The Patriot Post Digest 4-18-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-18-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Apr. 18, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it…” —Benjamin Franklin (1789)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

HBO’s ‘Confirmation’ Ignores Facts to Push Leftist Agenda1

HBO is attempting to recast history with its dramatization of the nomination hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Twenty-five years ago, Thomas was in the midst of a defamatory confirmation hearing that makes Barack Obama’s spat with the Senate2 over his SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland look boringly tame by comparison. Anita Hill, a black attorney who previously worked with Thomas, accused the would-be justice of sexual harassment. The trailer to HBO’s movie, titled “Confirmation3,” implies that Hill’s accusations were a courageous stand against sexual harassment in the workplace. “It only takes one voice,” one frame of the trailer reads.

But that’s not how the hearings played out, notes Stuart Taylor Jr.4, who covered the hearings back in 1991 and now works as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Hill’s accusation almost destroyed Thomas' chances of confirmation. A Democrat-majority Senate eventually confirmed him because even they couldn’t ignore that Hill’s account often changed and she contradicted what she said under oath. Meanwhile, woman after woman told the Senate committee investigating the allegations that Thomas treated them with utmost respect. Hill’s account was contrary to how Thomas was known to act.

“It is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves,” Thomas famously thundered5 at the hearing chaired by then-Senator Joe Biden. “It is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.” Unfortunately, “Confirmation” is yet another attempt by the Left to continue Democrats' work to sully Thomas' name, to sympathize with an accuser, any accuser, even if the facts get in the way of the story.

America’s Young Socialists Simply Need Life Experience6

The Millennial generation overwhelmingly supports Bernie Sanders and his promises of free college education and universal health care. They protest to make college campuses “safe spaces” for their tender feelings while calling on college administration and police to go after anyone who challenges their views. Just last week, some students at Ohio University demanded7 police investigate an incident where the campus' College Republicans wrote, “Trigger Warning: There are no safe spaces in real life. You can’t wall off the First Amendment” on the university’s graffiti wall — a designated place for speech. The College Republicans sent the message after the campus administration apologized when someone scrawled “Trump 2016” on the same wall. In response, Ohio University police held an open discussion with the campus' LGBT Center.

While it may sound like America will soon become the land of the taxed and home of the emotionally coddled, the college students and Sanders supporters just need a little life experience, a bit of time to get on their feet and see how the world actually works. Vox, a leftwing publication, reported on a poll8 that found most Sanders supporters like his ideas of free stuff, but about 66% of the socialist’s supporters said they wouldn’t want to pay more than $1,000 in additional taxes for universal health care. Meanwhile, a household making $50,000 a year would have to pay $5,000 in additional taxes a year to fund Sanders' ideas. That’s quite the bern.

A recent study found that once Millennials start making over $40,000, the majority of them change their views9 to oppose income redistribution. Give it time. There’s hope yet.

Obama Hands Down Rules for Offshore Drilling10

In another attempt to “fundamentally transform” the energy industry, Barack Obama’s Interior Department handed down a rule last week that “comprehensively” addresses safety on offshore oil rigs. In the words of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, “Through this rule, we’re requiring more stringent design requirements and stricter operating procedures for critical equipment used in offshore energy development.” This critical equipment includes blowout preventers, for example, and the rules are designed to avert another incident like the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010. At least a portion of the oil industry, however, warns that the rules will actually increase danger on rigs and will cost American drilling jobs. It’s part of Obama’s legacy trying to make an American energy future powered by sunshine and unicorns.

Meanwhile, the coal industry is crumbling under Obama’s energy rules. Another coal giant, Peabody Energy Corp., has filed bankruptcy, following a handful of other monoliths working in the American mountains. It’s a travesty because coal could otherwise continue to be a key player in the American economy because innovation has reduced its emissions so it’s cleaner than ever before. “America is the Saudi Arabia of coal,” Investor’s Business Daily notes11. “We have an estimated 500 years supply of that energy source. Our coal is cleaner and our environmental laws are much stricter than in other nations. So for economic and ecological reasons, we should want American coal to dominate the world market.” Hopefully, the next administration recognizes the benefits of sending the blue-collared miners back to work. Our energy and economic security depends on it.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Jeff Jacoby: The Obama Doctrine Has Made the World More Dangerous12
George Will: Histories That Shouldn’t Be Secret13
Vijay Jayaraj: GMOs and India: The Mustard Chapter14

For more, visit Right Opinion15.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
IRS Contempt for Rule of Law16

By Arnold Ahlert

In a complete mockery of Rule of Law, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told the Senate Finance Committee last week that it’s “in everybody’s interest” to have illegal aliens use fraudulent Social Security numbers to file taxes. Come again?

Koskinen’s outrageous assertion came in response to a question posed by Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN), who wondered why “the IRS continues to process tax returns with false W-2 information and issue refunds as if they were routine tax returns.” Coats' staff also “learned the IRS ignores notifications from the Social Security Administration that a name does not match a Social Security number, and you use your own system to determine whether a number is valid.”

Koskinen defended the procedure, beginning with the absurd assertion that it’s not the IRS’s job to ascertain such validity. “What happens in these situations is someone is using a Social Security number to get a job, but they’re filing their tax return with their [taxpayer identification number].” Koskinen further explained the agency sometimes knows such individuals “are undocumented aliens,” but they’re nonetheless paying taxes, and it’s in “everybody’s interest to have them pay the taxes they owe.”

Unbelievably, Koskinen kept digging. “The question is whether the Social Security numbers have been stolen. In many cases, they have been borrowed from friends or acquaintances with permission,” Koskinen said. “It’s not the normal identity-theft situation.” He went on to insist the agency is attempting to determine the difference between “bad” misuse of personal data and other misuse of it “without necessarily having people decide not to file their taxes.” He concluded, “Obviously, the priority is to have the IRS collecting those taxes.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-18-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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In other words, as long as the money is coming in, the ends justify the means.

Except that it’s not just coming in. As Coates noted, the IRS is also issuing refunds. What he didn’t say is billions of dollars in refunds have been going to millions of illegals. In a bombshell report17 published in 2013 by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), author David North revealed the Treasury sent a whopping $4.2 billion to illegals using the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) as its vehicle for doing so.

Congress was initially to blame for this debacle because it failed to mandate that ACTC benefits, like Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC), only be granted to people with valid Social Security Numbers (SSNs). Instead, as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, Congress determined that no federal “grant or benefit” could be given to illegals — even as they failed to define the terms. Subsequently, the decision as to what those terms meant became one for the executive branch of government to make.

The IRS made the determination.

It gets worse. 1996 was the same year the U.S. Treasury introduced18 the Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN), a nine-digit tax-processing number assigned by the IRS to individuals who are obligated to file a federal tax return, but who lack, or are ineligible, for a SSN typically required to file taxes. ITIN numbers can only be issued to those who submit a Form W-7, along with documents that establish both the identity and the foreign status of the individual. Prior to their validation, an IRS fraud unit in Austin, Texas, is supposed to examine them. Yet the IRS farmed the work out to other units with far less vigorous standards that became even less rigorous when an applicant decided to obtain ITINs for his children, nieces and nephews.

The IRS instituted some reforms to cut down on the abuse, but as Koskinen makes abundantly clear, his agency still maintains a rather tenuous relationship with Rule of Law. In fact last month, the IRS defended19 its decision to allow illegal aliens to claim as many as three years of refunds on income — even if they never paid income taxes.

Part of the IRS’s machinations are linked to Barack Obama’s attempt to reward as many as four million illegals with amnesty, and provide them with tentative legal status that includes issuing Social Security numbers.

SSNs that can then be used to get tax refunds.

Koskinen was never asked to explain why his agency would abide the use of fraudulent SSNs, despite a massive hack of its system in 201520. One it slow-walked to the public, initially admitting that more than 100,000 taxpayer accounts had been compromised, before raising the total 334,000 last August, and again adding another 390,000 accounts to the total in February, boosting the final number of compromised accounts to more than 700,000.

This combination of incompetence and deviousness goes a long way toward explaining why last Thursday Judge David B. Sentelle of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals castigated21 the IRS for its treatment of conservative groups, noting that he and his colleagues are still trying to determine whether these groups are being targeted for illegal scrutiny22. He was equally skeptical regarding the IRS’s insistence that it had instituted credible reforms, stating, “It’s hard to find the IRS to be an agency we can trust.”

Indeed, according to Koskinen, IRS “management” now abides the use of fraud. The very same fraud they would hammer any American taxpayer for engaging in. Congress has threatened to impeach Koskinen. Maybe it’s time they got around to actually doing it.

**Editor’s Note: Today is also finally Income Redistribution Day23, so make sure and file for your “fair share.”

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

ANALYSIS: Cruz’s Art of the Delegate24
FCC Chair Wants to Be Able to Regulate Internet Rates25
Teacher Unions Handed Victory at Students' Expense26
Pushing the Boundaries of Political Correctness27
White Privilege Conference Wants Less Responsibility, Accountability28

TOP HEADLINES

Democrat AGs, Alarmist Groups Colluded on Prosecuting Dissenters29
Brazil’s Lower House Votes to Impeach President Rousseff30
OPEC Fails to Reach Agreement on Freezing Oil Production31

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report32

OPINION IN BRIEF

Jeff Jacoby: “Even now, Obama cannot see that a doctrine premised on avoiding American involvement in the world’s conflicts is bound to fail. A policy built around US disengagement only intensifies global disorder. The president concedes that he should have had a better ‘day-after’ plan in Libya — but still maintains that the calamity his approach caused shows he was right all along. In [Jeffrey] Goldberg’s words, ‘Libya proved to [Obama] that the Middle East was best avoided.’ It reinforced his subsequent decision to do nothing about Syria. He has no regrets about abandoning his red line — he says now that he is ‘very proud’ he decided not to stop Assad’s horror show. To this day, Obama has not altered the mindset he started with: that American power cannot fix what ails the planet’s bad neighborhoods, and is likely to make them worse. But Obama’s foreign-policy stewardship teaches a very different lesson. Since 2009, America’s credibility has been badly eroded and the world has become far more dangerous and unstable. The price of American retreat has been terrible, made all the worse by a president too rigid to change his mind.”

SHORT CUTS

The Gipper: “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

Upright: “Some say they only want to shake things up. Others would go further and blow them up — from Occupy Wall Street to certain pockets of the Trump campaign, Americans in recent years have been flirting with old-time Russian nihilism in modern dress. They don’t want to master chess, they want to grab the board and fling it. It’s a shame, because 2016 is a game that we — Republicans, conservatives, and everyone who only wishes that Hillary Clinton would go back to Chappaqua and leave us alone — can win.” —Nicholas Frankovich

Non Compos Mentis: “We will ultimately change the [gun] laws of our country to protect ordinary citizens who are part of this wave of violence.” —Sen. Ed Markey

The BIG Lie: “Of course I never endangered national security. That’s absolutely false.” —Hillary Clinton

Empty bluster: “It’s unprofessional and under the rules of engagement that could have been a shot down, so people need to understand that this is serious business and the United States is not going to be intimidated in high seas. We respect our freedom of navigation … and we are communicating to the Russians how dangerous this is.” —Secretary of State John Kerry on the Russian jet that buzzed a U.S. destroyer33

Alpha Jackass: “I don’t want to play the rule game, because I’ll tell you what, we live in a democracy and it’s all about getting the bosses out. The bosses are picking. Now I’m winning, you will say. I’m wining by 200 delegates. I’m winning, more importantly in my opinion, I’m winning by 2 million votes. In other words I’ve gotten more than 2 million votes.” —Donald Trump

And last… “Of Bernie Sanders' $205,000 income, he gave only 4% to charity. Where he’s really generous is when he gives other peoples' money away.” —Twitter satirist @weknowwhatsbest

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.