THE FOUNDATION
"The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex." --James Madison, Federalist No. 48, 1788TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Pouring Gas on the Fire
Barack Obama is jetting down to Texas Wednesday, but the reason for his visit isn't the flood of illegals streaming across the border. He'll be there for a fundraiser. Meanwhile, the administration insists that most of the illegal children coming across the border will be sent home. "Based on what we know about these cases, it is unlikely that most of these kids will qualify for humanitarian relief," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. Therefore, "they will not have a legal basis for remaining in this country and will be returned." Pardon us for our skepticism when Obama promises to use his executive authority to limit deportations or when he's already backed off from promises of enforcement. According to DHS, 0.1% of illegal minors were deported in 2013. Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry attributes the flood to the possible "ulterior motives" of the president, and says administration officials "either are inept or don't care." That's a polite way of saying Obama is throwing gasoline on the fire. More...Comment | Share
NSA's 'Unintentional' Targets
According to documents taken by Edward Snowden, the overwhelming majority of Internet users scrutinized by the NSA are not the intended targets. "Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations ... were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else," reports The Washington Post. All told, "The daily lives of more than 10,000 account holders who were not targeted are catalogued and recorded," the Post adds. "At the 9-to-1 ratio of incidental collection in Snowden's sample, the office's figure would correspond to nearly 900,000 accounts, targeted or not, under surveillance." That's not to say the entire program is futile -- terrorists Muhammad Tahir Shahzad and Umar Patek were nabbed with the help of these very methods, for example. However, the issue here is one of trust, and this administration has given us every reason to fear this type of behavior. More...Comment | Share
Taxpayers Spend $44M on Travel
If there's one thing the First Family is really good at, it's exorbitant traveling on the taxpayers' dime. The Daily Caller reports, "According to the government watchdog group Judicial Watch ... the Obamas have spent $44,351,777.12 in taxpayer cash on travel expenses." However, "The actual total cost may be higher, as the White House is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. ... Frequently missing from the data are the costs of housing the first family and staff, costs of prepositioning the Secret Service and their equipment, and other travel expenses such as meals and beverages." Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton responds, "Here we have a president that gets on the budget line by line, but this apparently doesn't apply to his travel. ... These staggering costs show why these documents were covered up and we had to sue in federal court to get them. Another transparency fail for the Obama gang." More...Comment | Share
Reid Targets Hobby Lobby
Harry Reid took a few moments away from chastising the Koch brothers on Monday to declare, "We have so much to address in the coming weeks" -- like "do[ing] something about the Hobby Lobby legislation we need to correct." National Review's Andrew Johnson notes, "It's unclear if Reid was proposing legislation to change the law at the heart of the Hobby Lobby ruling, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which passed the Senate 97-3 in 1993, or whether he will propose other, related legislation." Regardless, Reid's remarks make clear that Democrats won't let last week's Supreme Court ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. stop them from ramming the Left's social agenda down everyone's throats. More...Comment | Share
Silence the 'Deniers'
BBC News is being reprimanded for the egregious sin of allowing climate skeptics equal airtime. The network's governing explained in a report: "The [BBC] Trust wishes to emphasize the importance of attempting to establish where the weight of scientific agreement may be found and make that clear to audiences. Science coverage does not simply lie in reflecting a wide range of views but depends on the varying degree of prominence such views should be given." Actually, education comes precisely from hearing opposing views; forcing a faux scientistic "consensus" on the vulnerable is called indoctrination. Salon's Lindsay Abrams praised the report, opining, "Were every network to start doing what the BBC is, their [skeptics] unfounded opinions would cease to be heard, Bill Nye wouldn't have to keep debating them, and maybe, just maybe, they'd all just go away." What the Left truly wants is not the facts -- they just want us truth seekers to "go away." More...Comment | Share
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
House Appeals to Referee Over Executive Abuse
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He's planning to sue the president. "[T]oo often over the past five years," Boehner writes, "the President has circumvented the American people and their elected representatives through executive action, changing and creating his own laws, and excusing himself from enforcing statutes he is sworn to uphold -- at times even boasting about his willingness to do it, as if daring the American people to stop him. That's why, later this month, we will bring legislation to the House floor that would authorize the House of Representatives to file suit in an effort to compel President Obama to follow his oath of office and faithfully execute the laws of our country."
Obama responded to Boehner's plan last week with typical contempt: "So sue me." Boehner replied, "What's disappointing is the President's flippant dismissal of the Constitution we are both sworn to defend. It is utterly beneath the dignity of the office."
Boehner is right on the money with his rhetoric. Obama has indeed flippantly dismissed the Constitution as a mere obstruction to his plan, all while paying lip service to that same Constitution.
But Boehner's plan is a weak and politically calculated move. His aim is to draw attention to Obama's lawless behavior without having to truly do anything about it. As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy puts it, "Boehner and the Congress hold the tools that could end, or at least dramatically reduce, the administration's onslaught. Instead, the speaker prefers to bring a whistle to a gunfight."
The courts are impotent to adequately address the problem at hand -- namely Obama's blatant refusal to faithfully execute Rule of Law. Judges cannot enforce any ruling against Obama, and that's if the House approves a suit and then if a judge disregards precedents regarding standing to sue and rules in the House's favor sometime before the end of Obama's term in 2017.
Instead, what the House should do immediately is use the power granted them by the Constitution. McCarthy writes, "It can repeal or amend laws, refuse to fund an executive agency's illegal enforcement action, or impeach executive officials -- from the lowly subordinates who carry out lawless actions up to the president himself. There is no legal impediment stopping Congress from taking these measures; there is a political impediment stopping Boehner."
Perhaps Boehner feels the case for "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" isn't sufficient for impeachment -- particularly with a Democrat-controlled Senate to block the effort. Or perhaps he recalls the fiasco of Bill Clinton's impeachment, in which the Leftmedia circled the wagons and made it about Monica Lewinsky instead of the 11 charges brought against Clinton -- none of which had anything to do with cigars or the meaning of "is." Republicans ended up losing seats that November.
Indeed, there is an almost total lack of public support for impeaching Obama, and it would almost surely be self-defeating. So what to do?
James Madison wrote of checks and balances in Federalist No. 51, "[W]hat is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
Madison expounded on these "auxiliary precautions" in Federalist No. 58, "The House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose, the supplies requisite for the support of government." He continued, "This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure." In other words, rein in the rogue executive branch through the power of the purse.
In short, Boehner has plenty of options better than running to the courts -- if only he had the backbone to take advantage of them.
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What to Do About Teen Unemployment
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Read the rest here.
For more, visit Right Analysis.
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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Cal Thomas: Constitution, Not Illegal Immigration, Is 'Central to Our Way of Life'
- John C. Goodman: How Much Should Your Health Insurer Know About Your Health?
- Arnold Ahlert: Part-Time Nation
- Thomas Sowell: A Primer on Race
- Tony Perkins: For Wheaton, a Supremely Gratifying Decision
OPINION IN BRIEF
Historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859): "Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."Columnist Arnold Ahlert: "Last Thursday, an Obama-centric mainstream media trumpeted the creation of 288,000 jobs and the reduction in the unemployment rate from 6.3 percent to 6.1 percent. ... On the surface, the numbers are impressive. ... Since the BLS uses seasonally-adjusted figures to calculate jobs data, one cannot subtract the total number of part-time jobs from full-time jobs. However, data regarding seasonally-adjusted full-time jobs can be compared on a month-to-month basis and therein lies the true tale of woe. A whopping 523,000 full-time jobs were lost in June. ... So far this year the economy has created 926,000 full-time jobs and 646,000 part-time jobs. Overall, America now has 118 million full-time jobs compared to 28 million part-time jobs, according to the BLS. Thus, 23.7 percent, or nearly one-out-of-every four Americans, is working part-time."
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Columnist Cal Thomas: "At a July 4 White House naturalization ceremony for more than two dozen foreign-born service members, President Obama said welcoming people to America is 'central to our way of life.' No, what is central to our way of life is the Constitution, which protects our freedoms. Historically, we have conditionally granted under the law a safe haven for those 'yearning to breathe free.' There is no constitutional right for anyone to come to America, or become a citizen. ... The one promise President Obama is keeping is to 'fundamentally transform the United States of America.' He is transforming the country by flooding it with illegal immigrants that will result in creation of a new permanent underclass beholden to government and thus the party of government, the Democrats."
Humorist Frank J. Fleming: "You need guns to enforce a gun ban. Makes you think."
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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