Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Monday, April 13, 2015
Why the Obama IRS scandal may be worse than "a cancer on the presidency."
No one can deny that Barack Obama is a highly skilled politician,
at least by the measure of election outcomes. His record is undefeated, save for an ill-advised 2000 primary challenge to an entrenched incumbent congressman. His 2008 presidential victory, after a fraction of a term in the U.S. Senate, was especially dazzling. It disproved those who said that Hillary Clinton was invincible, that a left-wing Democrat couldn't win, and that America wasn't ready for a black president.
No one can deny that Lance Armstrong and Mark McGwire were highly skilled athletes. But their accomplishments are forever tainted by their use of banned performance-enhancing drugs. The use of the Internal Revenue Service's coercive power to suppress dissent against Obama is the political equivalent of steroids. The history books should record Obama's re-election with an asterisk to indicate that it was achieved with the help of illicit means.
The Weekly Standard notes that NBC's Lisa Myers "reported this morning that the IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election":
One thing we have learned from the IRS scandal is that sports journalists are morally superior to political journalists. Whereas the former understand that cheating is an assault on the basic integrity of the sport, the latter all too often treat it as if it were just...
No one can deny that Lance Armstrong and Mark McGwire were highly skilled athletes. But their accomplishments are forever tainted by their use of banned performance-enhancing drugs. The use of the Internal Revenue Service's coercive power to suppress dissent against Obama is the political equivalent of steroids. The history books should record Obama's re-election with an asterisk to indicate that it was achieved with the help of illicit means.
The Weekly Standard notes that NBC's Lisa Myers "reported this morning that the IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election":
The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when--after these officials are briefed by the [inspector general] that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we--if you can--what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."
One thing we have learned from the IRS scandal is that sports journalists are morally superior to political journalists. Whereas the former understand that cheating is an assault on the basic integrity of the sport, the latter all too often treat it as if it were just...
U.S. food stamp dependency continues at unprecedented levels
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its monthly data showing national use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. The data show that usage has topped 46 million Americans for 40 consecutive months. Dependency on SNAP has risen sharply under the Obama administration, with no end in sight.The data for the latest month available, December 2014, shows a total of 46,252,064 Americans dependent on SNAP. This continues a disturbing trend, with dependency topping 46 million since September 2011. It should be noted that while the White House says the recession ended in 2009, a record number of Americans are seeking financial assistance in the form of SNAP benefits.
If the standard unemployment rate has dropped to 5.5 percent and the economy is “recovering,” why are so many Americans more dependent on help from the government? The answer lies in the workforce participation rate and also in the lack of work requirements for...
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS CINCO DE MAYO BAN ON AMERICAN FLAG IN CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS!
(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left intact an appeals court ruling that school officials in California did not violate the free speech rights of students by demanding they remove T-shirts bearing images of the U.S. flag at an event celebrating the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo.The court declined to hear an appeal filed by three students at Live Oak High School in the town of Morgan Hill, south of San Francisco. School staff at the May 5, 2010, event told several students their clothing could cause an incident. Two chose to leave for home after refusing to turn their shirts inside out.
The school had been experiencing gang-related tensions and racially charged altercations between white and Hispanic students at the time. School officials said they feared the imposition of American patriotic imagery by some students at an event where other students were celebrating their pride in their Mexican heritage would incite fights between the two groups.
Lawyers for the students said that the fear that the T-shirts would offend others did not trump free speech rights because the act of wearing the shirts did not rise to the level of incitement to violence.
Three of the affected students – Daniel Galli, Matt Dariano, and Dominic Maciel – were involved in the lawsuit, which was filed on their behalf by their parents.
In the February 2014 ruling, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said...
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