From Freedom Outpost:

Apparently Barack Obama’s fiscal cliff proposal is so one-sided, partisan, and ridiculous that Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell says he “burst into laughter” during the talks on Thursday when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner explained the Obama administration’s proposal to avert the fiscal cliff.

Obama’s fiscal cliff proposal is so one-sided, partisan, and ridiculous…

Of course it is, we’re talking B. Hussein, here!

Read the rest.

The Left: If it moves, regulate it. If it doesn’t move, regulate it anyway. Control, micromanage, apply every dollar of taxpayer funds available (or not, just keep the spending going!)

There’s an informative Op-Ed in today’s Washington Times on-line by Representative Jeb Hensarling (R, Texas) about the Dodd Frank Act and what it means in the Real World as opposed to the one occupied by today’s Democrats and their liberal mentors.

The news of J.P. Morgan Chase’s recent trading loss has raised the cry of “I told you so” from proponents of the almost 2-year-old Dodd-Frank Act. They say the law’s Volcker rule would have prevented such a loss and that without more regulation, financial institutions will continue to make poor investment decisions.

As an opponent of Dodd-Frank and one of many who have warned against the politicization of our economy, the threat of future bailouts and attempts by the government to eliminaterisks, I also wish to say, “I told you so.”

Within Dodd-Frank’s 2,300 pages are provisions allowing the government to designate certain financial firms “systemically important financial institutions” - otherwise known as “too big to fail” (TBTF). The law then empowers the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to seize a troubled TBTF firm for the purpose of winding it down. In doing so, the FDIC can borrow up to the book value of the institution from taxpayers, an amount that could be astounding, as Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan are all $2 trillion institutions.

Because private financial firms such as J.P. Morgan inevitably will blunder regardless of their size or sophistication, designating any firm TBTF is bad policy and worse economics. It causes erosion of market discipline and risks further bailouts paid in full by hardworking Americans. It also becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, helping make firms bigger and riskier than they otherwise would be. Look no further than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their taxpayer-funded bailout to the tune of nearly $200 billion.

Unfortunately, Dodd-Frank codifies TBTF into federal law. Since its passage, the big banks have become larger and the small banks have become fewer. As a nation, we would do well to rethink TBTF’s fundamental premise before it’s too late.

Even if some conclude that certain financial firms are indeed TBTF, it begs the question whether Washington is even competent to manage their risk. A review of the federal government’s track record in this area does not inspire confidence. The Federal Housing Administration’s poor risk management has left it severely undercapitalized. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. has an unfunded obligation of $26 billion. Even the National Flood Insurance Program is $18 billion underwater (pun intended). Then we have Fannie and Freddie.

Yes, then we do.

We have said here before that one of the greatest shortcomings of “progressives” is that they never learn from mistakes: “It failed the first ninety nine times, so it’s got to work the hundredth!”

Of course, as most of us already realize, regulating, along with its partner, taxing, are hand in glove activities for the left, and any mishap of any kind, even one caused by them, provides them with an excuse to pass legislation applying more rules, thereby creating more bureaucracy as people must be brought in as permanent staff to monitor compliance and churn out additional idiocy in order to justify their stuffed salaries, pensions and overblown benefits.

Anyway, the entire Op-Ed is here.

Yeah, that travesty we call Obamacare.

Despite all the stuff we read about how this state’s fighting Obamacare in the courts, that state’s doing this, the other state’s doing something else, it appears that the miscarriage of government authority is still a done deal, one which, like everything else the politicians want to foist on us that most of us aren’t up for, has been gradually eased out of the spotlight the last couple of years until now it’s apparently “yesterday’s news”, its various aspects scheduled to go into effect as scheduled.

In Heritage’s The Foundry yesterday, Alyene Senger featured a column titled The 10 Terrible Provisions of Obamacare You May Not Have Heard Of.

These are just the first four (the rest are in the column linked immediately above):

It increases taxes on families earning over $250,000. In 2013, the employee portion of the Medicare payroll tax will increase from 1.45 percent to 2.35 percent for families earning $250,000 or more and individuals earning $200,000 or more. The income threshold is not indexed for inflation, so more and more middle-income families will be hit by the tax hike as time goes on.

It adds a new tax to investment income. The increased payroll tax rate is also applied to high-earners’ investment income for the first time beginning in 2013. It will hit capital gains, dividends, rents, and royalties, discouraging investment and harming economic growth.

It puts new limitations on those with HSAs and FSAs. Starting in 2012, Obamacare restricts the products that consumers may purchase with a Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Savings Account (FSA)—such as over-the-counter medications—and increases the penalty for such non-qualified uses of HSAs. It also limits the amount taxpayers may deposit into an FSA to $2,500 a year in 2013.

It adds a new tax on those who purchase medical devices. In 2013, a 2.3 percent excise tax will be applied to medical devices, causing a $28.5 billion tax hike on medical device manufacturers. The industry will pay for this tax by reducing jobs and passing additional costs on to consumers.

It has been my understanding since becoming an American going on four (4) decades ago that we, the people run this country and the politicians are supposed to be working for us. It is also my understanding that we Americans are generally not stupid, certainly not dumb enough to want to be subjected to anything like the Patient “Protection” and “Affordable” Care Act. Having said that, I wonder how it is that this country’s fallen so far that we seem to have to stomach such insubordinate malfeasance on the part of those we have elected to govern our country, the will of the people notwithstanding….

From the front end of (this last) New Year’s weekend, Oliver North in Town Hall…

…This week, as we prepare to ring out 2011 and welcome 2012, President Barack Obama asked for Congress to authorize yet another increase in our national debt — the third such rise in less than 15 months. Housing prices continue to slide; more than 13 million Americans are unemployed; government spending continues unabated; and America’s credit rating is at risk of another downgrade. In January, barring action by Congress and the White House, U.S. defense spending cuts totaling $1.1 trillion over the next four years will begin to take effect. Such an outcome in the midst of these perilous times ought to be unthinkable.

Instead of putting tens of thousands of Americans to work building new ships, submarines, aircraft and a missile shield to protect the American people from nuclear attack, the Obama administration wants the federal government to create temporary jobs repaving highways, painting bridges and re-roofing public schools. Rather than have unemployed construction workers build a petroleum pipeline from Canada (and improve U.S. energy security), the Obama White House wastes billions on phony “green jobs.” The administration has to hope we all will forget the word “Solyndra.”

Ollie North looks like better presidential material than anyone running in the current field.

In a burst of year-end euphoria, progressive politicians, pundits and government economists are predicting that the worst of the “Bush-era recession” is behind us and that good times are just ahead. They pin their economic hopes for 2012 less on American entrepreneurs than they do on German taxpayers.

The experts are praying Berlin will continue to bail out European PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) and prevent an Old World financial collapse that would drag down the sale of U.S. goods and services on the Continent. Expect to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel feted at a White House state dinner early in the new year. A million or so American jobs could well depend on whether she likes the soup.

{In the Truth Hurts Department} OUCH!

Jobs — the word used most often by politicians running for office in 2012. Regardless of party, whether challenger or incumbent, every office seeker tells us he or she has a way of “creating,” “protecting,” “saving” or “improving” jobs for American workers. What few of our elected officials ever mention is how vulnerable these “well-paying” and “secure” jobs are to factors far more threatening than the European debt crisis. Here are the top three issues that should concern those who purport to care about our economic well-being in the year ahead:

1) An Iranian nuke. Just before Christmas, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told us Iran could have a workable nuclear weapon in 2012. He also knows — but didn’t say — that the theocrats in Tehran already have the means of delivering it. Tel Aviv, Israel, is target No. 1. American civilians are No. 2 on the ayatollahs’ hit parade. To Israelis, the expression “Never Again” isn’t a political slogan. It’s a way of life. They are not going to wait to be incinerated.

The Obama administration could stop the Iranians from building atomic weapons and perhaps even bring about regime change by forbidding any company doing any business in Iran from doing any business in the U.S. But unless the O-Team takes such a step, the Israelis will have to act pre-emptively to prevent annihilation. If you think the “2008-11 global recession” hurt, you don’t want to contemplate what the world economy would be like after an attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons sites.

2) The jihad. The “Arab Spring” — once so proudly proclaimed to have been instigated by Obama’s soaring rhetoric — has become a nightmare for democratic aspirations in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Moammar Gadhafi and Anwar al-Awlaki are dead, but the jihad being waged by radical Islamists is stronger than ever. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Sudan are headed for Shariah rather than secular governance in 2012. Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Nigeria and even Saudi Arabia could follow suit soon. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom forecasts that Christianity could be eradicated in these countries. The economic impact of such an upheaval is potentially catastrophic.

3) The collapse of Russian democracy. Vladimir Putin is presiding over a dying country — and he knows it. Though Russian energy exports to Europe and China currently fill the coffers of Moscow’s kleptocracy and help rebuild Soviet-era nuclear weapons, the future for the land of the czars is bleak. Russia’s population — now 141.7 million — drops by nearly 1 million per year. With an average male life span of just 59 years, look for 2012 to be the year Putin and his cronies do all they can to line their pockets — at our expense.

You have to wonder what all those people we presently pay to think about these things and govern accordingly have been doing with their time, you know? Are they so busy working on getting reelected, lining their pockets via insider trading and figuring out new perks and benefits to give themselves that they haven’t got any time for America, their employer whose shareholders are the taxpayers?

Note to all running for office in 2012: The word “entitlement” does not appear in the Constitution. The words “provide for the common defence” do. Happy new year.

Yes, to all, Happy New Year.

…I simply must share it, in case someone who visits Hard Astarboard hasn’t seen it.

An indignant President Obama complained last week, “I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead.” Fine. How about plastering a copy of his presidential oath of office there instead? The kowtowing commander-in-chief is in dire need of a daily reminder that his job is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” — not international law or global diktats.

Case in point: Last week, Obama’s State Department handed in America’s first-ever report to the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in conjunction with something called the “Universal Periodic Review.” In short, the 29-page document (pdf) is a self-aggrandizing report card touting the administration’s far-left domestic and foreign policy initiatives for the world’s approval. The report boasts of racial- and gender-bean-counting in the executive branch; Justice Department outreach to Muslim grievance groups opposed to post-9/11 security measures; teachers’ union payoffs in the federal stimulus law; continuing commitment to closing the Gitmo detention facility for enemy combatants; and the illusory lifesaving effects of Obamacare on minorities through “expanding community health centers” (which have yet to be built, but not that it matters in our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president’s age of post-achievement).

The report also includes a section on “values and immigration,” which essentially singles out Arizona’s immigration enforcement law as a human rights deficiency “that is being addressed in a court action.”

Yeah, this issue had mention here a few days ago, but some things bear repetition when they are downright offensive, so, truncating a bit…

No one should be surprised, of course, that the Department of Blame America First is prostrating itself before the likes of repressive U.N. Human Rights Council members Libya, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China. No one should be surprised that Obama’s globalist panderers couldn’t simply keep their mouths shut and refrain from trashing Americans with whom they disagree. In May, you’ll recall, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner preemptively trashed our country’s human rights record to Chinese government officials and humiliated Arizonans — and all Americans — who support states’ rights to protect their borders and enhance their security through strict immigration enforcement. An obsequious Posner called S.B. 1070 “a troubling trend in our society” in his bow-and-scrape conversations with the ChiComs.

The inclusion of Arizona in a politically correct catalogue of human rights and wrongs is more than “downright offensive,” as Brewer put it. It’s a national travesty. In the very same Obama administration document, the State Department praises the administration for its “robust protections for freedom of expression.” The report notes sanctimoniously: “As a general matter, the government does not punish or penalize those who peacefully express their views in the public sphere, even when those views are critical of the government. Indeed, dissent is a valuable and valued part of our politics.”

Yeah? Tell that to the Democratic members of Congress leading the punitive economic boycott and political demonization of Arizona. Or to Attorney General Eric Holder, who rushed to attack S.B. 1070 before he had even read it. Fresh off this U.N. mess, Holder’s Social Justice Department has launched yet another vendetta against Arizona. On Monday, DOJ filed suit against Phoenix-area community colleges because they imposed strict citizenship screening of potential employees.

As Obama throws America under the bus for the cause of open borders, the shady U.N. human rights police must be laughing their jackboots off.

The entire column is here.

November, 2012 is sure taking its sweet time getting here…

…at least if one were a member of the party on the left side of the aisle, would have to be “Ouch!”

“We the people” are the familiar opening words of the Constitution of the United States– the framework for a self-governing people, free from the arbitrary edicts of rulers. It was the blueprint for America, and the success of America made that blueprint something that other nations sought to follow.

At the time when it was written, however, the Constitution was a radical departure from the autocratic governments of the 18th century. Since it was something so new and different, the reasons for the Constitution’s provisions were spelled out in “The Federalist,” a book written by three of the writers of the Constitution, as a sort of instruction guide to a new product.

The Constitution was not only a challenge to the despotic governments of its time, it has been a continuing challenge– to this day– to all those who think that ordinary people should be ruled by their betters, whether an elite of blood, or of books or of whatever else gives people a puffed-up sense of importance.

While the kings of old have faded into the mists of history, the principle of the divine rights of kings to impose whatever they wish on the masses lives on today in the rampaging presumptions of those who consider themselves anointed to impose their notions on others.

The Constitution of the United States is the biggest single obstacle to the carrying out of such rampaging presumptions, so it is not surprising that those with such presumptions have led the way in denigrating, undermining and evading the Constitution.

As is always the case with Thomas Sowell, very well put.

To truncate a bit…

It is no coincidence that those who imagine themselves so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us should be in the forefront of those who seek to erode Constitutional restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government. How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people?

To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America. This has been going on piecemeal over the years but now we have an administration in Washington that circumvents the Constitution wholesale, with its laws passed so fast that the public cannot know what is in them, its appointment of “czars” wielding greater power than Cabinet members, without having to be exposed to pubic scrutiny by going through the confirmation process prescribed by the Constitution for Cabinet members.

Now there is leaked news of plans to change the immigration laws by administrative fiat, rather than Congressional legislation, presumably because Congress might be unduly influenced by those pesky voters– with their Constitutional rights– who have shown clearly that they do not want amnesty and open borders, despite however much our betters do. If the Obama administration gets away with this, and can add a few million illegals to the voting rolls in time for the 2012 elections, that can mean reelection, and with it a continuing and accelerating dismantling of America.

Infuriating, at least to those of us who love America and embrace both the wisdom and the freedom guaranteed us by the Constitution, but true.

Read the entire spot-on column.

To reverse an old adage, every silver lining has a cloud.

At least this one does.

As I mentioned previously, other conservatives have said that the plus side of the Obama presidency is that it has awakened “sleeping” Americans to the dangerous influence a socialist administration, especially one supported by a socialist-dominated House and Senate, presents; How it can effect the American way of life, virtually decimate our economy and intrude upon the liberties guaranteed us by the Constitution.

That is the silver lining.

The cloud is the damage the Obama Administration and the Pelosi/Reid-led Congress have already done to the economy and are laboring to do to the First, Second, Tenth and Twenty Seventh Amendments before they are voted out of the White House and into a minority on the Hill, respectively.

But back to the silver lining.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama’s leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

The survey also shows grave and growing concerns about the Gulf oil spill, with overwhelming majorities of adults favoring stronger regulation of the oil industry and believing that the spill will affect the nation’s economy and environment.

Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama’s tenure.

Amid anxiety over the nation’s course, support for Mr. Obama and other incumbents is eroding. For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama’s job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years.

The results show “a really ugly mood and an unhappy electorate,” said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. “The voters, I think, are just looking for change, and that means bad news for incumbents and in particular for the Democrats.”

The entire article.

…57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years.

18 years, that’s how long it’s been since the Democrats last got skunked and a lengthy Republican majority ensued.

This time, however, a number of incumbent GOP long timers are also being given pink slips by right thinkers and moderate Republicans alike in state primaries, being replaced by more genuinely conservative candidates.

The RINOs and several “progressives” are either going to have to retire or start typing their resumes; while many of those Democrats who so recently made it plain that they were willing to sell out the American people for the good of “the party” have experienced the sudden urge to “spend more time with their families”.

Essentially, the disaffected voters of this greatest of nations have opted to take a step in the right direction.

I’ve said more than once in political discussions with friends that what we are seeing now is a bloodless revolution of sorts.

Not a coup d’etat, of course, but a revolution within the established parties, waged by the common man.

Provoked by the irresponsible passage of the “Stimulus” Bill and ObamaCare, the Big Bail-outs and, among other factors, the trillions of dollars of national debt which has obligated the children of today and those of generations as yet unborn, to pay the freight, the revelation arrived in the form of the Tea partyers and others, from both sides of the political divide, letting the politicians they elected know it’s time to type their resumes.

How? By voting out incumbents in the primaries, declaring their frustration with the old boy network of self seeking parasites on the Hill who squander the taxpayers’ money as though it were Monopoly money via spending the majority of voters of both parties do not condone.

Then, of course, a number of Democrats who were browbeaten or bribed by the Reid/Pelosi biumvirate learned very quickly that they had flushed their political careers down the tubes by ignoring the will of The People who, though they seem to forget, are their employers.

These on-the-way-out politicians are only the beginning, there is in progress a voter backlash the likes of which hasn’t been seen in my lifetime, and that, my friends, is the American system at work. It may take awhile for the American People to get it together, but what do you expect when the media, the public’s primary source for information, has become a propaganda unit for the far left?

As for the president, he, too, is experiencing a rude awakening, not only in the way his previously tame media, like rats abandoning a sinking ship, is going with the same popular opinion, to some extent, that has been placing as much blame for the outpouring of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, but also in the way certain members of his formerly agreeable congressional majority has, in an attempt to save their own skins in this midterm election year, begun to stand up to our self-styled king.

The Senate on Wednesday rejected a $140 billion taxes and spending package in a resounding defeat for President Obama and Democratic leaders that signaled the era of freewheeling stimulus spending is giving way to greater concern for deficits.

Hours later, chastened Democrats produced a pared-down version they said spent less and found offsetting tax increases to pay for most, though not all, of the new measure, which includes unemployment benefits and aid to states.

“There are fewer dollars involved here, and it is more paid-for,” said Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, acknowledging the 11 Democrats and one independent who sided with Republicans in blocking his first version. “We heard what those senators were saying and we have adjusted the amendment accordingly.”

Republicans said the vote - in which Democrats fell 15 votes shy of the 60 needed to allow for the overspending - marked a new attitude for lawmakers who are beginning to worry about debt and deficits as they prepare to face voters in November. It would have swelled the federal debt by $80 billion.

The whole thing.

Photo hat tip to The Voting Female.

Nope.

Congress is apparently being overlooked as well where our supposedly transparent Administration is concerned.

A top lawmaker on the House intelligence committee said Sunday the Obama administration is withholding information about the botched Times Square bombing from Congress, continuing a pattern in which Capitol Hill isn’t getting the information it needs to conduct oversight.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the panel’s ranking Republican, said he agrees with the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate intelligence committee, who last week sent a letter to the White House accusing the administration of putting national security in jeopardy by failing to keep lawmakers apprised of the probe into suspect Faisal Shahzad.

“Having to fight over access to counterterrorism information is not productive and ultimately makes us less secure,” wrote Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Dianne Feinstein and Vice Chairman Christopher S. Bond in a letter to President Obama on Thursday, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

If I’m not mistaken, that’s against the law, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t Congress supposed to be apprised of such things, what with the U.S. not being a dictatorship?

Mr. Hoekstra said the lack of information prevents Congress from evaluating whether the government is adequately prepared to thwart future attacks.

“One of these days there will be an attack, it will be successful, and then people will want to know what was done and why weren’t things done to stop it, and it will all be on the heads of this administration because they ran it and they didn’t involve Congress in the process,” he said. “On the most recent terrorist attacks they’ve given us no opportunity, no invitation to work with them, to enhance or modify our intelligence tools … and that we did everything we could to try to get them to work and be more open about it.”

In the letter, the senators say U.S. intelligence agencies repeatedly refused to provide relevant information on the Times Square case that would allow the committee to conduct oversight without hampering the ongoing investigation. Senate intelligence staffers were told that the Department of Justice had instructed the agencies not to convey information on the Times Square plot without its approval, they said.

However:

The White House wouldn’t comment on the charges…

What’s new?

…but a spokesman for the Justice Department said the department reached out to Congress “shortly after” the May 1 incident, providing information by phone and e-mail beginning on May 3.

Spokesman Dean Boyd said officials from the FBI, Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center provided a classified briefing to members of the House intelligence panel on May 6 and briefed their Senate counterparts on May 11. He also said the Justice Department did not tell intelligence officials not to cooperate with lawmakers.

“The Justice Department did not order anyone in the intelligence community to withhold information from the Senate intelligence committee in connection with the attempted bombing,” Mr. Boyd said. “In fact, when the Justice Department was notified by certain intelligence agencies that they were planning to make calls to the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Justice Department encouraged those agencies to do so.”

A spokeswoman for Rep. Silvestre Reyes, head of the House intelligence panel, said the Texas Democrat — the only one of his counterparts not to sign — was generally “pleased at the detailed level and the timeliness of the briefing, given we were briefed less than 72 hours after Shahzad’s arrest.”

Reyes, a combat vet, was a career mover and shaker on the U.S. Border Patrol, but he is also one of today’s Democrats, who haven’t exactly distinguished themselves of late in the “protect and defend the Constitution” arena.

“So,” we ask, “what’s the story?”

But, Mr. Hoekstra countered:

Ah! A “but”!

“It’s a joke when the administration says ‘well, Justice, they’re fully cooperating and they’re telling everybody else to cooperate’ but then they put handcuffs on them about what they can tell and actually share with us.”

Dissatisfaction with the administration on oversight matters goes beyond the intelligence panels. Last month, Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, the top members of the Senate panel on homeland security, issued the administration its first congressional subpoenas over the Fort Hood shootings in Texas. Mr. Hoekstra argued that that case has documents — such as Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan’s e-mails — that the administration could share with lawmakers without jeopardizing the investigation.

“They’ve got enough information to convict Hasan and probably send him to jail for the rest of his life; he killed 13 Americans in front of what, 100 people,” Mr. Hoekstra said.

Barack Hussein Obama is not very “talkative” for the nucleus of a “transparent administration”, now, is he?

The only transparent things about his presidency are the “czars” he appointed ‘way back in every sector so that he’s got people on the scene who can go around Congress and deal directly with him and his moving the results of the U.S. Census into the white house so he and his cabal of convict material can manipulate demographic information to suit their political agendas.

“Don’t turn around, uh oh uh oh, der kommissar’s in town, uh oh uh oh…”

…promise us “transparency” when he was campaigning, in the same breath as he blasted the Bush Administration for a lack thereof?

Well…

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it will provide more information to Congress about the Fort Hood shootings but continued to defy a subpoena request for witness statements and other documents.

After days of negotiations, the Defense and Justice departments informed a Senate committee that they will not comply with congressional subpoenas to share investigative records related to the Nov. 5 shootings at Fort Hood, Tex., which killed 13 people. The agencies said divulging the material could jeopardize their prosecution of Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the alleged gunman.

The Pentagon said, however, that it will give the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs access to Hasan’s personnel file, as well as part of an Army report that scrutinized why superiors did not intervene in Hasan’s career as an Army psychiatrist, despite signs of his religious radicalization and shortcomings as a soldier.

Leslie Phillips, a committee spokeswoman, said the refusal to hand over all the material was “an affront” to Congress’s duty “to conduct independent oversight of the executive branch.”

Nidal M. Hasan’s conviction, given the circumstances, is a “slam dunk”, even a deaf, dumb, blind, mentally impaired prosecutor could win this one hands down.

The real problem is Barack Hussein’s partiality to Islamofascists, as evidenced by the difficulty he seems to have even labelling them for what they are; Our president simply hates the prospect of turning over any evidence that might imply that Hasan’s being a Muslim might have had anything to do with his murder spree, even though it had everything to do with it.

Basically, the affair could best be defined as “applied Islam”.

The entire article is here.

Imagine if George W. Bush had declined to provide information to a congressional investigation in this manner. The Democrat and media dog-and-pony show would have been the performance of the century.