Our Unwillingness to Defend Ourselves

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

The U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 2012 losses because of personal identity theft totaled $24.7 billion. The money losses from identity theft pale in comparison with the costs of paperwork, time and inconvenience imposed on the larger society in an effort to protect ourselves. According to LifeLock, while the laws against identity theft have gotten tougher, identity theft criminal prosecution is relatively rare. Unless we develop a low tolerance and a willingness to impose harsh sentences, identity thieves will continue to impose billions of dollars of costs on society.

Today’s Americans tolerate what would have been unthinkable years ago. According to the National Center for Education Statistics and the BJS, 209,800 primary- and secondary-school teachers reported being physically attacked by a student during the 2011-12 academic year. Hundreds of thousands more are threatened with injury. On average, 1,175 teachers are physically attacked each day of the school year. These facts demonstrate an unwillingness to defend ourselves against these young barbarians, who often will grow into big barbarians.

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CHENEY: Obama Is 'The Worst President Of My Lifetime'

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born in 1941, thinks President Barack Obama is the country’s worst commander-in-chief of his lifetime.

“I think he is the worst president of my lifetime. I fundamentally disagree with him. I think he’s doing a lot of things wrong,” Cheney said Tuesday on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”

Cheney made the critical remarks when he was asked about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s call for Obama’s impeachment. Cheney said such efforts would be a “distraction” but praised Speaker John Boehner’s lawsuit against the president.

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Are Media Downplaying ObamaCare Progress — Or Is the GOP Just Giving Up On the Issue?

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

After a disastrous rollout last fall, ObamaCare has been fading from the news. But is it fading as a political issue?

The fear of those who oppose the program was always that it would be impossible to repeal if enough recipients got hooked on the benefits. That was the hope of advocates as well—that whatever potholes the ObamaCare bus hit, it would keep barreling toward a finish line of getting more Americans insured.

That goal appeared in jeopardy when the administration couldn’t get the website to work. And when the president had to admit that, well, it wasn’t exactly true that if you liked your doctor you could keep your doctor. And when lots of people were kicked off health plans they liked just fine, and faced with big premium hikes. And when the White House delayed the employer mandate yet again. And when many GOP governors refused to sign on to the Medicaid expansion that is a key underpinning of the law.

But now some of the law’s proponents are declaring victory—and the criticism has quieted down. (Sure, John Boehner plans to have the House sue Obama for unilaterally changing the law, but that effort, even it makes it to court, will drag on endlessly.)

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Sarah Palin is Right about Impeaching President Obama

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Photo Credit: Jacquelyn Martin / AP

Photo Credit: Jacquelyn Martin / AP

Sarah Palin is right about impeaching President Obama.

No, not that the president should be impeached. But Palin is correct in arguing that, for those who assert that Obama has grievously abused his executive authority, impeachment is the proper course of action.

Of course this won’t happen, for the obvious reason that this tactic didn’t go so well for Republicans last time. Hence House Speaker John Boehner’s curt dismissal of Palin’s call for impeachment: “I disagree.”

Boehner’s alternative — a lawsuit — offers the political benefits of draining impeachment fever from the more rabid Republican precincts while rallying the base against Obama-as-evil-overlord, sans electoral downside.

“This isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats; it’s about the legislative branch versus the executive branch and, above all, protecting the Constitution,” Boehner pronounced in unveiling a resolution to authorize the lawsuit. “If this president can get away with making his own laws, future presidents will have the ability to as well. The House has an obligation to stand up for the legislative branch and the Constitution.”

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California May Vote on ‘Six States’ Plan in 2016

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Photo Credit: Ed Uthman / Creative CommonsAn initiative to break California into six separate states has proven to be more than just fodder for late night talk show jokes, after receiving enough signatures to be placed on the November 2016 ballot, the campaign announced Monday.

Venture capitalist Tim Draper is the initiative’s only backer thus far, having contributed $4.9 million of his own money to propel the plan forward. But that funding has apparently gained results. Campaign spokesperson Roger Salazar said Monday that they had accumulated more than the 808,000 signatures necessary to gain placement on the ballot, Reuters reports, and it will be filed Tuesday.

“It’s important because it will help us create a more responsive, more innovative and more local government, and that ultimately will end up being better for all of Californians,” Salazar told Reuters. “The idea … is to create six states with responsive local governments – states that are more representative and accountable to their constituents.

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North Carolina Pastors Rally for Gay Marriage Ban

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Photo Credit: APPastors on Tuesday called on North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory to defend that state’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in the face of lawsuits from same-sex couples in the state and around the country.

When McCrory ran for governor in 2012, he supported the state amendment that defined marriage as between a man and woman. But the socially moderate Republican governor has said little on recent lawsuits challenging the ban.

On the steps of the old Capitol building, about 30 people from the North Carolina Pastors Network rallied. The group referred to rulings that have overturned gay marriage bans across the country as judicial tyranny.

The group is also sending McCrory a petition asking him to use his executive powers to defend the amendment that was approved by 61 percent of voters in 2012.

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Paul Ryan: Immigration Bills Dead, At Least for This Year

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Photo Credit: Reuters Representative Paul Ryan (R., Wis.,) has given up on passing legislation to overhaul the current immigration system because the border crisis has poisoned the political atmosphere for such an effort, at least for this year.

“It has poisoned it now, that’s for sure,” Ryan told National Review Online, saying he didn’t know if the legislative debate would be feasible next year. “For this session, I believe that’s right.”

Ryan also summarized his view of how to resolve the border crisis. “The ultimate goal ought to be to secure the border, get the resources at the border that you need (and that’s where I think there’s a case for a supplemental; they’re burning through funds). But you’ve got to change the human trafficking law so that we’re not resettling people within the interior of the country, because all that does is create the incentive for more to come,” he said, during an interview after his speech at Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies.

It’s not clear if the House will pass a supplemental appropriations bill without border security provisions included in the legislation. “The question is, what all do we put in this, or do we pass a couple measures? And that’s an ongoing debate,” Ryan said.

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Cruz Watch: Senator Calls Democratic Bill a ‘Manifestation of a War on Women’

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Photo Credit: APSen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, ripped into Senate Democrats during a hearing Tuesday for considering a bill that would combat state regulation of abortion services.

The sweeping legislation, called the Women’s Health Protection Act, would prohibit states from passing laws that limit access to legal abortion services if they are “more burdensome than those restrictions imposed on medically comparable procedures.”

Cruz called the proposal “extreme legislation.”

“It is legislation designed to force a radical view from Democrats in the Senate that abortion should be universally available, common, without limit and paid for by the taxpayer,” Cruz said. “And it is also a very real manifestation of a war on women, given the enormous health consequences that unlimited abortion has had damaging the health and sometimes even the lives of women.”

The bill, introduced last November, would provide legal grounds for challenging existing state laws that regulate abortion services. More than 200 laws that restrict access to an abortion went into effect in states across the country from 2011 to 2013, according to the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, which tracks state abortion-related regulations.

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WATCH: America Honors Vietnam Vets By Giving Them The Long Awaited Welcome Home They’ve Always Deserved

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When veterans of the Vietnam War returned to the United States, they did not receive the same type of “welcome home” as our veterans who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead of being greeted with open arms, veterans of Vietnam were often met with open hostility instead, sometimes being spat on or accused of being “baby killers and “war criminals.”

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Paul Davis Touts Support from Republicans in Bid for Kansas Governor

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Photo Credit: THAD ALLTON / APDemocratic challenger Paul Davis sought Tuesday to give his campaign for Kansas governor a bipartisan boost by announcing endorsements from more than 100 moderate Republicans who’ve split with conservative GOP Gov. Sam Brownback over education and tax policy.

The disaffected Republicans include outgoing Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, three former Kansas Senate presidents and three former Kansas House speakers. More than half are former legislators, and the list includes former U.S. Rep. Jan Meyers, who represented the Kansas City-area 3rd District from 1985 to 1997.

They announced that they formed Republicans for Kansas Values because of their concerns about the aggressive personal income tax cuts enacted at Brownback’s urging.

They called the reductions a reckless fiscal experiment and suggested Brownback’s administration has been hostile to public education.

Davis’ campaign staged a news conference at a Topeka hotel with 40 of the disaffected Republicans so that the bipartisan tone would draw a sharp contrast with rallies Brownback’s re-election campaign had on Monday in Olathe and Wichita.

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