In March 1980, inflation was running at 14.8%. Fed chief Volcker finally killed it by cranking interest rates so high that three-month Treasury bills were yielding 15.7%. Does anyone remember that?

Apparently not. Just before Volcker finally did what it took to slay the inflation monster, gold prices had soared from $35 a few years earlier to $850. Until just recently, that was the all-time high for gold. Now gold is way beyond that, having traded over $1,000 on Thursday. But is today's Fed Chief Ben Bernanke talking about raising interest rates to slay today's inflation monster? Au contraire.

Rather than permit a vote on the Senate bill that would restore crucial overseas surveillance authority, House Democrats, along party lines, have rammed through an alternative proposal that grants new privacy rights to to terrorists overseas and preserves the multi-billion dollar lawsuits their trial lawyer pals are pursuing against the telecoms.

But the bottom line is: when the Protect America Act lapsed on February 16 due to House inaction, we lost the ability to monitor without restrictions emerging terrorist threats overseas. As National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell (a former Clinton Administration director of the NSA) has observed, we have lost intelligence. Thanks to today's action, that unacceptable situation will continue.