The Patriot Post Digest 5-26-2015

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-26-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest

May 26, 2015

THE FOUNDATION

“All speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest numbers of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best.” —John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Cleveland Settles With DOJ Over Policing Investigation1

It’s become a trend in cases involving police shootings: While the individual officer is let off the hook for using lethal force and sparking protests in the community, the Department of Justice usually finds something wrong with the larger department. Cleveland has reached a settlement2 with the DOJ after the agency accused the city’s finest of engaging in patterns of “unreasonable and unnecessary use of force,” including tasing and punching handcuffed suspects. The investigation was launched after a 2012 car chase involving 100 police officers ended with officer Michael Brelo standing on the roof of the Chevy Malibu used to flee from the police and firing 15 times into the vehicle. On Saturday, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell found Brelo not guilty of killing the two suspects because it was not clear if it was Brelo’s rounds that killed them. When issuing his verdict, O'Donnell said, “Guilty or not guilty, the verdict should be no cause for a civilized society to celebrate or riot.” Still, on Saturday night, some protestors grew violent and 71 were arrested. It just goes to show that improvements still need to be made before we can have a civilized society. More…3

House Considers Fast-Tracking Obama’s Pacific Trade Deal4

In the coming days, members of the House will decide whether Congress should fast-track approving Obama’s trade deal with Pacific countries, or whether to defend its constitutional role of advisor when the U.S. enters into treaties. Already, 48 Republicans and 14 Democrats in the Senate approved fast-track legislation5 Friday, a move that would only give the legislative body the ability to approve the treaty with a yes-no vote. While everyone from Obama to the GOP leadership agrees that a trade deal is needed and beneficial (especially because of China’s growing aggression in the South China Sea), lawmakers question the way it’s coming about. Rep. Jim Jordan said6, “I’m concerned about giving this president the authority” to be the sole person negotiating deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Furthermore, the House is the young blood of the lawmaking body, as only 55 members were around when Congress deliberated over the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. Members in office because of the 2014 Republican wave should remember they are in office because voters wanted change, not Obama’s status quo.

Another Holiday Regulatory Dump7

Friday was the dawn of a holiday weekend, which could mean only one thing: Time for another big regulatory release from the Obama administration. It wasn’t exactly a Friday news dump, as it came out Thursday, but, as The Hill points out8, “The White House is notorious for releasing its Unified Agenda on the cusp of a holiday when most people are headed out of town to celebrate the long weekend. The release of the spring 2015 edition was no exception, coming one day before the long Memorial Day weekend.” According to9 The Daily Signal, there are 136 significant rules in this release: “These include an Environmental Protection Agency rule tightening already-tight carbon emission regulations for power plants, Food and Drug Administration regulations for all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and cigars, and new Consumer Product Safety Commission safety standards for off-road vehicles.” The cost of Barack Obama’s enormous regulatory burden is a serious drag on the economy10. In fact, compliance costs nearly $15,000 per American household, but it’s a cost that’s more easily hidden than taxes. Still, it’s no wonder Obama likes to bury regulation releases just before a holiday.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Emails Cast More Guilt on Clinton and Obama11

By Lewis Morris

On Friday, the State Department made public some 300 messages from Hillary Clinton’s email collection pertaining to Libya and the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi terrorist attack that left Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead. The Friday afternoon document dump was no doubt timed with the long weekend in hopes that the information contained in these emails would be downplayed in the holiday shuffle.

Fortunately, no such luck. The Benghazi attack and the cover-ups and stonewalling by the Obama administration and presidential candidate Clinton have made this particular embarrassment hard to bury. Despite the best efforts of the administration and its minions in the media, the hunger for more information at this point seems insatiable.

The batch of emails released last week shed a little bit of light on questions that the House Select Committee on Benghazi has been asking since it was formed in May 2014. A number of emails released from Clinton’s once-private collection include information about growing concerns over the deteriorating security situation in Libya going back to April 2011. In fact, Stevens, who at the time was an envoy, voiced concerns about safety.

“The situation in [the Libyan town of] Ajdabiyah has worsened to the point where Stevens is considering departure from Benghazi,” states an April 10, 2011, message12. “The envoy’s delegation is currently doing a phased checkout.”

Stevens ultimately stayed in Libya, but his concerns and the concerns of CIA analysts ultimately fell on deaf ears.

Other information drawn from the emails include communications between Clinton and her team in the days following the attack, speech preparation, updates on press coverage, even coverage of how then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney was speaking on the issue.

The emails released by the State Department that used to live on Clinton’s private server raise more questions than they answer, which helps ensure this issue will not go away soon. Several gaps in the timeline are evident, which leave open questions about Clinton’s role and input in shaping Libyan policy post-Qaddafi, how State was dealing with growing instability in the country, and the thought process that went into extending the Benghazi mission in early 2012.

Administration stonewalling on Benghazi is bad enough, but the fact the whole matter is tied in to how Clinton mismanaged her emails makes the issue that much worse.

Clinton’s now-famous private email server was politically motivated because she wanted to keep her work from the prying eyes of the “vast Right wing conspiracy.” Instead, she invested in a private server that was hacked at least once and was not nearly as secure as the government server that she was lawfully required to use for classified materials. Apparently, protecting data from the GOP was more important than protecting it from the Russians or the Chinese.

Clinton claimed two months ago that she never broke the law in maintaining her own private server. In Clinton-speak that is true — kind of. Documents related to Benghazi that have recently been reclassified as secret were not secret when they existed on her server. But they were certainly sensitive; otherwise there would be no need for the reclassification. Yet, there is no hard and fast rule that bars Clinton from storing sensitive documents on her server.