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Title: The Patriot Post Digest 1-10-2017 Post by: nChrist on January 10, 2017, 04:55:54 PM ________________________________________ The Patriot Post Digest 1-10-2017 From The Federalist Patriot Free Email Subscription (http://patriotpost.us/subscription/new) ________________________________________ Mid-Day Digest Jan. 10, 2017 IN TODAY’S EDITION Obama’s power grabs distracted him from electoral greatness, or so he says. The military won’t be sorry to see Obama leave, as it’s in need of some upgrades. Trump’s pick for education has her work cut out for her. And more news, policy and opinion. THE FOUNDATION “An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787) TOP RIGHT HOOKS Obama’s Failures Aren’t His Fault?1 Socialists love to centralize power in the hands of a few likeminded elites. In order to justify this unconstitutional usurping of the rightfully recognized sovereign governing authority of the states, a large national crisis is useful to convince the broad majority of the citizenry that only an organized centralized authority can effectively combat said crisis. The Left has been playing this power-grabbing game for a long time. After all, as Barack Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel famously said in 2008, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Mere days from leaving office, Obama is still tirelessly working from that old play sheet, this time in the form of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Last Friday, after the intelligence community’s report on Russian hacking2, Obama issued yet another executive order. He designated state and local voting systems as “pieces of critical infrastructure,” effectively giving the Department of Homeland Security authority to “protect” them from hackers. John Yoo, a law professor at UC Berkeley, was critical of this move, stating, “While the federal government has the general power to protect the nation’s cyber infrastructure, it cannot intrude into areas of state sovereignty without clear constitutional mandate.” When has that ever stopped Obama? Ironically, as Obama has grabbed and centralized more power via his executive actions throughout his time in office, he has seen his party suffer massive defeats3 at the polls both nationally and at the state level. When questioned by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos about the level of his responsibility for those losses, Obama responded, “I take some responsibility for that.” But then he quickly pivoted, shook off any real culpability and blamed the circumstances at the time he took office. He declared, “Partly because my docket was really full here I couldn’t be both chief organizer of the Democratic Party and function as commander in chief and president of the United States.” If only there were two of him. The real lesson here? The problem with centralizing too much power is that in the end it’s impossible to actually meet the many demands. Individuals are better at recognizing and meeting their immediate needs than is some distant government bureaucracy with “big picture” goals. If Obama’s attention was divided, it was his own doing thanks to power grabs like the latest one on voting systems. Post Obama: Sailing Toward Military Strength4 Barack Obama recently reiterated what has become one of his favorite catch phrases: “Almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago.” Juxtapose that assertion with this revelation5 (via The Washington Free Beacon): “Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi confirmed last week a recent report in the Wall Street Journal detailing some $10 billion in cash and assets provided to Iran since 2013, when the administration was engaging in sensitive diplomacy with Tehran aimed at securing the nuclear deal. Ghasemi disclosed that the $10 billion figure just scratches the surface of the total amount given to Iran by the United States over the past several years.” The Iranians and every other foe certainly have a different view of America under Obama’s watch. But strength and respect aren’t exactly apt descriptors. Capitulation is. It’s also rather difficult to argue in favor of American strength when our own military thinks otherwise6. According to The Military Times, “More than half of troops surveyed in the latest Military Times/Institute for Veterans and Military Families poll said they have an unfavorable opinion7 of Obama and his two-terms leading the military. About 36 percent said they approve of his job as commander in chief.” The commander in chief’s highest priority is defending America against enemies foreign and domestic. The average Joe isn’t alone in seeing that Obama’s failed in that regard. But there’s good news. As we recently reported8 regarding Obama’s downgrades of the entire U.S. military force, “The Navy has declined to a ship total not seen since 1916 and has mismanaged its carrier force.” According to the Associated Press9, however, “With President-elect Donald Trump demanding more ships, the Navy is proposing the biggest shipbuilding boom since the end of the Cold War to meet threats from a resurgent Russia and saber-rattling China. The Navy’s 355-ship proposal released last month is even larger than what the Republican Trump had promoted on the campaign trail.” It’s entirely within Donald Trump’s power to change course on issues of national security. Things appear already to be heading in the right direction. Top Headlines10 Jeff Sessions (AG) and John Kelly (DHS) kick off Trump cabinet hearings today. (The Washington Times11) Black pastors rally for Sessions appointment. (USA Today12) Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to serve as senior adviser. (Fox News13) Small business optimism — largest surge since 1980. (Bloomberg14) A majority of Americans now live under right-to-work laws. (Washington Examiner15) Freddie Gray prosecutor faces civil charges after conducting “independent investigation.” (National Review16) Police Appreciation Day — Orlando police officer murdered; $60,000 reward offered. (Orlando Sentinel17) Yes, really: The AP runs a “fact check” on whether Meryl Streep18 is “over-rated.” (Washington Examiner19) Emissions scandal20 aftermath: FBI arrests Volkswagen executive on fraud charges. (Reuters21) Nicolas Maduro raises minimum wage in Venezuela by 50%. Everyone in socialist nation still poor. (International Business Times22) Policy: The right way to repeal ObamaCare. (The Daily Signal23) Policy: A sensible plea for limits on immigration. (Bloomberg View24) Don’t Miss Patriot Humor Check out Obama’s To Do List25. If you’d like to receive Patriot Humor by email, update your subscription here26. FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS Draining the Swamp to Help American Education27 By James Shott Among the many hot topics since Donald Trump won the election is America’s education system. Once at the top of the nations of the world in educating its young, America has lost serious ground, and it’s time to rectify that. Jon Guttman, Research Director of the World History Group, wrote in 201228, “As recently as 20 years ago, the United States was ranked No.1 in high school and college education.” Furthermore, “In 2009, the United States was ranked 18th out of 36 industrialized nations.” He attributes that decline to “complacency and inefficiency, reflective of lower priorities in education, and inconsistencies among the various school systems.” This despite because of the unifying mandates of No Child Left Behind, Common Core, Race to the Top and whatever other repackaged program statists impose upon our education system. Not to mention trillions of dollars poured into the system. In 2010 at a Paris meeting of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Barack Obama’s first secretary of education, Arne Duncan, who served from 2009 through 2015, said this29: “Before the 1960s, almost all policymaking and education funding was a state and local responsibility. In the mid-1960s, the federal role expanded to include enforcing civil rights laws to ensure that poor, minority and disabled students, as well as English language learners, had access to a high-quality education. "As the federal role in education grew,” Duncan continued, “so did the bureaucracy.” In fact, he added, the U.S. Department of Education often “operated more like a compliance machine, instead of an engine of innovation,” and that it concerned itself with the details of formula funding, and not with educational outcomes or equity. The latter terms are leftist double-speak. Title: The Patriot Post Digest 1-10-2017 Post by: nChrist on January 10, 2017, 04:56:59 PM ________________________________________ The Patriot Post Digest 1-10-2017 From The Federalist Patriot Free Email Subscription (http://patriotpost.us/subscription/new) ________________________________________ Duncan went on to say that the United States needed to challenge the status quo, and to close the achievement and opportunity gaps. Five years later, the U.S. still lagged behind many other countries. The findings in the 2015 Program International Student Assessment (PISA), which is an international benchmark for education systems, finds the U.S. education system improved since the last assessment in 2012 in the areas of science, math and reading. However, that alleged improvement still leaves American students ranked behind the students of 24 other countries, among the 72 participating nations. Teens in Singapore, Japan and Estonia led the more than half a million 15-year-olds in the 2015 assessment, the primary focus of which was science, with math as the primary focus in 2012. Jimmy Carter signed the federal Department of Education into law in 1979, and since it became active the following year, American education has steadily worsened, as measured by these international assessments. President-Elect Donald Trump, like Ronald Reagan before him, has called for abolishing the Department of Education, citing the need to cut spending. The Founders established only four cabinet level activities: foreign relations through the State Department; national defense through the Department of War (now Defense); taxation and spending through the Department of the Treasury; and enforcement of federal law through the Attorney General (now the Department of Justice). The increase of federal agencies has arguably produced some benefits, but does their performance justify the costs incurred? They have produced tremendous growth in government control of our lives, and enormous expense, both direct and indirect. Today there are nearly four times as many cabinet level agencies as the Founders thought necessary. The federal education effort has many sins on its list, but the primary one is the shifting of control of schools to Washington by dangling federal dollars in front of state school officials — dollars they can earn only in return for relinquishing control over their schools. Federal influences also contribute to the infestation of standardized testing30, which in moderation can provide benefits, but when a typical student takes 112 mandated standardized tests between pre-kindergarten classes and 12th grade, that is over the edge. Eighth-graders, it is estimated, spend an average of 25.3 hours on standardized testing. It’s in this context that Trump named Betsy DeVos31 to become education secretary. Her bio explains32 that in education she “has been a pioneer in fighting to remove barriers, to enact change and to create environments where people have the opportunity to thrive,” and that her political efforts are focused on advancing educational choices. She currently chairs the American Federation for Children. Like all of Trump’s cabinet selections so far, the Left portrays DeVos as unqualified and criticizes her lack of experience. One particularly unflattering New York Times tome lamented that she has pushed33 to “give families taxpayer money in the form of vouchers to attend private and parochial schools, pressed to expand publicly funded but privately run charter schools, and [tried] to strip teacher unions of their influence.” Perhaps the contrary is true, however. Given the lackluster performance of the Department of Education when run by supposedly qualified people, someone with other strengths just might be able to turn the department into a positive influence — or at least minimize the damage — on what is broadly considered a mediocre education system. Schools are best operated by those closest to the students, so returning control to states and localities will be a good first step. MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST Making Stuff in America Again34 — Trump takes on American automakers to save jobs and pride. BEST OF RIGHT OPINION Stephen Moore: We Need Tax Reform, Not Tariffs35 Cal Thomas: Russian Hacking and Glass Houses36 Dennis Prager: Disturbing Lessons From the Chicago Beating37 For more, visit Right Opinion38. OPINION IN BRIEF Investor’s Business Daily: “Of the seven major industrial nations, what country grew fastest last year? If you said Great Britain, you were dead right. Funny, because just last June after the Brexit vote, many experts were predicting a British collapse. Here’s the reality: ‘Britain ended last year as the strongest of the world’s advanced economies with growth accelerating in the six months after the Brexit vote,’ says The Times of London. Britain’s economics community, not to mention its badly biased, anti-Brexit media, now have egg on their faces. Not only did Britain survive Brexit, it thrived after Brexit. In the first half of the year, preliminary data show economic growth averaged just 1.8%. But that jumped to 2.2% in the second half after Brexit. Moreover, dire prognostications of market disaster and a global meltdown never came to pass. … France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and even Germany, have burgeoning movements to leave the EU. Seeing Britain’s success, it’s only a matter of time before others join them in taking back control of their own countries.” Read more39. SHORT CUTS Insight: “As the circle of knowledge expands, so does the Sphere of darkness that encompasses it.” —Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Upright: “Over the long sweep of history, what matters more? Donald Trump’s immigration policy or the fate of the family? Paul Ryan’s entitlement reforms or the faith of a nation? The fate of the family and the faith of the nation narrow and constrain our politics, limiting our choices to those options that are palatable to an increasingly dependent people. Hollywood is helping redefine our nation’s character. And if the Left keeps winning our culture, the GOP can keep winning our politics and the nation will still lose.” —David French Dezinformatsiya: “Climate change, disproportionately caused by carbon emissions from America, seems to be behind a severe drought that has led crops to wilt across seven countries in southern Africa. The result is acute malnutrition for 1.3 million children in the region, the United Nations says.” —New York Times' Nicholas Kristof in a piece titled, “As Donald Trump Denies Climate Change, These Kids Die of It” Non Compos Mentis: “We don’t deserve this planet. There are (many) days when I think it would be better off without us. … How am I supposed to do my job — literally to chronicle planetary suicide — w/o experiencing deep existential despair myself? Impossible. … I don’t have an answer for where to go from here. That’s why I’m in counseling. But part of the answer is: don’t be afraid to talk.” —meteorologist and climate alarmist Eric Holthaus Refusing to follow Bush’s footsteps: “If [Trump] deports thousands of kids, I don’t know that I can sit on the sidelines.” —Barack Obama, who just can’t stay out of the spotlight Legacy: “Obama’s tenure as a whole had shortcomings due to some notable missed opportunities and outright failures, such as the economic development of urban centers, gun violence and the foreclosure rate and bank closure rate in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. On these and other issues, we rated the Obama administration ‘Fair’ or ‘Poor.’” —Urban League President Marc H. Morial And last… “Most gun owners support higher penalties for a gun being used in a crime, which is pretty much the only effective gun control legislation.” —Frank Fleming 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. |