|
nChrist
|
 |
« on: August 17, 2013, 05:11:42 PM » |
|
________________________________________
The Patriot Post Friday Digest 8-16-2013
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________
Surprise! NSA Broke the Rules
August 16, 2013
THE FOUNDATION
"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself." --James Madison
NATIONAL SECURITY
Surprise! NSA Broke the Rules
The National Security Agency is under fire once again after an internal audit revealed that it broke privacy rules or exceeded its legal authority thousands of times each year since 2008. According to The Washington Post1, "Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order." There were 2,776 such incidents at the NSA's Fort Meade headquarters alone in the 12 months preceding the May 2012 audit, which, among other things, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked to the media.
In one instance, the NSA mistakenly intercepted a "large number" of phone calls originating in Washington because a "programming error" substituted U.S. area code 202 for 20, Egypt's international dialing code. The NSA opted not to report this allegedly unintended surveillance of Americans and generally considers "incidental" surveillance not noteworthy. Likewise, the NSA instructs personnel to be as vague and generic as possible when describing any incident it does bother reporting.
Just last week, Barack Obama insisted, "What you're not reading about is the government actually abusing these programs." Obviously, his press conference feigning the desire for NSA "reform" was pre-emptive because he knew the Post was about to publish another inconvenient report.
We also recall Obama's other tone-deaf remarks: "If you are the ordinary person and you start seeing a bunch of headlines saying, 'U.S.-Big Brother looking down on you, collecting telephone records, et cetera,' well, understandably, people would be concerned. I would be, too, if I wasn't inside the government." Effective anti-terror measures are clearly needed to maintain national security -- after all, al-Qaida is alive and well2 -- but the people should be concerned that our government prove trustworthy.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Holder's Real 'Prison Population Reduction' Agenda
In the Obama administration's latest unconstitutional end run, Attorney General Eric Holder announced this week that he would restrict federal prosecution of drug cases. In some cases, this might mean withholding evidence in order to avoid mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenders. However, federal authorities rarely prosecute minor drug cases, the vast majority of which are handled by state and local prosecutors. This means Holder's proposals will have little effect on the prison population -- his stated desire. In effect, Holder is ordering federal prosecutors to refrain from prosecuting cases they currently don't prosecute.
So what's Holder's real agenda? Well, as with every policy or regulation implemented by the Obama administration, the objective is to build political constituencies. In this case, he's milking charges of systematic racism for political gain. Since 1980, the U.S. population has increased about 30%, while the prison population has increased by an astounding 800%. More to the point, while black Americans are 12% of the U.S. population, more than 40% of the incarcerated population is black.
Holder says, "Let's be honest. Some of the enforcement priorities we have set have had a destabilizing effect on particular communities, largely poor and of color." Translation: Holder is throwing a bone to an important Obama constituency -- drug dealers and users, and all their voting relatives. No doubt mandatory minimum sentencing -- which was indeed a bad idea -- plays a large role, but far more important is cultural degradation on the Democrats' inner city poverty plantations. And skirting the law solves neither.
ECONOMY
Income Redistribution: Obama's Taxing Proposal
Barack Obama is proposing to expand high-speed Internet access to 99 percent of America's schools within the next five years. Sounds great, right? Well, he wants to fund "ConnectEd" by raising the cell phone user tax by $4 per year, implemented by the Federal Communications Commission. The Constitution mandates that Congress alone has the power to levy or raise taxes. Congress created this particular tax in 1996, but Obama plans to sidestep the legislative branch in order to hit Americans' wallets even harder. By ignoring Congress and instead using the FCC -- a majority of whose commissioners are Obama appointees -- the administration is once again thumbing its nose at our system of constitutional checks and balances. But not to worry -- it's for the children.
The Washington Post called the move3 "a case study in how Obama is trying to accomplish a second-term legacy despite Republican opposition in Congress." The Post quoted White House deputy chief of staff Rob Nabors, who said, "It's got a lot of the characteristics of big-vision policy that you really don't get through legislation anymore." That's just the problem with Obama: He doesn't let little things like needing legislation -- or for that matter enforcing the law -- get in the way of his agenda. There's no telling what the president will impose next in order to continue his vision of "fundamentally transforming the United States of America."
CULTURE
From Gag to Gag Order
It started out as a bit to get some cheap laughs -- a rodeo clown dressed in an Obama mask and an announcer asking the crowd if it wanted "Obama run down by a bull." But the act at the Missouri State Fair has blown up into a national travesty, one which an Obama spokesman (and Missouri native) bemoaned was "certainly not one of the finer moments in our state." Missouri's governor, Democrat Jay Nixon, called the incident "disrespectful and offensive," a politically correct sentiment echoed by his Republican lieutenant governor.
While, by most accounts, the crowd took the skit for the humor intended, thin-skinned leftists took a much more severe attitude toward the rodeo. The rodeo clown portraying Obama was banned for life from the state fair; meanwhile, the Missouri NAACP said the incident "warrant(s) a full review by both the Secret Service and the Justice Department." One Missouri NAACP official called it a "hate crime." Those were some of the milder reactions.
Yet those with cooler heads (and a sense of humor) pointed out the hypocrisy of the Left. They were silent when, as Michelle Malkin noted, images of George W. Bush being assassinated4 were all the rage. Rush Limbaugh characterized the fallout5 as "no different than [the] irrational reaction to the Mohammed cartoons." Indeed, the Left's prophet was slandered.
When it comes to free speech, Barack Obama and his sycophants don't seem to have an understanding that it doesn't just apply to those words and organs with which they agree. In the end, the skit portrayed Obama as having enough sense to run from the bull, so why not take that advice in real life? |
