Daily Digest
THE FOUNDATION
“It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. After discriminating, therefore, in theory, the several classes of power, as they may in their nature be legislative, executive, or judiciary, the next and most difficult task is to provide some practical security for each, against the invasion of the others.” –James Madison, Federalist No. 48, 1788
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Gun-Hostile Surgeon General Confirmed
Vivek Murthy, who is not even 37 years old, who was born in the UK and who thinks guns are a health issue to be stamped out like heart disease or obesity, was confirmed by the Senate Monday as the United States' 19th surgeon general. For this confirmation, 51 Democrats votedfor the man, thanks to the nuclear option. Days after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Murthy tweeted, “Tired of politicians playing politics w/ guns, putting lives at risk b/c they’re scared of NRA. Guns are a health care issue.” A month after the shooting, Murthy co-signed a letter sent to Congress as president and co-founder of Doctors for America, urging the legislative body to “remove military-style guns and ammunition” and “strengthen safety measures and regulations for guns used for hunting, sport, and self-protection” so that America could half gun deaths by 2020. At a hearing in February, Murthy said he does “not intend to use the surgeon general’s office as a bully pulpit for gun control.” What we have is the word of a bureaucrat – for what that’s worth. More…
NYC Cops to Mayor: Stay Away From Our Funerals
A group of New York City police officers is telling the mayor of the city and the city’s council speaker to stay away from funerals for those killed in the line of duty. The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association is encouraging its members to sign a flyer banning the two politicians from attending their funerals. “I, as a New York City police officer, request that Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito refrain from attending my funeral services in the event that I am killed in the line of duty,” the flyer read. “Due to Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito’s consistent refusal to show police officers the support and respect they deserve, I believe that their attendance at the funeral of a fallen New York City police officer is an insult to that officer’s memory and sacrifice.” The police are angry at the mayor for throwing them under the bus as a bunch of racists when protests erupted after a police officer was not indicted after Eric Garner died resisting arrest in Staten Island. More…
Wealth Today Lags Far Behind 2007
By official measurements, the Great Recession is behind us and the economy is slowly recovering. The adverse effects, on the other hand, are still strong. Nearly five years after the recession was declared ended, nearly half of the wealth Americans held prior to the financial crisis has not been recovered. MarketWatch reports, “Americans are still 40% poorer today than they were in 2007, the year before the global financial crisis. The net worth of American families – the difference between the values of their assets, including homes and investments, and liabilities – fell to $81,400 in 2013, down slightly from $82,300 in 2010, but a long way off the $135,700 in 2007, according to a new report released on Friday by the nonprofit think-tank Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C.” That doesn’t bode well for the long-term economic outlook. Sadly, the Left won’t consider this entirely bad news, as they blame America’s economic woes on “wealthy” capitalist benefactors. By their logic, they’ve “leveled the playing field.” Except they haven’t. In fact, Democrats, led by Barack Obama, have only themselves to blame forwidening the income gap. More…
Landlord Threatens to Evict Visiting Soldier
A landlord in South Carolina has threatened to double rent and press charges against a new mother whose husband visited her for more than a week when he was on leave from the military. Sgt. William Bullock traveled from Missouri to visit his wife, who’s studying at Clemson University and cares for the couple’s two-week-old daughter. “Bullock said the landlord … told him he had overstayed, saying visitors are not allowed to stay in the apartments past seven days, per the agreement signed by Bullock’s wife, Lily,” TV station Fox Carolina reports. “‘I’m stationed in Missouri and we haven’t seen each other in six months. What’s the problem with me staying and visiting with my wife?’ Bullock said. The landlord, whose name is Chuck, told FOX Carolina he enforces that rule for all his tenants.” Since when are husbands considered “visitors”? And what meager gains the landlord makes by enforcing his rules he obliterates by making life difficult for a couple sacrificing much to serve our nation – in December, too, when the world remembers a time when another young couple couldn’t find a place in the inn. More…
Peru Will Charge Greenpeace for Destructive Climate Stunt
Timed to coincide with the end of the United Nations' Lima Climate Change Conference, Greenpeace activists tread on what many consider sacred ground – the ancient Nazca Lines in the Peruvian desert. The ecofascists wanted their message – “Time for Change” – to be seen by UN members flying away in carbon-belching airplanes. Now, The New York Times reports, “President Ollanta Humala of Peru criticized the environmental group Greenpeace on Saturday for not respecting his country’s archaeological heritage as authorities said they intended to seek criminal charges against several activists who damaged the fragile desert around the Nazca Lines. … Officials said that the activists walking over the fragile desert ground left marks that cannot be removed. The Nazca Lines were created over 1,000 years ago, and include enormous figures of birds, mammals and geometric shapes etched into the earth.” It’s ironic that Greenpeace would love nothing more than to destroy the world’s economy so as to “save” the planet from climate change, and yet what’ll get them in trouble is scuffling across some pebbles in the desert. More…
For more, visit Right Hooks.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
Australia Attack Not ‘Lone Wolf’
Hostages forced to hold Islamic flagAustralians witnessed a terrifying hostage crisis Monday involving 17 people at the Lindt Chocolat Café in Sydney. Sadly, two hostages were killed and four were injured. The hostage taker, Man Haron Monis, was killed by Australian police officers when they raided the building. This incident should serve as a wake-up call to Australia and the rest of the world that Islamic extremism has no boundaries.
Monis was an Iranian-born Islamic extremist who, Fox News reports, “emigrated to Australia in 1996” after being granted asylum. He then became infamous “for his public campaign of writing letters to the families of fallen soldiers calling them ‘murderers’ and urging the recipients to lobby the government to withdraw from Afghanistan.” Talk about an ingrate. For that, he was charged with using the postal service for harassment, though in court he proclaimed himself a “peace activist.”
But worse, Fox adds, Monis was charged last year “in connection with the murder of his ex-wife,” and was “charged earlier this year with sexual assault” – more than 40 counts. He was free on bail at the time of the hostage taking.
Did we mention he used a firearm, which is banned in Australia?
The hostage-taking jihadist was also found to have written a letter on his own website where, Fox News also notes, he “accused Australia, Great Britain and the U.S. of ‘oppression and terrorism’ and posted images of dead children.” And for the disclaimer: He also “called for non-violent activism writing that ‘Islam is a religion of peace and a Muslim should be a peace activist.’” Is taking 17 people hostage at gunpoint being non-violent and peaceful?
His lawyer, Manny Conditsis, was quick to defend his client and distance his actions from terrorism or Islamic extremism. He stated, “This is a one-off random individual. It’s not a concerted terrorism event or act. It’s a damaged goods individual who’s done something outrageous.” Further, he laughably asserted, “His ideology is just so strong and so powerful that it clouds his vision for common sense and objectiveness.” And we’re supposed to believe that?
Unfortunately, some do. CBS News' Bob Orr was quick to take the bait, saying, “This is almost the prototypical type attack that we believe lone wolves to be capable of.” Orr may believe this was just some loon acting of his accord, but even if he wasn’t specifically directed by a terrorist organization it only obscures the truth. YouTube videos showed three hostages relaying Monis' demands, as he wanted it known that this was an “attack on Australia by the Islamic State.”
Australia raised its terror level alert in September in response to threats from Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adani. In an audio message, he urged that lone-wolf attacks be carried out, including in Australia.
The Islamic State has yet to take credit for this attack, but, given the aforementioned rhetoric and the fact that the jihadist wanted an ISIL flag delivered to the cafe, it’s just a matter of time before they do.
Yet somehow, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott saw fit to declare, “The point I keep making is that the ISIL death cult has nothing to do with any religion, any real religion. … It is something to which sick individuals succumb, and sick individuals exist in all communities and in all societies.”
The Left will do everything possible to deceive people, claiming there is no connection between these attacks and Islam. They will continue to try to portray Islam as a Religion of Peace™. And they will continue to deny that these attacks are, as Mark Alexander notes, “directly tied to worldwide Jihad by way of the Qur'an, the foundational fabric linking all of Islamist violence.”
This jihadist in Australia was a radicalized cleric who, like many other such figures in America and elsewhere, preached hatred for the West. Until the world recognizes the threat of Islamic extremism for what it is, this and worse acts of violence will continue.
Purposefully refusing to identify an enemy for who they are and what they do will not make them go away. If anything, it will embolden them to carry out more heinous acts of violence.
A Senate Stocking Stuffer
Ted CruzCongressional passage of the $1.1 trillion CRomnibus (part omnibus, part continuing resolution) package last weekend may have prevented a government shutdown, but it created a variety of divisions between and among Republicans and Democrats that could flare up in grand style in the next Congress.
The package funds most of the government through fiscal year 2015, pulling together 11 appropriations bills that cover many areas, except the Department of Homeland Security, which is funded only until Feb. 27. Much of the spending adheres to budget caps put in place last year, with additional emergency spending that falls outside the caps – including $64 billion for overseas military operations such as the fight against ISIL and $5.4 billion to combat Ebola.
Republicans achieved their objectives in some areas. The Dodd-Frank financial regulation law was partially relaxed to allow banks to directly engage in derivatives trading. Some school nutrition standards pushed by First Lady Michelle Obama were also rolled back, in large part because school districts are having serious trouble complying with the new regulations – not to mention the near-mutiny among students. Another provision loosens contribution limits for national political parties. The Democrats balked at this provision, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi calling it “egregious,” but they’ll be perfectly happy with it when leftist one-percenters pour out their money for the 2016 election.
Democrats also won some things in the bill as well. ObamaCare funding remains intact at current levels, despite the long history of GOP threats to defund it. The Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for abortions, was renewed, but since ObamaCare calls for funding of abortions that amendment remains pretty much moot.
One bright spot for free enterprise was in the extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which puts off for another year a bureaucratic free-for-all that would blitz online retailers with new taxes, regulations and paperwork. If Congress has any sense at all, it will enact a clean, stand-alone extension of the act in January.
There was rancor among Democrats over passage of the bill because of its rollback of Dodd-Frank and the relaxed political party funding. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) led the charge against the CRomnibus from the liberal side, but she was swamped by the larger Democrat contingent eager to pass the bill. Her actions may not have amounted to much, but her popularity saw a boost. She is increasingly considered a viable alternative presidential candidate to Hillary Clinton, complicating the latter’s second White House run.
Warren found an unusual ally in her fight against the spending package in Republican Ted Cruz of Texas, if for an entirely different reason. Along with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), Cruz hoped to derail the package by introducing a symbolic point-of-order vote condemning the unconstitutionality of Barack Obama’s executive action on illegal aliens.
“If you believe President Obama’s executive order was unconstitutional, vote yes,” Cruz told his colleagues. “If you think the president’s executive order is constitutional, vote no.” Well, 74 senators believed the latter – or at least wouldn’t admit the former – among them the full Republican leadership.
As he did with his box-canyon shutdown strategy last year, Cruz managed to draw significant ire from his GOP colleagues. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said, “Suffice it to say, I’m not happy with the strategy [Cruz] has come up with. I think it’s totally counterproductive.” Cruz has been accused of grandstanding for the sake of his own popularity before, but many conservatives also praised him for standing his ground.
Did Cruz’s actions cause more trouble than they were worth? The temporary funding of DHS means the immigration issue will be revisited early next year anyway. Cruz and Lee were faulted for outgoing Majority Leader Harry Reid’s pushing cloture on a series of stalled nominees because the procedural vote allowed Reid to turn to other matters. That’s a stretch, considering that executive and judicial nominations were going to be on the calendar anyway at some point between now and the end of the session. Remember, Reid didn’t trigger the nuclear option for nothing.
The real reason that Cruz’s actions caused such a stir is probably best encapsulated by the fact that senators' weekend holiday plans had to be put on hold. But as Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw wrote, “The fact that any of them had to show up on Saturday and couldn’t head home from work two weeks before Christmas and stay there until early January isn’t exactly tugging at my heartstrings.”
Republican and Democrat leaders in the House and Senate must be suffering tennis elbow after all the self-congratulatory pats on the back for passing the CRomnibus. Republican voters may be asking themselves, though, why the GOP went for a long-term budget deal when they could have just passed a 60-day continuing resolution and negotiated a full budget package from a position of strength in January.
For more, visit Right Analysis.
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Thomas Sowell: Tortured Reasoning
- Arnold Ahlert: The Christmas Spirit Can’t Be Killed
- Stephen Moore: Congress Is Renewing Insane Tax Breaks
- David Limbaugh: Christophobes March On
- Ed Feulner: Common Core Doesn’t Make the Grade
For more, visit Right Opinion.
OPINION IN BRIEF
Lord Acton (1834-1902): “Government by idea tends to take in everything, to make the whole of society obedient to the idea. Spaces not so governed are unconquered, beyond the border, unconverted, a future danger.”
Columnist Thomas Sowell: “Critics and defenders of the harsh interrogation methods applied to captured terrorists can argue forever over whether those methods were ‘torture.’ But any serious discussion of a serious issue – and surely terrorism qualifies as serious – has to move beyond semantics and confront the ultimate question: ‘Compared to what alternative?’ If you knew that there was a hidden nuclear time bomb planted somewhere in New York City – set to go off today – and you had a captured terrorist who knew where and when, would you not do anything whatever to make him tell you where and when? Would you pause to look up the definition of ‘torture’? Would you even care what the definition of ‘torture’ was, when the alternative was seeing millions of innocent people murdered?”
Columnist Arnold Ahlert: “The assault on Christmas is part of the effort to fundamentally transform a nation for which leftists express skepticism at best, and outright contempt at worst. And perhaps nothing animates that contempt more than the reality that the greatness of this nation is derived from ‘dead, white, slave-owning Europeans,’ animated by a Judeo-Christain culture. It is that culture that must now be deconstructed by any means necessary, because it rests on two foundations utterly anathema to the American left: individual liberty and free-market capitalism. Instead, the left prefers equality, or more precisely a radical egalitarianism where ambition, talent and desire must be held in check to accommodate laziness, stupidity and sloth. It is the ultimate zero-sum game that, at this particular time of year, assumes those who enjoy Christmas must accommodate those who are offended by it, lest our commitment to ‘social justice’ is found wanting. Thus ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah’ must be cast aside for ‘Happy Holiday,’ and the Christmas season must become ‘Winter Solstice.’ That is not tolerance. It’s totalitarianism with the ultimate goal of making everyone equal, even if it’s equally miserable. Few things undermine that ambition more than the so-called Christmas spirit that is the essence of happiness, generosity – and live and let live.”
Comedian Jimmy Fallon: “This week Biden said that he will decide on a potential 2016 presidential campaign by the spring or the summer. Then he said, ‘Whichever comes first.’”
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
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