The Patriot Post Monday Digest 1-6-2014

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The Patriot Post Monday Digest 1-6-2014
From The Federalist Patriot
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Monday Digest

Jan. 6, 2014

THE FOUNDATION

“It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.” –Thomas Jefferson (1781)

RIGHT HOOK
Second Amendment Defeat in NY

Buffalo Federal District Court Judge William Skretny upheld New York’s anti-gun “SAFE” Act – the post-Sandy Hook bill that banned standard-capacity magazines as well as semi-automatic rifles that look scary. Skretny said the law is just fine because it serves to “further the state’s important interest in public safety.” Unbelievably, he also wrote that gun control “is not a judicial question; it is a political one.” Wrong. It’s a question of Rule of Law – either the Constitution means what it says or politicians can do whatever they please. The case is no doubt headed to the Second Circuit, where we hope constitutional sanity prevails.

Magpul Makes Good on Promise

Gun parts manufacturer Magpul Industries is keeping their promise to leave Colorado because of gun control legislation passed last year by state Democrats. Most outrageously, the law enacted an unconstitutional ban on standard-capacity magazines holding more than 15 rounds. Subsequently, several senators were recalled with The Vote Heard ‘Round the Country1. The company’s operations will head north to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and be headquartered in Texas (location still being finalized.) Leftist lawmakers (and the citizens of Colorado) are reaping the consequences of a knee-jerk reaction that would have been avoided had politicians kept their oath to defend and protect the Constitution.

Keep Calm and Carry

Last Thursday, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said something that we’ve long advocated: A great way to reduce crime is for law-abiding citizens to carry guns. Obviously. But Craig didn’t always think this way. When he served for 28 years in the Los Angeles police department, he thought disarmament was the solution. It wasn’t until Craig became chief in Portland, Maine, and “had a stack of CCW permits I was denying” that he had an epiphany. “Maine is one of the safest places in America,” he said. “Clearly, suspects knew that good Americans were armed.” Now he believes that Detroit, one of the most dangerous places in America, could use a little Second Amendment Security2. He’s absolutely right.

Medicaid Emergency

A new study of 10,000 low-income Oregon residents showed that, after they had obtained Medicaid coverage, they visited hospital emergency rooms 40% more often than did those with no insurance. The Oregon study should put to rest the Obama administration’s argument that putting uninsured Americans on Medicaid would reduce ER visits. Add this to the report last year that Medicaid users are not healthier and often less healthy than others, and you have a vast program that doesn’t really help people while costing far more than it should. In other words, a government program. Nearly four million Americans have applied for Medicaid since ObamaCare expanded it in October, and more than 72 million Americans (20% of the population) were covered by it for at least one month in 2012. Republican governors who rejected ObamaCare’s expansion are looking smarter all the time. ?

An Illegal Legal

California is at it again, providing the template for how not to handle illegal immigration – a court in the Golden State recently authorized a law license for an illegal alien. Sergio Garcia was brought by his parents to the U.S. from Mexico 20 years ago, and he’s been waiting for a green card ever since. “I can finally fulfill my dream,” Garcia said, “and also leave behind a legacy so that an undocumented student 20 or 30 years from now will take it for granted that they can be an attorney.” Notice that his goal is to permanently erase the distinction between legal resident and illegal alien. The irony is that even though this illegal can “legally” practice law, he is ineligible to sit on the jury to whom he would make his arguments.

For more, visit Right Hook3.

RIGHT ANALYSIS
Class Warfare Takes Center Stage

After a politically disastrous 2013, Barack Obama is looking to do one important thing in 2014: set the campaign narrative for Democrats. Everything is campaign for Obama. First up are the so-called popular issues of the minimum wage and unemployment insurance. Those two things are properly lumped together, of course, because raising the first creates more of the second. When labor is more expensive, employers “buy” less of it.

In his Saturday radio address, which was recorded before the president left for his opulent Hawaiian vacation, Obama blasted Congress (read: Republicans) for going “home for the holidays” while allowing unemployment benefits to expire for 1.3 million Americans. “Denying families that security is just plain cruel,” the Demo-gogue in chief lectured. He demanded that another extension be the “first order of business” when Congress returns so that another 1.9 million people don’t lose benefits in the first six months of 2014.

It’s worth remembering that if the Obama “recovery” wasn’t such a dismal failure, three million Americans wouldn’t need unemployment benefits.

As for the minimum wage, Democrats plan a push for raising it to $10.10 per hour from the current rate of $7.25 – a nearly 40% increase. Look for them to ramp up their class warfare rhetoric as Obama did last month by calling “income inequality” the “defining challenge of our time.” The New York Times dutifully followed his lead with a weekend exposé4 on just how “successful” Democrats’ multi-trillion-dollar “War on Poverty” has been over the last 50 years. The Times argued that it was the only way to offset the economic gains made only by “those at the top of the income ladder.”

Such a claim is hogwash. According to the Treasury Department, Americans have great income mobility, with half of those in the bottom 20% moving to a higher income quintile over a decade. On the other hand, real income for many Americans has fallen during Obama’s presidency. Even the Times acknowledged, “The greatest hope for poorer Americans would be a stronger economic recovery that brought the unemployment rate down from its current level of 7 percent and drew more people into the work force. The poverty rate for full-time workers is just 3 percent. For those not working, it is 33 percent.” But one thing’s for sure – Obama won’t let the facts get in the way of a good campaign narrative.