The Patriot Post Digest 5-5-2016

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

May 5, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“The establishment of civil and religious liberty was the motive which induced me to the field — the object is attained — and it now remains to be my earnest wish and prayer, that the citizens of the United States could make a wise and virtuous use of the blessings placed before them.” —George Washington (1783)

NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER

Today is the National Day of Prayer1.

In 1775, on the eve of Revolution, the First Continental Congress called for “a day of publick humiliation, fasting, and prayer.” Indeed, our Founders saw a national day of prayer as a fitting observance.

In 1952, Congress established the National Day of Prayer as an annual event by a joint resolution, signed into law by President Harry Truman. The NDP designation (36 U.S.C. § 119) calls for the nation “to turn to God in prayer and meditation.”

Prayer is Almighty God’s prerequisite for true hope and change, and our nation needs an abundance of both right now. The Patriot Post’s National Advisory Board and staff invite you to join us, and millions of our countrymen, in prayer for our nation today at 12:00 local time.

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Guccifer and a Judge Hound Clinton Over Email Server2

Speaking to reporters from a Romanian prison cell, the hacker who goes by the name Guccifer claimed to have accessed Hillary Clinton’s private email server. “It was like an open orchid on the Internet,” said3 Guccifer, a.k.a Marcel Lehel Lazar. “There were hundreds of folders.” Lazar was recently extradited to the United States for breaking into the email accounts of notable Washington politicos such as Gen. Colin Powell and Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal4. If the hacker actually accessed the server stored in Clinton’s basement, he might have done so through Blumenthal’s email. The Clinton campaign, however, is vigorously denying the allegation. A statement declared5, “His descriptions of Secretary Clinton’s server are inaccurate,” adding that Guccifer never posted proof of the breach on the Internet. But the hacker — whom the FBI will question — claims he downloaded files upon files from the server that contained classified information. And are we really supposed to believe Clinton?

Not only is there mounting evidence that secrets were jeopardized because Clinton flippantly handled classified information, there’s a growing case that she violated the Freedom of Information Act. Yesterday, a federal judge said he might order Clinton to appear for disposition to explain why she wanted to operate an email account outside the control of the State Department. The judge wrote6 that the State Department “may have purposefully attempted to skirt disclosure under FOIA” by creating a private email server and the issue needs to be investigated. If both allegations prove true, then it means a Romanian hacker accessed some of the most sensitive of information just because Clinton wanted to avoid oversight. That’s a narrative that will destroy her leadership credibility and open the possibility for a Biden-Warren ticket7.

Another Insurance Company Mulls Exiting ObamaCare8

In its release of first-quarter financial reports9, Humana Inc announced it might leave some of the ObamaCare health care exchanges because it was losing too much money. Currently, the company, which is being sold to Aetna Inc, sells individual plans in 15 states. But the first quarter of 2016 was hard on the company because only 875,000 people signed up10 for its service, 150,000 fewer customers than a year ago, and profits dropped. Humana is the second insurer to mull leaving the ObamaCare exchanges. Last month, UnitedHealth announced11 it was pulling almost completely out of the system Obama built.

Part of the problem was that overly optimistic pro-ObamaCare advocates promised insurers the Americans going to the exchanges would be more numerous and healthier than they actually ended up being. Now, it’s another year and once again “health insurers struggle to offset new costs,” as The Wall Street Journal headlines12. Despite the law requiring that everyone purchase insurance, many companies will once again increase premiums by double-digit percentages to cover loses. Is any policymaker noticing that it’s the consumers who are struggling with the new costs? It’s proof the worst of ObamaCare’s troubles are in its future13.

A Year’s Worth of Taxes Wouldn’t Fund Federal Regs14

The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 2016 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments15 was released this week, and it’s depressingly similar to last year’s study16. $1.885 trillion, or $15,000 per American household — that was the remarkably high cumulative financial burden of federal regulations in 2015. Moreover, says CEI, “114 laws were enacted by Congress during the calendar year, while 3,410 rules were issued by agencies. Thus, 30 rules were issued for every law enacted last year.”

“Many Americans complain about taxes, but regulatory compliance costs exceed the $1.82 trillion that the IRS is expected to collect in both individual and corporate income taxes from 2015,” the study notes. The Obama administration is averaging about 20 additional major regulations every year compared to Bush (81 vs. 62 annually).

However, a separate new Mercatus Center study, which, as we explained last week17, “analyzed data from 1977 through 2012 to discover the cumulative costs of regulations (or, more accurately, taxes by a different name)” by examining “data across 22 industries,” puts the economic cost of federal regulations at $4 trillion, good for the fourth-largest GDP in the world. “In plain English,” we wrote, “if regulations had remained steady at 1980 levels, our economy would have been 25% — or $4 trillion — larger in 2012 than it was.”

As Investor’s Business Daily observes18, “The problem is that these costs never show up in any federal budget as a cost of government. They just get hidden in higher prices, lower take home pay, more unemployment, less opportunity.” The best stimulus the government can give the economy is to tame the behemoth monster known as Regulation U.S.A.

Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read The Biden-Warren Warning7, on the increasing likelihood that Donald Trump will not actually face Hillary Clinton.

If you’d like to receive Alexander’s Column by email, update your subscription here19.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Cal Thomas: Socialism’s False Promise20
Victor Davis Hanson: Protestors Have Jumped the Shark21
George Will: The Misadventures of Fannie and Freddie22

For more, visit Right Opinion23.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Cruz Beat Himself24

By Allyne Caan

In a scenario largely unimaginable just nine months ago, Donald Trump, who has spent his life funding Democrats, is now the presumptive25 Republican presidential nominee. With Ted Cruz’s withdrawal from the race on Tuesday, the GOP — and conservatives across America — lost the only constitutionally conservative candidate left standing. While we did not endorse any particular candidate, clearly Cruz not only understood our Constitution but also thought it worth following and fighting for — imagine that.

So what happened?

When Cruz won Iowa, he looked poised to do well. When he won Wisconsin, it appeared as though he could really stop Trump. But his fall was precipitous.

The odds from the outset were not in Cruz’s favor, and, frankly, it’s a testament to his solid ground-game strategy that he made it as far as he did. Hardly beloved among the DC Republican elites, Cruz made a name for himself bucking the establishment26, which he regularly called “the Washington cartel.” Whether or not you cheered his “Green Eggs and Ham” filibuster protesting ObamaCare funding, it didn’t win him many friends among entrenched party leadership. As a result, not only former House Speaker John Boehner but actual conservatives in Washington were happy to sit on the sidelines and watch the Cruz campaign fail. Indeed, Boehner didn’t call Cruz27 “Lucifer in the flesh” as a term of endearment.

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-5-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
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Cruz helped fuel the rebellion against the Beltway establishment, but when a better showman came along and Cruz needed that establishment’s help, it was nowhere to be found.

While petty playground games are unbecoming (if standard practice) for members of Congress, Republican vitriol undoubtedly affected Cruz’s image. In the end, intraparty fighting within the halls of Congress may very well be credited with Trump’s nomination.

Yet the Beltway isn’t fully to blame for Cruz’s downfall. With 17 candidates crowding the field for far too long, at some point they all began looking pretty much the same — bland, same-old-loser Republicans, establishment or not. All but one. And that one is now the presumptive nominee.

At first, Cruz tried to ride in Trump’s slipstream. Cruz spent last summer praising Trump, saying the billionaire is “a friend of mine.” Furthermore, “He’s bold and brash and he’s willing to speak the truth.”

Just before Cruz left the race, he unloaded on Trump28 as “the biggest narcissist” and a “pathological liar.”

But while Trump was appealing to everyone, Cruz was focused on only the most conservative voters. Turns out he lost many of them, too, in part because voters decided that “Lyin' Ted,” Trump’s favorite moniker, was an apt one.

In fact, the longer the campaign mayhem dragged on, and the more bizarre it grew, the more Trump supporters couldn’t distinguish even Cruz from the establishment. To them, anyone not named “Trump” became establishment — and nothing would convince them otherwise.

Of course, Trump himself was an attention-grabbing anomaly. He built his empire on the art of entertainment and the deal of paying for favors. Given the presidential race is the biggest stage of his life, naturally he put on a great show, with a script full of promises but few props of evidence to support them.

And he won over much of the crowd.

Any thoughts on Cruz’s downfall and Trump’s ascension would be incomplete without considering the role of the media. And no, we don’t mean only the liberal mainstream media so often blamed (rightly) for its bias, which gave the billionaire billions of dollars in free air time29. We mean conservative media who drank the Trump Kool-Aid and made it their mission to poison their audiences with the same. (See Fox News' sinking ratings30 for how this worked out for them.)

Explaining the demise of the entire Republican field, National Review’s Jim Geraghty wrote, “How likely was it that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, and Matt Drudge would not merely tolerate Trump’s previous liberal views but excuse them or conclude they were irrelevant to the 2016 discussion? How likely was it that they would look at Trump’s recent declaration that he’s pro-life and pro-gun and they would believe him?”

Trump himself told Fox News' Neil Cavuto, “I’ve spent zero on advertising because you and Fox and all of the others — I won’t mention names, but every other network, I mean they cover me a lot, to put it mildly. And in covering me, it’s almost like if I put ads in on top of the program, it would be too much. It would be too much Trump.”

Too much Trump? Now there’s something we can agree on.

In his exit speech, a gracious Cruz struck a tone of optimism, highlighting America’s exceptionalism and promising to “defend the Judeo-Christian values that built America” and to “continue this fight with all of my strength and all of my ability.”

Unfortunately for Cruz, his own strategy and the persona he cultivated backfired. Had Trump never entered the race, it’s still unlikely the Texas senator could have won the nomination. So in the end, he may only be able to blame himself.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

ANALYSIS: The Left Is OK With Barack ‘My N—-a’ Obama?31
Socialism Sounds Great Until You Run Out of Beer32
Witch Hunt Against Climate Skeptics Includes 90 Groups33
Inspector General Thinks Obama’s Coal Program a Waste34
Obama’s Flint Visit Reeks of Political Expediency35

TOP HEADLINES

Justice Dept. Says NC Bathroom Law Violates Civil Rights36
Plan to Cut Refugee Screening Time Raises Terror Concerns37
Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S.38

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report39

OPINION IN BRIEF

Cal Thomas: “It isn’t hard to understand the attraction of socialism in the U.S. No one has had to live under it. College students, who are supposed to be smart, must not be learning real history in classes taught by tenured professors who are often leftovers from the ‘60s hippie movement. Capitalism and its political sister, democracy, offer opportunity, not guaranteed outcome. Socialism is mutually shared poverty. It is the ultimate liberal fantasy and is built on envy, a sense of entitlement and greed. Alexis de Tocqueville captured the essential difference between the two conflicting systems when he wrote: 'Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.’ This is the rotten fruit being sold to the Venezuelan people and it is what’s being peddled by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who is only slightly to the left of that party, a party that appears to be increasingly trending socialist.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “As I watch government at all levels daily eat away at our freedom, I keep thinking how prosperity and government largesse have combined to make most of us fat and lazy and indifferent to, or actually in favor of, the limits being placed on that freedom.” —Lyn Nofziger (1924-2006)

Upright: “[Hillary Clinton] calling Trump a ‘loose cannon’ also reaffirms he’s unpredictable and his unpredictability, his constant ability to be saying something new, is one of the things that makes the media and his fans love him. This attack actually subtly reaffirms one of Hillary’s weaknesses: everything that Hillary says feels like it was run through twelve different focus groups before being cleared by the lawyers and getting final approval from the Candidate Spontaneous Statement Approval Committee.” —Jim Geraghty

If only he’d practice what he preaches: “Our country was founded on the idea of religious freedom, and we have long upheld the belief that how we pray and whether we pray are matters reserved for an individual’s own conscience. On the National Day of Prayer, we rededicate ourselves to extending this freedom to all people.” —Barack Obama

Flip-flop: “I’m actually looking at [raising the minimum wage], because I’m very different from most Republicans. I mean, you have to have something you can live on.” —Donald Trump (“I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is.” —Trump is November)

Conspiracy peddler: “Of course I don’t believe [Rafael Cruz conspired to kill JFK]. I wouldn’t believe it, but I did say let people read it.” —Donald Trump

Late-night humor: “A high school girl brought a cardboard cut-out of Bernie Sanders as her prom date. Meanwhile, another girl brought a cardboard cut-out of John Kasich that turned out to be John Kasich.” —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.