Daily Digest
January 9, 2015
THE FOUNDATION"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, 1816TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKSBye Bye Babs, and a Note of ThanksCalifornia Senator Barbara Boxer, topping the short list of the Senate's most leftist members, is calling it quits. After five terms in the House, Boxer was elected to the Senate in the 1992 Bill Clinton wave.It is no small demonstration of hypocrisy that Boxer -- who led the attempt to black-bag George H.W. Bush's 1991 SCOTUS nominee, Clarence Thomas, on sexual harassment charges, and who in 1995 went after Rep. Sen. Robert Packwood on similar charges -- was deafeningly quiet when her man Clinton couldn't figure out what the definition of "is" is when admitting to having sex with an intern in the Oval Office. Boxer, who has a 100% rating from both unions and environmentalist groups, built her career advocating for abortion and against the Second Amendment and, more recently, "climate change." So why a note of thanks? Boxer proclaimed, "I have about a thousand accomplishments," and not one of her legislative achievements complied with her oath "to Support and Defend" our Constitution. But she did, inadvertently, boost the sales of our Patriot Shop products. In 2011, after Republican-appointed federal judge John Roll was among six citizens murdered by a psychopath in Tucson, and Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was wounded in that assault, Boxer, seizing the moment to use tragedy as fodder for her gun control agenda, held a press conference. At that conference she held up an image of one of our Patriot Shop stickers, claiming our products and pro-gun sentiment in general were responsible for that assault. The attention she brought helped our bottom line. Farewell, Ms. Boxer, and don't let the door hit you in the rear on the way out! Comment | Share No Time for Vets, but Let's Talk Gun ControlBarack Obama visited Phoenix Thursday, but he could only wave as his motorcade blew past the Veterans Affairs Hospital where the whole wait-time scandal came to light. Not that a presidential visit would have accomplished anything other than to create, well, long wait times, but the symbolism of not caring about veterans was unmistakable. By contrast, Obama did have time to meet with former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was critically wounded exactly four years ago Thursday in a horrific shooting -- because the topic of their meeting was gun control. According to CBS News, "Giffords, who was shot in the head, still struggles to speak and walk. She has become the face of gun control, having founded Americans for Responsible Solutions with her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly. The gun control group raised millions for congressional candidates in the 2014 election." Obama has no time for the vets who fought for our rights because he'd rather spend time figuring out how to take those rights away. More...Comment | Share Jobs Report: Edge of Real Recovery?Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute says there are two primary indicators that the U.S. economy has turned around and is finally climbing out of Obama's hole: more Americans getting employment, and workers getting increased wages. Unfortunately, neither happened in the month of December, according to the December Jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Oh sure, the headline numbers were good. About 252,000 people joined the workforce and the unemployment numbers declined by 0.2% to 5.6%. But the overall number of people who are in the cubicles, on the job sites, manning the shops, or dishing out the fast food once again declined in December by 0.2%. Now, only 62.7% of American adults are working. And the average wage has hovered at $24.57 an hour. American workers received an average six-cent wage boost in November, but in December, the average wage declined by five cents. The American economy is showing some signs of recovery but in many ways is still sputtering thanks to Obama's policies. It may begin to take off, if Obama doesn't suddenly decide now's the time to put some water in the gas tank. More...Comment | Share Community College Tuition: 'Free' Is Good, Right?Barack Obama dropped a bombshell on the country from 75,000 feet as he was jetting from Detroit to Phoenix during his pre-State of the Union tour: He's going to give out free college education for anyone who gets at least a 2.50 GPA at community college. "Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who's willing to work for it," Obama said in a video. "That's right, free for everybody who is willing to work for it." The White House Blog said the federal wealth transfer machine will pay 75% of tuition and expect state governments to pay the rest. No word yet on how much it's going to cost or how we're going to pay for it, but we don't doubt that the "wealthy" will be hit up for new taxes to pay for mediocre general education classes. As commentator Mollie Hemingway said, "This six-year high school plan is Obama's totally smartest idea yet." Our question is, why stop at community college? How about all higher education? "Free" stuff is awesome, right? More...Comment | Share Bible Scholar Perez Wants You to Rip Up the BibleThe only thing the Bible is good for, in Labor Secretary Thomas Perez's estimation, is justifying all the Left's benevolent big-government ideas. At the AFL-CIO's "Raising Wages" summit, Perez insisted that America must raise the minimum wage because the Bible commands taking care of the poor -- as if earning a wage is receiving charity and government compulsion changes people's hearts. "This is really about biblical teachings," Perez pontificated. "This is about what is taught in the Koran and what is in the Torah and what we learn about making sure we 'do unto others.' ... Take the Bible and rip up every page that has a reference to the need to help the poor and the underserved, and the Bible turns into, like, a Newsweek magazine. And that's what this is about. This is about who we are as a nation." Perez apparently fancies himself a scholar of holy texts, and yet he recommends ripping up the Bible to divine its true meaning. (Reader advisory: Results may differ if you do the same with the Koran.) Wonder what he thinks about the passages admonishing Liberty and limited government, like God's warning to Israel about wanting a king. Or did he rip those passages out too? More...Comment | Share For more, visit Right Hooks.
RIGHT ANALYSISForget Peace, Islam Wants Death
Sure, victims received an outpouring of support both in Europe and here in America. Reporters, writers, cartoonists and government officials condemned the attack. But if that kind of support existed when the Charlie Hebdo offices were bombed in 2012, maybe Stéphane Charbonnier, his colleagues and the two unarmed police officers who were nearby would still be alive. There is no reasoning with these maniacal and radical Islamic fundamentalists. Our own fearless leader, Barack Obama, has spent much time in his presidency going through linguistic gymnastics to deny that terror attacks like the one in Paris are related to Islam. "Islam teaches peace," he told us. Worse, the lesson Obama drew from the Sept. 11, 2012, murders of American Ambassador Christopher Stephens and three other Americans at the embassy in Benghazi, Libya, was this: "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam." Secretary of State John Kerry has followed suit. When asked about the rise of the Islamic State, he denied any connection to Islam: "ISIL claims to be fighting on behalf of Islam, but the fact is that it's hateful ideology has nothing to do with Islam." In his eyes, the weather is a bigger threat. Are we really to believe that ISIL is not a threat? Is radical Islamic fundamentalism just another misunderstood ideology? Let's ask Anjem Choudary, a radical Muslim cleric and longtime Sharia advocate. "Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone." These are the opening words of Choudary's op-ed published by USA Today Thursday in response to the Paris murders. He added, "Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression." He goes on to point out that all Muslims are, or should be, motivated to protect the prophet Muhammad every day in every way. Even if it means murder. Choudary's unapologetic defense of the Paris murderers goes so far as to place the blame for the crime at the feet of the dead writers and artists. If they hadn't provoked wrath, they might still be alive, he argued. Consider for a moment how this outrageous statement sounds applied in other situations: She was raped because she was wearing a short skirt. He wouldn't have been beaten to death if he drank from the colored water fountain like he was supposed to. Yet leftists are falling over each other to make excuses for these attacks. Obama is this nation's ringleader when it comes to this foolishness. Obama's not alone in his blindness. The Religion of Peace™ has racked up a body count that is second to none in our post-Cold War world, yet leftist "thinkers" and media acolytes want to blame all these acts of war on Western thinking. Like Choudary, many want to say that the writers and artists brought their deaths on themselves. One of the two brothers responsible for the Paris massacre, who has a record of terrorist activity by the way, blamed his radicalization on George W. Bush, the war in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison abuses. How convenient. Murderers like him always have a reason for their crimes that push responsibility away from themselves. And leftists in this country almost always buy it. Suppose Abu Ghraib and Iraq were motivators for their actions. What motivated the radicals that forced us to invade Iraq in the first place? What motivated 9/11? The attack on the USS Cole? The dual bombings of American embassies in Africa in 1998? They will always come up with a reason to justify their murder. In the same manner, leftists will always come up with a way to blame radical Islamic acts of violence in the West on "homegrown" terrorists. There has rarely been a more foolish concept. Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy at National Review points out that there is no such thing as "homegrown" terrorism in the West. These radicals come with the deliberate goal of burrowing into a Muslim community, staying apart from the society as a whole, and rejecting our laws and customs with the express purpose of someday emerging to act out openly against us. And as Mark Alexander notes, they're not "lone wolves," either. If all these supposed "homeland" terrorists are indeed "lone wolves," why are there so many of them? Never fear: The Obama White House will endeavor to set the record straight on "real Islam. In the words of Press Secretary Josh Earnest, the U.S. must "be clear about what the tenets of Islam actually are. And we are going to redouble those efforts." Does that mean Obama will switch from executive orders to fatwas? Comment | Share The Auto Bailout Victory Lap
The president said he "didn't want to wait for the State of the Union to talk about all the things that make this country great and how we can make it better. ... I thought I'd get started this week." But there was little in the way of new policy discussion. Obama instead filled his speech with pandering to Detroit Lions fans still smarting over last week's controversial playoff loss to the Dallas Cowboys, longing for the new Mustang, and doling out his version of our recent economic story -- one which included his auto industry bailout saving the day. Unfortunately, that bailout came at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $10 billion. And while Obama dubiously insisted that doing nothing would have caused suppliers and distributors to go under along with automakers, the resulting bankruptcy procedure enriched the United Auto Workers at the expense of bondholders and non-union pensioners. A typical bankruptcy may have instead allowed GM and Chrysler to cut costs significantly, with any production stoppage being laid at the feet of the UAW's refusal to make concessions in order to save their workers' jobs. What we got instead was a couple years of "Government Motors" ownership and Chrysler being gift-wrapped by the UAW and presented to Italian automaker Fiat. It's ironic that Obama chose a Ford plant for his speech, because Ford didn't take his bailout. That doesn't mean Ford is clean, however, having benefited from a low-interest $5.9 billion Department of Energy loan for retooling the Michigan facility for hybrid cars. The loan was, of course, made necessary by government fuel mileage mandates. And like all central planning the loan wasn't exactly fruitful: The plant was recently idled due to slow sales of the gasoline-powered Focus and hybrid C-Max models. The boom in oil production Obama alluded to in his speech has brought gasoline prices down to a point where customers are again considering larger SUVs and trucks, leaving a glut of smaller cars on dealer lots during a traditionally slow time for sales. Of course, this will be addressed in coming years through supply as automakers dropped their opposition to more stringent fuel economy standards that will make current SUVs all but unattainable. Indeed, Obama warned, "Gas prices aren't gonna be low forever, so don't start suddenly saying you don't have to worry about fuel efficiency. If you're going out shopping for a new car, don't think it's always going to be this low, because then you'll be surprised and you'll be mad at me later ... and I'll be able to say, 'I told you don't get a gas guzzler because gas is going to go back up.' But while it's low, enjoy it." The auto bailout is just one instance of the recent past sowing the seeds for future failure. To paraphrase James Madison, we cannot undertake to lay our fingers on that article of the Constitution that deemed a corporation or financial entity as "too big to fail." Yet Washington set the precedent of destroying part of the free market system to save it when it bailed out automakers and mega-sized financial institutions in 2008-09. For a half decade we have seen that, regardless of the incentives placed in front of them, people want the types of cars and trucks that fail the test of environmental correctness by being too large or by using fossil fuels -- never mind that most of our electrical power to recharge plug-in models comes from fossil fuels like coal. Even "flex-fuel" models that can use E85 ethanol are slow to leave dealer lots. (And don't get us started on ethanol.) Obama came to Detroit and told the crowd, "The facts are the facts. ... Every once in a while it's important for us to hear some good news." It is certainly good that the auto industry is back on its feet, but the real question is, how long will the good times last with the government's foot on the brake? Comment | Share For more, visit Right Analysis.
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
 OPINION IN BRIEFGreek philosopher Heraclitus (540-480 BC): "Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. Knowledge is not intelligence. In searching for the truth be ready for the unexpected. Change alone is unchanging. The same road goes both up and down. The beginning of a circle is also its end."Columnist Michelle Malkin: "The First Mo Toons Wars were instigated in 2005 by demagogue imams who toured Egypt stoking hysteria with faked anti-Islam comic strips attributed to the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper (whose actual cartoons criticizing Islam were far more innocuous). The real agenda: Islamist thugs were attempting to pressure Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for continuing with its nuclear research program. From Afghanistan to Egypt to Lebanon to Libya, Pakistan, Turkey and in between, hundreds died in insane riots under the pretext of protecting Mohammed from Western slight. Courageous journalists who stood up to the madness were silenced, jailed and threatened with beheading. Cartoons did not start militant Islam’s fire. Neither did the Bushes, Israel, the Satanic Verses, the Pope, beauty pageants, KFC restaurants in the Middle East, Mohammed teddy bears or a YouTube video. The Religion of Perpetual Outrage hates all infidels for all reasons for all time. The targeting of Mohammed cartoonists is a convenient excuse to feed the eternal flame of radical Islamists' hatred of the West. If it isn’t cartoons, it’s something else. The grudge is everlasting." Comment | Share Columnist Mona Charen: "Conservatives like rigor and accountability. What they emphatically do not like is the leftist, anti-American propaganda that has infiltrated school curricula around the nation. At the moment, despite many claims to the contrary on the Internet, Common Core does not contain history standards, only math and English ones. ... But as my Ethics and Public Policy Center colleague Stanley Kurtz has argued, left-wing activists are forever beavering away, shaping what young Americans learn about their past and accordingly what they believe about the present. One vector is the College Board, the company that designs and administers the Advanced Placement tests. The AP American history test is currently under revision, and none of the changes is good. ... [O]ne of the prime movers of the Common Core program, David Coleman, has recently been named president of the College Board. 'Under his leadership,' Kurtz warns, 'the College Board has begun to radically redesign all of its AP exams.' It is, Kurtz fears, a 'backdoor way to seize control of subjects that would be too hot to handle if formally labeled Common Core.'" Comment | Share Comedian Jimmy Fallon: "Obama met with the president of Mexico. When asked what it's like to govern 100 million Mexican people, Obama said, 'It can be challenging.'" Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis! 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. |
Friday, January 9, 2015
THE PATRIOT POST 01/09/2015
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