In his initial comments, the president laid out a series of policy objectives, one of which was a declaration of “all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United States.”

“This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America,” he said.

Johnson declared in his speech that this objective, along with his other domestic priorities, “can be done without any increase in spending.”

“In fact,” he promised, “under the budget that I shall shortly submit, it can be done with an actual reduction in federal expenditures and federal employment.”

In the following months a Democrat-majority Congress passed, and Johnson signed, some of the most liberal-progressive legislation to date, creating “a number of programs to help the poor, including Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and Head Start,” Time magazine – which went on to select the president as its “Man of the Year” – reported.

Collectively, these programs – and Johnson’s agenda – became known as the “Great Society,” and their goal was to lift those who were living in poverty out of poverty.

At the time, the poverty rate in the U.S. was anywhere from 15 percent to 19 percent, depending on whose numbers you use.

Fast-forward to the current day and age.

During his broadcast Wednesday night, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly attempted to address the issue.

During his opening “Talking Points” segment, he said the poverty rate in 1964 “stood at 14 percent,” adding that today, decades after the Great Society was enacted, the rate hovers around 14.3 percent for virtually no change in the percentage of the population considered living below the poverty line.

Politifact and other sites have since “fact-checked” O’Reilly, hitting him for misreporting the actual rates. Quoting U.S. Census Bureau data, they say some 17.4 percent of American families were living below the poverty line, so we’ll use that as our baseline.

If the rate in 1964 was 17.4 percent, and today it’s 14.3 percent, that’s a difference of about 3.1 percent – after four decades.

Now, at what cost this “progress”?

“Federal and state spending on social welfare is approaching $1 trillion a year, $17 trillion since the Great Society was launched, not to mention private charity,” notes Pat Buchanan.

So, after trillions of dollars were spent over the course of nearly 50 years, the nation essentially has little to show for its Great Society War on Poverty – which was the crux of O’Reilly’s case.

More recent numbers from a Congressional Research Service analysis make an even starker point.

Since its inception, the Great Society has grown from a few main programs in 1965 to 83 programs today, at a cost of $1.028 trillion annually, “a price tag that makes welfare … the government’s largest expenditure,” The Daily Caller reports, quoting data from the CRS analysis.

“Roughly 100 million people – one-third of the U.S. population – receive aid from at least one means-tested welfare program each month. Average benefits come to around $9,000 per recipient,” the Heritage Foundation went on to point out, using the same CRS data.

If all that largess were converted to cash, “means-tested welfare spending is more than five times the amount needed to eliminate all poverty in the United States,” said Heritage.

This supposedly was not what Johnson had in mind – an overtly expensive web of government programs that have done nothing to lift the chronically poor out of their cycle of poverty.

And yet, in hindsight, that’s exactly what he had in mind.

How can we tell?

Because it’s a domestic policy only a progressive could love, which explains why President Obama has continued to embrace and perpetuate it, most recently by loosening work requirements and other standards to allow even more Americans to “qualify” for this War on Poverty assistance.

If you, the voter, were looking for a second-term Obama domestic policy agenda, look no further.

“No longer should we measure compassion by how much money the government spends but by how many people we help to rise out of poverty,” says Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, who requested the CRS report.

“Welfare assistance should be seen as temporary whenever possible and the goal must be to help more of our fellow citizens attain gainful employment and financial independence,” said Sessions.

Forty-eight years and trillions of dollars later, it would be about time.

A wealthy guy with a stable home, a great family and the world as his oyster, he doesn’t need the rigors of a presidential campaign, let alone the endless, trying hours and the plethora of pressing issues that await him should he win in November.

He doesn’t need the constant scrutiny of his personal life and finances or the carping of a hostile press wholly in the bag for his opponent. He doesn’t deserve to be harangued by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

So why is Romney even running? Why did he leave the comfort and security of Bain Capital, a highly successful firm he helped build and which provided him a rare opportunity to become a billionaire?

Why did he instead choose to run the Winter Olympics and then the state of Massachusetts?

Why does such a rich guy, whom we’ve been told is so affluent he couldn’t possibly care about the rest of us, let alone relate to our needs and concerns, want to put himself and his family through what is arguably the most rigorous, stressful and soul-sucking process that is a presidential campaign?

Well, it must be ego, right? Arrogance, perhaps? One more world to conquer – that sort of thing?

Let’s look at that.

Understand that a billionaire doesn’t need to conquer “worlds.” He buys them. In Romney’s case, though, we saw a one-percenter and his wife voluntarily choose a different, less profitable path, one of public service. So much for the ego angle.

There’s more.

President Obama loves to play the class warfare card with Romney and those in his socioeconomic circle, associating their wealth with inherent stinginess and selfishness.

He said as much in a 2002 speech commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. when he said the rich “got what they want,” and that they “want to make sure people don’t take their stuff.” (I’m assuming Obama doesn’t want people just taking his “stuff” either, but I digress.)

Since the Romneys are Mormons in good standing, they are expected to tithe 10 percent of their income to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Romney made some $40 million in 2010 and 2011, and that he donated about $4.1 million to the LDS Church. “That’s in addition to about $4.8 million his Tyler Charitable Foundation donated to the faith,” the paper said.

So here we have the Romneys giving away a lot of their personal wealth, which is, of course, part of their “stuff.” So much for the stingy capitalist angle.

There’s more.

In 2011, according to his tax returns, Romney and wife, Ann, gave $4 million to charities – or about 30 percent of his income. They could have claimed all of that as a tax deduction, but only claimed $2.25 million. That means, in essence, the Romneys overpaid their taxes that year by not taking the full deduction owed them.

Is this something a man who couldn’t care less about others would do? So much for the selfish angle.

Romney is a man who has made the personal decisions not to drink or smoke. He’s happily married, and it shows. He and Ann have raised five outstanding young men. They have everything they could ever possibly want or need.

Why, then, is this man running for president, putting himself through the agony of a presidential race, to have his motives questioned and his reputation jealously savaged by pseudo-intellectuals in the press and chattering class?

I have an idea about that.

I think it’s because Mitt Romney is a noble man. And his bid for the presidency is perhaps the most noble gesture of our time.

It’s obvious from his debate performance Wednesday night that Romney, despite the headwinds he’s faced, is still very passionate and optimistic about America. It is equally obvious, judging by his past experience and record, that he has the leadership qualities necessary to make a positive impact on America’s future.

He sounds like a man who is not interested in writing off 47 percent of the population, but rather providing 100 percent of us the opportunity to accomplish what he has.

More importantly, he is willing to step up to the plate.

Mitt Romney is a rich guy. He doesn’t need to be president. The fact that he still wants to be, given all that he has endured, is genuinely noble.

Instead of trying to tear him apart we should be thanking him for offering up his experience and service. It’s not like he needs the money.

Jon E. Dougherty is a Missouri-based political science major, author, writer and columnist. Follow him on Twitter.

On Thursday the government released the latest economic growth figures. The U.S. economy contracted again in the third quarter, falling to a pathetic 1.3 percent annual rate. I’m not sure what’s worse – the actual pathetic growth rate or the fact that economists had predicted a rate of just 1.7 percent, which is also pathetic.

Either way, President Obama has no time for it. He’s campaigning; on Thursday he went to Virginia. In recent days he’s made the daytime talk-show circuit and has hung out with other celebrities.

That’s unacceptable because, as bad as the economy is – and it’s bad – the country faces a worse situation abroad.

You may have heard that “radical Islamists” killed one of our ambassadors earlier this month.

Many Americans have been prone to blame these “radicals” for Ambassador Christopher Stevens’ death. As tragic as his death is, we shouldn’t forget that in war, enemies will try to inflict violence against us any way they are able.

War? Yes, there is still a global war on terror, even if the PC police within the Obama administration have labeled it something else. So if you want to blame someone, then blame the person who made conditions ideal for our enemies to attack and kill our ambassador.

Stevens, who died in Benghazi, was killed in large part because security around him was so negligible (no word yet from the Libyan president, Mohammed Magarief, as to why he didn’t order additional security to guard our consulate, which is what a true “friend of the U.S.” would do).

Benghazi was the seat of the recent Libyan uprising. A hotbed of insurgency. The very definition of insecurity.

And yet our State Department, which falls under the purview of the Executive Branch, failed to provide adequate security.

The head of the Executive Branch is the president of the United States.

In other words, Barack Obama.

Stevens knew he was in danger. A small journal he kept that was found by a CNN crew in the burnt-out shell of the consulate said as much.

We have to assume that Stevens, a seasoned and experienced diplomat, conveyed those security concerns to the administration, via the State Department. And yet, we now know that nothing was done to assuage his concerns.

Stevens was likely going to die that day – the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks – one way or another. Part of the militants’ plan was to attack him at our consulate. A second militant force, meanwhile, attacked the site of the embassy staff “safe house,” where Stevens was heading when he lost his life.

In the aftermath of this tragedy we have a president who refuses to accept responsibility. That’s nothing new, however, because Obama has refused to own up to anything, including the nation’s other critical issue, the sad state of the economy.

But Obama is responsible. It is he who created the perception of weakness on which the attack was premised.

This president has apologized over and over again in this volatile part of the world for the “behavior” of our country, even though most of us have no idea what it is we did or why he’s singling us out.

In the part of the world where Stevens was killed, that kind of Neville Chamberlain-like behavior is not respected. Consequently, in that part of the world America is no longer respected. So we’re attacked. And Stevens paid the price of Obama’s apologetic weakness with his life.

He should not have died in vain. No one should be able to murder one of our ambassadors and get away with it. If one enemy is allowed to succeed, another enemy will try us. Then another.

Obama should have wasted no time in punishing Libya’s current rulers by striking at them wherever they were found. That would have sent the message loud and clear that the United States will not stand idly by when attacked.

But he didn’t. Instead, he did what he always does – he lectured. He chided. He deflected. Mr. Cool blamed a foolish video.

What Obama should do now is step down, for he has disgraced his office by surrendering any remaining legitimacy he had left as commander in chief. The memory of Ambassador Stevens, as well as the thousands who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting those who attacked us on 9/11, demand it.

As more enemies line up at the gate.

How can you tell if the most recent incarnation of “immigration reform” being resurrected by the Democrat-controlled Congress is a bad piece of legislation? The answer is easy: Because Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., has taken a lead role in getting it passed.

The last time Kennedy took up reforming the nation’s immigration standards, America was irreparably harmed. For it was Kennedy who, four decades ago, helped put in place the very system that mightily contributed to today’s illegal immigration nightmare.

The 1965 Immigration Reform Act, the creation of radical, far-left “Down With The Establishment” ideologues hellbent on reversing what had been an effective and manageable system of legalized immigration into the United States since 1924, were steering the civil rights juggernaut smack dab into the heart of traditional America. In its wake, the ideologues, partnered with like-minded members of Congress, destroyed a rational quota system that, according to FrontPageMag.com’s Ben Johnson, “had regulated the ethnic composition of immigration in fair proportion to each group’s existing presence in the population,” and was serving the nation well.

Writes Johnson:

In a misguided application spirit of the civil rights era, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations saw these ethnic quotas as an archaic form of chauvinism. Moreover, as Cold Warriors facing charges of “racism” and “imperialism,” they found the system rhetorically embarrassing. The record of debate over this seismic change in immigration policy reveals that left-wingers, in their visceral flight to attack “discrimination,” did not reveal the consequences of their convictions. Instead, their spokesmen set out to assuage concerned traditionalists with a litany of lies and wishful thinking.

In signing the legislation Oct. 3, 1965, President Johnson claimed: “This bill we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not restructure the shape of our daily lives.” Wrong.

Proponents like Johnson and Kennedy repeatedly claimed the new legislation would not lead to a huge and sustained increase in the number of new immigrants, or become a vehicle for globalizing immigration to the U.S.

But besides tripling the level of immigration by 1995 than had existed in the 30 years before the new law was passed in 1965, other claims by its supporters have been radically disproved.

“In 1965, Ted Kennedy confidently predicted, ‘No immigrant visa will be issued to a person who is likely to become a public charge,’” Ben Johnson wrote. “However, political refugees qualify for public assistance upon setting foot on U.S. soil.” As I pointed out in my 2003 book, “Illegals,” non-citizen aliens in the country without permission – especially those from south of the border – soak up billions of taxpayer dollars a year in health care, education, infrastructure and incarceration costs.

Rampant, uncontrolled immigration has also cost Americans jobs – jobs that used to pay a competitive, livable wage until employers in the states figured out they could illegally hire an avalanche of “undocumented” immigrants for one-third to one-half less money. Again, Kennedy’s 1965 comments are as telling today as they were misleading then when he claimed changes in the law 40 years ago “will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”

Again, today, one of the immigration reformists is Kennedy. And again, he and those siding with him are couching their bill as a “comprehensive” solution – a warm-and-fuzzy characterization that makes a horrendous bill sound like a solid piece of legislation destined to solve our immigration problems once and for all. And, if you only read Kennedy’s website promoting this bill, you might be tempted to fall for the rhetoric. According to his own statement, the new legislation would:

• Increase the amount of U.S. Border Patrol agents from 14,000 to 28,000;

• Increases the number of immigration investigators and anti-smuggling officers;

• Adds some fencing along the southern border and creates more detention center space;

• Adds “state-of-the-art, high-tech border enforcement equipment”;

• Requires illegal immigrants already here to “come out of the shadows,” pay a $5,000 fine, learn English, work and pay taxes.

Sounds “comprehensive,” doesn’t it? But peel back the layers of politicalese and you can see where the “out” clauses are buried.

Simply increasing the number of Border Patrol agents and investigators won’t help. First of all, the figure of 28,000 is not nearly enough; plus, the U.S. already has the amount of trained personnel it needs to beef up a border presence. It’s called the U.S. military; protecting our national borders from invasion – armed or otherwise – is the job of the Defense Department. The goal should not be to “arrest” border-jumpers, which is a civilian law enforcement function, but to prevent them from entering our country illegally in the first place. If you are caught at our borders trying to enter illegally, you get sent back – not “thrown into the system,” which just costs the American taxpayer extra money for processing and incarceration. Chronic repeat offenders and/or genuine criminals get turned over to civilian authorities.

Fencing is good – especially the two-tiered fencing erected outside of San Diego along the U.S.-Mexico border. Federal immigration agents there have personally told me how effective it was in a) stopping illegal immigration and, in doing so, b) revitalizing – economically and cosmetically – areas along the border in both countries that had otherwise been blighted by so much traffic, drug smuggling and other unintended consequences. We are the United States of America and we can build that kind of fence, if need be, all along our borders. We haven’t thus far not because we lack the financing, equipment, labor and technology, but only because there is no political will in Washington to do so. And that reason is simply no longer good enough.

Adding “state-of-the-art” surveillance technology is a misnomer. Despite advances in surveillance technology, such equipment is still prone to glitches that make it all but ineffective. Years before they made national headlines, I visited regions along the U.S.-Canada border in Washington state that were being monitored by some of these “high-tech” surveillance cameras and ground-traffic monitoring devices. Border agents there told me they had so many “false positives” – sightings of animals, for instance, as well as consistent break-downs – the multi-million dollar system was all but useless. What “technology” do we have available now that would change this reality? Nothing.

There is no substitute for the military’s adage of “boots on the ground” to ensure people who aren’t supposed to be here don’t get in.

“Requiring” illegal immigrants here to step up and identify themselves so we can make the pay a fine, pay taxes, learn English and all this other stuff is perhaps one of the most ludicrous of all provisions. Only a bona fide pipe dreamer could believe illegal immigrants already here would do such a thing. The other provision here to “require” all U.S. employers to verify they are only hiring “legal” workers is as misleading as it is disingenuous. It is already against the law for employers to hire illegal immigrants – which means there is already a requirement, for all intents and purposes, to verify their workers are in our country legally – and they’re not doing that. What’s going to force them to do so now – another “law”? Kennedy and Co. pledge to “hold accountable” all employers who don’t follow the new provisions, yet enforcement of the old provisions has been spotty at best and criminally absent at worst. Why are Americans expected to believe this new provision will be enforced more prolifically?

There is also this fact. At any point in the future, Congress can vote to de-fund any provision of any law they don’t like. So fences won’t be built, new agents won’t be hired and new technology won’t be bought. That’s just the way of Washington. Also, if enforcement of current laws is lax – we’re being told the system is “so broken it must be fixed” – why should we expect better enforcement of these new provisions?

Finally – and this point is critical – not all immigrants in our country illegally want to become Americans. Millions of illegals – mostly from Mexico and Central America – are only here to earn money they can’t earn in their own country. That’s why Mexico’s second-largest source of income is income its citizens living abroad send home to their families each year (about $20 billion annually – about the same as Mexico earns from oil exports and an amount that almost equals U.S. foreign aid to the entire world).

The policies the U.S. should be pursuing to curb illegal immigration should have as much to do with physical security as with helping average Mexicans reform their own country. The reason Canada, for instance, is no immigration or security threat is because Canada is a wealthy, stable country. If Mexico were as wealthy – and in terms of natural resources, labor markets and everything except lack of corruption, it is – Mexico would be as stable as Canada.

The last “immigration reform” effort saw the U.S. immigrant population skyrocket to more than 100 million in about 35 years; experts predict immigration-driven growth will put the U.S. population over 400 million by 2030. Will our uniquely American traditions, hard-fought and won with the blood and treasure of our forefathers and grandfathers, survive, or will they be replaced by unrecognizable third-world “traditions” that are anathema to our Constitution and way of life?

Will Congress eventually pass, and President Bush sign, an immigration measure that is ineffective and actually accomplishes the opposite of what it is supposed to do?

Time will tell, but if history is a guide, the answer is obvious.

Get Dougherty’s book “Illegals: The Imminent Threat Posed by Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border”

Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo’s new book, “In Mortal Danger: The Battle For America’s Borders and Security,” should be required reading for every high-school student, public official, elected representative, judge and presidential candidate, as well as every citizen and prospective citizen in America. It is that important. It is that valuable. And were its contents widely digested, I have no doubt it would radically alter the political, cultural and social landscape of our country.

That a politician has written a book is nothing new. That Tom Tancredo has something important to say about the direction of our country, our future, is nothing out of the ordinary. He has been a fire-breathing, relentless political presence since he was first elected to his state’s legislature in 1975. He has continued that legacy since his election to the U.S. House in 1998, always doing what is best for Coloradans and the country.

But to call Tom Tancredo ordinary is to grossly mischaracterize him. To call him a maverick is equally incorrect. He’s not ordinary, and he’s no maverick; he’s a patriot who knows what’s going on and who sees the future of America with a clarity lacking in many of his colleagues.

And that future, he says, is not good.

He speaks passionately about the “cult of multiculturalism” – a phrase he has coined – which he defines as an America-bashing collective of leftists, moral relativists, neo-Socialists, and academic and educational elitists (think Democrats), all of whom are hard at work destabilizing every aspect of traditional America. The America he calls “traditional” is the one founded on the values of two-parent, heterosexual families, pro-life beliefs, faith in God and Jesus Christ, hard work and selflessness.

Even though much of America remains wedded to such principles (think the majority of Red States), the factors influencing this rampant, destructive multiculturalism mimic the damage done to great powers in the past (think the collapse of the Roman Empire).

Professors on our college and university campuses teach students to “Hate America First.” They dismiss U.S. history and portray our nation as one born of dictatorial oppression, exploitation and murder, while ignoring the wealth of great, positive things America has created, accomplished or done for others. They prefer to celebrate dictators and murderers like “revolutionaries” Ch? Guevera and Fidel Castro, rather than George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

Our mainstream media worship at the altar of the morally vacuous (think Hollywood and a number of sports “stars”) while bashing true heroes like everyday men and women who work, raise families, pay their taxes, obey the law, go to church, help their communities and serve their country’s military.

Tom Tancredo knows too many elected officials, political activists and legal groups advocate for illegal aliens and open borders, to the detriment of American taxpayers, workers and national security. To his political nemeses, alien lawbreakers “deserve” to have the same rights as you or I – or as the legal immigrants who followed our laws and came to live here the right way.

But Tom Tancredo also knows the secular decadence much of America is pursuing and that led to the fall of the Roman Empire is entirely preventable. He believes it because he knows what America – and Americans – are capable of accomplishing. That’s what makes this book – this message – so vitally important. And it comes not a moment too soon.

As a true believer in the Republican Party’s founding principles of conservatism: less (and cheaper) government, pro-family/pro-life stance, reduced taxes and a strong national defense – he has often warred with members of his party and the Bush administration over what he feels have been betrayals of those principles. Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, once told him he had no future in Congress; chief presidential adviser Karl Rove once demanded he never darken the door of the White House and Oval Office.

Rather than shrink from these challenges and these criticisms, Tom Tancredo has instead stepped up to meet them, all the while remaining truthful to himself, his constituents, his principles and his country. With DeLay gone now and Rove demoted to an official position of lesser influence, Tancredo has proven that his point of view, political prowess and high ethical standards – not theirs – are the sort that stand the test of time.

And that’s what makes him extraordinary among his colleagues; he practices what he preaches, no matter who in “The Establishment” it makes uncomfortable, because he knows it is the right thing to do.

By the way, those are just the sort of qualities we want in our presidents.

Pick up a copy of Tom Tancredo’s book. As a political manifesto, it is a once-in-a-lifetime find. Such rational, cogent clarity of thought doesn’t come along in our public servants very often. I’d hate for you to miss out on the most important message of our time: That America is indeed in mortal danger, but there is a leader who knows how to deliver us from evil.

Get your copy of Tancredo’s “In Mortal Danger: The Battle For America’s Borders and Security” for just $4.95!

A measure currently under consideration in the House could weaken medical privacy by granting the federal government authority to preempt state laws, according to critics of the bill.

The Institute for Health Freedom says the “Health Information Technology Promotion Act of 2005,” or H.R. 4157, could damage state medical confidentiality provisions by granting the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary legal authority to “preempt state laws ensuring privacy rights” and establish a federal standard that does not guarantee the right to “give or withhold one’s consent before one’s personal health information is shared with others.”

“Thus,” the institute concludes, “if citizens cannot decide who can see their personal health information, they have no true privacy rights.”

Also, the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, a non-partisan organization of doctors from all specialties, has concerns the measure will damage state medical privacy provisions.

“We call for restraint in passing a law that would fast track the creation of a national health information system,” said Jane Orient, M.D., head of AAPS, in a letter to lawmakers.

“The only parties who will benefit by forcing technology on medicine by top-down central planning that actually risks an end to the advancement in information technology will be the government, certain third party payers, lawyers and information technology companies,” she said. “Patients will definitely not benefit from this type of program because they do not control who has access to their sensitive identifiable medical records in any meaningful way.”

According to a congressional summary, the measure amends the Social Security Act “to encourage the dissemination, security, confidentiality, and usefulness of health information technology.”

Introduced last October by Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., the bill has 41 co-sponsors.

“Information technology, e-prescribing and electronic medical records have the ability to improve health care quality, reduce errors and save lives,” Johnson said, introducing her legislation.

“America’s health care system has lagged behind other sectors in maximizing its use of cutting-edge information systems, but now we are moving full speed ahead. This legislation will make sure the national health IT coordinator’s post is a permanent one, and it will overcome some of the key obstacles that have slowed our progress toward adoption of a national, interoperable electronic system.”

Johnson said her legislation would promote “common sense cooperation” between physicians and health care facilities, protect privacy by “creating uniform information security standards,” and update “diagnosis coding systems for the digital age,” or the medical shorthand used in health records and insurance claim processing.

But AAPS says while Johnson’s bill contains language which appears to preserve privacy, “members of Congress and their staff, who have not read the HIPAA federal medical privacy rule in its entirety and haven’t been tracking the issue for years, may not realize that H.R. 4157 could actually strip citizens of their state health-privacy rights/freedom to consent.”

The AAPS’s Orient said the “so-called HIPAA Privacy Rule, which is in fact a disclosure rule, does not provide any meaningful privacy protections such as those enshrined in Constitutional law and medical ethics. Therefore a national health information system would effectively eliminate any and all patient consent to the release of their records by placing the records online. Patients would have virtually no control over who can sneak-a-peak at their very private and sensitive medical records.”

“The bottom line is that giving the federal government the power to decide who can see individuals’ personal health information is not true health privacy,” said AAPS. “Rather, it’s actually an infringement on individuals’ privacy and liberty,”

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NYC shares lab results without consent

Washington Post illustrator Tom Toles probably thought he was being too clever by half when he penned what has to be the most tasteless, cruel, appalling and angering political “cartoon” I believe most civilized human beings have ever seen.

The simplistic drawing depicts Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as a doctor attending a wounded serviceman, whose arms and legs have been amputated. In particularly callous fashion, Rumsfeld – as he prepares to write in the serviceman’s chart – says, “I’m listing your condition as ‘battle-hardened.’”

What an amazingly insensitive pinhead this Toles character. In one fell swoop he has just has just heaped a 747-sized load of dung on each of the thousands of U.S. war veterans who have been irreparably wounded fighting for his right to be an amazingly insensitive pinhead.

So bad was Toles’ insult he rated a rebuke from none other than the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, each of whom signed and sent a single letter, in a rare public display of disgust, to the Washington Post protesting the cartoon. In cadence, 24 stars labeled Toles’ work “beyond tasteless” and admonished the paper to spare “the men and women and their families who so selflessly serve our country the decency to not make light of their tremendous physical sacrifices.”

It’s a shame that, in the middle of commanding troops in the field, the Joint Chiefs even needed to remind a major daily newspaper editor of that. Still, I would add that I don’t see the managing editor to whom the military chiefs’ letter was addressed, Philip Bennett, doing a blessed thing about this.

No, Bennett and the other anti-war toadies at the Post will hide behind the First Amendment. Instead of taking the brave and high road, chastising Toles for his cruel attempt at humor, they will indignantly claim he is just taking advantage of the rights for which our men and women in uniform are fighting, dying, and losing their arms and legs – the right to trash and demeanor the very people who are providing you the freedom to trash and demeanor.

They will claim this is “the American way,” and that while some narrow-minded, unenlightened Neanderthals (i.e. Republicans and conservatives) were grossly offended by Toles’ effort, others with vision, insight and an office free from gunfire and explosive devices will see it as a “brave” and “virtuous stance” against those “liars” in the White House.

Whatever. I’m sure our men and women in uniform would much prefer a well-deserved “thank you.”

The fact is, this obscene cartoon goes beyond dissent and crosses well into the realm of material our society ought to – and used to – reject. Some things, in other words, just are not meant for public consumption, like a lady’s age or the intimate details of a man and his wife. Maybe that went away for good when Janet Jackson’s breast was broadcast during the world’s most-watched sporting event.

Toles proves such etiquette needs serious and quick revival. If you blur or erase the line of decency, you can bet some jerk will cross it.

As to the nature of the cartoon – “dissent” – the record needs to be set straight.

Americans don’t have to like the war on terror, but they have to concede it was forced upon us and, as such, we have to fight it. To do less is to lose our country and no one really wants that either.

We don’t have to agree about the intelligence and thinking that led to our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we have to agree cutting and running now makes us look like weak-willed losers who are ripe for more attacks.

We don’t have to believe democracy will take hold in Iraq or throughout the Middle East, but we have to admit without the United States hundreds of millions of people throughout the world would not be free today.

And what we have to stop tolerating are the instances where undisciplined, misguided, angry rants from little people with big egos is shrugged off as allowable. They aren’t.

Smart, civilized people manning the ramparts of the most powerful nation in history don’t abide the likes of Tom Toles. If we do, we become a nation of Tom Toles.

Some Americans have no doubt already called for Toles’ head on a post. But the reason why this man is still alive is due far less to his cunning and courage under fire, and much more because the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines he mocked are protecting him from the bad guys.

Even if he doesn’t deserve it.

As the Senate Intelligence Committee continues its probe into a controversial National Security Agency eavesdropping program, a former Pentagon official says the Bush administration has found it increasingly difficult to share top-secret information with Congress out of fear it will be leaked to the press.

Jed Babbin, a one-time deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of George H. W. Bush, told WorldNetDaily fear of congressional leaks are what prevented the current White House from pursuing legislation specifically authorizing an NSA electronic-monitoring program ordered by President Bush in the wake of the 9-11 attacks.

Details of that highly classified program were leaked to The New York Times more than a year before the paper eventually reported them in December. Since then, the administration has weathered a firestorm of protest over what Democrats and some Republicans say is a violation of U.S. law prohibiting such monitoring without a warrant from a special, secret court.

The Bush administration has argued the president was given broad authority to fight the war on terror when Congress authorized him to “use all necessary and appropriate force” against “those nations, organizations, or persons he determines” responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“The use of signals intelligence – intercepting enemy communications – is a fundamental incident of waging war,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, in defense of the program.

Some lawmakers and policy analysts have discounted that interpretation.

Still, in order to placate opposing members of Congress, the White House had considered amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 – the legislation opponents say Bush violated – to cover the current NSA operation. But, says Babbin, that idea was abandoned because it would require the administration to divulge more details about the program – details administration officials believed could again be leaked to the press.

Federal intelligence officials have publicly expressed similar concerns about leaks. Porter Goss, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told a Senate committee earlier this month unauthorized leaks of CIA operations have caused “severe damage,” adding that journalists who report them should be subject to questioning by a grand jury.

Regarding recent and past disclosures, Goss – a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee – said “the damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission.”

“It is my aim and it is my hope that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information,” he told members of the Senate intelligence panel. “I believe the safety of this nation and the people of this country deserves nothing less.”

Babbin suggested past and present unauthorized disclosures of classified information may even be connected to the Senate intelligence panel’s No. 2 man: Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

Babbin told WorldNetDaily that Rockefeller – along with Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Ron Wyden D-Ore. – “is the subject of a criminal referral as a result of a leak of a very highly classified, top-secret satellite program” – a probe he believes is ongoing that was launched by the Justice Department the first week of December 2004.

“The formal request for a leaks investigation would target people who described sensitive details about a new generation of spy satellites to the Washington Post, which published a Page 1 story about the espionage program Saturday [Dec. 11, 2004],” the Associated Press reported on the probe at the time. The Post reported the National Reconnaissance Office, which operates U.S. spy satellites, made the request.

And, Babbin said, while there’s no “hard evidence” to indicate Rockefeller was involved in leaking the NSA program details to the Times, he adds that sources within the intelligence community have indicated their suspicions to him, though he declined to identify them.

Rockefeller’s office did not respond to repeated phone calls and e-mail requests for comment. The Justice Department also did not respond to a request to confirm or deny details regarding the criminal referral.

“I do … think it is very revealing when you have the attorney general of the United States answering written questions to [Pennsylvania Republican Sen.] Arlen Specter the week before the hearings, and says one of the reasons [the administration] did not go to the Hill and ask for legislation to modify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is that they feared any further disclosure to Congress would be leaked,” Babbin told WND. “I think then Congress has a very big problem there because they are unable to do their constitutional oversight function of the executive branch.”

Added Babbin: “If you can’t tell the Hill what you’re doing, you’ve got a constitutional problem.”

For his part, Rockefeller – one of a very few members of Congress briefed on the NSA spy program – said in a Dec. 19, 2005, statement that, when he first learned of the surveillance program on July 13, 2003, he immediately expressed “serious concerns about the nature of the program as well as Congress’ inability to provide oversight” to the White House.

“The record needs to be set clear that the administration never afforded members briefed on the program an opportunity to either approve or disapprove the NSA program,” he said. “The limited members who were told of the program were prohibited by the administration from sharing any information about it with our colleagues, including other members of the intelligence committees.”

Rockefeller maintains he voiced concerns about the program to Vice President Dick Cheney, specifically “that the limited information provided to Congress was so overly restricted that it prevented members of Congress from conducting meaningful oversight of the legal and operational aspects of the program.”

Said Rockefeller: “These concerns were never addressed, and I was prohibited from sharing my views with my colleagues.”

As to the overall legality of the NSA program, experts say Bush was operating within constitutional and statutory parameters.

“Gathering signal intelligence has been an important constitutional power exercised by the president since President Washington first intercepted signal intelligence from the British,” says former Bush White House special adviser Ron Christie, author of “Black in the White House: Life Inside George W. Bush’s West Wing.”

“President Lincoln intercepted telegraph cables during the Civil War, and President Wilson ordered all cable communication from America and Europe to be intercepted,” he said. “In the war against terrorism, President Bush is lawfully carrying out his duties as commander in chief to institute a narrow intercept of foreign intelligence information against terrorists abroad or within the United States who seek to harm us.”

Retired federal Judge Charles Pickering told WorldNetDaily focus on the NSA operation is not only too political, it is keyed into the wrong issues.

“I haven’t heard anyone seriously question the fact that the president has the constitutional authority” to order the NSA surveillance program, said Pickering, author of “Supreme Chaos: The Politics of Judicial Confirmation & the Culture War.”

“The only argument I’m hearing is whether or not the president complied with congressional statutes. So it’s really a tug-of-war between the executive and legislative branch as to who gets to call the shots,” he said.

“I don’t want Big Brother snooping in on my telephone calls,” said the former federal judge, “but I sure do want Big Brother to protect me from terrorists.”

“The irony here is that for four years Congress has known this is going on, and not one peep until the New York Times ran an article,” said Pickering. “Unfortunately, everything – confirmation of judges, the conduct of the war on terror – has become so politicized, it’s hard for the American people to get a straight answer.”

As to leaks, Babbin – writing Monday in the American Spectator, said he has repeatedly stated “that Congress is the source of leaks of many if not most of the top-secret information about the war on terror that has reached the press. The leak of the CIA terrorist detention centers in Europe and Asia probably came from the CIA. But the list of congressional leaks is long. Too long.

“Every indication is that the NSA program leak … also came from the Hill,” he continued. “Leak after leak … has reached a level that the executive branch cannot trust Congress to keep those secrets.”

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A public interest law firm has filed suit against the California city of Baldwin Park, its mayor, some council members and a pro-illegal immigration publication for their alleged role in harming a senior citizen who was protesting what she viewed as an anti-American monument.

The Temecula, Calif., firm of Lively, Ackerman and Cowles, in papers filed in Los Angeles Superior Court Thursday, charged that Laura D. Dalton, of Murrieta, Calif., was injured at the city park when she was struck in the head by a water bottle. The injury, court documents said, required her to be transported to a nearby hospital by ambulance, where she was treated for a “brain injury.”

Dalton and supporters, according to court papers, had come to the park last May 14 for a pre-planned protest of the Danzas Indigenas Monument, or Indigenous Dance, when they were confronted with counter-demonstrators.

Dalton was part of a protest that included members from “Save Our State,” or SOS, a grass-roots group opposed to illegal immigration, and The Minutemen, an organization formed to assist Border Patrol and other law enforcement authorities with curbing illegal immigration.

The groups with which Dalton associated were protesting what they labeled a “racist and xenophobic” monument because it includes phrases like, “It was better before they came,” and, “This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is, And will be again.”

Shortly after they began, counter-demonstrators arrived and, according to the complaint, were allowed to protest in close proximity to Dalton and her supporters – a development Dalton’s lawyer, Richard D. Ackerman, says was an obvious prescription for violence, and, therefore, should not have been allowed.

Several reports said police were on the scene in advance of Dalton’s demonstration.

Also, court papers said the news organization La Voz De Aztlan News Bulletin allegedly reported that Dalton “faked” her injuries and that the Minuteman Project is stashing assault weapons and planning terrorism. Dalton, Ackerman said, also has sued for defamation of character.

The public interest firm also names Baldwin Mayor Manuel Lozano, who was in attendance, for allegedly “directing, inciting and encouraging the counter-protesters,” court papers said. City council members Marlen Garcia, Bill Van Cleave, Ricardo Pacheco and David J. Olivas also are named.

Court documents also said members of the groups Aztlan Mexica Nation/Harmony Circle, Frente Unida Pueblos de America, Comite Pro-Democracia en Mexico, Mexicanos Unidos, MeCHA, and Brown Berets “were encouraged to engage in violence against” Dalton.

Counter-demonstrators said the Minuteman/SOS rally was akin to bigotry – charges leaders of both groups repeatedly have denied. Reports said Lozano denounced both groups as “un-American” and “perpetuating racism.”

However, Ackerman pointed out, counter-demonstrators showed up with signs bearing racist sentiments, and witnesses reported they also shouted racially tinged epithets at Dalton’s group. One sign intimated Dalton’s protesters were racist pigs, while another read, “F**k the Alamo!”

Ackerman also said his client and her backers were trying to engage in a peaceful, lawful protest against a monument they view as inherently biased against the U.S. in general, and racist towards whites who settled in the southwestern parts of the United States in particular.

“This is a sad state of affairs. We have had to sue twice in as many weeks to protect the rights of those who simply want our borders secure,” Ackerman said, referencing a separate suit against the city of Laguna Beach, Calif., for barring the Minutemen last month from the local Patriots’ Day Parade.

“In this case, we are forced to end violence being leveled at peaceful protesters,” Ackerman said. “In a civilized nation, no person should be deprived of rights or injured simply because they want existing laws enforced. The groups responsible for this conduct are bringing this nation closer to anarchy and unprecedented civil unrest.”

“This divisive monument is funded by our tax dollars and we will not tolerate its anti-American message,” said Joseph Turner, executive director of SaveOurState.org. “This is not art. This is not freedom of expression. This is government-sanctioned sedition. This is our land. This is our fight.”

Press inquiries to the city of Baldwin and Mayor Lozano for comment were not returned by press time.

In the Laguna Beach case, Minuteman founder James Gilchrist said his organization’s application was turned in two days before deadline but rejected by officials just an hour after it was filed. The parade association said it rejected the entry on political grounds, citing a policy of not allowing groups with a religious or political affiliation or message.

The Baldwin monument is located at the park’s Commuter Rail Station, which is part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority system. Built in 1993, the inflammatory inscription was part of a quote by Gloria Anzaldua, an author some have described as a Chicana lesbian-feminist, who died in 2004 from diabetes complications.

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]]> http://www.wnd.com/2006/02/34656/feed/ 0 http://www.wnd.com/2006/02/34627/ http://www.wnd.com/2006/02/34627/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2006 17:20:00 +0000 Jon Dougherty http://wp.wnd.com/?p=34627

An American law enforcement officer and news crew in Texas have witnessed another armed incursion into the United States by men dressed in Mexican army attire, the second such incident in just two weeks.

As before, several men dressed in Mexican military garb appeared to violate the international boundary, in Hudspeth County, Texas, some 50 miles east of El Paso, local affiliate KFOX-TV reported today. There, the U.S.-Mexico border is separated only by a shallow stretch of Rio Grande River.

The incursion was witnessed by a KFOX news crew and Hudspeth County deputy, photos of which are posted on the affiliate’s website.

The deputy and news crew were on the scene Tuesday night to film a segment about last week’s incursion, when the law officer noticed more “soldiers” emerge from a clearing on the U.S. side of the border.

As the deputy and news crew watched, three soldiers emerged into the clearing before one hurried back into the concealment of brush, KFOX reported. But the deputy pointed out other, larger groups of soldiers engaged in a flanking action against him and the news crew, most probably, the deputy believes, in an attempt to figure out what they were doing.

“They are doing the classic thing, flanking around each side of us and actually coming up into the U.S. and trying to figure out what we are doing; they are looking at us very heavily,” said the deputy, who was not identified in the report.

At that point KFOX reporter Ben Swann asked, “So I guess it’s time to go?” and the deputy answered, “Yeah, it would definitely be time to get out of here.”

The deputy chose to vacate the area because he was vastly outnumbered and outgunned, the report said.

Mexican officials have said their military is forbidden from traveling within three miles of the border, though U.S. border residents have repeatedly spotted mobile patrols of Mexican military units traversing roads that run directly parallel to the international boundary. Because of the stated policy, however, Mexico says the armed men crossing into the U.S. are paramilitary forces loyal to drug-smuggling cartels.

In last week’s incident, Texas law enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents engaged in an armed standoff with Mexican military personnel and drug smugglers just inside the United States along the Rio Grande. The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario, Calif., reported that both Texas law enforcement and the FBI stated nearly 30 American agents were part of the incident.

Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Department told the paper Mexican military Humvees were towing what appeared to be thousands of pounds of marijuana across the border into the United States.

Border Patrol agents called for backup after seeing that Mexican Army troops had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border – near Neely’s Crossing.

The deputy involved in this week’s incident said he identified what appeared to be a military vehicle partially concealed in brush near the Mexican “soldiers.”

“It’s been so bred into everyone not to start an international incident with Mexico that it’s been going on for years,” Doyal told the Bulletin. “When you’re up against mounted machine guns, what can you do? Who wants to pull the trigger first? Certainly not us.”

Andrea Simmons, a spokeswoman with the FBI’s El Paso office, confirmed the earlier incident, saying, “Bad guys in three vehicles ended up on the border. People with Humvees, who appeared to be with the Mexican army, were involved with the three vehicles in getting them back across.”

Chris Simcox, president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a border watch group that assists authorities in securing the border, said with the latest incident “the government of Mexico once again has demonstrated their contempt for the United States.”

“It is disgraceful that American citizens, including law enforcement, live under the threat of a foreign army that enters our country at will,” he added. “It took the murder of 3,000 Americans on American soil for the government to take international terrorism seriously. With the Mexican army, drug smugglers, human traffickers and terrorists able to cross our borders with impunity, it seems that only the mass murder of Americans living on our border will cause the government to take decisive action to secure our borders.”

In comments to KFOX, the deputy involved in this week’s incident said, “If it’s going to take a bunch of us getting killed down here on the river to show everybody that this is a problem, then its going to happen, one of these days it will happen.”

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