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Right Analysis | Right Hooks | Right Opinion
Patriot Headlines | Grassroots Commentary
Daily Digest
April 7, 2015 
THE FOUNDATION
"The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws." --John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Barack Obama can't help but boast about his terrible deal with Iran, even if his boasts are empty. He called it a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to stop nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Wrong -- the Saudis will see to that. Furthermore, Obama insisted, for Israel it means "we've got their backs." How so? "This is our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon," Obama said. "What we will be doing even as we enter into this deal is sending a very clear message to the Iranians and to the entire region that if anybody messes with Israel, America will be there." Somehow we doubt his sincerity, even if he complains it's "personally difficult" for him to hear people don't believe he loves Israel. He also said, "I would consider it a failure on my part, a fundamental failure of my presidency, if on my watch, or as a consequence of work that I had done, Israel was rendered more vulnerable." Well, it's a failure. "There is no formula, there is no option," he added, "to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon that will be more effective than the diplomatic initiative and framework that we put forward -- and that's demonstrable." Actually, the experts say the deal is not verifiable. But nothing will burst Obama's fantasy bubble.
Obama also defined the "Obama Doctrine": "The doctrine is we will engage but we preserve all our capabilities. I've been very clear that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon on my watch." What does that mean? Well, this "deal" ensures that Iran will have the capability to develop a nuclear weapon under the next administration. Even Obama later admitted as much.
As for Congress, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said, "If the president feels like this is something that's good for the nation, surely he can sell this to the United States Senate and the House." No wonder Obama doesn't want to even try.
Meanwhile, don't miss what Charles Krauthammer calls the fundamental problem with the deal.
Last week, Islamic militants murdered 150 Christians in Kenya, explicitly because of their faith. According to the Associated Press, "The attackers separated Christian students from Muslim ones and massacred the Christians." But Barack Obama couldn't be bothered to mention faith at all. The White House statement denounced "terrorist atrocities" against "men and women" and "students," but there was nary a peep about "Muslims" or "Christians." Likewise, Obama neglected to mention the 21 Egyptian Christians beheaded by ISIL earlier this year were anything but "citizens." It would seem the only time Obama doesn't mind mentioning Christians is when he's lecturing them about the Crusades.
"I am running for president to return our country to the principles of liberty and limited government," Rand Paul announced on his website this morning. For days, Paul has dropped heavy hints to his 1.8 million fans on Facebook. And at noon today in Louisville, the Kentucky Republican will make a speech announcing his candidacy for president. For years, a devoted group of conservatives backed his father, Ron Paul, when he ran for the White House. Now the son is here, and with him is an already established grassroots network -- Paul supporters were in the crowd as Sen. Ted Cruz announced his own presidential candidacy. Already, Paul has begun to reach out to constituencies not normally attracted to the Republican Party -- namely, college students and blacks -- making him a good person to grow the Republican base and setting him apart from other candidates. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll asking about primary voters' opinions on GOP candidates placed Paul in the top five potential candidates. It's still a wide-open field, and the primaries are a year away. More...
Retired Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who once worked in intelligence, told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that he heard from two senior sources that Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl was trying to contact people to take him out of Afghanistan. "He was going to go off to Uzbekistan," Shaffer said. "He had made contact with local Afghans and wanted to be moved to Uzbekistan and then made contact with the Russians because he wanted to talk to Russian organized crime." According to Shaffer, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service discovered this after it examined Bergdahl's computer. Shaffer continued, "I think we're going to see more and more as this report is made public that there were a number of disconcerting things within Bergdahl." According to the Military Times, the Army has to follow an obscure regulation. It either had to grant Bergdahl an honorable discharge and $200,000 back pay, or bring charges against him. There's wiggle room for the Obama administration to bestow benevolence on its favorite soldier. Meanwhile, six soldiers died looking for Bergdahl, and not one of their parents got a White House Rose Garden reception. More...
The stigma plaguing today's Republican Party on matters of economic policy is the result of a craftily orchestrated attack on capitalism. By associating the entrepreneurial free market with "corporate greed," the Left frames conservatives as being against middle class America. It's a strategy that has a long record of success. Recall that in 2009, Democrats approved another massive entitlement program -- ObamaCare -- in part by rallying behind a false narrative: that millions of Americans were uninsured because "selfish" insurers were swimming in massive profits. In truth, insurers were operating on a 2% profit margin. Democrats knew their PR stunt was a lie, but they successfully swayed public perception at a pivotal moment. Indeed, every progressive cause has traces of gross distortion, and, similar to how leftists overhauled the health care industry, they're fabricating the war on corporate America. The American Enterprise Institute's Mark J. Perry writes, "When a random sample of American adults were asked the question 'Just a rough guess, what percent profit on each dollar of sales do you think the average company makes after taxes?' for the Reason-Rupe poll in May 2013, the average response was 36%!" The reality? Memo to Occupy Wall Street: "Not surprisingly they are off by a huge margin," Perry notes. "According to [a] Yahoo!Finance database for 212 different industries, the average profit margin for the most recent quarter was 7.5% and the median profit margin was 6.5%." If this teaches us anything, it's that Republicans must dismantle the Left's big lies. The propaganda machine is not conquered by twiddling thumbs. More...
For more, visit Right Hooks.
RIGHT ANALYSIS
Pop music rag Rolling Stone had a story to tell, and the writer and editors weren't going to let pesky facts get in the way. That's the sum total of the magazine's University of Virginia fraternity gang rape feature story back in November. Police investigated and found no evidence to support the tall tale recounted by "Jackie," the pseudonymous "victim." This week comes Rolling Stone's official retraction after an independent report revealed the extent of the magazine's false journalism.
At the request of Rolling Stone, the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism conducted a review, and the ensuing 12,000-word report concluded what we and many others expected: There were "lapses in standard journalistic procedure at every level of the magazine during the reporting and editing of the story."
Actually, "lapses" is not quite the right word; it's more like willful deception. It wasn't an accident, or a breakdown in protocols. It was all a lie. But it sold, as it was "hip" to illustrate a campus "rape culture" so emotionally. Evidently, Jackie's story was just far too good to worry about checking the facts.
Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana responded to the report, "It's not like I think we need to overhaul our process, and I don't think we need to necessarily institute a lot of new ways of doing things. We just have to do what we've always done and just make sure we don't make this mistake again."
What exactly went wrong? When writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely pressed Jackie to give key details involving the perpetrators of the "rape," Jackie repeatedly dodged questions. No red flag. Erdely informed Jackie that she needed names, but Jackie refused to give her any. At one point, Erdely attempted to call and text Jackie for two weeks but never got a response, so after leaving a voicemail stating that she could use pseudonyms instead of real names, Jackie quickly called her back. No red flags. Jackie also mentioned to Erdely that she had talked to one of the perpetrators named Ryan, but informed Erdely he would not talk to reporters for fear of tearing down the fraternity. Apparently, this was satisfying enough for Erdely, as neither she nor anyone else attempted to contact Ryan. It turns out Jackie made up the whole line about talking to Ryan, but, hey, no red flags for the Rolling Stone editors, so why bother to consult anyone other than Jackie?
In essence, they kept rolling right through every caution light. But after all that there is no need to change anything? Normally, someone would be fired for this level of failure in reporting. Yet Rolling Stone's mantra seems to be that Erdely tried but Jackie lied so no one on staff will be punished.
Rolling Stone did eventually retract the story on April 5 and Erdely apologized. But the accuracy and accountability of the story was missing, and the fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, that faced "physical and reputational damage" is more than likely going to sue Rolling Stone.
What about University of Virginia President Theresa Sullivan? According to University of Tennessee law professor Glynn Reynolds (known as blogger "Instapundit"), "She essentially found the fraternity guilty based on a story in a music tabloid." Worse, Reynolds said, "She hastily imposed a group punishment on the entire Greek system, and pretty much stood by while angry crowds mobbed and vandalized the fraternity house."
Sullivan is angry with Rolling Stone, and rightfully so, but shouldn't she at a minimum issue an apology? She found the frat boys guilty until proven innocent and hung them out to dry. To put it mildly, that was very poor judgment.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that Jackie lied the entire time Erdely questioned her, Erik Wemple, a Washington Post "fact checker," had the audacity to identify Jackie as the number one victim of the false Rolling Stone exposé. He might want to check his "facts" again, because it seems very evident that the whole rape story would have never been told in the first place if she hadn't lied. Instead of Jackie being the number one victim, she should be crowned as the number one liar. That's not to discount the horrendous "journalism," but really, the entire blame can't just go to Rolling Stone.
Perhaps the lesson here is that Rolling Stone should stick to being a music tabloid. With revelations of this story, and with no sign from the editor that they intend to change anything, it will be interesting to see how they will cover serious things like presidential candidates for the next year and a half or so. One thing's for sure: Every "fact" they publish will need independent checking.
It's getting harder for Barack Obama to use Yemen as a model of successful U.S. foreign policy as al-Qaida and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels made significant military gains in the beleaguered state in recent days. Last week, al-Qaida militants claimed the key Yemeni port city of Mukalla, freeing nearly 300 prisoners and delivering a setback to the 10-nation coalition led by Saudi Arabia that has been engaged in an air and land campaign there. Among those freed were Khaled Batarfi, a senior leader of al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP). So much for al-Qaida being "on the run."
The Saudi-led coalition, which began operations in late March, has been aided by U.S. intelligence, but America is still standing on the sidelines. Even as the civilian casualties mount and U.S. diplomats and military personnel have fled the country, the White House continues to insist Yemen is a success story in its deeply flawed foreign policy strategy.
According to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, Obama's strategy is to "try to mitigate the threat that is posed by extremists and to prevent them from establishing a safe haven." Too late.
Mukalla, one of the largest cities in Yemen, fell to AQAP after that group rose to take advantage of the power vacuum left when President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi fled the country. Of course, according to the Obama White House, al-Qaida is not a serious threat, so perhaps they don't believe losing a major port city to a terrorist organization they don't take seriously is a problem.
Similarly, Obama would have us believe that the Houthi rebels in Yemen aren't a big issue either. This group has received strong support from the Iranian government, including tanks and heavy weapons that have complicated Saudi attempts at a ground assault to retake the country. While John Kerry replays the role of Neville Chamberlain with the Iranians over the so-called nuclear agreement, Iran is deeply engaged in removing one of the remaining strategic footholds the U.S. had in the Arabian Peninsula.
The Saudis are now shouldered with the thankless job of trying to prevent the establishment of a terrorist state on their southern border as Obama continues to pat himself on the back. Yet public support in Yemen for the Saudi-led airstrikes is quickly eroding as civilian casualties mount and more damage is inflicted on the country's infrastructure. In another twist that only further illustrates Obama's inept foreign policy, Saudi airstrikes are pinpointing stores of U.S. weapons to keep them from falling into the hands of al-Qaida or the Houthi rebels.
So, to sum up the situation, Yemen, which was once considered a strategic base of operations in the U.S. fight against jihadis in the Arab Peninsula, has basically fallen into the hands of the Houthis, a Shiite rebel group supported by Iran, a country that has gained a major diplomatic victory over the White House in its attempt to develop a nuclear weapon. Additionally, al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula, a terrorist organization Obama wrote off as "decimated," is claiming territory in Yemen and using the country as a recruitment center and base to launch more deadly terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration remains comfortable in its assertion that everything is under control. The big question is, under whose control?
For more, visit Right Analysis.
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
For more, visit Right Opinion.
OPINION IN BRIEF
Author Bruce Barton (1886-1967): "What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage."
Columnist Ed Feulner: "Unfortunately, our hashtag-addicted, ADD culture doesn't grasp nuances well. We'd rather, say, bully a pizzeria into closing for honestly answering a question about whether they'd be willing to cater a same-sex wedding. We won't listen. We'd rather shout. Had we listened, we'd know the owners of Memories Pizza hadn't refused service to a soul. They were responding to a hypothetical situation. And they never said they'd turn away a customer who ordered a pizza. They said they wouldn't cater a same-sex wedding, which they feel would imply that they condoned the union. You can agree or disagree with that belief. But what could be more American than respecting their right to believe it and act upon it, free of persecution? Now, if a case goes to court, and the government proves that it has a compelling reason to insist that the owners act in defiance of their beliefs, so be it. Due process has been followed. But to simply say their beliefs are garbage? That they aren't to be respected because they don't align with our own ideas of political correctness? That's wrong."
Columnist Thomas Sowell: "Comparing Obama to Chamberlain is unfair – to Chamberlain. There is no question that the British prime minister loved his country and pursued its best interests as he saw it. He was not a 'citizen of the world,' or worse. Chamberlain was building up his country's military forces, not tearing them down, as Barack Obama has been doing with American military forces. ... Barack Obama dismissed the thought of America being vulnerable to 'a small country' like Iran. Iran is in fact larger than Japan was when it attacked Pearl Harbor, and Iran has a larger population. If Japan had nuclear bombs, World War II could have turned out very differently. If anyone examines the hard, cold facts about the Obama administration's actions and inactions in the Middle East from the beginning, it is far more difficult to reconcile those actions and inactions with a belief that Obama was trying to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons than it is to reconcile those facts with his trying to stop Israel from stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. This latest 'agreement' with Iran – with which Iran has publicly and loudly disagreed – is only the latest episode in that political charade."
Comedian Argus Hamilton: "Hillary Clinton leased two floors of a Brooklyn office building from a major campaign donor believed to be her future presidential campaign headquarters. Clinton political headquarters are traditionally two stories. One story you tell the New York Times, and one story you tell House investigators."
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.
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