THE FOUNDATION

“Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs.” —Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 34, 1788

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Some Liberties Are More Equal Than Others

One day before the Supreme Court ruled on same-sex marriage, ACLU deputy legal director Louise Melling wrote of the organization’s newly announced hostility to Christians and religious liberty, specifically regarding its withdrawal of support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. “The ACLU supported the RFRA’s passage at the time because it didn’t believe the Constitution, as newly interpreted by the Supreme Court, would protect people … whose religious expression does not harm anyone else. But we can no longer support the law in its current form. For more than 15 years, we have been concerned about how the RFRA could be used to discriminate against others. As the events of the past couple of years amply illustrate, our fears were well-founded. While the RFRA may serve as a shield to protect [some], it is now often used as a sword to discriminate against women, gay and transgender people and others. … Yes, religious freedom needs protection. But religious liberty doesn’t mean the right to discriminate or to impose one’s views on others.” It’s not exactly surprising that the ACLU would find a way to oppose such laws once Christians found refuge in them. But this is an organization that has gone to bat for the KKK and the American Nazi Party. And the irony is too much: Melling decries the imposition of views while having no problem with homosexuals forcing bakers, photographers and florists to provide their services against their consciences. Now that the Supreme Court has found a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, more imposition and discrimination will occur. And the ACLU will be leading the charge. Because “love wins,” right?

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Puerto Rico Wants a Pass on $72 Billion Debt

“Death spiral” — that’s how Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro García Padilla describes the commonwealth’s debt. Over the last few years, the island racked up a debt of $72 billion, or 3.5 times the amount that bankrupted Detroit. Padilla, who once vowed to repay the loans accrued by his and past administrations, now says it’s impossible and creditors should “share the sacrifices.” Problem is, Puerto Rico has been a popular place for retirees to invest because the commonwealth’s bonds are tax-free. The problem becomes stickier, as Puerto Rico cannot file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. The island used to be an economic powerhouse, filled with manufacturing and a vibrant port. But Deepak Lamba-Nieves, research director for the think tank Center for a New Economy, said in 2013, “You cannot pay daily expenses with your credit card, and that’s what Puerto Rico has been doing for years. We borrowed just to keep the lights on.” Padilla doesn’t appear ready to make the difficult cuts, firing government workers, tightening its belt and getting serious about the debt. Like Detroit, Puerto Rico was destroyed by liberal politicians and their failed economic theories. Now, some will say the only way to save the commonwealth is with a bailout. Barack Obama says he won’t do so, but don’t be surprised if he proposes to “fix” the problem by floating Puerto Rico statehood again — in order to firm up some Latino support. While the offer is hollow, a narcissist like Obama would certainly be pleased with a legacy of altering the American flag.

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Brady Center’s Frivolous Suit Against Ammo Company Backfires

After the massacre at the Aurora movie theater, The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence went after the company from which the murderer bought his ammunition. The center filed suit against Lucky Gunner because it sold its ammunition online, arguing that’s “unreasonably dangerous and create[s] a public nuisance.” But not only did the judge disagree, he reprimanded the Brady Center because he said it was filing suit simply to make a high-profile political point. Judge Richard Matsch wrote in his ruling, “It is apparent that this case was filed to pursue the political purposes of the Brady Center and, given the failure to present any cognizable legal claim, bringing these defendants into the Colorado court where the prosecution of James Holmes was proceeding appears to be more of an opportunity to propagandize the public and stigmatize the defendants than to obtain a court order.” Furthermore, Matsch said the Brady Center had to pay Lucky Gunner’s legal fees. Lucky Gunner said those funds would be donated to pro-Second Amendment groups. For groups with deep pockets and a bitterness toward Liberty, an effective strategy is to silence the lovers of Liberty through suits, frivolous or no. Judge Matsch put a damper on that strategy.

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

All Isn’t Lost, as SCOTUS Rebukes EPA

By Lewis Morris

EPA chief Gina McCarthy isn't pleased

The Supreme Court proved it still has a little bit of respect left for Rule of Law in its decision yesterday in Michigan v. EPA. In a 5-4 ruling that predictably followed partisan lines with Justice Anthony Kennedy swinging to the right, the High Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency did not properly consider the high costs of regulation of emissions from coal-fired power plants.

That this Court — the one content to rewrite ObamaCare in order to save it, twice — found the EPA went too far in rewriting the law is saying something.

The EPA, which has been pursuing the ecofascist dream of completely wiping the coal industry off the face of the earth, released a series of regulations in 2012 that would force energy producers to comply with limits on mercury and air toxins released in coal energy production. The National Federation of Independent Business said the regulations, known as Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), are among the costliest ever issued.

The EPA estimated the new rules would cost close to $10 billion annually, while bringing direct annual benefits of no more than $6 million. Bureaucrats also made the un-provable assertion that the rules would prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths and 130,000 asthma cases each year. In developing its regulations, the EPA was expected to adhere to the Clean Air Act’s “appropriate and necessary” standard. But the agency arbitrarily determined that cost had no bearing in the development of the regulations, essentially flouting the decades-old law and choosing to make up its own rules. The EPA determined that its work protecting the environment justified whatever actions it saw fit.

Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion stated, “EPA strayed well beyond the bounds of reasonable interpretation in concluding that cost is not a factor relevant to the appropriateness of regulating power plants.” Scalia also noted, “The costs to power plants were … between 1,600 and 2,400 times as great as the quantifiable benefits from reduced emissions of hazardous air pollutants.” He added, “No regulation is ‘appropriate’ if it does significantly more harm than good.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California weighed in on the decision in a statement, saying, “The Supreme Court’s decision today vindicates the House’s legislative actions to rein in bureaucratic overreach and institute some common sense in rule making.” That said, Congress has more work to do to rein in an out-of-control EPA, especially given that the Court left open a substantial loophole of sorts: Regulations are fine as long as the EPA “counts the cost.”

Indeed, the EPA seemed nonplussed by the decision, with spokeswoman Melissa Harrison saying, “EPA is disappointed … but this rule was issued more than three years ago … and most plants are already well on their way to compliance.” In other words, she gloated that the damage was already done and blew a raspberry at opponents.

The EPA and the White House will certainly try to play down this loss, but the Court’s decision lays groundwork for a number of other cases in which multiple states are seeking to challenge the imperial overreach of the EPA. As noted by National Mining Association President Hal Quinn, “The decision effectively puts EPA on notice: reckless rulemaking that ignores the cost to consumers is unreasonable and won’t be tolerated.”

But Justice Clarence Thomas warned in his concurring majority opinion, “[W]e seem to be straying further and further from the Constitution without so much as pausing to ask why. We should stop to consider that document before blithely giving the force of law to any other agency ‘interpretations’ of federal statutes.” We can think of a few other cases in which that logic applies, and we hope this victory isn’t merely symbolic.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: Two More Bad Policies: Rules of Engagement and Hostages
• The Hypocrisy of the Rainbow Mafia
• Syrian Red Line Update
• Ex-Im Bank to Stop Issuing Loans Tuesday

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Dennis Prager: The Formal End to Judeo-Christian America
• Arnold Ahlert: Supreme Insanity
• Thomas Sowell: Supreme Court Disasters

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Dennis Prager: “Beginning with the Supreme Court’s ban on nondenominational school prayer in 1962, the same-sex marriage decision has essentially completed the state’s secularization of American society. This is one thing about which both right and left, religious and secular, can agree. One side may rejoice over the fact, and the other may weep, but it is a fact. And what has replaced Judaism, Christianity, Judeo-Christian values and the Bible? The answer is: feelings. More and more Americans rely on feelings to make moral decisions. The heart has taken the place of the Bible. … Same-sex marriage is, above all else, the statement that male and female mean nothing, are completely interchangeable, and, yes, don’t even objectively exist, because you are only the gender you feel you are. That explains the ’T' in ‘LGBT.’ The case for same-sex marriage is dependent on the denial of sexual differences. It is the heart, not the mind, that has concluded that all a child needs is love, not a father and mother. And therein lies one of the reasons that the notion of obedience to religion is so loathed by the cultural left. Biblical Judaism and Christianity repeatedly dismiss the heart as a moral guide.”

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SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Love your country, but never trust its government.” —American writer Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)

Upright: “When any branch of government can exercise powers not authorized by either statutes or the Constitution, ‘we the people’ are no longer free citizens but subjects, and our ‘public servants’ are really our public masters. And America is no longer America. The freedom for which whole generations of Americans have fought and died is gradually but increasingly being taken away from us with smooth and slippery words. This decision makes next year’s choice of the next President of the United States more crucial than ever, because with that office goes the power to nominate justices of the Supreme Court.” —Thomas Sowell

Braying Jenny: “[O]ne thing you also said was that you would support a Texas state clerk who refused to issue a license to a gay couple on religious grounds. Let me ask you this: If a state clerk refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple, would you agree with that, too?” —NBC’s Savannah Guthrie to Ted Cruz

Dezinformatsia: “Now’s the Time To End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions” —Time magazine

Eco-alarmism: “This December, the world must unite behind a common goal. Because look, this is it. This is our only planet, our only life source. This may be our last chance.” —Robert Redford

Demo-gogues: “We need to join the rest of the industrialized world. We are the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people as a right, and yet we end up spending much more than they do. So I do believe that we have to move toward a Medicare for all, single-payer system.” —Vermont Sen. and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (Because itworked so well in Vermont?)

And last… “Obama hailed the Supreme Court decision … to uphold federal subsidies in the Affordable Care Act. He cited anecdotal evidence to claim the program is working. In a recent survey, seventy-two percent of doctors say they think Obamacare is terrific as long as you don’t get sick.” —Argus Hamilton

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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

“The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.” —Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 33, 1788

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Obama’s Funeral Platform for Gun Control

On Friday, Barack Obama delivered the eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the slain pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Naturally, he exploited the occasion — metaphorically stood on Pinckney’s casket — to repeat the need for his policy preferences, namely more gun control. “For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation,” Obama thundered. “Sporadically, our eyes are open: When eight of our brothers and sisters are cut down in a church basement, 12 in a movie theater, 26 in an elementary school. But I hope we also see the 30 precious lives cut short by gun violence in this country every single day; the countless more whose lives are forever changed. … The vast majority of Americans — the majority of gun owners — want to do something about this. … None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy. … But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again.” In this instance, he did mention the lives lost every day — though he neglected the fact that they’re black lives lost to the gang culture festering on his own party’s urban poverty plantations. But he doesn’t speak at their funerals. That’s because he couldn’t make the blacks who murder other blacks into the supposed carbon copies of the racist Charleston murderer, as he did with whites across the nation that twice elected him president. Obama’s race-baiting, anti-gun tirade was despicable, and all the more so because of the true grace shown by the families of the Charleston victims.

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One Year Later, Islamic State ‘Caliphate’ Remains Entrenched

In theory, declaring a caliphate should have painted a huge target on the Islamic State’s back. But after the group (née “the JV team”) announced that it established a caliphate in Iraq and Syria last June, it has continued to hold onto its territory as the coalition fighting the jihadists slowly picks away at the “state.” Indeed, Islamic State-linked jihadists have launched attacks as far away as Pakistan, Algeria and Yemen, and those inspired by the Islamic State have struck both the U.S. and Europe. Now, officials in Afghanistan say the group is in that country, placing the Islamic State in competition with the Taliban over whose caliphate should be established. However, the Islamic State’s strategy has made it less of a threat to the United States than al-Qaida, writes Scott Stewart for Stratfor Global Intelligence. “Al Qaeda argues that the caliphate can be established only after the United States and its European allies have been defeated, to the extent that they can no longer interfere in Muslim lands… The Islamic State takes the opposite tack. It has adopted a more urgent ‘why wait?’ approach and concentrates its efforts on immediately taking, holding and governing territory.” This comes as the levels of terrorism at home and abroad are on the rise and as Independence Day weekend coincides with the month of Ramadan. So much for Barack Obama’s campaign to degrade and decimate our jihadist foes.

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Greeks Scramble for Cash as Financial Crisis Comes to a Head

Fourteen years ago, Greece entered the Eurozone by using a Trojan Horse: It doctored its finances to make them appear more stable than they actually were. For a run of a few years, the country let its finances go. The party ended during the Great Recession as the country needed bailout after bailout to keep the partial-archipelago afloat. Now, the piper must be paid. But instead of tightening belts and making the tough decisions to get out of debt and onto firm footing, the Greeks elected the Syriza Party to power because it promised that it would lessen the burden of debt by resisting the demands for reform and negotiating further with the nation’s creditors. But those talks with the creditors broke down over the weekend and Greece may be booted from the Eurozone. On hearing the news, Greeks started lining up at ATMs, withdrawing as much money as they could before the cash ran out. In response, Greece started capital controls, keeping banks closed this week. “Appeasing Syriza’s demands could spread political contagion to Spain, Portugal and other countries that might think they too can avoid reform and still be rescued,” writes The Wall Street Journal editorial board. “A last-minute reprieve is possible, but if not the Greeks will have committed suicide by ignoring economic reality. Voters in Europe, Japan and the U.S., take note.” As we watch the slow-motion crash of Greece, we should remember that this nation has a growing debt that is being made larger by growing entitlement spending. Someday, the piper must be paid here, too.

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

Having Dispensed With God, Leftists Now Aim for Christians

By Robin Smith

1-2-3-4-5. Five leftist lawyers, currently abusing their authority as Supreme Court Justices, unleashed their activism upon the U.S. Constitution Friday and created a non-existent right to same-sex marriage. The Fourteenth Amendment may provide equal protection under the law, but by applying it to expand the definition of marriage the Court has created a constitutional crisis in America. The First and Tenth Amendments, which respectively promise freedom of individual religion and award jurisdiction to the States of all powers not enumerated in the Constitution, have now been placed in direct conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment.

“Love Wins”? Not here it doesn’t, nor does anything but the will of five judicial despots, followed by the bullying mob rule of the Left and its Rainbow Mafia. Need proof?

In 2008, before the Saul Alinsky-ite Barack Obama and his Chicagoland gang occupied the White House and began “fundamentally transforming” our nation, there was debate, dissent and dialogue about all sorts of issues, including those issues fomented by the hard Left in order to label the response of the Christian Right as extremist.

In 2008, homosexual couples could enter into a legal, binding contract for shared property, power of attorney for making health care decisions, probate of wills, etc., and were, in most cases, receiving health care benefits from employers. These same homosexual couples were consummating their relationship in the privacy of their own domicile without harassment.

In 2008, Christians could speak their opinions and stand on their faith while understanding their voice was respected in the public square.

In 2015, however, those same Christians are in grave danger of losing legal standing because their beliefs are pitted against a brand new, heretofore undiscovered constitutional right. Tolerance is only for those who agree with the mob-rule Left.

What changed in seven years?

If you ask a moderate Republican, he or she might say, “Elections have consequences,” and shrug, since they never viewed this as meaningful anyway. If you ask the Bible-believing Democrats who voted for Ronald Reagan, they shudder at the exchange of timeless principles for sexual license. If you ask a libertarian, you might get the response that devout Christians are the “recalcitrant minority.” But if you ask someone who identifies as Christian first, American second, and is conservative politically, you’ll hear sorrow for a nation that worships the secular triune of me, myself and I rather than our Creator.

Millions of votes cast around the country to support the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman have now been nullified. How will this tyrannical disregard for the enumerated powers of the Constitution play out in the everyday lives of Christians?

In your place of worship, there’s now a government-approved theology that the God-rejecting Left expects to be preached. Whereas Bible-centric congregations stand on Holy Scripture, which does not include one single advocacy of sexual sin or perversion, the homosexual agenda demands that this view be rejected. One of the five black-robed tyrants, Justice Anthony Kennedy — considered the “swing vote” — laughingly attempted to reassure those whose lives revolve around their faith in the Judeo-Christian God by writing, “Those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.”

Get that? We can advocate our opposition, but there is little legal standing in such a weak word. As Chief Justice John Roberts put it, “The majority graciously suggests that religious believers may continue to ‘advocate’ and ‘teach’ their views of marriage. The First Amendment guarantees, however, the freedom to ‘exercise’ religion. Ominously, that is not a word the majority uses.”

Let’s not forget the Christian bakers, florists, photographers and other business owners who have been financially ruined and litigiously challenged by the Rainbow Mafia. Already, Christians have been forced to either comply with the government-approved theology or face persecution.

What about the tax-exempt status of Christian organizations such as schools, faith-based charities, hospitals and other institutions with religious beliefs?

The Obama administration has already indicated this provision as a likely stick to enforce the mandatory bowing to the altar of government-sanctioned faith. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, arguing conjured-up rights before the Supreme Court back in April, tipped their hand in response to an inquiry by Justice Samuel Alito. “It’s certainly going to be an issue,” Verrilli promised. “I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is going to be an issue.”

Chad Griffin, president of the Human (read: Homosexual) Rights Campaign, likewise said, “No question, the work is not done. … We still have a long ways to go.”

Cultural icons like Star Trek actor George Takei, who is homosexual, made the same veiled threat after the ruling. Some, he said, are “going to try to use the shroud of religious freedom” to disobey the Court’s decree. “I believe in religious freedom, and people who argue that are entitled to their freedom,” Takei said. “But” — yes, there was bound to be a “but” — “they do not have the freedom to impose their religious values on to others.”

Yet that’s exactly what the Court and the Rainbow Mafia are doing. The mob-rule Left, characteristically using its ends to justify any means, is wielding its political and legal prowess acquired over the last seven years to openly oppress Judeo-Christians.

Yet there are glimmers of hope that will endure.

Cultural and casual Christians, the ones who believe philanthropy and showing up for a holiday service is their only necessary spiritual response, will quickly self-identify and want to change the subject. Eventually, these fair-weather believers will either deepen their faith or more explicitly abandon it to avoid social stigma or name-calling.

But the greatest outcome of this conflict threatening the Liberty of the faithful and devout will be the growth of strength and community. Think of redwoods, trees that soar to heights of over 350 feet and can live thousands of years. These natural giants have roots of only five to 13 feet deep, but spread outward to 100 feet, interlocking with the roots of neighboring trees in the grove. Unseen bonds within these titans of the forest provide stability and support when the storms howl.

As Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, reminds us, “[T]he church often thrives when it is in sharp contrast to the cultures around it.”

And Congress isn’t idle. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) introduced the First Amendment Defense Act, which Lee writes “would prevent any agency from denying a federal tax exemption, grant, contract, accreditation, license, or certification to an individual or institution for acting on their religious belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.”

This battle has been won through activism and deception. The war, however, is not over.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: Valerie Jarrett’s Communist Family Ties
• The Supreme Political Branch
• Recycled Ideas Are Wasteful
• Gun Control Scheme Shot Down
• At Least Two GOP Lawmakers Buried the Hatchet
• Humor: I Proudly Support…
• Humor: Greece Fire

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Tony Perkins: Supreme Deception
• George Will: The Damaging Doctrine of John Roberts
• John Goodman: Papal Economics and Papal Climatology
• Jeff Jacoby: It’ll Take More Than Tanks to Keep Putin From the Baltics
• Jeff Jacoby: A Moral World Requires Moral Violence
• Peggy Noonan: Two Miracles in Charleston

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Tony Perkins: “For 11 years, homosexual activists have hidden behind the black robes of the court, trying to force their will on America before people wake up to the devastation. [Friday], in the court’s arrogance, they succeeded — swatting away the democratic expression of 50 million people like gnats on a humid day. ‘Today’s decree,’ Justice Antonin Scalia fumes, ‘says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact… This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.’ … As more Americans see and feel the erosion of religious liberty, of parental rights, of children’s innocence, and of conscience rights, their opinions will no longer be swayed by emotions and popular opinion — but by transcendent truth and inevitable consequences that come from its rejection. With this ruling, there is no doubt the Court has set in motion some dark days for religious liberty. But in that darkness will come a great Light, if believers hold firm to faith and continue speaking into the culture the uncompromising word of God.”

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SHORT CUTS

Insight: “I urge you to beware the temptation … to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of any evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.” —The Gipper

Non Compos Mentis: “What we’re not going to do is unravel what has now been woven into the fabric of America.” —Barack Obama, not on traditional marriage but ObamaCare

Political games: “Sometimes there are days like this, when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt.” —Barack Obama, who opposed same-sex marriage until it became politically convenient in 2012

Demo-gogues: “[Friday’s same-sex marriage] ruling is a victory for Jim Obergefell and the other plaintiffs in the case. It’s a victory for gay and lesbian couples who have fought so long for their basic civil rights. It’s a victory for their children, whose families will now be recognized as equal to any other. It’s a victory for the allies and friends and supporters who spent years, even decades, working and praying for change to come. And this ruling is a victory for America.” —Barack Obama

The inevitable next steps: “It’s Time to Legalize Polygamy” —Politico Magazine

And: “Now’s the Time To End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions” —New York Times columnist Mark Oppenheimer

Braying Jenny: “Fear and hatred are far from finished. … Across the board, [Republicans] are the party of the past.” —Hillary Clinton

Late-night humor: “The Supreme Court ruled to preserve the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, so we now can do anything we want. We could drink, smoke, jump mini-bikes off bridges, or play chainsaw tag if we want to. If we get hurt, it’s not our problem. It’s America’s problem, together.” —Jimmy Kimmel

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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

“All know and feel … the sacredness of the connection between husband and wife. All know that the sweetness of social intercourse, the harmony of society, the happiness of families, depend on that mutual partiality which they feel, or that delicate forbearance which they manifest towards each other.” —John Marshall, Sexton v. Wheaton, 1823

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

NPS Removes Battle Flag From Battlefield

The hive mind appears to be taking over. While we can at least understand the push to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state capitol grounds, the rush to jerk it from all store shelves or any public view is astounding. From the “General Lee” of Dukes of Hazzard fame, to Apple pulling Civil War games from the App Store, to the National Cathedral removing stained glass over the mere presence of the Confederate flag, the reaction quickly became absurd. Now, the nation’s first National Military Park, Chickamauga, a park established in 1890 for reconciliation between veterans of the Confederate and Union forces after the War Between the States, has removed Confederate battle flags from its gift shops. Gettysburg has done so as well. Undoubtedly there was a memo from the National Park Service requiring this asinine measure — in order to propagate Obama’s race-bait narrative. It has been said that ignorance is bliss, but the fact is, ignorance is miserable.

Meanwhile, Obama no doubt will be promoting his race bait later today when delivering the eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who, again, supported the flying of the Confederate flag at the SC capitol. If black lives really matter, then why does Obama not deliver eulogies for the other 20 blacks murdered every day on average, most by other blacks? Simple: It doesn’t fit the race-bait narrative.

Finally, of course, the American flag flew over those 13 rebellious states before the Confederate battle flag was ever flown. Better get that American flag down next.

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Clinton Strings Along Investigators With Hidden Emails

We’re still trying to grasp all we don’t know about Hillary Clinton’s cannon of destroyed documentation. On Thursday, the State Department admitted that nine full emails and six partial emails that Clinton lackey Sidney Blumenthal handed over to the Select Committee on Benghazi were not in the reams of printed emails Clinton dumped on the department. Clinton had to have known this. Earlier this year, Clinton said she handed over all the emails regarding her tenure as secretary of state, though she admitted that she destroyed half of her emails because they were “private.” Clinton swears she told the truth, but it was not the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the events leading up to the day when jihadists killed four Americans in Benghazi. “This has implications far beyond Libya, Benghazi and our committee’s work,” Benghazi Committee Chair Trey Gowdy said. “This conclusively shows her email arrangement with herself, which was then vetted by her own lawyers, has resulted in an incomplete public record. … The revelation these messages were not originally produced to the State Department by Clinton is significant and troubling.” The emails show that Clinton was encouraging Blumenthal to send her intelligence reports on Benghazi, despite Clinton’s claim that the reports were unsolicited. So why is the State Department cooperating with the Benghazi investigation now? It’s very possible Hillary, Blumenthal and Co. are contriving these releases as a red herring designed to tie up Republican political capital on an issue that may be a nonstarter. Barack Obama did the same thing with his birth certificate.

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House Republicans Mull Impeachment of IRS Head

Last February, Barack Obama glibly claimed there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS. A month later, at the height of the scandal over the IRS targeting conservative nonprofits, the agency destroyed 422 backup tapes that might have contained 24,000 of Lois Lerner’s emails. Here’s what the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee learned at their hearing yesterday: Yes, the IRS knew of significant gaps in the public record. Yes, Congress issued a preservation order and a subpoena. But still, records were destroyed. Furthermore, eight days after former chair of the House Ways and Means Committee David Camp sent a letter to the IRS in June 2011 inquiring about the targeting of Tea Party groups, Lerner’s hard drive somehow crashed. Tim Camus, the deputy inspector for investigations, calls the whole email-destroying frenzy an “unbelievable set of circumstances.” As for Republican lawmakers, they think the unbelievable set of circumstances is grounds for the impeachment of IRS commissioner John Koskinen. A Republican on the House Oversight committee told National Review, “We’ve briefed the leadership’s counsel, and I think that they’re open to it, but it’s the type of thing where this town is like, ‘oh, that’s not how we do things, it’s not really been used lately.’ But, quite frankly, we really haven’t had executive branch officials behave this way like we do now.”

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

SCOTUS Endorses Same-Sex Marriage

By John J. Bastiat

Continuing to goose-step onward in its blitzkrieg against Rule of Law in America, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today in favor of allowing homosexuals the “right” to marry. The ruling effectively invalidates bans on same-sex marriage remaining in 14 states and mandates that homosexuals can marry anywhere in the U.S. The importance of this ruling, especially for Christians, cannot be overstated. Nor can the damage done to the Third Pillar of Liberty.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in the other three major homosexual-rights cases over the past 20 years, wrote the majority opinion. He was joined, of course, by the reliably liberal clown act that is the leftist side of the bench: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Rather than rehash the sordid trail of this abrogation of Rule of Law, we thought we’d let the dissenting justices (who wrote four separate dissents) address the issue themselves:

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote:

“Petitioners make strong arguments rooted in social policy and considerations of fairness. … But this Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be.”

We do note here, however, the irony of Roberts' statement in light of yesterday’s atrociousObamaCare ruling.

Roberts continued, “Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational. In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand marriage to include same-sex couples, or to retain the historic definition.”

“But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening.”

“Supporters of same-sex marriage have achieved considerable success persuading their fellow citizens — through the democratic process — to adopt their view. That ends today. Five lawyers have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law.”

“The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.”

Justice Antonin Scalia noted:

“This is a naked judicial claim to legislative — indeed, super-legislative — power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government.”

“So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court.”

“The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact — and the furthest extension one can even imagine — of the Court’s claimed power to create ‘liberties’ that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.”

“These [precedent] cases ask us to decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment contains a limitation that requires the States to license and recognize marriages between two people of the same sex. Does it remove that issue from the political process? Of course not. It would be surprising to find a prescription regarding marriage in the Federal Constitution since, as the author of today’s opinion reminded us only two years ago (in an opinion joined by the same Justices who join him today): ‘[R]egulation of domestic relations is an area that has long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the States.’”

“But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law. Buried beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those rights that the Judiciary, in its ‘reasoned judgment,’ thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect.”

“But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch. The five Justices who compose today’s majority are entirely comfortable concluding that every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts' permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003.”

“They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a ‘fundamental right’ overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since. They see what lesser legal minds — minds like Thomas Cooley, John Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, William Howard Taft, Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson, and Henry Friendly — could not.”

Justice Clarence Thomas explained:

“The Court’s decision today is at odds not only with the Constitution, but with the principles upon which our Nation was built. Since well before 1787, liberty has been understood as freedom from government action, not entitlement to government benefits.”

“Yet the majority invokes our Constitution in the name of a ‘liberty’ that the Framers would not have recognized, to the detriment of the liberty they sought to protect. Along the way, it rejects the idea — captured in our Declaration of Independence — that human dignity is innate and suggests instead that it comes from the Government. This distortion of our Constitution not only ignores the text, it inverts the relationship between the individual and the state in our Republic.”

“Petitioners argue that by enshrining the traditional definition of marriage in their State Constitutions through voter-approved amendments, the States have put the issue ‘beyond the reach of the normal democratic process.’ But the result petitioners seek is far less democratic. They ask nine judges on this Court to enshrine their definition of marriage in the Federal Constitution and thus put it beyond the reach of the normal democratic process for the entire Nation.”

“The majority’s inversion of the original meaning of liberty will likely cause collateral damage to other aspects of our constitutional order that protect liberty.”

“Aside from undermining the political processes that protect our liberty, the majority’s decision threatens the religious liberty our Nation has long sought to protect.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

The impact of this ruling will be felt far and wide. It won’t be simply Christian bakers, florists and photographers who are assaulted by the Rainbow Mafia for daring to have their own conscience. Christian churches, schools, agencies and so on will soon be in the crosshairs for opposing this heretofore undiscovered constitutional right. This is only the beginning.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: Housing Discrimination, or Just Obama’s Economy?
• ANALYSIS: Iran Deal Is Nothing but Legacy for Obama, Kerry
• Krauthammer: Roberts Just Wants to Save the Court
• Will There Soon Be More American Hostages?
• Schumer: POTUS Hillary Will Create Carbon Tax
• Holder’s Idea of Terrorism Depends on the Perpetrator
• The Left Has Found Its 1 in 5 Rape Statistic
• The Dirty Little Secret Behind Obama’s Earth Day Lecture
• The UN Report On The Israel/Hamas Conflict Is Useless

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Tony Perkins: With Ruling, SCOTUS Poisons Burwell
• David Harsanyi: Supreme Court vs. Rule of Law
• Charles Krauthammer: On Lowering the Flag
• Jonah Goldberg: Liberals Are Playing a Racial Shell Game
• Mona Charen: Whitewashing the Democratic Party’s History

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Charles Krauthammer: “[T]here’s a deeper reason for this rush to banish Confederate symbols, to move them from the public square to the museum. The trigger was not just the massacre itself, but even more tellingly, the breathtaking display of nobility and spiritual generosity by the victims' relatives. Within 48 hours of the murder of their loved ones, they spoke of redemption and reconciliation and even forgiveness of the killer himself. It was an astonishingly moving expression of Christian charity. Such grace demands a response. In a fascinating dynamic, it created a feeling of moral obligation to reciprocate in some way. The flag was not material to the crime itself, but its connection to the underlying race history behind the crime suggested that its removal from the statehouse grounds — whatever the endlessly debated merits of the case — could serve as a reciprocal gesture of reconciliation. The result was a microcosm of — and a historical lesson in — the moral force of the original civil rights movement, whose genius was to understand the effect that combating evil with good, violence with grace would have on a fundamentally decent American nation. America was indeed moved. The result was the civil rights acts. The issue today is no longer legal equality. It is more a matter of sorting through historical memory. … Perhaps we can learn a lesson from Arlington National Cemetery, founded by the victorious Union to bury its dead. There you will find Section 16. It contains the remains of hundreds of Confederate soldiers grouped around a modest, moving monument to their devotion to ‘duty as they understood it’ — a gesture by the Union of soldierly respect, without any concession regarding the taintedness of their cause. Or shall we uproot them as well?”

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SHORT CUTS

Feel the burn: “Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.” —Justice Antonin Scalia in dissent in theObamaCare case

Another zinger: “Justice [Antonin] Scalia quips acidly that ‘we should start calling this law SCOTUScare,’ but the better term is RobertsCare. By volunteering as Nancy Pelosi’s copy editor, [John Roberts] is making her infamous line about passing the law to find out what’s in it even more true than she knew at the time.” —Wall Street Journal

Upright: “Here is John Roberts, chief oracle of the United States of America, from Thursday’s King v. Burwell decision: ‘Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.’ … [I]magine for a moment if a Supreme Court justice argued that the Defense of Marriage Act was passed to improve marriage rather than destroy it so we must focus on the former rather than the latter and uphold any retroactive provisions the Bush administration cooked up to make that law work.” —David Harsanyi

Gloating: “After multiple challenges before the Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay.” —Barack Obama

The BIG Lie: “The Supreme Court ruled that the millions of Americans … be able to keep their affordable coverage.” —DNC Chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Unfortunately, as a taxpayer funding ObamaCare, YOU may not be able keep your plan or your doctor, and on average, YOUR family premiums are going up almost $3,000.)

Non Compos Mentis, part I: “For the second time, the Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the Supreme Court. … There wasn’t even a dissenting opinion, as I understand it. Or so far we haven’t seen it.” —Nancy Pelosi

Non Compos Mentis, part II: “The Supreme Court ruled against a Republican-led tax hike for 6.4 million Americans!” —Sen. Debbie Stabenow

And last… “At a fundraiser, President Obama complained that the public has ‘forgotten his successes.’ Forgotten? We’re still working on forgiving.” —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

“We must take human nature as we find it, perfection falls not to the share of mortals.” —George Washington, letter to John Jay, 1786

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Slain SC Pastor Teaches One Last Lesson

The murderer in Charleston almost didn’t commit his crime because the people of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church were so kind to him when he entered the building. And even after his grisly act, family members of the slain extended grace to him. Unfortunately, that’s not true of out-of-town rabble rousers who came Tuesday night to disturb the memorial. Protesters with bullhorns shouted, “Arm yourself or harm yourself,” and “Never forget, never forgive.” That, of course, is the antithesis of the Christian message. Church members and other locals discouraged the protesters, who eventually left. Meanwhile, the Left exploited the tragedy to take on the Confederate flag, demanding the one flying on the state capitol grounds be removed (never mind it was put there by Democrat Gov. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings in defiance of federal civil rights legislation). Many Republicans even joined in calling for the flag’s removal. But here’s an interesting fact you won’t see on the nightly news: Pastor Clementa Pinckney, who was killed in the attack, voted in 2000 as a South Carolina state senator in favor of the compromise that kept the flag on capitol grounds. That sends a pretty powerful message that he didn’t seem to think the Confederate flag was a symbol worth censoring.

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And don’t miss the fact that Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane Finally Got Those Duke Boys — no more “General Lee” Charger toys.

New Yorkers Say ‘No’ to SAFE Act

The New York State Police initially shot down inquiries into how many “assault weapons” have been registered with the state after its legislature enacted the SAFE Act in 2013, and we now have a pretty good idea why — because compliance is abysmal. On April 30, New York Supreme Court Judge Thomas McNamara ordered the State Police to disclose registration statistics. According to the figures, which were made public this week, just 23,847 gun owners have registered a total of 44,485 military-looking weapons. For perspective, that’s less than the 50,000 firearms registered under a similar law in Connecticut. Keep in mind, Connecticut has a population of 3.6 million, according to the Census Bureau. New York’s is 19.8 million. Just a small disparity. Keep in mind also that New Yorkers own somewhere around 1,000,000 of these so-called assault rifles, which would mean just 4% of eligible firearms have been registered. Leah Barrett, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, tried to put a positive spin on the numbers, responding, “Tens of thousands of people have complied with the law. That’s important. It shouldn’t be overlooked.” What shouldn’t be overlooked either is that the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers are exercising civil disobedience by rejecting a blatantly unconstitutional law. And they aren’t afraid to be jailed for it, either.

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Pope’s Science Adviser’s Political Agenda Exposed

An old adage from the Gospel of Matthew warns, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (7:15). Unfortunately, Pope Francis did just the opposite when writing the environmental portion of his encyclical. Microbiologist Hans Schellnhuber is a science adviser to the Vatican, and also a fraud. Schellnhuber is in fact a strong believer in the Gaia hypothesis — in a nutshell, the worship of Mother Earth. “When Francis' encyclical was leaked last week, we wondered if his position on the man-made global warming question was ‘a misuse of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and the church at large,’” writes the Investor’s Business Daily editorial board. “Our conclusion has only been solidified by the revelation that the pope was in league with Schellnhuber. … From atheists to strong-arm redistributionists, this pope is unequally yoked with those who don’t share the tenets of his faith — but who are happy to use that faith to achieve their political aims. Yes, there’s truly something wrong here.”

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Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read Clinton’s Benghazi Cover Up 3.0, on what you need to know about the three iterations of Clinton’s BIG Lie cover-up on Benghazi.

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

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

ObamaCare: SCOTUS Overrules Rule of Law

By Nate Jackson

Once again, politics trumps Rule of Law. The Supreme Court issued its ObamaCare subsidies ruling this morning, upholding the Obama administration’s lawless execution by a vote of 6-3.

We’ve noted the background on the subsidy issue numerous times, but the summary is this: The language of the law restricted subsidies to people purchasing health insurance on stateexchanges. When 34 states declined to serve as vassals of the federal government, Barack Obama decided to issue subsidies on the federal exchange as well. Some 27 states challenged that “interpretation” of the law.

Unfortunately, six black-robed despots agreed that lawlessness should stand.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying, “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.”

To do so, the Court decided that the law meant for the federal and state exchanges to be “equivalent” (even though it says no such thing) and, therefore, subsidies for both are intended by the law.

In fact, however, Democrats fully intended to limit the subsidies precisely in order to coerce states into setting up exchanges. ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber admitted as much in one of his infamous “speak-o’s.”

So this is yet another case in which SCOTUS made a decision based on what it deemed was “best for society” rather than rendering a ruling based on the law. Six million poor souls might have been kicked off the insurance rolls without a pleasing alternative to keep the taxpayer money flowing, you see, so the justices had to act. So they interpreted the law’s language to mean something it doesn’t mean and was never intended to mean. That kind of lawlessness is what got our country into its current mess in the first place.

And to think — then-Sen. Barack Obama voted against confirming John Roberts to the Court in 2005. Where would ObamaCare be without Roberts?

As National Review’s Quin Hillyer sums up, “With today’s Obamacare decision, John Roberts confirms that he has completely jettisoned all pretense of textualism. He is a results-oriented judge, period, ruling on big cases based on what he thinks the policy result should be or what the political stakes are for the court itself. He is a disgrace. That is all.”

We could almost — almost — understand Roberts' reasoning in the 2012 decision upholding the constitutional justification for ObamaCare itself, though his own rewrite of the law in order to do so was an appalling miscarriage of justice.

In that ruling, Roberts wrote, “Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”

But in this statutory case, the law’s language — and its intent — was clear. All Roberts and his five fellow travelers did today was “make policy judgments” and “protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”

With his usual flare, Justice Antonin Scalia eviscerated this bad ruling, writing, “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’”

He added, “Having transformed two major parts of the law, the Court today has turned its attention to a third. The Act that Congress passed makes tax credits available only on an ‘Exchange established by the State.’ This Court, however, concludes that this limitation would prevent the rest of the Act from working as well as hoped. So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.”

In the end, however, this outcome is good politically for Republicans — and, conversely, bad for Hillary Clinton. It takes subsidies off the table as a campaign issue, and it means Congress isn’t on the hook to “fix” the law. But a change is not off the table if we can elect a Republican president. The law can be altered after 2016. Then again, the likelihood of that also seems to diminish with each victory Obama wins.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: Jindal’s Campaign Can Be a Rags-to-Riches Story or a Tragedy
• The Strategy Behind the Leftist Assault on Confederate Flag
• Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane Finally Got Those Duke Boys
• Leftist Feint Against ‘Right-Wing’ Terrorism
• A Gas Guzzler May Be Greener Than an Electric Car

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Ann Coulter: There’s a Reason We Mostly Hear About White ‘Micro-Aggressions’
• Larry Elder: The Meaning of Charleston
• Victor Davis Hanson: Why Greece Won’t Pay
• Veronique de Rugy: America’s Coming Transfer of Wealth
• Jim DeMint: Let the Subsidies Die

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Ann Coulter: “In a country of more than 300 million people, everything will happen eventually. That doesn’t make it a trend. Go up to any ordinary, sentient person and ask: Which race assaults the other race more? Remember the ‘knockout game’ — or as its devotees called it, ‘polar bear hunting’? Black teenagers would go looking for white people to knock unconscious with a single punch, videotape the attacks and post them online. The knockout game was a real trend — which the media denied was a trend. … According to a preposterously, laughably, ridiculously bogus report on ‘hate crimes’ produced by Eric Holder’s Justice Department, blacks are far more likely to be victims of hate crimes than whites are. It would be like a government report asserting that most rapes are committed by elderly white women. … In 2008, the most recent year for which such data seems to have been collected, FBI surveys show that, out of 520,161 interracial violent crimes, blacks committed 429,444 of them against whites, while whites committed 90,717 of them against blacks. In other words, blacks commit more than 80 percent of all interracial violent crime. … The Charleston attack was a hideous, sickening crime. But that’s why we should thank our lucky stars that it was so unusual. White-on-black violence is freakishly rare everywhere in America, except liberal imaginations.”

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SHORT CUTS

Upright: “[The Confederate] flag represents what the Left believes is the last remaining Republican electoral stronghold in terms of presidential politics and that would be the South. … [I]t’s not going to stop with the Confederate flag because it’s not about the Confederate flag. It is about destroying the South as a political force. … I’ll make another prediction to you: The next flag that will come under assault — and it will not be long — is the American flag.” —Rush Limbaugh

Non Compos Mentis: “We need to put the American flag down. Because we’ve caught as much hell under that as the Confederate flag.” —Nation of Islam leader and race-baiter Louis Farrakhan

Village Idiots: “If the Confederate flag is finally going to be consigned to museums as an ugly symbol of racism, what about the beloved film offering the most iconic glimpse of that flag in American culture? I’m talking, of course, about ‘Gone with the Wind’… [W]hat does it say about us as a nation if we continue to embrace a movie that, in the final analysis, stands for many of the same things as the Confederate flag that flutters so dramatically over the dead and wounded soldiers at the Atlanta train station just before the ‘GWTW’ intermission?” —New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick

Good question: “Where you been, Hillary? It’s been 10 months, girl!” —Robert Nettles, a longtime friend of Michael Brown, when Hillary Clinton finally showed up in Ferguson this week

The BIG Lie: “You’re in my house.” —Barack Obama to a heckler (No, Obama’s in our house.)

Sums up the Obama administration: “I don’t believe anyone is personally responsible.” —OPM Director Katherine Archuleta on the Chinese hack of federal data

And last… “A new report shows that 35% of Hillary Clinton’s Twitter followers are fake. Yet, most of them are registered to vote for her in Chicago.” —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

“[T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes — rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments.” —Alexander Hamilton, letter to James Bayard, 1802

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Database Hack at OPM Even Bigger Than Thought

The Office of Personnel Management has officially said only 4.2 million federal employees were affected by the database intrusion by China. But CNN is reporting that number is much, much higher, as the FBI Director told the Senate recently that an estimated 18 million Americans were affected. This number includes former and current government employees and even people who only applied for government work.

Let’s be clear: The Obama administration’s lack of leadership contributed to this intrusion and its lack of leadership will make the situation worse. In a June 17 press conference, Obama spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that Obama is standing behind OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, who just happened to be National Political Director for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. “Director Archuleta, in one of her first priorities that she identified after taking that job, was to upgrade the OPM computer network, particularly their cyber defenses,” Earnest said. “And this is obviously an ongoing process, and the president does have confidence that she is the right person for the job.” Archuleta had a job, but she didn’t do the job. Now some of the most sensitive employee data in the nation is in Chinese hands.

Obama could have prevented the hack — or at least lessened the effect of the attack — by being a strong leader, making tough decisions, following through with his promises and nominating qualified leaders. But his character is only emboldening enemies.

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Here Come the Gun Control Crusaders After Charleston

Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) are at it again. After the Sandy Hook massacre, Toomey — a gun-owning, NRA A-rated politician — jumped on Barack Obama’s bandwagon and introduced legislation that would toughen the nation’s background check legislation. The bill was defeated 54-46 in 2013, but Manchin and Toomey told The Washington Post Tuesday night that they would like to revive the bill in response to the massacre in Charleston. Nothing like standing on the caskets of victims to advance a few extra yards in the political game. Toomey, when he appeared on MSNBC Wednesday morning, admitted the bill is mostly a crapshoot. “Honestly, I don’t want to build up any false expectations,” he said, “I’m not aware that we have the votes to do what Sen. Manchin and I attempted. Is it possible that some portion of that, some subset of what we focused on is possible? Honestly, probably not likely.” Still, it shows the tenacity of the forces driving gun control. Every time a front page blares that a crime was committed with a gun, there will be another call for gun restrictions. And the politicians will blow the dust off their tired gun control bills in hopes that maybe this atrocity will have the emotional clout to carry it through.

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Gov’t Affirms Climate Change Is a Health Hazard

It seems that if we only figured out how to control the climate, humankind would figure out how to rid itself of all the ills plaguing us for the last few decades — or more, probably depending on who you ask. The Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change issued a report Monday claiming that climate change is nothing short of a “medical emergency,” according to the commission’s co-chair, Hugh Montgomery. “Although vector-borne diseases will expand their reach and death tolls, the indirect effects of climate change on water, food security, and extreme climatic events are likely to have the biggest effect on global health,” said the report’s executive summary. “A new advocacy and public health movement is needed urgently to bring together governments, international agencies, non-governmental organisations, communities, and academics from all disciplines to adapt to the effects of climate change on health.” First, climate change was going to hurt the polar bears, then drown Florida. Listen enough to government rhetoric and you’ll hear climate change being blamed for everything from a sluggish economy to the war in Syria. Indeed, it seems that the world’s politicians are promising too much as they push for doing something on climate change, telling us that if they could only control the planet and the people on it, then we’d have peace, security and happiness.

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Managing Editor

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

After More Money and ‘Fixes,’ VA Gets Worse

By Paul Albaugh

For veterans seeking care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, let’s just say that this year isn’t going to be any better than the last. Despite all of the promises from Barack Obama, Congress and unelected bureaucrats that the government would “fix” the problems with the VA, little to nothing has been done. Unless you count making things worse.

About a year ago, news broke that veterans were dying while on secret VA waiting lists. Obama promised that his administration would fix the problems. We were told by incoming VA Secretary Robert McDonald that “he would fire over 1,000 VA employees over the wait time scandal.” Yet the fixes and firings didn’t happen. Nope, we were lied to again.

Perhaps the VA simply needed more money to operate more efficiently. In keeping with the status quo for every government agency that is failing, Congress pumped $16.3 billion into the VA to give it some help — that after its budget nearly tripled between 2000 and 2012. How’d that all work out? Fast forward to today, and the results are pathetic. In fact it’s worse now than it was a year ago.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is facing a new crisis. The number of veterans waiting one month or more for care is actually 50% higher than it was during last year’s problems, and the VA is also facing a nearly $3 billion budget shortfall.

To address this continuing crisis the VA is considering furloughs, hiring freezes and “significant moves” to close the budget shortfall. It’s also considering rationing Hepatitis C treatments, specifically for those who are in more advanced stages of illness or advanced dementia. How’s that for veteran care?

On a positive note, doctors and nurses within the VA have handled 2.7 million more appointments than in any previous year and sent an additional 900,000 patients to see physicians in the private sector. With these numbers, what’s the problem?

The VA has seen a massive increase in veterans seeking care, primarily aging Vietnam vets and those who have returned from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. With this increase in demand for care comes a need for more doctors and nurses to provide the treatment that our veterans deserve. But according to many experts there is a shortage of doctors and nurses. In addition there has also been an increase in the cost of drugs and medication, and the largest driver of costs has been from patients seeking medical attention from physicians in the private sector. Thanks, ObamaCare.

“Something has to give,” conceded VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson. “We can’t leave this as the status quo. We are not meeting the needs of veterans, and veterans are signaling that to us by coming in for additional care, and we can’t deliver as timely as we want to.”

Why not? The VA has more money and more people, yet we’re supposed to believe that still more money is the answer? No doubt most Americans would rather see their tax dollars go to fund the VA’s operations than to most any other federal project. But the problem isn’t the lack of money, it’s the ineptitude of bureaucrats who don’t know how to properly manage the money or personnel that they have.

As Mark Alexander suggested last year, perhaps Congress should consider another piece of legislation to improve services at the VA: Make the commander in chief and all of his cabinet level appointees get in line for VA medical services instead of the VIP medical treatment they now receive. Let’s add Congress to that list as well. Can anyone imagine our elected officials and their staff having to wait like veterans do for treatment? We doubt that this will happen anytime soon, but if it could, we bet there would likely be some significant, real changes to the VA.

Meanwhile, ObamaCare was passed to give all Americans access to medical care and is funded by taxpayers. Yet it is unaffordable, unsustainable and un-American. It’s certain that within a few years, as ObamaCare grows and takes deeper root, all Americans will be on waiting lists to receive care. There will be calls for reform, to pump more money and people into it. But these “reforms” won’t fix the problem, either — because the problem is federal bureaucrats who insist on spending more of our dollars to increase their power and take away freedom from individuals. Need proof? Just look at the VA.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: GOP Infighting Strikes Again
• Clear the Shelves of Confederate Stuff to Make Way for Commies
• Congress Still Trading Blows Over Trade
• U.S. Facing Exponential Terror Threat
• Humor: Puppies

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Jonah Goldberg: In the South, Grace and Dignity After Charleston Church Shootings
• Star Parker: Government and Politics Won’t Solve Our Racial Problem
• Ben Shapiro: Confederate Flag Controversy a Complete Misdirect
• Walter Williams: You’re What You Say You Are
• Michelle Malkin: Holy Hypocrisy and Hot Air
• Tony Perkins: The Gen X Factor
• Arnold Ahlert: Importing a Potential Epidemic
• John Stossel: Mankiller Money?

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Jonah Goldberg: “If it were left to me, I would take the [Charleston Confederate] flag down (for the reasons South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley laid out Monday). But this kind of cheap moral preening is galling. Is it really too much for people to muster the moral imagination that the issue isn’t nearly as simple as that? A November poll of South Carolinians found that 61 percent of blacks wanted it down. That means nearly 4 in 10 blacks felt differently. Are they deluded? Are they the moral equivalent of self-loathing Jews, happy to live under a swastika? … If we’re going to offer ridiculous flag comparisons, a better one would be the Japanese imperial flag. After World War II, the U.S. banned it until 1949. Douglas MacArthur then opted to let a defeated, once-authoritarian society keep a few symbols of its past in order to build a better future. Can anyone argue that the South hasn’t done likewise? White Northern liberals explain how the South is an irredeemable cesspool of hate, while ignoring the fact that blacks are abandoning the Northern blue states in huge numbers to move to the South. Demographer Joel Kotkin found that 13 of the 15 best cities in the country for African-Americans to live in are now in the South. … No, the South isn’t perfect; name a region that is. But it does have good manners, which is why it routinely acts with more dignity — and in Charleston, with more grace — than its critics to the north.”

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SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Can’t count very high: “[Barack Obama] has talked to more members than I can count, more senators than I can count.” —Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Trade Promotion Authority

Demo-gogues: “Well within our children’s lifetimes, on our current pace, the oceans go up maybe two, maybe three, maybe four feet.” —Barack Obama, who promised in 2008 that his election would stop the oceans rising

Braying Jenny: “[I]n any democracy, it’s not [skeptics] that carries [sic] the day. It is normal human beings that haven’t put their stake into politics above science. It’s normal human beings that want us to do the right thing, and we will if you help us.” —EPA Chief Gina McCarthy, who thinks you’re not normal

Alpha Jackass: “Our history of racialized violence means that everything white people have, they have in part because they are white. We have to disrupt that status quo. That’s what the president meant when he said that racism is part of our DNA. Our DNA has got to be changed.” —Georgetown University professor Paul Butler

Village Idiots: “I know it’s tempting to dismiss [the Charleston] tragedy as an isolated incident, to believe in today’s America that bigotry is largely behind us, that institutional racism no longer exists. But despite our best efforts and highest hopes, America’s long struggle with race is far from finished.” —Hillary Clinton

And last…

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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

“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” —Thomas Jefferson, fair copy of the drafts of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Say, That Gruber Guy Actually Did Work Closely With Obama

Remember Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor who served as a key architect of ObamaCare? The one who mocked “the stupidity of the American voter” as he and his elitist buddies crammed the law down our throats? The one whose string of condescending remarks on ObamaCare’s deceptive core were caught on video and released to the public? Naturally, Barack Obama tried to throw Gruber under the bus once he had become politically inconvenient, dismissing him as “some adviser who never worked on our staff” and had little to do with crafting ObamaCare. But according to a series of emails sent from the House Oversight Committee to The Wall Street Journal, Gruber had quite a lot to do with ObamaCare after all. “His proximity to HHS and the White House was a whole lot tighter than they admitted,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), chairman of the House Oversight Committee. “There’s no doubt he was a much more integral part of this than they’ve said. He put up this facade he was an arm’s length away. It was a farce.” Indeed, Jeanne Lambrew, a top administration official at HHS, thanked Gruber for being an “integral part” in foisting ObamaCare on the nation. And Gruber was in contact with the highest level Obama advisers on the law, from Lawrence Summers to Peter Orszag to Jason Furman to Ezekiel Emanuel. This is simply more confirmation of ObamaCare’s foundation of lies. As if we needed any more proof.

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SCOTUS and the Raisin Hope for Property Rights

Marvin Horne of Fresno, California, has been vindicated. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that if the Raisin Administrative Committee was going to take Horne’s raisins it needed to compensate the farmer. In Horne v. Department of Agriculture, Horne refused to give up his raisins to the Raisin Administrative Committee and the agency was fining him at the tune of $695,000. The committee is a New Deal-era program designed to control the supply of raisins so the prices remain artificially high. It would take a portion of farmers' grapes and either donate them to school lunch programs or sell them overseas. Farmers used to be compensated, but then the payout dwindled to nothing. The Ninth Circuit Court originally ruled in favor of the administrative committee, saying the Constitution’s Taking Clause only covered real estate, but Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the majority opinion, ruled, “Government has a categorical duty to pay just compensation when it takes your car, just as when it takes your home.” This ruling comes 10 years after the bungled SCOTUS ruling in Kelo v. New London, which said the city of New London could take the home of Susette Kelo and give her property to a private developer. Currently, Kelo’s pink home is demolished and the lot stands empty. While the raisin ruling is a step in the right direction, it will take years before the government fully moves past Kelo and respects the property of the citizens.

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Pentagon Ships Military Off to Battle ‘Climate Change’

In January 2012, Barack Obama said, “As we look beyond the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan … we’ll be able to ensure our security with smaller conventional ground forces.” In other words, even though America’s military is being downsized, our military prowess will remain untarnished. “[Y]es, our military will be leaner, but the world must know the United States is going to maintain our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats,” he explained. Who knew that meant documenting the effects of climate change — even as terrorism-fueled crises in the Middle East rage on? According to The Washington Times, “Though stretched thin by the aftermath of two wars and the current fight against the Islamic State, the Obama administration has enlisted the Pentagon to measure the shrinking ice in the Arctic in the latest example of the president’s climate agenda being extended to the military. A recent Government Accountability Office report examined the Defense Department’s role in the Arctic, which increasingly will include ‘monitoring the changing Arctic conditions,’ such as ice levels.” America’s retreat — not climate change, as this administration posits — facilitated the Islamic State’s rise. And pulling even more resources away from the real fight to wage war on a straw man isn’t going to make them go away.

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

Charleston and the Confederate Flag Battle

By Nate Jackson

With every murderous rampage committed by a sociopath, the Left exploits the tragedy to push its agenda of taking Liberty from all of us. In recent years, that’s generally meant two things: gun control or racial grievance. The horrific murders of nine black Christians in Charleston by a white supremacist provided an opportunity to bring the two issues together.

Barack Obama, as usual, weighed in on both. He called for more gun control, and then he denounced the Confederate flag flying on the grounds of the South Carolina capitol as a racist symbol. It’s the latter that’s become a rallying point for leftists as well as Republicans eager to shed the racist label.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, said Monday, “It’s time to move the flag from the Capitol grounds.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a GOP presidential candidate, and Tim Scott, the first black Republican senator elected in the South since Reconstruction, likewise called for its removal. That provides political cover for state Republicans to vote to take it down.

Of course, given the prominence of South Carolina in the presidential primary season, the Leftmedia gleefully makes the Confederate flag an issue for Republicans every presidential cycle.

But that’s awfully odd since Democrats are the ones who raised it at the South Carolina capitol in 1962. Democrats are the party of Jim Crow and segregation — the ones in KKK robes who sullied the banner of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia with racial overtones.Democrats Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter campaigned with the flag before it was uncool to do so.Democrats push for an ever-higher minimum wage, which all too often leaves blacks unemployed and enslaved on the Left’s deliberately institutionalized urban poverty plantations.

Yet somehow the Confederate flag is a Republican problem.

Speaking of racism, know what else is racist? Gun control. It was originally conceived in the South to prevent blacks from owning firearms. Even now, proponents of gun control rarely lament the lives lost due to inner city gang violence.

Who else is racist? Barack Obama, whose roots of racial hatred run deep, and who stirs the pot by using the “n” word.

As for the flag itself, Leland Summers, head of the state’s chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, dismissed the Left’s complaint: “Do not associate the cowardly actions of a racist to our Confederate Banner. There is absolutely no link between The Charleston Massacre and The Confederate Memorial Banner. Don’t try to create one.”

He’s right in part, though it’s not that simple. It’s undeniable that the Confederate States propagated slavery — an institution Gen. Lee called “a great political and moral evil” — and that the Confederate flag in whatever form brings that to mind. The Union was hardly innocent in this regard, however. Abraham Lincoln harbored his own racism and favored solving slavery by sending blacks back to Africa. Yet no one seems to associate the American flag with such things.

Democrats made the Confederate banner a symbol of racism at KKK rallies, and now they have successfully turned a large portion of the populace against it. When a racist murderer used the Confederate battle flag as a background for his pictures, it only reinforced the link. Democrats fully intend to use the issue to rally blacks around Hillary Clinton, hoping “racist” Republicans would squirm to avoid calling for the flag’s removal. If South Carolina Republicans do remove it, the issue will be somewhat diffused — though nothing will ever be enough for the Left.

“I think compromising with the left on this issue is not worth it because the left is only politicizing this issue to advance their agenda,” wrote Red State’s Erick Erickson. “Once the flag is gone, the left will advance to the next issue then the next issue, etc. They won’t compromise. There is no compromise. There is only conversion or censorship with the left.”

For most of those who fly Lee’s banner today, they intend it as homage to the honorable part of their heritage. Certainly those of us at The Patriot Post with long family history in the South view it that way. The vast majority of Southerners did not own slaves and their descendants reject the idea that they (read: we) are to blame for that horrific institution. Yet the modern Left is intent on blaming all Southerners — especially Republicans — for slavery and all racism, which has in part served to make the flag a symbol of defiance akin to the Gadsden flag of the Tea Party.

That said, it’s perhaps too much to ask of our public-school educated population to think of history with such nuance and understanding. And it’s likely the only politically tenable and prudent move for Republicans to concede the point.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: CBO Discovers ObamaCare Costs a Lot of Money
• The Marine Hitchhikers
• American Giving Reaches New High
• Cruz Aims to Stop Immigration ‘Slush Fund’
• Humor: Hunting and Fishing

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Thomas Sowell: Hillary and History
• Arnold Ahlert Losing Faith
• Cal Thomas: Amazing Grace in Charleston

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Thomas Sowell: “The fact that many people are still prepared to vote for Hillary Clinton to be President of the United States, in times made incredibly dangerous by the foreign policy disasters on her watch as Secretary of State, raises painful questions about this country. A President of the United States — any president — has the lives of more than 300 million Americans in his or her hands, and the future of Western civilization. If the debacles and disasters of the Obama administration have still not demonstrated the irresponsibility of choosing a president on the basis of demographic characteristics, it is hard to imagine what could. With our enemies around the world arming while we are disarming, such self-indulgent choices for president can leave our children and grandchildren a future that will be grim, if not catastrophic.”

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SHORT CUTS

Insight: “I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent.” —C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

The BIG Lie: “We were able to bring to conclusion two long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and [Hillary Clinton] was very much involved in supporting those transitions.” —National Security Adviser and former Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice struggling to come up with an accomplishment of the Democrats' inevitable candidate (And never mind that Obama and Clinton lost the Iraq war.)

Demo-gogues: “Here in America, many people personally don’t know someone who is Muslim. They mostly hear about Muslims in the news — and that can obviously lead to a very distorted impression.” —Barack Obama

Non Compos Mentis: “What would I do with white people who use the N-word? Jail them.” —Piers Morgan

Village Idiots: “Too many black people are niggerized. I would say the first black president has become the first niggerized black president. A niggerized black person is a black person who is afraid and scared and intimidated when it comes to putting a spotlight on white supremacy and fighting against white supremacy.” —Princeton professor Cornel West

Alpha Jackass: “[O]ur nation is paying a high price for our devotion to guns and faith in their capacity to keep us safe. … Our nation is dying a violent death, and the National Rifle Association and other gun valorizing groups will be etched across the death certificate.” —Harvard University professor Jonathan L. Walton

And last…

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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.