THE FOUNDATION
"A standing Army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the Liberties of the People. ... The Militia is composed of free Citizens. There is therefore no Danger of their making use of their Power to the destruction of their own Rights, or suffering others to invade them." --Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1776TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Feinstein: Obama Broke Law
Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) offered further thoughts on the Gitmo exchange: "The concerns are bipartisan. I strongly believe that [Congress] should've been consulted, but the law should have been followed, and I very much regretted that was not the case." While Democrats like Feinstein are no doubt genuinely angry at Obama for not consulting with them, there is a significant concern about covering their own rears with voters right now. Obama may have elected to bypass Congress in order to give Democrats -- those who are already vulnerable because of ObamaCare and his energy policies -- plausible deniability in connection with the Gitmo exchange, because he was going to make that exchange regardless. Fox News and the rest of the mainstream media are only now catching up with what we posted Monday, suggesting that Obama really did think this would be a big plus for him among many constituents.Comment | Share
Political Points
Senate Leader Harry Reid says Barack Obama "acted honorably" by bringing Bowe Bergdahl home -- even if he is a deserter -- to be tried with American justice, instead of the Taliban version. He then said this was no time to score political points. Noble? No, because Reid went on to say, "It's clear [Republicans are] worried his release could be seen as a victory for President Obama. Let me put that notion to rest -- it's not a victory for President Obama. It's a victory for our soldiers, their families, and the United States of America. No member of the Armed Forces should be left behind, and President Obama saw to that." Defending the president, attacking Republican rhetoric, appealing to supporting the military? Reid is playing politics -- again. While the Left wants to high-five and celebrate a "victory," some question the "trade" because of its implications for national security and, you know, the actual good for the country. More...Comment | Share
Fighting Homegrown Terror
Attorney General Eric Holder announced he will bring back the 20-year-old Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, which Janet Reno established after the Oklahoma City bombing to fight homegrown terrorism. Holder declared that we must remain vigilant against radical Islamic terrorism, "But we also must concern ourselves with the continued danger we face from individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of other causes from anti-government animus to racial prejudice." Holder obviously has a chip on his shoulder as he is constantly stoking the fires of racial animus. And this administration has a troubling history of labeling its political opponents as extremists in order to make them sound scary. So Holder's committee focused entirely on groups with domestic origins is troubling. More...Comment | Share
Putin on Hillary
In an interview with Radio Europe 1 and TF1TV, Vladimir Putin knocked softball question after softball question out of the park from the two blathering journalists that could not slather the platitudes thick enough. It's propaganda at its finest. At one point, they asked Putin to respond to Hillary Clinton's claim that Russia is acting like Nazi Germany in its dealings with Crimea and Ukraine. "It's better not to argue with women," Putin said, talking smack of America's former secretary of state. "But Ms. Clinton has never been too graceful in her statements. Still, we always met afterwards and had cordial conversations at various international events. I think even in this case we could reach an agreement. When people push boundaries too far, it's not because they are strong but because they are weak. But maybe weakness is not the worst quality for a woman." Hillary could always just hit the "reset" button, but really, what difference does it make? More...Comment | Share
Right Principle, Wrong Tactics
After a group of open-carry activists in Texas succeeded only in prompting two more restaurant chains to ban firearms in their establishments (talk about "backfiring"), the NRA published a statement saying the demonstrators were "attention-hungry" and crossed the line "from enthusiasm to downright foolishness." Furthermore, "Using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners. That's not the Texas way. And that's certainly not the NRA way." The Texas group responded by threatening to tear up their NRA membership cards, so the NRA's Chris Cox quickly backpedaled, saying the release was merely the "personal opinion" of a staffer. The NRA should have stuck to its guns because they were right the first time. We might even go further and liken the Texas group's tactics to those of homosexual activists, who flaunt their "gayness" in your face. The issue here isn't the principle -- we agree with the Texas group -- but their tactics don't effectively advance the cause. More...Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Hooks.
Don't Miss Alexander's Column
Read Edward Snowden -- Patriot or Traitor?, on the message and methods of the famed NSA leaker.If you'd like to receive Alexander's Column by email, update your subscription here.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
Remember ObamaCare? Yeah, That's Still News
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Now that a few months have passed, though, it seems state exchanges are catching up to Healthcare.gov's nosedive. And they're hoping the federal government will buy them out of their misery. As National Review's Veronique de Rugy reports, "[F]ive state exchanges -- Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada and Oregon -- are in need of serious fixes. And it won't be cheap." Indeed, it will cost nearly a quarter billion dollars to fix their messes or join the federal exchange. Considering how bad the federal exchange is, any desire to join it must indicate a pre-existing condition nigh on terminal.
Surprisingly, though, given how notoriously inefficient the federal government is, states are actually more inefficient when it comes to the cost of enrolling people in exchanges. For example the average cost-per-enrollment for Healthcare.gov was $647 in taxpayer dollars. Pricey, yes, but nowhere near the $1,503 per-enrollee average for the state exchanges -- and far below the astronomical $23,899 taxpayer tab per enrollee in Hawaii, the most expensive-per-capita among state exchanges.
Yet even a move towards the federal exchange won't approach the starting line to solving ObamaCare's unsolvable woes. Remember those eight million people who theoretically signed up for ObamaCare? Turns out that more than two million of those signups have "data inconsistencies" related to income or to immigration and citizenship status. As a result, enrollees may be getting the wrong subsidies, or subsidies may be going to illegal aliens. Shocker, we know.
But this isn't the worst deception. Spotlighting Obama's BIG Lie that under his plan, no taxpayer dollars would fund abortions, taxpayer dollars are, you guessed it, funding abortions. As Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Casey Mattox writes, every consumer in Connecticut buying an ObamaCare-compliant plan "will be required to pay a separate surcharge that the insurer must use solely to pay for abortions." This is a cost insurers must calculate separately and charge to the insured, allowing Obama to claim that taxpayer dollars are not funding the slaughter of innocents.
Insurance companies, however, are not permitted to disclose to customers how much the surcharge is or whether the plan includes abortion coverage. In Connecticut, there are no known abortion-free plans, and this is possibly also the case in Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wyoming.
Indeed, the more we see of ObamaCare, the more apparent it becomes that broken promises are too kind a description for what Barack Obama and his administration have delivered to the American people. Outright lies is more accurate.
As the disaster continues to unfold, conservative House Republicans are now pushing for a vote on an alternative health care plan that would fully repeal ObamaCare and replace it with a plan that, among other things, expands health savings accounts, allows Americans to purchase health plans across state lines, provides tax deductions for health care costs, bans federal funding for abortion, and increases federal support to help cover those with pre-existing conditions.
While undoing the damage already done by ObamaCare won't be an easy task, the GOP plan is a strong step away from the deadly precipice of the president's disastrous hallmark and towards a system more in keeping with self-determination and the free market. And as for keeping your plan if you like it? Not to worry; thanks to ObamaCare, we'll soon be hard pressed to find anyone who actually likes his or her plan.
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Obama's Poor Management Reveals Wilson's Flawed Vision
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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
- Ann Coulter: Bowe Bergdahl, Just Deserts
- Cal Thomas: D-Day Is Dumb Day for Too Many
- Victor Davis Hanson: The Troubling Plight of the Modern University
- George Will: Victims of Progressivism
- Paul Kengor: Ronald Reagan's Core Principles
OPINION IN BRIEF
In honor of the 10th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's death, here are some words from his farewell address: "[S]oon it'll be time for me to go. But before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I've been saving for a long time. ... I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. ... My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all. And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America."American author Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862): "Must a citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."
Columnist Cal Thomas: "[O]n the 70th anniversary of D-Day, a lot of people are clueless about central elements of the Allied invasion of the European continent on June 6, 1944. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has released the results of a survey, which finds only slightly more than half (54 percent) of those who took a multiple choice quiz knew that Dwight D. Eisenhower was the supreme commander of Allied forces on D-Day. Fewer than half knew Franklin Roosevelt was president and 15 percent identified the location of the landing as Pearl Harbor, not beaches named Utah and Omaha. One in 10 college students were among those giving the wrong answer. ... Someone should ask a question of the aging veterans who are likely visiting Normandy for the last time this weekend. If they could have foreseen what America would become and how little their descendants know, or care, about their sacrifice, would they have done what they did? They probably would because of their character. I'm not sure the same could be said of too many of their progeny."
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Columnist Burt Prelutsky: "Whenever Obama puts America deeper in debt so that he can expand welfare, the Department of Education, the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management, he claims it's absolutely essential. But he then cuts funding for the military, and insists that he's providing us with a better, leaner, more efficient, national defense. So how is it that he never thinks to cut spending on all those other items and make them better, leaner and more efficient?"
Comedian Argus Hamilton: "Obama announced the U.S. traded five Taliban prisoners held in Guantanamo for one American who is held captive by the Taliban Saturday. That's the U.S. government in a nutshell. We can't even effect a prisoner swap without running up an eighty percent deficit."
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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