The War Dogs are out in full force. The target of the WDs is Senator Rand Paul, who War Dogs like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. John McCain, former VP Dick Cheney, and head War Dog cheerleader William Kristol are attempting to paint as a crazy isolationist.

Here in Politico.com you read Robert Zarate, policy director of the Foreign Policy Initiative, a think tank that’s affiliated with conservative commentator William Kristol, argued that “the internationalists need to not only debate the isolationists in Washington, D.C., but they also need to continue making their case persuasively to the American people.”

Paul’s foreign policy advisor Lorne Craner concludes, “Paul’s views are more in line with Americans who are growing increasingly distrustful after their experiences of the Vietnam (let’s not leave out Korea), Afghanistan, and Iraq wars, and want a clear sense of the objectives of future military actions and how they’re going to end.”

A clear sense of objectives? Here Craner, perhaps intentionally, goes to the heart of the original Weinberger/Powell Doctrine, which sets out to prevent the United States from engaging in risky and counterproductive missions that have nothing to do with protecting U.S. vital interests. I have previously posted a three-part series based on the book The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free by my friend Christopher A. Preble, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at The Cato Institute. This is the roadmap all Americans need in terms of understanding the correct approach to a foreign policy that is based on defending America’s shores and keeping Americans safe.

In my three-part series (Part I, Part II, Part III) and in The Power Problem, Weinberger/Powell and its five essential elements are concisely broken down.

Focusing on a U.S. defense strategy, a Cato Institute summary concludes, “The Defense Department’s budget is built on an excessively ambitious strategy that tries to do too much, but leaves the nation less safe from true threats. Defense is a core federal function, but much of the work of today’s military has little to do with protecting our vital interests.”

Finally in “Stay out of Other Nations’ Civil Wars,” Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow writes, “A decade ago another administration began another war with a promise of enshrining Pax Americans on the Euphrates. Unfortunately, the result was a wrecked Iraq, empowered Iran, and discredited America. With the decade-long attempt to implant liberal democracy in Afghanistan finally coming to a close, Washington should reject proposals for another unnecessary war of choice.”

Why is it that your boss is determining what health-care package is right for you, asks Michael D. Tanner, a senior fellow at Cato Institute. Mr. Tanner explains that health insurance was offered as a perk during WWII. Because of the significant worker shortage, President Roosevelt imposed wage and price controls, which prevented employers from competing for workers by raising salaries. As a way around this, employers offered non-wage benefits, including health insurance, to woo workers.

In 1953, the IRS’s ruling that employer-provided health insurance was not taxable exacerbated the problem. Rather than raising salaries (taxable), employers began offering health insurance (nontaxable) to workers.

Mr. Tanner reminds readers that two problems arise with employer-based health insurance: (1) It hides the true costs of health care and can lead to overuse of health benefits. (2) Health insurance is often not portable. If you should lose your job, you might also lose your health insurance, especially if you have a preexisting condition.

But what is more insidious, using Hobby Lobby as an example, is that your boss has the power to determine what is or is not part of your insurance plan. As Mr. Tanner notes, “The government’s answer, of course, is simply to mandate that certain benefits, in this case contraceptives, be included. But that merely substitutes the government’s judgment for your boss’s. Thus we infringe on your employer’s desires and your own, leaving both of you at the mercy of politicians.”

Read here from Mr. Tanner what changes need to be made to the tax treatment of health insurance and why both the right and left, in a perfect world, could “agree to start transitioning away from employer-provided insurance and into a system where each of us owns personal and portable insurance, independent of our job.”

Employer-provided insurance is problematic for several reasons. Most significantly, it hides much of the true cost of health care from consumers, encouraging over consumption. Basing insurance on employment also means that if you lose your job, you are likely to end up uninsured. And once you’ve lost insurance, it can be hard to get new coverage, especially if you have a pre-existing condition.

But, in the context of Hobby Lobby, employer-provided insurance is even more insidious: It gives your boss the power to determine what is and is not included in your insurance plan. The government’s answer, of course, is simply to mandate that certain benefits, in this case contraceptives, be included. But that merely substitutes the government’s judgment for your boss’s. Thus we infringe on your employer’s desires and your own, leaving both of you at the mercy of politicians.

Instead of fighting over religious liberty vs. contraceptive coverage, both sides should agree to start transitioning away from employer-provided insurance and into a system where each of us owns personal and portable insurance, independent of our job.

Getting there requires changing the tax treatment of health insurance so that employer-provided insurance is treated the same as other compensation for tax purposes: that is, as taxable income. At the same time, to offset the increased tax, workers should receive a standard deduction, a tax credit, or expanded Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), regardless of whether they receive insurance through their job or purchase it on their own.

As a result of this shift in tax policy, employers would gradually substitute higher wages for insurance, allowing workers to shop for the insurance policy that most closely match their needs. That insurance would be more likely to be true insurance — protecting the worker against catastrophic risk, while requiring out-of-pocket payment for routine, low-dollar costs. And it would belong to the worker, not the employer, meaning that workers would be able to take it from job to job and would not lose it if they became unemployed.

But it would also mean that workers, not their bosses, would decide what benefits they want to pay for. People could have contraceptive coverage or any other kind of coverage if we wanted it and were willing to pay for it.

Well, thankfully, Rockport, Maine’s Salt Water Farm Café and Market is open to greet you for breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.

Debbie and I were there twice in 24 hours last week and almost made number three, but ran out of time.

We ate on Salt Water Farm’s back porch high above little Rockport Harbor. Is there is a more beautiful spot in New England?

Stay at one of a dozen great B&Bs or inns in Camden. You’ll be less than two miles from historic, off-the-beaten-path Rockport, Maine. Enjoy!

According to a Washington Times article, of the more than 57,000 children who have arrived at the U.S. border since October, only 1,254 have been returned home. Meanwhile, the flow of illegals is only going to get worse. Last week in a meeting of presidents, Mexico and Guatemala agreed to make it easier for Central Americans to travel through Mexico en route to the U.S.

Texas governor Rick Perry expresses compassion for the children housed in detention centers, but there is nothing humane, he maintains, about encouraging more young children to be separated from their families as they travel to a foreign country. As Governor Perry notes, the children are “in extreme danger on every step of the journey, clinging to the tops and sides of trains and at the mercy of smugglers. Letting them stay means more will follow.”

To help stop the flow, Governor Perry has requested that the Obama administration deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to the border to help with security until more Border Patrol officers can be hired, trained and deployed. Mr. Perry also would use drones to monitor illegal activity along the border and to track those responsible. And clearly, it is essential that Mr. Obama and Congress modify a 2008 law that unintentionally makes it harder to deport those illegals from South American countries.

Why hasn’t President Obama bothered visiting the Texas border instead of flying around the country to play golf and to fund raise? As Rick Perry writes here in The WSJ, “It’s also far past time for him (Obama) to see the effects of Washington’s disastrous policies firsthand. He should visit the border and the overcrowded detention centers, then maybe the urgent need to act will become clear.”

Nope, neither concept was on the minds of the Founders. And neither concept shared a place in the Constitution.

Pat Buchanan writes here that in Federalist No. 2., John Jay wrote, “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs…”

Pat continues, “We were not a nation of immigrants in 1789.”

Pat writes that we are no longer that “band of brethren. …. Nearly 4 in 10 Americans trace their ancestry to Asia, Africa and Latin America. We are a multiracial, multilingual, multicultural society in a world being torn apart over race, religion and riots.”

France, as Debbie and I have found first hand in recent trips, is way ahead of the United States in moving to reform immigration and return to a “France for the French” policy. For a number of years, we have observed the fast-building power of the far right Front National party that recently, in the European elections, kicked the teeth out of the Socialist party of Francois Hollande.

Pat Buchanan asks, “If a country is a land of defined and defended borders, within which resides a people of common ancestry, history, language, faith, culture and traditions, in what sense are we Americans one nation and one people today?”

FN is forming a base to shut off the immigration spigot aiming at Eastern Europe, the Muslim countries, and Africa. FN wants to ship out all immigrants who are not seen as making a substantial contribution to France.

Even as Obamacare supporters are popping the champagne corks over a survey that indicates that some 8 million people have gained insurance over the last 10 months, there is no strong evidence that that the credit should go to O’Care. In his article “Is Obamacare Working,” Cato Institute’s Michael D. Tanner points out that it would be almost impossible to spend $1.8 trillion over 10 years without “accomplishing something.” “In hindsight,” Mr. Tanner writes, “we should have realized that if you are essentially giving something away — 91 percent of Obamacare enrollees either are receiving subsidies or are on Medicaid — people will take it.”

The real questions on Obamacare are (1) is it sustainable and (2) what will the consequences be to those who were already insured and happy with their coverage before the onslaught of O’Care? Read here from Michael Tanner the problems facing Obamacare—from not enough young men enrolling, to the escalating costs of O’Care, to substantial increases in 2015 premiums, to more expensive policies with a smaller network of providers. Perhaps the champagne needs to be put aside for another day.