Daily Digest for Friday
Friday, January 17, 2014
THE FOUNDATION
"If the president alone was vested with the power of appointing all officers, and was left to select a council for himself, he would be liable to be deceived by flatterers and pretenders to patriotism." --Roger Sherman, to John Adams, 1789TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Congress Spends $1.1 Trillion
The Senate passed the $1.1 trillion spending bill Thursday by a vote of 72-26, following the House's 359-67 vote Wednesday. Republicans supplied virtually all the opposition. The measure heads to the White House and eliminates any threat of another dreaded government "shutdown" -- at least until Oct. 1. The omnibus funds every government agency, as well as ObamaCare, funding for which sparked the October shutdown. Typical of the way things are now done, when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) was asked if he read the 1,528-page bill before voting, he replied, "Nobody did!" You have to pass it to find out what's in it.Healthcare.gov Security Questions
Security expert Kevin
Johnson has reviewed hacker testing of Healthcare.gov and finds that the
site "remains fundamentally flawed in ways that make it dangerous to
people who use it." One security vulnerability is that, allegedly,
hackers can access users' computers remotely via a worm upload. But
another expert warned, "We don't know how bad it is because they [the
White House] don't have to tell us." Rest assured, they won't
tell us, just as they aren't likely to divulge any successful hacks. Any
such admissions would politically damage December's "We Fixed It"
message. Indeed, a CMS official told Congress just this week that
Healthcare.gov has passed an "end-to-end test" and has "met all industry
standards." Anybody believe that?
Running Against ObamaCare
Arizona Rep. Ann
Kirkpatrick has a new campaign ad out boasting of how she “blew the
whistle” on the disastrous launch of Healthcare.gov. But that's amusing
on a couple of levels. First, Kirkpatrick is a Democrat who
voted for ObamaCare in 2010 and has opposed every attempt at repeal.
Second, she "blew the whistle" with a mild hand slap in a press release
six weeks after the website's launch, long after Healthcare.gov had
become a late-night laughingstock. Third, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman
Schultz has repeatedly sworn that every Democrat will run on ObamaCare in 2014, not away from it. If this keeps up, it could be a very entertaining campaign season.
Amazon Workers Reject Big Labor
The only thing declining
faster than labor force participation is union membership. Indeed,
growing skepticism toward Big Labor resulted in this week's decision by a
group of Amazon warehouse workers based in Middletown, Delaware, to
overwhelmingly reject joining the International Association of
Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW). The 21-6 vote means that, for
now, the team of 27 technicians at the facility are free from the
detrimental effects of union representation. "That number is a clear
reflection that the tactics Amazon and their law firm employed were very
effective," complained IAMAW spokesman John Carr. "Under the intense
pressures these workers faced on the shop floor, it was an uphill battle
all the way." Or maybe the majority simply didn't feel like being
coerced by union heads pursuing a political agenda.
If It Weren't for Double Standards...
Shortly after the massacre
at Sandy Hook elementary in December 2012, NBC's "Meet the Press" host,
David Gregory, took to the air waving around a standard capacity
30-round AR-15 magazine. His agenda, of course, was to exploit Sandy
Hook and scare people into supporting "reasonable" gun control. However,
possession of such a magazine is illegal in DC, where the show
was filmed. NBC even ignored a warning by the DC Metropolitan Police
Department beforehand. Yet to this day, nothing has been done to
prosecute Gregory for his horrific crime. Meanwhile, Maryland police
recently stopped and harassed a Florida gun owner traveling through the state -- even though he was unarmed at the time. One set of rules for the media elite, another for the "hoi polloi."
For more, visit Right Hooks.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
Senate Report: Benghazi Attack Was Preventable
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The report doesn't break a lot of new ground because the details of the attack have been known for some time. But the fact that it was crafted with bipartisan support raises the hope that Senate Democrats will concede to a more thorough investigation instead of falling for Barack Obama's lame excuse that Benghazi is a "phony scandal" ginned up by Republicans. The State Department and the White House have done everything in their power to keep the Benghazi attack out of the national conversation, stonewalling investigations and concocting the campaign lie that the attack was a spontaneous protest of an obscure YouTube video despite knowing within minutes that it was a deliberate terrorist attack.
Though the report does not
reveal just who came up with that sorry protest story in the weeks
leading up to the 2012 presidential election, it does put to rest any
notion that Benghazi was anything short of a coordinated, planned
terrorist attack. Now, congressional leaders should continue to push for
the truth behind the post-attack politicizing of the narrative, because
we'll never get it from the Obama White House. Holding a person or persons
accountable and not just faceless bureaucracies is paramount. Then
again, in the immortal words of former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, "What difference ... does it make?"
Holder the Shakedown Artist
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But let's look at the facts
-- crazy talk, we know. The Justice Department accused Ally of
"charg[ing] African-American borrowers more than white borrowers in
interest-rate markups not based on creditworthiness or other objective
criteria related to borrower risk." However, Justice didn't have the
pertinent data to make such a claim. Unlike the mortgage industry, the
auto industry doesn't track a buyer's race, so Holder and Co. had to guess
based on Census data for the racial composition of a buyer's
neighborhood. Justice didn't bother looking at creditworthiness of the
buyers, either -- regardless of the supposed race -- so how would they
know Ally didn't assess it before making the loans?
The bottom line is that the Justice Department had nothing to go on
and pushed forward with these trumped-up charges anyway. Ally caved
rather than fight the inevitable Leftmedia PR battle. The Obama
administration is far more concerned with its beloved but discredited
"disparate impact" theory than upholding fair business practices, and
the media will always dutifully fall in line.
Holder once accused the
American people of being "essentially a nation of cowards" when it comes
to race, while demanding a "national conversation" on the topic. It's
time he participated in the conversation already happening instead of
making up lies to persecute political opponents and the free market.
For more, visit Right Analysis.
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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Arnold Ahlert: Obama IRS's Crimes Against Americans to go Unpunished
- Michael Barone: Population Declining in States With High Dependence on Govt.
- Jonah Goldberg: Obama's Poll Numbers Give Demos the Midterm Blues
- Mona Charen: Obama Administration Mandates Racism in Schools
- Charles Krauthammer: How in Good Conscience?
OPINION IN BRIEF
Columnist Linda Chavez: "In a private meeting with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Attorney General Eric Holder this week promised that the Department of Justice soon will issue long-anticipated new rules expanding the definition of what constitutes racial profiling. ... President George W. Bush banned racial profiling in federal law enforcement in 2003, but he applied the ban only to racial and ethnic profiling and carved out exemptions for terrorism and national security. The new regulations are expected to reverse those exemptions, which will make the fight against terrorism more difficult. ... Does it really make sense to subject a 75-year-old woman from Kansas to the same level of scrutiny as a 25-year-old male from Yemen? ... [These proposals] are likely to weaken national security, make policing more difficult and making all Americans -- including minorities -- less safe in their own communities."
Columnist Michelle Malkin:
"The myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist never dies. ... While meeting
with Catholic Church officials at the Vatican in Rome on Monday, [John]
Kerry expounded on their 'huge common interest in dealing with this
issue of poverty, which in many cases is the root cause of terrorism or
even the root cause of the disenfranchisement of millions of people on
this planet.' In other words: If only every al-Qaida and Taliban recruit
had a fraction of Kerry's $200 million fortune, they'd all be
frolicking peacefully with infidels on jet skis sporting 'Coexist'
bumper stickers. ... Financial bankruptcy is not ... the 'root cause' of
Koran-inspired hatred and violence against nonbelievers. Lack of
intellectual stimulation is not ... the 'root cause' of radical Islam's
centuries-old and never-ceasing imperative to establish a worldwide
caliphate and conquer the West. The root cause of civilizational jihad
is unmitigated evil and arrogance, not lack of compassion, understanding
or social justice."
Justice Louis D. Brandeis
(1856-1941): "The makers of our constitution undertook to secure
conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness... They sought to
protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and
their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right
to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of the rights and the right
most valued by civilized men."
Columnist Judi McLeod:
"Organizing for America sent out a message asking people to 'join Barack
in signing Michelle's 50th birthday card'. What about the infamous
'Birthday Card' Michelle Obama sent out advocating partial-birth
abortions in 2004? One month after her 40th birthday in February of
2004, Michelle Obama wrote a fundraising letter to help her husband
Barack raise funds for his Illinois-based Senate seat stating that the
federal ban on partial-birth abortions 'is clearly unconstitutional' and
a 'flawed law'. ... Seems that constitutional expert Michelle had a pen
and a phone long before her husband did."
Comedian Jay Leno: "The
Labor Department reported that last month 347,000 people quit looking
for work. And in New Jersey, 50,000 people quit driving to work."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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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