Anti-immigrant hatred and sentiment is a burning issue throughout Europe (See here and here). Recently a 10,000-person march in Dresden Germany caused dismay.

Over the last few years, Debbie and I have seen the anti-immigrant issue explode in France. And we hear much about the building wave of negative sentiment in England, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland and Denmark, to name a handful. To be specific, it is not immigration in general that is a problem; rather it is immigration from the radical Muslim world. In Germany the movement is labeled “Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization of the West,” or “Pegida” for short. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that that there is no place for spreading hatred and slander against people who come to Germany from other countries. In general, the Chancellor of course is correct. But when it comes to the radical Muslim world, she is not. Europeans have been voting on the issue aggressively.

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Will the Supreme Court justices “twist themselves into John Roberts-like pretzels” to avoid upending Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment, asks Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner. Next spring the Court will rule on whether subsidies for Obamacare are to be allowed, and, in anticipation of the ruling, the hysteria is already beginning. Should the justices rule to uphold the challenge, cheerleaders of O’Care are warning that there will be a “swath of human misery, stretching from horizon to horizon,” and that “people will die,” with some calling the Supreme Court “a death panel.”

But back in the real world, notes Mr. Tanner, “such drastic outcomes are unlikely.” Even so, with much of the media, along with congressional Democrats and President Obama, ready to blame the GOP should SCOTUS rule against O’Care subsidies, Republicans had better have their game plan on. Rather than the quick and easy fix of rewriting the law to reinstate the subsidies, Republicans need to force Congress to open Obamacare to across-the-board revision and perhaps even repeal. Read more here from Michael Tanner on an opportunity that may not come the Republican Party’s way again.

I have been listening to The Four Freshmen since the early fifties, but the group actually began in 1948. The original Four Freshmen that fans remember so well included Ross and Don Barbour, cousin Bob Flanigan, and Ken Albers. The last original member, Flanigan, retired in 1993. Bob owned the name and managed the group after he retired. Flanigan died 15 May 2011. Ross Barbour died in August of the same year.

Over the decades, there have been nearly two-dozen reincarnations of this outstanding group. Today’s Four Freshmen play over 100 dates/year.Debbie and I enjoy listening to the group’s 2007 album The Four Freshman Snowfall each Christmas season. May you also!

The Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell recently posted an excellent “Good News on Young People and Gun Control.” Dan ran the numbers from a PBS poll (not exactly a gun crowd) answering the question, “Would you support more restrictions on guns in your state?” An astounding 95.09% of those responding answered no.

Previously, Dan ran a graphic, “Thinking about the United States Presidents we have had since World War II, which one would you consider the best/worst president?” No surprise, Barack Obama comes in last and Ronald Reagan on top. Looking at the list of 12 presidents, there are many reasons that Obama falls easily into the last place slot.

Taking a completely impartial (which I’m certainly not) look, I would suggest all interested parties ask a simple question: Which of the 12 listed presidents had the thinnest presidential resume? Not an objective soul in America could get this wrong. Obama’s resume could have come in on a postage stamp. The guy is an absolute cipher who, as events have demonstrated, is in far over his head at the White House. And the American voters gave Obama a second term? Doesn’t give me a lot of confidence about the future. And what does the 2016 presidential dance card initially look like? How about Clinton/Bush for a stomach turner? The only solution is for America to morph into a multi-party system, like in France, where a third party could actually win in 2016.

Dick and I have spent untold miles on our Harleys riding in pastoral Vermont—still largely covered by verdant forest—with its scenic roads, quaint villages, acres of rolling farmlands and apple orchards, covered bridges, and views minus billboards (yes, there are no billboards). Combine this with Vermont’s charming inns and enthusiastic farm-to-table movement, and you have one of our hands-down favorite states, whether on a Harley or in a car.

And did I mention liberal? Vermont, a haven for expat New Yorkers and latter-day hippies, has the distinction of coming in only behind Hawaii as Mr. Obama’s strongest supporter in 2008. But overtaxed Vermonters can breathe one sigh of relief now that Governor Peter Shumlin has admitted the state cannot afford a full single-payer health-care system.

According to health-care experts from outside Vermont, “If Vermont can’t make it work, single-payer can’t work anywhere in the country where the economy has free and competitive markets. It’s more evidence that centralized government health care is simply not workable in America.”

As John Fund notes here in NRO, Vermont’s throwing in the towel on a single-payer system is obvious and profound.

The one state that not only embraced Obamacarebut insisted on going beyond it to a full single-payer system was Vermont, the haven of hippies and expatriate New Yorkers, which has become one of the most liberal states in the nation. In 2011, it adopted a form of neighboring Canada’s government-financed health care and promised to implement it by 2017. (And Jonathan Gruber was a key architect of this plan as well as of Obamacare.) This week, however, Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, admitted the state couldn’t afford the plan’s $2 billion price tag and consequent sky-high taxes, and pulled the plug. The lessons for Obamacare are obvious and profound.

Scott Milne, the little-known Republican who opposed Shumlin in last month’s election and came within 1 percentage point of winning the most votes, isn’t surprised. “During the campaign I said that single-payer is dead — I’m telling you that now, and Peter Shumlin’s going to wait until after the election,” Milne told theBurlington Free Press. Milne is still running for governor, since Shumlin won only 46 percent of the vote, and Vermont requires the state legislature to elect the governor in January if no candidate wins the majority. Despite his prescience, however, Milne is highly unlikely to persuade the Democratic legislature to substitute him for Shumlin.

But Milne certainly has won a moral victory. Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, called the cancellation of singe-payer a victory for “overtaxed Vermonters.” Noting that the state’s fiscal plan for implementing single-payer was now almost two years late, he said in a statement: “We’ve already spent far too much money exploring this idea, and the discussion has paralyzed our business community.”

The two are quoted here in the National Interest “It is about the appeasement of autocratic dictators, thugs, and adversaries, diminishing America’s influence in the world. Is it any wonder that under President Obama’s watch our enemies are emboldened and our friends demoralized?”

Exactly which enemies and friends are the senators referring to? Saudi Arabia and Qatar? Friends or radical Muslim enemies. NI quotes the Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow It (Cuba) is “a poor country with little ability to harm the United States,” in Bandow’s words’ and “its survival has no measurable impact on any important U.S. interest.”

Debbie and I, for almost twenty-five years, have lived in “north Cuba” in Key West, just ninety miles from Cuba. Our sub tropical island is heavily Cuban influenced and we have over the years gotten to know many of the local Cuban residents. They just couldn’t be nicer people. I doubt most of the Cuban locals hold the Castro crowd in very high esteem, nor do Debbie and I. But what possible good can come from maintaining a decades long program of hostility against a neighbor that is literally at our doorstep and poses America virtually zero risk?

For my money, the incessant war whooping of McCain & Graham poses a lot more risk to America than does Cuba.