THE FOUNDATION
"[R]efusing or not refusing to execute a law to stamp it with its final character ... makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper." --James Madison, letter to John Brown, 1788TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
One Fed Employee Laid Off
Remember the "Republican sequester" -- the negotiating tactic that Team Obama dreamed up to trigger automatic spending cuts if a grand budgetary bargain couldn't be reached between Democrats and Republicans? The one Obama used both to coax Republicans to the table and then to beat them over the head? The one he continually blamed on Republicans even as the facts (and the video) proved otherwise? As The Hill reports, "The Obama administration and Democrats last year claimed that sequestration would be devastating to the government and to the wider economy. Republicans have repeatedly questioned those claims, calling them scare tactics." But as it turns out, the Government Accountability Office reports that one single solitary federal layoff at the Justice Department can be attributed to the sequester. That certainly makes sense, because the administration deliberately made the sequester as painful as possible for the general public and not federal employees and agencies. Remember the canceled White House tours, the closed national parks and the long delays for air travelers? Remember to blame Obama.Comment | Share
White House Still Hiding
Despite the begrudged and forced revelation of documents relating to the Benghazi cover-up, the Obama administration is still hiding things. Judicial Watch, the watchdog group whose Freedom of Information Act request netted the smoking gun e-mail titled "PREP CALL with Susan [Rice]," said the revealed documents show "that the Obama administration is still refusing to provide the full details of how top officials arrived at the now-discredited talking points released to the public following the deadly assault on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya." Furthermore, "Though the State Department document repeatedly describes the material as 'Unclassified' or 'Sensitive But Unclassified,' it nonetheless justifies scores of extensive redactions and exemptions." That's the White House plan -- obscure, obfuscate and lie to cover lies. More...Comment | Share
IRS to Give Up Lerner Emails
All it took was holding Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress and the IRS suddenly agreed to turn over all of her emails to a House investigative panel. IRS commissioner John Koskinen had said it might take years to produce them, leading to a threat of a contempt charge for him too. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) said, "While it is good that we are finally getting these emails, it should never have taken this long." Still, he said, "The Committee will thoroughly review the Lerner documents and follow them wherever they may lead." Where it may lead is to reveal again that the administration finds conservative political groups to be more of a threat than, say, jihadis in Benghazi.Comment | Share
$922 Per Enrollee
Jay Angoff, a former Department of Health and Human Services employee who now works with the law firm Mehri & Skalet PLLC, analyzed government data and discovered some of the most startling ObamaCare figures yet. He found, so far, "The total spent on all the Exchanges was $7.394 billion." This includes both state and federal marketplaces. Additionally, "The average cost-per-enrollee for all 50 states plus DC was $922." You read that right: Taxpayers have doled out nearly $1,000 for every American who has enrolled thus far. Costs ranged from a low of $76 per enrollee in Florida, to a whopping $23,899 in Hawaii. More...Comment | Share
Cosmetic Rifle Changes
It took an "I-Team" to figure it out, but NBC New York is shocked -- shocked! -- to discover that "assault" rifles, after a few cosmetic changes to comply with the state's SAFE Act, look "almost entirely the same as those that were banned." Ya don't say! Most gun homicides in the U.S. are committed with handguns -- something the media purposely obfuscate when discussing "assault" rifles -- but the reason anti-gun activists want these rifles banned has everything to do with how the weapon looks, which makes this next quote that much more laughable. The station notes that "the new modified rifle is still semi-automatic. That means each squeeze of the trigger automatically loads the next round into the chamber." News flash: Despite their looks, weapons like the AR-15 aren't automatic like leftists want you to believe. It functions much like any handgun. More...Comment | Share
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
The Saga of Boko Haram and Hashtag Diplomacy
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| The tough face of Obama diplomacy |
In an effort at social media diplomacy, First Lady Michelle Obama was photographed with a sad face and holding a sign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. This seems to be in conjunction with a second social media effort by some Hollywood actors who play tough guys on screen admonishing the terrorists that #RealMenDontBuyGirls -- one threat made by Boko Harum was to "sell them in the market, by Allah." It doesn't seem that a Twitter hashtag game would dissuade them.
Unfortunately, in the real world, there isn't much that can be done to Boko Harum at the moment, at least not without potentially putting the kidnapping victims at risk. The group was on the State Department's radar screen, but then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton resisted for two years labeling it a terrorist group, which may have hampered our present ability to respond.
The obvious question is why did the State Department resist? A look at the timing and narrative provides the answer. After Boko Harum bombed the UN headquarters in Nigeria's capital city, Abuja, the CIA, the FBI and others urged the State Department to place the group on the list of foreign terrorist organizations. The group had ties to al-Qaida, however, which Barack Obama claimed he had "decimated." Hence, no terror designation for Boko Harum. Clinton can tweet, "We must stand up to terrorism," all she wants, but that doesn't explain her dereliction of duty in doing just that when she actually had authority.
Trying to manage Obama's flailing foreign policy, there's no question the State Department is also suffering greatly under the feckless leadership of John Kerry. But our bitter foreign policy harvest was sown by Clinton. Had sanity prevailed, Boko Harum would have been added to our terrorist watch list two years ago. Instead, as Andrew McCarthy writes at National Review, "Mrs. Clinton and President Obama have convinced themselves that they know more about Islam than Muslim terrorists do, and that the peaceful, pliable, progressive Islam they have concocted somehow renders the jihadists' Islam false." There are over 200 Nigerian girls and young women who would beg to differ.
This self-deception has proven dangerous and destructive, and the new hashtag for the Obama/Clinton/Kerry State Department should be #CriminalIncompetence. Finally, if nothing else, we see once again that Clinton is utterly unfit to serve as commander in chief.
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Great News: The Patriot Post Can Keep Its Health Plan -- For Now
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Read the rest of the story here.
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MOTHER'S DAY
On Sunday, as we celebrate Mother's Day, we're reminded that among the 10 Commandments there is but one that comes with a promise: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you" (Exodus 20:12). President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation in 1914 proclaiming Mother's Day a national holiday. But then again, we don't need a holiday to express our appreciation to moms everywhere. May God bless each and every mother among our Patriot readers!TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- David Limbaugh: Where Are the Freedom-Loving Democrats? Why the Silence?
- David Harsanyi: Environmentalists Have Lost the Climate Change Debate
- Charles Krauthammer: Benghazi: How to Do the Hearings Right
- Jonah Goldberg: Supreme Court Rules on Public Prayer -- but Should It?
- Mona Charen: Who Created the Rape Culture?
OPINION IN BRIEF
Irish comic dramatist George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950): "The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it."Columnist Mona Charen: "The young women who find themselves in a rough world of sexual insensitivity, and sometimes even brutality, are looking in all the wrong places to lay blame. They should look left; to the cultural left that is, including the feminists. The modern campus is a little hothouse of leftist ideas about human nature and the ideal human society. The universities are devout propagators of false nostrums about sex differences and sexuality. The world that the left (very much including the feminist left) has created is one that could have been designed by a poorly civilized teenaged boy. ... The current climate has encouraged the worst instincts among some young men and without doubt confused many others. Some may find themselves accused of sexual assault when they got mixed signals. Others are predators who pick off easy prey in a world without guardrails. Women have been brainwashed into thinking that this sexual sewer is empowering. Mail your thank you notes to the left."
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Columnist David Limbaugh: "Does anyone believe that economic tyranny will be the only weapon ever used against the left's political opponents? If so, you haven't been paying attention. Try the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservatives and Homeland Security's labeling of tea partyers as 'domestic terrorists.' What is the left's endgame? For you Democrats who say conservatives are just as bad, I say you're deluding yourselves. We would never advocate the muzzling or selective IRS targeting of political opponents. If such activities were to proceed from the right, we would condemn them outright and demand they be ceased. The issue isn't whether you agree with same-sex marriage or any other leftist cause. It's whether you believe that everyone is entitled to freedom. Where are the freedom-loving Democrats out there? Isn't it time for you to speak up?"
Fred Thompson: "Asked about the number of Obamacare enrollees who've paid, Jay Carney said 'we don't have hard numbers, but we dispute their numbers.' Try using THAT one at an IRS audit."
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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