PrairiePundit

 National Review: ... Ideally, Congress would recover the instinct for impeaching cabinet secretaries, but with a narrow House majority and Democrats running the Senate, it should be sufficient to pass resolutions of censure following hearings. Prime targets should be those secretaries who have issued flagrantly illegal orders or refused to enforce the laws duly enacted by Congress. That includes, at a minimum, Homeland Security’s Alejandro Mayorkas, Education’s secretary Miguel Cardona, Labor’s Marty Walsh, and HHS’s Xavier Becerra. The legislative branch is overdue to exercise some outrage, on behalf of its constitutional powers, at the executive branch’s illegally arrogating to itself the power to become the nation’s doctor, landlord, and forgiver of loans. Fourth, there should be no amnesty for Covid policy. The American people deserve an accounting, one in which no punches are pulled. They have yet to receive one. That means looking seriously into the origins of the virus in C...

Washington Times Editorial: "I regret that in the politicization of everything that happens in Washington, D.C., some took offense." That's Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano's latest non-apology for her department's report that veterans are a threat to the country. Obviously she doesn't get it. The central issue is not about anyone taking offense but of rights being violated. Several recent reports suggest an emerging pattern of systematic abuse of federal law enforcement and intelligence assets to target law-abiding Americans engaged in the peaceful expression of political views. The target groups are not domestic terrorists but those who make known certain opinions on abortion, same-sex marriage, guns, immigration, foreign trade, job outsourcing, the federal relationship with states and America's role in the international community. Their crime is that they disagree with Obama administration policies. The Department of Homeland Security is...

Washington Times: When Adm. Dennis C. Blair was in China as commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, a Chinese admiral confronted him rather aggressively on the issue of Taiwan, warning the United States not to interfere in China's campaign to gain control of the self-governing island. Admiral Blair listened for a minute, then said: "Admiral, let me tell you a couple of things. First, I own the water out there," gesturing toward the Pacific Ocean. "And second, I own the sky over the water out there. Now, don't you think we should talk about something more constructive?" The anecdote, confirmed by Adm. Blair, illustrates the sort of plain speaking that characterizes the man President-elect Barack Obama has nominated to be the nation's top intelligence officer. As Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the retired admiral would be responsible for setting objectives and standards for 16 disparate intelligence agencies including the CIA, the Defense ...

Washington Times: The hearings over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys are just the start for Democratic congressional investigators, and Republicans at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue know it. For the first time since 1994, Democrats control both houses and have a long list of issues they say demand investigation. "It's going to be a problem for this administration over the next three years," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, Virginia Republican, in a recent speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association. "The good news is, for lawyers, there's going to be a lot of work for you all," Mr. Davis said. If the attorney firings have been a thorn in the administration's side for weeks, then Rep. Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, is looking to become a brier patch, and the White House has been preparing for his investigatory onslaught for months. "They're going to be in our kitchen quite a bit," a senior administrati...