Friday, June 27, 2014

THE PATRIOT POST 06/27/2014

THE FOUNDATION

"[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established ... are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge William Johnson, 1823

EDITOR'S NOTE

Former Senator Howard H. Baker Jr. of Tennessee, who later became Ronald Reagan's White House Chief, died Thursday at age 88. Baker was an early and enthusiastic endorser of The Patriot Post, saying, "Thank you for your confidence in, and efforts to sustain the Reagan legacy." Thank you, sir, and rest in peace.

TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS

GOP to 'Paralyze' Obama Agenda

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi doesn't like Speaker John Boehner's plan to sue the president for executive overreach one bit. And her reason is that it might ... drumroll ... hinder executive overreach. "I didn't think he would actually go through with this," she complained in a letter to supporters. "John Boehner is going to use YOUR tax dollars to sue President Obama. It's reprehensible. Republicans will resort to anything and everything to paralyze President Obama's progressive agenda. They shut down the government. They block everything from equal pay to gun violence prevention to job creation. And now this." That's because Obama's "progressive" agenda is actually *re*gressive -- toward tyranny. Nothing Pelosi listed is among the federal government's constitutionally enumerated duties, and even if they were, "progressive" solutions are the wrong ones. Not that we're fans of Boehner's approach, but her complaints are rich.
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Cost of GOP Status Quo

The dirty Mississippi primary between Tea Party-backed Chris McDaniel and Thad Cochran that turned into a win for the entrenched crony politician came at a price for the party. All across the country, establishment GOP groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Realtors, even the NRA, coordinated efforts and spent some $23 million to protect their politicians from the upstart Tea Party candidates. Hot Air's Allahpunit had some tough words for this type of cronyism: "Republicans blather on endlessly about small government, free markets, and competition, and then they go to the mat for a guy like Cochran who embodies the sort of 'clientelism' for which conservatives typically despise Democrats. Honestly. As angry as righties are that Cochran won a GOP primary with Democratic votes, it's a poetic finish to the race: His first loyalty is to his cronies, after all, not to a party." In Cochran's case, he's just a cog in the machine that kept money flowing smoothly. It was good for business and predictable, but Cochran is not an advocate for Liberty. More...
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Dueling Ethanol Stories

When a business model's foundation rests on government subsidies and regulation, you can be sure it will fight like hell when the winds of politics shift. Recently, the Congressional Budget Office released a study which said the cost of gasoline would rise 9% in three years if Congress does not repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard. That 2007 legislation required huge quantities of ethanol be blended with gasoline and also gave subsidies away like candy corn. Now, the protectors of the sacred ethanol (may it burn in peace) have launched a campaign saying ethanol keeps prices down. Americans United For Change released a television ad warning the war in Iraq will drive up gasoline prices -- but ethanol will save the day. Two stories. One's right and the other wrong. Big Ethanol is more motivated to lie. More...
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Walker Prosecutor Backtracks

The John Doe investigation of Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker was recently suspended, leaving Big Labor activists infuriated. But after documents related to the case were unsealed, leftists joined the vengeance bandwagon by immediately -- and erroneously -- claiming the papers contained smoking gun evidence of a scandal run by Walker. Not exactly. According to The Wisconsin State Journal, "Gov. Scott Walker has not been a target of the John Doe investigation into alleged illegal campaign finance coordination, an attorney for the special prosecutor overseeing the probe said Thursday." Importantly, the unsealed documents unveiled the prosecution's theories concerning the case, not concrete evidence of wrongdoing. But in the mind of a liberal, theories and facts are interchangeable when it comes to advancing the anti-conservative crusade. More...
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Buffer Zone Gone

Seven years ago, Massachusetts literally painted 35-foot "buffer zones" around the entrances of its abortion clinics, essentially smothering sidewalk counseling by pro-life advocates. This week, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the Massachusetts law. However, liberal and conservative justices gave different reasons for doing so. Politico reports five justices found "the law was not narrowly tailored. 'The buffer zones burden substantially more speech than necessary to achieve the commonwealth's asserted interests,' they said. The other justices, the court's four conservatives, said the law was unfairly aimed at anti-abortion speech because it restricted protestors -- but not clinic employees." Of course, the nation's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, decried the ruling's "troubling level of disregard for American women," but PP has a troubling level of disregard for more important things, like innocent life and free speech. More...
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For more, visit Right Hooks.
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The Free Enterprise Model

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RIGHT ANALYSIS

Immigration Strategy Is Undermining Rule of Law

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The legislator in chief is planning another round of Hope 'n' Change™ on the immigration front because he can't wait for the legitimate lawmaking body of this country. Barack Obama's new press secretary, Josh Earnest, told MSNBC, "[W]e're not just going to sit around and wait interminably for Congress. We've been waiting a year already." This is all part of Obama's strategy to inflict maximum damage on the nation. Whether it's immigration, taxes, EPA regulations or foreign policy, Obama wants to knock America down a few pegs.
On executive actions, Earnest continued, "The president has tasked his Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson with reviewing what options are available to the president, what is at his disposal using his executive authority to try to address some of the problems that have been created by our broken immigration system." If Obama wanted to legislate, he should have stayed in the Senate. Though he's certainly correct when he says our immigration system is broken, that's largely due to his own malfeasance when it comes to enforcement.
This latest instance of proudly announcing he will circumvent the law is a prime example why John Boehner plans to sue for executive overreach. The House should be looking at impeachment of various executive officials, not a lawsuit, but that's another story.
Meanwhile, Obama says one thing and does another. He offered tough words for the families of the tens of thousands of Central American children streaming across the border, telling ABC News, "Our message absolutely is don't send your children unaccompanied, on trains or through a bunch of smugglers. We don't even know how many of these kids don't make it, and may have been waylaid into sex trafficking or killed because they fell off a train."
According to The Hill, "Under existing federal law, any children coming from Mexico are immediately returned, while others are sent to government detention facilities before being released to relatives or foster parents within the U.S. ahead of deportation proceedings."
And The New York Times reports, "White House officials, saying that misinformation about administration policies helped drive a surge of illegal migrants from Central America across the South Texas border, on Friday announced plans to detain more of them and to accelerate their court cases so as to deport them more quickly."
Yet Obama doesn't explain how his phone and pen presidency has created false hope for Central American families. Besides, his bark is stronger than his bite. Tom Homan of the removal operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says "87% of those are still here in [court] proceedings because we have no final orders."
Worse, officials are quietly searching for places to shelter illegal children all over the country. The little town of Grand Island, New York -- situated between Buffalo and Niagara Falls -- had a surprise visit from DHS and ICE officials who were there to evaluate what they thought was an abandoned Holiday Inn. The agents hoped to house some of the illegal children apprehended at the southern border this year. The administration's shipping those children to the northern border is a mystery only if you don't believe Obama's agenda is to undermine Rule of Law.
Meanwhile, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (R-CA) and several other Democrats are headed to the southern border this weekend to meet with some of the children. "The humanitarian crisis unfolding across our nation's southern border demands Congress come together and find thoughtful, compassionate and bipartisan solutions,” Pelosi said. Again, this is a humanitarian crisis created by Democrats for the purposes of undermining Rule of Law and dividing out a loyal constituency for political gain.
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Can Bad Economic News Really Be 'Unexpected' Anymore?

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Two months ago, first quarter economic growth was pegged at a measly 0.1%, a number for which people blamed the rough winter weather in portions of the country. A month later, that number was revised downward to negative 1% growth, with the weather still considered the culprit. But at a revised-again annual rate of negative 2.9%, the answer is more than the weather.
Read the rest here.

Huge Blow for Obama From Supreme Court

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The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Barack Obama overstepped his constitutional authority by pushing through recess appointments in 2012 because he the president can't declare when Congress is in recess. The case, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) v. Noel Canning was brought by a private company that sued the federal government in 2012 arguing the NLRB did not have the authority to make a labor ruling against the company because the board's quorum was made up of illegitimate appointees.
Read the rest here.
For more, visit Right Analysis.

TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Justice Warren E. Burger (1907-1995): "Concepts of justice must have hands and feet or they remain sterile abstractions."
Columnist Michelle Malkin: "This week's unanimous Supreme Court ruling on President Obama's illegal recess appointments is a double smackdown. First, it's a rebuke against arrogant White House power-grabbers who thought they could act with absolute impunity and interminable immunity. Second, the ruling is a reproach of all the establishment pushovers on Capitol Hill who put comity above constitutional principle. ... The Canning decision should embolden 'obstructionist' conservatives on Capitol Hill ... who have raised bloody hell over Obama's imperial governance in defiance of establishment GOP go-along, get-alongism. ... Thanks to patriotic obstructionism, this should and will be far from the last rebuke. Continued accommodation of this control-freak president and his cronies is suicide. There are only two responsible replies to a Constitution-trampling, end-run executive unilaterally declaring, 'Yes, I can': 1) 'No, you can't.' 2) 'Hell no, you can't.'"
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FRC's Tony Perkins: "In its second major decision of the day, pro-lifers claimed victory in the fight over sidewalk space outside abortion clinics. All nine justices, including the President's prodigies, agreed that creating an invisible barrier between pro-lifers and clinic entrances was a ridiculous infringement on free speech rights. ... Although the decision is narrower than we would have liked, the Court did agree that the Massachusetts law [that was in question] violated the First Amendment. While this is a good result, the Court should have acknowledged that the restriction was content-based. ... As Justice Scalia (joined by Justice Thomas, and importantly, Justice Kennedy) noted in a concurring opinion, '[e]very objective indication shows that the provision's primary purpose is to restrict speech that opposes abortion.' In the end, thought, a ruling in favor of the First Amendment is better than a ruling upholding a prejudiced law."
Comedian Argus Hamilton: "The IRS said Lois Lerner's e-mails about targeting conservatives in the 2012 election can't be found. They said two years of Lois's e-mails were lost because her computer crashed. It crashed when President Obama threw it out of Air Force One at thirty thousand feet."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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.

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