By Elaine Donnelly
Extending sexual misconduct to combat units
House Speaker John A. Boehner now resembles one iconic Democrat according to a fierce coalition of 25 prominent conservatives who don't much sympathize with the lawmaker who's tasked with taming the "fiscal cliff," appeasing the White House and maintaining integrity. The group has advice for the Grand Old Party.
The 2010 midterm elections showed the American people want to tackle crushing federal debt before it's too late. The Tea Party succeeded in handing control of the House of Representatives to Republicans, which thwarted White House plans for another massive stimulus program.
The United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) now before the U.S. Senate for deliberation was met in 1982 with disapproval by President Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and later, Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense from 2001 to 2006.
The U.S. should stop "reflexively exploiting major national security threats as a political ping-pong ball between right and left," says Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Get down to business and start crafting a practical strategy to defeat the threat of Islamist militancy both at home and abroad, he says.
Happy 101st birthday to one Ronald Wilson Reagan, still an inspiration for those who believe in the liberty, strength and optimism of the nation, and the inner mettle of Americans.
Fred Charles Ikle, one of the key Pentagon strategists who helped win the Cold War during the Reagan administration, died Nov. 10. He was 87.
When Vice President Joe Biden rolls into a room to talk politics, frankly, I am ready to laugh. He is, for me, the gaffable Joe Biden. Remember when he told the perky Katie Couric that during the great stock market crash of 1929, President Franklin Roosevelt immediately "got on television" to reassure the American people? Joe apparently reassured Miss Couric; yet others in the audience who knew their history and recognized his gaffe got a huge laugh at Joe's expense. The president in 1929 was, of course, Herbert Hoover, and there was no television.
"Will the Senate resolve to listen to will of the American people?" asks Jenny Beth Martin, a founder of the 15-million member Tea Party Patriots.
Romney's luck of the draw
"Where the language of the Constitution is specific, it must be obeyed. Where there is demonstrable consensus among the Founders and ratifiers as to a principle stated or implied in the Constitution, it should be followed," he writes. "Where there is ambiguity as to the precise meaning or reach of a constitutional provision, it should be interpreted and applied in a manner so as to at least not contradict the text of the Constitution itself."
Still, because the Constitution's meaning is knowable, as Reagan administration U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese has explained, the document merits a particular approach.
