One of this year's Super Bowl ads has some bearing on green politics and American priniciples:

Environmentalist bloggers, after some thought, have embraced the ad's message.

"The ad only makes sense if it's aimed at people who acknowledge the moral authority of the green police", writes David Roberts at the Huffington Post.

I, on the other hand, am more than a little disturbed by the ad's presumption that government should be actively, and coercively, changing the way Americans consume and use energy, especially as the "man-made global warming" consensus continues to crumble.

After all, the "moral authority" of the green police can only be based on compelling scientific evidence (which is now more and more credibly being called into question), and second of all, the right of the "green police" to destroy the freedoms of Americans who remain skeptical about the benefit of reducing carbon emissions, taking into consideration the huge expense this will be to our already hurting economy.

So if the "green" way of life forced upon Americans by the "green police" actually solves nothing, why shouldn't we resist their attempts to "save" us from nothing, while simultaneously trampling our liberty?

I know what liberty looks like, and it is nothing like the worldview offered, even satirically, by Audi.

From our friends at Public Discourse, more on the effects of Citizens United, as Carson Holloway, a political scientist, explains why the concept of “strict scrutiny” is alien to the Constitution and why it poses a threat to a constitutionally defensible judicial review:

The Supreme Court’s recent decision regarding corporate spending on political advocacy—Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission—provoked the widespread renewal of a longstanding liberal complaint: namely, that the conservative critique of judicial activism is mere hypocrisy. In this case, it was suggested, conservative justices, applauded by conservative commentators, struck down a democratically enacted law and overturned long established judicial precedents. Surely, the argument runs, this is judicial activism, and surely it reveals the critique of judicial activism as just a convenient tool by which conservatives decry decisions to which they object for political reasons, cloaking their real concerns in feigned constitutional principles.

Though common, this charge of hypocrisy sheds little real light on the questions in relation to which it is invoked, for several reasons. First, it does nothing to help us determine the relative merits of the liberal and conservative positions with regard to the proper exercise of the judicial power. After all, the charge clearly cuts both ways. In regard to Citizens United, liberals have complained not only about conservative inconsistency on the matter of judicial activism, but also about the supposed activism of the decision itself. Thus conservatives might well ask these liberal critics: where was your hot indignation about judicial activism when the Court, as recently as nineteen months ago, issued its ruling in Boumediene v. Bush? In that case, the Court, to widespread liberal acclaim, reinterpreted key precedents and struck down Congressional enactments on the basis of a hitherto unknown right of alien enemy combatants to habeas corpus review. Liberals no less than conservatives, it seems, can be charged with a selective opposition to judicial activism.

[Read the rest here.]

You can now also follow the Public Discourse on twitter.

Last week I had the privledge of meeting Charles Krauthammer so it is with special enjoyment I post some excerpts of his latest column "The Great Peasant Revolt of 2010":

"... In 2009, after passing a $787 billion (now $862 billion) stimulus package, the largest spending bill in galactic history, he unveiled a manifesto for fundamentally restructuring the commanding heights of American society — health care, education, and energy."

A year later, after stunning Democratic setbacks in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Obama gave a stay-the-course State of the Union address (a) pledging not to walk away from health-care reform, (b) seeking to turn college education increasingly into a federal entitlement, and (c) asking again for cap-and-trade energy legislation. Plus, of course, another stimulus package, this time renamed a “jobs bill.”
This being a democracy, don’t the Democrats see that clinging to this agenda will march them over a cliff? Don’t they understand Massachusetts?

Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid, and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.

[Read the rest here.]

There has been a great deal of controversy over Focus on the Family placing a pro-life advertisement featuring College football star Tim Tebow during the Super Bowl.

Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser was on Fox & Friends this morning debating the issue with Rebekah Spicuglia of the Women's Media Center:

The SuzyB blog writes: "Be sure to tune in this afternoon at 4:45 EST to CNN's Rick's List. Marjorie will be debating NOW President Terry O'Neill, LIVE! "

SBA's campaign to support CBS's decision to air the Tebow ad now has over 50,000 participants.

The AP reports:

The outlook for jobs became a bit less bleak with January's unexpected decline in the unemployment rate, which fell to 9.7 percent from 10 percent as more people said they had jobs.

Still, Friday's unemployment report showed just how deep the job crisis remains. The government now estimates 8.4 million jobs vanished in the Great Recession, and economists think the nation would be lucky to get back 1.5 million of them this year. And they say it will take at least three to four years for the job market to return to anything like normal.

The unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since August, primarily because a Labor Department survey of households found a sharp increase in the number of Americans with jobs. Analysts expected an increase to 10.1 percent.

A separate survey of businesses found that employers shed 20,000 jobs last month.

Samuel Staley at NRO provides commentary:

Most of the new jobs were in temporary help and retail trade, not the sectors that are critical to growing a permanent job base. In fact, the number of "long-term job losers" — those unemployed for more than 27 weeks — was still trending up in January. A total of 5 million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the recession, according to the BLS.
 
Moreover, much of the job growth in the past has been in the public sector and through gimmicks such as the so-called "cash for clunkers," and this is unsustainable as a foundation for long-term economic growth. While private industry appears to be replenishing depleted inventories, many manufacturers are skittish about significantly increasing production to meet rising consumer demand that may not be there. This is still a very risk-averse economic environment.
 
Still, the goods news appears to be that we are no longer experiencing the kinds of declines in private sector payrolls that undermine a recovery. The rising national debt, uncertainty about how much federal lawmakers will want to penalize private wealth creation through higher taxes, and the growing aggressiveness of the federal government in steering the direction of major U.S. industries remain hurdles for private-investor confidence.

Ralph Benko, a principal of Capital City Partners and author of The Websters' Dictionary, writing in the Washington Examiner:

There is something disheartening about seeing a team pop the champagne corks and go on a victory orgy … at Half Time after going up by three.

The GOP is spritzing the bubbly and counting its anticipated Congressional gains.  They are as oblivious to the anvil hurtling downward directly towards their heads as any Looney Tunes character.

Well, it’s still “the economy, stupid.”  Commerce just reported 5.7% GDP growth in the fourth quarter of ’09.  We’re not going to get a double dip recession.  Employment gains, a lagging indicator, will soon become very visible.

The Democrats have laid down a narrative, ill-founded but charmingly expressed, to claim credit for the job growth.  And the GOP, in the true enough (but incomplete, missing the effect of monetary stimulus) fact that the stimulus bill is actually a retardant, will be caught like a deer in the headlights.  We have no credible, much less plausible, counter-narrative, much less program.  Pity, because there is a deeply appealing one.

What we are seeing is the Bernanke Bubble.

[Read the rest.]

I've written before that one of the most important political virtues to develop is memory: of what a particular candidate has said or done in the past, when one is deciding how much one can trust them in the future.

Luckily in our technological age we have some digital assistance:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated Wednesday that the House of Representatives would be unable to reach an agreement on a sweeping healthcare reform bill unless it were “fixed” by the Senate reconciliation process, which requires 51 votes rather than 60 for budgetary matters, before they were asked to vote on it, introducing new complications into an already twisted debate on the issue.

Senior Democratic Senator Aids have already weighed in to cast doubts on the viability of such a strategy, pointing out that under Pelosi’s suggestion they would be using the reconciliation procedure to pass amendments on a measure which had not yet become law, an act almost unheard of in federal circles.

Also of concern is the fact that in sending the bill back to the Senate for modification, Pelosi may have just placed the bill in an arena particularly vulnerable to GOP intervention: Republican Congressmen reported this week that if Senate Democrats agree to use reconciliation, a loophole in Senate rules allowing Senators the right to file unlimited amendments to the bill before the final vote will be employed.

By employing this, Republicans hope to create a sort of “pseudo-filibuster” by submitting a constant stream of amendments to delay a final vote, thus forcing a war of attrition in which moderate and “blue dog” Democratic Senators are forced to eye their constituents, who are becoming increasingly skeptical of the bill as the November elections approach. With this strategy currently employed in the Senate, it could be that the bill would have had a better chance had Pelosi continued to pursue a House compromise.

Mr. Arnold is pursuing a Masters at George Washington University in their campaign management school, and is interning for APP.

An update from LifeNews:

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote Thursday on the re-nomination of pro-abortion attorney Dawn Johnsen to hold a key Justice Department position.

A law professor at Indiana University and former NARAL attorney, President Barack Obama tapped Johnsen to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

... The pro-abortion activist has come under fire for calling women "fetal containers" and comparing pregnancy with slavery. She has also come under fire for labeling pregnant women "losers in the contraceptive lottery" and comparing pro-lifers to the Klu Klux Klan.

It appears Johnsen's nomination is in a race against time, with Senator-elect Scott Brown demanding to be sworn-in the same day.

Because time is of the essence, please visit our action page at American Principles in Action and join our related Facebook page.

A recent study, featured in a journal published by the American Medical Association found that abstinence education has been effective in reducing teen sex, while comprehensive sex education has not.

This is an important study for backing up the argument for abstinence education, which follows the logic that a reduction in teen sexual activity leads to a reduction in teen pregnancy.

The Heritage Foundation's blog, The Foundry, has more:

The study found that a short eight-hour abstinence program reduced sexual activity among youth by a third.  Despite the brevity of the abstinence training the effects lasted a full two years after students left the classroom. ...

In contrast, study found that alternative types of sex ed failed.  “Safe sex” programs (which promote contraception only) and “comprehensive sex ed” programs (which teach both abstinence and contraceptive use), had no effect on teen sexual behavior.  These programs neither reduced teen sex nor did they increase contraceptive use among teens, which is their major emphasis.

... These new findings—that abstinence education reduced teen sex, without causing any adverse decline in contraception use, while “safe sex” and comprehensive sex ed programs failed to reduce teen sex or increase contraceptive use—seriously counter the ineffectiveness claim made by opponents of abstinence education.

[Read the blog post for the full story]

[Read the findings of the study here, in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.]

Mr. Whittle is majoring in political science at American University, and is interning for APP.

Thomas Peters posted an article yesterday saying that "the Obama White House [predicts] a $1.6 trillion budget deficit for FY 2010."  Now the New York Post is featuring an analysis from Brian M. Riedl, calling this "the most bloated budget ever":

Obama has offered a budget that does nothing to address the nation's serious short- or long-term fiscal problems. Indeed, it makes them worse. By doubling the national debt over pre-recession levels, he'd push America toward a tipping point -- where rising debt levels will become too large for global capital markets to absorb. This could trigger a financial crisis, an interest-rate spike and gigantic tax hikes.

... This time around, Congress should give priority to the interests of beleaguered taxpayers -- and future generations -- and reject Obama's budget.

[Read more here.]

Riedl's analysis goes beyond the practical problems of increasing deficit and debt levels, and makes a moral evaluation of the situation.  He is addressing true American principles, channeling Thomas Jefferson's view that "the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

Mr. Whittle is majoring in political science at American University, and is interning for APP.

Over at The Public Discourse, Gregory Sullivan writes that The Supreme Court’s bad ruling in the DC handgun case may soon undergo a drastic and very damaging expansion:

Result-driven judicial imperialism may soon have a conservative and a liberal version. The United States Supreme Court has granted review in a case this term (McDonald v. City of Chicago) that presents the watershed issue of whether the individual right to bear arms protected under the Second Amendment and established in 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller applies against the states or just the federal government.

Most Court observers agree that it appears very likely that the Heller majority—Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia (who wrote the opinion), Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy— will stay together to incorporate this new reading against state and local gun regulations. (McDonald, like Heller, involves a handgun ban.)

Such a result will visit irreparable damage on the doctrine of original understanding, one of the theories of constitutional interpretation referred to as “originalism,” which seeks constitutional meaning through text and context: that is, by a rigorous reading of the actual language of the Constitution and the historical understanding of that language.

[Read the full article here.]

From Gautham Nagesh at the Daily Caller:

On Tuesday Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Michael Mullen will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss repealing the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy and changing the law that prevents gay people from serving openly in the military. But polls show a majority of service members are still against allowing gays to serve openly.

Originally passed in 1993 under President Clinton, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been the target of much criticism; in his State of the Union on Wednesday President Obama repeated his campaign promise to work with Congress to repeal it. But there remains a strong resistance to allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military and critics contend the law will drastically hamper the services’ ability to recruit and retain soldiers as America is fighting two wars.

[Read the full article here.]

[Related - APIA action item: No Repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"]

On January 22nd - the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade - Dr. Robert P. George addressed the  March for Life Rose Dinner on the topic: "Our Struggle for the Soul of the Nation."

Dr. George, in addition to being the founder of the American Principles Project, is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Founder and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

Recently Dr. George co-authored the landmark Manhattan Declaration along with Professor Timothy George and Chuck Colson. It has now been signed by over 400,000 individuals.

Dr. George's rousing speech was well-received by the attentive audience, which erupted in spontaneous applause on numerous occasions throughout the delivery. The original text of his remarks can be found on the American Principles Project website here.

Some excerpts of his speech include:

"If Roe [v. Wade] is reversed, the result will be to return the matter to the domain of ordinary democratic deliberation for resolution by the state legislatures or the Congress. The burden will then be on the pro-life movement to win the struggle for the soul of the nation. We must ... persuade our fellow citizens to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence by bringing the unborn fully within the protection of our laws."

"... In addition to prayer and our political efforts, there is the obligation to reach out to pregnant women who are in need or who are subject for other reasons to pro-abortion pressures. The partisans of abortion, with the help of an overwhelmingly sympathetic and deeply biased news media, have portrayed people who oppose the killing of the unborn, whether by abortion or in embryo-destructive research, as heartless moralizers bent on oppressing women and impeding the progress of science. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For decades, pro-life people—mostly women—have devoted themselves, often at great personal cost and in the face of many obstacles, to assisting their pregnant sisters in need. They have recognized that a truly just and humane understanding is one that recognizes the common dignity and mutual interests of mother and child.

Ordinary pro-life individuals and families have worked and sacrificed to provide for the material, emotional, and spiritual needs of pregnant women in need—many of whom, it must be noted, are driven to contemplate abortion under pressure from boyfriends, husbands, family, and friends. Even women who have succumbed to the temptation to destroy their unborn children are not condemned or abandoned by the pro-life movement. Rather, they are offered forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing—no strings attached. At the same time, it is pro-life Americans who are leading the charge for ethical and therapeutically useful forms of stem cell research—research that does not compromise biomedical science by killing in the cause of healing."

After his address, Dr. George took a few questions from the audience, and ended by encouraging concerned citizens to sign the Manhattan Declaration and to continue their efforts on behalf of the unborn with the conviction that all people are created equal.

[Photo credit: March for Life.]

This is very disturbing. One wonders if this decision was made in retaliation for the fact that Rep. Bart Stupak has "held hostage" the Democrat plans for health care reform until they address the issue of its abortion funding:

"Among the 126 programs President Obama proposes to slash in the 2011 budget is a $1 million scholarship program that honors the late son of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.).

... In the budget he sent to Congress Monday, Obama proposes to abolish the B.J. Stupak Olympic Scholarship, a federally funded grant program designed to aid student athletes who aspire to Olympic competition. Created in 1998, the program was renamed to honor Stupak's son, B.J., who committed suicide in May 2000 after taking the acne drug Accutane.

The grant program, administered by United States Olympic Education Center at Northern Michigan University, has assisted 376 athletes, according to the center's web site.

A spokesman for Stupak said it is not clear whether the congressman was aware of the proposed cut." (WaPo 44)

Our sponsored Facebook group in support of Rep. Stupak and his pro-life coalition now has over 100 fans, if you want to show him support.

Update - Rep. Stupak says he is "disappointed" with Obama's scholarship cut:

Stupak won’t speculate on the politics of the decision, but he does tell National Review Online that he is “disappointed” to hear about the cut. He says he found out about it through the media, not the president or the Democratic leadership. - NRO

Following the report we issued last week (What are the consequences of repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell?"), here is a new action item from our sister organization American Principles in Action:

Following President Obama's State of the Union promise, the House Armed Services Committee is considering acting to repeal the 1993 Eligibility Law, which states that homosexuals are not eligible for military service (more commonly known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell).  Instead, it would be replaced by the radical HR 1283 (the "LGBT Law"), which would forbid discrimination based on, "homosexuality or bisexuality, whether the orientation is real or perceived."

Studies of military culture and effectiveness demonstrate that repealing the law will result in loss of personnel and retention problems, damage to unit cohesion and readiness, the destruction of military culture--in short, it will cripple our All-Volunteer force.  And at a time when we are at war, no less.

Military culture is not like civilian culture.  This is why numerous legal challenges to the rule have failed.  As a country, we place great trust in the men and women in our Armed Services at the same time that we demand considerable sacrifices.  This is not an appropriate place for social engineering and political game-playing.  There is no civil right to serve in the military, and the endless crusade in certain circles to repeal this prohibition on gays in the military seems concerned with everything but how such an action would be regarded by those who actually serve or what effect it would have on our national security. 

[Click here to learn more and take action.]

By Daniel Foster at National Review Online:

The Obama White House [predicts] a $1.6 trillion budget deficit for FY 2010, according to Reuters sources. That number is a record, and represents the largest deficit as a percentage of GDP since the Second World War. It is also significantly higher than the last CBO estimate, which predicted a $1.35 trillion deficit just last week. The new White House budget, also to be released tomorrow, will reportedly project a $1.3 trillion deficit for FY 2011.

... The deficit projections could get much worse if Obama calls, as he is expected to, for the extension of President Bush's middle-class tax cuts, set to expire after this year. Indeed, an analysis by Brian Reidl, pricing into the baseline the Bush tax cuts and a number of other probable spending increases, shows a total debt of $13 trillion by 2020, or 98 percent of GDP.

More at this webpage.

Update - the New York Times has an extremely useful graphical representation/comparison of the 2010 and 2011 budgets.

It has been announced that tomorrow the Senate U.S. Armed Services Committee will hold hearings on "Don't ask, don't tell."

This decision comes in direct response to President Obama saying in his State of the Union Address last week that he wants to see the policy overturned quickly.

The Center for Military Readiness has a variety of resources on this topic, including one that establishes the harmful consequences of repealing the policy in terms of our nation's military readiness:

In the past 18 months the Center for Military Readiness has repeatedly analyzed in well-documented detail how the proposed new “LGBT Law” for the military would work in actual practice.  To make the information more manageable, we have drawn a “picture” in our January 2010 CMR Policy Analysis titled: 

Consequences of the Proposed New “LGBT Law” for the Military

The CMR Policy Analysis uses few words, but every “box” placed on the charts highlights complicated social realities and problems that, taken together, would impose a crushing weight on the men and women of our military.  The flow-chart diagrams demonstrate how radical and problematic mandatory implementation the new LGBT Law would be.  

CMR encourages opinion leaders, media commentators, members of Congress and Pentagon officials to consider the wide-ranging, open-ended consequences of the proposed “LGBT Law.”  This CMR Policy Analysis draws a picture that is not a pretty sight.

Expert more coverage on this controversial issue this week.

update: readers who wish to learn more about this issue and take action on it are welcome to visit our sister website American Principles in Action.

From Phil Klein at AmSpec - a whopper: 

President Obama, speaking to today's Republican retreat in Baltimore, had this to say about this morning's GDP numbers:

"The latest GDP numbers show that our economy is growing by almost 6 percent. That’s the most since 2003. To put that in perspective, this time last year, we weren’t seeing positive job growth, we were seeing the economy shrink by about 6 percent. So you’ve seen a 12 percent reversal during the course of this year."

Oh, where to start? For the sake of ease, let's just say the GDP of country A is $100. If it declines 6 percent, that would bring it down to $94. Then, if it bumps back up by 6 percent, that brings the GDP to $99.64. That is not, in fact, a 12 percent reversal!

A welcome openness to change, but this still does not address the fundamental problem of giving terrorists the rights of U.S. citizens:

Facing mounting pressure from New York politicians concerned about costs and security, the Obama administration on Thursday began considering moving the trial of the chief organizer of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks out of Manhattan, administration officials said.

... Mr. Obama left the decision on possible alternate sites to the Justice Department, which was scrambling to assess the options, administration officials said. - New York Times

Charles Krauthammer devoted his column today to this and related topics:

Hence the agitation over the [Khalid Shaikh Mohammed] trial. This one can be reversed, and it's a good surrogate for this administration's insistence upon criminalizing -- and therefore trivializing -- a war on terror that has now struck three times in one year within the United States, twice with effect (the Arkansas killer and the Fort Hood shooter) and once with a shockingly near miss (Abdulmutallab).

On the KSM civilian trial, sentiment is widespread that it is quite insane to spend $200 million a year to give the killer of 3,000 innocents the largest propaganda platform on earth, while at the same time granting civilian rights of cross-examination and discovery that risk betraying U.S. intelligence sources and methods.

Accordingly, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Frank Wolf have gone beyond appeals to the administration and are planning to introduce a bill to block funding for the trial. It's an important measure. It makes flesh an otherwise abstract issue -- should terrorists be treated as enemy combatants or criminal defendants? The vote will force members of Congress to declare themselves. There will be no hiding from the question.

Congress may not be able to roll back the Abdulmutallab travesty. But there will be future Abdulmutallabs. By cutting off funding for the KSM trial, Congress can send Obama a clear message: The Constitution is neither a safety net for illegal enemy combatants nor a suicide pact for us.

Preach it, Krauthammer!