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Title: The Patriot Post Digest 3-5-2018 Post by: nChrist on March 05, 2018, 02:57:54 PM ________________________________________ The Patriot Post Digest 3-5-2018 From The Federalist Patriot Free Email Subscription (http://patriotpost.us/subscription/new) ________________________________________ The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest Mar. 5, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/54537-mid-day-digest IN TODAY’S EDITION Jimmy Kimmel did address #MeToo during the Oscars, highlighting his hypocrisy. Facebook’s fake fact-checkers “bust” a conservative Christian satire site. It’s fun to mock Delta for its expensive virtue signal, but the bigger problem is cronyism. Tech addiction is breeding an epidemic of narcissism in America. What are “gun violence restraining orders,” and would they work to save lives? More on DC schools, Putin’s nuclear threats and American strategic oil interests. Plus our Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts. THE FOUNDATION “We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.” —George Washington (1785) FEATURED ANALYSIS The Academy Awards for Hypocrisy and Narcissism1 By Mark Alexander The latest annual confab of self-congratulatory celebrities, the 90th Academy Awards, is over. If you are reading this, you likely did not watch that self-aggrandizing parade of pomp and pretense from mostly mindless Hollywonks and have already seen headlines about who won which awards. There are still a few great movies being made, but some of the biggest “entertainment industry” grossers are devoted to the unmitigated violence2 saturating the minds of young people. The centerpiece celebrity of the event was its host, Jimmy Kimmel, who, as I wrote last week, deserves an Oscar for “Serial Misogyny Based on a True Story3.” Kimmel is an unapologetic misogynist, but he gets a pass because he has established himself as the loudest of the elitist celebrity voices defaming grassroots Patriots4 and those who represent them5. If not for Hollywood’s abject hypocrisy, Kimmel would not be hosting the Academy Awards — which is to say, he is the perfect host. As I noted last week, given the recent report that 94% of Hollywood women report have been harassed6, Kimmel was asked if he would use his Oscars platform to take up the mantle of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. He fired back, “This show is not about reliving people’s sexual assaults. It’s an awards show. … And the last thing I want to do is ruin that for someone … by making it unpleasant. You know, that’s not what I want to do. I’m not going to stop any bad behavior with my jokes.” In other words, Kimmel knows that if he focused too much on the #MeToo mantle, somebody might actually call him out for his sordid history of wholesale misogyny as creator of “The Man Show7,” where he spent four years building his career on the gross objectification and denigration of women prior to being picked up by Disney/ABC. Though he regularly uses his “Jimmy Kimmel Live” monologues as a platform to promote leftist political causes, he has not devoted a single monologue to condemn the sexual harassment in Hollywood. Wonder why? He’s a hypocrite’s hypocrite — but Disney/ABC isn’t about to derail its advertising revenue gravy train. Despite his assertion last week that he would not mention #MeToo, somebody tapped on his shoulder and let him know he had to mention it because it’s going to be a significant component of the Democrats’ midterm election strategy8. According to the tabloid Washington Post headlines, between his attacks9 on President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, Kimmel’s “#MeToo Oscars monologue revealed a painful truth10.” But of course, not the truth about his own well-documented, unapologetic serial denigration of women. Kimmel joked about #MeToo: “Oscar is the most beloved and respected man in Hollywood. And there’s a very good reason why. Just look at him. Keeps his hands where you can see them. Never said a rude word. And most importantly, no gotcha10 at all.” He crassly offered this pun about the most noted of executive abusers in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein11: “The academy, as you are no doubt aware, took action last year to expel Harvey Weinstein from their ranks. There were a lot of great nominees, but Harvey deserved it the most.” Apparently the other “great nominees” are now being more discreet with their harassment and abuse. He took cheap shots at easy targets. “Here’s how clueless Hollywood is about women,” he said. “We made a movie called ‘What Women Want’ and it starred Mel Gibson.” No, actually, here’s how clueless Hollywood is about women — they selected a serial misogynist to host their biggest celebrity confab of the year. On a serious note, Kimmel declared, “We can’t let bad behavior slide anymore. The world is watching us. We need to set an example.” The next “example” should be exiling Kimmel from his celebrity seat at Disney/ABC. IN BRIEF Facebook’s Fake Fact-Checkers Bust The Babylon Bee12 By Thomas Gallatin One of our favorite satire sites, The Babylon Bee, recently ran a humorous story entitled “CNN purchases industrial-sized washing machine to spin news before publication13.” Hours later, Adam Ford, the Bee’s founder, received a notice from Facebook warning that his story had been flagged as false content by its “independent fact-checker” Snopes. Furthermore, the social media giant threatened, “Repeat offenders will see their distribution reduced and their ability to monetize and advertised removed.” To say the least, Ford was surprised — not over being “fact-checked,” as this was not the first time that Snopes has “fact-checked” The Babylon Bee, but rather by the action taken by Facebook. Ford stated, “This is the first time Facebook has used that to threaten us with reduced reach and demonetization.” He added, “Also it seems that anyone who clicked on the article got a notice that it was ‘disputed.’” Hours later, after suffering a fully deserved barrage of blowback and mockery, Facebook later admitted its action was a mistake: “There’s a difference between false news and satire. This was a mistake and should not have been rated false in our system. It’s since been corrected and won’t count against the domain in any way.” Like Google’s YouTube14, Facebook has sought to censor and limit what it calls “fake news” and has increased its efforts since Donald Trump’s election. As part of its anti-fake news efforts, Facebook has teamed up with several leftist “fact-checking” groups15. One of these organizations, PolitiFact, explained its work with Facebook, stating, “Our partnership with Facebook is part of a push by the social media company to clean up its news feed and become a more trustworthy platform.” PolitiFact’s Aaron Sharackman added, “Facebook introduced a new tool after the 2016 campaign that allows users to mark a post as a ‘false news story,’ and if enough do, the post is sent to fact-checkers like PolitiFact, Snopes and Factcheck.org.” Following his recent experience with Facebook, Ford opined, “There is no question in my mind that Snopes and Facebook are biased against conservative-leaning content. It’s clear that this is the case. There are always going to be some people who misinterpret satire, but we were intentional from the get-go about not blurring the line between satire and misinformation.” He then astutely observed, “When this exact thing happens to smaller sites, or to people who are unable to make sufficient noise about it when it happens, what can they do? The answer is nothing. They’re out of luck.” Undeterred, on Friday the Bee published a satirical follow-up entitled “Facebook sends warm reminder to publishers that it is in complete control of their livelihood16,” although this may be an instance of reality reflecting satire. Finally, a parting question: Who’s fact-checking the “fact-checkers”? It’s the Cronyism, Stupid17 By Nate Jackson A funny thing happened on the way to Delta Air Lines showcasing its “woke” political activism — it lost $40 million to the state of Georgia, where its Atlanta hub is. Delta was one of the numerous companies that, in knee-jerk response to the Florida massacre, dumped partnerships with the NRA18. The shooting had nothing to do with the NRA, but grandstanding trumped common sense. As we noted at the time, Georgia Republicans responded almost immediately by refusing to restore Delta’s tax break. Erick Erickson explains19, “Up until a couple of years ago, Delta had a special perk in the Georgia tax code. It was exempt from paying sales tax on aviation fuel. Other airlines had to pay the tax. Delta did not. When the state reassessed how it calculates and collects transportation taxes during the recession, Delta lost its perk. Delta has lobbied for it ever since.” And the air line won’t get it back. Title: The Patriot Post Digest 3-5-2018 Post by: nChrist on March 05, 2018, 02:59:20 PM ________________________________________ The Patriot Post Digest 3-5-2018 From The Federalist Patriot Free Email Subscription (http://patriotpost.us/subscription/new) ________________________________________ Now for the even funnier thing — because criteria for the NRA discount was so specific, just 13 Delta passengers ever bought tickets with it. Losing $40 million for 13 people works out to about $3 million per discounted ticket. In other words, these corporate do-gooders just made one really expensive virtue signal. Still, as much fun as schadenfreude can be, this leads us to the larger point that cronyist tax breaks are a fundamentally bad idea. Unfortunately, every state and governor, as well as every city and mayor and every elected official of either party anywhere in between, offers sweetheart tax deals to corporations for locating in that city or state. Bipartisanship! And this corrupt income redistribution leads to all kinds of ugly stuff. For one thing, Delta lobbies in Georgia for all sorts of leftist causes and against conservative ones — like the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Republican Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed in 201620. In this case, however, Delta probably has a case that Georgia Republicans are violating its “freedom of association” rights by using the tax code as retribution for a political stance. Neither would be an issue if it weren’t for such anti-free-market favoritism in the tax code. What Delta did was inexcusable political opportunism, but the greater fault lies with Georgia and every other state that favors big, leftist corporations at the expense of small businesses and American taxpayers. Top Headlines21 Dianne Feinstein touts research claiming the “assault weapon” ban reduced mass shootings (Reason22) Florida Senate rejects ban on assault weapons, votes to arm teachers (Reuters23) The kids are pawns: Democrats use Parkland students to get out the vote (Hot Air24) Over a third of Democrats would repeal Second Amendment (National Review25) Illegal immigrant from Mexico pleads guilty to using fake identity to steal $361,000 in government benefits (Fox News26) Former YouTube worker alleges discrimination against white, Asian men in suit (San Francisco27) Electrolux halts Tennessee project after Trump’s tariff28 announcement (ABC News29) Trump may reconsider tariff on aluminum and steel in exchange for new terms on NAFTA (The Washington Times30) “Kill Climate Deniers” begins in theaters (The Washington Times31) 10 years after Democrat-created financial crisis32, Senate prepares to roll back banking rules (The Washington Post33) Policy: Xi’s “Putinization” of China is a massive wake-up for America (The Hill34) Policy: Three proposed food aid reforms could save countless lives at little cost (American Enterprise Institute35) For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report36. MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST Tech Addiction Breeds Narcissism39 — Millions of Americans are now more concerned with their “online presence” than their real world one. Guns and the System SNAFU40 — Failure abounded in Florida, but there may be a proposal that could actually help prevent violence. Look No Further Than DC for School Choice Need41 — Just 42% of high school seniors will graduate in ‘18. School choice naysayers ignore the evidence at their feet. Putin Goes Nuclear42 — His blusterous threats are as much about Russian domestic politics as they are a threat to the U.S. Why Low Oil Prices Help America Strategically43 — When we talk energy policy, we’re not just talking about how cheap it is to fill up your gas tank. Video: Dear Celebrities: No One Cares What You Think44 — You enrich our world with your talent. But when you go on a political rant or call your fans racist and sexist… BEST OF RIGHT OPINION Joseph E. diGenova: The Politicization of the FBI45 Todd Starnes: School Suspends War Vet Who Vowed to Protect Students46 Burt Prelutsky: School Daze47 Tony Perkins: Is Country Music Going the Way of the NFL?48 Kathryn Jean Lopez: The Love of Adoption49 For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion50. OPINION IN BRIEF Burt Prelutsky: “Everybody agrees it’s tragic when innocent people are killed. But why must we pretend that it’s worse when it takes place at a school? How is it better if youngsters are killed at the local mall or at a movie theater or a rock concert? All of them constitute soft targets. Heck, as we saw at Fort Hood, when Major Nidal Hasan murdered a dozen of his fellow soldiers, we, as a society, have become so deranged that even Army bases have become gun-free zones. … My point isn’t to diminish what happened in Parkland but to point out that those on the Left seem to view all murders through a prism of their propaganda value. If they thought they could get more mileage out of church shootings, the endless homicides in Baltimore or the attack on the Republican congressmen at the baseball field in Virginia, they would focus on those crimes. But they realize they can better utilize school shootings emotionally because of the age of the victims, even though those crimes should be the easiest to avoid, simply by using metal detectors at the school entrance, arming and training teachers and coaches, and turning over students showing homicidal tendencies to the cops. … The sad truth is that those calling for commonsense limitations on gun ownership are lying with every breath they take. What they really want is for the federal government to confiscate firearms, the Second Amendment be damned!” SHORT CUTS The Gipper: “The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.” Braying Jenny: “If we want to get to the point where we can get reparations, we’ve got to have the power to do that, Number 1, by having a supportive president would be wonderful, but taking back the House would be absolutely wonderful.” —Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) No, they don’t: “Some men have a uterus. Some men have a uterus. Some men have a uterus. Some men have a uterus. Some men have a uterus. Some men have a uterus. Some men have a uterus. Some men have a uterus. Some men have a uterus. Some men have a uterus. Some men have a uterus.” —Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Non Compos Mentis: “Certainly somebody who’s 18, 19, 20 years old shouldn’t be able to purchase … gas-assisted receiver firearms when they can’t buy a simple handgun.” —Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) And how’d that work out in Iran? “The accessibility of guns leads to homicide; it’s created problems for a country like [the] U.S. … No one dares apply the clear solution to the promotion of guns and homicide in America. What’s the solution? It’s to make guns illegal.” —Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei Village Idiots: “I think that, you know, we’re the entertainment industry. At some point, there has to be a separation between politics and the entertainment industry or we’re going to suffer.” —actress Jennifer Lawrence, who promptly added, “I think the problems is guns, not the entertainment industry” Re: the Left: “Of course I have my opinion about everybody and everything. But I learned a long time ago, keep your damn mouth shut if you want to stay in show business. I’m not in politics. I am an entertainer.” —Dolly Parton And last… “The reason people are frustrated when celebrities talk about gun control, open borders, higher taxes, etc., isn’t because their job excludes them from having an opinion. It’s because their opinions are so hypocritical.” —Allie Stuckey 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. We also humbly ask prayer for your Patriot team, that our mission would seed and encourage the spirit of Liberty in the hearts and minds of our countrymen. Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis Nate Jackson, Managing Editor Mark Alexander, Publisher |