The Patriot Post ~
THE FOUNDATION
“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.” –Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Obama Revises His 2008 Messianic Message on Economy
During his visit to Jamaica, Barack Obama diverted attention away from his failed fiscal policies by further demonizing Wall Street and Big Business. When asked what advice he’d give to himself in 2008, Obama said he would dial back on his “Yes we can” rah rah rah: “I would have probably advised was that I might have needed to warn the American people and paint a picture for them that was more accurate about the fact that it would take some time to dig ourselves out of a very big hole. … I think I would have advised myself to do a better job spending more time not just getting the policy right, but also describing it in ways that people understood, that gave them confidence in their own future.” Translation: He would further temper his messianic save-the-economy rhetoric with even more blaming George W. Bush. There’s something noble about a leader who can only promise, as Winston Churchill did, “blood, toil, tears and sweat.” But that kind politician advocates for personal responsibility — something Obama’s never heard of. More…
Mass Exodus From ME Welfare Program as State Requires Work
Let’s say you live in the great state of Maine, down on your luck and needing some kind of social safety net to get you through. Would you say that spending at least 20 hours volunteering, working or participating in a work-training program is a fair trade-off for getting on the state’s food stamp program? Even if you spend all your time playing “Call of Duty,” surely you could carve out some time on the weekends to volunteer at the local animal shelter. But that requirement was too tough for 9,000 Mainiacs. Some 12,000 people were on Maine’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program before Jan. 1. After the government started enforcing the 20-hour rule, however, only 2,680 people stayed. Maine’s Department of Health and Human Service’s Commissioner, Mary Mayhew, told the Associated Press, “If you’re on these programs it means you are living in poverty and so the more that we can help incentive people on that pathway to employment and self-sufficiency the better off they’re going to be.” While states like Georgia dabbled with drug testing welfare recipients (which had spotty results), it seems like the best way to help “the least of these” and prevent welfare fraud is to require a bit of honest work. More…
Jihadi Bomb Plot Foiled in Kansas
On the day Fort Hood victims received their Purple Hearts, CBS News reports on the latest attempted jihad against the U.S. military on American soil: “A 20-year-old man has been charged with planning a suicide bomb attack against the Fort Riley military base in Kansas, in an alleged plot to support the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), federal prosecutors said Friday. John T. Booker, of Topeka, was arrested Friday morning while trying to arm what he thought what a 1,000-pound bomb inside a van near the base, according to court documents.” Booker also goes by the name Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, which might give a clue as to his motive. He didn’t exactly keep it a secret, though, posting on Facebook last year, “I will soon be leaving you forever so goodbye! I’m going to wage jihad and hopes that i [sic] die.” He’s also merely one in a series of would-be ISIL jihadis foiled in their attempts to attack America. More…
Indiana Pizza Parlor Reopens Without Fanfare
The Left, incensed that owners of Memories Pizza would decline to cater a same-sex wedding because of religious objections, tried to protest the pizza parlor serving a one traffic-light Indiana town out of existence. Due to the threats, Kevin O’Connor closed his shop for eight days. But he reopened April 9 to a full restaurant and not a protester in sight, according to the Associated Press. “I’d do the same thing again,” O’Connor told the AP. “It’s my belief. It’s our belief. It’s what we grew up on. I’m just sorry it comes to this because neither one of us dislike any of those people. I don’t hold any grudges.” During the time his business was shuttered, a producer from The Blaze created a fund for the pizza shop that collected over $800,000 in donations. So are the owners rolling in the dough? (‘Scuse the pun.) “It was really making us uncomfortable,” O’Connor said. After spending a bit on his pizza parlor, he’ll donate some of it to charity. So much for the Left’s conspiratorial explanation of the donations as some kind of guerrilla marketing campaign. The Left couldn’t sustain its rage. What’s left is an operating pizza parlor and the disturbing realization that the Left trivializes religious liberty. More…
Ease With Marxism Behind Diplomatic Thaw With Cuba
On one hand, Barack Obama’s face-to-face meeting with Cuban leader Raul Castro, which culminated in a handshake, was a failure. Before the meeting, Obama didn’t re-establish a U.S. embassy in Cuba, nor did he scrub the Pearl of the Antilles from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. But in his handshake with Castro, Obama extended goodwill towards Marxism. Furthermore, the two talked by phone ahead of their meeting and the State Department officially released its recommendation to no longer recognize Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism. Cuba was the only country on the short list that supported Marxist terror groups (the rest were countries like Iran that feed Islamic terrorism), which shows that some regard Marxism as no longer a threat. As we wrote back in December when the Obama administration first announced these deals with Cuba, “[T]he U.S. was in prime position to negotiate for human rights improvements in Cuba. Instead, Obama just offered Cuba a huge influx of dollars for nothing in return.” More…
For more, visit Right Hooks.
RIGHT ANALYSIS
Is Anybody ‘Ready for Hillary’?
In perhaps the least surprising presidential campaign announcement of all time, Hillary Clinton declared her second bid for a second stint in the White House. It could be, however, that the only one “Ready for Hillary” is Hillary. Because it’s really her turn this time. Don’t screw it up, America.
Her quandary is simple: What do you do when you need to promote the notion that an individual is a “champion of the middle class” when that individual is the poster child of the celebrity governing elite?
You build a marketing campaign around the mirage with a tightly controlled, choreographed public-relations script. And you delete a few thousand emails along the way.
Hillary’s Sunday afternoon video announcement was characteristic of a weak candidate with enough unclaimed baggage to open an outlet store. After all, Hillary’s known for three things, none of which are her personal achievements: Her marriage to Bill, her corrupt influence peddling and her personal email server.
To adequately manage expectations of a hyped Clinton candidate who possesses none of the charisma and friendly persona of her husband, Team Hillary will have to be run very much like Sunday’s rollout — heavily scripted with surrogates on attack against any who dare challenge the machine.
But let’s face it: Hillary isn’t exactly facing stiff competition. Apologies to Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chafee, two white guys in a party running away from white guys.
In vivid contrast to the announcements of Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, which featured exuberant crowds, upbeat music and soaring vision, the Clinton campaign was a sterile marketed message, plain and simple.
Through a 140-character social media platform, Twitter, and a two-minute video production, the message was, “Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion.” She followed with vignettes of “everyday Americans” who could do with a little help from Clinton.
One couple spoke of their move to access a better school. But that serves only to remind voters that Hillary is of the party opposed to school choice. If you can’t move, you’re stuck in a failing school.
In another shot of “everyday Americans,” two men strolling hand-in-hand down a street were said to have upcoming wedding nuptials. There was no mention, however, whether Christian bakeries, photographers or wedding planners would be coerced into service for the wedding arrangements.
Hillary’s voiceover proclaimed that “when America’s families are strong, America is strong.” Yet her party has done so much to dismantle and undermine the family through redefining marriage and 50 years of destructive “Great Society” wealth redistribution. Her party ensures single moms receive their government check and cheaper ObamaCare insurance while married couples are left paying a tax penalty.
But, remember, when you can’t package your authentic stances in a positive manner, you market an image with the help of a supporting cast of characters known as the presstitutes to parrot your hypocritical and deceptive talking points. Hillary is both being marketed and protected by the presstitutes who ably provided cover for Barack Obama through the years. After all, this gaggle serves as the unpaid communications staff to all things DNC.
Hillary Clinton has been first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state. Yet her campaign website looks more like a cross between a Lady’s Home Journal and an HGTV landing page — nice pictures with places to sign up and engage, but not a single issue stance.
Expect more of Sunday’s same for the next year and a half, as Hillary Clinton becomes the nominee for the intellectually bankrupt Democrat Party — a marketed mirage speaking to vacuous generalities.
Hillary will appear to be everywhere and accessible to all. In reality, she’ll be accessible only to her own champions and hiding from the unscripted world. But hey, if she wins, maybe she’ll return the silverware she stole when she left “dead broke” last time.
Yeah, About That Nuclear Deal…
Congressional Democrats began a coordinated attack last week against the effort to give Congress a say in the nuclear deal with Iran. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) has proposed legislation that would make Congress, not the president, the deciding authority on whether or not to relieve sanctions against Iran, since those sanctions were put in place by Congress. Some Democrats are on board with Corker’s plan, but will they hold the line?
Read the rest here.
Colleges or Nursery Schools?
The University of Michigan is the latest American campus determined to prove that the central premise of higher education — the free and open exchange of competing ideas — is a cruel hoax. Last Tuesday, in a spasm of oh-so familiar political correctness, UM initially canceled a scheduled showing of “American Sniper” after 300 students and others whined about the “negative and misleading stereotypes” of Muslims portrayed in the film. As pathetic as that outburst was, the Center for Campus Involvement (CCI) that oversees student activities managed to top it, saying, “While our intent was to show a film, the impact of the content was harmful, and made students feel unsafe and unwelcome at our program.”
But wait, it actually got even more absurd.
Read the rest here.
For more, visit Right Analysis.
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
Burt Prelutsky: No Truth, No Consequences
Larry Kudlow: Tougher Sanctions Necessary to Force Iran to Change Its Terrorist Ways
Stephen Moore: The Greatest Setback for Cancer Research Is ObamaCare
Ken Blackwell: Conservatives Embrace Cronyism at the Expense of Innovation
Peggy Noonan: How to Stage a Revolution
For more, visit Right Opinion.
OPINION IN BRIEF
The Gipper: “Cures were developed for which there were no known diseases.”
Columnist Burt Prelutsky: “[M]ost Republican voters aren’t even sure at this point whether they favor Walker or Bush, Cruz or Paul, Rubio or Fiorina. The party is still more than a year away from selecting a nominee, but I can assure you that once that’s been decided, Hillary Clinton is unlikely to lead in the polls. For one thing, Obama will leave the White House under a far darker cloud than did George W. Bush. That means Hillary will have to run against his policies, which will turn off Obama’s greatest admirers, especially among blacks. On the other hand, if she adopts his anti-Israel policies, she will turn off a sizable number of wealthy Jews. If she veers in the opposite direction, she will antagonize an even larger number of liberal Jews. As a woman pushing 70, she will hardly be attractive to young voters. As someone who has already spent eight years in the White House, she won’t have the advantage of running as either a newcomer or a Washington outsider. And with all of that, she will also be toting more baggage than a team of bellhops.”
Columnist Larry Kudlow: “Gen. Jack Keane believes President Obama has had a grand-bargain vision for Iran since 2009. The nuclear deal is just one part of it. That’s why Obama gave no help to the million Iranian reformers who marched in protest of the phony 2009 elections. That’s why Obama didn’t help the Syrian rebels, why he’s had such a cold relationship with Israel, why he gave speeches blaming America for Arab unrest and why until very recently he didn’t give any help to Egyptian president al-Sisi. Obama believes in detente with Iran as a pathway to U.S. disengagement from the region. But Iran is our enemy, whether the president believes it or not. And if we cut deals that allow Iran to continue its terrorist and hegemonic activities, the Obama administration will have created an unbelievable Middle East powder keg, setting the stage for a conflict that could possibly dwarf any we’ve seen before. This is the worst U.S. foreign policy of my lifetime. It may be the worst in American history.”
Comedian Jimmy Fallon: “In a new interview, the president discussed the upcoming election. He said that Hillary Clinton is going to do great as a presidential candidate. When asked how Biden would do, Obama said, ‘Hillary’s going to do great.’”
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.
Read more excellent articles at The Patriot Post
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