GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

Campaign watch: Around the horn

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will appear in public together this weekend in Unity, New Hampshire, for a joint rally to heal the rift that their hard fought battle for the presidential nomination has created within the Democrat Party. Unity was chosen not only for the name but also for the fact that each candidate won 107 votes there in the January primary. The state could also prove to be important in November, with Republican John McCain having won there in Republican primaries in 2000 and 2008. This joint public appearance will be preceded by a private meeting between Obama and Clinton and some of her high-level money bundlers, who are reluctant to lend their support to Obama. While he already enjoys a distinct advantage in cash, it’s hard to believe that Obama will win the election without the full support of the Clinton base.

Clinton’s own money woes have been tallied up, with her campaign $22.5 million in debt at the end of May. Some $12 million is owed to Clinton herself. Obama is expected to be just fine in the money department, particularly since he reneged on his pledge to stick to public financing. (Barack is doing so well, in fact, that he is asking his top fundraisers to chip in and bribe Hillary by paying off her debt.) Frankly, he was foolish to make his pledge on public financing in the first place, because he should have known he would break it later. However, he was cagey enough to blame his flip-flop on the vast right-wing conspiracy, claiming that he would need all the private donations he could muster to stave off the so-called swift-boaters.

It would seem that Obama has already done some swift-boating of his own. Last week at a fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida, he told an audience, “[The Republicans are] going to try to make you afraid of me: ‘He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black? He’s got a feisty wife’.” So, if voters are against Obama, it’s racist, and if voters think experience counts, it’s bigoted. And by golly if voters think Michelle is going to remain proud of her country, they had better vote for Barack Hussein.

Seal of the Obama of the United States

Barack Obama test-drove a new campaign seal last week that looked suspiciously like the great seal of the president of the United States. Obama’s seal replaced “E Pluribus Unum” with “Vero possumus,” which is a clumsy Latin attempt at “Yes, we can.” The shield that adorns the real presidential seal was similarly replaced with the “O” campaign logo. (You can view The Patriot’s take on Obama’s seal here). The press, which to date is Obama’s most loyal constituency, made a justified mockery of the seal, and it promptly disappeared. No word yet on what designs Obama’s campaign has for changing the American flag.

Bad news for the GOP

The Republican Study Committee, led by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, has created an action plan that it is encouraging GOP House members to run on in this year’s races. The plan, which is modeled after the successful “Contract with America” of 1994, lists items such as energy exploration in Alaska and the outer continental shelf and a constitutional amendment to keep federal spending from growing faster than the economy. The most contentious item, though, is a complete moratorium on earmark spending, something the House leadership does not want to embrace. Hensarling understands that voters are fed up with pork-barrel spending, but it is a habit that few other Republicans seem willing to kick.

Indeed, it is chiefly because of their inability to rein in spending that Republicans can’t seem to gather any support among their base. Sure, the Republican National Committee was able to raise over $24 million in May and has far more cash on hand than the DNC, but the Republican House and Senate fundraising committees continue to lag behind their Democrat counterparts.

In one interesting primary contest Tuesday in Utah, GOP Rep. Chris Cannon (American Conservative Union rating of 96) was booted from the most Republican congressional seat in the country. Challenger Jason Chaffetz clobbered him 60-40. Some blame Cannon’s weak but changing position on immigration, though his temper didn’t help either—he stormed off stage at a debate with Chaffetz. Most likely, Chaffetz’s message that “the Republican Party is broken and I want to fix it” took hold among voters who are tired of business as usual.

New & notable legislation

The House approved a patch for the Alternative Minimum Tax that will prevent 25 million families from being hit with the punitive tax this year. However, to “pay for it,” the House will raise taxes on private equity and “Big Oil.” As Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) put it, “The main difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats don’t believe we should pay for the cost of this bill by adding to the national debt.” In other words, it’s a win-win for the federal government.

The House voted 355-59 this week to postpone a plan to cut Medicare payments to physicians by 10 percent—the plan will not take effect for 18 months. “If we fail to enact this legislation, physicians will face a 10-percent pay cut that jeopardizes access to care for seniors and the disabled,” said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI). Meanwhile, Medicare continues to head toward insolvency.

By a vote of 92-6, the Senate approved $257.5 billion in war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan that allows current action to continue through the end of President George W. Bush’s term and beyond. The president agreed to go along with $63 billion over 11 years for new higher-education benefits for veterans and their families, and an $8-billion extension of unemployment benefits, which as we all know is a critical national-security interest. Also included is $24 billion for various goodies such as levees in Louisiana. The House passed its version last Friday 416-12, and President Bush is expected to sign the bill next week.

Dick Armey reads The Patriot

“Simply put, The Patriot Post cuts through the clutter and delivers timely, accurate, and colorful accounts of the week’s most important news and policy issues. It’s a mandatory read.” —Dr. Richard (Dick) Armey, former House Majority Leader

The Patriot’s mission is to advocate for individual liberty, the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and the promotion of free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values.

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Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander

Publisher, PatriotPost.US

NATIONAL SECURITY

Media fall for NoKo nuclear tricks

The cooling tower of North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear reactor was destroyed today as a symbol of the country’s commitment to stop making plutonium for nuclear weapons. The move comes just 20 months after the hermit kingdom detonated its first atomic weapon in an underground test. The Yongbyon reactor unit itself will be gradually shut down under the supervision of U.S. inspectors. In exchange for North Korea’s concessions, the United States will remove North Korea from the blacklist of terrorist states.

The gullible Leftmedia and the careerist-infested State Department are hailing the latest developments in North Korea as a major victory for the United States, and proof that engagement (not hard-line hawkishness) is the only way to achieve our national-security objectives. But left unsaid is the fact that North Korea still has enough plutonium for at least 10 nuclear bombs, and that the country is now suspected of enriching uranium, which like plutonium can be used in nuclear weapons. But unlike plutonium, North Korea doesn’t need a nuclear reactor to create weapons-grade uranium, and the enrichment facilities could easily be hidden underground, as Iran has proven.

Finally, the State Department’s agreement with North Korea becomes even more disturbing in light of the Yongbyon-class nuclear reactor in Syria that was discovered and destroyed by the Israelis last September. Video obtained by Israeli intelligence depicted North Korean technicians working on that reactor, which the CIA says was being used to create plutonium for nuclear weapons. So far the State Department has been silent on this incident, and there have been reports that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice even tried to stop the bombing of the Syrian reactor so as not to jeopardize talks with North Korea.

We believe that former U.S. ambassador John Bolton summed it up best when he said, “This is a sad, sad day. I think Bush believes what Condi is telling him, that they’re going to persuade the North to give up nuclear weapons, and I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think we’ve been taken to the cleaners.”

Warfront with Jihadistan: Israel v. Iran

When it absolutely, positively has to be taken out overnight… The Israeli Air Force recently conducted an unusually large strike exercise, reportedly flying 100 F-15 and F-16 jets to a bombing range in Greece. The distance to the Greek range just happened to be virtually identical to the distance required to reach Natanz, in west-central Iran, the location of Iran’s uranium enrichment facility. The media learned of and publicized the exercise in very short order, almost certainly as the Israelis desired. The Israelis’ goal was to remind Iran that there is more than one way to stop a nuclear program.

The Israelis likely intended the exercise to influence the United States and the United Nations nearly as much as Iran, and in this the Israelis clearly succeeded. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Defense Minister, openly warned Israel against attacking Iran, saying there is no proof of an Iranian weapons program. Meanwhile, Mohammad El Baredei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the organization that has done more than anyone to enable the current crisis, warned that an Israeli attack could turn the Middle East into “a ball of fire.” He also warned that if any country attacked Iran, he would take his Nobel Prize and go home, resigning as head of the IAEA. That would provide at least one happy outcome to this otherwise deadly serious issue.

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton added fuel to the fire this week, speculating during an interview that Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear program during the period between the November election and the end of the Bush administration in January. Bolton mentioned one factor that may be even more pressing on Israel than Iran’s nuclear program itself: Russia’s impending shipment of SA-20 surface-to-air missiles to Iran, a delivery expected to take place later this year. The SA-20 would be a quantum leap over Iran’s existing SA-5 and SA-6 systems, and its high-altitude, long-range coverage would complement the shorter range SA-15b missiles that Russia delivered to Iran last year.

“Don’t Ask” blamed again

A potentially interesting juxtaposition in the fields of military policy and the biological sciences came out this week. Using information gathered under the Freedom of Information Act, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a homosexual advocacy organization, claimed that the military discharged a disproportionate number of women in 2007 under the U.S. government’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which prevents people who are openly homosexual from serving in the military. The group alleges that while women make up just 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy in 2007 were women. In the Air Force, 20 percent of personnel are women, but 49 percent of its discharges under “Don’t Ask” last year were women. In 2006, about 35 percent of the Army’s and 36 percent of the Air Force’s discharges were women, according to the statistics. Overall, about 600 people are discharged each year from the military under the policy.

From the biological sciences, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found significant differences between the brains of homosexuals and heterosexuals in both men and women. Researchers found that the brain structures of homosexual men were more like those of straight women than of straight men. Likewise, the brains of homosexual women tended to be more like those of straight men than of straight women. Researchers suspect that the differences, or more accurately, the abnormalities, may be the result of hormone exposure that babies receive in the womb. These findings also fit with studies showing homosexuals are often attracted to professions that are normally associated with the opposite sex. Thus, a potential reason for the disproportionate discharge of homosexual women in the military is that such women are more attracted to a male-oriented profession than are straight females.

The study is far from conclusive, however, as it seems such research is often politically motivated. Still, it must be remembered that the only goal of the U.S. military should be victory on the battlefield, to be the best at controlled, sustained violence. The goal is not to advance diversity or gender equality. Nevertheless, we here at The Patriot salute every one of our service members, for without you, the country and our liberties are lost.

Profiles of valor: USA Capt. Solheim

In July 2007, United States Army Captain Kent Solheim was participating in Operation VOLCANO II, which aimed to capture a senior leader of the Mahdi Army, a Shi’ite militia in Karbala, Iraq. Solheim and his team fast-roped from helicopters into the objective area, setting up a position near the target building, but they soon came under fire from three sides with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. Combat air support was called in to take out the enemy, but some jihadis remained on the attack. Amidst the fighting, Solheim saw an insurgent with an RPG about 10 meters away. He charged and shot and killed the enemy fighter, saving several of his comrades. He then exposed himself to enemy fire in order to cover other soldiers and was able to provide suppressive fire. Rounding a corner of a building, Solheim came face to face with a Mahdi fighter armed with an AK. Solheim instantly fired, killing the insurgent, but not before he was hit with the jihadi’s final burst of fire. He was wounded in the legs and back and was treated and survived. For his actions, he was awarded the Silver Star.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Captain Steven Farley (USN, Ret.), 57, father of our Collegiate Patriot and Affiliates coordinator, was among two American civilians and two soldiers killed when the Sadr City District Council building was bombed by anti-American Shi’ites on Tuesday. “He was a great father and a patriot,” notes his son. “He said plainly that he was willing to die doing this. He was willing to die for his country.” We ask that you lift up your prayers on behalf of the families of these men, and all those serving to preserve our liberty.

BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Reverse globalization takes hold

They say every cloud has a silver lining, and perhaps that is even true of the hubbub over fuel costs. Each day, as we are bombarded with news stories of skyrocketing gas prices and political battles over the potential solutions, an interesting and profitable side effect is that manufacturing and jobs are coming back to the U.S.

This phenomenon, dubbed “reverse globalization” by economists, is a result of shipping costs that are climbing apace with that of oil. Shipping goods from overseas has become so costly that it outweighs the benefit of cheap labor from other countries such as China or Mexico. This has led many American businesses to manufacture their goods in, of all places, America. “It’s not just about labor costs anymore,” said economist Jeff Rubin. “Distance costs money, and when you have to shift iron ore from Brazil to China and then back to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is looking pretty good at 40 bucks an hour.”

Of course, the return of homegrown manufacturing brings with it the return of homegrown jobs as well. When hair-care company Farouk Systems transfers all of its production from China to Houston this summer, 1,000 jobs will open up to American workers. Economists predict that the U.S. steel industry will be given a boost as well.

So while we are all tired of seeing rising prices at the pump, thanks to reverse globalization, we may also be seeing a lot more of something else as well: Made in America.

Regulatory Commissars: Give the Fed more power?

The Washington Post reports, “Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. [this week] called for the Federal Reserve to be given new, explicit powers to intervene in the workings of Wall Street firms to protect the financial system, adapting his vision of how the financial world should be regulated to reflect the lessons of the collapse of Bear Stearns.” Or as Paulson put it, the ability “to step in to avert events that pose unacceptable systemic risk.” Currently, the Fed is limited in this regard. Let’s think about this. The present risk is the flap over mortgage bailouts (ever notice how there’s always a crisis, and your money is needed to fix it?). The mess was caused because consumers bought more house than they could afford. Financial institutions were more than happy to help out (for a fee), and now those “rent-to-owners” are unable to pay off their mortgages. This whole scenario was possible for several reasons, but an important one is that interest rates were very low for quite a long time. Those low interest rates were set and held by… the Federal Reserve.

So now the idea is to give the Fed more power to clean up a mess for which their present powers are partly responsible. Doesn’t it make more sense to tell the Fed to stick with preventing inflation and leave the rest of the economy to the collective intelligence of 300 million Americans?

Income Redistribution: Mundell on taxes

Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia University professor Robert Mundell is often credited as being one of the original “supply-side” economists, so when he speaks, one should listen. Mundell now advises that if the Democrat-controlled Congress follows through on its promise to rescind the Bush tax cuts, “the U.S. [economy] will go into a big recession, a nosedive.” He further warns Democrat nominee and sworn tax hiker Barack Obama, “It’s a lethal thing to suddenly raise taxes. This would be devastating to the world economy, to the United States, and it would be, I think, political suicide” in a general election.

Instead of the typical Democrat solution, Mundell advocates lowering taxes even further. Specifically, the marginal rate, which is currently 35 percent; it should be 30 percent, according to Mundell. Additionally, the corporate rate should be cut to 25 percent. He advocates making the other Bush tax cuts permanent because “[e]liminating that uncertainty would be more important than pushing for a further cut—in the income tax rates, anyway.” The uncertainty is all the more glaring when looking at the history of income taxes. The top marginal rate has been anywhere from three percent when first instituted to 92.5 percent during World War II. Should Obama be elected and Democrats further expand their congressional majorities, the “change you can believe in” may be only what you can find in the couch.

CULTURE

Judicial Benchmarks: Capital punishment

By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court invalidated a Louisiana law allowing capital punishment for the rape of a child. The result limiting the death penalty to murderers is not necessarily unreasonable, but the Court’s reasoning was.

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion asserted capitalizing the non-homicide crime would be counterproductive in removing the rapist’s incentive not to kill his victim afterwards. (Similarly, attempted murderers are merely imprisoned if they abandon their effort.) The majority further worried that capital sentencing processes could traumatize victims. Justice Alito’s dissent wisely observed that these were policy considerations for legislatures to consider.

The majority also cited the “national consensus” that only six states capitalize this crime. As the dissent countered, many states may have declined to authorize a death sentence less out of moral objection than the law’s constitutional uncertainty and the expense in administering and defending it. Furthermore, when in 2005 it abolished execution for 17-year-olds, even though a majority of states (20) with a death penalty (38) allowed it, the Court instead relied on the “trend” in which several states had recently eliminated the death penalty for teenage murderers. The Louisiana court that had upheld the child-rape death sentence for a man who savagely raped his 8-year-old stepdaughter therefore cited the “trend” whereby states had added a child-rape death penalty. So in the best tradition of “heads I win, tails you lose” reasoning, the Court reverted to an absolute count of state laws.

As in the 17-year-old case, Justice Kennedy found the law inconsistent “with respect for the dignity of the person” to be executed. But it expresses full respect for personal dignity to find that an individual who chose to commit such evil acts deserves total punishment and is rational enough to be deterred by it. As C.S. Lewis observed, when society partially excuses wrongdoing and mitigates punishment because the criminal cannot be held fully accountable, due to poverty, peer pressure (insert excuse here), the human being is reduced to the level of wild animal, or an infant.

On a related note, a politician who opposed the death penalty altogether when he ran in 1996 for Illinois State Senate from a very liberal district, and softened that to a preference for a “moratorium” when he ran statewide in 2004, now opposes yesterday’s decision in his national run because it does not extend capital punishment enough. Can you guess his name?

Climate change this week: Hansen and the Heretics

In the 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth,” eco-theologist Al Gore declared that “debate in the scientific community [about global warming] is over.” But two years later, alarmists are increasingly on the defensive as new cracks begin to show in their climate-change models, methods and theories. Some climate “scientists” are even starting to sound desperate, like Gore advisor and NASA climatologist James Hansen, who this week called for the criminal prosecution of energy company executives for allegedly spreading false or misleading information about the threat posed by global warming. “CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual,” Hansen said in testimony before Congress. “In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.” In other words, James Hansen wants to criminalize dissent.

In the same testimony, Hansen compared trains of coal cars heading toward power plants to the Nazi death trains of the Holocaust, though in light of his previous comments about criminalizing dissent, it isn’t clear whether he supports or opposes such death trains. While Hansen has a history of being hysterical about the dangers of global warming, his diatribes have been getting shriller in recent months. One of the reasons might be the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine’s release of the names of 31,000 scientists who reject the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Dissent on that scale can’t be good for the carbon-offset investment scheme, a racket in which Hansen boss Al Gore has large investments.

Faith and Family: Christianity in China

It’s a country where Christians still live under the daily threat of persecution, arrest, torture and imprisonment despite some hints at freedom. Yet in China, the church continues to grow. The Chicago Tribune recently reported on Christianity’s “rapid rise” in this communist country of 1.2 billion, where church membership is estimated to be at least 70 million. Beyond the traditional enclaves of small villages, this underground revival has begun to spread into cities—and even above ground into the public-policy arena. In fact, populating the ranks of church membership are highly educated individuals including executives, entrepreneurs, university professors and, perhaps most interesting of all, many members of the Communist Party.

Disillusioned by the failures of communism, believers are finding in Christianity an alternative that many believe provides both spiritual and temporal benefits. As Beijing Pastor Jin Mingri stated, “We think that Christianity is good for Beijing, good for China.” On the other hand, the Tribune puts it this way: “Christianity is thriving in part because it offers a moral framework to citizens adrift in an age of Wild West capitalism that has not only exacted a heavy toll in corruption and pollution but also harmed the global image of products ‘Made in China’.” As the saying goes, everything looks like a nail to someone with a hammer.

When Professor Zhao Xiao conducted a comparative study of the economies of Christian and non-Christian countries, he found Christianity produces “a civilization based upon rules” and began advocating a societal framework based on the Ten Commandments (as our own Founding Fathers did).

Although doubt remains over how long the government’s newly crafted rope of “tolerance” will extend, Chinese Christians are determined to keep their faith. As one young believer put it, “Why follow people, not God?”

And last…

A new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life came up with some interesting figures when asking whether people believe in God. The sad fact is, the number among Christians was not 100 percent, but was anywhere from 99 percent for evangelical and black churches to 97 percent for Catholic and Mainline Protestant churches. The numbers for other monotheistic religions were even lower—83 percent of Jews believe in God compared to 92 percent of Muslims. That left us wondering, isn’t the whole point of these religions that there is a God? But even that’s not what left us completely puzzled. Among self-described atheists, an astounding 21 percent actually believe there is a God. Twelve percent believe in heaven and 10 percent pray at least once a week. So, are these folks really atheists? Apparently, the next step is to set up a church for God-believing atheists to gather for fellowship. Of course, if they did that, other people might start to question their atheist, um, faith.
Publisher’s Note

Please join us in welcoming aboard our newest little Patriot, Lily, daughter of The Patriot’s Creative Director, Ron Locke, and wife Alison. Mom and baby are doing well. We in our humble shop were all rooting for an Independence Day baby, but Lily (and Alison) had other plans.

Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot 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.)