The Right Lane update 7.12.13

The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, freedom and individual liberty

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

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Americans Want to Exercise Their Rights -- Reasonably  By Scott Rasmussen

As Americans, we tend to believe we have the right to do whatever we want, so long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of others. But sometimes the lines get a little blurry. For example, what happens if the owner of a bar in a college town wants to avoid some of the problems that come with college drinking? Should the bar owner be allowed to set a rule so that only those 25 and older are allowed in his bar? Or since 21-year-olds can legally drink, should the bar owner be forced to admit anyone who is 21 and older?   Just over half (53 percent) of all Americans say the bar owner should be allowed to set a 25-year-old age limit. About one out of three disagree.

This is consistent with a longstanding tradition in America that the owner of a house gets to write the house rules. It builds upon an old English attitude embraced in common law that a man's home is his castle.

The same public attitudes prevail in a situation where the owner of a Brooklyn deli requires that its patrons dress modestly. Sixty-eight percent believe the owner has the right to impose such a rule, but New York City officials disagree. The owners are Orthodox Jews, and the city views their action as religious discrimination. Most Americans also think it's OK for real estate developers to restrict some properties to people 55 and above or to let bars offer half-price drinks to women during happy hour. Shifting gears, some colleges have rules requiring that leadership in campus organizations be open to anyone. But by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans disagree. A solid majority believes Christian campus organizations should be allowed to select only Christian leaders. A similar number believe that gay and lesbian groups should be allowed to select only leaders who support equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans. That sounds like common sense, but it's been the source of legal action in recent years. That's because in the cases mentioned, somebody's rights are technically being violated by the decisions of someone else. A 54-year-old who wants to buy a home in a restricted development is denied the opportunity. Those who don't want to dress modestly are denied the chance to patronize a deli. An atheist who wants to lead a Christian organization is banned from doing so.

There are some who believe that the rights of the consumer must triumph absolutely over the rights of the business owner. The American Civil Liberties Union holds this view. It believes that if you open your doors to serve the public in any way, you forfeit all right to set terms and conditions on whom you will serve. There are others who hold that if someone owns a business, they can do whatever they want. While this sounds right to most Americans, it can lead to problems if carried to an extreme. Hardly anybody, for example, believes that a restaurant should be allowed to deny service to someone simply because they are black. At the end of the day, most Americans don't believe that either consumers or business owners have absolute rights. They believe business owners can establish reasonable restrictions on whom they will serve, and consumers always have the right to take their business elsewhere.

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Obama Forfeits Trust by Not Enforcing Obamacare By Michael Barone

On Obamacare, as on immigration enforcement and welfare requirements, Barack Obama is following the course that cost King James II his throne. He is dispensing with the law. James II was ousted in the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, in large part for claiming that he could in particular cases dispense with -- that is, ignore -- an act of Parliament. The law in question was the Test Act of 1673, which required that all government officials and military officers be members of the Church of England.  It is not a law admired by Americans today or, for that matter, by our Founding Fathers. Article VI of the Constitution provides that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."  But the Founders did follow the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which stated "that the pretended power of dispensing with the laws, or the execution of the law by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal." That seems to be the clear purport of Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, which requires that the president "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."    

But the former constitutional law teacher now in the White House seems to be ignoring that duty.    Last week, a blog post by the assistant secretary of the treasury for tax policy announced that the government would not enforce Obamacare's employer mandate, the penalty for not offering health insurance to full-time employees.  That announcement appeared the day before the Fourth of July. On July 5, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a 606-page regulation announcing that state health exchanges would not verify the eligibility of those applying for Obamacare health insurance subsidies.  Both decisions go against the letter of the law -- in this case, a law that the president and his critics consider the chief domestic accomplishment of his administration.   They follow the decision of the administration that insurance subsidies will be available in states that have chosen to have the federal government run their health insurance exchanges -- even though the text of Obamacare authorizes such payments only for states that create their own exchanges.  Now there is an argument that the executive branch has some discretion in enforcing the law. Prosecutors, for example, are not obliged to bring criminal charges in every case where there's evidence that someone broke the law. Such an argument might be made about the president's declaration that the administration not deport "dreamers" -- persons brought to the United States illegally as children who have done well in school or served in the military. But that argument doesn't apply to the Obamacare dispensations. They're not examples of taking individual situations into account. They're general rules that apply to everybody in the stated categories. Dispensing with the rules is a game that can be played by two. What if, as American Commitment's Phil Kerpen suggested, a President Mitt Romney decided to dispense with all the provisions of Obamacare?  Or what if another Republican president instructed the Internal Revenue Service not to collect income taxes over 35 percent of adjusted gross income? Enforcing only the parts of laws that you like or you find politically convenient can start verging on tyranny.   That's what the English came to think back in 1688. King James believed in the divine right of kings and governed for several years without Parliament. But in time, he forfeited the trust of both Whigs and Tories (yes, there was polarized politics back then, too). When William of Orange came over the Channel with an army, James fled the country.  Obama does not face a similar fate. But his unwillingness to faithfully execute his own signature law is a confession of incompetence -- the incompetence of the architects of Obamacare, the incompetence of Obama administrators, even the incompetence of government generally.  It erodes the president's political capital. House Republicans may block an immigration bill because they fear Obama would not enforce its border security provisions.  

For now, Obama's dispensing is getting pushback from Congress and could be challenged in the courts. And more voters may come to believe that they'd like to dispense with Obamacare.

          Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner

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IG: IRS Made ‘Policy Decision’ to ‘Legalize Illegal Aliens;’ Ended Up Paying Illegals $4.2B in Refundable Credits in 1 Year By Terence P. Jeffrey

This is an example of a "too large" government disregarding the laws and acting on their own, not by the will of the people or the approval of our elected officials.  Worst, who the heck was paying attention?  The question of whether to legalize illegal aliens and put them on a pathway to citizenship may be the most controversial legislative issue facing the U.S. Congress this year. But, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), seventeen years have already passed since the Internal Revenue Service made its own “policy decision” to “’legalize’ illegal aliens.”

That policy, made those many years ago, not only determined that the IRS would treat illegal aliens the same as legal immigrants and U.S. citizens, but also that the IRS would not hand over to federal immigration authorities information about employers who appeared to be hiring large numbers of illegal aliens and about illegal aliens who filed false documents with the IRS.

As a result of the IRS's policy, by 2010, according to TIGTA, the service was paying out $4.2 billion in refundable "Additional Child Tax Credits" to illegal aliens. In 2011, according to TIGTA, the IRS would pay more than $46 million in tax refunds to what theoretically were 23,994 illegal aliens who all used the same address in Atlanta.

The story starts in 1996, when Democrat Bill Clinton was president, and the Republicans controlled Congress. On May 2, 1996, the Senate voted 97 to 3 to approve the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act. “This legislation, I think,” said Kennedy, “will be extremely important and, I believe, effective in stemming the tide of illegals, not just because of the expansion of the border patrols, although that will have some effect, and not just because of the increased penalties in smuggling, as all that will have an effect; it will have an important impact in helping American workers get jobs and be able to hold them and have the enhanced opportunity for employment.”

Four months later, on Sept. 25, 1996, a House led by Speaker Newt Gingrich approved the bill 305 to 123. President Clinton signed it on Sept. 30, 1996. Section 642 of this law said that no other law or official could bar any agency or official from providing information about illegal aliens to the Immigration and Naturalization Service--the agency then responsible for enforcing immigration law.

“Notwithstanding any other provision of federal, state, or local law, a federal, state, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual,” said the law.

“Notwithstanding any other provision of federal, state, or local law,” it said, “no person or agency may prohibit, or in any way restrict, a federal, state, or local government entity from doing any of the following with respect to information regarding the immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual:

(1) Sending such information to, or requesting or receiving such information from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

(2) Maintaining such information.

(3) Exchanging such information with any other federal, state, or local government entity.”

On May 29, 1996—after this bill passed the Senate but before it passed the House—the IRS issued a regulation that contradicted it. This regulation said the IRS would grant what it called Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to aliens who did not qualify to work in the United States and did not qualify for Social Security Numbers. The IRS had three basic requirements for people receiving these numbers:

1) they had to be an alien,

2) they could not be qualified to work in the United States or have a Social Security Number, and

3) they owed taxes in the United States.

In issuing this regulation, the IRS said Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code would apply to the aliens it granted these ITINs. Section 6103 says the IRS must keep tax information confidential and, with a few exceptions, may not share that information with other government agencies. In September 1999, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which has oversight over the IRS, published an audit report on the ITIN regulation. It was titled, “The Internal Revenue Service’s Individual Taxpayer Identification Number Program Was Not Implemented in Accordance with Internal Revenue Code Regulations.” The IG pointed out that the IRS’s claim that it could issue ITINs to illegal aliens and then decline to provide information about those illegal aliens to the federal immigration enforcement agency—then called the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)--contradicted the terms of the 1996 immigration reform law.

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Confronting More Lies By Wendy Bidwell
Yesterday, I addressed the many lies in the New York Times article I.R.S. Scrutiny Went Beyond the Political. The liberal media is perpetrating this growing narrative that the IRS didn't target conservative groups. As I explained yesterday, I have no doubt that all the groups that ended up on the BOLO (be on the lookout) list received questioning. However, these groups were never scrutinized. Therefore they were never "targeted."  Of the seven groups flagged for words like progressive, only two received questioning. We also know this questioning was nowhere as onerous as what the Tea Party groups received. Compare these statistics with 100% of Tea Party groups receiving extra scrutiny.

While we confront the growing narrative the liberal media is perpetrating, the liberal media believes the IRS targeting conservative groups is in itself, simply another narrative. For instance, in Salon's How the media outrageously blew the IRS scandal, Alex Seitz-Wald says…

And they would have gotten away with it, too, had their narrative had the benefit of being true. But now, almost two months later, we know that in fact the IRS targeted lots of different kinds of groups, not just conservative ones; that the only organizations whose tax-exempt statuses were actually denied were progressive ones; that many of the targeted conservative groups legitimately crossed the line; that the IG's report was limited to only Tea Party groups at congressional Republicans' request; and that the White House was in no way involved in the targeting and didn't even know about it until shortly before the public did.

Here we go again… More blatant, but pretty convincing lies. Let me explain why most of what Seitz-Wald says is untrue… The IRS did not target different kinds of groups. These groups all ended up on the BOLO list and received questioning, not scrutiny. As to the phrase, "the only organizations whose tax-exempt statuses were actually denied were progressive ones"… According to PND, "In a letter to the three organizations, the IRS explained that they were 'not operated primarily to promote social welfare because your activities are primarily for the benefit of a political party and a private group of individuals, rather than the community as a whole.'"

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Trusting Obama With Border Security Is Like Trusting Bill Clinton With Your Daughter

This is would LOL funny if it wasn’t sad and true.  On Wednesday, Kansas congressman Tim Huelskamp made no bones about his suspicion over Barack Obama’s enforcement of the proposed immigration reform bill’s border security provisions. Huelskamp is one of the feistier members of the tea party caucus, and has had run-ins with the House GOP leadership before. NBC News asked him about the tweet Wednesday evening, when he reiterated the logic but called it off the cuff:

“Can you trust this president with border security?” Hueslkamp asked. “I made a comment, kind of off the head. Trusting Barack Obama with border security is like trusting Bill Clinton with your daughter. We just don’t trust him.”

Sometimes the truth can be little cynical comedy.

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One Nation Under God

lib·er·ty noun \ˈli-bər-tē\: the quality or state of being free.  As we consider the freedom we enjoy in our country, let us remember that true freedom is found “under God.”  Our country was founded by men whose faith and trust was in the God of creation, Whom we know to be the Lord Jesus Christ. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.  (Galatians 5:1)

Jason Pratt, an adjunct speaker and writer for rforh, serves his country as an active-duty officer in the U.S. Navy. Today he shares with us what freedom means to him, for both our country and for all of humanity.

The Birth of Freedom  by Jason Pratt

It was a birth that started with a Declaration of Independence.   It was an independence that was won by military victory over an oppressive government that disregarded its own laws and responsibilities as set forth in the Magna Carta.  As an officer in U.S. Navy I endeavor to be keenly aware of the significance of historical events and the threat of history repeating itself when we fail to learn its lessons. That said I look to a document that was set forth on July 4, 1776; this foundational document in our nation’s history declared:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. — That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

The Declaration of Independence appeals to the God of creation, specifically the “Creator” as it alludes to that which is “self-evident.” This statement refers to a principle found in Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” 

I would now like to draw your attention to another document that is foundational to our nation’s history. This document was signed eleven years after our Declaration of Independence, on “the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven…” and was the twelfth year of American independence. This document is very important to me because I, just as all members of the United States military, have taken an oath to “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…so help me God.” I have flown and sailed in harm’s way in defense of this Constitution and the country whose course it directs. 

While I am not so naive to believe that all of our founding fathers were known by the Lord as one of his flock, they nevertheless recognized the God of Scripture and rendered respect and honor to Him in both of these documents. They were not making an obscure reference to a generic god. They reference the God of creation (Genesis 1, Romans 1), His blessings upon humanity as the One who establishes governments (Daniel 2, Romans 13), and the one who has defined time, seasons and years (Genesis 1, Psalm 104). This country was most assuredly founded upon Christian principles defined in God’s Word the Bible regardless of whether all the founders were Christian or not.

  

The Bible is certainly more important and foundational than either of these very significant historical documents as its existence will never cease, “…the word of the Lord endureth for ever.” (1 Peter 3:25a) As Jesus declared, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:18)

  

The Birth of Everlasting Freedom

So as we celebrate the freedom we gained in these United States of America two hundred and thirty-seven years ago, I turn your attention to a more certain and lasting freedom made available over two thousand years ago to all who would repent and believe. In speaking to the Jews who had believed in Him, Jesus said these words found in John chapter 8 verses thirty-one and thirty-two: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Trust entirely on the finished work of Jesus Christ shown in His sacrificial death on the cross and victorious resurrection to set you free from the bondage of sin. Jesus provides us true freedom, freedom from slavery to sin and the ability to be slaves of righteousness. I pray that you know the truth and that you are truly free. Share the truth of real and everlasting freedom as you celebrate Independence Day. 

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"[I]t is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law, than to declare it void after it has passed." --James Madison, to Thomas Jefferson, 1787

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

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