Daily Digest
January 13, 2014
THE FOUNDATION
"No man can well doubt the
propriety of placing a president of the United States under the most
solemn obligations to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. It
is a suitable pledge of his fidelity and responsibility to his country;
and creates upon his conscience a deep sense of duty, by an appeal, at
once in the presence of God and man, to the most sacred and solemn
sanctions, which can operate upon the human mind." --Joseph Story (1833)
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKSThe BIG Lie: Obama's Record
In his Saturday radio
address, Barack Obama boasted of his record: "[I]n 2013, our businesses
created 2.2 million new jobs -- including 87,000 last month. Our
unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since October 2008. And
across our broader economy, there are signs of progress. … Thanks in
part to the reforms in the Affordable Care Act, health care costs now
eat up less of our economy -- over the past four years, costs have grown
at the slowest rate on record. And since I took office, we've cut our
deficits by more than half." Now here's the truth: Headline unemployment
declined because people gave up looking. If the same number of
Americans were in the labor force as just last year, the unemployment
rate would be 7.9%. Second, thanks to the "Affordable" Care Act,
millions of Americans have lost the insurance plan they liked and were
told they could keep, and they're forced to pay more for less. And
finally, Obama could only "cut the deficit" in half because he
quadrupled it upon taking office. The deficit remains far higher than
the previous record.
Big Labor and the Unemployed
The AFL-CIO isn't pleased with Friday's jobs report,
issuing a statement complaining, "The unemployment rate has finally
dipped below 7 percent -- more than four and a half years since the
recession supposedly ended. But that fall was driven mostly by people
dropping out of the labor force, not by healthy job creation." The
AFL-CIO is, of course, one of the most powerful Democrat constituent
groups, so it's no surprise that they blame Republicans, who they say
"remain fixated on irrelevant and counter-productive austerity
measures." The way to get people working, according to Big Labor, is to
extend benefits for those who aren't working. Final note: The only thing declining faster than labor force participation is union membership.
Pelosi Unemploys Civility
Republicans aren't just a
political party, they are the definition of evil and Nancy Pelosi wants
you to remember it. Speaking on the extension of "temporary"
unemployment benefits and GOP demands for cost offsets, she said,
"Republicans are not just asking for pay-fors. They keep moving the
goalpost. ... 'We want job creation,' [they say,] a euphemism for tax
breaks for the rich; and, 'We want to end regulation, clean air, clean
water,' you name it. They want to simplify life for those who would
exploit." Democrats know a thing or two about exploitation -- it's the
whole reason they keep extending benefits.
Conservatives Still Outnumber Liberals
From Gallup:
"Americans continue to be more likely to identify as conservatives
(38%) than as liberals (23%). But the conservative advantage is down to
15 percentage points as liberal identification edged up to its highest
level since Gallup began regularly measuring ideology in the current
format in 1992." Democrats like to describe Republicans as having gone
"to the far Right," but that's only because Democrats have gotten more
liberal. Compared to today's crop, Woodrow Wilson might appear
conservative.
Congress Is Wealthier Than EverA recent analysis shows that of the 534 current members of Congress, 268 have a net worth of at least $1 million, and that, as a whole, Congress is richer than ever. Katherine Clark, also a millionaire, is set to join the House representing Massachusetts. Democrats average more wealth than Republicans, too, though the wealthiest member is Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). Unsurprisingly, senators are wealthier than House members. The study doesn't tell us much we didn't already know other than members of Congress aren't exactly average citizens. No wonder they don't "get it."For more, visit Right Hooks.
RIGHT ANALYSISObamaCare Is 'Burdensome' -- for the White House
At issue is getting the administration to report weekly instead of monthly on enrollment data and within two days of any occurrence of security breaches in the Healthcare.gov website involving citizens' personal data. Currently, the government doesn't have to notify people at all, but no doubt those whose information has been compromised find it to be "administratively burdensome." Even many Democrats found White House opposition hard to swallow, as some 67 of them voted for the House's Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act.
Meanwhile, in the latest
episode of Profiles in Accountability, the government terminated its
contract with CGI Federal, the contractor that built Healthcare.gov, a
couple of weeks before it expired anyway. The administration is planning
to sign a 12-month contract worth roughly $90 million with Accenture,
another web firm, to fix the website. Whatever happened to the White
House announcement in December that "all is well"? Of course, as we reported at the time, all was not
well. On top of that, the website has already cost roughly a billion
dollars. Will Accenture actually get it to work? Don't hold your breath.
Finally, it bears repeating that the fundamental problem isn't the website. Indeed, you know things are bad when even The New York Times runs an exposé on how badly ObamaCare has mucked up the health system.Despite the President's Clear Victory Over Al-Qaida...
Recall that the administration's bent has been to aid the rebels against Assad, believing in the so-called democratic wave behind the "Arab Spring." Yet the rebels are increasingly dominated by Islamic fascists. The second story is even more germane to the 2012 election, as the details of the attack on Benghazi was a prime lie of Obama and his team. Hours after the attack -- on Sept. 11, 2012 was the first clue -- the Obama administration knew that Ansar al Sharia in Benghazi claimed responsibility. Now, 16 months later, the Obama State Department is officially designating three Ansar al Sharia groups as terrorist organizations tied to al-Qaida. Sufian bin Qumu, the leader of the Derna branch of Ansar al Sharia, trained with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and fought with jihadis against U.S. forces there. He then spent a few years at the terrorist resort at Guantanamo Bay before checking out to continue his work. Meanwhile, three days after the Benghazi attack, members of Ansar al Sharia in Tunisia ransacked the U.S. Embassy in Tunis. And yet Obama and his team continued to deny this throughout the campaign, while touting Obama's success against al-Qaida as a reason to re-elect him. With a second term secured, he can now quietly dispense with the charade. If only that meant seriously dealing with U.S. national security. For more, visit Right Analysis.
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
 OPINION IN BRIEF
Columnist Peggy Noonan:
"Policy people are policy people -- sometimes creative, almost always
sober, grounded, mature. But political operatives get high on winning.
They start to think nothing can touch them when they're with a winner.
They get full of themselves. And they think only winning counts, because
winning is their job. The ones who are young lack judgment, but they
don't know they lack judgment because they're not wise enough. So they
don't check themselves. ... There's an ethos of wise-guy toughness among
these staffers and consultants, and they often try to out-tough each
other. That's how dirty tricks happen. ... There's a twist on this you
can see in the Christie story. You read the emails and texts his
operatives were sending, and you realize: This is TV dialogue. It's
movie dialogue. They get everything off the screen, not real life, and
they're imitating the sound of tough guys."
Columnist Star Parker:
"[T]he quality of our lives ultimately flows from the behavior of
individual human beings and not from any meticulously designed political
system. The best any political system can do is to assure political
freedom. But it cannot assure what individuals choose to do with their
freedom and the values that will define their lives. The more we believe
that politics alone can make our lives better, and that moral standards
are just private matters with no import on the quality of our national
life, the deeper we will dig the hole in which we are burying ourselves.
... [President Lyndon] Johnson's promotion of government as the source
of life's answers, and his split between politics and personal morality,
contributed mightily to the breakdown of the American family that he
knew was vital to our society. Politics and political rhetoric is no
substitute for personal morality."
Missouri Lt. Gov. Harriet Woods (1927-2007): "You can stand tall
without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having
victims."
Media Research Center's L.
Brent Bozell: "[T]he IRS scandal ... is completely untouched by the same
media who believed they need to spend two days worth of non-stop
coverage on Chris Christie. The two controversies aren't even close in
importance. One is a lane closure on a highway. It's obnoxious. It's
petty. It's beneath the governor's office. It's a scandal. It should be
covered no question about it. The other one is using the most feared arm
of government as an intimidation, even a persecution arm against the
citizenry of America. There's no comparison. Yet one gets 44 times more coverage than the other."
Comedian Jay Leno: "New
Jersey Governor Chris Christie doesn't know yet if he's running for
president in 2016. I guess he'll cross that bridge when he comes to it.
... Pundits are saying this could hurt his 2016 presidential campaign.
The ironic thing is this: Now that Christie is denying everything he
sounds even more presidential."
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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