Now that leaks are coming out showing just how inept Barack Obama’s foreign policy dithering has become, leakers must be shut down. The administration is insisting that the Pentagon do something about all the meddlesome leaks that show the behind the scenes indecisiveness rapidly becoming the hallmark of this administration’s foreign policy.

The Obama administration is increasingly exasperated by leaks of national-security-related information and is planning a major effort to root out and punish those responsible, top officials said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he is “appalled” by a series of leaks surrounding the president’s deliberations about the way forward in Afghanistan and the investigation into last week’s massacre at Fort Hood, Texas.

Maybe this is why the Obama administration has decided to purge Republicans from the civil service.

Blackburn is refusing.

What words do the left object to? “Socialist,” “evil,” “totalitarian,” etc.

These socialists are the exact same people who think twentysomethings who don’t get health insurance should go to jail for five years, but anyone and everyone who wants to kill kids with impunity should get a constitutional right to do so.

That is evil.

Via Instapundit comes word that the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) intends to purge the federal government of Republican civil servants all in the name of purify the federal bureaucracy.

You can read the OPM memo here.

It is a typical Washington process that many political appointees are able to take jobs within the civil service once their political appointment expires — usually at the conclusion of one administration. What often happens as well is Congressional staffers, before an election or shortly thereafter, will move over to the Executive Branch placed into the civil service, in effect, by appointment.

So, for example, when George Bush became President in 2001, a number of Clinton political appointees became civil service employees. As a result, they became subject to civil service hiring and firing rules, which meant they could no longer be replaced simply for having been a Democratic appointee.

Barack Obama is changing that. He intends to purge all Republicans from the federal bureaucracy retroactive to five years ago.

Under his new rules, made retroactive for five years, the Office of Personnel Management will examine civil service employees who got their start as political appointees in the Bush administration and terminate those employees. The order is retroactive to 2004, that moment when a number of Republican congressional staffers and others sought to embed into the second Bush administration right after the election.

According to John Berry, the Director of OPM:

Beginning January 1, 2010, agencies must seek prior approval from OPM before they can appoint a current or recent political appointee to a competitive or non-political excepted service position at any level under the provisions of title 5, United States Code. OPM will review these proposed appointments to ensure they comply with merit system principles and applicable civil service laws. I have delegated decisionmaking authority over these matters to career Senior Executives at OPM to avoid any hint of political influence.

The memorandum goes on to apply this change to civil servants who were political appointees in the last five years, in effect freezing these employees out of other positions, denying them promotions, and forcing them out of their jobs.

No one is allowed to stand in the way of Barack Obama’s agenda, including his own bureaucracy. This is what happens in third world kleptocracies and totalitarian regimes.

This is scary stuff.

Just for perspective: remember the Democrats threatened to throw Bush administration people in jail for firing United States Attorneys who happened to be Democrats. In that case, it was clear as crystal that U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President and he can fire them whenever he wants. In this case, these people are now civil service employees who do not serve at the pleasure of the President and cannot be fired just because they are Republicans. in fact, the law is very clear on that point.

We’re going to talk about the President’s Afghan no-strategy, Charlie Crist, and the Democrats’ abortion conundrum in the healthcare fight.

Judge Hamilton, a district court judge, is Barack Obama’s nominee to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.  That very court has cited Judge Hamilton for abusing his power as a judge.

In 1994, the 7th Circuit rebuked Judge Hamilton for denying a Rabbi the right to display a Menorah as part of an Indianapolis holiday display.

In 2005, Judge Hamilton prohibited the Indiana House of Representatives from praying if Jesus’s name was mentioned, but said praying in Allah’s name was perfectly fine.

He also is one of the most lenient judges in America when it comes to crime and criminals.

In United States v. Rinehart, 2007 U.S. LEXIS 19498 (S.D. Ind. Feb 2, 2007), Judge Hamilton used his opinion to request clemency for a police officer who pled guilty to two counts of child pornography. The 32 year old officer had engaged in “consensual” sex with two teenagers and videotaped his activities.

In United States v. Woolsey, 535 F.3d 540 (7th Cir. 2008), the Seventh Circuit faulted Judge Hamilton for disregarding an earlier conviction in order to avoid imposing a life sentence on a repeat offender.

Call your Senator. Tell your Senator to oppose cloture on Judge Hamilton and support a filibuster.

Race42008.com has the video circulating by the “Truth About Rubio” website we previously exposed as the creation of Rich Heffley, produced in the offices of the Republican Party of Florida.

The video shows Marco Rubio speaking in spanish, then has a clip of Barack Obama referring to Marco Rubio as a Cuban, then says no way “WE” can trust Rubio.

Really? Because he’s Cuban? Really?

That’s pathetic.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s sons plans to hold a private fundraiser for insurgent GOP Senate candidate Marco Rubio next month, Rubio told Fox News. 

The active involvement of George P. Bush and Jeb Bush Jr. in the race raises the possibility that their father could endorse Rubio down the road and give his campaign added momentum against the GOP front-runner, Gov. Charlie Crist.

Jeb Bush, who has dismissed suggestions he’ll support Rubio, still is enormously popular in the state, with a recent poll pegging his approval rating at 70 percent, outshining Crist. His backing could help Rubio offset Crist’s considerable fundraising advantage. 

Crist and Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, are facing off to fill the Senate seat vacated by former Sen. Mel Martinez. 

Governor Bush is incredibly popular in Florida still, with over 70% of Republicans in Florida saying they’d rather him than Crist. Likewise, over 50% of independent women say Jeb is a better governor.

In addition to Governor Bush, both of his sons remain quite popular in Florida and especially among conservatives, where they have been refreshingly candid in their support of small government and freedom.

Having their support in and of itself is great, but it is also pretty clearly a tacit endorsement from their dad.

This get even more momentum going in Rubio’s direction.

After a run of bad publicity, Gov. Charlie Crist will go the route of so many chief executives hampered by falling poll numbers or botched public relations: shaking up the communications team.

Crist’s office confirmed Wednesday he is parting ways with longtime communications director Erin Isaac, who has long been an influential advisor to an image-obsessed governor. Crist chief of staff Shane Strum said Isaac told him Tuesday she was leaving to pursue other opportunities.

Her exit speaks to Crist’s sagging fortunes. It follows two weeks of unbelievably bad press in which Crist denied he knew that President Barack Obama was visiting troops in Jacksonville, and then denied he ever “endorsed” the president’s economic stimulus package despite campaigning with Obama for its passage in Fort Myers.

If that wasn’t bad enough for Crist, Scott Rothstein, a prominent Florida attorney, is now under federal investigation for a Ponzi scheme. Rothstein is one of Charlie Crist’s big financial backers. This is all the more troubling because Crist was Attorney General of Florida before becoming Governor four years ago. Rothstein’s relationship with Crist could raise some serious questions.

Rothstein has given the Florida Republican Party and Crist around $500,000.00 in the last few years.

He is the federal judge who believes it is a violation of the first amendment for Christians to pray at school events, but is not a violation of the first amendment when Muslims pray at school events.

He is also the judge who was cited by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals for abusing his power by keeping an injunction in place on an informed consent law despite the law clearly being constitutional.

Barack Obama has naturally appointed the man to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals — the very court that said Hamilton had abused his power.

Call your Senator today and tell him to vote against cloture on David Hamilton’s nomination. Call 202-224-3121. Ask for your Senator. Tell him to oppose cloture and oppose the nomination of David Hamilton.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez — together with the likes of Cuba’s Castro brothers, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega — is spewing a populist, leftist, and strongly anti-American brand of politics that is spreading throughout Latin America. There, a rebellion against Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution is gathering that the Obama administration seems eager to quell.

One country, Honduras, rejected the Chavista vitriol and embraced freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.  This should have been seen as a win for freedom over tyranny.  But instead, President Obama and his administration condemned the Honduran people and stood with a “who’s who” list of tyrants and thugs of Latin America.

Earlier this year, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, a Chavez ally, suggested that he might want to stay in power for another term.  There was only one problem: the Honduran Constitution explicitly forbids and makes illegal any attempt to change the constitution.  Mr. Zelaya, taking a page from the Chavez playbook, tried to change the constitution to allow him to run again and stay in power.  

About a week or so ago, Crist lied and said he had never supported Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, despite signing a letter of support, appearing with Obama on video, and producing a personal video in favor of the stimulus.

But it gets better.

When Barack Obama headed to Florida the other day, reporters asked Charlie Crist if he was going and Crist claimed he did not even know Barack Obama was in Florida that day.

According to an Open Records Act request, Crist very much did know.

E-mails obtained by the St. Petersburg Times this week through a public records request cast doubt on that claim. The messages prove Crist’s office was aware of the visit, and it seems unlikely his aide would have dismissed Crist going to Jacksonville without checking with Crist.

He’s not commenting further. He doesn’t have to.

As I wrote the other day,

I think the Stupak Amendment was an instance of the pro-life community not seeing the forest for the trees and it should have been opposed. But I am willing to admit I could be wrong. What I do know is that the House Republican Leadership has been very, very good at combating the Democrats’ legislative agenda. That House GOP Leadership encouraged a vote for Stupak should not be second guessed lightly. It is a lot easier for me to Monday morning quarterback the vote than it was for these men and women on the front lines to make a decision.

I am not going to second guess them and, in fact, as I wrote this morning, I suspect there will be pro-life language in the final bill, but weak enough for pro-choice votes. After all, the Democrats will throw zealous abortion advocates under the bus as fast as lightening if the end result is a federal take over of 1/6th the American economy.

It may, in fact, turn out that Stupak is the undoing of the health care bill. I don’t know and, again, won’t second guess the House GOP Leadership, which firmly believes it made the right call. Our presumption going forward should be that they made the right call, regardless of our personal opinions.

More importantly, what I would suggest is that conservatives not turn the health care fight into a fight over abortion tactics and policy. The bill is two thousand freedom sucking pages of crap and is, with or without Stupak, very clearly not conducive to a culture of life. Abortion is only one aspect.

Let me also suggest one strategy consistent with what I wrote this morning:

After the GOP is done demanding things come out, not be ameliorated or added, there will be no bill left that the left can support. Additionally, the GOP must orchestrate a strategy to put Democrats up for election in difficult positions — offering up amendments that the Democrats cannot say no to, but that take away votes from the overall legislation once agreed to.

The GOP and outside interest groups should now agitate for the “Stupak Minimum,” i.e. the Stupak amendment language must be the baseline for pro-life language in the health care legislation. Anything less should be opposed.

The Democrats will never go for it. But above all else, we must remember the strategy must be to kill the bill, not improve it.

But where it gets interesting is that Crist believes Florida needed to get its “fair share” of the stimulus. It’s a “bridge of help,” in Crist’s words.

That’s not very conservative language — he says twice that Florida should get its “fair share.” That sounds more welfare queen than conservative. With the stimulus’s help and Charlie Crist’s support, Florida has seen a loss of 165,100 jobs since the stimulus passed. That’s one heck of a bridge of help.

Well done, Charlie.

Both Murtha and Rangel have issues. But Lynn Woolsey, Chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, that congressional body that takes pride in the Progressive Movement’s eugenics experiments and efforts to sterilize black women and the mentally disabled back at the start of the twentieth century, does not want Charlie Rangel and Jack Murtha investigated.

Instead, Lynn Woolsey — a friend of Speaker Pelosi’s — wants Catholic Bishops investigated.

The role the bishops played in the pushing the Stupak amendment, which unfairly restricts access for low-income women to insurance coverage for abortions, was more than mere advocacy.

They seemed to dictate the finer points of the amendment, and managed to bully members of Congress to vote for added restrictions on a perfectly legal surgical procedure.

And this political effort was subsidized by taxpayers, since the Council enjoys tax-exempt status.

The take away here is not that a leftist who champions killing babies is upset with a group of men opposed to such barbarity, but that the champion of baby killers thinks it is perfectly legitimate to sick the IRS on the opposition. Because the Bishops operate under §501 of the tax code, they should shut up.

The health care legislation carves out new exceptions in the tax code. Once we are all forced under that legislation, will Lynn Woolsey be able to sick the IRS on us if we dissent? Seems likely. Doctors and health care providers are also on notice. Should you disagree with the government that gives you tax breaks, prepare for the government to treat you as an enemy combatant.

2010 — The year in which Democratic health care “Reform” plans will raise your taxes, impose penalties on your company, and cause your health insurance premiums to increase dramatically, a remarkable achievement given that it is three full years before the plans suggest making any substantive changes to our actual health insurance system; The year in which the US will see a dramatic drop in applications to medical school.

AARP — An interest group which earns billions of dollars by selling Medigap insurance to senior citizens, insurance which Democratic “Reform” plans would make all but required for seniors by gutting Medicare and Medicare Advantage spending; See “Endorsement”