The Patriot Post Digest 1-6-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 1-6-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Daily Digest

Jan. 6, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired.” —Alexander Hamilton, 1775

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Don’t Cry for Me, Gun Controller1

During his Tuesday press conference rolling out his over-hyped executive actions on guns2, Barack Obama even shed a “tear” for the children. “Every time I think about those kids [killed at Sandy Hook Elementary], it gets me mad,” he said, wiping away a tear. “Our unalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness — those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara,” Obama said. “And from high schoolers at Columbine. And from first graders in Newtown. First graders. And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken by a bullet from a gun.” He continued, “We do have to feel a sense of urgency about it, because people are dying and the constant excuses for inaction no longer suffice.”

And to think, Obama once said, “Part of this job is also the theater of it” and that’s “not something that always comes naturally to me.” Please.

He then proceeded to introduce measures that would do absolutely nothing to reduce crime or so-called “gun violence.” He’ll target only the law-abiding, and he will likely continue the lax enforcement for which his administration has grown so infamous. Every American should be incensed when lives are taken senselessly, but also when craven politicians stand on the coffins of innocent victims to trumpet their preferred gun control policy. If Obama really wanted to save lives, he’d work with Congress to push for things like fewer “gun free zones,” which just happen to be where nearly every mass shooting takes place.

Instead, he lectured: “I believe in the Second Amendment. It’s there written on the paper. It guarantees a right to bear arms. No matter how many times people try to twist my words around, I taught constitutional law, [so] I know a little bit about this. I get it. But I also believe that we can find ways to reduce gun violence consistent with the Second Amendment.” He’s just not interested in those ways. And the Constitution is far more than just a piece of paper, however much Obama seeks to shred it.

Clinton Can’t Distinguish Between Democrat and Socialist3

For at least one question, Chris Matthews lived up to the name of his show on MSNBC, “Hardball with Chris Matthews.” When interviewing Hillary Clinton Tuesday, he asked her to define the difference between Democrat and socialist. She couldn’t, beyond saying that no, she wasn’t one. “I can tell you what I am,” she replied. “I’m a progressive Democrat who likes to get things done, and who believes that we are better off in this country when we’re trying to solve problems together, getting people to work together.” Matthews asked4 the same question of Democrat National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in July. She, too, could not give a satisfactory answer.

This is dangerous for Clinton and establishment Democrats. Not only can she not draw a sharp distinction between herself and self-declared socialist Bernie Sanders, but the lack of explanation as to why she isn’t socialist will cost her votes, as 50% of the U.S. population will not vote for a socialist, according to Gallup5. If it walks like a socialist and talks like a socialist… This leads us to conclude that the Democrat Party is filled with DINOs — Democrats (people who advocate democracy) in name only — and a sinister ideology has replaced the party’s old ideals.

“Not only is there little distinction between Soviet and German socialist systems of the 20th century,” Mark Alexander wrote in an essay about the “new” Democrat Party6, “but there is no consequential distinction between Marxist Socialism, Nationalist Socialism, or the most recent incarnation of this beast, Democratic Socialism. The objective of socialism by any name, is to replace Rule of Law with the rule of men, and the terminus of this transformation is tyranny.”

Cruz’s Iowa Success Endangers Corn Lobby7

Could the corn lobby’s stranglehold on political rhetoric be cracking? With just weeks until the Iowa caucuses, presidential candidate Ted Cruz is leading8 the field, polling at 31%. He’s also an aggressive critic of the ethanol mandate. Known as the Renewable Fuel Standard, the mandate requires a massive amount of ethanol be used in the nation’s gas supply, and it sends a very lucrative stream of money flowing to corn producers. And Iowa is the nation’s largest producer of the stuff. Thus, Cruz’s lead has given the corn lobby a bit of heartburn. As the Washington Examiner’s Timothy Carney wrote9, “If Cruz wins Iowa, especially if he wins big, it will confirm that the subsidies and mandates for ethanol are very important only to a sliver of the population (largely the lobbyists and executives of the giant agribusinesses that receive the lion’s share of the benefit). … If the ethanol lobby is a paper tiger, then the federal ethanol mandate is not long for this world.”

At the beginning of this presidential race, we saw the power the corn lobby had. In March, former candidate Scott Walker hired10 Liz Mair as a communications consultant but fired her hours later after the Iowa GOP machine skewered her because she wrote several tweets disparaging Iowa and how it hamstrung national policy. Reading between the lines, she was clearly referencing subsidies for ethanol. Meanwhile, the great ethanol boondoggle11 is an inefficient waste of food and natural resources all in the pursuit of corny science.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Obama Bypasses Law to Import More Foreign Workers12

By Louis DeBroux

Too many leftists applaud Barack Obama’s use of executive orders, his selective enforcement of the law, and his application of the federal regulatory apparatus as a bludgeon to enforce his will when Congress “would not act.” In short, these misnamed “liberals” approve of Obama’s petulant tantrums when Republicans don’t give him his way, and it’s not just on guns2. These tantrums and abuses of power will be Obama’s legacy13.

It’s painful obvious that these same leftists wouldn’t have such a favorable view had George W. Bush engaged in such lawlessness as president. For example, what if Bush had issued an executive order directing the IRS not to pursue collection of capital gains taxes, or to cease auditing income earners who fall in the top 1%? What if he had directed the Border Patrol to focus on deporting Mexicans, but to ignore those trying to get into the U.S. from Cuba (Cubans tend to vote Republican)? What if he issued an EO directing the IRS to set up a mechanism whereby the Social Security taxes of American workers were directed into a private investment account of their choosing — you know, since Congress had “failed to act” on Bush’s efforts at partial privatization of that bloated, bankrupt program?

Yet because Obama shares their progressive, statist, totalitarian worldview, leftists readily embrace a powerful executive who implements his agenda by sheer force of will, regardless of the Constitution, our traditions, or the will of the people. Yet if they were intelligent they would fear such a precedent, realizing that “their guy” will not always hold the reins of power, and precedents, once set, are hard to reverse.

One of many areas in which Obama has shown contempt for his constitutional duty to enforce the law as written is with the issue of immigration14, both legal and illegal. We are all too aware of Obama’s de facto implementation of the DREAM Act, or variations of it, which failed to pass through Congress even when Democrats controlled both houses. Obama has also initiated by executive fiat his DACA and DAPA programs, which not only exempt millions of illegals from deportation, but he has attempted to give them a quasi-legal status, including work permits. Obama has continually sought to do this even when facing an injunction15 by a federal judge.

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The Patriot Post Digest 1-6-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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In true Obama fashion, while most Americans were celebrating the holidays with family and friends, and attempting to take a much needed break from politics, Obama snuck in a 200-page proposed federal rule on New Year’s Eve that would destroy the immigration caps set into established law and, in doing so, open the floodgates to importation of foreign workers at a time when tens of millions of Americans are struggling with unemployment or underemployment.

As Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions explains16, the new rule “bypasses federal immigration caps, increasing significantly the number of foreign nationals authorized to work in the country above the limits set by Congress. These lower-paid foreign workers will be able to take jobs in technology firms, neighborhood pharmacies, energy companies, local schools, public administration, civil engineering, and innumerable other professions both sought and filled by millions of Americans. Whether young American graduates seeking that first job or longtime workers seeking that well-earned promotion, countless Americans will now find their chosen careers in jeopardy.”

Doubt that? Just ask the hundreds of American employees at Disney who were fired from their jobs, though not before being forced to train their foreign replacements17 or forgo their severance pay. Ask the thousands of highly qualified American computer programmers and tech workers who struggle to find work even as Microsoft and other IT-sector giants seek to import more low-wage foreigners18. Median family income in the U.S. has dropped by nearly $5,000 under Obama, and bringing in tens or hundreds of thousands of low-wage, skilled workers will only further depress wages.

Our Founding Fathers were arguably the greatest assemblage of political minds in all of human history. Well versed in world history and in the successes and failures of other types of government, they brilliantly devised a form of government that did not naively assume benevolence and wisdom in powerful leaders, but rather acknowledged and accounted for the flaws in human nature — particularly the tendency of those in power to consolidate and expand that power and use it to reward friends and punish enemies.

They created a system of horizontal and vertical separations of power, dividing government into three branches (legislative, executive, judicial) and three levels (federal, state, local), and dividing the powers such that an encroachment by one level or branch of government by another would trigger a resistance by the one encroached upon. In doing so it allowed for a complex but surprisingly enduring balance of power that protected the rights of individuals, while also providing sufficient power to government to accomplish the tasks delegated to it by the governed, in which the rights and powers naturally reside.

So while a fool may cheer such an abuse of power simply because he or she is a beneficiary of fruits of that abuse, a wise man looks to the future and realizes that toleration of such abuses will undoubtedly come back to haunt him.

Whether Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, prudence and wisdom dictates that the time is long overdue that we rein in government, reacting with immediate and forceful resistance to any efforts by government to act outside of the sphere we’ve established for it. To do otherwise is to abdicate our role as masters of government, and prostrate ourselves as slaves.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

    ANALYSIS: Spies Like U.S. — Obama Listens in on Congress19
    Last Year, Murder Spiked in Liberal Cities20
    Obama Says We Must ‘Balance’ Our Constitutional Rights21
    Bill Clinton’s Sexual, Er, History a Rising Question in Race22
    Are Wasserman Schultz’s Days With the DNC Numbered?23
    Democrats Hate Free Speech24
    Rubio Blasts Obama Over Iran25

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

    Ben Shapiro: The Tearful Dictator26
    Thomas Sowell: Showman-in-Chief27
    Walter Williams: Unappreciated Tax on the Poor28

For more, visit Right Opinion29.

TOP HEADLINES

    Obama’s Unilateral Gun Control Opens Legal Can of Worms30
    North Korea Reportedly Tested Hydrogen Bomb31
    Attacks on Women in Germany Heighten Tension Over Migrants32

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report33

OPINION IN BRIEF

Ben Shapiro: “We’ve now reached the apex of the Feelings Age. It no longer matters what good policy looks like. It no longer matters what the Constitution says. All that matters is that our politicians care about people like us. During the 2012 election, Mitt Romney won a wide variety of exit polls regarding policy, from leadership skill to values. But he lost the election because Obama clocked him 81 percent to 18 percent on the crucial issue of ‘cares about people like me.’ And now Obama has come to collect. But he can’t do it without the tears. That’s because the tears grant him the patina of vulnerability. No one fears the dictator who shows his human side. We view those who violate our rights as nefarious members of an evil cabal, lurking in the night while cackling. We don’t view them as highly attuned, sensitive people — after all, the logic goes, if they were that sensitive, they’d stop before violating the rights of others. Which is why crying is such an effective tactic for those who would violate your rights. Crying on behalf of victims puts you on the side of the angels, and your opponents on the side of the demons. And we don’t tend to care what happens to demons. We’re too busy rooting for the angels.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Most of the change we think we see in life Is due to truths being in and out of favor.” —Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Non Compos Mentis: “Republicans have voted against the Violence Against Women Act. Now that, to me, is more important than anything that Bill Clinton did or didn’t do because it’s what [Hillary’s] going to vote for. … He is a dog. Let’s face it. … But I still will vote for Bill Clinton because he votes in my favor.” —The View’s Joy Behar

Upright: “Who is more mentally unbalanced, those who are doing the shooting or those who refuse to examine the facts about what kinds of places attract such shooters? Schools and religious institutions are sitting ducks, and the shootings there have gone on until someone else with a gun showed up on the scene. That is what puts an end to the carnage, not gun control laws. … Obama said that we are the only ‘advanced’ nation with so much gun violence. But there are a number of countries with higher murder rates than ours and stronger gun control laws. But that leaves the definition of ‘advanced’ to Obama — and makes for clever political theater.” —Thomas Sowell

For the record: “The [Obama] administration has overseen a striking drop in prosecutions of gun crimes, winning only about 6,000 convictions in 2015 — down more than 15 percent from five years ago. … Part of the reason is prosecutors are simply bringing fewer cases.” —The Washington Times (“For every elected or registered Democrat who actually wants to prosecute criminals, there are dozens who would rather prosecute the NRA and Republican politicians. Because they don’t care about the crime. Or the criminals. Just their own political agenda. And that agenda is to disarm you.” —Caleb Howe)

The BIG Lie: “Contrary to the claims of what some gun rights proponents have suggested, this hasn’t been the first step in some slippery slope to mass confiscation — contrary to claims of some presidential candidates, apparently before this meeting. This is not a plot to take away everybody’s guns.” —Barack Obama (So all that praising of Australia’s gun confiscation program wasn’t genuine?)

Begrudging admission: “Obama measures wouldn’t have kept guns from mass shooters.” —Associated Press

And last… “Here’s a way to immediately cut U.S. gun homicides by 5%: give Chicago to Canada.” —David Burge

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.