The Patriot Post Daily Digest 1-8-2014

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Daily Digest 1-8-2014
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

Daily Digest

Jan. 8, 2014

THE FOUNDATION

“The Constitution … is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” –Thomas Jefferson (1819)

TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Time Mag’s Climate Deception

Here’s what Time magazine had to say about the now infamous “polar vortex” during the great ice age scare in June 1974: “Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds – the so-called circumpolar vortex – that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world.” Four decades later, they’re using the same argument as evidence of global warming. On Monday Time claimed, “It may well be that global warming could be making the occasional bout of extreme cold weather in the U.S. even more likely. Right now much of the U.S. is in the grip of a polar vortex, which is pretty much what it sounds like: a whirlwind of extremely cold, extremely dense air that forms near the poles.” Whatever fits the narrative.

Gun Sales Set Record

Last year set a new record for background checks on gun sales with more than 21 million applications. That number was an 8% increase over 2012 and marks the 11th straight year the number rose. The Second Amendment faced relentless assault from the Left, which sought to exploit the deaths of children in Newtown to advance their unconstitutional agenda. They misfired, however, as law-abiding citizens continued to buy guns in ever-greater numbers. In fact, we’ve crowned Barack Obama the Firearms Salesman of the Year more than once, and now it seems he’s shooting for eight straight years at the top.

Arrested Development

A new study from the journal Crime and Delinquency offered a shocking finding: “Nearly half of black males and almost 40 percent of white males in the U.S. are arrested by age 23.” University of South Carolina criminology professor Robert Brame authored the study and wrote, “A problem is that many males – especially black males – are navigating the transition from youth to adulthood with the baggage and difficulties from contact with the criminal justice system.” We think the opposite is true – they’re encountering the justice system because of personal baggage and difficulties acquired in their youth. This is most often caused by the breakdown of the family over the last 50 years, which, in turn, has been the result of cultural degradation and government incentives for single parenthood.

School Lunch Liberation

Since becoming First Lady, Michelle Obama’s mission has been to force kids to eat better. She pushes her agenda using the heavy hand of government via USDA regulations on calorie intake and food content for school lunches. In a surprising move, however, the USDA will loosen these regulations after two years. Sen. John Hoeven explained, “A one-size-fits-all approach to school lunch left students hungry and school districts frustrated with the additional expense, paperwork and nutritional research necessary to meet federal requirements.” The problem is that leftists only know one size, and they keep trying to make it fit everyone.

Regulation Record in 2013

One of Barack Obama’s favorite refrains is to criticize a “do-nothing Congress.” Congress did reach a 10-year low in passing laws last year, but as is his wont, Obama also likes to simply bypass Congress for his own political ends. One such way is through regulation, and boy was 2013 a doozy. The administration issued 3,659 rules regulations last year, while Obama signed only 65 laws. The ratio of 56 regulations to every new law is a record. Doing nothing would be far preferable to what Washington is actually foisting upon us.

For more, visit Right Hooks1.

RIGHT ANALYSIS
Extending Unemployment

The Senate passed a one-year extension of unemployment insurance Tuesday, answering Barack Obama’s call2 for the extension to be the “first order of business” upon Congress' return after the holidays. Benefits lapsed for some 1.3 million Americans on Dec. 28, which Obama declared was “just plain cruel.” But extended benefits have become the norm during the Obama “recovery.” Six Republicans – Kelly Ayotte (NH), Dan Coats (IN), Susan Collins (ME), Dean Heller (NV), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Rob Portman (OH) – voted for cloture, making the vote 60-37.

House Speaker John Boehner has signaled that he’s willing to take up the extension so long as it’s “paid for” by offsetting spending cuts. That “pay-go” process, after all, was highly touted by Democrats in the early Obama years. However, the Senate bill will cost $25 billion and it isn’t paid for. We suspect these six Republicans defected as part of a strategy to keep the focus on ObamaCare for the 2014 elections, rather than going to the mattresses over this extension. We’ll see what the House does.

For his part, Obama once again displayed his fundamentally wrong view of economics when he said that “in fact if we don’t provide unemployment insurance, it makes it harder for them to find a job.” Paying people not to work helps them work, he says. He then gave anecdote after anecdote of motivated people who have fallen on hard times and need unemployment benefits. That’s the easy task of a demo-gogue, however – such stories are common, especially in Obama’s “recovery.” But as David Limbaugh writes3, “You don’t generate economic activity by punishing producers and taking their earnings and giving the money to others. How in the world could that expand the economic pie?” Expanding the pie is the surest way to make sure the most people get some of it.

2013 Tea Party Review

Democrats and their Leftmedia lemmings have worked for years to discredit the Tea Party as racist anarchists, but in spite of such overheated and ridiculous criticism – or perhaps because of it– the Tea Party had a fairly successful 2013. Right off the bat, 12 House Republicans put Speaker John Boehner on notice by voting against him in the speakership election. That set the stage for some pitched battles in the House where conservatives were able to block some of Obama’s agenda, but until conservatives take the Senate and White House, they can only play defense.

Conservatives in both chambers banded together to defeat gun control legislation that appeared destined to pass Congress after Sandy Hook. Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee promised to filibuster any legislation that infringed on the Second Amendment, and eventually Democrats (at least temporarily) abandoned their quest. These same senators prevented “comprehensive” immigration reform from passing last year too. Something must be done with immigration, but Democrat solutions are always and only about increasing their own voter rolls.

The Tea Party did have its missteps, however, primarily in contributing to a government shutdown over ObamaCare funding. Ted Cruz and Co. were absolutely right that ObamaCare needs to be stopped, but as we’ve already discussed, that victory will have to wait until the GOP occupies the White House and Senate. The unfortunate shutdown episode didn’t accomplish the goal of derailing ObamaCare, and, worse, it distracted from the utter disaster that was the launch of Healthcare.gov. That said, ObamaCare was so great a catastrophe that even a government shutdown couldn’t distract attention from it for long, and we expect the Tea Party to reap the political benefit of the Democrats' wanton destruction of the U.S. health care system.

For more, visit Right Analysis1.