The Patriot Post Digest 7-14-2015

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-14-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest

Jul. 14, 2015

THE FOUNDATION

“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” —Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, 1776

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Iranian Nuclear Deal Isn’t Exactly Peace in Our Time1

After two years in the works and numerous missed deadlines, the P5+1 — United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia and China — and the Islamic regime of Iran reached a formal nuclear agreement. But, as expected, the deal is “mutually beneficial” for all the wrong reasons: Obama can punt the issue to the next administration; meanwhile, Iran —which is expected to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons for a decade — will quietly continue its operations underground. The Washington Free Beacon reports, “In one of the most controversial concessions made by the Obama administration, a United Nations embargo on arms will also be lifted within around five years as part of the deal, according to multiple reports. A similar embargo on the construction of ballistic missiles, which could carry a nuclear payload, also will expire in around eight years under the deal. Initial readings of the deal also indicate that Iran will be given the right to veto so-called ‘anywhere, anytime’ inspections of Iranian nuclear sites.” Congress will have to give the deal the go-ahead, but that likelihood increased significantly thanks to the legislative compromise crafted by Sen. Bob Corker. As National Review’s Andrew McCarthy explained2, “Instead of requiring the president to convince a two-thirds supermajority of the Senate to approve the Iran deal, it requires opponents to convince a two-thirds supermajority of the full Congress to defeat the deal.”

If Congress approves the deal — which it surely will — and Iran follows through on some preliminary conditions, the regime will be awarded $100 billion from frozen assets — something over which John Kerry appeared remorseful. “We realize how deeply the nuclear related sanctions affected the lives of Iranians,” he said. Adding insult to injury, according to The Wall Street Journal, sanctions relief “could help Iran’s economy to expand by 7% to 8% annually for years to come.” Leave it to Obama to stimulate Iran’s economy more than ours. Israel is understandably infuriated. “Iran is going to receive a sure path to nuclear weapons,” warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Many of the restrictions that were supposed to prevent it from getting there will be lifted. Iran will get a jackpot — a cash bonanza of hundreds of billions of dollars — which will enable it to continue to pursue its aggression and terror.” Still, that didn’t prevent the antagonizer in chief from taking a victory lap. “The United States, together with our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not,” Obama proclaimed, “a comprehensive, long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” In April, Mark Alexander explained3 that “the central issue is not whether Iran can be trusted, but that Obama can’t be trusted.” That’s what makes this deal so alarming and, indeed, dangerous.

County Clerk Refuses Marriage Licenses4

In the days since five members of the Supreme Court endorsed redefining marriage5, essentially creating a constitutional “right” to same-sex marriage out of thin air, the question has been what rights trump other rights when the inevitable conflict happens. Actually, it’s not so much a question as it is seeing where Christians are assaulted next. It isn’t just bakers, florists and photographers, but, among others, churches, religious schools and county clerks. In Kentucky, the question of religious liberty and marriage is back in court after Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis refused to comply with the SCOTUS ruling. In fact, Davis wouldn’t issue any marriage licenses. “It’s a deep-rooted conviction,” Davis said. “My conscience won’t allow me to do that. It goes against everything I hold dear — everything sacred in my life.” U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning heard arguments Monday. Several county clerks around the nation have resigned rather than violate their own beliefs, and others are pondering what moves to make. The root of the problem is that the “right” to same-sex marriage requires endorsement, whether or not it’s against conscience.

NYC Gives Garner Family $5.9 Million6

On July 17, 2014, several white New York City police officers, under the supervision of a black NYPD police sergeant named Kizzy Adoni, were involved in a takedown of a belligerent black man, Eric Garner, after he resisted arrest for selling “loose” cigarettes. One of the officers, Daniel Pantaleo, used a modified chokehold as part of the effort to get the 350lb Garner to the ground. That chokehold had been previously barred by NYPD policy because it caused prior injuries and deaths. Indeed, Garner died shortly after the takedown, though Pantaleo was not indicted. In part because the incident was caught on video it became a primary anecdote in the narrative about racist police enforcement7. On Monday, New York City settled with Garner’s family for $5.9 million, just days before the anniversary of Garner’s death and the deadline for filing suit. The family had given notice of a $75 million suit, and the settlement is obviously the city’s effort to close the book on the story and to save taxpayers potentially many millions more dollars. The book isn’t closed across the country, however, as citizens and police departments grapple with what effective and proper law enforcement looks like in a very racially charged America.

Don’t Miss Patriot Humor

Check out Too Many Stars, Not Very Bright8.

If you’d like to receive Patriot Humor by email, update your subscription here9.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Hillary Blames Republicans for Obama’s Economy10

By Nate Jackson

Hillary Clinton finally laid out a platform for her campaign Monday, focusing on her plan to solve America’s economic woes. Just kidding. She didn’t really propose anything new so much as complain about the state of an economy that “still isn’t delivering for most Americans,” while inciting a little class warfare along the way. Of course, she’s done quite alright for herself11, thank you very much, but that’s beside the point, right?

“Previous generations of Americans built the greatest economy and strongest middle class the world has ever known on the promise of a basic bargain: If you work hard and do your part, you should be able to get ahead,” Hillary said. “But over the past several decades, that bargain has eroded. Our job is to make it strong again.”

That bargain has indeed eroded over the last six-plus years of Barack Obama’s “recovery” (eight years if we include Democrat control of Congress beginning in 2007), during which the government spent $1 trillion it didn’t have in “stimulus” money, took over the health insurance market, institutionalized “too big to fail” through financial regulations and raised taxes on small businesses. Those policies only served to harm the middle class by undermining job and wage growth.

Clinton launched an attack on potential Republican rival Jeb Bush. “Now, you may have heard Governor Bush say Americans just need to work longer hours,” she mocked. “Well, he must not have met very many American workers. Let him tell that to the nurse who stands on her feet all day, or the teacher who’s in that classroom or the trucker who drives all night. Let him tell that to the fast-food worker marching in the streets for better pay. They do not need a lecture. They need a raise.”

Bush’s “people need to work longer hours” remark was a perhaps inartful way of pointing out how badly Obama botched the economy. ObamaCare in particular hurt workers through its requirement that employers provide insurance to workers who put in more than 30 hours a week. For the part-time waitress or big box store worker, that means they can no longer get more than 29 hours — because mandating insurance doesn’t mean an employer can afford to provide it. And far too much of the job growth under Obama has been part-time work for people who want full-time jobs.

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-14-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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Indeed, as Bush later put it, “If we’re going to grow the economy, people need to stop being part-time workers. They need to have access to greater opportunities to work.”

In fact, Hillary herself complained that women need to work more. “The movement of women into the American workforce over the past 40 years was responsible for more than $3.5 trillion in economic growth,” she said. “But that progress has stalled.”

That’s a tacit admission that the labor force participation rate has remained stuck at record lows during the “Obama Recovery.” An awful lot of Americans need to be working more than zero hours a week, but Clinton’s plan won’t make that happen.

She insists we can’t go back to the failed policies of the past while offering exactly that. Her great ideas include raising the minimum wage and increasing infrastructure spending, neither of which truly boosts the economy. The minimum wage demonstrably hurts it.

“For 35 years Republicans have argued that if we give more wealth to those at the top by cutting their taxes and letting big corporations write their own rules, it will trickle down … to everyone else,” she railed. “Yet every time they have a chance to try that approach, it explodes the national debt, concentrates wealth even more, and does practically nothing to help hardworking Americans. Twice now in the past 20 years a Democratic president has had to come in and clean up the mess left behind.”

That depends on the meaning of “clean up.” After Ronald Reagan’s policies kicked off 25 years of economic growth, Bill Clinton raised taxes and sowed the seeds of the 2008 economic collapse by applying affirmative action to the home-lending industry. That collapse was blamed on George W. Bush, and Obama’s “solutions” only perpetuated a stagnant economy.

More important, remember that “trickle down” is simply the Democrat pejorative for capitalism. Reaganomics, which Hillary specifically targets, meant that people keep more of their own money. Tax cuts are not “giving more wealth to those at the top,” as Hillary would like us to believe. When people keep their own money, they use it to grow the economy — even if they save that money. Government doesn’t grow the economy; it can only rearrange it with your money, picking winners and losers along the way.

Hillary says she wants to “build a growth and fairness economy,” but that won’t happen by blaming capitalism and advocating socialism.

TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

ANALYSIS: States Fight Back Against Obama’s Climate Rules12
Who Knew? Geothermal Heat Driving West Antarctic Ice Melt13
‘Accommodation’ for Contraception Mandate14
Humor: Please Tell Me Again…15

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Thomas Sowell: Is the Civil War Over?16
Arnold Ahlert: Goldstein-ing the American Right17
David Limbaugh: Hillary’s Tired, Demagogic Economic Proposals18

For more, visit Right Opinion19.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Thomas Sowell: “The black parishioners who expressed forgiveness toward the [Charleston] killer did more than most of us could do, and the whites who responded with solidarity did their part. Note how quickly this was done, by ordinary people of good will — black and white — without the ‘help’ of racial activists like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Professional race hustlers have no incentive to see our current civil war end. They see in this shooting only an opportunity to escalate their demands. Now there are rumblings of demands that statues of Robert E. Lee and other Southern leaders be destroyed — and if that is done, it will only lead to new demands, perhaps to destroy the Jefferson Memorial because Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. And if that is done, no doubt there will be demands that the city of Washington be renamed, for the same reason. In short, there is no stopping point, just unending strife as far out as the eye can see. And just what will that accomplish? It could ultimately accomplish the killer’s dream of racial polarization and violence. Neither blacks nor whites will be better off if that happens. With all the very real problems in this society, can we really spare the time and the wasted energy of trying to refight a Civil War that ended before our great-grandparents were born? The past is irrevocable. We cannot change the smallest detail of what some people did to other people after both have gone to their graves. … We need a lot more serious thinking about the present and the future, and a lot less time and energy spent on the past.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs, is to be ruled by evil men.” —Plato (429-347 BC)

Non Compos Mentis: “Our economic goals have to be redistributing a significant amount of [wealth] back from the top one percent. Unchecked growth — especially when 99% of all new income goes to the top 1% — is absurd. Where we’ve got to move is not growth for the sake of growth, but we’ve got to move to a society that provides a high quality of life for all of our people.” —Bernie Sanders

Upright: “The dirty little secret, which would not be secret if liberals didn’t rewrite history, is that socialism, forced redistribution of income and assets, and pumping government money into the economy ostensibly to stimulate growth destroy not only liberty but also wealth. If they have any effect at all on making income more equitable, it is because they spread the misery and make all people — except perhaps the very wealthiest, ironically — poorer.” —David Limbaugh

Village Idiots: “I think the tough sell is going to be on the part of Republicans if they try to taint the [Iranian nuclear] deal. It’s going to be a tough sell to say that the United States should back away from an international agreement. … And it’s going to be a tough sell to say, ‘You know what, we should just foreclose the diplomatic option and only consider the military option before us.’” —Josh Earnest

The BIG Lie: “Because America negotiated from a position of strength and position we have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons into this region.” —Barack Obama (He’s lying, as Saudi Arabia will soon confirm.“ —Breitbart’s Joel Pollak)

And last… "Ironic that the guy who whined for years about inheriting a mess is leaving for his successor the stuff of nightmares. #Iran #ISIS #jobs #OPM” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis!
Managing Editor Nate Jackson

Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families.

Links

1 http://patriotpost.us/posts/36368
2 http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/421132/reply-anonymous-dissent-my-column-gop-and-iran-andrew-c-mccarthy
3 http://patriotpost.us/alexander/34326
4 http://patriotpost.us/posts/36358
5 http://patriotpost.us/articles/36045
6 http://patriotpost.us/posts/36372
7 http://patriotpost.us/alexander/31640
8 http://patriotpost.us/humor/36348
9 http://patriotpost.us/manage/
10 http://patriotpost.us/articles/36373
11 http://patriotpost.us/articles/26899
12 http://patriotpost.us/articles/36367
13 http://patriotpost.us/posts/36357
14 http://patriotpost.us/posts/36355
15 http://patriotpost.us/posts/36356
16 http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36360
17 http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36363
18 http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36359
19 http://patriotpost.us/opinion