The Patriot Post Digest 5-9-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 5-9-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Mid-Day Digest

May 9, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“Conscience is the most sacred of all property.” —James Madison (1792)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

NYC Mayor Turns Up His Nose at Chick-fil-A1

New York City’s mayor and city council are dismayed that the restaurant with the highest customer satisfaction rating2 in the industry is expanding in the Big Apple. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced during a press conference that New Yorkers shouldn’t eat at Chick-fil-A because its CEO made comments in 20123 supporting the traditional definition of marriage. “What the ownership of Chick-fil-A has said is wrong,” de Blasio said. “I’m certainly not going to patronize them and I wouldn’t urge any other New Yorker to patronize them. But they do have a legal right.” The restaurant chain opened its first locations in the city last year, and it has plans to open at least 12 more franchises there in two years.

In 2014, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy said he was distancing himself from the culture struggle over same-sex marriage to focus on the company and improving customer service. In response to de Blasio’s comments, the company said it strives “to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect” — and it seems to be working. Lines at the NYC locations spill out the doors and down the street.

As The Wall Street Journal opines4, “Good to know [de Blasio] isn’t trying to ban the business, though give him time. … Mr. de Blasio’s real objection is that the company’s owners won’t conform to his political views.” Unfortunately for his taste buds, de Blasio lets his ideology and loyalty to the Rainbow Mafia prevent him from enjoying one of the most notable chicken sandwiches around — a chicken sandwich born from a work ethic informed by a Christian worldview.

‘Liberal’ Academia Intolerant of Dissenting Thought5

Over the weekend, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof devoted his attention to “a liberal blind spot” in higher education: While colleges seek to fill their lecture halls with professors across the spectrum of race and gender, the self-avowed liberal noticed the ivory tower discriminates against conservative Christians. “Universities are the bedrock of progressive values,” Kristof wrote6, “but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We’re fine with people who don’t look like us, as long as they think like us.”

The numbers are staggering. In the studies of social sciences, about 7-9% of American professors say they are Republican but 18% say they are Marxist, wrote Kristof. In other words, you have a better chance learning under someone who follows the political philosophy responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people than one of the two primary political parties in America today. Often, conservative professors try to hide their beliefs — at least until they can make tenure.

Of course, this means conservative and Christian ideas are marginalized in the place where people go to supposedly experience a cornucopia of thought. It’s not just professors, either. Think back to the numerous conservative speakers disinvited from speaking at campus events because they held “incorrect” beliefs. Most recently, this almost happened to Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley7. Last week, Virginia Tech apologized after Riley wrote8 how he was disinvited from the campus because his views on race might spark student protests. The school claims it was all a misunderstanding. Right.

The absence of free thought can be disastrous. When the ultra-liberal thinking takes hold and there’s no way to keep it grounded through rigorous debate, then the college floats off to la-la land. Harvard University announced9 it was going to prosecute any student it found to be a member of a male- or female-only club starting in 2017. Why? Administrators want to combat the bogeyman of sexual assault, and joining a frat also smacks of privilege and exclusion. In other words, students have the freedom to think whatever they want and associate with whomever they want — as long as the university agrees.

Benghazi Saga: Gowdy v. DoD10

Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina is intently focused on gathering all necessary information to conclusively record the history of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi. That includes taking on the Obama Defense Department when it’s stonewalling. Defense Secretary Ash Carter essentially accused the House Benghazi committee of wasting taxpayer money by requesting dozens of interviews. Carter’s complaint sounds suspiciously like the organized talking points of congressional Democrats, however, and Gowdy was having none of it. In a letter, Gowdy responded by citing DoD’s quick turnaround on another investigation:

By contrast, the Department was able to complete the recently released review of the bombing of a civilian medical facility in Kunduz, Afghanistan within two months. That review “interviewed more than 65 witnesses, including personnel at the Trauma Center, members of U.S. and Afghan ground forces, members of the aircrew, and representatives at every echelon of command in Afghanistan.” It also evaluated “more than 3,000 pages of documentary evidence, much of it classified,” three times the number of pages your letter says were produced to the Committee. All of this work was completed without the burdens of which the Department now complains. The Department apparently has a different definition of burden when it is investigating itself as opposed to cooperating with the Congress of the United States.

It’s critical to remember that Barack Obama’s deceitful post-Benghazi narrative of a YouTube video causing a riot is the whole reason an investigation is even still ongoing. Had the administration — including Hillary Clinton’s State Department — simply told the truth about the al-Qaida attack, this would have been long over. Then again, Obama wanted to win re-election, so he perpetuated the myth that he had “decimated” al-Qaida. That leaves Gowdy seeking answers about the deaths of four Americans. And the administration is still stonewalling.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Peggy Noonan: Trump Was a Spark, Not the Fire11
George Will: Who Will Follow Trump Off the Cliff?12
John Goodman: Democracy’s Death Spiral13

For more, visit Right Opinion14.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Why Trump Resonates15

By Arnold Ahlert

While there is considerable and expected animus directed at presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump from the Left, there might be as much, if not more, invective coming from the Right. Columnist George Will is infuriated16 by the extensive damage Trump has inflicted on the GOP, warning that the collaborationists who support him “will render themselves ineligible to participate in the party’s reconstruction.” Charles Krauthammer also speaks17 to the “ideological realignment” of the party. They are two members of a conservative army appalled by Trump’s rise among a voter base they believe has allowed anger to overcome ideology. Yet their angst is largely based on the conventional wisdom regarding the ostensible differences between conservative vs. liberal, or Democrat vs. Republican. What if the conventional wisdom no longer applies?

“Any true understanding of this election requires an appreciation of the one huge political fault line that is driving America into a period of serious political tremors, certain to jolt the political Richter scale,” writes18 a very insightful Robert W. Merry. “It is nationalists vs. globalists.”

Merry goes on to explain how the globalists “captured” American society by taking over elitist institutions that included the media, academia, big corporations, big finance, Hollywood, think tanks, NGOs, and charitable foundations. In the process of doing so, the elites who ran these institutions began to believe they were the ultimate arbiters of proper thinking. In turn, Merry explains that worldview led to a “quantum expansion of social and political arrogance on the part of these high-flyers.”

Enter Trump, who galvanized an American public furious with the elitist idea that national sovereignty has outlived its usefulness in a rapidly “shrinking” world.

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Digest 5-9-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Nowhere have the elites made this plainer than their failure to enforce immigration law. America is on the verge of yet another surge19 at our southern border. Through the first six months of FY2016, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported a 78% increase from the 15,616 illegals apprehended last year, and only slightly less than the record-setting surge of illegals apprehended in 2014. Illegals the Obama administration purposely dispersed throughout the nation to await immigration hearings, even as the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review remains fully aware20 that between between July 2014 and January 2016, a whopping 88% of removal orders were issued “in absentia,” because illegals failed to show up for those hearings.

No matter how loud the public clamors for border control and a crackdown on visa overstays (less than 1% of visa overstayers were deported in 2015), Rule of Law is routinely ignored. Moreover, globalists are not content to allow America to wither from de facto invasion. They also insist legal immigration must be ramped up to accommodate their employment needs, even though many of those who demand such accommodation have been laying off21 American workers and replacing22 them with foreign counterparts willing to work for lower wages. This, despite the reality that wages have already been stagnant23 for decades.

On foreign policy, Merry explains that globalists are animated by humanitarian impulses where the “rights and well-being of the world’s people supersede the rights and well-being of the American populace.” Trump-supporting nationalists want America to remain strong, and any military intervention to be based national security interests only.

Yet discontent with foreign policy pales in comparison to the animus driven by free trade. Rightly or wrongly (a lot wrongly) many Americans who flock to Trump are convinced free trade has hollowed out the nation’s industrial base. And while the protectionist impulses of these Americans are economically problematic24, they are driven by two factors. First, there are towns and cities in America that have been decimated by globalization, and no amount of talk about the overall benefits to the nation will resonate with those directly harmed.

Yet the most important element of Trump’s appeal has nothing to do with political ideology at all. The Donald has taken a wrecking ball to the elite-driven political correctness that routinely ridicules and marginalizes ordinary Americans. And despite his multitudinous faults and foibles, Trump embodies the one thing most Republican politicians avoid like Ebola: a take-no-prisoners willingness to employ the very same street-fighter tactics Democrats and their media allies have successfully used for decades.

Krauthammer, et al, rightly rue the loss of dignity Trump represents. But a conservative electorate tired of milquetoast, GOP politicians willing to lose — as long as they do it nobly? Not so much. Thus they gravitate to a so-called Alpha Male they perceive as willing to defend American interests above all.

By contrast, Merry writes that Hillary Clinton “is the personification of the globalist elite … totally in sync with the underlying sensibilities of political correctness, a practitioner of identity politics, which lies at the heart of the assault on the national heritage.” He notes that nothing reflects this better than “the Clinton Foundation, a brilliant program to chase masses of money from across borders to fund the underpinnings of an ongoing political machine.”

Thus, be it by accident or design, Trump may signify the emergence of a new paradigm. “Make America Great Again” is hardly a cutting edge slogan (he “borrowed” it from Ronald Reagan), but it certainly resonates among millions of Americans who see Trump as their last chance to preserve national sovereignty, even if that preservation requires a level of ideological compromise that gives GOP/conservative gatekeepers fits. The very same gatekeepers who whine about the demise of conservatism and the GOP, while they apparently fail to see the steady march towards globalism will lead to the virtual extinction of both.

For those who still believe in the nation-state, Trump may prove ultimately disappointing. Clinton already has. But she and her globalist allies — as well as many disappointed conservative scolds — may be surprised when they discover that in 2016, millions of Americans' political ideology can be reduced to five words: I want my country back.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

ANALYSIS: What Does Unity Look Like?25
The Not So Good Samaritan26
Rising Minimum Wage Shorts Longtime Workers27

TOP HEADLINES

North Carolina Fires Lawsuit Back at Feds28
London Elects Its First Muslim Mayor29
Judge Delays Trump University Trial; Now Slated for After Election30

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report31

OPINION IN BRIEF

Peggy Noonan: “The Trump phenomenon itself would normally be big enough for any political cycle, but another story of equal size isn’t being sufficiently noticed and deserves mention. The Democratic base has become more liberal — we all know this part — but in a way the Republican base has, too. Or rather it is certainly busy updating what conservative means. The past few months, in state after state, one thing kept jumping out at me in primary exit polls. Democrats consistently characterize themselves as more liberal than in 2008, a big liberal year. This week in Indiana, 68% of Democratic voters called themselves liberal or very liberal. In 2008 that number was 39%. That’s a huge increase. In South Carolina this year, 53% of Democrats called themselves very or somewhat liberal. Eight years ago that number was 44% — again, a significant jump. In Pennsylvania, 66% of respondents called themselves very or somewhat liberal. That number eight years ago was 50%. The dynamic is repeated in other states. The Democratic Party is going left. But look at the Republican side. However they characterize themselves, a majority of GOP voters now are supporting the candidate who has been to the left of the party’s established thinking on a host of issues — entitlement spending, trade, foreign policy. Mr. Trump’s colorfully emphatic stands on immigration have been portrayed as so wackily rightist that the nonrightist nature of his other, equally consequential positions has been obscured.”

SHORT CUTS

The Gipper: “Government growing beyond our consent had become a lumbering giant, slamming shut the gates of opportunity, threatening to crush the very roots of our freedom.”

Upright: “If the White House can control the bathroom policies of the nation, then what is beyond its reach? The answer is absolutely nothing.” —Tony Perkins

Obfuscation: “I’m a conservative, but don’t forget, this is called the Republican Party. It’s not called the Conservative Party.” —Donald Trump (He’s both right and lying — he’s not a conservative, but neither is the GOP always conservative.)

Non Compos Mentis: “In my plan, [taxes are] going down, but by the time it’s negotiated, they’ll go up. When I’m negotiating with the Democrats, I’m putting in a plan. I’m putting in my optimum plan. It’s going to be negotiated. It’s not going to stay there. They’re not going to say, ‘There’s your plan, let’s approve it.’ They’re going to say, ‘Let’s see what we can do.’ It’ll be a negotiation.” —Donald Trump (Question: Currently the House and Senate are controlled by Republicans. Why does Trump say he will be negotiating with Democrats unless he assumes, as we all have, that his candidacy will send it over to Democrats?)

Alpha Jackass: “Russell Moore is truly a terrible representative of Evangelicals and all of the good they stand for. A nasty guy with no heart!” —Donald Trump

Who knew? “There will always be fires in the forests, say experts.” —Canadian Press headline

And last… “Despite falling behind in delegates, Bernie Sanders insists he still has nine states left to go. Unfortunately, five of those states are Denial, Anger, Grief, Bargaining, and Acceptance.” —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.