THE FOUNDATION

“In vain are schools, academies, and universities instituted, if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children in their earliest years.” —John Adams, Diary, 1778

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

SCOTUS Passes on Chance to Set 2A Ruling Right

Not exactly profiles in courage, but the Supreme Court declined to review two lower court rulings upholding San Francisco’s draconian gun control laws. The Associated Press reports, “The court on Monday let stand court rulings in favor of a city measure that requires handgun owners to secure weapons in their homes by storing them in a locker, keeping them on their bodies or applying trigger locks. A second ordinance bans the sale of ammunition that expands on impact, has ‘no sporting purpose’ and is commonly referred to as hollow-point bullets.” Of course, in DC v. Heller, the Supreme Court struck down a requirement about locking down a firearm in the home, saying the Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep a “lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.” So by declining to hear this case, the justices are allowing a patchwork of wrong interpretations of its ruling to stand. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “Despite the clarity with which we described the Second Amendment’s core protection for the right of self-defense, lower courts, including the ones here, have failed to protect it.” Furthermore, they’re passing on an opportunity to clarify the most important point of all: The Second Amendment is not “for sporting purposes.” The ban on hollow-point ammunition is beyond asinine, but the justices can’t be bothered to fire anything but blanks.

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TSA: Terrorists Screening at Airports

Now, after a security breach of its own making, the Transportation Security Agency wants moreof the nation’s data on terrorists to sift through, as if building a bigger haystack will solve the problem. The Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security reports that the TSA let 73 people linked to terrorism work inside the nation’s airports. According to the report, the TSA checks the Consolidated Terrorist Watchlist every time it’s updated. But the DHS inspector general took the list of more than 900,000 airport workers and ran it against the National Counterterrorism Center’s database. “TSA acknowledged that these individuals were cleared for access to secure airport areas despite representing a potential transportation security threat,” the report read. The inspector general also found the TSA works with shoddy data, clearing people with incomplete names and missing passport numbers, for example. Step one for the TSA is to clean up the data. But questions remain: Will more access to the terrorism watchlist help? Who were the people the IG considers to have links to terrorism? Those details were redacted. And without that information, we can only take the TSA’s word that this was a serious breach. On top of recent news of TSA screening failures, this doesn’t increase our faith in bureaucracy.

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‘Independent’ EPA Study Not So Independent After All

In May, a new study commissioned by Harvard and Syracuse University claimed that the EPA’s soon-to-be-released Clean Power Plan will eliminate around 3,500 pollution-related deaths annually. The celebratory reaction quickly went mainstream. The EPA, whose proposal it already posited will save lives, suddenly had the benefit of an independent verification. Or did it? Writing in Breitbart, junkscience.com publisher Steve Milloy found that the researchers of said study had personally partaken in various multi-million dollar EPA-funded studies. Furthermore, one author’s assertion that the agency “did not participate in the study or interact with its authors” was found to be complete hogwash. Says Milloy, “I submitted a request to EPA under the Freedom of Information Act for email between the study authors and EPA staff. Although subsequent wrangling with agency staff gave me doubt that I would ever get anything, I received, much to my surprise, 99 pages of emails after mere weeks. The emails reveal that [the] study co-authors … were definitely in contact with key EPA staff regarding this research.”

“This issue goes deeper than mere truth-telling,” he adds. “The EPA’s controversial Clean Power Plan hinges on the notion that shuttering coal plants will save lives.” In fact, shuttering coal plants may very well cost lives. Yet EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy recently postulated, “We can speak to the science because it’s complicated and we do a lot of research and we do a lot of translation of the science into what it means for people so that the decisions can be made on the basis of real science and on the basis of a real technical understanding.” In other words, “Trust us.” But they keep giving us every reason not to.

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

NOAA Lies About the Warming Hiatus

By Lewis Morris

A new report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the latest issue of the journal “Science” claims the global warming hiatus that began in the late 1990s never actually happened. In fact, according to NOAA, temperatures actually rose twice as high as the previous global scale had predicted or measured. This wouldn’t by any chance be an attempt to influence climate treaty talks in Paris later this year, now would it?

“Newly corrected and updated global surface temperature data from NOAA’s [National Centers for Environmental Information] do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus,’” wroteNOAA scientists, contradicting the work of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The hiatus, which in the scientific community refers to a period in which global surface temperatures appeared to stabilize, has flummoxed climate alarmists. It flies in the face of their exceedingly shrill predictions of extreme global warming — indeed, it’s part of the reason they’veswitched their terminology to “climate change.” If there’s been no warming, it undermines their calls for ever more drastic measures to combat it, like dismantling the U.S. coal industry, heavily regulating fossil fuel production, and financially burdening the citizens of the world’s richest countries.

By many scientific accounts, temperatures rose during the period of 1998-2013 at a much slower rate than the previous bellwether period between 1950-1998, a time frame during which global surface temperatures supposedly significantly spiked. According to satellite measurements, the most accurate tool we have, temperatures have remained flat — an ongoing trend. How is it that NOAA was able to come to its contrary conclusion?

The NOAA study was essentially able to raise the rate of warming during the pause by putting a greater emphasis on data collected from ocean buoy arrays, and slightly raising land-based temperatures that had been previously recorded. NOAA also shifted the time frame of the pause, defining it as 2000-2014 in order to conveniently include two years that supposedly saw the highest recorded temperatures on record. They ridicule skeptics for cherry-picking data, yet that’s exactly what they just did.

“This new analysis exhibits more than twice as much warming as the old analysis at the global scale,” NOAA scientists claim with a straight face. The report goes on to state that the overall warming trend since 1880 has not significantly changed, but the sharp uptick in temperatures in recent decades is cause for concern.

This manufactured spike in global surface temperatures in the NOAA study certainly comes at a convenient time. World leaders will be gathering in Paris at the end of this year to hammer out the details of a global warming treaty that is sure to place harsh restrictions on international commerce and energy production. That treaty is harder to justify if the lull in rising temperatures persists.

Yet the NOAA report has landed with a thud among many in the scientific community. Climate experts Bob Tisdale and Anthony Watts noted that to “manufacture warming during the hiatus, NOAA adjusted the pre-hiatus data downward. It’s the same story all over again; the adjustments go towards cooling the past and thus increasing the slope of temperature rise. Their intent and methods are so obvious they’re laughable.” 
Georgia Tech climate scientists Judith Curry noted, “The global surface temperature datasets are clearly a moving target. So while I’m sure this latest analysis from NOAA will be regarded as politically useful for the Obama administration, I don’t regard it as a particularly useful contribution to our scientific understanding of what is going on.”

In its investigation of the story, the online news site Mashable talked to a dozen top climate scientists not associated with the NOAA report and found that they were nearly unanimous in refuting the conclusion that the warming pause never happened.

“It is clear that [NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information director Thomas] Karl et al. have put a lot of careful work into updating these global products,” said Lisa Goddard, director of Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society. “However, they go too far when they conclude that there was no decadal-scale slowdown in the rate of warming globally. This argument seems to rely on choosing the right period — such as including the recent record-breaking 2014.”

NOAA’s data cherry-picking won’t help advance their cause — at least not honestly. But this behavior is typical of the leftist mindset that seeks to bend others to their will by any means necessary.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: Chinese Cyberattacks Reveal Obama’s Lack of Leadership
• Clintons Donated to NYT, Paper Endorsed Hillary
• With Social Security Nearing Insolvency, IG Finds Waste
• Abortions Nationwide on the Decline
• GOP May Cave to ObamaCare Subsidies Once SCOTUS Rules
• Hawaii Dumps State ObamaCare Exchange

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Tony Perkins: The CDC’s Abstinence-Minded Professors
• Dennis Prager: Differences Between Left and Right: Part III
• Ed Feulner: Showing the Ex-Im Bank the Exit
• Thomas Sowell: Who Lost Iraq?
• Arnold Ahlert: The TPP Will Destroy America’s National Sovereignty

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Tony Perkins: “In [the CDC’s] 2015 ‘Sexually Transmitted Diseases Treatment Guidelines,’ a two-word change made all the difference. Five years ago, the CDC used to say abstinence and monogamy were ‘a reliable way to avoid disease.’ As of last Friday, the agency agrees it’s ‘*the* most reliable way.’ That may not seem like a radical edit to most people, but in this administration, moral purity is as foreign a concept as political transparency. … Somewhere along the way, too many adults started operating from a position of lower expectations, as if teenagers were incapable of exercising any self-restraint. It became assumed, not discouraged, that children would have sex. With or without the government’s help, it’s time for parents to speak up and encourage their teens to do what’s counter-cultural. Too many moms and dads think their kids aren’t listening to what they say about abstinence. Think again. Parents are the single biggest influence on their children’s sexual decisions. If the cultural influences from Hollywood and the media are committed to marketing promiscuity and immodesty at every turn, then as parents, we have to be just as committed to helping our teenagers fight those temptations.”

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SHORT CUTS

Insight: “One’s first step in wisdom is to question everything — and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.” —German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)

Upright: “Congress does two things well: nothing and overreact. Well, I have some good news: Doing nothing when it comes to the Ex-Im Bank is exactly what we need right now. That’s because the charter for the Export-Import Bank, which provides taxpayer-backed loans to foreign countries and companies to pay for U.S. products, is set to expire June 30. To get rid of this poster child for crony capitalism, lawmakers don’t have to lift a finger. Imagine: For a change, we’d have good reason to applaud a ‘do-nothing’ Congress.” —Ed Feulner

Non Compos Mentis: “[King v. Burwell] should be an easy case. Frankly, it shouldn’t have even been taken up [by SCOTUS]. … There is no reason why the existing exchanges should be overturned through a court case. … I think it’s important for us to go ahead and assume that the Supreme Court is going to do what most legal scholars who’ve looked at this would expect them to do. … Part of what’s bizarre about this whole thing is, we haven’t had a lot of conversation about the horrors of ObamaCare because none of them have come to pass.” —Barack Obama, politically attacking the Supreme Court yet again, this time for ObamaCare subsidies as outlined by the law itself

Ya think? “We don’t yet have a complete strategy.” —Barack Obama on decimating the Islamic State

Village Idiots: “A new Pew Research Center report states that 52 percent of Americans support gun rights, the highest percentage in the last two decades. Yet the gun rights that they believe are guaranteed by law may very well be an illusion. That’s because we have allowed lawyers instead of language professionals to interpret the Constitution of the United States.” —Chicago Tribune contributor and College of DuPage professor David McGrath

Late-night humor: “The TSA is under fire for major security lapses. Because of the security lapses, the TSA has let through pipe bombs, knives, and the last three Nicolas Cage movies.” —Conan O'Brien

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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 FOUNDATION

“[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” —Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 1804

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Obama’s Iraq Strategy: Leave It for the Next Prez

“If [the Iraqis] are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them,” Barack Obama declared again, though he reiterated his commitment to helping train Iraqi troops over a “multi-year” period. According to State Department official and Islamic State expert Brett McGurk, “It’s a three-year campaign to degrade the organization.” And as National Journal puts it, “Three years marked from mid-2014, of course, falls after Jan. 20, 2017, the date Obama leaves office. Translation: The strategy is to avoid sending ground troops for the remainder of his term. So stop asking.” Indeed, Obama campaigned in 2008 on ending the Iraq war. In 2011, having rejected the Bush strategy of establishing a status of forces agreement (SOFA) to secure our hard-won gains in Iraq and the region, Obama declared, “Everything Americans have done in Iraq, all the fighting, all the dying, the bleeding, the building and the training and the partnering, all of it has led to this moment of success. … We’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq.” And a narcissist can’t admit he’s wrong. He’s going to stubbornly stand pat, keep declaring victory, and leave the Islamic State for the next commander in chief to clean up.

Indeed, his spokesman Josh Earnest explicitly said just that: “In 2017, there will be a new commander in chief and someone else who will have a responsibility to evaluate the situation on the ground and determine what steps are necessary to continue to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL. That’s something that we’ll leave to the next president.” But what will the next 18 months bring?

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China Stole Data of Four Million

Now that the NSA is done scraping up the nation’s phone data, it should get on the task of protecting the U.S. from intrusions like the one that happened last December. U.S. investigators said that the personal data of four million current and former federal employees were stolen by hackers — most likely from China. While the Chinese Embassy in DC denied the allegation that the country was responsible for the intrusion, U.S. intelligence says the Chinese military is collecting a massive database on Americans, possibly as a way to find and recruit Americans as spies. “The breach is yet more evidence that Beijing sees the U.S. as an adversary and is unworried about any response aggression will elicit from the White House,” writes National Review’s Michael Auslin. “Whether it’s economic espionage, security challenges, or now hacking U.S. government websites, Beijing is testing, probing, and undermining America in any way that they can.” While the Obama administration’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal has some questions and drawbacks, a trade deal with the nations near China is a natural opportunity, a good first step, to diminish China’s influence in the Pacific. More…

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EPA Contradicts Ecofascists on Fracking

For years, environmentalists have seen hydraulic fracturing — also known as fracking — as an insidious threat. Energy companies have used the technique to reach oil and gas deposits previously out of reach of traditional extraction methods. It’s a big reason why the nation has surged forward as one of the top oil producers in the world. After spending years studying fracking’s effect on drinking water, the Environmental Protection Agency released a draft reportconcluding, “We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States. … The number of identified cases [where fracking led to contamination], however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells.” This is a fire hose of water on the ecofascists' heated rhetoric. Last year, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, listening to the fear mongering of environmentalists, used an executive order to ban fracking in The Empire State. “EPA’s conclusion really is remarkable,” writes The Wall Street Journal. “The agency has yearned for an excuse to take over fracking regulation from the states, which do the job well. So if there was so much as a sliver of evidence that fracking was dangerous, the EPA would have found it.” More…

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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS

A Tale of Two Crooks and the IRS

By Robin Smith

With her roots in Roman mythology, Lady Justice represents morality and virtue through three symbols. First, she holds a set of scales in her left hand, to weigh evidence with reason and in light of the law. Second, she wields a double-edged sword in her right hand, representing the remedy impartially provided after the facts are laid bare before her. And third, she wears a blindfold, signifying that the law must be applied with objectivity and equality.

Yet too often politicians seek to lift this blindfold, wanting to redefine justice based on the year’s election cycle or to subvert it through delays, denials and tactics that advance their agenda.

Let’s examine two cases in which the Internal Revenue Service has been used as a tool for political revenge and harassment, and how they reflect an assault on justice that should offend all.

Consider the identical approaches of Richard Nixon and Barack Obama. One a Republican and the other a Democrat, both illustrate power’s ability to corrupt to the extreme, instituting a false democracy where disagreement and disloyalty are silenced by heavy-handed tactics.

Nixon’s legacy as the 37th president is often defined by his impeachment. Posterity’s view of Obama is still being penned, but both will be remembered for their unconstitutional misuse of government and for the tenured bureaucrats who willingly complied.

In the Articles of Impeachment adopted by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in 1974, most remember Article I, which declared Nixon “impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors” committed surrounding the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972.

The charges leveled by Congress state, “Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.”

The break-in and burglary were indeed illegal and brought disgrace to the office of the president. But the obstruction, delays and attempts to conceal the covert activities all demonstrated an egregiously deliberate abuse of the power afforded the president of the United States.

Yet those same Articles of Impeachment issue a second damning charge, accusing Nixon of “using the powers of the office of President of the United States … in violation of his constitutional oath.” Nixon “repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.”

Specifically, Nixon, “acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service” information of citizens he had on his “enemies list” who he deemed politically dangerous to his ambitions.

Today’s ongoing IRS scandal involves conservative political groups whose applications for tax-exempt status were deliberately slowed. This similar flagrant abuse of authority commenced during Obama’s first term, helping him win a second, and it features the Nixonian ingredients of willing participants who delay, obstruct and lie to protect the crimes against innocent citizens.

Last week, Mary Howard, the head Freedom of Information Act officer at the IRS, testified to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the agency set up a secret “special project team” comprised of “hundreds of attorneys,” including the IRS Chief Counsel (one of only two politically appointed positions at the IRS by the president himself). She said her “understanding was that it started soon after the request came from Congress and other investigators asking for documents around this whole issue,” which she surmised meant around spring 2013.

Not only were law-abiding citizens targeted by an agency of the U.S. government for their political and religious views, but Obama’s henchmen implemented a plan to cover up this activity and delay information from getting into the hands of investigators. Key to this malfeasance is IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins — appointed by Obama — whose office has been directly connected in this harassment and abuse, which includes illegal requests and access to donor information.

Ironically, this unquestionable presidential corruption — the same as the misuse of power that ended in impeachment for Nixon — now leaves Republicans in fear of the political consequences for seeking justice. Democrats simply protect themselves through vindictive attacks and accusations of racism.

There was a day when the law was equally applied regardless of partisan stripe. And history has shown that both Republicans and Democrats can pursue justice for the honor and sake of our nation and Constitution. It’s only a matter of time before future generations declare Obama and his administration as lawless, dishonorable deceivers of the American public, corrupt for the sake of ambition and political power.

Justice may be blind, but she’s not stupid.

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TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US

• ANALYSIS: Mayhem Rules In St. Paul Schools
• Hawaii Dumps State ObamaCare Exchange
• NJ Woman Stabbed to Death While Waiting for Gun Permit
• NOAA Lies to Justify UN Climate Treaty
• Army Ranger Social Experiment Fails

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

• Tony Perkins: Air Force Pilots Policy Change on Transgenders
• John Goodman: How Much Does Paul Krugman Want to Tax LeBron James?
• Jeff Jacoby: The Case for Israel Is Rooted in More Than Security
• Stephen Moore: North Carolina Created Jobs and Surpluses Through Tax Cuts
• George Will: The Super PAC Minuet

For more, visit Right Opinion.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Tony Perkins: “‘Gay Pride Month’ is just beginning — but we can’t say the same for the administration’s pandering. … [T]he Air Force is taking its radicalism to new heights — announcing that it was easing the discharge policy on transgenders in advance of the pride event [on] Tuesday. … Going where no branch has gone before, the Air Force will let high-ranking officials decide the fate of known transgenders in their ranks. … ‘There must be a commander determination that the condition interferes with duty requirements,’ the Air Force pointed out. In other words, branch leaders can opt to keep open transgenders in their units — despite the fact that it violates military policy and U.S. law. By putting the decision in commanders' laps, the entire process becomes more politicized — where before, it was a simple medical determination. … [T]ransgenderism is at its root a serious mental disorder (one classified as such — not just by Johns Hopkins — but the military’s own Defense Department!). If these men and women are confused about their gender, what’s to keep them from being confused about their mission? With the world falling to pieces and the margin of error so slight, can we really afford these distractions? By letting people create their own realities, Washington is losing its grip on its own.”

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SHORT CUTS

The Gipper: “Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, ‘What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.’ But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.”

Blame game: “I’m tired of funerals of babies, while [the] NRA, manufacturers, and [gun stores], run to the bank making profits from death. … At the end of the day you can argue with us [and] you can call us names, but you got to deal with God. And the blood of our children is on your hands. And you will pay for the murder of our children.” —Chicago “Reverend” and Obama buddy Michael Pfleger, who did not blame gang culture or the ones actually pulling the trigger

Village Idiots: “[The EPA] will stick with the [oil] industry till all our water is contaminated, our air polluted and climate change has made our planet unlivable. … What the EPA presented to the public [about fracking being harmless for drinking water] was PR, not science and proof of the widespread, systemic contamination of our regulatory bodies by the oil and gas industry.” —documentarian Josh Fox, who thinks the EPA isn’t ecofascist enough

Braying Jackass: “We have a democracy problem in this country. We have declining voter turnout. Secretary Clinton put forward [the] notion [that] we need a national strategy to energize voting again, to get people involved. Obviously, to address the many efforts made by Republicans to repress voter involvement. … Let’s face it, a lot of the people in the political class have tried to discourage voter involvement and a lot of incumbents prefer a very small electorate.” —New York Mayor Bill de Blasio

Friendly fire: “I think [the reason Hillary Clinton] is running so aggressively on policy is because she can’t really run on character.” —The Atlantic’s Molly Ball

“A new poll shows that 53% of Democrats think illegal immigrants should be allowed to vote. I’m guessing the other 47% think it should be a requirement.” —Fred Thompson

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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.