THE FOUNDATION

“The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.” —George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Hackers Stole Data on 8% of U.S. Population From OPM

The data breach at the Office of Personnel Management feels like some kind of twisted auction. In early June, it was the data of four million federal employees. Any higher? Hey, it’s the middle of June and the number has risen to 14 million and the applications of everyone seeking a security clearance. Going, going… Wait, OPM announced Thursday there was a second hackaffecting 21.5 million Americans who worked for the government, contracted with the government, or were married to or friends with someone who was. Not only were Social Security numbers, names and birthdates taken, the hackers (probably from China) have addresses, mental health history, some financial records and fingerprints of a significant percentage of the American population. The breach extends to people like FBI Director James Comey, who admitted he, too, had his data stolen in the breach. OPM said taxpayers would foot the bill for three years of identity-theft protection from a private company for those affected. But for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, it’s not enough. In a statement, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said he wanted OPM Director (and former National Political Director for Obama’s campaign) Katherine Archuleta gone. “The technological and security failures at the Office of Personnel Management predate this director’s term,” Warner said, “but Director Archuleta’s slow and uneven response has not inspired confidence that she is the right person to manage OPM through this crisis.”

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Oregon Bakers Must Pay Fine by Monday

The state’s assault on the Oregon bakers who declined to make a cake for a lesbian wedding isn’t over. Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) has ordered Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the now-shuttered Sweet Cakes by Melissa, to pay their $135,000 fine by Monday, July 13 … or else. “We have asked that they get in touch with us by July 13th either to make a payment in full, or an arrangement for partial payment, or as they know, they can contact our agency and seek what is called a stay of enforcement,” BOLI said through a spokesman. If the Kleins seek a stay but are denied, they can appeal through the Oregon courts, but given the thorough smackdown they’ve already received a reprieve is unlikely. “Basically,” said Aaron Klein, “the state of Oregon is saying we can kick you out of your house and make you homeless. They have no qualms about the fact that they’re doing this to my five kids as well.” That’s because the Kleins committed the ultimate sin of crossing the Rainbow Mafia. The good news is the couple has raised more than $200,000 through a funding campaign (their first fundraising effort was shut down by GoFundMe, which claimed the Kleins' purpose was “discriminatory”). The bad news is their income has been halved since being forced to close their bakery. Aaron now works as a garbage collector to put food on the table for his family.

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ObamaCare ‘Death Panels’ Resurrected

When Democrats can’t get their agenda through the legislature via legitimate means, they turn to federal agencies to implement it instead. Case in point: ObamaCare. Leftists scored big with its passage in 2009, but fierce opposition to what became known as “death panels” forced them to abandon a provision that would have granted financial incentives to physicians providing counseling to aging Medicare patients. Now that ObamaCare is “the law of the land,” as the Supreme Court has twice wrongly affirmed, the Department of Health and Human Services is taking matters into its own hands. This week, with the support of the American Medical Association, HHS put “death panels” back on the examination table. Advocates quickly noted it isn’t a mandate. “Rather, the proposed regulation would allow medical providers to bill Medicare for ‘advance-care planning’ should a patient want to have the discussion,” according to the Los Angeles Times. But we were also promised that we could keep our insurance plan if we liked it. The way some conservatives presented death panels in 2009 — ask your doctor if death is right for you — was somewhat of an exaggeration, but it maybe wasn’t so much hyperbole as it was a prediction. Just five years ago, few thought same-sex marriage would be legal in 2015. In fact, Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who now embrace same-sex marriage, once opposed it. For leftists, progress means moving the goal posts when the opportunity is convenient. That’s why the idea of the government making life-and-death decisions isn’t anything to scoff at. Just ask our nation’s veterans.

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

Carter’s Wrong — America Is Not in Inevitable Decline

By Lewis Morris

Contrasting visions

As the worst U.S. president of the 20th century, Jimmy Carter’s prognostications about foreign policy should be taken for what they’re worth — nothing. But that didn’t stop MSNBC from asking the former president his thoughts on the state of America in the modern world. Carter’s response was predictably pessimistic.

America is “in an inevitable relative decline,” Carter said, “not because of any fault of ours” but through “the combination of China and India and Brazil and South Africa and others” exercising “economic and cultural influence [that] will replace a lot of the power and preeminence that the United States enjoyed in the past.”

“It’s just happening,” Carter explained, “in the historical evolutionary, unavoidable circumstance.”

At least he didn’t use the word “malaise.”

Carter’s mindset is shared by the leftist intelligentsia. They have predicted and, more importantly,sought to bring about our nation’s downfall for decades, rolling out a string of would-be superpower replacements ranging from the former Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, Japan, the European Union and now China. Carter joins the likes of Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs, serial plagiarist Fareed Zakaria and former Enron adviser Paul Krugman in wistfully speaking of America’s bygone status, but their views are tainted by a raw disdain for the U.S. and what it stands for.

They pretend to lament the days of American greatness, but they often rail against the U.S. for being an international “bully” standing athwart some socialist utopia. Simply peel back Carter’s words on MSNBC or one of Krugman’s New York Times columns, and lurking just below the surface is contempt for capitalism, individual liberty and the republican form of government that made this country great.

As Investor’s Business Daily pointed out, American decline is no more inevitable than its rise as a world power. And who’s to say that America is in decline anyway? Despite the best efforts of Carter, Obama, Krugman and friends, America remains the world’s preeminent power. No other country, or combination of countries, can do what we do, because they don’t have what we have.

This nation’s wealth rivals that of China, Japan, the UK and Germany combined. It is home to by far the richest and most robust consumer market. And our military still holds sway the world over despite recent and unwise cutbacks.

Carter’s assertion that other countries stand ready to replace America is overselling it a bit. The oft-cited bogeyman China just suffered an economic shock this week that wiped out a third of its stock market’s value. And years of forced abortion and social engineering are destined to send that country into a demographic tailspin that could unravel its social fabric in the coming decades.

The European Union is constantly on the brink of unraveling because of debt issues from member states like Greece and Portugal. The nations that make up the EU can’t even agree on a defense strategy, despite the fact that the two bloodiest wars of the last century were born there.

Decline, as political analyst Charles Krauthammer once put it, is a choice — one that Carter consciously made when he buckled to the Islamists who took over Iran in 1979, and one our current commander in chief is making with that very same regime over its nuclear weapons program.

Carter, Obama and their ilk speak of American decline not so much because that’s what they see, but because it’s what they want. Their inherent pessimism guides their decisions, as does their disdain for individual liberty and personal responsibility. The very things that make this country great are what annoy them most, and they want to knock us down a few pegs. Consequently, they look to nations that don’t possess America’s qualities as a means to offset our power and influence.

In recent times, few have understood the greatness and unique qualities of this country better than Ronald Reagan. It was no accident that America thrived under his leadership because he believed in this country and recognized how special it truly is. He shared that vision succinctly in his farewell address in 1989:

“I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.”

In fact, Reagan concluded, “We did it. We weren’t just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.”

As Reagan did after Carter, our nation is in desperate need of a post-Obama leader who can once again prove how very wrong the anti-America Left really is.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: Education: Debating the Scope of Federal Control
• OK Gov’t Counters Court’s Ten Commandments Ruling
• Rick Perry Solves Sanctuary Cities
• Trump’s Immigration Combover
• In a Flash, NYSE Shows Fragility of the System

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Tony Perkins: Lien on Me
• Mona Charen: The Democrats' Trump Card
• Brent Bozell & Tim Graham: Unasked Questions in the LGBT Wars
• David Harsanyi: Bernie Sanders Is the Future of the Democrat Party
• Joe Bastardi: An Open Question to Our Universities: What if You Are Wrong?

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Tony Perkins: “Same-sex ‘marriage’ isn’t about building homes — it’s about destroying them. Ask Aaron and Melissa Klein. … In another sickening twist, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries is ordering the family to pay their $135,000 fine by next Monday or the state will put a lien on their home. … [A] spokesman for the Bureau was candid about the brutal lengths it will go to exact payment. ‘The letter informs them that if we do not hear from them, we may turn the matter over to the Department of Revenue, which can place a lien on real property.’ Of course, the spokesman offered, ‘they can also ask for a stay of enforcement while they pursue their appeal.’ That’s cold comfort, since the person who would decide the stay is the same wannabe despot who issued the fine in the first place: Brad Avakian. ‘The judge, jury, and executioner are all in one place,’ attorney Anna Harmon vented. ‘He is intent on using his office to root out thought and speech with which he personally disagrees.’ An office, one investigation shows, that was already ethically compromised. … In emails, text messages, phone calls, and other documents, The Daily Signal found a shocking amount of collusion between the Bureau and the largest LGBT activist group in the state: Basic Rights Oregon (BRO). Avakian had already held a string of closed-door meetings with BRO leading up to Sweet Cakes’s judgment. BRO was given exclusive access to the office’s media strategies, heads-up on breaking news in the suit, in-person meetings about Sweet Cakes’s case, and even behind-the-scenes talking points. If anyone should be under the microscope for prejudice, it’s Avakian — not Aaron and Melissa Klein.”

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SHORT CUTS

Insight: “The most important political office is that of private citizen.” —Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941)

From the race-baiter in chief: “South Carolina taking down the confederate [sic] flag [is] a signal of good will and healing, and a meaningful step towards a better future.” —Barack Obama live-tweeting the removal of the flag from the South Carolina state capitol grounds Friday morning (And no, leftists will never be satisfied by this or any other gesture of good will.)

The gun grabber: “I’m going to speak out against the uncontrollable use of guns in our country because I believe we can do better. … We have to take on the gun lobby. . . . This is a controversial issue. I am well aware of that. But I think it is the height of irresponsibility not to talk about it.” —Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire rallies

Social engineering: “The Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act recognizes that the words in our laws have meaning and can continue to reflect prejudice and discrimination even when rendered null by our highest courts. Our values as a country are reflected in our laws. I authored this bill because it is imperative that our federal code reflect the equality of all marriages.” —Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) on her bill to strike the words “husband” and “wife” from all federal laws

The BIG Lie: “[I]f the world acts now [on climate change] it will prevent up to 69,000 premature deaths in the U.S. in the year 2100 alone from poor air quality and extreme heat. And, of course, if we fail to act, the reverse is true. … We will lose billions of dollars and human lives if we fail to act.” —Gina McCarthy (“If we want to talk about pre-mature deaths, how about the 57 million innocent unborn children whose lives have been stolen since Roe v. Wade?” —Sen. James Inhofe)

Non Compos Mentis: “What percentage of the atmosphere is CO2? I don’t have that calculation.” —Gina McCarthy (“[Y]ou’re the head of the EPA … and you didn’t even know what the content of CO2 in the atmosphere was, which is the justification for the very policies you’re talking about.” —Rep. Dana Rohrabacher)

And last… “John Kerry warned Iran that President Obama is ‘ready to walk away’ from nuclear negotiations. He’s bluffing. You can’t walk away when you’re on your knees.” —Fred Thompson

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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

“No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” —James Madison, Federalist No. 47, 1788

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Political Winds Shift Against Obama’s Immigration Policies

The death of Kathryn Steinle has galvanized the political opposition to Barack Obama’s non-enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws. Congressional Republicans are heavily criticizing the Obama administration’s tolerance of sanctuary cities that protect illegal aliens from deportation. In going after these “safe” havens, GOP lawmakers are going after the culture in the upper levels of the administration. In March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Sarah Saldana was asked in congressional testimony if she would support a law requiring local governments to cooperate with ICE. “Thank you — amen,” was her reply. But she must have received a call from the White House, because the next day ICE released a statement“clarifying” her remarks to say she supported sanctuary cities.

Meanwhile, in the suit against the federal government over Obama’s executive actions on immigration, Judge Andrew Hanen ordered Obama’s bureaucrats to court Aug. 19. He wrote, “Each individual Defendant must attend and be prepared to show why he or she should not be held in contempt of Court. … The Government has conceded that it has directly violated this Court’s Order in its May 7, 2015 Advisory, yet, as of today, two months have passed since the Advisory and it has not remediated its own violative behavior.” Say, here’s a novel idea: What if there were sanctuary cities from the federal government?

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Hillary: Check Your Subpoena Folder

In her first interview on national television news since she announced her candidacy, Hillary Clinton told CNN Tuesday, “I think it’s kind of fun” that she’s releasing 50,000 pages of her emails. When interviewer Brianna Keilar pressed Clinton about Congress' subpoena of her emails, Clinton responded by attacking the reporter and catching herself before she gave us a really juicy quote: “You’re starting with so many assumptions that are — I’ve never had a subpoena. There is no — Again, let’s take a deep breath here. Everything I did was permitted by law and regulation” There are two lies right there. In response to the interview, Benghazi Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy wrote, “[S]he was personally subpoenaed the moment the Benghazi Committee became aware of her exclusive use of personal email and a server, and that the State department was not the custodian of her official record. For more than two years, Clinton never availed herself of the opportunity, even in response to a direct congressional inquiry, to inform the public of her unusual email arrangement designed to evade public transparency.” Either Clinton doesn’t care when she’s caught in a lie, or her web of lies have become so complex that she can’t keep her story straight anymore.

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Racist Republicans Hate Children

“GOP has knives out for school lunch rules,” headlines The Hill. “First lady Michelle Obama’s signature school lunch regulations are … a pillar of the first lady’s initiative to curb childhood obesity in the United States,” The Hill informs us. And who could be against healthy kids? Or the first lady? Evil Republicans, that’s who. Never mind that top-down regulation virtually never works, or that kids universally hate the new lunches to the point that schools are dropping them and/or demanding changes. The bottom line is that the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) expires on Sept. 30, and Republicans are holding hearings to determine if it’s worth more than the $3 billion already spent to dump unwanted food in the trash. In 2014, Michelle lectured, “The last thing that we can afford to do right now is play politics with our kids' health.” But playing politics is the name of the game. The first lady — an honorary and not official position, by the way — can’t federalize school lunches and then insist it’s not political.

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Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read A ‘Gay Parody’ of Marine Sacrifice, on how two pictures side by side speak a million words about “gay culture.”

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

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

Welcome to Mr. Obama’s Neighborhood

By Allyne Caan

Having spent years perfecting the art of inciting race warfare, Barack Obama and his administration released new housing rules that will define, qualify and categorize every community across the country by race, with the aim of forcing every neighborhood to comply with government race quotas.

It sounds ominous because it is. But it’s hardly surprising from the narcissist who pledged to “fundamentally transform” America.

Under the new Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule (AFFH), announced by Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julian Castro this week, the federal government will amass and centralize nationwide public data on communities, including “patterns of integration and segregation, racially and ethically concentrated areas of poverty, disproportionate housing needs, and disparities in access to opportunity.” Big Brother doesn’t just want to look over your shoulder; he wants to move into your home.

HUD claims the rule will “equip communities that receive HUD funding with the data and tools that will help them to meet long-standing fair housing obligations.” In truth, however, AFFH is a stealth move to socially engineer every street in America and to force compliance with what Obama thinks communities should look like — namely, more “affordable” housing in affluent neighborhoods.

But as political analyst Marc Thiessen noted, “[W]e believe in diversifying communities, too, as conservatives. The way you do that is through economic opportunity. … It’s not by building more affordable housing in the affluent communities. It’s by helping more Americans afford housing in affluent communities. And right now the problem is that people at the bottom of the Obama economy can’t get ahead.”

Still, Washington wants to take over local zoning authority to impose racial quotas on communities. And as Ethics and Public Policy Center Senior Fellow Stanley Kurtz warns, “Once HUD gets its hooks into a municipality, no policy area is safe. Zoning, transportation, education, all of it risks slipping into the control of the federal government and the new, unelected regional bodies the feds will empower.”

Nevertheless, Liberty aside, The Washington Post’s Emily Badger heralded the new rules as a way to “repair the [Fair Housing Act’s] unfulfilled promise and promote the kind of racially integrated neighborhoods that have long eluded deeply segregated cities like Chicago and Baltimore.” Funny she mentions those particular cities. While she points to Chicago’s “decades” of segregation as evidence that AFFH is needed, Badger fails to note those same decades were spent under solely Democrat leadership. Similarly, Baltimore has been led by the Left since Lyndon Johnson was president. Coincidence? We think not.

Also not coincidental is the way the government and media have remained largely mum on what the administration’s real plan is. Kurtz notes, “Obama has downplayed his policy goals in this area and delayed the finalization of AFFH for years, because he understands how politically explosive this rule is. Once the true implications of AFFH are understood, Americans will rebel.”

And rebel they should. As if Washington putting on a lab coat and stethoscope weren’t bad enough, now Obama wants to become zoning authority, landlord, realtor and public transportation chief combined. He’s is leaving no racist rock unturned in his quest to undermine Liberty.

Making matters worse, the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Texas Fair Housing case — in which a liberal majority said groups claiming housing discrimination no longer need to prove their case on the merits but only to claim “intent” to discriminate — means the real implications of AFFH will be a racially charged free-for all, with no gray areas and everything defined in black and white (pun intended).

Forget Martin Luther King’s noble notion of judging people by the content of their character. Obama wants to judge entire neighborhoods by the speciously calculated color of their skin. This is not the way of Liberty or of opportunity; it’s another giant leap down the road to statism, and it has no place in a nation that promises equal opportunity, not equal results, for all.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: Does Seeking to Jail Political Opponents Count as a ‘Smidgen of Corruption’?
• Kansas Acts to Protect Christians
• No More Confederate Flags at Federal Cemeteries?
• San Fran Illegal Alien Murderer Used Federal Agent’s Gun
• Humor: Idea Machine

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Victor Davis Hanson: Disregard for the Law Is America’s Greatest Threat
• Stephen Moore: As Greece Collapses, the Big Loser Is Socialism
• Jeff Jacoby: Cubans Pay the Price for Obama’s ‘Engagement’

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Victor Davis Hanson: “Barbarians at the gate usually don’t bring down once-successful civilizations. Nor does climate change. Even mass epidemics like the plague that decimated sixth-century Byzantium do not necessarily destroy a culture. Far more dangerous are institutionalized corruption, a lack of transparency and creeping neglect of existing laws. … Mexico is a much naturally richer country than Greece. It is blessed with oil, precious minerals, fertile soils, long coastlines and warm weather. Hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens should not be voting with their feet to reject their homeland for the U.S. But Mexico also continues to be a mess because police expect bribes, property rights are iffy, and government works only for those who pay kickbacks. The result is that only north, not south, of the U.S.-Mexico border can people expect upward mobility, clean water, adequate public safety and reliable power. In much of the Middle East and Africa, tribalism and bribery, not meritocracy, determine who gets hired and fired, wins or loses a contract, or receives or goes without public services. Americans, too, should worry about these age-old symptoms of internal decay. … Ultimately, no nation can continue to thrive if its government refuses to enforce its own laws.”

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SHORT CUTS

Insight: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” —Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Politically correct national security: “Here in the United States we have seen all kinds of homegrown terrorism, and tragically, recent history reminds us how even a single individual motivated by a hateful ideology with access to dangerous weapons can inflict horrendous harm on Americans. So our efforts to counter violent extremism must not target any one community because of their faith or background.” —Barack Obama on the Islamic State (So he’ll just target Christians who oppose same-sex marriage.)

Braying Jenny: “When people diss the government, we’re really dissing ourselves and dissing our democracy.” —Hillary Clinton

The BIG Lie: “I didn’t have to turn over anything. I chose to turn over 55,000 pages because I wanted to go above and beyond what was expected of me because I knew the vast majority of everything that was official already was in the State Department system. And now I think it’s kind of fun. People get a real-time behind-the-scenes look at what I was emailing about, and what I was communicating about.” —Hillary Clinton

Race bait: “As a nation — I don’t think as a president — but as a nation, we have got to apologize for slavery.” —Bernie Sanders

And last… “A Mexican national shot a 32-year-old woman in San Francisco. It’s a gun free zone and a sanctuary city. I know — let’s focus on banning the Mexican flag.” —Twitter satirist @weknowwhatsbest

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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

“History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people.” —Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, 1774

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Negotiations With Iran Blow Past Another Deadline

Another day, another deadline. For the fourth time since April, the U.S. State Department extended its talks with Iran over the mullahs' nuclear program. The past few weeks have accomplished little, unless you take into account the 10 pounds of Twizzlers and 20 pounds of string cheese Team USA consumed during that time. The longer Iran stays at the negotiating table in Vienna, the more it gets. Earlier in the year, Barack Obama boasted that his administration’s diplomacy had halted Iran’s nuclear program, reduced its uranium stockpile and forced the country to agree to give nuclear inspectors access — any time, anywhere. Yet for some reason, the negotiation team has conceded these vital elements to a nuclear deal that would ensure Iran would not weaponize its nuclear material. In fact, the U.S. has conceded to Iran at least 12 times. Robert Joseph, who was once the U.S. special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation, said of the deal, “Instead of holding the line on those key issues that would actually determine whether the agreement was good or bad or whether it advances U.S. security interests or undermines them, the [Obama] administration has made concession after concession and the consequences are profound.” It is clear Iran is not sincerely negotiating with the West. Instead, it’s playing the same administration that negotiated with the Taliban, trading five of theirs doing time at Guantanamo for one deserter.

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Obama Just Keeps Cutting Military

While the U.S. military is facing a myriad of threats, a smattering of merry little wars, the Obama administration is pushing forward with its plan to cut 40,000 troops from the ranks. According to apentagon document that USA Today acquired, the administration wants to finish drawing down America’s military capability by Sept. 30, 2018. In 2013, the Pentagon said a reduction of troops past 450,000 would start to impair the military’s ability to respond to crises around the world. And these cuts would bring military strength right to that edge. The further budget cuts imposed by Obama’s sequestration could push the number lower. For an example of how this hampers the U.S., look to the fight against the Islamic State. The Obama administration would rather train proxy fighters in Iraq and Syria — but just 60 Syrian fighters have so far been trained. On Monday, Barack Obama said the U.S. is ramping up the training of the Islamic State Iraqi forces. But the Senate Armed Services Committee found those training programs to be “anemic” and it called for reform of the airstrike campaign. If Obama continues these limp-wristed strategies, his only option will be to debate the Islamic State out of existence.

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Many Americans Clueless About First Amendment Protections

The Newseum Institute generates an annual survey called “State of the First Amendment,” and this year’s results illuminate the reason many Americans are nonchalant about the assault on religious liberty — because most have absolutely no idea that it’s constitutionally protected by the First Amendment. According to the 2015 survey, “When asked to name the five specific freedoms in the First Amendment, 57% of Americans name freedom of speech, followed by 19% who say the freedom of religion, 10% mention the freedom of the press, 10% mention the right to assemble, and 2% name the right to petition. Thirty-three percent of Americans cannot name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.” Alarming, yes, but shocking? Not really. When education establishments become more interested in gender and sexual orientation studies than in civics, American heritage and character development, society cannot be expected to uphold Rule of Law.

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

‘Free’ Money Doesn’t Make College More Affordable

By Jim Harrington

Over the weekend, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) penned a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in which he claims that college is not too expensive — because of all kinds of free money from the government. Tell that to middle-class families paying the full bill.

Alexander discusses some costs of attending college in modern America, and, while he admits that school can set you back a few bucks, he says not only are costs not as bad as advertised but there are numerous ways to pay for most of them.

“Public two year colleges … are free or nearly free for low-income students,” Alexander writes, and “community college tuition and fees average $3,300 per year.” Coincidently (or not), the average Pell Grant is also $3,300, though it can be as high as $5,775, depending on need. Even better, students can get 12 semesters of them, and since a grant needn’t be repaid, recipients are relieved of the need to find summer employment.

Using the University of Tennessee at Knoxville as an example of four-year schools, Alexander says tuition and fees average about $11,800 per year. Besides Pell Grants, students in Tennessee and some other states also have access to Hope Scholarships. For each of the first two years, the recipient gets $3,500, then $4,500 for years three and four. He says other “[s]tates run a variety of similar programs — $11.2 billion in financial aid in 2013, 85% in the form of scholarships.” Scholarships needn’t be repaid either.

Alexander extolls the virtue of government subsidies, but, if necessary, the student also has access to loans secured by the government. The College Board estimates that students from four-year schools will have an average of $27,000 in debt when they graduate, about the same as a new car loan.

Nationally, the current outstanding total of these loans is $1.2 trillion.

In closing, Alexander offers “five steps … to make it easier for students to finance their college education:”

• “Allow students to use Pell grants year-round…”
• “Simplify the confusing 108-question federal student-aid application…”
• Allow colleges to counsel students against too much borrowing.
• “Require colleges to share in the risk of lending to students…”
• Cut federal red tape that costs millions.

But recently published research doesn’t support Alexander’s love of federal college subsidies to students. In fact, according to David Lucca and Karen Shen of the New York Fed and Taylor Nadauld of Brigham Young University, tuition goes up 65 cents for every dollar of new loans or grants. “[W]hile one would expect student aid expansion to benefit recipients,” the pair say, “the subsidized loan expansion could [be] to their detriment, on net, because of the sizable and offsetting tuition effect.”

The study supports the Bennett Hypothesis, offered by William Bennett, education secretary under Ronald Reagan. He surmised that more government student aid meant universities could “blithely” raise tuition rates without enrollment suffering. Soaring student debt rather proves the point.

According to the Washington Examiner, researchers measured “differences in tuition changes at schools that had more or fewer students [taking advantage of increased] student loans, using data from the Department of Education. Not only did tuitions rise when Congress increased aid availability, but for-profit colleges saw their stocks jump.”

And if you think it’s expensive now, wait until Barack Obama makes it free.

Weighing in with his three-essay series in 2008 on the economics of college, economist Thomas Sowell explained why the cost of college tuition is so high.

“There are two basic reasons,” Sowell said. “The first is that people will pay what the colleges charge. The second is that there is little incentive for colleges to reduce the tuition they charge.”

Sowell discussed the notion of cost: “The inadequacy of resources to produce everything that everyone wants is the fundamental fact of life in every economy. … This means that the real cost of anything consists of all the other things that could have been produced with those same resources.”

Universities ignore the fact that, by constantly raising tuition and thus taking billions every year from the economy, they are simply reallocating resources that perhaps could be used more effectively than a four-year degree in gender studies. And because students can always get the funds to pay for tuition, colleges will always raise it.

As Sowell notes, “In a normal market situation, each competing enterprise has an incentive to lower prices if that would attract business away from competitors and increase its profits.”

But college isn’t the normal world. In fact, some who have tried to lower tuition have been “advised” against it by the American Association of University Professors because their accreditation might be revoked.

Higher education is a very high-stakes business, and, while academics may have the reputation of being soft, they won’t take cutting student aid without a fight. Today it’s more about building magnificent temples to academia and creating world-renowned reputations than passing on knowledge.

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OPINION IN BRIEF

Ben Shapiro: “On Monday, President Obama spoke about his new strategy to take on the terrorist entity Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. … Obama explained, ‘This is not simply a military effort. Ideologies are not defeated by guns. They’re defeated with better ideas.’ To cap off this airsickness bag of gobbledygook, Obama then concluded, ‘We will never be at war with Islam.’ … The victims of the Holocaust didn’t sit around thinking to themselves, ‘Golly, if only we’d been able to come up with a better idea than Nazism, that Hitler sure would have stopped all this nonsense.’ America didn’t end World War II by dropping informational leaflets. We dropped warning leaflets, then bombs. Large ones. Atomic ones. No armed ideologues in history have been defeated solely by better ideas — at least not before decades of murder, repression and evil. … When it comes to fighting the ideology of ISIS, however, Obama finds Americanism insufficient, since Americanism creates ISIS ideology through Islamophobia. That’s why Americans with guns can’t defeat ISIS, says Obama: Americans with guns create ISIS. Only internationalism can win the day! So far, that internationalism has been a massive failure. Of course, internationalism is always a massive failure, because it isn’t an idea, any more than ‘diplomacy’ is an idea. ”

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SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Your silence gives consent.” —Plato (429-347 BC)

Upright: “I say this to Obama: ‘Excuse me, Mr. President, but you’re wrong.’ He’s dead wrong. … [G]lobal warming basically is a non-problem. Just leave it alone and it will take care of itself.” —Nobel laureate and physicist Ivar Giaever

Uh, no: “I believe that Jesus would approve of gay marriage. … I think Jesus would approve of any love affair that was honest and sincere, and was not damaging to anyone else. And I don’t think that gay marriage damages anyone else.” —Jimmy Carter

Non Compos Mentis: “Certainly the First Amendment says that in institutions of faith that there is absolute power to, you know, to observe deeply held religious beliefs. I don’t think it extends far beyond that.” —Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

A stopped clock is right twice a day: “Folks who do not like guns is fine [sic], but we have millions of people who are gun owners in this country; 99.9% of those people obey the law.” —Bernie Sanders

Hot air: “I have every confidence that during the course of this campaign, people will know who will fight for them when they need them, and that’s the person who I am and what I will do if I am president.” —Hillary Clinton (The late Christopher Stevens and his Benghazi colleagues were unavailable for comment.)

The BIG Lie: “Everything I did was permitted. There was no law, no regulation, there was nothing that did not give me the full authority to decide how I was going to communicate.” —Hillary Clinton on her secret email servers

Belly laugh of the week: “People should and do trust me.” —Hillary Clinton

And last… “Hillary Clinton infuriated reporters covering her at a July Fourth parade in New Hampshire by forcing them to stand behind a rope away from the street. She needed a little me-time. She had just heard Greece is about to run out of all its cash reserves, meaning she’ll never give a speech in Greece.” —Argus Hamilton

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Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis!
Managing Editor Nate Jackson

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