Answer:  When the Senate is not in Recess.

Looking as if he has aged 30 years in his 3 years in office, President Barack Hussein Obama yesterday decided to show Congress and the rest of the country Who’s The Boss:

President Obama used his recess appointment powers Wednesday to name a head for the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three new members to the National Labor Relations Board — moves Republican lawmakers said amounted to an unconstitutional power grab.

The president acted just a day after the Senate held a session — breaking with at least three different precedents that said the Senate must be in recess for at least three days for the president to exercise his appointment power. Mr. Obama himself was part of two of those precedents, both during his time in the Senate and again in 2010 when one of his administration’s top constitutional lawyers made the argument for the three-day waiting period to the Supreme Court.

Mr. Obama tapped former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the CFPB, and named three others to the labor board — all of which had been stymied by congressional Republicans who said Mr. Obama is accruing too much power to himself through those two agencies.

In strikingly sharp language, Republicans said the Senate considers itself still in session for the express purpose of blocking recess appointments, and the move threatened to become a declaration of war against Congress.

“Although the Senate is not in recess, President Obama, in an unprecedented move, has arrogantly circumvented the American people,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican.

GOP House Speaker John A. Boehner called the move “an extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab by President Obama that defies centuries of practice and the legal advice of his own Justice Department.”

“The precedent that would be set by this cavalier action would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our Constitution,” the Ohio Republican said in a statement.

The question is:  Will the Republicans in Congress have the intestinal fortitude to challenge Dear Leader?  Well, if they don’t, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce might:

The recess appointments President Obama announced Wednesday are “almost certain” to be challenged in court, according to a top official with the nation’s largest business lobby.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has not decided whether it will file a legal challenge to the appointments, according to David Hirschmann, who heads the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness. But he said he’s confident that Obama’s precedent-shattering move will land the administration in court.

“We’ve made no decisions ourselves,” Hirschmann told The Hill. “What we do know is … it’s almost certain ultimately a court will decide if what the president did is legal or not.”

Regarding the three Imperial Appointments to the Labor Board, Obama’s buddies in the Labor Unions are overjoyed.  That’s always a bad sign.

Obama, in a prepared statement, said the nation deserves “to have qualified public servants fighting for them every day – whether it is to enforce new consumer protections or uphold the rights of working Americans.”

Labor unions, a bedrock of Democratic political support in this election year, had been pushing the White House to fill the seats.

“Some Republican members of the Senate have made a determined effort to cripple the NLRB and other government agencies by refusing to act on President Obama’s nominees, no matter how qualified,” said James Callahan, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers. “Leaving the NLRB without a quorum would penalize both labor and employers.”

Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi, top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, called the White House move a sign of “its contempt for America’s small businesses.”

“The president has ignored the Senate’s confirmation and vetting process, ensuring that our struggling economy will soon be faced with two additional bureaucrats who will shackle America’s employers with new onerous regulations,” Enzi said.

Obama’s announcement of the new NLRB members came without fanfare in an afternoon press release. By contrast, Obama trumpeted his appointment of Cordray earlier in the day at a speech in Ohio, where he chastised Congress for standing in the way of consumer protection.

Block is deputy secretary for congressional affairs at the Labor Department. Griffin is currently the general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers. Flynn serves as chief counsel to the NLRB’s other Republican member Brian Hayes.

Flynn’s nomination has been pending for a year, but Block and Griffin were just nominated in December.

Per the Speaker of the House John Boehner’s website, it violates the Obama Administration’s own policy:

It turns out that the action not only contradicts long-standing practice, but also the view of the administration itself. In 2010, Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal explained to the Supreme Court the Obama administration’s view that recess appointments are only permissible when Congress is in recess for more than three days. Here’s the exchange with Chief Justice John Roberts:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: And the recess appointment power doesn’t work why?

MR. KATYAL: The — the recess appointment power can work in — in a recess. I think our office has opined the recess has to be longer than 3 days. And — and so, it is potentially available to avert the future crisis that — that could — that could take place with respect to the board. If there are no other questions –

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Thank you, counsel.

As has been noted time and time again during Obama’s Imperious Presidency, all of Obama’s promises (and polices) come with expiration dates.

As I sit down to publish this blog this morning, I am greeted by an encouraging surprise:  Rick Santorum lost by the slimmest of margins to “The Legacy” Mitt Romney : 30,015 for Romney and 30,007 for Santorum .

While I haven’t quite jumped on  the Santorum Sleigh just yet, in terms of class, Santorum is still a winner.

For those of you who have not heard,  realclearpolitics.com has the story:

“Once they get a hold of the crazy things he’s said and done like taking his two-hour old baby who died right after childbirth home and played with it for a couple of hours so his other children would know that the child was real,” Democratic commentator Alan Colmes said on FOX News today [Monday].

“That’s a cheap shot, Alan. To say it’s crazy, something that’s that personal and hurtful as losing a child and to mock it like that is beyond the pale and beneath you,” Colmes’ conservative opponent Rich Lowry said after the personal attack.

“I even think some of the dastardly characters we have in the main stream media are not going to go as low as you just have Alan,” National Review editor Rick Lowry said later in the conversation.

Per biggovernment.com, Rick Santorum explained the situation thusly:

He and his wife, Karen, have seven children – including, as Santorum puts it, “the one in Heaven.” Their fourth baby, Gabriel Michael, died in 1996, two hours after an emergency delivery in Karen Santorum’s 20th week of pregnancy. The couple took Gabriel’s body home to let their three other young children see and hold the baby before burying him, according to Karen Santorum’s book of the ordeal, “Letters to Gabriel.”

Santorum’s wife described the aftermath to Gabriel’s death in a heart breaking way.

Gabriel Michael Santorum was born at 12:45 AM on Friday, October 11, 1996. He was a beautiful boy. He did not give a cry or open his tiny eyes. We baptized him, bundled him, and held him ever so close. We sang to him, held his little hands and kissed him. Gabriel lived for two hours. In those two hours something simple but profound happened. Rick and I became parents to a newborn baby and welcomed him into our family. That was all….but it was everything. His life was so brief, yet his impact so great. In two hours we experienced a lifetime of emotions. Love, sorrow, regret, joy—-all were packed into that brief span. To have rejected that experience would have been to reject life itself.

After Colmes’ idiotic remarks, evidently, over at Fox Headquarters, Mr. Murdoch called Mr. Ailes, who called Mr. Colmes…on the carpet.

Per theblaze.com:

On Twitter yesterday, the leftist commentator wrote, “just spoke to @ricksantorum. He and Karen graciously accepted my apology for a hurtful comment.”

Mr. Colmes is heard nightly on Fox News Radio and the Liberal Talk Station on XM Radio.  He formerly co-hosted the Fox News Television Program “Hannity and Colmes” with Conservation Talk Show Host Sean Hannity.

Now, we know why Hannity wasn’t too busted up when Colmes left.

This Liberal jackwagon’s comments , spoken with such insensitivity to a tragic situation, were horrible enough.  But, some of the comments I read Monday and Tuesday on the internet made me have an out-of-body experience.

Posters were agreeing with Colmes that the Santorum’s acted “weird” and said that the baby was an “unviable mass of tissue”.  These reprehensible comments came both from Liberals and self-identified “Fiscal Conservatives”.

Their comments would have made Dr. Josef Mengele proud.

For instance, this little gem:

life is challenging enough without having to take care of disabled children. having early term abortions of these children does not break my moral code.

in many ways we live our lives trying to take the easiest choices without breaking our moral codes.

i have a moral code its just not the same as yours nor its derived from religion. but i try as much as i can to follow it and feel guilty if i break it.

G.K.  Chesterton once wrote, “The danger when men stop believing in God is not that they will believe in nothing, but, that they will believe in anything.”

Comments like the one featured made me want to reach through the computer monitor and throttle them. (Did I just say that out loud?)

As the father of a wonderful, special 24 year old daughter, words cannot even describe how I feel.  And as mad and frustrated as comments like this made me, I can not even comprehend how the Santorums felt when Colmes opened his big, useless yap.

The Santorums took their baby home to perform a funeral for it, not to play with it.

Babies are not something that you’re “punished” with, despite what President Barack Hussein Obama said.  Babies are a gift from God, a special and holy trust, which we, are parents, are charged with “raising in the way in which they should go”.

Shallow individuals, who mistakenly think that they are great intellectuals, such as Colmes and the anonymous poster quoted above, think nothing of barbarically removing a precious life from the womb with a pair of tongs.

But, they stand at the ready to label a family mourning their baby as weird.

They are given over to a reprobate mind.

While it’s too early to make a prediction about the Republican Nominee, I can, like Carnac the Magnificent used to (look him up, kiddies) divine a possible answer for Santorum’s charge out of nowhere:

A Conservative backlash is building in this country.  The Political Pendulum has began a slow, inexorable swing back to the right.

…And it’s going to be fun to watch.

The Hawkeye Cauci happens this Tuesday, and, as I write this, Texas Congressman Ron Paul is polling in second place, with 22%, just 2 percentage points behind “The Legacy” Willard Mitt Romney.

Dr. Paul’s election strategy is as mystifying to the rational mind as is his popularity:

With polls giving Paul a chance to win Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, the mercurial congressman has once again dismissed the conventional political playbook. He spent the last weekend before the 2012 voting begins at home in warm Lake Jackson rather than campaigning in the cold of Iowa.

It’s the latest in a long list of “He did what?” decisions that detractors point to when arguing Paul will be unable to build on a successful showing in Iowa and eventually capture the GOP nomination.

Supporters note his two decades of electoral invincibility in Texas’ 14th Congressional District. But some who live in Paul’s home district and know him best still question the viability of an approach and a political orthodoxy that would doom the average incumbent.

“His ideas are wonderful, but you wonder if you can really run the United States in 2012 with strictly those ideas,” said John Grotte, a Paul supporter and retired engineer. “He really hasn’t changed that much with the flow of the times. So you wish you could take about 60 percent of him, take another 20 percent of something, just a pure politician and stick them together, and you’d have a pretty jim-dandy guy.”

Paul has remained loyal to his brand of libertarianism while representing his coastal Texas district. When Hurricane Ike pummeled the Gulf Coast city of Galveston in 2008, Paul voted against money to help his imperiled constituents.

Officials at the district’s shipping ports try other members of the Texas congressional delegation when seeking money for dredging. Even neighbors who’ve carpooled with his children to swim practices and praise Paul’s principles say they wish he would have made some allies during all his years in Washington.

In his campaigns, Paul is true to his calls to shut down the Federal Reserve, return the country’s currency to the gold standard and halt all military interventions overseas.

Ron Paul is described as a “Libertarian”.  What exactly is one of these critters?  What does the modern Libertarian believe?  Is it just another form of Conservatism?

Per libertarianism.org:

Libertarianism is the belief that each person has the right to live his life as he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. Libertarians defend each person’s right to life, liberty, and property. In the libertarian view, voluntary agreement is the gold standard of human relationships. If there is no good reason to forbid something (a good reason being that it violates the rights of others), it should be allowed. Force should be reserved for prohibiting or punishing those who themselves use force, such as murderers, robbers, rapists, kidnappers, and defrauders (who practice a kind of theft). Most people live their own lives by that code of ethics. Libertarians believe that that code should be applied consistently, even to the actions of governments, which should be restricted to protecting people from violations of their rights. Governments should not use their powers to censor speech, conscript the young, prohibit voluntary exchanges, steal or “redistribute” property, or interfere in the lives of individuals who are otherwise minding their own business.

Libertarian ideas are becoming increasingly influential. Philosopher Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia helped to revitalize political theory and to focus attention on the proper limits of state power. Classical liberal economists and social scientists have pioneered the understanding of processes of social coordination and change, many of them earning Nobel Prizes in the process. And the broad global trend toward economic deregulation, freer trade, limits on taxes, toleration of minorities, and greater personal freedom shows the influence of libertarian ideas and libertarian thinkers and activists.

Ronald Reagan defined Conservatism as being a three-legged stool, consisting of Social Conservatism, Fiscal Conservatism, and National Defense.

Today’s Libertarians misidentify themselves as Conservatives.  They discard two out of the three legs of the stool, identifying themselves as “Fiscal Conservatives”.

If you’re having a discussion with someone and they call themselves a “Fiscal Conservative”, 9 times out of ten, you’re talking to a Libertarian.

Dr. Paul is a Libertarian.  Among other arrows in his quiver, he wants to legalize marijuana.  That’s why the self-proclaimed “intellectual” college-age young folks, with their heads full of mush, want to vote for him.

That’s personal responsibility thingy is a pain, isn’t it, boys and girls?

I found myself in a discussion with one of these young followers the other day, who was posting his Paulian Praises on the Facebook Page of Conservative Pundit Michelle Malkin.  Needless to say, the young man got very frustrated with my insistence on remaining faithful to Reagan Conservatism and with my refusal to believe in the brilliance that is Dr. Ron Paul.  That young man called me ignorant and wound up his less-than-cogent argument by saying that my parents had never married, in a very crude manner.

Being a 53 year old  Son of the South, I must confess, I snapped and I proceeded to tell the young Paulnut the way the cow ate the cabbage:

Reality Check: Ron Paul is a old man, who has run for President several times. He is this generation’s Pat Paulsen (look him up). He is anti-semitic, pro-Iranian, and is a cranky, old isolationist nutjob, whom one would expect to find in a corner somewhere, with his underwear on top of his head, babbling , “I like cheese!” If he was the genius you idiots claim that he is, he would have won the presidency by now. Loosen up your tin foil hat, boy. It’s shaping your head into a point.

Now is not the time to redefine Conservatism.  Now is the time to vote for it.

Well, here we are.  The last day of 2011.  What were the top stories of this year?

At least for me, they all seem to blur together in what, at times, seemed to be a psychedelic cross between the movies “The Manchurian Candidate” and the Monkees’ “Head”.

Courtesy of usnews.com, here are the top stories, in no particular order, along with a little analysis from yours truly.

1.  Shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

On January 8, Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was meeting with constituents when she and 18 others were shot at a shopping center near Tucson. Six people were killed, including a federal judge, though Giffords, who was shot point blank in the head, survived. The shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was declared incompetent to stand trial and has not revealed why he tried to kill Giffords.

A horrible tragedy, which somehow the Liberals and their minions, the Main Stream Media, wound up blaming Sarah Palin for.  I’m still trying to figure that one out.

2.  Arab Spring

The protests that began in Tunisia and spread throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa eventually become known as the Arab Spring. Fueled by unemployed young citizens and frustration with longtime leaders and corrupt police, the protests have prompted the overthrow of three leaders, in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and the emergence of democratic elections. Other leaders have vowed to step down from power when their current terms end.

Have you noticed that the Main Stream Media cannot bring themselves to report the role that the Muslim Brotherhood has played behind the scenes, basically supplying the matches for the bonfire?

3.  Killing of Osama bin Laden

The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks that killed about 3,000 Americans as well as other terrorist attacks was shot and killed by Navy SEALs on May 2. The event was considered a crucial blow to the Islamist militant group al Qaeda and one long sought after by American military since September 11. After the covert mission at a compound in Pakistan, bin Laden’s remains were disposed of at sea.

The Commander-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm), came off of the golf course just in time to pull his swivel chair up to the monitors to watch our Best and Brightest dispatch this monster to the fiery pit.

4.  Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

After years of lobbying by liberal and gay rights groups and more recently the likes of pop star Lady Gaga, Congress passed a repeal of the 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that barred gays from openly serving in the military. The law was signed by President Obama despite protests from some military leaders, notably from the Marines, who claimed the change in policy would interrupt service and potential weaken the military.

A Liberal Administration performing a Social Experiment on the finest fighting force in the world.  Why?  To try to further a political goal.

5.  Occupy Wall Street

Protesting income inequality and corporate dominance, activists decided to camp out near New York’s Wall Street. The movement spread throughout the United States and even spilled into other countries. Protesters have spent time railing against the wealthiest 1 percent and coined the slogan “We are the 99 percent.”

…While being financed by the likes of George Soros (one of the richest men in the world) and South American Communists.  And, who could forget that noble feat of defecating on the car of one of New York’s Finest.

6.  GOP presidential race

From Donald Trump to Herman Cain, the Republican race to pick a presidential nominee has been a roller-coaster ride. Businessman Trump flirted with the idea of jumping into the GOP field, but has decided instead to wait and see who the nominee is, floating the idea that he may run as an independent.

That’s good, because he’s not a Republican.  Come to think of it, neither is Huntsman.

7.  Greece debt crisis

A variety of economic factors and political decisions left Greece teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and caused a panic in the euro zone, culminating in a series of monetary bailouts. But the Greek crisis, which may end up being repeated in Italy and other European countries, has had an enormous impact on the European bloc and worldwide.

Everybody, the economic experts, that is, says that it’s headed our way.  I hope not, but, given the economic ineptness of our current administration, anything is possible.

8.  Debt ceiling fight

In a showdown set up by the midterm elections that saw Republicans take over the House of Representatives and provide a foil to President Obama, a Democrat, lawmakers wrangled several times over raising the federal debt ceiling. Though both sides recognized it needed to be done, Republicans sought to secure as many spending concessions from Democrats as possible to make good on campaign promises of getting the country’s fiscal house in order. But the stalemate and brinkmanship that highlighted how difficult compromise is to come by in Washington, D.C., led a bond rating agency to downgrade the country’s credit rating.

Of course, Obama’s horrible economic policy and lack of leadership in general, had nothing to do with this situation at all, did it?  Naw, not much.

9.  End of the Iraq War

As of mid-December, the final combat troops from the United States were removed from Iraq, marking the end of the war that began in 2003. The war began under President George W. Bush under the assumption that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and after the nation refused to fully cooperate with the international community regarding inspections. After the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime, no such weapons were found, though the leader was hunted down, tried, and later executed for crimes against humanity.

Of course, as I’ve previously reported, the very day that Obama was celebrating his accomplishment in bringing the troops home, Iraq was being bombed by Islamic Terrorists.  Can you say, “Premature Evacuation”?

By now, you’re saying, Hey!  That’s only 9 events.  Shouldn’t there be a tenth?

For my tenth event, I’m selecting the reality of day-to-day life for the average American.

Per gallup.com:

8.5 % of Americans are unemployed, 18.2% are underemployed.

11% of Americans think that economic conditions are good.

48% of Americans think that conditions are poor.

Economic confidence of Americans is at -34%.

32% of Americans think that economic conditions are getting better.

62% of Americans believe things are getting worse.

During his historic 1980 presidential campaign against Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan asked the question, “Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?”

With this administration, one could ask the question, “Are you better off now, on the 31st of December, than you were on the 1st of January?” and expect a negative response.

Hopefully, 2012 will turn out to be a much better year on our pocketbooks…including a November Bonus.

Happy New Year!

Is it just me, or isn’t the Federal Government of the United States, and those who administer its responsibilities, actually supposed to reinforce our laws?

Evidently, the Obama Administration feels like squatters’ rights trump illegality:

As states across the nation ramp up their efforts to catch illegal immigrants, the Obama administration on Thursday launched a new free hotline for people busted on violations to get help.

The hotline, run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, is available 24/7 for detained individuals to phone if they think they “may be U.S. citizens or victims of a crime.”

The hotline will have translation services available in several different languages. ICE personnel will gather the caller’s information and send it to a field office for immediate action, according to the press release.

The purpose of the hotline and other measures, including a new detainer form, are “to ensure that individuals being held by state or local law enforcement on immigration detainers are properly notified about their potential removal from the country and are made aware of their rights.”

The new practices are “part of a broader effort to improve our immigration enforcement process and prioritize resources to focus on threats to public safety, repeat immigration law violators, recent border entrants and immigration fugitives while continuing to strengthen oversight of the nation’s immigration detention system and facilitate legal immigration,” ICE wrote in its press release.

ICE is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security.

In my post,  For Mr. Krentz, first published in March of 2010, I related the following news report:

Police say Robert Krentz, whose family has been ranching in southern Arizona since 1907, was gunned down early Saturday morning, March 27th, 2010, by an illegal immigrant while out on his ATV tending to fences and water lines on the family’s 34,000-acre cattle ranch.

Reached by phone early Tuesday at his family’s ranch, Andy Krentz, Krentz’s oldest son, said his father was a churchgoing man who routinely went out of his way to help those in need.

“My father was a very good family man,” Krentz told FoxNews.com. “He supported his kids, supported his family. He went out of his way to help anybody we could without regarding to who they were.  It didn’t matter who they were.”

Sue Krentz, Krentz’s wife, said she was “pretty overwhelmed” by her husband’s death, which coincided with her parents’ deteriorating health.

“This is icing on the cake,” Krentz said.

Yes, it was.  The public outcry was deafening.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law Friday, April 23rd, 2010, a bill supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation’s busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico.With hundreds of protesters outside the state Capitol shouting that the bill would lead to civil rights abuses, Brewer said critics were “overreacting” and that she wouldn’t tolerate racial profiling.

“We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act,” Brewer said after signing the law. “But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.”

In response, I wrote at the time:

Thank you, Gov. Brewer.  I wish it had been earlier.  A  good man lost his life due to government neglience and political correctness.  So, what did the President of the United States say about this horrible situtation?  Did he comfort Mr. Krentz’s family?  Did he congratulate Arizona for cracking down on Illegal Immigration?  Are you kidding me?

“Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others,” Obama said at a Rose Garden naturalization ceremony for 24 members of the U.S. military. “That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona.”

The actions by the Arizona legislature threaten “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans,” Obama said. It also may hamper trust between residents and law enforcement authorities, he said.

He said he has instructed U.S. authorities to monitor the state’s actions and to “examine the civil rights and other implications” of the legislation.

“Surely we can all agree that when 11 million people in our country are living here illegally, outside the system, that’s unacceptable,” Obama said. “The American people demand and deserve a solution.”

Obama lauded the work of Senators Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, to come up with a framework for legislation that can win bipartisan support.

Graham has said he’ll introduce legislation only after it’s finished and at least one other Republican signs on. He said this week that any effort to move immigration this year will fail badly because both parties need to “lay the groundwork” politically with tough border-control approaches first.

I must confess…I had an out-of-body experience that morning and launched the following mini-rant:

Yes, sir.   Americans can always count on Scooter  to do the right thing, can’t we?  I mean, to do the right thing for his Far Left Base and Democratic Political Hack Cronies.  As he is proving time and time again, Obama does not care what the majority of Americans think and want.  He is going to do exactly what his handlers and the Far Left Moonbat Base want him to do, basically telling average Americans where to go and the temperature when we get there.

In this case, by pushing for Grahamnesty, err, amnesty, err, immigration reform, he is trying to insure a Socialist Democratic Ruling Class (Politboro) by installing a brand new voting base.  And John McCain’s pet, Lindsey “Metrosexual” Graham, useful idiot that he is, is obliging Scooter.

Has anyone heard one mention of the loss of Mr. Krentz’s life by the President?  I haven’t.  Like everything else he does, Scooter is attempting to use this situation for personal and political gain.  By legalizing these trespassers, he, along with his minions, are trying to get re-elected.  In their minds, the loss of a good man’s life is not as important as their political ambitions.

And that is why they must fail.

And now, almost two years later, this same Administration still seems to be worried more about the “rights” of those who are here illegally, than about the American citizens whom they are sworn to protect.

Mr. Robert Krentz remains unavailable for comment.

The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom.

– President Ronald Wilson Reagan

Yesterday, Republican Candidate for that party’s nomination, Willard Mitt Romney, changed President Reagan’s definition to meet his own personal ideology:

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the insurance mandate included in the Massachusetts healthcare law he signed is fundamentally a conservative principle.

Speaking Wednesday on “Fox and Friends,” Romney defended the Bay State’s healthcare law, which includes a version of the individual mandate, as inline with the Republican world view. The individual mandate was the centerpiece and most controversial aspect of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, which has widely been blasted by Republicans as governmental overreach.

“I’m happy to stand by the things that I believe. I’m not going to change my positions by virtue of being in a presidential campaign,” Romney said. “What we did was right for the people of Massachusetts, the plan is still favored there by 3 to 1 and it is fundamentally a conservative principle to insist that people take personal responsibility as opposed to turning to government for giving out free care.”

Besides being a stupid statement, it’s also a scary one, because this flip-floppin’ “Legacy” is making a move in Iowa:

Even as he tried to keep talk about his prospects in check Tuesday, a slew of public and private polling and anecdotal evidence on the ground suggests that Romney is within striking distance of a first-place finish in Iowa — especially as Ron Paul’s momentum spurt appears to have run into the reality of front-runners’ scrutiny.

Romney’s team is moving to make the most of it. The candidate launched a bus tour Tuesday and suggested on a conference call with Iowans this week that he’ll be in the state for New Year’s Eve. After a solid ad buy in Iowa for a month totaling more than $1.1 million, Romney’s camp has upped its spending in the Quad Cities market, sources familiar with the purchase told POLITICO. His team has dropped a collection of mail pieces, both positive about Romney and negative about the perceived closest alternative — Newt Gingrich.

In another clear sign he’s playing to win, he has quietly moved a handful of staffers from his headquarters in Boston and in other states earlier this month to give his skeleton Iowa staff a needed boost. And he’s cycling in a platoon of high-profile surrogates to rally around him in the state at stump stops and on talk radio, including Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. John Thune, Rep. Aaron Schock and former Sens. Norm Coleman and Jim Talent.

Among Romney’s Iowa backers, there was a marked rise in confidence Tuesday.

“I think we’re going to do better than most people expect us to do,” said state Rep. Renee Schulte, a top Cedar Rapids Romney supporter.

Schulte hesitated about predicting an outright win because of the many variables — Paul’s turnout, Rick Santorum’s potential, the weather — still hanging over the race. But she noted the difference between this year and the 2008 caucuses.

“The only way we were going to lose was if the right coalesced, and that’s exactly what happened [with Mike Huckabee],” said Schulte. “But this time Bachmann, Santorum and Perry are still out campaigning aggressively, so if [conservatives] go three ways, we’re going to do better.”

Speaking on background, another Romney loyalist with close ties to the candidate dispensed with the expectation-setting.

“That is becoming more likely,” said the loyalist when asked if Romney could win the caucuses outright. “We’ve been lucky and good. The campaign plan was always to adjust activity based on what we were seeing on ground but keep expectations down. But between the positive news for us of late and negatives for our rivals, we’re finishing in a good place.”

Per cnn.com:

Twenty-five percent of people questioned say if the caucuses were held today, they’d most likely back Mitt Romney, with 22% saying they’d support Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Romney’s three point margin is within the poll’s sampling error.

Ann Coulter, Conservative pundit, said in her column published yesterday, that:

Running against an incumbent president in a make-or-break election, Republicans need a candidate with a track record of winning elections with voters similar to the entire American electorate.

And, after that statement, she went on to again endorse Romney.

For someone who is one of the sharpest Conservative minds in the country,  Ann couldn’t be more wrong if she tried.

1.  Romney is the favorite of both the GOP Beltway Elite and the Democratic Party Power Brokers.

2.  Romney will be lucky to carry the Northeast, much less the rest of the country.  Right now, he’s only polling 25% approval within the Republican Party!

3.  Romney is as faithful to Conservatism as Bill Clinton is faithful to Hillary.

Ann, you need to get out of the Beltway every now and then, ma’am.

C’mon down to Mississippi, Mizz Coulter.  We’ll have a Barbeque pulled pork sammich, and discuss Conservatism.  You’ll find that the Heartland’s definition is just like President Reagan’s and NOTHING like Mitt Romney’s.

Republican Candidate for that party’s Presidential Nomination, Newt Gingrich, was interviewed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer yesterday afternoon. During the interview, he was not shy about letting his feelings be known about fellow candidate, the cranky old isolationist nutjob himself, Dr. Ron Paul:

I think Barack Obama is very destructive to the future of the United States. I think Ron Paul’s views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American.

When asked if he could vote for Paul, the former Speaker of the House said “No.” And if it came down to Paul vs. Obama?

You’d have a very tough choice at that point.

As people get to know more about Ron Paul, who disowns 10 years of his own newsletter, says he didn’t really realize what was in it, had no idea what he was making money off of, had no idea that it was racist, anti-Semitic, called for the destruction of Israel, talked about a race war – all of this is a sudden shock to Ron Paul? There will come a morning people won’t take him as serious person.

Dr. Paul’s campaign manager Jesse Benton issued a statement in replay, stating:

If Dr. Paul will have to soldier on without Newt’s vote, then so be it.

Benton went on to call called Gingrich “a divisive, big-government liberal who is unelectable” and his attack on Paul a “childish outburst.”

While Gingrich declared twice during the interview that Paul won’t get the GOP nomination,  Benton shot back with the rhetorical equivalent of “neither will you.”

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, Former Massachusetts Governor and, also a Republican Candidate for the Presidential Nomination, Mitt “The Legacy” Romney fired a cannon shot over Gingrich’s bow:

Appearing in Portsmouth, Romney noted a statement that Gingrich’s campaign director compared the former House speaker’s recent inability to qualify for the Virginia ballot as a setback comparable to Pearl Harbor from which the campaign would recover.

“I think he compared that to Pearl Harbor? I think it’s more like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory”, Romney said in reference to the famous I Love Lucy skit in which the comedienne was overwhelmed by a rapid assembly line of candies. “You’ve got to get it organized.”

In another appearance in Londonderry, Romney also took a subtle swipe at Gingrich for a 2008 speech in which he praised Romney’s health care plan and the individual health insurance mandate at its heart. “I’m familiar with the fact that he supported individual mandates in the past and was supportive generally of the plan in Massachusetts, and he’s changed his view in the election year,” Romney said.

Concerning Dr. Paul, it seemed like “Mittens” was trying to sound conciliatory:

I haven’t seen the Ron Paul newsletters. From what I understand, he repudiated them and, from what I understand, that was the right course for him to take.

It also sounded like Romney was beginning to an attempt to “reach across the aisle”, ala John McCain:

I think there are Republicans and Democrats who will sit down, work together, and say we are going to put America on a sound financial footing…. I can tell you, I’m not going to spend my time bashing Democrats and attacking them day in and day out, because that makes it impossible to sit down and work together.

Gingrich, during the interview with Wolf Blitzer, said about Romney that

He’s buying millions of dollars in attack ads … paid for by his millionaire friends.  Now, I’d like to have him have the courage to be on the same stage and defend his ads and explain his record of raising taxes … and, frankly, explain why he wasn’t a job-creating governor.

Reagan Conservatives are watching this, shaking our heads, as two Moderates and a certifiable nutjob battle it out to be the Presidential Candidate for the Republican Party, muttering to ourselves:

How in the name of Ronald Wilson Reagan did we get here?  And why is it so cotton-pickin’ difficult for the Republican Party to nominate an actual Conservative?

The problem, as I see it, is the fact that the Grand Old Elite of the Grand Old Party, who never liked President Reagan in the first place, are determined to put a Moderate ( i.e., Romney) in the Oval Office, in order to keep their Grand Old history of “reaching across the aisle” and their Grand Old “status quo” in place.

The fact that only 25% of Republicans can even stand the flip-floppin’ snob is of little consequence to these power brokers, living out their lives, isolated from us common folk, in the Beltway.

The reason that Americans out in the Heartland have tended to gravitate toward Newt Gingrich may be explained by the process of elimination.

While Newt has a lot of baggage, he does have the most Administrative Experience of the three, he is very good at speaking off the cuff and would destroy Obama in a debate, is the most entertaining of the three, and the least objectionable to the average American Conservative, struggling to survive in the Heartland.

Lord, I hope those myopic idiots up in the Beltway don’t blow this election.

On November 19, 2001, The Transportation Security Administration was created as a part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act.  Originally a part of the Department of Transportation, it was moved over to the Department of Homeland Security on March 25, 2003.

During the Obama Administration, the TSA has become infamous for intrusive pat-downs and revealing x-rays in airports across the nation.

Guess what?

According to latimes.com:

The Transportation Security Administration isn’t just in airports anymore. TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations around the country.

“We are not the Airport Security Administration,” said Ray Dineen, the air marshal in charge of the TSA office in Charlotte. “We take that transportation part seriously.”

The TSA’s 25 “viper” teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year.

According to budget documents, the department spent $110 million in fiscal 2011 for “surface transportation security,” including the TSA’s viper program, and is asking for an additional $24 million next year. That compares with more than $5 billion for aviation security.

TSA officials say they have no proof that the roving viper teams have foiled any terrorist plots or thwarted any major threat to public safety. But they argue that the random nature of the searches and the presence of armed officers serve as a deterrent and bolster public confidence.

“We have to keep them [terrorists] on edge,” said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington. “We’re not going to have a permanent presence everywhere.”

U.S. officials note that digital files recovered from Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan after he was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in May included evidence that the Al Qaeda leader had considered an attack on U.S. railways in February 2010. Over the last decade, deadly bombings have hit subways or trains in Moscow; Mumbai, India; Madrid; and London.

This expansion, under “Big Sis” Janet Napolitano, comes of the heels of the latest allegations against the TSA:

Two more elderly women with medical conditions have come forward claiming they were strip-searched by Transportation Security Administration [TSA] agents at JFK Airport on Nov. 29, bringing to three the number of senior passengers who allege they were forced to remove their clothes at the New York airport last Tuesday.

Ruth Sherman, 88, told ABC News she was about to board a 3:30 p.m. Jet Blue flight to Florida after visiting her family for Thanksgiving when two female TSA officers ordered her into a private room. The great-grandmother of seven has worn a colostomy bag since undergoing cancer surgery two years ago. She claims the agents noticed the bulge from the bag and that prompted the additional screening.

According to Sherman, the TSA agents told her to enter the screening room and demanded to know what the bulge was. Sherman said she was embarrassed and annoyed that even after she explained what it was they asked her to drop her jogging pants and show them.

“They were just two ordinary people, not medical technicians, not doctors, not nurses, what do they know about this?,” said Sherman. “It was very degrading.”

Sherman said she travels frequently to New York and San Francisco to visit family and had never before been forced to remove her clothing. She said she’s made an appointment with her cancer surgeon in order to receive a traveling note that would exempt her from any further searches.

Linda Kallish, a 66-year-old diabetic, claims she too was strip-searched at JFK on Nov. 29. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Kallish, who was bound for Ft. Lauderdale via Jet Blue on a 1 p.m. flight, had a glucose monitor that checks her blood sugar every five minutes strapped to one leg and an insulin pump strapped to the other. A female TSA officer allegedly asked her into a private room after setting off the metal detector. Kallish says she was ordered to remove her pants in order to demonstrate both devices.

The women’s claims come just days after Lenore Zimmerman alleged she was strip searched while trying to catch the 1 p.m. Jet Blue flight to Ft. Lauderdale.

Zimmerman said security whisked her away without explanation after she asked to forgo the full-body scan, fearing it might interfere with the heart defibrillator she was wearing. She told ABC News that she was asked to pull down her slacks and underwear with no explanation or apology. She missed her 1 p.m. flight to Ft. Lauderdale.

TSA did not immediately respond to ABC News requests for comments about the incidents. A TSA blog said that “TSA does not include strip searches in its protocols,” and also said that Zimmerman was not strip searched. The TSA declined to answer a question from the Orlando Sentinel about whether there were instances when passengers were required to remove clothing.

Hey, nothing to worry about, according to the TSA’s website:

We are your neighbors, friends and relatives. We are 50,000 security officers, inspectors, directors, air marshals and managers who protect the nation’s transportation systems so you and your family can travel safely. We look for bombs at checkpoints in airports, we inspect rail cars, we patrol subways with our law enforcement partners, and we work to make all modes of transportation safe.

Uh huh.  Well, as far as I know, none of my neighbors ever strip-searched Grandma.