The Patriot Post Digest 4-21-2016

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-21-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

Apr. 21, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from Nation to Nation. ‘Tis an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.” —George Washington (1796)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Iranian Terror Victims1

The American families of the 1983 Beirut bombing victims and the other terrorist attacks committed by Iranian proxies are finally getting their due. The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-2 decision Wednesday to give the victims’ families $1.75 billion of the $100 billion in Iranian assets the United States is thawing thanks to Barack Obama’s supremely horrible nuclear deal2 with the mullahs.

In 2012, Barack Obama issued an executive order that froze the bank’s assets in New York. The Iranian bank cleverly turned to the courts, arguing that Congress and the executive branch infringed on the courts' authority. But six judges disagreed. Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Sonia Sotomayor, wrote the dissent, essentially trying to expand3 the power of the bench.

Outrageously, Iran still keeps an awful lot of money. “It adds insult to injustice that Iran’s $100 billion in compensation will ultimately produce more American widows and orphans like the ones who had to wait over 30 years for their $1.75 billion in compensation,” opined4 Investor’s Business Daily. “In the name of justice for those 1,300 families, and to save future innocent lives, it would make sense to reverse the awards — with the terrorism victim families dividing the $100 billion and the mullahs being forced to settle for $1.75 billion.”

Meanwhile, the State Department is unsure what’s happened to the estimated $3 billion Iran has already collected — meaning perhaps it has gone to destabilize the region via funding terrorism. State spokesman John Kirby told5 reporters, “We stand by what the secretary [of state] said, that it’s entirely possible that they can use some of this funding to support terrorist networks.”

Obama is in Saudi Arabia6 this week, just as victims of the 9/11 attacks are seeking the ability to sue the country for damages over its involvement in the jihadist attack on our nation on 9/11. There are 28 pages in the 9/11 report issued in 2004 that detail Saudi Arabia’s involvement that remain classified, all while Obama has the audacity to bow and scrape to first Iran and now the Saudis.

Sanders' Climate Policies Are Anything but Green7

On Bernie Sanders' campaign website, he erroneously claims, “While fossil fuel companies are raking in record profits, climate change ravages our planet and our people — all because the wealthiest industry in the history of our planet has bribed politicians into ignoring science.” Yet ignoring science is exactly what he’s doing when he claims to have a magic formula for reversing global warming.

Writing in Foreign Policy, Keith Johnson and Molly O'Toole observe8, “Fracking for natural gas has helped utilities mothball dirty coal plants. And nuclear power provides 20 percent of U.S. electricity — and all of it is emissions free. Both energy sources would be targeted by Sanders, yet very hard to replace.” Citing a study by the think tank Third Way, Johnson and O'Toole say “getting rid of nuclear power means U.S. carbon emissions would ‘go up dramatically,’ and in the worst-case scenario, could ‘wipe out a decade’s worth of progress’ and return U.S. carbon emissions to levels last seen in 2005. That’s because retired nuclear plants would almost always be replaced by natural gas or coal.”

Germany is a good example. While slowly weaning itself off of nuclear power, emissions are on the increase. As Rick Moran at PJMedia points out9, “Today, solar power accounts for only one percent of the electric grid. Wind power is responsible for 5%. Despite tens of billions of dollars in grants and loans given to these ‘renewable’ energy companies over the last 8 years, nuclear power still generates more than twice the electricity as solar and wind put together. And Sanders wants to destroy the nuclear industry.” He adds that Sanders' ideals “are not designed to deal with energy as much as they’re supposed to impoverish us by reducing output for reasons having nothing to do with generating electricity or fueling our cars.” This is Socialism in a nutshell.

Curt Schilling Fired for Thought Crimes10

Curt Schilling was fired by ESPN Wednesday for sharing his political beliefs. Earlier this week, Schilling — a baseball analyst and retired pitcher known for his role in breaking the Red Sox’s 86-year World Series curse by pitching through an ankle injury in a bloody sock in the 2004 American League Championship Series — shared a meme11 that commented on North Carolina’s bathroom law12.

The image portrayed an overweight man in a blond wig and a leather mini skirt, and the text read “LET HIM IN! to the restroom with your daughter or else you’re a narrow minded, judgmental, unloving racist bigot who needs to die!!!” To that, Schilling added, “A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don’t care what you are, who they sleep with, men’s room was designed for the gotcha10, women’s not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic.”

Schilling has commented on political issues in the past, including endorsing George W. Bush and sharing another meme last year that was originally created13 by The Patriot Post. Schilling’s outspokenness was known when ESPN hired him. But “ESPN is an inclusive company,” as the company said in a statement14. So, naturally, it fired Schilling. Some inclusion not included. ESPN is owned by Disney, which was one of the companies that pressured Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal to veto the state’s recent religious liberty bill15.

But contrast this to another story of a sports announcer dipping into politics. NBC’s Bob Costas railed against guns and the Redskins team name during broadcasts16 and he still has his job. It highlights the growing intolerance large corporations have toward dissenting thought.

Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read In Defense of Liberty17 — thoughts from our Founders on the relationship between Liberty and the most essential of all civil rights, that of self-defense.

If you’d like to receive Alexander’s Column by email, update your subscription here18.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

    Victor Davis Hanson: The Horrors of Hiroshima in Context19
    Tony Perkins: Taking the Wind Out of the Left’s Sales20
    Todd Starnes: Fired for Preaching: Georgia Dumps Doctor Over Church Sermons21

For more, visit Right Opinion22.

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-21-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Jackson’s Trail of Tears23

By Allyne Caan

Who would have thought that after more than a year of debate, speculation, and politically correct public demand, America would learn that a God-loving, gun-toting Republican woman would earn a spot on our nation’s currency? Of course, don’t say this too loudly lest the Obama Treasury Department realize what it just did and change its mind.

But it’s true. Harriet Tubman — whom History.com notes24 was sustained by two things: “the pistol at her side and her faith in God” — will grace a newly designed $20 bill, to be unveiled in 2030. There’s no question that Tubman’s heroic work leading slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad merits her image on our currency. But who’s getting the boot to make way for the Moses of her people? None other than our seventh president, Andrew Jackson, a Democrat.

Before any tears are shed for the military hero-turned commander in chief, consider that our greenbacks almost lost a patron saint25, Alexander Hamilton, instead of someone who would have been appalled to find his face plastered to a federal bank note in the first place. Indeed, last year it seemed likely that Hamilton — who, aside from helping to write The Federalist Papers26, stabilized America’s finances, basically founded Wall Street and strongly advocated for a central bank — would be the latest casualty of the demand that a woman get her money’s worth.

(On a side note, Martha Washington was on our currency in the 1800s, so Tubman won’t be the first woman to grace it.)

Instead, public pressure — no doubt bolstered by the success of Broadway’s “Hamilton” (after all, how can you watch our Founding Fathers rap27 on stage and not become a bit emotional?) — led to the decision to keep Hamilton and oust Jackson instead. Many will say “good riddance,” given that the slaveholding Jackson ignored the Constitution and Supreme Court to force the removal of the Cherokee to Oklahoma by way of the Trail of Tears. Worse, he killed thousands of peaceable Native Americans and had a condescending attitude of using government to “civilize” those he didn’t kill.

Regardless, Jackson would likely be the first to demand his own removal from our national currency. For starters, in 1832, he vetoed the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States — a precursor to today’s Federal Reserve, which issues the very money Jackson’s mug now graces. His reason? The bank basically picked winners and losers — rewarding some at the expense of everyone else. In his veto message28, Jackson explained that the central bank “enjoys an exclusive privilege of banking under the authority of the General Government, a monopoly of its favor and support. … Every monopoly and all exclusive privileges are granted at the expense of the public, which ought to receive a fair equivalent. The many millions which this act proposes to bestow on the stockholders of the existing bank must come directly or indirectly out of the earnings of the American people.”

Among Jackson’s main reasons for vetoing the central bank renewal were that it was not compatible with the Constitution or “consistent with the rights of the States or the liberties of the people.”

As political analyst Robert Tracinski argues29, “Jackson was not primarily for the people and against the elites on Wall Street. He was for the people and against the elites in Washington, D.C.”

This perceived fight for the little guy became the building block of the once-noble Democrat Party30. Unfortunately, today’s Democrats have forgotten what it takes to truly fight for the common man; namely, less government control.

So as America prepares to bid farewell to Jackson on the $20 bill, it’s not an altogether sad moment. The Treasury Department may be honoring him exactly as he would have liked.

And as for Tubman, how could we object to a brave, pistol-wielding abolitionist who said24 “I always tole God, I’m gwine to hole stiddy on to you, an' you’ve got to see me trou.”

In God We Trust, and pass the ammunition, indeed.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

    ANALYSIS: Liberty at Risk31
    Fetal Tissue Sold for Profit? House Committee Investigates32
    Utah Declares Porn a Health Crisis33
    F-35 Experiencing Problems — Again34

TOP HEADLINES

    The Saudis, Like Cuba, Snub Obama35
    Target Allowing Transgenders to Pick Their Bathroom36
    Judge Rules Norwegian Mass Killer’s Rights Were Violated37

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report38

OPINION IN BRIEF

Victor Davis Hanson: “World War II was the most deadly event in human history. Some 60 million people perished in the six years between Germany’s surprise invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, and the official Japanese surrender on Sept. 2, 1945. … Perhaps 80 percent of the dead were civilians, mostly Russians and Chinese who died at the hands of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Both aggressors deliberately executed and starved to death millions of innocents. World War II was also one of the few wars in history in which the losers, Japan and Germany, lost far fewer lives than did the winners. There were roughly five times as many deaths on the Allied side, both military and civilian, as on the Axis side. It is fine for Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama to honor the Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims. But in a historical and moral sense, any such commemoration must be offered in the context of Japanese and German aggression. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan started the respective European and Pacific theaters of World War II with surprise attacks on neutral nations. Their uniquely barbaric war-making led to the deaths of some 50 million Allied soldiers, civilians and neutrals — a toll more than 500 times as high as that of Hiroshima. This spring we should also remember those 50 million — and who was responsible for their deaths.”

SHORT CUTS

Rigged! Sad! “Cruz won more votes in the Wisconsin primary — 531,129 — than Trump appears to have won in New York. With 98 percent of precincts counted, Trump has 518,601 votes in his home state. On the other hand, Trump will win at least 90 of New York’s 95 delegates to Cruz’s zero; in Wisconsin, Cruz’s big victory earned him 36 delegates, to Trump’s six.” —Peter Weber

No Reaganite: “[The Tax Reform Act of 1986] was just an absolute catastrophe for the country, for the real estate industry, and I really hope that something can be done. … Frankly, by having cut the high income tax rates to 25 percent … people don’t have the incentive any more to invest. … I mean, we’re no different right now than the Soviet Union. They have no incentive, and we have no incentive.” —Donald Trump in 1991

Non Compos Mentis: “The British Foreign Office has released an advisory warning travelers to be aware of controversial new laws in North Carolina and Mississippi before visiting the United States.” —The Washington Post (Has the office warned Britons against traveling to Saudi Arabia, Libya, or you know, pretty much any other Muslim country?)

Braying Jenny: “We have just too many guns on the streets, in our homes, in our neighborhoods.” —Hillary Clinton

Belly laugh of the week: “[Hillary Clinton] has run against the wind, against the tide of coverage. … think the media has a very negative relationship with Hillary Clinton and has done for 30-plus years.” —MSNBC’s Joy Reid

Late-night humor: “Ben and Jerry, the ice cream guys, were arrested for being part of a political protest on the steps of the Capitol building. But some good did come out of it. They got a lot of new attention for their cause. Also, they got a new flavor of ice cream, which is Toilet Wine Toffee Crunch.” —Jimmy Kimmel

And Last… “Breaking: Treasury throws founder of the Democratic Party off $20 bill, replaces with gun-toting Republican.” —David Burge

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.