The Patriot Post Digest 12-11-2015

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The Patriot Post Digest 12-11-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest

Dec. 11, 2015

THE FOUNDATION

“That form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the law, is the best of republics.” —John Adams, 1776

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

How to Track Five Million Illegals1

The common perception is that most illegal aliens come across the border with Mexico, but most experts still believe that between 40% and 50% of illegals are actually people who came legally and overstayed their visas. According to a 2006 study2 by the Pew Research Center, “Nearly half of all the unauthorized migrants now living in the United States entered the country legally through a port of entry such as an airport or a border crossing point where they were subject to inspection by immigration officials.” In other words, these folks aren’t “undocumented” at all; they’ve just slipped through the cracks because enforcement has long been, shall we say, lacking.

If the giant bureaucracies of the Social Security Administration, Internal Revenue Service and Department of Homeland Security could work together, illegals who’ve overstayed would be easier to identify. (Maybe if the IRS wasn’t so busy targeting conservatives… Just a thought.)

Well, the Associated Press reports3, there’s an effort afoot to track those who overstay visas: “U.S. Customs and Border Protection will begin capturing facial and eye scans of foreigners entering the country at San Diego’s Otay Mesa port of entry on foot. By February, foreigners going to Mexico on foot through the checkpoint will get scanned. The trial run, which lasts through the end of June, will help determine if authorities expand biometric screening to foreigners at all land crossings on the 1,954-mile border with Mexico. Authorities will look at the accuracy of the cameras.” The problem has never been the law. Congress has demanded these scans for more than 20 years. Again, it’s lack of enforcement that presents the biggest problem. And a legitimate tracking system will go a long way toward fixing it.

Did DHS End Program Tracking San Bernardino Attackers?4

Could U.S. law enforcement stop Tashfeen Malik — the woman who helped carry out the San Bernardino attack5 — after she applied for a visa, before she even entered the states? Former Customs and Border Patrol analyst Phil Haney told6 Fox News that it was possible, if the State Department and DHS' Office of Civil Rights had not stepped in over concerns that the program was politically incorrect. Haney had been tracking the Deobandi Movement, a group of fundamentalist Muslims, putting thousands of names and locations into a database, tracking the members as they traveled in and out of America using the visa waiver program. Both attackers were associated with the movement, and the wife’s entry attempt might have been flagged had the investigation continued.

Haney received a letter of commendation after his work identified 300 terrorists. But then the PC police stepped in and said Haney was profiling Muslims. Records were deleted. When he spoke up, Haney lost his security clearance in September 2014. Haney said7, “The administration was more concerned about the civil rights and liberties of foreign Islamic groups with terrorist ties than the safety and security of Americans.” This administration can’t be trusted with national security issues. It shut down a program trying to prevent terrorist acts before they happen, but it wants to expand background checks on firearm purchase to prevent mass shootings before they happen. Go figure.

In related news, there are reports8 that Obama instructed law enforcement to downplay the terrorism angle in the immediate aftermath of the attack, as it undercut his preferred narrative.

The Executives Act on Gun Control9

Before the blood has even dried in San Bernardino, Barack Obama and his cronies began acting in political theater. This week, Obama’s adviser Valerie Jarrett told a group of people holding a vigil in remembrance of the Sandy Hook massacre that her boss is considering proposals to institute a measure of gun control. More specifically, Obama will probably use his phone and pen to close the “gun show loophole” and expand background checks. Polls show people support background checks, so Obama’s just trying to make Republicans look unreasonable for opposing him. That shores up an incrementally larger number of people who think Republicans just won’t budge at all on the issue and don’t care that Americans keep getting killed. Recall that Obama told NBC September 2014, “Part of this job is also the theater of it. A part of it is, you know, how are you, how, how are you, well, it’s not something that — that always comes naturally to me. But it matters. And I’m mindful of that.” Make no mistake: Obama is only playing political theater. As National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke noted10, Obama doesn’t have enough time in office to propose an executive order, hold a reasonable comment period and defend the action in court. It’s all for show to demonstrate Democrats are doing something, anything, about “gun violence.”

Meanwhile in the “Constitution State,” Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy promised11 Thursday to sign an executive order banning the sale of firearms in the state to anyone that appears on the federal terrorism watch list, a clear erosion of due process12. But like all the other gun control measures the state adopted after Sandy Hook, this one wouldn’t have stopped that massacre. More theater.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Gitmo’s ‘Going Out of Business’ Sale13

By Michael Swartz

Within days after taking office, Barack Obama pompously penned an executive order closing the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year. Seven years later, the facility remains open due to strenuous objections to moving Gitmo’s occupants stateside (or elsewhere) as well as concerns over the cost of closing the prison. A recent Defense Department proposal pegged the cost as $600 million14, which includes separate holding facilities around the country for the remaining detainees.

Frustrated at the lack of progress, some in Obama’s camp want him to go the executive order route again and with a stroke of a pen magically make the holding cells disappear. In reality, though, Obama has stepped up the pace of releasing prisoners over the last several months with another five transferred to the United Arab Emirates15 this week. The current population of 107 may be in double-digits by year’s end if Obama has his way. Last month, Obama spokesman Josh Earnest intoned, “I’m not aware of any ongoing effort to devise a strategy using only the president’s executive authority to accomplish this goal. But I certainly wouldn’t … take that option off the table.”

Going it alone is never off of Obama’s table.

Emptying out the camp may be a campaign promise, but it also leaves the enormous risk of former prisoners returning to the battlefield, like a certain Yemeni al-Qaida leader.

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 12-11-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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According to](http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/12/ex-guantanamo-detainee-now-an-al-qaeda-leader-in-yemen.php) Thomas Joscelyn in The Long War Journal, “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released a new video featuring a former Guantanamo detainee, Ibrahim Qosi, who is also known as Sheikh Khubayb al Sudani. In July 2010, Qosi plead guilty to charges of conspiracy and material support for terrorism before a military commission. His plea was part of a deal in which he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors during his remaining time in US custody. Qosi was transferred to his home country of Sudan two years later, in July 2012. Qosi joined AQAP in 2014 and became one of its leaders.”

Critics like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) call the prospect16 of executive action one that would be “the most brazen assertion of executive power in over a century and spark a grave constitutional crisis.” Cotton correctly claims that Congress has the right to “make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water” as specified in the Constitution.

There’s evidence that Obama’s rush to score political points and keep his promise to the radical peacenik crowd has already placed him outside the law. A damning report17 released by the House Armed Services Committee found that Obama “clearly broke the law” by failing to notify Congress of his outrageous release of five Gitmo detainees in exchange for Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl before the 30-day notification period prescribed by law. On top of that, the report also accuses the commander in chief of having “misled” Congress on the status of the negotiations for Bergdahl’s release, which netted the enemy the return of a high-value group dubbed the “Taliban Five.” Last year on these pages we rued the tragic fact that six good men died18 in the search for Bergdahl.

(As a side note, a new exposé19 reveals how Bergdahl viewed himself as some sort of “Jason Bourne.” His delusions of grandeur don’t justify the swap, either.)

This much we know, however: The fact that men associated with Islamic terrorism soon may either be released to eventually return to their home countries (and the battlefield) or relocated to prisons on the American mainland is the sort of propaganda victory the enemy can use for recruitment or radicalization. Yet Obama keeps telling conservatives that our policies — including keeping Gitmo open — amount to “doing exactly what the terrorists want.”

Considering that Congress has repeatedly attempted to deny funding to close Guantanamo, the question of who’s more competent concerning national security is worth pondering as we begin to close the book on the Obama era.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

    ANALYSIS: SCOTUS: Do Illegals Dilute One Person, One Vote?20
    ‘Ban All the Guns!’21
    Planned Parenthood Killer: The Antithesis of Pro-Life22
    Will the FBI’s Clinton Investigation Be Politicized?23
    Offended College Students Want Building Renamed24
    Fed Used Made-up Data to Sue for Racial Discrimination25
    Paris Climate Accord Negotiation: Who Will Pay for It?26

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

    Jonah Goldberg: Trump Doesn’t Represent the Conservative Base27
    Michelle Malkin: Immigration and Our Founding Fathers' Values28
    Rich Lowry: The Ignorant Crusade29

For more, visit Right Opinion30.

TOP HEADLINES

    Critical Paris Climate Talks Extended Amid Disputes31
    Christmas Comes Early for Teachers Unions and Obama32
    Officials Stonewalling on Motive for Stab Attack by Muslim33

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report34

OPINION IN BRIEF

Jonah Goldberg: “The claim that Trump is a committed conservative is not very believable. Until recently, he was for higher taxes on the wealthy, taking in Syrian refugees and single-payer health care. He almost never talks about the Constitution, faith or liberty unless forced to. In 2012, Trump condemned Mitt Romney for being too harsh on illegal immigration. In May of this year, he attacked ‘publicity seekers’ who needlessly provoked Muslims. With the exception of a few single-issue voters on immigration, Trump fans love him for his enemies and for his populist bombast, not for any specific principles. In other words, he divides the GOP more up-down than he does left-right. Trump defenders can rightly point to the fact that he draws support from a wide swath of voters. Critics can rightly point out that he draws animosity from an even wider swath of voters. But neither should go around talking about how Trump represents the conservative base.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all, and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies. What is this safeguard? Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain.” —Demosthenes (384-322 BC)

Most government jobs = permanent jobs: “I’ve never encountered an organization where leadership was measured by how many people you fired. You can’t fire your way to excellence.” —VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson

So it’s all just for show? “The fact is that even if every single American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen trees, if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what — that still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world.” —John Kerry at the Paris climate summit

“The planet will be ok, there just won’t be any damn people on it.” —Han Solo Harrison Ford’s alarming prediction about man-made global warming (Of course, without warming, he’d still be frozen in carbonite…)

Dezinformatsia: “[Democrats] have to speak up and just tell the American people we can’t get anything done on gun violence because Republicans are in the way. Put it on the obstructors. Put it on the people who always defend a piece of paper that was 225 old or whatever, back in a society that doesn’t even exist today. … Then maybe you might strike a nerve with the American people to get rid of some of these jackasses who live by an old document that is just totally outdated.” —Ed Schultz

What could go wrong? “Ban guns. All guns. Get rid of guns in homes, and on the streets, and, as much as possible, on police. … Ban guns! Not just gun violence. Not just certain guns. Not just already-technically-illegal guns. All of them.” —New Republic’s Phoebe Maltz Bovy21

Non Compos Mentis: “What I’m observing is that it’s tragic that in the immediate aftermath of a series of high-profile mass shootings people feel like they have to go out and purchase a gun. … It’s tragic and ironic.” —Josh Earnest (What’s tragic is how the Left stands on the coffins of innocent people to politicize shootings.)

And last… “To think there is a right to bear arms because of the 2nd Amendment is to mix up cause and effect.” —Frank Fleming

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.