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« on: September 18, 2015, 08:56:19 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 9-9-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest
Sep. 9, 2015
THE FOUNDATION
“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.” —Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Kim Davis Out of Jail, but the Saga Continues1
U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered2 Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis3 to be released from jail Tuesday after her deputy clerks issued all the backlogged marriage licenses. A crowd of 5,0004 and presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee greeted her on her release. However, little has changed. While she sat in jail for a few days, Davis' deputies altered the marriage licenses to remove Davis' name from the form. But now that she’s back, Kentucky law states that Davis is the one who has to issue the marriage licenses, and her lawyers believe5 she may once again stop her office from doing so. The situation will only change once the state of Kentucky changes its laws to reasonably accommodate clerks who disagree with same-sex marriage. Nuance notwithstanding, the pair of Republican presidential candidates took the opportunity to publicly back Davis. Huckabee told6 the crowd, “Lock me up if you think that’s how freedom is best served, because folks, I am willing to spend the next eight years in the White House leading this country but I want you to know I’m willing to spend the next eight years in jail.” In reality, this episode is less about a war on Christianity and more about finding the balance between conscience and Rule of Law for a government official.
Baltimore Settles in Freddie Gray Civil Suit7
In an effort to put the whole debacle in the past, the City of Baltimore settled a civil suit brought about by the death of Freddie Gray. The $6.4 million settlement is separate from the criminal trial (or trials, depending on how that legal drama plays out) of the six police officers associated with Gray’s death. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement8, “The proposed settlement agreement going before the Board of Estimates should not be interpreted as a judgment on the guilt or innocence of the officers facing trial. This settlement is being proposed solely because it is in the best interest of the city, and avoids costly and protracted litigation that would only make it more difficult for our city to heal and potentially cost taxpayers many millions more in damages.” And just like that, Gray’s family won this round of the legal lotto. To be clear, the settlements in these cases of alleged police brutality have never been about justice. New York City agreed to pay out9 $5.9 million for the death of Eric Garner. But where is the settlement for the death of Walter Scott10? In the video of that incident, it was clear the police officer leveled his gun against the fleeing Scott, aimed and killed him. Baltimore is helping to set a precedent where if enough frenzy is drummed up over the death of someone in police custody — and in Gray’s instance, he might have been trying to intentionally harm himself — the money will flow soon after to make the issue go away.
Only 36 Miles of Up-to-Date Fence on the Border11
The Department of Homeland Security recently informed the Senate that the border between Mexico and the United States is only properly fenced for 36.3 miles, or 0.02% of its entire length. Two-thirds of the border has no fencing at all, and there are no current plans to build a barrier. “A Senate official said that the 2006 Secure Fence Act required 700 miles of double-layer fencing because Border Patrol members said double layer works best,” the Washington Examiner wrote12. “Reports indicated that illegal immigrants can easily scale single fences.” Currently, some sections of the border are simply fenced with metal sheets once used as helicopter landing pads during the Vietnam War. This is not a failure solely of the Obama administration. The DHS Office of Inspector General issued a report13 in 2009, which said the Border Patrol did not fully staff the project and faced difficulty in getting the land needed to erect the fence — even though it got a waiver to ignore environmental requirements. But the chance that the Border Patrol can restart the construction and bring an increase of law enforcement to the border is fraught with political barriers, thanks to this current administration.
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Hillary ‘Apologizes,’ Offers Desperate Redirect14
By Nate Jackson
Hillary Clinton is perhaps the worst “inevitable” presidential candidate in history. It seems the high point for her 2016 run was the day before she announced. And even before that, the scandals surrounding her private email server and the Clinton Foundation slush fund — not to mention her long record of malfeasance15 — threatened to undermine her appeal. So what’s the would-be first woman president to do to secure her right to the Oval Office? Solve all America’s problems by proposing … more campaign finance limits.
But first, her remarks about her email. In a twist few expected from a Clinton, she finally decided to apologize — sort of. “What I had done was allowed, it was above board,” she first insisted. “But in retrospect, as I look back at it now, even though it was allowed, I should have used two accounts. One for personal, one for work-related emails. That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility.”
She left out a couple of words, though. We’ll add them: “That was a mistake [to not better cover my tracks]. I’m sorry about [getting caught].”
Indeed, just last week, she said, “I certainly wish that I had made a different choice,” adding that she was “sorry that this has been confusing to people.”
She’s spent months either dodging questions entirely or stubbornly refusing to admit any error. In a Labor Day interview with the Associated Press, Hillary argued, “What I did was allowed. It was allowed by the State Department. The State Department has confirmed that.”
Uh, wasn’t she running the State Department at the time? What a relief to know she gave herself permission to run a private email server.
Then she went on more than once to deny wrongly handling classified information: “I did not send or receive any information marked classified. I take the responsibilities of handling classified materials very seriously and did so.” Also, “I’m so careful about classified information. I take classified material very, very seriously.”
Virtually everything she has said about the ordeal, however, is a lie that we’ve recounted extensively16. The latest is that a second intelligence review of two particular emails found that both contained “Top Secret” information when they were sent to Hillary in 2009 and 2011, respectively. One email had information regarding North Korea’s nuclear program from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. For intelligence agencies to agree on the classification undermines Clinton’s regular rebuttal that it’s just an inter-agency dispute over the meaning of “classified.”
And not only did she receive information classified by other originating agencies (the only classification that matters is that of the originating agency), but we learned last week17 that Hillary originated classified emails. So for her to continue her denial is, well, very Clintonesque. But it’s the “drip, drip, drip” of the release of information that might help her most, as Americans tune out and quit caring that she violated multiple laws regarding classified information and obstruction of justice.
Perhaps her apology came because of her plummeting poll numbers. She brings universal name recognition, a sizable war chest, inevitability and first-female president potential … and she’s still struggling. That speaks volumes about just how bad a candidate she really is — all the Clinton baggage with none of Bill’s appeal.
In a pitiful attempt to redirect the conversation to policy — not to mention shore up her left flank against Bernie Sanders — she announced this week a proposal to further limit political campaign donations. Recall that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, universally despised by Democrats, stemmed from an anti-Hillary video during the 2008 election cycle. The Court struck down some donation restrictions implemented in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance “reform” law. |
