The Patriot Post Digest 3-2-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 3-2-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest

Mar. 2, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.” —James Wilson (1791)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Which Party Is Trump Winning?1

First, the obvious notes from Super Tuesday. Donald Trump further cleared his path to the Republican nomination — but he also underperformed expectations, winning seven and not 10 or 11 states. Ted Cruz won three states, bolstering his claim to being the only viable Trump alternative, though he now heads for less friendly territory. Marco Rubio finally won a state, giving him hope going into Florida and other states that are closer to Minnesota, where he won, and Virginia, where he nearly did (but didn’t because of John Kasich). At this point, the (narrow) path for either Cruz or Rubio likely involves a brokered convention.

Second, the underlying stories. Yes, Trump has won 10 of the first 15 states, but he only pulled a grand total of 34% of the vote Tuesday and has yet to win a majority anywhere. Combined, Cruz and Rubio have about 50%. And Trump’s share of the delegates declined from 66% before Tuesday to 49%.

Bottom line: The reason Trump is the frontrunner is because there have always been too many alternatives. Two is still too many, not to mention four or the original 16. And no one really took him on until five days before Super Tuesday2. We’ll see how he handles continued withering attacks on his record of hurting the very voters he appeals to3.

Drilling down even deeper we find that Trump is winning because of voters who aren’t Republican. His surprise loss in Oklahoma may demonstrate this, because it was a closed primary (only Republicans could vote). Massachusetts illustrates it too — it was Trump’s highest performing state (49%) and 20,000 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for him. Through March 15, another 10 states will vote and eight of them are Republican-only.

So as The Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last put it4, “Trump is not leading a revolt from within the party, but staging a hostile takeover of it.”

Or put another way, it’s great to “expand the party,” as Trump boasted Tuesday night, bringing Democrats into the fold, but only if they intend to stay there come November. There’s plenty of evidence Democrats are crossing over now, and little reason to think they’ll stay. We’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but don’t think for a minute Democrats are above voting for Trump now to choose a weak general election opponent for Hillary Clinton.

Trump Adds to Clinton’s Inevitability5

Let’s do some quick political math. If Republican primary voters choose Donald Trump as their candidate — and they’re certainly headed that way — they will have essentially chosen Hillary Clinton to lead the country. Of all the candidates Republican and Democrat, Clinton had the best night of them all Super Tuesday. Clinton swept up Massachusetts and the Southern states (Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas) and shored up hundreds of delegates to rally for her at the Democrat National Convention. With her 1,001 Democrat delegates, she holds a comfortable lead on Bernie Sanders and his 371. Chances are rising that she really will become the inevitable Democrat nominee.

The question for Republicans becomes: Who can go head-to-head against Clinton and win? Forget the polls at this moment. Instead, look at the possible way the Electoral College will vote, as the Examiner’s Ryan Witt did in a recent analysis6. Needing 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency, Witt projected that Clinton would pick up 358, easily dominating Trump and his 180.

It comes down to which states are safe for each party to win. Clinton would easily win 217 delegates based on the states that voted for Barack Obama by more than 6% in the 2008 election. Meanwhile, Trump would win 164 delegates in states that supported Mitt Romney by at least 10% in the 2012 election, according to Witt. Most of the remaining swing states lean Democrat and contain high Latino and black demographics — which are fleeing Trump and falling behind Clinton. Of course, the head-to-head race is months away, and this projection is like all the others, a projection. But if voters are given the choice between two big-government New Yorkers who have track records of not telling the truth, most of them will probably cast ballots for the woman who told supporters at a Super Tuesday rally in Miami (a swing state city), “Instead of building walls, we’re going to break down barriers and build ladders of opportunity and empowerment.”

Broken ObamaCare Co-Ops Cheat the System7

During his weekly address on June 27, 2015, Barack Obama responded to a favorable Supreme Court ruling from two days earlier on the legality of ObamaCare subsidies by boasting, “This law is working exactly as it’s supposed to — and in some ways, better than we expected it to. … It is time to stop refighting battles that have been settled again and again. It’s time to move on.” If only we could. The reason we can’t (aside from the Supreme Court getting it wrong8 twice) is because the law is not working, no matter how you spin it. Not only is enrollment tanking9, but a new poll shows that very few people10 are seeing any benefits, and already 12 of the nearly two dozen ObamaCare co-ops have imploded. As for the rest? They, too, are on shaky ground.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services unloaded a bombshell on Congress last week by revealing that eight more co-ops may soon be headed for closure. According to11 The Washington Free Beacon, “The agency’s chief operating officer, Dr. Mandy Cohen, told the House Oversight and Government Reform committee that the 11 co-ops that remain are ‘being monitored closely,’ and that eight have a corrective action plan in place and are under enhanced oversight. Cohen explained that a co-op is put on a corrective action plan when the agency identifies issues with its finances, operations, compliance, or management processes.” If history is any indication, they won’t last long.

The news gets worse. A separate Free Beacon story published Tuesday says12, “Co-ops created under Obamacare reported net assets despite losing millions because they used an accounting trick approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. … In July 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services amended its agreement with co-ops, allowing them to list $2.4 billion in loans they received from taxpayers as assets.” So not only are co-ops closing left and right, but the federal government allowed them to cheat the system, all while CEOs pulled in hundreds of thousands of dollars. If this was happening in the private sector, would Obama claim the system “is working exactly as it’s supposed to — and in some ways, better than we expected it to”?

Don’t Miss Patriot Humor

Check out Echo13.

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BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Star Parker: Trump Not a Good Bet for American Greatness15
Michelle Malkin: The 2016 GOP Debate Debacle16
Terence Jeffrey: Will Obama and Kerry Declare ISIL Not Guilty of Anti-Christian Genocide?17

For more, visit Right Opinion18.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Will a Trump Nomination Cost GOP the Senate?19

By Louis DeBroux

With the Trump Train20 barreling through the South on Super Tuesday, racking up an impressive number of delegates and solid wins, it’s safe to say that while the GOP presidential nomination is not yet secured, it is at this point Donald Trump’s to lose.

What makes The Donald so formidable is that, unlike other Republican candidates, whose past comments, positions and histories are dissected on a molecular level for evidence of ideological impurities which render them unfit for the nomination, nothing Trump has ever said or done seems to dent the devotion of his loyalists.

Three marriages? He loves diversity! Bragging about serial adulterous affairs? Oh, isn’t that so “Donald”? Health care more socialized than ObamaCare? At least people won’t be “dying in the streets”! Support for partial-birth abortion and Planned Parenthood? He’s changed! Trade war with China? Bring it on! Appointing leftists like his uber-liberal federal judge sister to the Supreme Court? Marco Rubio is a sweaty choker! Legalizing millions of illegals? Not on Trump’s watch (though he has said repeatedly that he will do just that, not to mention hiring them to build his towers). A Christian who claims he has no need to ask God for forgiveness? Well, people interpret the Bible many ways. He robbed people blind with Trump “University”3? He makes great deals!

And so on down the line.

Yet his support is strong because angry Republican voters — and a whole lot of disaffected Democrats — think he will be different, and that he will “win.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 3-2-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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To be sure, the Republican Party “establishment” gave birth to the Trump phenomenon. Under George W. Bush we watched the size and cost of government grow, especially when he had a Republican-majority Congress. No Child Left Behind, huge non-defense spending increases, TARP bailouts; those were all Bush babies. Under Obama, the conservative/TEA Party base gave Republicans historic routs in the 2010 and 2014 midterms, returning control of both the House and Senate to the GOP. Instead of taking that mandate and fighting the unconstitutional and extra-constitutional Obama agenda, the GOP all too often gave token resistance and rolled over and played dead.

Now they are paying the price.

Yet while his supporters gleefully cheer the prospect of a President Trump, there are some very concerning signs as to what would result from a Trump nomination. As in a loss to Hillary Clinton in the general election and the drag he may create on down-ticket races, especially with vulnerable Senate seats. It is conceivable, maybe even probable, that a Trump nomination results in the loss of the presidency to Hillary and the loss of control of the Senate to Democrats.

“Make America Great Again!” Right? Right?

The Republicans this cycle will be defending 24 Senate seats to the Democrats' 10, and a loss of control of the Senate would be nothing less than — to borrow one of Trump’s favorite words — a disaster. With the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Republicans are temporarily able to prevent the confirmation of another leftist Obama appointee who would eviscerate Second Amendment rights, curtail free speech, erase Fourth Amendment protections, and in short give government unlimited power. A Democrat-controlled Senate would easily confirm these leftist radicals, and they would be able to ratify treaties crafted by a Hillary Clinton-run White House, which would further weaken American security and interests.

Panicked GOP senators are already game-planning for a Trump nomination where they are constantly forced to denounce statements by their party’s nominee, and are even contemplating the necessity of running negative ads against him in order to create distance in the minds of the voters. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) worries about a nominee who will be “an albatross on down-ballot races.” Republicans thought they had it bad having to defend stupid statements by GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin a few years ago, but that will be child’s play compared to having to constantly defend Trump’s daily controversial statements.

How will vulnerable GOP senators keep their seats while trying to walk the tightrope of trying to secure the votes of Trump supporters without alienating the large portion of the conservative base that detests Trump? What of the effect of further dividing an already fractured party, and alienating the staunch conservatives that have vowed #NeverTrump21?

As Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) put it22 in an interview this week:

“Donald Trump has one definite skill, and he knows organizations that are ripe for the hostile takeover. And the Republican Party has been way too vacuous and not nearly clear enough about First Principles for quite some time, so he’s trying to wage a hostile takeover of this party. He’s attacking all of the core tenets of the Republican party’s platform.

"This guy believes in abortion on demand, this guy says that he hates the concept of guns, this guy’s been for single-payer health care. … That’s not the Republican Party. But right now, people are worried about future of the country, and Donald Trump is screaming the loudest. … I think a lot of people want a protest vote to scream Washington is broken, they need to realize, that if this becomes the Donald Trump/David Duke party, there are a lot of us who are out.”

It is often said that the Republican Party is skilled at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and this may turn out to be the most painful example in living memory. For, though either Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz beats Hillary in a head-to-head match-up, Trump loses to Hillary23 by an average of three to five points. And the electoral college math is even worse.

Meanwhile, though the media is riding Trump now for all the ratings revenue they can get, you can rest assured that as soon as he secures the nomination, that same media is only biding its time. They’re eager and ready to play clip after clip of his most boorish behavior, his most misogynistic comments, and his ever-changing positions, 24/7. In short, they will become Hillary’s most potent army24.

The GOP leadership has totally earned the contempt, derision and distrust of its base over the last two decades. Yet a Trump nomination may very well derail the conservative agenda just when it is finally gaining traction. We’ll have won the battle and lost the war.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

ANALYSIS: Millennial Bernie25
Ryan Rebukes Trump26
Green Industry Drowning in Economy Awash With Cheap Oil27
Admin Won’t Call Cleansing of Syrian Christians ‘Genocide’28
Apple Wins a Court Case, but Encryption Legislation Needed29
MSNBC to Melissa Harris-Perry: Adios30
Rapes by UN Peacekeepers Underreported31
‘Boy, Were We Wrong’32

TOP HEADLINES

South Dakota Governor Vetoes Transgender Bathroom Bill33
Supreme Court Set to Hear Biggest Abortion Case in a Decade34
FBI Chief Admits ‘Mistake’ With Terrorist’s iPhone35

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report36

OPINION IN BRIEF

Star Parker: “Should there be a Clinton-Trump race, it will be the first time, to my knowledge, that we’ll have a presidential campaign where one candidate, Republican Trump, made large campaign contributions in the past both to his opponent, Democrat Clinton, and to her party. … As we mourn the loss of the great conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, it looms large that Scalia was in the conservative minority opposition in the 5-4 Supreme Court 2005 decision on the case of Kelo v. City of New London. The court decided government can confiscate private property and turn it over to private developers. Scalia said only two other Supreme Court decisions departed so wildly from the words of the Constitution: the Dred Scott decision, which declared African-Americans essentially sub-human and ineligible for American citizenship; and Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in all 50 states. Yet Donald Trump said he agrees ‘100 percent’ with the Kelo decision, aligning himself with the liberals on the Court and against Scalia. Americans do want to make our country great again. But if Republicans don’t nominate a candidate who represents what that means, we may be looking at another left-wing Clinton White House.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching Remedial English in college.” —Joseph Sobran (1946-2010)

Observations: “Cruz and Rubio each has a plausible case for why he should remain in the race as the anti-Trump while the other exits. I’d suggest that they settle it with a coin toss, but I fear that Hillary would somehow win it.” —Kevin Williamson

Non Compos Mentis: “There’s nobody that’s done so much for equality as I have.” —Donald Trump

Warning shot: “Paul Ryan, I don’t know him well, but I’m sure I’m going to get along great with him. And if I don’t, he’s going to have to pay a big price, okay?” —Donald “The Mob Boss” Trump

The BIG lie: “The gun lobby won’t even let the Congress pass a law prohibiting the people on the no-fly list from buying a gun. What is it about being a terrorist that gives you Second Amendment rights that can be exercised potentially by someone who wants to do harm to Americans?” —Hillary Clinton

Race bait: “White racism is a far greater determina[nt] of Republican loyalty than ever before. A rigorous study originally conducted in 2013 found that the most slave-intensive southern counties in 1860 have the most conservative and Republican white populations today.” —New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait

Bamboozling, part I: “My understanding is the use of that word [genocide] involves a very specific legal determination that has, at this point, not been reached.” —Obama spokesman Josh Earnest, who is hesitant to label the ethnic cleansing of Syrian Christians

Bamboozling, part II: “Genocide is a term that has specific references and I think all of us want to make sure that when we start to make declarations that we are backed up by clear and convincing evidence of that.” —Rep. Xavier Bacerra echoing Earnest

Late-night humor: “Over the weekend, Donald Trump made fun of Marco Rubio’s ‘big ears’ and Rubio made fun of Trump’s ‘small hands.’ So finally, Thomas Jefferson’s dream for America has come true.” —Conan O'Brien

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.