Obama sees the Constitution’s separation of powers as a quaint anachronism.
By Charles KrauthammerAs a reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, many federal drug laws carry strict mandatory sentences. This has stirred unease in Congress and sparked a bipartisan effort to revise and relax some of the more draconian laws.
Traditionally — meaning before Barack Obama — that’s how laws were changed: We have a problem, we hold hearings, we find some new arrangement, which is ratified by Congress and signed by the president.
That was then. On Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder, a liberal in a hurry, ordered all U.S. attorneys to simply stop charging nonviolent, non-gang-related drug defendants with crimes that, while fitting the offense, carry mandatory sentences. Find some lesser, non-triggering charge. How might you do that? Withhold evidence — e.g., about the amount of dope involved.
In other words, evade the law, by deceiving the court if necessary. “If the companies that I represent in federal criminal cases” did that, said former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger, “they could be charged with a felony.”
But such niceties must not stand in the way of an administration’s agenda. Indeed, the very next day, it was revealed that the administration had unilaterally waived Obamacare’s cap on a patient’s annual out-of-pocket expenses — a one-year exemption for selected health insurers that is nowhere permitted in the law. It was simply decreed by an obscure Labor Department regulation.
Which followed a presidentially directed 70-plus percent subsidy for the insurance premiums paid by congressmen and their personal staffs — under a law that denies subsidies for anyone that well-off.
Which came just a month after the administration’s equally lawless suspension of one of the cornerstones of Obamacare: the employer mandate.
Which followed hundreds of Obamacare waivers granted by Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius to selected businesses, unions, and other well-lobbied, very special interests.
Nor is this kind of rule-by-decree restricted to health care. In 2012, the immigration service was ordered to cease proceedings against young illegal immigrants brought here as children. Congress had refused to pass such a law (the DREAM Act) just 18 months earlier. Obama himself had repeatedly said that the Constitution forbade him from enacting it without Congress. But with the fast approach of an election that could hinge on the Hispanic vote, Obama did exactly that. Unilaterally.
The point is not what you think about the merits of the DREAM Act. Or of mandatory drug sentences. Or of subsidizing health-care premiums for $175,000-a-year members of Congress. Or even whether you think governors should be allowed to weaken the work requirements for welfare recipients — an authority the administration granted last year in clear violation of section 407 of the landmark Clinton-Gingrich welfare reform of 1996.
The point is whether a president, charged with faithfully executing the laws that Congress enacts, may create, ignore, suspend, and/or amend the law at will. Presidents are arguably permitted to refuse to enforce laws they consider unconstitutional (the basis for so many of George W. Bush’s so-called signing statements). But presidents are forbidden from doing so for reason of mere policy — the reason for every Obama violation listed above.
Such gross executive usurpation disdains the Constitution. It mocks the separation of powers. And, most consequentially, it introduces a fatal instability into law itself. If the law is not what is plainly written, but is whatever the president and his agents decide, what’s left of the law?
What’s the point of the whole legislative process — of crafting various provisions through give-and-take negotiation — if you cannot rely on the fixity of the final product, on the assurance that the provisions bargained for by both sides will be carried out?
Consider immigration reform. The essence of any deal would be legalization in return for strict border enforcement. If some such legislative compromise is struck, what confidence can anyone have in it — if the president can unilaterally alter what he signs?
Yet this president is not only untroubled by what he’s doing, but open and rather proud. As he tells cheering crowds on his never-ending campaign-style tours: I am going to do X — and I’m not going to wait for Congress.
That’s caudillo talk. That’s banana-republic stuff. In this country, the president is required to win the consent of Congress first.
At stake is not some constitutional curlicue. At stake is whether the laws are the law. And whether presidents get to write their own.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/355932/barack-lawgiver-charles-krauthammer
What We Lose if We Give Up Privacy
A civil libertarian reflects on the dangers of the surveillance state.
By Peggy NoonanWhat is privacy? Why should we want to hold onto it? Why is it important, necessary, precious?
Is it just some prissy relic of the pretechnological past?
We talk about this now because of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency revelations, and new fears that we are operating, all of us, within what has become or is becoming a massive surveillance state. They log your calls here, they can listen in, they can read your emails. They keep the data in mammoth machines that contain a huge collection of information about you and yours. This of course is in pursuit of a laudable goal, security in the age of terror.
Is it excessive? It certainly appears to be. Does that matter? Yes. Among other reasons: The end of the expectation that citizens' communications are and will remain private will probably change us as a people, and a country.
***
Among the pertinent definitions of privacy from the Oxford English Dictionary: "freedom from disturbance or intrusion," "intended only for the use of a particular person or persons," belonging to "the property of a particular person." Also: "confidential, not to be disclosed to others." Among others, the OED quotes the playwright Arthur Miller, describing the McCarthy era: "Conscience was no longer a private matter but one of state administration."Privacy is connected to personhood. It has to do with intimate things—the innards of your head and heart, the workings of your mind—and the boundary between those things and the world outside.
A loss of the expectation of privacy in communications is a loss of something personal and intimate, and it will have broader implications. That is the view of Nat Hentoff, the great journalist and civil libertarian. He is 88 now and on fire on the issue of privacy. "The media has awakened," he told me. "Congress has awakened, to some extent." Both are beginning to realize "that there are particular constitutional liberty rights that [Americans] have that distinguish them from all other people, and one of them is privacy."
Mr. Hentoff sees excessive government surveillance as violative of the Fourth Amendment, which protects "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" and requires that warrants be issued only "upon probable cause . . . particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
But Mr. Hentoff sees the surveillance state as a threat to free speech, too. About a year ago he went up to Harvard to speak to a class. He asked, he recalled: "How many of you realize the connection between what's happening with the Fourth Amendment with the First Amendment?" He told the students that if citizens don't have basic privacies—firm protections against the search and seizure of your private communications, for instance—they will be left feeling "threatened." This will make citizens increasingly concerned "about what they say, and they do, and they think." It will have the effect of constricting freedom of expression. Americans will become careful about what they say that can be misunderstood or misinterpreted, and then too careful about what they say that can be understood. The inevitable end of surveillance is self-censorship.
All of a sudden, the room became quiet. "These were bright kids, interested, concerned, but they hadn't made an obvious connection about who we are as a people." We are "free citizens in a self-governing republic."
Mr. Hentoff once asked Justice William Brennan "a schoolboy's question": What is the most important amendment to the Constitution? "Brennan said the First Amendment, because all the other ones come from that. If you don't have free speech you have to be afraid, you lack a vital part of what it is to be a human being who is free to be who you want to be." Your own growth as a person will in time be constricted, because we come to know ourselves by our thoughts.
He wonders if Americans know who they are compared to what the Constitution says they are.
Mr. Hentoff's second point: An entrenched surveillance state will change and distort the balance that allows free government to function successfully. Broad and intrusive surveillance will, definitively, put government in charge. But a republic only works, Mr. Hentoff notes, if public officials know that they—and the government itself—answer to the citizens. It doesn't work, and is distorted, if the citizens must answer to the government. And that will happen more and more if the government knows—and you know—that the government has something, or some things, on you. "The bad thing is you no longer have the one thing we're supposed to have as Americans living in a self-governing republic," Mr. Hentoff said. "The people we elect are not your bosses, they are responsible to us." They must answer to us. But if they increasingly control our privacy, "suddenly they're in charge if they know what you're thinking."
This is a shift in the democratic dynamic. "If we don't have free speech then what can we do if the people who govern us have no respect for us, may indeed make life difficult for us, and in fact belittle us?"
If massive surveillance continues and grows, could it change the national character? "Yes, because it will change free speech."
What of those who say, "I have nothing to fear, I don't do anything wrong"? Mr. Hentoff suggests that's a false sense of security. "When you have this amount of privacy invasion put into these huge data banks, who knows what will come out?" Or can be made to come out through misunderstanding the data, or finagling, or mischief of one sort or another. "People say, 'Well I've done nothing wrong so why should I worry?' But that's too easy a way to get out of what is in our history—constant attempts to try to change who we are as Americans." Asked about those attempts, he mentions the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Red Scare of the 1920s and the McCarthy era. Those times and incidents, he says, were more than specific scandals or news stories, they were attempts to change our nature as a people.
What of those who say they don't care what the federal government does as long as it keeps us safe? The threat of terrorism is real, Mr. Hentoff acknowledges. Al Qaeda is still here, its networks are growing. But you have to be careful about who's running U.S. intelligence and U.S. security, and they have to be fully versed in and obey constitutional guarantees. "There has to be somebody supervising them who knows what's right. . . . Terrorism is not going to go away. But we need someone in charge of the whole apparatus who has read the Constitution."
Advances in technology constantly up the ability of what government can do. Its technological expertise will only become deeper and broader. "They think they're getting to how you think. The technology is such that with the masses of databases, then privacy will get even weaker."
Mr. Hentoff notes that J. Edgar Hoover didn't have all this technology. "He would be so envious of what NSA can do."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323639704579015101857760922.html
NSA Broke Privacy Rules Thousands of Times per Year: Report
The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since 2008, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing an internal audit and other top-secret documents.
Most of the infractions involved unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order, the paper said.
They ranged from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. emails and telephone calls, it said.
The Post said the documents it obtained were part of a trove of materials provided to the paper by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has been charged by the United States with espionage. He was granted asylum in Russia earlier this month.
The documents included a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance, the paper said. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
In one instance, the NSA decided it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans, the Post said. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt.
The Post said the NSA audit, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications.
The paper said most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. It said the most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.
In 2008, the FISA Amendments Act granted NSA broad new powers in exchange for regular audits from the Justice Department and the office of the Director of National Intelligence and periodic reports to Congress and the surveillance court, the Post said.
“We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line,” a senior NSA official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Post.
“You can look at it as a percentage of our total activity that occurs each day,” he said. “You look at a number in absolute terms that looks big, and when you look at it in relative terms, it looks a little different.”
In what the Post said appeared to be one of the most serious violations, the NSA diverted large volumes of international data passing through fiber-optic cables in the United States into a repository where the material could be stored temporarily for processing and selection.
The operation collected and commingled U.S. and foreign emails, the Post said, citing a top-secret internal NSA newsletter. NSA lawyers told the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the agency could not practicably filter out the communications of Americans.
In October 2011, months after the program got underway, the court ruled that the collection effort was unconstitutional.
Some members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon, have been trying for some time to get the NSA to give some kind of accounting of how much data it collects “incidentally” on Americans through various electronic dragnets. The Obama administration has strongly resisted such disclosures.
http://freebeacon.com/nsa-broke-privacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-report/
The 'clown controversy' is further evidence that the left is freaking out
By any political "humor standard," the clown incident was rather lame. It wouldn't make any Top 10 list.
I
remember David Frye doing Nixon, Chevy Chase mocking Ford, the SNL bits
on Reagan, Bush, Bush & Romney. What about Palin?
Political humor is a good thing. The clown with the Obama mask doesn't come close to any of that humor.
So why is the left so whiny? What's the big deal about "a clown being clownish" by wearing the president's mask?
The answer is this:
1) The left loves to attack but gets whiny when you give them a taste of their own medicine. Michelle Malkin has a post today full of vicious pictures about President GW Bush.
She also reminded us of books and movies made about the assassination
of the president. Frankly, I don't remember anyone calling out these
people who attacked President Bush. It was all treated as 'part of the
territory" or the way it is when you are president of the US.
Remember the comedians with Cheney's shooting accident in Texas?
What
about the "booing" and name calling of President Bush on his
inauguration or when he walked down to turn over the presidency to
Barrack Obama?
The "Obama mask" is nothing compared to that.
2) The left is getting it that President Obama is failing and failing big.
The
economy is not good, specially for young people, blacks and
Hispanics. ObamaCare is off to a bad start and full implementation is
in real doubt. "No insurance and a pay cut" is what NBC is calling it now!
The
president cannot govern. We are reminded that the only thing that has
brought Democrats and Republicans together recently is voting against gun control and ObamaCare's selective waivers. And Senate Democrats just voted to kill "the medical device tax" in ObamaCare.
3) The left knows that 2014 will be very tough. They also know that a lot of Democrats will be running away from the administration. The RCP "job approval" numbers are in the 40s, and Reuters is 40%. Gallup reports that "economic approval" is 35%. You are not going to get a lot of campaign invitations with numbers like that.
4) The Obama foreign policy is a mess, and that's being charitable. The speeches of 2009 did not make us more respected or popular. They projected weakness and you see it with Putin, Egypt and elsewhere.
So that's
why the left is beating up on some poor clown in Missouri. The left is
freaking out over a clown and that speaks volumes about their fears
that "hope and change" is falling apart.
ObamaCare “navigators” get $67 million without delay
The Obama administration has awarded $67 million to fund its ObamaCare “navigators,” the contractors who will receive training (but not background checks, apparently) to assist Americans in putting their private data into the ACA exchanges for health insurance. Thirteen state attorneys have already expressed considerable alarm at the issue of data security in the exchanges, but for now it’s full speed ahead:After several months of delays, the Obama administration awarded $67 million on Thursday to fund an army of outreach and enrollment workers known as “navigators,” who will help people sign up for coverage on the new state health insurance marketplaces beginning Oct. 1.
With less than seven weeks to go before the marketplaces start enrolling people in Obamacare for 2014, more than 100 navigator programs will be on a tight schedule to assemble, train and dispatch workers throughout the 34 states that will have federally run marketplaces. The 16 states that run their own marketplaces fund their own navigator programs.
As employees of universities, social service agencies, hospitals, advocacy groups, private businesses and other organizations, navigators will work with consumers to answer questions and provide unbiased information that allows people to choose health plans that fit their needs. By law, navigators cannot receive any financial compensation from insurers.Originally, the navigator program was only supposed to get $54 million. The extra $13 million came in a “surprise move,” The Hill reports:
HHS had initially said navigators would receive $54 million in grants, but officials said they pulled an extra $13 million from the healthcare law’s prevention fund to help broaden the reach of the program. …
Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University and a supporter of the healthcare law, said the extra funding provided by HHS is helpful but still falls short of what some states are spending on their outreach efforts.
“It’s nice to have a little more money, because these people have an awfully big job ahead of them,” Jost said. “But it’s still not what’s needed.”Ironically, as both The Hill and John Fund point out, the extra cash comes from a fund that is supposed to be used for disease prevention. Remember when the sequester’s cuts were supposed to damage public health, and the White House was powerless to shift funds around to address priorities? When it comes to addressing the President’s priorities, it’s amazing to see how flexible and innovative the Obama administration can be, huh?
By the way, who gets this extra largesse? Three guesses, emphasis mine:
Groups receiving navigator funds include United Way programs, the Urban League, Mental Health America, the National Hispanic Council on Aging, and various universities and Planned Parenthood groups.Remember when Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood “God bless you“? If God won’t, then Obama will — with our money.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/16/obamacare-navigators-get-67-million-without-delay/
Obamacare 'Navigators' Receive $13 Million More than Originally Budgeted
On Thursday, the Obama Administration unexpectedly handed out $13 million more than the $54 million in grants it originally budgeted for Obamacare “navigators,” including $655,000 to abortion provider Planned Parenthood."Navigators" is the term the Obama Administration has given to individuals or groups who will help herd uninsured Americans into the government’s healthcare exchanges.
Obamacare opponents view the $67 million in Obamacare enrollment funds as little more than a taxpayer-funded crony kickback to groups who have supported President Barack Obama. In total, the Administration handed out grants to over 100 groups in 34 states.
CNBC reports that the Obama Administration’s decision to enlist thousands of navigators to sign people up for Obamacare represents a major opportunity for con artists and identity thieves looking to exploit the Obamacare enrollment period.
“A con artist can claim to be anyone, for instance a ‘navigator’ who can help you apply for coverage through an exchange. They gain your trust and then ask for personal information to buy nonexistent policies,” writes CNBC’s Herb Weisbaum. “Fraud.org reports that some victims have been persuaded to wire money or send funds via prepaid debit card to get their full benefits.”
The Obama Administration, however, assures Americans that navigators will be trained and certified by the government and will face punishment if they run afoul of privacy laws.
Still, states are concerned, so much so that 19 of them have passed additional training requirements to prevent massive identity theft by con artists eager to prey on the chaos and confusion millions of uninsured citizens will experience as they try to make sense of Obamacare.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/16/Obama-Navigators-Receive-13-Million-Bonus-Includes-Planned-Parenthood
Report: DHS spends $600,000 to buy $100,000 homes
The Homeland Security Department spent $600,000 apiece to build houses in Arizona that would have gone for less than $100,000, according to a report in the Arizona Republic that’s raising questions in Congress.
“This type
of spending is irresponsible as our nation faces significant budget
deficits and the men and women in the Border Patrol face cuts in
overtime that are essential to their mission,” Rep. Ron Barber, the Arizona Democrat in whose district the homes were built, said in a statement Friday.
The Republic said Homeland Security built 21 homes and bought 20 other mobile
homes for $15 million. Comparable homes go for between $70,000 and
$100,000, the paper said. The homes were build to be rented to border
agents and officers.
Homeland Security officials repeatedly refused to answer the newspaper’s questions about the project, the Republic said.
Mr. Barber is the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee’s oversight panel, and said he will use that role to get to the bottom of the spending.
“This type
of spending is irresponsible as our nation faces significant budget
deficits and the men and women in the Border Patrol face cuts in
overtime that are essential to their mission,” Rep. Ron Barber, the Arizona Democrat in whose district the homes were built, said in a statement Friday.The Republic said Homeland Security built 21 homes and bought 20 other mobile
homes for $15 million. Comparable homes go for between $70,000 and
$100,000, the paper said. The homes were build to be rented to border
agents and officers.Homeland Security
officials repeatedly refused to answer the newspaper’s questions about the project, the Republic said.Mr. Barber is the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security
Committee’s oversight panel, and said he will use that role to get to the bottom of the spending.Dorm Dilemmas
As co-eds all across the country pack up their belongings, bid farewell to their parents, and head off to college this week, many will be moving into "themed housing."Themed housing is where students with common interests or values gather under one roof. At both public and private colleges, available "themes" for living quarters are virtually boundless. Some focus on culture, others on music or the arts. Dormitories are set aside for interests in cooking, outdoors, gaming, exercise, and fantasy literature. A few colleges offer housing for those with select views about the environment. UC Santa Cruz offers a large variety of themes, including a diversity awareness house, a social justice house, a Rosa Parks African American house, as well as a house for those who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersex, queer, questioning, or allies.
Troy University in Alabama likewise extends a number of themed dormitories. It has a couple of houses dedicated to substance-free living, a house reserved for honor students, and another one targeting international interests.
But Troy drew the ire of an influential Atheist group, the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), for their most recent themed house that is set to open this fall. The college is using private funding to provide housing that prioritizes students who share an interest in religious matters, maintain an active spiritual lifestyle, and are actively engaged in a campus faith-based organization, regardless of what religion they practice.
Despite the private sourcing for the cost of the building, which will be split between dorm housing and a Catholic student center, FFRF sent a threatening letter to Troy University alleging discrimination against non-religious students.
FFRF confuses -- and thus misrepresents -- the constitutional principles at stake. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee an Atheist a freedom from religion, a right to live in a completely secular culture free of any reminder of the religious values that most of us hold dear; rather, we all enjoy a freedom of religion, a right to live out our faith -- whatever faith that may be -- in a pluralistic society.
This fundamental right does not allow for religion to be singled out as the one forbidden theme in a vast array of housing choices on a college campus.
In the face of legal action, so far Troy is standing firm. Researching the need for themed housing on campus, Troy officials discovered that nearly three-quarters of the student body identified religion as an important value to them, far more than any other overlap for potential themes.
Given the prevalence of religious faith among the students, this theme could not be ignored. "Our mission is certainly to help students earn a degree," John Schmidt, senior vice chancellor for advancement and external relations, said last week. "But we also believe that it is equally important to assist students in building a value-based life."
Troy University should be applauded for supporting students who wish to live out their faith by choosing where they wish to live.
As Troy stands up to the bullies at FFRF, this institution of higher learning is effectively teaching its students a valuable lesson, not only in constitutional jurisprudence, but English grammar, particularly, the importance of prepositions. We do not possess a freedom FROM religion, but a freedom OF religion.
A Tennessee elementary school banned students from eating ham sandwiches, BLT’s and anything else made with pork, but eventually lifted the ban after parents complained.
Third grade teachers at Sunset Elementary School in Brentwood, Tenn. sent home an “Approved Snack List” for the school year and it specifically banned anything that comes from a pig.
“No meats containing pork,” read the memorandum. “Starting Monday, August 12, 2013 your child must provide their own snack from the above approved snack list.”
Kids could nosh on raw vegetables without dips or sauces, fresh fruit, crackers, pretzels, and popcorn – but no ribs or pork rinds.
“Only choose a food from the following list to bring into school for snack,” the memorandum stated in bold-face type. “No other food items are permitted.”
One day after the pork ban went into effect, Williamson County Schools posted a message on their Facebook page telling parents to ignore the rules.
“Schools should only be offering suggested snack choices, and that information will be sent home only if your child is in a classroom where there is a food allergy,” the district stated. “Any reference to not allowing pork products in school is incorrect. Please disregard.”
The district said the point of the memorandum was to address food allergies and approved snack lists.
The memorandum did not explain why the school had become a pork-free zone, leading to lots of confusion among parents.
“I’ve never heard of a life-threatening pork allergy,” one parent wrote on Facebook.
The no-pork rule generated lots of conversation on Nashville’s talk radio stations and a number of callers and several hosts wondered if it had something to do with students who might be Muslim.
“Typical list for a Madrassa,” wrote Nashville radio host Michael DelGiorno on his Facebook page.
“If you think this has anything to do with something besides appeasing Muslims then you are either stupid or willfully ignorant,” one of his listeners wrote.
“Is this school system trying to satisfy a religion?” another listener asked. “I see a big red flag here.”
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/why-did-a-tennessee-grade-school-ban-pork.html
Insult to Injury: Wounded warriors snubbed at Walter Reed dining hall
In a disturbing revelation about the treatment of America's most
severely wounded troops, Fox News has learned the military earlier this
month decided to invalidate meal tickets and reduce hours for the sole
dining facility in the Walter Reed building where they are recovering.
The decision affects the Warrior Cafe located inside building 62, home to all multiple amputees and long-term, recovering patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
The decision would mean wounded warriors who would normally have a government-funded meal just down the hall would have to walk, wheel or limp nearly a half-mile across the Walter Reed campus to the temporary "food trailer" for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
"I mean it's called the Warrior Cafe, you would think it is for us," said Sgt. Josh Wetzel, who lost both his legs when he stepped on a pressure plate IED outside Kandahar, Afghanistan in May 2013. He's been recovering at Walter Reed since and has been a daily customer at the cafe.
The status of the military's decision may be in flux.
After Fox News submitted multiple inquiries with senior military officials earlier this week, the Pentagon responded late Wednesday. Lt. Col. Catherine Wilkinson, a Pentagon spokesman, told Fox News that Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs, has decided to reverse the changes.
Yet so far, no patients at Walter Reed have been notified of that decision and there has been no formal announcement.
"It makes a lot of people mad that they can't get into their wheelchair and wheel down to the Warrior Cafe," Wetzel said. "Now they have to wheel all the way across base to use their meal cards."
Wetzel's wife Paige is nine months pregnant with their first child
and is due this coming Monday. She says she's worried about how much
time and effort her husband will have to spend seeking food between
appointments, while she is in the maternity ward.
"In my opinion it's a total independence thing," Paige said. "If I were to leave for a day or two I would know Josh could go right down the hall, feed himself and he'd be fine. Now the only alternative is to leave our building."
Walter Reed has already closed the cafe on weekends. Paige says the Army offered to have Josh order his meals in advance. "They explained that we could use our squad leaders to order meals for the weekend, but it has to go through the squad leader (and then) through the first sergeant," Paige said. "So how do you plan for that to make sure you get what you need for the weekend?"
In addition to the weekend closure, the base also decided to reduce the cafe's hours from 60 to 50 a week. Instead of closing at 8 p.m. it now closes at 6 p.m., making it difficult for those getting occupational therapy to get there in time.
The patients of building 62, many of whom have endured 50 surgeries or more and are expected to spend up to two years recovering at Walter Reed, were told of the decision to end meal tickets at the Cafe in an Aug. 7 text message from their squad leader. The message explained that the changes to the meal tickets will take place on Sept. 3. That message was followed by a heated town hall meeting last week.
"I was very upset," said Carolee Ryan. She is the mother of Marine Staff Sgt. Thomas McRae, a triple amputee, partially blinded, single father whose wife left him after he sustained his injuries in January of 2012 in Sangin, Afghanistan.
She was one of the mothers who made her voice heard during that town hall meeting.
"I felt it was a slap in my son's face as a service member. As many times as he has been deployed -- what they were doing to him was a disservice," she said.
Paige Wetzel said the families felt the decision was made without their input and for reasons that are hard to understand. "It felt like the money had been deemed appropriate somewhere else and I don't see how that could happen," Wetzel said.
Officials in the Pentagon and at Walter Reed did not respond to questions about why the changes were made, but congressional sources with knowledge of the decision say it was based on concerns that government funds for the warrior meals were being misappropriated. They said that because the cafe is listed as a "self sustaining" business, it is not allowed to receive government subsidies, such as the meal tickets and appropriated funds. So the military decided the cafe could no longer accept the government meal cards.
The families and patients have a slightly different take. Many of them who spoke to Fox News are under the impression that the government doesn't like paying for the higher prices that come with the better food.
"The food quality is not nearly as good (at the trailer) as it is at the Warrior Cafe," Josh Wetzel said. "The Warrior Cafe has something for everyone like a grill, hot food, salad bars, sandwiches and drinks."
Carolee Ryan says the trailers specialize in "processed food."
Walter Reed plans to eventually replace the trailers with a new cafeteria, though it's not expected to be completed for months. But even the new cafeteria will be a haul for the wounded occupants of building 62. For now, Josh's best options are to pay for a meal using his modest Army paycheck or to walk on his prosthetics to the trailer.
"I would say it's close to half a mile ... for guys who are on their wheelchair or using prosthetic legs -- you know that is a long way to go," he said.
Adding insult to injury, there are only two handicap-accessible tables in the trailer, and neither the bathroom nor the exit doors has push-button access.
"It's quote unquote handicap accessible, but for guys who have serious mobility injuries -- like they can't use their hands that well -- you know it is tough for them," Josh Wetzel said.
Thomas McRae's mother says the whole situation breaks her heart. She said her son told her he would consider going hungry before wheeling himself to the trailers.
"Now I get it," Ryan said. "Back in the Vietnam War when all the men and women were coming home (I understand) how they felt ... and I didn't think it would come to this."
The decision affects the Warrior Cafe located inside building 62, home to all multiple amputees and long-term, recovering patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
The decision would mean wounded warriors who would normally have a government-funded meal just down the hall would have to walk, wheel or limp nearly a half-mile across the Walter Reed campus to the temporary "food trailer" for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
"I mean it's called the Warrior Cafe, you would think it is for us," said Sgt. Josh Wetzel, who lost both his legs when he stepped on a pressure plate IED outside Kandahar, Afghanistan in May 2013. He's been recovering at Walter Reed since and has been a daily customer at the cafe.
The status of the military's decision may be in flux.
After Fox News submitted multiple inquiries with senior military officials earlier this week, the Pentagon responded late Wednesday. Lt. Col. Catherine Wilkinson, a Pentagon spokesman, told Fox News that Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs, has decided to reverse the changes.
Yet so far, no patients at Walter Reed have been notified of that decision and there has been no formal announcement.
"It makes a lot of people mad that they can't get into their wheelchair and wheel down to the Warrior Cafe," Wetzel said. "Now they have to wheel all the way across base to use their meal cards."
'It's called the Warrior Cafe, you would think it is for us."- Sgt. Josh Wetzel, who lost both legs in Afghanistan
"In my opinion it's a total independence thing," Paige said. "If I were to leave for a day or two I would know Josh could go right down the hall, feed himself and he'd be fine. Now the only alternative is to leave our building."
Walter Reed has already closed the cafe on weekends. Paige says the Army offered to have Josh order his meals in advance. "They explained that we could use our squad leaders to order meals for the weekend, but it has to go through the squad leader (and then) through the first sergeant," Paige said. "So how do you plan for that to make sure you get what you need for the weekend?"
In addition to the weekend closure, the base also decided to reduce the cafe's hours from 60 to 50 a week. Instead of closing at 8 p.m. it now closes at 6 p.m., making it difficult for those getting occupational therapy to get there in time.
The patients of building 62, many of whom have endured 50 surgeries or more and are expected to spend up to two years recovering at Walter Reed, were told of the decision to end meal tickets at the Cafe in an Aug. 7 text message from their squad leader. The message explained that the changes to the meal tickets will take place on Sept. 3. That message was followed by a heated town hall meeting last week.
"I was very upset," said Carolee Ryan. She is the mother of Marine Staff Sgt. Thomas McRae, a triple amputee, partially blinded, single father whose wife left him after he sustained his injuries in January of 2012 in Sangin, Afghanistan.
She was one of the mothers who made her voice heard during that town hall meeting.
"I felt it was a slap in my son's face as a service member. As many times as he has been deployed -- what they were doing to him was a disservice," she said.
Paige Wetzel said the families felt the decision was made without their input and for reasons that are hard to understand. "It felt like the money had been deemed appropriate somewhere else and I don't see how that could happen," Wetzel said.
Officials in the Pentagon and at Walter Reed did not respond to questions about why the changes were made, but congressional sources with knowledge of the decision say it was based on concerns that government funds for the warrior meals were being misappropriated. They said that because the cafe is listed as a "self sustaining" business, it is not allowed to receive government subsidies, such as the meal tickets and appropriated funds. So the military decided the cafe could no longer accept the government meal cards.
The families and patients have a slightly different take. Many of them who spoke to Fox News are under the impression that the government doesn't like paying for the higher prices that come with the better food.
"The food quality is not nearly as good (at the trailer) as it is at the Warrior Cafe," Josh Wetzel said. "The Warrior Cafe has something for everyone like a grill, hot food, salad bars, sandwiches and drinks."
Carolee Ryan says the trailers specialize in "processed food."
Walter Reed plans to eventually replace the trailers with a new cafeteria, though it's not expected to be completed for months. But even the new cafeteria will be a haul for the wounded occupants of building 62. For now, Josh's best options are to pay for a meal using his modest Army paycheck or to walk on his prosthetics to the trailer.
"I would say it's close to half a mile ... for guys who are on their wheelchair or using prosthetic legs -- you know that is a long way to go," he said.
Adding insult to injury, there are only two handicap-accessible tables in the trailer, and neither the bathroom nor the exit doors has push-button access.
"It's quote unquote handicap accessible, but for guys who have serious mobility injuries -- like they can't use their hands that well -- you know it is tough for them," Josh Wetzel said.
Thomas McRae's mother says the whole situation breaks her heart. She said her son told her he would consider going hungry before wheeling himself to the trailers.
"Now I get it," Ryan said. "Back in the Vietnam War when all the men and women were coming home (I understand) how they felt ... and I didn't think it would come to this."
Why State Government Elections Matter
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the AFL-CIO is going to using the lion's share of its political resources in the 2014 midterm to elect Democrats at the state government level rather than in congressional elections. Republicans, without ignoring federal elections, ought to be just as concerned about winning state government elections.Washington is a mess -- perhaps an incurable mess. Since George H. Bush was elected president twenty years ago, conservatives have found almost nothing encouraging at the federal level. Himalayan federal debt, surreally stupid energy policies, Marx Brothers-like national security policies, deconstruction of the finest health care system in the world, and an endless stream of weary rhetoric connected to a campaign cycle which never stops -- all this means that the best we can hope for in winning federal elections is to stop or slow down leftist mischief.
State government is very different: actual reforms can be implemented -- and, under Republican governments, have been implemented. The new voter ID law in North Carolina is an excellent example. Because Republican Pat McCrory won the gubernatorial race last year and Republicans maintained control of both houses of the North Carolina Legislature, serious new provisions to reduce voter fraud are now state law.
Two years ago, Scott Walker, who was swept into office with Republican majorities in the Wisconsin Legislature, enacted public employee union reforms over the howls and hisses of established leftism. The left tried everything to defeat this -- Democrat legislators fled to Chicago to prevent a quorum; public employee union operatives flooded the capitol; the left tried to defeat Judge Prosser in his retention election; and Democrats tried to recall the governor, the lieutenant governor, and several state senators.
The reforms enacted by Walker and his Republicans worked, and the left faced humiliating defeats which extended even into November 2012. Although Obama carried Wisconsin and Republicans lost the Senate election there, Republicans at the state level did just fine: they actually gained seats in both houses of the Wisconsin Legislature.
What happened in Wisconsin happened in other states in which Republicans held enough power to move their agenda. While Obama carried Ohio, for example, and Democrats won the Senate race, Republicans actually strengthened the hold of the Ohio Legislature. Perhaps most interesting is what is happening in North Carolina right now. Republicans in 2012 -- an "Obama" election year -- captured the governorship and strengthened their control of both houses of the North Carolina Legislature.
North Carolina Republicans are now showing just what Wisconsin Republicans showed two years ago: courage to make big changes and the will to do that very fast. North Carolina has just adopted a voter fraud prevention law which is very easy to defend, and these Republicans are quite properly ignoring the threats and howls of establishment leftism. Two weeks ago, North Carolina Republicans enacted sweeping education reforms which end teacher tenure, provide means-tested voucher programs, and deconstruct some of the education bureaucracy. One week before that, North Carolina Republicans passed the first major overhaul of the state tax system in eighty years.
What has happened in Wisconsin and North Carolina has happened in other Republican-run sates since the 2010 landslide. If Republicans are able to dominate state government elections again in 2014, then American government and politics could truly be transformed, for several reasons:
These reforms are enacted quickly, and the results of the reforms can be seen easily and soon. One reason Scott Walker survived recall was that Wisconsin voters saw his reforms working.
States also provide the chance to really experiment to see which of several paths leads to the best state education system, the optimum growth-generating tax system, and the most effective voter fraud measure. Conservatives across America can show not only one or two ways to reform broken systems, but perhaps dozens of ways.
States that make education better and cheaper, tax and regulatory systems that are rational, and governments that operate efficiently will also attract more and more investment and expertise, which is how our "marketplace of state governments" ought to work.
Many of the reforms hit the heart of leftist political power. Who loses when elections are not stolen? When workers no longer have automatic deduction of union dues -- dues largely used to elect Democrats -- which party suffers? When vouchers end the monopoly of public school bosses, which side loses its taxpayer-funded propagandists?
The battle for state governments in 2014 may not get as much attention as Senate or House races, but it may be the most important battle of all.
Be Afraid
Column: The Democratic plan to take back the House
“Well,” I remember him saying, “the Obama electorate just didn’t show up.”
How right he was. The voters who went to the polls in 2010 were older and whiter than the voters in 2008. Whites made up 77 percent of the electorate in 2010. And the Republican share of that vote was 60 percent, translating into the best year for the GOP since 1948.
Fast-forward two years. The Romney campaign and many conservatives, including me, assumed the 2012 electorate would more closely resemble 2010 than 2008. We were wrong. In 2012, the white share of the electorate dropped to 72 percent. Romney won 59 percent of that vote: the highest share for a presidential candidate in decades, but not high enough to defeat President Obama. As my liberal colleague had predicted, the Obama electorate returned to save the president from the heartbreak of a single term.
Are conservatives repeating the mistake? They take it for granted that the electorate in 2014 will be the same as in 2010. Surely Obama voters will stay home during the midterms, they say. Surely Obama and Democrats in Congress will suffer from the same “six-year itch” that voters scratched in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations.
They point out the favorable political conditions. Senate Democrats are defending more seats than Senate Republicans. The House? It’s a firewall, strengthened by gerrymandering, incumbency, and the concentration of Obama supporters in a few districts. The president’s approval rating is in the doldrums. And Republicans are performing fairly well on the generic ballot.
All true. But all subject to change: A major event could rally the public to the president, a Republican-engineered government shutdown could blow whatever good will with voters the party has left, a rash of scandals could break out over Republicans in Congress, disappointment in GOP leadership and message could lead to apathy, disillusion, and a decline in turnout.
Leaving the field open to the Obama team, assuming it is ready to play.
It is. The president’s attempts to recreate the conditions of the 2012 election have been blatant but not ineffective. His campaign was transformed into Organizing for Action in order to keep tabs on its precious voter list and data and keep core supporters active (even if those supporters don’t always show at events). His fundraising appeals mention his desire to restore Nancy Pelosi to speaker of the House. His major policy addresses—on drones and the war on terror, on global warming, on surveillance—are designed to keep his liberal base placated during this politically difficult time. His sudden return to themes of economics, inequality, and government activism is a recapitulation of his successful 2012 message of “caring about people.” Hammering uncaring Republicans, giving speeches before adoring, raucous crowds, bus tours—this isn’t how presidents behave in an off year. It’s how they behave in an election year.
For Obama, that election year has already begun. In the summer of 2012, his lieutenants spent millions on negative, dishonest advertisements that successfully defined Romney as a heartless private equity tycoon. In 2014, however, there is no single candidate for them to define. Instead they have to define the entire Republican Party—not only as a bunch of rapacious Objectivists, but also, and more importantly, as a mob eager to deprive minorities and women of civil rights.
That is why the president lately has been “speaking personally about race.” The threat of a return to segregation and Jim Crow is a spur to action—and the greater the perception that such a return is imminent, the better the chances of high Democratic turnout next year. The president’s remarks on Trayvon Martin and race in America, his Justice Department’s continuing fights with Texas over the Voting Rights Act, the steady drumbeat of rhetoric suggesting the right to vote is in peril, the president’s suggestion in a recent New York Times interview that if his economic program is not implemented “racial tensions won’t get better; they may get worse,” all heighten the stakes for his most committed supporters. True, none of these messages has the subtlety of last year’s “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” But that’s what makes Joe so special.
The “war on women” resumed earlier this summer when Texas state senator Wendy Davis catapulted into celebrity—and into the pages of Vogue—with her highly publicized, and highly ineffective, filibuster of state abortion regulations. Expect Republican candidates for House, Senate, and governor to be questioned not on their views of abortion but on their views of contraception. And wait, as legions of Democratic trackers are waiting, for the inevitable gaffe involving abortion and rape.
A spirited and risk-taking GOP could rally its electorate and respond to the inevitable attacks and missteps with an affirmative, unapologetic program that addressed national security, the economy, and the condition of American society. If you see it, let me know. At the moment, the Republican message is limited to highlighting scandals and the problems with Obamacare. It’s reactive, not active. What would be the agenda if, say, John Boehner suddenly became president? What would Republicans do? End the Fed?
Yes, with a Republican House, president and vice president, and 50 Senators, they could repeal Obamacare. But what would replace it?
The Republican Party was lulled into a similar complacency in 1998 when they assumed impeachment was message enough to gain seats. Instead they lost five. Plenty of people were convinced the economy and Obama’s manifest failures would doom him in 2012. Every day provides a new, horrible reminder that they were wrong.'
“The majority is at risk,” an unnamed Republican strategist told Byron York earlier this week. It may not look that way now. But it didn’t look that way in September 2005, either. Be afraid.
http://freebeacon.com/be-afraid/
GOP Must Shed Establishment Defeatism
By David LimbaughWhat are establishment Republicans so afraid of? Why are they so convinced that if they stand up to Obama -- even on issues the public agrees with them on -- they will be spanked at the ballot box?
Playing it safe sure has paid big dividends, huh? Every time we've had a fight over a budget ceiling or a continuing resolution, the establishment has told us we must not allow the government to shut down because Republicans would be blamed for it. The actual facts of the particular situation don't matter -- even if the Republicans' position is justified, defensible or over an issue that aligns them with the electorate. The establishment has decreed that we couldn't possibly, ever, come out on top in such a battle.
It's been a self-fulfilling prophecy. How can we prevail when we've announced in advance that we can't? How can we conceivably win over the public when we concede defeat before the battle begins?
Why is it automatically assumed that in every such impasse, Republicans will be blamed instead of Obama? Is it not true that his profligate spending is unpopular with the majority? That Obamacare consistently polls poorly? That the economy remains stagnant?
"We have to keep our eye on the big ball," they would say. "The 2012 elections are everything, and we'll lose if we always appear as the party of 'no.'"
Well, last time I checked, we got our clocks cleaned in 2012 after following this timid blueprint. Mitt Romney had Obama on the ropes in the first debate and refused to go in for the kill on Benghazi and other issues. He may as well have tendered his forfeiture right then and there.
Contrary to establishment "wisdom," Republicans win elections when they contrast themselves with Democrats, not emulate them. You can't inspire voters if you don't offer them a different, superior vision.
Recently, unnamed GOP strategists warned that unless Republicans quit going negative on Obama, they'll go down in flames in 2014 and possibly even lose their congressional majority. We cannot take the House for granted, they say.
In the first place, any political strategist who says Republicans can ever take any race for granted, given the liberal national media and the Democrats' proficiency at propaganda, ought to be fired. We must always run as though everything is on the line and assume nothing.
But how about this theory that criticizing Obama is toxic and politically suicidal? How do people impregnated with such defeatism gravitate toward a profession that is all about winning? Do Democrats ever hold back their criticism of Republicans? Are they ever shy about lambasting Republicans as extremists and evil?
What makes our Beltway guys think they can compete with gloves on when the other side not only sheds the gloves but carries knives and guns? This is madness. This is maddening.
Moreover, to say that Republicans must decide whether to criticize Obama or to present an alternative agenda is giving a false choice. You can't separate the two. We can't possibly make the case for our own agenda unless we focus the high beams on the utter failures of Obama's policies, his lawlessness, his divisiveness and his virtual despotism.
What's the point of presenting an alternative to Obamacare, for example, if we don't spell out to the public just how horrendous this law is? What's the point of offering a pro-market, pro-growth agenda if we don't point out how terrible Obama's economy is and then tie Obama and his policies to it?
With all due respect to those who say the public is already aware of Obama's failures, where are you getting your information? He continues to have respectable approval numbers even though the public is largely opposed to his agenda. Our feckless, uncommunicative, unmotivated side hasn't made the case against him.
Nor is making a strong case against Obama's record "dirty campaigning." How silly. We have a duty to showcase his failures -- unless we don't really believe he or his policies are the culprit. But if anyone is so deceived, it's time for him to come out of the closet and go to the other side, where he belongs.
I read recently about how House Speaker John Boehner declined to state his position on immigration, saying he views himself as "a facilitator." Are you kidding me? He is supposed to be the GOP leader, not a mediator. National politics is an adversarial process, especially these days, and if our side holds back while the other side pushes the pedal to the floorboard, we'll get run over.
Come on, guys, take off your pocket protectors and put on your fighting gear. Quit spending all your time calculating, strategizing, number crunching and hand-wringing. Let's just start doing the right thing -- standing for the right things, communicating our message and calling Obama out without pulling punches -- and inspire voters to vote for us. Our prescriptions work, so let's quit acting ashamed of them.
http://townhall.com/columnists/davidlimbaugh/2013/08/16/gop-must-shed-establishment-defeatism-n1665508/page/full
How to Make Mark Levin's Vision of Constitutional Reform a Reality
Mark Levin, the well-known constitutionalist talk show commentator, has written still another very good book. This book, called the Liberty Amendments, is essentially an operator's manual on how constitutionalists in America might restore constitutional government while bypassing the entrenched federal interests in Washington DC.Levin's strategy lies in taking advantage of Article 5 of the US Constitution that gives the power to the states to call a convention, propose amendments, send the amendments out to the state legislatures for passage and all the while, the states can completely ignore the powers in Washington DC. (See Thomas Lifson's book review.) Levin provides a list of suggested amendments which, if passed, would force the federal government to reverse its century old expansion of federal power and gradually restore a more balanced form of constitutionalist government that the Founders originally intended.
But there is a serious risk in Levin's strategy that lies in the phrase "Article 5 convention." Never in American history have the states invoked their Article 5 powers --and for good reason. State legislators have always been afraid that such a national convention might slip from their control and become a "rogue convention." Constitutionalists in particular conjure up the nightmare image of statist progressive convention delegates pushing through an agenda that would shed what is left of the protections of the original Constitution. If you bring up the subject of an Article 5 convention to most state officials, you can see their minds close faster than they can blink. If you don't believe me try it yourself on your own state assemblyman and witness for yourself the reflexive pavlovian reaction.
In the real world of flesh and blood humans, I fear that Levin will not gather enough support even from his own constitutionalist allies who admire him greatly. Levin himself should understand this, for he also once opposed an Article 5 convention, and I suspect the only reason he has changed his mind is that he is desperate for a solution that is not dependent on the cooperation of the status quo contented Republicans residing in their plush neighborhoods in Washington DC.
But fortunately for Levin (and us all), there is a solution to the runaway convention problem, and his "natural allies" could find reason to hop on his Article 5 bandwagon. There is a group based in Washington DC of highly influential constitutionalists who call themselves the Madison Coalition and who have found a workable solution to afford states the right to propose single Constitutional amendments while avoiding the dangers of a runaway convention. The first article in the nation to report on the Madison Coalition was published on these pages. Very briefly, the Coalition's strategy is to first have the states draft carefully crafted legislation that would eliminate the possibility of the delegates in an Article 5 convention from "going rogue."
Levin's hopes and dreams expressed in his latest book fit seamlessly with the Coalition's objectives. With the publication of the book and the description of the book on his radio show, Levin has provoked constitutionalist activists across the country to consider turning their firepower away from the national Congress and onto the state legislatures.
The Coalition provides the structure to direct those energies. Since the publication of the original article in the American Thinker, the state of Indiana has enshrined the Coalition's plan of action into state law. Other states are in the pipeline and are sure to follow. The Coalition is now in a phase where it is ready to ramp up its efforts with the help of grassroots activist support. The Coalition can identify the key legislators in the key committees in the most promising states across the country. Madison Laws like the legislation passed in Indiana have already been written and proposed in many state assemblies and require concentrated activist support to force them out of committee and through their respective legislatures.
In short, Mark Levin with his massive reach to the activist community could not have written a more timely book. Levin's brilliant strategy of using Article 5 of the Constitution combined with the Coalition's strategy to neutralize the fear of a runaway convention is, perhaps, America's best hope of inching back toward the kind of constitutional government that once was the hallmark of that country's greatness.
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