The Patriot Post Digest 5-6-2015

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-6-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest

May 6, 2015

THE FOUNDATION

“Foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity; and to its particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived; or if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism?” —Alexander Hamilton, 1802

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Hillary Vows to Outdo Obama’s Immigration Actions1

On Cinco de Mayo, Hillary Clinton promised to go above and beyond what Barack Obama has done with his unconstitutional overreach on immigration. In a campaign stop where she spoke to a group of illegal immigrants in Nevada, Clinton said she’d ignore the Constitution — and she hasn’t even taken the oath yet to uphold it. “I will fight to stop partisan attacks on the executive actions that would put DREAMers, including those with us today, at risk of deportation,” Clinton said2. “And if Congress continues to refuse to act, as president I would do everything possible under the law to go even further.” Remember: This is the same politician who said last year that all the unaccompanied illegal minors who were crossing the border should “be sent back as soon as it can be determined who the responsible adults in their families are.” For the Left, Obama was a successful candidate, and Clinton wants to position herself as Obama 2.0, downplaying the fact3 she married Bill. She may not have the outsider energy Obama had, but she can promise to continue his policies. More…4

Enter Huckabee5

Mike Huckabee officially tossed his hat in the ring Tuesday, announcing his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He launched his campaign in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas, (also Bill Clinton’s birthplace) and promised to lead the nation “from hope to higher ground.” He’s uniquely qualified, he says, because “I learned how to govern and I learned how to lead.” And he’s focused on the economy: “Wages have been stagnant for the bottom 90% of Americans for 40 years. With all the talk of the economy in recovery, I’m talking to Americans every day whose economy is not recovering. They’re working harder than they were a year ago, two, three, four years ago but they’re not better off.” But he also carries a well-earned reputation for being a Big Government conservative, which in our book is an oxymoron. In other words, drop the “conservative” part, and you’ve got it. Indeed, we’ve had plenty to say about Huckabee’s record here6 and here7.

Huckabee will have a tougher time winning the nomination than in his previous run. Unlike in 2008, there are numerous (actual) conservatives in the race who can just as easily win evangelical voters. And though the Republican Party has a habit of nominating previous primary losers (Reagan, Bush 41, McCain and Romney), Huckabee doesn’t strike us as fitting that profile. That said, it’s early and an awful lot can happen between now and the Iowa caucuses.

Clinton Continues to Resist Benghazi Committee8

The dance between Hillary Clinton and the House Select Committee on Benghazi continues. First, Clinton dumped her email9 on the State Department and wiped her hands of the matter. And she continues to stonewall the committee’s request for her to testify. In an April 23 letter to Clinton’s personal attorney David Kendall, committee chairman Trey Gowdy10 (R-SC) said if everyone cooperates, Clinton could testify twice before Independence Day and be done with the committee. “It is necessary to call Secretary Clinton twice because the committee needs to ensure we have a complete and responsive record and all the facts before we then substantively question her on the Benghazi terrorist attacks,” Gowdy wrote. After all, the committee has only 300 of Clinton’s emails.

But Kendall wrote back, “Respectfully, there is no basis, logic, or precedent for such an unusual request. The Secretary is fully prepared to stay for the duration of the Committee’s questions on the day she appears.” Kendall suggested Clinton appear before the committee the week of May 18, but only once. She doesn’t want to “prolong the Committee’s efforts further by appearing on two separate occasions when one will suffice,” he wrote. Obstruct, obfuscate and deny — it’s the same old Clinton modus operandi. More…11

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
When Drawing Muhammad, It Depends on Who Wields the Pen12

By Dan Gilmore

By the way leftists have yammered this week, one gets the impression they believe there might be a right to draw Muhammad, an image offensive to many Muslims, but it’s a freedom conditional on who wields the pen — and even then there are limits.

On Sunday, Bosch Fawstin won the top prize at the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) Muhammad-drawing contest in Garland, Texas. It was an image of Muhammad13 materializing under the artist’s pencil. He holds a sword aloft and he’s saying, “You can’t draw me!”

The artist in the picture replies, “That’s why I draw you.”

Meanwhile, two jihadists, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, made the 1,000-mile road trip from Phoenix, Arizona. In the car, Simpson and Soofi had rifles, body armor and ammo with which they were going to silence Fawstin and as many other infidels as possible.

Thankfully, an armed police officer protecting the free speech rights of those gathered in that auditorium stopped the two cold before they could do more than wound a single security guard.

But instead of garnering the support of the Leftmedia — as it gave to Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists and editors after the massacre at its offices14, insincere as it was — the liberal talking heads turned on AFDI and said no one at the event had any right drawing Muhammad. Maybe it was because the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled AFDI an anti-Muslim hate group. Maybe it was because a good guy with a gun decided the final outcome of the day.

Fawstin has all the reason in the world to draw the figure. In his acceptance speech15, Fawstin revealed he grew up Muslim: “The problem with even moderate Muslims — I was raised in the Bronx by Albanian Muslim parents — is that the poison of misogyny, and Jew hatred, it gets everyone.”

As he grew older, he grew hostile to the religion of his youth. He later adopted16 the objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand.

He created a superhero — Pigman — who fights jihadists, and drew several comic books with the character. It was a response to DC and Marvel avoiding the issue of violent Islam — not allowing Captain America to fight jihadists, for example.

But he’s no Charlie Hebdo cartoonist. “They tell the truth about Islam and jihad every single day. I’m a cartoonist, I have a blog … every so often, I have a comic book series I do, but I don’t do it every day,” he said.

Renald “Luz” Luzier drew Muhammad twice for the cover of Charlie Hebdo. When jihadists attacked his paper, killing his coworkers, he drew the figure again as a response to the terrorists who tried to silence him. Recently, however, he said he would stop drawing the figure17 because “It no longer interests me.”

Both cartoonists had reasons to draw Muhammad. But now everyone is bickering over who has more of a right to draw the figure. When PBS’s Charlie Rose asked Charlie Hebdo’s film critic Jean-Baptiste Thoret18 to offer his opinion about the attacks in Garland, Thoret labeled AFDI’s images of Muhammad illegitimate because, unlike Charlie Hebdo, the group was making fun of only Muslims. Charlie Hebdo, on the other hand, lampoons everyone to advance a socialist political philosophy.