Columnist.
President Obama has invoked Dr. King's powerful phrase -- the fierce urgency of *now* -- as a spur to get his troops in line for the takeover of health care. They achieved their purposes to the extent that they rammed through Congress a monster of a bill -- around the corner, over the walls, and parachuting down the chimney, if necessary, as an entranced Speaker Nancy Pelosi gushingly told us. They knew they had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make it happen. And they did.
"Nuns hopeful of stay," read the headlines. No, they weren't going to be executed. Only their consciences were to be violated. The HHS Mandate was going to force them to cover abortifacient drugs that can end the lives of unborn children. Now, and only temporarily, the Supreme Court has *stayed* the execution of the HHS Mandate under ObamaCare. Never in America's long history has such a headline even been imaginable. The gravest threat to religious freedom has been part of what President Obama meant when he said he would "fundamentally transform this country." Nuns have faced anti-Catholicism, Bible riots, and various forms of Klan-instigated bigotry, but *never* has the federal government itself threatened to snuff out the lamp of freedom. Evangelicals and Lutherans, too, face a hostile administration.
The debates over Obamacare seem to be, like Ben Franklin's death & taxes, the only certainties in our lives. This has clearly been the case since Inauguration Day, 2009. Yes, President Obama called for an immediate "stimulus" of nearly $1 Trillion to prime the pump, to create shovel-ready jobs. We never heard that phrase *shovel ready* before Mr. Obama employed it. And, within the first two years after passage of the huge stimulus bill, the president himself acknowledged there was no such thing as shovel ready jobs.
The New York Times recently published a 7,500-word cover-up to exculpate the Obama administration in their atrocious dereliction of duty with respect to killing of four Americans at Benghazi in 2012. Like a frightened octopus, the left is exuding a vast cloud of ink, hoping to cover the failures of President Obama and then-Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. Times reporter goes to great length to show that al Qaeda was *not* part of the murderous attack that claimed the life of the U.S. ambassador, Chris Stevens. He was the first U.S. ambassador killed in the line of duty in thirty years. Their overlong piece also takes pains to try to extricate Hillary Clinton from any blame in this catastrophe.
It was a rare and welcome victory for religious freedom for our all-volunteer military. Congress approved -- and President Obama the day after Christmas signed -- the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This new law contains stronger language than ever before that assures our service members do not have to give up their own freedoms while protecting ours. This new law contains some of Sen. Mike Lee's (R-Utah) provisions to assure better implementation of freedom guarantees. In the past, the Obama administration has largely ignored protections for service members. This law provides clear deadlines for the Defense Department to issue new regulations. Military commanders should no longer be in doubt about America's historic commitment to religious freedom in the ranks.
Education is the great equalizer. Yet, while President Obama was talking earlier this month about how minority and underprivileged Americans need a "decent education," his Department of Education (ED) was pushing more onerous regulations that would have the opposite effect. ED is finalizing the administration's second attempt at passing "gainful employment" standards that place restrictions on institutions that can receive government funding for its students. In short, the new rules would require programs that receive government funding to students graduate with less than a 12 percent debt-to-income ratio or a debt-to-discretionary-income ratio of less than 30 percent.
With skyrocketing tuition, there is no denying that college is too expensive. My friend, Professor Richard Vedder of Ohio University, has produced a lifetime of work showing that colleges' hefty price is directly related to students' easy access to Federal Pell grants and student loans. Those taxpayer subsidized funds allow universities to handsomely compensate tenured professors who rarely teach and ensure administrators at state institutions remain the highest paid public employees in America.
President Obama is receiving plenty of criticism for his *selfie* cellphone portrait at the funeral of South Africa's revered leader, Nelson Mandela. What the president had to say in tribute to Africa's greatest statesman was largely overshadowed by the press pictures of Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron, and Denmark's shapely blonde chief of government, Helle Thorning Schmidt. The three leaders are shown, dressed appropriately enough in mourning black. But they are seen yucking it up like teenagers while First Lady Michelle Obama sits up attentively, the perfect picture of dignity and respect. And keeping her distance from the antics.
When Vice President Lyndon Johnson returned to Capitol Hill after his first White House meeting with the new team assembled by President John F. Kennedy, he rushed to talk with his mentor, House Speaker Sam Rayburn. LBJ told his fellow Texan how impressed he was with Kennedy's "best and brightest." He was especially taken with Defense Sec. Robert Strange McNamara, the ex-CEO of Ford Motor Company. Lyndon described that "feller with the sta-comb in his hair" as being the brightest of the brightest.
"The power to tax involves the power to destroy," the Supreme Court wrote in 1819, shortly after America began. Now in 2013, President Barack Obama is launching a frightening attack on free speech, using one of the most feared agencies in all the federal government: the Internal Revenue Service. One of the most roundly-condemned aspects of Richard Nixon's malfeasance in office was his use of the IRS to target his political enemies with audits. If people shudder at Nixon's abuses with the IRS, what Obama is doing should drive them to convulsions.
But There's a Solution
Christians are certainly familiar with Jesus' words to the woman at the well. "Salvation is from the Jews," he tells her in John 4:22. And this has always stood as a stumbling block to anti-Semitism in the Church. It is hard to imagine how one can be a true Christian and be an anti-Semite, too. But this wonderful phrase is also true in a worldly sense -- and especially so in the nuclear age. In August 1939, Albert Einstein's letter warning President Roosevelt of Nazi capabilities in atomic weapons research was hand-carried to the White House. Having fled Hitler Germany for Princeton, Einstein was the world's most celebrated scientist and a leading member of the Jewish community.
The side-by-side comparisons of President Obama's statements then and now are devastating. Especially the "period." Period here is no punctuation mark. It's a way of underscoring the word of the President of the United States. For him to have made such unqualified assurances to the American people -- not once but dozens of times -- and for us to learn that he always knew that promise could not be kept -- will haunt his presidency. He has impeached himself.
President Obama will *not* attend ceremonies at Gettysburg later this month marking the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's immortal address. Thank goodness! Mr. Obama has been getting few kudos of late. His Gallup approval rating has slipped into the thirties. But in this, we can applaud his action. It is entirely fitting and proper that he should do this. First of all, consider the expense. Mr. Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg in 1863 by rail. He took Ward Hill Lamon, a U.S. Marshal, with him. Mr. Obama would have to go by caravan with with hundreds of staffers. Just think of the gas.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was probably briefed on the demonstrations in Tehran this week. The mobs there burned U.S. flags, chanted "Death to America," and celebrated, yes, *celebrated*, the worst humiliation of the United States in the twentieth century: The seizure of our embassy 34 years ago.
At the time when I served as Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, my city and others across the country looked to Detroit as an industrial and cultural center of America. Motown Records, started by Berry Gordy in Detroit, created some of the best music in the world with hits from The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye. After World War II, Detroit became the North Dakota oil boom of its day, as engineers and workers flocked to the city to prosper and make the classic, gas-guzzling muscle cars which would come to represent everything great about America. By 1960, with the highest per capita income in the nation, almost two million people lived there.
When Vice President George H.W. Bush accepted the GOP nomination for president in New Orleans in 1988, he memorably said: "Read my lips, no new taxes." Too memorably, as things turned out. He won that election handily, carrying forty states against the hapless Michael Dukakis and 53% of the vote. It was the last comfortable victory the Republicans have seen.
Mikey Weinstein heads up an outfit called Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which might be shortened to Murfs. These atheizers are not to be confused with those cuddly Smurfs. The little blue cartoon character Smurfs all wear Phrygian caps -- a symbol of freedom. No, Murfs take it on themselves to *smother* religious freedom. Mikey and the Murfs are bragging about their latest score. It took just 68 minutes for the Murfs to pull down a poster at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Why? Because the poster promoted the honor system and said -- "So help me God." Well, Murfs can't stand any mention of You Know Who, so Mikey swung into action and demanded the offending poster be pulled down.
Career crony turned perennial candidate Terry McAuliffe's staked his entire bid for the Virginia Governor's Mansion on demagoguing Ken Cuccinelli's stances on social issues. A recent Washington Times editorial summed up the central strategy of the Democrat's all-too predictable campaign: retread Obama's scorched earth tactics to cast Cuccinelli as anti-woman, all to cover up his glaring lack of substance.
