“The die is cast.” These were the fatal words spoken by Julius Caesar as he stood before his loyal legion on the northern bank of the Rubicon River (the boundary between Italy and the wide world) and proclaimed his revolutionary intent to enter Italy, thus declaring war on his rival Pompey and Pompey’s allies in violation of the law of the Roman republic. This same bold epigram was spoken last night by a much lesser light, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), as he stood on the banks of the Potomac and proclaimed that the Healthcare Reform War of 2009 was over and that he and his cohorts in the Democratic Caucus had overcome their Republican opponents and would now march into the New Year imposing a revolutionary healthcare regime.

If the conservative Tea Party rebellion should move from the soapbox to the ballot box, it might well beat the Republican Party, according to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey. In what the pollsters called a "three-way Generic Ballot test," voters were asked in a national telephone survey to assume the Tea Party movement had become a political party and then to say whether they would be likely to support a Democratic, Republican, or Tea Party candidate for Congress in their districts.


AmericaIt is a bucolic region of verdant meadows, rolling hills, and babbling brooks, a largely peaceful place where big city hustle and bustle and crime are very far away. Yet, like a pig in a beauty contest, within this pastoral setting lies something incongruent: a Jihadist training center. In this compound, women are taught to slit throats and mount assault-weapon attacks and, presumably, some brand of Islamic piety is the order of the day. But this place isn’t found in the Mideast’s Fertile Crescent or in sub-Saharan Africa. It's name is Islamberg. It's in the town of Hancock.
