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Title: The Patriot Post Digest 2-25-2019 Post by: nChrist on February 25, 2019, 02:25:14 PM ________________________________ The Patriot Post Digest 2-25-2019 From The Federalist Patriot Free Email Subscription (http://patriotpost.us/subscription/new) _______________________________ The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest Feb. 25, 2019 https://patriotpost.us/digests/61388-mid-day-digest THE FOUNDATION “Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.” —James Madison (1792) https://patriotpost.us/fqd/61386-founders-quote-daily IN TODAY’S EDITION U.S. increases support of Venezuela’s interim President Juan Guaido as Maduro digs in.1 SPLC’s hate hoax: The latest report on “extremism” leaves a lot to be desired.2 Daily Features: More Analysis3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Opinion in Brief6, Short Cuts7, Memes8, and Cartoons9. IN BRIEF Venezuelan Dictator Maduro Blocks Humanitarian Aid10 Thomas Gallatin Violence erupted11 over the weekend at several Venezuelan border crossings as the country’s socialist dictator, Nicolas Maduro, ordered that humanitarian food and medical aid be blocked from entering the country. One of the more dramatic incidents took place on the Simon Bolivar bridge between Colombia and Venezuela, where Maduro-backed troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of protesting Venezuelans and set several aid trucks on fire. Thus far the violence has claimed the lives of two Venezuelans, with 29 others suffering bullet wounds and a total of 285 people injured. Reacting to the violence, interim President Juan Guaido, who has been recognized by the U.S.12 and at least 50 other democratic nations as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, stated13, “Today’s events force me to make a decision: to formally propose to the international community that we must have all options open to secure the freedom of our country that is fighting and will continue to fight. Hope was born not to die, Venezuela!” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed his disgust with Maduro’s actions and reiterated America’s commitment to stand with the people of Venezuela: “We denounce Maduro’s refusal to let humanitarian assistance reach Venezuela. What kind of a sick tyrant stops food from getting to hungry people? The images of burning trucks filled with aid are sickening.” He added, “While Guaido leads the effort to get the aid to the people, Maduro sends armed gangs to attack innocent civilians.” Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to meet today with Guiado and the regional Lima Group of nations to offer further support and help decide what actions should be taken to increase the pressure on Maduro to step down. President Donald Trump has not ruled out military intervention, although it appears that the immediate response will be increased sanctions. What is truly interesting — and almost comical if the situation weren’t so dire — is the attempt of leftists such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to distance themselves and their socialist ideology from the socialist-created disaster that is Venezuela. On Saturday, Sanders, who has long praised the socialist takeover of Venezuela, stated, “The people of Venezuela are enduring a serious humanitarian crisis. The Maduro government must put the needs of its people first, allow humanitarian aid into the country, and refrain from violence against protesters.” There would have been no need for the once-wealthy Venezuela to need humanitarian aid today had it not embraced the economy- and freedom-destroying ideology of socialism, but Sanders can’t admit that fact. For the sake of the Venezuelan people, we hope for an end to the Maduro dictatorship and the socialism that precipitated his rise to power in the first place. https://patriotpost.us/articles/61383-venezuelan-dictator-maduro-blocks-humanitarian-aid SPLC’s Hate Hoax: A New Report on ‘Extremism’14 Nate Jackson In the midst of the endless news cycle surrounding Jussie Smollett’s hate-crime hoax, our own Louis DeBroux highlighted just how prevalent such hoaxes are15. Ask yourself a simple question: Do we really live in a nation filled with hate groups committing rampant hate crimes when the hip new thing is to perpetrate fake hate crimes to get attention? The nation’s premier hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center16, laughably insists the answer is yes and that it’s getting worse under President Donald Trump. In its newest Intelligence Report17 (try not to laugh), the SPLC calculates that the number of “hate” groups in the U.S. supposedly increased for the fourth consecutive year in 2018. Citing the report, The New York Times warns18, “The law center said the number of hate groups rose by 7 percent last year to 1,020, a 30 percent jump from 2014. That broadly echoes other worrying developments, including a 30 percent increase in the number of hate crimes reported to the F.B.I. from 2015 through 2017 and a surge of right-wing violence that the Anti-Defamation League said had killed at least 50 people in 2018.” U.S. News & World Report laid bare the blame game with the headline “Trump ‘Fear-Mongering’ Fuels Rise of U.S. Hate Groups to Record19.” Clearly, this SPLC report is political, not an honest assessment. Two points about reports from the FBI and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). First, as we observed20 in November, the reason “hate” crimes are supposedly on the rise is because hundreds more law-enforcement agencies have begun reporting such a category. So if that category is to be taken seriously instead of dismissed as political and subjective, all it means is that we’re now keeping count. Second, assume for a moment that the leftist ADL’s numbers are even remotely accurate (they’re not). Fifty murders is 50 too many for any reason, but blacks kill 50 other blacks in American inner cities every week. Is it a worse crime when the race of the perpetrator is white? That brings us back to the SPLC. The organization is a tax-exempt, charitable organization with an endowment of $432.7 million21. This war chest is used to tabulate a few actually hateful groups, but much of the organization’s very uncharitable efforts are spent serving as a bludgeoning tool for the Leftmedia and the Democrat Party. Why else would the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom be listed as “hate” groups? Or why would the SPLC warn about “members of Congress who traffic in hate and extremism” but only include Republicans and not, for example, actual anti-Semite Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar22? A qualification for this political hate? Opposing same-sex marriage, just as Barack Obama did until 2012. Despite — or rather because of — all this political chicanery, the SPLC is routinely cited by Leftmedia outlets as a “nonpartisan” and “objective” source for tracking hate in America. That is the essence of fake news. https://patriotpost.us/articles/61374-splcs-hate-hoax-a-new-report-on-extremism ON OUR WEBSITE TODAY Featured Analysis: Most Americans Would Fail a Citizenship Test23 — When Americans don’t know what it means to be American, we will lose Liberty. China Exposes Globalist Bankruptcy24 — Beijing is making a serious play to supplant the U.S. as the world’s foremost superpower. Chicago PD Superintendent’s Pivot From ‘Hate Crime’ to ‘Gun Violence’25 — If Eddie Johnson was sincere, he’d not that leftist policies are the problem with inner cities. Video: Bernie Sanders on Division Politics26 — “The federal government, with him running it, should have control over pretty much everything.” TOP HEADLINE SUMMARY CNBC reports28, “The United States is planning to delay a menu of additional Chinese tariffs that were scheduled to begin on March 1 … as both sides hash out a definitive end to a wide ranging trade dispute. In a series of posts on Twitter, Trump cited ‘substantial progress’ in bilateral talks between the U.S. and China.” Making the economy great again: “The Dow posted its ninth consecutive week of advances, its longest weekly winning streak in nearly 24 years, as investors continued to digest commentary surrounding progress toward a U.S.-China trade deal. The Dow closed at 26,031.81 points … by the end of Friday’s session. This was the first time the index crossed 26,000 points since November 9, and its nine straight weeks gains marked the longest streak since a 10-week run between March and May 1995.” (Yahoo Finance29) Title: The Patriot Post Digest 2-25-2019 Post by: nChrist on February 25, 2019, 02:26:19 PM ________________________________ The Patriot Post Digest 2-25-2019 From The Federalist Patriot Free Email Subscription (http://patriotpost.us/subscription/new) _______________________________ “The Pentagon will increase the number of troops along the U.S.-Mexico border to about 6,000 by the start of next month as the Trump administration turns its attention to securing remote areas between official ports of entry… About 1,000 additional personnel will be deployed with orders to string more concertina wire and install detection systems.” (The Washington Post30) “A federal judge in Texas has declared that an all-male military draft is unconstitutional, ruling that ‘the time has passed’ for a debate on whether women belong in the military,” USA Today reports31. The Federalist’s Sean Davis responds, “It’s hard to imagine those who drafted this nation’s foundational legal document declaring a God-given right of the federal government to forcibly conscript young women into the service of a standing federal army, yet that’s what a court just ruled.” “President Trump is nominating Kelly Knight Craft as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. If confirmed by the Senate, Craft, currently U.S. ambassador to Canada, will succeed Nikki Haley, who announced her departure last fall. The 56-year-old Craft has been ambassador to Canada since October 2017. She previously served as an alternate delegate to the U.N. during the George W. Bush administration. During her time in Ottawa, she raised eyebrows when she said that she believes in ‘both sides of the science’ when it comes to climate change.” (NPR32) “Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed a sentencing memo for President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort,” Axios reveals33. “Mueller does not take a position on how much time in prison Manafort should serve, but accuses him of ‘repeatedly and brazenly’ breaking the law for over a decade, even after he was indicted.” The memo is more than 800 pages long. According to Kentucky State University professor Wilfred Reilly, “Hate crime hoaxes, like Jussie Smollett’s alleged attack, are more common than you think.” He adds, “Doing research for a book, Hate Crime Hoax, I was able to easily put together a data set of 409 confirmed hate hoaxes. An overlapping but substantially different list of 348 hoaxes exists at fakehatecrimes.org, and researcher Laird Wilcox put together another list of at least 300 in his still-contemporary book Crying Wolf. To put these numbers in context, a little over 7,000 hate crimes were reported by the FBI in 2017 and perhaps 8-10% of these are widely reported enough to catch the eye of a national researcher.” (USA Today34) “The Motion Picture Association of America officially gave the upcoming abortion film ‘Unplanned’ an ‘R’ rating Friday for ‘some disturbing/bloody images’ of aborted babies,” The Daily Caller reveals35. “Movies are rated R for profanity, nudity, sex, or violence. ‘Unplanned’ contains no profanity, nudity, or sex. ‘Ironically, the MPAA seems to be indirectly endorsing the pro-life position: namely that abortion is an act of violence,’ writers and directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman told Movieguide.” Humor: Man denied life insurance policy after revealing he wears MAGA hat in public (The Babylon Bee36) Policy: A universal basic income is on the Left’s policy-prescription list, but Gonzalo Schwarz explains that “implementing UBI as a public policy solution has significant shortcomings that should be discussed.” Read more at the Foundation for Economic Education37. Policy: “Current federal policy insufficiently protects babies who are born alive following an attempted abortion,” says The Heritage Foundation’s Melanie Israel. Here’s why38 “the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act would remedy this problem.” For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit In Our Sights39. https://patriotpost.us/articles/61384-monday-top-headline-summary OPINION IN BRIEF Tony Perkins: “After months of work, the president’s team finalized a rule Friday afternoon that should build an important wall between abortion groups and true family planning program. Right now, no organization is allowed to use the government’s family planning dollars for abortion. Planned Parenthood gets around that law, Ben Domenech explains, by drawing an ‘artificial line’ between its abortion clinics and its other family planning services — ‘even when those are located in the same facility, and essentially funded jointly.’ Starting now, groups like Planned Parenthood will have to choose. They can still take Title X family planning funds — but not at the clinics where they perform abortions. Under this new ‘co-location’ policy, which dates back to President Reagan, Leana Wen’s network will have to decide between dropping their abortion services from any location that gets Title X dollars and moving those abortion operations offsite. Either way, it could take away a significant bite out of the group’s $60 million in family planning funds. … Taking aim at the $60 million abortion businesses get under Title X is a major step to the ultimate goal: ending taxpayers’ forced partnership with abortion for good.” SHORT CUTS The Gipper: “Any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate.” —Ronald Reagan Hot air: “You know what? I don’t care anymore. I don’t care anymore, because again, I’m at least trying, and they’re not. So the power is in the person who’s trying, regardless of the success. If you’re trying, you’ve got all the power. You’re driving the agenda.” —Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez telling critics of the Green New Deal40 “I’m the boss” Braying Jenny: “There’s no question we have to be practical. But being practical also recognizes that climate change is an existential threat to us as human beings. … Of course we can afford it. … It’s not about a cost. It’s about an investment.” —Kamala Harris Non Compos Mentis: “It’s likely Trump will be able to build some of his wall — with America footing the bill. The next president should demolish whatever Trump manages to erect.” —The Week’s Peter Weber Alpha Jackass: “We have a problem in America called spatial geographic inequality, which means that the most affluent and educated people are clustered in just a few cities. … The blue parts of America are having a big prosperity party while the big sea of red feels like their invitation got lost in the mail — and they still use the mail. … We have orchestras and theaters districts and world-class shopping. We have Chef Wolfgang Puck. They have Chef Boyardee. … The fly-over states have become the passed-over states. That’s why red-state voters are so gotcha8ed off. They don’t hate us. They want to be us.” —Bill Maher Non sequitur: “This is the fall of an icon and I don’t think people understand how important [Jussie Smollett] has been in the black community. … The fact that he has been celebrated and you see homophobia in the black community through his eyes on the show, this is a Jackie Robinson against homophobia.” —Van Jones Confirmation bias: “The circumstances and the way he told the story and what he said happened to him sort of fit in with a — not a narrative, but a reality for a lot of people in this country since President Trump was inaugurated.” —Washington Post opinion writer Jonathan Capehart And last… “Smollett staged a hate crime yet still has a job. Northam wore blackface and advocated infanticide yet still has a job. Fairfax was credibly accused of rape by two women yet still has a job. Don’t tell me about privilege. No one is more privileged in modern America than a leftist.” —Matt Walsh https://patriotpost.us/articles/61373-monday-short-cuts Join our editors and staff 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 |