Conservative Patriot: THE PATRIOT POST 08/31/2015

Monday, August 31, 2015

THE PATRIOT POST 08/31/2015

THE FOUNDATION

"[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." —Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 1804

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Obama Climbs Mount Hubris

Barack Obama burned thousands of gallons of jet fuel on Air Force One as he traveled to Alaska to lecture the nation once again about climate change. Just before he left, and just for good measure, he renamed America's tallest mountain. First, some history: In 1896, William Dickey, a New Hampshire gold prospector in Alaska, named the peak for William McKinley, who supported the gold standard and had just won the Republican nomination for president. Never mind that the Athabascan people called the mountain Denali for thousands of years prior. The name change wasn't official, however, until 1917, when Congress designated the surrounding area as a national park. And McKinley's Ohio roots meant he had an important delegation in Washington telling Alaskans what to call their mountain. The Alaskan delegation to Congress introduced legislation in February to change the name to Denali, but it was doubtful to overcome the opposition of Ohioans. (Ain't our republic grand?) In 1980, the surrounding national park was renamed Denali, but the mountain kept its name — until Obama said otherwise. In announcing the change, the Obama Interior Department said, “In changing the name from Mount McKinley to Denali, we intend no disrespect to the legacy of President McKinley. We are simply reflecting the desire of most Alaskans to have an authentically Alaskan name for this iconic Alaskan feature.” If only the Obama administration showed such deference to states in more important matters. Perhaps he only wanted to tweak John Boehner one more time. Or perhaps he thought it was his destiny to rename the mountain because Denali is an Athabascan word meaning "the great one." What's Athabascan for "narcissism"?
Comment | Share

Hillary Attacks GOP to Distract From Email Scandal

The pressure on Hillary Clinton is mounting. The FBI is investigating the Democrat candidate for president for violating the Espionage Act because she handled classified emails through her unsecured email server. While the blood is in the water, it may not be the fatal blow to everyone's favorite snake in a pantsuit. The attorney that oversaw the prosecution of former CIA Director David Petraeus, Anne Tompkins, wrote in USA Today that the FBI has less of a case against Clinton because she did not willfully send classified information — although a new revelation could deflate that Clinton defense as well. So what's a dishonest politician to do? Distract the media, this time suggesting that Republicans are going to load up illegal immigrants on "boxcars." The comparison to the Holocaust is unmistakable. On Friday, Clinton told an audience in Minneapolis, "Some on the other side are ... advocating to deport 11, 12 million people. ... I find it the height of irony that a party which espouses small government would want to unleash a massive government effort, which might include National Guard and others, to go and literally pull people out of their homes and their workplaces, round them up and, I don't know, put them in buses or boxcars, in order to take them across the border." Combined with her statement last week comparing the GOP to women-hating terrorists, this is all about Hillary saying a few well-placed outrageous remarks in order to get the focus back on her agenda and off her email.
Comment | Share

University of Tennessee Just Made Grammar More Confusing

If you're on one of the campuses of the University of Tennessee, watch out for the Grammar Nazis. If the university's experiment lasts longer than the first week of school, then those who enforce a strict adherence to the rules of the English language will do more than back a party line on they're, their and there. "Transgender people and people who do not identify within the gender binary may use a different name than their legal name and pronouns of their gender identity, rather than the pronouns of the sex they were assigned at birth," the University of Tennessee's Pride Center Director, Donna Braquet, wrote on the university's website. She encouraged the school to start using a whole new set of pronouns — ze, xe, hir, zir, xem — to refer to people who wish to not identify with their gender. Braquet requested that teachers, rather than calling roll, instead ask each student to provide the name and pronoun he or she — or ze — wishes to be referred by. She says it relieves a burden for people expressing different genders or identities. "The name a student uses may not be the one on the official roster, and the roster name may not be the same gender as the one the student now uses," Braquet wrote. As Hot Air's Allahpundit notes, "I'm not sure I grasp the difference between 'hir/hirs' and 'zir/zirs.' Which one should you use for Caitlyn Jenner? One, I think, is for a man who identifies as a woman and the other for a woman who identifies as a man, but I'll be damned if I know which terms applies to which. The whole point of this exercise, I thought, was not to make any judgments about gender based on appearance."
Comment | Share

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

The New U.S. Business Model: ObamaCorps

By Robin Smith

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) handed down a decision last week that could remake a vast swath of the economy. Where have we heard that before with this administration? The rule essentially took nine million American workers employed by just under 800,000 franchise businesses and moved their employment from the direct supervision of the franchisee to the big-brand parent company. To paraphrase Joe Biden's comments when ObamaCare was signed, this is a big freaking deal.
The Democrat-controlled NRLB, Barack Obama's instrument for decisions and rulings benefiting labor unions — involving issues such as collective bargaining and the minimum wage, just to name two — could potentially destroy the franchise business model. How? The NLRB blurred the lines of "direct and immediate" control over employees of franchises, meaning the corporation now has more control than the franchise.
The partisan vote, supported only by Democrats in the majority on the NRLB, undermines the current responsibility of the franchise owner as the business owner and employer that hires, fires, pays employees, determines promotions, raises and benefits offered. As always, the Obama administration aims to make everything part of a centrally controlled process dominated by the government.
In effect, the NLRB's ruling has turned business entrepreneurs who have risked capital, hired staff and sacrificed for earnings as franchise owners into middle managers to oversee employees on the payroll of the big corporation.
In the era of economic failure caused by the too-big-to-fails, Obama’s union thugs, who are federally tasked with representing worker rights as an agency, have only turned the large corporate entities into larger corporate entities.
Franchises are contracts to what are functionally small business owners, through which corporations can leverage the scale of purchasing, advertising and brand development to local businesses that agree to maintain product and service standards regarding quality and pricing. Otherwise, the franchise owner controls the business. A prime example: 90% of McDonald's restaurants are franchises, and those franchises employ 1.5 million of McDonald's 1.9 million employees. Other large brands using the franchise model include food-industry giants such as Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A and Wendy’s, and service industry corporations like Hampton Inns, Hilton Hotel brands, Great Clips hair salons, Liberty Tax Service and Save-A-Lot Foods.
But as Beth Milito, senior legal counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business, explains, "If ... corporations are suddenly responsible for the franchise employees, they'll be forced to exert more control over the franchisees." In fact, she adds, they might even "eliminate the franchise model entirely and take direct control over the locations."
Ironically, the first black president has made it tougher for minorities, who, according to The Heritage Foundation's James Sherk, are “almost 50% more likely” to own franchised businesses versus non-franchised businesses. So much for empowering minority-owned businesses in the Obama economy.
So why is the NRLB forcing employers to abdicate their business processes to the Giant Corporation model?
You already know. Large employers make easier targets for labor unions to win unionization. Soon, there could be the Ronald McDonald Teamsters, the Great Clips Scissorworkers, and the United Brotherhood of Hilton Garden Inn Employees. The “protections” offered by labor unions are documented and proven: The mediocre and worst employees are protected and any who work hard carry the load of the former. Many union members are good workers, but there are some very rotten apples in the bunch, too (like this New Jersey teacher who gets to keep his $90,000 job despite being tardy more than a hundred times). And above all, Big Labor is a critical Democrat constituency.
Union membership is at historical lows, especially outside the confines of government, with only 7.4 million workers in private-sector unions in 2014 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But those who fear competition and personal accountability in the workplace are using their favorite vehicle — tyrannical government — to create a situation inviting ~~thuggery~~ organized labor.
Obama has successfully socialized America’s health care — ObamaCare; provided cell phones as part of welfare — ObamaPhones; created new controls for the Internet — ObamaNet; is working to force neighborhoods to build low-income housing run by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — ObamaHoods. Why would this tyrant not move to destroy the free market system and effective business models through organized labor’s oppression and government-controlled prices and wages with ObamaCorps? He's got a country to fundamentally transform, after all.
Comment | Share

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Joe Bastardi: Katrina: Not Global Warming, and Not Worst-Case Scenario
Peggy Noonan: America Is So in Play
Gary Bauer: Conservatives, Not Democrats, Defend Women's Rights

For more, visit Right Opinion.

TOP HEADLINES

OPINION IN BRIEF

Gary Bauer: "[T]he reality is that this administration has barely lifted a finger to combat the religious persecution committed by the Islamic movement that is raping women and selling them into the sex trade. That battle has been led by conservatives. The Obama administration has gone into court suing American businesses that say the Muslim hijab, which many view as a symbol of submission, violates their dress code. It is conservatives who say Muslim practices that belittle women should not be imported into the U.S. It is the left that says American women should get used to going into a ladies' room and finding a man using the facilities because he feels like he is a woman. It is conservatives who say this is a violation of a woman’s right to privacy. The left says it should be legal for people to abort babies because they are little unborn girls. It is conservatives who argue that sex-selection abortion is abhorrent and should not be permitted. To the left, there is no more important right for women than the right to destroy innocent human life. Yet conservatives who champion the sanctity of life are somehow equivalent to the barbaric marauders of ISIS."
Comment | Share

SHORT CUTS

The Gipper: "This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."
The BIG Lie: “At no point have I ever suggested ... that somebody is a warmonger, meaning they want war.” —Barack Obama on the Iran deal (That is exactly what he has suggested, repeatedly.)
Village Idiots: "I hope that this be the last by the some in Congress to politicize the tragic events of Benghazi. ... Let us make sure it doesn't happen again. That's always been my focus." —Hillary Clinton, who was the first to politicize Benghazi to help Obama in 2012
Braying Jenny: "Well, let me answer one of your questions because I think that’s what you are entitled to." —Hillary Clinton, once again showing her disdain for the press when asked two questions by Ed Henry
Demo-gogues: "[I]t is not acceptable in this country when unarmed black people get dragged out of cars or get shot. That is happening too often." —Bernie Sanders (Is anybody saying it IS acceptable?)
Some hard truths on inner-city crime: "[T]he problem is much deeper than synthetic drugs, high-capacity gun magazines, turf wars, rejiggering police deployment or keeping an eye on repeat violent offenders. We have on our hands ... walking disasters: individuals who believe that their lives matter, but not yours or mine. Neither do our laws and institutions. The Wild West’s outlaws felt that way, too. But it didn’t turn out so well for them. Won’t for ours, either, in the long run. The challenge, as always: to keep our potential outlaws from going down that path. That’s not up to the police. Look at the faces of the killers and their victims. It’s on us — parents, preachers, politicians, community pontificators — all who profess that black lives matter, to prove it." —Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King
And last... "If the Washington elite wants to hurt Donald Trump, they should endorse him.” —Republican strategist Dave Carney
Comment | Share
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.