The Patriot Post Digest 6-24-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 6-24-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Jun. 24, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

The Shock Heard Round the World1

The British declared independence from the 28-nation European Union Thursday in a surprise outcome to the referendum known as “Brexit2.” Prime Minister David Cameron, who supported the “Remain” side but took a gamble in calling for a referendum, made his own Brexit. He announced his resignation saying, “The country requires fresh leadership.” Global markets collapsed and the British pound fell to a 30-year low.

There are now many questions. How long until markets recover? How will Great Britain’s fifth-largest-in-the-world economy fare on its own? How will this affect the EU, now that Germany is clearly the strongest nation remaining? Will Scotland hold another referendum on leaving the UK3 two years after the last one failed4? That referendum failed largely because the Scots wanted to remain in the EU. How will the U.S. relationship with Britain change? After all, Barack Obama pushed for the UK to remain in the EU and even threated our best ally with back-of-the-queue status on trade if they left.

A couple of observations. After a pro-Remain member of Parliament was politically murdered last week, it appeared Remain would prevail. But Leave pulled away in what is perhaps a sign that voters don’t always share politically incorrect sentiments with pollsters. They said one thing and then voted according to what they really thought — and that was to tell the EU and its leftist bureaucrat-run “utopia” where to go.

As the Heritage Foundation’s Nile Gardiner put it5, “The vote for Brexit is a vote for sovereignty and self-determination. Britain will no longer be subject to European legislation, with Britain’s Parliament retaking control. British judges will no longer be overruled by the European Court of Justice, and British businesses will be liberated from mountains of EU regulations, which have undermined economic liberty.”

How might that affect our own election this year?

Indeed, that brings us to the other thought: Let’s hope Obama does for Hillary Clinton what he did for the Remain vote. There is a powerful and growing sentiment against centralized control, whether it be among our British cousins or our fellow Americans. Elites beware.

Nearly Half of Released Criminal Aliens Became Repeat Offenders6

Say what? Another agency caught duping Americans? Shocking, we know, but that’s standard procedure under this administration. According to a new report7 from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, “Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records … show that the agency grossly misrepresented — by almost tenfold — the number of subsequent offenses committed by criminal aliens it released from custody onto the streets in FY 2014.”

This obviously wasn’t just some rounding error. ICE claims that it decided to release 30,588 criminal aliens in FY 2014, of which 1,423 became repeat offenders. That’s bad enough, but not nearly as bad as the actual number of repeat offenders — 13,288. Put another way, a whopping 43% of released criminals recommitted crimes. Even worse, says FAIR, “It is important to note that not all criminal charges result in convictions. Thus, the number of offenses committed by criminal aliens ICE turned loose is likely significantly greater.” Indeed, and how many other criminals simply haven’t been caught yet?

These weren’t just aliens with petty offenses, either. FAIR says, “The list of convictions for offenses committed by criminals ICE did not deem worthy of deportation in FY 2014 includes: homicide, kidnapping, assault, sexual assault, drunk driving, and other offenses.”

When you hear stories like this, you can at least begin to understand the appeal of a biometric exit program, which the Department of Homeland Security is making plans to enact as a means of gathering data on foreigners with expired visas who remain in the United States. The merits are iffy8, and the media once ridiculed a similar idea offered by a certain former Republican presidential candidate, but it’s easy to see why so many Americans are sick of being lied to, and why Donald Trump’s simple and repetitive promise to build a wall is so powerful.

A Texas-Sized VA Scandal9

The increasingly frivolous Department of Veterans Affairs is closer than ever to becoming perennially incapable of getting its ducks in a row. The latest example of negligence comes from an “anonymous allegation” submitted to the VA Office of Inspector General concerning the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, located in Houston, Texas. In a June 20 report10, the IG probe exposed more of the same old story: “We substantiated that two previous scheduling supervisors and a current director of two CBOCs [Community Based Outpatient Clinics] instructed staff to incorrectly record cancellations as canceled by the patient [emphasis added.]”

The report says that “223 appointments” were “incorrectly recorded as patient cancellations during the July 2014 through June 2015 time frame.” Additionally, “Of the 223 appointment cancellations, staff rescheduled 94 appointments (42 percent) beyond 30 days. For these 94 appointments, veterans encountered an average 81-day wait, which was 78 days longer than shown in the electronic scheduling system. We found that wait times were understated about 66 days for 50 appointments (22 percent) when they were initially scheduled.”

What was it Barack Obama once said? “We’re not going to stop working to make sure that they get the care, the benefits and the opportunities that they’ve earned and they deserve. I said we wouldn’t tolerate misconduct, and we will not. I said that we have to do better, and we will.” That was in May 201411 — more than two years ago. What’s his excuse now?

Add to this the possibility that disgraced former VA Director Sharon Helman could be rehired12, and the situation becomes downright surreal. But even if she doesn’t get her job back, why should we expect things to get better when the current leadership compares the VA experience to an amusement park ride13?

Thank You

As a Patriot Post reader, we know you stand alongside us in the mission to arm Americans with the right information and analysis that is so lacking in the mainstream media.

You, our readers, make this work possible.

We will continue to work hard for you. The rights our Founders fought for were not made secure overnight; and in the same spirit, we are in this for the long haul.

But to continue this critical work, we need your help.

Since our founding 20 years ago, we have never charged a subscription fee or accepted advertising. We rely completely on the voluntary financial support of our readers.

I hope you’ll strongly consider supporting14 our Independence Day Campaign today. This campaign ensures our operations are fully funded through the summer.

On behalf of The Patriot Post editors and staff, thank you for standing with us. —Christy Chesterton, Director of Advancement

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Gary Bauer: Liberals Sitting Down On The Job15
R.B.A. DiMuccio: The Incredible Hopelessness of America’s Gun ‘Conversation’16
David Limbaugh: Free Condoms — What Could Go Wrong?17

For more, visit Right Opinion18.

TOP HEADLINES

McConnell Quashes Senate Effort on Guns19
Freddie Gray Van Driver Found Not Guilty20
Sanders Says He Will Vote for Clinton21

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report22

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
The Supremes Without Scalia: Wisdom Only by Default23

By John J. Bastiat

We’d like to say it’s been a long time since the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has made a bad call. Of course that would be false. We note the Supremes went one-for-two Thursday on prudent calls, and that only by default. A 4-4 split left a lower court’s correct decision on Barack Obama’s amnesty standing — at least for now. Otherwise, had the consistently inconsistent Anthony Kennedy rolled out of the wrong side of the bed that morning, we could have been looking at another loss for Rule of Law. As it was — and true to form — Justice Kennedy “happened” to vote with conservatives on the second, split vote, while voting with the leftist/statist crowd on the other (overturning himself in the process, we might add).

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The Patriot Post Digest 6-24-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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As a background to the split decision, one of the fundamental tenets separating the U.S. from every other nation is the Separation of Powers doctrine. This is the idea that each federal branch of government has its own “lane” within which it operates, and a system of checks and balances between the branches, as well as the States, keeps it in that lane. Far from operating in its lane, of course, is the Obama administration, which has swerved all over like a driver drunk with power.

In this instance, the former (ahem) constitutional law “professor” determined that even though Congress itself had considered the issue of amnesty for illegal immigrants and rejected it, he could make it so with his mighty pen. This despite the fact he said more than 20 times the president does not have the authority to unilaterally grant legal status and work permits to an expanded class of illegal aliens. He changed his mind for political gain, so, see? “Constitutional”!

In 2015, a U.S. federal district court struck down the executive action as an obviously unconstitutional overreach of power by the president, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. Thankfully, yesterday’s 4-4 “draw” at least leaves the Fifth Circuit’s ruling intact, for now. However, because the lower court’s decision doesn’t establish precedent for future cases, the SCOTUS split leaves open the possibility of a revisit of the issue when the next president assumes offices, punctuating once again the importance of November’s electoral outcome.

Never lacking an unwitting sense of irony, Obama called the ruling “frustrating” to those wanting to “bring a rationality” to the immigration system, allowing millions here illegally to “come out of the shadows.” He also said the ruling “takes us further back from the country we want to be,” even though he also admitted, “I have pushed to the limits of my executive authority.”

No, Mr. Violator-in-Chief, “frustrating” is when a sitting president flouts the Constitution, Congress, the states and a host of existing laws to enact by fiat what no other president has done or would do. There’s a reason these immigrants are “[in] the shadows”: They’re here illegally. We note also in passing that this decision by SCOTUS would have been a precedent-setter had “Nino” still been around: Justice Scalia’s wisdom and razor-sharp jurisprudence would have quickly rendered a well-reasoned opinion and a 5-4 win for the rule of law and SCOTUS rationality. Instead, we got “The Strobe”: an on-again, off-again Kennedy, reliably unreliable, with his random, quantum-probability decisions that could go either way, depending on the flapping of a butterfly’s wings somewhere in China.

To that point, in yesterday’s other significant case, The Strobe voted with the Left: The 4-3 decision let stand racial discrimination (euphemistically known as Affirmative Action) and other quotas at the University of Texas at Austin on the basis of — we are not making this up — “the educational benefits of diversity.” No, really: That was the sum-total of the justification the college used to overcome its burden “(1) to identify the interests justifying its plan with enough specificity to permit a reviewing court to determine whether the requirements of strict scrutiny were met, and (2) to show that those requirements were in fact satisfied” (based on previous SCOTUS rulings).

The Court of course decided logic and previous rulings would be too great a burden to impose on the case, and instead decided “the educational benefits of diversity” would be sufficient. As we’ve said before about this case, any government-dictated racial-quota programs, even those “narrowly tailored” and supposedly intended meet a “compelling government interest” are nothing more than a direct assault on Essential Liberty. And, again, it re-emphasizes why the Supreme Court should be a supreme factor in November’s vote.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Our Clueless Attorney General24
Campus Sex Brings Title IX to Court25
Obama-Appointed Judge Strikes Down Fracking Regulation26

OPINION IN BRIEF

Gary Bauer: “Forty-nine Americans are dead in just the latest attack by a Muslim supremacist. This follows on the heels of other terrorist attacks like the Boston Marathon bombing and the shootings at Fort Hood, Chattanooga and San Bernardino. Yet in response to these jihadist atrocities, left-wing congressmen immediately devised a way to distract from the facts and attack your right to defend yourself. Until now, there was nothing else so important, but when they saw the opportunity to attack the Second Amendment, they launched an unprecedented sit-in. They did not do this when it became apparent that our veterans were being abused. There were no sit-ins demanding a serious strategy to crush ISIS. One of the leaders of this sit-in is Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. Many of his constituents are faithful churchgoers. Yet there were no sit-ins to protest Obama’s repeated attacks on religious liberty or to defend the meaning of marriage. Black unemployment is a national scandal. How about a sit-in demanding that the teachers' unions get out of the way and let inner city schools be reformed? How about a sit-in demanding that the borders be secured so blacks and other Americans don’t have to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs? Top government officials have testified that we cannot fully vet Middle Eastern refugees. Yet these left-wing extremists have never staged a sit-in to demand that the government stop endangering the American people by reforming our immigration and refugee policies. … The one thing the left feels so strongly about is taking away your rights.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “The power of authority is never more subtle and effective than when it produces a psychological ‘atmosphere’ or ‘climate’ favorable to the life of certain modes of belief, unfavorable, and even fatal, to the life of others.” —Arthur Balfour (1848-1930)

Upright: “Conservatives can process the liberal concern for gun violence and the suffering it causes. But liberals literally cannot understand how someone could share that value while also having the slightest concern for Second Amendment rights. … It’s a prism that liberals can’t and won’t accept as even falling into the category of legitimate moral thinking. Thus, conservative beliefs and the people that harbor them can be readily demonized and easily marginalized.” —R.B.A. DiMuccio

The BIG lie: “The Constitution was enacted to strengthen government power to enable central government to lay taxes and to function effectively. We put limits on that through the Bill of Rights, but the Constitution was enacted for the opposite purpose.” —Rep. Jerrold Nadler

Double standards: “Law-abiding citizens just shouldn’t have to carry a gun. … I think [congressmen and woman] deserve — I think we need to be protected down here.” —Rep. Charlie Rangel

Alpha Jackass: “It could be argued that the dude who was hoping to assassinate Donald Trump is a good guy with a gun.” —NBC producer Matthew Mowrer

No other choice but to circumvent the Constitution: “I was left with little choice but to take steps within my existing authority to make our immigration system smarter, fairer and more just.” —Barack Obama

Late-night humor: “While he was back at the Capitol … Bernie Sanders accidentally went to the Republican lunchroom. Bernie knew he wasn’t in the Democrats' lunchroom when he couldn’t get a free lunch.” —Jimmy Fallon

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.