…is apparently where liberty went to die.

Nothing’s changed since the seventeenth century there, really. It’s just a new form of puritanism and witch huntery.

I’ve long advocated that a part of commemorating the nation’s birthday should be a reading of the declaration, and not just celebrating with beer, barbecue and fireworks. It seems particularly important in light of events of the past few years.

[Update late afternoon, as we’re slow-grilling ribs]

The Patriot’s Creed.

Contrary to the Democrats’ lies, it didn’t cause the IRS scandal. It foretold it:

Citizens United exposed with rare clarity and forcefulness the partisan implications of a decades-long political conflict between justices who uphold the Constitution and activists like Stevens who undermine it with the procedural nitpicking and bureaucratic rulemaking that expand and dehumanize government.

Even better, Citizens United hamstrung an Obama reelection strategy of wielding the FEC’s regulatory power to stifle “enemy” speech, by delay and intimidation where possible, and with litigation where necessary. Thanks to the Supreme Court, the FEC was no longer available to play the role of crooked referee.

So, enter the Internal Revenue Service stage left armed with 157 White House visits, a BOLO, and the standard Chicago strategy of uncertainty, intimidation, and delay. Oh, yes… and Lois Lerner, who broke the IRS scandal with a planted question at an American Bar Association meeting. Lerner, formerly of FEC enforcement, where she is known to have harassed the Christian Coalition and Illinois Republican Senate candidate Al Salvi. It doesn’t get much better than this.

That gun looks pretty smoky to me.

[Update a few minutes later]

Wait, what? I thought that Lois Lerner said she didn’t nothing wrong or illegal. So what does she want immunity from?

“The committee is entitled to Ms. Lerner’s full and truthful testimony without further conditions,” said panel spokesman Frederick Hill in a statement to POLITICO. “If, however, Ms. Lerner’s attorney is interested in discussing limited immunity, the committee will listen.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), a senior oversight Republican helping oversee the IRS investigation, said the panel is still hopeful she’ll come to the committee on her own free will, arguing that questions of immunity and contempt are “down the road.”

And then there’s this:

“If the court finds that she didn’t waive, then it’s over, and if the court finds that she did and orders her to testify, then she goes to testify,” Taylor said, later, adding that there is “no danger under any circumstances of her going to jail.”

That’s a shame. I’d prefer to see her current taxpayer-funded vacation converted to a long stay at Club Fed.

Is America in a pre-revolutionary state?

…everywhere we look on this July Fourth sees a great civilization in decline. And much of that decline can be laid at the foot of the incumbent. Especially his own people, African Americans, have suffered. Their unemployment numbers are catastrophic, their real needs ignored while hustlers like Sharpton, Jackson, and, sadly, even the president fan the flames of non-existent racism.

Tahrir Square anyone?

Ironically, if our society enters a revolutionary phase, liberals will find themselves in the role of the Islamists, defending a shopworn and reactionary ideology on religious grounds, because it is only their faith that holds their ideas together at this point.

Unfortunately, their faith, no matter how irrational, remains strong. And they’re not “liberals.”

Heads should roll:

Somehow, with the White House in a full projectile sweat about the political ramifications of the IRS abuses at least a month earlier, no one at the IRS got the word to cease and desist from the activity?

This leads a reasonable person to conclude that either the orders from the White House demanding that the targeting be discontinued were never issued, or the orders were ignored by those in charge of the IRS operation in spite of the extensive public scrutiny.

Neither conclusion is good.

One indicates that the White House’s concern was merely about political backlash and not about the activity itself. This wink-and-nod approach to the IRS abuse scandal gives them ownership of it, something that would not be surprising given the public calls for this exact political targeting in 2010 by Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.) and other Democrats.

If no one at the White House demanded that the action stop, in spite of admitted knowledge about the scandal by the White House chief of staff, it shows either a stunning complicity or an equally stunning incompetence.

The other possible, but much less likely scenario, paints a picture of an out-of-control bureaucracy immune from a White House demand that it stop illegal activity and unwilling to bend to public outrage over its actions.

I don’t believe that the president didn’t know about this.