"No idea should be free from scrutiny..." and I say "DUH!". The problem that all American writers have, from all sides, is they can't quite seem to place our founding documents into the ideological battle we face today with the muslims. Are we actually prepared to fight and die for the First Amendment? Or do we "fight for our freedom" in Afganistan while allowing them to impose, yet again, a Koran inspired legal doctrine that is proud to threaten new Christians with beheading on parliaments own carpets? There should be NO AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS, visas, aid, NGO support, or ANYTHING to a country that refuses to enshrine the First Amendment. It is the bright line in the sand where the free stand on one side and the enemies of freedom stand on the other. Egypt would fall within months or us removing our welfare from that Islamist supporting country. Saudi Arabia would evaporate in a flash of light if we said we would never defend our enemy from our Iranian enemy. But, NO, we import tens of thousands of Saudi students and when some attack us, we escort the leaders home safely as in 9-11. Fade to black.

This is a rediculous argument. We don't need to discuss de-funding or leaving the organization. What we should say--NOW!-- is that the money spent in moving the headquarters to Africa would be a huge and welcome development project for that downtrodden birthplace of man. Let's give them 5 years to finalize plans to move to the African city of their choice. PERIOD. Vote on that! It's much cleaner and would get support from all the NGO's that want to spend our tax dollars there anyway (right?).

Too bad you don't understand the power of the internet. You knew that the FOIA request was going to be delayed and ended up filing a lawsuit. You could have posted the emails for the DOJ people that you think might be involved in addressing this issue so that we could send them a note of our concern. You could have included a one-click survey with options so we could make our views known and you would get a more definitive view of support versus just a page load number. You could have included a picture of the person responsible for addressing this FOIA request so they'd be known to the world. Good job. Did you graduate from journalism school somewheres?

Not quite the analogy with parents I think. Parents usually have a plan but the tea party has a principle where they haven't really made it into a plan or policy-- yet. This is why we're still pretty disappointed in Congress. It is up to the real Americans to flood the precinct and county conventions with resolutions so we can send something to Congress "by the People". We can't leave it up to them because they're not trustworthy once they start going to Georgetown cocktail parties.

It's a great lesson professor but it really doesn't DO anything. Those that believe in "spreading the wealth" don't really care about your examples or facts of proof of efficacy. The are TRUE believers. What I want to see you do is talk about starting to issue an IRS Form 1099-GOV for EVERY government check to individuals. It IS time for people that beg for checks to get the same kind of reporting that those who drive to work daily to earn their checks receive. When a recent report suggests that over 30% of Social Security disability benefits go to those under 62 it is clear we don't have a clue where our money goes. If EVERY level of government had to report benefits on 1099-GOV we'd see the public become more aware of where "income, redistributed" was getting sent. All to the good. 1099-GOV 1099-GOV 1099-GOV