Daily Digest
January 7, 2014
THE FOUNDATION"I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful." --Fisher Ames (1789)RIGHT HOOKS'Polar Vortex' Scaremongering
Remember back in the good
'ole days when everyone expected winters to be, well, cold? Well, forget
that. The Leftmedia is having a field day with this week's furious
Arctic outbreak across a large portion of the U.S., thanks to what is
alarmingly being called the "polar vortex." Climate alarmists were quick
to blame the cold snap on variable weather patterns being created by
man-made global warming. The Weather Channel wondered, "Is The Record Cold Arctic Outbreak Tied To Global Warming"? while CBS' Charlie Rose
asked, "Is it definitely connected to global warming?" Putting
scaremongering aside, the "polar vortex" is an upper-level cyclone that
is always present. Pieces of the vortex occasionally break from
the cyclone, taking with it pools of sometimes very frigid air. Bottom
line: Mother nature gets the last laugh.
Chicago Gun Sales Ban Struck
U.S. District Judge Edmond
E. Chang on Monday struck down Chicago's ban on the sale of guns within
the city. Chang, an Obama appointee, ruled that the "ordinance goes too
far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in
lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms." The city enacted the
ordinance in 2010 in response to the U.S. Supreme Court striking down
its outright ban on handguns. In 2013, there were 415 murders and 1,864
reported shooting incidents, so it's pretty obvious that Chicago's gun
laws aren't helping. Fortunately, a string of good court rulings is
forcing Chicago -- and Illinois -- to reckon with the Constitution.
Reid's Shot Across the Bow
Back in November, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) surprised many by going nuclear
and eliminating the filibuster for judicial nominees. Now Reid is even
seemingly warning that the filibuster for legislation isn't off limits.
"This filibuster that they so love is not part of the Constitution,"
Reid said, feigning concern for that dusty parchment. "It's a privilege,
not a right." Reid also complained that the nation was "paralyzed" by
the "craziness" of a small band of Republicans, but he wouldn't rule out
another rules change. If he's going to do it, though, it will be soon
-- before the midterm elections in November when the GOP might just
retake the chamber.
'GOP Hates the Unemployed'
CNN's Candy Crowley once again carried water for Barack Obama's class warfare narrative,
saying, "If I am an unemployed American and I hear from Republicans
that, 'Yeah, you know, we should go ahead and [extend benefits] provided
we do the following three things,' and it's a caveat approval of
extending those [unemployment] benefits, or if I am a minimum wage
worker and I find, I see Republicans who say, 'You know what? It's
artificial, it messes with the marketplace, it might mean some teens
can't get into the job market,' why would I become a Republican?"
Democrats have indeed succeeded in securing a base of low-income and
low-information voters by swearing they are the only ones that care. The
truth is far from it, however, as the free market is the only real hope
of economic improvement -- not redistributed income.
Senator Sues Over His Own Benefits
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is
suing the Obama administration over the special treatment Congress and
members' staffs receive under ObamaCare. Johnson is drawing attention to
the inequality between the people who must live with the laws passed
and a Congress that thinks it's above the law. "The American people have
an expectation," Johnson said, "that members of Congress should be
subjected to the letter of the law just like they're held to the letter
of the law." The problem is that Congress has an expectation that it can
do whatever it pleases and insulate itself from the consequences.
For more, visit Right Hooks.
RIGHT ANALYSISArguing Over NSA Snooping Continues
Meanwhile, Michael Morell, the former acting CIA chief and a member of Barack Obama's surveillance task force charged with reviewing the NSA program, says that it should be expanded to include more email collection. "This program ... has the ability to stop the next 9/11, and if you added emails in there it would make it even more effective. Had it been in place in 2000 and 2001, I think that probably 9/11 would not have happened." Perhaps, but there were far more fundamental failures to blame.
The program's continuance,
much less its expansion, isn't going to happen without a fight. Sen.
Rand Paul (R-KY) plans to file suit "to stop Barack Obama's NSA from
snooping on the American people." Paul also weighed in on Edward
Snowden, saying that his theft of classified material and subsequent
leaks were illegal and he should have a "fair trial and a reasonable
sentence," but also that "what he revealed was something the government
was doing was illegal." He hammered National Intelligence chief James
Clapper, too, for lying to Congress before Snowden's leaks, and Paul
suggested, "[M]aybe if [Clapper and Snowden] served in a prison cell
together, we'd become further enlightened as a country over what we
should and shouldn't do." Indeed, at least the debate is now out in the
open.
Warfront With Jihadistan: Al-Qaida Gains in Iraq
Al-Qaida has made
significant military gains in Iraq recently, as one of its front groups,
the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), seized Fallujah and Ramadi
in Anbar province and forced out the Iraqi army. The U.S. won control
of Fallujah in one of its hardest fought victories in the war -- at the
cost of 1,300 American soldiers. ISIL already controls much of eastern
Syria, and they're now running freely across the border between the two
countries. Secretary of State John Kerry pledged to help the Iraqi
government "in any way possible" -- as long as that help doesn't involve
the U.S. military. "This is a fight that belongs to the Iraqis," Kerry
added.
While the Obama administration doubles down on its failed Middle East
policy, violence continues to spread across the region. The Syrian
civil war that Obama washed his hands of has left at least 100,000 dead
(the UN has even quit keeping count), and America's lack of involvement
has emboldened Hezbollah to stir up more trouble in neighboring Lebanon.
Two deadly car bomb attacks took place in Beirut in the last two weeks,
and reports indicate that Hezbollah is stockpiling missiles in
anticipation of Israeli strikes on their arms shipments in the region.
As for Iraq, Obama's move
to summarily end America's involvement there has now led to a
near-complete reversal of the gains made during the 2007 surge. His
report of al-Qaida's demise was completely untrue, but most of America
doesn't know this because the Leftmedia are downplaying events. Obama's
actions were completely motivated by politics, and now the spread of
violence in the region means that at some point the U.S. will have to
return in force, perhaps paying a much higher price than we would have
paid if we had stayed all along.
For more, visit Right Analysis.
RIGHT OPINION
Columnist Dennis Prager:
"Last week the International Business Times reported: 'In their annual
End of Year poll, researchers for WIN and Gallup International surveyed
more than 66,000 people across 65 nations and found that 24 percent of
all respondents answered that the United States 'is the greatest threat
to peace in the world today.' Pakistan and China fell significantly
behind the United States on the poll, with 8 and 6 percent,
respectively. Afghanistan, Iran, Israel and North Korea all tied for
fourth place with 4 percent.' ... [P]eace has been so narrowly defined
as to be morally irrelevant. It essentially means not having troops
fighting in a foreign country. Thus, because the United States has
troops fighting in Afghanistan and recently had troops fighting in Iraq,
it is considered a 'threat to peace.' But Iran ... is not considered a
threat to peace, even though it sustains terror movements, murders its
own people, seeks to annihilate Israel, props up the mass murdering
Syrian regime and is rapidly developing a nuclear weapon. It is only
according to this definition of 'peace' that states like Iran, North
Korea and China ... are not deemed threats to peace."
Columnist Burt Prelutsky:
"Bill de Blasio, the new mayor of New York City, pretends that by
eliminating the Stop and Frisk program devised and carried out by the
NYPD under both Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, civilization will
make a belated return to Gotham. But, short of Batman coming out of
retirement, de Blasio has to know that the murder rate and overall crime
rate will soar. ... As an outsider, I can only hope that the inevitable
victims will not be innocent tourists, but, instead, will be limited to
the balmy liberals who elected this weasel. But, to be fair, they only
voted for de Blasio because Hugo Chavez, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and
Saul Alinsky, weren't on the ballot."
Top 5 Right Opinion Columns at The Patriot Post
 QUOTE ADDENDUM
Economist Murray N.
Rothbard (1926-1995): "Free-market capitalism is a network of free and
voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their
products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived
at. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the
coercive apparatus of the government ... for themselves by expropriating
the production of others by force and violence."
National Review's Roger
Clegg: "In 'Screwtape Proposes a Toast,' C. S. Lewis warned against
encouraging people to embrace the closely related and obviously false
notion that, for one and all, 'I'm as good as you are.' Alas, however,
the Left seems determined to assert not only that it's not really your
fault if you underachieve, but also that it's not really to your credit
if you achieve. ... Rather than blaming the victim, the Left wants to
blame what's worked. All that said, the conservative message needs to be
delivered in a way that makes clear it is not motivated by a dislike
for the victim or any special pleading for the others. Indeed, avoiding
bad public policies is at least as important in the long run for the
have-nots as for the haves."
Humorist Frank J. Fleming: "We're never going to get good data on global warming if everyone keeps getting trapped in ice."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
Join us in daily prayer for
our Patriots in uniform -- Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast
Guardsmen -- standing in harm's way in defense of Liberty, and for
their families.
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