Daily Digest for Monday
January 27, 2014
THE FOUNDATION
"In framing a government
which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies
in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed;
and in the next place, oblige it to control itself." --James Madison,
Federalist No. 51, 1788
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKSLittle Sisters Win BigThe Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic nun organization, sued the Obama administration over the contraception mandate last year -- one of 91 such lawsuits. Most courts ruled that the administration's exceptions were too narrow and that the rule violates religious liberty. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the Little Sisters a permanent stay pending appeal. It was a significant rebuke for an Obama White House that sees no limit on its own power. More significant still, there were no dissents from the Court, meaning even Obama's appointees seem to think he's clearly overstepped his constitutional bounds.Chuck the Tea Party
Senator Chuck Schumer
revealed how he really feels about the IRS having illegally targeted
conservatives groups. Schumer outright encouraged the rogue agency to
put additional pressure on Tea Party organizations: "It is clear that we
will not pass anything legislatively as long as the House of
Representatives is in Republican control, but there are many things that
can be done administratively by the IRS and other government agencies
-- we must redouble those efforts immediately." He followed up by
slamming the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, adding,
"Obviously the Tea Party elites gained extraordinary influence by being
able to funnel millions of dollars into campaigns with ads that distort
the truth and attack government." But why worry about advocates of
limited government when you can use BIG government to squash them?
Illegals 'Earned the Right to Be Citizens'
Homeland Security Secretary
Jeh Johnson announced Friday that he believes providing a "path to
citizenship" for illegal aliens is a "matter of ... homeland security."
He added, "It is also, frankly, in my judgment, a matter of who we are
as Americans to offer the opportunity to those who want to be citizens,
who've earned the right to be citizens, who are present in this country
-- many of whom came here as children -- to have the opportunity that we
all have to try to become American citizens." So because they came
illegally and currently reside here, they have "earned the right to be
citizens"? That kind of thinking is evidence of rule of men, not
constitutional Rule of Law.
Raise the Debt Ceiling
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew
sounded the warning bell on the debt ceiling once again last week,
writing a letter asking Congress "to provide certainty and stability to
the economy and financial markets by acting to raise the debt limit
before Feb. 7, 2014, and certainly before late February." After that, he
says, Treasury will run out of ways to shuffle money. Congress
suspended the debt ceiling in October at $16.7 trillion, but it will
stand at $17.3 trillion on Feb. 8, when it's reinstated. The GOP wants
more spending reform in exchange, but White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer
says, "The American people should not have to pay the Republicans in
Congress' ransom for doing their most basic function, which is paying
the bills." For those keeping score, every man, woman and child in the
U.S. now carries more than $53,000 of the federal debt. Enough never
seems to be enough.
Chattanooga Most Bible-Minded
The American Bible Society
and the Barna Group released a new study showing the U.S. cities where
citizens are most and least Bible-minded. Not surprisingly, the
Northeast and West Coast are at the bottom of the list, while the
Southeast is at the top. In fact, our hometown -- Chattanooga, Tennessee
-- tops the list. We also note that there is a definite correlation
between non-Bible-mindedness and voting Democrat. Conservative and
liberal. Faithful and unfaithful.
For more, visit Right Hooks.
RIGHT ANALYSISStudy: Income Mobility Is Stable
"Income inequality" is
going to be Barack Obama's tired refrain in 2014, as he and his fellow
Democrats ramp up their midterm election campaign. It will no doubt be
the focus of Tuesday's State of the Union address. However, a recent
study from Harvard shows that income mobility has remained stable --
perhaps even improved slightly -- over the last 50 years. The study's
authors found that "the probability that a child reaches the top fifth
of the income distribution given parents in the bottom fifth of the
income distribution is 8.4% for children born in 1971, compared with
9.0% for those born in 1986." But that won't stop the Left's narrative
or change the fact that leftist policies produce the very "income inequality" they decry.
Still, writes the Heritage Foundation's Donald Schneider,
"just because the rates of mobility haven't declined doesn't mean we
should be happy with them -- nor is it an indicator that all is well. In
terms of our ability to lift people out of poverty and into the middle
class and beyond, our rates of upward mobility are still insufficient.
The sad truth is that 70% of poor Americans fail to reach the middle
class."
People can do three main
things to help their opportunity for advancement: graduate from high
school, marry before having children and hold down a job. Unfortunately,
marrying before having children is going by the wayside because of
cultural degradation over the same 50-year period that the Harvard study
covers, and getting a job has become increasingly difficult in the
Obama "recovery." Transferring income from the haves to the have-nots is
not the solution to the lack of mobility as Democrats would
have us believe. But we fully expect to hear plenty of that in Tuesday's
State of the Union Address.
SCOTUS Considers Unions and Rights
The Supreme Court heard
arguments last week in Harris v. Quinn, a case in which the issue is
whether a state may, consistent with the First and Fourteenth
Amendments, compel personal care providers to accept and financially
support a private organization, a union, as their exclusive
representative to petition the state for greater reimbursements from its
Medicaid programs.
In 2003, then-Illinois
Democrat Gov. Rod Blagojevich (now a convicted felon) signed an
executive order making the Service Employees International Union the
exclusive bargaining agent for home-care workers. The state's current
governor, Democrat Pat Quinn, signed a second order in 2009. The
targeted workers are often self-employed and have no relation to the
state other than Illinois using Medicaid to subsidize home care to the
disabled. Illinois, invoking a variant of the Golden Rule ("He who has
the gold makes the rules"), declared these workers to be state
employees, providing SEIU new dues-paying members. We're sure that it's
unrelated, but SEIU contributed about $1.8 million to Blagojevich's two
campaigns for governor, in 2002 and 2006, and was his top contributor in
the second election.
Plaintiff Pamela Harris
cares at home for her severely disabled son. She and seven others are
challenging the Illinois rule as infringing on the First Amendment by
forcing them to join a union, violating their right to free association,
and allowing unions to use their dues to fund political causes they
don't support, violating their right to free speech. These violations
are compounded by the use of the corrupt "card check" scheme that does
away with the secret ballot and allows union thugs to set up shop as
soon as they've coerced half the workers to sign a "card" saying they
want a union. Ten states have similar arrangements.
Illinois' defense is that
there is a state interest in unionization based on the "labor peace"
doctrine that goes back to the earliest days of the union movement.
Seemingly, the Supreme Court's four leftist justices bought this
argument relying on a 1977 case, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.
Four of the remaining five judges lean in the opposite direction.
Surprisingly, the fence sitter is none other than Antonin Scalia.
Since Abood, the Supremes have tried to protect worker First
Amendment rights by drawing a line. Workers can be compelled to pay dues
that pay for collective bargaining for wages and benefits, but they
can't be compelled to pay dues that go to political activities.
Commentator Charles Krauthammer thinks the stakes are high, saying, if
the union loses, "I think this would be a blow to organized labor from
which they would not recover." We'll find out soon.For more, visit Right Analysis.
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
 OPINION IN BRIEF
Columnist George Will: "As
undignified as it is unedifying and unnecessary, the vulgar State of the
Union circus is again at our throats. The document that the
Constitutional Convention sent forth from Philadelphia for ratification
in 1787 was just 4,543 words long, but this was 17 too many. America
would be a sweeter place if the Framers had not included this laconic
provision pertaining to the president: 'He shall from time to time give
to the Congress information of the state of the union.' 'Information'?
Not exactly. The Constitution's mild requirement has become a tiresome
exercise in political exhibitionism, the most execrable ceremony in the
nation's civic liturgy, regardless of which party's president is abusing
it. You worship bipartisanship? There is not a dime's worth of
difference between the ways the parties try to milk partisan advantage
from this made-for-television political pep rally."
Columnist Ken Blackwell: "A
lot has been said and written lately of what journalists call the
'Republican Civil War.' We need to remember that whenever Republicans
have a party clash, journalists are happy to hold our coats. There is of
course a struggle going on between Establishment Republicans in
Washington, D.C. and many state capitals and the party's grassroots --
conservative, Tea Party, and local activists. ... But not every
difference of opinion means a difference of principle. ... Republicans
should not try to avoid free and open debate. That's what Democrats did
when they signed on to ObamaCare. That is what has put them in the
greatest political danger. Instead, we can fight hard for principles and
candidates who can win while articulating and defending the policies
that unite us. Liberty is the cause and unity is the goal."
The Gipper: "Our confidence
flows not from our skill at maneuvering through political mazes, not
from our ability to make the right deal at the right time, nor from any
idea of playing one interest group off against the other. Unlike our
opponents, who find their glee in momentary political leverage, we
[nourish] our strength of purpose from a commitment to ideals that we
deeply believe are not only right but that work."
Burt Prelutsky: "I believe
that Al Gore and the various grifters who have promoted the notion that
we could control the weather if only we would agree to return to the
Stone Age are only looking to line their pockets by scamming the rest of
us. ... The one doomsday story they seem to enjoy dragging out is that
if all the polar ice disappeared, it would raise the level of the
Pacific Ocean, and liberal haunts such as Seattle, San Francisco and
L.A., would wind up under water. And they actually think that's a bad
thing!"
Comedian Argus Hamilton:
"President Obama addressed a secret meeting of NSA officials about
foreign and domestic spying. He told them after talking it over with
advisors, he's decided to place limits on the NSA's telephone
surveillance program. The NSA officials said they already knew."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
Join us in daily prayer for
our Patriots in uniform -- Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast
Guardsmen -- standing in harm's way in defense of Liberty, and for
their families.
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