THE FOUNDATION
"As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully." --Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
'A Broken Record'
After five years of the Obama "recovery," unemployment remains relatively stagnant. Jobs are being added to the economy, but far too slowly. So Barack Obama has the answer: more stimulus. That's right, he has announced another $600 million for "job training" programs. National Review's Veronique de Rugy highlights the problem, writing, "According to the Government Accountability Office, the federal government spends $18 billion a year on 47 duplicative job training programs across nine federal agencies. But the White House isn't just adding to this host of repetitive rackets -- it's effectively creating a new program that will duplicate other programs already put in place at the state level." Even he admitted that "we sometimes sound like a broken record" on the economy. He's right, and somebody needs to stop the record player.Comment | Share
Climate Vacuum Cleaner
Just when we thought the UN couldn't get any more ridiculous in its climate change warnings and prescriptions, they exceed our expectations. According to UPI, the third report in a series from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "suggests vacuuming up vast amounts of CO2 from the skies and storing it underground" as a "viable solution for mitigating the greenhouse gas effect in the short term." That would have to be quite a Dirt Devil. But they're serious, they insist, that something must be done. IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri says, "The high speed mitigation train needs to leave the station very soon and all of global society would need to get on board." Uniformity or bust, that's the climate alarmists' way. But if you'll pardon the pun, we think this idea sucks.Comment | Share
Al-Qaida Video Surfaces
A new al-Qaida video is out and it shows a Yemen gathering of numerous top-level agents and perhaps 100 armed fighters. Nasir al-Wuhayshi, known as al-Qaida's crown prince, appears prominently in the video, and declares, "We must eliminate the cross. ... The bearer of the cross is America!" CNN notes that "the CIA and the Pentagon either didn't know about [the meeting] or couldn't get a drone there in time to strike," though there may be other intelligence reasons for not taking a shot. Drone strikes in Yemen are a relatively common occurrence, as the Obama administration has chosen those pinpricks as its preferred method of battle. But the president has also made a bad habit of spiking the football after dispatching Osama bin Laden, as if that was the end of al-Qaida. This brash meeting should make clear, however, that the danger is clear and present.Comment | Share
Bloomberg's Theology
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is preparing to spend $50 million in a campaign against the NRA on gun control. "We've got to make them afraid of us," he declared. We suppose it's too obvious to point out that the NRA has all the guns, so they're probably not afraid of a nanny stater like Bloomberg. He also spoke about his policy preferences in relation to his mortality. At 72, perhaps he's thinking more of the end of his life now, but he's not worried because his work to take away gun rights, as well as to fight the menaces of sugar and smoking, is his ticket beyond the pearly gates. He says, "I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I'm not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It's not even close." What unbelievable and utterly obnoxious arrogance. But then again we knew that about him. Only such incredible hubris can explain why he thinks he knows better than everyone else -- including God -- about so many things.Comment | Share
PC Common Core
You'll notice a rather important principle missing in New York state Common Core standards being drafted for grades K-8 -- the concept of Liberty. Under the section "Civic Ideals and Practices," the draft reads, "Students will explore democratic principles such as dignity for all, equality, fairness, and respect for authority and rules, and how those principles are applied to their community." However, as Education Action Group's Kyle Olson observes, "What happened to 'liberty'? You know, a word that actually appears in the Declaration of Independence? It's a word that means more than just about any other word in our national history. It refers to personal freedom, and the right of citizens to live their lives without the intrusion of tyrannical government." Like the type of tyrannical government currently reigning over our vanishing republic. The draft adds, "Students will examine ... how citizens can demonstrate respect for authority." In leftist speak, that means teaching students to relinquish their rights under the guise of "equality" and "fairness" to undermine Rule of Law.Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Hooks.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
Rescuing Detroit From Its Own Folly
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The Detroit Free Press reports that the federal government is considering providing $100 million to ease the pain of Detroit's ongoing city pension reforms. The money technically would not be provided directly to the city's pension program, instead going to Michigan's state fund for "blight remediation," which would allow the state to provide the same amount to Detroit. But the practical result is the same -- the U.S. taxpayer getting stuck with part of the bill for Detroit's decades of foolish, unsupportable pension promises. In our current environment where billions and even trillions are common reference points, $100 million may seem like small potatoes. But the precedent set by such a bailout would be far-reaching and potentially devastating to the nation's already shaky financial health.
Why? Because Detroit is just one example of a major city with unsupportable public-employee pension obligations -- in fact it's only number 10 on the list of the worst offenders. The top 10, in order of pension debt per capita: Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Columbus, Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, Denver and Detroit. Considering that public employees are among the most loyal and vocal of Democrat constituencies, the risk of political favoritism is obvious.
As if that's not alarming enough, consider that looming larger behind these cities are states with the same pension debt problems, led by California's estimated $170 billion sea of red ink (and that is the LA Times' "best case" estimate -- the worst case is more than $500 billion). Note, that is not California's total debt; just its un-funded pension obligations. Barack Obama's home state of Illinois is next with more than $100 billion in un-funded pension debt. If the federal government begins handing out money to save major cities from their pension debts, you can bet the states will come begging soon after. And the worst pension shortfalls at the state level are concentrated, unsurprisingly, in blue states like California. As Mark Alexander wrote last year, it's no coincidence that Detroit is in the shape it's in.
Regardless of the politics of the cities or states in question, there is the larger question of why the ordinary taxpayer should have to bail out a public employee pension system. Why does a farmer in Idaho or a construction worker in Oklahoma have to fork over money to support a retired city worker in Detroit or Los Angeles? The great majority of Americans are private sector workers whose taxes have always supported the salaries of public employees in their state. Are they now to be forced to pay for the foolish retirement plans promised to state and local public employees?
Yet there is still some room for optimism in the public pension debt problem. In December the Illinois legislature passed a bill that would implement major reforms to the pension system, and did so in the face of enormous resistance from public-employee unions. Other states have also been forced into making difficult pension choices in recent years. But the temptation of seeking federal money to pay for local or state pension debt will always exist so long as the federal government is willing to provide it. Which makes Detroit an important test case in whether the government -- meaning the taxpayers -- have to rescue the fools from the consequences of their folly.
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Lerner Sought DOJ Prosecution of Conservative Groups
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Read the rest of the story here.
For more, visit Right Analysis.
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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Arnold Arnold: The IRS Scandal Blows Wide Open
- Victor Davis Hanson: Who Are the Real Saboteurs of Immigration Reform?
- George Will: Understanding Our Divisions
- Cal Thomas: Chicken Little 'Science'
- Rebecca Hagelin: Consider Easter
OPINION IN BRIEF
Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948): "Freedom is not worth living if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that previous right."Columnist George Will: "The fundamental division in American politics is between those who take their bearings from the individual's right to a capacious, indeed indefinite, realm of freedom, and those whose fundamental value is the right of the majority to have its way in making rules about which specified liberties shall be respected. ... The argument is between conservatives who say American politics is basically about a condition, liberty, and progressives who say it is about a process, democracy. Progressives, who consider democracy the source of liberty, reverse the Founders' premise, which was: Liberty pre-exists governments, which, the Declaration says, are legitimate when 'instituted' to 'secure' natural rights. ... With the Declaration, Americans ceased claiming the rights of aggrieved Englishmen and began asserting rights that are universal because they are natural, meaning necessary for the flourishing of human nature. 'In Europe,' wrote James Madison, 'charters of liberty have been granted by power,' but America has 'charters of power granted by liberty.'"
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Historian Victor Davis Hanson: "'[C]omprehensive immigration reform' is shaping up as little more than another divisive campaign opportunity in 2014 to call opponents all sorts of names rather than to seek real compromise. Too many special interests have profited from the present mess, which is illiberal and reactionary to the core -- involving a perfect storm of inexpensive labor, ethnic-identity chauvinism, political cynicism, selective enforcement of the law, and de facto discrimination against immigrants who play by the rules. The obstacles to reform are not bogeymen who want to deport everyone, but the disingenuous who prefer to deport no one. The culprits are not mustachioed villains who want to close the border, but the more sophisticated who want it to stay wide open. And the real reactionaries are not those seeking to make ethnicity incidental to legal immigration, but those who want to ensure that it remains absolutely essential."
Fred Thompson: "A new report shows that crime is up 30% in New York City public housing projects. It's not as bad as it sounds. It's mostly people over-salting their French fries."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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