THE FOUNDATION
“[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” —Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 1804
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
“If [the Iraqis] are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them,” Barack Obama declared again, though he reiterated his commitment to helping train Iraqi troops over a “multi-year” period. According to State Department official and Islamic State expert Brett McGurk, “It’s a three-year campaign to degrade the organization.” And as National Journal puts it, “Three years marked from mid-2014, of course, falls after Jan. 20, 2017, the date Obama leaves office. Translation: The strategy is to avoid sending ground troops for the remainder of his term. So stop asking.” Indeed, Obama campaigned in 2008 on ending the Iraq war. In 2011, having rejected the Bush strategy of establishing a status of forces agreement (SOFA) to secure our hard-won gains in Iraq and the region, Obama declared, “Everything Americans have done in Iraq, all the fighting, all the dying, the bleeding, the building and the training and the partnering, all of it has led to this moment of success. … We’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq.” And a narcissist can’t admit he’s wrong. He’s going to stubbornly stand pat, keep declaring victory, and leave the Islamic State for the next commander in chief to clean up.
Indeed, his spokesman Josh Earnest explicitly said just that: “In 2017, there will be a new commander in chief and someone else who will have a responsibility to evaluate the situation on the ground and determine what steps are necessary to continue to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL. That’s something that we’ll leave to the next president.” But what will the next 18 months bring?
Now that the NSA is done scraping up the nation’s phone data, it should get on the task of protecting the U.S. from intrusions like the one that happened last December. U.S. investigators said that the personal data of four million current and former federal employees were stolen by hackers — most likely from China. While the Chinese Embassy in DC denied the allegation that the country was responsible for the intrusion, U.S. intelligence says the Chinese military is collecting a massive database on Americans, possibly as a way to find and recruit Americans as spies. “The breach is yet more evidence that Beijing sees the U.S. as an adversary and is unworried about any response aggression will elicit from the White House,” writes National Review’s Michael Auslin. “Whether it’s economic espionage, security challenges, or now hacking U.S. government websites, Beijing is testing, probing, and undermining America in any way that they can.” While the Obama administration’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal has some questions and drawbacks, a trade deal with the nations near China is a natural opportunity, a good first step, to diminish China’s influence in the Pacific. More…
For years, environmentalists have seen hydraulic fracturing — also known as fracking — as an insidious threat. Energy companies have used the technique to reach oil and gas deposits previously out of reach of traditional extraction methods. It’s a big reason why the nation has surged forward as one of the top oil producers in the world. After spending years studying fracking’s effect on drinking water, the Environmental Protection Agency released a draft reportconcluding, “We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States. … The number of identified cases [where fracking led to contamination], however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells.” This is a fire hose of water on the ecofascists' heated rhetoric. Last year, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, listening to the fear mongering of environmentalists, used an executive order to ban fracking in The Empire State. “EPA’s conclusion really is remarkable,” writes The Wall Street Journal. “The agency has yearned for an excuse to take over fracking regulation from the states, which do the job well. So if there was so much as a sliver of evidence that fracking was dangerous, the EPA would have found it.” More…
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
By Robin Smith
With her roots in Roman mythology, Lady Justice represents morality and virtue through three symbols. First, she holds a set of scales in her left hand, to weigh evidence with reason and in light of the law. Second, she wields a double-edged sword in her right hand, representing the remedy impartially provided after the facts are laid bare before her. And third, she wears a blindfold, signifying that the law must be applied with objectivity and equality.
Yet too often politicians seek to lift this blindfold, wanting to redefine justice based on the year’s election cycle or to subvert it through delays, denials and tactics that advance their agenda.
Let’s examine two cases in which the Internal Revenue Service has been used as a tool for political revenge and harassment, and how they reflect an assault on justice that should offend all.
Consider the identical approaches of Richard Nixon and Barack Obama. One a Republican and the other a Democrat, both illustrate power’s ability to corrupt to the extreme, instituting a false democracy where disagreement and disloyalty are silenced by heavy-handed tactics.
Nixon’s legacy as the 37th president is often defined by his impeachment. Posterity’s view of Obama is still being penned, but both will be remembered for their unconstitutional misuse of government and for the tenured bureaucrats who willingly complied.
In the Articles of Impeachment adopted by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in 1974, most remember Article I, which declared Nixon “impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors” committed surrounding the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972.
The charges leveled by Congress state, “Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.”
The break-in and burglary were indeed illegal and brought disgrace to the office of the president. But the obstruction, delays and attempts to conceal the covert activities all demonstrated an egregiously deliberate abuse of the power afforded the president of the United States.
Yet those same Articles of Impeachment issue a second damning charge, accusing Nixon of “using the powers of the office of President of the United States … in violation of his constitutional oath.” Nixon “repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.”
Specifically, Nixon, “acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service” information of citizens he had on his “enemies list” who he deemed politically dangerous to his ambitions.
Today’s ongoing IRS scandal involves conservative political groups whose applications for tax-exempt status were deliberately slowed. This similar flagrant abuse of authority commenced during Obama’s first term, helping him win a second, and it features the Nixonian ingredients of willing participants who delay, obstruct and lie to protect the crimes against innocent citizens.
Last week, Mary Howard, the head Freedom of Information Act officer at the IRS, testified to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the agency set up a secret “special project team” comprised of “hundreds of attorneys,” including the IRS Chief Counsel (one of only two politically appointed positions at the IRS by the president himself). She said her “understanding was that it started soon after the request came from Congress and other investigators asking for documents around this whole issue,” which she surmised meant around spring 2013.
Not only were law-abiding citizens targeted by an agency of the U.S. government for their political and religious views, but Obama’s henchmen implemented a plan to cover up this activity and delay information from getting into the hands of investigators. Key to this malfeasance is IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins — appointed by Obama — whose office has been directly connected in this harassment and abuse, which includes illegal requests and access to donor information.
Ironically, this unquestionable presidential corruption — the same as the misuse of power that ended in impeachment for Nixon — now leaves Republicans in fear of the political consequences for seeking justice. Democrats simply protect themselves through vindictive attacks and accusations of racism.
There was a day when the law was equally applied regardless of partisan stripe. And history has shown that both Republicans and Democrats can pursue justice for the honor and sake of our nation and Constitution. It’s only a matter of time before future generations declare Obama and his administration as lawless, dishonorable deceivers of the American public, corrupt for the sake of ambition and political power.
Justice may be blind, but she’s not stupid.
TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US
BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
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OPINION IN BRIEF
Tony Perkins: “‘Gay Pride Month’ is just beginning — but we can’t say the same for the administration’s pandering. … [T]he Air Force is taking its radicalism to new heights — announcing that it was easing the discharge policy on transgenders in advance of the pride event [on] Tuesday. … Going where no branch has gone before, the Air Force will let high-ranking officials decide the fate of known transgenders in their ranks. … ‘There must be a commander determination that the condition interferes with duty requirements,’ the Air Force pointed out. In other words, branch leaders can opt to keep open transgenders in their units — despite the fact that it violates military policy and U.S. law. By putting the decision in commanders' laps, the entire process becomes more politicized — where before, it was a simple medical determination. … [T]ransgenderism is at its root a serious mental disorder (one classified as such — not just by Johns Hopkins — but the military’s own Defense Department!). If these men and women are confused about their gender, what’s to keep them from being confused about their mission? With the world falling to pieces and the margin of error so slight, can we really afford these distractions? By letting people create their own realities, Washington is losing its grip on its own.”
SHORT CUTS
The Gipper: “Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, ‘What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.’ But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.”
Blame game: “I’m tired of funerals of babies, while [the] NRA, manufacturers, and [gun stores], run to the bank making profits from death. … At the end of the day you can argue with us [and] you can call us names, but you got to deal with God. And the blood of our children is on your hands. And you will pay for the murder of our children.” —Chicago “Reverend” and Obama buddy Michael Pfleger, who did not blame gang culture or the ones actually pulling the trigger
Village Idiots: “[The EPA] will stick with the [oil] industry till all our water is contaminated, our air polluted and climate change has made our planet unlivable. … What the EPA presented to the public [about fracking being harmless for drinking water] was PR, not science and proof of the widespread, systemic contamination of our regulatory bodies by the oil and gas industry.” —documentarian Josh Fox, who thinks the EPA isn’t ecofascist enough
Braying Jackass: “We have a democracy problem in this country. We have declining voter turnout. Secretary Clinton put forward [the] notion [that] we need a national strategy to energize voting again, to get people involved. Obviously, to address the many efforts made by Republicans to repress voter involvement. … Let’s face it, a lot of the people in the political class have tried to discourage voter involvement and a lot of incumbents prefer a very small electorate.” —New York Mayor Bill de Blasio
Friendly fire: “I think [the reason Hillary Clinton] is running so aggressively on policy is because she can’t really run on character.” —The Atlantic’s Molly Ball
“A new poll shows that 53% of Democrats think illegal immigrants should be allowed to vote. I’m guessing the other 47% think it should be a requirement.” —Fred Thompson
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis!
Managing Editor Nate Jackson
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.
The ruling from the Supreme Court could come at any day…Obabacare hangs in the balance and Obama himself is feeling the pressure…big time.
