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Right Analysis | Right Hooks | Right Opinion
Patriot Headlines | Grassroots Commentary
Daily Digest
November 4, 2015 
THE FOUNDATION
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence." —John Adams, 1787
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
A month ago, we reported that Barack Obama's Justice Department was making plans to release 6,000 "nonviolent" federal prisoners in what is essentially one of the largest jailbreaks in U.S. history. That release happened over the weekend. The vast majority were incarcerated for drug offenses (not just marijuana), and as Gary Bauer writes, "20% of the 6,000 offenders just released were also in jail for illegal firearms possession while committing drug offenses." So much for gun control and background checks. Word is the administration is considering another 8,500 prisoners for release next year. And you thought Bill Clinton issued a lot of pardons on the way out of office.
According to The New York Times, "The releases result from decisions last year by the [United States Sentencing Commission], an independent body that sets guideline ranges for federal sentences. Until 2005, those guidelines were mandatory; now they are advisory, but remain a starting point for judges."
Meanwhile, Paul Sperry of Investor's Business Daily reports, "Internal government documents I've obtained show that the administration figures as many as 43% may re-offend within five years of release. The recidivism rate might be even higher than that, prison officials warn, because the administration hasn't provided probation officers the resources to properly supervise the waves of inmates it's releasing prematurely."
A third of the released prisoners are illegal aliens that will be deported (he promises!). But many of the other 4,000 will create more headaches for victims of crime and more work for police. Speaking of police, crime is on the rise this year, and many blame Obama's racist police rhetoric for the spike. Great time to release 6,000 criminals. As we've said before, we understand the need for real prison and sentencing reform, and some of these 6,000 are probably worthy of freedom. But releasing a bunch of prisoners could come back and bite Obama just like Willie Horton did for Michael Dukakis.
Could the gubernatorial race in Kentucky be a harbinger for the 2016 election? Riding the same momentum that has propelled Donald Trump and Ben Carson to the forefront of the GOP presidential primary, Republican Matt Bevin, also a political outsider, won Kentucky's governors race Tuesday. Confounding pollsters who expected Bevin's Democrat challenger to prevail, Bevin won by about nine percentage points. This turns Kentucky, a traditionally Democrat stronghold dating back 44 years, into a red state because Democrats now control only the state's House, and weakly at that. Furthermore, as National Review's John Fund points out, Bevin's lieutenant governor-elect is Jenean Hampton, a self-made woman who worked herself up from poverty, retired from the Air Force at the rank of Captain, and is a Tea Party candidate endorsed by Rand Paul. Oh, did we mention she is the first black woman to be elected to a Kentucky statewide office? Let the Left ponder that one.
This was just one of the conservative victories across the nation, and it shows a voter dissatisfaction with the top-down leftist policies coming out of Washington. For example, many Kentucky voters threw their support behind Bevin because their health care premiums spiked thanks to ObamaCare. Who says local politics don't matter?
Democrat politicians have been raising their demands on how high to raise the minimum wage. Democrat socialist Bernie Sanders supports hiking the national wage to $15 an hour — double the current minimum wage of $7.50. Hillary Clinton told an audience in Iowa Tuesday, "Twelve [dollars an hour] would give us a good solid increase." It was just two years ago that Democrats were being "progressive" by seeking to raise the minimum wage to $10.10, with Barack Obama being one of the most vocal supporters. While the inflating policy proposals probably make for great headlines and campaign promises (Democrats will give you free stuff by forcing your employer to pay you more than your job is worth!), even Democrat voters know when enough is enough. Among the notable local elections around the country, voters in Portland, Maine, rejected a proposal to raise the city's minimum wage from the federal minimum to $15 an hour — over concerns that it would hurt small business, just as it already is in Seattle. The city in the liberal Northeast will still raise its wage — it will go up to $10.10 Jan. 1 — but it shows how some Democrats are out of step with their base. And remember: Democrats are for minimum wages, Republicans are for maximum wages. People should be paid as much as possible, just not through government mandate.
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
By Louis DeBroux
"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'" —Lewis Carrol in his work, "Through the Looking Glass"
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (writing under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll) surely would be astounded to discover that modern liberalism has taken his work not for what it is — a surrealist allegory brimming with social and political insights — but instead as a blueprint for destroying the institutional foundations of society, and crushing any acknowledgment of objective truth.
In this liberal utopia we call America, Rachel Dolezal is black but Clarence Thomas is not (at least not an "authentic" black man); Bruce Jenner is a woman despite having male genitals; and gender is determined by feelings rather than by DNA. This has led to such bizarre developments as Bruce "Call Me Caitlyn" Jenner holding the title of Glamour Magazine's "Woman of the Year" while simultaneously being one of the most decorated male Olympians of all time.
It's one thing to watch such circus sideshows play out in popular culture, but it's another thing entirely to have mental illnesses not only indulged by government but protected under the law. Yet that is exactly what is occurring under Barack Obama.
Earlier this week, the Obama administration issued an administrative ruling involving a dispute between Illinois' Township High School District 211 and a transgendered student, demanding the male student (born a male but "identifying" as a female) be allowed to use the girls' locker room to shower and change clothes, alongside actual female students. Failure to comply with this directive, the Obama administration threatened, will result in federal civil rights lawsuits and the loss of Title IX funding for the district.
Consider the insanity of this position. On one hand, government demands the anatomically accurate sex of each child born be shown on birth certificates, a characteristic that is genetically determined and easily identifiable to anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of human anatomy. On the other, it demands schools ignore these anatomical realities in the treatment of certain mentally ill students. Even the American Psychiatric Association acknowledges this truth in its own Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Speaking of gender dysphoria (previously "gender identity disorder"), commonly known as "transgenderism," the APA states that it is a mental disorder in which a person is extremely uncomfortable with their anatomical sex, and strongly identifies with, and desires to be, the opposite sex.
By definition, the disorder acknowledges that sex is a distinct, natural characteristic, and that extreme discomfort with this reality is a mental disorder. Yet rather than do the compassionate thing and get these distraught, confused individuals the professional help they clearly need, Obama demands we indulge the disorder and pretend it's natural.
The New York Times, reporting on the story (and erroneously and repeatedly referring to the mentally ill male student as a girl), notes that the student is taking hormone therapy, which begs the question. If the student is a girl, hormone therapy wouldn't be needed. And if the student is not a girl, his delusions shouldn't be indulged.
This mentally ill student has already been granted incredible accommodations by being allowed to play sports on the girls' athletic teams, called by his preferred feminine pseudonym and referred to as "she" by teachers and staff. Indeed, he is already allowed to use the girls' locker room. The school has asked only that the student change clothes behind a privacy curtain so as not to expose the female students to his naked body, or theirs to him. Changing clothes in front of members of the same sex can be daunting enough in high school, but no student should have to undress in front of the opposite sex, or be forced to be present when opposite sex students undress.
The absurdity is hard to understate. If a male student walked into the girls' locker room and stripped naked, then that student would likely be suspended or expelled, and possibly brought up on charges of indecent exposure, sexual harassment, etc. Yet if that same male student claims to "identify" as a female, he receives the full weight and power of the federal government crushing any dissent. But what of the rights of the far more numerous female students who don't want to undress in front of a male student?
When personal feelings and "identity" are the standard by which to decide sex, how can we possibly keep dishonest, opportunistic and libidinous teenage boys from claiming they "identify" as female in order to be able to shower with young women with the protection of a federal mandate?
The threatening directive, issued by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, continues a long history of the Obama administration's agenda of normalizing sexual deviance and mental disorders, as with its past efforts to expand "rights" for transgendered inmates and employees, including a push for taxpayer-funded "sex reassignment" surgery, hormone therapy and so forth.
This same push is occurring at the state and local level as well, as in Houston, where the lesbian mayor tried to force local churches and businesses to allow men to use women's restrooms. After some backlash, voters had their say and handily rejected and repealed the measure.
It's hard to imagine the Obama administration pushing in other directions for such "rights" based on identity. For tens of millions of Americans, their Christianity is an inseparable component of their personal identity, yet Obama actively persecutes and prosecutes those Christians who act upon that identity when it comes into opposition with his pro-LGBT or pro-abortion agenda. Yet we can't recall a single instance of his using the bully pulpit to call out Muslims for their actual anti-LGBT bigotry, or pointing to the regular practice in many Muslim countries of torture and death for homosexuals.
For Obama, his administration seems to not only embrace the philosophy of Humpty Dumpty, but that of the power-hungry pigs in the George Orwell classic, "Animal Farm," who condescendingly explained to the less worthy animals, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Clearly, Obama and his comrades are pigs.
MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE
BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
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TOP HEADLINES
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OPINION IN BRIEF
Dennis Prager: "When women get married, they are often influenced by their husbands with regard to political and moral issues, just as married men are influenced by their wives on a whole host of micro issues. As a result, married women are more likely than single women to prefer to fight villains than to befriend them. Unfortunately, more and more American women are single. Meanwhile American boys are increasingly raised by single women and taught almost only by female teachers. In addition, they are often taught to be ashamed of their masculine natures and to reject traditional masculine virtues. ... Both women and men have flawed natures. They share human nature, which is deeply flawed, and the sexes have their own particular natures, which are also flawed. That is one reason men need women and women need men. Men need women to soften their intrinsic aggressive nature and to help them control their predatory sexuality; and women need men to, among other things, better understand that evil people and regimes must be fought, not nurtured. ... The left has done many destructive things to America. It is quite possible that none will prove to be more destructive than its attempt to obliterate gender-distinctions."
SHORT CUTS
Insight: "To silence criticism is to silence freedom." —Sidney Hook (1902-1989)
Braying Jackass: "Obviously by 'Death to America,' we don't mean death to the American people. The American nation is just like the rest of the nations. It ... means death to U.S. policies and its arrogance." —Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Oh, so not death death, then. No problem. Whew!)
Alpha Jackass: "No, I do not think the Koch brothers want to make life better for ordinary people." —Bernie Sanders
Dezinformatsia: "Issues of identity are so important. It's so frustrating to me when people forget to talk to the student, the individual, about their own identity and how they identify, and keep them as part of the process instead of making sort of the, you know, 'We can't do this, we have to protect other people.' What about this person's identity? It's so important. ... Why is safety an issue? ... We need education." —CNN's Michaela Pereira on why gender disorientated children should be allowed to share bathrooms and locker rooms with the opposite sex
Village Idiots: "November 4 should be a day of mourning. [Today] marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of one of the great tragedies in American history, a moment of indelible shame, a choice that harmed so many in this country and around the world: the defeat of President Jimmy Carter at the hands of right-wing former California Governor Ronald Reagan. ... Reagan's election nearly destroyed this country." —Washington Monthly's D.R. Tucker
Demo-gogues: "You know, political season's always a little bit of the silly season. I do think that what's different this time is that, particularly in the Republican Party, you have, I think, the most disgruntled or suspicious-of-Washington portion of the electorate that is driving the process." —Barack Obama
And last... "Under President Obama, Democrats have lost 900+ state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats. That's some legacy." —Rory Cooper
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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