THE FOUNDATION
"If a nation expects to be ignorant -- and free -- in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, 1816TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Dems Argue Over Bergdahl
After announcing the prisoner exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, one of the numerous excuses the administration trotted out for not notifying Congress was worry that the Taliban would kill him if news of the deal leaked. Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) says, however, "No, I don't think there was a credible threat [to his life], but I don't know. I have no information that there was." And as far as White House assurances that the Taliban Five won't return to the battlefield against America, Feinstein isn't convinced. "It's hard to be comfortable when you haven't been briefed on the intricacies of carrying out this agreement," she said. It's unusual for a Democrat like Feinstein to directly contradict White House spin, but it appears the five jihadis are enjoying an all-expenses-paid vacation at a resort in Qatar, where they are free to do as they please. But not to worry; Obama, who also loves his vacations, said Friday, "This is something that I would do again, and I will continue to do wherever I have an opportunity." Empty Gitmo, whatever the price.Comment | Share
Feinstein's New Gun Control Push
Sen. Dianne Feinstein is up to her usual tricks. Following a murderous rampage in Santa Barbara, Feinstein unveiled another gun control push called "The Pause for Safety Act." The legislation (which stands virtually no chance of passing Congress) would bar individuals from purchasing firearms with a "gun violence prevention order" and allow law enforcement to confiscate firearms with a "gun violence prevention warrant" if a concerned resident deems anyone "a threat." Gun blogger Nick Leghorn notes, "So, for example, if a gun control activist got ahold of a sign-in sheet from a local gun range, they could start spamming the judicial system with these 'gun violence prevention warrants,' claiming that they believe these individuals [are] about to commit a crime, and send a squad of police officers to their doorstep to confiscate their firearms. For their own good, of course." More...Comment | Share
Poor Clintons
Hillary Clinton says she knows what it's like to struggle to make ends meet. "[W]e came out of the White House not only dead broke but in debt," she lamented. "We had no money when we got there and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education, you know, it was not easy." Maybe if they had just one house, Chelsea's education might have been more feasible. Unbelievably, Clinton also complained that they "had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes." Those tax hikes on the rich are a real pain, no? Looking ahead to her likely presidential bid, ABC's Diane Sawyer asked, "Do you think Americans will understand [charging] five times the median income in this country for one speech?" Clinton's answer was pathetic: "Let me put it this way: I thought making speeches for money was a much better thing than getting connected with any one group or company, as so many people who leave public life do." The Clintons have made $109 million in the last seven years. But they feel your pain.Comment | Share
A State of Non-Emergency
Let's pretend you have ObamaCare and for about a week, you've had a cough so bad it sounds like your lungs are going to pop out. What's the best way to see a person in scrubs? Well, if you're like the people in Kentucky, you'll saunter down to the emergency room -- the kind of emergency-room abuse ObamaCare was supposed to fix. According to The Courier-Journal, at least one hospital has seen a 12% hike in people using the emergency room for non-emergency care because of the federal program. American Academy of Nursing President Diana Mason told The Courior Journal magazine, "It will continue to go up if we don't build our primary-care capacity. It will continue to go up if we don't support alternatives such as retail clinics. And it won't get better if we don't educate the public about the correct use of emergency departments." But hey, at least one thing is going to get fixed under ObamaCare: Healthcare.gov -- again. More...Comment | Share
Housing Illegals at Army Base
The Obama DHS plans to house as many as 600 illegal alien minors at Fort Sill Army Base in Oklahoma beginning this week. The price per head is expected to be more than $250. "Our nation has an immigration problem and a national security crisis," said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), "but I don't believe the answer is for our military facilities to be transformed into a center that houses, feeds and cares for illegal immigrants." He added, "This only encourages parents to send their children unaccompanied over the border." Indeed, the influx of illegal children is already overwhelming the Border Patrol. In Obama's America, if you're an illegal immigrant you qualify for free food, shelter and medical care. If you're a vet on the other hand...Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Hooks.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
A Tale of Two Economies
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When it comes to exporting goods, both France and the United States are power players in the world. America leads the pack, and France comes in 10th place, according to the CIA World Factbook. Yet both leaders in the world economy play the same heavy-handed economic game inside their borders. For example, the CIA Factbook says France "maintain[s] social equity by means of laws, tax policies, and social spending that mitigate economic inequality."
Overall, the results of France's policies were predictable:
Taxes -- Last year, France went after the "rich" with a vengeance that would make Robespierre proud. Implementing the 75% "millionaire tax" slammed France's entrepreneurs supposedly as a way to help shrink the growing budget deficit and boost the economy. The reverse happened. The tax raised about half its expected revenue, and the economy stalled. Even French Prime Minister Manuel Valls admitted, "Too much tax kills tax." In the U.S., Obama's massive tax hike on the wealthy is doing the same thing.
Unemployment -- While the U.S. headline unemployment stubbornly stays above 6%, France finds itself dealing with 10% unemployment. For some reason, this is good news in the country. But the government there isn't done yet. Paris wants to spend 500 million Euros, about $681.95 million, to subsidize youth who are "lacking professional qualifications," a.k.a. unqualified. What happens when the subsidies run out? More subsidies, probably. Meanwhile, high unemployment has brought other problems, like:
Flight into Germany -- Some Frenchmen with the language skills commute into Germany, where the unemployment rate is about 4%, because it's easier to get a job there. Bloomberg reports Germany pulls in French workers because of its labor rules. About 10 years ago, Germany limited unemployment benefits, discouraged people from retiring early and improved the job-search process. In response, Germans filled the workplace.
France, on the other hand, has a 3,200-page labor rulebook that regulates the workplace, chilling the nation's competitiveness.
Draconian energy agendas -- In the U.S. new EPA regulations designed to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions are predicted to cripple the economy. But it's for the greater good, leftists argue, because it will save the earth from a hot and watery end. In France, they already have an energy source free of greenhouse gases -- nuclear power. However, the French government in all its authoritarian wisdom decided the atom was bad and decreed the nation needs to cut back on all that nuclear production, something that will ... drumroll, please ... cripple the economy.
With the socialist nation and the birthplace of freedom both running parallel tracks economically, it comes as no surprise that both economies have stalled. In the first quarter, America's economy shrank 1% (blamed on the bad weather of all things) while France's economy flatlined at 0%.
Both countries should look for a lesson in free market economics from a place the U.S. bought from France: Louisiana.
Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, wrote an opinion piece in The Daily Signal that showed a different way of running the economy. "But in Louisiana," Jindal wrote, "we've tried to show that there is a better way -- one that leads to quality jobs and robust economic growth. While Obama raised federal taxes by more than $1 trillion, we passed the largest income tax cut in state history. As a Democratic Congress rammed through trillions in new spending for ObamaCare, we cut the state budget by 26 percent. And even as the EPA proposes new regulations that could decimate critical portions of our energy sector, we've worked to create a more predictable legal environment for energy companies in the state."
And the results are clear. According to Jindal, Louisiana has the lowest unemployment south of the Mason-Dixon line and an economy growing 50% faster than the national average.
While it may take a new administration for our nation to turn once again to laissez-faire economics, state and local governments can still fight for economic Liberty in their jurisdictions.
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Russia: Lurching Toward Surrender?
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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
- Arnold Ahlert: The Cloward-Piven Immigration Strategy
- George Will: When a President Goes Rogue
- Ken Blackwell: Susan Rice: Fool Us Twice?
- Larry Kudlow: Reclaiming Reagan's Economic Voice
- Burt Prelutsky: I Used to Be a Democrat
OPINION IN BRIEF
The Gipper: "Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, 'What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.' But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector."Columnist Arnold Ahlert: "This administration is allowing a tsunami of illegal aliens, comprised largely of minor children with or without the accompaniment of their single mothers, to flow into our nation. ... A simple message reverberating throughout Central America: if you can get to the USA, you can stay in the USA. If a strategy of overwhelming the system until it breaks down as a means of implementing one's agenda sounds familiar, that's because it is. The Cloward-Piven strategy, calling for just such orchestrated chaos, is in full swing. Obama and his allies -- in both parties -- are either getting comprehensive immigration reform enacted by Congress, or America is getting a de facto version of it shoved down our throats, in all its lawless glory. Such administration-sanctioned lawlessness has produced a despicable dichotomy: While we are being invaded from without, we are being destroyed from within -- by people who took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Has that oath had less meaning at any other time in our history than it does now?"
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Columnist Burt Prelutsky: "(1) A liberal is someone who thinks Republicans are waging a war on women, but that the Muslim world isn't. (2) A liberal is someone who says to a pregnant woman: 'Don't smoke, it'll hurt your baby,' but tells her it's quite okay to abort that same baby. (3) A liberal is someone who thinks Fox News lies, but Obama doesn't. (4) A liberal is someone who lives in a gated community or behind a high wall, but says that a border fence won't work. (5) A liberal is someone who wails about 'corporate welfare,' but thinks it's great that Obama bailed out General Motors to save union contracts and blew a billion tax dollars on certain-to-fail green energy companies in exchange for campaign contributions. (6) A liberal is someone who protested the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and proclaimed the Patriot Act fascistic, until Barack Obama took office."
Comedian Argus Hamilton: "Susan Rice went on the Sunday talk shows to defend the administration for trading five Taliban leaders for a soldier who went AWOL. This time she covered her tracks. Susan Rice declared that Bergdahl served with honor and distinction, but she didn't say for which side."
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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