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Patriot Headlines | Grassroots Commentary Daily Digest
October 5, 2015
THE FOUNDATION"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." —Patrick Henry, 1788TOP RIGHT HOOKSObama Jokes of 'Crackpot Conspiracy Theories'
Ratcheting up his gun control rhetoric, Obama petulantly claimed, "The people who are troubled by this have to be as intense and organized and as adamant about this issue as folks on the other side, who are absolutists and think that any gun-safety measures are somehow an assault on freedom, or communistic, or a plot by me to take over and stay in power forever or something. I mean there are all kinds of crackpot conspiracy theories that float around, some of which, by the way, are ratified by elected officials in the other party." Of course, the only crackpot theory floating around is Obama's assertion that guns are the problem and that "common sense gun laws" are the solution. Obama inadvertently tipped his hand on what he meant by "gun-safety measures," alluding to the gun confiscation models of Australia and the UK. It's hardly a "conspiracy theory" to object to Obama's own words. In regard to Obama's assertion that "we should politicize this," it is telling that, after listing several mass shootings that met his "politicization" criterion, he did not mention the armed jihadist assaults at two other gun free installations on his watch: Fort Hood, Texas, and the recent murder of five military personnel in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After the Chattanooga assault on July 16, it took Obama five days to order flags to half staff, and even then he did so reluctantly. But after the Oregon assault, he ordered flags down within 24 hours — to bolster his "politicized" gun control agenda. Of course, the "commander in chief" also did not mention the death of 10 Americans in Afghanistan who lost their lives in a plane crash three hours before his Thursday press conference. Of course, mentioning them would undermine his political pivot away from his latest Middle East failures. Politicizing the murders in Oregon desecrates the memory of those lives. For the record, after the Chattanooga assault, we lowered our flags immediately. However, we do not lower our flags in support of Obama's political agendas. Comment | Share House Republicans to Decide Boehner's ReplacementOfficially, House Republicans will vote on the next speaker of the chamber Thursday, Oct. 8. Unofficially, though, Politico reports outgoing House Speaker John Boehner is considering postponing the election because of "serious unrest in the House Republican Conference." The conservative movement has always been a coalition with tension, of fiscal conservatives working with defense hawks, of libertarians working with social conservatives, the Tea Party and the establishment. Whoever ascends to pick up the gavel will, in the words of National Journal, "define the direction of the House GOP" as the politician will bring top-down change. Will it be someone like frontrunner House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who many worry will continue the failed GOP leadership? Rep. Jason Chaffetz said Sunday that he's seeking the speakership, positioning himself between the right and center factions in the party. But there is also establishment outsider Rep. Daniel Webster, who used to be speaker of the Florida house. The political scaffolding Boehner built led to one of the most ineffective lower chambers in history, an institution that didn't reflect the values of its constituents. It's time for leadership that knows from whence its power came.Comment | Share Hillary Clinton to Criticize the 'Cadillac Tax'ObamaCare is unpopular. Just how unpopular is it? Hillary Clinton now thinks it's politically advantageous to advocate for repealing the "Cadillac tax." The New York Times reports that Hillary will begin to campaign against the portion of ObamaCare that will place a high tax on employer-based health care plans with high-end premiums. Clinton's move could have come to ease the blow to unions of her position against the Keystone pipeline. That decision disappointed some unions, and this is a way to appease that constituency. As the Times wrote, "Mrs. Clinton's campaign aides informed Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, of her intentions in the last few days, according to a senior official with the labor group. The union made an early endorsement of Mrs. Clinton in July." Bottom line: If both sides of the aisle are pointing out problems, then you can expect some major revision to Barack Obama's signature legislation in the future. And here we thought Clinton was going to further Obama's agenda.Comment | Share FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSISImporting TerroristsBy Arnold Ahlert
In a move best described as unconscionable, the administration granted asylum in the U.S. to 1,519 previously inadmissible foreigners involved in terrorism — because their crimes were ostensibly committed “while under duress.” Even worse, the administration had to “tweak” the law to do so. In February 2014, an “Exercise of Authority” enacted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department amended the parts of the Immigration and Nationality Act that had taken a zero-tolerance approach towards asylum seekers involved in any material support for terrorism. DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry provided exemptions for "an alien who provided limited material support” to terrorist entities. “These exemptions cover five kinds of limited material support that have adversely and unfairly affected refugees and asylum seekers with no tangible connection to terrorism: material support that was insignificant in amount or provided incidentally in the course of everyday social, commercial, family or humanitarian interactions, or under significant pressure,” a DHS official explained to The Daily Caller at the time. “In addition to rigorous background vetting, including checks coordinated across several government agencies, these exemptions will only be applied on a case-by-case basis after careful review and all security checks have cleared,” the official added. “This exemption process is vital to advancing the U.S. government’s twin goal of protecting the world’s most vulnerable persons while ensuring U.S. national security and public safety.” Who determines those criteria? Judicial Watch obtained the breakdown from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services' (USCIS) annual report to Congress. Of the 1,519 admitted, 627 were processed despite an applicant’s provision of material support to an undesignated terrorist organization, nine despite an applicant’s receipt of military-type training from a terrorist organization, 28 despite providing voluntary medical care to members of a terrorist organization in the course of their professional responsibilities without assisting in the violent activities of an organization or individual, and 37 despite providing material support to, soliciting funds for, soliciting individuals for membership in or receiving military-type training from certain qualified Tier III terrorist organizations. All of these applicants were determined to be “under duress” when they supported terror, along with an additional 189 processed simply for being under duress with no other criteria mentioned. And finally, another 628 were processed because their activities or affiliations with specific groups were simply “approved for consideration of an exemption” by the secretary of homeland security, in consultation with the secretary of state and the attorney general. What about the idea that all of these people would be carefully vetted? During the border surge that also occurred in 2014, during which the Obama administration admitted thousands of illegal aliens and deliberately dispersed them throughout the nation, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines preventing the admission of unvaccinated people and those with other inadmissible criteria were conspicuously ignored. In other words, Rule of Law applies only when it aligns with Obama administration agendas. Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) director Jessica Vaughan addressed that specific issue. “[T]here is a very legitimate question as to whether the administration actually has the authority to change the law in this way,” Vaughan wrote in an email to the Caller while the asylum modifications were being made. “It seems to me that they are announcing that they will be disregarding yet another law written by Congress that they don’t like and are replacing it with their own guidelines, which in this case appear to be extremely broad and vague, and which are sure to be exploited by those seeking to game our generous refugee admissions program.” And no one is helping them game the system more than the Obama administration itself, with the president recently announcing America would absorb an additional 10,000 Syrian “refugees” next year, with a target of accepting 100,000 worldwide refugees per year by 2017, according to John Kerry, who declared last month, “This step ... is in keeping with the best tradition of America as a land of second chances and a beacon of hope.” A beacon of progressive stupidity is more like it, and one that stands in stark contrast to the 100,000 empty, air-conditioned tents in Saudi Arabia capable of housing as many as three million refugees — were it not for the reality the Saudis have refused to take any asylum-seekers. Judicial Watch reaches an inexorable conclusion: "The administration seems to have a soft spot for terrorists.” It’s worse than that. Fifteen of 27 Christian refugees from Iraq who have been held at a detention center in Otay Mesa, California, for approximately six months will be deported, despite having support that includes U.S. citizen family members vouching for them in a San Diego-based Iraqi Christian community. The same administration that plays fast and loose with the law whenever it chooses has determined that only people “persecuted by their government” qualify as refugees. By that “logic,” Christians fleeing the Islamic State killing fields in Iraq are ineligible for asylum, while Muslims from Syria and other aliens who have provided limited material support to terrorist thugs gain entry. At a congressional hearing last Thursday, Barbara Strack, who serves as the chief of the Refugee Affairs Division at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service of the Department of Homeland Security — making her the top refugee official in the Obama administration — did not know Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev had entered this nation as asylum-seeking refugees. “I would need to check with my colleagues, sir,” Strack deferred after the subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), asked the question. Strack's stunning incompetence is emblematic. Suffused with a deadly combination of ideologically inspired arrogance and ignorance, this administration has allowed the Islamic State to remain a viable entity, relinquished Iraq to a Russian/Iranian sphere with the ability to dominate the Middle East and protect Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad, and turned Libya into a jihadist playground. All of it has precipitated the largest refugee crisis since World War II, and thus the American public is expected to countenance thousands of “refugees” vetted by this same group of incompetents who have already decided a certain level of support for terror “under duress” is no big deal. If you wrote this up as a Hollywood movie script, you couldn’t sell it because no one would believe it. Americans are getting it for free — whether we like it or not. Comment | Share
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OPINION IN BRIEFPeggy Noonan: "In cloud-talking you say words into the air and then ask: 'Isn’t that a pretty cloud?' Since 2011 the president has been saying, 'For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.' Now he uses the word transition — Syria must 'transition' away from Assad. Stepping down, red lines, transitions — the cloud-talk enters the air, has no force, and disappears. The world is impressed by actions. Russia may in time move on ISIS, and if it does that will scare them. To ISIS the U.S. is ambivalent, half-hearted. ... ISIS would take Putin seriously — he is not timorous about the use of force, as he has shown in Ukraine. And Russia’s reputation for brutishness has, after all these years, survived. ISIS will not enjoy being attacked by Russia, if they are attacked by Russia. As for Assad, he’s famously ruthless but he’s also turned out to be tougher than Washington understood. When told four years ago that he was over, he essentially did a Moe Greene, from 'The Goldfather': 'I buy you out, you don’t buy me out. … The Corleone family don’t even have that kind of muscle anymore.' Yes, in the end Moe was done in. But he was up against Michael Corleone, not Fredo."Comment | Share SHORT CUTSObservations: "Customarily, Democratic politicians react to mass shootings by calling for pointless around-the-edges reforms: 'universal' background checks, hard limits on the size of commercially available magazines, rules that determine how certain rifles may look, etc. In fact, since 2012 Obama has tended to take this approach himself. Now, however, the president is openly praising two countries that confiscated — yes, confiscated — firearms. That matters — and a great deal." —Charles CookeDezinformatsia: "The National Rifle Association is responsible for America’s appalling culture of violence. It is the most invidious, vile, greedy, callous, selfish, brutal, uncompromising and nasty lobby group on the planet. ... It has no interest in stopping gun massacres, because they are good for business. Very, very good for business. The blood of those poor students in Oregon will mean yet more gun sales, yet more money pouring into the NRA and yet more massacres. This sickening cycle will continue until enough decent Americans rise up and say: ENOUGH. What the [redacted] are you all waiting for?" —Piers Morgan Alpha Jackass: "[W]e are a gun sick nation. All the 2nd Amendment bulls— aside, the gun lobby controls the country, and allows armed maniacal lunatics to roam free and kill." —Geraldo Rivera Um, what? "The idea that you can have an open carry permit with an AK-47 over your shoulder walking up and down the aisles of a supermarket is just despicable." —Hillary Clinton (And when was the last time she was in a supermarket?) Village Idiots: "I’d love to see the Democrats stand up and say, 'We’re going to shut down the federal government or threaten to shut down the government if we don’t get real gun control legislation.'" —Gov. Andrew Cuomo Demo-gogues: “[Vladimir] Putin had to go into Syria not out of strength but out of weakness because his client [Bashar al-] Assad was crumbling and it was insufficient for him simply to send them arms and money. Now he’s got to put in his own planes and his own pilots." —Barack Obama, who knows a thing or two about weakness, but misrepresents this situation ("Vladimir Putin is deliberately targeting the non-ISIS rebels, and here's why: If he's going to wipe out all the non-ISIS elements on the ground in Syria, then they can say: ISIS or Assad, there are no other options. We killed all the non-ISIS people. And at that point, he'll be able to force the world to support Assad." —Marco Rubio) Late-night humor: "A word association poll found the words most associated with Donald Trump are 'idiot,' 'jerk,' 'stupid,' and 'dumb.' In other words, he really could be our next president." —Conan O'Brien 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. |
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