[Ed. Note: This article was co-authored with Clint Bolik.]

The Obama Administration has fired its opening salvo against a cornerstone of democracy: the right to secret ballot.

Last fall, voters in four states voted overwhelmingly to amend their constitutions protect the right of workers to vote by secret ballot in deciding whether or not to form unions. That right has been enshrined in federal law for 75 years but is threatened by bills pending in Congress.

Nonetheless, the Obama National Labor Relations Board has filed a lawsuit against Arizona seeking to halt its protection of the right to secret ballot. Federal law governs labor relations, the NLRB asserts, and states cannot provide greater security for worker rights.

Why is the Obama Administration taking such a profoundly anti-democratic position? The answer is simple: it’s pay-off time for the massive labor union support Barack Obama received in the 2008 election.

Private-sector unionization has been dwindling for a long time. To reverse that, unions pushed a “card-check” system that would replace secret-ballot union-recognition elections with a system by which unions are automatically created once 50 percent of employees in a workplace sign cards requesting them. The card-check system is an open invitation to intimidation by both unions and employers. Only in the privacy of the ballot booth can workers express their true views.

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The child porn allegations made against MTV for its “Skins” show must be investigated by the Obama Justice Department. Child Pornography is not protected by the First Amendment, and producing child porn is a crime.

Whether these allegations are true or not, even allegations of it are something most responsible businesses don’t want to be associated with, and they’re chasing advertisers away from this latest attempt to redefine what’s allowed on television.

The latest TV scandal is over MTV’s new show, “Skins.” The show casts child actors (not adults who play children on camera) with a plot where kids are involved in drugs, sex and reportedly even prostitution. It’s pushing the envelope in terms of coarsening society, evidently going for the shock value of being one of the edgiest shows on cable television.

But MTV might be in colossal trouble, because “Skins” is being accused of involving child porn. Child pornography laws don’t just cover explicit sex between children. Among other things, they include simulated sexual conduct by minors. If the actors were actually adults who just looked young, then the Supreme Court says child porn laws would not apply. But because the actors are really children, if they’re depicted in sexual acts then MTV has crossed the line.

It’s beyond dispute that the child actors are pretending to have sex in this show.

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Appearing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY.) told host Christiane Amanpour he would push for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This is an idea whose time has come. In 1994, Republicans campaigned– and won — on a balanced budget amendment (as part of the Contract with America). Back then; the deficit was just $203 billion. Today, the national deficit is at $1.4 trillion (that’s roughly $3,500 for each American, and some $14,000 for each family of four in deficit spending just this year alone).

Most states require their elected officials to balance their budget each year, but no such requirement impedes the reckless spending of the United States federal government. A constitutional amendment would bar the federal government from spending more money than it brings in each year — and require a supermajority in order to raise taxes. This is not a radical idea, but the consequences of failing to enact such a measure cannot be overstated.

Fortunately, as evidenced by the Tea Party movement, there appears to finally be the political will required to get this done. Newly elected Republicans simply must realize they weren’t elected to merely “trim” spending or “slow down” the rate of government growth, but rather, to cut, de-authorize and balance the budget. (If they fail to grasp this fact, it will be a short and depressing two years).

It is also worth noting that the conservative movement is united behind this cause.

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The NAACP is in the headlines again. This old and respected civil rights organization is taking the unwise step of condemning the TEA Party for alleged racism. Those allegations include unsubstantiated charges that TEA Partiers rallying at the Capitol against passage of the unconstitutional health care takeover had yelled racial epithets at black congressman who were walking from their offices to the House of Representatives to cast historic votes. They yelled the “N” word, the congressmen claimed. But no one seems to be able to produce any video, any audio, or any sworn statements naming names, or even  pointing to specific yellers.

When asked why they chose to walk through a crowd of anti-ObamaCare demonstrators, the liberal Members disingenuously replied: It was the first day of spring. Right. And Gov. Sanford wanted to enjoy the spring air hiking the Appalachian Trail, too.

I want to remind my friends why the NAACP is revered in the black community in this country. At a time in the early 1900s when hundreds of communities in this land of liberty were in the grip of the murderous Ku Klux Klan, when hundreds of black Americans were lynched every year for daring to exercise their right to vote, when local law enforcement, editors and jurors ignored the plight of black Americans, the NAACP was there to champion civil rights for the oppressed.

For these and many other courageous actions, the NAACP deserves the gratitude of all Americans. But this legendary organization is risking its honored legacy when it cries wolf and hurls baseless charges of racism against Americans who are exercising their civil rights to protest against radical policies coming from Washington, D.C.

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Left wing blogs have their dander up. They’re attacking me for saying the Elena Kagan favors cloning human beings. Once again, they are trying to confuse the public about what’s involved in cloning humans. Just because they favor killing the embryonic human being after they are done experimenting upon it, but before implanting it in a woman’s womb, they think they are against cloning humans. But they’re not. And neither is Kagan.

It’s almost the same thing as when semantic gymnasts in the pro-cloning camp say they’re not cloning humans, they’re just doing “somatic cell nuclear transfers (SCNT).” In fact, that’s the longer, more technical description of what cloning is.

The Clinton-appointed National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) recognized this simple fact in 1997—before political correctness overtook all these discussions:

The Commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo, with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term.

This is not conservative doctrine. Not Christian dogma. This is simple, scientific fact. It used to be recognized by all until the left muddied the waters.

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There’s an old joke about a Transylvanian cookbook. The recipe for an omelet starts off with this: “First, steal two eggs.” If that note really appeared in some country’s cookbook, don’t look for constitutional government or a free market system to arise there anytime soon. That’s because democracy is not something you can just plant, like shaking seeds out of an envelope.

Americans were blessed to have extensive experience of self-government when we made our bid for independence in the 1770s. And Americans at that time–all the most thoughtful ones at least–recognized the profound contradiction that human bondage represented. It was difficult to assert on the one hand that all government “derives its just powers from the consent of the governed” while holding millions of human beings as slaves. Amid many blessings, slavery was held to be a curse. It took another eighty years and fratricidal Civil War before those contradictions were resolved.

A free market can do many things efficiently and justly, but the free market is perverted when it treats humans as objects. Thus, almost all people recognize that slavery and international sex trafficking are wrong. Our laws protect artistic expression, but we demand strict enforcement of laws against child pornography. Such illicit trade cannot be honored as a part of legitimate commerce.

We already know something of the unusual ideas of human rights and commerce held by U.S. Solicitor General, Elena Kagan. Kagan has been nominated by President Obama to succeed the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Kagan also served in the Clinton White House, where she left an extensive paper trail of documented opinions.

Most interesting, perhaps, is Kagan’s support for cloning human beings. Clinton Library documents show that she opposed any effort by Congress to prevent human beings from being cloned specifically to create embryos that would be experimented upon, then killed. Gallup recently reported that 88% of Americans oppose cloning human beings. Kagan does not.

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The Obama administration’s response to the Israeli blockade of Gaza has been, to put it charitably, uncertain. Are the Israelis right to try to prevent ships of any kind bound for Gaza from bringing offensive weapons into the Hamas terror state? Gaza is not some remote location. Gaza abuts Israel. Four thousand rockets have been fired by Hamas from Gaza into Israel proper, into civilian areas, into Jewish homes, shops, and houses of worship. Hamas has declared war on Israel. Hamas is dedicated to eradicating “the Zionist entity.” They won’t even name the Jewish state.

After initially proclaiming, chest out, that there would not be “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel’s right of self-defense, the Obama administration began backtracking. Like Annie, unnamed officials began to sing: “The sun will come out tomorrow.” They could hardly admit, after all, that the administration’s Mideast policy is shambolic. (That’s a nice internationalist touch for you. “Shambolic” is Brit slang for chaotic, disorderly.)

What we need is clarity. The Israelis had no choice but to intercept the Turkish-sponsored “flotilla.” What ensued when Israeli commandos repelled onto the deck of a Turkish ferry boat was indeed shambolic. The “peace” activists who crowded the deck set upon the Israeli soldiers with their palm fronds. Or was it olive branches? Try lead pipes.

And the Israeli commandos, those aggressive brutes, fired back. The French would understand very well this aggressive behavior. They have a phrase: “This animal is very mechant (wicked). When you attack it, it defends itself.”

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Last week, President Obama brought his unique brand of leadership to the U.S. Military Academy. Speaking to the West Point graduation, the commander-in-chief outlined a foreign policy that sharply differed from the Bush Doctrine that was proclaimed from that same podium eight years ago.

In those tense, post-9/11 days, George W. Bush declared that the U.S. would carry the fight to our jihadist enemies, that we would not wait for those who were preparing weapons of mass destruction to strike us a first, devastating blow, and that we would regard any government that harbored terrorists as a foe. The Bush Doctrine was certainly controversial then. It has been effectively superseded by the Obama Doctrine. President Obama recognized that America’s economy is the basis of America’s military strength. No argument there. He told the Corps of Cadets, that illustrious “Long Gray Line,” including hundreds of graduates who will soon join their brothers in combat:

Simply put, American innovation must be the foundation of American power – because at no time in human history has a nation of diminished economic vitality maintained its military and political primacy. And so that means that the civilians among us, as parents and community leaders, elected officials, business leaders, we have a role to play. We cannot leave it to those in uniform to defend this country – we have to make sure that America is building on its strengths.

During World War II, American productivity saved freedom for the world. But Obama’s economic policies will choke American innovation. Small businesses are already contemplating the grim decision whether to lay off workers or pay the fine and dump their employees from company-provided health plans. Obama’s Cap & Trade legislation, should it be passed, will vastly increase the cost of doing business. At the very time the President seeks to engage “soft power”–economic and non-military resources, his policies are rendering that power ineffective.

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Britain’s Labour Party Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is in an uphill battle to retain a majority in the House of Commons. His party may pull him across the finish line in this week’s election.

He’s certainly done nothing on his own to endear himself to British voters. You can’t really rally the voters with a stirring cry of: “It could have been worse.”

Just as he headed into the climactic week of Britain’s mercifully short campaign season, Gordon Brown was caught in a Joe B*Den moment. He did not realize that his microphone was picking up his nasty comments about a woman voter, a Labour Party backer, even. Brown had just finished sucking up to Mrs. Duffy, complimenting her on her red jacket, when he ducked back into his limo. There, he was overheard denouncing the woman as “bigoted.”

Why? Because Mrs. Duffy dared to express her concerns over Britain’s broken immigration process. Over the past forty years, Britain has admitted hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the former British Empire. Many of these immigrants become fine British subjects. But a disturbing number are jihadists who have converted large swaths of English towns into “no go” areas for local police. They want to create Londonistan.

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The New Yorker Magazine published a classic cover illustration for its January 29, 2009 edition. It showed the newly-inaugurated President Obama in a classic pose as George Washington.

It could be my favorite picture of Barack Obama. It emphasizes the continuity of our traditions, the debt we all owe as Americans to the Father of our Country. Sober, thoughtful, wise, it bestows on our new President all the dignity of the office. It stresses the fact that the President is not only leader of a party, or an administration, but he is also the chief of state. What a stately portrait it is.

That inauguration was a great moment of unity for all Americans. We had achieved peacefully not only a transfer of power, but an historic first. We had reason to congratulate ourselves on a post-racial future. We had reason to hope that Dr. King’s famous cry—that we would each be judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character—would at last be realized.

Americans—even the millions like me who did not vote for Barack Obama—had reason to be proud that as a candidate, he had garnered 41% of white male voters and 43% of white voters overall. This was better than John Kerry’s 35% of white males and 42% of all white voters. This was convincing evidence that if America was really the racist country some liberals portray it, Barack Obama would still be sitting in the Illinois state senate.

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I thought that we had moved past the KKK era and left behind us a time in which it was acceptable to openly engage bigoted policies on the basis of race and religion. It seems that I was wrong.

Sen. James Blaine

Until just a few days ago, Oregon enforced a law that banned religious believers who are required by their beliefs to wear distinctive garb from teaching in the public schools exclusively on the basis of their dress. It did not matter that many of these people were likely fabulous teachers who desired only to teach children math, English, and music. The governor of Oregon saw the light and signed the repeal on April 1. But much work remains to be done. Today the state constitutions of nearly 40 states contain provisions known as Blaine Amendments that discriminate in precisely the same way:  They deny state funding to people who are religious on the basis of their religious identities rather than on the basis of their actions and words.

Next week the people of Florida will have the opportunity to be rid of this type of discrimination. Let me explain.

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Canadians hosted hundreds of American air passengers whose planes were grounded on 9/11. They opened their hearts and their homes to us. During the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-81, fearless Canadian diplomats in Tehran helped smuggle out of that maddened country endangered Americans.

None of that seemed to matter this week. Not content with putting an end to America’s historic “special relationship” with Britain, nor with bullying the U.S.’ only reliable ally in the Mideast, Israel, the Obama administration has launched an attack on our Northern neighbor, Canada. Their unguided missile landed squarely on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. It was Hillary.

Oh, my! Even the very liberal Toronto Globe and Mail felt the sting of Madam Secretary’s tongue-lashing. “It was the third time in a two-day visit to Canada that…Clinton gave Canadian hosts a headache,” writes Campbell Clark. Short work. But then, she was always capable of giving us three headaches in one day.

Clinton publicly rebuked the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper wants to make maternal health the centerpiece of Canada’s initiative at the next G8 summit.

What could be wrong with that?

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What a tragedy. After standing firm for so long against such pressure, Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak (D) betrayed his fellow pro-lifers and bought in to a worthless promise from the Abortion President. The Stupak Amendment banning abortion funding in health care garnered 240 votes in the House. The final vote on this unconstitutional and unwise health care takeover – which includes federal funding of abortion – was 219.

There is probably no other measure connected with health care that could command such strong bi-partisan support as last fall’s Stupak Amendment. All the cries for civility and comity, for “reaching across the aisle,” for bringing the American people together were realized in that Stupak Amendment. Bart Stupak got 64 Democrats and every Republican to vote for his amendment last November. And then, he threw it all away.

Henry Hyde’s name will forever be associated with opposition to federal funding of abortion. As a freshman Congressman in 1976, in a House of Representatives dominated by Democrats, big, bluff, friendly Hank Hyde was truly willing to extend his hand across the aisle. He worked with deeply committed pro-life Democrats gladly. Protecting Hyde’s back then was the Hon. William Natcher (D-Ky.), one of the great legislators of the twentieth century. Mr. Natcher’s wisdom, integrity, and deeply held faith were respected by all who knew him. From his post as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Natcher made sure that Freshman Hyde’s amendment would not be gutted by pro-abortion lawmakers operating behind closed doors in the Democratic caucus.

The Hyde Amendment has been voted up time after time, for the past thirty-three years. Henry Hyde has gone to his reward. So has Mr. Natcher. But those who remember this great pro-life Republican and this great pro-life Democrat cherish their memories.

What will we remember about poor Bart Stupak?

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We should all know by now that the Obama administration’s plan to spend up to $200 million on civilian trials for terrorists is dangerous. It’s also wasteful. Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is a site perfectly suited to such trials—and detentions. If not there, then Adak, in the middle of the Aleutians would do just fine.

The Washington Post shows us why that $200 million is also a waste of money. The U.S. Coast Guard should play an important role in our homeland security. After all, that was the stated reason for moving the Coast Guard out of the U.S. Transportation Department and into the newly created Department of Homeland Security.

Liberals are forever going on about “first responders.” Well, the Coast Guard should certainly be considered first among the first responders. Yet, the Coast Guard has come on hard times. The Post recently reported that of 12 major cutters assigned to Haitian relief earlier this year, ten of them broke down. Three were forced to limp back into port.

The Obama administration plans to cut 1,100 active duty personnel from the Coast Guard, the smallest of our military services. Funds for port security—our first line of defense—will be cut by $100 million.

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I have to say, I did not agree with Sen. McCain during the 2008 campaign when he took the Guantánamo issue off the table by endorsing candidate Obama’s call to close it. The U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is an ideal place to hold military tribunals for jihadists captured on the battlefield. And it would still be the ideal place to hold Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year old Nigerian jihadist, who tried to blow up his inbound jet in Detroit on Christmas Day.

Claims that detainees were being mistreated there were false. Capt. Pete Hegseth of Veterans for Freedom served at Guantánamo during the time that Newsweek and other liberal sources were spreading false claims that U.S. guards had “defiled” copies of the Koran. These false reports circulated throughout the world and sparked riots among Muslims.

Capt. Hegseth served a year at “Gitmo” with the New Jersey National Guard. He supervised guards at the detention facilities. He set the record straight. The only time their Korans were besmirched was when the detainees themselves threw human waste on their guards. Gitmo was never Abu Ghraib. No photos of abuse by guards ever came out of Gitmo, because there was none.

But if, after all is said and done, sensible voices in Congress do not prevail, then I have a recommendation for where the detainees should be held and tried. Adak was an important naval installation throughout the Cold War. It’s an island in the central Aleutians, that thousand-mile chain off Alaska.

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Two ongoing trends I chronicled during 2009 highlight an ironic situation: Leftists remain tough on their domestic political opponents, while lax when it comes to our real common enemies.

As we recently saw with the Christmas airplane-bombing attempt, leftists seem bent on treating terrorists with kid gloves, insisting they receive rights normally reserved for U.S. citizens (even when this means failing to extract timely information that might save lives).

Conversely, leftists play “hardball” when their opponents are not terrorists or criminals, but instead, American businesses and industries.   One such example is the left’s battle against Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used for more than a half century to make plastics more durable.

Though clearly less consequential than the war on terror, the Left’s war on BPA serves as a microcosm of the larger attempt to use “junk science” and litigation to redistribute wealth from job-producing American industries into the hands of trial lawyers and liberal special interest groups.

In this regard, the Left’s attempts are reminiscent of their past battle against the insecticide DDT. In the 1960s, many developing nation’s had nearly wiped out malaria, but it came back after DDT was banned.  It did not matter that DDT was harmless to humans – and actually saved lives — the Left attacked it, ultimately causing 50 million preventable deaths.

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Pollsters like to say their surveys are like a snapshot, limited to the time and the picture frame in which they are taken. What we are seeing in polling on the takeover of health care by the federal government is a consistent opposition by the American people. No major poll shows the people supporting the House or Senate bill.

The poll most often cited by conservative talk show hosts is that of CNN/Opinion Research. This is the poll that shows the widest gap between those in favor and those opposed—25 points. Rasmussen reports a milder ratio of 16% between those opposed and those in favor. Gallup shows it a near-tossup: 46% in favor, 48% opposed.

What all these polls fail to show, however, is intensity. Intensity in politics is everything.

Those who know the most, who tell pollsters they are following the debate most closely—especially seniors—tend to be most opposed.

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