Currently, it should not at all be difficult for any objective observer to notice that America’s entitlement mentality is at an all-time high and growing. All that anyone must do to soak in this reality is to take a trip to the nearest grocery store or social security office.

At grocery stores and supermarkets all over the country, on a daily basis, the checkout lines are filled with able-bodied people, unloading heaps of name brand sodas and choice steaks from their shopping carts. This is all made possible by state and federal food stamp programs and the ever-burdened taxpayer. If you are one of those unfortunate taxpayers, and you find yourself in line behind one of these individuals, you’d better not be in a hurry. It’s liable to be a long wait that’s made to seem even longer, as a result of mental anguish.

If you find that your investigation at the grocery store doesn’t yield any evidence, which is doubtful, you must only travel to the nearest social security office. Again, if you’re a taxpayer who has paid into the social security system for years, and you’re seeking to make arrangements at the desk for a return on some of this hard earned income, just pull up a seat and don’t hold your breath. You’ll most likely stand just inside the office door, at the end of a long line of able-bodied men and mothers of many children. They almost always at least appear to be in perfect health. Are all these people really disabled? Are we starting to see a pattern here? All these social programs, especially those for food stamps, welfare, and disability compensation, have become extremely and overwhelmingly problematic for everyone concerned.

All these social programs, some technically dating back all the way to the country’s founding, were put in place to help only those who were truly helpless: those indigent, widowed, or physically or mentally disabled individuals who would be allowed enough subsistence to survive with the help of their local almshouses or workhouses. In this former system, even those who received these benefits would do so as a last resort, in such cases where these individuals had no immediate or extended family members who were able or would agree to assist them.

Read More at Western Journalism. By Shawn Paul.

The Democrats’ attempt to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker came to an end Tuesday night, as the incumbent increased his victory margin beyond his five-point 2010 win over Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. There are three important takeaways from this:

1) The results don’t tell us much about 2012 . . . Basically, this spin from progressive sites right now has some truth to it (except that this is somehow good news for President Obama). This is a special election, held in June, to recall a governor. Special elections have notoriously poor track records predicting general election outcomes, and the presidential electorate will likely look different (and more Democratic) than this one.

In particular, we might recall the most recent recall of a governor — that of California’s Gray Davis in 2003. Republicans took Arnold Schwarzenegger’s win in that election as a sign that President Bush coulmore about Davis’s unpopularity and the Governator’s charisma as national events.

Similarly, it’s important to keep in mind that “recall fatigue” almost certainly played a role here. Exit polls suggest that supermajorities of voters thought that recalls should only be used in cases of corruption, or not at all. Walker’s campaign certainly played to that sentiment. A large number of voters might not have been crazy about the incumbent, but they thought that he should be given a chance to complete his term. When they go to the polls in November, these types of voters are very much in play for the president.

2) . . . but the results do tell us something about 2012. At the same time, turnout exceeded that of the 2010 gubernatorial race, and this was a high-profile election effort. In other words, it was anything but your typical, under-the-radar special election.

Read More at Real Clear Politics. By Sean Trende.

A few weeks ago the United States Senate passed a piece of legislation called the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act”, it is essentially a transportation bill focused on roads and bridges. Title III of the act is a revenue provision concerning gas guzzling, cars leaking underground storage tanks, import duties and a number of other fees, taxes and other revenue enhancements.

Section 40304 is a rather bizarre provision that certainly doesn’t seem to fit in a transportation bill and is buried so deep that few senators have probably even read that far into the bill which is 1676 pages. Section 40304 is titled “Revocation or denial of passport in case at certain tax delinquencies”. The provision specifically amends the 1926 Passport Act to permit the IRS to simply ‘Certify” to the Secretary of State that an individual “has a seriously delinquent tax debt in an amount in excess of $50,000.00. The law does not require that any hearing be held or require administrative due process of any kind. In fact the IRS must only give what is called a “Notice of levy” to the tax payer. This is nothing more than the IRS’ own determination that the taxpayer owes $50,000.00 and while $50,000.00 sounds like a lot of money, it can easily be the case that much smaller amounts with penalties and interest can cross the $50,000.00 threshold.

While most folks would consider this a heavy handed tool that denies taxpayers due diligence, it brings up an even more basic question: Do you have the “right” to travel? Most people would assume the answer to this question is “yes”, but actually no such right can be found in the Constitution. While the Founding Fathers may have deemed the right to travel so basic and fundamental that they didn’t feel the need to have a separate clause defining the right, The Government beginning with the Passport Act of 1926 considers travel a “privilege” not a right.

If you want a real eye opener on this topic, pull out your own passport (authorized by the Passport Act of 1926) and turn to the fine print at the back. Remember you can’t travel outside the US without a passport nor can you legally enter the US without a passport.

So, what is in the Passport fine print? Under the section titled “Important Things to remember about your Passport “It states in number two the following:

Read More at hemispherespublishing.com.  By Joel Nagel.

“Until we address the crisis of the failure of our institutions to resolve the significant challenges we face, don’t expect progress on any of them.” Could any statement be more decidedly emblematic of leftist doctrine than the claim that only government and its institutions are equipped to solve the problems of life? Never mind that these are usually problems created by government in its endless quest to solve longstanding problems previously created by government!

Two months ago, Barack Obama’s signature “Affordable Care Act” made an unexpected appearance before the United States Supreme Court. Unexpected, that is, because few if any of the ruling class left which wrote and passed the massive statute believed such a compassionate endeavor could meet with serious criticism. That the American people overwhelmingly opposed the left’s assault on their liberty was, of course, not considered “serious.”

ObamaCare had a rough three days of oral argument before the Justices, leading pundits throughout the liberal media to proclaim Barack Obama’s noble attempt at autocratic altruism in danger of being overturned. How could such a thing be possible? As five Justices had been nominated to the Court by Republican presidents, obviously they would rule the individual mandate unconstitutional, perhaps taking down other bits of the law for good measure. A clear case of judicial activism according to the left.

Yet because Supreme Court Justices did their job of asking hard questions about the clearly unconstitutional individual mandate, “one Democrat member of Congress told reporters…that if the Court were to strike down [ObamaCare], doing so would create chaos and would raise some serious questions, including ‘Can our country govern itself…’ ”

Can our country govern itself? For 2 years, Democrats enjoyed an unassailable majority in both House and Senate, allowing the left to pass ObamaCare without a single Republican vote. Obama himself has defied the Constitution and bypassed congress by means of executive order. Yet when a co-equal branch of government performs the task for which it was created, the left whine that the system is broken and the process of governing no longer possible.

Read More at Western Journalism. By Doug Book.