written off as radicals and crazies. That's some tactical error. Note: don't stir up hornet nests when you're remodeling the house.

The biggest insult in calling these bungles mere tactical errors is that it proves that he still doesn't get it. He has no remorse, and he hasn't learned a thing. He's impervious to experience. He went to Columbia and Harvard, after all. Real life doesn't count.

The NYTimes reporter does his best to doll up this porcine performance, but it won't work. People have other sources of analysis than the New York Times.

Another October Surprise?

Ethics complaints against Harry Reid. He allegedly "violated 'the Senate Rules of Conduct by accepting certain contributions from the top executives of a federal government contractor,. . .'"

Then there's this: “U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, immersed in one of the toughest political fights of his career, took a free private jet to the Virgin Islands courtesy of a Maine congresswoman’s billionaire fiance — whose company received a $200 million federal bailout.”

Rachel Maddow demonstrates 'objective journalism." Being Defazio's attack dog isn't really a proper journalistic role. She could have had Defazio or a representative on with Art Robinson and let that person make charges and let Robinson answer them, and vice versa. Instead she interviewed Defazio earlier in what Breitbart.tv describes as "a softball love-fest." Breitbart isn't unbiased either, but it shows the interview, and it's clear that she is sympathetic to him and is playing up the anonymity of whoever is running ads against him. She lets him make a lot of charges about this group without challenge; laughs at his jokes, etc. He names Koch Industries and Exxon with no proof and basically asks no tough questions.

After watching both "interviews" it's clear that in interviewing Robinson she trotted out all of Defazio's attack points and makes them like a prosecutor. With Defazio, none of the complaints about him were mentioned. I still don't know what they are, but I imagine they're the same as those made against other Dems who helped pass our trillion dollar deficits. None of that was addressed. Art Robinson is a PhD in physics who disputes global warming theory, which Maddow treats as heresy, and in 1995 wrote that homosexual behavior was linked to the spread of AIDS, which belief he says has been altered in the light of subsequent research. What that has to do with voting for Obamacare, TARP and the Stimulus That Wasn't, or the economy and high unemployment, I don't know, but I do know that those are the most relevant issues in this election, and she avoided them altogether.

In her attempt to smear Robinson to his face, she kept claiming she was just "trying to get to know him better," but a lot of her questions were about the anonymous group running ads against Defazio in his district. she didn't have any other excuse for her inquisitorial attacks. Robinson was having none of it and turned her "questions" back on her, called them lies and refused to let her play her game.

In 2004, 2006 and 2008, the Dems benefited from copious attack ads funded by groups like MoveOn.org and other groups funded by millionaires and billionaires. The story is detailed by Byron York in his book, The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. And it's pretty clear that the Democrats pioneered this tactic of using private groups to run their political ads as a way around the campaign finance laws, as they used those laws to limit Republican spending. It was a successful strategy, but it won't continue to be, because Republicans are doing the same thing now and when the Dems complain, they're only calling attention to their own practices of accepting unvetted funds, possibly from foreign donors and large donors in multiple sub-$200 gifts under fictitious names.

Americans need to have a beefed up way of tracking these things and publicizing them, as well as sending those who violate them to jail. Campaigns are too big, long and expensive to reverse elections, but we know enough by now about the ways people use to skirt or violate the laws and we need to give someone the power to make sure they don't help those who use them.

"the Magic word ‘Republican'"

I'll bet you've never heard that before.

For Democrats, Even ‘Safe’ Seats Are Shaky If they had listened to the voters who opposed their outrageous spending bills, maybe the voters would be interested in what they have to say now. But now, the more they squirm, whine and try to shift the blame for the economic mess they've made, the less we listen to their guff.

A sign of the last days

[In Florida] dengue fever is making inroads after a 75-year absence. And, like other mosquito-borne scourges such as malaria and West Nile virus, dengue can disrupt a lot more than a night’s rest.

Dengue fever is also called "Break Bone fever," colloquially.

I wouldn't say that God is sending plagues, but I do think that when we move away from God, we lose the influence of his spirit, which dulls our minds and makes us less able to exercise common sense. We becomes more angry at each other, following every vain imaginations of our hearts, experience stupors of thought. We pursue bread and circuses and let our infrastructure and national defense decline, as happened to the Roman Empire and the Athenian Republic. God is not the angry, destructive god that people associate with the Old Testament. He wept when he had to destroy mankind by flood.

The Muslim Brotherhood has declared war on the U.S.I hope a Republican Congress would declare war on this group which is the root source of all the pseudoIslamic terrorist groups. The FBI should investigate all Muslim clerics in the U.S. for evidence of ties to the MB. Religion is one thing, but when religion preaches destruction of the U.S.A. national security comes first.