|
nChrist
|
 |
« on: June 08, 2015, 05:55:56 PM » |
|
________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 6-8-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________
Daily Digest
Jun. 8, 2015
THE FOUNDATION
“The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” —Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 1804
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Obama’s Iraq Strategy: Leave It for the Next Prez1
“If [the Iraqis] are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them,” Barack Obama declared again, though he reiterated his commitment to helping train Iraqi troops over a “multi-year” period. According to State Department official and Islamic State expert Brett McGurk, “It’s a three-year campaign to degrade the organization.” And as National Journal puts it2, “Three years marked from mid-2014, of course, falls after Jan. 20, 2017, the date Obama leaves office. Translation: The strategy is to avoid sending ground troops for the remainder of his term. So stop asking.” Indeed, Obama campaigned in 2008 on ending the Iraq war. In 2011, having rejected the Bush strategy of establishing a status of forces agreement (SOFA) to secure our hard-won gains in Iraq and the region, Obama declared3, “Everything Americans have done in Iraq, all the fighting, all the dying, the bleeding, the building and the training and the partnering, all of it has led to this moment of success. … We’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq.” And a narcissist can’t admit he’s wrong. He’s going to stubbornly stand pat, keep declaring victory, and leave the Islamic State for the next commander in chief to clean up.
Indeed, his spokesman Josh Earnest explicitly said just that: “In 2017, there will be a new commander in chief and someone else who will have a responsibility to evaluate the situation on the ground and determine what steps are necessary to continue to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL. That’s something that we’ll leave to the next president.” But what will the next 18 months bring?
China Stole Data of Four Million4
Now that the NSA is done scraping up the nation’s phone data, it should get on the task of protecting the U.S. from intrusions like the one that happened last December. U.S. investigators said that the personal data of four million current and former federal employees were stolen by hackers — most likely from China. While the Chinese Embassy in DC denied the allegation that the country was responsible for the intrusion, U.S. intelligence says the Chinese military is collecting a massive database on Americans, possibly as a way to find and recruit Americans as spies5. “The breach is yet more evidence that Beijing sees the U.S. as an adversary and is unworried about any response aggression will elicit from the White House,” writes National Review’s Michael Auslin6. “Whether it’s economic espionage, security challenges, or now hacking U.S. government websites, Beijing is testing, probing, and undermining America in any way that they can.” While the Obama administration’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal has some questions and drawbacks, a trade deal with the nations near China is a natural opportunity, a good first step, to diminish China’s influence in the Pacific. More…7
EPA Contradicts Ecofascists on Fracking8
For years, environmentalists have seen hydraulic fracturing — also known as fracking — as an insidious threat. Energy companies have used the technique to reach oil and gas deposits previously out of reach of traditional extraction methods. It’s a big reason why the nation has surged forward as one of the top oil producers in the world. After spending years studying fracking’s effect on drinking water, the Environmental Protection Agency released a draft report9 concluding, “We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States. … The number of identified cases [where fracking led to contamination], however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells.” This is a fire hose of water on the ecofascists' heated rhetoric. Last year, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, listening to the fear mongering of environmentalists, used an executive order to ban fracking in The Empire State. “EPA’s conclusion really is remarkable,” writes10 The Wall Street Journal. “The agency has yearned for an excuse to take over fracking regulation from the states, which do the job well. So if there was so much as a sliver of evidence that fracking was dangerous, the EPA would have found it.” More…11
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
A Tale of Two Crooks and the IRS12
By Robin Smith
With her roots in Roman mythology, Lady Justice represents morality and virtue through three symbols. First, she holds a set of scales in her left hand, to weigh evidence with reason and in light of the law. Second, she wields a double-edged sword in her right hand, representing the remedy impartially provided after the facts are laid bare before her. And third, she wears a blindfold, signifying that the law must be applied with objectivity and equality.
Yet too often politicians seek to lift this blindfold, wanting to redefine justice based on the year’s election cycle or to subvert it through delays, denials and tactics that advance their agenda.
Let’s examine two cases in which the Internal Revenue Service has been used as a tool for political revenge and harassment, and how they reflect an assault on justice that should offend all.
Consider the identical approaches of Richard Nixon and Barack Obama. One a Republican and the other a Democrat, both illustrate power’s ability to corrupt to the extreme, instituting a false democracy where disagreement and disloyalty are silenced by heavy-handed tactics.
Nixon’s legacy as the 37th president is often defined by his impeachment. Posterity’s view of Obama is still being penned, but both will be remembered for their unconstitutional misuse of government and for the tenured bureaucrats who willingly complied.
In the Articles of Impeachment adopted by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in 1974, most remember Article I, which declared Nixon “impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors” committed surrounding the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972.
The charges leveled by Congress state, “Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.”
The break-in and burglary were indeed illegal and brought disgrace to the office of the president. But the obstruction, delays and attempts to conceal the covert activities all demonstrated an egregiously deliberate abuse of the power afforded the president of the United States.
Yet those same Articles of Impeachment issue a second damning charge, accusing Nixon of “using the powers of the office of President of the United States … in violation of his constitutional oath.” Nixon “repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.”
Specifically, Nixon, “acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service” information of citizens he had on his “enemies list” who he deemed politically dangerous to his ambitions.
Today’s ongoing IRS scandal13 involves conservative political groups whose applications for tax-exempt status were deliberately slowed. This similar flagrant abuse of authority commenced during Obama’s first term, helping him win a second, and it features the Nixonian ingredients of willing participants who delay, obstruct and lie to protect the crimes against innocent citizens. |
