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PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
The rush to stimulate

By Mark Alexander

A New York second after Barack Obama finished his inaugural speech, Democrats fanned out across the nation calling for eight-to-nine hundred billion dollars of graft for their constituents, and insisting Congress must "hurry up," "take action now," "cannot wait another day," ad infinitum.

Amid all the urgent calls to get the so-called "stimulus package" passed into law -- urgent not because it is the magic pill for economic recovery but because any delay would afford more consideration of its full implications, Obama posited, "The question I think that the American people are asking is: Do you just want government to do nothing, or do you want it to do something?"

This faux dichotomy certainly constitutes Obama's most colossal subterfuge ... to date.

What Obama was really asking is, "Do you want the Democrats' plan to transfer almost a trillion dollars of wealth from present and future generations to liberal constituencies, or do you want a plan that has been tempered by careful deliberation?"

Attempting to squelch any suggestion that there are dissenters among those who actually have the academic training necessary for critical review, Obama's lap dog, Joe Biden claims, "I don't know any serious economist -- left, right or center -- who doesn't think we need a package of some $800 billion or $900 billion. The problem is gargantuan. ... Every economist, as I've said, from conservative to liberal, acknowledges that direct government spending on a direct program now is the best way to infuse economic growth and create jobs."

Apparently Joe doesn't know many economists, given the long list of distinguished economists registering their dissent.

Even Martin Feldstein, the conservative economist whose support of a stimulus last October led to the media's claim that "economists across the political spectrum" supported government intervention, is calling the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act "an $800 billion mistake."

Not only has Obama's plan to reinvigorate national commerce failed to gain popular support, much less that of economic specialists, but Obama's nominee for Secretary of Commerce, Sen. Judd Gregg, withdrew his name yesterday, citing "irresolvable conflicts" over Obama's plan.

"I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me," said Gregg. "Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy."

"Different set of views" is a polite way of saying "free enterprise vs. Socialism."

House and Senate liberals finished hammering out the ugly details of the bill this week, including some tax cuts.

The Associated Press reported: "It preserves Obama's signature tax cut -- a break for millions of lower and middle income taxpayers, including those who don't earn enough to pay income taxes." There is an adjustment in withholding, which will save workers an estimated $13 per week. Also included is another temporary patch for the ill-conceived Alternative Minimum Tax, something that Democrats tout as a tax cut, though it merely prevents a tax increase.

Whose money is it anyway?

The remainder of the bill is spending on numerous Democrat special interests -- such as $40 billion to prevent teacher layoffs -- and other assorted leftist pork projects.

After House Republicans banded together and unanimously opposed the first pass at this monstrosity, three liberal Senate Republicans boarded the Democrat bandwagon -- Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. The three RINOs gave Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) the 61 votes he needed to ensure passage.

Collins lectured, "At a time of growing federal deficits, it is especially important that this plan be right-sized without putting our future at risk."

Except that was in 2003, when she insisted that President Bush's tax cuts be capped at $350 billion. Perhaps someone should remind Collins that the 2009 federal deficit is $1.2 trillion before the current stimulus.

Now that the House and Senate Democrats have worked out whose constituents will get what, Demo House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is insisting on (you guessed it) a vote today, because she is leaving this evening for an eight-day all-expense taxpayer paid junket to Europe. Wouldn't want to let this bill hang out all weekend and risk further dissension...

Of course, the rush to vote violates their commitment to make the plan available for 48 hours before voting ... as if 48 hours is enough time to get through even the first hundred billion. And we note here that the House published the bill as a PDF document containing only images of the bill's text instead of actual, embedded text -- thereby preventing the bill from being searched.

This certainly violates Obama's "Sunshine Before Signing" promise of five days review, but, after all, this is an EMERGENCY!

The Senate vote will likely come sooner than later.

Perhaps now would be a good time to update a long-ago observation from former Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL): "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon we're talking about real money." Make that "trillion here, trillion there."

Despite a massive PR campaign, public support for the pork-laden "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" being railroaded through Congress is now below 35 percent.

Of course for Obama and his ilk, this is not about public support or economic recovery. It is about fomenting fear and implementing false solutions that serve the Left's long-term agenda to further centralize their control over the economy and, by extension, the American people.

In the inimitable words of Ronald Reagan, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem. ... As government expands, liberty contracts."

The current economic recession is, first and foremost, a crisis of confidence fueled by the Left's fear factoring.

Make no mistake, this bill is not about economic recovery, it is about shackling our future to a Socialist agenda which will play out in the next decade, and its passage ensures the success of that agenda, short of another unpleasantry like that one begun in 1776 -- or the advent of another great leader with the stature of Reagan.

Quote of the week

"If lawmakers really want to trigger a recovery, they'll shelve their massive 'stimulus' bill -- a trillion-dollar debt plan that would actually weaken the economy. They'd do much better to take a simple but powerful step: reduce the corporate income tax rate to zero. Our nation's convoluted tax code (so confusing that even a high percentage of President Barack Obama's nominees apparently can't understand it) keeps a small army of accountants and tax lawyers employed. A simplified code might put them out of work. But that would be a small price to pay for a fairer system, one that helps create many more jobs for ordinary Americans. And creating jobs is what a federal stimulus is supposed to be all about. Lawmakers should think carefully before they borrow hundreds of billions of dollars, digging a deeper debt hole and expanding the size and scope of government. Far better to eliminate corporate taxes -- and unleash the job-creation power of our nation's entrepreneurs." --Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner, free enterprise economist

On cross-examination

"Our elected representatives in Washington sold the 'American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009' as a stimulant for the economy, but it is, in fact, Viagra for the leviathan state. The legislation effectively repeals welfare reform, the single most successful domestic policy of the 1990s. I must have been in the bathroom during that debate. One of the great things about capitalism is that, unlike socialism ... it can deal with failure. In fact, capitalism needs failure. Joseph Schumpeter called this 'creative destruction.' Your grandmother called it 'making lemonade out of lemons.' The beauty of free markets is that firms learn from their mistakes or they lose money, shrink and then go out of business. Governments, meanwhile, grow from their mistakes and learn to make money from them. Capitalism requires putting your own capital at risk. What we do have is a grand adhocracy where 'government,' aka Barack Obama, Timothy Geithner, Nancy Pelosi and a dozen others, will figure everything out as they go. Businesses will rise or fall based on their skill at kissing up to the government. And as sure as shinola, when government fails again, we'll be told that only government can save us." --Jonah Goldberg

The BIG lie

"We will go through our federal budget -- page by page, line by line -- eliminating those programs we don't need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way." --Barack Obama, 25 November 2008

This week's 'Alpha Jackass' award

"I've supported many tax cuts over the years ... but a tax cut is non-targeted. If you put a tax cut into the hands of a business or family, there's no guarantee that they're going to invest that or invest it in America. They're free to go invest anywhere that they want if they choose to invest. ... Frankly, you know, the difference between $50 billion on this bill or $100 billion -- let's get it moving. That is not going to make the difference to the economy." --Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)

Publisher's Note: This afternoon, The Patriot will publish a special edition, "Lincoln's legacy at 200," revisiting the character and reputation of our nation's 16th president.

GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
Hope 'n' Change: Tax shenanigans continue

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is the latest, and likely not the last, member of the Obama administration to admit to tax issues. While in Congress, Emanuel shared DC living quarters with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) for five years and he didn't pay one dime in rent. Technically, that qualifies as imputed income, a non-financial gift or compensation that should be reported to the IRS. Naturally, this filing never took place. More interesting still is that DeLauro is the wife of Democrat pollster Stan Greenberg, whose clients included both Emanuel and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which Emanuel ran before joining the Obama team.

And let's not forget the archival tax troubles of Hillary Clinton. It has conveniently slipped from the memory of the Leftmedia, of course, but we in our humble shop certainly recall the tax improprieties of Hillary and her husband before and during their co-presidency. Now that Timothy Geithner, Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer, Hilda Solis and Rahm Emanuel have all been exposed as tax cheats, what once was a bad joke has now become a more serious issue. But then these are Democrats. "Make no mistake," Daschle once said, "tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter." Change has indeed come to Washington. Unfortunately, it appears to have come in the form of perhaps the most ethically challenged White House since the days of the Teapot Dome.

From the Left: Is Stephanopoulos advising the White House?

This just in... ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos is not advising the Obama White House on policy issues, according to ABC News. A recent report indicated that Stephanopoulos, who was the top communications man in the Clinton White House before joining the Washington media establishment, regularly meets with Rahm Emanuel and former Clintonistas James Carville and Paul Begala. ABC News took issue with the story and issued a press release claiming that the gist of the story -- that Stephanopoulos in fact advises Emanuel rather than just uses him as a reporting source -- was false. Stephanopoulos himself has been conspicuously silent on the matter. Of course, if the media has to report that it is not in the tank for the Obama administration, we thinks they doth protest too much.

Leahy aims to investigate Bush administration

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) submitted a proposal for his Senate Judiciary Committee to create a "truth and reconciliation committee" to investigate supposed wrongdoing by the Bush administration regarding torture, the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and other items yet to be announced. At his press conference Monday, President Obama said he would take a look at the proposal, but that he was "more interested in looking forward than ... in looking backwards." That may be true, but as his own domestic and foreign policies already begin to fail, Obama has laid blame at the feet of the Bush administration. The buck stops, uh, over there.

FBI closing in on friends of John Murtha

In recent months, the FBI conducted two raids on companies with ties to unindicted Abscam co-conspirator and U.S. Marine slanderer Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). In November, law enforcement officials raided the PMA Group, a defense-lobbying firm founded by former Murtha aide Paul Magliochetti, and in January, Kuchera Defense Systems received an FBI visit. Both firms have received more than $100 million in earmarks from Murtha, who is quite proud of his ability to funnel large amounts of taxpayer money into his district.

No direct connection has been made to Murtha himself, but questions are multiplying about the hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations that he has received from these and other firms which spend heavily in his western Pennsylvania district.

Tennessee GOP boots their own speaker

If Republicans are looking for a game plan for winning back public support in 2010, a decision made this week by Tennessee House Republicans is a good place to start. In November, Republicans took control of both the state House and Senate for the first time in 150 years. It had been 40 years since the House Speaker was a member of the GOP -- a victory indeed, but short-lived. The story then became a sordid tale fit for, well ... Congress. Republicans aligned themselves behind Rep. Jason Mumpower (R) for the speaker's seat, but when the issue came to a vote, Republican Rep. Kent Williams broke from his party and voted along with the 49 Democrats -- for himself. Williams' turncoat decision resulted in a 50-49 vote, placing him in the speaker's chair. Williams then proceeded to play both sides of the aisle by appointing seven Republicans and six Democrats to chair House committees.

The last straw came when sexual harassment charges against Williams emerged. Republican leaders had had enough and tossed Williams out of the party entirely, meaning he will be unable to run on a GOP ticket should he seek re-election in 2010. Yet the decision also means that Republicans lost their historic dual hold on the state legislature. "The politically expedient thing to do would be to overlook whatever he's done," said GOP Chairwoman Robin Smith. "If we claim to stand for something, and we continue to look the other way when people behave in such a manner, it really negates all that we stand for." An excellent lesson for the RNC.

Democrats have since been courting Williams to join their party and have reportedly urged him to get rid of the seven Republican appointments. Williams says he does not intend to join the Democrats but would most likely run as an independent for re-election. "We could have some changes, and hopefully we could have some changes in our Tennessee GOP. Maybe we would have someone more level-headed, someone who doesn't rule by hate," Williams whined. We're not sure what kind of treatment Williams was expecting from the GOP, but apparently a power grab was just the "level-headed" thing to do.

NATIONAL SECURITY
Warfront with Jihadistan: Rendition to continue

It's good to see that the Obama regime has started learning the lessons of reality, and it's also entertaining to see Obama's leftist minions continue to struggle with the real world. As was long predicted and known, once Obama assumed office, the reality of the Long War would force his hand in dealing with captured jihadis. On Monday, Obama's Justice Department agreed with the Bush administration's use of the "state secrets" defense in the ACLU's lawsuit against the Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan for its role in President Bush's rendition program.

This stance is 180 degrees from Obama's campaign rhetoric, which cast President Bush's war strategy, including rendition, in which captured terrorists are sent to foreign intelligence services for interrogations, as the very embodiment of evil. Additional support for continuing the rendition policy came at the confirmation hearing of CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta, who told a Senate committee that the United States will continue to hand captured jihadis over to other countries for questioning, but only with assurances they will not be "tortured." Of course, Panetta left the definition of torture hanging in the air, as it always is.

Naturally, Obama's rendition policy has caused conniptions among the Loony Left. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero hyperventilated that Obama's policy would only continue "to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government." Well, then. And the loopy KosKids have already jumped off their Messiah's ship for sailing too far right on this issue, posting, "What will the followers of Obama do now? Will they sell out the most wretched and cruelly tortured for the feel-good vibes of the moment? Or will they hold their candidate to account?" Meet the new boss, same as the old boss -- a good thing under the circumstances.

Immigration front: Economy bad, illegals hardest hit

With bad economic news and rising unemployment, some Latin American immigrants are giving up on America and going back home. The size of the exodus is difficult to discern. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, census data suggest that more than one million illegal immigrants left last year, even before the economy began its downward slide. Other sources believe the numbers are still only in the thousands. Immigrants who have made some kind of life here know that if they leave, returning would probably be impossible, so they hang on.

Money sent back home by Mexican immigrants is one measure, at least, of falling employment. In 2008 remittances to families in Mexico fell for the first time since recordkeeping began 13 years ago, dropping from $26 billion in 2007 to $25 billion, according to Mexico's central bank. Remittances are important to Mexico -- they are second only to oil as a source of foreign income.

Meanwhile, there's trouble in Arizona. Roger Barnett, a rancher near the border, has for 10 years patrolled his 22,000-acre spread in his pickup, searching for illegal immigrants. In that time, he's turned 1,200 illegals over to the Border Patrol. During his searches, he carries a pistol and has a rifle in his truck for protection against immigrants and drug smugglers, who often are armed and dangerous.

Today he is in federal court, defending himself against charges of violating the "civil rights" of 16 Mexican nationals whom he found trespassing on his ranch and held at gunpoint until the Border Patrol arrived. The track made by illegals marching across his ranch is a 10-inch deep trail of human debris of every imaginable kind. They have destroyed fences and other property, broken into his home, stolen his car, butchered his cattle and frightened his family.

The plaintiffs' lawyers, generously provided by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), are demanding $32 million in damages -- or more plainly, to destroy Barnett's life as an example to others.

Barnett's lawyer claims illegal aliens do not have the rights of American citizens and that Barnett has the right to defend his home and family. That was once commonly understood.

Israel moves to the right

On 10 February, Israel held parliamentary elections that failed to produce a clear winner. Under Israeli law, any political party that wins at least two percent of the national vote is guaranteed seats in Knesset, a requirement that was met by 12 different parties on Tuesday. The two parties that received the most votes -- Tzipi Livni's center-left Kadima and Benjamin Netanyahu's right-leaning Likud -- still won only a combined 46 percent of the Knesset's 120 seats. Worth noting is that Israel's Left-wing Labor party, which has held power for 50 years of Israel's 60-year history, suffered a humiliating defeat, winning only 13 seats. Even the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu managed to win more seats, signifying a major shift to the right for Israel -- understandable given the failure of leftist policies in the region.

Israeli President Shimon Peres is now tasked with appointing either Livni or Netanyahu as prime minister. Although Kadima won one more parliamentary seat than Likud -- and Peres is himself a member of Kadima -- analysts think it more likely that Netanyahu will be appointed prime minister because he is in a better position to form a coalition majority government with the Knesset's smaller parties. Officials in Washington have already expressed concern at the results of the Israeli election, since a Netanyahu-led coalition is less likely to make concessions to the Palestinians. Sounds fine to us.

Profiles of valor: United States Army Sgt. Hernandez

United States Army Sgt. Omar Hernandez came to America from Mexico with his family when he was six months old. He joined the Army Reserve when he was 19, deploying to Iraq in 2003. He changed to the regular Army in 2004 and returned to Iraq as an infantryman, earning his citizenship after his second tour. On 6 June 2007, during his third tour in Iraq as part of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Hernandez, three other American soldiers and nine Iraqis left Joint Security Station "Maverick" in Ghazaliya on a census patrol.

Just outside the station, however, the team was ambushed. Two Iraqi police were immediately shot. Hernandez returned fire, but was soon shot in the thigh himself. He later said it was "like Forrest Gump -- where he goes, 'Somethin' jumped up and bit me.'" Indeed -- the bullet entered the back and exited the front, just missing his femoral artery, but taking a third of his quadriceps with it. Despite his wound, Hernandez made it to the intersection where the two Iraqi police officers were down, dragging one 15 feet to safety. He then went back for the second, picking him up and carrying him on his shoulder. Hernandez made sure first aid was administered and then resumed firing on the enemy, only later accepting treatment himself. His actions saved the lives of the two Iraqis that day. "I couldn't let anyone die out there," he said. For his heroism, Hernandez received the Silver Star.

BUSINESS & ECONOMY
Income Redistribution: TARP 2.0

When Timothy Geithner was having trouble with character issues during his confirmation process as Treasury secretary, we were told that his personal failing could not derail his ascension because he was the only person who understood the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Based on his congressional debut this week, Geithner's supporters might be having second thoughts. His much-ballyhooed "plan" lacked detail and clarity, and he presented it in a distinctively deer-in-the-headlights manner. Wall Street wasn't impressed, either, with the Dow shedding 382 points Tuesday, or 4.62 percent of its value, as Geithner droned on behind a lectern with a blue banner declaring "Financial Stability." We appreciate that fear is a powerful motivator on Wall Street, but when the market decline accelerates following the release of Geithner's text and doesn't abate until the close of trading, well, in the words of Jim Lovell, "Houston, we have a problem."

The Obama plan is simple enough: Provide a mechanism to allow banks to sell non-performing assets to outside investors. The problems are volume and value. With regard to volume, just like houses, or cars or doughnuts, an increase in supply relative to demand will depress prices (i.e., values). There are investors willing and able to purchase troubled assets, but they will not pay par value for those assets. Investors are seeking economic profit to compensate for the risk that they are assuming. Banks want to dispose of these troubled loans, but a discounted bulk sale that results in a capital call is not palatable.

While TARP was supposed to provide the capital funding to close these deals, the recent media, congressional and administration hype on corporate executive compensation, planes and naming rights of baseball stadiums would give any senior executive pause about accepting government funds. (As usual, our free press pillories the budget and expense decisions of private companies, but has no curiosity about the power-grabbing profligacy of the stimulus bill.) When government abandons its honorable role as referee and arbiter to become a coach and consultant, while printing extra money to pay for it all, the economic model degrades from free market capitalism to centrally planned socialism.

Regulatory Commissars: Triumph of ego over common sense

Anyone who has ever worked in an organization either large or small knows that accountability is inversely proportional to organizational size. The larger the organization, the farther one gets from a problem, and, in turn, the less important it seems. Yet Democrat power mongers in Washington, DC, seemingly want to nationalize every possible decision.

The recent "stimulus" package includes a section laying more groundwork for socialized health care. One provision will set up a federal database of medical records for U.S. citizens. Another empowers a new bureaucracy headed by the "National Coordinator of Health Information Technology," which will, according to Bloomberg's Betsy McCaughey, "monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective." McCaughey continues, "Hospitals and doctors that are not 'meaningful users' of the new system will face penalties. 'Meaningful user' isn't defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose 'more stringent measures of meaningful use over time.'"

The new system is the brainchild of disgraced Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Tom Daschle, who admitted that such reform "will not be pain free." For instance, he believes that the elderly should be more accepting of conditions brought with age rather than treating them. Daschle explained that these ideas would "lower overall spending by determining which medicines, treatments and procedures are most effective and identifying those that do not justify their high price tags."

We don't operate under the illusion that members of Congress will live by these same rules. For instance, a rich old senator with a brain tumor is unlikely to accept a death sentence because treatment would not be cost effective. So why make the average Mary Jo suffer that fate?

CULTURE & POLICY
Judicial Benchmarks: From the 'Court Jesters' file

On Monday, a three-judge federal panel tentatively ruled that the state of California must release up to 55,000 prisoners to remedy what they called "constitutionally inadequate medical and mental health care" in the state's prison system, which is running at practically double its designed capacity.

The panel, composed of three Carter-appointed district and circuit judges, surmised in their ruling that since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger favored the release of 40,000 prisoners in an earlier prison reform proposal, the panel "cannot believe that such support would exist if the adoption of such measures would adversely affect public safety." They also claimed that the state could placate local governments by noting their savings of $800-900 million if prisoners are released through a combination of earned "good-time" credits and parole reform. It is unclear, however, what the cost of recidivism may be from the release of these convicted felons to the state of California and surrounding states.

While the ruling is tentative pending any remedial action by the state's legislature or negotiations between the parties, State Attorney General Jerry Brown vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if the ruling were made permanent.

Judicial Benchmarks: From the Leftjudiciary

Judge Stephen Reinhardt is a busy guy these days. Not only was he on the three-judge panel which ruled that California should release the aforementioned 55,000 prisoners, but he also issued a ruling overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Reinhardt, who many readers may recall was the judge behind the 2005 ruling declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, ruled last week that the federal government's refusal to grant benefits to the same-sex partner of a lawyer in the Los Angeles office of the federal defender was unlawful discrimination on the basis of sexual (dis)orientation.

With that ruling, the Supreme Court may yet again have to step in and decide the fate of a key component of the homosexual rights agenda -- that is unless Congress beats them to it by repealing DOMA. Certainly the Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration would like nothing better than to pay back one of their biggest supporting casts.

2nd Amendment: Crime is down, some call for more gun control

The FBI has recently released 2008 statistics showing that violent crime in the United States has dropped to a 35-year low, with the murder rate at its lowest in 43 years. In fact, since peaking in 1991, the rates of murder and violent crime as a whole have fallen 41 percent and 46 percent respectively. But despite this positive news, the anti-gun Brady Campaign is continuing to wage war on our Second Amendment right to bear arms.

The Campaign is claiming, "Most states have weak or non-existent gun laws that help feed the illegal gun market, allow the sale of guns without Brady background checks and put families and children at risk." This statement flies in the face of the cold, hard fact that violent crime stats have fallen during a time when laws restricting the purchase of firearms have become less stringent.

Manipulating data is nothing new to the Brady Campaign. Each year the group issues a scorecard for each state, on which the state scores anywhere from zero to 100. The more gun control laws it has on the books, the higher the score. The problem is, they don't bother to check whether the laws are having any effect on crime. In truth, it's more guns, less crime.

Village Academic Curriculum: Zero-sense tolerance

When 17-year-old Marie Morrow parked her car at her high school last week, she had no idea she was setting into motion a debate about state gun laws. Morrow, a member of the Douglas County Young Marines, left three drill team practice rifles in plain sight in the back seat of her car. Other students passing by the vehicle became frightened when they saw the fake rifles and alerted the school's staff. Now Morrow has been suspended and may soon be expelled from school.

State and federal law calls for mandatory expulsion for any student bringing a dangerous weapon into a school building. The Cherokee Trail High School student conduct handbook defines a dangerous weapon as "a firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, or a firearm facsimile that could reasonably be mistaken for an actual firearm." The rifles, made of wood and duct tape, apparently look real enough to be mistaken for the genuine article by teens and school staff.

Morrow has claimed full responsibility for the incident but argues that she should not be expelled from school. She understands, she said, why the law was enacted post-Columbine and that the school was only following the rules. However, she is now lobbying in favor of school boards having the discretion to study the facts of each particular case. What a concept.

Several state lawmakers, including Republican Senator Scott Renfroe, agree that in cases like Morrow's the law is overbroad. "We need to look at this and add some common sense to our statute," Renfroe said after meeting with Morrow and her family.

Morrow has a 3.5 grade point average and hopes to attend the United States Merchant Marine Academy after graduating from high school. Let's hope she has the chance to do just that.

Faith and family: Tragedy in Florida

The Florida Board of Medicine has revoked the medical license of Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique after an infant girl was born alive following a botched abortion -- and then placed in the trash and left to die. An 18-year-old was 23 weeks pregnant when she scheduled an abortion, but Renelique failed to arrive for several hours after the mother was medicated, and she went into labor and delivered a live baby girl.

According to the lawsuit, the baby -- named Shanice -- was placed in a biohazard bag and discarded with the trash. Authorities discovered Shanice's body a week later.

In 2002, President Bush signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which guarantees full legal rights under federal law to every infant born alive, whether or not the birth occurred as a result of a botched abortion and regardless of the baby's stage of development. Yet, tragically, Florida's case is far from isolated and represents only the latest incident to come to light in which abortion survivors are deliberately left to die. Abortion advocates argue the humanity of their position, but make no mistake: Shanice's experience is the gruesome reality of "Pro-choice" America.

And last...

President Barack Obama held a town meeting in Fort Myers, Florida, on Tuesday to drum up support for the boatloads of money being spent in Washington. Some of the questions from the audience reveal a bit about the sycophants who can't wait for the Messiah to heal the land. One disgruntled slacker asked, "I just lost my job ...and haven't been able to pay all the bills. I was making $3,600 a month. I got laid off. I got fired. My unemployment benefits are $1,100 a month. When is the government going to make up the difference? How come when I lose my job, the government doesn't pay me what I was making when I got fired or laid off?"

Henrietta Hughes pleaded almost incoherently, "I have a urgent need, unemployment and homelessness, a very small vehicle for my family and I to live in. We need it urgent, and housing authority have two years waiting list and we need something more than the vehicle and the parks to go to. We need our own kitchen and our own bathroom. Please help." Sure, Henrietta ... one house coming right up.

A young man named Julio Osegueda, who had been working at McDonald's for the last four years, asked, "Do you have any plan or any idea of making someone that has been there for a long time receive any better benefits than what they've already received?" That ridiculous question was blurted out after he exclaimed, "Oh, it is such a blessing to see you Mr. President. Thank you for taking time out of your day! Oh, gracious God, thank you so much! Ungh!"

After the meeting, Julio was asked about his question and how it felt to address the president. "I have never felt this good except maybe when I got my PlayStation 3 for Christmas," he replied. Alas, sometimes it does seem like we're living in a bad video game.

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot's editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)