THE FOUNDATION
"[A]ll speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest numbers of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best." —John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Cleveland Settles With DOJ Over Policing Investigation
It's become a trend in cases involving police shootings: While the individual officer is let off the hook for using lethal force and sparking protests in the community, the Department of Justice usually finds something wrong with the larger department. Cleveland has reached a settlement with the DOJ after the agency accused the city's finest of engaging in patterns of "unreasonable and unnecessary use of force," including tasing and punching handcuffed suspects. The investigation was launched after a 2012 car chase involving 100 police officers ended with officer Michael Brelo standing on the roof of the Chevy Malibu used to flee from the police and firing 15 times into the vehicle. On Saturday, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell found Brelo not guilty of killing the two suspects because it was not clear if it was Brelo's rounds that killed them. When issuing his verdict, O'Donnell said, "Guilty or not guilty, the verdict should be no cause for a civilized society to celebrate or riot." Still, on Saturday night, some protestors grew violent and 71 were arrested. It just goes to show that improvements still need to be made before we can have a civilized society. More...Comment | Share
House Considers Fast-Tracking Obama's Pacific Trade Deal
In the coming days, members of the House will decide whether Congress should fast-track approving Obama's trade deal with Pacific countries, or whether to defend its constitutional role of advisor when the U.S. enters into treaties. Already, 48 Republicans and 14 Democrats in the Senate approved fast-track legislation Friday, a move that would only give the legislative body the ability to approve the treaty with a yes-no vote. While everyone from Obama to the GOP leadership agrees that a trade deal is needed and beneficial (especially because of China's growing aggression in the South China Sea), lawmakers question the way it's coming about. Rep. Jim Jordan said, "I'm concerned about giving this president the authority" to be the sole person negotiating deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Furthermore, the House is the young blood of the lawmaking body, as only 55 members were around when Congress deliberated over the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. Members in office because of the 2014 Republican wave should remember they are in office because voters wanted change, not Obama's status quo.Comment | Share
Another Holiday Regulatory Dump
Friday was the dawn of a holiday weekend, which could mean only one thing: Time for another big regulatory release from the Obama administration. It wasn't exactly a Friday news dump, as it came out Thursday, but, as The Hill points out, "The White House is notorious for releasing its Unified Agenda on the cusp of a holiday when most people are headed out of town to celebrate the long weekend. The release of the spring 2015 edition was no exception, coming one day before the long Memorial Day weekend." According to The Daily Signal, there are 136 significant rules in this release: "These include an Environmental Protection Agency rule tightening already-tight carbon emission regulations for power plants, Food and Drug Administration regulations for all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and cigars, and new Consumer Product Safety Commission safety standards for off-road vehicles." The cost of Barack Obama's enormous regulatory burden is a serious drag on the economy. In fact, compliance costs nearly $15,000 per American household, but it's a cost that's more easily hidden than taxes. Still, it's no wonder Obama likes to bury regulation releases just before a holiday.Comment | Share
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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Emails Cast More Guilt on Clinton and Obama
By Lewis Morris
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| Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attend the Transfer of Remains ceremony for the four Americans who died in the Benghazi attack Sept. 14, 2012. |
Fortunately, no such luck. The Benghazi attack and the cover-ups and stonewalling by the Obama administration and presidential candidate Clinton have made this particular embarrassment hard to bury. Despite the best efforts of the administration and its minions in the media, the hunger for more information at this point seems insatiable.
The batch of emails released last week shed a little bit of light on questions that the House Select Committee on Benghazi has been asking since it was formed in May 2014. A number of emails released from Clinton's once-private collection include information about growing concerns over the deteriorating security situation in Libya going back to April 2011. In fact, Stevens, who at the time was an envoy, voiced concerns about safety.
"The situation in [the Libyan town of] Ajdabiyah has worsened to the point where Stevens is considering departure from Benghazi," states an April 10, 2011, message. "The envoy's delegation is currently doing a phased checkout."
Stevens ultimately stayed in Libya, but his concerns and the concerns of CIA analysts ultimately fell on deaf ears.
Other information drawn from the emails include communications between Clinton and her team in the days following the attack, speech preparation, updates on press coverage, even coverage of how then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney was speaking on the issue.
The emails released by the State Department that used to live on Clinton's private server raise more questions than they answer, which helps ensure this issue will not go away soon. Several gaps in the timeline are evident, which leave open questions about Clinton's role and input in shaping Libyan policy post-Qaddafi, how State was dealing with growing instability in the country, and the thought process that went into extending the Benghazi mission in early 2012.
Administration stonewalling on Benghazi is bad enough, but the fact the whole matter is tied in to how Clinton mismanaged her emails makes the issue that much worse.
Clinton's now-famous private email server was politically motivated because she wanted to keep her work from the prying eyes of the "vast Right wing conspiracy." Instead, she invested in a private server that was hacked at least once and was not nearly as secure as the government server that she was lawfully required to use for classified materials. Apparently, protecting data from the GOP was more important than protecting it from the Russians or the Chinese.
Clinton claimed two months ago that she never broke the law in maintaining her own private server. In Clinton-speak that is true — kind of. Documents related to Benghazi that have recently been reclassified as secret were not secret when they existed on her server. But they were certainly sensitive; otherwise there would be no need for the reclassification. Yet, there is no hard and fast rule that bars Clinton from storing sensitive documents on her server.
There are also different email addresses that Clinton herself used on her server, possibly to help categorize which topic or issue she was addressing. This is just a theory so far. Not enough emails have been released to detect such a pattern. Yet, it is clear that not only was the server itself politically motivated, but how she dealt with the information on that server was politically motivated as well.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the Benghazi committee, put some perspective on Friday's email release. "More than six months after the Select Committee first discovered Secretary Clinton's unusual email arrangement with herself … State Department transferred 300 messages exclusively reviewed and released by her own lawyers. To assume a self-selected public record is complete, when no one with a duty or responsibility to the public had the ability to take part in the selection … strains credulity."
Of course, the partisan wheels continue to turn despite Gowdy's logical skepticism. Committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) issued his own statement praising Clinton for being so forthcoming. "The American people can now read all of these emails and see for themselves that they contain no evidence to back up claims that … Republicans have made for years."
So, according to Cummings, now that we have access to the slightest fraction of 50,000 emails that have been thus-far out of reach from the public record, we can plainly see that there is no smoking gun — therefore we should leave Hillary Clinton alone and elect her
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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US
- Dear GOP Candidates: Solve Rising College Debt
- Former IPCC Researcher Questions Fossil Fuel Claims
- Grand Jury Indicts All Six Baltimore Police Officers
- Cruz Hammers Local Reporter's Stupid Question
- WSJ: 'Hillary's Supreme Court Litmus Test'
- Students Blame Boehner for Deflategate
- Telling a Story of Feminine Heroism
BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
For more, visit Right Opinion.- Ed Feulner: 'The Last Full Measure of Devotion'
- Linda Chavez: Better Policing — Not Less
- Arnold Ahlert: Will America Abide a Nuclear Wakeup Call?
- Dennis Prager: Differences Between Left and Right: Part I
- Jeff Jacoby: Millionaire Ex-Presidents Can Pay Their Own Way
- Tony Perkins: Pomp and Circuit Stance
OPINION IN BRIEF
Linda Chavez: "Yes, [Freddie] Gray’s life mattered. Black lives matter, as protesters remind us following every such incident involving the death of a black man at the hands of police. But so, too, should the 87 black lives (and 13 others) lost on the streets of Baltimore this year. By focusing almost all of our national attention on the horrific death of one black victim while in police custody, we avoid the larger problem of violence within the black community. Worse, by making the police out to be the greatest threat to the black community, we risk allowing criminals to go unchallenged within those communities. Justice for Freddie Gray would best be served by better policing in the neighborhood where he lived — not by less policing."Comment | Share
SHORT CUTS
The Gipper: "In America, our origins matter less than our destination, and that is what democracy is all about."Demo-gogues: "This may be the first Memorial Day since the end of our war in Afghanistan. But we are acutely aware, as we speak, our men and women in uniform still stand watch and still serve, and still sacrifice around the world. Several years ago, we had more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. Today, fewer than 10,000 troops remain on a mission to train and assist Afghan forces. We’ll continue to bring them home and reduce our forces further, down to an embassy presence by the end of next year." —Barack Obama
The BIG Lie: "I can say that no U.S. President, no administration has done more to ensure that Israel can protect itself than this one." —Barack Obama
The annals of the absurd: "[Stopping ISIL's momentum is] an enormous challenge. And we have to fight it on every front, including the front of social media. That’s a place where they have really made more advances than you would have suspected. And that is where we have to fight them, as well." —Nancy Pelosi
Non Compos Mentis: "When you have people denying [science], and how we all got here, it's offensive to me intellectually. And I happen to think it's unpatriotic. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution says the government shall 'promote the progress of science and useful arts.' So if you're a politician looking to derail the progress of science, I think you're not doing your job." —Bill Nye (Context means everything, right? Importantly, the rest of the quote from Article I, Section 8 reads, "...by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." No wonder Nye left that part out.)
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Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis!
Managing Editor Nate Jackson
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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