THE FOUNDATION
"[W]e still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute." --Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Let the Bombing in Syria Commence
The U.S. began bombing ISIL targets in Syria yesterday. The New York Times reports, "The latest campaign opened with multiple strikes before dawn that focused on the Islamic State’s de facto capital, the city of Raqqa, and on its bases in the surrounding countryside. Other strikes hit in the provinces of Deir al-Zour and Hasaka, whose oil wells [ISIL has] exploited to finance its operations." And ABC News notes, "American airstrikes in Syria have taken out members of a shadowy al Qaeda unit known as the Khorasan Group who were planning 'imminent' attacks against targets including the U.S." After bombing a seventh Islamic nation (mostly without congressional approval), our Nobel Peace Prize-winning commander in chief will address the nation today, and he'll take his case to the UN later this week. Joe Biden warned us if we voted for Mitt Romney, we'd end up at war in Syria. He was right.Comment | Share
Iraq Military Routed for Second Time by ISIL
The latest victory by ISIL in Iraq shows just how systemic the problems are in the Iraqi army. ISIL surrounded the army base in the western part of Iraq, near Fallujah, and cut off food, water and ammunition. On Sept. 21, the defenders heard a convoy with supplies had broken through. But it was ISIL, which opened its attack by detonating three Humvees converted to suicide bombs. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers are missing. In the battle of Mosul, 30,000 Iraqi soldiers routed at the advance of 800 ISIL fighters because the army is fractured along sectarian lines. ISIL defeated the Iraqi army because the latter's military leadership ignored soldiers' reports. Yet Obama's cabinet places so much trust in that army to defeat ISIL. More...Comment | Share
And Just Like That, There Are Rules Against Tax Inversions
The Treasury passed rules Monday to discourage U.S. companies from moving overseas in an attempt to escape the nation's ravenous tax laws. They are effective immediately. There was no public comment period, no debate in Congress. One day, Barack Obama was complaining, Warren Buffett was investing in Burger King's inversion and we were making jokes about donut burgers. The Treasury ignored the true problem of America's failed tax laws, refusing to create a climate that would encourage businesses to return to this country, and instead made polices that would eat into the profits on inverting companies. One swoop, one day and there are more shackles on America's economy. The Leviathan hath moved. More...Comment | Share
Kerry Again Says Climate Is Our Biggest Long-Term Threat
Secretary of State John Kerry doubled down again on his stance that climate change is one the biggest -- if not the biggest -- national security threat facing the U.S. "We see people fighting over water in some places," Kerry said. "There are huge challenges to food security and challenges to the ecosystem, our fisheries and ... the acidification of the ocean is a challenge for all of us. And when you accrue all of this, while we are confronting ISIL and we are confronting terrorism and we are confronting Ebola and other things, those are immediate. [Climate change] also has an immediacy that people need to come to understand, but it has even greater longer-term consequences that can cost hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars, lives, and the security of the world." Two observations: The Left talks about fighting climate (or poverty, or inequality, or whatever other social issue du jour) with greater urgency than any real national security issue. Second, climate change is guaranteed to cost trillions of dollars worldwide if we follow the Left's prescription of government controls.Comment | Share
ObamaCare Lawsuit Thrown Out
In what could be a bad omen for House Republicans' effort to sue the president over ObamaCare's employer mandate, the Seventh Circuit Court of appeals rejected a similar suit. According to The Hill, the Court "said the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue, and only parties 'seeking to advance the interests' of the mandate could mount a 'plausible' case against its delay. The case was filed by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which argued the administration did not have the authority to defer the requirement that most employers offer health insurance. This is the same point House Republicans are vowing to make with their legal challenge. The GOP conference has not yet filed its suit -- it recently switched legal teams -- but they voted to authorize the action in July." The three Seventh Circuit judges were all Republican appointees. If the GOP lawsuit is thrown out as well, it's going to be a field day for Democrats who've accused Republicans of wasting time and taxpayer money. More...Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Hooks.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
ObamaCare Devalues Life
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According to Emanuel, however, “living too long is also a loss.” In his writing he opines that once a person reaches a point in life where he or she can’t contribute to society any more, it's time for them to consider making choices that will allow them to leave the world sooner rather than later. He argues that since many elderly often become mentally incapacitated and the chances of having a stroke, heart attack and cancer increase, they and those around them would be better off if their life was not prolonged. After all, who wants to be left with taking care of someone who can’t take care of themselves, and who wants to pay for all those medical bills?
"By the time I reach 75," Emanuel writes, "I will have lived a complete life. I will have loved and been loved. My children will be grown and in the midst of their own rich lives. I will have seen my grandchildren born and beginning their lives. I will have pursued my life’s projects and made whatever contributions, important or not, I am going to make." Why should someone who has lived a long, full life need to live any longer?
Because life is precious. Life is valuable. For numerous reasons, humans generally desire to live as long as possible. If we as human beings didn't place such a high value on life, then why would so many people seek to improve their health, visit the doctor to receive treatment for illnesses, take vitamins and do as much as possible to keep those around us alive for as long as we can?
To be clear, Emanuel does not advocate (at least in the article) for euthanasia, or for physician assisted suicide. But he suggests the burden of an elderly person’s life is not worth the cost to have them kept alive for their last remaining years.
That may be a legitimate question for us to consider individually and with our families as we age, but Emanuel's thoughts are particularly influential. He is director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and he heads the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. But more than that, he was a chief architect of ObamaCare.
His devaluation of old age is a huge warning sign pointing to public policies featuring the notion that elderly people don’t need to live past a certain point. If likeminded people get their way, writes National Review's Wesley J. Smith, then “it won’t be so much about choosing not to receive expensive care after 75, but being unable to get it even if that’s what you want.”
Surely this can’t happen, not in America. Not after being told that more Americans have access to better health insurance than ever before. Not after being told that premiums for average households would go down. And certainly not after Barack Obama himself declared that if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. But what if we're told when we can see our doctor? If the recent findings of the Veterans Administration in Phoenix are any indication as to what the waiting list might look like for our entire nation under government run health care -- and we think they absolutely are -- then we're in serious trouble.
Regarding the deaths of up to 40 veterans, Inspector General Robert Griffin stated in a recent report, “I think that in our report a careful reading shows they might have lived longer or had a better quality of life” if there had not been delays in care. If veterans have to wait for care and treatment, then what will the wait for tens of millions of people look like under ObamaCare? Will those who have "lived long enough" be moved down the list to make room for younger people?
Bureaucrats can't make the best choices for you and your family. Individuals should have the freedom to choose which doctor they see and what (if any) treatment to receive (and when to receive it) based on advice from their doctor and family members. Public policies that deny this choice not only devalue life, but deny it. Denying life is one of most egregious crimes against society that a government can commit, and we the people cannot tolerate it.
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Hillary Clinton's Letters to Saul Alinsky Prove Her Radicalism
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| Unrepentant radicals |
Clinton wrote the letters in 1971 while she was living in Berkeley, California, interning at Trehauft, Walker and Bernstein, a leftist law firm that counted the Black Panthers among its clients. In the exchanges, Clinton inquired about the expected publication of Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," his work on organizing for socialist change that has since become the bible for leftist activism. "I have just had my one-thousandth conversation about Reveille [for Radicals] and need some new material to throw at people," she wrote.
Of his "Rules for Radicals" (which by the way was dedicated to Lucifer), Alinsky wrote, "The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-nots on how to take it away." Note: If you're in a middle-class family struggling to make ends meet, Alinsky would have considered you a Have, not a Have-Not.
Clinton corresponded with Alinsky between 1968, when she was a Wellesley student writing a thesis about him, and his death in 1972. Some of their exchanges detailed not only her adoration for his ideology and political strategy, but her thought process on going to law school to work to achieve change from the inside. Alinsky's view of achieving radical social change was to work incrementally both within institutions and outside them. He recognized, particularly through viewing the failures of the New Left during the late 1960s, that America was not ready for socialism. His methods called for ideological stealth and gradualism under the cover of pragmatism.
While Clinton turned down an invitation to work for Alinsky, she never forgot his guiding principles. She offered only a paragraph about him in her book "Living History," deliberately playing down the man who obviously figured prominently in her political education. Another fine example of pragmatic cover a la Alinsky was that her Wellesley thesis was sealed from public view until 2001 at the request of the Clinton White House. Alinsky's disciples go to great lengths to cover their tracks.
Hillary was a principal force in the White House that pulled Bill to the left during his presidency. In fact, it was many of her actions during the early years of the co-presidency that caused Democrats to lose Congress in 1994 and almost cost Clinton re-election. Is there any reason to believe that Hillary has mellowed in recent years? None at all.
A Hillary Clinton presidency would be an opportunity for her and her leftist friends to push their agenda even further than they did under Obama. This country may not survive two Chicago activists in a row. It will be hard enough to undo the damage Obama has done. If Clinton follows him into the White House, it will be like a third Obama term that will embed ObamaCare into our society forever, send the investment class permanently overseas, and leave the economic scraps for her fellow domestic Alinsky disciples.
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For more, visit Right Analysis.
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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Cal Thomas: What Jack Ma Can Re-Teach America
- David Limbaugh: Student Bullies Trump 1st Amendment
- Thomas Sowell: Who Wants War?
- Dennis Prager: 'Not Islamic'?
- Jeff Jacoby: Why Beheading?
OPINION IN BRIEF
Economist and social philosopher Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973): "[I]n a system where there is no market, where the government directs everything, all those other freedoms are illusory, even if they are made into laws and written up in constitutions."Columnist Cal Thomas: "Jack Ma is the founder of the Chinese Internet retailer Alibaba. According to The New York Times, Alibaba is 'the world’s largest Internet commerce company, with 231 million active buyers using its site, 11.3 billion annual orders and $296 billion in annual merchandise sales.' Its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange established its value at $168 billion, 2-½ times the size of eBay. ... Incredibly, he has become a success in communist China, an unlikely place to find such principles practiced. ... To those who waste energy complaining, Jack Ma offers this advice: 'If you complain or whine once in a while, it is not a big deal. However, if it becomes habitual, it will be similar to drinking: the more you drink, the stronger the thirst. On the path to success, you will notice that the successful ones are not whiners, nor do they complain often.' ... He says you can’t unify everyone’s thoughts, but you can unify everyone through a common goal. While his message applies to anyone, anemic Republicans could use it most. They should stop whining about President Obama and start focusing on principles with a track record of success."
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Columnist Thomas Sowell: "In all my 84 years, I cannot recall a time when most Americans wanted war. That is something we should be proud of. But wars are not always optional. ... No one has promoted the dangerous notion that war is optional more than Barack Obama. He declared peace in Iraq when he pulled American troops out, and he declared victory over Al Qaeda because his administration had killed bin Laden (with an assist from the Navy SEALS). But all this make-believe has come back to haunt him, as make-believe often does. Make no mistake about it, make-believe wins elections -- and winning elections is Obama’s thing. The big problem is that the things that win elections are not the things that win wars. ... Retired Marine Corps General James Mattis said: 'No war is over until the enemy says it’s over. We may think it’s over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.'"
Twitter satirist @hale_razor: "I refuse to be lectured about science by folks who think a person with XY chromosomes is a woman just because he says he feels like one. ... I'll believe climate change is our greatest global threat after it beheads someone."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
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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