We were lucky to have Fox News to tell us what the left-slanted mainstream media concealed, and to bring us opinion from both the right and the left. Fox News was “fair, balanced, and unafraid” as they claimed and continue to claim.

But is the claim still justified?

Not if we are to judge by their treatment of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who is on trial in Holland for expressing an opinion, well supported by facts, on the horrific ideology of Islam.

Here are three articles which together, in sequence, tell the sorry story:

The first is by David Swindle at Front Page:

Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier featured a segment tonight on Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ blasphemy trial in the Netherlands.

The segment featured these descriptors of Wilders:

“A man who inspires fierce emotions.”

“Anger on the streets of London. The object of the demonstration was a recent visit by Far-Right Dutch politician Geert Wilders.”

“His Anti-Muslim rhetoric makes him a target of critics.”

“Wilders says Muslim head scarves should be banned, he’s branded the Muslim prophet Muhammed a pedophile and likened the Muslim Koran to Mein Kampf.”

“Far-Right”?

The “Far-Right” label is meant to smear Wilders by trying to associate him with racist European political parties like the BNP [British National Party] that actually warrant the label.

“Anti-Muslim”? Try Anti-Islam. Wilders’ film Fitna exposes how Islam’s first victims are always Muslims. [A link is provided to the film.]

Finally, the report cites three examples of Wilders’ allegedly extreme, “Far-Right” views. While whether head scarves should be banned is a matter of opinion, the last two points — Muhammad’s pedophilia and the Koran’s racist and genocidal injunctions are points of fact.

Later on Special Report they featured a panel in response to the story in which host Jim Angle questioned Charles Krauthammer [whom we greatly respect and admire, and usually, but not this time, agree with - JB], Bill Kristol [whom we respect, and often, but not this time, agree with], and A.B. Stoddard. Krauthammer said that Wilders was wrong about Islam — that the Dutch politician did not see a difference between Islam and Islamism.  So those who follow “Islam” ignore passages of the Koran and those who follow “Islamism” actually do what the book tells them to do? Is that right, Charles? Just want to make sure I’m up to speed on the preferred Orwellianisms on the Politically Correct Right.

Stoddard’s comments — she said that Wilders saw no difference between terrorist Muslims and non-violent Muslims — indicate that it’s likely that her first exposure to Wilders was the segment. And Kristol? He dismissed Wilders as a “demagogue.”

This is supposed to be the “conservative” network here and they are unable to present a single panelists who will support Wilders.

The next is by John L. Work, also at Front Page:

Following the gang hatchet job on Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders by two separate FOX News crews a few nights ago, FOX pulled down all the video footage from the internet – like it never happened. Well, it did happen. Jim Angle, Glenn Beck [who we think is doing a great job exposing the Obama administration and is a splendid entertainer] Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and A.B Stoddard all did the dirty work during two different shows. …

First, let’s look at Beck’s six minute interview with Wilders from February of 2009. Beck warmly welcomed Wilders and gave him plenty of air-time. Wilders presented his case for the noble cause of resistance to the growing Islamic repression of free speech in The Netherlands. Beck treated Wilders like the hero he is.

A year later it is impossible to reconcile Beck’s posture and position in 2009 with his attack on Wilders this week – unless one allows for the possibility that Beck is now being influenced by powers above him at FOX News. [A link is provided to Beck's 2009 interview with Wilders.]

Now for this week’s piece, in which Beck labeled Wilders a fascist [Another link is provided.]:

Let’s analyze the evidence:

Wilders, himself, has not changed since the first Beck interview – not his speech, not his positions, and not his beliefs. What has changed immensely is his stature in The Netherlands. He is much more powerful now than he was when he first appeared on Beck’s show in 2009. In fact, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that Wilders could become Prime Minister.

Now, FOX News is astonishingly trying to destroy Wilders. Ignoramus, demagogue and fascist are pretty nasty labels to lay on anyone. Beck was not recognizable this week from his demeanor and position with Wilders in 2009.

Other than Muslims throughout the world, who would be unhappy with Wilders’ rise to power and prominence in The Netherlands? Who stands to gain from stopping the most prominent and eloquent defender of Western Civilization in Europe? Who stands to gain from having Wilders’ reputation hacked to pieces by a major American news outlet? You can figure this out. [Another link is provided.]

A whole lot has changed at FOX News, folks.

This last link leads to our third source, an article by Diana West:

It was pile-on time at Fox News tonight as Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer, a gal whose name I missed [update -- A.B. Stoddard] and Bill Kristol all branded Geert Wilders beyond the pale tonight.

Beck classified Geert as a fascist.

Krauthammer said Geert didn’t know the difference between Islam and Islamism — never mind that according to Krauthammer’s idea of Islamic scholarship, neither did Mohammed.

[Stoddard] said she agreed with Imam Krauthammer and added that if people like this (Geert) are elected to lead Holland it will suffer the consequences.

Kristol called Geert a demagogue.

In other words, a stomach-turning display.

Fact is, this anti-Geert pundit solidarity will only delight Newscorp [owners of Fox] stakeholder Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. That’s because it is Wilders in the Netherlands who stands as the unexpectedly strong spearhead of resistance to the Islamization of Europe and the wider West. As a scion of the most powerful sharia dictatorship in the world, Prince Talal doesn’t like that. How fortunate for him that Fox News doesn’t like it, either.

This source is not sure that it is Adam Gedahn who has been captured (see our post Treason, below):

Two Pakistani officers and a government official said Sunday that an American charged with treason for working with al Qaeda had been captured, a development that could deliver another significant blow in the U.S.-led battle against the terror network.

U.S. defense, intelligence and law enforcement officials could not immediately verify the reported detention of Adam Gadahn, a 31-year-old spokesman for al Qaeda who has appeared on videos threatening the West, including one that emerged earlier Sunday. …

Some observers were cautious about giving credence to the claim that Gadahn was in custody as reports emerged that the man arrested might instead be a Taliban militant leader. There was no way of independently verifying the arrest or identity, and detentions of terror suspects in Pakistan are often surrounded by conflicting reports.

This source is sure that the captured man is not Adam Gedahn:

The first American to be charged with treason since World War II was back in the news Sunday, both for a new videotape he released and for reports of his capture that turned out to be false. In the videotape, al-Qaeda operative Adam Gadahn, an American convert to Islam, praised the Fort Hood jihad murderer and called upon Muslims to carry out jihad attacks in the United States. The reports that Gadahn had been captured caused widespread excitement until the arrestee turned out to be a different American convert to Islam, Abu Yahya Mujahdeen Al-Adam [or Azam], who like Gadahn is an al-Qaeda leader.

No matter who he is, if he’s a traitor to America he should be executed.

Adam Gedahn, the American traitor, has been arrested in Pakistan.

The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday, the same day Adam Gadahn appeared in a video … praising the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, as a role model for other Muslims.

Gadahn has appeared in more than half a dozen al-Qaida videos, taunting and threatening the West and calling for its destruction.

A U.S. court charged Gadahn with treason in 2006, making him the first American to face such a charge in more than 50 years. …

The treason charge carries the death penalty if he is convicted. He was also charged with two counts of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

And here are extracts from an impressive article by Andrew McCarthy in which he discusses the moral issues raised by lawyers who volunteer their free services to defend enemy prisoners and expect us to consider them noble for doing so.

A number of them (reportedly nine) worked for the law firm Covington and Burling, in which Eric Holder, now Attorney General, was a partner, and are now on the payroll of his Justice Department.

The legal profession’s depiction of these lawyers as heroic servants not of the enemy but of the Constitution is unmitigated nonsense: You can’t be performing a vital constitutional function when the function is not required by the Constitution. They can repeat the lie a million times, but that won’t make it a fact.These lawyers made a conscious decision to contribute their services, usually gratis, to enemy combatants with whom the American people are at war. …

There is something wrong with a legal profession that insists we not only let American lawyers take up the enemy’s cause but that we admire them for doing so.

Most Americans — at least those who are not graduates of American law schools — would say that, when we go to war, our compelling national interest is victory. If something is legally required of us (e.g., compliance with the Geneva Conventions when the enemy is entitled to its protections), we agree that we must comply. But our agreement is appropriately grudging. We’re at war with savages. They should not get one iota beyond what is minimally required. And if you, non-lawyer, decided to help the enemy, give advice to the enemy, contribute money to the enemy, or conduct trade with the enemy, you would find yourself indicted. You would become the object of your countrymen’s scorn. …

As the law is currently understood, it is legal for a lawyer to volunteer his services to America’s enemies. It is absurd, however, to suggest that we have to applaud that decision. And it is equally ludicrous to suggest that we are forbidden from drawing the obvious conclusion that a lawyer who makes such a decision is predisposed to condemn the United States and to sympathize with America’s enemies …

Here’s the landscape: The Obama Justice Department is staffed with many lawyers who volunteered their services to America’s enemies. Since those lawyers have been running the department, there has been a detectable shift in favor of due-process rights for terrorists, a bias in favor of civilian trials in which terrorists are vested with all the rights of American citizens, a bias against military tribunals, the extension of Miranda protections to enemy combatants, a concerted effort to publish previously classified information detailing interrogation methods and depicting the alleged abuse of detainees, efforts to subject lawyers who authorized aggressive counterterrorism policies to professional sanction, the reopening of investigations against CIA interrogators even though those cases were previously closed by apolitical law-enforcement professionals, and the continued accusation that officials responsible for designing and carrying out the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies committed war crimes.

Enslaving women is not what it used to be in the good old days of true jihad. People have become too selfish to do it properly.

Here is an Islamic authority explaining and defending the Muslim case for keeping women as sex slaves. The whole thing is worth reading if you can bear it.

This is how it ends:

One question that still remains is whether slavery still legally prevails anywhere in the Islamic world and whether it can be successfully implemented in this age. Well, there is no prevalence of lawful slavery in the Islamic world today and it would be difficult to implement it because of the stringent conditions attached to it. Firstly, the prisoners have to be captured in ‘Jihaad’ in the true sense of the word. Then again, If true ‘Jihaad’ did break out somewhere, there are still a number of other laws and conditions to abide by which are far too stringent for any Islamic country in the world to abide by in this time and age when people’s personal gains and whims and desire are being given preference to over Islamic Law. According to Islamic Law, captive female prisoners are also part and parcel of the booty. One fifth of the booty has to be first distributed to the needy, orphans, etc. The remaining four-fifths should then be distributed among the soldiers who participated in the war. The distribution can only take effect after the booty is brought into Islamic territory. The Ameerul-Mu’mineen (Head of the Islamic State) remains the guardian of the female prisoners until he allocates them to the soldiers. Only after a soldier has been allotted a slave girl, and made the owner of her, will she become his lawful possession. After she spends a period called ‘Istibraa’, which is the elapse of one menstrual period, it becomes permissible for her owner to have relations with her. After possession of the slave too there are a number of other laws that affect the master and slave. There is hardly any Islamic country today that can abide to all these conditions, with the result that it is quite difficult to implement slavery in this time and age.

Equally blood-chilling is this article from Civilus Defendus titled Four Stages of Islamic Conquest. One can mark just how far the conquest of various Western countries has progressed.

President Obama (O chilling words!) has appointed a Muslim lawyer named Rashad Hussain as US envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

To start with, it is questionable – to say the least – whether the US should be represented in the OIC. (President Bush was the first to send an envoy to it.) It is the organization which has been pressing for a United Nations resolution to ban criticism of Islam. That’s bad enough, but it has done much worse. To get some idea of the profound damage the OIC has already done to the Western World,  see our post Europe betrayed (February 11, 2010). If an envoy is to be appointed to it at all, he should at least be someone who holds America dearer than Islam, and would speak up for Western values in the enemy forum. Rashad Hussain does not fit that description.

So who is Rashad Hussain?

From Politico, by Josh Gerstein:

An Indian-American Muslim raised in Texas, Hussain is a deputy associate White House counsel who was also closely involved in shaping the major address the president delivered in Cairo last June, explaining Obama’s views to the Muslim world. In announcing Hussain’s appointment last week as the U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the president called Hussain “an accomplished lawyer and a close and trusted member of my White House staff.” Hussain traveled to Saudi Arabia and Qatar earlier this week with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Hussain’s allies have defended him against claims he is soft on terror by pointing to a think tank study he co-wrote arguing that U.S. policy should emphasize that terrorism is antithetical to the teachings of Islam.

It is depressing to think that there may still be people so ill-informed or credulous as to believe the outright lie that ‘terrorism is antithetical to the teachings of Islam’. What this defense by his allies really proves is not only that Hassain is indeed soft on terrorism, but also that he is an active propagandist for Islam and an assistant in its jihad.

Scott Johnson writes at Power Line:

Rashad Hussain is the deputy associate White House counsel who is Obama’s recently designated representative to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. We wrote about his appointment, noting his 2004 expression of support for convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian [who] was the North American head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Anyone who bothered to read al-Arian’s 2003 indictment would see that al-Arian was a long-time, active supporter of PIJ’s terrorist operations.

According to Hussain in 2004, al-Arian was the victim of “politically motivated persecutions.” Hussain also reportedly asserted that al-Arian was being “used politically to squash dissent.” Hussain denied recalling the quoted comments expressing support of al-Arian and the White House publicized Hussain’s denial. …

But he’s been caught out in this lie. Scott Johnson quotes from the POLITICO article we quote above:

[Hussain] changed course Friday – admitting he made sharply critical statements about a U.S. terror prosecution against a Muslim professor after initially saying he had no recollection of making such comments.

“I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated,” Hussain said, referring to a 2004 conference where he discussed the case.

Hussain’s reversal came after POLITICO obtained a recording of his presentation to a Muslim students’ conference in Chicago, where he can be heard portraying the government’s cases towards professor Sami Al-Arian, as well as other Muslim terrorism suspects, as “politically motivated persecutions.”

And Scott Johnson goes on to say:

“Ill-conceived or not well-formulated” is itself an interesting formulation. I would like to see a well-formulated expression of Hussain’s views on al-Arian. But why should anyone believe him now?…

[T]hat a terrorist sympathizer is serving as a high-ranking White House official… says a lot about the Muslim outreach being conducted as an article of the higher wisdom by the Obama administration.

The White House cannot even now bring itself forthrightly to condemn Hussain: “The White House declined to say Friday whether the statements or the controversy affected Obama’s confidence in Hussain.” The administration prefers to wait and see what it can get away with. There is apparently no issue of principle between Hussain and Obama. …

The case of Rashad Hussain … is important .. . for what it reveals about the Obama administration.

Or for what it confirms about the Obama administration. Can anyone seriously doubt that Obama himself is deeply sympathetic to Islam? And anyone who knows anything about the ideology of Islam must be aware that that in itself is cause for … no, not just alarm, but dread.

In the following report the names of conservative leaders who will be signing The Mount Vernon Statement today may be found. We have omitted them only to shorten our quotation.

What we also omit are these few words: ‘God, they say, is proudly mentioned – by name – in the Mount Vernon statement.’

We’ve cut them out because God is superfluous. 

The Framers of the Constitution saw no reason to put God into it, and they did not.

We believe wholeheartedly in the principles which The Mount Vernon Statement declares to be those of American conservatives, while not believing in God.

So plainly, though believers may not like this fact that we boldly and simply demonstrate, belief in a supernatural maker and law-giver is inessential to conservatism.

(In the document itself, God is referred to as ‘nature’s God’;  ie the ‘God’ which Spinoza and Einstein believed in, little more than a euphemism for ‘nature’s laws‘ – also mentioned – with which we have no quarrel.)

From Fox News:

More than 80 of the most influential and respected conservative grassroots leaders in the country plan to recommit themselves Wednesday to constitutional conservatism in an attempt to reunite and reground the movement, following a period when many thought conservatism was adrift.

They have named the document they will sign “The Mount Vernon Statement.” The signing ceremony is taking place at a library that was part of George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate.

The event comes on the eve of annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which brings thousand of conservatives from around the country to Washington D.C. every year.

The long term goal at CPAC and of the Mount Vernon statement is reestablish First Principles of Constitutional Conservatism.

The more immediate goal is to galvanize — for maximum strength — the various factions of the movement in advance of the 2010 midterm elections.

The statement draws heavily on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

It will speak directly to the three pillars of the modern movement: economic conservatives, social conservatives, and national security conservatives.

It will underscore the founding principle that constitutional self-government should be moral, responsible, and limited.

While some republicans have suggested in recent years that the GOP moderate it’s social views, or be more tolerant of government growth, or even accept bellicose tyranny overseas, conservatives argue now is the time for more backbone, not less.

Conservatives, republicans, right leaning independents, libertarians and teapartiers are searching for direction and leadership…listen up… today the leadership of some of the biggest grass roots conservative groups are speaking out. …

Organizers say no elected politicians are invited to this.

The signing ceremony harkens back to a similar event nearly 50 years ago at the home of the late William F Buckley in Sharon, Connecticut.

The Sharon Statement was penned at a meeting of 90 young conservatives as they created a group known as “Young Americans For Freedom.”

Their statement amounted to a guideline for young conservatives in the turbulent 60’s that individual liberty, limited government, a free-market, a strong economy, and strong defense are fundamental American ideals conservatives must defend.

There is no doubt today that conservatives again feel compelled to protect constitutional liberty anew.

This document seeks to be a conservative line in the sand against left-wing political advances during democratic control of Congress and the White House.

The Tea Party movement has shown full well that large swaths of previously disengaged Americans fear for the future of the republic.

Organizers say modern constitutional conservatism requires application of the rule of law to all proposals, advancing freedom, and opposing tyranny….

Conservatives now plan to directly challenge the notion that positive change in America means abandoning old ideas for new.

They assert instead that positive change means reaching back and re-embracing founding principles rather than rushing for new alternatives.

By late summer republican politicians in congress hope to lay out their 2010 election agenda.

Today conservatives grass roots leaders hope their Mount Vernon statement shows Republican politicians what should motivate them.

You can sign the document here.

Obama and his leftist administration refuse to accept that war has been declared on America (and the whole non-Muslim world), and is being planned and fought without moral scruple by Muslim terrorists.

Why they refuse to accept this fact one can only surmise. We suspect it is because Obama in particular and the Left in general is irrationally sympathetic to Islam.

What is plain is that confusion has arisen, as it must, from misdiagnosing the cause of the terrorist violence, such as the attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas day by an al-Qaeda operative. The Attorney-General, Eric Holder, who worked for a firm (Covington & Burling) with a long record of defending terrorists and their helpers free of charge –  and so patently out of ideological sympathy – is determined to treat terrorists as ordinary law-breakers. Then he is forced by angry criticism to recognize that they might have information useful for defending the nation, and has to allow them to be gently implored to yield up some of it.

If they do, he makes it known to Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and All, including Mohammed Cobbley over at al-Qaeda, that they have spilled the beans, mostly so that he can boast that chatting with these fellows gets as good a result as did the ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ – ie waterboarding – used by the previous administration. Now bin Laden’s planners can make their adjustments accordingly.

The question arises, is this naivety, stupidity, or a conscious and cunning plan to assist the enemy? No motive, however base, discovered in such men as Obama and Holder would surprise us, but we doubt that they are clever enough to form such a plan.  So  it probably comes out of a mixture of blind emotional sympathy with Islamic terrorists, puerile hatred of George W. Bush, and crass stupidity (which last would also account for the first two).

From Investor’s Business Daily:

The administration says the Christmas bomber is now cooperating with authorities. We thought they got all the information he had in a 50-minute chat. So just why are we letting our enemies know he’s talking?

In any war, it’s vitally important that you know what your enemy is planning and doing, just as it’s important that your actions and plans remain secret. And when you know about your enemy’s plans it’s important they don’t know that you know.

We were told not to worry when the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was taken into custody and Mirandized almost immediately. We were told we got all the information he had in 50 minutes. Larry King has done longer and better interviews.

Now the story has changed. Apparently we didn’t get all the information he had, for the administration has publicly announced that Mr. Abdulmutallab is now cooperating with authorities, presumably telling us what he really knows about the intentions of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. If so, that is good news.

What’s not so good news is that to score political points, the administration has told the world and al-Qaida that we are learning what Abdulmutallab knows, and now al-Qaida will know we know what he knows. They will change their plans, move their assets and attempt to thwart any U.S. action based on any valuable information he may be providing.

Abdulmutallab has been providing information in recent days, an administration official said last Tuesday on condition of anonymity. This announcement was presumably made to make the point that the administration’s decision to abandon enhanced interrogation techniques was justified.

This announcement made Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., justifiably furious. Bond promptly dashed off a letter of protest to President Barack Obama. In the letter he noted that on Feb. 1 the leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee received notice from the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning Abdulmutallab’s recent willingness to provide critical information.

The problem, Bond said, was that a short 24 hours later “White House staff assembled members of the media to announce Abdulmutallab’s cooperation and to laud the events that led to his decision to cooperate with law enforcement personnel. This information immediately hit the airwaves globally, and, no doubt, reached the ears of our enemies abroad.”

This is an unconscionable betrayal of the public trust, one that puts American lives and national security at risk,  jeopardizes future American actions and gives our terrorist enemies an unnecessary and dangerous heads-up.

Now that the global warming scam has been blown wide open, those responsible for perpetrating it should meet with condign punishment. Michael Mann of the hockey-stick-graph fraud; Al Gore, profiteer from the sale of carbon indulgences; Phil Jones who conned donors into giving him more than $20 million in grants to pursue his alchemy:  on the necks of these and all the others who would have impoverished us and subjected us to collective misery on the ludicrous pretext that the earth is burning up, may the sword of justice fall!

It’s a wish that just may come true.

James Delingpole writes in the Telegraph:

Dr Phil Jones – the (suspended) head of the Prince of Wales’s favourite AGW-promotion institution the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia – had a narrow squeak the other day. Though the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found his department in breach of Freedom of Information laws (Jones and his team had deliberately withheld or conspired to destroy data), Jones was able to escape prosecution on a technicality.

Next time, he may not be so lucky. Our friend John O’Sullivan at Climategate.com has been looking closely at the Climategate emails and reckons there is still a very strong case for a criminal prosecution, which could see Dr Jones facing ten years on fraud charges.

John O’Sullivan argues (at length, in an article well worth reading in full):

Yesterday the London Times broke the latest news on the fate of disgraced British climatologist Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia (UEA). Jones breached the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming. The Times reports that the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided that the UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late. …

What is not being intelligently reported is that Jones is still liable as lead conspirator in the UK’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and may face prosecution under the United Kingdom Fraud Act (2006). If convicted of the offense of fraud by either false representation, failing to disclose information or fraud by abuse of his position, he stands liable to a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment.

And in this article Delingpole reports how happy that would make him and one professor of Biogeography:

A mighty outpouring of rage today from [Professor] Philip Stott, foaming with righteous indignation, on the life and imminent death of the AGW scam.

Part of him is naturally enthralled:

“… as an independent academic, it has been fascinating to witness the classical collapse of a Grand Narrative, in which social and philosophical theories are being played out before our gaze. It is like watching the Berlin Wall being torn down, concrete slab by concrete slab, brick by brick, with cracks appearing and widening daily on every face – political, economic, and scientific.” …

But his overwhelming mood is one of white-hot fury at the way so many of his fellow scientists have colluded in this nauseating conspiracy:

“And what can one say about ‘the science’? ‘The ‘science’ is already paying dearly for its abuse of freedom of information, for unacceptable cronyism, for unwonted arrogance, and for the disgraceful misuse of data at every level, from temperature measurements to glaciers to the Amazon rain forest. What is worse, the usurping of the scientific method, and of justified scientific scepticism, by political policies and political propaganda could well damage science … in the public eye for decades… ”

I’m in no mood for being magnanimous in victory. I want the lying, cheating, fraudulent scientists prosecuted and fined or imprisoned. I want warmist politicians like [Prime Minister] Brown and disgusting [Foreign Secretary] Miliband booted out and I want Conservative fellow-travellers who are still pushing this green con trick … to be punished at the polls for their culpable idiocy.

Yes.

President Obama has no respect for the truth.

John Ellis has posted a long list of his lies at Front Page.

And Erick Erickson provides a list of lobbyists who are serving in his administration even as Obama continues to claim falsely that he’s ‘excluded lobbyists from policy-making jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions’.

Obama  is not merely an occasional liar as politicians tend to be. He apparently lies as a matter of habit, and with such conviction that he probably believes his own whoppers as he tells them. This characteristic dishonesty is one of the many facts about him that make him unfit for the office he holds.

Now Hans von Spakovsky, who has served on the Federal Election Commission, writes at The Foundry of the Heritage Foundation:

The two claims President Obama made [in his State of the Union speech] about  the Court’s decision … in the Citizens United case are categorically and undeniably false.

President Obama claimed that the Supreme Court had “reversed a century of law to open the floodgates – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.” Justice Alito seemed to shake his head and mouth the words “not true.” And well he should. …

First of all, the 100-year claim is completely wrong. In 1907, Congress passed the Tillman Act that banned direct contributions by corporations to federal candidates – there was no ban on independent political expenditures in the law. “Contributions” are funds given directly to candidates for their election campaigns; independent expenditures are funds spent by third parties on things like political advertisements without any coordination with the candidate.

The Tillman Act was sponsored by South Carolina Senator Ben “Pitchfork” Tillman, probably the most vicious racist to ever serve in Congress. Tillman was a Democratic segregationist who was chiefly responsible for the imposition of Jim Crow in South Carolina after the end of Reconstruction when he was governor. This federal law, that so-called “progressives” like the President are constantly praising, was intended by Tillman to hurt the Republican Party – the party of abolition and Abraham Lincoln – because many corporations contributed to the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party. These corporations did not like segregation in the South – it cost them money and made it more expensive to sell their goods and services.

Congress did not ban independent political expenditures by corporations and labor unions until 1947. For three decades after the passage of that law, the Supreme Court went out of its way to avoid upholding its constitutionality, and the Court actually struck down a separate ban on independent expenditures … It was not until 1990 in the Austin case that the Court, in a 5-4 decision, upheld a state ban on independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation (a trade association) in a case completely at odds with prior precedent. The actual electioneering communications provision at issue in the Citizens United case was part of the McCain-Feingold amendments to federal campaign finance law in 2002. …

While the Supreme Court in Citizens United found that the corporate ban on independent political expenditures is unconstitutional, it did not touch the ban on direct contributions to federal candidates. That is the ban that represents “a century of law” and it remains in force today contrary to the President’s assertion.

The President’s second point about those evil foreign corporations is also totally wrong. … It is simply not true that Citizens United freed foreign corporations to make independent expenditures in American elections… Under current law, there are multiple layers of protection to prevent foreign influence on our elections. …

Foreign corporations are prohibited from participating in American elections. But their domestic subsidiaries that are American companies, employ American workers, have American officers, and pay American taxes, are able to participate in the American election process to the same extent as other U.S. companies as long as all of the money and all of the decisions are American. …

The Citizens United decision did not even consider this ban on foreign nationals.

So the President was completely out-of-line when he made the claim that foreign corporations would be able to spend without limit in our elections, a claim that seems to have become a talking point for critics of the Supreme Court’s decision.

The President should know better than to make these false claims. After all, he taught a voting rights class at the University of Chicago that loosely covered campaign finance law, and his new White House counsel is Bob Bauer, probably the leading Democratic campaign finance lawyer in Washington. Bauer even wrote one of the only books that exists explaining the nuts and bolts of federal campaign finance law.

The President owes Justice Alito and the other justices of the Supreme Court an apology for completely mischaracterizing their opinion, an opinion that helped restore the full protections of the First Amendment. It was a decision that upheld some of our most basic principles, principles about the freedom to engage in political speech that are incorporated into the Constitution, a document that the critics of this decision seem all to willing to ignore when its requirements don’t fit their political objectives.

We are against law-breaking, but we accept that civil disobedience can be an effective weapon in liberty’s arsenal.

We’re also non-smokers and would avoid the Crow Bar spoken of here, but we’re more against interference with freedom, whether in the name of health or anything else …

… excepting always, as a British judge once said, ‘The freedom of your fist ends where my nose begins.’

From Mike Devine at examiner.com:

DeVine Law called for civil oil drilling disobedience even, B.O., or Before Obama.

Social conservatives and other defenders of the First Amendment issued the “Manhattan Declaration” this year, in Year One, A.O., or Annos Obamani, vowing to defy any federal mandates that would require religious or other institutions to aid and abet anti-life or anti-traditional marriage policies.

Now comes a “Chicago Declaration” of civil disobedience related to the right the Founders considered most essential to big “L” Liberty, i.e. private property rights:

CHICAGO — Smoking in bars has been banned here since Jan. 1, 2008, but Crow Bar, a cozy spot on the city’s far southeast side, is still a haven for people who want to light up.

Unless other customers object, owner Pat Carroll usually allows smoking. He keeps a “smoke jug” in view for $5 donations to offset fines.

“It’s good business to allow smoking. It’s a free country,” says Carroll, owner of Crow Bar for 28 years. It’s near the border with Indiana, which allows smoking in bars. He says his customers would patronize bars there if he forced them to smoke outside.

After all, if second hand smoke was really about health and not aesthetics, wouldn’t the smoking banners insist that waiters wear masks like coal miners? And if the global warming acolytes sought planet health and not political power, wouldn’t they be converting to agnosticism in the wake of a decade of global cooling?…

Hopefully the remnant of freedom-lovers in the Chicago home of Alinskyite thuggish liberalism will inspire a Dixie Declaration next year that will lead to a Declaration of Independence from ObamaDems that have moved to D.C., on Election Day next year.