March 6, 2014
THE FOUNDATION
"We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience." --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, 1782TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Facebook and Gun Pages
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America is an anti-gun group that ran obnoxious ads with children holding AR-15s last year, all to sustain an emotional response after Sandy Hook. The group recently made a target of Facebook, demanding that the social networking site ban gun-themed fan pages. Facebook listened -- sort of. Facebook said it will tighten restrictions on said pages, blocking them for users under 18 and requiring that pages used to promote private gun sales post a warning about the law and also limit access for children. MDA is claiming victory, but the modification is a far cry from their initial demands. Perhaps MDA should focus on things more meaningful than whether a kid sees a picture of a gun.Comment | Share
Putin's Peace Prize?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. True story. Of course, being nominated and winning one are two different things, but it's humorous nonetheless. Unfortunately for Putin, the Russian invasion of Ukraine might come up in discussions about his nomination, and the committee may frown upon that act of non-peace. Then again, Yasser Arafat won a Nobel Prize so maybe anything goes. And on the bright side, it allows Barack Obama winning the Prize to make slightly more sense.Comment | Share
Hillary and Hitler
Hillary Clinton had this analysis of Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine: "Now if this sounds familiar, it's what Hitler did back in the '30s. All the Germans that were ... the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying 'they're not being treated right. I must go and protect my people' and that's what's gotten everybody so nervous." Actually, she's got a point. But it wasn't long before hedged, saying she was just trying to bring "a little historical perspective" to the debate, adding, "I don't know that it does any good to just up the rhetoric unless we can make sure that Europe is responding." And if anything serves to "up the rhetoric," it's Hitler comparisons.Comment | Share
Pryor on Military 'Entitlement'
If Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) wasn't toast in this November's election already, he may have just sealed his fate. Pryor described his opponent, Rep. Tom Cotton, as having a "sense of entitlement" because he served in the military and is now running for Senate. "I think that's part of that sense of entitlement that he gives off is that, almost like, 'I served my country, let me into the Senate.' But that's not how it works in Arkansas." Ironically, how's "it works in Arkansas" for Pryor is that he's trading on his father's name and political legacy. David Pryor was governor and then senator, and Mark Pryor now holds his seat. So who has a "sense of entitlement"?Comment | Share
No More Insurance Companies
Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the architects behind ObamaCare, has a prediction: "[I]nsurance companies as we know them are about to die." That could be good, though, Emanuel argues, since "Americans hate health insurance companies." In a general sense he's probably right, but then why did ObamaCare merely force everyone to buy from those hated companies? The short answer, as we've argued since 2009, is that the Democrats' plan all along has been to work toward single-payer health care, which means destroying the current system, even better if "by popular demand." But when Emanuel writes, "So be prepared to kiss your insurance company good-bye forever," it's not exactly "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan," is it?Comment | Share
For more, visit Right Hooks.
Don't Miss Alexander's Column
Read The Russian Invasion of Ukraine, on the limited options the U.S. really has.If you'd like to receive Alexander's Column by email, update your subscription here.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
A Cup of Texas Tea
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Unlike 2010 and 2012, when Rick Perry and Ted Cruz won primaries with huge Tea Party support, there were races where several candidates tried to adopt the Tea Party mantle and split the vote. One example is the race for lieutenant governor, where incumbent David Dewhurst was forced into a runoff and received just 28% -- the other 72% divided among a number of hopefuls, with Dan Patrick becoming the Tea Party favorite and leading the way. The same was true of the state's attorney general race, where the "establishment" pick won just 33%, but no one else reached 50% in a crowded field.
A second hopeful sign was the massive amount of votes Republicans received in Texas's open primary. As columnist Michael Barone points out, 71% of votes cast were on the Republican side. Or put another way, he says, "Yesterday's results suggest that the 'paint Texas blue' project has not made much headway." Since neither Republicans nor Democrats had a seriously contested race for governor, the action seemed to be determining just how conservative of a Republican would be nominated.
As always, the Beltway narrative is that the Tea Party is too "extreme" to win elections. In some cases, there's no question the Tea Party nominated flawed candidates and failed to win previous elections that were winnable. Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, Sharon Angle in Nevada and Todd Akin in Missouri come to mind. And in Texas, Rep. Steve Stockman ran a strange and sometimes non-existent campaign to unseat John Cornyn. But then again, not a single significant Tea Party group supported him.
The imperfect election record doesn't negate Tea Party truth, which is that the government is too big and growing too fast, and that far too often Republicans are part of the problem. If the Tea Party can nominate solid candidates who articulate the basic message that those problems can be addressed by Liberty and constitutionally limited government, and if it can focus on good candidates competing in winnable races, the movement will be successful for years to come.
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Democrats Scuttle Radical Obama Nomination
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| Adegbile and Abu-Jamal |
Obama declared that "the Senate's failure" to confirm Adegbile "is a travesty. Based on wildly unfair character attacks against a good and qualified public servant. Mr. Adegbile's qualifications are impeccable."
Let's look at those qualifications. Adegbile was involved in the NAACP's legal defense of infamous cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal, a member of the Black Panther Party, had already been rightfully convicted and sentenced to death (later commuted to life in prison) for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner when Adegbile became involved. Adegbile, like so many leftists nationwide and abroad, made Abu-Jamal a cause célèbre based on the absurd claim that he was the victim of a racist justice system. In the end, though, he was nothing more than a cold-blooded killer.
(For background on the case, see Arnold Ahlert's excellent recap in Right Opinion.)
Adegbile's political involvement in the Abu-Jamal case was no secret to Obama when he was nominated for the Justice post, but it was also seemingly of no consequence. In fact, Adegbile would have been a perfect fit for the administration's scheme to politicize the Justice Department, while remaking voting laws through selective enforcement to tip the scales in Democrats' favor for years to come. Obama, no doubt assured by Reid, also thought he had this one in the bag. But most of the Democrats who voted against cloture are facing tough re-election prospects this year and didn't want to be seen supporting such a nominee. It's called self-preservation. Perhaps we're jaded, but it's hard to believe that they really thought the president went too far.
Reid and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) immediately took to blaming Republicans, even though it was actually their fellow Democrats who sunk the nomination. Durbin even went so far as to claim that Adegbile's involvement in the Abu-Jamal case "demonstrates his appreciation for the Rule of Law." This signifies one of the biggest problems Democrats have -- they constantly confuse politics with law, trying to trade one for the other whenever it's convenient for their agenda.
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For more, visit Right Analysis.
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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Arnold Ahlert: A Cop-Killer Advocate Goes Down in Flames in the Senate
- Larry Elder: Hollywood Favors High Tax, 'Gender Pay Equity' -- Just Not in Hollywood
- Jonah Goldberg: Obama in Denial on Russia
- Victor Davis Hanson: Science and Reason vs. Political Correctness
- Larry Kudlow & Brian Domitrovic: Recalling the Days When Democrats Cut Taxes
OPINION IN BRIEF
Columnist Jonah Goldberg: "Obama mocked Mitt Romney for his claim that the Russians are our 'No. 1 geopolitical foe,' and scoffed: 'The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.' That scorn looks embarrassing enough given recent events. But the truth is Obama's hostility to Romney's policies had little to do with them being outdated. Obama didn't like America's Cold War policies during the Cold War. In 1983, then-Columbia University student Obama penned a lengthy article for the school magazine placing the blame for U.S.-Soviet tensions largely on America's 'war mentality' and the 'twisted logic' of the Cold War. President Reagan's defense buildup, according to Obama, contributed to the 'silent spread of militarism' and reflected our 'distorted national priorities' rather than what should be our goal: a 'nuclear free world.' Of course, it's unfair to put too much weight on anyone's youthful writings. Except there's precious little evidence his views have changed over the years."Comment | Share
Historian Victor Davis Hanson: "Science is rarely 'settled.' Instead, orthodoxy is constantly challenged. A theory survives not by politics, but only if it can offer the best logical explanations for a set of circumstances backed by hard statistical data. Global warming that begat 'climate change' is no exception. All the good politics in the world of blaming most bad weather on too much carbon dioxide cannot make it true if unquestioned climate data cannot support the notion of recent temperature increases being directly attributable to rising man-caused carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. In recent years, 'settled science' with regard to the causes of peptic ulcers, the health benefits of Vitamin D, the need for annual mammograms and the prognostic value of the prostate-specific antigen test have all been turned upside down by dissident scientists offering new theories to interpret fresh data."
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American writer Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973): "None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free."
Columnist Ann Coulter: "[A]nother Russian leader is playing cat-and-mouse with an American president -- and guess who's the mouse? Putin has taunted Obama in Iran, in Syria and with Edward Snowden. By now, Obama has become such an object for Putin's amusement that the fastest way to get the Russians out of Crimea would be for Obama to call on Putin to invade Ukraine."
Humorist Frank J. Fleming: "You really have to lower yourself to a special stupidity at this point to contend that Obama is anything other than a big dud. ... I will proudly tell my grandchildren I was against the first black president being a useless nitwit."
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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