Commentary by James Shott

Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and former U.S. Senator from New York, is unquestionably an ambitious lady. As husband Bill’s term in the Oval Office was winding down in 2000, she ran for and won a New York Senate seat, ran for the 2008 Democrat nomination for president, losing to Barack Obama, and then became Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 in the administration of her recent political opponent. Now she is running for president again.

She is a polarizing figure, with large numbers of people who adore her on one side, and large numbers who just want her to go away on the other, due to both her past ideas as well as the more recent ones. Following her period as Secretary of State we see a calculating, disingenuous personality addicted to secretive practices, both characteristics of someone who will do anything to win whatever challenge they may be facing.

Campaigning again for the Democrat nomination, her over-confident demeanor and insincere responses to questions about her recent past suggest she sees her nomination as inevitable. And despite the numerous scandals raging around her, she feels entitled to the Oval Office. Should someone so out of touch with reality be President of the United States?

There. I have used all of the “forbidden” descriptors, banned from use in discussing Hillary Clinton: polarizing, calculating, disingenuous, insincere, ambitious, inevitable, entitled, over-confident, secretive, will do anything to win, represents the past, and out of touch.

This edict comes from the group "HRC Super Volunteers," which promises to keep an eye out for the use of words it holds to be sexist code words, and even went so far as to warn Amy Chozick of The New York Times. The email sent to Ms. Chozick read, "You are on notice that we will be watching, reading, listening and protesting coded sexism...”

All of which goes to justify using several of those descriptors, even if the Super Volunteers prefer to not see them. Truthfully, it is difficult to discuss Hillary Clinton without these descriptions coming to mind.

She spoke to the sixth annual Women in the World Summit recently. In her speech, she said the following: “Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper,” she said. “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will.”

A couple of things in that statement reflect some of those “qualities,” but what came next goes even further: “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

Cultural codes do change, but they do so slowly over time, as the things people value ebb and flow, and structural biases also often evolve as cultures change. Neither, however, changes at the command of someone believing they are entitled to make such a demand.

The third element in that statement, religious beliefs, is a completely different matter. Religious tenets are hallowed, deep-seated and long-standing, and in most cases were developed centuries ago. They are a pact between people and their Creator, and as such rise above having to yield to the disapproval of, or recommendations for change by, Hillary Clinton, or any other person or faction.

To suggest that religious beliefs ought to be changed to conform to some recent social whim that contradicts those beliefs is the height of arrogance and hubris.

Furthermore, in the United States, the sanctity of religious beliefs is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”

P.J. O'Rourke, political satirist, and journalist, said this about the Founders and their ideas: “Our Founding Fathers lacked the special literary skills with which modern writers on the subject of government are so richly endowed. When they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, they found themselves more or less forced to come to the point. So clumsy of thought and pen were the Founders that even today, seven generations later, we can tell what they were talking about.”

Given the plain language of the Constitution and its Amendments, recent court decisions obviously breach the Constitutional protections of valued religious tenets, such as that people whose religion rejects homosexuality can be forced to provide services through their business that contradict their religious beliefs. When a conflict exists between the desires of a gay couple for wedding services and the religious beliefs of business owners requested to provide those services, laws that punish the business owners for honoring their beliefs and denying the requested services plainly violate the Constitution’s protection of the free exercise of religion.

The ideology of the hard left seems to know no bounds; nothing trumps the desires of the left, not even the U.S. Constitution. Founding principles and sacred ideals are respected only as long as they are useful to the left. After that point has been crossed, long-held and respected values are thrown in the trash in favor of new temporary values.


Cross-posted from Observations

Potpourri: government porn, federal lands, freedom of speech, etc.

Commentary by James Shott

Here’s an example of what can happen when there are too many government employees with too much time on their hands.

A report says that an Environmental Protection Agency employee watches porn for up to 6 hours a day. He makes $120,000 a year, and still has his job.

Nothing epitomizes a government that is so big and inefficient that its left hand has no idea not just what the right hand is doing, but doesn’t even know what its own fingers are doing. Or, just doesn’t care.

When the number of employees in a department or agency exceeds the number of truly essential employees, bad things happen, as the EPA example shows.

Agencies like the EPA are regulators; they produce regulations. Too many regulations exist already, and those people are paid to create more. On second thought, maybe it’s less harmful if they watch porn.

An efficient government, the kind of government we expect, deserve and pay for, should have few enough employees that every one of them is busy 8 hours a day doing beneficial work, serving us to the best of their ability, and to our highest expectations.

One of the major reasons our government has grown so humongous and overbearing is because too many people don’t understand that government is limited in its scope by the supreme law of the land, the US Constitution, and haven’t been paying attention to what is happening, or haven’t protested it. Still others seem to like living under the federal boot or seek control over us.

Did you know that the federal government owns or controls nearly one-third of the land in the US? Do you imagine that the feds are making the most beneficial use of it?

Some of it is used for government installations, national parks and memorials and so forth, which is fine. But much of it either lies essentially unused, like the land where Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his fellow ranchers freely grazed their cattle for decades before the federal government took over the land on the fraudulent premise that a tortoise that lived there was a “threatened” species.

More than a few cited Mr. Bundy as being a law breaker, so they thought it was just fine when the Bureau of Land Management sent 200 armed Rangers to the area because Mr. Bundy has refused to pay grazing fees for many years.

Mr. Bundy’s critics apparently believe that “if government says so, we must do it.” Had our forebears had this attitude, hundreds of singers at sporting events would be badly singing “God Save The Queen” instead of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Other federal lands imprison vast stores of natural resources that would unleash new jobs and prompt energy independence.

When it was announced that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been invited to speak at the Rutgers University graduation and receive an honorary degree, some members of the faculty passed resolutions calling for her to be “disinvited.”  Students protested outside the office of the university president, some with signs calling her a “war criminal” because of her role in the Iraq War and the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding.

Showing she clearly has more class than those faculty members and students, Dr. Rice, withdrew her acceptance. “Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families,” she said. “Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time.”

And so the tolerant and open-minded atmosphere of the university endures and the grand ideal of free and open debate of important, often conflicting ideas on campuses everywhere may continue for yet a while longer.

Then there is this: “I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers,” warned Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman in an interview. “The right has begun to break the left’s media monopoly, particularly through new media outlets like the Internet, and I sense that some on the left are starting to rethink the breadth of the media exemption and Internet communications,” he added.

You have to admire the determination of the leftists to find a way to defeat contrary opinions when they cannot do so through the power of superior ideas and arguments. When they have control of government resources, they have no compunction about unleashing this power against their political enemies. “Well, we may not be right, but we will prevail.”

I’ve had an epiphany about Benghazi. I have adopted the Dem/lib philosophy: “Dude, that’s so yesterday.”

Since it happened on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s watch, and she is satisfied that all the questions have been answered, shouldn’t that be enough for anybody? What difference, at this point, does it make? Now I can focus on other liberal goals, like which of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights we should trash next.

Oh, have you heard that a new helicopter fleet to ferry the president for short distances is being considered, and that the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will only cost $20 billion?

Cross-posted from Observations

New Jersey; a contender in America's Race to the Bottom

Last week New Jersey' leading newspaper conglomerate who's cornerstone print publication is the Star Ledger and online NJ.com announced massive layoffs in the wake of continuing decline in revenue and circulation.

The Question is WHY?

The Garden State
where yesterday's
Flower Children
became today's
Bloomin' Idiots

Is it the changes in technology that plagues the Star Ledger group?

Or is it that the people of New Jersey are finally turning their backs on the liberal propaganda that the Star Ledger is known to spread?

As a student of our nation economy I regularly read newspapers from coast to coast, the Sacramento Bee, the Oregonian, the Star Ledger, Santa Barbara Independent and the San Jose Mercury News.  I'm often shocked simply reviewing the headlines, often asking myself is this for real? I have to confirm the date the story lines are so void of substance. So many media sources skip the important stuff. Astounding at times how deceitful and  biased these large regional news sources can be.

Frankly I think it is good to see the demise of the liars. The economic landscape has been squandered and undermined by liberal media deceit. The lose of these  jobs are nothing compared to the ruinous economic events precipitated by decades of liberal lies.

The tripe and irrelevant drivel that makes it to their lead story lines is a testament to the the Star Ledgers failure and a contributor to a vast ignorance across large segments of NJ society.

Many people in New Jersey are detached from reality, vacant on the critical issues our nation faces. I wager few New Jersey residents are aware that their state is ranked as the most financially unstable in the country. Few know the state debt hit a record $40.4 Billion after rising 4.1 percent in 2013. Add to that their unfunded employee retirement liabilities which are estimated to be the highest of all the states on a per-capita basis. (This includes both the pension and "other" contracted retirement benefits.)

SCARY MIGRATION TREND 

Add to all that the fact that New Jersey is experiencing the highest outward migration of any state and, well it is not a pretty picture.

New Jersey's Poster Child; Jon Corzine
First he almost destroyed Goldman Sachs,
 then he added ruin onto New Jersey.
The third times the charm,
He led MF Global into bankruptcy
at a stunning pace and a billion
dollars disappeared at the same time.
I believe he is still facing charges on that.

The debts and excessive expenses that have grown to unmanageable levels will be born on the shoulders of a declining population. It could be even worse, in the last census period New Jersey lost a congressional seat. It is too early to know if that will happen again, but it may.

Once the spawning grounds of visionaries now left to the rot of a parasitic culture that feeds on corruption, thuggery and taxes. Bankrupt in morals and bankrupt financially.   A bifurcated society where the government and its corporatist cronies suck on the souls of those that chose to stay behind.

The ties that bind,
a generation so blind 

Yesterday's Flower Children turned into today's Bloomin' Idiots

A soul-less society that will feel the scorn of it's children.  It is far better to let New Jersey fail, let the death dealt by liberalism cleans the economy and the culture.

ARE BAILOUTS IMMORAL?

The "too big to fail" argument must end, PERIOD.  It should not be an acceptable concept,  it is not reflective of a balanced and healthy free market, in fact the existence of the premiss is evidence that there are improper inducements in the markets in the first place.

New Jersey can fail, Chicago can fail, LA can fail. California - maybe it is too big to fail and there are serious efforts to break it up. In fact Tim Draper the famous venture capitalist is working on qualifying a 6-state breakup concept to be on the 2016 ballot in California.  That will be interesting.

Good intentions with predictable bad results are bad choices, period. Criminal? Perhaps.

If New Jersey or any other state or company or bank is on the road to failure it must be left to fail. To do otherwise in light of all we know now should be considered a criminal act.

The evidence is mounting: Idiocy is taking control of America

With her parents’ approval, 9-year-old Kamryn shaved her head in support of her friend, 11-year-old Delaney, who is battling neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer, and recently started chemotherapy.

“It felt like the right thing to do,” Kamryn told the local TV station news reporter.

Officials at Caprock Academy in Grand Junction, Colorado, however, told Kamryn she couldn’t come back to class without a wig or until her natural hair grew back because her shaved head violates the school’s dress code.

Wonder if they told Delaney the same thing? 

*****

Schools seem to have a magnetic attraction for idiotic rules:

Several schools have banned students who have applied for admission to colleges from sharing their good news with fellow students because doing so might hurt the feelings of other students.

Another school bans the use of hand sanitizer without written permission. Perhaps a doctor’s note should be required.

And other schools have banned playing tag on the playground at recess. You remember tag? Where kids chase each other around and touch them with their hand when they catch them, saying, “You’re it?” Too dangerous, principals say. 

Josh, a second grader at Park Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland, was suspended for two days because his teacher said he shaped a strawberry prebaked toaster pastry into something resembling a gun.

A similar fate befell Nathan, a 10-year-old student at Devonshire Alternative Elementary School in the Columbus, Ohio school system. For his crime of making a gun out of his index finger and thumb, and saying, “boom,” Nathan was suspended for three days. Apparently no one saw or heard what Nathan did, except a teacher. At a meeting with the school principal, his father learned that if it happened again, the punishment could be a longer suspension, or perhaps permanent suspension.

Fortunately, the SWAT team was not called and no one was injured or died from these hideous crimes, and the criminals have been duly punished.

***** 

Did you know that in the land of the free warming your car on a cold day is illegal in some states? Ohio, Texas, West Virginia, Maryland, Colorado, Wisconsin, South Carolina, and some cities in Minnesota forbid it.

In Ohio, if the public servants Ohioans pay to protect them from the criminal element find a resident trying to warm up their icy vehicle, they can be fined $150. In Texas it’s a Class C misdemeanor with a fine of up to $500.

And in West Virginia, the fine for the first offense is $100, but if you are dumb enough to get caught trying to make your car comfortable a second time, the cost is $500.

The reason for these laws is to protect the drivers warming up their cars from their own stupidity, and also to protect others of weak will from becoming car thieves. Apparently, a running but unoccupied vehicle is just too great a temptation for some folks to resist, and these laws punish vehicle owners in order to discourage this selfish behavior, which forces otherwise law-abiding citizens to steal cars.

By that reasoning, banks, retail stores and other business should be fined for deliberately providing strong temptation for people to commit robberies. 

***** 

From Listverse.com’s 10 Ridiculous Cases of Political Correctness: 

“Xbox Live recently banned Josh Moore for violating its gamers’ code of conduct.  His offense?  Filling out his Xbox Live profile.  You see, Mr. Moore lives in West Virginia. More specifically, in FORT GAY, West Virginia. As Microsoft says, the word ‘gay’ is always offensive. Never mind that several US townships incorporate the word into their name, many people have ‘Gay’ as a first or last name, and some homosexuals do identify themselves as ‘gay.’  No, Microsoft obviously had a wise guy in their midst, and he had to go. So, despite a total lack of customer complaints, Microsoft froze Moore’s account and warned him that he could lose his prepaid subscription if he badgered Customer Service further. Fort Gay Mayor, David Thompson, tried to intervene, but was told that the city’s name didn’t matter; the word ‘gay’ was inappropriate in any context. As a result, Moore missed a Search and Destroy competition and his team lost. Microsoft has since carefully reviewed the matter and reinstated Moore with full Xbox Live privileges (translation: the story hit the web).”

*****

The parents of players on the boys baseball team at a Michigan high school took the initiative to raise private money and do the work themselves to make improvements to the field on which their sons play. But the federal government, which really should have nothing to say about a high school baseball field in Michigan, has intervened, citing federal civil rights law, and noting that the boys facility is now much nicer than the girls softball field. The Department of Justice has threatened fines for Plymouth Canton Community Schools, so the school system will remove the new scoreboard and bleachers put in by the parents.

It would obviously be unfair to simply tell the girls’ parents to get busy and take care of their own improvements, like the boys’ parents did. Better yet, the feds should just keep quiet.

The “progressives”: Advancing un-American ideas for fun and profit

 Commentary by James H. Shott 

They once called themselves “liberals,” but as practiced here in the U.S. through the years that word gathered lots of negative energy, casting adherents in a bad light, so they changed their moniker and now call themselves “progressives.”

But the term “progressives” is a misnomer, unless you consider it progress for America to slowly abandon the freedom that was once our hallmark, and move instead toward being more under the thumb of an increasingly over-reaching government.

To demonstrate how off-the-mark some progressives’ thinking is, consider the following:

On ESPN’s “Around the Horn,” a frequent guest named Kevin Blackistone said that football games should not include the singing of the national anthem during the pregame, calling the “Star-Spangled Banner” a “war anthem.”

Mr. Blackistone was addressing controversy over Northwestern University’s American flag-themed football uniforms, designed to raise money for the Wounded Warriors Project. In the “Buy or Sell” show segment he said he would “sell” the uniforms: “I'm going to sell it for the same reasons. If you sell this along with me, you should also be selling the rest of the military symbolism embrace of sports. Whether it’s the singing of a war anthem to open every game. Whether it’s going to get a hotdog and being able to sign up for the Army at the same time. Whether it’s the NFL's embrace of the mythology of the Pat Tillman story. It has been going on in sports since the first national anthem was played in the World Series back in 1917. And it’s time for people to back away.”

Mr. Blackistone clearly is a man who neither understands nor cares for America.

And this from Mary Margaret Penrose, a Texas A&M School of Law professor, who expressed her frustration with the fact that President Barack Obama has failed to pass more gun control since the crime at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Prof. Penrose said gun laws should be decided on a per-state basis, versus the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "The beauty of a states' rights model solution is it allows those of you who want to live in a state with very loose restrictions to do so." She went on to say that her problems with the Constitution are not limited to the Second Amendment, and advocates in her law courses redrafting the entire U.S. Constitution.

Is advocating abandoning the supreme law of the land acceptable in helping law students learn about and understand our system of laws?

More wisdom from the halls of academia comes from Professor Noel Ignatiev of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, who tells his students things like this: “If you are a white male, you don’t deserve to live. You are a cancer, you’re a disease, white males have never contributed anything positive to the world! They only murder, exploit and oppress non-whites! At least a white woman can have sex with a black man and make a brown baby but what can a white male do? He’s good for nothing. Slavery, genocides against aboriginal peoples and massive land confiscation, the inquisition, the holocaust, white males are all to blame! You maintain your white male privilege only by oppressing, discriminating against and enslaving others.” He suggests that all white males should commit suicide.

Two thoughts arise from this; first, we should enthusiastically applaud the professor’s recent decision to stop “teaching,” and second, since he is a white male, ask why he is still alive and see if he will continue to be a hypocrite, or if he will follow his own advice.

Not to be outdone in the expression of un-American ideas, The Washington Post had its own expert academic opinion from Jonathan Zimmerman, who professes history and education at New York University.

“Barack Obama should be allowed to stand for re-election just as citizens should be allowed to vote for — or against — him,” he wrote. “Anything less diminishes our leaders and ourselves.”

The professor must have missed that part of his history education when Congress proposed an amendment to the Constitution to limit the president to two four-year terms, and why it did so. The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, following FDR’s election to four terms, having been approved by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. It prevented the likely possibility of a “president for life” evolving and creating a situation like the one the Colonies suffered under that led to armed revolt. A “president for life” is not unlike a monarch.

Maybe he thinks monarchy is superior to the form of government the Founders created, the obligation of which was to guarantee basic freedoms to the people it was created to serve. If it’s oppression he wants, there are many countries to which he can relocate.

A major feature of progressivism is to limit the liberties our ancestors fought and died for in the naïve hope of creating a perfect society. Over the last century or so they have chipped away enough of the protections and guarantees that the system doesn’t work as it was designed to, and their solution is to continue to destroy it, rather than to restore it. 

Cross-posted from Observations

The IRS scandal hearing would be hilarious if it wasn't so serious

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearings on Internal Revenue Service malfeasance has produced scenes worthy of a Mel Brooks film, or maybe "Hogan's Heroes" (“I know nussing!”) As of Friday morning, the following had transpired.

Lois Lerner appeared before the committee last Wednesday. She is the IRS director of exempt organizations, which is the office that deliberately targeted organizations with "Tea Party," "Patriot" and other identifiers in their names indicating they were conservative organizations. These organizations not only had their applications for 501(c) tax-exempt status delayed for up to three years, but in many cases were asked for information that is clearly outside the legitimate areas of interest of the IRS, and which crossed the line into unconstitutionality and perhaps illegality.

Ms. Lerner told the Committee in an opening statement that Committee members have already accused her of providing false information to Congress. However, she said, “I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations. And I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”

Having thus stated the case for her innocence, she then invoked Fifth Amendment protections against incriminating herself, and refused to answer any questions.

Translation: "I did nothing wrong, but I won't answer any questions that might show that I did something wrong."

Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asked her to reconsider, and when she refused he then dismissed her and her attorney from the hearing room. However, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) objected, pointing out that since Ms. Lerner actually testified by making an opening statement, she should have to stay and answer the lawmakers' questions.

"You don't get to tell your side of the story and then not be subjected to cross-examination," Rep. Gowdy said. "That's not the way it works. She waived her right to Fifth Amendment privilege by issuing an opening statement. She ought to stand here and answer our questions," he said.

Ms. Lerner was ultimately dismissed, but with the caveat that she may be recalled. Better late than never, on Thursday she was suspended from her job. With pay.

This is not the first time the long-time federal employee has been suspected of questionable behavior. When she headed the Enforcement Office at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) from 1986 until 2001, there appeared to be politically motivated harassment of conservative groups not unlike what the IRS  did. In the late 1990s, the FEC launched an investigation of the Christian Coalition that ultimately cost the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours of lost work.

However, in addition to failing to prove that the Coalition did anything wrong is the question of whether the FEC even had authority to assert the charges it leveled against the Coalition, which was absolved of any wrongdoing in 1999. Following this suspicious investigation Ms. Lerner was promoted to acting General Counsel at the FEC in 2001.

Next to testify was Douglas Shulman, who was appointed by George W. Bush and headed the IRS during the first Obama term. In 2012 he testified before the Committee, saying, "As you know, we pride ourselves in being a non-political, non-partisan organization." He continued, "There is absolutely no political targeting." We now know that was clearly untrue.

In last week's appearance Mr. Shulman denied that he had discussed targeting conservative groups with anyone at the White House in any of the more than 100 times he visited the White House complex between 2010 and 2011.  “It would not have been appropriate to have a conversation with anyone at the White House about the subject of discriminating against conservative groups,” he said.

When asked if he could recall the nature of any of those visits, Mr. Shulman responded, "The Easter Egg Roll with my kids." Seriously.

In response to questioning from Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mr. Shulman replied: "I accept the fact that this happened on my watch and I am very sorry that this happened while I was at the IRS. I feel horrible about this for the agency, for the people there, for the great public servants. I am not sure what else I can say." He could have overtly taken responsibility for his agency's malfeasance while he headed it, and apologized to the victims, but he didn't.

Ms. Duckworth, a military veteran, said that she was "deeply disappointed" by his response, explaining that soldiers serving their country know "you can never delegate responsibility and that you are always responsible for the performance, the training, the actions of the men and women under you."

Former President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read: "The Buck Stops Here." This is a concept foreign to many in this administration. But it is the law of leadership, whether at the department level, or at the chief executive level: Whatever happens on your watch is your responsibility.

Maybe actually holding people accountable for their mismanagement through firings and prosecution will wake up sleeping bureaucrats like Ms. Lerner and Mr. Shulman, and restore the idea of "service" to public service.

What scandals? There are no scandals here. Please keep moving.

The broiling controversies of the Benghazi scandal, the IRS wrongdoing, and the questionable seizure of Associated Press telephone records by the Department of Justice have forced those on the left and those that don't pay much attention to what goes on in the political realm to recognize that our government indulges in improper and oppressive behavior. And this tumultuous atmosphere has spawned some wild and crazy things.     

Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program and vociferous gun control advocate, had an epiphany brought on by the federal government's improper behavior. During a roundtable discussion on the show he said, “My argument [for gun control] is less persuasive today because of these scandals.” He went on to explain that “People say, ‘Hey, if they do this with the IRS, asking people what books you read, then how can I trust them with information about my Second Amendment rights?’” There was general agreement among the show’s other participants.

Another unusual thing was former White House senior advisor David Axelrod’s defense of President Barack Obama. He said that the president can't be held responsible for what underlings do. The reason is that our government is so large that no one person can control what all of the two million Executive Branch employees do.

He's right: government is way too big and far too powerful. David Axelrod is a limited government guy. Who knew?

But the fact that government is too big doesn't relieve the President of the United States, whomever that might be at any given time, of the duty to manage the Executive Branch and keep it within its constitutional limits, and to always respect the citizens it serves. Plainly, Mr. Obama has not done that.

In our highly charged political environment, not everything that the president's loyal opposition calls a scandal is truly a scandal. But conversely, everything that Mr. Obama's sycophantic fans wish was not a scandal isn't a scandal, and their efforts to explain them away often border on silliness. Columnist Reg Henry ably demonstrated that with inadequate attempts to downplay a few of them and make them go away.

Of the Fast and Furious debacle Mr. Henry said it "was a crackpot scheme to trace guns to Mexican drug cartels, but it was a hard sell because, as you know, guns don't kill people."

He is obviously correct about it being a crackpot scheme, although that characterization does not do justice to this colossal idiocy. And his sarcastic comment about guns not killing people unintentionally conveyed the truth.

But he's totally wrong about whether Fast and Furious is a scandal. Not only did the the Justice Department fail to achieve the fundamental goal of this misadventure — to trace the guns they provided to the Mexican cartels — but an American Border Patrol officer was murdered with one of them. That indeed is a scandal.

Next, in trying to wish away the Green Energy fiasco, he states, "The Solyndra scandal involved a big waste of public money, but the real offense seemed to be that the administration was promoting solar power. Oh, the horror."

So-called "public money" is money taxed away from taxpayers ostensibly to be used responsibly and for beneficial purposes, not so that billions can be wasted on the personal whim of the president to prop up a preferred industry, one that is so unstable that it cannot succeed even after being propped up. Mr. Henry is apparently unaware that it is neither within the president's nor the federal government's authority to decide which industries succeed and which do not.

In reference to what he called "Benghazi-gate," he cautions us that "it's far from clear what the president knew and when he knew it." But again he misses the point. What makes Benghazi a scandal is not what Mr. Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew and when they knew it, although that certainly deserves an explanation, it's the fact that his administration and/or her department disgracefully failed to provide requested and needed security upgrades before the attack began. Had they acted properly it just might have prevented all four of the murders that resulted from the attack on the Benghazi consulate. And then, there’s the video smoke screen to explain.

Some believe the Obama administration overtly engineered the effort by the IRS to target conservatives, Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations. But others blame this oppressive behavior on a "culture of suspicion" of conservative organizations created by President Obama's near-continuous public criticism of those individuals and organizations. After all, if the president repeatedly makes public statements saying these people are up to no good, shouldn't good bureaucrats try to please the boss and go after the bad guys?                                  

President Obama told graduates of The Ohio State University earlier this month that “you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. ... They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.” But the swirling controversies that demonstrate actual government tyranny render that advice dangerous and unworthy.