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« on: March 03, 2016, 07:16:11 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 3-3-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest
Mar. 3, 2016
THE FOUNDATION
“Falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Clinton’s Secret IT Staffer Granted Immunity by FBI1
The Clinton machine has ways to deal with people who squeal. Will Bryan Pagliano2 suddenly die in a mysterious accident? In the next couple months, the FBI expects to wrap up its investigation into whether then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a homebrew email server and her mishandling of classified information constitutes criminal wrongdoing. The bureau has granted3 Pagliano, the Clinton staffer who set up the contraption, immunity in exchange for his cooperation with law enforcement. He previously pleaded the Fifth. As noted by Ted Cruz, who knows a thing or two about law, “This suggests that the investigation is moving to a whole other level.”
This revelation comes as the State Department released4 the last of Clinton’s emails, redacting more than 2,000 because they were classified at some level and withholding dozens of others because they were so highly classified as to be damaging to national security even in redacted form. Naturally, the Clinton campaign has downplayed the investigation, saying it’s a simple security review. But the fact that federal investigators have granted the man who created the system immunity suggests they are pursuing someone bigger. Perhaps they are zeroing in on the fact that Clinton ordered the system created, and hid the system from the State Department. But Clinton may still slip away. Former CIA Director David Petraeus leaked sensitive information to his biographer, lied about it to the FBI, and was hit with a $100,000 fine and probation for two years. Clinton may be under the law, but barely.
Trump Is the Last Person You Want to Pick a Judge5
Donald Trump will make America great again, or so he says. Certainly, the next president will leave a lasting mark on American jurisprudence, as he or she will nominate anywhere from one to four Supreme Court justices. (Barack Obama is currently vetting a possible nominee6.) With his outsider appeal and appearance of a high rolling successful businessman, Trump promises that he’ll turn this country around, clean out Washington and guild it with his gold-colored trademark.
“I’m sorry,” columnist David Harsanyi asserts7, “but ‘support the American Putin because he’s the only one who can save SCOTUS and the Constitution’ is deeply unpersuasive.‘”
Not only is it unpersuasive, it’s downright worrying. Because he hasn’t held public office and therefore been on record demonstrating support for the Constitution, Trump’s views and how he interprets the Founding Document are ambiguous, at best. (Not that it would matter — his views on anything change whenever he changes ties.) However, we do know, as George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin writes8, that Trump conducts his business in such a way as to undermine Rule of Law, free speech and property rights.
Trump sued journalists he thought gave him unfavorable coverage in order to bully them into silence. As we pointed out9, our nation’s libel laws were established before the American Revolution. They are part of the jurisprudence that helped build this country, and Trump wants to fundamentally transform it. Trump has also spoken in favor of expanded eminent domain powers that would allow the government to seize property from private citizens and then give it to private developers — developers like Trump.
These positions are neither grounded in precedent, nor do they respect Rule of Law. In fact, they are views held by a man who does not understand the basic duty of a judge. At the GOP debate before Super Tuesday, Trump said judges “sign” bills10. Any fifth-grader should be able to tell you judges are to interpret the law created by presidents who sign the bills the legislature creates. And yet some discontented voters are willing to give him the responsibility of vetting who will become the next Supreme Court justice.
Net Neutrality a Year Later11
This is a legacy of the Obama administration: The growth and innovation that came with a free Internet ceased after the government decided it would treat the net like a utility, regulating it like landline phones. It’s been a year since the Federal Communications Commission, at the behest of Barack Obama12, instituted net neutrality, declaring that Internet providers needed to treat equally every packet of information zipping through the fiber optic, whether it’s Netflix streaming thousands of shows a minute or someone casually browsing Facebook.
The result, The Wall Street Journal explains13, is that Internet companies are investing less into building up infrastructure. In 2013, the industry increased capital expenditures by 8.7%; last year, those investments shrank by 0.4%. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai told The Daily Signal14, “I think what you are seeing is companies less willing to spend money building broadband that is faster and better and cheaper to your homes and businesses. This is the first time that year-over-year investment in broadband has gone down, outside the tech bubble bursting in 2001 and the Great Recession of 2008. The fact it coincides with the FCC adopting these heavy-handed regulations, I think, is directly related. And that’s unfortunate for American consumers, especially in rural areas where the business case for building our broadband is already tough as it is.”
The FCC’s newfound powers are being challenged in the courts — and it might go to the Supreme Court. But if the FCC prevails, then it will have the power to tax the Internet, further freezing the innovation and creativity that the Internet fostered.
BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
Vijay Jayaraj: Indoctrination, Population Control and Climate Change15
Thomas Sowell: Last Chance for America? Part II16
Victor Davis Hanson: Log Cabin Candidates17
For more, visit Right Opinion18.
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Trump Taps Something That’s Long Been Ignored19
By Allyne Caan
If Super Tuesday proved anything, it’s that a large number of American voters will, indeed, pull the lever for Donald Trump — and for valid reasons. No, we haven’t suddenly jumped on the Trump Train20 (and don’t expect us to any time soon), but it’s clear Trump has found a trigger point among many voters. And he’s hitting it with incredible consistency.
“My market is the people in the country who want to see America be great again,” Trump explained. “It’s very simple. That’s a lot of people. That’s not broken down by age, or race or anything.”
While it’s all too easy to judge Trump supporters by the candidate they follow, Trumpmania’s real appeal goes much deeper than political theater — and it’s worth understanding.
As much as we despise politics via class stratification, that’s where we must begin. For it’s working-class Americans — blue-collar, lacking political power and without friends in high places — who believe they have at last found an ally, an advocate, a voice in the man who proudly claimed to “love the poorly educated.”
In an astute explanation of “Trump’s America,” Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute writes21 of “the emergence of a new upper class and a new lower class and … the plight of the working class caught in between.” Populating the new upper class are the elites — politicians, professors, cultural icons, business moguls. They shape policy, wield power, and are heard simply by nature of their status. The new lower class includes those “who have dropped out of some of the most basic institutions of American civic culture, especially work and marriage.” Meanwhile, the working class is left in the middle. “Trumpism,” Murray writes, “is the voice of a beleaguered working class.” And “the central truth of Trumpism as a phenomenon is that the entire American working class has legitimate reasons to be angry at the ruling class.” |
