THE FOUNDATION
"The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail." --Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1775TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Watch Obama's Phone for Immigration Move
Barack Obama gave Congress until the end of summer to act on immigration reform. It's now the end of August and he has returned from vacation. The Hill reports the president has one week in Washington before he departs on an overseas trip to Estonia and Wales. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL), who represents Obama's hometown of Chicago, said he is expecting Obama to move soon on immigration. "We have to get prepared as a city and prepare a model for the nation," Gutiérrez said. "Because when five million people are allowed the opportunity to come out from under the shadows and into the light of day and get legalized, it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of capacity of our community." Obama will meet with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus soon, though it might not happen until Congress returns from recess. After all, for a massive move affecting five million people, Obama will need more than his pen. More...Comment | Share
The Government Always Had Lerner's Emails
For weeks, the IRS has been going 'round and 'round with Congress, Judicial Watch and the courts over the missing emails of former-IRS official Lois Lerner. On Friday, a Department of Justice attorney told an attorney for Judicial Watch that the government backs up everything in case something like Y2K rears its ugly head. All the scratched hard drives, affidavits saying the emails were lost forever and the dog and pony show on Capitol Hill was for naught. The government had always had Lerner's emails. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, "This is a jaw-dropping revelation. The Obama administration had been lying to the American people about Lois Lerner's missing emails. There are no 'missing' Lois Lerner emails -- nor missing emails of any of the other top IRS or other government officials whose emails seem to be disappearing at increasingly alarming rate. All the focus on missing hard drives has been a diversion." While Judicial Watch pursues Lerner's emails, it should also request documents relating to the cover-up. More...Comment | Share
What Is a Race Baiter's Idea of Healing?
"We are not the haters, we're the healers," declared the "Reverend" Al Sharpton while eulogizing at Michael Brown's funeral Monday. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the cadre of leftist race baiters constantly preach their own particular brand of hate. Barack Obama is a disciple of hate. The entire Democrat Party is built upon hate -- pitting one constituency against another. Black vs. white. Rich vs. poor. Old vs. young. Division, envy and resentment -- that's the leftist way.Comment | Share
Obama Sends Reps to Brown's Funeral, Not to Others
How important did Barack Obama consider Michael Brown's funeral in Ferguson, Missouri? Fox News reports, "The White House sent three officials to attend Monday's funeral for Michael Brown in St. Louis -- three more than it sent for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's funeral last year." Likewise, just two officials -- Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno -- attended the funeral of Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer killed in combat since Vietnam. No one from the administration attended a memorial service for James Foley, either. Make of it what you will. More...Comment | Share
Dempsey vs. Dempsey
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated Monday that he would oppose U.S. airstrikes against ISIL in Syria, arguing there's no evidence the group is “active[ly] plotting against the homeland.” Dempsey said, “I can tell you with great clarity and certainty that if that threat existed inside Syria that it would certainly be my strong recommendation that we would deal with it.” Well, just last Thursday, Dempsey said ISIL “will eventually have to be defeated,” which will almost certainly entail countering them in Syria as well as Iraq -- “both sides of what is essentially at this point a nonexistent border.” So not only is the general foreign policy of the Obama administration completely incoherent, but Dempsey can't even agree with himself. Perhaps he got a phone call over the weekend from the White House to "correct" his talking points.Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Hooks.
Don't Miss Patriot Humor
Here's yesterday's edition, Pelosi Takes the Ice Bucket Challenge.If you'd like to receive Patriot Humor by email, update your subscription here.
|
RIGHT ANALYSIS
Economic Meltdown Leads to Justice Department's Big Bank Shakedown
|
Last Thursday, Holder's Justice Department will force Bank of America, the second largest bank in the nation, to pay $16.65 billion for damages it supposedly caused, leading to the financial crisis. Holder, who seems to equate justice to the amount of penalty money, boasted that this was “the largest such settlement on record.” Never mind that it has no basis in actual damages, or that no one knows how the penalty was calculated.
Bank of America is only the most recent victim of Holder’s Justice Department -- other banks such as JP Morgan and Citigroup were forced to pay out huge sums of money in previous years. The Justice Department seems determined to punish corporations accused of doing wrong, though, of course, it depends on the definition of "wrong." The alleged crime of Bank of America was that it purchased two failing financial institutions, Countrywide and Merrill Lynch, which had issued bad mortgage securities before the acquisition.
But wait, Bank of America didn’t decide to purchase those financial institutions alone. It was asked by the Federal Reserve and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulsen to do Uncle Sam a favor. And, to borrow a phrase from the "Godfather," it was an offer they couldn't refuse -- Paulson threatened to fire Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis. How can justice be served if Bank of America does what the government asks it to do and then gets punished for it later? It doesn’t seem like much justice is coming from Washington these days. That is unless you believe it's business that perpetrates injustice and inequality.
Clearly, the Obama administration is using the economic meltdown and sluggish recovery caused by his failed socialist economic policies to “shakedown” Bank of America. Perhaps this is an additional version to so-called “economic patriotism” the president spoke of last month while campaigning in Texas. Since the government can’t take enough money from corporations that go overseas to avoid paying taxes, then those companies will just have to pay another way. What better way than to go after the big banks with big money?
The philosophy of Obama and Holder is revealed in their disdain for those in the free market who succeed -- the goal is to break the back of free enterprise. They believe government should reward the lower and middle classes with money taken from those who have too much. Yet in reality, by punishing Bank of America and other big corporations, they hurt the very people they purport to help. After the penalty, there will be less profit remaining to give employees sufficient pay raises or to create new jobs. Government can’t punish corporations without inadvertently punishing the people who work for those corporations. Indeed, the government should seek justice when individuals have made mistakes, but in the case of Bank of America, it is the wage earners, shareholders and investors who will be hit the hardest.
There will be some that gain from this, however -- the states of California, New York, Illinois, Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky, which have received portions of the settlement and coincidentally have Democrat attorneys general. One can only hope that there will be political backlash in the election this fall. If justice is to prevail in America, then those who reap from the injustice coming out of Washington need the boot.
Comment | Share
California's Default Line
|
| The economic earthquake |
California's 2013 tax revenue helped push the state budget into balance for the first time after years of deficits so large they would have crushed many smaller states and foreign countries. Who deserves the thanks? Certainly not former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose foray into politics was backed by little more than his movie star persona. Should it be the current Gov. Jerry Brown, the consummate liberal whose previous term as governor (1975-83) earned him the nickname "Governor Moonbeam"?
Maybe it makes no difference because stories of California's recent rise from its years of economic darkness might be a bit exaggerated.
Sure, tax revenue was higher last year. And the fabled tech giants of Silicon Valley like Facebook and Google have been making big waves gobbling up smaller startups that may make themselves more competitive in the evolving digital sphere. Multibillion-dollar startups and high-price stock purchases have surely driven higher tax revenue for California in recent months. But the state government cannot base its tax strategy, let alone future tax revenue projections, on this recent activity.
“The revenues soon disappear as is happening now," says Rob Arnott, chairman of money management firm Research Affiliates. "When Google went public in 2004, capital-gains revenues jumped 49 percent the next year. Within two years, cap-gains taxes accounted for 11 percent of the California budget. But not long after the Google tax windfall had faded, the state was broke again.”
California cannot count on or predict future tax revenue based on what Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and other entrepreneurs are doing. The state's problems run much deeper.
Any news of a government surplus is outweighed by the large pension liability of $650 billion for retired state workers that assumes a 7.5% return on investment. The real return, based on long-term Treasury bond yields and economist Stephen Moore's assessment, is closer to 3.5%. That means there is a deficit of $26 billion in the state budget, and that doesn't make for a balanced budget.
But California is the most populous state in the Union. Great. However, according to U.S. Census reports, Americans are not moving to California from other states. According to the U.S. Census, the state's growth is attributed largely by people outside the U.S. The latest data we have about emigration is from 2012 -- 100,000 people left the state that year for other states. Funny. That's when California was supposedly just about to hit its stride.
Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Analysis.
|
|
|
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Stephen Moore: What Economic Recovery?
- Ed Feulner: Pulling Back the Curtain on 'Phony Scandals'
- Mona Charen: The Republican Racist Myth
- Michael Barone: A Decent Lawyer Should Tell Liberals They're Fools
- David Limbaugh: Obama's Staggering Blindness to Growing Terror Threat
OPINION IN BRIEF
Judge Florence Ellinwood Allen (1884-1966): "Liberty cannot be caged into a charter or handed on ready-made to the next generation. Each generation must recreate liberty for its own times. Whether or not we establish freedom rests with ourselves."Economist Stephen Moore: "A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that 64% of Americans are 'dissatisfied' with 'the state of the economy' versus only 35% 'satisfied.' And 71% of Americans think the country is 'on the wrong track.' ... Here’s the problem. Nobody believes the statistics out of Washington and often for good reasons. A 2% inflation rate. Ha. Most Americans see the rate of price increases for the things they have to buy ... rising at sometimes two to three times faster than the official CPI. ... For middle class families so far in this recovery, which officially began in June of 2009, real median household income adjusted for inflation has fallen by more than $1,500, according to Census Bureau data. That’s some recovery. We would have just about $2 trillion more GDP according to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress if this economic recovery had been as strong as the Reagan recovery. In other words, if that money were evenly divided to all families, the typically family would have about $25,000 MORE income to spend every year."
Comment | Share
Columnist Ed Feulner: "Earlier this month, 47 of the federal government’s 73 watchdogs filed a formal complaint about the 'serious limitations' the Obama administration places on their ability to uncover waste, fraud and abuse. ... The administration is always quick to dismiss any focus on the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservatives, the Benghazi attack or the Justice Department investigating reporters, as 'phony scandals.' They want us to believe they’re baseless distractions. We’re supposed to take this on faith. Why not provide the information necessary to prove their point? Why not open the files so we can see for ourselves? ... Ironically, the inspectors general wouldn’t even exist if not for a 1978 law that came in the wake of the Watergate scandal -- a law designed to prevent future cover-ups. ... This isn’t a matter of politics. Government secrecy strikes at the very heart of how our system of government is designed. Transparency is essential to a free society."
Comedian Argus Hamilton: "Obama interrupted his vacation [last week] to go on TV to denounce ISIS and order airstrikes. He ripped into the enemy, ordered executive action, then played eighteen holes of golf. Isn't the whole idea of a vacation to get away from your regular everyday routine?"
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment