THE FOUNDATION

“The best service that can be rendered to a country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing.” —James Madison, letter to Littleton Dennis Teackle, 1826

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Secrecy Surrounds Dennis Hastert’s Indictment

The Department of Justice unveiled an indictment against former House Speaker Dennis Hastert Thursday, accusing him of lying to the FBI and withdrawing cash in such a way as to hide the fact he was paying someone “$3.5 million in order to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct.” It’s stunning enough that federal prosecutors brought charges against a politician of Hastert’s caliber. But the question of the hour is why he was so willing to pay someone $3.5 million. Before entering politics, Hastert taught high school history and coached wrestling in Yorkville, Illinois. Someone in the U.S. attorney’s office apparently believes paying a bribe is a greater crime than Hastert’s misconduct. So they covered up the information because it’s embarrassing to the former politician. He was once one of the most powerful politicians in the country and we are denied the ability to know whether this affected his leadership. More…

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Surprise! First Quarter GDP in the Tank

A month ago, the government pegged GDP growth at a tentative 0.2% for the first quarter of 2015. However, as we noted at the time, revisions knocked last year’s first quarter GDP down by a staggering two percentage points — from 0.1% to -2.1% — meaning the economy actuallycontracted to start off 2014. That inevitably raised the question: Is a repeat in the offing? We now know the answer to that question, and it’s a resounding yes. Today, Commerce Department revisions showed first quarter GDP was lower than initially reported. Instead of 0.2% growth — an already sluggish number — January-March GDP now stands at -0.7%. The Wall Street Journal reports, “The latest downgrade came after new data showed a wider trade deficit and a slower pace of restocking by firms than earlier estimates, damping demand at factories and service providers. Those developments added to an already bleak picture of weak consumer spending and a downturn in business investment.” And according to Reuters, “With growth estimates so far for the second quarter around 2 percent, the economy appears poised for its worst first-half performance since 2011.” A myriad of rehashed excuses are already flooding in — from winter weather woes to flawed government methods to a mere hiccup — but it’s not like the economy ever gained much footing under the Obama recovery to begin with.

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Los Angeles Labor Leaders Want Minimum Wage Exemption

Oh the irony. Fourteen Los Angeles council members recently voted to incrementally raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. Considering a whopping 50% of the city’s workforce makes minimum wage, the new law is bound to have significant ramifications — which may explain this oddity from the Los Angeles Times: “Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces.” Rusty Hocks with the Federation of Labor defended the proposed exemption by opining, “With a collective bargaining agreement, a business owner and the employees negotiate an agreement that works for them both. The agreement allows each party to prioritize what is important to them.” Yet, as the Times notes, “For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase.” In other words, labor leaders want the flexibility to negotiate a mutually fair hourly wage — one that may very well fall below $15 — while forcing non-unionized businesses to comply with an admittedly harmful law. The Left, it seems, doesn’t want to raise the minimum wage so much as coerce businesses into joining a union, which would then translate into political capital.

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

The Debate Over the Death Penalty Has Just Begun

By Lewis Morris

Nebraska lawmakers voted Wednesday to make that state the 19th to ban the death penalty. Republican Governor Pete Ricketts vetoed earlier in the week the bill that sought to repeal the state’s death penalty statute. According to Nebraska law, it takes 30 of 49 senators in the unicameral legislature to override a gubernatorial veto. And 30 votes are exactly what death penalty opponents got. The original bill was passed last week and sent to Ricketts with 32 votes.

Ricketts stated in his veto of the original legislation, “Repealing the death penalty sends the wrong message to Nebraskans who overwhelmingly support capital punishment and look to government to strengthen public safety, not weaken it.”

The governor burned phone lines and called in favors in an effort to sustain his veto, but he was ultimately unable to do so. Still, with a thin majority supporting the original ban, and the thinnest of majorities overriding Ricketts' veto, it is almost guaranteed that this issue will come up again next term. The governor vowed, “While the legislature has lost touch with the citizens of Nebraska, I will continue to stand with Nebraskans and law enforcement on this important issue.”

Nebraska’s rejection of the death penalty is certainly being heralded in liberal circles as a victory. Advocates for the rights of convicted criminals — often acting without any regard for the rights of victims and their families — have been marching forward to make America a death penalty-free country for decades. And they have been experiencing some success lately.

Of the states without the death penalty, a third have banned it after 2007. Many of those actions have been motivated by concerns that capital punishment is cruel and unusual, grossly misapplied across various cases, and inherently racist. (This last reason is patently false. White defendants make up 55% of all executions since 1976, with blacks and Latinos comprising 34% and 8%, respectively. Seventy-five percent of the victims have been white, with 15% black and close to 7% Latino.)

Just the same, Nebraska’s case is unique. It is the most conservative state to ban the death penalty, and the reasons that motivated lawmakers to support the ban are varied.

State Sen. Mark Kolterman, a self-professed conservative, reasoned that support for the death penalty ran afoul of his commitment to protecting life. He also expressed fiscal concerns: “The state has spent approximately $100 million on death penalty related cases since 1976, but has only executed three people.”

The fiscal argument rang true for a number of senators who supported the ban, but the lawmakers who wanted to keep the punishment in place reasoned that Nebraska has executed few criminals under the statute. Ricketts wrote in the Omaha World-Herald, “In Nebraska, there are only 10 inmates on death row. Unlike California or Texas, which have hundreds on death row, we use the death penalty judiciously and prudently. Retaining the death penalty is not only important to the integrity of criminal prosecutions but also vitally important to good prison management and protecting our prison officials.”

A majority of Americans support the death penalty, although that margin has been declining over time. As might be expected, Republicans overwhelmingly support it, while a majority of Democrats do not.

Liberals should not be heartened by Nebraska’s sudden turn as a conservative state. The reasons for voting against the bill are practical in scope — consider the fiscal arguments. This is something Democrats are not known for. The final chapter in Nebraska’s death penalty saga remains unwritten despite this latest vote. Like many states across the country, the battle in Nebraska will continue to rage over whether capital punishment is just or cruel.

Recent advances in DNA research have exonerated a number of people wrongly accused of crimes that would have led to their execution, casting a dark shadow over the judicial system and its application of the death penalty. Additionally, there is the argument over method, with many now claiming that lethal injection is a cruel form of execution. Some states such as Utah, Tennessee and Oklahoma have looked into alternative methods.

Nebraska’s ban of the death penalty is not the beginning of the end of capital punishment in the United States, nor is it a last gasp for the movement to end it. It is, more appropriately, another salvo in an ongoing battle in which both sides air their grievances and continue their work.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: SCOTUS Agrees to Define ‘One Person, One Vote’
• George Pataki Faces Impossible Odds to the Presidency
• Al-Qaida in Syria Says It’s Not About to Attack the West
• Hillary: We Democrats Inherit Republican-Caused Messes
• Here’s How the Clinton Foundation Took Care of Blumenthal

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Mona Charen: Obama Not Offended Enough by Anti-Semitism
• Charles Krauthammer: Why Doctors Quit
• Jonah Goldberg: Absence of a Smoking Gun Doesn’t Equate to Innocence
• Michael Barone: Colleges and Universities Have Grown Bloated and Dysfunctional
• Michelle Malkin: Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge?

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Mona Charen: “Iran’s leaders are infected by a disease of the mind that prevents them from perceiving the world accurately. Their anti-Semitism is Nazi in intensity. They believe, as Hitler did, in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy that is responsible for wars, sectarian conflict among Muslims (!), disease and oppression. The regime hosts Holocaust denial conferences. They ceaselessly refer to Israel and Jews as ‘cancers’ or ‘rabid dogs.’ What do you do to cancers and rabid dogs? You kill them. … It’s profoundly worrying that Obama can shrug off the abundant evidence that the Iranian regime is in the grip of dangerous illusions about Jewish power and Jewish evil, and casually compare it to the kind of anti-Semitism found in modern-day Europe and America. It’s also morally offensive. The mullahs' anti-Semitism, along with their threats, should be enough to cause Obama, or any decent person, to recoil in disgust. Instead, he has made it the cause of his second term to reach a rapprochement with Iran. He has invited the regime to take the ‘path’ he’s offering to become "a very successful regional power. …Obama’s morality is always in service of his politics, not the other way around.”

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SHORT CUTS

Insight: “We do not consider an individual disciplined when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.” —Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori (1870-1952)

The BIG Lie, Part I: “At minimum, the recent downpours in Texas probably offer a glimpse of what certain parts of the U.S. can look forward to in the coming decades. As the planet continues to get hotter, in large part due to human activity, warmer air in the atmosphere will hold more moisture. This is expected to alter weather patterns and lead to more frequent and more intense instances of extreme precipitation.” —The Huffington Post’s James Gerken (Ironic, considering most of the state was in the midst of a severe multi-year drought.)

The BIG Lie, Part II: “The best climate scientists in the world are telling us that extreme weather events like hurricanes are likely to become more powerful. When you combine stronger storms with rising seas, that’s a recipe for more devastating floods. Climate change didn’t cause Hurricane Sandy, but it might have made it stronger.” —Barack Obama (How then do we explain the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 — nearly 380 years ago — that was considerably stronger than Sandy? Or any number of similarly strong pre-21st century storms?)

Demo-gogues: “It is a liberating feeling in the sense that the amount of time I have left, it concentrates the mind, and I think a lot of folks have been surprised at the degree to which we are moving and pushing and trying whatever we can to advance the goals of making sure that every American in this country and every child in this country, if they’re willing to work hard, can get ahead, and that opportunity and prosperity is broad-based.” —Barack Obama, a.k.a. The Food Stamp President

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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 FOUNDATION

“[O]f those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.” —Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1, 1787

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

EPA Expands Authority Over America’s Waterways

More than a year after initially proposing it, and despite efforts by congressional Republicans to block such a move, the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Crops of Engineers, citing authority under the Clean Water Act, enacted a new rule that gives the federal government additional control over waterways. “The Obama administration issued a rule on Wednesday putting more small bodies of water and wetlands under federal protection to ensure clean drinking supplies,” The Wall Street Journal reports, a power grab that “is estimated to put about 3% more waterways throughout the U.S. under new federal jurisdiction.” Obama officials say they’re simply maximizing existing legal authority. According to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, “This rule is about clarification, and in fact, we’re adding exclusions for features like artificial lakes and ponds, water-filled depressions from constructions and grass swales.” However, the Journal adds, “The rule seeks to require those kinds of permits for only those waterways that have physical features of flowing water.”

And that’s exactly the concern, explains Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw: “The physical feature of flowing water? Depending on the conditions, the slope of the land and how much it rains on any given day, that could apply to pretty much anything.” Moreover, “People who own property adjacent to or including swampy areas with poor drainage can (and already have) run afoul of the feds if they want to improve the drainage to dry out a section for construction or just a better looking lawn.” As Mark Alexander wrote last month, Democrats, led by the powerful EPA, leverage environmental concerns to conceal their real agenda — the constriction of free enterprise. Their objective is to incrementally implement centralized economic control through regulatory requirements justified by ever-expanding “mandates.” In implementing its newest rule — “one of nearly 10 that the EPA is slated to complete in coming months,” the Journal notes — the agency is essentially saying, “Trust us.” That’s a dangerous thing to oblige when Liberty is at stake.

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Krauthammer: How Amnesty Smackdown Hurts Republicans

Fox News political analyst Charles Krauthammer offered his two cents on Tuesday’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to keep a temporary injunction in place blocking executive amnesty. According to Krauthammer, “For the Republicans, it’s a problem.” Here’s why: “It’s like the case going forward on ObamaCare and the thing about the exchanges and the subsidies. The problem is what happens if you win? Because if you win then the issue gets thrown back into the political arena.” He argues, “If somehow this would be completely tossed out, then the question will be, ‘what’s your plan on immigration reform,’ if anything. I think up until now, you can say, ‘well it’s in the hands of the courts.’ But at a certain point it’s not going to be and you’re going to have to answer.” Like or not, he’s right. Immigration is a sour topic, but taking Barack Obama’s diktats to court isn’t enough. Lest they want to commit political suicide, conservatives will eventually have to rally around viable solutions to the illegal immigration problem and present them in an articulate manner.

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Santorum Announces Second Attempt at Presidency

Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania who appealed to conservative evangelical voters during the 2012 presidential election, announced Wednesday he will once again seek the GOP nomination for the White House. Traditionally known for his value-voter stance on same-sex marriage and abortion, Santorum may try to broaden his appeal this time around. On May 21, Santorum told the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, “We are not going be successful unless we have a message that talks to the people who are struggling to rise.” But while he came second place to Mitt Romney four years ago, he faces longer odds this time around. Statistics blog FiveThirtyEight says Santorum is running in a more crowded field this time around. This places him around 10th place in the popularity polls, right around the cutoff of the number of candidates Fox News and CNN says they will invite to preliminary presidential debates. In other words, Santorum does not only have to fight about issues, he’s running an underdog fight that may be felled by the arbitrary rules created by a media company. More…

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Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read Memo to the GOP: Get Iraq Right, on how every Republican candidate should answer the Iraq question.

If you’d like to receive Alexander’s Column by email, update your subscription here.

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

Your Viewing Guide to Sunday’s Showdown Over the Patriot Act

By Allyne Caan

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, passing the Patriot Act seemed the inarguably patriotic thing to do. Nearly 14 years later, however, the lines of patriotism are less clearly drawn. Up for reauthorization, the act is facing staunch opposition — and creating strange bedfellows — in the wake of increasing concerns over government spying on the American people.

Last week, the House, by a vote of 338-88, passed not a reauthorization of the full Patriot Act but the equally patriotic sounding USA Freedom Act, which would continue the Patriot Act’s surveillance powers but end specific practices including the NSA’s data collection program (recently deemed illegal by a federal court), roving wiretaps and so-called lone-wolf surveillance tactics. Among other things, the USA Freedom Act would move the storage of telephone data from the federal government to telecommunications companies.

Between the House and president, however, the Senate stands. With 60 votes needed, the upper chamber came up short of passing the USA Freedom Act, producing just 57 votes before heading home for Memorial Day. At issue are competing views of liberty within the Senate.

Libertarian-leaning Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has long opposed the Patriot Act and would shed not a tear at its demise. He also believes the USA Freedom Act needs amending to ensure stronger protections for Americans against the government.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), on the other hand, believes the Patriot Act’s powers are requisite to security and had pushed for reauthorization of the act at best, a temporary extension at worst. He failed on both counts. Somewhere in the middle are senators who would keep much of the act but allow certain portions of it to expire.

Now, the Senate is set to reconvene this Sunday for a rare, holiday-recess vote in advance of the Patriot Act’s midnight expiration date May 31. Due to the political dance, the Senate is faced with the option of either passing the USA Freedom Act exactly as delivered by the House or allowing all provisions of the Patriot Act to expire, as the House is not slated to reconvene until Monday, several hours after the clock strikes midnight.

The FBI, for its part, has argued that the powers granted by the Patriot Act are invaluable for fighting terrorism. FBI Director James Comey pointed particularly to roving wiretaps, pursuing lone-wolf threats and provisions that allow the FBI to get court orders to track hotel and travel records as part of terrorism investigations. Attorney General Loretta Lynch echoed Comey, opposing the expiration of “vital and uncontroversial tools we use to combat terrorism and crime.” Of course, the meaning of “uncontroversial” is quite controversial.

For his part, Barack Obama is backing the House and urging the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act, stating, “Make sure we don’t have on midnight Sunday night this task still undone, because it’s necessary to keep the American people safe and secure.” Please note: Obama’s sentiments apply only to government surveillance and not to border security.

Meanwhile, Obama spokesman Josh Earnest reassured the American people that the White House has no Plan B should Congress fail to extend parts of the Patriot Act. This is particularly comforting given executive action would be far worse, regardless of what the Senate and House agree or disagree upon.

Although the USA Freedom Act failed to meet the 60-vote muster the first time around, its prospects may be slightly better on Sunday. According to Politico, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who voted “no” initially, has suggested he may back the bill; Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) missed the first vote but is being eyed as a possible “yes”; Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and John Boozman (R-AR) are also considered possible “yes” votes. And even McConnell admitted backing for the USA Freedom Act “makes it pretty challenging to extend the law as it is.”

In a world of increasing terror threats, it’s critical that the federal government fulfill its constitutional obligation to “provide for the common defense.” However, it’s up to the American people to ensure this clause does not become the next “general welfare” clause, abused beyond recognition in the name of the public good. While security is critical, liberty is essential. We would do well to remember that fully ceding the latter has never guaranteed the former.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: Who Knew Bill Clinton Liked Soccer So Much?
• DOD Accidentally Sends Live Anthrax Around the States
• Cleveland Police to Do Paperwork if They Pull Out Their Gun
• Christianity in Decline? Not Exactly
• Santa Monica Bans Residents From Renting Out Short-Term

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Joe D'Aleo: Winters, Not Summers, Increase Mortality and Stress the Economy
• R. Emmett Tyrrell: A Modest Proposal for Education Reform
• Stephen Moore: Using Tax Dollars to Lobby for More Tax Dollars
• George Will: The Separation of Campaign and State

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

R. Emmett Tyrrell: “[F]rom Atlanta … comes a plan for alternative state funding of the school system that would provide widespread reform. … Glenn Delk wrote about the plan last week in The American Spectator. Here is the plan in a simplified form. The state legislature passes a law allowing families to establish an Education Savings Account for each child, placing up to $8,000 per student into a tax-free account. The money is there to use purely for educational purposes. Any funds left unspent in a year may be rolled over to the next year or for college. Additionally, the state applies for a waiver from the federal government so the state can apply the $1 billion it already gets to Education Savings Accounts of $10,000 each for the state’s poorest children. What is more, the state spends $8,000 per student from the $8 billion it has already set aside for students without regard for family income. Thus, the state could fund one million students without increasing funding. If you assume that the 150,000 students currently attending private schools would qualify, then 850,000 public school students would qualify. Assuming 100,000 of them use federal funds, and 850,000 public school students use state funds, that leaves 650,000 public school students to attend schools run by traditional school districts, with $8 billion in local property tax funding. … I think it is worth a try.”

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SHORT CUTS

Insight: “When individuals and nations have once got in their heads the abstract concept of full-blown liberty, there is nothing like it in its uncontrollable strength.” —German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

Non Compos Mentis: “I will say that there does seem to be a pattern. Democratic presidents — and there’s two in particular I’m thinking about — over the last 35 years seem to inherit a mess of problems. Have you noticed that? So then they have to dig us out of the ditches they find themselves in and put us back on the right track. And of course, I’m talking about Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. … Are we going to hand over our country once again to the people and policies that crashed our economy before and that will shred the progress that we’ve made?” —Hillary Clinton

Annals of the absurd: “Do you think the #TexasFlooding is related to climate control or God’s rebuke?” —Al Sharpton

Village Idiot: “Last weekend, more than 1.2 million Irish voters took a courageous stand for love and family when they overwhelmingly chose marriage equality. … And here in the United States, in just the past three years we’ve gone from six states recognizing marriage equality to 37 states, comprising 224 million Americans.” —Joe Biden (The overwhelming majority of those states were forced by the courts to recognize same-sex marriage.)

Dezinformatsia: “Marriage, honeymoons and welfare: @AP exclusive shows Islamic State membership has its privileges.” —tweet from the Associated Press promoting an article titled, “For an IS fighter, a paid honeymoon in caliphate’s heart”

Late-night humor: “I’d love to have Hillary Clinton as a guest on the show, but I can’t afford her speaking fee.” —Conan O'Brien

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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.