THE FOUNDATION
"National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman." --John Adams, letter to James Lloyd, 1815TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Second Journalist Beheaded by ISIL
ISIL has beheaded American journalist Steven Sotloff, just a few days after doing the same to James Foley. Also like Foley, Sotloff was forced to read a statement before his death, this one condemning America and celebrating the jihadi victory over U.S. troops in Iraq. According to a SITE Intelligence Group transcript, Sotloff says, "You've spent billions of U.S. taxpayers' dollars and we've lost thousands of our troops in our previous fighting against the Islamic State, so where is the people's interest in reigniting this war?" Sotloff also said he was "paying the price" of U.S. strikes against ISIL. Some are speculating the jihadi with a British accent committing the murder may be the same one who executed Foley. It's time ISIL paid a higher price for its brutality. More...Comment | Share
We Will 'Degrade and Destroy' ISIL
More tough talk from the one who carries a small stick. Barack Obama vowed to "degrade and destroy" ISIL after the beheading of a second American journalist, Steven Sotloff. "We will not be intimidated," Obama declared, sounding entirely bored with having to be away from the golf course for so long. "Those who make the mistake of harming Americans will learn that we will not forget and that our reach is long and that justice will be served." We recall his claim to have "decimated" al-Qaida, which turned out to be both false and politically motivated. And it remains to be seen what Obama will do, especially given he has no strategy for ISIL (though the State Department says to "stay tuned" for one). Indeed, later in the press conference, Obama had already begun backtracking, saying the objective is "to shrink ISIL’s sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its military capability to the point where it is a manageable problem." That doesn't exactly inspire confidence.Comment | Share
For Labor Day, Obama Advocates Less Labor
In his weekly address for Labor Day weekend, Barack Obama redirected election attention to one of his favorite populist ploys: hiking the minimum wage. "[R]aising the minimum wage would be one of the best ways to give a boost to working families," he said, concluding, "The bottom line is, America deserves a raise. But until we've got a Congress that cares about raising working folks' wages, it's up to the rest of us to make it happen." We have often noted how harmful raising the minimum wage would be to the number of jobs available, as well as hours worked in jobs kept. We're all for American families earning as much as possible, but it's the market that should dictate wages, not an economically illiterate community organizer.Comment | Share
Energy Prices on a Sharp Increase -- and Winter Is Coming
Under the Obama administration, energy prices have steadily risen thanks to the war on coal and an expanding regulatory state. This year has been no different. In fact, consumer costs are increasing at the fastest rate since Obama took office. The Washington Examiner reports, "Electricity prices for the first half of the year increased the most in a year-over-year basis since 2009, according to the Energy Department's statistics arm." Nationally, the index rose by 3.2%, but "New England led much of the spike, as prices there jumped 11.8 percent," the Examiner notes. "The region faced a brutal winter, leading to a natural gas supply crunch that caused prices to soar." And that's a huge concern. Meteorologist Joe D'Aleo writes, "Last winter, residents of many parts of the North paid as much for electricity as in all of 2012. Some power plants came within two days of running out of oil in New England [emphasis added]." D'Aleo's company, WeatherBell Analytics, believes this coming winter could rival -- perhaps dwarf? -- last season's cold. New EPA regulations coming down the pipe only add to the concern of a possible energy crisis in the making -- all thanks to eco-alarmists' obsession with "global warming." More...Comment | Share
Biden Says 'It's Time to Take Back America'
Last month, Attorney General Eric Holder declared, "There's a certain level of vehemence, it seems to me, that's directed at me [and] directed at the president. You know, people talking about taking their country back." He insisted that, for some people, "There's a certain racial component to this." Well, there's a racist in the administration -- Joe Biden. "It's time to take back America," Biden told a Detroit audience Monday. "If we don't, America's in trouble." Who does Biden imagine has been running America for the last six years? In fact, Democrats took control of Congress in 2007. Yes, Republicans reclaimed the House in 2011, but they haven't exactly been in the driver's seat. We agree America's in trouble, but it's thanks to Biden and his ilk. More...Comment | Share
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
How Conservatives Can Win the Hearts and Minds of Hispanics and Women
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The conservative movement needs to rebrand and return to its core values to snatch this near-victory from the Left.
Examine the numbers and it appears the Democrat Party has picked the demographics to pander to in order to win for generations to come. Women outnumber men in this country 161 million to 156.1 million, and women are more likely to vote, with 63.7% of them voting in the election that gave Barack Obama his second term. The turnout for men was 59.7%.
The Hispanic population has climbed steadily since the 1970s. There are now 54 million Hispanics in the U.S. In the next 30 years, whites will become a minority, something that probably leaves the Left tickled pink because 78% of Obama's support came from minority groups. Indeed, Pew Research Center said the Hispanic population surpassed the white population in California this year.
These numbers appear likely to produce long-term wins for Democrats, but demographics this large fracture into subgroups that conservatives can reach with their message. In essence, conservatives should take advantage of the Democrats' own divide and conquer strategy, winning those who are receptive to Liberty. Not all women want the Left's version of "reproductive rights." Not all Hispanics are illegal immigrants or wards of the state.
Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, believes if conservatives vigorously reach out to Latinos, they can find allies in the Hispanic community. He recently released a book about his fellow Hispanics called "A Race for the Future: How Conservatives Can Break the Liberal Monopoly on Hispanic Americans."
"Nobody came here to be Balkanized into different neighborhoods," Gonzalez said. "They came here to succeed."
Mexican culture has been with America from the beginning. Mexicans lived inside Texas when it was incorporated into the rest of the states, for example. The tortilla is just as American as hamburger (German), pizza (Italian) and apple pie (Dutch).
Don't think Hispanics are one homogeneous group. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Cubans landed in Florida to escape communism.
Gonzalez said the word "Hispanic," as used to describe all people hailing from the Spanish-speaking world, only came into use in the 1970s when the government designated "Hispanics" a minority group. This time of social upheaval and the influx of Latino immigration created the heavy Democrat support found among Latinos, according to Gonzalez:
"That millions of immigrants, the majority from Latin America, began arriving just as the United States was being hit by a social and cultural tornado receives surprisingly little analysis. This whirlwind, after all, ripped up norms that had been in place for generations.And Democrats have treated women in the same manner -- as ignorant dupes who can only vote Democrat. Thanks to the Left's rhetoric and polices, women view the Republican Party as "stuck in the past" and "intolerant," according to a Republican study leaked to Politico. The study found 49% of women dislike Republicans, while only 39% view Democrats with distain. But those numbers almost flip if women are married and possess a college education, with 48% supporting the GOP and 38% backing Democrats. No wonder Democrats want to destroy marriage.
"These new immigrants had no memory of what the country had been like. In the media, in schools and in entertainment, they began to hear dubious reinterpretations of America and a denigration of traditional values. For many of them, 'assimilation' meant adopting the emerging standards of a rapidly evolving country."
R.R. Reno of First Things offered a thoughtful response to the Politico story, and an even better rebuttal to a Slate rejoinder.
Reno argues Democrats tap into women's sense of vulnerability:
"[M]y explanation of the profound difference between single and married female voters involves a final assumption: The Democratic Party is the party that promises to expand government to take care of people whose lives aren’t working out. This doesn’t mean Republicans are cold-hearted. It’s just that, for many different reasons, Republicans don’t think government can or should take care of all our needs.America has people -- the poor, immigrants, single moms -- that are vulnerable. They're afraid that if rules and regulations are thrown back, then the more powerful -- the big business, the men with fists -- will grab power in the vacuum and do harm. And how will the weak get more power without the benevolent power above that keeps them safe? They don't realize progressives need to keep them poor and weak in order to preserve their own power. The question for lovers of Liberty is this: How do we empower people to pull themselves up through hard work, to self-govern?
"Put those assumptions together, and I have an explanation for why single women vote so heavily for Democratic candidates: Their inability to achieve a core life-goal (marriage) makes them feel vulnerable, and so they vote for the party that promises to use government to protect the vulnerable."
This is where the conservative movement must rebrand. Instead of poorly delivering the same message, hoping that minorities are convinced into voting for the same white male politicians, conservatives must embrace more diverse leadership and show that conservative policies made that advancement possible. Let's welcome female politicians who support Liberty and conservative ideals with their own unique governing style. Let's fill the school boards with concerned mothers and town councils with Latino businessmen. Then, let's unfetter the people by decentralizing the government -- kicking the power back to the local level. And we'll see who will be the party of the people.
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Where Have the Immigrant Children and Students Gone?
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In the 1950s the United States had an immigration policy that maintained national security and unity in a country of peoples with hundreds of different nationalities, races and ethnicities. The system did largely favor immigrants of Western nations, but a nation has an absolute right to decide who immigrates within its borders. If citizens want to change immigration policy, so be it. But what citizens want and what they get are two very different things in Washington, DC.
In 1965 Ted Kennedy arose to do the Democrat thing and fundamentally transform America with his proposed immigration bill. He denied his intentions vigorously: “Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same. ... [T]he bill will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area. ... [The] ethnic pattern of immigration is not expected to change as sharply as critics think.”
That bill became the first in a series of immigration “reform” bills that passed and gave us our present rancorous multicultural society.
Sixty-five years later, with a population far more than “substantially” changed, we face critical, urgent problems caused by unrestrained immigration that must be solved soon if we are to remain a nation. We offer two examples.
First, even after the lessons of 9/11, government has failed to sufficiently track student visas, and some recipients simply disappear before or after their visas expire. Last year alone 58,000 failed to leave when required, and of that group, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is trying to find 6,000 considered to be of “heightened concern.”
Between 2003 and 2012 the number of students on visas nearly doubled, climbing from 663,000 to 1.2 million. It now exceeds a million per year. And virtually any kind of school qualifies: beauty school, massage school and, yes, flight school, a third of which have no FAA certification.
One school with four campuses remains in operation even though five top executives have been indicted for visa fraud. The indictment charges that 80% of enrolled foreign students had delinquent attendance, which the school failed to report. The execs pled not guilty.
The ICE official in charge of investigating student visa violations said ICE has no choice but to allow the school to continue facilitating student visas, explaining, “[T]his is the United States of America and everyone has due process.”
Second, where are the thousands of illegal alien children who continue entering our country? Some in the government know, but ABC News could not get an answer. The Department of Health and Human Services website says, “We cannot release information about individual children that could compromise the child’s location or identity.”
Not compromising illegal aliens’ identity now takes precedence over not compromising national security. Remember, many of those “children” are in their late teens or early 20s. Some belong to either of the two most dangerous Latino gangs that have been recruiting heavily at detention centers. Plus there’s no way of knowing how many terrorists have infiltrated our nation after Barack Obama’s emasculation of the Border Patrol and the laughable performance of ICE.
Reportedly, more than 100 shelters are spread throughout the country to house children, and more are going up. Additionally, more than 37,000 children have been released to relatives or sponsors. How many of the relatives are here illegally themselves?
One private social welfare organization refused $50 million for housing children to avoid “negative backlash.” Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) did the math, and it comes to a cool $166,000 annually per child.
Even members of Congress can’t get information out of the administration, a typical Obama game.
Bottom line: Wherever these kids land, local costs rise immensely. By law they are entitled to health and social services as well as education, meaning bursting hospitals, welfare rolls and classrooms. Adding kids who can’t speak English, and are probably illiterate in their own language, will require more specialized teachers. It’s too bad the full costs won’t hit before November.
Finally, what’s going on at the border now? Certainly the influx of illegals hasn’t ended, but ISIL beheadings and Vladimir Putin’s adventures are front page now. The alien invasion is old news.
We’ve seen much of what Obama meant by “fundamentally transforming” America, but with almost two-and-a-half years remaining in his presidency, it looks like we ain’t seen nothing yet.
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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Terence Jeffrey: 36% of Generation Turning 21 This Year Born to Unmarried Mothers
- Walter E. Williams: Things I Don't Understand
- Jonah Goldberg: Obama's Non-Ideological Foreign Policy Not Working
- Ben Shapiro: Of Racial Delusions and Riots
- Tony Perkins: DeGravelle Slams the Gavel on Clinic Law
OPINION IN BRIEF
French Poet Paul Valéry (1871-1945): "Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on a people. To know how to be free is not given equally to all men and all nations."Columnist Terence Jeffrey: "Back in 1940, only 3.8 percent of American babies were born to unmarried mothers. By 1960, it was still only 5.3 percent. The curve that tracks the increasing percentage of babies born to unmarried mothers starts to bend upward in the mid-1960s. By 1965, it was 7.7 percent. By 1969, it was 10 percent. By 1975, it was 14.3 percent. It broke 20 percent in 1983; 30 percent in 1992; and 40 percent in 2008. That year it was 40.6 percent. In 2009, it was 41.0 percent. In 2010, it was 40.8 percent. In 2011, it was 40.7 percent. In 2012, it was 40.7 percent. And in 2013, it was 40.6 percent. It is a statistical fact that the institution of the family has been collapsing in America over the past 45 years. ... As the traditional family has receded from its historical role as the foundation of our society, what has taken its place? Government. ... It is also true that there are people in government who rather than let us raise our own children would prefer to raise them for us -- to fit their own models of virtue and excellence. Yet if America continues to turn away from the traditional family, we will never turn back to limited government and the liberty that goes with it."
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Columnist Walter E. Williams: "According to the International Journal of Epidemiology, life expectancy at age 20 for homosexual and bisexual men is eight to 20 years less than for all men. That's a lifestyle shortening of life expectancy greater than obesity and tobacco use. Yet one never hears of insurance companies advertising lower premiums for heterosexual men. You say, 'That would be discrimination.' You're right, but why is it acceptable for insurance companies to discriminate against smokers and the obese but not homosexuals? After all, they are all Americans and protected by the Constitution. It's really a matter of politics... The bottom line is that homosexuals have far greater political power and sympathy than smokers and the obese."
Humorist Frank J. Fleming: "I've never been a president of the United States before, but aren't strategies for dealing with America's enemies like job number one? The president's press conference cut to black at the end and it's up to the viewer to decide whether or not he had a strategy."
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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