op ed review 3/9
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
President Obama is planning to break the law, once again, in
an effort to protect vulnerable Democrats in the Senate. According to news
reports, “the White House will announce a new directive allowing insurers to
continue offering health plans that do not meet Obamacare’s minimum coverage
requirements.” In the absence of this “directive,” health insurance companies
would have to cancel millions of health policies just a few weeks before
November’s congressional elections. Obama’s edict would theoretically forestall,
until after those crucial midterms, a tsunami of voter outrage that would
inevitably drown the reelection prospects of many Democrats.
Iranian general says Obama’s threats are ‘the joke of the
year’ Masoud Jazayeri says the ‘low-IQ’ president’s ‘all options are on the
table’ remarks are a farce…“We are embroiled in a global conflict, and the
supposed “leader of the free world” is taking photo ops at a grade school, making
statements about the invasion of Ukraine on a kids’ rug.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-general-obamas-threats-are-the-joke-of-the-year/#ixzz2v6S05aXX
Here’s what he’s talking about: “Obama’s Latest Photo Op Shows Why The Global Community Doesn’t Take Him Seriously”
Here’s what he’s talking about: “Obama’s Latest Photo Op Shows Why The Global Community Doesn’t Take Him Seriously”
“Wounded Warrior Blasts Obama for Lack of Leadership in
Fiercely Worded Open Letter”
The liberal Washington Post editorializes: “President Obama’s foreign policy is based on
fantasy”
“As World Order Implodes, Obama Promises to Act... Against Israel”
Poll shows Republicans in a stronger position than Democrats
in the states with Senate races this fall and more than holding their own in
the battle for control of the House.
ABC News is ignoring the results of their own poll. The
morning show didn’t mention the poll, instead devoted an astonishing 18 minutes
to promoting the new season of Dancing With the Stars.
RNC data operatives will build a list of the millions of
Americans who have lost insurance policies due to Obamacare in order to help
their candidates win over these voters at the ballot box in 2014 and 2016.
Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers who
are perhaps the best-known patrons of conservative Republican politics, are
bespectacled and in their 70s. They look genial enough. But Democrats are
embarking on a broad effort that aims to unmask and portray them, instead, as a
pair of villains bent on wrecking progressive politics. “Democrats will use
Internet ads and videos, as well as social media, to tie Republican Senate
candidates to the policies and actions of the Koch brothers.”
The new health insurance marketplaces appear to be making
little headway in signing up Americans who lack insurance, Obamacare’s central
goal, according to a pair of new surveys.
“When Democrats were making the case for ObamaCare, they
insisted that the primary problem they were trying to solve was covering the
"47 million uninsured." But when asked for metrics on how ObamaCare
is solving that problem, we get this from the Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services: "That's not a data point we are really collecting in
any sort of systematic way." In other words, they're not even bothering to
check up on how the law is meeting its purpose.”
One in Three Americans Say They’ve Been Personally Hurt by
Obamacare
Costs of ObamaCare bungles start to add up, with Maryland first at about
$30.5M
“As New Orleans
gears up for Mardi Gras Day, at least two parade floats mock the disastrous
rollout of Obamacare.”
California Rep. Darrell Issa adjourned a divisive House
Oversight hearing Wednesday after IRS official Lois Lerner pleaded the Fifth
Amendment and refused to answer his questions.
Lois Lerner stays
silent to protect someone outside the IRS.
It isn´t hard to figure
out why Lerner´s lips are sealed. First, she knows the House of Representatives
can cite her for contempt of Congress, but Attorney General Eric Holder would
decide whether she is prosecuted on that charge. Lerner need not worry since
President Obama has
Senate blocks Obama nominee who defended
cop-killer...
“The first state has passed a resolution to convene a
constitutional convention and right the balance between the federal and state
governments.”
One of the pillars of liberal social engineering is the
belief that subsidies permitting poor people to move into nicer neighborhoods
helps improve their life prospects. The multi-billion dollar Section 8 rent
voucher program is premised on this notion, providing taxpayer funding for poor
people to rent apartments in buildings and neighborhoods that house wealthier
people…..But a new large study funded by the federal government has discovered
that moving poor boys into richer neighborhoods is so disruptive that its
effects are like those of PTSD….
Saturday, the Republican National Committee (RNC) released a
statement in honor of Women’s History Month in which they highlighted women
trailblazers, mentioning some prominent women in the Republican Party.
Conspicuously absent, however, was former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin
Gay and lesbian troops perform in drag on American military
base
_______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Washington
Examiner 2/28
A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals may have been on solid legal ground when they agreed that school
officials in Morgan Hill, Calif., could bar students from wearing U.S. flag
T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo to prevent ethnic violence from students of Mexican
ancestry, but their decision raises troubling concerns about threatening such
violence as a means of suppressing free expression.
A 1969 Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines
Independent Community School District, affirmed school officials'
authority to restrict the free expression of students if that expression would
cause “material and substantial disruption of school activities or invasion of
the rights of other students.” Thursday's opinion by Judge M. Margaret McKeown,
a Clinton
nominee, notes that officials at Live Oak High School had reasonable fear of
such disruption.
But the court's ruling amounts in practice to an endorsement
of the "heckler's veto" -- using violence, or the threat of it, to
suppress speech. And by acting to suppress the First Amendment rights of the
students who chose to display their own country's flag, school officials missed
an important opportunity to teach valuable lessons about freedom, community
and, above all, tolerance.
According to the facts of the case cited in the Ninth
Circuit's decision, students of Mexican heritage made profane threats against
other students wearing U.S.
flags on Cinco de Mayo in 2009, and referred to the display of the U.S.
flag as "racist." The threats of violence the following year that led
to students being barred from wearing such apparel stemmed from that perception
as well.
Why didn't school officials challenge that false perception?
Isn't it their job to teach facts -- including the fact that the flag of the United States
belongs to all Americans of all ethnicities? Perhaps the school should schedule
a visit from one of the many Mexican-American service members who have fought
under their nation's flag in Iraq
and Afghanistan
over the past 12 and a half years so the students can hear what it means to
them.
And further, why didn't school officials take action against
those making the threats? Violent suppression of free speech is not just
intolerant, it's bullying. Isn't ending bullying supposed to be a major focus
of educators these days?
As Eugene Volokh, a University
of California, Los Angeles law professor and nationally
recognized expert on the First Amendment, noted in a blog post on the case,
"[B]ehavior that gets rewarded gets repeated. The school taught its
students a simple lesson: If you dislike speech and want it suppressed, then
you can get what you want by threatening violence against the speakers. The
school will cave in, the speakers will be shut up, and you and your ideology
will win. When thuggery pays, the result is more thuggery. Is that the education
we want our students to be getting?"
That's a question both the court and the local school
district needs to answer, and quickly. If they don't, education will become a
distant memory in public schools.
________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“In the ivory tower inhabited by the great intellects of the
Obama administration … no problem is too big to be thought or talked or
surrendered away. If Russia
won’t change its perspective, we will simply cut our military more to convince
them we mean well; if the Palestinians or Iranians don’t change their
perspectives, we will force Israel
to negotiate with them in order to prove our goodwill. Meanwhile, our enemies
laugh. And they should. The global battlefield is no place for the Kennedy School political science grad students
who inhabit our White House and believe that a well-aimed, snooty barb is a
substitute for a muscular foreign policy presence.”
-Ben Shapiro
“According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976
and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Contrast this with the fact that
black fatalities during the Korean War (3,075), Vietnam War (7,243) and wars
since 1980 (about 8,200) total about 18,500. Young black males have a greater
chance of reaching maturity on the battlefields than on the streets of Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Newark and other cities.
Black political power and massive city budgets have done absolutely nothing to
ameliorate this problem of black insecurity. … The black family managed to
survive several centuries of slavery and generations of the harshest racism and
Jim Crow, to ultimately become destroyed by the welfare state.”
-Walter
Williams
“‘I will … create new jobs …’ Politicians always say that,
but this president says it especially often. Do voters not know that government
has no money of its own, so when politicians ‘create’ jobs, they take money
from the private sector, the only group that creates real jobs? I
emphasize ‘real’ because, of course, politicians can create jobs by funding
companies like Solyndra, hiring more staff or paying people to dig holes and
fill them up. But those jobs don’t last or create real wealth. Politicians
can’t create real employment by taxing people and giving the money to others.”
-John
Stossel
________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
Money — it’s the root of all evil. Behind every great
fortune lies a great crime. Or at least an unfair advantage. That’s the gist of
the liberals’ creed and justification for their war on wealth. The other half
of their view holds that the poor are innocent victims of life’s rigged game.
Their narrative of evil winners and noble losers clears the way for self-heroic
redeemers. They will deliver social justice by meting out punishment and
spreading the wealth around. Their virtue entitles them to power. It sounds
like a comic-book view of life, but it’s the reality of liberalism today.
In the early morning of February 26, after hours of debate, the
UCLA student government rejected a motion to divest their funds from Israel, despite
a concerted campaign by anti-Israel activists on campus. Immediately after the
vote, one of the anti-Israel activists on the panel burst into tears and
started screaming and whining incomprehensibly, and in general throwing a
tantrum worthy of a frustrated two year old.
First Lady To Obamacare Counselors: ‘You Are Doing God’s
Work’
Have you heard the news? Condoleezza Rice lacks “moral
authority.” She fails to meet the standards of “exemplary citizenship” and she
does not have what it takes to “inspire” graduating college seniors. That crazy
thinking comes from the New Brunswick Faculty Council of Rutgers University.
They voted last week to ask university leadership to cancel Rice’s invitation
to be this year’s Commencement Speaker and receive an honorary degree. Yes,
apparently the first African-American woman to serve as National Security
Adviser and the nation’s Secretary of State doesn’t have what it takes to be
honored by Rutgers.
________________________________________________________________________
ISLAM
Under threat, Syria's Christians sign accord with
Islamists. Their options were 1) convert
to Islam, 2) pay a $500/year tax, or 3) die.
_______________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
Americans support the idea of constructing the Keystone XL
oil pipeline between Canada
and the United States
by a nearly 3 to 1 margin, with 65 percent saying it should be approved and 22
percent opposed, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Police arrested hundreds of people who strapped themselves
to the White House fence on Sunday to protest the proposed Keystone XL oil
pipeline. The protesters were mostly college students.
Washington,
D.C. may have the highest number
of certified green buildings in the country, but research by
Environmental Policy Alliance suggests it might not be doing much good. The
free-market group analyzed the first round of energy usage data released by
city officials Friday and found that large, privately-owned buildings that
received the green energy certification Leadership in Energy Design (LEED)
actually use more energy than buildings that didn’t receive this green stamp of
approval.
ABC, CBS Exclude Scientists Critical of
Global Warming for More Than 1,300 Days -ABC, CBS and NBC's lengthy omission of
scientists critical of global warming alarmism propped up the myth of a
scientific consensus, despite the fact that many scientists and thousands of
peer-reviewed studies disagree. - See more at: http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/sean-long/cold-shoulder-abc-cbs-exclude-scientists-critical-global-warming-more-1300-days#sthash.zlba8lpn.dpuf
Baltimore-Washington
International Airport
broke a 141-year-old record low temperature, reaching 4 degrees.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/24877346/another-blast-of-arctic-air-follows-latest-snow#ixzz2v6RnoCyy
____________________________________________________________________________
CPAC
Conservative firebrand Ted Cruz launches CPAC with
crowd-pleasing demand to abolish the IRS
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott upped his national profile by getting
one of the lead-off speaking slots at the CPAC conference. "Parents, and not bureaucrats in Washington, should
decide the path of their child´s education," Scott said. "They should
be free to choose home schooling, public schools, charter schools, parochial
schools," he said. "Because when the parents have the choice, the kids
have a chance."
The first CPAC convened in Washington
41 years ago drawing a little more than 100 conservative activists from around
the country who found themselves enthralled by a keynote address delivered by California’s Republican
governor, Ronald Reagan. Since then, CPAC has grown to draw as many as 10,000
or 11,000 conservatives from every corner of the country and from perhaps a
dozen or so foreign countries.
Sen. Rand Paul demolished his competition in the 2014
Washington Times/CPAC presidential preference straw poll on Saturday, winning
31 percent of the vote — nearly three times the total of second-place Sen. Ted
Cruz.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/8/rand-paul-wins-2014-cpac-straw-poll-ted-cruz-finis/#ixzz2vTWNX6yZ
Sarah Palin says that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a man known for wrestling bears while President Barack Obama is known for “wearing mom jeans.”
Sarah Palin says that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a man known for wrestling bears while President Barack Obama is known for “wearing mom jeans.”
Palin Re-Writes
Dr. Seuss: 'I Do Not Like This Uncle Sam, I Do Not
Like His Health Care Scam'
______________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
Vladimir Putin isn’t the Easter Bunny. On the other hand, he
isn’t Joseph Stalin. It takes a truly fevered imagination to see Russian forces
in the Crimea as a prelude to Russian tanks rolling across Europe toward Berlin and Paris.
Putin is a power player who cares more about Russia’s national interests, and
Russian minorities in his near abroad, than in that mythical force known as
world opinion. Would that America
had a president who cared more about our interests than in promoting globalism
and the left’s social agenda.
Another nightmare for doctors, courtesy of the federal
government. Ever considered suicide by
jellyfish? Have you ended up in the hospital after being injured during the
forced landing of your spacecraft? Or been hurt when you were sucked into the
engine of an airplane or when your horse-drawn carriage collided with a
trolley. But should any of these
unfortunate injuries befall you after October 1, 2014, your doctor, courtesy of
the federal government, will have a code to record it.
Barone: Don’t write
those tea party obituaries just yet
If Jeb Bush runs for the Republican presidential nomination,
he may face pushback from the tea party — and not just for the reasons you
might expect. With Chris Christie faltering, the former Florida governor is reportedly calling major
donors to discuss a possible presidential run. But tea party leaders, both
nationally and in Florida,
tell The Daily Caller that Bush would have trouble getting their support because
of his strong backing of Common Core. The Common Core State Standards
Initiative defines itself as “a state-led effort that established a single set
of clear educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in
“Why Russia
No Longer Fears the West”
Anatomy of a Feckless Presidency
___________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
The Ten Most Abusive Obama
Executive Actions
These incredible photographs show a huge tank graveyard in
the Ukraine - home to
hundreds of the abandoned vehicles which the country may desperately need if
tensions with Russia
continue to escalate.
Various maps of the Ukraine:
__________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
“Unnecessary laws are not good
laws, but traps for money."
-Thomas Hobbes
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3:02 PM
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