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« on: July 02, 2015, 06:39:20 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 7-2-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest
Jul. 2, 2015
THE FOUNDATION
“Every prudent and cautious judge … will remember, that his duty and his business is, not to make the law, but to interpret and apply it.” —James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
June’s Job Gains Are Good, but the Devil’s in the Details1
The U.S. economy is like a car that won’t shift from second gear into third: It’s moving forward and that’s great, but we’re not on the road that brings 3% GDP growth. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its June jobs report2 this morning and the economy did generally what economists predicted3 it would do. The economy added 223,000 jobs and the unemployment rate declined to 5.3%. The U-6 measure of labor underutilization dropped to 10.5%. But here comes the frustrating part. The percentage of Americans who are working declined by 0.3% to 62.6%, the lowest since 1977. In fact, 432,000 Americans left the workforce — about twice the number that joined last month. Additionally, wages didn’t rise from last month’s $24.95 average hourly wage. After a couple months in which wages increased, another bump in pay would have indicated that the U.S. economy was healthy. The kinds of jobs added in June were encouraging, as there were increases in architectural and engineering services, health care and computer systems design. Interestingly, BLS reports that the gains in the financial sector increased mostly around insurance carriers. “Commercial banking employment declined by 6,000,” the report read. “Employment in financial activities has grown by 159,000 over the year, with insurance accounting for about half of the gain.” While Americans have been buying more insurance, coerced or otherwise, fewer of them have been frequenting their local bank. Could this be a small sign of the decline of the middle class?
Editor’s Note
Tomorrow we will begin to celebrate Independence Day4 so there will not be a regular Digest. We’ll be back on Monday. God bless the USA!
Leftmedia: Say, There Are Too Many Guns Out There5
A new survey asserts that nearly a third of American adults own a gun. Who knew? Frankly, we wish that number were higher. But as it is, the study’s author and the Leftmedia couldn’t be more concerned. “Considering the presence of deeply rooted gun culture and the estimated number of guns in the U.S. to be 310 million, we (suspected) that social gun culture is associated with gun ownership,” said vexed lead author Bindu Kalesan of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York. The researchers' math depended on a 2013 online survey of 4,000 people from all 50 states and DC, so it’s hardly a conclusive measure. Undeterred, however, researchers and their accomplices in the press insist that more guns lead to more accidents, injuries and homicides. Lefty journalist Ed Kilgore, for one, is downright petrified, and he identifies the problem: conservatives. “There is something fundamentally disquieting about the fact that the Americans most likely to own guns are also the Americans most likely to embrace a political rationale for gun ownership and most likely to believe they’re getting outvoted by people who don’t share their values,” he frets6. “Somewhere in these overlapping circles is a hard core of dangerous folks who are being told constantly by Republican politicians that they are losing or have already lost their most fundamental rights. And this is why political extremism is a bad thing even if its devotees lose most elections.” That dreaded “gun culture” may concern leftists, but we prefer to call it Liberty.
Chick-fil-A Keeps Doing It Right7
It’s interesting that just days after the Supreme Court ruled8 same-sex marriage is a heretofore undiscovered constitutional right Chick-fil-A came out on top in a customer service satisfaction survey9. In fact, the Atlanta-based fast-food chain registered the highest score in the history of the survey. What does same-sex marriage have to do with fried chicken? Recall that, in 2012, the company became the Rainbow Mafia’s number one target10 after Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy voiced his support for biblical marriage. Leftists tried to organize a boycott, but it fell flat as a conservative counter-boycott gave franchises their longest lines ever as people flocked to grab a tasty sandwich on Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. The lesson: Stand by solid principles and make a great product, and people will come. They’ll like it, too.
Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column
Read Independence Day and the Future of Liberty11, a tribute to our Patriot Founders and the Liberty they, and generations since, have fought to sustain.
If you’d like to receive Alexander’s Column by email, update your subscription here12.
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Hillary’s Email Troubles Reach Beyond Benghazi13
By Dan Gilmore
The Left sees the issue of Hillary Clinton’s emails as a liability for the Right. If Republicans aren’t careful, that may prove true.
In March, Obama adviser David Axelrod tweeted14, “The email trap: If the Rs make HRC email an obsessive fixation, to the exclusion of larger concerns of people, they will pay a price. Again.”
Thanks, Axelrod. An enemy multiplies kisses. After all, there are concerns about the economy, ObamaCare, immigration and what to do with a Supreme Court bent on making this nation ruled by a five-vote majority of a nine-judge panel. But Hillary Clinton’s emails are the perfect profile of Machiavellian politics that she hopes lead to a Clinton White House 2.0.
On Tuesday, the State Department released 3,000 pages15 of Clinton’s email from her time as secretary of state. This release is simultaneously huge and insignificant. Finally, after years of failed requests via the Freedom of Information Act, journalists and the public can start reading the email exchange showing Clinton telling retired four-star general John Podesta16 to “please wear socks to bed to keep your feet warm.”
It’s a massive document dump — 3,000 pages of Clinton scheduling meetings, replying to intelligence reports or firing off curt replies. Yet, it’s only a fraction of the 55,0000 pages of emails the State Department will release over the next few months. And it only happened because a federal judge ordered it after VICE News sued17.
When the State Department finishes, it will be January 2016 and well into presidential primary season — long enough to cause Hillary some heartburn, but also long enough to cause the public to tune out.
Unfortunately, Clinton’s lawyers got to the emails first. Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy, notes the emails were “heavily curated,” and so there’s a slim-to-none chance there will be “anything surprising or unexpected, let alone compromising.”
Yet these pages reveal yet again Hillary’s secrecy, dishonesty and incompetence. Here are three examples:
Sidney Blumenthal was more involved in her leadership than she previously disclosed. “Are you still awake?” Clinton wrote18 to Blumenthal in October 2009. “I will call if you are.” This email alone blows away Clinton’s claim that Blumenthal sent her only unsolicited and un-vetted19 intelligence reports about Libya. While not serving in any official capacity, Blumenthal was an influential figure in Clinton’s State Department. Blumenthal advised Clinton to stay mum on the issue of torture and he was an intermediary between Clinton and the Northern Ireland peace process. His involvement with Clinton’s leadership team is a lot like a private email server — secret, no accountability and something Clinton alone can control.
However convoluted the issue may seem, Hillary writhed away from transparency. Sending her lawyers to curate the emails? Printing out 55,000 pages of electronic communication and dumping it all on the State Department to re-digitize, vet and release? While Clinton may say she wants her emails out in the public, her actions don’t match what she’s saying. During their investigation into the Benghazi attack, the House Select Committee on Benghazi discovered that Blumenthal gave them 15 emails that were not in the pile Clinton handed to State. In other words, Clinton had been trimming emails that had to do with her involvement in Libya.
Hillary struggles with attending meetings and operating fax machines. Honest question here for the “most qualified candidate ever to run for president.” What is the prerequisite skills needed to become leader of the free world, commander in chief of America’s Armed Forces? In the world of management, politics and communication, you’d think sending a fax would be a necessary skill that’s been around, oh, since at least the ‘90s. But there’s Clinton in December 2009 emailing20 one of her staffers to ask about working the ol’ faxer. And this was the woman who managed to operate a home-brewed email account. Furthermore, Clinton once heard about a cabinet meeting through listening to the radio (just like Barack Obama learns about every scandal on the news). “Can I go?” she wrote. “If not, who are we sending?” These are mistakes you’d expect an intern to make. But by all means, let’s give her the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the nuclear launch codes. |
