THE FOUNDATION
"It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness." --James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
The Other Buffett Rule
Buffett Rule No. 1: The rich should pay their "fair share" of taxes, which happens to be no less than 30%. That's what Barack Obama has been telling us for years, naming his "rule" after billionaire Warren Buffett. But the rich guy has his own rule: "I will not pay a dime more of individual taxes than I owe, and I won't pay a dime more of corporate taxes than we owe." In fact, Buffett added, "I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire's tax rate. For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That's the only reason to build them. They don't make sense without the tax credit." So not only will he not put his money where his mouth is by paying 30%, but he's also taking advantage of tax credits to do things that otherwise make no economic sense. No wonder he's the face of leftist tax policy.Comment | Share
Delay It One More Time
In another Friday afternoon regulations news dump, the Obama administration delayed the individual mandate of ObamaCare again. First, the deadline to purchase insurance or face a fine was Feb. 15. That was pushed to March 31 via a "hardship exemption." Then HHS said anybody who had even begun to enroll by March 31 would have indefinite time to complete that enrollment. Friday, HHS announced that anyone who had enrolled by May 1 would avoid the penalty, and they created three more "special enrollment" periods to let people in the gate. The administration isn't even trying to hide the fact that ObamaCare is a huge election liability, and they'll do anything to help their team win in November.Comment | Share
Obama to Review Death Penalty
Just days after the botched execution in Oklahoma, Barack Obama couldn't resist once again injecting himself into a state debate. Calling the death of a murderer "deeply troubling," Obama said that he is asking Attorney General Eric Holder to review the death penalty nationwide. He said, "Racial bias. Uneven application of the death penalty. Situations in which there were individuals on death row who later on were discovered to have been innocent because of exculpatory evidence -- all these I think do raise significant questions about how the death penalty is being applied." Perhaps, but this is a state issue, clearly not a federal one. And isn't Obama the guy who even opposed a partial-birth abortion ban? Why yes, yes he is.Comment | Share
Christian Prayers Constitutional
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that opening town council meetings with Christian prayers does not violate the Constitution, so long as officials make an effort at inclusion. The 5-4 ruling was a victory for Greece, New York, which was at the center of the case, but also for a fair and historical reading of the First Amendment. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority, "The inclusion of a brief, ceremonial prayer as part of a larger exercise in civic recognition suggests that its purpose and effect are to acknowledge religious leaders and the institutions they represent, rather than to exclude or coerce nonbelievers." Given that public prayer wasn't considered a constitutional crisis by those who authored and signed it, we'd say this ruling got it right.Comment | Share
Ukraine Launches Offensive
The standoff in Ukraine is heating up and shots have been fired. "The Ukrainian army launched its first major assault on a rebel stronghold in the east of the country on Friday, provoking the heaviest fighting since a pro-Russian uprising began a month ago," reports The Washington Post. "Two military helicopters were shot down, and at least three people were reported killed." A spokesman for Vladimir Putin was indignant, saying, Ukraine had "effectively destroyed the last hope for the implementation of the Geneva agreements." Russia has created all the tension, so it's rich for Putin to blame Ukraine for responding. But Vasyl Krutov, head of Kiev's "anti-terrorist center" behind the operation, made no bones about it: "What we are facing ... is not just some kind of short-lived uprising, it is in fact a war."Comment | Share
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
Coming Soon: The Benghazi Select Committee
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| Trey Gowdy |
Last week's bombshell report on internal White House emails proves that the narrative after the attack was cravenly political, and a select committee is the necessary next step. Boehner called the revealed emails "the straw that broke the camel's back." For Democrats who complain of GOP political games, the only reason this is political is that the administration made it so.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf blasted Boehner's move, saying, "We've produced tens of thousands of documents. We've done nine hearings, 46 briefings. How many more taxpayer dollars are we going to spend trying to prove a political point that in 18 months they haven't been able to prove?" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) chimed in, similarly complaining, "For Republicans to waste the American people's time and money staging a partisan political circus instead of focusing on the middle class is simply a bad decision."
So Democrats are suddenly concerned with how taxpayer dollars are being spent?
Reid also brought it all back around to his new favorite pastime -- bashing the Koch brothers. He said, "Republicans care more about defending billionaires like the Koch brothers and trying to rekindle debunked right-wing conspiracy theories than raising the minimum wage or ensuring women receive equal pay for equal work."
Gowdy, a former prosecutor, is just the man for the job of heading the select committee. He's a no-nonsense conservative whose aim is to uphold Rule of Law, and choosing him means this committee may actually produce results. He demonstrated this already over the weekend, saying, "I have evidence that, not only are they hiding it, there is an intent to hide it. I can't disclose that evidence yet, but I have evidence that there was a systematic, intentional decision to withhold certain documents from Congress."
He added, "If you want to have [former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli] Greg Hicks and the station chief from Tripoli and Hillary Clinton all sitting at the same table, you need to have a committee that has the power to do that. And a select committee would have that power." It may be "political" to say so, but Clinton should be disqualified from being president of the United States after her disgraceful performance in this whole fiasco.
Of course, it remains to be seen if the select committee can successfully hold the Obama administration accountable -- as in heads rolling at the very least -- for its failed immediate response to the attack, the subsequent lies to cover-up that failure, and the further lies to cover the lies.
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SCOTUS Declines to Hear Another Gun Case
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Read the rest of the story here.
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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- George Will: An Origination Question for the ACA
- John C. Goodman: You Can't Buy Insurance Until Next November
- Arnold Ahlert: The Truth Matters -- Dude
- Ken Blackwell: Taiwan: Beware!
- Jeff Jacoby: The Prison Door Keeps Revolving
OPINION IN BRIEF
The Gipper: "I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."Columnist George Will: "What will be argued on Thursday [in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals] is that what was voted on -- the ACA -- was indisputably a revenue measure and unquestionably did not originate in the House, which later passed the ACA on another party-line vote. ... In October 2009, the House passed a bill that would have modified a tax credit for members of the armed forces and some other federal employees who were first-time home buyers -- a bill that had nothing to do with health care. Two months later the Senate 'amended' this bill by obliterating it. The Senate renamed it and completely erased its contents, replacing them with the ACA's contents. Case law establishes that for a Senate action to qualify as a genuine 'amendment' to a House-passed revenue bill, it must be 'germane to the subject matter of the [House] bill.' The Senate's shell game ... created the ACA from scratch. The ACA obviously flunks the germaneness test, without which the House's constitutional power of originating revenue bills would be nullified."
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Columnist Ken Blackwell: "China's leaders might be using the Senkakuu Islands as a distraction from their real objective, the absorption of Taiwan. Unlike our Defense Treaty with sovereign Japan, U.S. diplomats long ago abandoned Taiwan. Our State Department declared that the U.S. recognizes Taiwan is part of Mainland China. The diplomats simply argue that China should not use force to annex Taiwan. Vladimir Putin is teaching the Chinese a lesson in how such an absorption might be achieved on the sly."
Comedian Jimmy Fallon: "Donald Sterling's girlfriend said she's 'going to be president of the United States' one day. Yeah, like we're going to elect someone who secretly records people's private phone calls and conversations."
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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