the foundation

Daily Digest
July 23, 2015 Print

THE FOUNDATION
“To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquillity would be to calculate on the weaker springs of human character.” —Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 34 — 1788

TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Continuing Executive Advance on Immigration
The Obama administration continues its blitzkrieg on executive immigration reform. Sure, there’s that pocket of resistance, that suit brought by 26 states, but that’s not stopping Obama. “[T]he 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals guidelines remain in place,” Obama said in a White House statement. “There are also other important immigration executive actions that continue to move forward.” He goes onto list 11 ways he’s continuing to tweak the nation’s immigration enforcement, and the statement finishes by repeating the tired mantra that only Congress can fix immigration by passing “bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform.” Why doesn’t Obama just ask for a unicorn? He really doesn’t want reform; that’s why he’s so thoroughly poisoned the well. His department of Homeland Security proposed a rule that would expand the types of people who could stay in U.S. while waiting for legal status. Such a policy would undermine legal immigration, remove the penalties for illegal immigration and encourage fraud, says the Center for Immigration Studies. Obama’s executive actions come at a time when Congress is tackling some immigration reform by considering a bill that would curb sanctuary cities after that policy led to the death of Kathryn Steinle. Despite Congress’ unique role in deciding the nation’s immigration policies, a group of mayors from some of the nation’s biggest cities wrote to Congress supporting sanctuary city policies by making a home-rule argument — a bunch of leftists supporting the status quo, including how immigration is being handled politically.

Obama Stands by Planned Parenthood
Most Americans are some combination of outraged and sickened at the revelations that Planned Parenthood is selling babies’ body parts after successful abortions. Its doctors are on record talking about how to avoid crushing valuable organs and using a “less crunchy technique” in order to harvest organs while sipping wine and joking about wanting a Lamborghini. A thorough investigation and an end to taxpayer funding of the nation’s largest abortion mill is in order. So what does Barack Obama think? His press secretary, Josh Earnest, backed Planned Parenthood. “I haven’t spoken to the president about the actual videos. I have read the reports and I’m confident that he has, too, raising significant concerns about the way in which those videos were selectively edited to distort the — not just the words of the individual speaking but also the position of Planned Parenthood.” Earnest went on to offer some free PR for Planned Parenthood’s “highest ethical standards.” Perhaps he misheard — they’re selling baby parts. How is that remotely ethical? Unsurprisingly, Obama is more upset about the organization taking the videos than the abortionists selling baby livers. This is a man, after all, who has no problem with partial-birth abortion, and who wants unfettered access to abortion and abortion-inducing birth-control for all women — even mandating Catholic nuns carry insurance that covers it. So forgive us if we’re skeptical when Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the Justice Department is “going to review all the information and determine what steps, if any, to take at the appropriate time.” Note: That’s “what steps, if any.” Besides, perhaps she means DOJ will investigate the group taking the videos…

More Details Emerge From Chattanooga
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Details continue to come out about the terrorist attack in Chattanooga last week. One Navy officer and a Marine returned fire when a jihadi rammed through the gate and started shooting. According to Navy Times, “Lt. Cmdr. Timothy White, the support center’s commanding officer, used his personal firearm to engage” the assailant. Likewise, one of the slain Marines reportedly had a personal handgun that he used to return fire. But it wasn’t only those with guns who acted with bravery. According to reports, some of the fallen Marines essentially sacrificed themselves by drawing fire away from a larger group of Marines. “This could have been a lot worse,” an anonymous official said. “It could have been a horrible, horrible massacre — so much worse.”

It was bad enough. Remember the fallen: Sgt. Carson A. Holmquist, Staff Sgt. David A. Wyatt, Gunnery Sgt. Thomas J. Sullivan, Lance Cpl. Squire K. Wells, and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith.

Finally, Ed Reinhold, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Knoxville, declared during a Wednesday news conference that the perpetrator was a “homegrown violent extremist” and that it was too early to determine whether he had been radicalized. “This is a complex, ongoing investigation, and we’re still in the early stages of piecing together exactly what happened and why,” Reinhold said. “The FBI has been working almost 400 leads, and has an estimated 250 personnel on the ground in the area, and hundreds more working across the country and around the world on this investigation.” We appreciate the deliberate and thorough investigation, but let’s call a spade a spade.

Maybe that failure is why it took Barack Obama five days to call for lowering the flag.
For four years, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno was in Iraq, spending more time in the theater than any other military leader. He was a key architect of the successful “surge” that gave Iraq a short-lived bout of stability and relative prosperity. And then Barack Obama came along.

Now weeks away from retirement after a nearly four-decade career, Odierno barely hides his disgust at the decline in Iraq since Obama withdrew American forces. In the debate before the 2011 withdrawal, Odierno requested a force of 30-35,000 troops be maintained in Iraq. Unfortunately, he was overruled by Obama’s narcissistic quest for political expediency in the 2012 campaign. He had promised to “end” (note: not win) the war, and Americans were generally war-weary. Never mind that Iraq was always envisioned as part of a Long War against Islamic extremism.

“It’s frustrating to watch” the rise of the Islamic State, lamented Odierno in his interview with Fox. “I go back to the work we did in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 and we got [Iraq] to a place that was really good. Violence was low, the economy was growing, [and] politics looked like it was heading in the right direction.” He added, “If we had stayed a little more engaged, I think maybe [the Islamic State’s rise] might have been prevented. I’ve always believed the United States played the role of honest broker between all the groups and when we pulled ourselves out we lost that role. … I think it would have been good for us to stay.”

Odierno didn’t explicitly say so, but he strongly implied that Obama’s foolish withdrawal from Iraq is directly responsible for the rise of the Islamic State.

Aside from very occasional airstrikes against a handful of Islamic State-controlled targets and ground forays conducted by Iraqi troops under U.S. advisement (and with the assistance of Iranian-backed militia groups), Obama has largely abandoned the Iraqis to the wolves of the al-Baghdadi caliphate. In fact, some foreign-policy pundits are becoming convinced that life under the Islamic State may not be so bad if you keep your nose clean and don’t make the regime mad. They may not yet make the trains run on time, but they argue there’s far less corruption than you’d find under the Iraqi and Syrian governments.

It appears that Obama is trying to walk the thin line between not becoming too involved in the Middle East but not completely ceding to the Islamic State. It’s a set of actions reminiscent of his negotiations with Iran, where State Department negotiators managed to let Iran get away with rhetorical nuclear murder by their insistence that even a horrendous deal was better than no deal at all. Odierno supported the Iranian nuclear pact, but added in the Fox interview that Iran will continue to be an aggressor and instigator.

Meanwhile, Obama is reducing the size of the military, which Odierno warns means the U.S. will be unable to “deter conflict and prevent wars.” Shrinking the Army from 570,000 to 490,000 soldiers, for example, is a problem. “In my mind, we don’t have the ability to deter,” Odierno explained. “The reason we have a military is to deter conflict and prevent wars. And if people believe we are not big enough to respond, they miscalculate.”

Sometimes it’s hard to tell, but as close as we can figure this is the Obama Doctrine toward Islamic terrorists: Put off the day of reckoning until the next administration and hope the collateral damage is kept largely in that region. But when a U.S. city or Jerusalem become a smoking ruin from either an Iranian nuke or an Islamic State terror attack — never mind the increasing “lone wolf” attacks like the one in Chattanooga — we’ll see the bitter harvest of what Obama has sown by not seeing through the Long War.

 

OPINION IN BRIEF
Ken Blackwell: “On Oct. 21, 1994, President Bill Clinton announced a deal with North Korea aimed at ending its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. ‘This is a good deal for the United States,’ Clinton said. ‘North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. South Korea and our other allies will be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons.’ … Twenty one years later, from the exact spot in the White House, President Obama said, ‘Iran is permanently prohibited from pursuing a nuclear weapon under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which provided the basis for the international community’s efforts to apply pressure on Iran.’ … The result of the North Korean agreement became clear on Oct. 9, 2006, when North Korea took the world by surprise and conducted its first successful test of a nuclear weapon. … President Obama does not appear to know the history of nuclear proliferation. But that is no reason why the country as a whole should be destined to repeat it.”

SHORT CUTS
“In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.” —French writer Voltaire (1694-1778)

Upright: “[Hillary Clinton] still doesn’t have real opponents who are going to challenge her for the nomination in the end. But we have gotten to see her. And it turns out that the more you see her, the more her numbers go down. That’s the definition of a weak candidate.” —Charles Krauthammer

Alpha Jackass: “To some degree the Tea Party is an expression of frustration. They see a bunch of stuff going on that they don’t understand and they feel threatened by, and then they react.” —Barack Obama (No, what we understand is his constant violation of the Constitution.)

The BIG Lie: “By the time I leave here, I think we’re going to be able to say that government is working much better, much more efficiently, much more customer-friendly than when I came into office.” —Barack Obama (Conservatives targeted by the IRS and veterans left for dead by the VA beg to differ.)

“The White House [made] a special Twitter account to answer questions about the new nuclear agreement. Finally using Twitter for what it was designed for — explaining complex, international nuclear agreements involving several nations.” —Seth Meyers

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.

China’s False history of World war two

How the Chinese Regime Gets Away With a False History of World War II
By Leo Timm, Epoch Times | July 18, 2015Last Updated: July 19, 2015 9:40 pm
The Chinese people have just entered the fourth year of their war against Japan and they are making super-human efforts to strengthen their air-force, to produce their own armaments, and to train their officers in the methods of modern war. Chinese cadets in full battle dress, they favour the German type of steel helmet, parade somewhere in China, July 11, 1940.

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Gathered before a museum in suburban Beijing, soldiers and schoolchildren stood in silence last week to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the start of World War II in China, a conflict that claimed the lives of about 20 million Chinese.

But also muted is a candid memory of this brutal struggle for survival, in which the Chinese Nationalist government victoriously led the country’s eight-year-long war of resistance against Japanese invasion—before being ousted in 1949 by communist forces following an additional four years of civil war.

A caricaturized history, spun and repeated ad nauseum by state propaganda and encouraged in the national education system, has become a staple of mainland Chinese media, weighing heavily on Chinese mass sentiment and national identity even seven decades after the war ended, as highlighted by frequent and sometimes destructive anti-Japanese riots.

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For example, in 2013, when the Chinese regime and Japan clashed over the disputed Senkaku islands near Okinawa in the East China Sea, a video depicting the nuclear destruction of Tokyo went viral among Chinese netizens.

Exaggerated and at times outright fabricated depictions of heroic and invincible communist troops, facing down both ridiculous and sinister “Japanese devils” are to be found all over Chinese popular culture. Especially in recent years, the “Anti-Japanese War,” as World War II is known locally, has shown itself to be a popular, politically safe theme for film and television producers.

Both ridiculous and sinister “Japanese devils” are to be found all over Chinese popular culture.
In place of genuine scholarship and discourse, mainland Chinese are inculcated with a doctored narrative that ignores or reduces in stature major, Nationalist-led campaigns and battles that set the course of the war. China’s historical contribution to the overall Allied effort reveals a wholly different picture—that of a desperate uphill battle against superior firepower, equipment, and cohesion.

The Truth of a Forgotten War
On July 7, 1937, two years before Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland, Chinese troops clashed with units of a Japanese overseas garrison south of Beijing, setting off the spark that would ignite eight years of total war across Asia and the Pacific.

Since the 1920s, militarist factions in the Japanese government, protected by imperial authority, had been encroaching on mainland Asia. Korea had been a Japanese colony since 1910, and in 1931, officers of the Imperial Japanese Army occupied and annexed Manchuria, a northern Chinese region containing some 35 million people and bountiful natural resources.

By 1937, Japanese troops had not only occupied Manchuria, but had taken most of what is now Inner Mongolia, extending their zone of control to Beijing (then called Beiping; the capital of China at that time was Nanjing, which lay further to the south). For Chiang Kai-shek, military leader of the National Chinese government, it was clear that further appeasement of the Japanese would only bring further misfortune.

Chinese nationalsBy the end of July, fighting around Beijing had intensified as the Chinese refused to back down in the face of Japanese military demands. Chiang ordered Chinese armies to move in on Shanghai, which contained a sizable Japanese military presence, hoping to draw in large numbers of enemy troops that could be worn down in a decisive engagement.

The Battle of Shanghai claimed over 200,000 Chinese and 70,000 Japanese lives in close-quarters urban combat. It was just the first of over 20 major battles fought by Nationalist Chinese forces, running against the typical communist narrative claiming that their political opponents shied away from fighting in favor of retreat to the Chinese hinterland.

The Battle of Shanghai claimed over 200,000 Chinese and 70,000 Japanese lives in close-quarters urban combat.
Despite valiant Chinese efforts, including one episode in which a German-trained and equipped unit known as the “800 Heroes” held off tens of thousands of Japanese from a fortified warehouse, the Japanese eventually forced the Chinese from Shanghai. With the arrival of reinforcements, the invasion continued from the Yangtze River Delta with frightening speed, threatening the Chinese capital of Nanjing.

Protracted Resistance
The earliest months of the war saw almost no communist activity of meaningful consequence. The one minor victory scored by the communists, the Battle at Pingxingguan Pass, resulted in only a few hundred Japanese casualties—yet has been played up to no end in subsequent state propaganda.

Meanwhile, Nationalist armies continued to fight tooth and nail against the Japanese onslaught, losing hundreds of thousands of men. In Nanjing, where incompetent defense of the capital city led to a rout of the Chinese forces, so many soldiers were taken prisoner and executed by the Japanese that the number of Chinese military casualties is still unclear. Imperial troops further took out their wrath on Nanjing’s civilian population, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people.

Crushing as the defeats of Shanghai and Nanjing and the associated brutality committed against civilians must have been for Chinese morale, they ultimately had little effect on the Nationalists’ will for continued resistance. In 1938, the largest battle of the war took place at the city of Wuhan in central China, where over a million Nationalist troops held off a hardened Japanese force for over four months.

Even though the overwhelming mobility and killing force of imperial Japan’s armies, extending to hundreds of poison gas attacks, eventually forced the Chinese to retreat from Wuhan, Japanese fatalities, numbering over 100,000, stalled any further advances for many years.

Stabbed in the Back
Ever since the communist seizure of power in 1949, mainland Chinese shows and films depict a widespread and concerted partisan effort taking place in Japanese-occupied territory, always with communist revolutionaries at the forefront.

In reality, Communist Party activity was mostly limited to the gradual infiltration of regions where warfare and the absence of order (Japanese forces were often hard-pressed to exercise actual control over territory they had conquered from the Nationalists) made ideal lairs for the growing political movement.

The Chinese Communist Party does all this to make itself look glorious—but in fact the outcome is ridiculous.
— Xin Haonian, Chinese historian
The Nationalists, under Chiang Kai-shek, were assisted by the United States, but this process was hampered by diplomatic mistrust and disagreement among the key participants, in particular between Chiang and the storied Gen. Joseph Stilwell.

The Chinese communists made full use of the Nationalists’ plight, and never assisted in any meaningful way so as to preserve their own forces; a Soviet diplomat stationed in the communist base area noted at the time that Party Chairman Mao was reluctant to move troops against the Japanese.

While the Communist Party was indeed militarily insignificant at the start of the war, it built up a potent and well-organized army in short order, as reflected in the single major military operation carried out by the communist forces—the Hundred Regiments’ Offensive of 1940. Mao, however, criticized Peng Dehuai, who led the successful campaign, for revealing the strength of the communist troops. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), Mao would use Peng’s “betrayal” as part of the excuse to have him purged.

When Japan finally surrendered in 1945, it was first to the United States, then Chinese Nationalist troops. It would be another four years of brutal struggle in which the CCP forces, now entrenched in northern China and with increasing Soviet support, would overpower the Nationalists, which the United States saw as a lost cause.

Attempting to Silence the Past
The Chinese Communist Party has every reason to distort the story of World War II: the role it performed in the war was little, and giving credit to the Nationalists—who went on to take over the island of Taiwan, which has evolved into its own sophisticated democracy—would undermine its own legitimacy.

So the Party instead hides the actual history, and doing so it robs the Chinese people of the truth of their own history, according to Xin Haonian, a Chinese historian who has written a book about the generals of the Eighth Route Army, part of the communist armed forces. “The Chinese Communist Party does all this to make itself look glorious—but in fact the outcome is ridiculous,” Xin said during a lecture, aired on New Tang Dynasty Television.

But even with its incessant propaganda and control of the education system, many Chinese are increasingly wary about the veracity of the information they receive from state channels about the war. The skepticism includes Cultural Revolution-vintage depictions of “Tunnel Warfare” and “Mine Warfare” showing tiny bands of Chinese communist guerrillas mounting over-the-top resistance against Japanese “devils,” as well as the more contemporary depictions of the war—a staple of nightly television—that invite mockery from the intended audiences.

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Such unsophisticated tactics do work some of the time, however. And they serve to create a general atmosphere of how the Chinese see the war, and more importantly, China’s “enemies.”

Predictably, among the most primary of these are the Japanese, as evidenced in anti-Japanese riots of recent years, where even Japanese-brand cars have been overturned and set ablaze. In this narrative, China is a perpetual victim. Apologies from Japanese leaders are considered insincere, and the small but vocal far-right wing of that nation is gleefully portrayed as actual Japanese policy.

Mao assured him that it was the ‘help’ of the Japanese invasion that made the communist victory and this visit between communist and Japanese leaders possible.
— Li Zhisui, Mao’s personal doctor
The cynicism of the Chinese Communist Party’s portrayal of the war, and the role accorded Japan as Public Enemy No. 1, can be no better expressed than by Mao Zedong himself.

The communist insurgent who went on to found the People’s Republic of China delivered a personal thanks to Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei in 1972, when the People’s Republic of China and Japan established diplomatic ties. According to Kakuei’s account, and backed up by Mao’s personal doctor, Mao said that Kakuei “didn’t have to say sorry.”

According to Mao’s doctor, “Mao assured him that it was the ‘help’ of the Japanese invasion that made the communist victory and this visit between communist and Japanese leaders possible.”

Given all this “help,” Japan’s offer of reparations was turned down.

Tags: China historyMao ZedongWW II
Category: China Chinese Regime HK Current Affairs
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How the Republicans plan to lose to Hillary

HOW THE REPUBLICANS PLAN TO LOSE TO HILLARY

By Cliff Kincaid
July 17, 2015
NewsWithViews.com

A new survey from Univision, the pro-Mexico television network, demonstrates the utter folly of Republicans appealing to Hispanic voters. It finds that 68 percent have a favorable view of Hillary Clinton despite the scandals swirling around her. By contrast, only 36 percent have a favorable view of former Republican Governor Jeb Bush, who is married to a Mexican and speaks Spanish.

Bush “was the highest-rated of all the Republican candidates,” Univision reports, with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a one-time proponent of amnesty for illegals, coming in second with only a 35 percent approval rate.

What the poll demonstrates is that Hispanics are basically owned by the Democratic Party. The Democrats’ power grab for the Latino vote has been successful. However, ultimately the Democratic Party’s success in the presidential election depends on convincing Republicans to fruitlessly continue to appeal to Hispanics, while abandoning the GOP voter base of whites, conservatives and Christians.

Overall, in terms of political party affiliation, 57 percent of Hispanics identified themselves as Democrats and only 18 percent said they are Republicans. A total of 25 percent called themselves independent.

In another finding, 59 percent of Hispanic voters said they were satisfied with Barack Obama’s presidency after his six years in office. Clearly, most Hispanics have drunk the Kool-Aid. For them, it appears that federal benefits and legalization of border crossers are what matters. Most of them don’t bat an eye in regard to Obama’s lawless and traitorous conduct of domestic and foreign policy.

What the Republicans have left is to try to appeal to white, conservative and Christian voters. But that strategy, of course, runs the obvious risk of being depicted by the liberal media as racist. After all, whites are not supposed to have a “white identity,” as Jared Taylor’s book by that name describes.

Whites cannot have a racial identity, but Hispanics and blacks can. This is one aspect of political correctness. As communists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who are themselves white, put it in their book, it is a “race course against white supremacy.”

If Republicans pander to Hispanics, they will alienate their voter base, which has shown in their reaction to the Donald Trump candidacy that they want more—not less—action taken to control the border with Mexico. Republican Senator John McCain (AZ) calls the Trump supporters “crazies,” an indication that the GOP establishment would rather jettison these people than bring them into the Republican camp. Like McCain, former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has also attacked Trump, saying his remarks about criminal aliens are hurting the GOP. It’s amazing how a loser like Romney, who also threw in the towel on gay marriage when he was governor of Massachusetts, continues to generate press. What he is saying is what the liberal media want to hear.

Of course, the political correctness which dominates the national dialogue and debate also means that Republicans like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are likely to continue to demonize Trump, thereby alienating many whites. As a result, the Republicans will get less of the conservative and Christian vote, further diminishing their chances of winning the White House. It will be a replay of the losing campaigns of John McCain and Mitt Romney. Republicans have already alienated many Christian voters by giving up the fight for traditional marriage. They had planned to abandon border control as an issue until Trump and “El Chapo” got in the way.

Meanwhile, in another amazing turnaround, Republicans on Capitol Hill are backing Obama’s call for “sentencing reform,” a strategy that will empty the prisons and increase the crime rate, thereby alienating GOP voters in favor of law and order.

As this scenario plays out, Mrs. Clinton is coming across on the Democratic side looking like a moderate, by virtue of the fact that an open socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), is running “to her left” for the Democratic nomination.

The Clinton-Sanders show has all the earmarks of a carefully staged demonstration of the Marxist dialectic, an exercise designed to create the appearance of conflict in order to force even more radical change on the American people through Democratic Party rule.

Anybody who knows anything about Hillary, a student of Saul Alinsky, understands that her “moderation” is only a façade. Her thesis on Alinsky for Wellesley College was titled “There Is Only the Fight…” That is the Marxist strategy. It is the Alinsky version of the Marxist dialectic. It was also adopted by Obama, who was trained by Alinsky disciples working with the Catholic Church in Chicago.

In my column, “Study Marxism to Understand Hillary,” I noted that Barbara Olson had come to the conclusion while researching her book on Hillary that “she has a political ideology that has its roots in Marxism.” Olson noted, “In her formative years, Marxism was a very important part of her ideology…”

This means that Mrs. Clinton understands that the Sanders candidacy actually supports and does not undermine her own candidacy. It makes Hillary look like a moderate while she moves further to the left, a place she wants to be, in response to the left-wing Democratic base. Only the Marxist insiders seem to understand what is happening.

Some uninformed commentators refer to something called “Clintonism,” a supposed moderate brand of Democratic Party politics. If that ever existed, it applied to Bill Clinton and not Hillary.

The fact is that Sanders and Mrs. Clinton have associated with the same gang of communists and fellow travelers for many years. Sanders was an active collaborator with the Communist Party-sponsored U.S. Peace Council.

As for Hillary, Barbara Olson reported in her book Hell to Pay that Robert Borosage, who served as director of the Marxist Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), was “a colleague and close acquaintance” of Clinton. Olson wrote that Mrs. Clinton operated in the “reaches of the left including Robert Treuhaft and Jessica Mitford,” who had been “committed Communists” and “Stalinists.” Olson said that Hillary worked for Treuhaft and paved the way for Mitford to lobby then-Governor Bill Clinton on the death penalty issue.

Olson described Hillary as a “budding Leninist” who understood the Leninist concept of acquiring, accumulating and maintaining political power at any cost. She wrote that “Hillary has never repudiated her connection with the Communist movement in America or explained her relationship with two of its leading adherents. Of course, no one has pursued these questions with Hillary. She has shown that she will not answer hard questions about her past, and she has learned that she does not need to—remarkable in an age when political figures are allowed such little privacy.”

Researcher Carl Teichrib has provided me with a photo of a Hillary meeting with Cora Weiss from the May 2000 edition of “Peace Matters,” the newsletter of the Hague Appeal for Peace. Weiss, a major figure in the Institute for Policy Studies, gained notoriety for organizing anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and traveling to Hanoi to meet with communist leaders. In the photo, Hillary is shown fawning over a Hague Appeal for Peace gold logo pin that Weiss is wearing.

Teichrib, editor of Forcing Change, recalls being an observer at the 1999 World Federalist Association (WFA) conference, held in association with the Hague Appeal for Peace, during which everyone in attendance was given an honorary membership into the WFA. In addition to collaborating with the pro-Hanoi Hague Appeal for Peace, the WFA staged a “Mission to Moscow” and held several meetings with the Soviet Peace Committee for the purpose of “discussing the goal of general and complete disarmament” and “the strengthening of the United Nations.” Mrs. Clinton spoke to a WFA conference in a tribute to veteran newsman Walter Cronkite, a supporter of world government.

In the WFA booklet, “The Genius of Federation: Why World Federation is the Answer to Global Problems,” the group described how a “world federation,” a euphemism for world government, could be achieved by advancing “step by step toward global governance,” mostly by enhancing the power and authority of U.N. agencies.

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Obama’s Iran deal continues this strategy by placing enormous power in the hands of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

At this stage in the campaign, even before the first Republican presidential debate, we can already see how the race is playing out. Hillary is counting on the Republicans nominating another loser with a losing strategy while she moves to the left and looks like a moderate.

Alinsky would be proud.

© 2015 Cliff Kincaid – All Rights Reserved

Redistricting or gerrymandering in Little Rock

edistricting

They must be proud of themselves, the Little Rock insiders who pushed through a vote on a bond measure in hot-as-Hades mid-July.

Less than 4 percent of eligible voters turned out for the off-cycle exercise in 100-degree democracy. The measure, which refinances previous library bonds and puts an influx of cash into Little Rock public library branches, passed with over four-fifths of the minuscule turnout.

Now, as bond measures go, this one sure seems like a dream; its advocates say it will reduce, not increase, taxes.

But that July 14 vote!

“There was no organized opposition to the bond refinancing campaign,” we read, courtesy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “Still, Pulaski County Election Commission Executive Director Bryan Poe expected a higher voter turnout.” He thought they would get at least 6,000 voters. Still, even that many votes would have amounted to less than 5 percent of the over 126,000 registered city voters.

It certainly wasn’t any surprise, then, that turnout would be tiny and democratic decision-making left to a tiny fraction of the public.

Detect a certain odor?

It stinks of redistricting. When politicians redistrict voters so that predictable partisan outcomes can be reached — somehow to the benefit of those doing the redistricting — the insiders are not really trying to provide representation to voters. They are trying to continue their business as usual.

“Insiders know best”?
By selecting a summer date for the vote, insiders in effect redistrict the voters using time as the gerrymandering

boundary. Call it temporal redistricting, advantaging those with the most at stake in the vote’s outcome. Call it democracy for the 1 (or 31⁄2) percent.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

On the web at: thisIsCommonSense.com
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Another assault on your fourth amendment rights

Published on ConservativeHQ.com (http://www.conservativehq.com)
Another Assault On Your Fourth Amendment Rights

In his latest piece on the Fourth Amendment in The American Thinker [3] our colleague constitutional lawyer Mark J. Fitzgibbons details how the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has appropriated the power to seize medical records on ‘Fishing Expedition’ investigations with no subpoena from a judge.

A United States District Court judge in Texas has ruled for the Drug Enforcement Agency that an administrative subpoena may be used to search medical records. It was inevitable, says Fitzgibbons, given the march towards illegally nullifying the Fourth Amendment through use of these judge-less bureaucrat warrants authorized by Congress.

Administrative subpoenas are issued unilaterally by government agencies — meaning without approval by neutral judges — and without probable cause stated under oath and affirmation as required by the Fourth Amendment. According to Fitzgibbons there are now 336 federal statutes authorizing administrative subpoenas, according to the Department of Justice.

The latest case illustrative of the institutionalization of violations of the Fourth Amendment to draw Fitzgibbons’ attention is U.S. v Zadeh [4].

In Zadeh, the DEA obtained the records of 35 patient files without showing probable cause or obtaining a warrant issued by a judge. Citing New Deal-era case law, Judge Reed O’Connor noted that “[t]he Supreme Court has refused to require that [a federal] agency have probable cause to justify issuance of an administrative subpoena,” and that they may be issued “merely on suspicion that the law is being violated, or even just because it wants assurance that it is not.” (Emphasis added).

In other words, the government may now use “fishing expeditions” for medical records concludes Fitzgibbons.

Those constitutionally grotesque New Deal-era decisions violated the Fourth Amendment on its face, and were ideological, progressive foolishness when issued against the likes of the Morton Salt Company [5] in 1950 said Fitzgibbons.

Dr. Zadeh has filed an appeal notes Fitzgibbons. Conservative activist Andy Schlafly, the lawyer for the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, has filed an amicus [6] brief stating, “[w]ithout a warrant and without initially identifying themselves, federal agents searched patient medical records . . . based merely on a state administrative subpoena. A month later the [DEA] sought enforcement . . . [and n]one of the checks and balances against overreaching by one branch of government existed for this warrantless demand for medical records.”

A 1946 Supreme Court opinion used in the Zadeh case to justify warrantless searches of medical records received a scathing and prescient dissent by liberal Justice Frank Murphy notes Fitzgibbons.

Murphy wrote:

To allow a nonjudicial officer, unarmed with judicial process, to demand the books and papers of an individual is an open invitation to abuse of that power. It is no answer that the individual may refuse to produce the material demanded. Many persons have yielded solely because of the air of authority with which the demand is made, a demand that cannot be enforced without subsequent judicial aid. Many invasions of private rights thus occur without the restraining hand of the judiciary ever intervening.

Only by confining the subpoena power exclusively to the judiciary can there be any insurance against this corrosion of liberty. Statutory enforcement would not thereby be made impossible. Indeed, it would be made easier. A people’s desire to cooperate with the enforcement of a statute is in direct proportion to the respect for individual rights shown in the enforcement process.

Quoting the Declaration of Independence, Justice Murphy noted how such methods of searches were so contrary to liberty and law that they previously contributed to “successful revolt.”

Soon, says Fitzgibbons, everything will be considered within the reach of our soft-police state government in violation of the Fourth Amendment unless administrative subpoenas are outlawed, as they should have been nearly 70 years ago.

The targeting of private medical records shows that it is now far past the time to eliminate administrative subpoenas for good. Congress may do that legislatively. History also shows it can be done even by the courts, which have the authority — actually, the constitutional duty — to declare void acts of Congress in violation of the Constitution.

daily digest

The Patriot Post · http://patriotpost.us/digests/36489
Daily Digest

Jul. 20, 2015

THE FOUNDATION

“We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our won Country’s Honor, all call upon us for vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions.” —George Washington, General Orders, 1776

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

Chattanooga: Heroic Actions1

By Mark Alexander

The Leftmedia is still searching for a motive in the attack on military personnel here in Chattanooga last week — an Islamist assault we covered in “Obama: Happy Ramadan2.” First clue: Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez murdered four Marines and one Sailor on the last day of Ramadan. Second clue: The assailant blogged and texted about jihad3.

Thursday morning’s daily White House email4 — the day of the attack — was a message honoring Ramadan. Equally notable, Friday morning’s email made no mention of Thursday’s attack — it was a solicitation for DNC funds.

The attacks have generated a lot of national ranting about Muslims, but we caution that we should not marginalize all Muslims as suspect Islamists. That is precisely what Obama and his Leftists did after the recent murders in Charleston5 — marginalized all white Southerners interested in our heritage as racist and endeavored to remove any vestige of that heritage from public places, including National Military Parks6.

The actions of one do not reflect the beliefs of all, but clearly this assault was incited by Islamist hatred — and that should be the target of our outrage.

Additionally, there is little being said about the two reasons the casualty list was not much higher.

The media has largely ignored the fact that there were many other personnel at the Reserve Center that fateful morning. “Mike Battery” (Battery M, 3rd Battalion, 14th Regiment), had just completed annual training in California, and there were 22 Marines at the center cleaning and conditioning equipment, along with additional Navy staff.

The first reason that more were not murdered was explained by Marine spokesman Maj. Clark Carpenter: “There were heroic acts by our Marines on that day. They did exactly what we expect Marines to do. They got their Marines to safety. They took care of their Marines first, and then those Marine leaders went back into the fray to make sure that others were protected. They went back into the fight to try to stop him.”

Maj. Carpenter added that when the nation looked back on this incident, “It’s going to be a story of heroes, with both our Marines and our Sailors, and without question, the first responders from the police department.”

Indeed, the second reason there were not many more casualties is that as police arrived they engaged the assailant, which is to say those police officers diverted Abdulazeez’s fire away from the additional (unarmed) Marines and Navy personnel.

We grieve for the families of the five murdered Patriots: Sgt. Carson A. Holmquist (USMC), Staff Sgt. David A. Wyatt (USMC), Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan (USMC), Lance Cpl. Squire Wells (USMC) and Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith (USN).

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Obama Acts to Head Off Crime Spree of … the Elderly?7

If there’s a singular purpose for Barack Obama and his cadres its limiting access to guns in as many ways as possible. The latest attempt is a push to prohibit Social Security recipients from owning firearms if they are judged mentally incompetent. First let’s stipulate that nobody wants people who are mentally incompetent owning or using guns without at least some restrictions. But the question is the standard used. The Social Security Administration has never before participated in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, but, if the SSA begins using the same standards as the Department of Veterans Affairs, at least four million beneficiaries could see their gun rights eliminated by a bureaucrat. We don’t want the government defining or deciding mental competence with standards that have nothing to do with crime. And especially not this administration. Indeed, given the Obama administration’s track record of disdain for American veterans — both through the bureaucratic shenanigans at the VA8 and in targeting veterans in DHS reports about extremism9 — it won’t be long before veterans are barred from owning firearms, or, conversely, their benefits are restricted if they’re gun owners. Indeed, many veterans have already been judged “incompetent” when that’s clearly not the case. Now prohibitions could extend to the average Social Security recipient. We’re forced to ask what problem Obama thinks he’s trying to solve. Our nation has not been under assault by senior citizens or veterans. It has been under attack from Islamic jihadists, and that’s the one thing Obama seems most reticent to address.

Trump on McCain: A Barb Too Far10

At the 2015 Family Leadership Summit Friday, reality TV star and billionaire extraordinaire Donald Trump continued to attempt to rend the Republican Party by launching an attack against Sen. John McCain. “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured,” Trump bloviated. “I like people that weren’t captured.” Trump is standing behind his comments, despite nearly the whole GOP field criticizing him11 for them. On Sunday, Trump doubled down, tweeting, “The Veterans Administration is in shambles and our veterans are suffering greatly. John McCain has done nothing to help them but talk.” Two different issues. McCain endured an ordeal that would break weaker men like Trump. What he did or did not do afterwards does not strip McCain from the title of “hero.”

Besides, while McCain12 was asking for more missions in Vietnam, Trump was weaseling out of the draft13. While McCain was experiencing debilitating torture as a prisoner of war, Trump caroused as a Manhattan playboy. When McCain returned, broken from the war, Trump was being hit with Fair Housing Act discrimination suit.

McCain responded14 brilliantly: “I think he may owe an apology to the families of those who have sacrificed in conflict and those who have undergone the prison experience in serving our country. … In the case of many of our veterans, when Mr. Trump said that he prefers to be with people who are not captured, well, the great honor of my life was to serve in the company of heroes. I’m not a hero. But those who were my senior ranking officers … those that have inspired us to do things that we otherwise wouldn’t have been capable of doing, those are the people that I think he owes an apology to.”

Obama ‘Recovery’ Slows Debt Reduction15

The White House has released a little-noticed but concerning bit of information on the economy and our nation’s debt. Known as the “Mid-Session Review,” the report16 “contains revised estimates of receipts, outlays, budget authority, and the budget deficit for fiscal years 2015 through 2025.” Barack Obama has long made a habit of boasting about reducing the deficit. (When reducing something, it helps to have quadrupled it first.) But The Wall Street Journal notes that the good times might not keep rolling17: “First, the good news: Short-term deficits are falling. The Obama administration now forecasts the annual deficit will reach $455 billion this year, down 22% from its forecast at the start of the year and around 6% below last year’s level. The level represents around 2.6% of the country’s total economic output, down from a forecast of 3.2% earlier this year. Moreover, the administration sees the deficit falling another 6% next year to $429 billion, or around 2.3% of gross domestic product. The bad news? Economic growth has continued to underperform expectations. And because the administration’s economists don’t see growth rebounding later to play catch up, the revenue that’s lost to lower growth isn’t going to be recouped in future periods.”

Whereas previous estimates were for 3% and higher economic growth, the new ones are in the 2% range. That’s the rub, isn’t it? Obama’s “stimulus,” regulations and tax hikes were supposed to lead us to the economic promised land. Instead, we got perpetual stagnation, and, compared to past recoveries, this one has no right to be called one.

 

OPINION IN BRIEF

Scott Powell: “The concern about sanctuary cities today should not focus only on the problem of alien criminals, exemplified by 8,145 offenders released from custody during just the last eight months. Sanctuary cities can also provide a safe haven for very bad actors intending to wreak mass havoc on America, such as Islamist terrorists and drug cartel kingpins. In addition to the need to plug the sanctuary city hole by enforcing existing federal law requiring local governments to cooperate with ICE, there are other gaps to fill. An important recommendation of the 9/11 Commission was to tighten up the student-visa program after it was determined that the hijacker who flew Flight 77 into the Pentagon, Hani Hanjour, had entered the U.S. on a student visa.”

SHORT CUTS

“Some people wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.” —The Gipper

Dezinformatsia: “Were guns a big part of activities — social or other activities? Did [Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez] hunt? Did he shoot? Was that just part of small-town Tennessee activity?” —NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, trying desperately to make guns and other conservative Southern culture a factor

Obama’s way or the highway: “If Congress says no to this deal, then there will be no restraints on Iran, there will be no sanctions left. … Our friends in this effort will desert us. We will be viewed as having killed the opportunity to stop [Iran] from having weapons. [Iran] will begin to enrich again, and the greater likelihood is what the president said the other day — you will have a war.” —Secretary of State John Kerry

But war’s not off the table, either: “One of the reasons this deal is a good one is that it does nothing to prevent the military option — the U.S. military option.” —Secretary of Defense Ash Carter

Demo-gogues: “We’ve got to do all we can over the next few months to make sure we elect Democrats who will fight for every single American at all stages of life.” —solicitation from Barack Obama to support entitlement programs, though clearly Obama does not support “every single American at all stages of life”

Heckled for getting it right: “Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.” —Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who was booed and heckled at the Netroots Nation conference for suggesting other lives matter too

“Obama entered the El Reno federal penitentiary in Oklahoma Thursday and spoke to the prisoners there. He urged lawmakers to eliminate mandatory sentences for non-violent drug offenders. He was the first North American leader all week to be on the news for going into a prison.” —Argus Hamilton

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.

Links

http://patriotpost.us/articles/36487
http://patriotpost.us/alexander/36467
http://patriotpost.us/alexander/4051
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/16/statement-president-occasion-eid-ul-fitr
http://patriotpost.us/posts/35865
http://patriotpost.us/posts/36037
http://patriotpost.us/posts/36482
http://patriotpost.us/alexander/25991
http://patriotpost.us/alexander/3101
http://patriotpost.us/posts/36486
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/18/trump-slams-mccain-for-being-captured-in-vietnam/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/20/what-donald-trump-was-up-to-while-john-mccain-was-suffering-as-a-prisoner-of-war/
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/trump-draft-deferment?page=0
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/john-mccain-responds-donald-trump-121354692.html
http://patriotpost.us/posts/36470

Click to access 16msr.pdf

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/07/16/why-the-white-house-no-longer-projects-a-decline-in-debt/
http://patriotpost.us/articles/36485
http://patriotpost.us/articles/36481
http://patriotpost.us/posts/36469
http://patriotpost.us/posts/36462
http://patriotpost.us/posts/36460
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36480
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36479
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36473
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36474
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36471
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36476
http://patriotpost.us/opinion

Planned parenthood recharges Republicans antiabortion campaign

Planned Parenthood video recharges Republicans’ anti-abortion campaign
Posted on July 20, 2015 by Tribune News Service Views: 274
(TNS) — In the undercover video of a Planned Parenthood official discussing in graphic detail how to preserve aborted fetal organs for medical research, anti-abortion Republicans hope they’ve finally found an opening to advance their agenda.

So far, they have a few things working in their favor.

Lawmakers know the video will evoke a strong emotional response. In it, anti-abortion activists posing as biomedical company representatives wore cameras to show Planned Parenthood’s senior medical services director sipping wine while discussing the terms of fetal tissue shipments.

More videos are on the way, according to the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-abortion group responsible for the clip released last week. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has directed committee chairmen to investigate the matter and hold hearings, More videos would keep the issue at the forefront.

Still, the past week has shown the challenges politicians — especially Republicans — face in maintaining solid footing in abortion debates. One misstep can derail legislation or a campaign.

In 2013, House Republicans thought they hit a gold mine with Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia doctor who sentenced to life in prison for killing three infants after their birth in late-term abortion procedures.

The GOP used the national outcry to push legislation to ban abortions after 20 weeks, the point at which some medical professionals argue a fetus can begin to feel pain. Then the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), said something about low rates of pregnancy resulting from rape as an explanation for why the bill didn’t include exceptions for rape victims.

Franks’ bill passed the House, but Franks’ remark led some Democrats to suggest that the GOP is out of touch.

In 2011, separate undercover videos of questionable practices at Planned Parenthood facilities fueled a House vote to defund the organization. But Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who supports access to abortions, refocused the debate when she came to the floor and revealed that she had terminated a pregnancy out of medical necessity.

Controversy over the latest Planned Parenthood video shows early signs of similar derailments.

There are questions about whether the video was edited to create the impression that the Planned Parenthood official was negotiating an illegal sale of fetal tissue.

There’s also the issue of who knew what, when.

A House Republican acknowledged he was one of at least two members of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus shown the video nearly a month ago, but had no explanation for why he waited to speak out.

“I don’t know why,” said Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.).

Franks, the other member of the caucus who previewed the clip, said in an email that he waited because “the hope was to have as much information as possible so that the authorities could be notified effectively before the media.”

Planned Parenthood’s press office, however, seized on the report of the advanced brief and Murphy’s reluctance to comment, sending an email about it to the media.

David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, did not respond to requests for comment.

–Emma Dumain and Samar Khurshid
CQ-Roll Call

Wesley Clark want’s US internment camps

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark wants U.S. internment camps for ‘radicalized’ Americans
Posted on July 20, 2015 by Personal Liberty News Desk Views: 3,433
Wesley Clark, a retired general and former Democratic presidential candidate, suggested during a recent interview that the U.S. should set up World War II-style internment camps to house “radicalized” Americans separately from ordinary citizens.

The remark came during an MSNBC interview focused on the killing of four U.S. Marines and a sailor in Chattanooga last week.

Host Thomas Roberts asked, “So how do we fix self-radicalized lone wolves domestically?”

Clark responded:

We have got to identify the people who are most likely to be radicalized. We’ve got to cut this off at the beginning. There are always a certain number of young people who are alienated. They don’t get a job, they lost a girlfriend, their family doesn’t feel happy here and we can watch the signs of that. And there are members of the community who can reach out to those people and bring them back in and encourage them to look at their blessings here.

But I do think on a national policy level we need to look at what self-radicalization means because we are at war with this group of terrorists. They do have an ideology. In World War II if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put him in a camp, they were prisoners of war.

So if these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict. And I think we’re going to have to increasingly get tough on this, not only in the United States but our allied nations like Britain, Germany and France are going to have to look at their domestic law procedures.

Clark’s remarks are surprising considering his previous positions against Bush-era civil liberties abuses following the 9/11 terror attacks. They are also dangerous, considering that the broad and ever-changing nature of deemed potential threats by the U.S. government.

The foundation

View online at: http://patriotpost.us/digests/36410
The Patriot Post: Voice of Essential Liberty

THE FOUNDATION
“In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature.” —James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788

TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Planned Parenthood Sells Baby Parts After Partial-Birth Abortions
Alternate Leftmedia headline: “Planned Parenthood targeted by undercover video.” That’s courtesy of CBS, which has a serious problem confusing the victims here. Just when you thought depravity couldn’t get any worse, along comes another surreptitious video of someone at Planned Parenthood discussing appallingly evil things. It will be the first of several videos taken and released by The Center for Medical Progress. In this one, Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical research, discusses with “buyers” the practice of essentially performing a partial-birth abortion followed by selling harvested organs. While sipping wine and eating salad, Nucatola boasts, “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver … so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.” What kind of depraved and despicable person talks like this about a baby? Note also the sick irony that, to Planned Parenthood, unborn babies aren’t human unless their organs are useful.

The video is all too clear, but that didn’t stop Planned Parenthood from complaining about being victimized by a “heavily edited, secretly recorded videotape that falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research.” They’re just trying to help, right? But considering Planned Parenthood gets half a billion dollars in taxpayer money every year, this deserves some serious investigation followed by defunding the abortion mill. Louisiana governor and presidential candidate Bobby Jindal has already ordered an investigation in his state. We’re with Michelle Malkin, who wonders, “When you’ve recovered from your nausea, ask yourselves this: What kind of country do we live in where law-abiding businesses are fined, threatened and demonized for refusing to bake gay wedding cakes, but barbaric baby butchers are hailed by feminists, Hollywood and a president who asked God to ‘bless’ them?”

God have mercy on this nation.

Big Brother Trumps Little Sisters
Little Sisters of the Poor, a missions-based Catholic organization strongly opposed to ObamaCare’s contraception requirement, suffered a legal setback on Tuesday after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit refused to grant it an exemption. The court ruled, “Although we recognize and respect the sincerity of Plaintiff’s beliefs and arguments, we conclude the accommodation scheme relieves Plaintiffs of their obligations under the Mandate and does not substantially burden their religious exercise under RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] or infringe upon their First Amendment rights.” What’s baffling is how badly the opinion clashes with the Supreme Court’s Burwell v. Hobby Lobby ruling last year. In that case, the Court found that “HHS and the principal dissent [are] in effect tell[ing] the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed. For good reason, we have repeatedly refused to take such a step.”

Here’s the problem, as explained by University of Tennessee professor Glenn Reynolds: “The court seems to have no recognition of the fact that the Obama Administration’s regulatory ‘accommodation’ is a sleight of hand, allowing the insurer/third party administrator to move the contraceptive coverage ‘off the books’ and ‘pay’ for it themselves. But of course burdening the insurer/administrator in this fashion is merely a shell game, and the cost of contraceptive coverage is ultimately borne by the employer and individual beneficiaries. The coverage is not magically free, no matter how hard the Obama Administration tries to make it ‘look’ free via regulation.” This case may end up in the Supreme Court — something it could have prevented had its ruling in Hobby Lobby not been so limited.

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More Carry Permits, Fewer Murders
It’s long been a truism that more guns means less crime. That may seem like a paradox, but when criminals have to wonder if potential victims are armed, it decreases the likelihood they’ll commit a crime. Now, according to a new report set to be released by the Crime Prevention Research Center, we learn that murder rates have fallen at the same time concealed carry permits have skyrocketed. We don’t think that’s a coincidence. Since 2007, the number of people with concealed carry permits has nearly tripled — from 4.6 million to 12.8 million. And 2014 enjoyed a 15.4% increase over 2013 in permit applications, while seven states don’t even require a permit. According to The Washington Times, we can thank Barack Obama, in a manner of speaking: “Between 1999 to 2007, the number of permits increased by about 240,000 per year. But in the next four years, during Mr. Obama’s first term in the White House, the number of new permits issued jumped to 850,000 per year. From 2011 to 2013, the number increased by 1.5 million, rising to 1.7 million last year.” Meanwhile, both the murder rate and violent crime rate dropped 25%. That doesn’t in any way belittle the tragic loss of life caused by bad guys with guns, but the solution isn’t to take guns away from the law-abiding.

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Transgender Nation
By Nate Jackson
In December 2010, Barack Obama signed the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Pentagon policy (signed by Bill Clinton) prohibiting open homosexuals from serving in the military. Stay tuned, because the next victory for the Rainbow Mafia will be the end of the ban on transsexuals among the ranks of America’s Armed Forces.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter released a statement on the policy Monday, saying, “The Defense Department’s current regulations regarding transgender service members are outdated and are causing uncertainty that distracts commanders from our core missions. At a time when our troops have learned from experience that the most important qualification for service members should be whether they’re able and willing to do their job, our officers and enlisted personnel are faced with certain rules that tell them the opposite. Moreover, we have transgender soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines — real, patriotic Americans — who I know are being hurt by an outdated, confusing, inconsistent approach that’s contrary to our value of service and individual merit.”

Not to paint with too broad a brush, but is that how Carter explains the traitorous actions of Pfc. Bradley Manning? He was convicted of espionage and is serving a 35-year sentence — as a “woman.”

According to UCLA’s Williams Institute, the military is full of transsexuals. Color us skeptical. Carter has ordered a review of the ban with the almost sure aim of eliminating it after six months, because, as he said, “[W]e must ensure that everyone who’s able and willing to serve has the full and equal opportunity to do so, and we must treat all our people with the dignity and respect they deserve.”

We certainly agree that all humans have inherent, God-given dignity and should be treated with respect, but that doesn’t mean celebration of such mental illness and sin. And make no mistake: This debate isn’t about dignity, and it’s most certainly not about what makes our military a more effective fighting force. It’s about making the normalization of homosexuality a matter of law in regard to Defense Department personnel, practices and policy.

Leftists are pushing hard to normalize dysfunction, not just in the military but all over.

Consider the case of Bruce Jenner, the former decathlon champion who decided he was really a woman trapped in a man’s body. Worse is the growing number of children whose parents enable rather than treat gender dysphoria — they help their children live the lie.

One of the primary jobs of parents is to mold their children into responsible members of society and to help them through personal struggles, not to encourage them to turn every fantasy into reality. Yet here we are, about to witness a “reality” show on TLC about Jazz Jennings, a 14-year-old Florida boy who has been “living as a female” since he wore a rainbow swimming suit at his five-year-old birthday party. Jennings was named one of Time magazine’s 25 most influential teenagers last year.

“Jazz may be known as an author and activist,” cooed TLC general manager Nancy Daniels, “but she’s first and foremost a teenage girl with a big, brave heart, living a remarkable life.” Does “she” have biological girl parts? No, but he plans to disfigure his body at age 18 and has been taking hormone blockers since age 11 to prevent nature from taking its course. Is TLC — not to mention his parents — aiding and abetting a serious mental disorder? Yes.

But he’s not alone in being a child victim. In June, NBC ran an exclusive interview with Liam, a 10-year-old boy who lives as a girl. His parents have already legally changed his name to Lia, and he will soon begin taking hormone blockers as Jazz does.

Also in June, The New York Times profiled Caden Boone, who underwent reassignment surgery in April and now goes by Kat, or Katherine, all because he was troubled and found “answers” on the Internet. The Times informs us that his “new vagina needs constant care or it will close off like a wound.” A wound indeed. How tragic.

In fact, tragic might undersell the trouble transgendered people face. In the same article, the Times also reports, “A large-scale Swedish study at the Karolinska Institute found that starting about a decade after gender reassignment surgery, transgender people were still more than 19 times as likely to die by suicide as the general population.”

If such statistics applied to guns, the Left would be pushing even harder for an outright ban. Instead, Oregon is allowing children as young as 15 to receive taxpayer-subsidized sex-change operations — without parental notification.

As we asked recently, how many children will end up making the worst decision of their entire lives because they have been marinated in a toxic environment at an age when they are utterly incapable of defending themselves against their progressive indoctrinators?

“At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered,” writes Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital. “‘Sex change’ is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is a civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”

McHugh also says Bruce Jenner is one thing, but in these other cases “we’re talking about children with a future ahead of them.” One might call it child abuse.

This is the generation being raised to perhaps one day serve in the U.S. Armed Forces, which the Left has decided must be a reflection of our dysfunctional culture, not a capable protector of our Liberty. Indeed, no institution is safe from the Left’s social engineering.

OPINION IN BRIEF
Walter Williams: “The victors of war write its history in order to cast themselves in the most favorable light. That explains the considerable historical ignorance about our war of 1861 and panic over the Confederate flag. To create better understanding, we have to start a bit before the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. … During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made that would allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it… The Constitution never would have been ratified if states thought they could not regain their sovereignty — in a word, secede. On March 2, 1861, after seven states seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that read, ‘No state or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States.’ Several months earlier, Reps. Daniel E. Sickles of New York, Thomas B. Florence of Pennsylvania and Otis S. Ferry of Connecticut proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit secession. Here’s a question for the reader: Would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional? On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. … The War of 1861 brutally established that states could not secede. We are still living with its effects. Because states cannot secede, the federal government can run roughshod over the U.S. Constitution’s limitations of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. States have little or no response.”

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SHORT CUTS
Insight: “Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects.” —Scottish author Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

Alpha Jackass: “The fact is that [Benjamin Netanyahu has] practically been making comments that are way over the top. … [The nuclear deal] is under attack by people who really don’t know the terms of the agreement, and they don’t offer an alternative. Their alternative is what, perpetual state of sanctions? Not going to happen.” —John Kerry

Village Idiots: “I don’t understand [economics] very well.” —Pope Francis (Which is exactly why he shouldn’t be dictating environmental policy.)

Hot air: “As secretary of state, I logged tens of thousands of miles and twisted a lot of arms to build a global coalition to impose the most crippling sanctions in history [on Iran]. That unprecedented pressure delivered a blow to Iran’s economy and gave us leverage at the negotiating table, starting in Oman in 2012. I know from experience what it took to build a global effort to get this done; I know what it will take to rally our partners to enforce it.” —Hillary Clinton

And last… “Obama won’t be satisfied until our inspectors are told by Iran that there’s not a smidgen of enriched uranium around. The nuke deal is based on trusting untrustworthy leaders. And that goes for the Iranians too.” —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.

The future costs of politically correct cultism

The future costs of politically correct cultism
Posted on July 14, 2015 by Brandon Smith Views: 6,374
I rarely touch on the subject of political correctness as a focus in my writings, partially because the entire issue is so awash in pundits on either side that the scrambling clatter of voices tends to drown out the liberty movement perspective. Also, I don’t really see PC cultism as separate from the problems I am always battling against: collectivism and the erasure of the individual in the name of pleasing society. Political correctness is nothing more than a tool that collectivists and statists exploit in order to better achieve their endgame, which is conning the masses into believing that the group mind is real and that the individual mind is fiction.

Last year, I covered the PC issue in my article “The twisted motives behind political correctness.” I believe I analyzed the bulk of the issue extensively. However, the times are changing at a pace that boggles the mind; and this is by design. So, it may be necessary to square off against this monstrosity once again.

In order to better examine the true insanity of what many people now term “social justice warriors,” I must study a few aspects separately. First, let’s take a brief look at the mindset of your average social justice circus clown so that we might better understand what makes him/her/it tick.

Rebel without a legitimate cause

I spent several years (up until 2004, when I woke up from the false paradigm madness) as a Democrat. And before anyone judges that particular decision, I would suggest they keep in mind the outright fascist brothel for the military-industrial complex the Republican Party had become at that point and remains to this day. Almost every stepping stone that Barack Obama is using today to eradicate the Constitution was set in place by the Bush dynasty, including the Authorization Of Military Force, which was the foundation for the National Defence Authorization Act and the legal precedence for indefinite detention without trial of any person (including an American citizen) accused of terrorism by the president of the U.S., as well as the use of assassination by executive order.

But, hell, these are real issues — issues that many of my fellow Democrats at the time claimed they actually cared about. Today, though, liberal concerns about unconstitutional actions by the federal government have all but vanished. Today, the left fights the good fight against flags on the hoods of cars from long-canceled television shows and battles tooth and nail for the “right” of boys wearing wigs and skirts to use the girl’s bathroom. Today, the left even fights to remove the words “boy” and “girl” from our vocabulary. Yes, such noble pursuits as these will surely be remembered as a pinnacle in the annals of societal reform.

Maybe I realize the ideological goals of the social justice machine are meaningless on a surface level; and maybe you realize this, too. But these people live in their own little universe, which doesn’t extend far beyond the borders of their college campuses, the various Web forums they have hijacked and a trendy Marxist wine-and-swinger party here and there in New York or Hollywood. They actually think that they are on some great social crusade on par with the civil rights movements of the mid-1900s. They think they are the next Martin Luther King Jr. or the next Gandhi. The underlying banality and pointlessness of their cause completely escapes them. The PC cult is, in many respects, the antithesis of the liberty movement. We fight legitimate threats against legitimate freedoms; they fight mostly imaginary threats and seek to eradicate freedoms.

Don’t get me wrong; sometimes our concerns do align. For instance, liberty proponents fight back against the militarization of police just as avidly as leftists do, if not more so. But our movements handle the problem in very different ways. Look at Ferguson, Missouri, where anyone with any sense should be able to admit that the government response to protests was absolutely a step toward tyranny, ignoring violent looters while attacking peaceful activists. Leftists and PC cultists decided to follow the Saul Alinsky/communist playbook, busing in provocateurs from Chicago to further loot and burn down businesses even if they belonged to ethnic minorities. In the meantime, the liberty movement and Oath Keepers sent armed and trained men to defend those businesses regardless of who owned them and defied police and federal agents who tried to stop them.

The left gave the police and government a rationale for being draconian, while we removed the need for police and government entirely by providing security for the neighborhood (killing two birds with one stone). Either their methods are purely ignorant and do not work, or their methods are meant to achieve the opposite of their claims. In the end, the PC movement only serves establishment goals toward a fully collectivist and centralized society.

Your average PC drone does not understand the grander plan at work, nor does he want to. All he cares about is that he has found a “purpose” — a fabricated purpose as a useful idiot for power brokers, but a purpose nonetheless.

People must be forced to bake gay cakes

I personally do not care if two people of the same gender want to be in a relationship, but I do find the issue of gay marriage (and marriage in general) a rather odd conflict that misses the whole point. Marriage has been and always will be a religious institution, not federal; and I find government involvement in this institution to be rather despicable. When the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage came down, I felt a little sorry for all the joyfully hopping homosexuals on the marbled steps of the hallowed building, primarily because they essentially were fighting for the state to provide recognition and legitimacy for their relationships. Frankly, who gives a rip what the state has to say in terms of your relationships or mine? The state is an arbitrary edifice, a facade wielding illusory power. If a relationship is based on true and enduring connection, then that is a marriage of sorts, whether the Supreme Court says so or not.

The only advantage to solidifying gay marriage in the eyes of the state is the advantage of being able to then use the state as an attack dog in order to force religious institutions to accept the status of gays in the same way the government does. And unfortunately, this is exactly what the PC cult is doing.

Should an individual, organization or business be allowed to refuse service to anyone for any reason? Should the state be allowed to force people into servitude to one group or another even if it is against their core values?

PC champions desperately try to make these questions a matter of “discrimination” alone. But they are more about personal rights and property and less about “hate speech.” Under natural law, as well as under the constitution, an individual has every right to refuse association with any other person for any reason. If I do not like you, the government does not have the authority to force me to be around you or to work for you. But this line has been consistently blurred over the years. As I’m sure most readers are familiar, the issue of gay cakes seems to arise over and over, as in cases in Colorado and Oregon in which religiously oriented business owners were punished for refusing to provide service for gay customers.

Punishments have included crippling fines designed to put store owners out of business and have even included gag orders restricting the freedom of businesses to continue speaking out against the orientation of customers they have refused.

In order to validate such actions, leftists will invariably bring up segregation as a backdrop for the gay cake debate. “What if the customers were black,” they ask. “Is it OK for a business to be whites only?”

My response? First, to be clear, I am talking specifically about private individuals and businesses, not public institutions as in the argument explored during Brown v. Board of Education. Private and public spaces are different issues with different nuances. I personally believe it is ignorant to judge someone solely on the color of his skin, and sexual orientation is not necessarily an issue to me. But it is equally ignorant for someone to think that the state exists to protect his feelings from being hurt. I’m sorry, but discrimination is a fact of life and always will be as long as individualism exists. The PC cultists don’t just want government recognition of their status; they want to homogenize individualism, erase it and force the rest of us to vehemently approve of that status without question. This is unacceptable.

Your feelings do not matter. They are not superior in importance to the fundamental freedom of each individual to choose his associations.

If a business refuses to serve blacks, or gays, or Tibetans, then, hey, it probably just lost a lot of potential profit. But that should absolutely be the business’s choice and not up to government to dictate. And in the case of “gay discrimination,” I think it is clear that the PC crowd is using the newfound legal victim group status of gays as a weapon to attack religiously based organizations. Make no mistake, this will not end with gay cakes. It is only a matter of time before pressure is brought to bear against churches as well for “discrimination.” And at the very least, I foresee many churches abandoning their 501(c)(3) tax exempt status.

If a group wants fair treatment in this world, that is one thing. I believe a gay person has every right to open his own bakery and bake gay marriage cakes to his little heart’s content. I believe a black person has every right to dislike white people, as some do, and refuse to associate with them or serve them if that’s what he/she wants. I also believe that under natural and constitutional law, a religious business owner is an independent and free individual with the right to choose who he will work for or accept money from. If he finds a customer’s behavior to be against his principles, he should not be forced to serve that person, their feelings be damned.

This is fair.

What is not fair is the use of government by some to gain an advantage over others based on the legal illusion of victim group status. PC cultists want us to think that choice of association is immoral and damaging to the group. I have to say I find them to be far more intolerant and dangerous than the people they claim to be fighting against, and this attitude is quickly devolving into full bore tyranny under the guise of “humanitarianism.”

Gender bending does not make you special

A man shaves his head and eyebrows, straps a plastic bottle to his face, and has his feet surgically modified to resemble flippers: Does this make him a dolphin, and should he be given victim group status as trans-species? I’m going to be brief here because I covered this issue in a previous article, but let’s lay everything on the table, as it were.

PC cultists are clamoring to redefine the fact of gender as an “undefinable” and even discriminatory social perception. No one, no matter how dedicated, will ever be able to redefine gender, unless they have the ability to change their very chromosomes. Nature defines gender, not man; and a man who undergoes numerous surgeries and body-changing steroid treatments will always have the genetics of a man even if he gives the appearance of a woman. Take away the drugs, and no amount of make-up will hide the chest hair growth and deepening voice.

This might be deemed a “narrow” view of gender, and I don’t care. Nature’s view of gender is the only one that counts. Psychological orientations are irrelevant to biological definitions. Are you a man trapped in a woman’s body? Irrelevant. A woman trapped in a man’s body? Doesn’t matter. If we are talking about legal bearings, then biological definitions are the only scale that makes sense. I realize that gender bending is very trendy right now, and Hollywood sure seems to want everyone to jump on that freaky disco bandwagon, but there is no such thing as gender-neutral people. They are not a group, let alone a victim group. There are men, and there are women; these are the only gender groups that count. Whether they would like to be the opposite does not change the inherent genetic definition. Period. To make such foolishness into an ideology is to attempt to bewilder man’s relationship to nature, and this will only lead to disaster.

There is no such thing as ‘white privilege’

A person determines his success in life by his character and his choices. Color does not define success, as there are many people of every color who are indeed successful. Do you have to work harder to gain success because you are brown, or black, or neon green? I’ve seen no concrete evidence that this is the case. I know that people who identify as “white” are still around 70 of the American population, thus there are more white people in successful positions due to sheer numbers.

I know that I personally grew up in a low-wage household and had little to no financial help as I entered the working world. Everything I have accomplished in my life to this point was done alongside people of color, some of whom had far more advantages than I did. I cannot speak for other people’s experiences, but I can say that being white was never more important in my life than being stubborn and dedicated.

I also find it a little absurd that most PC cultists who harp about so-called white privilege are often white themselves and haven’t the slightest experience or insight on what it is to be a person of color anyway. White privilege seems to be the PC cult’s answer to the argument that racism is a universal construct. Only whites can be racist, they claim, because only whites benefit from racism. I defy these jokers to show any tangible proof that an individual white person has more of a chance at success than a person of color due to predominant racism. Or are we just supposed to have blind faith in the high priests of PC academia and their morally relative roots?

The cost of social Marxism

Marxism (collectivism) uses many vehicles or Trojan horses to gain access to political and cultural spaces. Once present, it gestates like cancer. Younger generations are highly susceptible to social trends and are often easily manipulated by popular culture and academic authority, which is why we are seeing PC cultism explode with the millennials and post-millennials. In my brief participation on the left side of the false paradigm, political correctness was only beginning to take hold. A decade later, we have a bewildering manure storm on our hands. The result is a vast division within American society that cannot be mended. Those of us on the side of liberty are so different in our philosophies and solutions to social Marxists that the whole carnival can end only one way: a fight. And perhaps this is exactly what the elites want: left against right, black against white, gay against religious and straight, etc. As long as the PC movement continues to do the bidding of power brokers in their efforts toward the destruction of individual liberty, I see no other alternative but utter conflict.

–Brandon Smith