President Obama Shuns Lech Walesa

Lech Walesa was once a trade-union activist. He was often arrested for speaking his mind against Communist oppression behind the Iron Curtain in Poland and for defying the Soviet Union. He was an electrician who, with no higher education, led one of the most profound freedom movements of the 20th century — Solidarity. He became president of Poland and swept in reforms, pushing the Soviet Union out of his homeland and moving the country toward a free-market economy and individual liberty. And President Obama doesn’t want him to set foot in the White House.

The Spirit of Geert Wilders

When I was asked to write a foreword to Geert Wilders’ new book, my first reaction, to be honest, was to pass. Mr. Wilders lives under 24/7 armed guard because significant numbers of motivated people wish to kill him, and it seemed to me, as someone who’s attracted more than enough homicidal attention over the years, that sharing space in these pages was likely to lead to an uptick in my own death threats. Who needs it? Why not just plead too crowded a schedule and suggest the author try elsewhere? I would imagine Geert Wilders gets quite a lot of this.

Justices may not stop at dashing Obamacare

The Obama administration’s defense of Obamacare before the Supreme Court on Tuesday was reviewed as stumbling and bumbling by news reporters, foreshadowing the Big Government clumsiness and ineptitude a universal health care system would offer the public. Justice Anthony Kennedy ripped through the argument that because Congress has the constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, it has the power to regulate anything. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli was overmatched and ill-prepared, displaying once again why socialism fails: It leads to the appointment of unemployable nephews and political hangers on to positions for which they are ill-suited

The Real “Iron Lady”

Reading about Meryl Streep’s preparation to act in “The Iron Lady” could lead one to believe that the real Margaret Thatcher was difficult to understand.

But if you go back to the dark days Britain faced in the late 1970s when she became prime minister, it’s really not that hard.

UK Military Wives Choir

He took a group of vulnerable, anxious Army wives, whose husbands were fighting in Afghanistan, and turned them into a choir whose heartbreakingly beautiful performance at the Royal Albert Hall in front of the Queen for the Festival of Remembrance is simply impossible to watch without weeping.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2067895/BBC-The-Choir-army-wives-We-need-men-like-magical-Mr-Malone.html#ixzz1k26CyizD

Vaclav Havel (1936-2011), RIP

Vaclav Havel, who became the first Czech president after leading the bloodless Velvet Revolution against communist rule, died yesterday aged 75.

The dissident playwright was instrumental in opening the door to democracy in Eastern Europe by loosening the Soviet grip.

Tributes flooded in from world leaders who hailed him as ‘the greatest European of our age’.

Havel was invited by Margaret Thatcher to 10 Downing Street during his first official visit to the UK after the collapse of communism in 1989.