The Patriot Post Digest 6-15-2016

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 6-15-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Jun. 15, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.” —Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 31

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

What Makes Obama Angry?1

Donald Trump had a point. Barack Obama, he said, “was more angry at me than he was at the shooter” in Orlando. When Obama took to the podium Sunday to reflect on the horrific atrocity perpetrated by a Muslim terrorist, he stubbornly avoided any mention of “Muslim” or “radical Islam.” He did, however, find plenty of time to blame guns and anti-homosexual bias.

In his remarks Tuesday, however, Obama was finally mad. At Trump. Obama angrily insisted that he would not associate Islam with these acts of terrorism worldwide. “What exactly would using [the term ‘radical Islam’] accomplish?” Obama huffed. “What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to try to kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away.”

The correct answer is all of the above. Failing to identify a threat by name ensures it does not go away. In fact, the number of attacks perpetrated by Islamist jihadis both at home and abroad has dramatically increased on Obama’s politically correct watch.

Obama brayed, “Not once has an adviser of mine said, ‘Man, if we use that phrase, we are going to turn this whole thing around.’ Not once.” No one said that was all Obama needed to do. But, then again, as Mona Charen quipped, “He never tires of slaying straw men.” The larger point is that refusing to call a spade a spade is symptomatic of Obama’s larger policy failure.

DC Court Bows to Obama’s ‘Net Regulations2

On Tuesday, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled3 that since Internet providers aren’t the ones flexing First Amendment rights — content creators are — Barack Obama’s net neutrality regulatory scheme is allowed to stand. Last year, the supposedly independent Federal Communications Commission announced that it was going to regulate the Internet as a telecommunications service rather than an information service — exactly as Obama wanted it to. The result is that the Internet is now subject to regulations developed during the age of the rotary phone. For example, services that deal in a lot of data (just think of all the information Netflix uses to send shows to your laptop) can’t pay more to have faster service. Innovation in Internet infrastructure is stifled4 as monopolies are created, and there’s an opportunity for the feds to tax the service5.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a Democrat, said of the ruling, “It ensures the Internet remains a platform for unparalleled innovation, free expression and economic growth. After a decade of debate and legal battles, today’s ruling affirms the Commission’s ability to enforce the strongest possible Internet protections — both on fixed and mobile networks — that will ensure the Internet remains open, now and in the future.” But that’s the big-government view. The government is here to help by “ensuring” the right to free speech through mounds of red tape. What could go wrong?

Again, to get to this point, the FCC gave up its independence to take orders6 from Obama and the court that made this decision ignored legal precedent to solidify the powers the FCC took for itself. As The Wall Street Journal pointed out7, Congress made itself clear when it said Americans’ Internet will stay “unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruled last year when it came to ObamaCare that federal agencies can’t simply create regulations that cause significant disruptions politically and economically and expect them to be followed. Congress makes the law. The executive branch enforces the law. This is Civics 101. But this overreach will be checked — if it will be checked — only if the Supreme Court picks up the matter or if Congress wakes up and worries about its loss of say in the governing of America.

Gov’t Bureaucrats Rate Themselves Awesome8

It defies statistical probability: The Government Accountability Office issued a report that found 99% of high-level government employees were rated good at their job in 2013. The government employees are rated on a five-tier performance scale. Three years ago, nearly two-thirds of government employees were declared either “outstanding” or “exceeds fully successful.”

But if everything is awesome, who’s to blame for all that dysfunction in government, all those employees that waste taxpayer’s money, put veterans on secret waiting lists and watch porn at work9? The performance of only 0.1% of government employees was rated “Unacceptable” and 0.3% “Minimally successful.”

“Apparently the federal bureaucrats grading one another think virtually everyone who works for the government is doing a fantastic job,” Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) marveled. “But given the dysfunction we’ve seen throughout the federal government over the last several years, that can’t possibly be true. While most federal employees are dedicated and competent, everyone knows the government’s personnel system is rigged to protect those who can’t or won’t do their jobs.”

Indeed, to be sure, there are many government workers who do their jobs quite well. This isn’t to impugn them all. But what this GAO report shows is that incompetency isn’t just at the grunt level. Rather, there are levels upon levels of government employees who don’t know the kind of hard work found in the private sector, and yet they’re all slapping themselves on the back for a job well done.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

    Michelle Malkin: Florida: America’s Jihad Playground10
    Jonah Goldberg: Orlando Shooting Reaction Has the Feel of Eternal Recurrence11
    Walter E. Williams: Money Going to Washington12

For more, visit Right Opinion13.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
‘Weapons of War’ and Other Leftist Fairy Tales14

By Louis DeBroux

In the wake of the mass murder15 at a homosexual nightclub in Orlando this past weekend, the anti-gun Left quite predictably renewed the clamor for more gun control laws generally, and specifically an outright ban on “military-style assault weapons.” They of course have largely worn out this grossly inaccurate term, so they’re beginning to move on in their demagoguery to “weapons of war.” (Conservatives who concede these terms do the cause a disservice.) This is all part of the agenda to scare the public into ceding rights and submitting to centralized control.

Speaking of inaccurate terms, The Washington Post wrote a lengthy article about the evil AR-15 used in Orlando, before having to admit it did not identify the gun in question correctly16. Of course, the WaPo is hardly the only media outlet to get it wrong17. The jihadi used a Sig Sauer MCX carbine18, which is an entirely different gun.

There is a profound amount of ignorance and demagoguery19 surrounding these weapons, so let’s start by establishing what an “assault weapon” is and is not. According to the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Intelligence Agency book “Small Arms Identification and Operation Guide,” “assault rifles” are “short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun and rifle cartridges.” Selective fire means you can choose between semi- (one round fired per trigger pull), and full-auto (continuous fire as long as the trigger is depressed).

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 6-15-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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(The Truth About Assault Weapons20 is an outstanding resource for further information.)

Contrary to the hysterical claims of the anti-gun crowd, full-auto weapons have been highly regulated since 1934, and effectively prohibited since 1986. To obtain a full-auto-capable weapon, one must pay a heavy federal tax and go through an FBI background check, including fingerprinting each finger on both hands. In fact, even for standard, non-“assault” weapons purchases, one must go through background checks and fill out a stack of paperwork in order to comply with the roughly 20,000 federal, state and municipal gun laws currently on the books in the U.S. Anyone who claims you can walk into a pawn shop or a gun store, throw down some cash, and walk out with a new gun 10 minutes later is either misinformed or deceitful.

In 1994, Senator Dianne Feinstein and her merry band of gun-grabbers in the Democrat Party pushed through a so-called “assault” weapons ban, which sought to ban military-STYLE weapons. Get that? The ban was on cosmetics, not functionality, which is why you could have two weapons that had nearly identical specifications and shot the same round, and have one be legal and one be banned simply based on appearance. The Feinstein ban turned out to be an utter and complete failure21 in terms of reducing crime.

In 2014, even the liberal New York Times acknowledged the complete ineffectiveness of the 1994 ban22, lamenting, “In the 10 years since the previous ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth: The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference. It turns out that big, scary military rifles don’t kill the vast majority of the 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do. In 2012, only 322 people were murdered with any kind of rifle, F.B.I. data shows.”

The reality is that 99.9999% of gun owners in America will never use their weapons to commit a crime — just the opposite, actually, in that these firearms will be used to stop crime.

The Washington Post this week promoted another popular leftist narrative23; namely, that the Founding Fathers only had muskets when they drafted the Second Amendment, so they could not possibly have imagined, much less intended to protect, the right of average citizens to own semiautomatic weapons. If that is the case, then we suppose that the First Amendment, which was drafted in an age where quill pens and parchment were the primary mode of communication, does not protect any speech today transmitted through broadcast or digital media — such as the Post’s article. It is a nonsensical argument.

But maybe leftists could simply take the same advice on guns that they give us on abortion: If you don’t want one, don’t get one, but leave everyone else free to choose.

On the other hand, the much preferred response, especially in a republic such as ours, where we should pride ourselves on being informed and involved citizens, would be to acknowledge that the right to keep and bear arms is a right granted by God (not government), and protected by the Constitution, which “shall not be infringed.” If we truly prefer a reduction in violent crime (rather than having a political narrative to use as a bludgeon), we will acknowledge that the problem is not guns, but the darker side of human nature.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

    ANALYSIS: DHS' Deliberate Obfuscation24
    Chick-fil-A Helps Orlando Victims25
    Conan the Hypocrite26
    Are People From American Samoa American Citizens?27
    Study Suggests Zero Tolerance Makes Zero Sense28

TOP HEADLINES

    FBI Under Scrutiny After Dropping Investigation of Orlando Killer29
    Bill Clinton to Rethink Clinton Foundation Role if Hillary Wins30
    Kansas Education Board Votes to Ignore Obama’s Transgender Decree31

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report32

OPINION IN BRIEF

Jonah Goldberg: “As Obama demonstrated in his remarks, too many elites in this country reflexively try to make Islamic terrorism America’s fault. Whether the culprit is American imperialism, guns, Guantanamo Bay or, this week, homophobia, we instantly race to comfortable excuses and comfortable arguments. The true nature and scope of the challenge is too unpleasant to contemplate, and so we return to our scripts and read our lines until the next slaughter provides an opportunity to read them all over again.”

SHORT CUTS

Observations: “You would think that the worst terrorist attack since 9/11 would finally wake up Barack Hussein O and Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democrat Party and the rest of the appeasers on the Left. But … they despise us more than they despise militant Islam. You know why? It really isn’t complicated. No matter what Omar Siddiqui Mateen did, he wasn’t trying to defeat a Democrat in an election.” —Rush Limbaugh

Upright: “The persecution of gay people is not an ISIS thing or an al-Qaeda thing; it is an Islam thing. More specifically, it is a bedrock of sharia law and has been since long, long before there was an ISIS. If [the Orlando killer] was deeply conflicted over his alleged homosexual leanings, it had to be because they cut so deeply against the grain of his adherence to sharia supremacism. That ideology, not ‘inspiration by ISIS’ … is far more likely the root of Mateen’s inner rage.” —Andrew McCarthy

Braying Jackass: “These 49 victims joined a long list of victims and families that are hurting because their Congress will stand for a moment of silence but do absolutely nothing. They would rather these events just continue to happen, I guess.” —Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY)

Gun grabbers: “We have to face the fact that meaningful gun control has to be a part of homeland security. We need to do something to minimize the opportunity for terrorists to get a gun in this country.” —DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson

Re: The Left: “[Obama] pretends and says, ‘Well, [radical Islam is] a magical phrase.’ … I think the president said calling it a threat by a different name doesn’t make it go away. Of course it doesn’t! Nobody implies it does. But deliberately calling it something meaningless — ‘violent extremism’ is a completely empty phrase. No one has ever strapped on a suicide vest in the name of extremism; nobody dies in the name of extremism. Obama is deliberately trying to deny, or to hide, or to disguise, the connection between all of these disparate acts and groups, and if you want to mobilize a country behind you, you need to tell them who the enemy is and why it’s doing what it is.” —Charles Krauthammer

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.