The American Standard Bearer

Last spring and summer, we reported extensively on the efforts of a number of members of Congress as well as some grass roots groups to amend the Constitution to allow for a ban on burning the American flag. Those opposed to the amendment stated that a ban on flag burning would amount to a violation of the burner’s “free speech” rights. We took the position that if the action of burning an object (in this case, the American flag) in a public venue can be defined as free speech, how outrageous or dangerous will any other behavior have to be to be deemed beyond First Amendment protection?

Now, protesters are testing the limits of “free speech” and finding little or no resistance. A little reported incident at our nation’s Capitol this weekend is a case in point.

According to The Hill, Chief Phillip Morse of the U.S. Capitol Police ordered his officers to allow several hundred anti-war protesters to spray-paint the Capitol steps. You can bet there are laws on the books against defacing public property, but Chief Morse apparently decided that he wouldn’t enforce the law in deference to the protesters’ free speech rights.

Morse defended himself with this little bit of nonsense, “It is the USCP’s duty and responsibility to protect the Capitol complex, staff and public while allowing the public to exercise their First Amendment rights.” And as for the mess, “The graffiti was easily removed by the dedicated staff, some of whom responded on their day off to quickly clean the area.” What a relief! As an added bonus, U.S. taxpayers had the privilege of paying government workers overtime pay to clean up the “free speech” on the Capitol steps.

So is Morse saying that spray painting the Capitol steps and whatever other public monuments, etc. that are handy is now fair game, protected by the First Amendment? Of course not. Try taking a can of spray paint to the U.S. Capitol steps yourself and you will quickly find out that Chief Morse’s notion of free speech rights has suddenly become very selective.

After all is said and done, the question remains: Now that we’ve expanded the definition of “free speech” to include an unspecified number of behaviors referred to as “expression,” where will the line be drawn and who will draw it?

California Congressman and professional alarmist, Henry Waxman, is as close to a meddling bureaucrat as an elected official can be. And now, as chairman of a House investigation on global warming, he and his cronies are after the Bush administration, claiming White House involvement in systematic intimidation of government scientists to downplay global warming.

Waxman and others in Congress have joined the gloom-and-doom chorus of the environmental movement, warning of imminent disasters to be caused by an imminent rapid rise in global temperatures. Presenting these scenarios as the conclusions of a monolithic scientific community, they ignore serious and distinguished scientists who disagree.

So what are Waxman and the whole panoply of eco-freaks basing their dire predictions on? Why, the United Nations, of course! The U.N., an organization that specializes in corruption funded by the American taxpayer, has kindly provided the bulk of the scary global-warming-in-overdrive scenarios to the environmentalists. The U.N., through it’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been unrelenting in issuing all sorts of fantastic predictions of coming disasters that we have yet to see any evidence of, and nearly everyone, from Waxman to the news media to your daughter’s science teacher buy them hook line and sinker.

Chris Landsea, a prominent scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was a leading researcher for the U.N.’s IPCC when he developed a guilty conscience and resigned. In an open letter to IPCC, Landsea said, “I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound.” Did Landsea’s defection shake the foundations of the IPCC? Did Congress launch an investigation into the so-called science behind the global warming scare? No, they simply ignored Landsea and moved forward with their agenda.

It seems incredible that so many otherwise intelligent people would be so willing to take even the wildest predictions of planetary doom coming from a list of suspect “climatologists” at face value when an army of climatologists who actually do legitimate climatology full time can’t tell us what the weather will be doing a week from now.

The environmentalists fought tooth and nail for decades to prevent the United States from any serious attempts at breaking our dependence on foreign oil. They were succesful in the 60’s and 70’s at stopping construction of nuclear power plants and more recently, they have prevented oil companies from taping rich reserves in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

That’s left us burning coal and natural gas to generate electricity (talk about greenhouse gases!) and no fix yet for the internal combustion engine. Until recently, about the best the eco-freaks could muster was solar power and wind power, neither of which is cheap or feasible. In fact, Robert Kennedy Jr., the defacto leader of the you-conserve-while-we-splurge wing of the environmental movement, has been hawking wind power for years as long as they don’t obstruct his view from the Kennedy coumpound on Cape Cod by planting those ugly windmills offshore, where it makes sense.

Now the environmentalists are all in a dither over the fast-growing bio-fuel industry. They excitedly sing the praises of fuel made from corn, one of which is it’s low cost. An October press release from Senator Ted Kennedy’s office said, “Advances in biodiesel technology have the potential to make energy production significantly cleaner and cheaper in the future.” That statement only makes sense to the leftist eco-freaks who consistently demonsrtate an utter lack of economic understanding.

Yes, fuel made from corn is cheap now only because there’s no demand for it. Just wait until every gas station on Main Street is pumping ethanol and demand suddenly exceeds supply. Not only will fuel for your big Suburban be more expensive, Senator Kennedy, but the average Joe will need a second mortgage to go grocery shopping. Try reading the ingredient labels on some of the stuff in your pantry and I guarantee you’ll see the word “corn” a lot.

The future demand for corn will be many times greater in the production of fuel than in the production of food (your car eats more than you do), but the squeeze is already being felt. According to today’s Washington Post, tortilla makers in Mexico are facing a corn crisis: “Dramatically rising international corn prices, spurred by demand for the grain-based fuel ethanol, have led to expensive tortillas.”

Thanks to a particularly stubborn Palm Beach town council, Donald trump is getting perhaps more publicity than expected from installing an 80-foot flagpole complete with a huge American flag. As reported on October 5th by this blog, trump has been playing Palm Beach city officials for all they’re worth.

Whatever else he’s good at, Trump is a master of self-promotion and this is one more great example. If members of the council were smart, and evidently they’re not, they would have quickly and quietly passed some sort of special zoning variance and been done with it. Instead, according to the Telegraph.co.uk, the town is facing a $25 mil lawsuit and negative press on the state and national levels.

For example, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has jumped on the band wagon, calling the Palm Beach council “anti-American”, and suggesting that if council members “think there is ever a time the American flag is not appropriate, perhaps they should all go back to whatever country they came from”.

As we said of this back in October, no matter how this plays out, Trump wins and Palm Beach looses. Too bad the Palm Beach council didn’t possess the humility to realize that in the first place.

As residents of Park City, Utah, the appalling circus that is Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival is a bit like going to the dentist’s to have a multiple root canal – there is no bright side. Besides the huge increase in traffic and the exceptionally rude Hollywood riff-raff and road crews, Redford himself usually manages to insult ordinary Americans like us with his leftist pronouncements. And in addition, there is inevitably some aspect of the festival, hailed as a breakthrough in societal development, that is intended to “push the envelope” by discovering the artistic value of ever more debased behavior.

This year is no different. A documentary intended to drag the subject of beastiality out of the barn and into the mainstream is all the rage. Filmaker Robinson Devor justifies his film and the abhorrent act itself with this statement: “It happens, so it’s part of who we are.” So if an act, no matter how despicable and depraved, has been performed by a human, then it is “part of who we are,” and hence, morally legitimate.

The implication is that if you hold the quaint notion that the obvious purpose of sex is the selfless goal of children and not the selfish goal of immediate personal gratification at the expense of whoever or whatever is forced to be the gratifier, then you are somehow the immoral one in the scheme.

Meteorologist James Spann works at an ABC TV affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama, and also authors a blog in his spare time. Thursday night, his blog suddenly gained him national recognition when the Drudge Report posted a link to it.

It started when Spann read comments by global warming enthusiast Dr. Heidi Cullen of Ted Turner’s “The Weather Channel” fame. In an accidental fit of candor, Cullen said, “If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the (American Meteorological Society) shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval.” As a rule, leftists believe that dire remedies are in order for anyone who dares to disagree, which is exactly what Spann did in his Thursday night blog.

Cullen defended herself in part by saying, “…scientists have learned something very important about our planet. It’s warming up — glaciers are melting, sea level is rising and the weather is changing.” What Cullen failed to say is that there is by no means a consensus among scientists on those claims.

Let’s take the rising rising sea level hysteria as an example. The tiny South Pacific island of Tuvalu seems to be at the epicenter of the global warming crisis, at least in regards to rising sea levels. All the devout leftists of the movement are lamenting the soon-to-be fate of Tuvalutians. Yet the evidence that Cullen and her cohorts pass off as science looks more anecdotal than scientific. A storm surge washes over the island, par for the course when the highest point is 12 feet above sea level, and the global warming cheering squad shouts, “We told you so!”

As for the real scientific evidence, well, the global warming crowd simply dismisses it. An article appeared in the Harvard International Review in 2002 entitled, “Tuvalu Little, Tuvalu Late,” that quoted a prominent Australian scientist who actually has conducted scientific research in the area. “Despite this generally-held scientific consensus,” says author Genevieve Sheehan, “there are those who argue against such estimates (of rising sea levels); one study in particular claims to find no evidence of rising ocean levels. Wolfgang Scherer, director of Australia’s National Tidal Facility (NTF) at Flinders University, contends that ‘the data does not support any sea-level rise at all.’ He bases this on data collected from tide gauges installed across the Pacific in the past 10 years, including a gauge at Funafuti, Tuvalu’s capital. ‘The short-term sea-level rise analyses… [show] no change in the average sea level over the period of record.’”

Global warming zealots counter that the study was only over a ten year period and thus, too short term to have any value, yet they present no evidence of their own to support their claims of rising sea levels. In fact, sea level data from Tuvalu over more than two decades supports Scherer’s data:

And as for long term evidence of sea levels in the South Pacific, Capt. James Clark Ross, who explored the Antartic more than 150 years ago, left a benchmark marking the mean tide on the island of Tasmania in 1841. The benchmark is a half meter across (a little more than a foot-and-a-half) and the tidal range is less than a meter, which means that there doesn’t seem to have been a discernable increase in sea level in the South Pacific in the last 160+ years.

On a couple of occasions, I have written of the plight of two loyal and upstanding U.S. Border Patrol agents who are now about to begin long prison sentences for doing their job. Several prominent Congressmen including Duncan Hunter and Dana Rohrabacher have stood up for the two officers, Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos, urging President Bush to issue a pardon and right this disgraceful wrong. In addition, hundreds of thousands of Americans have signed petitions asking the President to intervene, yet he remains silent.

In February of 2005, officer Compean confronted Mexican drug smuggler Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, who was attempting to smuggle 800 pounds of Marijuana into the U.S. in a van. Compean ordered Aldrete-Davila to surrender and Aldrete-Davila responded by assaulting Compean, who then called for backup. When Ramos arrived with other officers, Compean was on the ground, Aldrete-Davila was fleeing, holding what looked like a gun and gunfire was heard. Compean fired his weapon, scoring a bull’s eye on the drug trafficker’s back-side, but Aldrete-Davila escaped, rejoining accomplices on the Mexican side.

Incredibly, the U.S. Justice Department wasted no time in seeking the testimony of Aldrete-Davila against the officers, offering him medical treatment and immunity. Adding insult to injury, Aldrete-Davila has since been apprehended again, this time attempting to smuggle 1000 pounds of marijuana into the U.S. And in addition, he is suing the U.S. government (read: the taxpayers) for the hefty sum of $5 million, presumably for restraint of trade.

Harry Truman’s Presidency is perhaps best remembered for his famous saying, “The Buck Stops Here.” While many if not most Americans believe that President Bush will be remembered as the President who propelled us into a war in Iraq, I’m inclined to believe his legacy will turn out to be the way he is betraying America and his sacred office, trading away our precious national sovereignty by making secret deals with foreign governments. If he wishes to save his legacy and redeem himself with the American people, the President would do well to seriously consider Truman’s words.

Yesterday, Charles Johson of Little Green Footballs posted a three-part preview of “Dispatches: Undercover Mosque,” a UK Channel 4 documentary. In it, a reporter goes undercover inside a prominent mosque in Birmingham, England, and discovers that the Muslims who preach moderation on the outside, preach something a little more sinister on the inside.

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After watching this, if your inclined to think that these are only fringe groups, with no chance to actually realize their goals, consider the reality of demographics. Writer Mark Steyn, author of “America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It,” has been sounding the alarm about the changing demographics in all western societies for quite some time. The birthrate has been dropping precipitously among native populations in Europe and is on the decline in the U.S. as well, although to a lesser degree.

At the same time, birthrates are strong within the immigrant communities, which are primarily Muslim in Europe. Do the math, and the sober conclusion you will reach is that it won’t take long for Islam to be the dominant culture. Still don’t think that can happen here?

An article in the New York Times today celebrates one of the consequences of the Feminist movement, intended or otherwise: the institution of marriage here in the U.S. is slowly crumbling. The article says a lot about how freeing it is for women to shake the dust of marriage from their feet and go it alone, but says nothing about what it will mean for future generations. That’s probably because without marriage, there won’t be kids, and hence, no future generations.

Simon Cowell, the controversial judge of the American Idol television series, who employs self-absorbed arrogance to masquerade as confidence, has provided a clue to his very narrow preferences. According to Reuters, Cowell told Playboy magazine that if he had witnessed a young Bob Dylan singing, he would have had to “plug (his) ears and run in the other direction.”

If you watched American Idol once or twice, which happens to be my limit, you would know that if a contestant doesn’t sing in that trendy warbling falsetto voice that’s all the rage, the chances of getting by Cowell are slim. Fortunately for Dylan, Cowell’s preferences are not the rest of the world’s.

In fact, at least as far as rock and roll is concerned, a unique voice with character will get you a lot farther than a musically pure voice. You could fill a book with the names of one-hit wonders who could really belt out a tune that nobody remembers. On the other hand, the list of singers who stood the test of time – names like Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Mick Jagger and Gregg Allman – could fill a two-page brochure at best.

Before dazzling us again with his insightful opinions, Simon Cowell would do well to consider that it won’t be long before people say “Simon who?,” yet Bob Dylan’s recordings will still be selling.

Ever notice that those who make the most noise about protecting American freedoms, in reality seem to be more concerned with governmental restrictions on freedom. For example, some liberal bureaucrats in New York City on the one hand want the firefighters to risk their lives putting out fires and saving lives, and on the other hand, want to control even the minor details of a firefighter’s everyday life.

According to Reuters, NYC firefighters have been issued a directive from above to remove American flags, American flag stickers, refrences to firefighters who died on 9/11, etc., etc., etc. The Uniformed Firefighters Association is threatening to sue the city on the grounds that the free speech rights of the firefighters have been violated.

In Europe, the noose around the neck of individual freedom has been tightening for some time, with socialist bureaucrats dictating more and more of the details of everyday life while everyday people shrug their shoulders in apathy. Here in America, meddling bureaucrats don’t have such an easy time of it.

Americans thankfully seem to be much better than our friends in Europe at smelling when something’s rotten and are certaily much better at fighting back.

The sure sign