THE FOUNDATION
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positives forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28, 1787TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Obama Admits He Changed Immigration Law
Barack Obama boasted in a speech Nov. 25 that he not only acted alone on immigration, he single-handedly changed the laws. When hecklers interrupted the president's speech demanding the stop of all deportations (because a hit man for a drug cartel deserves to stay in this country too), Obama replied, "There have been significant numbers of deportations. That's true. But what you're not paying attention to is the fact that I just took action to change the law." This is a 180-degree shift from when Obama insisted he's "not an emperor" and merely took action within the law. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin writes, "Obama is ruining support for immigration reform." Already, public opinion is against his immigration action. Now that Obama has admitted the governmental branch enforcing the law has created the law, a case for stopping the president's overreach can only gain momentum. More...Comment | Share
Of Course Opposition to Obama's Immigration Action Is Racist
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) explained that all opposition to Barack Obama's kingly executive order on immigration is because he's black. "[E]verybody agrees -- who has a real brain -- that presidents since George Washington have had executive authority privilege to do certain things. [Obama's] not doing anything that the Bushes, the Reagans, the Clintons, and other presidents all the way back to Eisenhower [haven't done], as it addressed immigration." Referring to himself in third person, he concluded, "So, but again, this is just a reaction in Bennie Thompson's words to a person of color being in the White House." And this is where it gets weird. Thompson made his original comments on a New Nation of Islam radio program. This organization may be labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (which, admittedly, exists solely to throw that label around). But if any Republican legislator gave an interview to any other hate group, it would be a major scandal. More...Comment | Share
Wilson Resigns in Ferguson, Still Not Enough for Race Baiters
Darren Wilson is no longer a police officer. Wilson, who shot Michael Brown in August, resigned from the Ferguson, Missouri, police force Nov. 29. He was not asked to leave, but Ferguson Police have made changes in response to the unrest in the town, such as creating a citizen review board, encouraging officers to live in the town, and creating a scholarship for aspiring officers interested in working in Ferguson. But according to the race-baiting Rev. Al Sharpton, it's not enough. "We were not after Wilson's job. We were after Michael Brown's justice," he declared. Brown's family, meanwhile, will "look at every legal avenue" to keep the fires burning, according to the family's lawyer, Benjamin Crump. Already, the family took its complaints to the UN. And Crump said the family wants to reform the grand jury process, make a law requiring all police officers to wear body cameras, and bring a wrongful-death civil suit against Wilson. While the legal process has been played out, the version of justice that Brown's family follows has not been satisfied.Comment | Share
Schumer Says Middle Class Needs Big Government
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reflected on Democrats' big losses in the midterm elections. In part, he correctly diagnosed the problem, but then he doubled down on his own ideological suppositions: "[W]hen government failed to deliver on a string of non-economic issues -- the rollout of the ObamaCare exchanges and the mishandling of the surge in border crossers, the ineptitude of the VA, the initial handling of the Ebola threat -- people lost faith in government's ability to work, and then blamed the incumbent governing party, the Democrats, creating a Republican wave. Ultimately, the public knows in its gut that a strong and active government is the only way to reverse the middle class decline and help revive the American Dream. Democrats lost in 2014 because the government made mistakes that eroded the electorate's confidence in its ability to improve the lives of the middle class." He continued, "[I]n order to win in 2016, Democrats must embrace government, not run away from it." He's right that government failure led to Republican wins, but the government is not the "only way" the middle class can advance -- Liberty is.Comment | Share
About That '97% Consensus'...
In August, we explained why the "97% consensus" of scientists that alarmists claim accept the notion of man-made global warming is a faux statistic used by the Left to conjure up an overwhelming majority that simply doesn't exist. A new study from Purdue University came to the same conclusion. Newsbusters' Sean Long elaborates: "Linda Prokopy, a Professor of Natural Resource Social Science at Purdue University, surveyed more than six thousand farmers and scientists and found widespread disagreement on human contributions to climate change. While 90 percent of scientists and climatologists surveyed thought the climate was changing, only about 50.4 percent contended that humans were the primary cause of these changes [emphasis added]. More shocking was that just 53 percent of climatologists surveyed thought 'Climate change is occurring, and it is caused mostly by human activities.' While that number of climatologists was small, the result is still significant." But just remember -- the science is "settled." More...Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Hooks.
|
RIGHT ANALYSIS
The Power of the Purse
|
Obama's legacy of lawlessness continues with his unconstitutional edict for up to five million illegal immigrants. And Senate Democrats undermine separation of powers throughout the president's entire tenure through its veto-without-a-presidential-
The Democrat-controlled Senate passed a full budget in April 2009 and not again until December 2013. In the interim, a patchwork series of Continuing Resolutions (CRs) passed at the last minute under threat of government shutdown has funded the morbidly obese federal government.
And here we go again.
A CR was signed into law in September to keep the government operational through Dec. 11. If another continuing resolution is not passed, a government shutdown will ensue.
All appropriations bills -- the CR being one of three types -- must originate in the House. That little detail becomes critically important now that the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has issued a ruling at the written request of House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY).
Rogers submitted a letter to the CRS, a non-partisan organization that provides analysis, review and assistance in developing legislation, in an attempt to document his claims that a continuing resolution could not refuse budgetary funding to agencies or departments that generated incoming monies from the collection of fees, such as the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office. In other words, Rogers wants to fund Obama's amnesty.
However, the CRS refuted the Appropriations chairman's beliefs and claims: "In light of Congress's constitutional power over the purse, the Supreme Court has recognized that 'Congress may always circumscribe agency discretion to allocate resources by putting restrictions in the operative statutes.' Where Congress has done so, 'an agency is not free simply to disregard statutory responsibilities.' Therefore, if a statute were enacted which prohibited appropriated funds from being used for some specified purposes, then the relevant funds would be unavailable to be obligated or expended for those purposes."
You know where this is going.
The House is absolutely within its constitutionally enumerated powers and is supported by the Supreme Court in its jurisdictional role to exercise all authority over appropriations, whether to proactively fund or to restrict funding in "operative statutes."
Translation: The key agency involved in many of the activities to implement Obama's amnesty imperial edict, the USCIS, can be excluded from an omnibus, long-term appropriations bill that would fund the government through September 2015. And a short-term continuing resolution may be issued with restrictions and an expiration date falling after the beginning of the 114th Congress, Jan. 3, 2015.
Can you hear that? It's the sound of the gnashing of teeth at the White House. Obama lawlessly proclaimed amnesty while declaring he hadn't actually changed any laws. At least that was before he boasted just before Thanksgiving he "just took an action to change the law."
Republican House leadership has only one thing to do: Operate within constitutional powers. If the House passes an omnibus bill fully funding the government and, simultaneously, passes a CR with restrictions and a shorter shelf-life for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office, it will result in one of three outcomes:
- The U.S. Senate rejects the legislation, resulting in a government shutdown at the hands of Democrats.
- The U.S. Senate passes the legislation and Barack Obama vetoes the bill, resulting in a government shutdown at the hands of the president.
- The U.S. Senate passes the legislation, the bill is signed into law by Obama and the government is funded with no shutdown.
Second, with the Left's weakness clearly visible, the GOP must tell the American public they've been heard loud and clear. Voters spoke on Nov. 4 at the ballot box, rejecting the incompetence and failed policies of the Obamacrats, whether on unconstitutional amnesty, taxes, the Keystone pipeline or foreign policy.
Republicans should couch every action in those terms. Rather than a political tit for tat with volleys, accusations and political snark that always results in over-promising and under-delivering, elected Republicans must strategically plan, implement and deliver.
America wants adult leadership that governs with integrity and Rule of Law. Republicans can do it while speaking directly to the American people and restraining the toddler in the White House.
Comment | Share
Mayhem's Clueless Enablers
|
"I Was Mugged and I Understand Why" graced the Nov. 18 issue of university newspaper The Hoya, revisiting Friedfeld's and his housemate's experience with a gunpoint mugging the week before. During the incident, Friedfeld was "forced to the floor," patted down and relieved of his phone.
One would think such an experience would engender a string of emotions including fear, relief and ultimately anger at the thought of being completely vulnerable to thuggery -- or far worse. In Friedfeld's case, one would be completely wrong. Asked by a reporter if he was surprised he was mugged in Georgetown, perhaps the toniest neighborhood in Washington, DC, he was adamant. "Not at all," Friedfeld replied. "It was so clear to me that we live in the most privileged neighborhood within a city that has historically been, and continues to be, harshly unequal. While we aren't often confronted by this stark reality west of Rock Creek Park, the economic inequality is very real."
Friedfeld goes on to cite the statistics he firmly believes were the impetus behind his takedown, noting that Washington is ranked as one of the "most unequal" cities in the nation, where the wealthiest 5% earn approximately 54 times what the poorest 20% do. Yet in Friedfeld's addled mind, impetus quickly becomes justification:
"What has been most startling to me, even more so than the incident itself, have been the reactions I've gotten. I kept hearing 'thugs,' 'criminals' and 'bad people.' While I understand why one might jump to that conclusion, I don't think this is fair.Friedfeld's own universe is light years removed from common sense. Without any way of knowing, he embraces the "root cause" argument first entertained in the 1960s. It is the one where well-meaning but equally addled people were far more concerned with what drove criminals to perpetrate crimes than the victims who endured them. He simply assumes his two assailants have no support system similar to his own, be it "parents who willingly sat down with me and helped me work through (my struggles in school)," or "countless people who I can turn to for solid advice."
"Not once did I consider our attackers to be 'bad people.' I trust that they weren't trying to hurt me. In fact, if they knew me, I bet they'd think I was okay. They wanted my stuff, not me. While I don't know what exactly they needed the money for, I do know that I've never once had to think about going out on a Saturday night to mug people. I had never before seen a gun, let alone known where to get one. The fact that these two kids, who appeared younger than I, have even had to entertain these questions suggests their universes are light years away from mine."
Those assumptions lead directly to guilt. "Who am I to stand from my perch of privilege, surrounded by million-dollar homes and paying for a $60,000 education, to condemn these young men as ‘thugs?'" Friedfeld explains. "It's precisely this kind of ‘otherization' that fuels the problem."
Young Oliver remains willfully oblivious to the reality that he and his housemate were the ones being "otherized" by a couple of young punks looking for a couple of easy marks. Furthermore, he has no idea how lucky he is. While he points to statistics regarding inequality, he fails to note that, according to 2012 FBI data, Washington, DC, had the eighth highest murder rate among cities with a population of 500,000 or more, and that rate increased sharply from 2013 to 2014. Moreover, it is virtually certain that some of those victims were every bit as "okay" as Friedfeld.
He briefly acknowledges reality after speaking with a DC cop who came from "difficult circumstances, and yet had made the decision not to get involved in crime." But he quickly dismisses that officer as an anomaly, insisting that the decision to steal is tied directly to one's economic circumstances -- as opposed to the moral choices Friedfeld reserves solely for the victims. "As young people, we need to devote real energy to solving what are collective challenges," he concludes. "Until we do so, we should get comfortable with sporadic muggings and break-ins. I can hardly blame them. The cards are all in our hands, and we're not playing them."
Last week, the entire nation was forced to "get comfortable" with a plethora of violence in Ferguson, Missouri, courtesy of people more than willing to "otherize" vast swaths of that city and its residents. Those rioters, looters and building-burners were driven by an equally contemptible sense of "morality" arising from an equally specious narrative, one that engendered "justified mayhem" as the price to be extracted for the failure to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the "murder" of "gentle giant" Michael Brown.
It was a price seemingly accepted by Democrat Gov. Jay Nixon, who refused to deploy the National Guard prior to, or during, the initial outbreak of violence, allowing rioters a free hand in the destruction of scores of businesses -- the majority of which were minority-owned. It was a move Republican Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder attributed to pressure from the Obama administration, who "leaned on" Nixon to "keep them out." Kinder insisted, "I cannot imagine any other reason why the governor who mobilized the National Guard would not have them in there to stop this before it started."
The mindset epitomized by Friedfeld's column might be a good place to look for that reason. It is a mindset that purports itself as enlightened, even as it reeks with the kind of bigotry that maintains certain segments of society cannot possibly be held to the same standards of civilization as everyone else. And not because of their failings, but ours.
Oliver Friedfeld may be willing to take one for the societal team, but one suspects most Americans would pass on the opportunity to trod this particular "path to enlightenment" -- or the morgue. As for the violence in Ferguson, we have witnessed scores of young black Americans assuming all the characteristics of a wannabe lynch mob, continuing with the passing out of posters reading "Wanted for Racist Murder" following Wilson's resignation from the force. If there is a greater historical irony than that, one is hard-pressed to imagine what it is.
Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Analysis.
|
|
|
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Larry Kudlow: Lower Oil Prices Are a Free-Market Victory
- George Will: A Case for Self-Restraint
- Star Parker: Conservative Reforms to Prevent Future Fergusons
- Jeff Jacoby: As Two-Parent Families Decline, Income Inequality Grows
- Burt Prelutsky: Liberals Are All Scaredy Cats
OPINION IN BRIEF
The Gipper: "We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world."Economist Larry Kudlow: "Seldom has so much good news been portrayed so negatively. Oil prices continue to fall in the U.S. and around the world, but nearly everyone in the media is grumpy about it. ... Lower oil prices are unambiguously positive. ... The American energy revolution, combined with the market forces of supply and demand, is delivering something on the order of a $125 billion tax cut. Not only have wholesale oil prices dropped from about $100 a barrel to $66, but gasoline prices have fallen from near $4 a gallon to $2.78 at the week’s close. That’s a tax cut. With no big-government spending hikes. ... Year-on-year economic growth is still only 2.4 percent. It ought to be running 4 to 5 percent. And 200,000 new jobs a month ought to be twice that rate. For this we need more pro-growth economic policies from the new Republican Congress, especially lower corporate tax burdens and regulatory rollbacks. But the entrepreneurial, free-market energy revolution has given us a big step in the right direction. Can we please be optimistic about it?"
Comment | Share
Columnist George Will: "There have been 1,950 senators since the Constitution was ratified, and none has done as much damage to the institution's deliberative capacity as Harry Reid has done as majority leader. He has broken its rules in order to rewrite its rules, and has bent its procedures, all in the service of presidential preferences. He and his caucus exemplify how progressives, confident that they know history's proper destination, are too results-oriented to be interested in institutional conservation. America's two vainest presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Obama, have been the most dismissive of the federal government's Madisonian architecture. Wilson, the first president to criticize America's Founding, was especially impatient with the separation of powers, which he considered, as Obama does, an affront to his dual grandeur: The president is a plebiscitary tribune of the entire people, monopolizing true democratic dignity that is denied to mere legislators. And progressive presidents have unexcelled insight into history's progressive trajectory, and hence should have untrammeled freedom to act."
Comment | Share
Humorist Frank J. Fleming: "We’re running out of money, we’re letting the government bloat and allowing our freedoms to slip away, and eventually we’re just going to collapse. It would be like if Superman easily fights comets and alien menaces and then dies from morbid obesity."
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment