Orthodox Editors

OPM – The Socialist Drug of Choice

Breitbart | Endre Balogh | Feb. 19, 2009

When it comes to the wit and wisdom of Karl Marx, it’s likely that his most quoted statement is, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” The perverse irony in that quote is that all of Marx’s pseudo-scientific philosophical and sociological musings are so antithetical to common sense and basic human nature, that in order to believe them one must take a leap of faith far greater than any required for belief in a religious dogma. Certainly, George Orwell had Marx in mind when he famously quipped, “There are some ideas so preposterous that only an intellectual could believe them.” [Read more…]

The Decline of California

The Wall Street Journal | February 17, 2009

If you thought Washington’s stimulus debate was depressing, take a look at the long-running budget spectacle in California. The Golden State’s deficit has reached $42 billion, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to furlough 20,000 state workers (go ahead, make our day), and as we went to press yesterday Democrats who control the legislature had blocked lawmakers from leaving until they finally get a deal. [Read more…]

How Democracies Become Tyrannies

American Thinker | Ed Kaitz | Feb. 16, 2009

Back in 1959 the philosopher Eric Hoffer had this to say about Americans and America: “For those who want to be left alone to realize their capacities and talents this is an ideal country.”

That was then. This is now. Flash forward fifty years to the election of Barack Obama and a hard left leaning Democrat Congress. What Americans want today, apparently, is a government that has no intention of leaving any of us alone.

How could Hoffer have been so wrong about America? Why did America change so quickly? Can a free people willingly choose servitude? Is it possible for democracies to become tyrannies? How? [Read more…]

Jet bombers planned mass killing over Atlantic

AFP | Feb. 17, 2009

Eight Islamic fundamentalists planned to kill on an “unprecedented scale” by exploding bombs on transatlantic flights, a British court heard Tuesday. The men, who were arrested in August 2006 before they could carry out the alleged plot, had hoped for a “truly global impact”, prosecutor Peter Wright told a London court.

Wright told Woolwich Crown Court that Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar, both 28, led the group and were “indifferent to the carnage that was likely to ensue if their plans were successful.” [Read more…]

Unstoppable Global Warming

FrontPageMagazine.com | E. Ralph Hostetter | Feb. 13, 2009

Former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Albert A. Gore Jr. was in the news again. Braving an ice storm, he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in its first hearing in the new Congress to plead his case on global warming. The real purpose of his appearance should send shivers down the spine of every American taxpayer. On this visit he brought the tax man with him. That’s right! Al Gore wants Congress to impose a tax that could be considered a tax on climate. He describes his new tax as “putting a price on carbon.” [Read more…]

The Law Liberals Always Break

American Thinker | C. Edmund Wright | Feb. 14, 2009

There’s a law that liberals always shatter. (And no, I’m not talking about tax law.) It’s the law of unintended consequences. Actually it’s not so much liberals per se that break it so mauch as it seems liberal thinking by definition always runs afoul of this law. Leftist policy always hangs itself if given enough rope. [Read more…]

A Chamberlain Moment

Great Britain decides that freedom of speech and truth are really not that important when it comes to radical Islam.
FrontPageMagazine.com | Stephen Brown | Feb. 13, 2009

It was a watershed moment of capitulation. On Thursday, February 12, visiting Dutch politician Geert Wilders was humiliatingly bundled back on to a plane to his native Holland shortly after arriving in London. Wilders had been invited to show his controversial, 17-minute documentary film, Fitna, in Britain’s House of Lords but was warned in a letter from the British Home Office last Tuesday he would be denied entry to the country. As reasons for his being declared persona non grata, Wilders was told in the letter he would “threaten community harmony and therefore public security.” The directive never stated, however, that the statements Wilders made in Fitna are false or misleading in any way. [Read more…]

America — what have you done?

The Spectator | Melanie Phillips | Feb. 7, 2009

President Obama has had, by general consent, a torrid First Fortnight. To put it another way, it has taken precisely two weeks for the illusion that brought him to power to be exposed for the nonsense that it so obviously was. The transformational candidate who was going to sweep away pork-barrel politics, lobbyists and corruption has been up to his neck in sleaze, as eviscerated here by Charles Krauthammer. Despite the fact that he came to power promising to ‘ban all earmarks’, his ‘stimulus’ bill represents billions of dollars of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections — which have nothing to do with kick-starting the economy and everything to do with favouring pet Democrat causes. [Read more…]

The Fierce Urgency of Pork

Washington Post | Charles Krauthammer | Feb. 6, 2009

“A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.” — President Obama, Feb. 4.

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared “we have chosen hope over fear.” Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn’t understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent. [Read more…]