View online at: http://patriotpost.us/digests/24316 Right Analysis | Right Hooks | Right Opinion Patriot Headlines | Grassroots Commentary Daily Digest for Tuesday March 25, 2014    THE FOUNDATION "It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated." --James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention, 1829 PUBLISHER'S NOTE In 1990, Congress designated March 25th as National Medal of Honor Day, a day that is dedicated to all Medal of Honor recipients. According to the Army's Medal of Honor web page, "The President, in the name of Congress, has awarded more than 3,400 Medals of Honor to our nation's bravest Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen since the decoration's creation in 1861." We're ever grateful for the service of these men and women, and all our military personnel. TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS 'Huge Success' Being 'Vilified' "Never in my lifetime have I seen a law that is helping so many people be so vilified," complained Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). "This is a huge success, this law." How successful? Well, a report released in time for ObamaCare's four-year anniversary Sunday indicates just the opposite. The American Action Forum sums it up: "From a regulatory perspective, the law has imposed more than $27.2 billion in total private sector costs, $8 billion in unfunded state burdens, and more than 159 million paperwork hours on local governments and affected entities. What's more troubling, the law has generated just $2.6 billion in annualized benefits, compared to $6.8 billion in annualized costs. In other words, the ACA has imposed 2.5 times more costs than it has produced in benefits." We'd say the law is doing a fine job of vilifying itself. Comment | Share NSA Proposals Released The White House and the House Intelligence Committee will reveal anticipated proposals today to restructure the NSA's sweeping phone surveillance. Both proposals shift the task of metadata collection from the government to phone companies. In essence, the government would no longer collect or hold the data but it would maintain access to it, while phone companies will be granted liability protection and some measure of reimbursement for expenses. Annual reauthorization would be necessary. As details are hammered out, however, the administration plans to extend the NSA's court mandate beyond this Friday's expiration. Nothing of substance seems to be changing, only the method. Comment | Share Aborted Babies Incinerated The London Telegraph has a new report on grizzly details of what's happening in Britain's health system: "The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found." According to the findings, 27 National Health Service trusts incinerated more than 15,000 babies just over the last two years, often as part of the "waste to energy" program these "hospitals" are using. Health minister Dr. Dan Poulter called the practice "totally unacceptable," but such detached-from-reality practices are far more common in Britain than anyone cares to admit. And we shouldn't expect any different in societies that implement socialized medicine while devaluing the lives of the unborn through abortion on demand. Comment | Share Bleak Hope for Long-Term Jobless So how's that Obama Hope 'n' Change™ working for the jobless? Not very well. "In a sobering new study, three Princeton economists found that only 11% of the long-term unemployed in any given month found full-time work a year later," reports the LA Times. There are numerous factors at play and they can be cyclical, the researchers say: "[S]tatistical discrimination against the long-term unemployed could lead to discouragement, and skill erosion that accompanies long-term unemployment could induce employers to discriminate against the long-term unemployed." And as we have noted, extending unemployment benefits compounds the problem. As long as Obamanomics is stifling growth, the stagnation will continue. Comment | Share Racist Preschool Suspensions The Obama the Education Department's civil rights arm has made a shocking discovery -- minority preschool kids are suspended at a higher rate than whites. According to the AP, "black children represent about 18 percent of children enrolled in preschool programs in schools, but almost half of the students suspended more than once." Now, you may be wondering why the Education Department has a "civil rights" division, or why preschoolers are suspended. Long story short, leftist educators have substituted "zero tolerance" policies for common sense discipline, resulting in suspensions for things like tardiness and disrespect. And the "civil rights" efforts of the Obama administration exist to convince minority groups that Democrats are ever vigilant in defending their interests and that more heavy-handed government intervention (in government education, no less) is the only answer. Yet when it comes to minority-on-minority gang violence in leftist enclaves like Chicago, the silence is deafening. Comment | Share For more, visit Right Hooks. Don't Miss Patriot Humor Here's yesterday's edition, Obama Responds to Putin. If you'd like to receive Patriot Humor by email, update your subscription here. Share RIGHT ANALYSIS Russia Receives Sternly Worded Letter Mitt Romney isn't the kind of guy to relish the "I told you so" moment, but he hasn't missed the opportunity for some vindication over foreign policy. In one of the 2012 presidential debates, Barack Obama mocked Romney's assertion that Russia is our number one geopolitical threat. As was all too obvious to us at the time, Obama was merely showcasing his own ignorance because Romney was exactly right. "[T]here's no question but that the president's naïveté with regards to Russia, and his faulty judgment about Russia's intentions and objectives, has led to a number of foreign policy challenges that we face," the former GOP presidential candidate said over the weekend. "We really need to understand that Russia has very different interests than ours. This is not fantasyland, this is reality where they are a geopolitical adversary. They're not our enemy, but they are certainly an adversary on the world stage." Indeed, Obama's pathetically weak response to former KGB strongman Vladimir Putin has served to embolden Russian aggression in Ukraine. Only after Crimea was annexed and Russian troops were amassing along the border with Ukraine did Obama begin issuing a few slaps on the wrist via insignificant sanctions. On Monday, the U.S. and six other members of the G-8, a group of the world's economic powers, made the symbolic gesture of suspending Russia from the club and moving their June meeting from Sochi to Brussels. Yet they declined to issue further sanctions, saving that step in case Russia invades Ukraine. Russia responded with indifference, as the foreign minister said, "Maybe, for a year or two, it will be an experiment for us to see how we live without it." In fact, Obama threatened to kick Russia out of the G-8 before the invasion; obviously, that didn't alter Putin's calculations. He will proceed as planned until Obama and the West show some real backbone. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blames Republicans, who blocked an aid package to Ukraine over objections to changes made with the International Monetary Fund. "It's impossible to know whether events would have unfolded differently if the United States had responded to Russian aggression with a strong, unified voice," Reid said of the bill, which passed Monday but had no chance of becoming law in time to make a difference anyway. Besides, anybody remember Reid's "unified voice" declaring the Iraq war "lost" in 2007? Finally, the Obama administration is stubborn in its blindness. Tom Donilon, Barack Obama's former national security adviser, even defended the administration's "reset" with Russia, saying that it worked like a charm. "I know there's been some criticism on, was the reset ill advised?" said Donilon. "No, the reset wasn't ill advised. The reset resulted in direct accomplishments that were in the interests of the United States." It seems to us the net result has been Russian resurgence in the face of the administration's weakness. But then again, for a president who can't tolerate American exceptionalism, that probably is a success story. Comment | Share Untrue Horror Stories and the Trouble With Subsidies The list of problems with ObamaCare is already long, from a busted Healthcare.gov rollout to skyrocketing insurance premiums to cancelled plans and so on and so on. Now it's come to light that Healthcare.gov is giving the wrong information about subsidy eligibility, all while a court challenge over those subsidies is being heard. And just wait until you file your 2014 tax return. Read the rest of the story here. For more, visit Right Analysis. TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS Mona Charen: Why Ryan Matters Cal Thomas: Fred Phelps: Satan's Servant Ed Feulner: Why We Don't Need Another Pre-School Program William Murchison: Twilight of the Gods David Limbaugh: There's Nothing Live-and-Let-Live About the Orwellian Pro-Abortion Left For more, visit Right Opinion. OPINION IN BRIEF Columnist Cal Thomas: "My parents taught me never to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Fred Phelps, who died last week at the age of 84, I think they would have made an exception. ... The media played a major role in promoting Phelps and his cult-like family. The outrageous, the bizarre, the twisted, especially if these things can be tied to religion, are favorite subjects of broadcast networks and newspapers. Too bad those practicing true religion do not get the kind of coverage Phelps did. ... Phelps claimed to be serving God with his diatribes against people he claimed were God's enemies. But instead of directing hatred toward people, no less a figure than Jesus of Nazareth said, 'love your enemies.' Real Baptist preachers will tell you it is Satan who hates and God who loves. They will tell you that Satan is a masquerader, a fraud and a liar. Does that sound like Phelps? If Fred Phelps were a dollar bill, the Secret Service would have arrested him for being counterfeit. His is a counterfeit religion, which bears no resemblance to true faith." Comment | Share French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662): "Justice without force is impotent, [and] force without justice is tyranny. Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just." Columnist Mona Charen: "The defamation of Paul Ryan as a racist for noting the multigenerational persistence of joblessness in troubled neighborhoods is more than just another episode of hysterical name-calling by the left. The episode represents, in microcosm, the left's intellectual bankruptcy. ... When Ryan talks about the poor with such evident sincerity, he threatens the carefully tended bogeyman so necessary to Democrats' success -- the evil, heartless Republican. I imagine that Ryan apologized -- he said he'd been 'inarticulate' -- to blunt the criticism, but I wish he hadn't. Far better to turn the camera around and reveal the tactics of his accusers. They are hoping to intimidate him. They are trying to ensure that he hesitates before speaking about poverty again. They are attempting to box him into a corner." Humorist Frank J. Fleming: "Now that oil companies can cause earthquakes with their fracking, maybe people should be nicer to them." Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis! Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team 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. *PUBLIUS* The Patriot Post is protected speech pursuant to the "unalienable rights" of all men, and the First (and Second) Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. In God we trust. Copyright © 2014 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved. REPRINTING, FORWARDING AND POSTING: Subscribers may reprint, forward or post original content from The Patriot Post, in whole or part, in accordance with our Terms of Use, with the following citation: "The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/ )" You have received this email because you are subscribed to The Patriot Post. To manage your subscription or to unsubscribe, link to http://patriotpost.us/manage/.