The American Spectator and The Spectacle Blog

Obama’s Assault on the First Amendment

George Neumayr — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:11:00 -0400

The First Amendment marks out three areas in which the federal government is limited: no “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion, no “abridging the freedom of speech or of press,” no impeding the “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The Obama administration has compiled a sorry record in all three categories. But anyone who bothered to notice was dismissed by the elite media as paranoid and alarmist. Until now. Suddenly it is acceptable to complain about Obama’s “appalling” approach to the First Amendment.

Obama’s “living” Constitution now looks considerably less enlightened to reporters whose phone calls have been traced. The First Amendment has long been crumbling under slipshod jurisprudence. Obama is just giving it a final kick.

A “living” Constitution obviously lends itself to an unlimited and abusive federal government, as it renders all written protections passé. There is no quicker way to kill a constitution than to say it is alive. That just means the federal government is freed up to do whatever it wants. The Constitution has no meaning except what those in power give it at any particular moment.

Journalists didn’t mind this fashionable travesty when it meant religious freedom was squashed in the name of “women’s health” or political speech curtailed in the name of “campaign finance reform.” But now that the living-constitutionalists are snooping on phone records and hacking into e-mails in the name of national security, they balk. This is “chilling,” they say. We’re told that press freedom is sacred, often from the same pundits who cast complaints about the HHS mandate as partisan carping.

Yet to anyone paying attention, the Obama administration’s slippery treatment of the First Amendment should come as no surprise. The James Rosen incident, much in the news this week, reflects a pattern that was already on display in the rollout of the HHS mandate. Recall that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius denied that she was violating the religious freedom of Christian organizations as those organizations weren’t “religious” (according to a new Orwellian criterion she had concocted, which defined only purely sectarian organizations as religious). Similarly, the Justice Department argued that it wasn’t violating the press freedom of James Rosen as he wasn’t press. He was rather an “aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator” in a spy ring for having receiving classified information about North Korea from an intelligence analyst. That appeared in a May 2010 affidavit.

It was well known that the Obama administration didn’t consider Fox News a real “news” organization. But who knew they would make the view official before a judge?

Editorialists at the Wall Street Journal point out that evidence for Rosen’s spying consisted of saying in an e-mail to his source that he wanted to break “news ahead of my competitors” and that they could “expose muddle-headed policy when we see it—or force the administration’s hand to go in the right direction, if possible.” The editorialists note that “if working with a source who uses an alias is now a crime, we’ve come a long way from the celebration of Bob Woodward and ‘Deep Throat.’”

Redefining journalists as spies and religious organizations as nonreligious instruments of state mandates are the tricks of totalitarian countries. Obama’s America is moving in that direction. The end point of liberalism is a coercive state in which the “law” is indistinguishable from the will of whoever holds power. A “living Constitution” sounds better than totalitarianism, but in principle it is no different.

What stops the march of the Left is not a philosophy of restraint but popular resistance. Some violations of the First Amendment are popular, some aren’t. So for now the Left’s leaders have to restrict themselves to the ones that are popular, such as the HHS mandate. But they hope that one day the unpopular ones will become popular. With a little more brainwashing in the public schools, they hope for that glorious day when Rush Limbaugh is thrown off the air and the IRS can harass conservative groups without triggering congressional hearings.

Former NAACP chairman Julian Bond has blurted out what many on the Left actually think about the IRS investigating the “Taliban wing of American politics”: “I think it’s entirely legitimate to look at the tea party. Here are a group of people who are admittedly racist, who are overtly political, who’ve tried as best as they can to harm President Obama in every way.”

Conservative error has no rights. That’s the essential view of the Left. And reporters, holding a similar philosophy, usually don’t object to the shredding of the First Amendment that that prejudice entails until they find themselves on the receiving end of it.

Damage Control for Dummies

Matt Purple — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:10:00 -0400

Writing a column on the recent IRS abuses is a hazardous undertaking. The scandal is expanding so quickly that it’s hard to get a paragraph on paper without having to revise it with new, shocking details. As I write this, an unctuous-looking former IRS commissioner by the name of Douglas Shulman is telling the Senate Finance Committee that he knows nothing, to the consternation of Senator Max Baucus. A Democratic senator angry at a Bush-appointed bureaucrat over the targeting of Tea Party groups—strange times on Capitol Hill.

But even in post-scandal Washington, some things always stay the same. One of them is the inclination of many progressives to defend the president at all costs, no matter what the accusation. Some of these arguments—with their logical contortions and obstinate immunity to new facts—have been downright impressive. Media Matters, head to the job fair. America has a hack surplus.

Let’s take a look at six of these rationalizations that have been circulating on the left.

These right-wingers are just upset that the IRS is doing its job.

“As the [inspector general] report details, from 2010 onwards, there was a significant rise in the number of applications for tax-exempt status. … Given the rise of the Tea Party, it is probably safe to assume that many of these new groups had emerged from the populist right.” – John Cassidy, The New Yorker

As Rep. Todd Young pointed out, and The Atlantic later verified, there was no surge of tax-exempt applications in 2010. In fact there were fewer such applications for 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s in 2010 than in 2009. The real tidal wave of applications didn’t come until 2012, the year of the presidential election and also the year that the IRS allegedly stopped discriminating against the Tea Party.

And this went much farther than just singling out Tea Party applications for scrutiny. As USA Today reported, starting in 2010, the IRS didn’t approve a single Tea Party group for 27 months, while pushing through dozens of applications for progressive groups. The myth of a wave of Tea Party applications is also undermined by the fact that it wasn’t just Tea Party groups that were targeted. Pro-life, evangelical, anti-voter fraud, and even Jewish groups were all singled out for scrutiny. This was a concerted attack on conservatives, not an attempt to deal with paperwork.

These right-wingers are just rehashing Whitewater.

“The ‘scandals’ confronting President Obama are derived almost entirely from the political and media mindset that gave us Whitewater. That is to say: they are minor instances of bureaucratic incompetence and/or executive overreach that are seized upon by hysterical right-wing media and politicians, and eventually aggrandized by their craven mainstream brethren, into red-alert-Chryon, full-scale Media Narratives.” – Steve Almond, Salon.com

It is true that the Whitewater allegations against Bill Clinton were small potatoes compared to, say, the rape allegations against Bill Clinton. It’s also true that the IRS wrongdoing hasn’t yet touched the current president.

But the notion that the IRS scandal is somehow an analog to Whitewater, or that this is all a “minor instance of bureaucratic incompetence,” is nonsense of the first order. As National Review revealed yesterday, these abuses weren’t even limited to the IRS. One Texas woman, trying to set up two Tea Party-oriented nonprofits, was investigated by the FBI, audited by the ATF, and fined $17,500 by OSHA for violations like having the wrong type of seat belt on a forklift in a machine shop.

A pattern has also emerged in which government agents harassed moneyed Mitt Romney supporters in 2012. One such donor, Frank Vandersloot, caught an opposition researcher digging through his divorce records. Shortly thereafter, he was notified of his first-ever audit by the IRS. Two weeks later, the Department of Labor sent him an audit letter.

It’s a bit early to judge the IRS scandal against Watergate. But I think the verdict is in on Whitewater. Based on what we do know, we’re talking about multiple agencies of the federal government engaged in a concerted effort to harass and intimidate the president’s political opponents. That’s a bit more serious than a few fishy real estate investments made by Bill Clinton.

These right-wingers are working against public opinion.

“The simple fact is that although the Republican sharks are circling, at least so far, there isn’t a trace of blood in the water. A new CNN/ORC survey of 923 Americans this past Friday and Saturday, May 17-18, pegged Obama’s job-approval rating at 53 percent, up a statistically insignificant 2 points since their last poll, April 5-7, which was taken before the Benghazi, IRS, and AP-wiretap stories came to dominate the news and congressional hearing rooms.” – Charlie Cook, National Journal

Welcome to Washington, where you’re not allowed to feed your goldfish without checking an opinion poll. In addition to being a shameless appeal to the majority, there’s also an odd, Rousseauian flavor to this argument. Should laws only be enforced when the public approves? And if we’re being governed solely by the general will, does this mean we can finally repeal unpopular Obamacare?

These right-wingers are trying to blame the president for the IRS’s actions.

“After all, if Obama knew about the imminent report a little earlier, that wouldn’t mean he was interfering with it. The IG report doesn’t even say Obama or anyone in the White House was involved in IRS misbehavior. And there’s no evidence so far that the White House knew about the investigation during the election season.” – Greg Sargent, Washington Post

It’s true that the president hasn’t been directly connected to the IRS abuses. But the IRS is an executive agency—more independent than others, certainly, but still under the president’s responsibility. Even if Obama wasn’t aware of the Tea Party audits, they happened on his watch.

The White House also hasn’t helped itself by spitting out lies like a machine gun; we’ve gone from almost everyone on the president’s staff claiming they were blindsided by the IG report to almost everyone on the president’s staff admitting they knew about the IG report weeks ago.

So, yes, conservatives who suspect the president’s involvement are engaging in conjecture. But it’s conjecture built on solid ground. These abuses went on for years and stretched across multiple agencies. It’s not the Cincinnati IRS office that sets policy for the whole of the federal bureaucracy; it’s the White House, which right now looks like it’s playing CYA.

These right-wingers are engaged in a witch hunt.

“Why am I alarmed? Because two ‘scandals’ — the IRS tax-exempt inquiries and the Department of Justice’s tapping of reporters’ phones — have become lynch parties. … Let’s demand an end to partisan sideshows or media witch hunts.” – Donna Brazile, CNN.com

Every time President Obama is suspected of wrongdoing, conservatives are portrayed as the striking miners in Emile Zola’s Germinal: a single-minded blob chanting and rioting its way through the streets, looking for malefactors to destroy. It’s a ridiculous portrayal, but if it were true, the IRS scandal would invite the question: What do you call a witch hunt if there actually is a witch on the loose?

These right-wingers are trying to destroy civil society.

“What’s most disturbing, though, is that the paranoia and anger of the Tea Party base, as echoed by an intimidated, primary-averse GOP leadership, are taken seriously by Beltway journalists, who then lose their own ability to distinguish fact from right-wing fantasy. I keep thinking scandal fever has broken, but it’s not over yet.” – Joan Walsh, Salon.com

This objection, risible and partisan though it may seem, probably reveals the most about what’s driving the left. Over the past three years, progressives have created a morality tale in which they’re defending the body politic against ravaging hordes of Tea Party sans culottes. Even with the Tea Party under attack by the IRS, they can’t break away from that comfortable dichotomy. Far better that this whole scandal just go away. Then the world will make sense again.

And it turns out the dangers of writing about the IRS scandal have caught up with me. As I type this, Lois Lerner, former head of the IRS’s tax-exempt division, is reported to be pleading the Fifth. Progressives can spin all they want, but the news is breaking too quickly. This isn’t going away any time soon.

Time to Go for the Kill

Peter Ferrara — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:09:00 -0400

The IRS scandal provides Republicans and conservatives with the opportunity to repeal and replace Obamacare now. The House Republican majority should refuse to fund the expansion of the IRS necessary to manage Obamacare. Without that funding, and hiring thousands of additional agents, the IRS cannot even begin to manage Obamacare.

President Obama may throw a fit. He may refuse to sign funding bills to keep the federal government open. No matter. Let him close his government down if he wants. Nobody wants the IRS playing political games with their health care and health records, like it did with the constitutional rights to freedom of speech and Equal Protection of Tea Party and conservative organizations. Contribute to the Republican Party? Attend a Tea Party protest? Good luck getting your Obamacare health insurance tax credit application approved. Good luck finding a doctor the government will pay to do that operation your kid needs.

Obama can flail away all he wants. The public will now back the Republicans in this fight, just as it did in the sequester battle. But won’t the public feel that the Republicans would be irresponsible to just refuse to fund Obamacare, leaving the health system in chaos?

That is why the Republicans need to back up their IRS Obamacare chokehold with legislation proposing free market, Patient Power health care reforms to replace Obamacare. (A comprehensive, free-market health reform plan to replace Obamacare has already been proposed by John Goodman and myself in our NCPA paper, “Health Care for All Without the Affordable Care Act.”)

Going for the Jugular of Obamacare
President Obama sold Obamacare to the 40% of the nation that supports it on the grounds that it would provide universal health insurance. But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scores the legislation as still leaving 30 million uninsured 10 years after full implementation.

It will be much worse than even that, however. In fact, for the reasons I explain below, it is quite possible there will be more people uninsured after Obamacare goes into effect than before. That is the exposed jugular of Obamacare. Those who’ve been supporting it have done so because they believe in universal health care. If Obamacare is going to make the problem worse rather than better, for all of its costs, then public support for replacing it with a better plan will explode. As I will also explain, the free market, Patient Power plan that Republicans should now advance would assure universal health care for all, with no individual mandate, and no employer mandate, at a cost savings of at least $2 trillion over the next 10 years, as compared to current law.

The employer mandate under Obamacare doesn’t just require employers to provide health insurance to their employees. Employers must provide the health insurance that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius specifies that they must buy, to satisfy the employer mandate requirement. That will include, of course, every politically correct benefit and coverage, which will make the required insurance very expensive, in the range of $15,000 to $20,000 for a family plan. But under Obamacare, employers can just pay a fine of $3,000 per employee, and forego the much higher cost of the mandated health insurance altogether. Even many employers who currently provide health insurance will see this as a better deal, and terminate coverage, especially since they will no longer be free to choose their own coverage. Kathleen Sebelius will be choosing it instead, forcing the costs of their current coverage up.

This is why even the Washington Establishment CBO reported in February that “in 2019, an estimated 12 million people who would have had an offer of employment-based coverage under prior law will lose their offer under current law.” CBO estimated that the number losing their employer-provided health insurance could rise as high as 20 million.

But that is surely an underestimate as well. As the response of dropping employer coverage grows, competitive pressure for more and more employers to do so and avoid Obamacare’s costs will rise, spreading the practice further. Former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin estimated in a study for the American Action Forum that 42 million workers will lose their employer-provided coverage under Obamacare. Given the strong incentives for doing so, it could be two or three times higher.

Other employer practices for avoiding the costs of Obamacare will further increase the number of uninsured. The employer mandate only applies to full-time workers, defined as those working more than 30 hours a week. But already we see a marked trend in the labor market of millions of workers suffering cutbacks to 29 hours a week, another practice that may well accelerate as more employers do it, and it consequently becomes more accepted in labor markets. The employer mandate also does not require any coverage for dependents of their workers. So expect to see many more uninsured as employers drop their family coverage. Employers will not even pay any employer mandate penalty for these practices.

We will see dramatic steps to avoid the costs of Obamacare in the individual health insurance market as well. The penalty for failing to comply with the individual mandate is only $2,000, so the savings for avoiding the costly Obamacare health insurance will be even greater. Moreover, even this penalty is not enforceable under Obamacare. When an amendment to remove the power of the IRS to garnish wages or seize assets to enforce the penalty was put to a vote, Congress did not want to go on record authorizing such measures. So we can expect millions more in the individual health insurance market to become uninsured as well.

In addition, everybody will know that under Obamacare’s guaranteed issue regulation, insurers must accept everyone who applies for coverage no matter how sick and costly they have become. Moreover, under Obamacare’s community rating regulation, insurers cannot charge those sick applicants any more than they charge others. So everyone can just wait until they get sick with a costly illness to get coverage, at no extra cost, meaning millions more uninsured.

Of course, that will drive up the cost of health insurance even more, just as it would for fire insurance if homeowners could wait until their homes caught on fire to call for coverage, at no extra charge. That is why health insurance experts are estimating that Obamacare will double and triple premiums for many workers and small businesses, particularly for coverage for young and healthy workers. That will cause millions more to drop coverage, the lower cost young and healthy in particular. A market survey conducted for American Action Forum found that 17 percent would drop coverage if premiums rose just 10 percent, 35 percent would drop coverage if premiums rose 20%, and 45% would drop coverage if premiums rose 30 percent.

Of course, if the low cost young and healthy drop out, that will just drive up premiums for the remaining sicker even more. That will mean still more healthy people dropping their coverage. The resulting financial death spiral would quite likely drive some insurers out of business altogether, meaning still more uninsured. This all could quite possibly mean more uninsured under Obamacare than before.

Universal Health Care Without Obamacare
But the NCPA study referenced above shows how health care for all can be assured, with no individual mandate, no employer mandate, and a savings of at least $2 trillion as compared to Obamacare.

To assure health care for the poor uninsured, Medicaid would be reformed with block grants sending the federal funding to the states, just as was done for the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program in 1996. Those AFDC block grants reduced the cost of that program by 50% from where it would have been otherwise under prior trends. CBO has scored Medicaid block grant legislation already drafted and introduced by Congressman Todd Rokita (R-IN), as designed by the Carleson Center for Welfare Reform, as by itself saving $2 trillion over the next 10 years.

States could provide the poor with health insurance vouchers to buy the private health insurance of their choice in the market, where competition would drive down costs. The poor could use those vouchers to choose Health Savings Accounts, with proven, market incentives to drive health costs down further. When the Bush Administration granted Rhode Island a waiver allowing the state the same flexibility as with block grants, the state signed the poor up with managed care institutions ensuring their access to health care.

Such reform would greatly benefit the poor, because Medicaid so badly underpays doctors and hospitals that the poor on the program face grave difficulties finding timely, essential care. They are documented in studies to suffer worse health outcomes as a result, including premature death. But with private, market health insurance, they would enjoy the same health care as the middle class, because they would have the same health insurance as the middle class. The Rhode Island reforms were documented to improve health care access for the poor over Medicaid as well.

To assure health care for the sick uninsured who have become too costly to buy health insurance for the first time in a private, competitive market, states would receive federal assistance to set up High Risk pools. Those who could not buy insurance in the private market because they were already too ill would go to the High Risk pool to get coverage. They would be charged premiums based on ability to pay, with state subsidies covering remaining costs. Such High Risk pools have been established in 30 states, and have worked well at quite modest costs, because few people actually become too sick to buy private health insurance in the market.

These High Risk pools would also provide the solution for pre-existing conditions as well, because those who could not get private coverage for those conditions could go the High Risk pool.

The law has long provided that those with health insurance cannot be cut off from such insurance after they become sick. Indeed, that is prohibited under common law fraud. That prohibition was federalized under the Kennedy-Kassebaum legislation of 1996. If the law needs to be updated to close any loopholes, it should be.

The NCPA-healthcare-for-all-without-Obamacare plan also provides for a Consumer Choice Tax Credit that would expand the same tax benefits of employer-provided health coverage to everyone. Everyone would be eligible for a refundable tax credit of $2,500 to $3,000, which would go to employers that provided health coverage as well as to individuals who obtained health coverage on their own. This would replace both the Obamacare health insurance tax credits, and the current employer health insurance tax benefits, at an additional savings of a trillion dollars or more over 10 years. The NCPA plan even provides that for those who fail to use this tax credit to buy health insurance, the subsidy per person would go to the local government where they reside to be used for indigent care.

Consequently, everyone would be assured of health care when they need it. Those who already have coverage would be assured they could keep it. Those who were too poor to buy health insurance would receive assistance to buy it. Those uninsured who became too sick to buy health insurance for the first time in the market would be able to get essential coverage from the High Risk pools. That provides a solution for pre-existing conditions that cannot be covered in the private market as well.

Additional provisions in the federal legislation for this NCPA plan can provide for the interstate sale of health insurance, creating a national, competitive market that can further drive health costs down. It can provide for medical malpractice reform as well, for a complete health cost strategy. And the hundreds of bureaucracies created for Obamacare can also be abolished, for further savings.

Unlike Obamacare, this truly American health reform plan greatly expands Patient Power and choice, providing better health care, while reducing costs through market competition, incentives, and choice.

Photo: UPI

Restrain the Abusive Administative State

Doug Bandow — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:08:00 -0400

Few Americans dread anything more than receiving a letter from the IRS. But imagine a full field audit, with intrusive questions about your activities and spending habits. From suspicious agents convinced that you’ve violated the law. That’s essentially what political activists on the Right have been enjoying recently, courtesy the Obama administration.

Who knew what when is the question du jour, but political abuse by the IRS is not new. As investigative journalist Jim Bovard has detailed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy did not let their public-spirited rhetoric interfere with their use of public institutions for partisan benefit. Richard Nixon more recently directed the agency to target his enemies. As White House Counsel John Dean explained, the objective was to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”

President Barack Obama undoubtedly remembers the latter example — as well as Nixon’s fate — and is not so stupid to similarly set himself up for criminal charges. The scandal likely will claim a few mid-level scalps and divert the administration’s attention from some of its more harmful initiatives. But the crisis will be wasted, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, if it is not used to advance the cause of liberty.

Far more than partisan politics is at stake in the latest scandal. The real issue is the expansive, expensive bureaucratic state and its inherent threat to any system of limited government, rule of law, and individual liberty. Obama adviser David Axelrod blamed big government for the controversy, but in order to absolve the president of responsibility: “Part of being president is that there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast.”

That’s true, but it also was true ten and 50 and probably 100 years ago. More relevant is the fact that the broader the government’s authority, the greater its need for revenue, the wider its enforcement power, the more expansive the bureaucracy’s discretion, the increasingly important the battle for political control, and the more bitter the partisan fight, the more likely government officials will abuse their positions, violate rules, laws, and Constitution, and sacrifice people’s liberties.

The blame falls squarely on Congress, not the IRS. Legislators have tasked the tax agency with pulling $2.52 trillion out of Americans’ wallets. With Uncle Sam a prodigious and very public wastrel, there aren’t many people stepping forward to voluntarily turn more of their incomes over to the Treasury. Even those who most cheerfully insist that taxes should be raised themselves don’t give extra cash. Thus, raising that much more requires squeezing taxpayers with intrusive and painful enforcement measures.

This reality means that the IRS always will deliver what acting tax Commissioner Steven Miller called “horrible customer service” when he attempted to excuse the agency’s partisan targeting. No matter how polite and objective IRS employees may be, taxpayers always will be “customers” of the tax authorities in the same way that inmates are “customers” of prison guards. Paying taxes is not a form of consumption most of us will voluntarily choose.

At the same time, the denizens of Capitol Hill also have created a tax code marked by outrageous complexity, special interest electioneering, and systematic social engineering. Legislators have intentionally created avenues for tax avoidance to win votes, and then complained about widespread tax avoidance to win votes. Taxpayers are foolish if they do not take advantage of tax “loopholes,” but agency employees feel tasked to deny any claim that is not clear, even certain. What’s a dedicated employee to do?

Exemptions can result in as much work as enforcement. But, no surprise, the agency places greater emphasis on collecting money from people than on exempting people from paying money. Noted Nancy Cook of the National Journal, “Fewer than 200 employees work to screen more than 70,000 applications for exemption that the Cincinnati office receives each year.” Shortchanging personnel in this way encourages the agency to take “shortcuts that undermine fundamental taxpayer rights and harm taxpayers,” warned the IRS’s independent National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson.

Worse, legislators and presidents increasingly have used tax provisions to control people’s behavior. Explained Cook: “The agency also implements much of the country’s social policy through the tax code. The Earned Income Tax Credit encourages poor people to work, and other incentives encourage us to buy homes and give money to charity. In the coming year, the IRS will be responsible for implementing much of the Affordable Care Act.”

Under Obamacare the IRS collects increased revenue, certifies which Americans are eligible for insurance subsidies, and acts as the primary enforcer of the administration’s insurance mandate, upon which the entire new regulatory structure rests. If healthy people don’t buy the more costly policies, medical insurance companies face a death spiral. So if you fail to purchase insurance, you must pay a tax penalty. The IRS is in charge.

The agency Inspector General reported that the legislation made 47 changes in the tax code, “the largest set of tax law changes the IRS has had to implement in more than 20 years.” Olson called the nationalization of health care “the most extensive social benefit program the IRS has been asked to implement in recent history.”

Tax-based social engineering offers policymakers obvious political benefits. Spending money requires taxing or borrowing, and invites public scrutiny. Regulating generates antagonism and opposition. In contrast, offering tax deductions or credits wins public applause and political support. Most people don’t even realize that they are being manipulated — at their expense, since reducing revenue collections through tax “preferences” requires higher overall tax rates or increased federal borrowing.

The most obvious response to the scandal — beyond punishing anyone who violated the law — is tax reform. Implement a flat tax and you’d still have an IRS, but the income tax would be less complex, there would be fewer “preferences” for the agency to police, and rates would be lower, leaving taxpayers with less incentive for aggressive tax avoidance. Replace the income tax with a consumption tax, and much of the IRS would go away — though the application of Social Security levies on Schedule C income would still leave some IRS enforcement to measure the incomes and expenses of the self-employed.

Further, Washington would have to join states in overseeing sales by retail businesses across America, an extraordinary undertaking. Still better than peering into every Americans’ personal wallet, but not necessarily a significant reduction in intrusive state intervention.

Failing to address the broader underlying factors also would merely set the stage for a repeat performance in some form a few years hence. And the cost would continue to spill over into everything which government does. As Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan observed, “This is not about the usual partisan slugfest. This is about the integrity of our system of government and our ability to trust, which is to say our ability to function.” Today government, and especially the federal government, does far too much. But it does have a few duties which are legitimate and important, and which therefore should be done well.

Most obviously, the Obama scandal should derail the Obama administration’s plans for bigger government. Washington is far too meddlesome and costly already. Worse, the more expansive and expensive the state, the more money that has to be raised. The more money that has to be raised, the greater the pressure from taxpayers for exemptions, credits, and deductions. The more complex the tax code, the more discretion IRS agents require. And the more tax-based abuses that will occur.

But the political effort arising from the tax scandal should not be merely defensive. Activists, candidates, and officials supporting individual liberty and limited government — especially prospective presidential aspirants, such as Rand Paul — should push to abolish the IRS as we know it. One step would be to end tax-based social engineering. Taxes should be used to raise money, not reengineer society. Rationalizing the tax code commonly is considered to be “tax reform,” but Washington’s commitment should run deeper. The objective would be not just a simplification of taxes, but a rationalization of regulation. If Washington has an end, it should adopt the most direct and transparent means. Let the public know what Congress is up to and allow it to judge legislators accordingly.

More fundamentally, government, and especially the national government, should do less. Efficient social engineering may be slightly better than inefficient social engineering, but no social engineering would be far better. Government has a difficult enough challenge combating crime, adjudicating disputes, restricting pollutants, and assisting the poor. Politicians have trouble enough controlling their own behavior and acting in a civilized fashion. They are the last people who should attempt to improve the behavior and mold the souls of others.

Ultimately, the question is whether Americans want to live in a truly free society. What the Obama administration has helpfully though inadvertently demonstrated is that state intervention threatens our liberties in multiple ways. When government decides to interfere in our lives, it forces us to act in politically prescribed ways. It seizes our resources to pay for its depredations. And we see yet again that in doing the latter public officials are ever-tempted to use their power to reward friends and punish enemies, and achieve other self-centered ends.

There already is wide-spread agreement that government does too much. Americans should not allow the latest Obama scandals to go to waste. Those who favor a smaller state should make federal “roll-back” the keystone of their political efforts.

Disabling American Sovereignty

Iain Murray — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:07:00 -0400

The United States Senate will likely soon consider ratification the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which fell six votes short of the 67 needed last December. The CPRD’s stated purpose is “to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity.” While seemingly well-intentioned, the treaty would enable an enormous increase in the potential power of UN bureaucrats over the American people and undermine national sovereignty.

CRPD proponents argue that it merely reiterates existing U.S. disability law. President Obama said, “Existing U.S. law [is] consistent with and sufficient to implement the requirements of the Convention.” While the CRPD was originally modeled to some extent on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), its provisions far surpass the ADA’s.

For example, the convention’s Article 27, which prohibits “discrimination on the basis of disability with regard to all matters concerning all forms of employment,” is a giant leap from the ADA’s employment standards stating, “no covered entity shall discriminate against a qualified individual on the basis of disability in regard to job application procedures, the hiring, advancement, or discharge of employees, employee compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment.” [Emphases added]

In removing the principles of “covered entity,” whereby some organizations are exempt, and of a “qualified” individual, the convention removes all common-sense safeguards against unintended consequences and overreach. Moreover, the article commits signatory states to secure this by legislation — meaning that the ADA would need to be amended.

The CRPD also requires the United States to set up a propaganda agency. Yes, you read that right. Article 8 states that signatories must take “immediate and effective measures…to raise awareness throughout society, including at the family level, regarding persons with disabilities, and to foster respect for the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities.” It becomes the federal government’s duty to “combat stereotypes… in all areas of life” by “initiating and maintaining effective public awareness campaigns.”

Worst of all will be the loss of U.S. sovereignty. Under CRPD Article 34, U.S. policy would be subject to the “Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,” a U.N.-appointed panel consisting of 12 “experts.” The history of other UN bodies like the Human Rights Council — which includes countries with a long history of human rights abuses and hostility toward the United States — is not encouraging. And the Convention’s vague language — such as defining disabilities as “an evolving concept” — suggests that the Committee will have ample opportunity to redefine terms to America’s disadvantage.

Advocates of CRPD ratification argue that the powers afforded to the UN would likely never be used and are unenforceable. Instead, U.S. ratification would serve as an exhortation of U.S. ideals that would encourage other countries to act in accordance with our values. Secretary of State John Kerry labels the Americans with Disabilities Act the “gold standard” for protecting the rights of the disabled, emphasizing the CRPD’s ability to “take that gold standard and extend it to countries that have never heard of disability rights.”

This argument contradicts itself. If the U.S. were to ratify CRPD as a signal for others to do the same, its signal would be nullified if it were not to comply with its provisions. Moreover, this argument ignores the fact that, almost uniquely in the world, U.S. citizens can sue their government to ensure that it is complying with all the terms of a treaty it has ratified. The rest of the world can treat a UN convention as merely hortatory. The U.S. cannot.

And, as Senator David Vitter (R.-La.) argued when considering an article of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (about which a similar argument was made and which never ratified), “If it is not possible for an individual state to violate the provision, why is it in the treaty?” In other words, if the full powers given to the UN are not intended to be used, why grant the powers in the first place? The defense that CRPD is unlikely to be enforceable is no defense at all.

Finally, there is strong evidence that the ADA has harmed Americans with disabilities by making it more expensive for employers to hire them. As the Cato Institute found in 2000, a 10 percent reduction in employment among disabled people has occurred since the passage of the Act. If the ADA has harmed Americans, how much worse would the much more expansive CPRD be for them?

Ratification of CPRD would harm the American economy, national sovereignty, and the prospects of people with disabilities. The only people it would benefit would be national and international bureaucrats. The Senate should reject it.

The Other Gosnells

Jordan Gonzalez — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:07:00 -0400

Kermit Gosnell is not an outlier and his “house of horrors” is not an isolated case. The abortion industry’s problems run much deeper than that.

There is no need to dwell on the grotesque murders of the many living babies by Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Any decent, civilized person will agree that he ran a clinic from hell. Even Planned Parenthood thought his facility was “appalling.”

To focus on the magnitude of his atrocities is childish because, for Americans, any instance of graphic violence will often dissolve in the hypocritical mash-up of Hollywood and video games. In the Gosnell case, however, the sting is a bit more pronounced. Many of us were shocked, including the district attorney who described Gosnell as a “monster” — quite a harsh judgment in this postmodern, secular world.

According to the pro-abortion side, however, it’s time to forget the Gosnell fiasco. Perhaps it’s just like food poisoning — you’re sick one day, then healthy the next. And nobody is okay with food poisoning, right? Or as Salon writer Irin Carmon put it, “[Gosnell] is a local crime story.” Nothing more to see here!

Is there though? Instead of adding emphasis with italics, let’s just look at the facts. We now have another nasty case in Texas where the lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, is calling on Harris County authorities to launch a “full-scale investigation” into Dr. Douglas Karpen and his Aaron Women’s Clinic in Houston. The descriptions of Karpen’s methods rival Gosnell. As an alleged former surgical assistant explained in a video:

When [Karpen] did an abortion, especially an over 20-week abortion, most of the time the fetus would come completely out before he cut the spinal cord or he introduced one of the instruments into the soft spot of the fetus, in order to kill the fetus.

I guess severing babies’ spinal cord is the method of choice for these monsters, but goring the soft spot is definitely new, as is “twisting the head off the neck,” which the same employee described in a video (the employees also have alleged pictorial evidence too; warning, it’s extremely graphic).

Karpen is currently licensed by the Texas Medical Board and specializes in gynecology and gynecologic surgery. Despite having been sued and investigated multiple times, according to Operation Rescue (confirmed by documents from the Harris County District Court, the Dallas County District Court, and anecdotal evidence), his official verification page on the TMB website reports no malpractice, criminal history, or disciplinary action.

So just as with Pennsylvania officials, the Texas inspectors apparently weren’t doing their job or heeding warnings, ignoring reports of improper disposal of human body parts and unsanitary conditions surrounding Karpen and 11 other Texas abortionists as recently as 2011. Leigh Hopper, public information officer at the Texas Medical Board, said they are aware of the allegations against Karpen as well as the allegations that are “taking place via other entities.” But, Hopper said, “I can’t confirm or deny that [the Texas Medical Board] have our own investigation as well.” She was also unable to confirm any previous complaints against Karpen.

And it keeps coming. On May 6, 2013, the Maryland Board of Physicians permanently revoked the license of abortionist Nicola I. Riley, reported only by LifeNews.com. She was under fire for several years after she faced criminal charges for a botched late-term abortion in 2010. Authorities also found 35 late-term aborted babies stored in a freezer, including an alleged 36-week-old baby. Also charged was abortionist Steven Brigham. All charges were later dropped by Maryland prosecutors because of “conflicts in expert testimony.”

Then there is the darling of Hollywood, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood: LeRoy Carhart, who stars as his morbid self in the documentary “After Tiller.” The film is a sympathetic glimpse at the last four known late-term abortionists in America and their “struggles” after the death of the notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller.

Carhart has the blood of at least one 29-year-old woman on his hands and has admitted to have done more than 20,000 abortions of babies over 24 weeks, which in itself is cause for alarm.

Perhaps the most grotesque methods that Carhart is accused of using are the “aspiration” and “dilation and evacuation” methods. During an aspiration-style abortion, a tube is inserted via the cervix into the uterus and a suction device “gently empties the uterus” (sucks it to pieces). During a dilation-and-evacuation abortion, a shot is injected into the womb to ensure “fetal demise” (the death of the baby), then the dead remains of the baby are sucked out of the uterus.

And this is the crux of the issue of late-term abortion. What Kermit Gosnell did was completely illegal; what Carhart is doing is not only entirely lawful, but adamantly defended by the same pro-choicers who pretended to abhor Gosnell.

Pro-choice liberals desperately need Gosnell to be a local story because it unhinges one of the anchors of the abortion argument — the viability argument. The façade of viability determining whether or not abortionists are monsters like Gosnell, or heroes like Tiller and Carhart, falls short because viability doesn’t answer the real question: When does life begin? If life doesn’t begin at conception, but instead at “viability,” then everything needs to be re-evaluated. Why do we protect eagle eggs by law? They sure don’t look like eagles. Why do men like Ariel Castro and Lee Martin Konnerth get charged for the murders of unborn children?

The fact is, under U.S. federal law, Gosnell is only a monster because he didn’t ensure that the babies were killed before they exited the womb. So instead of killing them via a shot to the mother’s womb and then sucking their little bodies to pieces, he just severed their necks when they were born alive — which is monstrous and vile, yes, but it’s just a womb’s distance from legal abortion.

In light of that, we now know for sure that the womb is one of the most dangerous places to be in a legal sense, and the “ugly” side of abortion is now revealed to be abortion itself — something conservatives have been saying all along.

In the meantime, hypocrisy is dripping in every nook and cranny of the pro-abortion side. But the real problem is that there truly are more Gosnells out there, and that, until recently, oversight agencies have been turning a blind eye to them.

Can He Unite Virginia’s GOP?

Carten Cordell — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:01:00 -0400

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — E.W. Jackson played every card in the deck to win Virginia’s Republican lieutenant governor nomination Saturday night in Richmond — a rousing speech, a dedicated base, and charismatic appeal to undecided conservative delegates.

Now, though, the media spotlight is turning to controversial comments Jackson has made about the gay community and claims about Barack Obama’s alleged “Muslim perspective.” He’s going to have to convince a divided Virginia GOP and the electorate at large that he is ready for primetime.

Jackson, an ordained minister and former Massachusetts lawyer, has limited political experience. He campaigned for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate last summer, but garnered less than 5 percent of the vote. His strength lies in a populist appeal that rails against establishment GOP members at odds with the Tea Party movement.

“The working class in this country has not gotten representation in either party, I believe,” Jackson’s Nelson County campaign coordinator, Russ Simpson, said Saturday night. “E.W. gives us that ray of hope. I’ve got three kids. They’re in college. It’s hard. You’ve got to have somebody like E.W. Jackson to motivate people. We need more people like him to give that ray of hope because we don’t have it anymore. We’ve just got people butting heads and doing politics on party lines. I’m sick of it.”

But Jackson still has to unify a state party that seems more divided than ever, with Democrats using the candidate’s comments like a cudgel to bash the fragmented GOP.

“I can see why there is a lot of concern on the Republican side, because he doesn’t exactly have a track record of being a proven candidate,” said Geoff Skelley, media relations coordinator for the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “Does that mean he can’t go out and win? Absolutely not. He may pass the test with flying colors, but I do think there is a lot of ammunition out there for Democrats to attack him with.”

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe hosted a conference call Monday on which former GOP delegates Vincent Callahan and Katherine Waddell blasted the Republican ticket of gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli, Jackson, and Mark Obenshain, who is running for attorney general.

“This ticket is composed of three men who are focused exclusively on intruding into Virginians’ personal lives. This extremism does not support real Republican ideals and is not supported by the majority of Virginians,” Waddell said on the call.

Erick Erickson, editor-in-chief of RedState.com, tweeted on Monday: “A number of Republicans actually want the Va-GOP to fail so they can then bolster their case to abandon socially conservative candidates.”

Jamie Radtke, a tea party activist and Jackson’s opponent during last year’s Senate primary contest, went against Jackson at the convention, backing the more mainstream Pete Snyder ahead of the fourth ballot vote.

Jackson used a convention to his advantage, bringing in solid delegates and captivating the undecided with a dynamic speech that catapulted him to front-runner status.

“I am running for lieutenant governor of Virginia for one primary reason, to make sure Virginia remains sovereign and free,” Jackson said during his speech Saturday.

“We want you to fulfill your dreams, to be able to support your family and to know that your children will be able to have a better life than the life you have had.”

Skelley said Jackson’s triumph, in a way, resembles Obama’s defeat of presumed front-runner Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary.

“There was this assumption going in in that Hilary Clinton was the odds-on favorite, Obama’s team understood the rules of the game better, how to get delegates counts,” he said. “Jackson and his team apparently had a good understanding of what they needed to do to win.”

But after withstanding a four-ballot challenge from a deep field of GOP contenders, Jackson must tack his campaign appeal to the broad electorate of Virginia, whose identity is undetermined following the 2012 elections.

Democrats lined up to attack the candidate minutes after Jackson received the nomination, painting him as more extreme than Cuccinelli, a tea party favorite.

“He’s an intriguing choice for the Republican Party, especially in light of Ken Cuccinelli’s long history of activism on social issues,” said Craig Brians, chairman of Virginia Tech’s political science department. “(Jackson) seems to be cut of the same cloth, but he poses a serious challenge for Democrats, who oftentimes takes the African-American vote for granted.

“This choice forces Democrats in Virginia to define themselves in terms of policy and what do they offer the African-American community.”

Jackson’s campaign did not respond to calls requesting comment.

Reprinted with permission from Watchdog.org.

Undoing the Brainwashing

Thomas Sowell — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:00 -0400

This time of year, as college students return home for the summer, many parents may notice how many politically correct ideas they have acquired on campus. Some of those parents may wonder how they can undo some of the brainwashing that has become so common in what are supposed to be institutions of higher learning.

The strategy used by General Douglas MacArthur so successfully in the Pacific during World War II can be useful in this very different kind of battle. General MacArthur won his victories while minimizing his casualties — something that is also desirable in clashes of ideas within the family.

Instead of fighting the Japanese for every island stronghold as the Americans advanced toward Japan, MacArthur sent his troops into battle for only those islands that were strategically crucial. In the same spirit, parents who want to bring their brainwashed offspring back to reality need not try to combat every crazy idea they picked up from their politically correct professors. Just demolishing a few crucial beliefs, and exposing what nonsense they are, can deal a blow to the general credibility of the professorial pied pipers.

For example, if the student has been led to join the crusade for more gun control, and thinks that the reason the British have lower murder rates than Americans have is because the Brits have tighter gun control laws, just give him or her a copy of the book Guns and Violence by Joyce Lee Malcolm.

As the facts in that book demolish the gun control propaganda fed to students by their professors, that can create a healthy skepticism about other professorial propaganda.

There are other books that can likewise demolish other politically correct beliefs that prevail on campuses. My own recent book, Intellectuals and Race, has innumerable documented facts that expose the fallacies in most of what is said about racial issues in most college classrooms.

For those students who have bought the campus party line on Third World nations, the classic study of that subject is Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion by the late P.T. Bauer of the London School of Economics. He made a veritable demolition derby of most of what has been said in politically correct circles about the relationship between rich and poor countries.

For those students who have been conditioned to regard the welfare state as the solution to social problems, there is no book that exposes the actual human consequences of the welfare state more poignantly than Life at the Bottom by British physician Theodore Dalrymple. He has worked in both low-income neighborhoods and in prisons, so he has seen it all.

Although Britain is the setting for Life at the Bottom, Americans will recognize very similar patterns here. Problems found in low-income black ghettoes in the United States are found in low-income white neighborhoods in Britain, where none of the usual excuses about racism, slavery, etc., apply. The only thing that is the same in both countries is the welfare state and its poisonous ideology.

If your student has been led to believe that “comprehensive immigration reform” — amnesty, in plain English — is the only way to go, a devastating book titled Mexifornia, by Victor Davis Hanson, introduces some cold, factual reality into a subject usually discussed in sweeping and lofty rhetoric.

A book that offers a choice between the island-hopping strategy that General MacArthur used in the Pacific and the all-out assault across a broad front that was used by the Allied armies in Europe is titled The New Leviathan.

It has thirteen penetrating articles by leading authorities on such subjects as national security, ObamaCare, environmentalism, election frauds and more.

Those parents who want to follow the MacArthur strategy can recommend reading one, or a few, of these articles, while those who want to follow the strategy of attacking all across a broad front can recommend that their student read the whole book.

However the battle is fought, what is most important is that the battle be fought, since the young are the future, and the propaganda of today can become the government policies of tomorrow.

From the Obama Ministry of Truth

Ben Stein — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:45:00 -0400

Monday
Now, let’s see what we are supposed to believe today from the Obama Ministry of Truth….

First, that Hillary Rodham Clinton could possibly be taken seriously as a Presidential contender or a President. This is the woman who traveled one million miles with no positive accomplishments as Secretary of State. This is the woman who masterminded one of the great foreign policy catastrophes of all time… aiding the “Arab Spring” in which governments friendly to the west in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia were replaced with Islamists bent on destroying all human rights and the main repository of human rights on earth, The United States of America.

This is the woman who said, in what was supposedly total stone cold sobriety, “What does it matter how four Americans died in Benghazi? Whether they were killed by people walking down the street or by terrorists? They’re dead. So, what?” That’s a paraphrase.

Apparently, this future first female President does not realize that it matters because 1.) The killings themselves show that Mrs. Clinton was not doing her job properly, and 2.) Her lying about it was contempt of Congress and perjury and obstruction of justice.

So, we are supposed to believe that a supposedly non-inebriated person made these comments and they are worthy of a President.

What else.…

Well, we are supposed to believe that a massive assault by the IRS on a popular uprising called the Tea Party was known to the higher ups at the IRS, at the Justice Department, and at the White House.

But Mr. Obama, much too pure and innocent to be told about mistakes in his administration, was too busy bathing the feet of the poor and tending to lepers to be told that his administration was engaged in an Orwellian attack on free speech.

Now, you see if you fail to believe that, you are the worst thing that you can be in today’s world. You are a racist. You can be a homosexual. In fact, that’s a good thing. You can be a pornographer. In fact, you’re supposed to be a pornographer. You can kiss the butts of terrorists. That’s called leading from behind and abandoning American “exceptionalism,” a really wicked idea that America is exceptionally great. You can be all of these things. But no matter what, you cannot be a racist against blacks. (You can be a racist against whites.)

But if you criticize Mr Obama, you are a racist. Thus, quod erat demonstrandum, Mr. Obama cannot be criticized. So, he did not for a moment know that his IRS was tormenting the political movement that laid him low in 2010. And, if you doubt it, you’re a Klansman.

Let’s see what else we are supposed to believe….Oh, here’s the best one: that it’s fine, in fact, super fine, for a mother to kill a baby in the womb when it’s physically and mentally identical to a baby that’s just been born. That it’s fine to kill them if you don’t like their sex. But it’s anti-woman to want to keep them alive and not kill them because they are female babies.

And, it’s fine to kill 800,000 babies a year in abortion mills, but, it’s heinous to own a gun that you keep locked up in a closet and don’t even take out for years at a time and have never even aimed at a human being. That it’s urgently compelling to protect lizards in West Texas….but perfectly good — even a fine example of the progress women have made — to have women use abortion as a form of birth control.

God help us. Who would have ever dreamed things could go so wrong? And if Mr. Obama can never be held accountable because his father was a Kenyan, when does this ever stop?

Despite the WaPost, Benghazi Is a Major Scandal

Quin Hillyer — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:11:00 -0400

There’s a huge red flag in the Benghazi mess, but conservatives are letting the media get away with using a red herring to avoid it.

Give the establishment media credit for obstinacy: Once it settles on a standard narrative or explanation for a particular subject, it shows remarkable discipline in explaining away any evidence that contradicts its own approved spin. So it has been with the media’s 250-day old determination to downplay the scandalous nature of the Obama administration’s treatment of its outpost in Benghazi before, during, and after the terrorist attack there that took four American lives.

After a rough week or so when developments actually shook the media’s Benghazi façade, it was the Washington Post’s editorial page that did double-back flips to re-establish the official line: Nothing to see here, children; move along; don’t trouble your pretty little heads about it. (After all, as the Post theorized last November, the whole idea of this as a scandal probably stems from endemic Republican racism. Yes, really.)

Yet by any objective standard, the totality of the Benghazi affair contains numerous elements that, if the partisan affiliations were reversed, would have made the Post apoplectic.

The most obvious red flag is the administration’s treatment of Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya. Here we have a career public servant of impeccable reputation (and personally a Democrat, no less) who has said he was A) ordered not to talk to a Republican congressman; B) berated for daring to voice internal dissent from talking points he knew for a fact were untrue; C) actually demoted for trying to insist on the truth; and D) then in effect called a liar by the administration for claiming he had been demoted — which is not even a disputable fact, because no matter how one explains it away, moving from deputy chief of mission to a desk officer slot is by any reasonable definition a demotion.

When in the history of scandals has the Washington Post ever averted its eyes and stifled its tongue when a whistleblower in a major matter has been so obviously, flagrantly bullied and retaliated against?

Completely apart from every other aspect of the Benghazi mess, the treatment of Gregory Hicks alone is a major scandal.

It becomes more scandalous still when one examines the substance to which Hicks testified. According to his testimony, which was entirely believable (and in many cases proved by other documents and testimony), the administration A) had ignored multiple requests for added security in Benghazi before the attacks — and then, in the days after the assault, scrubbed that fact from its talking points; B) ordered a team of four commandos in Tripoli, who were ready and eager to fly to Benghazi during the attack, to stand down — and then, in the days after the assault, given the impression that no armed help had been available anywhere; C) had repeatedly been told, with no room for doubt whatsoever, that the attackers were affiliated or associated with a jihadist militia — and then had repeatedly, for weeks, provided another story, while scrubbing the mention of jihadists for political reasons: so that this fact would not be “abused by congressmen to beat the State Department for not paying attention.”

The Post now acts as if the security failures are old news — a subject worth examining for future policy changes, but certainly not a scandal. But in those first weeks after the terrorist assault, which was when the cover-up was occurring, it was certainly not old news. Indeed, considering the date — 9/11 — the repeated requests for more security, the five prior dangerous incidents in Benghazi, and the utter flat-footedness of the entire administration’s response, the dereliction of responsibility itself was at least borderline scandalous.

But the cover-up thereof was certainly a scandal, especially in the context of the obvious political motivations at play. There was a political campaign ongoing — and control of the first few days of the news cycle, as every campaign consultant knows, is absolutely crucial in helping the public decide whether to tune in or tune out to a story, and to what aspects of the story to tune in.

The red herring by the media is that the e-mails released so far by the White House, regarding the talking points developed several days after the terrorism, are the most important aspect of the cover-up — and therefore that the lack of a smoke-belching howitzer in them proves the lack of scandal.

But that’s wrong. The e-mails do not cover the first 67 hours after the attack began, which is when the narrative of the “anti-Islamic video” was first given traction. And what they show isn’t an administration struggling with what to first tell the public, but rather a State Department desperately trying to scrub the talking points of information that just happened to be the exact evidence (imagine that!) that could contradict the story it already had been telling for nearly three days.

And why was it so important to strip from the talking points all mentions of jihadist links and of previous CIA warnings, while leaving in the vague reference to “demonstrations” in Cairo? Because the “demonstrations” comport with the narrative blaming the video rather than the administration — and because the “blame the video” narrative already had become a political football.

Remember that it was around noon on the day of the attacks (U.S. time zone), shortly after the embassy walls in Cairo had been breached, that somebody in Cairo first put out a statement apologizing for the video. It was before midnight, U.S. time, that Republican candidate Mitt Romney released a statement blasting the Obama administration for apologizing to the attackers before strenuously denouncing the attack. By mid-day Sept. 12, when Romney held a press conference, the big story was whether Romney’s criticism was a politicization of tragedy. And by then, the administration, including the president himself and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had distanced itself from the “apology” but had firmly set its flag in the soil of the “blame the video” narrative.

So as the Romney camp worked to explain the assaults as evidence of failed administration policy, the administration was feverishly trying to push all the blame onto an obscure film maker. Sure, there was politics on both sides. But the difference was that the administration already knew, from multiple sources, that the Benghazi attack was jihadist in nature and almost certainly pre-planned (which also was an obvious supposition, considering the 9/11 date). The administration knew the facts, but tried to distract the public from them.

Obama recently asked why the administration would conduct a cover-up “for only three days.” Well, aside from the fact that it was eight days (three until the talking points e-mails, two more days until Susan Rice’s Sunday news-show appearances, and another three before admissions in Hill testimony began to grudgingly acknowledge the jihadist link), the answer is that in a presidential campaign, eight days can mean the world. Keeping the focus on the video, rather than the administration’s screw-ups on security and policy, undermined the Romney criticisms, enlisted the media’s sympathy, and inoculated Obama against further Romney attacks on the subject. (Even the ultimate acknowledgment wasn’t proactive, but came only after the “video” excuse had begun to publicly fall apart.)

The bigger question isn’t whether the White House specifically and directly interfered with the talking points, via e-mail, but with how the administration settled on the “blame the video” narrative in the first place — a narrative that, in retrospect, was absurd on its face.

In that light, the president’s 10 p.m. phone call on Sept. 11 with Secretary Clinton takes on supreme importance, just as Andrew McCarthy has noted at National Review Online:

We do not have a recording of this call, and neither Clinton nor the White House has described it beyond noting that it happened. But we do know that, just a few minutes after Obama called Clinton, the Washington press began reporting that the State Department had issued a statement by Clinton regarding the Benghazi attack. In it, she asserted:

“Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation.”

Gee, what do you suppose Obama and Clinton talked about in that 10 p.m. call?

SO NOW WE HAVE walked backwards from the mistreatment of whistleblower Hicks to the day of the Benghazi assaults. To review in ordinary chronological order: 1) The administration failed to provide adequate security for the Benghazi facility despite repeated requests and warnings; 2) the administration failed/refused to mobilize significant military assistance while the facility was under fire; 3) Mr. Hicks personally told Secretary Clinton, while the fighting was still ongoing, that the fighting was major and was jihadist-related; 4) Clinton and Obama spoke not long afterwards — the only confirmed interaction Obama had with anybody specific in a period of about six hours; 5) the administration very suddenly began even more prominently blaming the video while not even mentioning the evidence of a pre-planned jihadist assault; 6) the State Department, with the later help of the White House (especially after an in-person conference the next day), scrubbed the talking points in a way that left open the “video” interpretation while eliminating references to jihadists and CIA warnings; 7) berated Mr. Hicks for internally flagging the misrepresentation, ordered him not to talk to a congressman, and eventually demoted him; 8) according to multiple reports, deliberately kept some two dozen other on-site witnesses from talking to congressional investigators (or to anyone else on the “outside”) — and the public still hasn’t heard from these other two dozen, to this day; 9) released only a selective sampling of e-mails, skipping the first 67 hours while offering spin to explain the embarrassments within the e-mails it did release; and 10) accused Mr. Hicks of being a liar.

Individually, most of these actions are some combination of bad policy judgment, incompetence, tawdry politics, and prevarications — but not crimes. Retaliation against Mr. Hicks, though, might be criminal. (More context on that in a moment.)

But there’s more. There are numerous allegations that Mr. Hicks isn’t the only Benghazi-related whistleblower who was directly or indirectly threatened. And now there’s a report from CBS’ indefatigable Sharyl Attkisson that one of four State Department officers who was placed on “administrative leave” after a review of the security failures has posted poems on his blog indicating that he was treated as a fall guy for higher-ups. Raymond Maxwell, who certainly seems to have an impressive résumé, blamed “The Queen’s Henchmen” for conducting a “lynching” to “satisfy [their] guilty consciences.” He called it “Extrajudicial./Total impunity./A kangaroo court in/a banana republic.” Then, echoing (and obviously mocking) Secretary Clinton’s infamous outburst in her Hill testimony, he wrote: “And the truth? The truth?/What difference at this point does it make?”

In another poem, he wrote that “The web of lies they weave/gets tighter and tighter/in its deceit… the more they talk/the more they lie/and the deeper down the hole they go…. Just wait and feed them rope.”

Sounds as if Congress might want to subpoena Mr. Maxwell, doesn’t it?

If Mr. Maxwell asserts that he is being made a scapegoat, and Mr. Hicks and other whistleblowers report retaliation or threats thereof, is this part of a pattern or practice, from this administration, of bullying officials who would tell the truth? I argued just last week, with plenty of examples, that it most certainly is. Among other things, at least five inspectors general have been harassed, or worse, and stories are rampant in multiple news accounts of other examples of strong-arm tactics.

But now, just Monday, comes another official report from an inspector general confirming a separate example of retaliating against a whistleblower — this time regarding the other scandal the establishment media has massively under-covered, the “Fast and Furious” gun-running operation. Much as the administration might try to portray the perpetrator as just a rogue agent, the fact is that retaliator Dennis Burke has unusually strong political ties with top Obama officials. Originally a close protégé of former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Burke then was chief of staff to now-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Even as Burke resigned in scandal two years ago, Napolitano praised him as “an outstanding public servant.”

In both Fast and Furious and in Benghazi, the result of the administration’s incompetence (or worse) was that people died. (Lots of people.) When an administration tries to cover up the real reasons people died, that alone usually makes it a scandal by the usual Washington Post/establishment media standards. When the administration threatens or punishes those who try to correct the record, it’s more than a scandal; it’s almost always criminal.

What the Post calls conservatives “obsess[ing]” over Benghazi is actually, by all prior standards, an eminently reasonable insistence that corruption be outed and reversed. The State Department’s mendacious, 12-step emasculation of the Benghazi talking points, for political purposes related to maintaining an already ongoing lie about an Internet video, is just one part of a long series of Libya-related actions that together amount to a serious corruption of our political system. Until Mr. Maxwell and dozens of Mr. Hicks’ Libya-based comrades can testify, the media’s job is to demand transparency and disclosure — and to blast all administration efforts to stifle them.

Photo: UPI

Issa Recovers

Ross Kaminsky — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:33:00 -0400

Earlier today, when House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) allowed IRS scoundrel Lois Lerner to stop testifying after she “took the Fifth,” I said that Issa had made a mistake.

He should have made her stay and answer, even if her answers were continuing to take the Fifth, if only for the political spectacle.

My assertion stood as my opinion even separate from the statement by Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) that by making an opening statement, essentially asserting that she had done nothing wrong, Lerner had waived her Fifth Amendment rights.

No doubt Rep. Issa heard a barrage of similar comments from the political right (and I’d like to hope that his staff saw the Twitter posting related to my opinion.)

Liberal attorney Alan Dershowitz has now opined of Lerner that “She’s in trouble. She can be held in contempt.”

So it is gratifying for multiple reasons that, according to reports, Issa will recall Lerner to testify. She will be told, presumably, that she cannot take the Fifth. My guess is that she will do so anyway, leading to a lawsuit between her lawyers and the Committee’s lawyers. It should be a beautiful thing to watch, making Jay Carney squirm every step of the way.

While Dershowitz seems to agree with Gowdy, other attorneys disagree. Should make for an interesting time in early June.

It would be OK with me if the Committee offers immunity to Lerner if she agrees to testify where the orders to target conservative groups came from, as long as the deal also comes with her losing her job.

Congratulations to Congressman Issa for reconsidering. It takes a big man to admit he was wrong in so public a forum, and then to do the right thing.

The Religion of Peace Strikes London Again

Aaron Goldstein — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:12:00 -0400

I first found out about today’s terrorist attack in London via Ross’ post.

My first thought is that this isn’t the first act of Islamic terrorism in Britain and it won’t be the last.

It has been widely reported that the man who was murdered in broad daylight was a British soldier. Sadly, American soldiers are not unfamiliar with these types of attacks. There was the murder of Private William Long outside a military recruitment center in Arkansas by a Muslim convert in June 2009. Abdulhakim Muhammad (formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe) shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he was led into the courthouse. In March 2011, two U.S. Airmen were shot dead at the Frankfurt Airport by a German born Muslim of Kosovar origin. The gunman shouted, “Allahu Akbar” as he fired.

And lest we forget Fort Hood where Nidal Malik Hassan shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he gunned down 12 military personnel and one civilian.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has said there are “strong indications that this is a terrorist incident.” If this attack had occurred in the United States, President Obama not only would not have described it as a terrorist attack; he would have characterized it as streetplace violence.

Finally, a comment on Ross’ post itself. He concluded the post by writing, “Time to start deporting Muslims from England.”

Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as all that. At this point, the two men who perpretrated this attack have yet to be identified. When they are don’t be surprised if they were U.K. born and raised. Let us not forget that three of the four men responsible for the London Underground Bombings on July 7, 2005 were born in Britain.

This isn’t to say that unchecked immigration isn’t part of the problem especially with clerics like Abu Qatada spreading jihad to eager audiences in the U.K. The problem is that the U.K. has been trying to deport Qatada without success for seven years. Qatada may soon be deported to Jordan where he faces terrorism charges but that was supposed to happen six years ago. So Lord only knows if that will ever happen.

But even if Qatada is deported, their ideas and influence remain amongst British Muslims regardless of where they were born and regardless if they were born Muslim. The surest way to counter these ideas would be the re-assertion of British values of liberty. The problem is there may not be anyone in Britain willing to re-assert those values.

Not Just the Media: First Amendment Under Attack

Quin Hillyer — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:10:00 -0400

For the University of Mobile’s Center for Leadership, I put the current media-chilling narrative in broader perspective.

But now it’s not just freedom of the press that seems threatened by a government that some people fear is becoming too powerful. As I’ve written here before, freedom of religion also has come increasingly under attack. Fortunately, the federal courts so far seem to be keeping government in its place more often than not - and the Supreme Court in a strong, unanimous decision ruled that churches and faith-based institutions do indeed enjoy First Amendment protections against government interference in their choices of “ministers” (and other employees who perform faith-related functions).

Alas, (moving back to free speech), one Supreme Court Justice actually has written that speech rights are to be “doled out” by government, presumably at the government’s discretion. And a recent Alabama columnist even opined, in admiration but obvious confusion, that “governments g[i]ve … rights and demanded obligations.” This is precisely backwards: The American creed always has been that we already own our rights, and we demand obligations from government to help secure those pre-existing rights from outside attack.

And I didn’t even discuss how the IRS abuses are, in effect, an attack on the freedom of groups to petition their government for redress of grievances…..

House Judiciary: Constitutional Rights Vital in Wartime

Luca Gattoni-Celli — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:07:00 -0400

Members of both parties expressed a strong interest in protecting constitutional rights while prosecuting the war on terror at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.

The sparsely attended event touched on fundamental issues of liberty and security. Chairman Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.) began by singling out the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which, along with the original Authorization for Use of Military Force after 9/11, could be interpreted as permitting the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial if they were party to terrorist activity.

“The mere notion that this authority exists is troubling in and of itself,” Goodlatte said, unsatisfied by the Obama administration’s assurance that it would never actually indefinitely detain citizens, “and I believe that this body should make clear that citizens of this nation cannot be detained without receiving all of their due process rights in an Article III court.”

Ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) concurred, saying Madison’s warning that war is the greatest threat to liberty has been ignored. The hearing was convened on the matter of U.S. citizens’ constitutional rights, but Conyers proposed to consider non-citizens’ rights as well, and noted that the Constitution protects individuals detained anywhere in the world by the United States. This sentiment was earnestly affirmed by Chairman Goodlatte and undergirded the larger discussion.

Conyers and many other members zeroed in on the Boston Marathon Bombing in discussing the balance between the constitutional right to due process and the public safety interest in extracting information from suspects. Unless they are independently corroborated, a suspect’s statments are only admissible in court if he or she has been Mirandized, informed of the right to remain silent, etc. However, other considerations, such as presentment, also complicate the question of due process vis-a-vis lawful interrogation.

Brookings Institute Senior Fellow Benjamin Wittes encapsulated the fundamental issue: “I think there are things Congress can do to add flexibility on that issue [of presentment], but at the end of the day we are dealing with people’s constitutional rights and sometimes they will assert them,” he said, later adding, “That has consequences and sometimes those consequences are intelligence loss.”

Overall the mood among the assembled witnesses was optimistic. By consensus, robust frameworks have been established since 9/11 to allow the traditional justice system to handle cases with bearing on national security. The key issue moving forward is ensuring that this framework, not a completely novel military detainee paradigm, can function effectively.

U.S. Admits 4 Americans Killed by Drones

Luca Gattoni-Celli — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:35:00 -0400

A key development today in the evolving story of America’s overseas targeted killing program. The White House has officially acknowledged the killing of four of its own citizens with unmanned aerial systems, popularly known as drones. The New York Times reports:

In a letter to Congressional leaders obtained by The New York Times, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. disclosed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen.

Tomorrow President Obama will give a speech about targeted killings, as well as the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These gestures signal a new openness about the drone program; the executive branch only recently began acknowledging its existence.

Colorado Governor Gives “Reprieve” to Murderer

Ross Kaminsky — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:24:00 -0400

With the hornets nest of conservative and libertarian anger which Colorado Governor John “I’m a moderate” Hickenlooper stirred up by supporting a raft of anti-gun legislation in this once-red state, I thought there was little chance he would pardon or commute the sentence of Nathan Dunlap. Particularly since Hickenlooper made sure that a bill ending the death penalty in Colorado did not get a vote in the state legislature.

Today, with a “temporary reprieve,” the governor may have just done the politically unthinkable: He has made it possible for a Republican to beat him in 2014.

Nathan Dunlap shot five people, killing four of them, in a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora, Colorado in 1993. He later said that killing the people was “better than sex.”

Hickenlooper says that the time since the conviction has given “the benefit of information that exposes an inequitable system.” Whether or not the system is inequitable is not relevant. There is no question as to Dunlap’s guilt. Zero, nada, zilch. He did it, and he was proud of it.

He deserves to die.

George Brauchler, the recently elected District Attorney of the judicial district where Dunlap was convicted, and where the mass-murderer James Holmes is soon to face trial, has argued that “justice demands the death of Nathan Dunlap.” I couldn’t agree more.

The parents of Dunlap’s victims are rightfully furious.

Furthermore, if Dunlap doesn’t deserve death, then what is the purpose of having a death penalty in Colorado?

How about also pardoning the other people on death row here, including one who murdered the son of Colorado State Representative Rhonda Fields?

As usual, Hickenlooper wants to have it both ways: By doing this by executive order, and as reprieve, it means a future governor could undo today’s move and send Nathan Dunlap to his just reward unless Hickenlooper does something more permanent before leaving office.

My prediction: This will make many Coloradoans, not just Republicans, extremely angry. And it will cause several Republican gubernatorial hopefuls who had been on the sidelines because Hickenlooper had seemed extremely difficult to beat now put their hats in the ring. The number one campaign slogan for the eventual Republican nominee: “I promise that Nathan Dunlap will get what he deserves.”

One thing which occurred to me when the anti-gun legislation was being shoved down the throats of unwilling Coloradoans was this: Hickenlooper is aiming to get a high-paying job working for Michael Bloomberg.

Today’s events make me think I may not have been unduly conspiracy-minded after all.

John Hickenlooper just stabbed his state, and the justice system, in the back. Now it’s time to hope that voters do the same to his political career in 18 months, and return this state to some sense of sanity.

Steven Crowder: Jesus vs. Muhammad

Ross Kaminsky — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:58:00 -0400

There’s a fine line between brave and stupid, and I’m always grateful when the hilarious Steven Crowder gets close to crossing it. (Whether he’s actually crossed it or not is probably up to the viewer, though I imagine certain folks — no description needed — will take this much worse than others.)

But particularly in light of Wednesday’s horrific murder of a British soldier by immigrant Muslims in London, Crowder’s latest video comparing Jesus to Muhammad deserves a viewing (or two or three.)

Opponents of this particular form of satire will not only be working to get the video removed from YouTube, but following a prior “Qur’an Challenge” video (also a great use of a few minutes of your time), Crowder received death threats. The second comment on the YouTube page for the newest video says “i hope you die choking on ur own blood.” (sic)

This is the world we live in today, where our enemies are emboldened by an American president who refuses to name, or even identify, an evil which is intent on destroying modern civilization.

At least, with that sober thought in the background, Steven Crowder can always make us laugh.

Kaminsky’s Corollary to I, Pencil

Ross Kaminsky — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:22:00 -0400

One of the fundamental and most memorable lessons in economics, regarding specialization and cooperation, is captured in Leonard Read’s 1958 essay, I, Pencil.

Milton Friedman also popularized the idea and the Competitve Enterprise Institute made a short film of the same name.

Today, my contribution to economic theory, the Kaminsky Corollary to I,Pencil:

No individual person can make a pencil, but a single puppy can destroy them with remarkable efficiency.

(Does this imply that a puppy is more powerful than all of mankind?)

State Department: Iran Has Soldiers in Syria

Kaylin Bugos — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:12:00 -0400

Iranian soldiers are fighting alongside troops supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah troops, according to a State Department official.

The Washington Post is reporting:

An unknown number of Iranians are fighting inside Syria, the official said, citing accounts from opposition forces supported by Western and Arab governments. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview a strategy session that Secretary of State John F. Kerry will hold Wednesday with key opposition supporters.

Syrian rebels have claimed for weeks that Iran is sending trained fighters to the Syrian civil war, and Iran-backed Hezbollah has said baldly that it will not let Assad fall.

Obama has already let the Assad regime cross his red line on using chemical weapons, so it’s hard to imagine he’ll care about this.

Someone who might care? Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. Israel, which shares a border with Syria, has already taken military action there. Earlier this month, the Israelis bombed a Syrian research facility and a missile shipment to Iranian-backed Hezbollah. This week, Israeli troops near the Syrian border faced a direct hit from Syria, one of a number of encounters that have occurred in recent months.

Israel already has well-founded concerns about Iran, so knowledge that Iran has soldiers in a country that Israel borders and with which it has had recent violent conflict is another step in the wrong direction. Israel has shown that it isn’t afraid to take action when it needs to, so this is definitely a situation to watch carefully.

Former IRS Commissioner Refused to Say That Targeting Conservative Groups is Wrong

Benjamin Brophy — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:27:00 -0400

Unbelievable.

Muslims Murder British Soldier in London

Ross Kaminsky — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:00:00 -0400

UPDATE: This video purports to be one of the perpetrators:

This horrendous story still developing.

BBC story here

CNN story here

I can only imagine Theo Van Gogh (no longer with us), Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Geert Wilders saying “Well, what did you expect if you allow massive Muslim immigration and make no real effort to encourage or force assimilation?”

If you want one obvious data point, how about Mohammed being the most common name for boys born in England and Wales?

Time to start deporting Muslims from England.

Anthony Weiner’s Campaign Video

Patrick Ryan — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:33:00 -0400

Congressional Democrat Outraged Over IRS Scandal

Kaylin Bugos — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:57:00 -0400

It took them a while, but it seems like at least some Democrats are realizing just how bad the IRS scandal is.

Yesterday, it seemed like the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee wanted to complain more about 501(c)(4) groups than the actual, provable targeting of conservatives.

Today, though, at least some of them got it right. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) took the lead on grilling Douglas Shulman, the comissioner of the IRS when the targeting occurred. “Sir, you misled Congress — make no question about it,” he said.

See his full questioning here:

Ranking Democrat on the Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), also posed important questions to Shulman, asking him why he never told Congress what he knew about the targeting. “That simply isn’t good enough,” he said. “Help us help the taxpayers.”

To be fair, not all Democrats got it right. Rep. Matthew Cartwright (D-Penn.) completely defended the IRS employees responsible for the targeting, saying their actions were only a way to streamline their work after the amount of 501(c)(4) applications doubled in 2010 after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

“Whether or not we know what the cause was, we know that the applications doubled in 2010,” Cartwright said.

The only problem there is that Cartwright is 100% wrong. Applications for 501(c)(4) groups increased, but not until long after the targeting began.

As committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) pointed out, any connection with Citizens United falls on the IRS, not the number of applications. The targeting began two months after Citizens United, but long before the applications increased.

I’ll give some of the Democrats credit for their outrage, but Cartwright should check his facts before he speaks next time.

Immigration Bill Clears Key Committee

Jordan Gonzalez — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:56:00 -0400

The Senate’s immigration bill cleared the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday by a vote of 13-5, reports Reuters. Amidst the fireworks of the recent scandal-mania on Capitol Hill, the bill has been quietly edging its way towards the Senate floor for several weeks. Now that it’s cleared the Judiciary Committee, it’s primed for debate on the Senate floor.

Three Republican senators – Orrin Hatch (Utah), Jeff Flake (Arizona), and Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) – voted for the bill, perhaps only because Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont pulled the controversial amendment that would have granted immigration rights to same-sex partners. Leahy said he dropped the amendment “with a heavy heart,” while Graham laid out a clear ultimatum, as reported by the Washington Times:

“You’ve got me on immigration; you don’t have me on marriage,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and one of the eight senators who wrote the bill and who said he would have had to back out if Mr. Leahy’s proposal had passed. “If you want to keep me on immigration, let’s stay on immigration.”

Unfortunately, this cleared hurdle is a practice run. As much as I applaud good ol’ fashioned compromise, this sweet-smelling flower of bi-partisanship will wither next week when the bill is debated on the Senate floor. The topic of immigration is already heated enough, and only recently has some of the GOP been willing to change their views on immigration. The fate of at least 11 million people living in America, national security concerns (especially after the Boston bombing), and the still-unanswered question about how to control the flow of future immigrants hang in the balance.

Realistically, same-sex marriage/unions are probably inevitable, regardless of what “bigots” like myself and my fellow conservatives believe. Therefore, perhaps Republicans should have let this slide?

Just kidding, we all know neither side will budge. Let the gridlock begin. Viva los Estados Unidos!

Nixonian

Yogi Love — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:54:00 -0400