The Patriot Post® · Digest

The Oath Accountability Civil Action

Join the tens of thousands of Patriots who have already signed on to the Oath Accountability Civil Action for Constitutional Integrity.

To enforce our Constitution’s limits on the central government, we believe a formal legal action is necessary. This action, if successful, would require that all members of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, first and foremost, abide by their oaths “to support and defend” our Constitution, under penalty of law, and comport with its enumerated limitations on the federal government. The current scope of federal activities provides abundant evidence that many members of those three co-equal branches have long since abandoned their oaths, and, at present, there is no recourse for prosecution to enforce compliance.

To that end, we urge you to join this action with Patriots across the nation in this effort to establish legal standing as citizens, particularly those in our Armed Services who defend their oaths with blood and life. If we are unsuccessful in our effort to seek remedy for the lack of any proscription against, and penalty for breach of oath, it will be because the judiciary refuses any such accountability regarding the wanton violation of our Constitution. Such rejection would in effect condemn Americans once again to the abuse previously characterized in American history as “Taxation Without Representation.”

Our goal is 500,000 signatures. Please join us, and encourage other like-minded Patriots to do so. A large support base will be necessary if the federal judiciary refuses to hear this action and we are forced to take it to the national legislature for codification into federal law.

The Foundation

“The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.” –Alexander Hamilton

Government & Politics

Chicago-Style Government

The Era of Obama was supposed to be a time of Hope and Change, transparent and accountable government, and bipartisan song-singing – indeed, as Obama himself put it, “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Reality has been wholly different. A recession that, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, ended in June 2009 but has given way to crippling economic stagnation, with no end in sight. Promised transparency quickly gave way to unaccountable czars and closed-door dealings, and bipartisanship was cast aside for the Democrat partisan ramrodding of hard-left legislation through the chambers of Congress. We don’t pretend to speak for the planet, but nothing much seems healed.

Amid that bleak picture, there are (at least) three administration scandals that continue to simmer, despite the fact that the Leftmedia and Obama Re-Election Outlets (but we repeat ourselves) have given them scant attention. First is the story of Solyndra’s bankruptcy following a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Obama Department of Energy (part of the 2009 “stimulus”). The hastily issued loan to the California-based solar cell producer was greater than the amount given to 35 states to complete their respective lists of “shovel-ready” infrastructure jobs. When even that wasn’t enough, Solyndra sought another $469 million. “Green energy” sure does seem to require an awful lot of green.

Solyndra went bankrupt when its unworkable business model collapsed. Yet, consistent with leftist cronyism, certain creditors who happened to be Democrat donors were placed in front of the taxpayers in the line of recovery – much as unions were placed in the front of the line for the GM and Chrysler bailouts. Lost in the cover-up are the 1,100 workers abruptly laid off in August who will have a tough time finding jobs, as California is already reeling from high unemployment and is hardly a climate conducive to economic recovery.

Former employees are beginning to tell all, too. “After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right,” said former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn. “Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy.” No wonder Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison and CFO W.G. Stover Jr. have announced that they will invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when they testify before Congress today.

Second is the administration’s widening venture socialism scandal involving wireless network company LightSquared, which is financed by billionaire Democrat donor Philip Falcone. Military, civilian and government experts are objecting to LightSquared’s potential to interfere with the military’s GPS network. Air Force Commander Gen. William Shelton blew the whistle last week, claiming that the White House pressured him to modify testimony before Congress to make it more favorable toward LightSquared. He didn’t.

LightSquared executives insist that their proposed system’s wavelength won’t interfere with the adjacent wavelengths used by the military’s GPS on the available broadcast spectrum. Despite industry-wide protests, however, LightSquared received fast-track approval for an FCC waiver granting them the right to construct a 4G wireless network for far less capital than the billions the government would extract from its competitors. To address the industry’s concerns about GPS interference, LightSquared proposed that everyone else pay to retrofit their GPS devices instead of revising its network to avoid broadband spillover.

Prior to its current incarnation, LightSquared was known as Skyterra, and its ownership included major Obama backers going back to 2004. Obama sold his Skyterra stock in 2005. Along with so much in the president’s background, the Leftmedia seem content to characterize such connections as coincidental.

Finally, and most serious, is the continuing cover-up of Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious. As our readers well know, this project of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has resulted in more than 2,000 American weapons illegally crossing into Mexico, not only under the nose of the ATF, but with its consent, fueling the raging drug war south of the border. Reports this week indicate that a third gun linked to Fast and Furious was recovered at the scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder in December. Furthermore, according to Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee investigating this scandal, Fast and Furious guns were used in at least 200 murders in Mexico – and that’s a conservative estimate. The administration is in full rear-covering mode, and the Leftmedia have, predictably, remained virtually silent.

Is it too much to ask that the media start doing their jobs? It’s high time the Chicago thugs in the White House are held accountable for their actions.

Obama’s Novel Debt Plan: Raise Taxes

On Monday, Barack Obama put forward his plan for the congressional debt-reduction super committee to consider. Not surprisingly, it’s heavy on tax increases and light on actual debt reduction. To read the full story, don’t miss Mark Alexander’s essay, Taking Down Socialist ‘Tax Fairness’ Rhetoric.

News From the Swamp: Spending and Jobs

Late Thursday night, the House barely passed a short-term continuing resolution to authorize spending for FY2012. The vote was 219-203. Earlier in the week, Republican leaders were dealt a defeat by conservative members of their own caucus when a similar CR failed with 48 Tea Party conservatives opposed. Those 48 wanted to stick with the House’s April spending deal, while the leadership was putting forward the August bipartisan agreement. Some two dozen Republicans were brought back into the fold with an amendment that included $100 million in cuts to the Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program, the Department of Energy program responsible for the Solyndra debacle.

In the Senate, Barack Obama’s much touted jobs bill is lacking the support it needs to pass – among Democrats. Reports are that Democrats Mark Begich (AK), Jim Webb (VA), Mary Landrieu (LA) and Barbara Mikulski (MD) outright oppose the bill, with some others not entirely decided yet. Administration officials met with several Democrats on the Hill this week to try to persuade them, but even if all Democrats are on board, the president’s bill is in trouble.

Quote of the Week

“We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge.” –Larry Summers, former director of Obama’s White House National Economic Council, as quoted in Confidence Men, Ron Suskind’s newly released book about the Obama economic team

From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File

A number of federal agencies and departments are proudly making an effort to cut costs in these trying economic times by taking stock of their stationery and office equipment and buying in bulk. The plan adopted by the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and Treasury is expected to save $600 million over four years. Wow. We hate to criticize cost savings, but this amount won’t even register on the chart compared to the government’s multi-trillion-dollar debt. Sure, buying in bulk makes sense, but the trouble with government is that it took them so long to figure out basic business economics. Perhaps the whole thing is merely an offset for the new Washington Post report that, “In the past five years, the Office of Personnel Management has made more than $601 million in benefits payments to deceased federal annuitants.”

New & Notable Legislation

The Senate Appropriations Committee has added a measure to the 2012 appropriations package that would provide for taxpayer-funded abortions in the District of Columbia. The House version maintains the abortion ban that has been in place since April, so now all eyes are on what deal may be hammered out. The National Right to Life Committee estimates that removing the Dornan Amendment, which prevents congressionally appropriated funds for abortion, would mean an additional 1,000 abortions a year in DC alone paid by taxpayers. The ban was originally in place from 1996-2009, but Barack Obama lifted it when he took office. Republicans reinstated it earlier this year after winning the House, but once again it’s up for debate.

Hope ‘n’ Change: Finding Out What’s in It

Add CLASS (Community Living Assistance Services and Support) to the growing list of Obama administration scandals. CLASS was ostensibly designed to be the long-term care component of ObamaCare. Its real purpose was to allow the administration to claim that the health care reform package was “deficit neutral.” CLASS would collect premiums upwards of $75 billion during a 10-year period beginning in 2012, but those premiums would not go back to the citizens who paid them. Instead, they would be funneled into other parts of ObamaCare that are short on cash. When the bill for CLASS comes due in 2021, taxpayers will take a big hit to keep the “deficit neutral” ObamaCare afloat – unless, of course, 2012 provides opportunity for repeal.

CLASS recently folded up shop, but a public airing of several internal emails regarding the program reveals that the White House knew all along that it was unsustainable, and that they had no way to fix it. A congressional investigation led by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) notes that, within the Department of Health and Human Services, “the program was repeatedly referred to as ‘a recipe for disaster’ with ‘terminal problems.’” The only viable solution to fix CLASS would be for Congress to repeal it immediately. It doesn’t work, it never worked, and it never will work.

From the Left: Staying in Touch With the Little Guy

Remember the flap about Nancy Reagan’s red dress? Well, in hard-times America, the current First Lady showed up at a DNC fundraiser (the one for millionaires at $35,000 a plate) wearing jewelry including a Lotus cuff priced at $15,000 with 2.9 carats of diamonds, her Gothic cuff at $15,350 with 2.17 carats in diamonds, and the Quatrefoil bracelet at $11,800 with 1.73 carats in diamonds. Total value – $42,150.

Let them eat cake. No coverage in the Leftmedia for our modern-day Marie Antoinette.

National Security

Palestinian Statehood Takes Center Stage

The muddled mess that is the Middle East continued to churn this week, threatening to splatter the rest of the world, via the United Nations, with its toxic ooze. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is pushing the UN Security Council to grant Palestinian statehood during the current General Assembly meeting. On Wednesday, however, Barack Obama tried to head off Abbas by giving yet another of his platitudinous speeches and declaring the painfully obvious: “Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations. If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now.” Interestingly, it was this same Obama who, at last year’s UN meeting, breezily said that he wanted a sovereign Palestinian state established by this year’s UN meeting. So in the span of one year, a completely inept Obama managed to stab both the Israelis and the Palestinians in the back.

The Palestinians won’t get their state just yet, as the U.S., even under Obama, cannot allow it. (That doesn’t mean he doesn’t support the idea.) However, reports are that the Security Council needs only two more votes for statehood from countries such as Bosnia (the Muslim country we created in the Clinton years), Gabon and Nigeria, which would force the U.S. to veto it. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has introduced legislation to defund the UN if it votes to recognize a Palestinian state.

Ultimately, what the Palestinians want out of a UN vote isn’t so much a state as much as another weapon in their arsenal to ultimately destroy Israel. “We are going to complain that as Palestinians we have been under occupation for 63 years,” Abbas said this week. In other words, that “occupation,” began with the creation of Israel in 1948, and it won’t end until Israel is destroyed. So goes the Middle East “peace process.”

It Would Be a Comedy of Errors If It Weren’t So Serious

This week, the Obama administration proved yet again that Hope ‘n’ Change is no substitute for wisdom and experience. After dragging out discussions for almost two full years on whether to provide new F-16 fighter-bombers to Taiwan, the White House decided instead to upgrade Taiwan’s existing F-16s without providing new aircraft. In typical fashion, Obama managed to anger both Taiwan and China. Our largest foreign creditor is angry over any U.S. upgrades to Taiwan’s military, while Taiwan is rightly angry that the United States caved in to communist pressure and stiffed a democratic ally. China was going to complain no matter what – why not get our money’s worth and provide new F-16s to a friendly democracy?

Meanwhile, in another transparently cynical move to placate the president’s leftist base, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the administration remains committed to closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The January 2010 deadline for doing so flew by without fanfare, so now they promise to close it by Election Day 2012. Holder at least had the courtesy to provide the obvious motivation – the election. Obama’s base has been increasingly disenchanted with his performance lately, and he obviously wants some highly visible leftist dream to come true just in time for the election. Congress will have a great deal to say about Guantanamo’s final disposition, but for the White House even to float this idea – and so explicitly tie it to the next election – is dangerously amateurish.

Department of Military Correctness: Orientation Genie Out of the Closet

At the stroke of midnight Tuesday, the Pentagon laid out the welcome mat for homosexual members of the military and for those in civilian life to join. After an 18-year “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” interregnum during which homosexuals were allowed in the military as long as they stayed “in the closet,” the long-standing ban on their serving openly in the United States military formally came to a close. Obviously this came as a relief to service members such as “J.D. Smith,” who in real life is Air Force First Lieutenant Josh Seefried. He adopted the pseudonym last year when he founded OutServe, a heretofore underground network of homosexual service members that has grown to 4,300 members. It’s estimated that there are around 65,000 such members of the military, a presumption likely drilled into the 2.3 million active-duty and reserve members around the world who sat through an hour-long sensitivity course on accepting homosexuals within their ranks earlier this year.

Critics saw the change as an attempt to “reshape social attitudes” and warned that the number of military personnel may drop further than the 14,346 members discharged over the years by running afoul of the old DADT rules. Those who had been so discharged will be eligible to rejoin but won’t have any specific preference over others who want to re-enter the service, the Pentagon announced.

It isn’t clear whether benefits given to the spouses and families of married service members will eventually be extended to same-sex partners. A proposal to allow Navy chaplains to conduct “marriage” ceremonies in states where civil unions are allowed was scrapped after lawmakers objected.

Business & Economy

Income Redistribution: Bonuses for GM Workers, the Shaft for Taxpayers

Last week General Motors and its UAW workforce reached a tentative four-year labor agreement, which is likely to be ratified overwhelmingly by the rank and file. As usual, the devil is in the details. Despite the fact that the automaker is still on the hook for billions of dollars to the federal government, which remains the owner of about one-quarter of GM’s stock, the agreement includes a provision that UAW workers will receive a $5,000 “signing bonus” in lieu of a cost-of-living increase this year and maintain their health care and pensions. Newly hired workers will get a significant raise from their current $14 per hour to perhaps $17 per hour over the life of the contract. All workers will have “improved” profit sharing. In addition, the automaker will reopen the former Saturn assembly line in Spring Hill, Tennessee, which was idled in 2009.

Undoubtedly union leaders are thrilled about these concessions from the company, but they also knew whom to thank. As UAW Bob King noted, “None of this would have been possible without the efforts of President Obama, who invested federal funds to help turn the company around, protect the auto supplier base, and keep good-paying jobs in America.” Unfortunately, those efforts have cost taxpayers roughly $15 billion that is yet to be repaid.

Regulatory Commissars: Don’t Create Jobs

With all the talk of saving and creating jobs, we find it disturbing that someone has been punished for doing just that. Peter Schiff, president and CEO of EuroPacific Capital, committed the unpardonable offense of hiring more brokers than regulations allow. “In my own business, securities regulations have prohibited me from hiring brokers for more than three years,” Schiff testified before Congress. “I was even fined $15,000 expressly for hiring too many brokers in 2008. In the process I incurred more than $500,000 in legal bills to mitigate a more severe regulatory outcome as a result of hiring too many workers. I have also been prohibited from opening up additional offices. I had a major expansion plan that would have resulted in my creating hundreds of additional jobs. Regulations have forced me to put those jobs on hold.”

Furthermore, says Schiff, “[T]he added cost of security regulations [has] forced me to create an offshore brokerage firm to handle foreign accounts that are now too expensive to handle from the United States. Revenue and jobs that would have been created in the U.S. are now being created abroad instead.” As National Review’s Andrew McCarthy quipped, “He’s in finance. I guess he should have tried solar panels.”

In related news, the EPA’s overzealous regulators will soon cost another 500 workers their jobs. Texas energy company Luminant will be forced to stop generating energy at two of its power plants and shutter three lignite mines, thanks to requirements within the EPA’s recently mandated Cross-State Air Pollution Rule in 2012. In a statement, the company said that while it is “launching a significant investment program to reduce emissions across our facilities” it couldn’t otherwise comply with the “unrealistic deadline” without eliminating the 500 jobs. Also, it has taken the step of suing the EPA to overturn the edicts.

Culture & Policy

Around the Nation: Ground Zero Mosque ‘Opens’

In August 2010, we noted the controversy over the building of an Islamic cultural center (a.k.a. mosque) two blocks from Ground Zero. It was sometimes called The Cordoba Initiative, which was a thinly veiled religious reference to the long-ago Muslim conquest of the Christian city of Cordoba, Spain. Most commonly, however, the project is known by the more palatable – and secular – Park51.

On Wednesday, the project launched its first public exhibit featuring the work of New York City photographer Danny Goldfield. For the past seven years, Goldfield has been working on a collection of photographs of children from every country in the world who are living in New York City. The exhibit is a sorry attempt to soften the blow of the timing of the mosque’s opening. Who could be opposed to children? Not only is it less than two weeks since the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but it also comes during a week of tense meetings between Barack Obama and Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Last year, in the midst of the heated debate, Obama felt it was his duty to impart his wisdom on the subject. What he said, of course, completely missed the point. Everyone knows that Park51 is legally viable, but that knowledge does little to assuage the hurt and rage of the thousands of people directly affected by 9/11, let alone the millions of Americans who were forever changed by that day. Against their protests, construction continued, but apparently the message didn’t go completely ignored, considering the whitewash that is taking place now. “Looking forward to welcoming you to the NY Children’s opening,” Park51 tweeted, “We have a surprise guest to cut the ribbon. Make sure you’re there!”

On Sept. 27, PBS will air the documentary “The Man Behind the Mosque” profiling developer Sharif El-Gamel. Last January, Park51 booted Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam best known for his statements that America brought the terrorists attacks upon itself. Despite the feel-good PR, this mosque is nothing more than a thumb in the eye from the very extremists who want to punish the “Great Satan.”

Village Academic Curriculum: No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Reading, writing, ‘rithmetic and recipes? Since the launch of the federal school lunch program in 1946, the government has required schools to provide low-cost or free lunches to qualifying students. Now, under the new child nutrition law signed by Barack Obama late last year, the feds are mandating that schools make these meals more nutritious. In other words, not only are Washington bureaucrats subsidizing school lunches, they’re also packing them. And that’s not all. For the first time, the government is now inserting itself into the pricing process, and, as happens when Washington steps in, costs are going up. As The New York Times notes, under the law “school districts are required to start bringing their prices in line with what it costs to prepare the meals, eventually charging an average of $2.46 for the lunches they serve.” Although the law says that price increases should be capped at 10 cents per year, some school districts have raised prices by as much as a quarter.

Districts across the country are preparing for backlash against the price hikes, but it’s Washington bureaucrats who really should be taken to task for assuming “food service” is found anywhere in the Constitution. They say it’s bad having two cooks in the kitchen. It’s downright scary, though, when one of them is Barack Obama.

In related news, the administration will soon detail plans to revamp No Child Left Behind through waivers, not through Congress. Specifically, the White House wants to waive the requirement that students be proficient in math and reading by 2014 or risk sanctions.

Faith and Family: City Orders Halt to Home Bible Study

The city of San Juan Capistrano, California, was founded as a mission in the late 1700s. Now, more than 200 years later, a couple in that city is facing fines for holding weekly Bible studies in their home. CBS Los Angeles reports, “Homeowners Chuck and Stephanie Fromm … were fined $300 earlier this month for holding what city officials called 'a regular gathering of more than three people.’” They could face another $500 fine for every additional gathering. According to Section 9-3.301 of the city code, “religious, fraternal, or service organizations (non-profit)” cannot meet in residential areas without obtaining a conditional use permit. We question, however, whether the city would have enforced this ordinance against a similarly sized “fraternal” gathering.

The Fromms appealed the fine to the city but were denied, and now the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) is taking the ruling to the California Superior Court. PJI President Brad Dacus noted, “An informal gathering in a home cannot be treated with suspicion by the government, or worse than any other gathering of friends, just because it is religious. We cannot allow this to happen in America, and we will fight as long and as hard as it takes to restore this group’s religious freedom.” If the court has any understanding of our nation’s foundation of religious liberty, it will agree.

Catholic Archbishop Writes in Support of Marriage

Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York sent a letter to Barack Obama this week to seek an end to the administration’s campaign against traditional marriage and religious liberty. Dolan specifically sited the Obama Justice Department, which claims that supporters of the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by Bill Clinton, are motivated by “prejudice and bias.” Such language presents a threat to religious liberty. “The institution of marriage is built on this truth,” Dolan wrote, “no other relationships provide for the common good what marriage between husband and wife provides. The law should reflect this reality.” Dolan further warned, “The Administration’s failure to change course on this matter will … precipitate a national conflict between Church and State of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions.” When has “conflict … to the detriment” of anything stopped Obama before?

And Last…

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) was censured by the House (333-79) just nine months ago for several ethics violations, including tax evasion. Yet Thursday, Rangel hosted a ceremony to unveil his official portrait in the Longworth House Office Building. The list of speakers at the ceremony included Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), as well as New York Democrat senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. After getting an “OK” from the FEC, Rangel paid for the $65,000 portrait using campaign cash.

Truly, this is beyond words. These people really do live in a parallel universe – one in which, as Pelosi once put it, they “drain the swamp” apparently by hanging portraits of swamp creatures. What next? Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize? Oh, wait…

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team