THE FOUNDATION
"[N]o part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent." --John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Federal Debt Threatens Economy in Long Term
The Obama administration has the economy wrong, according to the Congressional Budget Office report on the outlook of the economy for the next 10 years. Last month, the great cooker of books at the White House said the Gross Domestic Product grew at a 2.6% rate this year. But the CBO downgraded that number to 1.5%. Contrast that to average growth of 4% during Ronald Reagan's recovery. The good news is the deficit is shrinking, and will continue to shrink until Obama slinks from office. But once 2017 rolls around, the federal debt will again rear its head. If it isn't fixed, the debt will hold back the economy, make the federal government less responsive to "unexpected challenges" and risk a fiscal crisis, according to the CBO. And remember: The debt really skyrocketed beginning with Obama's response to the financial crisis, so it's present decrease is hardly remarkable. More...Comment | Share
How Accurate Are the Job Numbers?
The way the government collects unemployment numbers may be flawed in that they show more people employed than actually is the case. According to a study by Princeton University, the accuracy of the numbers has deteriorated ever since the Current Population Survey (CPS) switched from a paper format to computer. If you're unemployed, do you really want to check the box that says you are still out of work and then have the government probe even more into your idleness or inability to find a job? But the U.S. jobs report still uses this data and then fiscal policy is plotted off the numbers. Before you know it, Barack Obama steps up to a lectern somewhere and announces everything is awesome. CBS News reports there may be a better way to obtain jobs data: Monitor Twitter to see what people are saying about their jobs. Oh great. Big Brother really is watching you. More...Comment | Share
District of Columbia Fights Against Freedom to Carry
The lawyers for the District of Columbia want the handgun ban back. After Judge Frederick Scullin Jr. ruled that DC's ban on carrying handguns in the nation's capitol is unconstitutional, lawyers filed a request in federal court asking for a reconsideration of the ruling. According to the lawyers, the judge who let the freedom of the Second Amendment dawn over the Potomac Swamp erred because he "failed to conduct the analysis required by controlling law, and relied on flawed, non-controlling decisions from other jurisdictions." Shame on him for not knowing that there are politicians and foreign dignitaries that walk those streets -- not to mention lawyers -- who aren't comfortable with boom-sticks. It's the city's first move in challenging the ruling. Hopefully, the city whose license plates bear the phrase "taxation without representation" will realize freedom entails unalienable rights. More...Comment | Share
Obama Turns Focus to Transgenders in the Military
Despite escalating hostility in the Middle East, Ukraine and other areas around the world, Barack Obama has steadily weakened America's military prowess by reducing the number of troops and cutting funding to various areas of defense. Repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was apparently a far more important priority than, say, protecting the United States from foreign enemies. Now the administration is turning its focus to another area of leftist concern: transgenders. The Washington Examiner reports, "[T]he Pentagon 'likely will' allow transgendered Americans to serve openly in the military where 15,500 now secretly serve, according to a new report issued by top former generals. Three of the top brass, endorsing the deployment of transgendered troops, also said their effort has the support of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and President Obama." While the world burns, the president is pushing ahead with dangerous social engineering. This may not mean much to the golfer in chief, but to say this decision is a bogey is a gross understatement -- and ultimately, it's America that will suffer for it. More...Comment | Share
Bobby Jindal Sues Dept. of Education Over Common Core
Once welcoming Common Core educational standards to the state of Louisiana, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal filed a suit against the Department of Education Aug. 27 alleging the implementation of the program violates the rights of states under the Tenth Amendment. "This case involves an attempt by the executive branch to implement national education reform far beyond the intentions of Congress," the suit read. In fact, it's "in contradiction to 50 years of Congressional policy forbidding federal direction or control of curriculum, the cornerstone of education policy." Beltway pundits argue Jindal's move is a stunt to boost his potential 2016 presidential run, but for the teachers and students in the suburbs and towns of America, Common Core is a Washington intrusion into everyday life that must be challenged. More...Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Hooks.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
Global Climate Disruption of the Constitution
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| Obama's hot weather fun |
After all, to quote John Kerry, global warming is perhaps "the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction."
Obama's latest gambit is to sidestep Congress once again with something his administration calls "politically binding" instead of legally binding. According to The New York Times, "In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate."
The White House knows such a treaty has no shot in the Senate, even though the chamber is controlled by Democrats -- control that could be lost in November. As The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto writes, "Senate ratification is no more in the cards now than it was in 1997, when the world's greatest deliberative body voted 95-0 in favor of a nonbinding resolution 'expressing the sense of the Senate' that the now-expired Kyoto Protocol was unacceptable."
So Obama plans to simply "update" the legally binding provisions of a 1992 treaty known as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Control and mix them with political arm-twisting to avoid the need for a new vote of ratification.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained, "We would not want to enter a situation where we did try to broker an agreement that did require some sort of Senate ratification and then have that fall victim once again, as so many other priorities have, to dysfunction in Congress."
Translation: If Obama can't get Congress to acquiesce to his demands he will just bypass Congress. And the administration has no problem letting everyone know they consider the Constitution an obstruction to be avoided.
Obama is basing his unlawful actions on this assertion when unveiling his "climate action plan" last summer: "[W]e know that the 12 warmest years in recorded history have all come in the last 15, and that last year was the warmest in American history. ... [I]n a world that’s getting warmer than it used to be, all weather events are affected by it -- more extreme droughts, floods, wildfires and hurricanes."
In reality, global warming is largely a phantom menace. Which is why the Left now religiously calls it climate change, or, a new favorite, "global climate disruption."
As far as other nations are concerned, the administration also knows the world's largest emitters, like China and India, are not going to be easily persuaded to handcuff their economies to fight global warming. So The New York Times says the deal "would 'name and shame' countries into cutting their emissions," thus supposedly enforcing political accountability.
But political analyst Charles Krauthammer called that "the dumbest idea since the Russian reset." He said that's because it's "based on the same assumptions that the Russians and the Chinese and others act the way Obama does -- with adolescent idealism when it comes to foreign policy."
Domestically, the administration is already working to enact its agenda on global warming. In June, the EPA announced new rules targeting energy producers who aren't favored politically. Obama and his minions always explain their efforts as coming from a "moral obligation" as a way to undercut any opposition as greedy, ignorant or evil. But by his own admission, his energy rules mean "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." Check your latest bill and thank the president.
The real climate change agenda is a political strategy to subjugate free enterprise under statist regulation -- de facto socialism under the aegis of “saving us from ourselves.” Obama will pursue it using whatever means he deems necessary. As for naming and shaming, well, this administration is most worthy of it.
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Have It Your Way -- Pay Less Taxes
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It's the latest in a string of "inversions," in which U.S. companies merge with foreign companies and then re-incorporate overseas (or, in this case, to Canada) to take advantage of lower tax rates. Burger King Executive Chairman Alex Behring insisted the move "is not a tax-driven deal" but instead "is fundamentally about growth and creating value through accelerated expansion."
Of course, growth and accelerated expansion happen best when you're not forced to send 35% of earnings to the federal government. (Even if the actual burden is less than 35%, reducing that burden is also expensive.) While the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the world, the total business tax cost in Canada is a whopping 46% lower than the U.S., according to a study by KPMG, an audit, tax and advisory services firm. In fact, Canada is one of the most business-friendly nations on the planet. That value combo must sound mighty yummy to the whopper king.
Burger King insists it will still pay taxes in the U.S. on all U.S. earnings, but, with the move and the new Canadian address, profits earned worldwide through any global expansions will generally not be subject to the astronomical U.S. tax rate.
Naturally, those who believe that business earnings are, by default, the government's ("you didn't build that," after all) and that Washington only deigns to let companies actually keep some of what they earn are crying foul. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) wasted no time calling for a boycott of Burger King, accusing the company of "abandon[ing] the United States." This goes hand in glove with the Obama administration's accusation that companies pursuing inversions lack "economic patriotism."
Amusingly, while the president is suddenly interested in patriotism, the man who is effectively financing Burger King's move is none other than Obama's "we need to raise taxes on the rich" pal Warren Buffett. The billionaire financier's Berkshire Hathaway is giving $3 billion towards the $11.4 billion dollar deal and will earn 9% interest annually. It's truly astonishing how quickly Buffett managed to go from Obama tax-hike poster boy to downright "unpatriotically" helping Burger King avoid taxes. But that's leftist hypocrisy for you.
It could be that for all his rhetoric (or, rather, despite it), Buffett recognizes a good deal when he sees one. And sadly, that good deal does not involve staying stateside when Washington pillages profits in the name of economic justice. Instead of targeting companies that create jobs and drive economic growth, the government should be incentivizing them to keep their U.S. addresses by lowering tax and regulatory burdens. That would be a deal that's truly sweet.
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For more, visit Right Analysis.
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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Ann Coulter: Would It Kill You to Hire More Black Cops?
- Michael Reagan: Rev. Al Gets It Right
- Victor Davis Hanson: Obama Fails History 101
- George Will: Navy With a Mission in Mind
- Arnold Ahlert: A President's Global Warming Treaty Tyranny
OPINION IN BRIEF
President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919): "No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency."Columnist Ann Coulter: "[T]he 'voices of oppression' on MSNBC now say the real issue [that led to Michael Brown's death in Ferguson] is that there aren't enough blacks on the Ferguson police force. ... In a massive, detailed 2000 study of the effect of court-ordered affirmative action plans on police departments, economist John Lott found that the more minorities on a police force, the higher the rates of murder, manslaughter, violent crime, robbery and aggravated assault will be. ... The problem was not with black cops, Lott's study showed, but rather with the lowering of standards across the board, resulting in less-qualified officers of every race. ... As Lott's study showed, once standards are lowered to ensure 'diversity,' standards are lowered for all recruits, resulting in a rainbow coalition of incompetence. This is exactly how Democrats wrecked the economy with the subprime mortgage crisis. ... [O]nce traditional measures of credit-worthiness were jettisoned, they were jettisoned for everyone. You will notice that the housing market crash was concentrated not in black neighborhoods, but in house-flipping hot spots."
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Historian Victor Davis Hanson: "If Obama believes that evil should be absent in the 21st century, or that the arc of the moral universe must always bend toward justice, or that being on the wrong side of history has consequences, then he may think inanimate forces can take care of things as we need merely watch. In truth, history is messier. Unfortunately, only force will stop seventh-century monsters like ISIS from killing thousands more innocents. Obama may think that reminding Putin that he is now in the 21st century will so embarrass the dictator that he will back off from Ukraine. But the brutish Putin may think that not being labeled a 21st-century civilized sophisticate is a compliment. ... Obama's naive belief in predetermined history -- especially when his facts are often wrong -- is a poor substitute for concrete moral action."
Humorist Frank J. Fleming: "There's little more American than doing all you can to avoid paying taxes. ... If were losing businesses to Canada over taxes, then the problem is with us and not the businesses. The country that remained loyal to our British oppressors somehow has better taxes. That's not right."
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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