op ed review 5/31
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
The economy shrank at a 0.7 percent annual rate in the first
three months of the year.
Obama Has Lowest Average 1stQ GDP Growth of Any President on
Record….blame it on global warming?
Must be just coincidence:
Clinton Foundation Donors Got Billion $ Weapons Deals From Hillary
Clinton´s State Department
Clinton Foundation paid their friend Sydney Blumenthal
$10,000 per month to advise on Libya
Clinton Foundation hit with racketeering lawsuit. God bless Larry Klayman’s Freedom Watch.
A United States
Marine was convicted at a court-martial for refusing to remove a Bible verse on
her computer – a verse of Scripture the military determined “could easily be
seen as contrary to good order and discipline.” What was the verse? “No weapon formed against me shall prosper.”
The conservative Manchester Union Leader editorial board
interviewed Carly Fiorina and was impressed: “CARLY SHINES...Rivals who
underestimate do so at own peril...Ability to stay on message remarkable...
More substance in fewer words than anyone else...”
“Carly Fiorina Runs Circles Around MSNBC Host Andrea
Mitchell, Blasts Hillary”
Carly Fiorina: “Big government is crushing Americans”
Gov. Scott Walker: Federal Government ‘Too Big To Fail,’ Next President Must Shrink It So It’s ‘Small Enough To Succeed’
As Obama Removes Cuba from Terrorism List – Castro Brothers
Arrest 164 Activists & Artists
Paula Jones warns against voting for Hillary - 'Don't let
Bill back in the White House, he abused women and he'll do it again.', and because
she also lied about sex case which almost cost him presidency.
Anarchy in Baltimore:
Maryland Sheriff warns that police officers are “fearful” of doing their
jobs…..” Once you disembowel your law
enforcement officers, then you can no longer expect them to go out there and
protect you, or protect your communities. This is very troubling….the worst
I’ve ever seen in 31 years of law enforcement.
Iranian elite paramilitary force leader Major General Qassem
Soleimani accused the United States of having “no will” to fight the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria and blasted President Barack Obama as not having “done
a damn thing” to quell the terrorist insurgency.
Conservative columnist and 10-time New York Times
bestselling author Ann Coulter steamrolled Fusion host Jorge Ramos in an
appearance filled with dramatic moments, none more interesting than where
Coulter got Ramos to admit he doesn’t believe there should be a limit to how
many Mexicans the United States will allow into this country—either legally or
illegally. “We have taken in one quarter of the entire Mexican population,”
Coulter asked him. “At what point will we have taken in enough, in your view?”
A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied the Obama
administration’s request to lift a hold on the president’s executive actions on
immigration, which would have granted protection from deportation as well as
work permits to millions of immigrants in the country illegally.
The left is trying to bankrupt Sheriff Joe Arpaio with legal
fees: He’s turning to the public for
money and the legal system for a new judge.
“Unions Now Want An Exemption From The Minimum Wage Hike They Pushed”
Looks like ObamaCare premiums will skyrocket for many next
year. So what do Democrats propose? New insurance mandates that will drive
premiums up even higher. Which one is the stupid party again?
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Victor Davis Hansen 5/7
Why did Rome and Byzantium fall apart after centuries of
success? What causes civilizations to collapse, from a dysfunctional
4th-century-B.C. Athens to contemporary bankrupt Greece? The answer is usually
not enemies at the gates, but the pathologies inside them.
What ruins societies is well known: too much consumption and
not enough production, a debased currency and endemic corruption. Americans
currently deal with all those symptoms. But two more fundamental causes for
decline are even more frightening: an unwillingness to pay taxes and the end of
the rule of law.
Al Sharpton is again prominently in the news, blaming
various groups for the Baltimore unrest. But Sharpton currently owes the U.S.
government more than $3 million in back taxes, according to reports. His
excuses have ranged from insufficient funds to pay them to sloppy
record-keeping and mysterious fires. Sharpton, a frequent White House guest,
apparently assumes that his community-organizing provides him political
exemption from federal tax law. He seems to be right, at least as long as the
current administration is in power.
The Clinton Foundation is expected to refile its tax returns
for 2010, 2011 and 2012 after failing to separate government grants from
donations. If an average citizen tried to amend his taxes for such huge sums
and from that long ago, he would probably be under indictment. News reports of
undocumented donations from foreign governments caught the foundation
underreporting its income. The well-connected Clinton clan apparently assumed
that their political status ensured them immunity……
Under the current system, the very wealthy have the pull and
capital to navigate around the 3.7-million-word IRS tax code. Billionaire
George Soros, a proponent of big government and higher taxes, reportedly could
face a tax bill of approximately $7 billion after years of deferrals.
Nonparticipation in the tax system and noncompliance are
recipes for social and cultural disaster — as we see with the current climbing
tax rates, huge deficits and unsustainable national debt. Our laws are becoming as politicized
as our tax system.
Whatever one thinks of illegal immigration, it's undeniable
that under the Obama administration, federal immigration law enforcement is now
predicated on politics. The law as it was written suddenly has ceased to exist
— at least for particular groups at particular times and places.
In the last six years, the enforcement of federal laws has
depended on their apparent political utility. If elements of the controversial
Affordable Care Act were deemed politically risky, then their implementation
was ignored until after an election. If the Environmental Protection Agency
could not see its agenda passed through Congress as federal law, then it
implemented its green policies by fiat.
If the Obama administration reaches a controversial
agreement with Iran that will not meet the constitutional test of ratification
by two-thirds of the Senate, then it will not be called a treaty and instead be
imposed by presidential executive order…..
In the tragic Freddie Gray case, Baltimore State's Attorney
Marilyn Mosby all but assured an angry crowd that she had provided them
indictments for murder and manslaughter and thereby expected calm in the
streets in return. She indicted six Baltimore policemen on charges that are
likely to be reduced or disproved in court, but those charges served the
short-term purpose of defusing unchecked rioting and looting. Warping the law
was thought to be more effective in easing tensions than enforcing it.
Increasingly in the United States, the degree to which a law
is enforced — or whether a person is indicted — depends on political
considerations. But when citizens do not pay any income taxes, or choose not to
pay taxes that they owe and expect impunity, a complex society unwinds. And
when the law becomes negotiable, civilization utterly collapses.
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/050615-751347-us-shows-all-the-symptoms-of-a-civilization-in-collapse.htm#ixzz3ZTBn6y42
_______________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
Michelle Obama urged another class of college graduates
Monday to work aggressively to change American society and not be deterred by
noisy or obstructionist opposition. The 51-year-old first lady spent her
Memorial Day not with her husband honoring the fallen military at Arlington
National Cemetery, but urging graduates at Ohio´s Oberlin College to become
persistent, determined agents of change in their communities. She warned them
about the evils of American society outside academia, requiring constant
change, not support. And she urged them to "shape the revolutions of your
time" by becoming community activists …
______________________________________________________________________
ISLAM
The ISIL terrorist group claims that it has enough money to
buy a nuclear weapon from Pakistan and carry out an attack inside the United
States next year.
A sign was hung in a public square in Antwerp, Belgium
threatening Mayor Bart De Wever with death if he did not convert to Islam.
The Islamic State has issued a threat against Argentinian
President Cristina Fernandez and her Chilean counterpart Michelle Bachelet in a
menacing email sent to the former last month.
_______________________________________________________________________
BOOKS
“Takedown:
From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage”
by Paul Kengor. “……the vast majority of today’s proponents of
same-sex marriage have friendly motives. Their goal is not to tear down but to
“expand” marriage to a new form of spousal partner. They do this with the
intent of providing a new “freedom” and “right” to a new group of people. I get
that. Unfortunately, there’s so much that they are not getting. Today’s
advocates of same-sex marriage need to be aware of the quite insidious deeper
historical-ideological forces they are unwittingly serving. Sure, that
knowledge still will likely not change their minds, but it’s something that a
well-informed, thoughtful person should at least be willing to learn before
urging the unprecedented action that our culture and court may be about to
take.”
“Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a
Third World Hellhole,” by Ann Coulter. “Ann Coulter is back, more fearless than ever.
In Adios, America she touches the third rail in American politics,
attacking the immigration issue head-on and flying in the face of La Raza, the
Democrats, a media determined to cover up immigrants' crimes, churches that get
paid by the government for their "charity," and greedy Republican
businessmen and campaign consultants—all of whom are profiting handsomely from
mass immigration that's tearing the country apart. Applying her trademark
biting humor to the disaster that is U.S. immigration policy, Coulter proves
that immigration is the most important issue facing America today.
______________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
Why the Fifth
Circuit Smacked Down Obama’s Immigration Appeal
“In spite of the
best efforts of our Border Patrol agents, drugs and humans keep coming across
our border with Mexico. I recently returned from my seventh trip to the border.
Our Border Patrol agents are trying to do their job, but they are being
hampered by bureaucrats and “open border” initiatives put in place by President
Barack Obama’s administration.” ……..On our second day we caught a
glimpse of a shadowy figure disappearing down the back of a mountain inside the
U.S. border; it was a cartel “scout.” The “scouts” operate on the mountains and
monitor the movement of the Border Patrol and let the smugglers know when it is
safe to bring across drugs and human cargo. Keep in my mind they operate in the
mountains on U.S. soil as far as 100 miles inside our border.
Ben Shapiro: “The Big Tent Collapses”: While the Democratic Party has moved toward
leftist purity in which Hillary Clinton’s policy positions are virtually
indistinguishable from socialist Bernie Sanders’, the Republican Party has
become to political positions what COEXIST bumper stickers are to religion…..
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Amazing photo: Amateur photographer Frank Glick was on his
way to work when he drove through Fort Snelling National Cemetery early one
morning. He spotted a bald eagle through the mist, perched on a gravestone, and
snapped shots with his aging but ever-present camera. Nice shot, he thought….Then
it began. Mail and calls from Minnesota,
then Chicago, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina and finally, Afghanistan. The
picture and story had gone viral. I noticed 11,000 people had recommended it on
Facebook. I forwarded scores and scores of requests for reprints to Glick.
Unfortunately, he had become ill and has been in the hospital off and on since
the column ran. (To reach Glick about the photo, e-mail him at liketophoto@yahoo.com.
Be patient.)
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WISE WORDS
"The best service that can be rendered to a country,
next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement
equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing."
-James Madison
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