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This week, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced that he will outlaw the sale of sodas, sports drinks and other sugary beverages that exceed 16 ounces. Don’t worry. There are numerous exemptions to this petty interference. Feel free to indulge in high-caloric milkshakes, fruit juices or just head to the convenience store and grab a Big Gulp, a Slurpee, or buy large bottles of Diet Coke.

When you act like a petty tyrant, making arbitrary decisions with absolutely no basis in science or common sense is your prerogative. In the Bloomberg’s vernacular this is referred to as “leadership.” “I think that’s what the public wants the mayor to do,” he explained. The public’s loathing for large-sized soda is so high, evidently, that they need a billionaire technocrat to force them to stop buying more of it.

This is nothing new in New York. Bloomberg, who embodies C.S. Lewis’ observation that “those who torment us for our own good torment us without end,” has banned smoking in bars and restaurants, public parks and on private terraces. He has gone after salt and he has banned trans fats in restaurants. He is America’s leading proponent of using punitive measures to dictate perfectly legal habits. “We’re not taking away anybody’s right to do things,” the mayor explains, “we’re simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup.”

One might wonder what business a mayor has forcing free citizens to “understand” what the mayor thinks about sugary drink or what quantities he thinks we should drink it in? Or you may wonder who in New York – or the world, for that matter — doesn’t understand that gulping down a 16 oz soda every day is insalubrious? If you don’t, you’re beyond the help of Nanny State regulations. And if you do know, an intrusive new law won’t stop you from continuing your bad habits. Study after study says so.

Bloomberg and others argue that obesity costs society a lot of money so we all have a stake. In New York City, supposedly half of all adults are obese or overweight. According to Dr. Thomas Farley, Bloomberg’s health commissioner, sweetened drinks are responsible for “up to” half of the increase in obesity in the city over the last 30 years. There is no way to quantify this sort of thing, of course, no matter what scaremongering bureaucrats tell you. But even if it were true, there is an array of costly externalities associated with behavior – take promiscuity, for instance. Using Bloomberg’s logic everything we do can come under the purview of government’s paternalistic guidance.

Moreover, New York’s Big Soda law is collective punishment. First, those who aren’t obese may occasionally enjoy a gigantic Mountain Dew or — who knows? — a couple might want to share a big drink in a movie theatre. Second, companies that would lose money from laws will certainly pass along the cost to you. If you’ve followed the leading lights of Nanny State policy, you already understand that driving up the cost of unhealthy products is the very point of regulation. So those who drink responsibly — as it were — are punished with those who don’t.

In the end, Bloomberg shows a deep ignorance about human nature, as well. The vast majority of Americans understand that portion control is one of the only ways to lose weight. But if we don’t choose to be healthy, no regulation can coerce us into good health.

This week, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced that he will outlaw the sale of sodas, sports drinks and other sugary beverages that exceed 16 ounces. Don’t worry. There are numerous exemptions to this petty interference. Feel free to indulge in high-caloric milkshakes, fruit juices or just head to the convenience store and grab a Big Gulp, a Slurpee, or buy large bottles of Diet Coke.

When you act like a petty tyrant, making arbitrary decisions with absolutely no basis in science or common sense is your prerogative. In the Bloomberg’s vernacular this is referred to as “leadership.” “I think that’s what the public wants the mayor to do,” he explained. The public’s loathing for large-sized soda is so high, evidently, that they need a billionaire technocrat to force them to stop buying more of it.

This is nothing new in New York. Bloomberg, who embodies C.S. Lewis’ observation that “those who torment us for our own good torment us without end,” has banned smoking in bars and restaurants, public parks and on private terraces. He has gone after salt and he has banned trans fats in restaurants. He is America’s leading proponent of using punitive measures to dictate perfectly legal habits. “We’re not taking away anybody’s right to do things,” the mayor explains, “we’re simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup.”

One might wonder what business a mayor has forcing free citizens to “understand” what the mayor thinks about sugary drink or what quantities he thinks we should drink it in? Or you may wonder who in New York – or the world, for that matter — doesn’t understand that gulping down a 16 oz soda every day is insalubrious? If you don’t, you’re beyond the help of Nanny State regulations. And if you do know, an intrusive new law won’t stop you from continuing your bad habits. Study after study says so.

Bloomberg and others argue that obesity costs society a lot of money so we all have a stake. In New York City, supposedly half of all adults are obese or overweight. According to Dr. Thomas Farley, Bloomberg’s health commissioner, sweetened drinks are responsible for “up to” half of the increase in obesity in the city over the last 30 years. There is no way to quantify this sort of thing, of course, no matter what scaremongering bureaucrats tell you. But even if it were true, there is an array of costly externalities associated with behavior – take promiscuity, for instance. Using Bloomberg’s logic everything we do can come under the purview of government’s paternalistic guidance.

Moreover, New York’s Big Soda law is collective punishment. First, those who aren’t obese may occasionally enjoy a gigantic Mountain Dew or — who knows? — a couple might want to share a big drink in a movie theatre. Second, companies that would lose money from laws will certainly pass along the cost to you. If you’ve followed the leading lights of Nanny State policy, you already understand that driving up the cost of unhealthy products is the very point of regulation. So those who drink responsibly — as it were — are punished with those who don’t.

In the end, Bloomberg shows a deep ignorance about human nature, as well. The vast majority of Americans understand that portion control is one of the only ways to lose weight. But if we don’t choose to be healthy, no regulation can coerce us into good health.

After pointlessly and needlessly dragging out an international crisis for three days, presumably to install sufficient padding around his ego to absorb the shock, President Obama finally got around to apologizing to Poland for his thoughtless comment about “Polish death camps.”

He made this “gaffe” while reading a prepared speech from a teleprompter to honor Polish hero Jan Karski, who risked life and limb to infiltrate Nazi death camps built on Polish soil by German occupiers during World War II, helping expose the horror of the Holocaust to the world.

It is absolutely incomprehensible that the President waited three days to issue a simple apology for this.  Poland was furious, as were Polish-Americans.  Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, as far back as Wednesday, that “we always react in the same way when ignorance, lack of knowledge, or bad intentions lead to such a distortion of history, so painful for us here in Poland, which suffered like no other in Europe during World War II.”

The whole crisis could have been instantly defused with a simple apology, tendered by the President himself, in either verbal or written form.  It would have been the work of moments.  Instead, the Obama Administration tried sending out a spokesman to clarify the comments: “The President was referring to Nazi death camps operated in Poland.  The President has demonstrated in word and deed his rock-solid commitment to our close alliance with Poland.”

That is most certainly not an “apology.”  It’s not difficult to construe it as an insult.  The Poles were told it was silly for them to become upset, because they should have understood the magnificent Barack Obama is incapable of malice or error.  Just check his record, and try not to think about the way he canceled your missile shield, or all that “transmission to Vladimir” stuff.

The actual apology was finally extracted by Polish president Bronislaw Komorowski, who wrote to Obama and got a reply on Friday.  As reported by the Associated Press:

“In referring to ‘a Polish death camp’ rather than ‘a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland,’ I inadvertently used a phrase that has caused many Poles anguish over the years and that Poland has rightly campaigned to eliminate from public discourse around the world,” Obama wrote. “I regret the error and agree that this moment is an opportunity to ensure that this and future generations know the truth.”

[…] In his response, Obama noted that “the Polish people suffered terribly under the brutal Nazi occupation during World War II.”

“In pursuit of their goals of destroying the Polish nation and Polish culture and exterminating European Jewry, the Nazis killed some six million Polish citizens, including three million Polish Jews during the Holocaust,” Obama wrote. “The bravery of Poles in the underground resistance is one of history’s great stories of heroism and courage.”

The Polish government graciously accepted the apology.  Komorowski said, “The events of the past few days and the U.S. president’s reply may, in my opinion, mark a very important moment in the struggle for historical truth.”

Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski added via Twitter, “Thank you, President Obama. Truth, honor and the legacy of Karski satisfied. Please feel free to send us your staffers for re-education.”  Sorry, Mr. Sikorski, but we’re flat broke after financing wild parties in Las Vegas for government bureaucrats, to reward them for helping to rack up a $16 trilion national debt, so I don’t think we can afford to send Obama’s gigantic staff to Poland for training.

Besides, no one with even the most cursory knowledge of Poland, or interest in the sensibilities of the Polish people, would ever speak of “Polish death camps.”  The true history of those camps can be learned in the same amount of time it would have taken to issue a simple, heartfelt apology for an honest mistake.

After pointlessly and needlessly dragging out an international crisis for three days, presumably to install sufficient padding around his ego to absorb the shock, President Obama finally got around to apologizing to Poland for his thoughtless comment about “Polish death camps.”

He made this “gaffe” while reading a prepared speech from a teleprompter to honor Polish hero Jan Karski, who risked life and limb to infiltrate Nazi death camps built on Polish soil by German occupiers during World War II, helping expose the horror of the Holocaust to the world.

It is absolutely incomprehensible that the President waited three days to issue a simple apology for this.  Poland was furious, as were Polish-Americans.  Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, as far back as Wednesday, that “we always react in the same way when ignorance, lack of knowledge, or bad intentions lead to such a distortion of history, so painful for us here in Poland, which suffered like no other in Europe during World War II.”

The whole crisis could have been instantly defused with a simple apology, tendered by the President himself, in either verbal or written form.  It would have been the work of moments.  Instead, the Obama Administration tried sending out a spokesman to clarify the comments: “The President was referring to Nazi death camps operated in Poland.  The President has demonstrated in word and deed his rock-solid commitment to our close alliance with Poland.”

That is most certainly not an “apology.”  It’s not difficult to construe it as an insult.  The Poles were told it was silly for them to become upset, because they should have understood the magnificent Barack Obama is incapable of malice or error.  Just check his record, and try not to think about the way he canceled your missile shield, or all that “transmission to Vladimir” stuff.

The actual apology was finally extracted by Polish president Bronislaw Komorowski, who wrote to Obama and got a reply on Friday.  As reported by the Associated Press:

“In referring to ‘a Polish death camp’ rather than ‘a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland,’ I inadvertently used a phrase that has caused many Poles anguish over the years and that Poland has rightly campaigned to eliminate from public discourse around the world,” Obama wrote. “I regret the error and agree that this moment is an opportunity to ensure that this and future generations know the truth.”

[…] In his response, Obama noted that “the Polish people suffered terribly under the brutal Nazi occupation during World War II.”

“In pursuit of their goals of destroying the Polish nation and Polish culture and exterminating European Jewry, the Nazis killed some six million Polish citizens, including three million Polish Jews during the Holocaust,” Obama wrote. “The bravery of Poles in the underground resistance is one of history’s great stories of heroism and courage.”

The Polish government graciously accepted the apology.  Komorowski said, “The events of the past few days and the U.S. president’s reply may, in my opinion, mark a very important moment in the struggle for historical truth.”

Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski added via Twitter, “Thank you, President Obama. Truth, honor and the legacy of Karski satisfied. Please feel free to send us your staffers for re-education.”  Sorry, Mr. Sikorski, but we’re flat broke after financing wild parties in Las Vegas for government bureaucrats, to reward them for helping to rack up a $16 trilion national debt, so I don’t think we can afford to send Obama’s gigantic staff to Poland for training.

Besides, no one with even the most cursory knowledge of Poland, or interest in the sensibilities of the Polish people, would ever speak of “Polish death camps.”  The true history of those camps can be learned in the same amount of time it would have taken to issue a simple, heartfelt apology for an honest mistake.

The gubernatorial recall election in Wisconsin next week is important as an imperfect test case to indicate how Democratic propaganda will work against facts this election year.
   
Liberals are usually the ones who arrogantly throw around the charge that Republicans and conservatives are fact- and science-challenged and averse to reality. But their claim itself is based on nothing but their generic, nonfactual presuppositions, whether on “climate change” or same-sex unions.
   
What I’m suggesting is different. I’m saying that Democrats in Wisconsin are basing their case against Republican Gov. Scott Walker on anything but facts; they are distorting his policy actions, his motives for undertaking them and the effect of those actions. Coupled with their distortions, they are seeking to make the election about anything but Walker’s impressive record.
   
Their strategy has been to pour an enormous amount of money — much of it from outside the state, the national Democratic Party recognizing the national implications of the election — to inflame the passions of their constituencies and boost voter turnout enough to overcome the comparative unpopularity of their positions.
   
What’s going on is so patently obvious that it surprises me the big-labor-based Democratic Party isn’t further behind in the polls. The unions’ position is so manifestly selfish and the Democratic Party’s support for it so obviously opportunistic — as opposed to what is in the best interest of the state — that it’s amazing they don’t do a better job of masking their symbiotic corruption.
   
New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento said his state’s labor leaders are throwing everything they can into the election to oust Walker, recognizing that Walker’s success would embolden other state governors to follow in his footsteps to take on their unions when necessary.
   
How does Cilento frame his appeal to his fellow unionists? He says, “What Gov. Walker has done is reprehensible, to try to silence the voice of working people.”
   
Silence the voice of working people? How about the voice of all the people (many of whom “work” even though they are not in public-sector unions, thank you)? Walker wanted people to have a voice as to whether they would have to join unions. As to silencing them, Walker’s reforms curbed the unions’ collective bargaining rights, but not — as others have noted — concerning their wages.
   
Reprehensible? Before Walker implemented his plan, most state employees who were part of the Wisconsin Retirement System contributed a minute fraction of their wage compensation — 0.2 percent — to their pension plans and 6.2 percent toward their health care premiums. Now they are contributing 5.8 percent and 12.6 percent, respectively. Taxpayers are still contributing the lion’s share.
   
Have Walker’s reforms worked? The Heritage Foundation reports that prior to Walker’s reforms, Wisconsin’s state workers received health benefits 2.3 times as valuable and pension benefits 5.7 times as valuable as those received by employees in large private firms. After the reforms, their health benefits are still twice as valuable, and their pension benefits are 4.5 times as valuable. Their total compensation was 29 percent higher than private-sector employees before the reforms and is now 22 percent higher. After the reforms, the average public-sector employee’s total compensation is $81,637, whereas the similarly skilled private worker’s is $67,068.
   
How about the reform’s impact on Wisconsin’s fiscal health? Walker inherited a $3.6 billion budget deficit, enormous overspending and the fourth-highest tax burden among states. Walker implemented structural reforms without raising taxes, without major layoffs and without cuts in Medicaid. Walker reports that for the first time in 12 years, his state’s property taxes are going down on medium-value homes, and the state has a $154 million surplus.
   
Those are the facts. But if Democrats succeed in their propaganda effort in Wisconsin, it will be a setback for the Republicans’ prospects in 2012, about which I am now very optimistic. But I would feel more sanguine if Republicans treated the Wisconsin election with the same urgency as Democrats do and demonstrated they are willing to take the gloves off in the 2012 campaigns. For though the facts are on their side, those facts do not ensure electoral victory against Democratic money, distortions and election chicanery.
   
President Obama has a miserable record by every measure I believe most Americans care about, which is why his propaganda team has already begun fraudulently sanitizing his record, such as the risible claim that he has not been a big spender, and demonizing Mitt Romney. I know Team Romney is equipped to respond factually and promptly, but I am not sure it has the political will and courage to go after Obama in ways that John McCain wouldn’t. We shall see.

The gubernatorial recall election in Wisconsin next week is important as an imperfect test case to indicate how Democratic propaganda will work against facts this election year.
   
Liberals are usually the ones who arrogantly throw around the charge that Republicans and conservatives are fact- and science-challenged and averse to reality. But their claim itself is based on nothing but their generic, nonfactual presuppositions, whether on “climate change” or same-sex unions.
   
What I’m suggesting is different. I’m saying that Democrats in Wisconsin are basing their case against Republican Gov. Scott Walker on anything but facts; they are distorting his policy actions, his motives for undertaking them and the effect of those actions. Coupled with their distortions, they are seeking to make the election about anything but Walker’s impressive record.
   
Their strategy has been to pour an enormous amount of money — much of it from outside the state, the national Democratic Party recognizing the national implications of the election — to inflame the passions of their constituencies and boost voter turnout enough to overcome the comparative unpopularity of their positions.
   
What’s going on is so patently obvious that it surprises me the big-labor-based Democratic Party isn’t further behind in the polls. The unions’ position is so manifestly selfish and the Democratic Party’s support for it so obviously opportunistic — as opposed to what is in the best interest of the state — that it’s amazing they don’t do a better job of masking their symbiotic corruption.
   
New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento said his state’s labor leaders are throwing everything they can into the election to oust Walker, recognizing that Walker’s success would embolden other state governors to follow in his footsteps to take on their unions when necessary.
   
How does Cilento frame his appeal to his fellow unionists? He says, “What Gov. Walker has done is reprehensible, to try to silence the voice of working people.”
   
Silence the voice of working people? How about the voice of all the people (many of whom “work” even though they are not in public-sector unions, thank you)? Walker wanted people to have a voice as to whether they would have to join unions. As to silencing them, Walker’s reforms curbed the unions’ collective bargaining rights, but not — as others have noted — concerning their wages.
   
Reprehensible? Before Walker implemented his plan, most state employees who were part of the Wisconsin Retirement System contributed a minute fraction of their wage compensation — 0.2 percent — to their pension plans and 6.2 percent toward their health care premiums. Now they are contributing 5.8 percent and 12.6 percent, respectively. Taxpayers are still contributing the lion’s share.
   
Have Walker’s reforms worked? The Heritage Foundation reports that prior to Walker’s reforms, Wisconsin’s state workers received health benefits 2.3 times as valuable and pension benefits 5.7 times as valuable as those received by employees in large private firms. After the reforms, their health benefits are still twice as valuable, and their pension benefits are 4.5 times as valuable. Their total compensation was 29 percent higher than private-sector employees before the reforms and is now 22 percent higher. After the reforms, the average public-sector employee’s total compensation is $81,637, whereas the similarly skilled private worker’s is $67,068.
   
How about the reform’s impact on Wisconsin’s fiscal health? Walker inherited a $3.6 billion budget deficit, enormous overspending and the fourth-highest tax burden among states. Walker implemented structural reforms without raising taxes, without major layoffs and without cuts in Medicaid. Walker reports that for the first time in 12 years, his state’s property taxes are going down on medium-value homes, and the state has a $154 million surplus.
   
Those are the facts. But if Democrats succeed in their propaganda effort in Wisconsin, it will be a setback for the Republicans’ prospects in 2012, about which I am now very optimistic. But I would feel more sanguine if Republicans treated the Wisconsin election with the same urgency as Democrats do and demonstrated they are willing to take the gloves off in the 2012 campaigns. For though the facts are on their side, those facts do not ensure electoral victory against Democratic money, distortions and election chicanery.
   
President Obama has a miserable record by every measure I believe most Americans care about, which is why his propaganda team has already begun fraudulently sanitizing his record, such as the risible claim that he has not been a big spender, and demonizing Mitt Romney. I know Team Romney is equipped to respond factually and promptly, but I am not sure it has the political will and courage to go after Obama in ways that John McCain wouldn’t. We shall see.

Six-term entrenched incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is attacking his conservative challenger, Dan Liljenquist, over his alleged support for tax hikes in Washington. My sides ache.
   
Liljenquist has never voted for federal tax hikes or massive entitlement spending or multibillion-dollar bailouts or serial debt-limit increases in Washington because he has never served in Washington. Never. Hatch, by contrast, has spent the last 36 years racking up a Big Government record that cannot be whitewashed away.
   
Outside the Beltway/Hatch fog machine, Liljenquist’s integrity and commitment to reining in runaway spending are unassailable. In state legislative policy circles, he’s known as the “Paul Ryan of Utah” — after the courageous and wonky Wisconsin Republican congressman who’s forcing kick-the-can politicians in both parties to reckon with welfare-state profligacy.
   
Liljenquist doesn’t just preach fiscal discipline or embrace it during election years. He has led the way as a nationally honored budget and pension reformer in the Utah Senate. Unlike the 77-year-old Beltway barnacle Hatch, Liljenquist has spent his formative adult years excelling in the private sector as a global management consultant and business strategist. He also helmed a privately owned call center company that grew from two to 1,500 employees since its 1995 founding.
   
As a state legislator over the past four years, Liljenquist pioneered tough state pension and Medicaid reforms that serve as models for the rest of the states. His hard work earned him the nonpartisan Governing magazine “2011 Public Official of the Year” award.
   
Liljenquist is everything that Republican establishment types — who savaged lesser-prepared Tea Party candidates in 2008 — say they want the next generation of GOP leaders to be: smart, principled, articulate and unquestionably prepared for the office he seeks.
   
Keenly aware of both the urgency and complexity of entitlement reform, Liljenquist refuses to demagogue the issue. Desperate to hold on to power as he faces an unprecedented primary, Hatch has pounded Liljenquist with an out-of-context sound bite on a hypothetical federal entitlement reform deal that might possibly involve “revenue enhancements.”
   
Based on a single media ambush against Liljenquist, Hatch and his ill-informed supporters are branding Liljenquist a tax-and-spender. This is Bizarro Land territory. And it is an abject sign of desperation that Hatch, one of the GOP’s most profligate big spenders, is masquerading as a limited-government Tea Party godfather.
   
Fact: Hatch co-sponsored the $6 billion national service boondoggle in 2009 and dedicated it to his good friend Teddy Kennedy. As predicted, the federal makework program has become a slush fund for endless progressive social justice pet projects and Obama pals.
   
Fact: Hatch joined hands with Kennedy again to create the ever-expanding, tax hike-funded SCHIP health care Trojan Horse for Obamacare. It’s now an $8-billion-a-year entitlement and growing.
   
Fact: Hatch voted to raise the debt ceiling 16 times over the past 36 years — totaling future liabilities of some $7.5 trillion imposed on our children and grandchildren.
   
Fact: Hatch was an original sponsor of the open-borders DREAM Act illegal alien student bailout and voted for the trillion-dollar TARP bank-turned-all-purpose bailout.
   
Fact: Hatch was the third-biggest earmarker on Capitol Hill in 2010 — including $50 million for his own Solyndra-style green energy failure, a bankrupt environmental firm known as Raser Technologies.
   
Fact: In the costly spirit of “bipartisanship” and comity, Hatch backed the nominations of Obama tax-cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and scandal-plagued Attorney General Eric Holder. “I like Barack Obama,” Hatch said, “and I want to help him if I can.”
   
Fact: Even after former corruptocrat Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., had shepherded the monstrously expensive and crony-friendly Dodd-Frank legislation through Congress and stepped down in disgrace over his Countrywide financial sweetheart deals, Hatch praised Dodd as “one of the better senators here.”
   
Fact: Hatch attacked 15,000 grassroots activists who are members of the fiscal conservative organization Freedomworks. A petulant Hatch said “radical libertarians” challenging his entrenched incumbency deserved to be “punched in the mouth” for daring to oppose his bid for a seventh term.
   
Fact: Hatch “to this day defends his vote for Medicare Part D, which former comptroller general David Walker called ‘the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s,’” according to Liljenquist’s campaign manager, Holly Richardson (herself a former Utah GOP state legislator fighting for a fresh voice in D.C.).
   
Fact: Hatch has lied shamelessly about Liljenquist’s pension reform record, ducked debates, and relied on crapweasel surrogates like turncoat former Pennsylvania Sen. and fellow D.C. fixture Arlen Specter, who likened Tea Party grassroots activists to “cannibals” on Tea Party-bashing network MSNBC.
   
Booting out Beltway barnacles closing in on four decades in power is not “cannibalization.” It’s healthy rejuvenation, restoration and rejection of the pernicious permanent political class our Founding Fathers so vehemently opposed.

Six-term entrenched incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is attacking his conservative challenger, Dan Liljenquist, over his alleged support for tax hikes in Washington. My sides ache.
   
Liljenquist has never voted for federal tax hikes or massive entitlement spending or multibillion-dollar bailouts or serial debt-limit increases in Washington because he has never served in Washington. Never. Hatch, by contrast, has spent the last 36 years racking up a Big Government record that cannot be whitewashed away.
   
Outside the Beltway/Hatch fog machine, Liljenquist’s integrity and commitment to reining in runaway spending are unassailable. In state legislative policy circles, he’s known as the “Paul Ryan of Utah” — after the courageous and wonky Wisconsin Republican congressman who’s forcing kick-the-can politicians in both parties to reckon with welfare-state profligacy.
   
Liljenquist doesn’t just preach fiscal discipline or embrace it during election years. He has led the way as a nationally honored budget and pension reformer in the Utah Senate. Unlike the 77-year-old Beltway barnacle Hatch, Liljenquist has spent his formative adult years excelling in the private sector as a global management consultant and business strategist. He also helmed a privately owned call center company that grew from two to 1,500 employees since its 1995 founding.
   
As a state legislator over the past four years, Liljenquist pioneered tough state pension and Medicaid reforms that serve as models for the rest of the states. His hard work earned him the nonpartisan Governing magazine “2011 Public Official of the Year” award.
   
Liljenquist is everything that Republican establishment types — who savaged lesser-prepared Tea Party candidates in 2008 — say they want the next generation of GOP leaders to be: smart, principled, articulate and unquestionably prepared for the office he seeks.
   
Keenly aware of both the urgency and complexity of entitlement reform, Liljenquist refuses to demagogue the issue. Desperate to hold on to power as he faces an unprecedented primary, Hatch has pounded Liljenquist with an out-of-context sound bite on a hypothetical federal entitlement reform deal that might possibly involve “revenue enhancements.”
   
Based on a single media ambush against Liljenquist, Hatch and his ill-informed supporters are branding Liljenquist a tax-and-spender. This is Bizarro Land territory. And it is an abject sign of desperation that Hatch, one of the GOP’s most profligate big spenders, is masquerading as a limited-government Tea Party godfather.
   
Fact: Hatch co-sponsored the $6 billion national service boondoggle in 2009 and dedicated it to his good friend Teddy Kennedy. As predicted, the federal makework program has become a slush fund for endless progressive social justice pet projects and Obama pals.
   
Fact: Hatch joined hands with Kennedy again to create the ever-expanding, tax hike-funded SCHIP health care Trojan Horse for Obamacare. It’s now an $8-billion-a-year entitlement and growing.
   
Fact: Hatch voted to raise the debt ceiling 16 times over the past 36 years — totaling future liabilities of some $7.5 trillion imposed on our children and grandchildren.
   
Fact: Hatch was an original sponsor of the open-borders DREAM Act illegal alien student bailout and voted for the trillion-dollar TARP bank-turned-all-purpose bailout.
   
Fact: Hatch was the third-biggest earmarker on Capitol Hill in 2010 — including $50 million for his own Solyndra-style green energy failure, a bankrupt environmental firm known as Raser Technologies.
   
Fact: In the costly spirit of “bipartisanship” and comity, Hatch backed the nominations of Obama tax-cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and scandal-plagued Attorney General Eric Holder. “I like Barack Obama,” Hatch said, “and I want to help him if I can.”
   
Fact: Even after former corruptocrat Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., had shepherded the monstrously expensive and crony-friendly Dodd-Frank legislation through Congress and stepped down in disgrace over his Countrywide financial sweetheart deals, Hatch praised Dodd as “one of the better senators here.”
   
Fact: Hatch attacked 15,000 grassroots activists who are members of the fiscal conservative organization Freedomworks. A petulant Hatch said “radical libertarians” challenging his entrenched incumbency deserved to be “punched in the mouth” for daring to oppose his bid for a seventh term.
   
Fact: Hatch “to this day defends his vote for Medicare Part D, which former comptroller general David Walker called ‘the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s,’” according to Liljenquist’s campaign manager, Holly Richardson (herself a former Utah GOP state legislator fighting for a fresh voice in D.C.).
   
Fact: Hatch has lied shamelessly about Liljenquist’s pension reform record, ducked debates, and relied on crapweasel surrogates like turncoat former Pennsylvania Sen. and fellow D.C. fixture Arlen Specter, who likened Tea Party grassroots activists to “cannibals” on Tea Party-bashing network MSNBC.
   
Booting out Beltway barnacles closing in on four decades in power is not “cannibalization.” It’s healthy rejuvenation, restoration and rejection of the pernicious permanent political class our Founding Fathers so vehemently opposed.

Citizens in 22 states should be alarmed.  An amicus brief filed by those states’ attorneys general indicates they do not believe in robust First Amendment rights.  Instead, they urge the U.S. Supreme Court to let state governments censor political speech and political activity.

That is, in essence, the position taken in their embarrassing brief just filed in American Tradition Partnership v Bullock, a case in which the Montana Supreme Court brazenly ignored the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.  The Montana court reinstated a ban on independent political expenditures by corporations—a ban that a lower court had correctly thrown out as unconstitutional following the Citizens United ruling.

Trying to differentiate its state law from the federal ban, the Montana Supreme Court issued a decision that is a marvel of deceptive reasoning.  The court basically defied the Supreme Court.  As the dissenting judge, James Nelson, said, “the Supreme Court has spoken,” and Montana’s “judiciary and elected officers are bound to accept and enforce the Supreme Court’s ruling—in the same way that this Court demands obedience to its rulings, like them or not.”  But the Montana court refused to render that obedience.

When American Tradition Partnerships petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the erroneous Montana decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy, author of the majority opinion in Citizens United, issued a stay of the Montana court’s decision while the Supreme Court decides whether to accept the Montana case for review.  Led by Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general, the attorneys general of 22 states filed an amicus brief opposing the petition and asking the Supreme Court to let the Montana decision stand.

The states’ brief is just as deceptive as the decision by the Montana Supreme Court.  It makes the preposterous argument that the Montana court’s outright defiance of the Supreme Court “does not squarely conflict with the rulings of this Court” in Citizens United since the Montana ban applies to state elections.  But the Citizens United ruling did not just hold that a federal ban on independent political expenditures violated the First Amendment.  It also overturned Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 Supreme Court decision that upheld Michigan’s ban on independent political expenditures by corporations in state elections.  How much clearer could the Supreme Court have been?

The attorneys’ general brief reveals just how beholden they are to unions.  The Montana ban applies only to corporations, and the attorneys general assert that states “face a much greater risk of domination of their elections by nonresident corporations” than the federal government does in federal elections.  Note the complete nonconcern with “domination” by unions, which spend enormous amounts of money on elections.  The list of PACs that raise and spend the most money is dominated by unions. 

The rest of the states’ brief rehashes the same losing arguments made by former Solicitor General Elena Kagan when she argued Citizens United before the Court.  This includes the phony claim that the Montana law “does not operate as a ban on corporate speech” because corporations can still form PACs that can engage in political speech.  When that identical argument was made in Citizens United, the court said that it was “a ban on corporate speech notwithstanding the fact that a PAC created by a corporation can still speak.”  That is because PACs are extremely burdensome, expensive alternatives subject to extensive regulations that chill protected political speech.

So which attorneys general should be in the Bill of Rights hall of shame?  The disgraceful brief was signed by the attorneys general of Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. 

The Supreme Court should reject the discredited—and discreditable—views asserted by these attorneys general and issue a summary reversal of the Montana court.  To do otherwise would accept state censorship of political speech, a concept wholly alien to the First Amendment.  Under the incorporation doctrine of the 14th Amendment, the First Amendment prohibits censorship by state governments as well as the federal government.  Too bad these attorneys general didn’t learn that basic fact in the Constitutional Law classes offered in their first year in law school.

Citizens in 22 states should be alarmed.  An amicus brief filed by those states’ attorneys general indicates they do not believe in robust First Amendment rights.  Instead, they urge the U.S. Supreme Court to let state governments censor political speech and political activity.

That is, in essence, the position taken in their embarrassing brief just filed in American Tradition Partnership v Bullock, a case in which the Montana Supreme Court brazenly ignored the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.  The Montana court reinstated a ban on independent political expenditures by corporations—a ban that a lower court had correctly thrown out as unconstitutional following the Citizens United ruling.

Trying to differentiate its state law from the federal ban, the Montana Supreme Court issued a decision that is a marvel of deceptive reasoning.  The court basically defied the Supreme Court.  As the dissenting judge, James Nelson, said, “the Supreme Court has spoken,” and Montana’s “judiciary and elected officers are bound to accept and enforce the Supreme Court’s ruling—in the same way that this Court demands obedience to its rulings, like them or not.”  But the Montana court refused to render that obedience.

When American Tradition Partnerships petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the erroneous Montana decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy, author of the majority opinion in Citizens United, issued a stay of the Montana court’s decision while the Supreme Court decides whether to accept the Montana case for review.  Led by Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general, the attorneys general of 22 states filed an amicus brief opposing the petition and asking the Supreme Court to let the Montana decision stand.

The states’ brief is just as deceptive as the decision by the Montana Supreme Court.  It makes the preposterous argument that the Montana court’s outright defiance of the Supreme Court “does not squarely conflict with the rulings of this Court” in Citizens United since the Montana ban applies to state elections.  But the Citizens United ruling did not just hold that a federal ban on independent political expenditures violated the First Amendment.  It also overturned Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 Supreme Court decision that upheld Michigan’s ban on independent political expenditures by corporations in state elections.  How much clearer could the Supreme Court have been?

The attorneys’ general brief reveals just how beholden they are to unions.  The Montana ban applies only to corporations, and the attorneys general assert that states “face a much greater risk of domination of their elections by nonresident corporations” than the federal government does in federal elections.  Note the complete nonconcern with “domination” by unions, which spend enormous amounts of money on elections.  The list of PACs that raise and spend the most money is dominated by unions. 

The rest of the states’ brief rehashes the same losing arguments made by former Solicitor General Elena Kagan when she argued Citizens United before the Court.  This includes the phony claim that the Montana law “does not operate as a ban on corporate speech” because corporations can still form PACs that can engage in political speech.  When that identical argument was made in Citizens United, the court said that it was “a ban on corporate speech notwithstanding the fact that a PAC created by a corporation can still speak.”  That is because PACs are extremely burdensome, expensive alternatives subject to extensive regulations that chill protected political speech.

So which attorneys general should be in the Bill of Rights hall of shame?  The disgraceful brief was signed by the attorneys general of Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. 

The Supreme Court should reject the discredited—and discreditable—views asserted by these attorneys general and issue a summary reversal of the Montana court.  To do otherwise would accept state censorship of political speech, a concept wholly alien to the First Amendment.  Under the incorporation doctrine of the 14th Amendment, the First Amendment prohibits censorship by state governments as well as the federal government.  Too bad these attorneys general didn’t learn that basic fact in the Constitutional Law classes offered in their first year in law school.

Slate.com: Safe Data: Amending the Constitution to protect informational privacy by Adam Cohen:

When the National Security Agency spying scandal broke in 2005, it revealed that the government was engaged in a sweeping program of surveillance of its own citizens. As technology advances, the ability of the government to spy on ordinary Americans is growing rapidly. The government has sophisticated methods of intercepting phone calls and Internet traffic. And the FBI has just told Congress it wants to expand its ability to monitor Web-based communications, including Facebook and Twitter, in part by requiring these services to build special "back doors" for the government to use for monitoring. We are also being observed every day by spy cameras, throughout major cities and suburban shopping malls. The public has no way of knowing how much information the government is collecting and what it is being used for.