The Patriot Post Digest 10-21-2015

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The Patriot Post Digest 10-21-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Daily Digest

Oct. 21, 2015

THE FOUNDATION

“I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles.” —Thomas Jefferson, 1808

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Ryan’s Conditions for Speaker Run1

By Nate Jackson

Paul Ryan said Tuesday he’s willing to take a shot at being House speaker, but only under certain conditions. “If I can truly be a unifying figure, then I will gladly serve,” Ryan said. “I’ll be happy to stay where I am at the Ways and Means Committee.” Not only are other Republicans drafting Ryan to run for speaker, but he has repeatedly insisted he doesn’t want the job. “This is not a job I’ve ever wanted,” he told reporters after a meeting with Republicans, yet he “came to the conclusion that this is a very dire moment.” That position as the reluctant warrior2 likely means he’ll be able to secure at least some of the concessions he seeks.

First, Ryan aims to delegate some of the traditional traveling and fundraising duties of the speaker to someone else. John Boehner spends about 200 days on the road every year. But Ryan has a young family back home in Wisconsin, and he isn’t going to sacrifice them on the altar of politics. (Would that more men were willing to be husbands and fathers first.)

Second, and far more significant, Ryan wants unity among Republicans — support from the Republican Study Committee, the Freedom Caucus, the moderate Tuesday Group, and so on. Members have until Friday to decide whether they’re willing to put aside their quarrels and rally behind him, or whether he should leave the job nobody wants to someone else.

Republican unity has been particularly hard to come by over the last few years, as most agree on what to oppose but not how to oppose it. Those intraparty fights often resulted in self-inflicted defeats, and, eventually, frustration boiled over and conservatives forced Boehner’s resignation3. We believe that’s a good thing, but Republicans need someone around whom they can rally. Ryan could very well be that guy.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t some reservations about his conditions. For example, National Review’s Elaina Plott reports4, “Among Ryan’s terms was the repeal of the Motion to Vacate the Chair, which Thomas Jefferson authored and which gives House members the power to oust a sitting Speaker. It was the piece of parliamentary procedure used to dethrone John Boehner just last month, and based on conversations with two Freedom Caucus members, could prove Ryan’s most difficult obstacle to gaining their support.”

Fox News' Chris Stirewalt adds, “What Ryan wants is to change the rule that allows for a GOP minority to team up with Democrats to dethrone a speaker. In exchange, he is offering to democratize some parts of House procedure, which meets some demands of the holdouts who decry the heavy-handed tactics of the current regime.”

It’s understandable that Ryan isn’t keen to take a job he never wanted only to have Republicans draw their knives on him after a move some don’t like. That said, it’s also a considerable red flag for conservatives who’ve learned not to trust leadership. We’ll see if Republicans or Ryan concede on this one.

Ryan is a good man and a good conservative on most issues. Time will tell if he’s asking too much to do a job Republicans need him to do. But it’s hard to deny his reasoning isn’t motivated by love of family and country first.

He closed his remarks by saying, “I consider whether to do this with reluctance. And I mean that in the most personal of ways.

"Like many of you, Janna and I have children who are in the formative, foundational years of their lives. I genuinely worry about the consequences that my agreeing to serve will have on them. Will they experience the viciousness and incivility that we all face on a daily basis?

"But my greatest worry is the consequence of not stepping up. Of some day having my own kids ask me, ‘When the stakes were so high, why didn’t you do all you could? Why didn’t you stand and fight for my future when you had the chance?’

"None of us wants to hear that question. And none of us should ever have to.”

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

The Only Half-Decent Democrat Candidate Drops Out5

Presidential candidate Jim Webb has left the Democrat primary race, and maybe the Democrat Party. On Tuesday, Webb stood before a group of reporters with his wife at his side and said he is dropping out of the Democrat primary because his views are opposed to the “nominating base” of the party that really should be renamed the Party of Marx6. Now, he’s mulling running for the White House as an independent candidate. The Democrat Party “is filled with millions of dedicated, hardworking Americans, but its hierarchy is not comfortable with many of the policies that I have laid forth,” Webb said. “And quite frankly, I’m not comfortable with many of theirs.”

Webb has what other Democrat candidates lack: Character and the integrity not to play identity politics. When asked during last week’s Democrat debate who was their greatest enemy, the rest of the candidates named some fellow Americans with whom they disagreed; Webb, who was awarded the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam, said7 his was the foreign combatant who threw a grenade at him.

Ever since Webb announced his candidacy8 amidst the tumult of the Independence Day weekend, his campaign has struggled with polling numbers of about 1%. Webb attributes this to the atmosphere created by the Democrat elite, who are more willing9 to embrace socialists than decorated veterans, who chase lobbyists for the green industry rather than listen to the voices in “West Baltimore and the Appalachian mountains.” Indeed, Ronald Reagan’s former Navy secretary could borrow his old boss’s famous line: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the party left me.”

‘Assault Weapon’ Bans Are a Step Closer to Supreme Court10

On Monday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a ruling on gun restrictions in Connecticut and New York — including the latter’s SAFE Act — ultimately delivering a victory to the liberal leadership of both states. There were just a few exceptions. According to the Democrat & Chronicle11, “The court … found New York’s requirement that only seven bullets can be loaded into a 10-round magazine is unconstitutional, upholding a previous court ruling.” Meanwhile, “In Connecticut, the court ruled against a provision that prohibits the ownership of a non-semiautomatic Remington 7615.” The measures otherwise remain intact. The leftist fanfare may be temporary, however. The constitutionality over so-called assault weapon12 bans, which the courts have interpreted in conflicting ways, will eventually have to be taken up by the Supreme Court. But the final arbiter should think carefully before undermining the Rule of Law.

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The Patriot Post Digest 10-21-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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To justify its ruling, the appeals court alarmingly determined13, “When used, [‘assault’] weapons tend to result in more numerous wounds, more serious wounds, and more victims. These weapons are disproportionately used in crime, and particularly in criminal mass shootings. They are also disproportionately used to kill law enforcement officers.” The extent to which leftists are willing to distort the facts is breathtaking. As we recently documented14, rifles of any type accounted for just 248 murders in 2014. You’re likelier to die from contact with a fist or foot. But even if rifles did account for most murders, this isn’t about “wounds, more serious wounds, and more victims.” It’s about enumerated rights. And magistrates are taking the nation on a dangerous path by making it up as they go along. The Supreme Court will soon face its most crucial decision yet. Buckle up.

The Wages of Clinton’s Hypocrisy15

She’ll run on her legacy, Hillary Clinton told us. Just look at her record. Oh, we have, and it’s in tatters. Clinton has pointed to her supposed legacy of helping women and children as proof that she would be a good leader of this country. And to that end, she vowed to attack the gender pay gap, which she and other Democrats regularly over-inflate. (It’s generally not inequality of pay, it’s inequality of time in the workforce. But facts don’t matter to the Left when they’ve got a “war on women” to yammer about.) Yet hypocrisy also abounds. According to data at the Office of Personnel Management16, the State Department during Clinton’s leadership paid male civilian employees, on average, $16,416 more per year than it did women. This was at a time when the gender pay gap across the federal government was only $7,911 for civilian employees. Clinton must have been too busy deleting emails to worry about petty things like the “progressive” ideal of equality. Dig further into Clinton’s salary policies17 and you’ll find wage inequality as part of Clinton’s modus operandi. When she was a senator, women employees received 72 cents on every male employee’s dollar. Even in her current campaign, women earn 88 cents for every dollar a male staffer earns. Clinton is not a champion for women when she can’t even practice what she preaches.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

    ANALYSIS: Obama’s Plan to Flood the Labor Market With Illegals18
    Bush (No, the Last One) vs. Cruz19
    Stage Set for an Obama Veto on Defense Spending20
    ‘Freedom’s Safest Place’21
    So, Drone Registration Is Coming22

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

    Star Parker: Our Democrat Welfare-State Drug Lords23
    John Stossel: Forced Silence24
    Todd Starnes: Principal Holds Up Student Election Results Because Winners Not Diverse Enough25

For more, visit Right Opinion26.

TOP HEADLINES

    Senate Dems Block ‘Sanctuary Cities’ Bill27
    Syria’s Assad Visits Moscow to Thank Putin28
    Ahmed the ‘Clock Kid’ Moving to Qatar29

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report30

OPINION IN BRIEF

Star Parker: “Democrat politicians are simply America’s equivalent to drug lords. They get richer and more powerful coaxing Americans — particularly our weakest and most at-risk communities — into welfare-state oblivion. Forbes recently estimated the net worth of 20 of the current presidential candidates. Third wealthiest is Hillary Clinton at an estimated $45 million. Only Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina are wealthier. But Trump’s money and Fiorina’s money come from business. How did Clinton, who introduced herself in the Democratic debate as the granddaughter of a factory worker, accumulate this massive wealth? Did she start a business? Build a company? Invent something? No; these are the huge dividends of political power and influence. All projections show growing federal budget deficits, growing debt, and mind-boggling red ink as result of entitlement programs that cannot be sustained. Does our nation have to formally crash and burn in order to wake us up? The question now is whether Republicans can produce a strong enough leader to counter the power and destructiveness of the Democrat welfare-state drug lords.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.” —Henry George (1839-1897)

Help wanted: “I sent [Vladimir Putin] a message Thursday and asked him if he wanted a copy of our map so he could bomb accurately in Syria, and then on Friday, the Russian embassy … in Washington called down and told me they would like very much to have the map. So in the future, if Russia doesn’t bomb the right places, you’ll know it’s not Putin’s fault but it’s my fault.” —Jimmy Carter (Obama administration policy is to not help the Russians.)

Not exactly: “Now listen, we got an awful lot of things done. If you look at the four and a half years or almost five years that I’ve been speaker, we protected 99 percent of the American people from an increase in our taxes. … There’s a lot that we can point to.” —John Boehner

Alpha Jackass: “Trey Gowdy is a creation of the Koch Brothers and the whole climate denial industry. This [Benghazi] committee was nothing but a creation of Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers.” —James Carville

Village Idiots: “The core of the NRA’s support comes from white, rural and relatively less educated voters. This demographic is currently influential in politics but clearly on the wane. … Whites, who comprise 63 percent of the population today, won’t be in the majority for long. Racial minorities are soon to be a majority, and they are the nation’s strongest supporters of strict gun laws.” —UCLA professor Adam Winkler in a Washington Post piece titled, “The NRA will fall. It’s inevitable.”

The BIG Lie: “If you look at the history of school shootings … it’s an overwhelmingly American phenomenon. To the extent that anything like this happens anywhere else in the world, it appears to happen as a reflection of something going on [in the U.S.]; it appears to have spread from America.” —author Malcolm Gladwell

And last… “Bernie Sanders spent most of the day at the grocery store in a rant over the unfairness of stocking 1% milk.” —Twitter satirist @weknowwhatsbest

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.