THE PATRIOT POST 08/23/2013

August 23, 2013   

THE FOUNDATION

"Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom." --John Adams

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Putting Higher Cost in Higher Education

It's back-to-school time and that means thinking about education policy. Student loan debt is now more than $1.2 trillion, most of which is federal loans, while job opportunities for graduates are not exactly abundant. Prospective students are therefore beginning to consider alternatives, such as online schooling. Barack Obama even highlighted this good idea in his education proposal on Thursday.

Unfortunately, the largest part of Obama's new plan to make "college more affordable, tackle rising costs, and improve value for students and their families" involves more government regulation and interference. The president proposed creating a college rating system, wherein the federal government would evaluate colleges and universities on graduation rates and affordability, as well as on leftist goals like student income-level and race quotas. The feds run a $1 trillion annual deficit and they're going to evaluate colleges on affordability?

Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation explains, "[A] monopoly government scorecard would inevitably reflect what bureaucrats -- rather than parents, students, and local policymakers -- determine is or is not important in education. For another, existing institutions that are comfortable within the cocoon of protectionist accreditation would lobby hard, and no doubt effectively, for output measures that define success in their own terms."

Naturally, the federal government would tie monetary aid to its own rating system, which would lead to (more) political favoritism and a lobbying nightmare. As for that money, Obama described higher education as "an economic imperative," while Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) added, "There is no reason why a young person should have to pay for college." Federal aid is the primary driver of skyrocketing college tuition rates as it is -- wait until it's a "right." Instead of the top-down government solution, the correct path is to gear education toward real acquisition of knowledge and skills through the free market.

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CULTURE

Senseless Slaying in Oklahoma

While an anti-Second Amendment group called the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence put together a slanted public service announcement blaming "stand your ground" laws for violence and including a twisted re-enactment of Trayvon Martin's death, real violence occurred in Oklahoma. Similar to the Trayvon Martin case, it has a racial element, though it's not a simple reverse example because, well, this is murder and Martin's death wasn't. The victim was a white Australian native who attended Oklahoma's East Central University. The alleged murderer was black, and had two accomplices -- one black, one white. Unlike Martin, who was in Sanford due to a school suspension, Christopher Lane was in the U.S. playing baseball for the small college and was unfortunate enough to be jogging along the road the "bored" gang-bangers were traveling.
Race baiter Jesse Jackson could only manage to snivel that "this senseless violence was frowned upon," while White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told the press that Barack Obama's statements about Martin's case would suffice for Lane.

Would it suffice for the white Memphis man murdered by three black assailants, or the WWII vet beaten to death by two black thugs?

Predictably, political opportunists also used the Oklahoma murder to advance their gun control agenda. Democrat strategist Richard Fowler lamented that "Oklahoma is a gun-friendly state" where "guns get into the wrong hands of the wrong people." Never mind that none of the accused were old enough to legally purchase a gun, and a shotgun found in their car had its serial number ground off. The Left always blames these incidents on guns. But the real cause is their socialist agenda and the resulting generations of cultural devolution, the product of which is an increasing number of sociopathic criminals.

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ECONOMY

A Survey of the Jobs Scene

Gallup has long tracked unemployment parallel to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, and though the numbers don't always line up exactly, they generally follow the same trajectory. That's why it's interesting that this week's Gallup report puts unemployment at 8.9%, up from 7.7% on July 21. It's an 18-month high. BLS numbers put headline unemployment at 7.4% at the end of July, while the more complete U-6 rate was 14% compared to Gallup's latest figure of 17.7%.
Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center finds that the "black unemployment rate is consistently twice that of whites," and currently stands at 12.6%. According to the left-of-center Urban Institute, as of December 2012, 39% of the 12.2 million Americans out of work had been unemployed for six months or longer.

Reuters reports that "three out of four of the nearly 1 million hires this year are part-time and many of the jobs are low-paid." The reason for this -- as even Reuters acknowledges -- is a certain health care law. Ask the local governments around the nation that are cutting hours due to the law's mandates.

Finally, Sentier Research reports that median household income is stuck $2,380 below its level when the "recovery" started in June 2009. Black households' income is down 11% during the same time. In short, the nation is still waiting to exit the recession.
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NATIONAL SECURITY

Gender Confusion and Leaks

By Mark Alexander

This week, PFC Bradley Manning, who released 700,000 classified files to WikiLeaks info anarchist Julian Assange, many of which put American military and intelligence personnel in danger, was sentenced to 35 years, but is eligible for parole after 10. Manning's treason was the largest breach of classified information in U.S. history.

No sooner had he been sentenced than he asked for taxpayer funded gender reassignment and to be called "Chelsea." The revelation that Manning was afflicted with gender-disorientation pathology was treated as breaking news by most media outlets, but we reported his gender confusion in connection with the security breach in 2011.

We reported on this because at one time security clearances were denied to homosexuals because they had proven to be security risks. After Obama implemented Do Ask, Do Tell, however, the military and intelligence communities adjusted their policies according to executive order. It appears that homosexuals are still a security risk.

And on the subject of homosexuals and security breaches, Glenn Greenwald, who NSA mass-leaker Edward Snowden chose to expose the information he stole from the NSA, is also a homosexual. Greenwald authored a series of highly damaging news reports on the NSA and British intelligence based on Snowden's stolen documents.

It could be just coincidence that the two biggest breaches of classified documents related to critical national security operations involved homosexuals as key players.
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BRIEF OPINION

Essential Liberty

Economist Thomas Sowell: "Egypt existed for thousands of years before there was a United States of America. In all those millennia, Egypt has never had a free or democratic society. Nor is Egypt unique in that. ... Even free and democratic nations existing today took centuries to achieve freedom and democracy. Barack Obama may have enough ego to imagine that he could accomplish, during his White House years, what took centuries to accomplish elsewhere. ... Yet Obama is only the latest in a long line of American officials, including Presidents, who have thought that a universal human desire for freedom meant that freedom and democracy could be exported, even to countries where they have never existed before. However widespread the desire to be free, that is wholly different from a desire to live in a society where others are free. Nowhere is such tolerance harder to find than in the Middle East."

Re: The Left

Historian Victor Davis Hanson: "Reggie Love, the erstwhile presidential assistant and 'body man' to President Obama recently reported on the critical moments of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. The president apparently was not glued to live video feeds, as the photos from his re-election campaign suggested. 'Most people were like down in the Situation Room,' Love said, 'and [the president] was like, "I'm not going to be down there, I can't watch this entire thing." So he, myself, Pete Souza, the White House photographer, Marvin [Nicholson], we must have played 15 games of spades.' The commander in chief was playing cards while Navy Seals risked their lives to kill America's No. 1 enemy -- only later to use photos of himself watching live feeds for his re-election sloganeering: 'bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!' That pretense sums up the growing void between real and trivial America."

Faith and Family

Heritage Foundation's Ryan T. Anderson: "[T]he Supreme Court of New Mexico ruled that the First Amendment does not protect a Christian photographer's ability to decline to take pictures of a same-sex commitment ceremony -- even when doing so would violate the photographer's deeply held religious beliefs. As Elaine Huguenin, owner of Elane Photography, explained: 'The message a same-sex commitment ceremony communicates is not one I believe.' ... [Thursday's] decision highlights the increasing concern many have that anti-discrimination laws and same-sex marriage run roughshod over the rights of conscience and religious liberty. ... In a growing number of incidents, government hasn't respected the beliefs of Americans. ... Policy should prohibit the government -- or anyone who receives taxpayers' dollars -- from discriminating in employment, licensing, accreditation or contracting against those who believe marriage is the union of a man and a woman. We also must work to see marriage law reflect the truth about marriage. If marriage is redefined ... [it] would be seen increasingly as an irrational prejudice that ought to be driven to the margins of culture. The consequences for religious believers are becoming apparent."

For more, visit The Right Opinion.

CHRONICLE QUOTES

Upright

Columnist David Limbaugh: "You don't need to be an economist to understand that Obama's massive taxing, spending and regulations are causing America's economic decline. You don't need to be a sociologist to grasp that his runaway welfare schemes are robbing people of their dignity while doing little to alleviate poverty. At some point, Obama and his fellow liberals need to be judged for the effects of their policies, not the grandiosity of their self-congratulatory rhetoric."

Demo-gogues

Barack Obama: "[At] some point, the government will run out of money."

Yes, because Obama spent it all.

Dezinformatsia

MSNBC's Joy Reid: "It's not just the candidates that are a problem for the GOP, it's the audience. They are getting to the point where the people who were whooping it up at that rodeo clown show are going to be all they've got left. They're going to be able to fit inside a circus tent because the party is shrinking down to its most extreme elements."

The BIG Lie

Rep. James Clyburn: "I can't tell you how many times I've had people say things to me, and I said, 'Where did you get that from?' 'It's got to be true. It was on the television,' or 'It was in the newspapers.' So people think these things are true and most of these people are not media people. They are bloggers, and they are bloggers for the extreme right-wing. The people of Germany believed Hitler's foolishness that led to the Holocaust. They believed that stuff. People will tend to believe what they hear through the media."

This Week's 'Al-pha Jackass' Award

Al Gore: "It's like a family with an alcoholic father who flies into a rage every time a subject is mentioned and so everybody avoids the elephant in the room to keep the peace. But the political climate is changing. The ability of the raging [climate change] deniers to stop progress is waning every single day."

Gore also compared "deniers" to racists, slavery proponents and homophobes, all in his effort to "win the conversation."

Village Idiots

Howard Dean: "[Republicans] are destroying the country, they're taking away people's right to vote, and that's the core of what makes this country a great country. I think we've got to get rid of them. They're really a cancer on the United States."

Short Cuts

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto: "Bradley Manning doesn't seem to have gotten the hang of being a spy. When you assume a new identity, you're not supposed to announce it to the world. ... Not that anybody asked, but for our part, we're going to continue calling him Bradley. If he were serious about this, he'd change his last name."

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
The Patriot Post Editorial Team