Heritage Quote

"The tendency of a national bank is to increase public and private credit. The former gives power to the state, for the protection of its rights and interests: and the latter facilitates and extends the operations of commerce among individuals. Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Report on Manufactures, 1790)

Heritage Quote

"The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers. ... The ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense are, first, a due dependence on the people, secondly, a due responsibility."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 70, 14 March 1788)

If this is failure, I don't wanna win!

Investor's Business Daily outlines some of the victories over terrorism that we've experienced -- just over the Memorial Day weekend:

• Iraqi forces ran al-Qaida terrorists out of Mosul, the terror organization's final urban stronghold. That victory reduces the killers to fringe areas with little public support, and a truncated capacity to recruit and strike terror in Iraq's cities. Al-Qaida has "never been closer to defeat than they are now," said Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

Iraqi troops also cleaned out Basra and Sadr City, reducing any prospect for domestic insurgents to take power by force. Along with al-Qaida, these terrorists may try to continue, but the will is fading as the pressure is ratcheted up.

• In Colombia, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos announced that Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, founder of the FARC Marxist terror group, died a hunted man in the jungle on March 26 as bombs rained down on him. Better still, the government knew this because it penetrated FARC. Marulanda died knowing his chosen successor, Raul Reyes, had been blown away, too. Indeed, three of FARC's seven top leaders have been killed since March, and the rest are headed "for the grave," Santos said.

Hundreds of FARC foot soldiers are now furtively phoning the government to beg for a deal. Along with fears of their own men turning them in for cash, FARC leaders now work in a poisoned atmosphere, knowing spies are in their midst. They won't win.

• British forces for the first time drove the Taliban from a southern stronghold in a 96-hour battle this month. It was their first combat operation since new troops arrived in March. The New York Times reported a "palpable" sense of relief among villagers, with the district chief and exiles returning to rebuild. "There has been huge optimism from the people," an officer was quoted as saying.

• In the south Philippines, Marxist and Muslim terrorists are desperate. A big arsenal belonging to al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf was unearthed in Sulu Saturday, taking 283 sacks of bomb components out of circulation. Meanwhile, Nur Misuari, the top terrorist of the Moro National Liberation Front, on parole in Davao, pleaded with other terrorists to drop arms and sue for peace at a rally Saturday.

• In Egypt's al-Qaida inner circle, a leading jihad ideologue, using the nom de guerre Dr. Fadl, has now openly questioned terrorism as a tactic, given al-Qaida's mounting losses. He threatened to renounce violence — a new blow to the jihadists.

All of these victories are a direct result of the Bush administration's response (military, economic, intelligence, diplomatic) to the terrorist attack on 11 September 2001.

And, contrary to the collective ignorance of many pundits and journalists alike, global terrorism is on the wane.

Challenging the expert consensus that the threat of global terrorism is increasing, the Human Security Brief 2007 reveals a sharp net decline in the incidence of terrorist violence around the world.

Fatalities from terrorism have declined by some 40 percent, while the loose-knit terror network associated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda has suffered a dramatic collapse in popular support throughout the Muslim world.

The Brief also describes and analyses the extraordinary, but largely unnoticed, positive change in sub-Saharan Africa's security landscape. The number of conflicts being waged in the region more than halved between 1999 and 2006; the combat toll dropped by 98 percent.

Finally, the Brief updates the findings of the 2005 Human Security Report, and demonstrates that the decline in the total number of armed conflicts and combat deaths around the world has continued. The number of military coups has also continued decline, as have the number of campaigns of deadly violence waged against civilians.

We are now in a safer world than we were in 2001. Thanks in a very large part to the actions taken by the United States of America (led by George W. Bush) and its allies.

And you can take that to the bank.

Heritage Quote

"If, for instance, the president is required to do any act, he is not only authorized, but required, to decide for himself, whether, consistently with his constitutional duties, he can do the act."

-- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833)

Heritage Quote

"Statesmen my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand....The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty."

-- John Adams (letter to Zabdiel Adams, 21 June 1776)

Heritage Quote

"The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families. . . . How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers?"

-- John Adams (Diary, 2 June 1778)

Waning light

EF-S 17-55mm IS lens, f/2.8, 1/5s, ISO 1600. The lights were cut a split second before I snapped this photo.

In harm's way

Some quotes from men who were willing to die in defense of our liberty.

"It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind."

-- Alexander Hamilton, 1787 - Federalist No. 1

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves."

-- John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson, 1775 - Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

-- Patrick Henry, 1775 - Speech to the Virginia Convention

"An honorable Peace is and always was my first wish! I can take no delight in the effusion of human Blood; but, if this War should continue, I wish to have the most active part in it."

-- John Paul Jones, 1782 - letter to Gouverneur Morris

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."

-- Thomas Paine, 1776 - The American Crisis, No. 1

"We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our won Country's Honor, all call upon us for vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions."

-- George Washington, 1776 - General Orders

Over a million men and women have died, through the years, in defense of our liberty here in the United States of America.

Our obligation to those who have died, and to the men and women in uniform who are in harm's way defending us today, is to respect and honor their sacrifice.

Think on the other countries in this world. How many of them are guaranteed the rights that we Americans have?

None. Not one. Zip. Zero. Nil. Nada.

Freedoms we are guaranteed: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, equality, to bear arms, to vote, speech, assembly, due process.

Guarantors of our freedoms: United States Marine Corps, United States Army, United States Navy, United States Air Force, United States Coast Guard.

Today we honor those who have died in order that we might live in liberty. Let's go out their and show them the honor, respect, and gratitude that they deserve by stepping forward and preserving those rights that so many have died to protect. Remember that most great nations in history were not conquered . . . they died from within. If we allow America to continue to rot from within, we dishonor those who laid down their lives for this great nation.

And that would indeed be an American tragedy.

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."

-- John Adams, 1765 - A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law

Thanks to the ultimate sacrifice by over a million American heros, we are free.

And I am deeply grateful. Thank you.

Heritage Quote

"Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness."

-- James Wilson (Of the Study of the Law in the United States, Circa 1790)

Heritage Quote

"We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1805 - Second Inaugural Address

Heritage Quote

"In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail-maker."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Jean Nicolas Dimeunier, 29 April 1795)

Upon Reflection

Heritage Quote

"It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; or for his religion profession of sentiments; provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship...."

Massachusetts Bill of Rights, Part the First, 1780

Unintended consequences?

Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee whose protheses have been considered an unfair advantage by the Olympic Committee, has finally gained permission to compete.

"I am ecstatic," Pistorius told reporters in Milan, Italy. "When I found out, I cried. It is a battle that has been going on for far too long. It's a great day for sport. I think this day is going to go down in history for the equality of disabled people."

My question is: are there athletes out there who are so competitive that they will voluntarily undergo amputations in order to gain a competitive advantage?

Sounds farfetched? I wouldn't be so sure, if I were you . . .

Heritage Quote

"A fine genius in his own country is like gold in the mine."

-- Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard's Almanack, 1733)

Bush in Egypt

Sunday, President Bush spoke in Egypt about how democracy is supposed to work. In the process he chided many Islamic countries for oppressing their general populations.

Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail. America is deeply concerned about the plight of political prisoners in this region, as well as democratic activists who are intimidated or repressed, newspapers and civil society organizations that are shut down, and dissidents whose voices are stifled. The time has come for nations across the Middle East to abandon these practices, and treat their people with dignity and the respect they deserve. I call on all nations to release their prisoners of conscience, open up their political debate, and trust their people to chart their future. (Applause.)

It is well worth reading the whole transcript.

(I originally had reprinted the whole thing in my extended entry, but it is not working for some reason and messed up the whole index page. Alas, you'll have to go to the source to read the transcript of his speech.)

Heritage Quote

"In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail-maker."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Jean Nicolas Dimeunier, 29 April 1795)

Fred Thompson is blogging at Townhall.com

And he's saying things that make a lot of sense.

Spending some time on the campaign trail has confirmed a couple of thoughts I’ve had before I entered the Republican primary race. First, conservatism is alive and well in America; don’t let anyone tell you differently. And by conservatism, I don’t mean the warmed-over “raise your hand if you believe …” kind of conservatism we see blooming every election cycle. No, I’m speaking of the conservatism grounded in principles based upon enduring truths: an understanding of the importance of human nature in the affairs of individuals and nations. Respect for the lessons of history, the importance of faith and tradition. The understanding that while man is prone to err, he is capable of great things when not subjugated by a too-powerful government. These are the principles that inspired our Founding Fathers, and resulted in a Constitution that delineated the powers of the central government, established checks and balances among the branches of government and further diffused governmental power by a system of Federalism.

Second, change – whether it [is] “real change,” “bold change” or the “change we can believe in” variety others are selling – isn’t itself an innovative policy or a particularly strong leadership stance. In fact, from Burke to Buckley, there has been an acknowledgement that change in the political arena is inevitable and necessary, and we in the U.S. tend to experience it in regular, 2, 4 and 6 year intervals, so 2008 is hardly our first rodeo. The challenge for conservatives is calibrating whether the change being proposed is consistent with our principles and our philosophy, and whether that change is appropriate.

Our nation has some serious issues to work through for today … and for the next generation. Now isn’t the time for conservatives to be looking for a tailored message or a politically expedient route to victory if the end result is going to be the inevitable slide toward the liberalization and secularization of America, and the growth of government and loss of freedom that inevitably ensues. For us conservatives it must be about principles and policies that are grounded in freedom, free markets and the rule of law. That’s what I’ve been talking and writing about for the past few years, and that’s what I want to talk write about here on Townhall and in the new Townhall Magazine.

I joined Townhall and am writing exclusive commentaries for Townhall Magazine because I see them elevating the discourse on issues based on these principles -- smaller government, individual liberty, standing for common values that have become all too uncommon, a strong national defense and, most of all, an optimism and belief in America.

I’m glad to be back here in familiar territory, and we’ll be talking to you soon.

A sane voice amidst the madness of this political storm.

Welcome back, Fred!

Heritage Quote

"[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous."

-- George Washington, 1790 - letter to Steptoe Washington

McCain on SNL

John McCain appeared on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. Unfortunately, I missed it. Fortunately, Kevin at Wizbang posted this clip from it:

It's funny stuff, too.

Thank you, Kevin!

Heritage Quote

"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue."

-- John Witherspoon, 1776 - The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men

Heritage Quote

"The citizens of the United States of America have the right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were by the indulgence of one class of citizens that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."

-- George Washington (letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, 9 September 1790)

Heritage Quote

"Illustrious examples are displayed to our view, that we may imitate as well as admire. Before we can be distinguished by the same honors, we must be distinguished by the same virtues. What are those virtues? They are chiefly the same virtues, which we have already seen to be descriptive of the American character -- the love of liberty, and the love of law."

-- James Wilson (Of the Study of the Law in the United States, Circa 1790)

Heritage Quote

"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass."

-- George Washington (letter to Benjamin Lincoln, 29 June 1788)

Who is causing America's oil woes?

Congress.

• For the past 31 years, Congress repeatedly prevented us from building any new oil refineries that we now badly need.

• More recently, congressional Democrats defeated and discouraged any bill that would let us drill in the deep sea 100 miles out. However, it's somehow OK for China to drill there.

• As a further indictment of our Congress, since the 1980s it has continually stopped all building of nuclear power plants while France, Germany and, yes, Japan, plus 12 other major nations, did build plants and now get 20% to 80% of their energy from their wise and safe nuclear plant investments.

• From 1990 to 2000, U.S. crude oil demand rapidly accelerated by 7.41 quadrillion BTUs, according to Department of Energy data. And our rate of foreign oil dependency dramatically increased while our domestic oil production steadily declined.

And we should let them know that we are unhappy with the way they've been doing things, because our Congressional representatives are neither cognizant of the economics of energy, nor are they being honest with us:

It is a national disgrace that all they now know how to do is relentlessly criticize, complain and condemn. They always attempt to blame, investigate and scapegoat someone else, in this case U.S. oil companies, when Congress is the true villain of ineptness for constantly blocking and obstructing every effort for us to become more productive and less dependent on foreign oil.

Do those now in Congress really think Middle America's voters are so gullible that they will believe that its latest best and brightest answer to increasing our supply of oil and gas is to slap a 25% windfall penalty tax on oil companies and remove all other incentives for oil companies to drill and explore for oil?

I think we should start a campaign to oust all incumbents in the November elections.

If that were to happen, it would certainly be construed as a "mandate."

Heritage Quote

"It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 1, 27 October 1787)

Stefi

Canon EOS 40D, EF-S 17-55mm lens, f 2.8, 1/15 s., indoor tungsten light.

Image stabilization rocks.

Obama weak in history class

Jack Kelly, over at Real Clear Politics does a good job pointing out a few, shall we say, historical inaccuracies in Obama's speech last week.

In his victory speech after the North Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama said something that is all the more remarkable for how little it has been remarked upon.

In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: "I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."

That he made this statement, and that it passed without comment by the journalists covering his speech indicates either breathtaking ignorance of history on the part of both, or deceit.

I assume the Roosevelt to whom Sen. Obama referred is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Our enemies in World War II were Nazi Germany, headed by Adolf Hitler; fascist Italy, headed by Benito Mussolini, and militarist Japan, headed by Hideki Tojo. FDR talked directly with none of them before the outbreak of hostilities, and his policy once war began was unconditional surrender.

FDR died before victory was achieved, and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Truman did not modify the policy of unconditional surrender. He ended that war not with negotiation, but with the atomic bomb.

So the leading Democrat candidate for President of the United States of America has no understanding of his country's foreign policy from WWII until the present? This is the same guy who attended a church for 20 years and never knew about the hateful, seditious things his preacher was saying about his country. The same guy who is on cordial terms with two unrepentent, home-grown terrorists. The same guy who doesn't know how many states the USA is composed of.

In a sane world he'd be laughed out of the race.

In a sane world . . .

Heritage Quote

"He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing."

-- Benjamin Franklin (from his writings, 1758)

Lily

Canon EOS 40D, EF-S17-55mm, f4.0, 1/60 s., daylight inside.

Wheat stem-rust threat: very real and spreading rapidly

The Washington Times has an article about a wheat disease that has spread from Afica into Iran and threatens the global supply. Here's how it begins:

A lethal variant on an ancient disease affecting wheat has spread from its base in Africa to Iran and now threatens vast fields in South Asia, the Middle East and Europe at a time of global food shortages, agricultural specialists warn.

The new strain of wheat-stem rust, first identified in Uganda nine years ago, is threatening crops during a global crisis over rising food prices, depleted reserves, rising agricultural trade barriers and violent food-related protests on four continents.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported in early March that the new wheat fungus had been found in fields in western Iran far earlier than computer models anticipated, perhaps carried on the high winds generated by Cyclone Gonu in June. The geographical leap means that the spread of the disease to countries such as Pakistan and India may be just a matter of time.

"The detection of the wheat-rust fungus in Iran is very worrisome," Shivaji Pandey, director of the FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division, said in early March. "The fungus is spreading rapidly and could seriously lower wheat production in countries at direct risk."

This is alarming news. Go read the rest.

Heritage Quote

"My construction of the constitution is very different from that you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Samuel Adams Wells, 12 May 1819)

Heritage Quote

"What is it that affectionate parents require of their Children; for all their care, anxiety, and toil on their accounts? Only that they would be wise and virtuous, Benevolent and kind."

-- Abigail Adams, 1783 - letter to John Quincy Adams

"I hope some future day will bring me the happiness of seeing my family again collected under our own roof, happy in ourselves and blessed in each other."

-- Abigail Adams, 1784 - letter to John Adams

Happy Mother's Day

Mothers were created by God to provide us with a taste of Heaven here on Earth.

To my lovely wife, my wonderful mom, and my super mom-in-law. Thank you so very much. God bless you.

Heritage Quote

"The value of liberty was thus enhanced in our estimation by the difficulty of its attainment, and the worth of characters appreciated by the trial of adversity."

-- George Washington (letter to the people of South Carolina, Circa 1790)

Heritage Quote

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1791 - Opinion on National Bank

Happy birthday, Dad!

It's peanut butter cup time!

Here's to my dad, a man whom I respect and admire more every day.

Though it has been five years, we all still miss you.

Heritage Quote

"If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 21, 1787)

Reality vs. "media truth"

Barack Obama held a victory rally at Reynolds Coliseum in North Carolina. The television media who were there presented it as a packed house:

Mary Katharine Ham, a journalist who works in North Carolina, was present at the rally, and snapped this picture of it:

Seems to be quite a dichotomy between the media portrayal of events, and reality. Eh?

[Via Cassy Fiano at Wizbang.]

Stock markets fear Obama

Has anyone else noticed that the stock markets start going down when Obama goes up, and they go up when he goes down? Cassy Fiano has.

In January and February the stock markets were dropping faster than Ted Kennedy dropping off a bridge. As everyone certainly remembers, that was a time during which Obama was scoring caucus and primary victories more often than Eliot Spizer once scored with call girls.

Then Clinton won big-time in Ohio and she won the popular vote in Texas too. The stock markets started jumping up like they were on "Dancing With the Stars."

Clinton obliterated Obama in Pennsylvania. The markets rose on heavy volume. The Dow, for example, ultimately crossed the 13,000 barrier, sharply above its intra-year low of 11,750 that was set in early-March.

Not surprisingly, however, the day after Obama won big in North Carolina and Clinton only prevailed narrowly in Indiana the stock markets were as depressed and angry as Lou Dobbs; the markets plunged across-the-board.

You see the pattern, don't you?

Maybe it has something to do with Obama's lack of economic savvy. Or the fact that the policies he supports invariably promote restricting the free market process.

And the markets represent you and I in so many ways. I vote in the stock market with my dollars. So do a lot of other Americans. Perhaps we should carry that to the polls in November.

Heritage Quote

"[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore...never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Judge William Johnson, 12 June 1823)

Heritage Quote

"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 15)

Heritage Quote

"That, as a republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangements of the powers of society, or, in other words, that form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the laws, is the best of republics."

-- John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

Heritage Quote

"The Declaration of Independence...[is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Samuel Adams Wells, 12 May 1821)

Heritage Quote

"If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected."

-- Thomas Jefferson (Autobiography, 1821)

Heritage Quote

"[T]he President, who errs as other men do, but errs with integrity."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1795 - on George Washington in a letter to William Branch Giles

Heritage Quote

"[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore...never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1823 - letter to Judge William Johnson

Our do-nothing Congress

Investors Business Daily applauds Bush's scolding of our Congress for helping to create, and then exacerbating the current energy shortages in our nation.

Best of all, Bush didn't let the issue sit with just generalities. He reeled off a bill of particulars of congressional energy inaction, including:

• Failing to allow drilling in ANWR. We have, as Bush noted, estimated capacity of a million barrels of oil a day from this source alone — enough for 27 million gallons of gas and diesel. But Congress won't touch it, fearful of the clout of the environmental lobby. As a result, you pay at the pump so your representative can raise campaign cash.

• Refusing to build new refineries. The U.S. hasn't built one since 1976, yet sanctions at least 15 unique "boutique" fuel blends around the nation. So even the slightest problem at a refinery causes enormous supply problems and price spikes. Congress has done nothing about this.

• Turning its back on nuclear power. It's safe and, with advances in nuclear reprocessing technology, waste problems have been minimized. Still, we have just 104 nuclear plants — the same as a decade ago — producing just 19% of our total energy. (Many European nations produce 40% or more of their power with nuclear.) Granted, nuclear power plants are expensive — about $3 billion each. But they produce energy at $1.72/kilowatt-hour vs. $2.37 for coal and $6.35 for natural gas.

• Raising taxes on energy producers. This is where a basic understanding of economics would help: Higher taxes and needless regulation lead to less production of a commodity. So by proposing "windfall" and other taxes on energy companies plus tough new rules, Congress makes our energy situation worse.

We need a Congress, led by true statesmen, who do what is best for this country, and not what is best for their individual political careers.

Pelosi and Reid are blockheads, yes, but the really sad thing is that they are only two of the 435 blockheads in Congress.