President Barack Hussein Obama Jr.'s poll numbers are tanking.  He could be in big trouble in November. Democrats have a way to win when voters turn on them. The Justice Department struck down March 12 a Texas law that requires voters to show photo identification. Formerly segregated states are required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to "preclear" changes in their election laws with either the Justice Department or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to make sure those changes don't disenfranchise voters based on ethnicity or color.  Texas has failed to demonstrate the photo ID law isn't designed to discriminate against Hispanics, said Thomas Perez, chief of the Civil Rights Division.  Mr. Perez based his charge on data which indicate 6.3 percent of registered  Hispanics -- vs. 4.3 percent of non-Hispanics -- don't have photo ID. Texas plans to provide photo IDs for free to citizens who don't have them, but Mr. Perez was not moved.

  As gasoline prices soar, President Barack Hussein Obama Jr.'s poll numbers fall.  The president is unwilling to change his policies, so he's cramming more lies into his speeches.  We need to start calling him President Pinocchio. At a community college in Maryland last week, the kids hooted when the president derided Republicans as  "members of the Flat Earth Society" for opposing his "investments" of taxpayer money in "green" energy. "One of my predecessors, Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone, ‘It's a great invention, but who would ever want to use one?' Mr. Obama said. Hayes, who brought the first telephone and the first typewriter to the White House, never said that, fact checkers noted. "If you start hearing this ‘drill, baby drill' -- we're doing that," Mr. Obama said.  Another incredible lie.

A bad situation in Afghanistan got dramatically worse last weekend when a U.S. soldier in Kandahar murdered 16 Afghan civilians.  Afghan President Hamid Karzai has demanded that U.S. troops leave village outposts.  The Taliban suspended peace talks. An Afghan tried to kill Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. U.S. Marines at Camp Leatherneck were ordered to disarm before entering a tent where Panetta planned to speak to them. After surprise victories in Alabama and Mississippi Tuesday, Rick Santorum's presidential campaign is still alive. As for Newt Gingrich, the Moving Finger is now skywriting "Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin." Liberal pundits were shocked by a CBS-New York Times poll Monday which showed President Obama's job approval at 41 percent, the lowest ever recorded.  The main reason is soaring gasoline prices, but the poll's internals indicate Zero's efforts to make contraception an issue have backfired. The Obama campaign issued a Web ad attacking Sarah Palin, who isn't running for anything this year. You already knew this, but now there's a scientific study to back you up.  Liberals are far less tolerant of opposing views than are regular Americans. Pennsylvania passed a voter ID law Wednesday (3/14), the 16th state to do so. In case you were sweating this, a Mayan elder says the world won't come to an end when the current Mayan calendar cycle ends December 21.

Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech at the Northwestern University Law School March 5 that was remarkable both for what he had to say, and for how little attention it received.

The president has the right to order the killing of an American citizen living abroad without any judicial review, hearing or trial, provided three criteria are met, Mr. Holder said.

“If the President cannot order the killing of a citizen in the United States, Holder can simply say so,” Prof. Turley said. 

But he hasn’t.

Blowback is a *****.  Just ask hyper-vulgar liberal comedian Louis C. K., an unintended victim of a liberal smear campaign. Mr. C. K.'s troubles began Feb. 20 when Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, testifying at an ersatz hearing, said she was having so much sex that paying for contraception was a financial hardship, so Georgetown should be required to provide it for her. Ms. Fluke's insistence that a Catholic college subsidize her sex life was ripe for ridicule, which Rush Limbaugh did on his radio program two days later.  But when he called her a "slut," she became a victim. Then irony occurred.  The controversy has succeeded not in damaging Mr. Limbaugh, but in drawing attention to blatant liberal hypocrisy.

Mitt Romney took a big step toward the nomination on Super Tuesday, but didn't impress many pundits doing it. Romney is still 740 delegates short of the 1,144 he needs to win.  He'd have trouble getting there if Newt Gingrich drops out. There is a scenario in which a narrowly re-elected Barack Obama would not be as bad for us as a narrowly elected Mitt Romney. Iran may have tested a nuke in North Korea in 2010, a German newspaper reported Sunday.  Satellite images of a facility in Parchin reveal evidence of testing a neutron device to trigger a nuclear explosion, according to diplomats quoted in a British newspaper Wednesday. Despite this, Zero wants to continue negotiating. Zero's Iran policy makes war inevitable.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may already have decided to strike.  It could be soon.  Obama is trying to bribe the Israelis to postpone an attack until after the election. Newt Gingrich took NBC's David Gregory to school on "Meet the Press" Sunday about the media's obsession with the Limbaugh-Fluke controversy.  Karl Rove was impressed. CNN's Soledad O'Brien tried to paint Breitbart.com Editor Joel Pollak (whose wife is black) as a racist because he criticized Zero's embrace of radical black separatist Harvard professor.

Is there an Obama jinx?  Sportswriters wondered about that when favored teams were upset shortly after the president praised them.  Political reporters speculated about a "vacation jinx" because bad things seem to happen when Mr. Obama went on them. At a United Auto Workers conference in Detroit Feb. 28, the president recalled a 2010 visit to the Hamtrack, Michigan plant where the Chevy Volt is built  He promised that after he's president, "I'll buy one and drive it myself." Two days later (Mar 02), General Motors announced it was shutting down the Volt production line.  About 1,300 workers will lose their jobs, at least temporarily. "In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world's leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries," Mr. Obama said in his state of the union address in January. He was referring to Ener1, a recipient of a $118 million grant from the Department of Energy.  Two days after that speech, Ener1 filed for bankruptcy protection.

The rift between the Obama administration and Israel over what to do about Iran's nuclear program was on public display last week.  More U.S. troops were murdered by their Afghan ‘allies.'  A Gallup survey predicted a sharp increase in the unemployment rate. But media attention was focused on the flap caused when radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a nasty name. It is, of course, OK when media lefties use vile demeaning names for conservative women like Sarah Palin or Laura Ingraham.  Once again, the hypocrisy of the Moonbat Media is on blinding display in this phony flap over Fluke.

The glass is half empty this week because of the death early Thursday morning of crusading conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart. Leftist scumbags are celebrating. The way to reduce gas prices, President Obama said in New Hampshire yesterday (3/1) is to make drilling more expensive. Zero's apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the accidental burning of Korans by U.S. troops has “calmed things down,” President Obama said. Somebody forgot to tell that to the Afghans. Senate Democrats voted against the First Amendment Thursday. If not overturned, Obamacare regulations requiring religious hospitals to provide birth control and abortion drugs could cause a social disaster. President Obama plans to slash health care benefits for military personnel and military retirees...and build a $750,000 soccer field for Gitmo detainees. Inflation could hit 15 percent by late next year. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is likely to defeat union efforts to recall him. She and the other women in her class are having so much sex they can't afford to pay for their own birth control, Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke testified Monday.

Some 25 million young adults are living with their parents, chiefly for economic reasons, according to U.S. Census data. Young adults remain at home or return there chiefly because they don’t have a job, or the job they have doesn’t pay very much. Only 46 percent of Americans aged 16-24 have jobs, the lowest percentage ever recorded. A majority of 872 young adults polled last fall said their yearly incomes fall under $30,000. The two advocacy groups which conducted the poll estimated that 16 percent of Americans aged 25 to 34 were underemployed. Among those aged 16 to 24, a whopping 29 percent were underemployed. A record number of college graduates are unemployed. It’s bad enough to be unemployed. It’s worse to be unemployed -- and owe $25,000 or more for a worthless degree.

We must withdraw all our military and aid personnel from Afghanistan before the Obama administration’s groveling gets more of them killed. Rioting broke out across Afghanistan after U.S. troops inadvertently burned Korans in a garbage pit at Bagram Air Force Base a week ago Monday (2/20). At least 30 people -- four of them U.S. servicemen -- have been killed since the rioting began. As soon as the mistake was discovered, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan apologized. “It was not a decision that was made with respect to the faith of Islam,” said Marine Gen. John Allen. “It was a mistake. It was an error. The moment we found out about it we immediately stopped and we intervened.” There the matter should have rested. But Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also issued a public apology, and President Barack Obama sent a letter of apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. A deputy defense secretary apologized at a mosque in Sterling, Va. Friday. Serial obsequiousness has not mollified the Afghans.

High energy prices are the result of Democrat policies, and they are deliberate.  Democrats need high prices to make their "green" energy and mass transit boondoggles seem economical.  But they have to lie about it. MSN Money profiled recently the 15 wealthiest counties in the United States, where median household income is roughly double the national average of $49,445.  Ten, including the top three, are in the D.C. suburbs and exurbs in Maryland and Virginia. Sharia has come to Pennsylvania.  The Pennsylvania state director of American Atheists dressed up as "Zombie Muhammad" for a parade last Halloween.  This annoyed Talag Elboyomi, a Muslim immigrant, who assaulted him. Maryland will be the 8th state, and the first south of the Mason-Dixon line, to legalize gay marriage: Joblessness and student loan debt are stunting an entire generation.  Among young people aged 18 to 24, 57 percent of men and 49 percent of women live with Mom and Dad.  So do nearly 20 percent of men aged 25-34.

The leaked confidential documents from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago think tank skeptical about anthropogenic (man made) global warming, seemed to environmentalists to be the best Valentine's Day gift ever. The documents identified Heartland donors and outlined the foundation's fund-raising strategy for 2012.  The smoking gun was one entitled: ‘2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,' which included plans for ‘dissuading (K-12 teachers) from teaching science.'   Global warming alarmists are still reeling from ‘Climategate,' a leak in 2009 of thousands of emails which indicated prominent climate scientists were manipulating data and conspiring to keep dissenting views from being published in scientific literature.  The Heartland documents were, they thought, the Climategate of the skeptics.   Warmist glee was short lived.  The ‘2012 Heartland Climate Strategy' memo was a clumsy forgery - so clumsy it's being dubbed Fakegate.

The consensus among pundits two weeks ago was that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, having clobbered former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the Florida primary Jan. 31, was (yet again) the ‘inevitable' Republican nominee for president.  Now they are saying that if Mr. Romney loses the Michigan primary next Tuesday (Feb. 28), it could be curtains. ‘If Romney loses Michigan, we need a new candidate,' ABC's Jonathan Karl said he was told by a ‘prominent Republican senator.' Mr. Romney shouldn't lose in Michigan.  He grew up there, where his father was a popular governor, and where he won, comfortably, the presidential primary in 2008.  But polls show him trailing former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.  As the marketing guys say, if the dogs won't eat the dog food, it doesn't matter much how much you spend to advertise it.

Barack Hussein Obama's new chief of staff is a multimillionaire, as were his first two chiefs of staff. Like the recently departed William Daley and Rahm Emanuel, Jacob Lew ‘made his millions while passing through the revolving doors that lie between the Democratic Party and Wall Street,' said Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro. The fund Mr. Lew managed for Citigroup lost billions.  The bank was bailed out by the Troubled Asset Relief Program. New York Times reporter Gretchen Morgensen described in ‘Reckless Endangerment' how the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) ‘and the government housing policies it supported, pursued and exploited brought the financial system to a halt in 2008.' Mr. Daley served on Fannie Mae's board.  Mr. Emanuel was on Freddie Mac's board.  Journalists rarely report these facts, because they clash with the narrative. For Democrats, politics is all about narratives, of which the most important is: Republicans are the party of the rich.  That's the biggest lie in politics today.

Congress has a constitutional duty to prepare a budget, but hasn't for more than 1,000 days because the Democrats who control the Senate fear it would embarrass them to put down in black and white how much they plan to spend, and how large a deficit their spending will create. Democrats plan to shirk their obligation for another year, to give credence to Barack Hussein Obama's plans to run against a ‘do nothing' Congress...even though the half of Congress that's doing nothing is run by Democrats. Not so long ago, such blatant political maneuvering would have prompted howls of outrage from press and public.  But few in the news media mention it. If constitutional duties can be shrugged off so easily, may we -- since it is merely a tradition -- also dispense with the State of the Union address'.

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,' said Charles Dickens (1812-1870) in one of the most celebrated passages in English literature. ‘It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.' ‘A Tale of Two Cities' illustrated how starkly different were the views in London and Paris of the French Revolution.  There's a similar gulf between Democrats and Republicans on economic policy.  Particularly in state capitals if not Capitol Hill. To get the economy moving again, increase spending, bail out failing businesses, invest taxpayer money in ‘green' technologies, and redistribute wealth, Democrats think.  Reduce government spending and debt, lower tax rates, slash government red tape, Republicans think. What is Light to Democrats is Darkness to Republicans, and vice versa.  Both approaches have been tried.  They've produced very different results.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has dirt on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich that will keep him from ever becoming president.  "There is something I know," she claims. I doubt it.  Every bad thing that could possibly be said about Newt already has been said.  Which is probably why he told her in response to "Put up or shut up." Democrats usually spring an "October surprise."  If the GOP candidate doesn't have a skeleton in his or her closet, Democrats make stuff up, as they did with Sarah Palin.  But what lie could they tell about Newt that would be both credible, and worse than what's already out there? Baggage and all, Mr. Gingrich may be a better bet than any other candidate running -- certainly including Mr. Zero.  Here's why.

President Barack Hussein Obama has blocked construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have brought oil from Canada's tar sands to refineries in Texas and Louisiana. TransCanada estimated it would have hired 13,000 Americans to build the 1,661 mile pipeline.  An additional 7,000 U.S. jobs would have been created in industries which supplied parts.  Keystone XL would have created up to 550,000 jobs by 2035, estimated the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The pipeline might endanger the Ogallala aquifier, and the fragile Sandhills area of western Nebraska, the president said. This, said the Wall Street Journal, ‘is a crock.'   Blocking the pipeline is ‘an act of national insanity,' said Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson, because from the standpoints of economics, national security and environmental protection, it makes no sense.  It only makes sense if Mr. Obama is being paid off to do so.

The Moslem Brotherhood (Ikhwan) was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher.  He sought a world wide caliphate governed by Islamic law (Sharia).  "Allah is our objective," says the Ikhwan's motto.  "The Prophet is our leader.  Jihad is our way.  Dying in the way of Allah is our greatest hope." Al Banna admired Hitler.  He had Mein Kampf translated into Arabic.  The Nazis subsidized the Moslem Brotherhood.  The ranks of the SS Handjar Division were filled mostly by the Ikhwan. Mein Kampf is still, after the Koran, the Ikhwan's favorite book.  "This stuff we now see in the Islamic world looks like Nazism because it comes from the Nazis," said journalist Claire Berlinski. In a 2009 sermon, Yusuf al Qaradawi, the Moslem Brotherhood's leading jurist, said: "Thoughout history, Allah has imposed upon (the Jews) people who would punish them for their corruption.  The last punishment was carried out by Adolf Hitler... Oh Allah, count their numbers and kill them, down to the very last one." The Moslem Brotherhood is today the world's largest and best financed Islamist organization.  It's in 70 countries, including ours.  And Mr. Obama wants to be its friend.

Liberals once expressed great fear of an "imperial presidency."  Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich, then chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, held hearings on the subject in 2008. "George W. Bush is the imperial president James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about," wrote Robert Scheer in 2007. To the founders, Mr. Bush "would seem less like a president than a king," Adam Cohen, assistant editorial page editor of the New York Times, wrote that year. They were upset chiefly with measures Mr. Bush took to fight the war on terror.   "The danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when the president takes the nation to war," Mr. Cohen said.  But, said Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Bush's "overall behavior is consonant with what the Constitution's framers would have expected from a president facing such a threat." Most of Mr. Bush's critics must secretly agree with Dr. Schmitt, because when President Obama continued policies they'd railed against, they uttered scarcely a peep.

A weaker America is a stronger America, President Barack Hussein Obama said last week in unveiling his new defense strategy. Mr. Obama didn't use those words.  But that's the effect of his plans to cut more than 100,000 troops from the Army and Marine Corps; reduce the Navy from 300 to 238 ships; cut Air Force strategic bombers by a third, and Air Force fighters by half. Our military will be "leaner," the president said.  "Leaner" is an adjective more appropriately applied to cutting fat, not muscle. Mr. Obama has  reduced spending for defense by $480 billion since he assumed office.  The cuts he previewed last week would reduce defense spending over the next ten years by $487 billion more. The cuts are necessary, the president said, because of our mammoth federal budget deficits.  But defense can't be responsible for the $1.5 trillion he's added to the national debt, since he already has cut so much from the defense budget.   The failed $821 billion stimulus cost as much as the war in Iraq.  Spending for defense is mandated by the Constitution.  Providing pork to political cronies is not.

The Obama administration is conducting secret negotiations with the Taliban, and has recruited Yusuf al Qaradawi, the Moslem Brotherhood's leading jurist, to mediate them.  Let's be clear about this:  Qaradawi is a Moslem Nazi. Like other Islamists, Mr. al-Qaradawi advocates the destruction of Israel.  But that's not enough to satisfy his blood lust. "Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the (Jews) people who would punish them for their corruption," Mr. al-Qaradawi said in a speech broadcast on al Jazeera in 2009.  "The last punishment was carried out by Hitler.  By means of all the things he did to them...he managed to put them in their place. "This was divine punishment for them," Mr. al Qaradawi said.  "Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers...Oh Allah, count their numbers and kill them, down to the very last one." Yet the Obama administration considers Mr. al-Qaradawi to be a "moderate."

I've wished "Happy New Year" to a great many people.  But for most of us, I doubt it will be. Unemployment is high and economic growth is sluggish as we enter 2012.  Virtually all forecasters predict that at the end of 2012 unemployment will still be high and economic growth will still be sluggish. Our economy will be affected by developments in Europe and China, where the outlook ranges from cloudy to bleak.  Most of all, it will be affected by the untiring efforts of Barack Hussein Obama to ruin it.  Which is why we can't hope of having a happy year as long as he remains in the White House.

In my Christmas column last week, No Happier Day, I noted that -- with the curious exception of Islam -- liberals are trying to drive religion from the public square.  Public display of Christian symbols is "offensive," they say.  Christians are "intolerant;" they seek to impose their values on others. This mostly isn't true about Christians -- or about Jews or Buddhists.  But almost everywhere where Moslems wield power, religious minorities are persecuted.  On her web talk show, actress Victoria Jackson criticized the Moslem Brotherhood, a powerful Islamist group whose founder admired Adolf Hitler.  Her comments were "ignorant hatred with no foundation in reality," charged one of her guests, Hollywood gossip blogger Perez Hilton. Christians are "horrific" and "despicable" because they disapprove of homosexuality, said Mr. Hilton, who is homosexual.  Apparently he is unaware that if the Moslem Brotherhood were in charge here, he'd be executed.

Shortly after he gave General Motors a $53 billion bailout in 2009, President Barack Hussein Obama said the plug-in Chevrolet Volt would be salvation of the beleaguered automaker. Consumers will buy 120,000 Volts each year from 2012 onwards, the Energy Department predicted then.  But through November, only 6,142 Volts have been sold.  And that pitiful figure is inflated by purchases for government fleets. Johan de Nysschen, president of Audi of America, isn't surprised. "No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla," he told Lawrence Ulrich of MSN Autos in 2009.  "So there are not enough idiots who will buy it." The idiots who do, Mr. de Nysschen said, are "the intellectual elite who want to show what enlightened souls they are."  Dolts and their Volts.

This Sunday, December 25, nearly 2.2 billion people celebrate the birth of Jesus.  For Christians, there is no happier day. Christianity is the world's largest religion, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.  Islam, with 1.6 billion adherents, is a distant second.  Christianity is also the world's fastest growing major religion, whether growth is measured by conversions (Islam is a distant second) or births (Islam is a close second). This may surprise many, since it is contrary to the perceived wisdom.  As much as it may anguish secular liberals, billions of people all over the world agree with the words of Thomas Jefferson:  "The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man."

The Iraq war began at 5:46 a.m. on March 19, 2003.  It ended Sunday (12/18) when the last convoy of U.S. troops leaving Iraq entered Kuwait.  In the 8½  years in between, 4,486 U.S. servicemen and women were killed, as were 316 Allied soldiers, and somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 Iraqis. "I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Saturday (12/17). Hours after Mr. Panetta left Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, a Shia, arrested the bodyguards of the Sunni vice president, triggering a political crisis. "The decision to abandon Iraq entirely will stand as one of the monumental strategic follies of the 21st Century," Frederick Kagan , an architect of the 2007 surge strategy which brought apparent victory, predicted Monday (12/19).

On orders from the White House, the Navy has purchased 450,000 gallons of a biofuel mix for its aviation fuel for about $16 a gallon.  JP-5, the normal fuel for jet aircraft, sells for less than $4 a gallon. A fermented algae biofuel sold by the California firm Solazyme for $26 a gallon was mixed with oil products to bring the overall price down to four times the going rate for jet fuel.  The mixing took place in a Louisiana plant built in part by a $21.8 million grant Solazyme received from President Barack Obama's stimulus bill. The board member geniuses who named the company thought they were being so clever with a combination of "solar" and "enzyme."  It never dawned on them that instead of pronouncing it sola-zyme, it could be pronounced so-lazy-me.  So-Lazy-Me is a perfect name for a company that's a poster child for Obama-style corrupt crony capitalism, don't you think?

The state chairman of Indiana's Democratic party resigned Monday (12/12) as a probe of election fraud in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary widened. State law requires a presidential candidate to gather 500 valid signatures in each county to qualify for the ballot.  Barack Hussein Obama may not have met it.  Investigators think 150 of the 534 signatures the Obama campaign turned in in St. Joseph County were forged. Measures to guard against vote fraud are racist Republican plots to disenfranchise minority voters, Democrats say. Republicans "want to literally drag us back to Jim Crow laws," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-FL, chair of the Democratic National Committee. Now why would she say this?  You get one guess.

For many, it was evidence Newt Gingrich is too reckless to be president of the United States.  Palestinians are an "invented people," Mr. Gingrich said in an interview with a Jewish cable network last Friday (12/9). That was "the most racist remark I have ever seen," said one Palestinian leader.  The Arab League condemned his remarks as "irresponsible and dangerous." Mr. Gingrich is a "bomb thrower," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said during the GOP presidential debate Saturday (12/10). But Mr. Gingrich isn't wrong about the Palestinians, Mr. Romney conceded. Newt, it turns out, got it right. Maybe because he read Jack Wheeler's Philistines and Palestinians (December 2006) for the history.

Unseasonable cold greeted delegates to the UN conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa Nov. 28.  They were chilled more by the impending collapse of the biggest, most brazen scam in the history of the world. The warnings of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the world faced imminent doom from anthropogenic (man-made) global warming were based on peer-reviewed scientific literature, the IPCC chairman claimed.  But when Canadian journalist Donna Laframboise checked the 18,531 references in the 2007 report, she found 5,587 were newspaper and magazine articles written by non-experts, unpublished doctoral theses, and pamphlets produced by environmental groups. IPCC reports were written by leading scientists, the UN claimed.  Ms. Lafromboise found many of the authors were graduate students selected more for political connections and "diversity" than for expertise.  This explains, in part, why these reports contain so many factual errors. Fraud is a better explanation.

It was Roman author Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundas, 23-79 AD) who, in his 37-volume "Natural History," first said the ostrich, when it feels threatened, will bury its head in the sand. Such a maneuver would, of course, do little to protect the ostrich from a predator.  But, the theory goes, it made the ostrich feel better, because it could no longer see the doom descending upon it. Pliny triggered a myth which, 2,000 years later, is still going strong.  He was wrong.  Ostriches don't bury their heads in the sand when a predator threatens.  (Mostly they run away; sometimes they don't:  an ostrich kick can kill a lion.) Well, not wrong in Washington.  Because among the bird-brains in DC -- where ostriches with their walnut-size cranium vastly outnumber hawks and wise old owls -- the most common response to a threat is to pretend it doesn't exist.  As a result, we are slouching toward a war that could go nuclear.

If misery loves company, beleaguered officials at Penn State may have taken some solace from the ugly news coming out of Syracuse University Monday (11/28).  Assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine was fired after a third person accused him of sexual molestation, and an audiotape surfaced which bolstered the credibility of his first two accusers. Zach Tomaselli, 23, said Fine, 65, a coach at Syracuse for 36 years, molested him in a Pittsburgh hotel room in 2002.  ESPN broadcast Sunday (11/27) a tape of a telephone conversation in 2002 with Fine's wife, Laurie, in which she expressed fear her husband had molested ball boy Bobby Davis in their home. So now people are asking of another iconic college coach:  What did he know? When did he know it? Those are good questions which deserve answers.  But more pertinent for most of us are the questions we should be asking ourselves. That's the lesson I learned from Dan Hendley, the pastor at North Park Church in suburban Pittsburgh, in a magnificent sermon I attended last Sunday (11/27).

In most countries for most of history, people were pretty much locked into the social class into which they were born.  But in America men and women of modest means could become rich -- if they had an idea for making life better, and worked tirelessly to make their vision real.  Entrepreneurs such as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Bill Gates and Steven Jobs became very, very rich.  The rest of us were enriched, too, by the fruits of their genius and their labor -- the electric light, the automobile and the computer, and tens of thousands of other inventions and new, better ways of organizing things. People who don't have good ideas and who don't want to work hard want to be rich, too.  Some have found a way. CBS' 60 Minutes program broadcast a report Nov. 13 on insider trading by Members of Congress.  Among the worst offenders are House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Rep. Spencer Bachus, the Alabama Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. There are many, many others.  "How do politicians who arrive in Washington D.C. as men and women of modest means leave as millionaires?" Sarah Palin asked.  "How do they miraculously accumulate wealth at a rate faster than the rest of us?" The answer is, by running a pig farm on the Potomac.

What an exciting week!  Lots of good news and bad, significant developments and phony controversies.  Events will have to play out some more before we can tell whether the glass was half full this week, or half empty, but I'm feeling optimistic. The Supremes will rule on Obamacare.  Dems think Zero might lose.  No matter how the Court rules, Republicans win. The Pentagon successfully tested a flying bomb that can strike anywhere on earth within an hour. Speaking of bombs, with its violent but sparsely attended protests Thursday, Occupy Wall Street has jumped the shark. "The whole world is watching, and it's generally repulsed by what it's seen," said a pr expert. The European debt crisis is getting worse. It's likely to spread here because our six "too big to fail" banks hold some $50 billion in highly suspect European bonds. The deadline fast approaches for the "super committee" to fish or cut bait on deficit reduction, and no deal is in sight. In the volatile Republican race for president, Newt Gingrich is up, Herman Cain is down, and Ron Paul may pull an upset in Iowa.

The ultra-left wing Nation magazine is often hilarious, though rarely intentionally so.  In the Nov. 21 issue, executive editor Richard Kim paints a sympathetic portrait of Joe Therrien, who quit his job and took out $35,000 in student loans to get a master's degree "in his passion -- puppetry." Now Mr. Therrien wonders why he can't get a job. "Like a lot of the young protesters who have flocked to Occupy Wall Street, Joe had thought that hard work and education could bring, if not class mobility, at least a measure of security," Mr. Kim wrote. In his expectations and in his disappointment, Mr. Therrien has lots of company.  Few students major in subjects which will do them much good.  More major in the Visual and Performing Arts than in engineering.  American colleges now offer some 1,600 majors.  It is a bubble, and it's about to burst.

Iran could start building a nuclear weapon "in a matter of months," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report last Wednesday (11/12). Scientists at a top secret facility in Parchin are building high tech precision detonators essential for a nuclear device, and developing a uranium core for a nuclear warhead, the IAEA report said. Iranian scientists also are working on ways to mount a nuclear warhead onto its Shahab 3 missiles, the UN agency said. "The facts lay out a pretty overwhelming case that this was a pretty sophisticated nuclear weapons effort aimed at miniaturizing a warhead for a ballistic missile," U.S. arms control expert David Albright told Reuters.  "The level of detail is unbelievable," agreed a Western diplomat who was quoted anonymously by the New York Times.  Incompetence and stupidity may not be enough to explain why this caught the Obama Administration by surprise.

The glass seems half empty this week. The story that’s gotten the most coverage, is, again, the charges of sexual misconduct against Herman Cain.  A new accuser came forward, an old one was identified.  Both have credibility issues. The Cain sex scandal was not the most important news.  That could be Italy going the way of Greece . Europe induces sloth and indolence , and shouldn’t expect a bailout, said the chairman of China’s sovereign wealth fund. The Department of Energy has been bailing out solar firms in Spain , too. The IAEA finally saw evil in Iran this week.  Despite this, Ron Paul wants to offer the mullahs an olive branch. How can a guy who is so right about economic issues be so wrong about everything else? In Ohio, big labor won repeal of Gov. John Kasich’s bill curbing the power of public employee unions by a wide margin.  A referendum opposing the individual mandate in Obamacare passed by a wider margin. After Wednesday’s debate in Michigan, many conservatives said the GOP field may not be as bad as they thought previously. Today (11/11) is Veterans Day.  Thank one if you see one.  Yesterday was the Marine Corps’ birthday.  My beloved Corps was born in a bar (the Tun Tavern in Philadelphia).  Its first mission was to the Bahamas.  Gotta love ‘em.

Herman Cain's nightmare began a week ago Monday (10/31) when the webzine Politico reported two women had accused him of sexual misconduct when he was president of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. The story was thin.  James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal summarized it this way: "Anonymous sources told Politico that unnamed women alleged that Cain said unspecified things." It triggered a media feeding frenzy anyway.  ABC, NBC and CBS reported on the Cain "scandal" 84 times in the first week. This contrasts with 0 as in zero, the number of times in 2008 ABC, NBC and CBS mentioned allegations of sexual misconduct by former Sen. John Edwards, who ran for president that year. And it contrasts with exactly 4, the number of stories the broadcast networks ran in the week after Juanita Broaddrick said she'd been raped by President Bill Clinton.