The Patriot Post Digest 3-30-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 3-30-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Mar. 30, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“Newspapers … serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.” —Thomas Jefferson (1802)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Obama to Media: You Shouldn’t Let Pols Lie1

The lecturer in chief is at it again, telling a group of journalists how to do their jobs. “A job well done is about more than just handing someone a microphone,” Barack Obama pontificated. “It is to probe and to question, and to dig deeper, and to demand more. The electorate would be better served if that happened. It would be better served if billions of dollars in free media came with serious accountability, especially when politicians issue unworkable plans or make promises they can’t keep. And there are reporters here who know they can’t keep them. I know that’s a shocking concept that politicians would do that. But without a press that asks tough questions, voters take them at their word. When people put their faith in someone who can’t possibly deliver on his or her promises, that only breeds more cynicism.”

He just perfectly described his rise in 2007 and 2008, though he pretty clearly meant his remarks as a rebuke for the unending media attention2 given to Donald Trump over the last year. Who promised “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”? Who swore he’d bring about the best recovery we’ve ever seen? Who insisted he would withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq and declare mission accomplished? And who not only got away with these phony promises, but won re-election after serving up such lies? Obama did, largely thanks to a Leftmedia that circled the wagons.

So for Obama to lecture his own sycophants about truth-telling against the other side, to borrow a phrase, “only breeds more cynicism.”

Nation’s Last Handgun Ban Shot Down3

The U.S District Court for the Mariana Islands struck down the nation’s last handgun ban4, ruling that permanent residents of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) have the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. “The Second Amendment, as well as the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, are the law of the land in the CNMI as if it were a state,” wrote5 Chief Judge Ramona Manglona. “The Second Amendment, made applicable against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, protects the fundamental right of armed self-defense, and prohibits any state from completely banning handguns.” David Radich, a Navy veteran of the Gulf War, and his wife, Li-Rong Radich, took the commonwealth to court after Li-Rong was attacked and beaten when she was at home alone in 2010. When they applied for a weapons identification card to get a gun to protect themselves, they were ignored.

This isn’t the only Second Amendment win of late. Last week, Idaho became the ninth state6 to institute constitutional carry, codifying that any resident 21 years or older has the right to carry without a permit. And earlier this month, the West Virginia legislature overrode its governor’s veto7 to institute constitutional carry in that state. Such developments show that from the Appalachians to the furthest islands in the Pacific Ocean the law recognizes everyday Americans have the right to self defense, a right that is becoming harder for the Left to erode.

GOP Primary: Broken Pledges and Sharpened Knives8

All three remaining candidates in the GOP primary said at a town hall event Tuesday night that they no longer stand by their pledges to support the eventual nominee. In September, Donald Trump and the rest of the 17 candidates signed loyalty oaths9 to the eventual nominee. Trump, though, gave himself an out by saying he would break his oath if he felt he was being treated unfairly10. When asked Tuesday if he considers himself bound to the loyalty oath, Trump responded, “No, I don’t anymore,” adding that he felt he had “been treated very unfairly.” He can dish it out but he can’t take it. What is Trump’s word worth? Not much more than a certificate from Trump University11.

Then again, the loyalty oath isn’t exactly holding the other candidates. Ted Cruz said he would not support a candidate who attacked his wife, referring to Trump’s tweet comparing their wives' appearance. John “Prince of light ‘n’ hope” Kasich said he wants “to see how this thing finishes out.”

Red State’s Caleb Howe wrote12 regarding the broken pledges, “I will tell you this, and if you fail to accept it, then you fail at truth: It’s Trump’s fault. Every other candidate would have supported the eventual nominee were it not for the poisonous Donald Trump campaign destroying all it touches. That’s just a fact y'all.”

In related news, Marco Rubio has contacted13 Republican Party officials in states where he won delegates and asked that those delegates remain committed to him at the GOP Convention in July. In essence, he’s trying to ensure a contested convention and block Trump from winning the nomination on the first ballot. This deep division doesn’t bode well for a party that must rally around a candidate in order to defeat Hillary Clinton in November.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Ryan Anderson: NBA’s Threatening North Carolina Is Textbook Cultural Cronyism14
Rich Lowry: Yes, the Delegates Can Decide15
Michelle Malkin: Nuclear Jihad: The Threats Are Inside Our Tent16

For more, visit Right Opinion17.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
How Obama Facilitated More Islamic Terror18

By Arnold Ahlert

Most Americans are well aware of the Islamic terrorist attack in Brussels19 last week that left 35 dead. That awareness level probably declines, however, regarding the Easter Sunday attack20 in Pakistan. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, slaughtered 72 people, mostly children, and reminded the world their “target was Christians.” Despite these atrocities, progressives here and in the EU invariably assure us21 the threat of terrorism is overblown. Such despicable nonsense cannot withstand a terribly inconvenient reality: There are far more Islamic attacks occurring than being reported by the media.

“This list of terrorist attacks committed by Muslims since 9/11/01 … is incomplete because not all such attacks are picked up by international news sources, even those resulting in multiple loss of life,” explains22 a website dedicated to chronicling violence committed by the Religion of Peace™. “These are not incidents of ordinary crime involving nominal Muslims killing for money or vendetta. We only include incidents of deadly violence that are reasonably determined to have been committed out of religious duty — as interpreted by the perpetrator.”

What has been picked up is nothing short of astounding. In the last 30 days alone, there have been 136 terrorist attacks in 25 different countries. Those attacks have killed 1,122 people and injured another 3,111. And the website is quick to remind us that undercounting remains an ongoing problem, citing November 2014 as a month where they accounted for 284 attacks and 2,515 deaths, even as a BBC analysis23 of the same time period tallied 664 attacks and 5,042 deaths in 14 different countries.

For perspective, BBC notes those totals came to “a daily average of 168 deaths, or seven every hour.”

Yet for many progressives and their media enablers, questioning or criticizing Islam results in reflexive accusations of Islamophobia. Leading the charge are organizations like the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) despite its continuing status24 as an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror-finance trial against the Holy Land Foundation and several officials of that organization found guilty of funding the terrorist group Hamas.

CAIR is joined by Obama, who can’t put the words “terrorism” and “Islamic” in the same sentence, yet assures us that the Islamic State is “not an existential threat25” to the United States. This despite FBI director James Comey’s revelation last October that there are at least 900 investigations of suspected ISIL operatives, recruits and individuals currently occurring, putting his agency under a strain. “If that becomes the new normal,” Comey said, “that would be hard to keep up.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 3-30-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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“After suffering serial terrorist attacks from foreign nationals and immigrants, a normal nation-state would be expected to make extraordinary efforts to close its borders and redefine its foreign policy in order to protect its national interests,” writes26 historian Victor Davis Hanson. “But a France or a Belgium is not quite a sovereign nation any more, and thus does not have complete control over its national destiny or foreign relations.”

Neither is a United States that doesn’t enforce national sovereignty, and embraces hundreds of sanctuary cities in clear violation of federal law.

Hanson issues a clear warning regarding America’s future: “Europe’s perfect storm is upon us. A shrinking, statist, and agnostic society that does not believe in transcendence, either familial or religious, is now in a war with near neighbors of a very different sort. In the Middle East, the fundamentalists are growing in numbers, and they most certainly do believe that their own lives are nothing in comparison to the Phoenix-like resurrection of their Caliphate and the sensual pleasures in the hereafter that will reward their martial sacrifices in the here and now.”

Sadly, for far too many Westerners, sensual pleasures in the here and now transcend everything, even national security. Their delusions are aided by the cadre of denialists willing to endure Islamist terrorist attacks as the price tag for multiculturalism and diversity, provided those terrorist attacks don’t reach an “existential” level. Thereligionofpeace.com website reminds us that existential level is a slippery term. Since 9/11, Islamists have carried out more than 28,045 terrorist attacks. That averages out to 1,870 attacks per year, or five per day — every year for the last 15.

On Tuesday, Fox News published a bombshell report27 by the nonprofit Investigative Project on Terrorism. It reveals that since 2010, terrorist attacks have increased by 800% — and a staggering average of 30,000 people per year have been killed as a result.

What changed in 2010? “I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended,” declared28 Obama on Aug. 31 of that year. “Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.”

In short, America’s withdrawal from the world stage — based on Obama’s disastrous understanding of foreign policy29, coupled with his political calculations for the 2012 presidential campaign — precipitated a massive increase in bloodshed and mayhem, courtesy of terrorists more than willing to fill the resulting power vacuum. And all of this has occurred before terrorists have gotten their hands on any nuclear material, which becomes increasingly likely thanks to Obama’s deal with Iran30.

Whether Western nations respond to that ultimate existential threat before it becomes reality remains to be seen. In a saner world, the gargantuan number of terrorist attacks revealed here would be more than enough to galvanize Western civilization. In a world where leftists peddle despicable comparisons between deaths from terror attacks and cancer, and assert that any disagreement with their conclusions is “giving into fear,” the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands might be the only thing that snaps Western elites and their media apparatchiks out of their ideologically induced torpor. For far too many Americans, terror is a statistical abstraction — until that abstraction literally blows up in their faces.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

ANALYSIS: Loss of Scalia Spares Unions a Damaging Blow31
Everybody Looks Bad in Breitbart Reporter Flap32
Questions Remain After FBI Cracked Terrorist’s Phone33
Chicago Teachers Throw Students Under the Bus34
Definitely No Such Thing as a Free Lunch35
Minimum Wage Activist Shot at U.S. Capitol36
Conservatives' Empowering Take on Poverty37

TOP HEADLINES

Department of ‘Justice’ Revives Civil Asset Forfeiture38
Florida 12th State to Defund Planned Parenthood39
Iran Expands Covert Ballistic Missile Program, Dismisses U.S. Sanctions40

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report41

OPINION IN BRIEF

Ryan Anderson: “Big business has stomped into another state, trying to impose the values of the cultural left. This time, a governor who dared to stand up for responsible policy is being targeted by big business' bullying over bathrooms. At issue is H.B. 2, a bill North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law last week after it passed the House 83-25 and the Senate 32-0. … The mayor of San Francisco issued an order to ‘to bar any publicly-funded city employee travel to the State of North Carolina.’ ThinkProgress reports that IBM, PayPal, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Salesforce are all against the law. The ACLU has even lodged a federal lawsuit against North Carolina. The NBA has said North Carolina’s law might make it move the 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte. The NBA threat over the All-Star Game is particularly amusing. The NBA (and its sister organization, the WNBA) apparently think bathroom access shouldn’t be based on biology, but basketball leagues should. The NBA and WNBA, of course, are free to have gender-neutral basketball teams — and to have gender-neutral bathrooms at those games. That they are threatening the state to impose a policy that even they haven’t voluntarily adopted is the height of hypocrisy. … What Americans need now is strong political leadership to stand up to the cronyist bullying and do what’s best for the American people.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Congress will ever exercise their powers to levy as much money as the people can pay. They will not be restrained from direct taxes by the consideration that necessity does not require them.” —Melancton Smith (1744-1798.)

For the record: “[Yesterday’s] 4-4 tie [in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association] shows that the Supreme Court stakes are especially acute for protecting First Amendment rights, on which Justice Scalia was a giant. Union leaders certainly understand, judging by their enthusiastic support for President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.” —Wall Street Journal

Upright: “Tweeting about, or repeating a Tweet about Mrs. Cruz is just utterly stupid. It has frankly, weakened everything that Trump ought to be strengthening. It sent a signal to women that is negative, at a time when his numbers with women are already bad.” —Newt Gingrich

Pretty much what we’ve been warning for months: “Our candidate is mental. Do you realize our candidate is mental? It’s like constantly having to bail out your 16 year-old son from prison.” —Ann Coulter

Cat out of the bag: “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole. We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.” —Ottmar Edenhofer, who formerly co-chaired the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change

Dezinformatsia: “The Republican Party was, for many years, the Reagan party. And for some years in the 1980s, that was fine. But the ideology became increasingly obsolete. And what Trump has done is he’s destroyed the remnants of it. … Trump has exposed it for being a shell of what it formally was. His only virtue is that he’s destroyed a dying husk, but something creative and something new and maybe something exciting will come in its stead.” —David Brooks (Neither Trump nor Brooks understand the Reagan legacy.)

And last… “Our nation’s number one problem is whining. We’re an absurdly rich country with unimaginable opportunities and we whine about everything.” —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.