Monday Brief: Case Closed on the Osama File

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Brief · May 2, 2011 The Foundation "What a glorious morning this is!" --Samuel Adams The Osama File: Case Closed Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by Navy SEALs on Sunday and his remains were discarded at sea. The raid was conducted with little input from Pakistan. Osama's death marks a long-awaited triumph for the United States, but it came much too late and at a very high price. Michael Scheuer, former CIA chief of the team hunting Osama bin Laden, confirmed with great disdain that SpecOps had not one but two opportunities to kill Osama before 9/11, however with Osama in their sights, Bill Clinton pulled the plug on both those operations. Consequently, the 9/11 jihadis settled into U.S. suburbs under Clinton's watch. The success of this mission elevates the danger of terrorist attack on the continental U.S. because al-Qa'ida must now assert its relevance in the absence of its leader. Announcing Osama's death, Barack Obama claimed that in the aftermath of 9/11, "no matter what God we prayed to ... we were united as one American family." Horse pucky. There were many instances of Muslims within the U.S. expressing elation over Osama's attack. Even Obama's "pastor" Jeremiah "GD America" Wright claimed, "White America got a wake-up call after 9/11. White America ... came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just disappeared as the great white West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns." Obama took full credit for the kill, saying, "Shortly after taking office, I [made] the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority." Apparently Obama is under the false impression that killing Osama was a low priority for the Bush administration. Killing Osama has been a top priority since Sept. 12, 2001. Perhaps he will now take full credit for everything else happening on his watch, and stop blaming Bush! Osama's death is a key victory in the world war against Islamists, albeit a small victory in the Long War against Muslim hatred. Next up, native son of New Mexico Anwar al-Awlaki, Osama's chief lieutenant, also hiding out in Pakistan. Publisher's Note To our Patriot brothers and sisters, on Thursday, I posted a note about not making our publishing deadline for the first time in 15 years due to severe weather. It took a couple of days before I was able to get online and see the hundreds of responses, which I did not expect for a note about our interrupted publishing schedule. Let me just say, we are overwhelmed by your notes of support and encouragement. I have spent the better part of the last four days working with my boys and many others, digging folks out from what was left of their humble homes. It is a blessing to serve others and we are grateful for the opportunity to pitch in. Early in my career, I spent six years as a first responder, both law enforcement and medical, and during those years and those since, I have witnessed, repeatedly, communities coming together after tragedy and pooling resources and talent for the benefit of others they have never met. That is the essence of America. Thanks to all those who have held up in prayer and offering those who have suffered here. Reader Comments "When you are down, we are down with you. I have just made another small donation to help with getting you back up. We are grateful for your spirit." --V/R, William Editor's Reply: We are grateful for your support! A note to our readers: Thanks to you, we reached our goal of $75,000 for our Patriots' Day Campaign. "Speaking on behalf of your readers and supporters, our need for your excellent analysis is far outweighed by your neighbor's need for your immediate assistance. You have our blessing to suspend publication for as long as it takes to meet these responsibilities as you see them." --Robert "First, let me say I believe Obama was born in Hawaii and all the distraction over his birth certificate has been part of his plan to divide and conquer, right out of Saul Alinski's play book. Now Obama give's the world his long form certificate to put the question to rest. Please explain to me why the White House would post a blatantly modified PDF copy of the birth certificate? I use Photoshop and Illustrator daily in my work and the PDF posted by the White House has been made up to look like it has been tampered with, and it is very obvious to anyone in the business of graphic arts." --Dave Editor's Reply: As we noted Friday, nothing Obama releases at this point will convince any of those who believe he was not born in Hawaii that he was, so perhaps they have decided to keep the ruse going, ad nauseum, in order to keep some of his opponents' political capital pouring down a rathole, while he bankrupts the nation. "Your comment about WorldNetDaily in Friday's Digest was uncalled for. I have always had a very high opinion of your column but it just took a nosedive with your criticism of WorldNetDaily. WND is one of the most reputable, most thoroughly researched news sources out there. As for WorldNetDaily selling advertising -- The Patriot Post does the same thing. Is the kettle calling the pot black?" --Richard Editor's Reply: We knew that a handful of our readers who also subscribe to sensationalist websites, would take strong exception to our criticism of those sites. The problem with sensationalist websites like WorldNetDaily, Patriot Update and others, is that they build some of their most controversial stories on 10 percent substance and 90 percent fragrance. The result of the hype is that it tends to divert attention from core threats to liberty and focus it on topical threats, which often have only marginal merit in fact. These diversions are a disservice to grassroots conservatives and the legacy of Liberty. The birth certificate hype is a textbook case in point. Yes, Obama is the consummate narcissistic Socialist, and yes, he should have release this information, and other records related to his background, on the first request. But the diversion he created via all the sensationalist hype was a masterful political ploy. As for advertising, actually we do NOT advertise for any third party or share our subscriber lists under any circumstances -- and the products we sell from our own Patriot Shop support our mission. On the other hand, the sensationalist advertising models built on hype, such as the WorldNetDaily's Y2K scare are, at best, unethical. For example, in the year before Y2K, WND ran an endless loop about the world coming to an end -- and those stories were peppered with sources for your survival gear, bulk food, gold and silver, etc. If you were one of their true believers, you got suckered. If are still one, you still are. (BTW, if you want to see our balanced coverage on this issue, read The Fat Lady Will Sing.) Re: The Left "Who truly reviles America the hegemon? The world that Obama lived in and shaped him intellectually: the elite universities; his Hyde Park milieu (including his not-to-be-mentioned friends, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn); the church he attended for two decades, ringing with sermons more virulently anti-American than anything heard in today's full-throated uprising of the Arab Street. It is the liberal elites who revile the American colossus and devoutly wish to see it cut down to size. Leading from behind -- diminishing America's global standing and assertiveness -- is a reaction to their view of America, not the world's. Other presidents take anti-Americanism as a given, rather than evidence of American malignancy, believing -- as do most Americans -- in the rightness of our cause and the nobility of our intentions. Obama thinks anti-Americanism is a verdict on America's fitness for leadership. I would suggest that 'leading from behind' is a verdict on Obama's fitness for leadership. Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron. Yet a sympathetic journalist, channeling an Obama adviser, elevates it to a doctrine. The president is no doubt flattered. The rest of us are merely stunned." --columnist Charles Krauthammer Opinion in Brief "Climate change is dead as a major political issue for the foreseeable future. Don't believe me? Check out Obama's remarks in his weekly radio address last weekend. It was all about energy policy, and yet not once did he talk about climate change. ... According to the Congressional Research Service, hardly a mouthpiece for Big Oil, the U.S. has the largest energy resources of any country, Saudi Arabia and Russia included. But in another sense it's not odd, because telling voters that they have to pay high gas prices in order to ineffectually fight climate change would be honest but incalculably dumb, politically. Recent polling shows that Americans care about the economy more -- a lot more -- than global warming. Skepticism about the existence of a problem or its scope has been rising in the U.S. and Europe. ... Green jobs destroy more jobs than they create, and pay less. In Spain, Obama's favorite clean-energy innovator, one study found that 2.2 jobs were destroyed for every one that was created. Indeed, across Europe, massive investments in wind and solar simply haven't paid off. ... Obama and the greens are in an exquisite bind. Without economic recovery, Americans won't support Obama's 'investments,' but Obama's investments are a hindrance to recovery." --columnist Jonah Goldberg For the Record "While Mr. Obama scoffs at the notion that new drilling would make a difference, the United States sits on perhaps 1 trillion recoverable barrels of oil, enough to last more than 200 years without any Middle Eastern oil. Unleashing this could create millions of jobs, lift the economy and free us from dependence on foreign oil. Instead, the president pretends to back new production while his bureaucrats smother it. Mr. Obama's most misleading assertion might be that the United States has 'about 2 [percent], maybe 3 percent of the world's proven oil reserves; we use 25 percent of the world's oil.' ... The weasel term is 'proven.' That includes only oil under sites already approved and prepared for harvest. The Congressional Research Service estimates that the U.S. has 157 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Another 900 billion from shale and other unconventional sources will soon be recoverable. The only thing blocking this energy bounty is the hard leftists who populate the White House, executive agencies and U.S. Senate. They are hellbent on making America swallow the Gaia version of the Earth, socialist economics and Al Gore's man-caused climate change." --columnist Robert Knight The Gipper "Keeping America strong is as vital to the national security as controlling Federal spending is to our economic security. But, as I have said before, the most powerful force we can enlist against the Federal deficit is an ever-expanding American economy, unfettered and free. The magic of opportunity -- unreserved, unfailing, unrestrained -- isn't this the calling that unites us? I believe our tax rate cuts for the people have done more to spur a spirit of risk-taking and help America's economy break free than any program since John Kennedy's tax cut almost a quarter century ago." --Ronald Reagan Culture "What entitlements do, and what the transformation of entitlements into rights does, is create a citizenry that increasingly lacks the most important character trait -- gratitude. Of all the characteristics needed for both a happy and morally decent life, none surpasses gratitude. Grateful people are happier, and grateful people are more morally decent. That is why we teach our children to say 'thank you.' But the welfare state undoes that. One does not express thanks for a right. So, instead of 'thank you,' the citizen of the welfare state is taught to say, 'What more can I get?' Yet, while producing increasingly selfish people, the mantra of the left, and therefore of the universities and the media, has been for generations that capitalism and the free market, not the welfare state, produces selfish people. They succeed in part because demonizing conservatives and their values is a left-wing art. But the truth is that capitalism and the free market produce less selfish people. Teaching people to work hard and take care of themselves (and others) produces a less, not a more, selfish citizen. Capitalism teaches people to work harder; the welfare state teaches people to want harder. Which is better?" --radio talk-show host Dennis Prager Click Here In Honor of An American Hero shield Our "In Honor of An American Hero" shield bears the words from Isaiah 40:31: "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings as eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint." Shields are sold in minimum quantities of five and include chains and silencers. The Last Word "Taking only one performance problem in a single government office -- surfing Internet pornography at the Securities and Exchange Commission: In 2010, 31 employees were found to have spent their workdays downloading Internet [smut] in the 2 1/2 years during and preceding the financial crash that led to the greatest depression in nearly a century. One of their favorite ... sites was 'Fannie Mae Hill,' while those who prefer big girls were at 'Too Big to Fail.' ... Seventeen of the [smut]-surfers were being paid government salaries of $99,356 to $222,418. One senior lawyer at SEC headquarters in Washington, D.C., admitted to spending eight hours a day looking at Internet pornography. ... In another classic example of the left hand not wanting to know what the right hand was doing, an employee with the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance admitted watching up to five hours a day of pornography in his office. ... Even after admitting to surfing [smut] all day on the taxpayers' dime, not one of the lonely SEC employees was fired, nor were their names released by the government, even in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. ... These are the true beneficiaries of big government -- or our 'commitments,' as Obama calls them -- not the poor, the elderly, the disadvantaged, and those about whom we say 'There but for the grace of God, go I.' Democrats don't resent 'the rich' on behalf of the poor. They resent the rich on behalf of the government." --columnist Ann Coulter Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis! The Patriot Post Editorial Team (To submit reader comments click here.) Patriot News Review U.S. Kills Osama bin Laden Most Wanted: Osama Timeline New DNC Chief: Obama Deserves Credit for bin Laden Killing Rumsfeld: Intel About bin Laden Could Have Come From Gitmo Debt ceiling: More Democrats Threaten to Vote Against Raising Borrowing Limit Paul Ryan Calls for Ending Oil Subsidies More News The Right Opinion Burt Prelutsky: Shooting From the Hip Michael Barone: On Foreign Policy, Obama Leads From Behind George Will: Working Up a Tax Storm Debra Saunders: Intolerant Left Strikes Again Argus Hamilton: From The Comedy Store Burt Prelutsky: Leveling With Republicans L. Brent Bozell: MTV's Crotch Profits Peggy Noonan: Make John Paul II a Saint Edwin J. Feulner: A Government Union Shakedown Jonah Goldberg: A Thorny, Porn-y Issue for N.Y. Public Library Suzanne Fields: Eichmann's Evil No Longer Banal Paul Greenberg: Enough Drama Already -- the Country's Getting Sick of It More Opinion Grassroots Commentary Osama bin Laden Dead: What's Next? The Judas Media Conservatism and Business Three Days of the Commie Truth Justice and the American Way Reason and Faith More Commentary Policy and Analysis Heritage Foundation Insider Heritage Foundation Research American Enterprise Institute Center for Strategic and International Studies The Cato Institute Hoover Institution National Rifle Association Ludwig von Mises Institute Citizens Against Government Waste National Center for Policy Analysis The Heartland Institute (Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.) Follow The Patriot Post:

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