THE FOUNDATION
"To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." --George Washington, First Annual Message, 1790TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Bergdahl Is No 'Sergeant'
Memo to America: STOP referring to Bergdahl as "sergeant." Gearing up for the 2012 presidential election, the Obama campaign determined that it would firm up his peacenik support if he arranged the return of PFC Bowe Bergdahl. In 2010, Pentagon communications indicate he was classified as a deserter. In 2011, the Obama administration began discussions for the release of the Taliban Five in exchange for Bergdahl. On June 17, 2011, Obama had Bergdahl promoted to Sergeant, in absentia, in order to head off any criticism about the circumstance around Bergdahl's disappearance. Those negotiations were thwarted by congressional Republicans in 2012, in return for the agreement that Obama would notify Congress 30 days in advance of any Gitmo prisoner release. Obama, once again, punted law for politics. (See Bergdahl Is No 'Hero'.)Comment | Share
'We Don't Leave Them Behind'
"We don't leave men and women in uniform behind," Barack Obama blustered after negotiating with terrorists for the release of five high-value Taliban jihadis in exchange for one U.S. Army deserter. He should tell that to the families of the dead in Benghazi. But of course that would have derailed his presidential re-election. Or tell it to the Marine who's still being held in Mexico. Or maybe to the veterans waiting for care from the VA.Comment | Share
Bergdahl's 'Honor & Distinction'?
Here's what Susan Rice, national security advisor to Barack Obama, had to say when asked by George Stephanopoulos whether Bowe Bergdahl would face punishment for deserting or whether he's "already paid the price": "Certainly anybody who's been held in those conditions in captivity [by the Taliban] for five years has paid an extraordinary price. But that is really not the point; the point is that he's back. He's going to be safely reunited with his family. He served the United States with honor and distinction." Deserting your country and fellow brothers would hardly qualify as honor and distinction -- unless you're part of the Obama administration. Bergdahl is no "hero."Comment | Share
Negotiating With Terrorists
File the illegal exchange of five Gitmo prisoners for deserter Bowe Bergdahl under examples of Obama's destructive foreign policy, right next to Syria's red line, the 2012 Benghazi attack and Fast and Furious. It's hard to understand Obama's motivation for exchanging five of the Taliban's top level commanders for a single soldier who snuck away from his post in the dead of night, who may have helped the enemy launch more effective attacks against Americans. But that's what happens when the tactics of Obama's policy changes once every 24-hour news cycle. Perhaps it was for the headlines. As America is beginning a pullout from Afghanistan, Obama's administration needed a happy, bringing-our-boys-home headline that showed him promoting peace with the enemy. But that headline comes at such a cost. America has negotiated with terrorists and the terrorists have won. More...Comment | Share
Bergdahl Owes Answers
Former Army Green Beret commander Michael Waltz was in charge of the search teams when Bowe Bergdahl deserted his post. He said, "As soon as we received word that we had a missing American soldier whose whereabouts were unknown, we essentially stopped everything. Every soldier, thousands of soldiers throughout eastern Afghanistan, were ordered to stop what they were doing, whether they were involved in construction or searching for senior Taliban leadership, everyone stopped what they were doing and began a search for Private Bergdahl. ... What was really disturbing is that the Taliban knew we were searching for him, and were leaving false clues in order to set up ambushes of our personnel. ... Bergdahl owes the mothers of soldiers who did not come home answers."Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Hooks.
Don't Miss Patriot Humor
Here's yesterday's edition, Obama Is Behind Our Troops.If you'd like to receive Patriot Humor by email, update your subscription here.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
The EPA's 'Moral Obligation' Is Going to Cost a Lot of Money
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"We have a moral obligation to act," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. Professional climate alarmist Al Gore likewise called the EPA's action "really good news" because it "re-establishes the moral authority on the part of the United States of America in leading the world community." No mention of constitutional authority -- always with statists it's a "moral obligation" to do what they say.
The Washington Post gives the background for the rules: "Under President George W. Bush, the agency argued that Congress never intended to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, so it lacked authority to do so. In 2007, the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA that the law was 'unambiguous' and that emissions came under its broad definition of 'air pollutant.' It ordered the agency to determine whether greenhouse-gas emissions endanger public health or the environment. The EPA issued an 'endangerment finding' in December 2009 that laid the groundwork for the power-plant rule it proposed Monday."
The new rules are cloaked in false federalism, giving states first dibs at crafting their own regulations by 2017. But if states refuse to act as federal agents, the EPA will make its own rules for those states. Sound familiar? It's the template for ObamaCare.
The primary reason for the new rules is that Barack Obama is making climate change a centerpiece of his second term agenda. In his Saturday address, he lamented, "Today, about 40% of America's carbon pollution comes from power plants. But right now, there are no national limits to the amount of carbon pollution that existing plants can pump into the air we breathe. None. We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury, sulfur, and arsenic that power plants put in our air and water. But they can dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air. It's not smart, it's not safe, and it doesn't make sense." Naturally, his solution is massive government regulation.
It matters not that his regulations will cripple the economy with a huge increase in energy prices. In fact, he casually dismisses such objections: "Now, special interests and their allies in Congress will claim that these guidelines will kill jobs and crush the economy. Let's face it, that's what they always say." In fact, the EPA argues the regulations will benefit the economy. For every $1 "invested," it says, there will be $7 in health benefits for Americans, and public health and climate benefits will outweigh economic costs by as much as 12 to 1 by 2030. But they also estimate compliance will cost $8.8 billion per year, which is no doubt an underestimate that even at face value makes their rosy prediction of benefits even harder to believe.
Opposition to the plan runs across the aisle, with several Democrats up for re-election scrambling to cover their own rears. But Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) summed it up in a letter to Obama: "Washington should not pick winners and losers in the energy economy."
United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) president Cecil Roberts declared Big Labor's opposition: "The proposed rule ... will lead to long-term and irreversible job losses for thousands of coal miners, electrical workers, utility workers, boilermakers, railroad workers and others without achieving any significant reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions."
The Wall Street Journal adds, "The EPA claims to be targeting 'polluters,' but the government is essentially creating an artificial scarcity in carbon energy. Scarcities mean higher prices, which will hit the poor far harder than they will the anticarbon crusaders who live in Pacific Heights. The lowest 10% of earners pay three times as much as a share of their income for electricity compared to the middle class. If you want more inequality, this is an ideal way to ensure it." And all for policy that won't affect the earth's temperature even a fraction of a degree.
The administration insists that a "moral obligation" to fight climate change is at the heart of its efforts. But it's simply a convenient way to seize more power.
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The First Lady's Nanny State
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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
- Ed Feulner: Tiananmen Square, 25 Years Later
- Tony Perkins: (Sex) Change We Can Believe In?
- Ken Blackwell & Bob Morrison: The Danger at the Summit: Signaled Weakness
- Thomas Sowell: The Ambassador and the Post Office
- Jeff Jacoby: Tax the Roads, Not the Fuel
OPINION IN BRIEF
Journalist H. L. Mencken (1880-1956): "The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society."FRC's Tony Perkins: "HHS has ruled that it's 'no longer reasonable' to expect older Americans to pay for their own sexual reassignments. Instead, it now recognizes the surgery as a 'medically necessary' and 'effective' treatment for people who can't come to grips with their own biological gender. ... If the government will pay for this, why not plastic surgery for people who don't feel as old as their age? As if people couldn't be more disgusted, the double standard remains. While President Obama is busy financing senior sex changes, wounded veterans are dying for lack of medical care. If you want a snapshot of this administration's priorities, that's it. Making matters worse, the move only paves the way for gender reassignment surgeries to be a routinely covered benefit -- like abortion. ... Americans are free to disfigure their bodies -- but they aren't free to ask taxpayers to foot the bill."
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Columnist Burt Prelutsky: "In their desperate attempt to hang on to the Senate, the Democrats continue to push for raising the minimum wage from seven bucks and change to $10-an-hour, ignoring the fact that very few employers are going to fork over $400-a-week to a person doing a job that a monkey could be trained to handle. Because liberals know that as well as I do, they play up the argument that people can't raise a family on $7-an-hour, ignoring the fact that a minimum wage was never intended to support anyone, least of all a family. Instead, it was solely intended for high school and college kids, who were expected to come away with a few dollars in their pocket, along with a few life lessons involving what it takes to get a job, do a job and keep a job, at least through an entire summer vacation. Nobody was ever encouraged to think of it as a career. What will Obama do next? Encourage teenagers to unionize and demand their parents raise their allowances to $10-an-hour?"
Fred Thompson: "The EPA is pushing new restrictions to reduce pollution from cooking-stoves. Seems like a waste of resources when there are still so many unregulated scented candles out there."
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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