THE FOUNDATION
"There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage." --John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776ARMED FORCES DAY
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TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Judge Upholds DC Gun Control
A judge in Washington, DC, has once again defied the Constitution. The Associated Press explains: "A federal judge has upheld the gun-control law in the District of Columbia, which bans assault weapons and large-capacity magazines while imposing registration requirements for handguns and long guns." The reason? According to the AP, "U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said the city seeks to combat gun violence and promote public safety and that the current law does so in a constitutionally permissible manner." Instead of trampling gun rights, they should instead try addressing the culture of violence bred on statist "poverty plantations," the product of generations of Democratic Party policies. And we'd also like Judge Boasberg to show us the language within the Constitution that allows the government to regulate the Second Amendment. Here in our humble shop, "shall not be infringed" has always meant "shall not be infringed."Comment | Share
Return of Risky Home Lending
Housing collapse déjà vu? After the crisis of 2008, federal regulators took steps to tighten credit requirements to prevent a relapse, since government-mandated easy lending to high-risk borrowers was a primary driver of the collapse. In his State of the Union address in January, Barack Obama told Congress to "send me legislation that protects taxpayers from footing the bill for a housing crisis ever again, and keeps the dream of homeownership alive." Now, however, he's seeking to once again ease lending requirements and to expand the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with more subsidies for home purchases. Congress doesn't have the stomach to reduce the role of the two government-run mortgage giants either. Loose lending dates back to Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, so it's no surprise to see Obama go back to the failed policies of the past. More...Comment | Share
Air Force One Boondoggle
The government has quietly released revised estimates of the cost per hour for flying Air Force One with its crew, but the estimates still don't include all contingent aircraft and personnel. The new estimated cost is $228,280 per flight, which means that Obama has spent a staggering $456 million flying Air Force One -- mostly to political fundraising and vacation junkets. And Obama has racked up more flight hours for his time in office than any previous president. In fact, his trip to New York Wednesday marked his 1,000th flight on Air Force One. Obama's lavish ways are incredibly hypocritical after his incessant condemnation of business executives for using corporate jets. Do as he says, not as he does.Comment | Share
Wrongful Redistribution
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reports that the IRS is still making billions in "improper payments" related to the Earned Income Tax Credit -- to the tune of $13- to $15 billion in 2013. This waste and abuse has been happening for years, despite a few GOP attempts to stop it. Democrats want their voters to get cash from Uncle Sugar, and they even blocked a Republican attempt to redirect the EITC mis-payments to fully fund veterans' benefits. Not to worry; the IRS says it takes tax fraud "very seriously" and is "exploring a wide range of options to distinguish valid claims from excessive ones." We'll bet if the payments were going to Tea Partiers they'd stop tomorrow.Comment | Share
Bill's Backhanded Defense
Bill Clinton came to his wife's defense after Karl Rove asked the question about the seriousness of Hillary Clinton's concussion in 2012. He told an audience at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, "They went to all this trouble to say she had staged what was a terrible concussion that required six months of very serious work to get over. It's something she never low-balled with the American people, never tried to pretend it didn't happen." So the fact that it took six months to recover is supposed to assure us? But he continued, "Now they're trying to say she has brain damage. If she does, I must be in really tough shape because she's still quicker than I am." Call us crazy, but we don't think he's helping. With friends like these... More...Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Hooks.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
VA Testimony: Shinseki Is 'Mad as Hell' but Refuses to Resign
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| Richard Overton, 108, oldest living veteran |
As one of Obama's original appointees, Shinseki has overseen the VA since before its 14-day wait-list metric for patients was established three years ago. The metric determined that a patient should be seen no more than two weeks from his or her initial call, but the two-week goal has been ignored by a growing number of VA facilities. In fact, a VA office in Gainsville, Florida, was just found to have a secret wait list full of 200 veterans.
Also troubling are the harmful cost-cutting measures allegedly being implemented on Shinseki's watch. A whistleblower who formerly worked for a newly created Texas VA center found problems with the new facility's HVAC system and backup generator that endangered a sterile surgical environment, but more disturbing still was a course of care that called for three positive fecal screenings before allowing for a colonoscopy. Dr. Richard Krugman, the whistleblower, says such delays can cost lives, because, "By the time that you do the colonoscopies on these patients, you went from a stage 1 to a stage 4 [colorectal cancer], which is basically inoperable." Patients would then perhaps die at home or in a private hospital, off the VA records.
Krugman says the same Texas facility deleted 1,800 orders for service to eliminate a backlog and pass an inspection. Evidently, he blew the whistle on one too many things, however, as he was put on administrative leave before being fired in 2012.
Shinseki's agency obviously has its hands full with this investigation, so Barack Obama has enlisted Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors to assist the probe. Shinseki welcomed Nabors as "a fresh set of eyes." As its mission, the VA sets 230,000 appointments a day and faces pressure from both ends: Vietnam-era veterans who are now facing the ailments of old age as they reach their sixties and seventies, coupled with the needs of younger veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.
As we've said before, the problems that plague the VA are surely a harbinger of things to come for the overall health care system under ObamaCare. Its big problem is how to fund care for older and sicker people with few younger and healthier individuals willing to pay a higher premium. But the failures at the VA are practically inherent to any bureaucracy -- ineptitude, indifference and self-protection are baked into the cake. It sure would be helpful if a "fresh set of eyes" also looked at the current American health care system.
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FCC Proposes New Net Neutrality Rules
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Read the rest of the story here.
Ninth Circuit Gives Raisin Growers Sour Grapes
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Read the rest of the story here.
Bad Deal-Making With Iran
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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
- Joe Bastardi: Storms of My Father
- Tony Perkins: Science Friction Heats up D.C. Debate
- Charles Krauthammer: The Sound and the Fury -- and the Tweet
- Michael Reagan: Angry Conservative Birds Need to Flock Together
- Mona Charen: Making College Affordable
OPINION IN BRIEF
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): "To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live; to be lulled into security is to die."Columnist Michelle Malkin: "Fifteen years ago, I reported on VA bureaucrats who took better care of administrative buildings and vacant hospitals than their own patients. Back then, an independent General Accounting Office found that the agency was spending more than $1 million a day to sustain unneeded hospital buildings. Another $35 million was squandered annually to perform upkeep on empty space, including unused lots and warehouses, while vets were forced to file malpractice suits over substandard care. ... Fifteen years later, it's the same old, same old. More empty excuses, feckless denials and deadly red tape. The names change, but the game's the same: 'Support the troops' platitudes and photo-ops at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 'Screw the troops' in the bowels of the VA bureaucracy, where book-cookers were busy collecting bonuses instead of saving lives."
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Columnist Michael Reagan: "Remember what's on my father's gravestone? -- 'I know in my heart that man is good.' That's something conservative Republicans should keep in mind this fall and especially in 2016. All this factional infighting and ideological hair-splitting is dangerous for the future of the GOP -- if it has one after 2016. ... We need to end the intramural squabbling that is tearing the Republican Party's Big Tent to shreds in the fight to prove who's the purest conservative of them all. For 2016 the GOP has to get its primary act together and conservatives of all factions have to come together to agree -- early on -- which horse they want to run in the White House Derby. Otherwise, in two years we'll be looking at a choice not between Hillary and the second coming of Ronald Reagan, but between Hillary and the second coming of Mitt Romney."
Humorist Frank J. Fleming: "Climate change must be a much bigger issue in the Star Wars universe where all the planets are used to just one climate."
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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