THE FOUNDATION
"There is not in the whole science of politics a more solid or a more important maxim than this -- that of all governments, those are the best, which, by the natural effect of their constitutions, are frequently renewed or drawn back to their first principles." --James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
U.S. Boots in the Air Not Enough to Stop ISIL Gains
In September, Obama promised the U.S. military would "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIL. How's that going? Despite a U.S. bombing campaign to assist Kurdish fighters, ISIL has nearly overrun Kobani, a largely Kurdish city on Syria's border with Turkey. The administration's response was essentially, "Yeah, whatever. It's not important." Meanwhile, the U.S. for the first time sent low-flying attack helicopters to attack ISIL targets west of Baghdad over the weekend. That's perhaps not technically "boots on the ground," but it is "boots in the air." It's also significantly more vulnerable than fighter jets already flying bombing sorties -- and all while the U.S. has no Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq. Finally, State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki was asked about ISIL making "gains rather than retreat" in the face of Barack Obama's strategy. She responded, “There have been, certainly, gains made by the Iraqi Security Forces in Iraq. I can go through some of those for you if that would be useful." She then thumbed through her notebook -- and never found any examples. This administration is so grossly incompetent, even Jimmy Carter is still criticizing Obama's Middle East policy as a failure. That's when you know things are bad.Comment | Share
Will the Expert That Knows Ebola Please Stand Up?
The world hasn't seen anything quite like the spread of Ebola for some time. Chances are the Centers for Disease Control and Doctors Without Borders have some informed guesses, but they don't know the outcome of this epidemic. Case in point: Journalists in West Africa don't know the best way to protect themselves from the disease. So many organizations are giving out different pieces of advice that it's hard to know who is most knowledgeable, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. "There is not protocol," said journalist Glenna Gordon, who works in West Africa. "People are grasping for information." Can people living in Ebola-stricken areas just wear rubber boots and not come within six feet of anyone who is clearly infected? Or should they suit up like Doctors Without Borders in what will probably be the scariest costume this Halloween season? So far, the Los Angeles Times reports, the disease can't be transmitted through the air, but with the amount of cases, it could mutate. "I see the reasons to dampen down public fears," Dr. Philip Russell said, who researched Ebola for the U.S. Army. "But scientifically, we're in the middle of the first experiment of multiple, serial passages of Ebola virus in man.... God knows what this virus is going to look like. I don't." More...Comment | Share
In Response to SCOTUS, Cruz Announces a Constitutional Amendment
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) responded to the Supreme Court's move on same-sex marriage by proposing a constitutional amendment explicitly leaving to the states the decision whether to change the definition of marriage. That's what the Tenth Amendment is for, but the way SCOTUS has used the Fourteenth Amendment recently, Cruz proposes taking a pen to the Constitution. "The fact that the Supreme Court Justices, without providing any explanation whatsoever, have permitted lower courts to strike down so many state marriage laws is astonishing," Cruz said in a statement. "This is judicial activism at its worst. The Constitution entrusts state legislatures, elected by the People, to define marriage consistent with the values and mores of their citizens. Unelected judges should not be imposing their policy preferences to subvert the considered judgments of democratically elected legislatures." He's right. More...Comment | Share
Walmart Nixes Insurance for 30,000
Another 30,000 employees are finding out they can't keep their insurance plans, even if they like them. The Associated Press reports, "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to eliminate health insurance coverage for some of its part-time U.S. employees in a move aimed at controlling rising health care costs of the nation's largest private employer." The terminations will be effective Jan. 1 and will affect 30,000 of the company's workforce clocking in less than 30 hours a week. "The announcement follows similar decisions by Target, Home Depot and others to completely eliminate health insurance benefits for part-time employees," the AP adds. Senior vice president of benefits, Sally Welborn, defended the move, saying, "We are trying to balance the needs of (workers) as well as the costs of (workers) as well as the cost to Wal-Mart." In other words, the retail giant is trying to keep its business afloat while also maintaining a profit margin -- a tedious process every business owner faces that's been made all the more difficult because of ObamaCare. Then again, Walmart endorsed ObamaCare, only to turn around and do what leftists really wanted -- put more people on the federal dole. Oh, and they're offering health insurance advice, too.Comment | Share
VA Fires Four Officials Over Scandal
Veterans Affairs is undergoing a bit of a shake-up for the first time since Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned over the wait-time scandal. Four officials are being fired. According to CBS News, "Among those being fired were a top purchasing official at the Veterans Health Administration, directors of VA hospitals in Pittsburgh and Dublin, Georgia, and a regional hospital director in central Alabama, the VA said." Deputy VA Secretary Sloan Gibson promised, "VA will actively and aggressively pursue disciplinary action against those who violate our values. There should be no doubt that when we discover evidence of wrongdoing, we will hold employees accountable." We hope that's true because treating our veterans with the care they need is paramount. But the Georgia director, John Goldman, had already announced his retirement, so this all appears to be bureaucratic business as usual.Comment | Share
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
Broken Budget Process Exacerbates Debt
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| The difference: Sausage is good |
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The budget act was passed to correct holes in the way the budget was created. But after 40 years, the solution doesn't appear to have solved anything.
If Washington doesn't create and stick to a budget, then America's debt hobbles its future. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published a report in August showing the debt spiked under the Obama administration's "recovery." In 2007, the federal debt made up 35% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product. Today, it's 74%.
The CBO warns the debt is a monolithic liability for the nation, as it could "have serious negative consequences, including ... increasing federal spending for interest payments, restraining economic growth in the long term, giving policymakers less flexibility to respond to unexpected challenges, and eventually increasing the risk of a fiscal crisis."
In other words, the results of the septic policies that slowed the recovery for years after the 2008 financial crisis would linger in the American economy for generations if the debt isn't fixed and a budget isn't passed.
But the federal government can't simply fire up a laptop, open an Excel spreadsheet and plot a simple budget. The process to create a federal budget is fraught with politics and human failing.
In the 1970s, Congress set a budget, but the president controlled the purse. With a president like Richard Nixon, the results were predictable. Congress appropriated funds, but Nixon disagreed and impounded the funds. As a result, and as a way to take back the constitutionally enumerated duty to form a budget, Congress passed the Congressional Budget Impoundment Control Act. Among its pages, it established the nonpartisan CBO to combat the president's administrative spin, and set up budget committees in the House and Senate.
And that piece of legislation, with some patches along the way, forms the framework for the system that left us budget-less in recent years.
Congress' failure is the reason why the budget process must be reformed. James Capretta, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, published an essay at National Affairs proposing changes to the way Washington creates its budgets by creating more incentives for lawmakers to actually pass one.
The third rail running through this issue is the government's redistribution of wealth through welfare and entitlements. Politicians can't pare down these expenditures without committing political suicide. But the CBO in August said welfare programs would account for 85% of the federal budget's increase over the next 10 years. For example, for 35 straight months, more than 46 million Americans have received food stamps. Isn't that assistance supposed to be temporary until the economy recovers?
Capretta said those third rails must be touched to avoid a train wreck later on. "The United States is entering a new era of economic and fiscal policy," he wrote. "Rapid demographic changes and rising entitlement costs are creating significant pressures that must be addressed soon to avoid the risk of substantial economic dislocation. Reform is coming for the welfare state, in one form or another."
Furthermore. Congress has little reason to touch entitlement spending currently because, Capretta argues, "If spending rises in the program because of higher enrollment than expected, or higher average benefits than expected per enrollee, nothing in the current budget process can force Congress to enact corrective steps to limit spending."
This is why Capretta suggests two major changes to the budget process. First, he would limit how much can be spent on "mandatory program spending," a.k.a. entitlement spending, forcing legislators to deal with those expenditures. Second, he proposes Washington pass a budget like any other piece of legislation that the president signs and "would have the force of law, and both branches would be bound to it."
Currently, Congress and the president talk past each other over the budget.
"As co-equal branches of government, each has a substantial role over the federal budget, and there is no legal requirement that they ever fully come to an agreement with each other," Capretta writes. "Indeed, with some exceptions, it can be said that the federal government never truly operate within a budget because the legislative and executive branches rarely agree on one."
While it's fraught with political dangers, politicians should take a play from Ronald Reagan. When he wanted to reform Social Security, Reagan made the changes so gradual, they are still being implemented today. No, the budget cannot be fixed in one term, or even two. It will take years of politicians operating with the conviction that America's budget should reflect the healthy budget of an ordinary household -- balanced and implemented.
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FBI Says Mass Shootings Have Increased, but Why?
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As we reported earlier this week, the FBI in response to the Sandy Hook school shooting has released a report on “Active Shooter Incidents” during the years 2000 through 2013. Altogether, these tragic events caused 418 deaths, just under 30 per year. They represent a sign of something desperately wrong with American culture. In 1950, such shootings would never even enter the mind of an American child sitting in a classroom or an adult in a movie theater -- or of even the most hardened criminal. That sort of violence was associated strictly with communist Russia and China.
Mass shootings aren’t solely a feature of modern American history. Others have occurred sporadically in the past, but until fairly recently, they weren’t random as are today’s. The FBI reports these killing sprees have increased on average nearly three times per year during the period 2007-2013 compared to the years 2000-2006. Obviously, a civil society simply can’t survive if these incidents can’t be stopped, though in a free society, people can’t be controlled before they do something either. The Founders’ vision was of a Republic of informed if not educated citizens with a strong moral ethic. The Founders could never conceive of a Columbine or a Sandy Hook. Clearly, we’ve strayed far from their vision.
As always the Left blames firearms as the cause of these horrific incidents. In service to the gun-control agenda, the New York Times’ headline merrily blared, “F.B.I. Confirms a Sharp Rise in Mass Shootings Since 2000.” Those of us familiar with firearms know what demeaning propaganda the Times is selling. A firearm is a tool, like a knife, a pencil, a hammer, a car or an airliner. Tools are created to help humans improve their world, to enjoy life more and to help others. But they can all be used as weapons -- death-dealing instruments -- depending on the hand wielding them.
A few examples will suffice: The National Safety Council estimated that during 2013, 35,000 people died in U.S. car accidents. The National Transportation Safety Board says from 2000-2007, large buses had 1,100 fatalities and 3,500 injuries. On another tack, nearly 4,900 murders were committed between 2000 and 2013 using "personal weapons" such as feet or fists; that averages 800+ per year. Between 2006 and 2011 alone, nearly 11,000 murders were perpetrated with “knives and cutting instruments,” or about 1,800 annually. Finally, between 2006 and 2011, some 580 murders per year were committed using fire. It's worth noting that between 2000 and 2013 the annual murder rate by "active shooters" was just under 30. To selectively choose one stat over the other minimizes those deaths.
A curious aspect to this and other issues of cultural decay is the Left’s apparent blindness to the fact that it is their efforts to change America the Flawed into a socialist utopia that have caused virtually all the greatest problems plaguing us today. They attack guns and ignore the rot and violence in most of our inner cities. More murders were committed in Chicago in 2013 alone (460) than all those by "active shooters" in the 14-year period tracked in the FBI nationwide study. These were largely the result of the gang culture in the Democrats' poverty plantations.
Half of the world suffers gut-wrenching poverty, but “poverty” in America is a business. With the obvious exception of the elderly and infirm, poverty is a choice, and every day more people make it. But it's also a condition foisted upon millions by leftists who know better how to manage our lives than we do. And they have the nerve to call it the "Great Society."
The Left owns education, and while we once had the world’s finest educational system, today we just continue lowering the bar. The College Boards have had to be re-written at least three times so today’s students can score what their parents did on much tougher material.
Entertainment, the Left’s crown jewel, has largely become a toilet. And TV is indeed a vast wasteland. What used to be laughably called “adult material” and not shown until after 10 p.m. can be now seen by 10-year-olds on paid TV while their absentee parents pursue their careers. None of this offends the Left. Why parents are so oblivious befuddles us on the Right.
The Left will use any and all means necessary to deprive us of our rights. Hence, they blame the tool instead of the cultural rot when evil and deranged people do horrible things. Winston Churchill once said, “Never give in -- never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in.” That should do for us who want to preserve our Second Amendment rights amidst an all-out assault by those who hate Liberty.
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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Michelle Malkin: Ebola, Electronic Medical Records and Epic Systems
- Stephen Moore: More Americans Have Left Workforce Than Found Jobs
- Walter E. Williams: Teacher Indoctrination
- Jonah Goldberg: Liberals Storm California's Bedrooms
- Arnold Ahlert: The Disaster of 'Gender Norming' Ground Combat
OPINION IN BRIEF
Virginia delegate Edmund Randolph (1753-1813): "A people who mean to be free must be prepared to meet danger in person, and not rely upon the fallacious protection of armies"Columnist Michelle Malkin: "A Dallas hospital’s bizarre bungle of the first U.S. case of Ebola leaves me wondering: Is someone covering up for a crony billionaire Obama donor and her controversy-plagued, taxpayer-subsidized electronic medical records company? ... Texas Health contracts with Epic Systems for its electronic medical records system -- and the Dallas hospital isn’t the only client that has complained about its costly information-sharing flaws and interoperability failures. Epic was founded by billionaire Judy Faulkner, a top Obama donor whose company is the dominant EMR player in the U.S. health care market. ... The president-elect of the American Medical Association, Dr. Steven Stack, told Modern Healthcare magazine earlier this month that Epic’s software architecture 'often leaves out key information and corrupts data in transit.' Yikes. Imagine if some of that key data had to do with an Ebola carrier’s travel history. Oh, wait."
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Economist Stephen Moore: "[T]he labor force is 7.4 million smaller than it otherwise would have been had people either not stopped looking for work or, particularly with the case of younger Americans, simply failed to start looking for work. In effect, nearly as many Americans have either left the work force -- or never entered -- in this recovery than have found a job. ... Here’s another trouble spot: the jobs that the economy is creating now aren’t the same caliber jobs that were lose during the recession of 2008 and 2009. Workers who got laid off are increasingly having to settle for lower wage jobs in retail, food services, or leisure and hospitality. This may explain why President Obama and his allies on the left are able to point to McDonald’s workers who are the head of a household. If it’s true that mothers and fathers are having to work as burger flippers, that’s not an argument for raising the minimum wage. It’s a sad indictment of this recovery."
Comedian Seth Meyers: "Former CIA Director Leon Panetta said it seems like President Obama has lost his way. Apparently, it’s gotten so bad that this morning Obama was seen asking a White House intruder for directions."
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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