The Patriot Post Digest 5-4-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-4-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

May 4, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our people, in a greater measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers, and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.” —John Adams (1776)

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Don’t Underestimate Trump’s Support1

By Nate Jackson

Ever since Donald Trump announced his candidacy2, many observers have made the mistake of underestimating both him and his support. While we have consistently made the case that Trump is a con artist3 and clown4 who is utterly unworthy and unfit for the office of the presidency, we saw (and share!) voter angst and completely understand Trump’s populist appeal. We always have understood it, and said so early on5.

Such is the state of discontent among voters that Trump is now all but the presumptive Republican nominee after trouncing Ted Cruz in Indiana Tuesday. Cruz quit the race, leaving Trump with no opposition (John Kasich notwithstanding) and about 200 more delegates to win. That says a lot about the failed establishment6 and the state of our country after eight years of Barack Obama.

So, in one of the great ironies of our generation, a billionaire casino mogul and narcissistic philanderer will now head the party of social conservatism. And yet the lesson is clear: Don’t underestimate Trump’s support in the general election.

Some in the commentariat are understandably angry that voters rejected principled conservatism in favor of a crass blowhard they believe will simply blow up Washington. For the record, writes7 National Review’s Kevin Williamson, “Americans and Republicans, remember: You asked for this. Given the choice between a dozen solid conservatives and one Clinton-supporting con artist and game-show host, you chose the con artist. You chose him freely. Nobody made you do it.”

Williamson isn’t wrong and he’s far from alone among conservative thinkers and writers, but bitterness isn’t helpful, even if Trump supporters can be extraordinarily nasty in chastising us nonbelievers. Bitterness won’t convert a single Trump supporter, nor, arguably, at this point should it. With the primary battle now effectively behind us, the focus turns to the general election and Hillary Clinton. (Or Joe Biden — more on that from Mark Alexander later today.) Like it or not, either a Democrat or a Republican will be our next president.

The more charitable way to view this election cycle is that Trump established unshakeable support from those who looked at crowded field of more standard Republicans and essentially said:

Why would we want more of the same? We lost with moderate squishes like Dole, McCain and Romney, and Bush was a disaster, so why not try something completely different? Instead of rebuilding the rest of the world — or apologizing to it — why not make America great again?

Trump benefited from three primary factors that we’ve outlined before8: The Obama effect, the large fratricidal field of contenders (who spent most of their resources attacking not Trump but each other), and unceasing Leftmedia attention. Mainly, Trump’s supporters (like the rest of us) are just tired of watching yahoos in Washington trash our country.

Having warned against underestimating Trump’s chances in the general election, he faces a daunting task. He trails badly in the polls, and is even more widely disliked than Clinton (no small feat). As of today, the RealClearPolitics average9 shows Clinton up by 6.5%. And the same Leftmedia that propelled him to the nomination will now eviscerate him in service to the Democrat National Committee, possibly driving his poll numbers even lower.

And if you think that’s bad, Trump will now face a multi-million dollar barrage of ads like this10.

If he is caught flat-footed as Mitt Romney was in 2012, the polls are going to look even worse.

More important than national polls, however, there’s this little thing the Founders created called the Electoral College. To reach the White House, a candidate must win at least 270 electoral votes. Unfortunately for Republicans, the current map gives a distinct advantage to Democrats.

Assuming Clinton wins Florida given her large lead in the polls there, The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza breaks down the math11: “If Clinton wins the 19 states (and D.C.) that every Democratic nominee has won from 1992 to 2012, she has 242 electoral votes. Add Florida’s 29 and you get 271. Game over.”

For Republicans, the math isn’t so good. Using the same time frame as his standard, Cillizza says, “There are 13 states that have gone for the GOP presidential nominee in each of the last six elections. But they only total 102 electorate votes. That means the eventual nominee has to find, at least, 168 more electoral votes to get to 270. Which is a hell of a lot harder than finding 28 electoral votes.”

November is a political lifetime away, and a lot will happen between now and then. Will Clinton be indicted for mishandling classified information? Will Trump lose the lawsuit against Trump University? Will two badly fractured parties unite behind their respective nominees?

Republican primary voters have made their choice. We think it was a poor one, but we also don’t underestimate Trump’s ability to overcome all the negatives and, against all odds, win in November.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Jonah Goldberg: Denationalizing Our Politics Would Help Draw Us Together12
Mona Charen: Hillary, Donald and the Gender Wars13
Michelle Malkin: Tale of Two Tribes: ‘Climate Refugees’ vs. EPA Victims14
John Stossel: Money Down a Hole15

For more, visit Right Opinion16.

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Sanders May Lose, but Socialism’s Siren Song Continues17

Hillary Clinton has a problem. A 75-year-old crank from Vermont keeps winning primaries. While Donald Trump has risen to become the GOP’s presumptive nominee, Clinton cannot yet shake the socialist yammering on her coattails about her Wall Street ties and demanding she release the transcripts to the speeches she gave at Goldman Sachs. Bernie Sanders won the Indiana primary with 52.2% of the vote. As a result, he picked up 43 delegates to Clinton’s 37. Clinton, though, far outpaces her challenger in overall delegate numbers. A Democrat candidate needs 2,383 delegates to win the nomination, and, including superdelegates, Clinton sits less than 200 delegates away from becoming her party’s nominee. If Sanders is still talking about a narrow path to victory, that path probably includes raising money from leprechauns and getting votes from unicorns.

While Clinton would like to unite the party, join dissatisfied Millennials with her big corporate backers, Sanders isn’t giving up the race. The ol' socialist’s strategy is to run hard to the Democrat National Convention and ride into the room with a minority of delegates so large that it cannot be ignored. Before he will consent and drop from the race, he wants his ideas — like breaking up big banks — rolled into the Democrat Party’s platform. “The ideas that we are fighting for are the ideas of the future of America,” Sanders declared this week. But those ideas don’t comport with Liberty. While some may think socialism died the day the Soviet Union fell, Sanders' young supporters show the man’s ideas must be countered for years to come.

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-4-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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ICE Gets $680M Budget Windfall, Yet Deportations Plunge18

A new study published by the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions, proves that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can’t blame the persistent drop in deportations on a lack of funding. According to the report, titled “Deportations Plummet As ICE Receives More Resources19”:

ICE removed nearly 43 percent fewer total aliens from the United States in FY 2015 than it did in FY 2012 — and nearly 62 percent fewer aliens from the interior of the United States. This dramatic decline in deportations is the direct result of policies implemented by the Obama Administration to get around plain law passed by Congress. Indeed, the guise was to assert that the Government lacked the resources to deport more aliens. The former Director of ICE, John Morton, issued a memorandum in March of 2011, in which he outlined ICE’s purported enforcement “priorities,” and claimed that setting such priorities was necessary because ICE “only has resources to remove approximately 400,000 aliens per year, less than 4 percent of the estimated illegal alien population in the United States.” The Administration has used this line repeatedly.“

However, the report continues, "ICE’s budget for detention and removal operations has grown substantially — from $2,750,843,000 in FY2012, to $3,431,444,000 in FY2015. Moreover, just last year, the Administration shifted $113 million away from ICE’s budget for detention and removal of aliens. Thus, while ICE’s detention and removal budget grew approximately 25 percent from FY 2012 to FY 2015, the total number of aliens it deported from the United States decreased by nearly 43 percent.” We’ve said repeatedly that much of today’s immigration problems stem from a lack of enforcement measures. Meanwhile, the Obama administration will milk taxpayers as much as it can — all while engaging in outright fraud. Not to mention releasing nearly 20,000 criminal aliens20…

We’ll Have a Gay Old … Monument21

It appears that the Obama administration is working around the clock to name the location of the 1979 Stonewall Inn riot as the nation’s first national monument dedicated to the Rainbow Mafia. Barack Obama’s interior secretary and National Parks Service director are hosting a public hearing on the proposal May 9 — weeks before Obama wants to cement his “LGBT” legacy by declaring he was the first president to designate a monument to the homosexual-rights movement. He doesn’t have much time. The Left declared June22 LGBT Pride Month because it marks the June 28 anniversary of the time police raided the dive bar and the enforcement action sparked a riot. Choosing a brand new NPS location isn’t easy, as the site sits at least partially on private property in a dense urban area. But Obama isn’t going to let that tie him down — or any unexpected pushback during the upcoming public hearing. He’s got a legacy to solidify, and LGBT Pride Month only comes once a year.

Meanwhile, there are monuments that are worthy of recognition and protection, like the battles of World War II or locations where Americans actually struggled for the civil rights secured by the Constitution.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

ANALYSIS: ‘Climate Refugees’ and Other Global Warming Hysteria23
The Trump Effect on Network Ratings24
Cruz Missile Aimed at Trump25
Court Deals Blow to Amtrak Power26
When It Comes to Naval Might, U.S. Might Want to Go Small27
ESPN Censors Schilling’s Historic World Series Game28

TOP HEADLINES

He Vetoed the First, So Why Not the Second? Georgia Gov. Shoots Down Campus-Carry Bill29
Meanwhile, Tennessee Guns on Campus Bill Becomes Law30
Dem AG Targets 90 Climate Skeptic Groups31

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report32

OPINION IN BRIEF

Jonah Goldberg: “Leaving aside the question of tactical voting to keep Clinton from wrecking the Supreme Court, the challenge facing conservatives and libertarians is larger than Trumpism. Yuval Levin points to a solution: denationalize our politics. Levin, the editor of National Affairs, argues in his brilliant new book ‘The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism,’ that both parties are besotted with nostalgia for the mid-20th century. … The institutions that work best in 21st-century America are those that give us choices. No one simply lives in the United States of America. We live in Peoria, Harlem and Seattle. The virtues built close to home, Levin argues, are those that make us good citizens and ultimately draw us together. What would be so terrible about letting diverse communities decide how they want to live and spend their tax dollars? The culture wars would still rage, but at least the winners would have to look the losers in the eye. As it stands now, the federal government, mostly through unelected judges and bureaucrats, thinks it can best determine how more than 300 million people should live. The cure for powerlessness is power, not ceding even more of it to Washington. This is the only way to cut the Gordian knot choking our politics, and the best path forward for opponents of statism — in all parties.”

SHORT CUTS

Some team player: “I don’t think it’s imperative that the entire party come together. I don’t want everybody. I don’t even want certain people that were extraordinarily nasty. Let them go their own way. Let them wait eight years or let them wait 16 years or whatever.” —Donald Trump

Non Compos Mentis: “[Rafael Cruz] was with Lee Harvey Oswald [when he shot JFK]. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody brings it up.” —Donald Trump

“On the same day that [Trump] wins the GOP Indiana primary and secures the party’s nomination, he decides to use an National Enquirer story … to accuse opponent Ted Cruz’s father of helping Lee Harvey Oswald [assassinate JFK]. This was just an amuse-bouche of the utter stupidity that down-ballot GOP candidates will have to deal with, justify, rationalize, ignore, excuse, or support every day for the next six months or so.” —David Harsanyi

Trump’s only appeal: “We cannot let Barack Obama’s legacy fall into Donald Trump’s hands. We can’t let all the hard work and progress we have achieved over the last seven and a half years be torn away. We have to move forward together.” —Hillary Clinton

Woman card: “What [Donald Trump] was saying and going after my qualifications is very familiar to a lot of women.” —Hillary Clinton

Late-night humor: “The White House announced yesterday that Malia Obama will attend Harvard University, but that she plans to take a year off before starting. Malia got the idea after seeing how much fun her dad is having with his year off.” —Jimmy Fallon

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.