The Beatles once recorded a song called “Taxman”, written by one of their own, the late George Harrison. It appeared on their Revolver album (yes, it was indeed a gun reference). The lyrics go,

Although July 4th is now a couple of weeks past, this is my first column post-holiday. I hope that you and yours had a good one. Independence Day commemorates the birth of our great nation for as the song goes, Uncle Sam was “born on the 4th of July”. Regarding the song “America”, the first stanza begins, “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty” and ends with “From every mountain top, let freedom ring”.

With all of the hoopla surrounding recent Supreme Court Decisions, it’s hard to keep up. One of the most recent is Michigan v. EPA. Reacting to the decision, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said, “I am thrilled that, for the second year in a row, the Supreme Court agreed with my Office’s argument that the EPA violated the Clean Air Act in imposing a costly regulation on the American people”. He added that the decision means that, “the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must consider the economic costs of complying with the regulations it imposes”.

According to an article that appeared in the Charleston Gazette a couple weeks back, there are eleven counties in West Virginia that will be “reverting to traditional high school math classes…that predated the national Common Core”. Those eleven counties include, Brooke, Calhoun, Greenbrier, Hardy, Harrison, Kanawha, Mason, Morgan, Pendleton, Putnam and Ritchie. There are 15 counties, including Berkeley that have indicated that they will stay with the new “integrated” courses of Math I, II and III. Jefferson County has not indicated which way it will go regarding the teaching of Math.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear King v. Burwell - a case that could unravel the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - also known as Obamacare. This has caused considerable angst across the progressive mainstream media. At the heart of what is being argued before the court is language in the Act as to whether or not the government can legally subsidize healthcare insurance premiums in states that have not set up their own exchanges.

Over the weekend I was glued to the screen watching C-SPAN - ignoring exhortations from friends and family that I “get a life”. There were two important legislative battles going on. One involved the Patriot Act and the other the USA Freedom Act. The debate over these two pieces of legislation shed additional light on the battle that is raging within the Republican Party over constitutional issues.