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« on: August 30, 2019, 12:08:57 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 8-30-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Aug. 30, 2019
https://patriotpost.us/digests/65176-mid-day-digest
THE FOUNDATION
“Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)
https://patriotpost.us/fqd/65175-founders-quote-daily
IN TODAY’S EDITION
DOJ inspector general knocks Comey for leaks and mishandling memos.1
Lower courts are ignoring Supreme Court precedent and the Constitution on guns.2
Daily Features: More Analysis3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Opinion in Brief6, Short Cuts7, Memes8, and Cartoons9.
IN BRIEF
Comey Rebuked by IG but Unapologetic for Coup Attempt10
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report11 Thursday rebuking disgraced former FBI Director James Comey12 for setting “a dangerous example” by leaking memos to the press in May 2017. Those memos, Horowitz said, contained “investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment,” and Comey leaked them “in order to achieve a personally desired outcome” — vengeance against President Donald Trump for firing him.
Comey asserted, contrary to FBI policy and practice, that the memos were his personal property. Horowitz hammered him for that and for keeping those memos in a personal safe at home. Comey perpetrated the leaks by giving memos to others with instructions to pass them to the press. As intended, Comey’s dishonest charade set up his pal Robert Mueller’s bogus $35 million investigation13 of Trump.
Mueller’s investigation was the culmination of the attempted deep-state coup14 against a duly elected president — a coup precipitated by the partisan hackery of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and the leadership of America’s intelligence apparatus. Comey, among others, set about taking down the president by using his office and other high-level people in a partisan witch hunt. The whole thing was a far more egregious scandal than Watergate.
As The Wall Street Journal summarizes the report, Horowitz “accused Mr. Comey of placing his personal beliefs over his professional responsibilities by disseminating the memos and failing to safeguard sensitive information.”
Or, if you prefer the more grassroots assessment of Glenn Reynolds (a.k.a. “Instapundit”), “His smarmy act has failed to conceal that he’s a sanctimonious prick. Make that a sanctimonious, dishonest, basically corrupt prick, who subordinated his duty to his country to selfish and shallow political and personal motives.”
Other than that, James Comey’s a real standup guy.
And yet he claims he’s the one owed an apology. Claiming vindication of having leaked classified information, Comey blustered, “I don’t need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a ‘sorry we lied about you’ would be nice.”
Comey was head of the FBI and had years of honorable service under his belt; he knew better than to release any of the information, or to keep it outside the FBI’s internal system. Yet he, like so many others, got power drunk on Potomac water and went off the rails.
Imagine if the other 35,000 employees at the FBI began behaving as their former director? The agency, Horowitz concluded, “would be unable to dispatch its law enforcement duties properly.” That’s putting it mildly.
Next up: The IG report on Comey’s role in securing FISA warrants15 to surveil Trump’s campaign based on what Comey himself called the Steele dossier’s “salacious and unverified” information, which was paid for by a rival political campaign. After that, U.S. Attorney John Durham will report on whether Comey & Co. violated FBI and Justice Department guidelines by initiating a counterintelligence investigation16 of Trump’s campaign. Comey’s a long way from being out of the woods.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/65168-comey-rebuked-by-ig-but-unapologetic-for-coup-attempt
Despotic Judiciary Assaults Second Amendment17
Another appellate court has failed to defend Americans’ Second Amendment rights. On Thursday, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld18 Cook County, Illinois’s ban on so-called “assault weapons19.” Last year, a U.S. district judge dismissed a lawsuit brought against the 2006 Blair Holt Assault Weapons Ban, which means a fine for Cook County residents of up to $10,000 and sentences of up to six months in prison if they are found to be in possession of so-called “large-capacity magazines” or “assault weapons.” The fact of the matter is that the law intentionally misclassifies common semiautomatic weapons like the AR-15 as “assault weapons” and misleadingly labels these firearms’ standard-capacity magazines (20 to 30 rounds) as being nefariously “large capacity.”
In its unanimous ruling, the court’s three-judge panel wrote, “We have stated repeatedly, and recently, that, absent a compelling reason, we will not overturn circuit precedent.” The precedent was the Highland Park ruling, wherein a three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that municipalities have the leeway to regulate firearms if it makes people “feel safer.” The majority wrote, “If a ban on semi-automatic guns and large-capacity magazines reduces the perceived risk from a mass shooting, and makes the public feel safer as a result, that’s a substantial benefit” [emphasis added]. So, feeling safe trumps Americans’ Second Amendment right to take action to actually be safe? As Rush Limbaugh famously observed of the Left, it’s “symbolism over substance.”
This ruling once again supports Justice Clarence Thomas’s argument20 that the Supreme Court needs to stop this erosion of Americans’ Second Amendment rights. As Thomas recently wrote, “The Framers made a clear choice: They reserved to all Americans the right to bear arms for self-defense. I do not think we should stand by idly while a State denies its citizens that right, particularly when their very lives may depend on it.” Justice Thomas may get the opportunity he’s been calling for, as the Illinois State Rifle Association, which sued Cook County over this “assault weapons” ban, plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Activist judges are ignoring not only the Constitution but Supreme Court rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago. It’s time for the Supreme Court to rectify that rogue behavior. Thomas Jefferson once warned, “The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” He was right21.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/65165-despotic-judiciary-assaults-second-amendment
ON OUR WEBSITE TODAY
Featured Analysis: Mattis Says ‘We’re Better Than Our Current Politics’22 — The retired Marine general and former defense secretary challenges Trump’s methods.
College-Educated Women Outnumber Men in U.S. Workforce23 — Another statistic dispelling the feminist Left’s myth about a gender wage gap.
Democrats Embrace Politicized ‘John Doe’ Investigations24 — Leftists are increasingly using politically motivated investigations to handicap conservatives.
Scoring ‘Social Credit’25 — This practice is one import from China that Americans definitely do not want.
Grassroots Perspective: Who Are the Heroes?26 — Recipients of the Medal of Honor tend to have something in common: Humility.
Video: Trump Shouldn’t Back Down On China27 — Michael Knowles explains why President Trump has to stay strong on trade with China.
Video: Shallow Thoughts on Climate Change With AOC28 — “The alternative to not spending the money is A: death and B: spending even more money.”
TOP NEWS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM: “Hurricane Dorian hurtled toward the United States and was on track to become a major hurricane Friday before its expected landfall Monday into Tuesday along Florida’s east coast, forecasters say. The storm was slowly turning west on Friday as it makes it way back toward land and is expected to strengthen in the coming days, the National Hurricane Center said. Dorian is then forecast slam the southeastern United States as a possible Category 4 storm.” (USA Today30)
GREAT AGAIN: “President Trump revived the U.S. Space Command in a formal White House ceremony Thursday, putting the commander-in-chief a step closer to launching a military branch focused on the final frontier. … Thursday’s action does not establish a separate ‘Space Force,’ which must be approved by Congress. … Reviving the Space Command was an easier lift for the Pentagon. The command existed decades ago, though it was dissolved into the Strategic Command as part of a military reorganization following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.” (The Washington Times31) |
