|
nChrist
|
 |
« on: February 16, 2016, 05:10:54 PM » |
|
________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 2-16-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________
Daily Digest
Feb. 16, 2016
THE FOUNDATION
“To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquillity would be to calculate on the weaker springs of human character.” —Alexander Hamilton, 1788
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Hillary, Bill and Osama — Fact vs. Fiction1
During Saturday’s GOP debate2, Marco Rubio made the point that “Bill Clinton didn’t kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.” Naturally, Hillary Clinton took issue with that factual assertion. “Yes, there was an effort to kill him,” she conceded. “Based on the intelligence that was available, missiles struck what was thought to be a training camp. So it wasn’t like there wasn’t an effort.” Then she added, “I see somebody like Senator Rubio just twisting himself into pretzels, trying to appeal to the base of his party — to try to say things that have no common sense or merit to them.”
She is, of course, dead wrong. As Mark Alexander wrote in 20063, “The fact is, during his eight years in office, Clinton had numerous opportunities to capture or kill Osama, but refused. Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, who carried the ‘nuclear football’ codes for the Clinton administration, notes, ‘We could have prevented the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, we could have prevented 9/11 and we could have prevented the bombings of the embassies in Africa if President Clinton had taken one of these opportunities. … We had eight chances at least to either nab bin Laden or to kill him.’ Michael Scheuer, former CIA chief of the team responsible for hunting bin Laden, confirmed that prior to 9/11 SpecOps had two opportunities when Osama was literally in their sights, but Clinton pulled the plug on both operations.
"Additionally, after 9/11, Clinton admitted he turned down an opportunity to take custody of bin Laden: ‘He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan, and we’d been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again. They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.’
"Perhaps Mr. Clinton forgot that bin Laden had in 1995 been named a conspirator in the first WTC attack. Later, in his testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Clinton dismissed his own statement as ‘inappropriate’ — which is to say, ‘truthful.’”
Hillary can yammer all she wants about pretzels and lobbing a few cruise missiles, but, if anything, Rubio didn’t go far enough in detailing Clinton’s failure.
CIA Chief: Islamic State Will Try to Strike America4
In an interview5 with CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday, CIA Director John Brennan warned the Islamic State (ISIS) will eventually try to strike the American homeland. “I’m expecting them to try to put in place the operatives, the material or whatever else that they need to do, or to incite people to carry out these attacks,” Brennan said. “So I believe that their attempts are inevitable. I don’t think their successes necessarily are. … Paris was a failure of intelligence. All but one of the eight terrorists were French citizens, trained by ISIS in Syria. They returned, unnoticed, and attacked six locations killing 130 people.”
Brennan’s is similar to the threat assessment6 given by James Clapper, director for National Intelligence, when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that the Islamic State would attack within the U.S. He added, “In my 50-plus years in the intelligence business, I cannot recall a more diverse array of challenges and crises that we confront as we do today.” Of course, Brennan is anticipating a scenario where the Americans who traveled to fight with the Islamic State attempt to return to our shores. “We’ve contained them,” Barack Obama once said of the Islamic State — just as the attacks in Paris were underway. But that assessment doesn’t take into account homegrown terrorism7, the kind already seen in Chattanooga, San Bernardino and Fort Hood.
Trump Accuses RNC of Making the Primary Race Unfair8
Donald Trump took aim at the Republican National Committee this week, saying the results of the last debate2 prove that the party is in violation of the loyalty pledge Trump signed9 in September. Trump performed poorly during Saturday’s debate. While Trump rose in popularity due to his rhetoric on immigration, the recent debate revolved around the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — and the issue only served to highlight the real estate mogul’s poor record on the judiciary. When Trump tried to attack Jeb Bush for his brother’s handling of 9/11 and the war in Iraq, the audience booed him. To Trump, it meant that the RNC conspired to stack the audience against him, filling seats with “Jeb’s special interests and lobbyists,” never thinking that there might be some voters who realize he’s no friend to the conservative cause and gave him the appropriate response for his foolish comments.
But in Trump-land, that’s not fair, which should absolve him from his pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee, whoever that may be. “I signed a pledge but it’s a double-edge pledge, and as far as I’m concerned they’re in default of the pledge,” Trump said at one of his South Carolina rallies. Commentator Allahpundit10 believes Trump’s whining is political bluster aimed at drumming up anti-establishment fervor. But if Trump decides to damage the GOP, he could announce a third-party run — something he threatened in the past. Mark Alexander wrote11, “This sounds like a set up — ‘I’m being treated unfairly, thus I will run third-party to insure a Democrat victory in 2016!’”
Don’t Miss Patriot Humor
Check out Drinks12.
If you’d like to receive Patriot Humor by email, update your subscription here13.
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
GOP Should Follow Democrat Precedent for Once14
By Louis DeBroux
“The Constitution is not a living organism. … It’s a legal document, and it says what it says and doesn’t say what it doesn’t say.” —Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
News of Antonin Scalia’s death15 was like a kick to the gut for conservatives. Scalia long has been the anchor of the conservative wing of the court. He was a champion of “originalism” — the philosophy of interpreting the Constitution according to the intentions of the men who wrote it. His jurisprudential brilliance and his sharp wit were legendary, and even though he spent most of his career on the Court in the minority, he had more influence in the minority than his lesser colleagues had in the majority. Such was the high quality of his legal reasoning.
His loss is devastating and cannot be overstated.
His passing also throws a huge curve ball into the political circus that is the presidential election year. Constitutionally, Barack Obama is well within his powers to nominate another justice to replace Scalia, even if that nominee will inevitably be a far left-wing radical with barely disguised contempt for the Constitution as originally written. After all, it should not be surprising for a radical leftist president to nominate a radical leftist judge who shares his view that the Constitution “reflected the fundamental flaw of this country16.”
At Saturday night’s GOP debate2, pretty much every Republican frowned on the idea of Obama, with less than a year left in office, nominating another justice, and most said the Senate should block any Obama nominee. Predictably, Democrats are outraged at the thought of Obama not getting his choice confirmed.
What short memories they have.
First, let’s stipulate that Obama does have the power, even the duty some might argue, to nominate a replacement to the Supreme Court. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, states, “He shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint … Judges of the supreme Court.”
But maybe angry liberals, furious at expected GOP “obstruction,” should recall the words of a newly elected Barack Obama on Jan. 23, 2009, when at the beginning of a meeting to discuss the “stimulus” bill he arrogantly chided GOP Minority Leader Eric Cantor, “Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” Considering that Republicans made historic gains in the U.S. House, Senate, and state governorships and legislatures during the 2010 and 2014 midterms, it would seem that Republicans are well within their rights to demand a Supreme Court nominee that is acceptable to them. |
