THE FOUNDATION
“There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.” —James Madison, letter to James Monroe, 1786
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
The kind of terror jihadists unleashed when they attacked the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris because the paper mocked Muhammad came to Texas Sunday night. But instead of a massacre, the two attackers were killed by Garland, Texas, police officers. The American Freedom Defense Initiative held an art exhibit and contest for images of Muhammad at Garland’s Curtis Culwell Center. On Twitter, followers of the Islamic State were writing their threats. One wrote last week, “Brothers in Garland Texas Please go to there with your weapons, bombs or with your knives. Threaten your enemies & the enemies of Allaah [sic].” The event was wrapping up around 7 p.m. when suspected jihadist Elton Simpson of Arizona drove up to the event with his roommate and opened fire. The duo wounded unarmed Garland ISD officer Bruce Joiner in the ankle before police officers returned fire. The American Freedom Defense Initiative paid $10,000 to hire 40 officers to provide extra security. President of the group Pamela Geller said in February, “That’s what we call the high cost of freedom.” Indeed, the Garland attack shows how the freedom of expression is protected from an assassin’s veto only with the Second Amendment. More…
The six police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray have been tried in the court of public opinion and have been found guilty. Marilyn Mosby, who is three months into her job as Baltimore City State’s Attorney, threw the book at the six officers, pinning charges ranging from second degree depraved heart murder to second degree assault to false imprisonment. But those may be inflated charges carried along by the rhetoric of rioters in Baltimore’s streets, as Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw points out. As Mosby said at the press conference announcing the charges: “To the people of Baltimore and demonstrators across America, I heard your call for ‘No Justice, No peace.’” Furthermore, Mosby has connections that may become conflicts of interest. For example, she has a professional and personal relationship with Gray’s family lawyer. The Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police believed so strongly that an injustice was being committed with Mosby’s overreach on charges, it wrote an open letter. “None of the officers involved are responsible for the death of Mr. Gray,” president of the order Gene Ryan wrote. “To the contrary, at all times, each of the officers diligently balanced their obligations to protect Mr. Gray and discharge their duties to protect the public.” In overcharging the officers, Mosby may have simply embittered a mob that will break out in violence if it doesn’t receive what it demands.
This is the week for the idealists in the Republican presidential primary, the long shots, the Washington outsiders and the underdogs. Three GOP contenders have stepped out onto the field and, while they face a long climb to become regarded among the front running candidates, their campaigns could influence the party as a whole.
Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard who could become the Right’s answer to Hillary Clinton, announced her campaign from social media. “Our nation is at a pivotal point,” Fiorina said in a video, “We need to restore possibilities for every American regardless of their circumstances.”
Meanwhile, Ben Carson, who was asked to be surgeon general by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said he would announce his campaign Monday. “Many people have suggested to me that I should run for president, even though I’m not a politician,” Carson said. “I began to ask myself, why are people clamoring for me to do this? … I’m not 100 percent sure politics as usual is going to save us.”
And former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will announce his second campaign for president Tuesday. Huckabee is expected to run on his record as governor and his political battles against the Clintons in Arkansas. He’s also likely to pull support from evangelical voters with his strong social conservative stance. With months to go, who knows? Maybe the GOP should pick a Washington outsider, a person who would be a contrast to Hillary Clinton’s baggage. More…
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
By Arnold Ahlert
There is little question the American Left is arrogant. It is an arrogance suffused with a self-aggrandizing worldview that begins and ends with the simplest premise: You either agree with us, or you’re wrong. But not just wrong in the sense of having a different opinion. Wrong in the sense that you’re a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal at best, or the embodiment of evil itself at worst. In other words, you’re either on board with us, or you’re completely illegitimate.
The above explanation fits Hillary Clinton to a tee. At the sixth annual Women in the World Summit, Clinton brought up one of the Left’s most cherished planks, abortion on demand. “Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth,” she insisted, “and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice, not just on paper.”
One is left to wonder what denial of access Clinton bemoans. It can’t be Planned Parenthood (PP), an organization whose name completely belies its true function. As its 2013-2014 Annual Report reveals, PP received more than $528 million in taxpayer funds in the form of government grants, contracts and Medicaid reimbursements that accounted for 41% of its total resources. And despite its ostensible non-profit status, the abortion giant has $127 million in excess revenue and more than $1.4 billion in net assets.
Where does the money go? According to a fact sheet disseminated by the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, PP devoted 94% of 2013 “pregnancy services” to performing abortions. Prenatal care and adoption services accounted for 5% and 0.05% of its activities, respectively. Moreover, between the years 2011-2013 for which figures are available, PP performed 988,783 abortions.
PP chair Alexis McGill Johnson and president Cecile Richards couldn’t be happier. “We’ve come a long way since Margaret Sanger was jailed in 1916 for opening America’s very first birth control clinic,” they explained at the report’s release. “Today, 99 percent of sexually active American women at some point in their lives use birth control — and, thanks to Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act, more than 48 million women are now eligible to receive it with no copay.”
Sounds like a boatload of access, at least to “reproductive” health care. Safe childbirth? Not so much, a reality that deeply troubles people of faith — a group with this “crazy” notion that abortion constitutes the wrongful termination of a human life.
Not to worry, though. Hillary has a “solution” for their concerns. “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will,” she declared. “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed. As I have said and as I believe, the advancement of the full participation of women and girls in every aspect of their societies is the great unfinished business of the 21st century and not just for women but for everyone — and not just in far away countries but right here in the United States.”
If that sounds like people of faith must either abandon that faith or be considered wholly illegitimate, or “structurally biased” as it were, it’s because that’s exactly what Clinton proposes. In short, you’re either pro-abortion or a “bitter clinger.” That euphemism entered the national zeitgeist courtesy of Barack Obama, whose administration has made it clear that the only thing standing between it and the evisceration of the First Amendment’s Freedom of Religion clause is a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby v. Burwell case. The Court decided corporations with sincerely held religious beliefs are under no obligation to provide a full range of contraceptives — including abortifacients — at no cost to their employees as mandated by ObamaCare.
Yet abortion is only one arena where people of faith are being steamrolled. As Solicitor General Donald Verrilli made clear during oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the subject of same-sex marriage, the heavy hand of government will be imposed on those who refuse to embrace progressive “values.” When asked by Justice Samuel Alito if the Obama administration would be willing to impose penalties on institutions that refuse to abide same-sex marriage, Verrilli admitted as much. “It’s certainly going to be an issue,” he conceded. “I don’t deny that.”
Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins spells out the inevitable, writing, “Translation: If churches, religious groups, schools, or nonprofits won’t surrender their beliefs on marriage, the government will make it hurt.” And regardless of what the Court decides, Justice Anthony Kennedy illuminated the stakes with a simple remark, noting the definition of marriage as between a man and a women “has been with us for millennia.” Therefore, he said, “[I]t’s very difficult for the Court to say, ‘Oh well, we know better.’”
Progressives have no such inhibitions. And that would be fine were it not for the reality that they are determined to forcibly impose their worldview by any means necessary on those who disagree.
How arrogant is Clinton in that regard? As recently as 2013 she opposed same-sex marriage, and in 2004 she called traditional marriage a “fundamental bedrock principle.” How hypocritical? “I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic,” she huffed in 2003.
Not patriotic? Now if you disagree with the leftist onslaught, you’re a homophobic, religiously impaired bigot who must abandon millennia of traditional beliefs — or be deliberately targeted if you don’t.
Live and let live? A concept for which those who profess to be the most tolerant among us have zero tolerance. “Evolving” on issues as Clinton and Obama have on same-sex marriage? Embrace progressive ideology right now or be penalized in every way possible.
A number of Christian leaders are fighting back with a pledge defending traditional marriage. One of their reasons for doing so stands out. “Family is the first vital cell of society, the first government, and the first mediating institution of our social order,” the pledge states. “The future of a free and healthy society passes through marriage and the family.” Anyone else think this is a message that might resonate in Baltimore right about now?
One last thought regarding abortion: Perhaps the debate on the issue might be imbued with far more honesty if the phrase “a woman’s right to choose” included the first choice, as in the decision to have unprotected and/or irresponsible sex leading to an unwanted pregnancy.
TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US
BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
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OPINION IN BRIEF
Ken Blackwell: “Truth has long since been replaced by ‘narratives’ on the American Left. Rather than discuss genuine issues and objective facts, progressives prefer to make up a politically effective story. It doesn’t matter whether the story is false, as long as it sways the public’s emotions and wins the day. The ends justify the means…. [L]let’s look at one of the patron saints of environmentalism, Rachel Carson. Carson wanted to eliminate DDT, the most effective pesticide for fighting one of the greatest plagues faced by humanity, malaria, because it was weakening the shells of bird’s eggs. So Carson falsified data to convince the public that DDT was carcinogenic. Carson brought about a global ban on DDT, probably saving a few birds, but at the cost of allowing malaria to blind or kill millions of people in the Third World. Carson may not have set out to kill people, but only Mao, Stalin and Hitler are responsible for more deaths during the twentieth century. Yet instead of condemning her, we name schools after her. … [I]t’s difficult to come up with a progressive scientific cause that isn’t founded on lies.”
SHORT CUTS
Insight: “Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.” —The Gipper
Non Compos Mentis: “Oh, yeah. I got to pay our bills.” —Bill Clinton on whether he will continue giving speeches during Hillary’s bid for the White House (Bill’s earned more than $100 million dollars via speaking gigs. Not to mention he earns a healthy post-presidency pension. But, hey, they’re dead broke!)
Braying Jackass: “In countries in Scandinavia like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, they are very democratic countries. … In those countries, health care is the right of all people; college education and graduate school is free; retirement benefits, child care are stronger than the United States of America. In those countries by and large government works for ordinary people and the middle class, rather than, as is the case right now in our country, for the billionaire class.” —Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' vision for America
Village Idiots: “We need the Justice Department to step in and take over policing in this country. In the 20th century they had to fight states' rights in — to get the right to vote. We’re going to have to fight states' rights in terms of closing down police cases.” —Al Sharpton
Race bait: “There is no need to recall Whites Only signage or sheet-clad KKK members. The facts show white people acting routinely to harm, demean, and damage black and brown people. … The bottom line is that it’s everyday whites making everyday choices that lock in and protect white privilege.” —Tony Brown, sociology professor at Vanderbilt University
And last… “Ben Carson announces, challenging Marco Rubio & Ted Cruz. Democrats offer two old white people. Tell me more who is the party of diversity.” —Twitter satirist @hale_razor
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.
