Daily Digest for Thursday
Thursday, January 16, 2014
THE FOUNDATION
"Why has government been
instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the
dictates of reason and justice without constraint." --Alexander
Hamilton, Federalist No. 15, 1787
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
'Lone Survivor' Responds to Critics
Marcus Lutrell, the retired
Navy SEAL whose story of surviving a Taliban attack on a four-man SEAL
team in Afghanistan in 2005 is told in the movie "Lone Survivor," fired
back at critics who claim the film glorifies war. "I mean, is [pro-war] a
real term?" Lutrell asked incredulously. "Because there's nothing
glorious about war. ... There's nothing glorious about holding your
friends in your arms and watching them die." That isn't to say war is
never justified. "The bottom line," he says, is that there are "bad
people everywhere. And every now and again, we're going to have to step
on them to make sure that we preserve our way of life." Indeed, as John
Stuart Mill wrote, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of
things."
Gates Slams Reid
In 2007, amid George W.
Bush's "surge" in Iraq, Harry Reid declared that it was useless because
"this war is lost." Well, among the things former Defense Secretary
Robert Gates had to say about events during his tenure was to let Reid
know exactly what he thought of those comments: "I thought that was one
of the most disgraceful things I've ever heard a politician say." And that's
saying something. But Gates explained why: "That sends a riveting
message to kids who are putting their lives on the line every day that
they're doing it for nothing, and that was absolutely not the case."
Reid should still be ashamed of himself.
$533 Billion of Debt in 3 Months
CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller on Tuesday tweeted this interesting tidbit: "In the nearly 3 months since funding [was] restored to the Govt on Oct 17, the National Debt has increased $533-billion to $17.28-trillion." Given Congress' inability to articulate mathematics, we'll present it another way: That's $533,000,000,000 tacked on to the burden of future generations in just one quarter of the fiscal year. As devastating as Democrats claim the "shutdown" was, it pales in comparison to the federal government's perpetual spending binge.Another ObamaCare Delay
The issues paralyzing
ObamaCare have forced the Obama administration to extend yet another
deadline -- this time the Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance Plan (PCIP),
which is now scheduled to expire March 15 instead of January 31. This
is the second time HHS has granted the program more time; it was
originally scheduled for termination at the end of December. HHS
spokesman Steve Weiss said this delay "gives cancer patients and others
who had no health insurance options before enrolling in PCIP extra time
to choose a marketplace plan that works best for them and their
families." But what Weiss conveniently failed to point out is why
patients are being given more time: because ObamaCare's not working.
But don't expect facts to get in the way of a perpetual PR initiative.
Dear Climate Alarmists: 'Back Off'
MIT Professor Richard
Lindzen is a leading climate change expert. But even he says the Left
needs to cool it. While he believes the climate is changing, he argues,
"The changes that have occurred due to global warning are too small to
account for." Furthermore, all the hype is "just a dream come true for
politicians," he says. "The opportunities for taxation, for policies,
for control, for crony capitalism are just immense. You can see their
eyes bulge." He warned that folks should "back off from catastophism.
It's the politicians and the green movement that like to portray
catastrophe." Well sure -- that's where the votes and the money are.
For more, visit Right Hooks.Don't Miss Alexander's Column
Read The Left's 'Hate Crime' Agenda.If you'd like to receive Alexander's Column by email, update your subscription here.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
Unemployment Benefits Don't Benefit
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Early in the Great
Recession, Democrats pushed to extend unemployment benefits from the
normal 26 weeks to as many as 99, claiming, as Barack Obama did again
just last week, that "extending emergency unemployment insurance
actually helps the economy, actually creates new jobs." Actually, no, it
doesn't.
In its latest working
paper, the well respected National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER),
the organization that determines when recessions officially begin and
end, reports,
"Most of the persistent increase in unemployment during the Great
Recession can be accounted for by the unprecedented extensions of
unemployment benefit eligibility." The NBER calculates that these
extensions have kept unemployment 3.6 percentage points higher than it
would have been without the extensions. According to the study, "During
the Great Recession, unemployment benefits have been on average at 82.5
weeks for approximately 16 quarters. ... Translating this to rates, we
would predict a rise in unemployment from 5% to 8.6%."
As the NBER further explains, extended benefits have two main effects on unemployment. First, the unemployed do
turn down jobs they might otherwise take either because the wages
aren't high enough or because they don't want to lose benefits. Second,
because some number of the unemployed chose benefits over work, overall
wages rise, suppressing employers' demand for labor -- when labor is
more expensive, employers buy less of it.
Of course, Democrats
benefit most from this cycle because they're portrayed by the Leftmedia
as the party that "cares" while evil Republicans only want to "slash
benefits." Furthermore, most of the unemployed will never realize the
macroeconomic reasons for their plight, leaving the Democrats' BIG Lie
as the most plausible explanation. Just take a look at the fact that
labor force participation for blacks is at the lowest level ever recorded and then watch how blacks vote (again) this November. And so the cycle continues.
NSA Surveillance Is Ineffective
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While the White House
continues to defend the NSA's sweeping data mining operations targeting
U.S. telephone records, a recent independent report from the New America
Foundation states that the NSA program has had "no discernible impact
on preventing acts of terrorism." The report examined 225 terrorism
cases that have been prosecuted in the U.S. since 9/11, attempting to
determine which investigative methods led to the capture of the
terrorists. According to the Foundation, only four of the cases involved
Section 215 surveillance, the part of the Patriot Act upon which the
NSA bases its broad and indiscriminant collection of U.S. telephone
records. The bulk of the investigations that led to capture were the
result of community/family tips and other informants.
However, the study has a
significant hole -- a full 27.6% of the cases examined were investigated
using "unclear" methods. That large unknown category could include more
Section 215 cases, but it's impossible to know for sure. And of the
four cases that were definitely nailed because of Section 215, the
question must be asked whether they alone justify the danger to civil
liberties inherent in the NSA program.
Barack Obama is unlikely to
stop the surveillance altogether, however, if for no other reason than
his penchant for avoiding responsibility. He doesn't want to be in the
hot seat should a successful attack occur after Section 215 is
shuttered. Recognizing that to be the case, a group of former NSA
intelligence operatives have petitioned him to meet to discuss a series
of reforms. The group has 21 recommendations including: forcing the NSA
to be subject to U.S. District, Appeals and Supreme Court precedent on
Fourth Amendment matters; establishing severe penalties for government
officials who violate privacy rights; applying effective whistleblower
protections to members of the national security apparatus; and outlawing
the use of foreign intelligence partners to circumvent U.S. laws.
On Friday, Obama plans to issue new guidelines for the surveillance
program, the most high profile response he's given since Edward
Snowden's leaks. From all appearances, his plan is to straddle the
fence.For more, visit Right Analysis.
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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Ann Coulter: Is Chris Christie Less Believable Than Tawana Brawley?
- Cal Thomas: The NHS: Dogma vs. Experience
- R. Emmett Tyrrell: Bob Gates and Politics
- Arnold Ahlert: The Left's Disdain for the Will to Live
- Victor Davis Hanson: The Cowardice of the New Anti-Semitism
OPINION IN BRIEF
Columnist George Will: "The
Obama administration has purchased states' obedience by partially
conditioning waivers from onerous federal regulations (from No Child
Left Behind) and receipt of federal largess ($4.35 billion in Race to
the Top money from the 2009 stimulus) on the states' embrace of the
Common Core. Although 45 states and the District of Columbia have struck
this bargain, most with little debate, some are reconsidering and more
will do so as opposition mounts. Many proponents seem to deem it beneath
their dignity to engage opponents' arguments, preferring to caricature
opponents as political primitives and to dismiss them with flippancies
such as this from Bill Gates: 'It's ludicrous to think that
multiplication in Alabama and multiplication in New York are really
different.' What is ludicrous is Common Core proponents disdaining
concerns related to this fact: Fifty years of increasing Washington
inputs into K-12 education has coincided with disappointing cognitive
outputs from schools. Is it eccentric that it is imprudent to apply to
K-12 education the federal touch that has given us HealthCare.gov?"
Columnist Michael Reagan:
"[T]he president is one of the few guys on the field who doesn't realize
that the ball he wants to move forward has been out of air for almost a
century. The most powerful leader on the planet still doesn't get it
when it comes to economic policy -- and obviously never will. He still
thinks like a naive 20-something community organizer from South Chicago
who has never had to meet a payroll or raise a dime of capital. ... It
doesn't matter how many lightly taxed and lightly regulated 'Promise
Zones' President Obama sets up in North Carolina or Texas with a wave of
his mighty pen. The whole country needs to be turned into a permanent
'Promise Zone.' But that's never going to happen as long as we have
someone in the White House who doesn't appreciate or like the free
market and doesn't know the difference between capitalism and cronyism."
Lord Acton (1834-1902):
"Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State,
be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country,
the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any
speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute."
Heritage Foundation's Amy
Payne: "The President has come a long way from his stance in 2011, when
he told an audience, 'The idea of doing things on my own is very
tempting, I promise you, not just on immigration reform. But that's not
how our system works. That's not how our democracy functions.' And yet,
despite the fresh threat of Obama's executive pen, this isn't a new
strategy for the Administration. The Administration hasn't needed
Congress to enact new regulations on the Internet, businesses, energy
production, and religious institutions. It has used its power to give
struggling labor unions a new edge. It has granted amnesty to illegal
immigrants. And it has rewritten welfare law to gut out the work
requirements. In short, Obama's redefined the presidency."
Comedian Argus Hamilton:
"The FBI said Monday it found no lawbreaking in the IRS's targeting of
the Tea Party. Last summer the IRS admitted it was targeting
conservative groups. President Obama called it an outrageous practice
and said he'd immediately have his Benghazi investigators look into it."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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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