Daily Digest for Friday
January 24, 2014
THE FOUNDATION
"If the people are capable
of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and
false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can
the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?"
--John Adams, the Novanglus, 1775
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKSThe NSA's Security Clearance
Last year, Barack Obama
tasked the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board with reviewing
the NSA's mass surveillance programs for legality and effectiveness.
Well, Thursday, the board said that the collection of all telephone
records is illegal, useless and should be ended.
"We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the
United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete
difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation," said the
report. Meanwhile, the Justice Department claims that USIS, the private
contractor that conducts background checks for federal employees,
including Edward Snowden, faked 665,000 checks -- or 40% -- since 2008.
Maybe the NSA should narrow its focus to federal employees.
Insurance Downgrade
Moody's Investor Service
has downgraded the entire health insurance industry from stable to
negative. Guess what's to blame: ObamaCare. Moody's says, "a new
development and a key factor for the change in outlook is the unstable
and evolving regulatory environment under which the sector is
operating." Unstable is putting it mildly given the waivers and
unilateral changes made by the Obama administration. The ratings change
was inevitable because ObamaCare was designed to yield the results it's getting. And it's just getting started.
Wanted: Special Prosecutor
The Obama Department of
Justice has hired an Obama donor to investigate the Obama IRS over its
political targeting of Obama's political opponents. Notice a theme? So
does Sen. Ted Cruz, who wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder this week
demanding a special prosecutor to do the investigating. "Two hundred
fifty-three days have passed since both you and President Obama
professed outrage at the IRS's wrongful conduct," Cruz wrote. "To date,
no one has been indicted. And it has been reported that the FBI plans
not to file any criminal charges." Cruz concluded, "This is a sad state
of affairs. The widespread perception of partisan bias, of manifest
conflict of interest, besmirches the reputation of the Department of
Justice. And it undermines confidence in rule of law." Well, that is the primary plank in the Democrat platform.
VA AG Is Law Unto Himself
Virginia Democrat Attorney
General has decided he will no longer defend state marriage law against
those who would rewrite it to allow same-sex "marriage." "As attorney
general," he said, "I cannot and will not defend laws that violate
Virginians' rights. ... It's about what the law requires here, and we
have concluded, I have concluded, that the law here is unconstitutional, and I think the Supreme Court ... would find the law unconstitutional." He
-- the chief lawyer in Virginia -- has concluded that he will not
uphold the law. Democrats are so blind in their pursuit of the leftist
agenda that Rule of Law is merely an obstacle.
Israel Foils Al-Qaida AttackIsrael announced Wednesday that it had thwarted an "advanced" al-Qaida attack plan against the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. Three Palestinian recruits tied to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri were arrested for conspiring to perpetrate bombings, shootings and kidnappings, though the U.S. State Department has not verified Israel's claim. No surprise there, of course, given that Barack Obama assured us that al-Qaida was "decimated" before the 2012 presidential election and we have nothing more to worry about from what he now calls the al-Qaida "jayvee" squad. Move along.
For more, visit Right Hooks.
RIGHT ANALYSISMessage From the Left: If You Buy a Gun, You Will Kill Yourself
But never mind the facts. Leftists have never let those pesky things get in the way of a good yarn. Fortunately for them, the halls of Pollyanna-academia are filled with mush-heads who stand ready to "refute" these inconvenient truths. The latest effort was recently published in the otherwise-reputable Annals of Internal Medicine. Now why, one might ask, would a journal of internal medicine focus on a political issue like gun control? Great question; we can't answer it. The gist of the study is the "conclusive" finding that having a gun inside one's home makes one more likely to successfully attempt suicide.
Of course, the authors of
this brilliant study ask us to check our brains at the Left-think door
before we critically examine their findings. As Jacob Sullum of Reason magazine notes,
these researchers would like us to put aside the fact that someone
contemplating suicide might actually have the malice aforethought to go
out and buy a gun; or that "the same personality traits or circumstances
that increase their risk of suicide also make gun ownership more
attractive." Sullum further asks, "In how many cases, if any, did an
abusive husband disarm his wife and use the gun she bought for
self-defense against her? Were the people who committed suicide
determined enough that if a gun had not been available they would have
killed themselves anyway?" Who knows? No one bothered to investigate
these obvious questions.
The problem is that no analysis beyond a first-order glance at the
data was made during the study. The pre-biased authors had a conclusion
in search of research data to support it, as is often the case with such
"studies." Without knowing the details of each death, the study --
though full of facts -- is wholly worthless because so many other
independent variables which bear directly on the results were not even
considered, let alone evaluated. Not to worry, however: For the
ideologically driven, facts that don't support the forgone conclusion
may be readily discarded.However, in debunking the latest leftist gun-control tripe, let's not forget to keep our eye on the ball: At issue here is not "how safe" we feel with or without guns. The real issue is whether we, as U.S. citizens, have the right to keep and bear arms, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment -- period. The Constitution's answer is, "Yes." Setting aside the buffoonery that renders this study worthless, even if its claims were accurate, its findings would have no impact on our constitutional rights. Deciding Afghanistan
There is a sad chance that history may be repeating itself. Obama stubbornly ended America's commitment in Iraq, and look how that turned out. The Syrian civil war has spilled over the border and sectarian violence that had been quelled by a strong U.S. troop presence has reignited. Moreover, al-Qaida has made a strong comeback in recent months, reclaiming territory in Anbar Province that many Americans gave their lives to liberate during the 2007 surge. Notwithstanding the mercurial whims of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has stymied a bilateral forces agreement while making deals with the Taliban, Obama should reject such a drastic reduction in America's 37,500-strong force. But he seems bent on laying claim to ending our involvement in Afghanistan like he did in Iraq, and leaving it to his successor to deal with the fallout when the cost of pacification will be higher than it ever would have been had we never left. For more, visit Right Analysis.
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
 OPINION IN BRIEF
Columnist Charles
Krauthammer: "Canada's foreign minister calmly but pointedly complained
that the U.S. owes Canada a response on the Keystone XL pipeline. 'We
can't continue in this state of limbo,' he sort of complained, in what
for a placid, imperturbable Canadian passes for an explosion of volcanic
rage. ... If Obama wants to cave to his environmental left, go ahead.
But why keep Canada in limbo? It's a show of supreme and undeserved
disrespect for yet another ally. ... The only rationale for denying the
pipeline is political -- to appease Obama's more extreme
environmentalists. For a president who claims not to be ideological, the
irony is striking: Here is an easily available piece of infrastructure
-- privately built, costing government not a penny, creating thousands
of jobs and, yes, shovel ready -- and yet the president, who's been
incessantly pushing new 'infrastructure' as a fundamental economic
necessity, can't say yes."
Columnist David Limbaugh: "It is sheer sophistry and misdirection to
argue that abortion opponents are on a crusade against women's liberty.
This formulation conveniently -- and repugnantly -- factors out of the
equation the innocent child involved. ... No amount of rhetorical
legalese on 'emanations' and 'penumbras' can pollute our common sense
into believing that a woman has a right to terminate the life of an
innocent child she is carrying as a matter of constitutional privacy.
... How could any human being believe that preserving legal protection
for other human beings to terminate the lives of yet other human beings
is giving them an 'opportunity to fill their dreams'? Are some people so dark-hearted that they consider killing babies an opportunity to fulfill dreams?"
Swiss psychiatrist Carl
Gustav Jung (1875-1961): "Whenever justice is uncertain and police
spying and terror are at work, human beings fall into isolation, which,
of course, is the aim and purpose of the dictator state, since it is
based on the greatest possible accumulation of depotentiated social
units."
Columnist Mona Charen: "'I
came from a place of struggle,' insisted Texas gubernatorial candidate
Wendy Davis.... One of Davis' struggles, apparently, is with the truth.
... She, and the press who lionize her, seem all too eager to suggest
that she somehow did everything all by herself. This false heroic tale
is a common trope on the left these days -- women doing it all by
themselves. It's more than partisan hackery. It reinforces the very
damaging notion that women don't need husbands. Many, many women are
swallowing this propaganda and acting on it. They, their children and
our society are suffering mightily as a result."
Comedian Argus Hamilton:
"French president Francois Hollande is coming to the White House with a
new girlfriend next month. He left his common-law wife for a journalist,
now he's leaving the journalist for an actress. At the White House
official state dinner, he will receive the John F. Kennedy Award."
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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