My new column, “Brussels: Obama’s New Mecca,” is on WND.COM. Here’s an excerpt:

“… Fifty five delegates convened in 1787 at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, to carve out the contours of this Constitution. Imagine those magnificent men making the case that the people of the colonies they represented ought to sit idle should their homesteads be overrun by trespassers and their families and friends imperiled. Imagine those very men arguing for a future central authority that acted as the sole arbiter in deciding who would breach the perimeters of their respective home patches.
Inconceivable.

If we lived in the old decentralized republic of absolute property rights, land owners in border communities would be policing and defending their properties and the commons. They’d have stopped the ongoing influx in its tracks. Whereas America’s modern-day community leader is suing Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for being a “bad gringo, a racist, and a bully”; community leaders in early America ? as historian David Hackett Fischer tells it ? often required an immigrant to furnish them with an affidavit from the Old Country, attesting to good character, before being permitted to settle among them.

Read the rest of “Brussels: Obama’s New Mecca,” on WND.COM.

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material and reviews. Get your copy (or copies) now!

Gleaned from its sources in the bowels of the Obama administration, DEBKAfile has provided the likely backdrop, and backroom deals, that have led to the tiresome and futile reunion of Bibi Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, second-in-command in the Palestinian Authority, after the Hamas leader du jour.:

“Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is misleading his ministers by presenting the direct talks opening with the Palestinians on Sept. 2 as a diplomatic victory. He has omitted to disclose that the Obama administration has reneged on the secret deals for paving the way to the talks it concluded with Netanyahu’s senior aides Yitzhak Molcho and Uzi Arad.

Part of the deal was for Israel to line up with the Obama administration’s non-reaction to Iran’s activation of its Russian-built nuclear reactor at Bushehr last Saturday, Aug. 21. The United States promised, for its part, to deliver the Palestinians to the negotiating table for face -to-face talks after dropping their pre-conditions (determination of the 1967 lines as the final borders of a Palestinian state and a moratorium on Jewish construction on the West Bank and Jerusalem).

But most of all, the secret deal obliged Obama to refrain from twisting Israel’s arm on behalf of the Palestinians should the dialogue founder – as it is widely expected to do.

Wit this deal in the bag, Netanyahu was able to showcase the Obama administration’s endorsement of his diplomatic strategy and is rejection of Palestinian demands.

However, the deal was shown to have sprung a leak in the formal announcements in Washington of Friday, Aug. 20, debkafile discloses.
Whereas Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept faith with Israel and turned down a last minute White House demand to insert this phrase in her announcement: ‘The United States could offer bridging proposals if necessary,’ into her announcement, the euphemistic phrase turned up in special presidential envoy George Mitchell’s remarks elaborating on the Clinton statement.’”

MORE.

HERE are some astute observations by Larry Auster (along the lines made a while back in “Dhimmis At Ground Zero?”) prompted by decent (and thus rare) journalism practiced by the Australian media with respect to Geert Wilders. He is the Dutch politician (more like statesman), who speaks clearly (as opposed to our incoherent activists) and honestly about Islam, its religionists and their compatibility with life in the West:

“An Australian TV news program has a long (about 20 minutes) segment on Geert Wilders. Despite the host’s open hostility to Wilders, the program–utterly unlike what would happen on U.S. television–gives a fair view of him and his positions. It is the fullest media presentation of Wilders, and of his place in Dutch politics, that I’ve seen. To be watching a mainstream television news show and see Wilders say, in his reasonable yet firm and determined manner, that Islam is a threat to the West and that its ingress into the Netherlands must be stopped, period, is thrilling. Among other things, he is light years beyond the American conservative anti-jihadists, who to this very moment, and despite their support for Wilders, are unable to state that Islam is the problem, that Islam must be stopped, that Islam doesn’t belong in the West. The anti-jihadists–with their attacks on ‘Islamism,’ not Islam, with their ‘I love Muslims, I just don’t want the mosque to be so close to Ground Zero,’ are frightened and uncertain children who stick their toe into the water of the Islam problem and then run back to mommy. Wilders is an adult who has grasped the simple truth about Islam and states it without equivocation.”

“When the West has acquired more adults like Wilders, it will proceed to save itself. And–who knows?–maybe some of the currently still frightened Islamism critics will be among them.”

MORE.

UPDATE: Quote of the Day on LauraIngraham.com:

“In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority.”
- Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf, in a 1977 letter to the editor.

The One-State Solution is promoted by many left-liberals, paleo-cons and libertarians; that is true. But not if Geert has anything to do with it.

Even though President Obama obviously listened to William Kristol’s advice given a day in advance of BHO’s his speech on Iraq, the Fox News neoconservative coterie was unhappy with the role carved out by the president for America abroad.

Chuckie Krauthammer lamented Obama’s lack of ‘vision’ when it comes to America’s role in world. These insular chauvinists don’t get it, do they? America is a crippled, credit-wracked waning economy—and empire. Largely due to their Jacobin expeditions.

Nevertheless, Krauthammer and his colleague on the Fox New All-Star panel, took the president’s reference to the minor, irrelevant “economic stuff” as a sign that “that his heart is not in these missions abroad, but is in changing America at home.”

If only the first accusation were true.

At least 4500 Special Ops soldiers are still doing battle in Iraq, and will be doing so for the foreseeable future.

Later.

Another turn of the screw for Arizona comes courtesy of the traitor-in-chief and his administration. A “Report of the United States of America Submitted to the U.N. High Commissioner,” issued by the State Department, states the following, on page 23, under the heading “Values and Immigration”:

“A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world. The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined.”

Why would the traitor class’s actions surprise anyone? Abe Lincoln, whom Glenn Beck, tellingly, and thousands of Americans honored on the week-end, sicced American brothers on one another in order to sunder states’ rights and bring the sovereign states under his totalitarian thumb. (Yes, “TAKING AMERICA BACK MEANS TAKING LINCOLN DOWN.”) What’s a bit of tittle-tattle to the despotic Unites Nations by BHO’s administration, in comparison?

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is furious; she tends to foam incoherently instead of asking Kris Kobach to speak for her.

Brewer’s right and obligation to protect her citizens was, alas, defended on Fox News by Michael Reagan, with reference to the dangerous concept (in the hands of his ilk) of American exceptionalism. Apparently property rights and state sovereignty are not enough; American presidents must go forth and tout the the American State as a force for good in the world.

Hey, Michael and the Messiah have a lot in common. The first heading in the just-mentioned report the US is mandated to hand over to the global government reads:

“A more perfect union, a more perfect world.” Out of Honest Abe’s mouth (Which corner? That fork tongue spoke out of both).

“The pigs to which the politicians pander outnumber—and are electorally stronger than—the productive whom they plunder. The first are feeding off the second and will not let-up. To remove or not to remove the teat of the Welfare State from its primary beneficiaries: that will be the question on the Tuesday following the first Monday, in November.” Indeed, fewer and fewer are working to feed more and more Americans. USA Today has the latest astounding figures:

“Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.

More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That’s up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007.

“Virtually every Medicaid director in the country would say that their current enrollment is the highest on record,” says Vernon Smith of Health Management Associates, which surveys states for Kaiser Family Foundation.

The program has grown even before the new health care law adds about 16 million people, beginning in 2014. That has strained doctors. ‘Private physicians are already indicating that they’re at their limit,’ says Dan Hawkins of the National Association of Community Health Centers.

More than 40 million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50% during the economic downturn, according to government data through May. The program has grown steadily for three years.

Caseloads have risen as more people become eligible. The economic stimulus law signed by President Obama last year also boosted benefits.”

[SNIP]

Statism Starts With Us!

Some time ago Oprah Winfrey discovered that the welfare state of Denmark was home to the happiest people in the world. She and others (Bill O’Reilly and his “Cultural Cretins” opposed her observations for no intelligent reason) have put this happiness down to “Free health care, education and long leave for new parents … A simple life and a strong social system.”

Copenhagen is one of the world’s most environmentally conscious cities. A third of the population rides bikes, many with groceries and kids in tow. Homelessness and poverty are extremely low here. If you lose your job, the government continues to pay up to 90 percent of your salary for four years. You’re never going to be homeless on the street.

I suspect that what makes “Denmark one of the best places on earth to live, according to American talk show star Oprah Winfrey” has quite a bit to do with fellow feelings of unity. Denmark is still relatively homogeneous, with a migration rate of 2.48 migrant(s)/1,000 population.

Multiculturalism immiserates.

It is also a tiny country of only 5.5 million people. A welfare state can chug along if it is small and well-managed. A welfare sytem consisting of 310 million people is doomed.

More importantly: If a good majority in a culturally homogeneous country has agreed on such a system of welfare, it is more likely to make them happy.

Moreover, direct-democracy initiatives on crucial matters are more prevalent in Europe than in the US. I mean, if you are going to suffer the blight of democracy, at least make it a direct democracy as a representative one is on par with tyranny:

“Of the constitutional provisions for mandatory constitutional referendums, those of Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland have been put into practice. In these states, mandatory referendums are required on all constitutional ]matters], whereas in Spain and in Austria mandatory referendums required only on fundamental changes to the constitution, and in Iceland only on certain types of constitutional amendments.”

“The Danish case illustrates how the referendum has been adopted as an institution that limits the powers of parliamentary majorities. The mandatory referendum was first adopted in Denmark in 1915 to compensate the abolition of the requirement that constitutional changes should be passed in two subsequent parliaments.”

In addition to their creedal Keynesianism, another measure of the movement conservatives is the manner in which they betrayed J. D. Hayworth, who ought to have beat Senator John McCain in the Arizona GOP primary. Hayworth had a strong record as an immigration patriot—his was not a “desperate lurch to the right,” for electoral expediency as was McCain’s successful bid.

Read VDARE’s Washington Watcher’s analysis of the one-two punch Hayworth sustained from Palin, Brewer, and the gang at Fox:

“… no Beltway groups endorsed [Hayworth]. Mark Levin and Michelle Malkin supported J.D., but few other prominent conservative personalities supported him. This is despite Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, etc. repeatedly stating how important it is for us to support ‘true’ conservatives over liberal Republicans.

Without any major conservative help, the fact that Hayworth raised 3 million dollars was an accomplishment. But that cannot fight McCain’s $20+ million.

“Not only did most conservatives fail support Hayworth, many went to bat for John McCain.

The NRA, Arizona Right to Life and, (in an unusual but all-too-typical move), National Review, all endorsed him.

Most effectively for McCain, the two most significant people for the Arizona Republican base, Sarah Palin and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (benefiting, arguably undeservedly, from signing SB 1070) actively campaigned for him.”

UPDATE (Aug. 29): John McCain wanted everyone to believe that he has only just stumbled into the fleshpots of Washington. And Arizonans did, despite the fact that McMussolini was right by Bush’s side as the latter presided over the greatest expansion of government since Lyndon B. Johnson.

McCain had informed Hannity (who didn’t seem to mind) that he’d resume his work for amnesty as soon as the border was secure, which is, by my calculations, round about NOW—the time of the senior senator’s GOP renomination.

Greg is right. Arizonans have chosen their political poison. Alas, it will percolate into our drinking water as well.

Now comes confirmation, via CNSNews.com, that the Obama administration has resolved “not to build the border fence and to follow a catch-and-release policy with illegal aliens.” It goes without saying that “Recent steps the administration has taken regarding the border, including the deployment of 520 National Guard troops in Arizona,” have been “insufficient and amounted to ineffective pre-election posturing.”

The next defining date for Mr. McCain: the Tuesday following the first Monday, in November, when both houses will probably be stormed by Repbulicans. Then, it’ll be time for talk amnesty again. You do know that the economy will have turned around on that day too.

And Dana and SE Cupp will have grown a brain (not to mention a facility with economics and rational thought). If you believe all that … here I’ll leave it up to you the reader to fill in with one of those underwater property-sale jokes (let’s have some southern ones, please, to lift sagging spirits).

BUSH’S Bastardized Conservatism is also Michael Gerson’s. As a committed ideologue, formerly of the Bush administration, Michael Gerson is a completely consistent, dangerous statist. He imagines that the General Welfare Clause gave our overlords, and the Little Lord Fauntleroys who serve them (the female version: Dana Perino), authority to enact the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, federal civil rights law; direct what Gerson terms “economic growth,” and pursue the national greatness agenda.

To oppose “Alexander Hamilton and a number of Supreme Court rulings” that affirm such overreach is “morally irresponsible and politically disastrous,” says Gerson.

Today, Laura Ingraham referred to Gerson, affectionately, as being part of that wonderful big tent that makes the GOP so inclusive. Yet Gerson, whom BAB celebrity Myron Pauli long ago identified as the most dangerous kind of (crunchy) conservative, holds that the welfare clause, “and Congress will have the power…to provide for the general welfare”—Article I, Section 8—implies that government can pick The People’s pocketbooks for any possible project, even though the general clause is followed by a detailed enumeration of the limited powers so delegated.

Asks historian Thomas E. Woods Jr.: “What point would there be in specifically listing the federal government’s powers if the general welfare clause had already provided the government with an essentially boundless authority to enact whatever it thought would contribute to people’s well-being?” Woods evokes no less an authority than the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison: “Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.”

You’d think Madison knew one or two things more than Michael about this document.

I once wrote that “sometimes the law of the State coincides with the natural law. More often than not, natural justice has been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute.” When Gerson and company (you’ll find that Rove, Perino, and the rest, currently masquerading as conservatives, are no different) reject “a consistent constitutionalism,” namely a critique of the current promiscuous applications of the 14th, the “General Welfare” clause, and so on, and embrace the concept of the Constitution as a “living, breathing” document—they rely for their case on layers of that rubble.

Having shoveled the muck of lawmaking aside, constitutionalists base their case on the natural justice and the founders’ original intent.

Gerson is the enemy of liberty. But even more so, because so deceptive, are the Ingrahams of the world. Ms. Ingraham wanted to know how Gerson could bad mouth the tea part, yet still call himself a Bush conservative. Ms. Ingraham has set up a dichotomy where there is only congruity and consistency on the part of Gerson: now that is dangerous.

The following is from my new, WND column, “The 2 Parties’ Question: How Much To Steal”:

“… If I understand the Republican line for the coming midterms, it is that, thankfully, there is a smart, economically stimulating way for the State to spend money it had lifted from the private economy (and, in the process, crowded out private, productive economic activity).

Time and again, Republicans will explain to us of the booboisie that the stimuli consisted of misguided spending so typical of Democrats, instead of precision-guided make-work projects, the hallmark of Republikeynesian economic ‘thought.’”

With few exceptions, Republican politicians, and their matching Tweedledim and Tweedledimmer cable personalities, seem incapable of countering the fiction that vests central planners with the ability to create viable jobs by appropriating private property, and redistributing it, based on bureaucratic and political considerations.

The unsparing critique the likes of dodo Perino, Newt, Dick, Karl, et. al, will invariably voice is that the Dems did not apply the stolen funds the way one ought to have; as the GOPers would have.” ….

The complete column is “The 2 Parties’ Question: How Much To Steal.”

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material and reviews. Get your copy (or copies) now!

UPDATE (Aug. 27): Wiley hereunder, in the Comments Section, clearly misunderstands an ad hominem argument. My column has some fun with Fox’s affirmative females, after which their “arguments”—”things go in cycles“/Republicans would ‘stimulate‘ better than the Dems”—were showcased for their profound folly. This is not ad hominem. Had I presented Dana dunderhead’s “case” for economic recovery without the spice, no one would read this column.

Sean Hannity once touted the one-time porn star, and all-round vulgarian Kim Kardashian as a role model for young girls because she does not imbibe. For the sake of good taste I will not post a hyperlink to Kim’s on-camera, narcissistic, bottoms-up gymnastics with a former boyfriend. But I hope Hannity’s daughter, if he has one, does not take her dad’s moral guidelines seriously. (More HERE about other Fox News porn pinups.)

Budding slut Montana Fishburne, on the other hand, needs no fatherly encouragement to pursue porn.

“According to TMZ.com, the 19-year-old daughter of Oscar-nominated actor Laurence Fishburne recently posed for a test photo shoot for Playboy magazine.”

“Fishburne’s idol, Kim Kardashian, also posed for Playboy before her sex tape went public and made her a household name. Fishburne has said that she was inspired to get into the porn industry because Kardashian found mainstream success after starting out as a sex tape star.”

“‘I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became, and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape,’ Montana said in a statement through Vivid Entertainment, which is releasing her first porn film. ‘I’m hoping the same magic will work for me. I’m impatient about getting well-known and having more opportunities, and this seemed like a great way to get started on it.’”

[SNIP]

Unlike the celebrity dad just mentioned, Montana Fishburne’s famous father has responded appropriately.

“As Fishburne’s career heats up, her relationship with her dad has grown cold. She claims her dad refuses to talk to her.”

According to TMZ, the two spoke Aug. 16, and Laurence Fishburne told his daughter, “I’m not going to speak with you till you turn your life around.”
“You embarrassed me,” he said. “You used your last name. No one uses their real name in porn.”