The vetting of Barack Obama undertaken by Andrew Breitbart and continued by those working for him posthumously has not proven that Barack Obama was born some place other than the United States. What it has proven is that American journalism is dead. Dead.

Here is what I am convinced of about Obama. He was probably born in Hawaii. But he has manipulated his foreign roots to his advantage, possibly taking advantage of a dual citizenship for scholarships or other positions. He has probably listed his religion as Muslim when it was beneficial to him for similar purposes. I have no proof of any of this. What I do have proof of based on the Breitbart work is that journalism is dead, and if not dead, so in-the-tank for the Democratic Party and liberalism that they might as well be dead.

Writing in the U.K.’s Telegraph, historian Tim Stanley sums it up best:

Whatever you think of Breitbart.com’s punishing vetting process, it has exposed just how little work the mainstream media did in investigating candidate Obama back in 2008.

Amen.

The take-away from Stanley’s article is this: Obama has manipulated (i.e. lied) about his past when it was beneficial to him. So before my conservative friends go all gaga over this latest revelation, recognize it for what’s worth: journalism is dead, and Obama has lied about his past to take advantage of God-knows-what. The Telegraph says:

In fact, this story is really the opposite of birtherism – Breitbart infers that in the past Obama encouraged people to think that he was born abroad to establish an identity as an authentic, exotic voice in the debate on racial politics.

And, he probably used that fabricated past to get scholarships, Affirmative-action-mandated preferences and other special privileges, so typical of the liberal mentality.

These are the important stories to read regarding this revelation:

Breitbart

The Telegraph

ABC News

You think every day is a struggle? Yes, each of us struggles, but occasionally we can gather inspiration from those who may struggle a little more than the average person. From Julie Ryan Evans writing on The Stir:

This story epitomizes our flaccid border and immigration policy. It also shows the way we thumb our noses at every law-abiding American citizen who tries to follow the rules, be a good citizen, and worries about the future of this great nation. This is the kind of story that just makes me angrier every time I read it – just a simple story of one man. One man who happens to be the uncle of the President of the United States.

The Boston Herald writes:

President Obama’s illegal-alien uncle is once again a fully legal Massachusetts driver, reclaiming his license this afternoon after serving a 45-day suspension he agreed to as part of a plea deal in a drunken-driving rap.

Onyango Obama, 67, walked into the Registry of Motor Vehicles’ Worcester branch about 2:30 this afternoon and walked out moments later with a new license, according to RMV spokeswoman Sara Lavoie. Obama had been driving for about a month and a half on a hardship license, which allowed him to get behind the wheel only during certain hours.

The story says Massachusetts law “allows” the reinstatement of the license and the lifting of the hardship restrictions. The story does not say the law “requires” him to receive any special consideration. This is unequivocally “special” consideration because the man is an illegal alien in the United States of America in violation of immigration law. Period.

I’m going to walk into a state DMV tomorrow and try to get a drivers license with no social security card or other government identification showing me to be a U.S. citizen. Do you think this law abiding natural born American citizen is going to get any special consideration? Hell no.

This isn’t some recent case. The Herald reports that Obama has held a Massachusetts license since at least the early 1990. The newspaper says the RMV does not check immigration status and Obama did have a valid Social Security number as required [emphasis mine].

The President of the United States has to know about this situation. He condones the behavior by not denouncing it and the lapdog mainstream media is as guilty as the POTUS himself.

Meanwhile, Hezzbolah and Hamas continue to grow in South America and Mexico and Janet Napolitano continues to assure us that border security is better than ever. Dr. Kevorkian must be back running the asylum.

And you don’t think the media is all gaga over Obama?

When we don’t understand risk we tend to overreact. When we don’t understand physics, we tend to panic. This story is a great example of both – and furthers my belief that in almost everything we do in modern society we have built a perception that we can live in a world where there are no risks and no one will ever be hurt. Fears of liability can make people do strange things. And like kids with new Christmas toys, when we have gadgets, whether small or large, we are compelled to use them whenever we can. The following just proves my point.

The Associate Press reports a toy grenade was to blame for an evacuation yesterday at a building near ground zero. The police bomb squad was called to 2 World Financial Center in lower Manhattan at midday when a security guard reported a package that seemed suspicious. Brookfield Properties, which runs the property, ordered an evacuation as a precaution.

You’ve heard these stories before. Suspicious package. Bomb squad called. Building evacuated. Employees standing around on the streets. Robot plays with package. Nothing found. Everybody enjoys their break and goes back to work.

So what makes this story different from the others?

The New York City bomb squad determined the package was a fake explosive that looked like a 1940s-style pineapple grenade. It was mounted on a plaque that said “Complaint department: Take a number,” with a number attached to the pin.

So the building management and the NYFD evacuate a forty-four story, 2.5 million square foot building, for a 1940′s hand grenade mounted on a plaque. I don’t know how many people worked in the building, but was it really necessary to evacuate the entire building for something that had it exploded might have destroyed one room?

Yes, it was necessary, because no one wants to assume any risk because no matter how de minimis the threat may be because somewhere a trial lawyer is lurking just waiting to sue. Weigh that risk against the cost in time, energy, lost profits, lost productivity in evacuating that entire building for what was probably seen as a fake to begin with, but no one was willing to just walk up and check.

The terrorists are winning.

The New York Times unwittingly made the case for limited government, free-market economy and the Founding Father’s vision of this nation in a recent article analyzing how Russian emigrants to the United States, living in New York along Brighton Beach Avenue, are more likely to register and vote Republican than the typical New Yorker.

Of course. They’ve seen the perils of communism, socialism and a government-controlled economy.

The Times writes:

“Having been seared by statism, they see Democrats as drifting toward statism and see that as dangerous for themselves and for the country,” said Fred Siegel, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for State and Local Leadership.

Read the entire article here and celebrate the fact these Americans’ perspective is well worth considering.

CO House Speaker Frank McNulty (left) speaks to the Chairman of the House committee hearing the civil union bill. Denver Post Photo.

To many of my fellow conservatives, prepare to be offended.

I have never understood why I need a license from the state to get married. Marriage doesn’t need testing, a particular degree, continuing education, or any other licensure requirements that most other “licenses” need. Attorneys, cosmetologists, plumbers, electricians, doctors, et al are required to get a license to practice their craft, and are even required to keep up continuing education standards. Marriage requires no such pre-qualifications or post-licensure requirements. The only people who should sanction marriage in the first place are my church and my family.

Think about it. A license to get married? It is ludicrous.

Divorce usually involves primarily contractual issues: who pays the mortgage, what property gets divided among the parties, who pays what debts, who keeps the dog or cat? Even issues about children, intertwined with both moral and legal obligations, boil down to the legal obligations of the party. So sure, a couple living together or even in a common law marriage, upon dissolution of that marriage need legal rulings to separate the property and children. Beyond that, the state really has no role in the dissolution of a marriage. Dissolution is between the couple, and whatever religious or moral obligations they brought into the marriage in the first place.

No license required.

Yet, we are wrapped around the axle when it comes to civil unions. Yes, the gay movement has captured the language. Civil unions are now the issue, not gay marriage. But frankly, I don’t want the state mucking around in any of this. Two people live together, take on legal obligations, so be it. Tamara and I chose get married in a church, with church and family approval. Screw the state. I really don’t care whether government approved of our marriage or not.

So around this entire issue Colorado Republicans have once again proved the adage that if anything can be screwed up, leave it to the Republicans. Consider the following.

Do you really think Joe Biden, Mr. Gaffe himself, really threw up the trial balloon about gay marriage last weekend on Meet the Press without the White House being aware of what he was going to say? If they didn’t know the White House political operation and the Obama campaign are more inept than even I imagined. Of course they threw this balloon up on the eve of the North Carolina vote. Of course Obama has always supported gay marriage, but said he didn’t just to get elected and through a first term. No need to hide his feelings going into a second general election.

But Colorado Republicans have handed the Democrats a wedge issue that should not be an issue at all.

From conversations I’ve had today I understand there were enough votes in the Colorado House to pass the civil unions measure. Speaker Frank McNulty knew this. He should have either sent the bill to the kill committee originally, and never said that the chips can fall where they may, and then, knowing that the votes are there to pass the measure, stymie it and so hand the Democrats an issue that will probably give them the Colorado State House of Representatives this fall.

Democrats have wasted no time pouncing on this issue. Mark Ferrandino, Democratic Caucus Leader in the Colorado Legislature and chair of the House Majority Project, has already sent an email to supporters:

It was an astonishing display of political desperation by the Colorado State House Republicans last night. The GOP leadership blocked pro-equality legislation from coming to a vote, because they knew civil unions had the bipartisan support needed to become law. They were determined–at any cost–to keep civil union legislation from coming before the House for an up-or-down vote.

All night, we saw the gimmicks of a GOP leadership hopelessly out of touch with the citizens of Colorado and their own party. Filibustering; using gridlock to run out the clock; forcing the House into recess to prevent debate and voting; grandstanding to the press; and even outright bullying. Democracy was thwarted last night, and it’s time we fought back!

Yes, there was bipartisan support. This civil unions measure would have passed, and this issue would have been taken off the table. Instead, in our usual way, we have fumbled this issue beyond belief. Mark my words: unless extraordinary measures are taken by volunteers, supporters, contributors and others, the Colorado Legislature will be all Democratic next year – and in this economy, under this President and this Governor (Hickenlooper) we should be waltzing our way to landslides.

Conservatives need to recognize that first this election cycle must be about the economy and jobs. Period.

Senator Richard Lugar’s (R-IN) 36-year career as a United States Senator started winding down tonight when he lost in a Republican primary to Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock. The AP, NBC and ABC all called the election for Mourdock earlier this evening. Even though some party stalwarts such as Peggy Noonan argued for the re-election of Lugar, nonetheless his time had come and gone.

I was particularly struck by an IndyStar article that unwittingly made an explicit case for repeal of the 17th Amendment. Before we get to their comments, though, a little history.

The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) to the United States Constitution established direct election of United States Senators by popular vote. The amendment supersedes Article I, § 3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures. The Founding Fathers were brilliant in the symmetry they established with the checks and balances among the different branches of government, and with which they established a central federal government, subservient in most cases to the states and the state legislatures.

Prior to the 17th Amendment members of the U.S. Senate were elected by the state legislatures, while members of the U.S. House of Representatives were elected by the voters in congressional districts. This ensured that the interests of the people and the states were represented in a balanced manner at the federal level. The people had a direct say in the election of U.S. Senators because they elected the legislatures that elected the Senators. It was – and still is – brilliant. But with the advent of the 17th Amendment U.S. Senators have become nothing more than “local” politicians concerned more with reelection by taking care of potholes in their state than watching out for the states’ interests.

For example, do you really think we’d have as much control by the feds over the states if U.S. Senators were elected by the state legislatures? Of course not. We’ve lost that balance because of the 17th Amendment.

Back to the IndyStar article that caught my attention. Here’s what happens when you have U.S. Senators elected by the people of the states instead of the state legislatures. The IndyStar wrote:

But while voters may have appreciated those things, in the end he was seen as a figure from the past who didn’t have a place in the Republican Party’s future.

Voters cited his age, 80; his Virginia address where he’d lived since 1977; his votes for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees and his support for keeping earmarks in the hands of the legislative branch rather than surrender that power to the White House. And party insiders noted that Lugar had been a distant figure, not bothering to come to party events in Indiana until this year, when it was too late to kindle the relationships that could help him win.

Those two paragraphs sum up the reality of today’s Senators. They live in DC. They live for DC. The only care about those local issues that get them reelected, not matters of state. They lose touch not only with the people, but they actually become disinterested in issues affecting the balance of power between state and federal governments, they become preoccupied with parochial issues like potholes, ignoring the greater threat to federalism, an ever-encroaching federal government.

Lugar was a good U.S. Senator and understood senate procedure and history as well as any other. But Lugar also exemplified the reasons for repealing the 17th Amendment and returning to the Founder’s vision of a perfect symmetry in our balance of powers.

And the supporters of repeal of the Founder’s original method for electing senators? Progressives.

So this is one of the most depressing articles I’ve read in sometime. Yes, the general election is six months away, and an awful lot can happen in six months. But considering the number of Americans who are on the “taking” end of government, this election will be a pivotal point for the direction of the country for decades, if not forever. So what’s depressing?

Take a look at this map:

Egads.

Obama in an electoral landslide.

In an article in Business Insider they conclude that it looks difficult for Romney based on the electoral college. You can read the entire article here. But when you do, notice all of the maps, as they “swing” through the various scenarios, continue to show one swing state, Colorado, consistently in the blue column for Obama.

Come on, Colorado, we can do better than that. A state made up of those rugged individuals that helped settle this state are going to give way to the front range do-gooders that want a socialist, anti-capitalist America? We’re going to let the likes of Boulder and Denver turn this state blue?

Got to get to work. I want this state red, red, red.

Chen with his wife and TWO children. State Dept. Photo

Chen Guangcheng is a blind Chinese activist held for the past eighteen months by the Chinese government under house arrest until he escaped at least a week or so ago and made his way, inexorably, to the United States Embassy in Beijing.

He is blind. He was escaping from house detention. He had to scale the wall surrounding his house, and then travel covertly across the Chinese landscape, including crossing rivers, to get to the embassy. He fractured his leg during his escape.

By my amateur calculations he had to travel about 400 miles with a fractured leg and while being sought by the Chinese government to get to the American embassy. No small feat in my opinion.

Chen is an ardent protestor against China’s enforcement of the one-couple-one-child policy, which is enforced by the Chinese government by forced abortions on women. Whether you are for or against abortion you are surely against government forcing abortions on women.

Liberals and Democrats please take note: Chen is fighting a genuine war on women.

He did not formally seek asylum at the U.S. Embassy, but made it clear he feared for his (and his wife’s and two children’s) safety, and he needed to rest, perhaps come to the United States for a period of time.

Chen spent at least ten days in the U.S. Embassy, ostensibly while American diplomatic channels tried to figure out what to do with him. Secretary of State Clinton and Treasury Secretary Geithner were coming to China, which further complicates matters.

The facts become confusing, obscured, obfuscated at this point by both the Chinese and U.S. governments. One thing is clear: Chen was supposed to be taken to a hospital for treatment under the protection of U.S. Embassy personnel, but when he was taken to the hospital, he was left on the doorstep to fend for himself.

I don’t understand why he wasn’t treated at the Embassy. Most American embassies have medical facilities and he could have been treated at the embassy without having to go the hospital.

What is happening to the United States? This should be an easy decision for the President and the State Department. Simply allow Chen to stay in the Embassy, on sovereign American soil, until the Chinese release his wife and children and he can transfer to the United States.
Yes, we owe China a gazillion dollars. But China knows that those dollars can only be repaid if we buy the products that are made in China and imported to the United States.

Besides, what’s worth more: the United States being the beacon of freedom and liberty, or our prostituting ourselves to a Communist government that’s buying our debt?

We talk about human rights all the time. Do we really mean it or is it all American baloney? Have we become so weak, so scared, so intimidated, that we can’t help one man standing up against a brutal regime, while allowing thousands of illegal aliens to sully our sovereignty by crossing into the U.S. at will?

If we’re afraid to stand up to the Chinese on this matter because of the debt they hold, might I suggest that that is just one more reason to get our spending under control? If we can’t, then I would suggest our spending and debt is such an evil burden that it is destroying the liberty and freedom this nation represents.

Chen and this diplomatic kerfuffle may seem remote and unimportant to you. I maintain it represents so much of what is becoming wrong with us as a nation.

Ronald Reagan said in a January, 1974 speech:

We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall of Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, “The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.”

We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.

Are we? I think so. The question is, can we stay that way, or will this Archduke Ferdinand moment render us toothless?